One Week. Almost Done.

AY 2007/08 Fall Semester has started off nice and quiet. I am uber excited for classes this semester. I am back with this total zest for learning and absorbing everything thrown at me. Kind of like how I was when I first started out in Year 1 before getting totally distracted, jaded and demoralised. 3 years on, with battle bruises and emotional scars, I am back, more mature and with more purpose. I am motivated to get the best out of the next few months. Plenty of career and industry talks for the graduating student and to appease the curious cat in me.

The courses I am doing this semester are exciting:

ACCT201 Corporate Reporting and Financial Analysis

ECON107 Applied Econometrics

COMM360 Investor Relations

ECON118 Economic Development in Asia

MGMT301 Business Study Mission: Israel

COMM205  Public Relations Writing (TA)

The BSM to Israel will culiminate in a visit to Haifa and Tel-Aviv in December which is SOOO exciting. I hope all goes well; I’m putting down my deposit for it tomorrow. As much as I don’t want to dream too much about it and just concentrate on the course (which in itself absolutely interesting to a closet geek like me since it is about business synergies and possibilities in the high tech and defence industries.. plus the middle east has so much of history..), I can’t help but start thinking about visiting places like Jordan (Petra!!) and Jerusalem.

Can you feel my excitement? Heh. In other stuff, I have decided to become a bit more ourgoing and cheerful this semester. Instead of scowling and looking down as I walk, to smile more and look happier. Make more solid friendships and nuture existing ones. I kinda suck at the maintaining friendships part… so if I have asked you for your address and not sent you anything… fret not.. it’s coming SOON.

I have also taken to be a more responsible person. Exercising every day, cutting down on nasty food, not pissing off my parents while doing everything I can to test my limits (heh)…. the list goes on and I can’t say it any other way.. I am happy!

Hope you are all having a good time as I am. Now I need some sleep before a long day ahead!

Gee Whiz.

We had people over for dinner today. My dad’s friend from the In*dian High Co*mm had come over with his wife and daughter. We used to meet more frequently when I was in JC and before they left for South Africa. They were back in Singapore again for a short holiday and had swung by my place for old times sake.

First thing the man did when he entered the house, looked at my youngest sis and mistook her for me and told her that I had not changed a single bit. That was until he saw me. He was like ‘OMG’.

Thanks la. It happened again when we had moved to the living room for coffee and dessert (which I am proud to say I didn’t touch. sigh… it was chocolate cake and gulab jamun) and there was an ad for the sony vaio laptop and I was like that is not a very good laptop computer if you are looking for one, he turns over and looks at me. ‘Rajendran, the last time we saw your daughter she was this big (gesturing the size of a peanut butter jar).. and now, wa wa.. she has opinions!’

WTF DUDE!

This guy is also into astrology. In between representing the Indian Consul, he went to study astrology in Delhi. He takes out the laptop he brought along and opens up a program in it. Then he asks my mum for my DOB and the time and place where I was born. He presses enter and voila! my horoscope has been derived. (You see this the perfect example of ancient and modern India coexisting! Ancient astrological science made easy by computer programs. You conniving Indians!)

From reading the charts, which have symbols and letters decorating a grided square, he tells me about my future, especially my profession and my married life. By golly! Am I not happy to know!?

So, here is the verdict, written in the stars. I am destined to get married in 2008-09. I will dominate my husband. I should be very careful about my partner and not trust him too much. (hmmm.) Professionwise, I cannot be my own boss. I am easily swayed so I cannot be a strong leader. I cannot do PR jobs. However, finding a job is easy for me. I apparently love my dad more than my mum. I will also not have any chronic illnesses.

Firstly, I don’t believe in this. These are self-fulfilling prophecies. But when he kept saying so much, I was tempted to ask some other things as well… only on profession though… he was curious why I never asked him about my love life. EH! YEE. Why do I wanna find out about it from him?

Oh well, I didn’t ask him in the end. Why restrict myself?

I still can’t believe he said ‘Now she has opinions!’ %^%&%&%

There Is No One Reason For Having Sex. There are 237.

Reading the article, it is amazing that having kids is not even one of the top reasons for having sex. The study was done in the U of Texas on a ‘fairly homogenous sample’. 400 students gave reasons and another 1500 rated their importance. Researchers divided the responses into 4 categories: Physical, Goal Attainment, Emotional, Insecurity. The top 10 reasons were the same for both genders, ranging from, ‘I was attracted to them’ and ‘I was sexually aroused and I needed the release’. Lame ones include ‘I needed the exercise’ and ‘I was on a dare’. Heh.

Here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/science/31tier.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

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I was just thinking  that if there wasn’t the consequence of getting pregnant, the taboo of abortion and the cost of bringing up a child single-handedly, more women would be promiscuous. If women didn’t have the ‘burdened end’ of the casual sexual relationship…

Famous Insults

Stumbled upon these on someone’s blog. Awesome!

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” – Winston Churchill

“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” – Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” – Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” – William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time in reading it.” – Moses Hadas

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” – Abraham Lincoln

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” – Groucho Marx

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” – Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” – Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play. Bring a friend… if you have one.” – George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.” – Winston Churchill, in response

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” – Irvin S. Cobb

“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.” – Samuel Johnson

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” – Paul Keating

“He had delusions of adequacy.” –Walter Kerr

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.” – Jack E. Leonard

“He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.” – James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?” – Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” – Mae West

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever…” – Oscar Wilde

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts… for support rather than illumination. ” – Andrew Lang

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” –  Billy Wilder

OMG! Like For Real?!! So Scary!

I just overheard my sister telling my mum something in the kitchen which gave me the bejhinks. Ever wondered why it always rains so heavily and so much before National Day? I was like ‘Huh? Really?’

Then I thought about it. I thought about the time in P5 I went to watch the National Day and how I was praying every day that it would not rain so I could enjoy everything. I thought to the time in 2005 when I helped out at National Day and how we would pray before every NDP preview for clear skies so that we didn’t have to implement the tedious wet weather plan. And also, when I look at this year, it’s been raining a lot over here, hasn’t it?

So here comes the GASP! moment.

My sister overheard from her classmate who’s somebody is a big shot somebody in the SA*F or something that they cloud seed before NDP to make sure its all completely ‘rained out’. This way the parade will not be jeopardised. *time to gasp*

A bit creepy right? So I went to check it up.

Cloud seeding, a form of weather modification, is the attempt to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds, by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei. The usual intent is to increase precipitation, but hail suppression is also widely practiced. Silver iodide and dry ice are the most commonly used substances in cloud seeding.

Source: Wikipedia 2007

So it is safe and all. But what bothers me is… wah, our gahmen is tres controlling, eh? Yes, yes they spend millions of dollars to remind us that we were a fishing village, discovered by an Englishman with an odd bouffant, then got captured by the Japs, then our mighty leader cried on TV to break us away from our neighbours and then we like struggle struggle and became this hotshot young nation here.  Which is all good… but still..

 creepy. so 1984. eeeee.