Midnight Cookies | For All Times

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

i've been busting all my free time the past weekend on films and a movie!

sunday aftnn was spent on Lust, Caution at Guild Theatres, a 15-min bike ride off campus. that was an excellent movie, very powerful and intense but also extremely depressing. it's a complex and uber-emotional Lee Ang piece. i felt so sorry for Wong Chia Chi throughout the show and i didn't know whether to hate or sympathise with Mr Yee. both tony leung and tang wei were excellent - i think it takes too much out of the ordinary person to play their roles well. the intensity of the movie reminds me of Adrien Body in The Pianist. i keep thinking about Lust, Caution and wishing that i could discuss it properly with someone.

on a lighter note, sunday was also the fastest i ever biked. the movie ended at 7.05pm and we had to make it back to campus for dinner, which ends at 7.15pm on sundays. we arrived 10min late and so dinner was cereal and salad and fruit. which wasn't as bad as it sounds, actually. cereal is one of the rare types of food you always feel good eating.

i found myself at the UN Association Film Fest (UNAFF) friday and saturday evenings. it was a five-day event but i only watched three films. two of them were really powerful - they told me about the Darfur genocide and Northern Uganda war. the Darfur one was very grim because it was an account by an ex-Marine sent to monitor the ceasefire in Darfur, and the images portrayed were horrible. i could relate to the guy when he said that those were photos that kept appearing in his nightmares. i preferred the Northern Uganda film - it was much more optimistic. it told of children in the war zone competing in a nationwide music competition for the first time. some of these children had been abducted by the rebels and forced to murder people even though they were as young as 9. others lost their family. i didn't think it was possible to be a child and suffer such horrific happenings.

thursday aftnn was spent at the Opportunity Center off campus (5min bike ride). they provide housing for the homeless/poor in palo alto. i signed up as a volunteer with the children's dept and tutored a 7-year-old, played hot/cold with the kids and watched a mini talent contest. it's amazing how much energy they have, how short their attention spans are and how creative they are when it comes to wasting time during homework time. i got tricked by the 7-year-old a few times...

it was a pretty eventful and not-so-productive weekend! i love the fact that no two weeks at Stanford are ever the same. there's always something happening on campus, events to take part in, places to offer your help at and interesting people to meet.

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hihi,

i am bored reading my book and have come to drop a post. decided to keep to my words and write sth here. thanks to whoever who gave me the sign-in details. my guess is that it's may.

i've got a one-week break starting today. it's meant to be reading week. life's fine here so far. i guess i'm generally alright, barely homesick. there are times when i get all emo though. that happens at night, when i'm in my room and my mind starts to wander...i guess that feeling is not homesickness, but rather nostalgia. many random things from the past come to mind. people, moments, places, interests.

oh may! i've pinned the green lovely card u pyjamees gave me on my wall board :) i wanted to pin the photo jermz gave me at the airport of me,mav and jermz but am afraid i'd leave an ugly hole in the photo haha.

i heard you gals are planning a stayover when we're back. pls keep me updated! and zhi wants to have a breakfast date with me when we touch down at the airport! hey zhi that sounds good...but i almost forgot our parents might be there to pick us up.

there there. thats abt it for now.

love,
mary ann

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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

While waiting for my physio prac to begin this afternoon, I happened to mention to my group mate that I was feeling quite stressed because of school and driving and training and etc. She asked me if I wanted a hug even though I was all hot and sticky because I just came from training, and that really made me feel quite touched because I barely even know her.

So yes Yiiwen, you're right -- there're definitely amazing people around us.

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Monday, October 22, 2007

my phone's working again, one month after stupid AT&T decided that we were cheating them and cancelled our lines for fraud investigation. we couldn't take it anymore and the four of us gathered in Ming's room and called AT&T on speaker phone mode, talking to them all at once till they agreed to restore our lines and not charge us for the one month that we didn't use our phones. score one to us!

IM ultimate again today at noon. the other team, once again, was an all-guy one. where did all the girls go? they were pretty rough and competitive. i got knocked over by one of them while defending and now i've three beautiful bruises on my left leg. the one on the back of my thigh is probably the biggest one i've ever received. needless to say, we were owned. but the funny thing was how all of us felt good about playing. we also agreed that we need more practice...

sunday night is here again all too soon. spanish midterm next wed. study sundays! some things never change.

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

and so here i am finally, at the end of week 4, thankful for its being over. an econ midterm on monday and one ihum paper due on friday do not make for a great week overall. wed was the first time i slept at 2am, having been on the go from 9am. that was a truly exhausting day. strangely enough, i do feel some satisfaction from having endured the craziness of a truly packed week.

but the nature of uni is that it does not give you the bad without the exciting too. part of the reason why wed was crazy was the flamenco performance that i went to on campus. "noche flamenca" was radically different from what i expected. commercialisation led me to believe that flamenco is an energetic, passionate and lively dance to loud music. i never expected the serious, passionate singing melding with some pretty amazing hand-clapping to provide live music on the spot. also eye-opening were the dancers who moved their feet so quickly that they literally became a blur. you could say that tap-dancing was born out of the flamenco, an art form that has its origins in spanish gypsies. did i mention that i paid only $5? (:

that same wed night i met some amazing people and discovered the kindness in others. at midnight, while looking for a native speaker of spanish to be the subject of an interview (a recording of which was due thur morn), i met alex in the hallway outside my room. she's from the dorm next door and agreed at once to help me out. the 8-min interview took us close to an hour to complete but she was so gracious and nice about staying to help me out. that really surprised me. my upstairs dorm mate, while mugging for his CS miderm, helped me figure out garageband and transformed the recording into an mp3 file at 2am. and yesterday my other dorm mate helped proof read my ihum paper 1h before it was due. <3 cool people.

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Friday, October 19, 2007

"Alright. Here's my experiment for the day, and I'm inviting you to join me in this. Make a list of fifty - yes, 50 - things that make you happy. Why? Because life is bad enough as it is, and we quite often miss out the small things that make getting through each day bearable. Being grateful for things like these is the start of making life marginally more awesome.

Here's my list. Show me yours if you have the time :)"

1. lovely sky scapes
2. car rides with the family
3. enjoying a hot bowl of home-made soup on a rainy day
4. gran's cooking
5. rainbows
6. swimming on a hot day with the pool all to myself
7. baking yummy goodies
8. helping to cook good food
9. listening to good music
10. playing lovely music
11. a night out with my friends
12. hot fudge brownies
13. ice cream
14. outings with the cousin
15. learning a new language
16. shooting arrows
17. the satisfaction of having a beautiful grouping
18. new books
19. good literature
20. watching/reading lotr
21. having meaningful conversations
22. my mother cooking my favourite dish specially for me
23. watching anime with the sister
24. leafing through old photo albums
25. conversations with friends I haven't spoken to for ages
26. travelling
27. mornings by myself when half the world's still asleep
28. cards and letters
29. cheer-me-up smses from people when I'm having a bad day
30. zooming down the road
31. beautiful scenary
32. trying out something fun for the first time
33. laughing around
34. the satisfaction from accomplishment
35. deliciously cold weather
36. knowing that I've made a difference, somehow, some way
37. meal-time conversations
38. good food... with great company
39. memories of good times
40. recounting those memories with family and friends
41. doing a good deed
42. random idle chatter
43. taking long walks
44. being appreciated
45. reading a message from a friend after a long, tiring day
46. crawling out of bed on a sunny morning
47. surprises
48. refreshing showers
49. reminders of how beautiful life is
50. family and friends, none the less my wonderful cookiers and 409-ers! (:

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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

so it was a pretty boring weekend because of work, but i still had some fun.

friday evening was spent going to Monster Sushi in Mountain View with 4 of my dorm mates, one of whom has a car. it's a place that looked like they stole the "M" icon from Monsters Inc, and they make these huge pieces of sushi that really shouldn't be called sushi. the sushi came as rolls that are sliced so big that you can't put the whole thing into your mouth at once, not even if you were a guy. the flavours available were too fusion and unauthentic for my taste. we had crabmeat with avocado and salmon, a baked roll with salmon, and two others that i can't remember now. the rice wasn't even correct. it tasted like normal rice and wasn't sticky and slightly sour like Japanese rice should be. the overall taste is pretty good, just not what i'd call sushi. and of course it was fantastically expensive. we each paid USD15 for a total of 4 rolls and 1 plate of gyoza. i miss sakae!

after dinner was grocery shopping at wal-mart. i finally bought some breakfast needs so that i can change my meal plan from 19 to 14 meals per week. there was also BevMo, a shop that sells mostly drinks that are both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. they also sold cigars - real cigars like the ones i see in movies. the big, fat, thick variety. and my enjoyable friday evening ended with The Illusionist in the dorm lounge with my dorm mates. good show and good projector.

sunday was the first IM ultimate frisbee game we had. our opponents were grad students frm civila and mechanic engineering, who all looked like they belonged on the football team. american football, that is. they were all guys, while we had 3 girls on our side. needless to say we got owned, but it was in good fun and good spirit. so after that extremely hot game from 1 to 2pm we went fountain hopping at two fountains. that was my absolute first time stepping into a fountain, splashing about, getting wet from head to toe, doing a group hug in it, and topping it all off with a song. and it's damn fun. the next fountain was more challenging. it's called the Claw, and it's located in the busiest part of campus. there's a claw-like structure in the middle that we all climbed onto (it held!) all of us got our pictures taken by some amused tourists / alumni who were here for Homecoming weekend.

those activities were fun in themselves, but my favourite part about it was how i got to know other people better. people whom i see around the dorm but never really talked to. cheers to more madcap adventures!

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Saturday, October 13, 2007

"Alright. Here's my experiment for the day, and I'm inviting you to join me in this. Make a list of fifty - yes, 50 - things that make you happy. Why? Because life is bad enough as it is, and we quite often miss out the small things that make getting through each day bearable. Being grateful for things like these is the start of making life marginally more awesome.

Here's my list. Show me yours if you have the time :)"

1. A kind smile from a stranger
2. The view every morning from Benjamin Sheares bridge on the way to school (that is if i'm awake... haha. nthg compared to the views in California n Manchester, i know. but all the same, it's enough to make me happy)
3. Waking up to the sound of rain
4. Sleeping in
5. Brownies
6. Chocolates
7. Being of help to someone
8. Knowing that you've been a played a part in smthg you believe in no matter how small n insignificant it seems
9. Curling up on the sofa to read a good book
10. Joking
11. Friends
12. Interesting conversations
13. Bumming into someone that you've nvr seen in a long time and finding out that they're doing well
14. Snail mail
15. Letters from friends
16. An unexpected call from a friend a million miles away
17. heart-to-heart talks
18. Finding time just to be still
19. A true quiet time
20. Planing down waves in a gust and not capsizing!
21. Sailing an upwind leg playing the beats to perfection =)
22. Sticking at smthg to completion despite feeling tired and discouraged in the process
23. doing smthg nice without pple knowing
24. Having the luxury to sit at a cafe watching the world pass you by
25. Good companionship (even when it's a silly activity)
26. Finding out that someone completely feels the same way abt smthg with you
27. Long car rides on a lazy Sunday
28. Sunsets
29. Beaches
30. Water
31. Waves
32. my pillow
33. Finding a solution to a problem
34. Laughter
35. Kids (some, not all haha)
36. Listening to a song that just fits your mood
37. Long lunches
38. The wind
39. A light drizzle falling on your face
40. Making it back to shore with everyone alright aft a storm
41. Unrigging in the rain
42. Trying smthg new and finding out i actually enjoy it
43. Writing
44. Delicious desserts
45. A live band by the beach
46. Starry nights
47. Worship
48. Meaningful work
49. Family
50. You =)

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Friday, October 12, 2007

yesterday was an unlucky day for me. my bike lamp got stolen by an unpro thief. he made off with the bulb and left the batteries and the outer case on my bike. so the remains of my bike lamp are a sore sight that i haven't figured out how to get rid of. then i scraped some skin off my foot when i almost crashed into a wall while riding. it wasn't all bad, though. we started aikido during pe class and learnt two throws. i need to learn how to fall gracefully! there's a way to fall by flipping over and it looks seriously cool when the instructor demo-ed.

but today was miles better! my spanish textbk finally came in the mail and i managed to retrieve my debit card frm a pile of lost mail at the housing office. plus i met jeffrey katzenberg, the CEO of Dreamworks tdy and he sang me a bdae song! no, seriously. i went to his talk and there was a girl whose bdae was tdy. (: so we were shown a clip frm an upcoming movie abt bees. that was cool. some interesting things abt katzenberg were also revealed. the guy didn't go to college! and he actually dabbled in politics and business and a lot of other stuff bef animation.

we just had study break with the RF (resident fellow), Ross, at 9pm. yummy home-baked choc chip cookies and milk! how many ppl can say that a professor bakes for them regularly? (:

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Monday, October 08, 2007

i found another running partner on friday! we just ran really slowly behind all the rest so it was nice. hopefully i can graduate frm 3 miles to 6 miles in a couple more weeks cos we had to turn around just when the route was getting really scenic.

saturday was scavenger hunt in san francisco, where each group is assigned a list of crazy tasks to do. my group was very laidback and we just chilled and did the tasks that happened to present themselves. we spelt 'stanford' with our bodies on a sidewalk, stole a 'do not disturb' sign off one of the doors in a classy hotel, and wandered into said hotel's penthouse and filmed our exploration of it. we were lucky in the last one cos they happened to be cleaning the PH, and the cleaners thought we were the guests and didn't question us. that was kinda cool. other groups were crazier. one guy frm my dorm passed himself off as daniel radcliffe (he actually does look like him) and took photos with screaming girl fans who formed a line.

my group spent the rest of the afternn at ghirardelli square in fisherman's wharf, napping and getting free choc samples. ghirardelli is supposed to be a famously good choc company but i don't really trust american choc brands. the wharf was cool - there was an air show gg on as part of fleet week, which is a week-long celebration of naval vessels and sailors.

the other cool thing that happened on saturday happened on the caltrain as we headed back to campus. people were getting a minute-by-minute account of the stanford-usc football game via their iphones and when we (who are not even ranked) upset no.2 usc, the whole car full of returning scavenger hunters just erupted in cheers. and no one could stop talking about it. cars driving out of stanford as we walked in honked randomly, some students started a bonfire in the main quad which got put out by the fire dept, and ppl partied like crazy. saturday night was the noisiest one on campus ever. i couldn't fully appreciate all the celebrations but it felt nice to belong to a community that was so fiercely proud of its team.

sunday was homework day! and also the day i played my first dodgeball game. the schedule got screwed up and we didn't realise we were playing intramural dodgeball tdy against another dorm so we just randomly gathered ppl and rushed down to the sports centre. the team we were supposed to play didn't show so we won in a walkover. and played another team whose opponent also didn't show, just for fun. i played only 5 min and it's a pretty cool game. striking one opponent out was so satisfying.

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Saturday, October 06, 2007

Reading Yiiwen's entries makes me want to hop on a plane to visit her over at Stanford because it sounds like she's having such a great time there!
Yiiwen must promise to show me around Stanford when I manage to find my way to the states sometime in the near future. I hope. Haha.(:

Well, since Yiiwen has started the ball rolling, I shall contribute my share of "what's up" in my life.
Volunteered for Med Soc's Public Health Screening today over at Toa Payoh Hub and wasted 2hours sitting at the Health Promotion Board booth being bored to tears and watching crappy movie trailers because no one seemed interested in the phamplets, and I don't blame them either. After stoning and stoning, decided to be proactive (I didn't want to skip one hour of training for nothing) and approached some organisers, so in the end I got to help out in ushering and later on, history taking which were definitely much more productive!
I got to put my people-people skills to the test! Ditto language skills -- you've no idea how difficult it is to explain hyperlipidemia in Chinese. Haha. And getting to talk to the rest of the med students around was great too!

Pardon the rambling. Tired people ramble about insignificant stuff! Heh.

Well in other matters, I've got a driving lesson tomorrow morning. Hopefully I don't get the nasty instructor who thinks I terrorise other instructors. ):

To all my beloved cookiers, take care and love ya'll lots! (:

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Friday, October 05, 2007

party on the edge at the cantor arts centre was really enjoyable. i'm glad i went because otherwise i wouldn't hv discovered this wonderful museum full of interesting and beautiful art pieces. the party was a laid-back, quiet and comfortable affair with yummy food and drinks available everywhere (i had a wrap, churros, hot apple cider and a brownie) and performances going on in different parts of the museum. i loved the simplicity and peacefulness and friendly atmosphere of it, which made for a great introduction to the museum for me. and of course the acapella group Talisman's soulful performance at the end was wonderful. i stood about 2m away from them and it was a nice experience, especially since one of my RAs was performing for the first time. my only regret was not finding my dorm mates earlier and holding up part of the placards proclaiming serra love for ellora.

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Thursday, October 04, 2007

there was a spanish reading test this morn, kinda like comprehension except the passage's in spanish but we can ans in english. i think i passed it.

i also came the closest to sleeping during econs lect today, which was full of abstract terms like marginal cost and marginal profit and whatnot.

i found a discussion partner for my ihum (visions of mortality) cos we both agreed that Lucretius can best be tackled two on one. the man's complicated stuff and we think that this is the best strategy. so me and my lucretius partner went for lunch tgt and tried out a new dining hall tdy - flomo. their food rocks. (watch facebook pics for tri-colour cauliflower). there's always 6 ice cream flavours there!

the reporting/writing workshop for the stanford daily wasn't very informative cos the editor just talked abt stuff tt i alr knew frm my internship, but at least he was a good speaker.

serra house gov was elected today. i didn't run for anything. most posts went uncontested. the elected people seem enthusiastic enough abt their jobs so hopefully we'll be a better home to live in soon. (:

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

today i encountered 3 firsts:

1. i asked a qn during econs lect! i never thought i wld do that. it wasn't as scary as i thought it wld be, and getting it answered by the prof was satisfying.
2. i visited the Teaching Fellow (TF) during his office hours to clarify some logic exercises and realised that he was perfectly nice and friendly and not at all scary or intimidatingly intellectual.
3. i had a cookie break at 10pm with my dorm mates in the Serra lounge bcos one of them was kind enough to bake all of us in Serra choc chip cookies. really yummy.

also my friendly Resident Assisstant (RA, a senior whose job is to run the dorm and baby the frosh on the level he is in charge of) dropped by and we had a nice chat which made me realise that i need to make more of an effort in getting to know my dorm mates, who are all nice people whom i've been neglecting/ignoring/withdrawing from the past week.

the stanford daily info meeting tdy wasn't really helpful since it lasted all of 2 min. i was given an info pack and told to return tmr for a writing workshop. so i'll be ponning intro to martial arts tmr to attend this. hopefully it's worth the sacrifice cos intro to martial arts is getting to be really fun.

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Tuesday, October 02, 2007

i wonder how long it will be before my fellow cookies discover this entry...

anyway. i've decided that this is the most efficient way of updating everyone on my life in stanford, and of keeping a record of what's been happening. cos in the last 2 wks so many amazing things hv happened, and i kinda regret not writing abt them in case i ever forget!

so, starting frm today, i shall conscientiously write abt interesting things that happen here. i've just returned frm a 3-mile run with the running club, and it was really enjoyable. me and 3 other girls didn't keep up with the main pack, we just ran at our own slow pace behind and chatted all the way. there was a sophomore amongst us and she told us abt the cool and little-known places on campus, and so now i've made new friends just frm running with them. (: the places we ran in were so pretty, quiet and serene tt i felt like i was on holiday somewhere, and it was hard to rmb tt this is school. and the ppl were so friendly too. i'll definitely return for the wed or fri run.

i've intro to martial arts in 20min so i gtg! if and when you guys see this, update us all on yr lives pls. (:

i miss all of you more than i can say.

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