S.A.D again

Listening to: Happy Together - The Turtles
Feeling: Eh

Well, my weekend so far has been the least productive one since the beginning of the school term. Did absolutely nothing. I guess, nothing isn't quite right, but at least "nothing" to do with school anyway.

My week other than a few practices for me to reign my anger in and pretend to be the sweet tempered person that most people know me as went pretty well. I learned how to bandage a sprained ankle and both my partner and I had lots of fun with that. One memorable event from that lab that will make me laugh for years to come has something to do with kin guys wear shorts and tape on skin. Shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

Spent the past few nights watching chick flicks, which I've always enjoyed much to the disbelief of my friends who know that I strongly dislike chick lit. There's a difference between seeing things on the screen and reading about what's going on in the heroine's head. So I went with the few romantic comedies that got decent ratings.

First up was The Proposal (2009) which stars Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Before yesterday, I have never seen it, and with the recommendation and company of my sister, I watched it after seeing the trailer, which is absolutely awesome.

I loved every minute of it. The duration of the film is about 3 days, which a romance seems rather unlikely, but I enjoyed it all the same with all the hilariously awkward moments in the movie. (And I absolutely LOVE that dog... not in the trailer, but in the next video below. AHHHH cuteness overload!)

The movie I watched today was a movie I saw for the first time when I was about 10-11 years old and I've always loved it. I think the reason I watched it was because of the title, which promised hilarious scenes: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) which stars Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey.

Yup, the trailer doesn't show everything she does to drive him insane, which is too bad, but the movie was still as great as I remembered it. 

Well, hopefully, I'll get something done tomorrow (actually today now..).

Lazy Sunday

Listening to: Kyoudai - Fullmetal Alchemist OST
Feeling: Bored
Didn't do much today. Woke up earlier than usual (9am) and made breakfast for my dad and sis to their delight, cleaned hamster cage, wrote a page for my fanfic (it went pretty great) and spent about an hour just now paraphrasing my textbook for notes. So I'm taking a break until my right hand stops protesting. Not much to record today, but I made shaved ice! It's normally a summer dessert, but we didn't get the individual ingredients until the other day where my sister needed them for a party, so I'm eating the leftovers. Still good though.

I guess with this picture, it doesn't look very appetizing, but I assure you that it is. The ingredients that I used were: ice (from the ice shaving machine), corn, grass jelly, canned lychee, pineapples, evaporated milk and sugar cane water, which makes it sweet as the name implies. Normally for a full on south-east asian shaved ice (called ABC in my hometown), we'd add some coconut bits, mixed jello, red bean and other stuff. I can't wait until next year when I'll be going back for a brief visit and eat yummy stuff again.

Summer weather...

Listening to: Fukai Mori - Do As Infinity
Feeling: Sleepy and irritable

Ah, it's so hot despite it being the fall. I wish it was colder so I wouldn't have to keep putting on layers of clothing only to have to peel them off by the afternoon. Tired too. Waiting for the weekend...

Chemistry...

Listening to: Nothing
Feeling: Exasperated

Well, I had my first organic chemistry lab today and I gotta say, it was a long one. To be truthful, there isn't a whole lot to do, but it mainly focused on a lot of waiting. Waiting for something to reflux, waiting for something to dry etc. And they weren't 10 minute waits either. More like 45 and 30 minutes. Took me about 3 hours and a half to finish everything. It was also rather stressful too because I was worried about each step and wondering if I'd mess it up. Then I'd look at how chill everyone else is and it makes me feel worse. Yup, chemistry and I are no longer buds, if that wasn't clear enough from Fall semester last year. I don't know where that relationship went, but it left me sputtering and in shock. Oh well... at least it's the only chemistry class I'll ever have to take (if I decide to continue with my major). Booyah~ Kin is the cop-out of the sciences! 

(Methyl Salicylate)

 

Suffering from S.A.D

Listening to: Change the World - V6 (Spent about a decade without knowing the artist)
Feeling: Bored

Well, it's the weekend and I should probably get stuff done, but like the title says, S.A.D or "Study Avoidance Disease" is hard to get over. As my professor said, "There is no cleaner room than a room around exam time", to which I agree... on my behalf anyway. To put off my textbook readings, I've cleaned my room, cleaned my hamster cage, chilled at the library and doing just about anything else that isn't studying. I even made this:

It's a chain bracelet. I got the idea from seeing something similar to it at a stall in a market and wanted to make one for myself. The problem with having a small wrist is that bracelets generally don't fit you. But making one yourself can get rid of that issue. The small charm dangling there says "home sweet home" with a small key attached.

Sigh... I need to go back to studying.

Back to normal again

Listening to: Protectors of the Earth - Two Steps from Hell
Feeling: Exhausted
Well, if you've been keeping up with the past few posts, then you know that recently, my aunt came to visit from Australia. And yesterday was the last day of her stay. While I enjoyed getting the time to finally meet/know her, I'm also massively relieved that everything is back to normal. It's the hosts' duty to keep their guests entertained and such, so I haven't really gotten anything done for school, which is nagging at me constantly. I also can't believe I'm saying this, but I don't want to eat out for at least a month with the way we've been eating for the past little while.

School's the same as it's always been. Though it was a little saddening when I couldn't rip the medical tape and had to get help from the teacher twice. But at least I wasn't the only one. So tired...

Eventful yesterday

Listening to: Fukai Mori - Do As Infinity
Feeling: Happy

Well, yesterday was certainly a long day. Got up early to go have our annual BBQ at a local lake. Usually, we'll go during summer, but with our visiting aunt, we decided to postpone it until now. Since it's September and that we're back into the school year, the lake was a lot emptier than it normally was, but I guess that's good for us since it meant that it was a lot quieter. I went on a hike with my sister on the trail nearby and it went pretty good. I've been dying for some sort of exercise since my aunt came over and we've eaten out at least once a day... sometimes for multiple meals. Not looking forward to going up on that scale... 

A few hours later, with a diet consisting of roasted beef, chicken wings, salad and noodles, we ate more food at a korean restaurant that we've never been to and wow.. um, it was different. I'm positive that it's the reason that I'm not used to korean food (other than the basics that I've always eaten), but hilariously enough, there didn't seem to be any flavour in the soup and it made it nearly impossible to go down. I think I was about to cry at one point until my parents said that I didn't have to finish everything.

So we headed home to prep for going to the local amusement park when my mom decided to check on my hamsters to see how they're doing. After calling them for a few moments, one of them, Skinny, responded by coming out and asking for food. But the other, Chubby, didn't reply at all. I knocked on her house and still, no reply, which was rather odd. But what was weirder was the scratching I kept hearing. It sounded like a hamster scratching against cardboard or something. And it wasn't coming from the hamster cage but rather underneath the table that supported my hamster cage. So, I bent down and moved the cardboard box (that contained my hamster bedding) and the scratching stopped, as though startled. To my growing horror, I realized that something was wrong and quickly took out the box before bending down. And there Chubby was... on the floor looking really surprised while surrounded by a lot of poop. Oh my god. Without a second thought, I scooped her up and returned her to her cage, where she drank water like no tomorrow. My poor hamster somehow squeezed herself out of one of the wider gaps in the cage (I probably accidentally widened it when I was cleaning it out the other day) and fell a few feet. After checking her to the best of my ability and when my heart rate slowed down, I was extremely grateful for three things:

1) that she didn't fall to her death

2) that she wasn't so dehydrated that she died (I saw some hamster food particles down there where I found her, so I'm assuming that she had food in her cheeks when she went on her adventure)

3) that she didn't wander off from the hamster table and was never to be found again inside the house

Once making sure she was okay, we went to the amusement park, where to my great dismay, it rained harder and harder as time passed. After meeting my friends, we went on several rides several times, but the one good thing about it raining is that there was barely any lineup. The whole park was rented out to my mom's company for the evening, so it was nice to go on hard-to-get rides, such as the famous coaster. Went on that one three times in a row. For one of the rides, the pirate ship, since there was barely a lineup (ie. the ship wasn't even a third full), we just remained on board without having to get off and luckily, the ride operator let us. We were all pretty soaked through. Seeing how it seemed like it was going to rain, I brought my spring water proof jacket and an umbrella, but I wished I had water proof pants as well because by the end of the night, I couldn't feel my legs or feet. My friends were worse off though. But we celebrated the moment of how drenched we were with a photo. 

We played some games and I got both basketball shots in, getting myself and a friend some prizes. Played some more with the tickets we were given and I ended up getting all my shots with the dart toss. The trick is to not throw the dart as hard as you can, so that it goes in a straight line, because there's always a chance that you'd miss the balloon. Rather, I figured out that it was better to throw a semi-weak shot so that your dart arches and when it has hit its highest point, it'll be brought down my gravity. Once it heads down, the shot of bursting a balloon were definitely higher as it's bound to hit something and earn you a prize. I traded in some small prizes and got a bigger prize, the Keroppi. My dad did well in the basketball game too and gave me a Hello Kitty.

All in all, it was a pretty good day, though I have to say that a hot shower once I got home felt amazing beyond words.

First Week of School is done

Listening to: To Glory - Two Steps from Hell
Feeling: Tired

Well, I've been back from my four day road trip with my family and visiting aunt. I think I'm going to reassess my thoughts about liking road trips since before this one, I haven't had any for the past few years, so I didn't remember what they were like. I'll do a post about my trip later, when I'm not too lazy to put up some picture collages.

First week back is almost refreshing. I'm a second year now and it's kind of nostalgic seeing all the first years mingle around, trying to find their way on campus. I'm delighted to know that I have at least one friend in each of the four classes that I'm taking. Out of them all, the most would be in my organic chemistry class. The majority of them are friends from the first two semesters and a few are from last semester. I was surprised to find a guy (that was in my orientation group last year and haven't seen since) who remembered me, since I was at a different campus and it was just strange, but it was good since we're in the same major. 

Today's morning started out pretty good. Met a friend from last semester (who is also in my organic chemistry) on the train ride to school. Then because I was an hour early to my lecture (better early than late, right?), I decided to chill in my favorite study area and I saw not one, but two raccoons! One of them was the usual raccoon, that I have named Dimitri/Dimka but I starting to think that perhaps Dimka is actually female, so another name is needed and what seemed to be a younger raccoon with light brown fur that nearly looked white in the sun. Perhaps they are mother and cub? Or adult male and female? They were really cute swimming in the fish-free pond and wrestling with each other. This totally made my day. :)

So much to do this weekend. I should really crack open those textbooks and get reading as it'd prepare me better for my classes. I'll do that tomorrow rather than go out with my family and aunt to tourist attractions in the mainland. Then on Sunday, I'll be going to a lake with my family and aunt in the morning/day while the evening will be spent on a local amusement park with family again as well as some high school friends. Looking forward to it!