hello world/plans plans plans
Since my return to Singapore, glorious tropical island in South East Asia ... I:
- Have eaten a copious amount of oily-and-unhealthy-but-delicious-as-heck Singaporean food. And reaffirmed my belief that eating in Singapore should be a religion, because it's something that everyone on my little island believes in. And also that Singapore has one of the best damned food paradises in the world.
- As a result of the above, gained 2kg, and subsequently am turning into an exercise rat (my philosophy for life = eat as much as you want and work it all off). I will miss swimming in Singapore! In Toronto, swimming is relegated to the pathetic pool of Hart House, where I have to jostle with tons of people and can only swim about 10 strokes before I hit the wall.
- Caught up with tons of good friends, attended 21sts, celebrated my 21st by not celebrating.
- Started taking intensive Japanese lessons on a full-time basis. Which firstly killed me, and secondly, robbed me of all my free time (kidding, kidding, I still love the language although I am once in a while frustrated by its complexities). It killed me because the lady who gave me a placement test placed me in Intermediate class ... despite the fact that I've not taken Japanese for about 2 years and pretty much forgot most of my Japanese till the point where I barely remembered the writing systems. It didn't really help that the class moved at an incredulously fast speed, and I was not used to the way they taught because I switched schools or that my previous school taught me pretty much a pathetic amount of vocabulary, though it did ground in the basics of Japanese grammar in me.
- Went to watch the Michael Learns To Rock concert at Fort Canning with K, who managed to get free tickets from a friend's sister. Although I wasn't a really big fan of MLTR, they still sounded pretty good belting out the classics. And in any case I love cheesy 90s music and concerts, and it was free. If Air Supply came again, I would probably pay to participate in a glorified karaoke session along with people twice my age.
- Went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls in Singapore (in replacement for missing the opening of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the ROM ):)
♣
And since I'm leaving for Tokyo in less than a month ... I:
- have tons of things to do: get my visa done, pack (how I will fit my life into one 20kg luggage will be an amazing challenge), get my air tickets, meet up with people, learn more Japanese from Sato-sensei ...
- am thinking of retiring the nose piercing ): I still like it alot, but I don't want to spend my days in Tokyo worrying about it if it does get infected (although it has always been really good in Toronto; there's probably something about the weather in Singapore which is killing it)
- am thinking of making an investment in a MacBook Pro (I am finally switching over to the dark side!) ...
EDIT: Bought a MacBook Pro. I'm fairly impressed by its awesomeness (a little slow on the bandwagon, I know), though the fact that I can't play games on my new MBP (however will I kill my zombies with joy on L4D ...) makes me kind of sad. Though the people at Apple certainly know what they're doing, I love the slew of intuitive and smart programming that goes behind the Mac OS (Spaces??! Best thing ever, especially when I'm working on 3-4 papers at once).
Though I have to say, the thing that worried me the most was transferring my iTunes from my comp to my Mac - reorganizing my 50+ playlists, 7k worth of songs is always hell. BUT IT SYNCED EVERYTHING AND DID THAT AMAZINGLY IN LIKE, 2 HOURS FLAT. OMG. If I wasn't a fan before, I am now a huge fan of how smart Apple is. :D
18 days to Tokyo now!