Tuesday, May 06, 2008
So, at 4.25am on 6th May 2008, I've decided that gallantknight.blogspot.com has run its course.
Why don't you head to Hey There, Good Looking! and we'll continue this conversation, shall we? :)
he rocked the party at 1:29 AM |
Sunday, May 04, 2008
"I think that there are other things that you care about besides money," she said.
"But I do care about money," I replied.
"Yes, but you see it as a means to an end, and not as an end itself."
It's true: I value experiences, relationships, adventures, and travels so, so much more than the blind ambition that has been making me so miserable lately.
(and at the risk of bursting your ego, this revelation came after reading your amazing blog!)
I think that once in awhile, everyone needs a reminder to never take their eyes off the stars. :)
he rocked the party at 12:57 PM |
Friday, May 02, 2008
People keep asking me:
"Why do I wanna do it?"
Why?
Because, if I can't come up with a good reason, I shouldn't do it.
Really, I shouldn't. It's illogical (sort of), risky, and downright dangerous.
But the "really good reason" is more of a question:
Will I still have this wanderlust when I'm 30?
And if I don't, will I be throwing it all away?
he rocked the party at 3:18 PM |
Thursday, May 01, 2008
So last weekend was, well, my birthday. :)
And I'm old, I'm really old now. I believe 23 was what I aspired to be when I was 21. I don't think I've ever associated the word "youth" with any age after that number. Yes, I'm that old. I think I've officially crossed the age where I'm older than -everyone- in the school. (By "everyone", I mean students - excluding grad students, of course)
It was, however, the single most awesome birthday I've ever had, all thanks to the girlfriend. This weekend was simply, well, how do I put it, testimony to just how amazing she is. (She's sitting next to me engrossed in a game of Grim Fandango now, but still I'd rather not overpraise her lest her head swells and we won't be able to leave the room)
So Thursday night, she suggests that we prepare a night picnic by the Rodin field, which didn't really work out because I ended up finishing my assignment later than usual at her place. So she made up for it by making the most delicious homemade Oyako don (omg) ever. Filled, contented, and happy, she suggests that we head back to my place because she was tired and wanted to collapse in my bed. I swear, I didn't suspect anything, especially since she'd already promised to celebrate with me the next day by "whisking me off to someplace secret".
So we get back to my place, and I started to sense something was amiss when she kept checking her phone every 2 minutes. We take the elevator up, and right outside my door, I hear -voices- coming from inside. Then it all hits me that perhaps she gathered a couple of my close friends to surprise me. I smile at her, open the door, and lo and behold: pretty much ALL MY FRIENDS from the groups I was in were there. Friends from Pan-Asian, Pennyo, Overflow, Club Sg, NSO, etcetc pretty much filled my entire darkened room. I didn't even have time to go "woah!!" before I got hit in the face with platefuls of whipped cream from both left and right. Oooo nice. The kicker was when the girlfriend got pied as she walked in as well. Yummy. :) The rest of the night was perfect: She'd baked a cake, bought champagne, wine and food to entertain the guests with, which got me happy and sleepy.
The next day we took a car ride up with Adam and Jasmine up to our secret location, which turned up to be Six Flags - which was pretty much the best theme park you can find in the East Coast. I kid you not. I'd been there once before last summer, which made me a convert from rollercoaster-hater to adrenaline seeking rollercoaster lover. Had the best time of my life there, especially since we got to try pretty much the best rides, my personal favorite being Nitro, the 3rd most scary rollercoaster in the world. (wowee!)
Saturday was pretty chill to recover from Friday's excesses, though we did have a yummy dinner at Couchon, a pork restaurant, before partying up at CSA's end of the year party. (and getting happily tipsy wheeeeee!)
To think that she singlehandedly planned the entire weekend's festivities really touched me on a whole new level. I don't like being mushy on this blog, because its a public blog and I'm not an advocate of excessive PDA-ing, even if it's in literary form. Still, this weekend has reminded me once again why I love her, I love her, I love her so much. So thank you. :)
he rocked the party at 12:22 AM |
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Apologies for disappearing for two weeks. I shouldn't have left you, without a dope beat to step to, step to, step to..
So last week was:
My superdupercrazyinhuman feat of completing two papers in two days. Especially crazy was Monday night when I started a 3000 word paper at 8pm, due at 5.20pm the following day. Would probably have died if the girlfriend hadn't come to the rescue with a grilled chicken sandwich, and two humongous cans of energy drink. As well as I can usually take last minute assignments, I was really pushing it with that one. I found myself, at 4.50am, typing random words like Apple and Hey Day in my essay on "Using deterrence against China". Even though my eyes were physically wide awake, my brain was falling asleep and tripping over itself.
I eventually did manage to get the entire paper together, after 2 hours of sleep and skipping all of my classes the next day. (and after a frantic 40 minute rush to format/edit the paper, grab my bike, cycle down to the lecture and hand in the paper -just- in time as my TA was leaving. Awesomeness.) I doubt I'll ever do that again though, my body might just collapse from sheer exhaustion.
A talk by none other than Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, an event I'd been looking forward to for weeks now. Although arguably the furthest thing from an Economics text you can find, Freakonomics was what got me interested in the field in the first place. I think that it actually made Economics, well, sexy. It was sexy to be a nerdy smart economist who could quantify and model everyday occurrences, which I never got round to achieving, but found my one true academic love anyway. But I digress. Levitt's talk was much like his book: he covered random anecdotes from previous studies he had done, all of them quirky, some of them controversial, all of them extremely interesting. He jumped from telling us how he wrote a computer program to assign his friends into housing assignments, to explaining how the Dictator's Game didnt really demonstrate altruism in society, to how he hired a prostitute to teach his economics class at UChig. He was an excellent speaker, though it had been obvious that he had done that whole speech many times before.
The one quote I took away from his talk? "If you're not as good as everybody else in doing something, you're better off doing something completely different, and being the best at it."
Spoken like a true economist.
My excruciatingly painful and exorbitantly expensive ROOT CANAL done last Thursday. So I'd been having a super sensitive molar for the past year, which I highly suspect was the result of a botched filling last summer by one of those sketchy neighborhood gahmen dentist clinics back home in Singapore. This sensitive molar started acting up in recent weeks, rousing me from my sleep in excruciating pain. To cut a long story short, yes, that stupid dentist had screwed up my tooth with her crappy filling, so I had to get a root canal at Penn Dental which set me back by $600 frickin US dollars.
In case you didnt know, a root canal is an extremely painful procedure where the dentist drills through your teeth, takes out all the nerves, and fills it up again. (Okay fine, all you smartypants who are screaming bloody murder at that horrible explanation) To my surprise, my dentist did an excellent job and thanks to his very effective anesthetic, I didnt feel a thing all through the procedure. However, my only gripe? Keeping my mouth open for THREE FRICKIN HOURS. Omg. They put this clamp in your mouth so you can't close it even if you wanted to, with a latex thingy around your tooth to keep the saliva out. and it hurts like a bitch. No kidding. It sucks to be conscious of the throbbing pain in your open jaw, while not knowing when it'll end, and you cant even ask your dentist how much longer this is gonna take because your mouth is, well, clamped open.
Lessons learnt?
Start your papers early, learn Economics, and keep your teeth clean.
he rocked the party at 11:43 PM |
Sunday, April 13, 2008
This year's Spring Fling weekend was easily waaay more enjoyable than last year's.
In a nutshell, it was:
1) Dying with the girlfriend: she had the fever, I had a massive toothache. Nothing like pain to bring 2 people together.
2) Meeting the girlfriend's brother (who's literally a rock star!) and his 2 friends who were thinking of coming to Penn. Telling him army anecdotes and why he should pick Stanford over Penn (haha), liking him from the start, and seeing how adorable the girlfriend is when she's fussing over him :)
3) Fried Oreos, silly funfair games (see below), drunk people, bad rock bands, Dhamaka$tric+lyFunkFreaksoftheBeat blahblahblah on stage (twinge of longing, again), being silly and prancing around in the Quad
4) Fling concert featuring OK Go, Gym Class Heroes, and Ludacris! The lineup sounds more impressive than the concert actually was. I was sitting so far back that I couldnt even see their faces, plus I didnt know most of the songs from the first 2 acts. Ludacris was pretty awesome but the roommate forced me to leave early so that we could prepare for:
5) Club 709's VIP Party! Or rather, our highly successful house party we threw for our friends. 200 people invited, 400 bucks worth of alcohol, black light, blue, purple and pink cellophaned lightbulbs, self-made mojitos, our entire living room, sans furniture, converted into a MASSIVE dance floor, and AMAZING turnout! Our room has never been so packed before. To top it all off, the cops came to bust it. (ok fine, they told me to tone the music down in a really stern way, but it was still pretty cool)
6) Club Singapore's Fling picnic: hoagies and Singlish accents :)
7) Pregames and pregames and pregames. Appreciating my home for the social focal point that it is. Its fine, i really dont mind cleaning up after these sessions.
8) Carnival on College Green with free cheesesteaks, ice cream and cotton candy, DJ spinning next to the Button, silly inflatable obstacle courses, Twister and laser tag.
9) Pan Asian's third post concert afterparty
10) Absolutely no work done. (actually, I havent been doing work since 3 weeks ago)
11) Spending my time with you and loving it :) And yes, dear reader, perhaps its timely for me to release a picture of the one that has been occupying my days, my mind, and my heart for the past 2 months:
(actually, i put up another picture before this, but she exercised her veto rights over it.)
he rocked the party at 11:00 PM |
Friday, April 04, 2008
Couldn't have said it better myself.
he rocked the party at 8:52 AM |
