As I look around the house, I am hit with the sudden realization in how Asian I am. or perhaps I have only just inherited my dad's stinginess and thriftiness.

With one roommate back, the house suddenly transformed to a bundle of color. New plates, bowls, fridge magnets, paintings (not her own, but bought), cushions, carpets for the carpet, frames, pictures and many more. day after day she's gone out shopping with her boyfriend, only to return with more decorations for the house or for her room at least. don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. It's great to have an interior design roommate to decorate your lil home and make it happy and cosy and the best part is, you don't have to pay a single cent! it does however, bother me that someone is actually able to spend money so easily for worthless stuff. ok. not completely worthless. A happy house does make a happy person. but I guess it does bother me to know that I am wasting money on such useless decor for my own selfish purposes. everytime I am tempted to buy useless stuff, I hear my parent's voice asking me if I really need it and it practically feels like my dad is right beside me judging me disapprovingly.

I don't think I was always this way though. Bring me to Ikea and it's a playground. Aside from the delicious swedish meatballs, ikea is a fun place to just imagine what it's like to live in an interior designed house with no clutter and everything is just so neat and clean. now that I think of it. even though my bookshelf back home is from ikea, it still looks like shit because unlike the display set in ikea, mine's filled to the brim with all sorts of stuff -___-

I guess now that I'm here, I've realised now that money doesn't come as easy as it used to. I guess it's the weight of knowing how expensive my tuition fees are and thus, I'm trying to cut costs. Cutting the air con and living off the remaining cold air stuck in the house has been sufficient. especially when I'm the only one in the house while the roommate is gone. I've also resorted to being totally auntified/housewifey to the expense of clipping coupons and signing up for membership cards to supermarkets to get discounts and savings and what nots. it's really strange to have such cards in your wallet. not only that. shopping at the supermarket has no longer become a delightful affair of splurging on all that you like and then hoarding it like a pack rat in a little drawer to take a sneak peak just for that glimmer of joy. nope. now it's going to the supermarket with a clear idea of what you are going to cook that week and buying only what you NEED. not only that. experience has taught me to examine each packaging for expiration dates to make sure that money doesn't go to waste just because I left it in the fridge for too long. I've also learnt that evil supermarkets hide the cheapest stuff at the lowest shelves where u're bound to NOT look. compare prices and look out for the discount/sale tags. now my delight in shopping is looking at the bottom of the receipt to see how much savings I have made through my coupons and discount hunting skills. in other words, I have been aunty-fied. thank goodness I don't have to go to the market or anything of that sort to bargain. God forbid.

now that school's out, I'm rotting at home doing absolutely nothing. Been very lazy lately and sleeping in till late. how can you not when the whether is nice and gloomy outside???? it's like the perfect weather to sleep in. it's not bright nor is it a great weather to head out. soo...bury urself another the covers and continue sleeping and enjoying the ridiculous dreams I've been having.

life with the new roommate has been pretty good, with a person to talk to and stuff. It's nice how as an interior designer, she really wants the house to look nice and so everything is always back in its place. I used to leave the dishes in the dishwasher to dry since it's much easier for me to get things out rather than having to tiptoe just to get plates with the fear that I might drop and break em. ah well. woes of being short. i need to invest in a little stepping stool to get to upper rung in my wardrobe and to the dishes and to the blinds adjustment thingies.

being short sucks sometimes. especially when u're in tall people land.

another strange dream....

not as clear as last nights but nonetheless STRANGE. i kept switching back and forth between roles and it had something to do with me watching them and then being a part of a group. like i was reading a news about a blizzard in singapore and then i got transported to this forest place with 3 caves (HUH??) and "i" took on the role of a mother and i had 2 like 20 something year old twin daughters who were half ang moh half asian. (WTH?!?!) and i was telling them how ridiculous it would be that a blizzard in singapore. next thing i knew i was covered in snow -___-

literally had THAT face. i turned around to brush myself off and when i turned back, my daughters were gone. so i hid behind a rock to see if they would come out and saw this big guy dragging them into one of the caves that had the sign "IN". another cave had a sign "OUT" so i tried to escape and save my girls and pressed the button for the "out" cave and it worked like an elevator, except it also sounded an alarm which alerted the guy. so as i tried to scurry in and close the door, he managed to climb in after "me" except now I am watching the entire scene. next thing i know, the door opens and the guy is unconscious on the floor while the mother starts sawing off his limbs. except now he;s not a guy but a mannequin. they were given to me and I had to bring it back for an event for a dance item or something. So i lugged it around feeling very uncomfortable with the fact that the limbs belonged to someone who was once alive though it was clearly a mannequin now.

brought it over to the dance team led by 2 gay men and got really pissed that they weren't needed anymore. and as I walked back, I had to pass this sporting event and they wanted a volunteer to punch the punching bags and since i was mad, they targeted me and i was so pissed I just ignored them. but the way down seemed to be never ending and with every "pillar" of the stadium I passed, the same guy and same punching bag was there waiting for me. it's like a scene from a movie of a dramatic dream. LOL. so damn weird.

the end!

i had a weird dream last night. wouldn't say it was a nightmare or anything bad for that matter cos I really enjoyed it. for a moment it felt like I was in love and in a relationship. but that relationship with the person already exists though it's in a totally different way.

I can't quite remember the start, but i'll write what I could remember.

I dreamt that i had a father and a young brother whom as usual....i do not know in real life. it kinda was like...an extract in a tv show or a movie, but they were poor and living in a rented ROOM not apartment in some old house run by a malay and dad and landlord were arguing about agreeing to paint the house walls grey. *WTH?!?!* but dad refused to sign the agreement form because he felt that grey would make the already gloomy house feel gloomier. SOMEHOW...i saw a patch of the wall painted grey and decided it wasn't so bad and convinced my dad to agree. I don't even know how my memory of the ARC room in the old IJTP building at thompson warped to look completely clean, neat and organised and very modern with cool grey walls. but that warped memory certainly made me believe grey was a nice color for the house.

anyhows. I wanted to hurry all that because I wanted to go to the zoo and even then, dark clouds were gathering so I hurried father and brother to go get ready so I could go to the zoo. while they were preparing, I was somehow transported to a swimming pool and petting a giant squid (WHAT?!?!) and i was so scared it was gonna grab my hands in it's tentacles and kill me or smth. but then it transformed into a squishy dolphin and apparently the dolphin only like good looking people and the trainer told me it had such a hard time with paris hilton and britney spears were in the water (WHAT!??!?)

i was then suddenly re-transported back to the father's house where my dad was putting on a diver's suit in preparation for the zoo. (huh??) and as I hurried them into the car, i realised that I had forgotten my camera, so I told them to meet me at the entrance of the dorm while i ran back to go get it. I had forgotten my id but i pretended to hear the security guard wrongly and ran in anyway. apparently there were orientation games playing and people kept mistaking that I was part of the group, dragging me to play humans vs zombies. and I was really annoyed cos I was in a hurry and these people were stalling my time!! !@#$% how many times do i have to convince people that I am NOT playing and trying to explain why I have the human zombie manual when i wasn't playing! then this little malay boy wanted to make me participate in another game and i refused and he started being really annoying at the stairway and he had climbed up from the outside, so he was hanging on the other side of the wall from the railings in the stairway. After refusing, i turned around to leave only to feel the back of my shirt ripped and my bra unhooked/cut and that made me furious and i picked him up a threw him a couple of kilometers away and took his shoe and threw it hard at his face. of course i looked like a jerk then but I was seriously pissed and I called his mother and complain (WTH)

at that time the skies were seriously about to pour heavily and I doubted the chances of me going to the zoo and it was also like 6 something in the evening which meant the zoo was gonna close any time. So i went to my room and grabbed my camera and I was about to leave when my dad came around the corner to tell me he had a surprise for me and we should go star gazing instead. excited, I went to go get bobo and it seriously felt like I was a guy and her boyfriend and I took her hand while she was all oozzy from love. hahahhaa. I arrived at the "star gazing" place which was really, the top of a building except instead of seeing stars, we were wowed by the scenic view of Singapore at night (WHAT?!?!). suddenly this group of thugs came and demanded to know what we were here and SOMEHOW...i had grabbed a gun instead of my DSLR :S i had no intention of using it though and then my dad came up behind him with a LARGER GUN. and though it was obviously a tensed and serious moment, i felt light hearted and said I should go down and get my camera instead and so i did.

what a strange dream.

ok. i spent the entire day working on my graphic design project and zomg...i am tired with a backache. my room was a total mess and so was my desk. paper, mat boards etc. it was embarrassingly disgusting. nonetheless, i'm quite happy that it turned out pretty decently and i'm quite proud of the final result of the collage. esp the stuff that i hand drew on the water color paper with my beloved tombow brush markers. haha. i think i'm starting to fall in love with using markers. they do produce quite a remarkable result i must say. very nice and bold.

still...i haven't fallen in love with collages though i must admit, i do enjoy the fun and happy effect combining kiddy cartoons with ridiculous proportions of photos. plus....the song that I chose involved a happy and sweet relationship between a father and son and since it was a country song, i got to enjoy searching for hot hunky cowboy daddies and adorable little boys. ahem...it's hard to find good pictures anyways. i had to spend some money to buy stock images in the end. BUMMER. on the bright side. i didn't go out buying scrapbook stuff as i had initially expected to cos i was too lazy to travel all the way out to savannah mall. so i did save myself good money in the end.

oh...one of my roommates, maddy, is back in savannah. I got the chance to meet her family and go out for a pizza dinner with them and a few other friends who live around the corner. like literally around the corner. it's INSANE how near all their friends are. i am honestly jealous of it. it's like getting cheap and good housing with the amazingness of the dorm friends and company.

anyhoos. it's great having someone back in the house but at the same time, having lived alone by myself and getting used to it makes it hard to readjust back again. WHY IS THE GRASS ALWAYS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE???? but yeah. it was kinda weird when you have to announce when you are home or greet the other person when they come home. well..not formally, but like "hi". i don't know...i guess i don't really care if you're home or not and it's kinda weird that you have to tell the other person that you're going out or smth just so they won;t think u're home. how come it was never like this at home?? where on earth does all these requirements pop out from???

on the bright side, literally bright side, there's been more color in the house. not just from having more people around, but also cos maddy, being an interior designer and typical female college student, brought and bought ALOT of random stuff for decorations. from cutlery to paintings to magnets and a carpet for our carpet. can't wait for finals to be legitly over so i can relax with maddy and friends and play scrabble and what nots. ooohhhhhh....i'm quite ready for the quarter to be over. i hate my grds class for shiz....

man. this weekend practically flew by with the work that I had at the trustees theatre this weekend. On the bright side, I realised that my bosses really like me and I've been given priority for smaller events so that means MOOLAH :D there were 4 comedy shows in total and i worked a total of 17 hrs, with 12 hours on Saturday alone. it was kinda insane, kinda cool because the show was filmed for comedy central, which meant big tv cranes and all that jazz. very funky to be a part of it all. Got the "wonderful" task of trying to move everyone to sit together which meant i worked with the tv producer of shepherding the flock and got a thumbs up for it. WHEEEEEEE :D the feeling of being in charge felt good and kinda reminiscent of the good part of being arc president back in the days.

i realised after working at the trustees that i make a pretty good service person. smile or apologise, be patient and take things chill. There has been a few nasty people to serve, but it's been otherwise fun to serve people with a smile and get good service back in return. My colleagues on the other hand don't seem to do things the same way and they've been serving customers very rudely which kinda annoys me.

anyhows...so here we are at finals and i'm down to one last speech (thank goodness) i absolutely hate public speaking, but it has also kinda been quite a fun experience. I realised for one thing that when I'm nervous, I channel all that energy and it becomes more like enthusiasm. but i'm really just trying to cover up the nervous shaking. hahaha. it definitely helps! my most recent speech was a persuasive one and i spoke about Singapore and how it makes a wonderful destination. it was fun to hear all the comments that i got as my head swelled with pride from the positive comments. hahaha. apparently i make such a good advertiser and persuader that I can convince people that killing puppies is a good thing and even get supporters for it. hahahahhaa. fun :D of course. i will never kill puppies.

bible study on tuesdays has been a challenge to go to as I try to clump all my work and finish it early for Wednesday so I can go for bible study at night. It's been rather successful I must say, though it requires discipline. I got the priviledge of meeting a Westin chef who was a friend of Jimbo (the pastor) and Lindsay (his wife) who prepared our dinner and taught a few of us how it was done. might try it out and see. I don;t think i'm going to invest in all the different spices considering how i don't really know how to cook using all those spices which all look the same to me. it's been actually great at bible study just being out with people once again in a relaxed setting to socialise and what not. definitely realised that no man is an island and we all need to get out now and then. so yeah. bible study definitely saves me from having to cook dinner and socialise. so it's all good :D

i've done my researching on pet therapy for my final psychology paper and oh man...reading all that seriously makes me want to get a golden retriever now. hahaha. but i want one that doesn't poop or pee. but i think i could just potty train it to do so in a toilet bowl. build a ramp up for it and stuff. HAHAHAHA. than i can just FLUSH it all away without a care :D dunno. reading this kind of stuff makes me wonder why i threw away the decisions of being a veterinarian or a social worker *shrug* why am i always interested in jobs that make no money in Singapore???? wth......

new logo design for my third graphic design project. this was actually a redesign of bad logos in savannah. lol.

Go Fish is a shop operated by a bunch of Christians who go out into villages and buy the artworks and crafts from the artisans there and then bring it over to the states to sell. Basically the mission is to provide these artisans in village a stable source of income without exploiting their labour. Nonetheless, Go Fish is not a christian shop, just a shop operating on Christian principles. i got abit of flak at first for eliminating the Christian fish symbol, but i had valid reasons for doing so anyway. The Christian Fish was too clean to represent the indigenous style of the shop and its products and i found myself veering away from it to other styles of creating a fishy.

after much sketching and designs, i finally settled for this >>>

it's a double image, with a hand grabbing the "G" for the positive turquoise form and a fishy in the white negative space made by the hand and the G. also. if you know sign language, the form of the shape represents the letter "G". I decided to not go with the traditional fishing rod concept as most people would, with the hand grabbing a fish a better choice to illustrate the personal touch in how Go Fish's merchandises were obtained, also reflecting the mission and Christian principles that its owners operate on.

my classmates complained that the font made it too fish tackle shop in the beaches but both my professor and I found it appropriate as a design choice and as a representation of the company. They preferred a more....typewriter scrapbook font (American Typewriter/Problem Secretary) but i stuck with my original Creaky Freaky because it created a unifying style with it's bold forms, like the fish, which imitates the broad chunks of paint stroke in indigenous artworks. colors are mainly of natural elements like wood and water, which reflects the materials that the artisans in the village use for all the craft sold in the shop - cotton, wood, shells and the like.

I'm wondering whether or not i should contact the actual shop owner and offer them my logo design for a price. heh heh. nonetheless, it felt good to be "professional" and going the extra mile of actually doing proper research of the shop, going into the shop to analyse their style and understand the story behind the shop to make a proper logo that represented them well. :D

a kid in my class did a logo design for a fortune teller/tarot card reader/crystal ball etc u get the idea. and it got the entire class going on about these spiritual activities and I soon found myself in the midst of all these people who wanted to try it out and i just sat there in horror, not wanting to say anything amidst my very intimidating graphic design class mates :S

finals are up and on as we gear up towards the final 3 weeks (OH YES!). speeches, collages, exams, projects and what nots. my final graphic design project is rather intimidating with no use of the computer and mainly hand work and we all know how clumsy i am with my hands. for my final project I have to create a wrapping paper out of 6 panels that represented a song with a layout based on a grid system that reflected certain words. ACK. no computer, cut and paste and the need to travel out to the malls to get materials. gggrrreeeaaatttt. this is one time consuming project alright.

ah wells.

back to work!

mid terms are ovvveerrrrr. 25 more days left of school!! then break and back to school again. hahaha.

mid terms are always the time to hear good things about yourself at mid term conferences. haha. I've never been so appreciated in my life to simply just pay attention in class and be there. apparently, my habit of anti-change works for the professors who can always find great comfort in finding me in the same seat smiling (i dun even think i smile for no reason..i only smile because they are SMILING AT ME FIRST). i think there's been only one class so far in my entire few quarters here that i've kept changing positions and that was CMPA class. but even in studio classes, it's been a great habit to just stay in the same spot. which i guess annoyed my professor because we were supposed to try out different positions. BUT BUT BUT...he also told us to come in earlier to grab the best spots and it so happens that the best spot is always where i've been standing at!

anyhows. back to mid term conferences. so.....apparently teachers here have a strange habit of starting off with "I have bad/distressing/terrible news for you" when they talk to me. and being the kiasu singaporean i am, i check black board every day for my grades, so i know there is absolutely no problem with my grades that i have to worry about. but nonetheless, i play along and act worried. i've heard reasons like "I need to fail you because you are too good and I want you in my class (sounds so creepy stalker-ish)" or "I can't let you leave this class so i'm afraid I'd have to hold you back" or "gloria..you're a great and wonderful student...but you're not top in class" lol. i don't really care about being top. so long as i'm doing well and doing the best that i can, it's totally chill. which i'm quite surprised to find myself thinking that because i would think i'm quite competitive in some areas. but i guess just knowing that im somewhere on top feels sufficiently good enough for me. haha

ah well...i'm both half happy and sad for this quarter to be ending soon. for one, i really enjoyed the classes and the suitable balance of workload. ok...it was damn slack. but that's the whole point. haha. the professors have been wonderful and so has the people in some of my classes. ah well. but there's something to look forward to...next quarter! gonna be back to drawing naked people with a wonderful professor who is a wonderful artist...i've seen his portfolio and i am so inspired and excited for his class. PLUS....he is good looker...and...so is my art hist professor. hur hur hur. it always helps to have good looking people to brighten up ur day..esp for boring classes like art hist. and i'm taking lit from my english composition's prof's new husband. awkward.

my past 2 consecutive nights of dreaming have been an odd mix of taking care of sunday school kids complete with stun gun tagging game and traveling on an entirely brand new mrt system to places i've never heard of. but it sure was convenient and fast. last night's sunday school dream involved escaping some evil murderer or torturer and i had to lead the kids to protect themselves and we were racing cars to escape and stuff...pretty funky. i love my dreams. they enable me to do things i'll never get to do in life. heh heh. fun!