i'm exhausted. no. i haven't died from swine flu. but i am freaking out being a typical kiasi singaporean. but you can't blame me considering that my roommate was down with flu-like symptoms and she had a friend visit from a state that had the swine flu and then her friend was sick too. so yeah...naomi visited me quite often and then she fell sick too. i have taken extreme measures to pile my body up with vitamin C by drinking fruit juices. yes. I am THAT scared that i even started drinking juice. but to add the garnish to the whole kiasiness, i've also made it a point to disinfect my table, door knob and computer keyboard and mouse with alcohol whenever naomi leaves since she's down with the flu and has yet to recover.

i am so singaporean.

and i love it. i miss being surrounded by such people and not being thought of as a whacko.
for a start, i've started reading the online version of TODAY to figure out what on earth has been going on with the swine flu thingy and it does feel good to be connected to the world and know what on earth is going on back home. it feels like i'm in touch with singapore again.

for all of you wondering what i've been up to, it's been a crazy quarter for me. ironically not work wise but activities wise. in a bid to get more scholarships (and friends), i'm put myself in plentiful volunteer work ranging from volunteering with pets to carnivals to cleaning forests and rivers to building and tearing houses down. within these 6-7 weeks, i'm proud to say i've accomplished close to 30 hours of CIP. which is an insane amount considering the fact that i possibly accomplished that in one year during sec sch days. come to think of it, i think i've achieved 42 hours of CIP within my 4 years at IJTP. LOL. and i thought i'd never be doing CIP ever again...how wrong.

nonetheless, CIP here is way better than back home. apart from demolishing and building houses with habitat, i help keep nature reserves and forests clean. picture below is the ogeechee river canal where we had a short nature trail and lesson from the owners, learnt about water snakes and water mohicans, saw raccoon trails and wild berries, braved a gazillion mozzies, rode a golf cart through the forest and had a cook out at the end of it before ending it with a nice relaxing ride on the canoe through the canal :) 

had been up to another event with the humane society, the doggie carnival which took place today and it was super exhausting. we were there to set up at 8 and finished at 5 and being at art school, most of the volunteer work revolved around setting up and drawing doggie portraits. thank goodness i didn't have to draw anything since i'm not confident enough of my skills and i suck at doing things live anyway. soo...i was sent to hold the dogs for the portrait and some dogs were simply uncooperative. there were these 2 girls that were possibly straight out of those high school drama bimbos. they had these 2 giant dogs that they could not control and it was just ridiculous seeing how they treat them like people. they were cooing things like "don;t hang your tongue out to the side. it's ugly! put it straight!" or "dun sit like that, that's unladylike!" it's been an interesting day. got to see a whole lot of dogs and pet them. saw dogs i never saw before, like white german shepherds. like pure white :S no. not albinos. they were WHITE with black eyes and it's normal :S saw alot of sweet goldies etc. it was a tiring yet satisfying experience i must say. 

there's a thousand other CIP projects ongoing right now. i think it's because it's spring, where the weather is nice and sunny, not too cold, not too hot (though i reckon it's starting to get uber hot right now....it's the same as singapore. oh good Lord....i can't imagine summer. sob) 

school has been having tonnes of events too. we had films at forsyth (park) where they showed finding nemo, wizard of oz and some james bond film every night. a bunch of us went down to watch wizard of oz and had a lil picnic there in the park.  yep. shown on the big screen and halfway through the show, fireworks went off behind us just as they usually go off every month. 

then there was sidewalk arts festival too at the same location on a different day, a competition among the students, both pre-admitted high schoolers and graduated students and even the locals. given a pack of chalk and an allocated sidewalk grid, students drew whatever they want and won cash prizes :) dude below is AMAZING. one of the winners, they only had chalk in a pack of 6 UGLY colors. this dude must have mixed a thousand and one things just to get that skin color. goodness gracious me. skin color is a horrible thing to achieve using chalk. and i learnt a few new techniques like painting chalk by grating it into powder and adding water with a brush :)

last but not least...the upcoming sand arts festival where we all headed down to the beach at tybee island and build giant sand sculptures/sand castles. gonna take part in that with naomi and another girl :) excitingness. 

classes have been the least exciting and i'm just counting down to the end of the quarter.....

on the bright side, i got all the classes that i wanted to take next 2 quarters and i won 3rd place for the color theory works in the foundations honors show :D YIPEE