If only I had known about this earlier! My life would be so much easier. I've generously shared it with you, so now you know who to thank if you have to write one of those essays on Postmodernism/Deconstructivism/Odes to Derrida etc...

Also available @ Elsewhere.org: Adoloscent Poetry, Band Names, Brag Generator and Time Cube (whatever that is)

Warp Speed

I completed Draft 2 last night. Phew. Feel as if I'm on crazy pills. The monstrosity is a total of 20,532 words. It's 17,157 words without tables/block quotes. (omg 3,500+ words worth of interviews etc)

Oh, I'm too tired
I'm so sick and tired
And I'm feeling very sick and ill today
But I'm still fond of you, oh-ho-oh

Meanwhile, I've been applying for jobs. It's time to leave this student life behind. Boohoo. I know I shall miss it. I like doing research better than corporate/office shenegans.

Tis raining again. I'm not complaining - NSW badly needs the rain. Also, one appreciates being dry and working inside the Library more when it's wet out.

Ooo Ooo and check this out, Library Christmas cards!

Cool eh! They were going for a Brady Bunch thing. Heehee. I look like a grinning idiot. HAHAHA.

Was up at 7.30 this morning for a 9am doctor's appointment. Was outta there by 9.08am, $100 poorer. My doctor earns in one minute what I earn in an hour!

Took the bus down to Uni to get me some food. It was quite pleasant strolling in the drizzle down Chinatown at 10am. The streets feel queerly impotent depleted of her usual bustling, shoving, pushy humanity.

Had a Honkie breakfast of congee, you tiao and cheong fun and scalded my mouth in my greedy haste. The roof of my mouth is puckered and numb from that first gulp of porridge. Mmmmmm, good.

I'm now at the library about to settle in and work on my thesis. Toodles

Palm Beach: It rained. ~_~

Thesis: Working on Draft 2

Feedback: It's good. *beams*

Stress Level: High - Surviving

Backpain is back. I think it's correlated to werking. Last week everything was hunky-dory. I've gone from carefree lay-about to jaw-clenching wreck in the space of two days.

But so far so good. I have good news in the works. Tell ya more when things are more certain.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SY!!!

I had a very engaging conversation today with a senior lecturer from Newcastle University today. I was helping her photocopy some magazines. She teaches film studies and we talked about film, identity, Wong Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love, societal anxiety, nostalgia... It was facinating to talk to her. And she had the most beautiful jade-green eyes. It's days like this that make me love working at the library, you get to meet the most diverse people, and the conversations can get so inspirational!

Other than that I came up with a few essay topics for a friend on Cantopop and the Colonial Experience (studying the way Beyond fans discuss Beyond) and also Identifying the Local in Local Music (Force Vomit). Rawk on Bruddah!

Heehee.

Ok off to pack. Palm Beach here I come!

Beginning to freak out slightly. I haven't touched my thesis on over a week. Gut-wrenching fears about critical gaps in my work are starting to plague me. I get back feedback on Tuesday and the plan is to finish tidying it up by the weekend.

At the moment, I have borrowed five more books on media reception in preparation for the inevitable. Also Said's Orientalism, which I have tried unsuccessfully to read/comprehend. I get the gist of what he says, in broad strokes, but the nuances of his argument are lost to me like salt in water; I just can't see it.

Today I am off to the gym (fourth time this week, I have been a good girl, yes I have) and then work. I expect to die from boredom at the library because Saturdays are Dead Days.

Then it's off home to pack for a weekend bbq at Palm Beach! Yipeee! Happy Birthday Michelle! :)

Just 30 days till Thesis is Due.
53 more days till Home.

It's a scorcher today! 31 degrees!

Today's theme was other people's houses.

I had a bit of an outing with two of my classmates to my honours supervisor's house. It's a lovely old renovated Victorian terrace bursting at the seams with character and homeliness. They built a leafy courtyard right in the middle of it and it was cool and shady there despite the boiling heat outside. Two frogs live in their tiny water feature which feeds a pond fern that has grown to exuberant proportions. The froggies serenaded us with burps as we discussed our thesis.

After, we dropped by Chrisanthi's house for a chat while she waited for the plumber. She has a three lemon trees in full fruition. The smell was gorgeous! Plus, she has the biggest mutant dill plant I have ever seen!

:) It was a nice day. I haven't perspired this much in a year!

A few thoughts

#1 Moths. Destest them. Fluttery frantic kamikazi moths. My room's been invaded with them because I leave the window open. The sound of dusty paper wings scritching against the walls/windows in their blind frenzy drives the heebie jeebies out from the marrow of my bones and makes them run electric laps up my spine down to my toes.

Solution: I can either sit in stuffiness or have a screaming fit everytime I discover one of them in my room.

In other news: smart-ass K set one on fire the other day in his attempt to kill it. Clarification, he lit it up after spraying it with Baygon as it lay dying on my carpet. Woosh went the moth. Woosh went my carpet! Brilliant!

#2 Being on hiatus is weird. In a good way. But still weird. Kinda like I'm missing a limb. Kinda.

#3 Australians voted in Howard for another term. Woopie doo. General consensus is that this means Bush will win the US Election. Possible, since from experience Americans are even dumber than Australians.

#4 A columnist in The Australian refused to vote as an act of rebellion. Apparently its not democracy if the public has "no real choice". Fair point. But you have to vote based on principle alone. That's how democracy works. Granted both there isn't much 'choice'. Geez. It boils my noggin to listen to this raving. It should be a priviledge to participate in some form of democratic citizenry. As fucked up as democracy is, it does happen to be the most equitable and workable form of goverance. I have a snowball's chance in hell to vote in good ole Sg and here we have people refusing to vote "as an act of rebellion". And as it happens, the voters all have half a brain cell and believe that interest rates are pegged to the government in power; labor government = interest spending will increase. Hello! HELLO!!!! As it's that simple. They should vote against Howard just for the simple fact that he expects people to believe that kinda bullshit.

Ah well. At least they vote here.

Come to think of it Singaporeans vote the say simplistic way too..... bah!

#5 Living in a country where elections are a reality is kinda fun. *beams*

#6 Only 57 more days till I go home! I can't wait to be home!

#7 I miss scrabble and crosswords with you, also the mandatory cuddles. Also squashy marshmallow morning face. heehee.

#8 Recipe for salt and pepper squid:

* Squid, sliced into strips or rings (your preference)
* Mix plain flour and cornflour 1:1 with salt, cracked black pepper, chili flakes, chopped coriander

Place flour mixture in a bag with squid and coat evenly. Deep fry squid pieces for 2-3 minutes. Drain and serve with a wedge of lemon and citrus zest. Sweet Thai Chili sauce on the side!

That's all folks.

On Hiatus

Submitted Draft 1 at 1am this morning. Woohoo! Time to veg out for a while, get some new ideas and let the ole little gray cells recuperate.

This will be achieved with a much needed dose of Sopranos season one. Woohoo!

***NEWSFLASH***

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - A elderly Romanian man mistook his penis for a chicken's neck, cut it off and his dog rushed up and ate it, the state Rompres news agency said Monday.
It said 67 year-old Constantin Mocanu, from a village near the southeastern town of Galati, rushed out into his yard in his underwear to kill a noisy chicken keeping him awake at night.
"I confused it with the chicken's neck," Mocanu, who was admitted to the emergency hospital in Galati, was quoted as saying. "I cut it ... and the dog rushed and ate it."
Doctors said the man, who was brought in by an ambulance bleeding heavily, was now out of danger.

I kid you not, it was in The Australian today

Just 42 days and 5,000 words to go + 22 days = Home :)

Dinner today was a scrumptious fillet of baked salmon marinated in lemongrass, coriander, soy sauce, ginger, garlic and chili. Mmmmmm good.

Just marinade for 1 hour and pop into a 200-degree oven for 10 minutes. Pink, juicy explosion of flavour! Did I mention Mmmmmm good?

If things go according to plan, my 20,000 words will be done by this weekend. Then I'll take a break while my supervisor goes through it and have a weekend at Palm Beach.

Editing it down to 15,000 will be torture, but it will have to be done. Layout. Subbing. Copy check. Copy check. Copy check. Binding. Goodbye thesis!

Goody goody gosh.

p.s: looking for copy monkeys to proofread my text! Anyone?

::c a n n o t w a i t f o r t h i s t o e n d::

What's cooking: Seafood Hor Fun (yum yum)

Thesis update: 17,609
Quote tally: 3,000 (approx)
Words left to churn out:5,000 (give or take)

Days till the end of Nerking (tm): 45

Days till SG: 67