(from The Straits Times, Dec 28 2006)

It's official I'm a multitasker! Wednesday night I took a bus to Barracks to buy farewell flowers, went back to Gwathmey to pick up my books, delivered the roses to MoHo and Hereford after sneaking around asking where the rooms were and waiting looking suspicious for residents to swipe me in, then went to the library and reread fifteen plays for my Modern Drama exam, which is the last one, and I'm flying home tomorrow.
I threw chicken and button mushrooms into the pot for dinner because they were the last of the supplies, have done my laundry so I'll spend the last few sun hours packing. Am reminded that I am young and cosseted because this is the first time I've had to say goodbye for good, as my dear exchange student friends Susan and Caren are leaving. The great part is that they're going back to Australia and Malaysia respectively, meaning they'll be even closer to home than UVA. In college, people come and go like ships every semester. At least with the goodbyes there's Christmas lights and waffle-making and Caren's schoolboy-faced NZ cousin Chase (he's actually 21), who I've met exactly twice and will miss already, because this all reminds me of the last time I talked to Caren on the phone when she was on the Greyhound on the way to DC to kick off her last US holiday for a while. In her voice I could already hear California and Greenwich Village and I remembered that chilly sweetness of discovering somewhere new.

I did actually ride in a junkie little van today because I caught a ride back from Ain't Misbehavin' (which was incredible since the cast was almost as in love with the audience as we were with them) with a girl whose brother is in a band.

Am going to ace my exams or DIE.

It was Shu-En's 21st birthday last weekend; really have to give this lady mad props for her endless, spontaneous creativity that entailed Turkish dining, cupcake-decorating competition and a cow piñata! Gorgeous photos gacked from Helen. You can't help but love how the bday girl appears to be dancing on the spot with glee in the second picture.

It's the last day of classes. During English review everybody was giving really stupid answers like that Mary is the Virgin Queen and the Urania refers to a ship so my lovely, bedraggled, overworked TA just put his pencil in his mouth and gave us the "You're all going to fail" once-over.
Walked back from the gym in -3 degree Celsius weather after an early Christmas dinner at Wright and Dory's place involving Frosty the Snowman cookies, meatballs, brie with cranberries, crab-and-spinach dip, mint meringues and shrimp. I know right. It's no wonder I look like this pink party balloon.


I was thinking about watching the last episode of Meteor Garden on youtube (because I'm counting on all the characters being conveniently packed away to Canada/France/Japan as quickly as they become useless) but decided that I needed to pronounce without facade that I have had the privilege of all-round excellent roommates. And when I say excellent I mean considerate and colorful. Some may have heard many mad tales of the Bernice Ramirez; after slopping around in sweats and gangsta hoodies the whole of first year she now has this chic fringed hair she calls her Ugly Betty look.


But Bernice's way of so naturally conversing with anyone is like Gloria Anzadula writing about how when you poke a Mexican a story pops out or something like that. She's also totally politically incorrect, which is the clincher for my love.
My current roommate, Alice, couldn't be more different. She's quiet and organized, but also heroically tolerant of how I tend to start talking LIKE THIS i.e. A MARKET AUNTIE whenever I'm on the phone with my mother and may even find it amusing. She's the most serenely well-adjusted person ever. I once mentioned how I had hated being thirteen and she calmly said she didn't have much of an issue with any stage of her life. Where got such thing. But yes it is possible even at the mercy of the American high school machine. I once asked if her high school was anything like the one in Mean Girls, the answer is not at all - most people were nice!

Thanksgiving was good rest in peaceful Connecticut, turkey spread and new family friends, until the quiet made me a bit nervy - I've never realised how silent a large part of Middle America is, with big houses and small families and acres of strip mall in between. C'ville is fine because there's a dirty big college to keep it comfortably noisy.
My head is spinning from the strangely balmy weather which is no good because of wildly disparate paper subjects. I'm writing a parody-slash-dramatization of Pollyanna while trying to parallel Japanese internment camps with an episode of The 4400 for another class. Oh and I got Damien Rice for my first music review!