Episode 373: (Sort Of) Clean Room At Last!

I caved and started vacuuming my room today using the rather gross vacuum cleaner in my house, following that up by wiping the floor with a wet towel, which was good enough for me, since my standards of what constitutes clean are lower than my mum's, although I now admit that the frequency with which she cleans the house is by no means obsessive. In the middle of all this cleaning, an alarm suddenly intruded. Seems like something's wrong with our electrical circuitry, so the electrician's coming down tomorrow to have a look. Anyway, the point is that my room now looks presentable, with the addition of a duvet, two pillows, a bookcase, a dust bin, a rug and a laundry bag, all courtesy of Ikea. I'm quite sure I could have saved money by shopping elsewhere, e.g. Tesco, but I'm one of those people who wouldn't mind inhabiting an Ikea showroom, so I actually think the expense was worth it. Sort of. I'm annoyed that the bookcase tilts, and to fix it properly would require more effort than I'm willing to expend. A piece of cardboard, strategically inserted into a tiny gap between the wall and my cupboard, will have to do instead. I'm just glad that I changed my mind and decided to put in a bit of work to unpack all my stuff. Feel a lot better than I did yesterday, to be honest. Now if only we had an Internet connection...

Episode 372: Stuck In The Between

I'm already back in Coventry as I type this, but since my room is still dusty from the renovation work and my expensive (but very good) vacuum cleaner was stolen, I can't clean the place up, and will therefore resign myself to living out of boxes and a suitcase for a few weeks. I didn't even pay for that vacuum cleaner because my mum bought it for me while I was in Singapore, but that somehow makes it all the more worse. I think deep down, I'm a filial son, but I just don't know how to show it in tangible ways. I also feel like I'm worrying too much about all the loose ends regarding our housing, when nobody else seems overly worried at this point. Maybe I just like things to be tied up, so it always bothers me when they go haywire unexpectedly, regardless of how serious things are. To be honest, none of the things I'm concerned about can't be resolved with a few telephone calls and a firm attitude. Unfortunately, I hate calling people up and I'm also very averse to confrontation of any sort. I'm more likely to travel down to campus, just to get online and download a couple of episodes of various TV shows. If only all this could be resolved via e-mail, I'd gladly do it that way. Matthew 6:34 seems like a good verse to remember at this point. I will trust that everything will work out. Eventually.

Episode 371: Last Day Of Internet At Home For A Fortnight!

Yeah, you read that right. I'm going to be stuck without Internet access at home for a fortnight until the BT guy comes, and possibly a day or two more while O2 hooks us up. There's always wireless access on campus, but it's such a drag to have to go down even when I don't have classes, just so that I can check my e-mail. On the flip side, I guess at least now I have a fighting chance of staying on top of my reading for a couple of weeks. I really have no excuse this year, since the reading I actually have to do amounts to a fraction of last year's. (That's what you get for not doing modules that involve reading novels!) I'm really hoping to get a two-day school week, and I'm just waiting to find out when's my seminar for EN227 Romantic and Victorian Poetry. Anyway, I decided to pre-order Phil Wickham's latest CD as a gift to myself before I fly off. It comes with an acoustic version of the album, so I thought the two albums together would cover the two-hour coach ride from Heathrow to Coventry quite nicely. Am resisting the temptation to start listening to it now before I leave the house tonight!

Episode 370: 24 Hours To Go...

Okay, not exactly, but give or take a couple of hours and it's correct. I don't mind going back, but I'm not likely to relish the flight. As I was explaining to Shirley last night, it's the time spent between here and there that I don't enjoy, when you're neither where you came from nor where you are about to be. I'll be fine though. I'll just distract myself by reading a book or something. Have practically finished packing, and I'm only 2 kg over the weight limit for my luggage, so that's amazing. I'll probably be able to get away with it, as long as I check in my luggage early. That's going to depend on how long it takes my dad to leave the house, since he's flying off too, to Switzerland via Paris. Service today ended really early, which I thought was a good thing. It was actually kind of the ideal length, if you ask me. The Hands Mystica performance was also good, despite the occasional mistake. I'm now trying to finish reading John Stott's Your Mind Matters, so that my parents can pass it to Shirley next Sunday. It's about the importance of being a thinking Christian, something that my dad obviously felt was very necessary to impress on me, although I forget what occasion prompted this.

Episode 369: The Beautiful Letdown

Whoa! The Beautiful Life got canned after just two episodes, leaving four unaired. Guess even having Ashton Kutcher's name attached to this series wasn't enough to save it from itself! What a pity though. It didn't exactly have the best acting, but the cast was still rather easy on the eye. Maybe they should have capitalised on that more? I mean, for a show set in the modelling industry, it never really felt particularly glamorous, especially set aside shows on the same network like Gossip Girl and Melrose Place. Oh well. One less show to follow during this TV season! New seasons of Dollhouse and Ghost Whisperer have premiered, and I've just finished both episodes. I'm just glad that the latter seems to have avoided jumping the shark, despite moving the action forward by five years. I'm quite curious about what direction the writers are going to take, now that Melinda's son appears to be coming into his powers. Dollhouse is getting more complicated, which is good, but also means that the show is probably screwed after this season, since it's on Fox. Joss Whedon should've known better, after Firefly got cancelled. We'll see...

Episode 368: Packing Woes

I finally got around to doing some serious packing this afternoon. So my suitcase is full and just under the weight limit, a measly 23 kg. To be fair, if I only packed what I truly needed to take back with me, I could probably get by with a mere 10 kg, which speaks volumes about how much stuff I have and how well I've divided it between two countries. A lot of the weight is coming from books that I'm bringing over. For leisure reading, since I don't exactly have a lot of books for the modules I'm doing in 09/10. I've had to slash the number I'm bringing back by half, although it's a sensible move, since I was thinking of bringing stuff like novels by Thomas Hardy and Orhan Pamuk, all of which the Library has anyway, so there's no point in lugging my own copies over. I'm pleased that the Library actually has copies of Hardy's less famous novels, since I've always had this plan to read them all in chronological order and get progressively more depressed. Out of everything Mr Purvis ever said in class, I think this is one of the things that's definitely stuck with me.

Episode 367: Decisions, Decisions

Rewatched both of the Timur Bekmambetov films based on Sergei Lukyanenko's novels, just for fun. I kind of feel like the Dark Ones get a more balanced portrayal in the novels, whereas in the films, the good-versus-evil dichotomy is a lot more pronounced. Am reading Twilight Watch now, so I should be able to finish Last Watch before I head back to the UK. Have also found cheap flights back in December, but I haven't booked them because I haven't made up my mind to come back for two weeks then, and I'm also hoping that somehow my mum'll manage to redeem tickets from SIA. Am now trying to decide between attending my last Alpha session tomorrow and going to see Caleb and Chun Long busk. I know which I should do, but I'm still trying to decide which I want to do more. Such a minor decision, and yet I can't make up my mind. I did make up my mind today about which Threadless tees I'm bringing back to the UK. Also took pictures of myself wearing all of them, uploaded them to my Threadless profile, and earned enough points to cover shipping for about half a dozen tees! Now to wait for the next $5 sale...

Episode 366: One Year On...

So this blog's been online for a year, chronicling the ups and downs of my life as a fresher. As if to bring things full circle as I step into my second year, I went back to facilitating for High Achievers this afternoon. My first and last assignment for 2009. Ah, roasting in that familiar black jacket. As usual, I typed out the FR on my trusty N95 on the bus back home. Then I headed off for dinner in town with Jerrick and Jin. In between, I managed to pick up those Joost Elffers books by Robert Greene that I've been meaning to get, although judging by their hefty weight, I might not be able to take them to the UK with me. Not this time anyway. In all likelihood, I'm already bringing over too much anyway. We had dinner at an Indonesian restaurant in Paragon, where they had this intriguing puréed avocado dessert. Am now watching the latest episodes of Gossip Girl and Melrose Place, back to back. Talk about mindless TV. On a side note, I can't believe my parents don't approve of my heading off to New York by myself for Easter. They think the city's too dangerous, but well, no more dangerous than London. It's not like I'm going to stay in the slums...

Episode 365: Proud Holder Of A Biometric Passport

Collected my biometric passport today, so the first step towards New York has been made. Had to seal my old passport to it because of the UK visa, and the method they use at ICA is still surprisingly primitive, although admittedly, it's probably very effective at preventing people from separating the passports once they've been joined, since if the seal's integrity is compromised, if I'm not wrong both passports will be invalidated. Then I went to Eminent Plaza to join the freshers for their food trail. Just got back from our last stop, eating crabs at Jumbo. Am now watching the season premiere of House, which is something really different from what an episode of House normally involves, but the change of pace is interesting. Anyway, I almost registered for the Open Studies Certificates that I'm interested in tonight, but I'm having second thoughts. I'm still keen to do the one in Archaeology, but I'm not so sure if I still want to do the one in Philosophical Studies. It's less a question of time management than one of whether I can be bothered to see it through over a year. As I put it to Shirley, I have the intellectual capacity for it, undoubtedly, but not the discipline to make use of it.

Episode 364: Still No N97 For Me!

Am on a marathon re-reading session at the moment, trying to finish reading the first three books of Sergei Lukyanenko's Watch quartet in order to refresh my memory before I begin reading Last Watch. I suspect Natalie wants to read the books too, so it's just as well I've already decided to leave them behind in Singapore. It's better than reading Stephanie Meyer or J. K. Rowling, at the very least. Lukyanenko's books would work very well as a TV series, I think. I've seen the two film adaptations based on Night Watch, and while they were suitably gritty, there's plenty of storylines that they didn't cover, and now the Americans are going to make the third film and they're just going to ruin it. Went down to the Nokia store at Causeway Point, but at $989 without contract, the N97 is still too expensive for me to justify a purchase. Especially when it's my dad that's paying. If I fly back in December, perhaps I'll get it then, assuming the price has been slashed further. So since I'm not going to buy a new iPod either, now that Audrey is giving me hers because she's got an iTouch now, I guess I'm definitely buying that new Ted Baker reefer jacket. Haha...