Ramblings from Oxford

Oh, so my Mac is, actually, female.

2008-06-15T23:43:00.009+01:00

When my Mac first arrived in the mail, it was as if I just received a newborn baby boy.

A boy, not just because "Mac" is a boy's name, but also because I associate computers with males, just like how society associates ships with females. So if someone has a pink computer, then the computer's gay.

Now my computer's growing up--come July it will be his third birthday. And over the past two months, he has been acting strange; when I charge him, the battery indicator indicates that he's not charged, and is losing battery power--even though the charger is glowing orange.

I would charge him all day, and come back to find him unconscious because he has no battery life--and the charger is still glowing orange. I tried moving the head of the charger this way and that, and found that he began to charge in certain positions. Since then, I've had to use cans of soup, soda bottles, my wallet, etc. to hold the charger in place.

Today was especially frustrating because it took me forever to adjust the charger--he just refused to charge. And as I was moving the charger this way and that, it suddenly occurred to me: This must be what men feel like when they finger a woman who's not feeling it.

Those poor men, try as they might, all they get in response from the woman is, "I'm not feeling it." Well, gentlemen, at least for today, I feel ya.

And that's how I concluded that I should have named my computer, "Apple".

Cheers,
K

White, Pink, and Red

2008-06-14T23:40:00.004+01:00

Carnations, that is.

Today Sean came a-knocking on Koda's door and asked me to go into town with him; he wanted to buy some carnations for all the mathematicians, and wanted me to buy some carnations for him.

"Ummm...ok!...?" I replied. I'm always up for doing things without knowing exactly what I'm doing it for.

I later found out that Oxford students have to take their exams dressed in subfusc, and the examiners are uber-strict about this. It's probably very annoying, but it's very nice to look at for someone who doesn't have exams--and an especially nice reminder of how lucky you are. Haha, I'm a twat.

Anyways, students wear a white carnation on their first day of exams, a red carnation on their last day, and a pink carnation for the ones in between. How old this tradition is, as well as why it goes white, pink, and red, are disputed.

This site says that it was probably a recent tradition (founded circa mid-1980s), and that students used to dip the white flower in red ink, so that by the time they took their last exam, the flower was red.

I found that to be unconvincing--why would students randomly dip the flower in red ink? And why would they have red ink at that time? The ballpoint pen was invented as early as 1888. I'd much rather imagine that it's an old tradition, like from the early 1800s, and they dipped the flower in red ink so that they can hide the fact that the flower was dying.

Oh, and Sean wanted me to get the carnations for him because getting them for yourself is bad luck--you're only supposed to get it for someone else, a sign that you're wishing them good luck on the exams. It's a nice tradition, isn't it?

Now that I think about it, maybe it's just another cunnning plot devised by the flower shops to take advantage of consumers--you know, like how they invented Valentine's Day.

I love flower shops.

Cheers,
K

P.S. I also love flowers. Calla, orchids, and roses, please.

Friday the 13th--No More Legal Restrictions

2008-06-13T11:52:00.016+01:00

This year was one of those rare years when my birthday happens on a Friday.

Now, I'm not a superstitious person, but something quite funny and [un?]lucky did happen--something now known as "The Dumb Bird Incident".

I was sitting at my favorite spot in Koda's room--the sofa, where two floor-to-ceiling windows lie behind to form a corner. So I was just sitting there, serenely reading the newspaper online. Twenty minutes after midnight, I hear this loud "Thump!" on the window. I gave out a gasp--a pigeon had just flown into the window and was now lying unconscious on the ledge.

I know I probably shouldn't have, but I started laughing uncontrollably =P

But anyways, imagine how horrible it would have been if the first 20 minutes of your 21st birthday were marked by a pigeon ramming into you?! Thank fuck the window was closed...

Now onto nicer things.

When the clock struck 11 pm on Thursday, Koda let out a rambunctious "Happy 12 hours before your official birth-hour!" (I was born sometime around 6 am EST.)

I let out a "Hehe"--He's been more excited than me about my birthday for weeks now.

At 11.47 pm, I stole into the bedroom; I couldn't stay up any longer.

"But honey!" He said. "I want to be like, 'Happy Birthday!' when it's midnight."

After some objection, I complied. Fighting would require more energy than staying up for another 13 minutes.

I continued to read the news, when suddenly, a hand lifted my chin, and my lips felt a warm, soft kiss as the faint chiming of the clock could be heard in the distance.

The chiming stopped. "Happy 21st Birthday, Christina," he said.

"Thank you," I smiled.

Twenty minutes later, THUMP! Yup, Dumb Bird Incident happens.

Shortly after, there was a knock on the door. It was Alek and Sean, my two favorite guilty pleasures, coming (haha) in bearing gifts and hugs.

[Note: The word [blank] will be inserted to protect the innocent. For those who are legal, you'll figure it out.]

I opened the card first. The cover had two kids (haha) with cream (haha) from cake plastered all over their faces, and in Sean's handwriting, "On your face!" (haha). The inside read: "It's your Birthday. Do things you're not supposed to do. You know where to find us. Alek and Sean xxx." Brilliant.

Then I opened the pink box. It contained not one, but two [blank]-ators, a [blank]-tie, and some batteries.

Due to the contents of the box, and the way the conversation evolved, we decided it was appropriate to go to www.you[blank].com. Ummmm, anyways...

The next morning, Koda gave me a cryptic note: "A man who pursues a life of pleasure without responsibility or attachments, esp. who is of comfortable means." And thus I was sent on a scavenger hunt for my presents. [Can you believe he made me work on my birthday?! But it was good fun. And this reminds me to direct your attention to this article from the NYT--it's good, read it.]

Contrary to popular modes of behavior, I did not drink even one drop of alcohol. I'm kind of glad though--do you know how many empty calories that is??

Anyways, thank you, all my friends who took time out of studying for their exams and who trekked a mile and a half to come (haha) celebrate with me. You've made my day very special (haha) =)

Cheers,
K

P.S. Please excuse the inside jokes.

1400 KCal on the Elliptical

2008-06-12T10:50:00.007+01:00

That's right. That's how much I burned after 2 hours. (Woohoo!)

No, I'm not crazy, or maybe I am. But I'm one of those people who likes proving people wrong.

Some background information:

I've gotten into the bad habit of being in Koda's room all the time. I only have two weeks left in Oxford, so this past week Koda has been chiding me: Why don't you go out and visit all the colleges? Why don't you go out and have lunch at some of the restaurants? (Wow, those two questions must make me look so bad. But anyhow...)

Tomorrow is my birthday. So today in the afternoon, he looked at me with a serious face, sighed, and said, "Christina, I'll be honest with you, I haven't completely finished your present yet, so I need you to be out of the room for a few hours so that I can finish it."

I had promised to be out of the room from noon to 6 pm, but I didn't actually get out until 5 pm, at which point I couldn't be arsed to go for my swim. So I decided to go to the gym instead--But now he didn't want me back until 7 pm. Or rather, "Don't come back until you've done 1400 calories. And take the camera for evidence."

I knew he was joking, but that's exactly what I did.

After 117 minutes, 19725 strides, and 1400.8 calories, I felt GREAT.

I love doing the unexpected.

Cheers,
K

Ladies and Gents, "Summer" Has Officially Landed.

2008-06-10T17:25:00.005+01:00

Words cannot express how lazy I've been in the last few months. If my mom were to describe it, she'd probably say, "You're so lazy that you're oozing out juice."

Unnecessarily graphic, I know. But it doesn't sound so bad in Cantonese.

We have a lot of catching up do to. And as daunting as a journey of a thousand miles is, I'll be a good girl and listen to Confucius.

I'll begin with this one, which was dated the 1st of May 2008.

When the first of May rolls around in the US, it just, well, rolls around and nobody notices. However, May Day in the UK is an occasion where people get excruciatingly drunk the previous night, jump off a bridge for shits and giggles on the following morning, and have champagne for breakfast.

At least in Oxford. I was very surprised when on April 30th, everyone's greeting to each other was, "Are you staying up tonight?"

As one of the cool people in Oxford, Sean, Alek, Koda and I decided to stay up to join in on this tradition. We got some alcohol and hung out in Alek's room. And to kill some time, we decided to put on a movie--Rendition, I think it was.

Maybe it was because the room was dark. Or maybe because it was a thinking movie. But Koda was the first to lie unconscious with his head on my lap. Then Sean was gone on the sofa.

At about 4 in the morning, we decided that we were going to [1] go to bed, [2] meet up again at 6, and then [3] go to breakfast at 7.

Since we didn't schedule in "waking up", Koda and I weren't able to proceed to part 2 of the plan.

Sean and Alek did though. The formal tradition for 'May Morning' is actually to go to the Magdalen Bridge tower to listen to the college's choir. And then to jump off the Magdalen Bridge into the River Cherwell. But in recent years the bridge has been closed due to people getting their legs broken.

Nonetheless, there was apparently so many people gathered there that by the time Sean and Alek went, they were 100 feet from the tower, and was barely able to hear or see anything. Koda and I made a good decision to sleep in =D

After they came back, we went to breakfast. Lack of sleep and champagne in the morning is not a good combination.

If I were to celebrate another May Day in Oxford, I soooo totally know what to do now:

[1] Go to bed quite early and wake up at say, 4 in the morning. Have a beer or two.
[2] Meet up with all your buddies and head to Christ Church meadows. Bring an inflatable canoe, a few bottles of champagne, and a bunch of strawberries. Have a beer or two on the way there.
[3] Inflate the canoe. Have a beer or two in the process.
[4] Canoe your way to the Magdalen Bridge. Listen to the choir, and enjoy some champagne and strawberries.

Ah, bliss...!

Cheers,
K

P.S. May 1st marks the first day of Summer in the UK--which means the the popular summer drink, Pimms, is officially sold. And apparently, it is illegal to sell Pimms when it's not Summer...

Just kidding =P

Happy Pancake Day...What??

2008-02-05T11:26:00.000Z

So the British have this funny custom. On the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, they have "Pancake Day"--the one day of the year that they eat, of course, pancakes (which is really a slightly thicker version of the French crêpe).

They do this because for some reason long, long ago, they wanted to use up all the leftover things in their cabinet (like eggs, flour, milk) before Ash Wednesday...or something like that. (What do you mean? OF COURSE I was paying attention.) If you really want to know, you can read this (and then summarize for me =D).

But what I did learn was that instead of maple syrup, there is this REALLY AWESOME topping that you can use with pancakes: lemon juice and sugar. Sprinkle oodles of sugar (not powdered sugar, but real, "crunchy" sugar) over the pancake evenly and then squirt lemon juice evenly on top. SO GOOD. But then...since the pancakes are slightly different (American pancakes are much thicker), I'm not sure if it'd work...hm.

Anyhow, I will bring this back to America and make yummy British pankcakes for you all, I promise ;-)

Cheers,
K

Superbowl XLII

2008-02-04T17:32:00.000Z

Let's just say I'm not happy.

The game started at 11.20 pm over here, with Patriots leading 7-3. And I did NOT just stay up until 3 am to watch them lose to the Giants.

Someone send me a tub of peppermint ice cream.

Cheers,
K

Happy New Year, from Magellan's Apprentice

2008-01-25T13:14:00.000Z

So I did something mildly cool over the winter holidays. Observe:

[03 Dec 07] London, UK to Dublin, Ireland.
[03 Dec 07] Dublin, Ireland to Boston, MA.
[29 Dec 07] New York, NY to Los Angeles, CA.
[29 Dec 07] Los Angleles, CA to Hong Kong, China.
[15 Jan 08] Hong Kong, China to London, UK.

I.e., I circumnavigated the globe (Woohoo!).

Happy New Year, everyone =)

Cheers,
K

London Lovin'

2007-12-18T21:46:00.000Z

The first time I went into London, I hated it.

I can't remember why I went; I think I was because a week into arriving at Oxford, I was annoyed at the fact that my mom kept on bugging me about visiting the Buckingham Palace (what is so great about that place anyways??); reading back at the post above, I apparently went to represent Wellesley College at a college fair in London.

I remember that after a two-hour bus ride on the OxfordTube (yes, for the 100th time I'm studying at Oxford, not in London, which is 2 hours away by bus), I arrived at Marble Arch and went into this really smelly underground passage to get to the tube.

So my impression of London was: dirty, smelly, and very tourist-y.

I've been back about 4 or 5 times, and each time, London has warmed up to me. The most amusing of times was the last time, right before the term ended.

There was an end-of-term Japanese party at this club in London. It was during the last week of term, and I was about 4 weeks behind in work (there are only 8 weeks in a term). I told Koda and Sean to go ahead without me; I was going to stay back and write 2 papers and prepare 2 presentations for the next day.

But of course I didn't really plan to do my work (exchange students=fuck work!). I was going to go alone an hour or so later (I can't really party properly with those two around), have fun on my own, meet some friends, and then, when I'm bored, go find Koda, cover his eyes from behind, give him a kiss, and be like, "Surprise!"

After a 2-hour bus ride to London, I found out those two didn't get in because all the tickets were sold out. I got in because I had pre-paid for mine (aren't I smart?).

I was bored after an hour. Apparently, no one likes to dance in England.

I left the club. After walking about 5 yards, I remembered that I hadn't paid my friend back for covering for me for the ticket. I thought, screw it. I'll pay her back sometime later.

Tottenham Court, where the club was located, is 2 Tube stops away from Marble Arch, where the bus was going to take me back to Oxford. I decided that, instead of taking the Tube, I'll just walk down Oxford Street to enjoy the lights and scenery and to make the 2-hour bus ride a bit more worthwhile.

I became thirsty and went into McDonald's. I couldn't find anything that tickled my fancy, so I left after 30 seconds. On my way out, this really cute British guy caught my eye. But I was too exhausted and blah at the fact that my plans all went awry to even give him "the eye".

I continued my walk down Oxford Street to get to Marble Arch. Then, that really cute British guy strikes up a conversation with me. We decide to get some tea (at about 1 am in the morning, I think)--I was still thirsty, mind you--we exchange numbers, blahblahblah the whole yadiyadida.

He walks me up to the street across from Marble Arch; the bus stop is on the side of Marble Arch that is really dangerous and complicated at get to, so I didn't want him to take me all the way there. Three goodnight kisses happens, etcetera etcetera, and I arrive at the bus stop--where Sean and Koda were waiting for the bus. What the hell are the odds??

So the point is this: Is it fate?

(1) I decide to not go and pay back my friend.
(2) I decide to not take the tube.
(3) I decide to stop at McDonald's for a bit.

If any of these things had not happened, I would not have met him.

To add to that, he did not take me all the way to the bus stop--for a gentleman who protects the lady from cars (hard to explain)--it would have been more logical for him to see me safely there. But it worked out even better; it would have been so awkward if he had taken me there, where Koda was.

So I don't know. Was it fate?

Perhaps.

Life is as magical as you make it =)

Cheers,
K

On Religion

2007-12-17T21:55:00.000Z

It is one of the most intriguing of topics, but one of my least favorite topics, because I’ve come to the conclusion that I really can’t talk to anybody about it. Observe:

[A] Religious People: Can’t really argue with them about it because apparently, they’ve taken a leap of faith which I haven’t.

[B] People Indifferent About Religion: Can’t talk to them at all because they don’t really care.

[C] Non-Religious People Who Have an Opinion: Can’t really argue; we usually have the same opinion—the opinion that it’s caused a lot of people to lose their lives.

Therefore, I’m just going to lay my opinion out there and let you guys rip me apart.

I think once upon a time, long, long ago, people were doing the following things: questioning the meaning of life, wondering where natural phenomena comes from, being morbid about the bad things that happen to them, and/or committing a lot of crime.

Then, this one mastermind comes along and uses “God”, or some other deity[ies] to explain all they ever wanted to know to them: What is the meaning of life? To serve god. Why do bad things always happen to you? Because you were a bad egg in the previous life. Why is the sky blue? Because it is god’s favorite color.

Having a religion made things much easier for people; it defined their role in life, it spoon-fed them morals, and they could even be “saved”(!) from the Devil at the moment before death if they declare their faith in God [pretty good deal, if you ask me].

At an Oxbridge Application interview, some potential Religious Studies concentrator asked me, “If you don’t believe in religion, how do you form a set of morals?” I told her, “Well, I do have a thinking brain. My parents taught me my basic morals, but I observe, listen, analyze, and decide if something is right or wrong. I don’t need some higher being to tell me what I should and should not believe.”

I think that some very smart, persuasive individual wrote the [insert book of faith]. He was either well-intentioned, or he was trying to control the masses. Religion was created from someone’s opinion. For example, if he was chauvinistic, the book had that slant (Read: Bible).

I am not against religion. I mean, if you are really lost and it makes you feel better and gives you a sense of purpose in life, by all means, go for it. But don’t try to make me go to church every Sunday, or go to Mecca, or fast on certain days, because I just don’t get why I should have to waste my time or torture myself. But if it makes sense to you, hey, go wild.

What upsets me about religion is that it assumes that I can’t figure things out on my own. I think certain parts of religion are great, like the “Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” stuff makes a lot of sense to me. But throw at me “Eve was created from Adam’s rib and was made to be his companion and therefore she is subordinate to him”, oh boy, are you in for something.

Whatever religion’s intention was, it doesn’t matter now. All the conflicts that were born out of religion make me sick. I mean, I feel you though. If someone comes along and says all that I ever believed in was wrong, I’d be really mad at them too.

What the new age needs to preach is tolerance. People need to believe that religions are not mutually exclusive; they can coexist with one another. Religion is great if it can help someone be happier about their life, without harming another’s.

But that’s easier said than done.

And on that high note...

Cheers!
K

Re: Re: On the Misuse of Monogamy

2007-12-16T17:28:00.000Z

This is a response to a comment on this post.

”I realize this is a rambling but I can't seem to decode this one.

Perhaps I am not clear with your definition of monogamy. In my opinion a monogamous relationship is one where you have one romantic partner at any one time. You could leave one relationship before starting another monogamous relationship with another person. Some define monogamy as mating for life. Perhaps this is what you meant.

Also, polygamy is not synonymous with cheating/affairs. The latter implies that there is some kind of deception involved.

You bring up the topic of ideal and non ideal. Nothing is ideal but we create things based on the assumption that certain things work a certain way.

For example I think that generally religion is a great idea. Though none have been able to execute it 100% perfectly. Does not mean it is not ideal. Monogamy is a great idea if both parties can do it. Otherwise it'd be like giving a gun to a monkey.

Lastly, you say that monogamy is not ideal and yet I find it contradictory that you congratulate those who manage to make it work, therefore acknowledging that it is possible.

Thus I conclude that you are not actually dissing monogamist but you are baffled by it? Perhaps because it does not work for you? or you don't know if it would work for you. It does not need to, the beauty of people being different and the reason why Mr. Internet Insecurity posed this question.”

This comment is actually quite funny because in the middle of writing this post, I had stopped and thought about the use of the word “monogamy” in the post and was tempted to change it to “exclusivity” (in general), but I admit I was too lazy to do so, haha.

To clarify my points: I do not synonymate (haha, yeah, I made up this word) polygamy with cheating/affairs, nor do I define monogamy as mating for life. Therefore, I agree with “your” definition of monogamy (that you have one romantic partner at a time).

I am not baffled by monogamy, nor am I dissing it. I think what I’m trying to do is to be critical of those who are in monogamous relationships because they are trying to make something that doesn’t work for the vast majority, to work (Read: People cheat).

And because people “cheat” (Read: Attempt at monogamy has failed), there comes into existence, a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering. And therefore, instead of monogamy, why not have the policy of polygamy (in modern day language, perhaps “open relationships”?).

I think when executed right--which not many people can do, and which is why I congratulate those who can do it--monogamy is great, which is why so many people aspire to this ideal--but fail. One of my favorite quotes from my first year ENG 110 “Sex, City, and Literature” class at Wellesley was something along the lines of: “If you create the image of the ideal, you set yourself up for failure.” Morbid, but true.

I think the meaning of life is to be happy. Therefore, the point that I’m trying to make here is: If the vast majority of people who are currently forcing themselves to aspire to monogamy understands that monogamy will most likely not work, they will adopt a different policy, or be more flexible, and be much happier people--in my humble opinion.

To be honest, I’d love to one day have it work for me--but it’s just the institution of monogamy poses many challenges, challenges I’m not ready to face.

Cheers,
K

P.S. I disagree with your opinion of religion (man, do I get heated up when I talk about religion), but that’s another rambling for another day.

The Philosophy of Life--Thinking Happy Thoughts

2007-12-15T19:22:00.000Z

One of my high school friend's Facebook profile "About Me" section reads:

I like to think I'm a realist, but you can call me a pessimist. It's all about your perceptions anyway, right? Glass half full or empty doesn't matter to me unless I can do something practical with whatever I have.

This friend makes me angry. The other day, while we were driving to Wellesley to go 'traying' (Wellesley tradition!), I flipped through his entire MP3 CD (about 130 songs) in about 20 minutes because I couldn't find any song I liked; they were all sad and morose.

I asked him, "Why don't you have any happy songs?"

He said, "Because I like sad and morose ones!"

He might have been kidding--I'm not entirely sure--but I soon discovered that he has something which I consider a problem: Indifference towards life.

Some things he said to me:
+ You can't be happy all the time.
+ You're only fake happy!
+ But are you really happy?

I told him, “You have one life to live. Now you can choose to make that a happy one, or an indifferent one [or etc.]. Happiness is a choice.”

He's right in that "It's all about your perceptions". And how you perceive things is really important. For example, the Pats are playing the Giants the weekend before New Years. So the story is, before I broke up with my ex, we had plans to be in New York that weekend, so he probably would have taken me to the game--his dad has season tickets.

So I was thinking, “Damn. If we were still together, it would have been so much fun to watch football in New York with him...” Then I thought, “Oh wait, no—it would have been awful because I’m a Pats fan and he’s a Giants fan.” And I’ve had a bad experience with him when I cheered against the Yankees.

See? Your emotional well-being is directly related to your perception of the world. If you’re pessimistic all the time, you can imagine what this does to your body.

In contrast to his Facebook profile “About Me” section, mine reads:

"Christina. You're trying to look at the empty glass half full" -Carrie, exasperated at my irrational optimism.

My friend mentions ‘practicality’; I understand the pressure: Money=Power=Independence=Nice Car=All the other wonderful things in life, like a beautiful wife when you’re in your 50’s.

As we grow older, entering the ‘adult’ phase of life, we realize that there is a lot to worry about: financial independence, the rent, a social life, banging enough people before marriage, children, supporting the parents, the mortgage, children’s college education, and so on [And no need to thank me for reminding you of all those things =P].

I remember this really specific scene in Knocked Up. Ben and Pete were watching Pete’s children play in the playground. The children were blowing bubbles and smiling and laughing. Pete, confused, asks Ben, “What’s so great about bubbles?”

I think that’s what’s wrong with society. We are so wrapped up in the burdens of adulthood that we’ve lost all our childhood innocence.

I think that the meaning of life is to be happy, to retain as much of that childhood innocence as possible--that, despite knowing that a lot of shit happens in life, you can still take joy in the little things in life and smile.

Cheers,
K

P.S. If you ever feel sad, think about all the people in the world who can’t see nor hear, or have lost a limb or two, or are afflicted with some disease. If they can be happy, why can’t you?

Re: Re: Trashing Painful Emotions

2007-12-14T23:59:00.000Z

This is a response to a comment on the previous post.

"While your mind is like a pie in which your capacity to focus is finite, allowing you to replace one emotion/feeling with another, the painful emotion does not disappear. Suppressed, forgotten, misplaced, masked, diverted, perhaps. Disappear, no.

Not having emotions in the first place is a good way to avoid painful emotions, not rid of painful emotions. While I like this strategy, you also miss out on the pleasant emotions. Which I sometimes don't care for, either. So you kind of have to play around with how much you are willing to feel at the risk of being hurt."

She has a point about the painful emotion being "[s]uppressed, forgotten, misplaced, masked, [or] diverted", but I like to take a simpler approach. The way I see it is, there are only to options that matter:

[A] The feeling of the presence of the emotion, or
[B] The feeling of the non-presence of the emotion.

So, if the painful emotion is not felt, I'm happy--literally. I don't think I'm missing out on the pleasant emotions; in fact, I feel like I'm always in a euphoric high.

And right, it's about preferences. And my preference is to suppress, mask, or divert the painful emotion to make my euphoric high last as long as possible. And if I manage to forget, it's as good as gone, disappeared.

I like your story ["My ex calls me an insensitive individual [bitch] who has a cold black stone in place of a heart. I shrugged it off. But few months later I remembered and it made me cry :|"] because I can totally relate to it.

Just the other day, I was crying while talking to Koda; I think I was suddenly feeling especially lonely, or sad, or something for some reason. He asked me if there was anything he could do to make me feel better; I told him, "No. I'm happy like 98.4% of the time, and then the other 1.6% of the time I just have random bouts of emotion."

I stepped back, thought about the stupidity of it all, and felt much better.

And all it takes is just one wrong move for me to make a 180-degree turn. I think it's a gift.

Yay, to "Insensitive Bitches"!

Cheers,
K

The Philosophy of Life--Trashing Painful Emotions

2007-12-14T12:41:00.000Z

Every once in a while, I like to think about life. Last time, I wrote about how to be happy; this time I'm going to write about getting rid of painful emotions.

The best way to get rid of painful emotions is to not have those emotions in the first place. Unfortunately, we are, after all, only human. Even those who are pretty successful at "not feeling" will sometimes have their consciences catch up to them.

For example, one night a few weeks ago--it was maybe, two weeks or so after I told Koda about the existence of my now-ex--I was looking at Koda doing his work at his desk; I was at my usual spot on the sofa by the window.

He looked over and said, "What's up, honey?"

I didn't answer, kept staring at him, and started crying.

He came over and hugged me, and frantically--this was the first time I cried in front of him--asked, "Wh..what's wrong??"

After a few minutes of stifled crying, I finally managed to say, "I'm sorry I'm a heartbreak in a box..."

Sometime later, I bumped into one of my good friends in the kitchen, and we had the following conversation:

Me: I think I'm starting to have feelings.
Suzi: For Koda?
Me: No, in general.

In high school, four other friends and I had formed a friendship bond called "Les Cinq Mousequetaires". We had nicknames for each other, and mine was "The Guiltless One"...at the age of 20 1/2, I think my body finally decided to try to develop some emotions of guilt.

But when I realized what those emotions were doing to me, I consciously decided to...extricate, those emotions by preoccupying my mind and body with other activities. [And no, it wasn't sex -_-"...I think.]

Your mind is like a pie; the amount of attention and focus it can hold is limited, which is why this method works. This is unlike love, which I believe is more like...mold (haha, yea, I know), which grows limitless under the right conditions. That is, the love for someone doesn't diminish just because you spend more time with someone else. Time is often confused with love.

You may think that I'm just avoiding problems. But tell me, what is the problem that I am avoiding?

I care about Koda. I really do. And apparently I felt guilty for things I've said or done, or our situation in general. But the important thing to remember is what's done is done. Move on. Feeling guilty is unnecessary.

I mean, I care about Koda, but I don't think that caring and feeling guilty are interdependent. If you can find a way to care and not feel guilty, you'll be quite a happy person. I think I've found the way =D

Just, when life fucks with your head, just fuck it and make yourself a batch of cookies.

Cheers,
K

P.S. Another example: The other day I really felt like I missed my ex. I think it was because the radio was playing "Hey There Delilah". I was thinking, "Oh, why did we break up/It'd be so nice if we were still together right now/etc." But then I was like, "Whoa, hold up. There was a reason why I broke up (or he broke up) with him (or me)." Then I remembered all the reasons and felt much better.

Cheers, to Flawful People!

P.P.S. I'll even get you started. A common complaint about me: "She doesn't have feelings!"

While We're On the Topic of Security...

2007-12-13T16:11:00.000Z

It's hot.

People come in packages--when you're confident, you're probably also ambitious, driven, and hard-working. But somehow, even the most successful of people are insecure.

I don't want to venture a guess where insecurity comes from (probably from traumatizing childhood experiences), and all I want to say about it is that it's unattractive.

As I said, people come in packages--so when you're insecure, you're probably also needy, sycophantic, and a burden.

I hadn't finished the description of the ideal 'exclusive' person I'd be with (not that you really care). Ideally, the person would be so secure in himself that he'd be ok with me, for example, being flirtatious with an ex at a house party, and not be jealous. Because, although I'm touching the other person's arm, or giving him a "I'm-really-glad-to-see-you-here!"-hug, he'd know that, at the end of the day, that's just me being annoying and testing his limits.

Koda has been a really intelligent game-player--I had underestimated him. My "oh-tonight-I-have-a-date-with-so-and-so" no longer gets to him; he just says, "Well, as long as I still get my share..." The other night he said to me something along the lines of, "I want you to be mine only, but I know you don't want that, so I have a different strategy, which is to make it your choice to be with me!"

Now I must go an think of a strategy to counter his strategy--Fuck!

Cheers!
K

P.S. Oh, in addition to being secure in himself, he also must be successful, romantic, adventurous, spontaneous, carefree, athletic, and easy-going, and live in a castle.

On the Misuse of Monogamy

2007-12-12T11:31:00.000Z

This source says "At least one partner will have an affair in approximately 80% of all marriages".

Recently, I've been hearing more and more stories about significant others who cheat. It's unfortunate, but it's also human (Ever hear someone say, "Humans are not meant to be monogamous"?)--which is why I don't understand the concept of "serious" relationships and marriage.

Let me elaborate. When one is engaged in a "serious" relationship or marriage, the individual will still have "extraneous" thoughts about, or even activities with, people who aren't their significant other. Next, they feel guilty about having those thoughts and actions (normally) and try to stifle or conceal them. Now, why would you want to feel this unnecessary pain caused by this artificial institution?

Exclusive relationships are about possession--Remember those Valentine's Day heart candies with the "Be Mine" messages? It's as if one of the goals of being with someone you consider 'more than a friend' is to have him/her for yourself and yourself only.

Now why is that? One of the major components is insecurity. You want to guard the person for yourself; you're afraid that they'll meet someone better and run off with them. This is brilliantly illustrated by another Wellesley student:

Think of it like this ... if you're secure about yourself, you look like this:
|

But when you're insecure about yourself you look like this:
/
(See, you're going to fall over.)

So you use the person to prop you up, like so:
/|
You're no less insecure, but now you're not at risk of keeling over anymore.

But that eventually takes a lot out of the person (because the person's holding two people up), so the person starts needing you to prop him, too, and you get a situation like this:
/\
where you're both quasi-dysfunctional.

On the other hand, if you learn to prop yourself up, then you can get into this:
||

Which is, in my opinion ideal.

Which is why I think monogamy is misused--it shouldn't be used to make yourself feel more secure about...well, whatever it is that you're insecure about.

A few weeks ago, I was experimenting with online dating (complete waste of time, by the way) and after this person read this post, he asked me what was it that I was looking for (he was looking for something serious).

Two things went in my head:

[A] Why must there be a 'goal' to dating? Why does it have to be (1) date, (2) sex, (3) be exclusive, (4) meet the parents, (5) marriage? (The sex being not necessarily step #2, haha.)

[B] When he first asked me, I didn't know how to answer him; I didn't know what it was that I wanted. Now I do have an answer--and now I realize what a stupid question that question was...or still is.

Here's the explanation:

Monogamy has failed because people have tried to lock someone to themselves (because they're insecure) prematurely.

I drive a '98 Camry and it's one of those old cars that doesn't have a CD player/adapter/IPod connector thing; I use the radio and there's like 6 buttons that the radio is constantly tuned to, 3 of which I listen to all the time: Jammin' 94.5, Magic 106.7, and Kiss 108.

My sister gets really annoyed because when one station doesn't haven't anything good on or is on a commercial break, I switch to a different station. And even when I find something I mildly like, I quickly check if the other stations have anything better. It's only when a station plays one of my favorite songs that I stick to it.

In an ideal situation, potential monogamous partners should be treated like those radio stations described above. My favorite station is Kiss 108, but I can't stay at that station if it's on a commercial or on a song I don't particularly like. If I weren't allowed to go to other stations, I'd always wonder what they could have offered me.

However, if I checked them out, I would be able to make an informed decision and decide to stay or leave. It's through this process of free trial-and-error, that I believe, makes successful marriages--

Marriage should be reserved only for those who've tried other people and have decided that there is no one else in the world that could make them happier--that, they'd be happily willing to listen to the commercials and through a bad song, so that they wouldn't miss any part of the next song that is played.

So my answer to Mr. Internet Insecurity (who, by the way, is gone now because he was scared away by the aforementioned post; this was supposed to be written a long time ago) is, I'm not looking for anything. We can date, we can have fun, and things--whatever they may be--will just simply happen.

Cheers,
K

P.S. To those who have been able to be in serious relationships--like my cousin, who has dated the same person since she was like 12 (I think she's almost 19 now?)--kudos. I don't know how the hell you do it ;-)

On Human Nature: More Specifically, "Whores"

2007-12-11T09:49:00.000Z

"Whore: A woman that sleeps with everyone but YOU!!!!!" (Courtesy of Urban Dictionary).

When my ex first found out I was with Koda, he said to me something along the lines of "Why do you have to be such a whore?"

I wasn't particularly offended or anything though--I think I actually agreed with him. I mean, five days into being in a foreign country and I've already found someone to replace(?) the person I dated intensely all summer long and had the intent to marry.

Time led me to be in touch with my feminist(?) Wellesley roots, and thought: OK, if he calls me a whore, then I should be able to name-call him something too. But I couldn't think of anything. What are guys called when they sleep with a lot of women?

Koda responds, "A legend!"

Yeah, I know--I laughed too.

Then I asked, "Why are women punished and men praised for being promiscuous?"

Koda had one of those rare moments of saying something insightful (=P). He explained that it was simply because society persecutes minorities: women are not expected to be promiscuous, so therefore when they are, it's out-of-the-ordinary and people punish them for it.

So, one element of raw human nature: Punishing Minorities. Sad, but true. This is just one branch of the root of human nature--and that is, broadly: Power.

But it obviously shouldn't be that way. What's so wrong about women sleeping with many men? And what's so great about men sleeping with many women?

There shouldn't be any type of stigma attached to it. It should be just considered as something that people do: a choice, an activity. Something more like, "Ok, you slept with him/her and him/her and him/her as well. Great! Did you have a good time?"

And that's the most important thing: Just to have fun, and to allow others to have fun as well =)

I think people are starting to forget the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Cheers,
Christina

P.S. There isn't anything wrong with being a whore, really.

"[Boston], [I] Have a [Condition]."

2007-12-10T14:21:00.000Z

It's been a week since I've returned home in Boston, but it feels like I’ve been home for more like 3 weeks. Not sure what if that’s a good thing or bad thing, but a lot sure has happened since the plane landed at Logan on Monday the 3rd.

Tuesday the 4th was the day I had to take care of all my miscellaneous shit—like my credit card bills, how long it would take to deliver something to Japan by Christmas, returning my ex’s sweatshirt, giving some chocolates to the team I interned for over the summer—the company from which, I found out I was officially banned(??). I’m not sure why—there’s an indifferent reason, and a bad reason—and I can’t really divulge either. Sorry!

I visited Amherst (which isn’t in the middle of nowhere, by the way) on Wednesday and Thursday, and had a great time with one of my friends from high school (I love you, Jimmy!). And what was great about it was that it was completely spontaneous and unplanned.

I had originally planned to hang out with one of my best friends and her boyfriend, who is one of my good friends, but the best friend cancelled. And somehow, it’d be weird if I stayed at his place. This was the first time I felt like I should not do something—am I finally conforming to the unwritten rules of society?? *This is me screaming “NOOOOOOO!!”

So while I was at Amherst, I discovered that I have a “condition”. Voilà, my conversation with Jimmy, who gave me his bed and slept over at his friend’s apartment:

Me: So last night…I really wanted to say to your roommate and be like, “Can we just cuddle and go to sleep together, but not do anything?”
Jimmy: What?! Do you like him?
Me: No, I just wanted to be held...But it’s not like I want to be held by him specifically—anyone would do. Like, I’d ask you to hold me, but you have a girlfriend already.
Jimmy: Um…I think it’s because you broke up with your boyfriend recently.
Me: But it’s not like I want him back, it’s just that I want, I don’t know, like physical touch or whatever…
Jimmy: I think you have a needy problem…

I’m not sure if it’s that I’m needy, but more things like that happened within the week…

On Friday, after I came back from Amherst, I had dim sum with someone I knew from college; he works in Chicago now, but was in Boston for business. Now, this person is quite special because he broke up with his girlfriend last year because he liked me, but nothing ever came of it. He’s also the first “fan” of my writing, so he’s probably reading this right now =P

I took some friends, including him, to go to Shyabu-Shyabu for dinner. There was this semi-cute waiter and we were joking about hitting on him the whole night—shooting him smiles and vixen eyes. Then I finally hit on him—he declined, but whatever—it was just for fun. It was so funny because my guy friend had dared me to hit on him, and he was really shocked that I actually did. (Just imagine eyebrows shooting sky high and jaw dropping to the ground—that was his face.)

After dinner, we headed over to the Opera House to see the Nutcracker(!), while he was going to catch his flight back to Chicago. I stayed back to say goodbye. And then I just had an urge to kiss him:

Me: Want a kiss? [Kisses.]
Me: No tongue? [French Kisses.] (Oh god, I’m sketchy.)
Him: Ok, if we are going to do this, we are going to do this right. [Backs me up against a wall and French kisses.]

It was nice =]

On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, Victoria and I headed over to Yale to visit some of my friends. It was just so much fun—seeing people I hadn’t seen in so long, playing ping pong, foosball, and pool, and massaging with pool balls and video-recording it…yea =P…and just plain hanging out until 4 am two nights consecutively.

The last night, I had an urge to kiss one of my friends again. He’s newly single, so I said to him, “Want a massage?” while Victoria was showering. I massaged his back, and when I heard that she was about to finish her shower, I bended down and gave him a peck on the cheek (his eyes were closed). He must have felt it—he got up—and we just talked until she came out. He must have not known what to do and just acted like nothing happened.

This gives a grand total of:
1 Act of Intent to Cuddle
1 Unsuccessful Pick-Up (WTF??)
1 French Kiss
1 Peck

Therefore, I conclude that my Boyfriend-Detachment Time [BDT] is 5 days. It was five days after I left the US that I hooked up with Koda at Oxford, and five days after I left Oxford that I kissed the guy in Boston.

So, if we ever date, and I tell you that I’m going on a trip that will last more than 5 days, be worried. Or better yet, start looking for someone else and save yourself some heartbreak.

Cheers!
K

P.S. I will be on the December 20 edition of Boston Globe’s Style magazine (or something)!! This random photographer came up to me and Victoria and took pictures of us eating noodles at Porter Square =P

Why Guys Should Try Kissings Guys

2007-12-06T20:57:00.000Z

During 8th week, I went on a date with this German boy that I met from the International Poker Tournament. He’s a suave SOB, a published author (so jealous ><), and another one of those Goldman-Sachs-ers-to-be (like everyone else at Oxford). We met at “the Christmas tree” (there’s only one in town) and then he took me to this very nice little French restaurant on Little Clarendon Street.

I guess it was because we drank too much wine, but we ended up discussing how I “go both ways” (Read: Bisexual). Yeah, great first date topic.

He told me that he thinks it’s really hot when women kiss other women (like every other guy). I haven’t figured out exactly why guys like that.

Somehow, the conversation ended up with me telling him, “I think guys should try to kiss other guys—it’s only fair.”

Of course, like every other guy, he cringed at the idea—But I mean, why shouldn’t guys be open to the idea of same-sex kissing when, when women do it, they find it hot?

He says that it’s just different, and that he knows he wouldn’t like it—and when you know you won’t like something, why should you do it?

“But you haven’t even tried it yet, how do you know you wouldn’t like it? Maybe you will.”

But maybe, he says, he doesn't want to find out that he likes it—that, it would be emotionally traumatizing.

“Have you ever been in a relationship before? [He nods, “yes”.] Well, you know that when you enter a relationship, it’s not going to be smooth sailing all the time—that, there will be good times and bad times. If you know that you’re going to be hurt emotionally eventually in some way, shape, or form, why would you do it?”

He runs out of things to say.

Well, that was an easy win.

I can’t remember the last time I lost an argument. Wait, oh yeah—that Cambridge debate thing. But I was just being too nice to those bastards.

Cheers,
K

Cruel Intentions at the OUIFS Christmas Party

2007-12-05T22:55:00.000Z

Ok, so this is a mildly sexy story I'd like to share.

On Tuesday of 7th Week, the Oxford University Investment & Finance Society was going to hold a Christmas Party sans people from banks. Now, usually I've avoided their meetings because it involved desperate university students putting on fake smiles and conducting intense networking with banking professionals.

This party was going to be about i-banker-wannabes [not that I'm not one of them, but I like to think I'm different] networking with each other (just in case they're useful one day, you know?). So it was going to be one painful party.

But then they advertised "Free Sushi"! So I was like: I'm there.

I think it was because we hadn't done laundry or something (I had been sleeping at Koda's for weeks on end), but

[A] I had to borrow one of Koda's friend's dresses (the event was black-tie formal), and

[B] I had to go commando because the other option was wearing Koda's boxers--and I was not going to do that in a slinky black dress.

It's funny because Koda was going to a "Crew Date" (where the boys and girls in crew go on a group date) that night and I was going to the Christmas party with a lot of potential cute, arrogant European boys (the way I like them). And so we kept joking about how we were going to find other people. An example of something I said: "If I don't come back you know what happened."

But really, for once, I was truly joking and had no intention of seducing anyone. I think I was just feeling sick (I had been like crap for a few weeks now) and fatigued. But since he was going on his “Crew Date”, there was no way I was going to stay in the room until he came back. Yup, that’s me, haha.

I trekked for a good 25 minutes to an unfamiliar place, in the cold night, in my heels, and thought to myself, “I can’t believe I’m doing this for sushi.”

I got there about 40 minutes late, and as expected, people were standing in their little cliques, either chatting with their friends, or mingling with new people and having the usual introductory conversations (i.e., Which college are you at? What are you studying? Etc.). Too predictable.

So I got there, grabbed a glass of champagne (alcohol is necessary in these situations =D), and sat by myself on a sofa, fiddling with my phone, and scanning the room to see if there were any people I knew.

I found someone—it was this Polish boy I knew from Korean Society. We had had a few exchange of smiles to recognize that the other existed, and a few brief conversations about Korean dramas—nothing fancy.

With a glass of champagne in my hand, I walked over and in a very fakish-“omg-you’re-here!”-smile, said “Hi—What are you doing here?!” After a few polite exchanges (“Oh, you’re in the Finance Society? I didn’t know you were a freshman…Oh, Goldman Sachs? Exciting!”), the conversation somehow turned into me calling him a “fucking cunt”. Don’t remember how that happened…

The night involved a lot of flirting with each other, splitting up and flirting with other people (we’re both players), and near the stroke of midnight and a lot of champagne later, he offered to walk me back to my accommodation (they don’t call it “dorms” here).

Anyways, on the way back, somehow--perhaps it was too much champagne--I told him, "I'm not wearing any panties". He laughed, not believing me.

After a few yards of walking, I smilingly said, "Stop. Give me your hands."

I took his hands and put them on my waist. Staring at him with vixen eyes, I guided his hands down my sides, to where my panties were supposed to be--it was completely smooth.

I let go of his hands--they were now frantic, trying to find where the lines were supposed to be. So I said to him, "Now you're just feeling my ass."

The rest of the way back, he totally lost his arrogant-player-I'm-going-to-work-for-Goldman-Sachs-one-day composure (I love destroying egos) and was completely incredulous, saying things like, "Why are you not wearing panties?! Girls usually just say they're not wearing panties, but don't mean it...I don't understand truth-telling American girls!"

To which I said, "Why should I lie?"

We arrived at where I was staying for the night (Koda's room). It was going to be one of those ok-we-are-now-about-to-say-goodbye-so-do-we-kiss-goodnight situations. So to avoid that, I said matter-of-factly, "So, are you going to kiss me or not?"

He showed me his cheek, so I gave him a peck.

Don't get me wrong--although he's tall and arrogant and European, I'm somehow not attracted to him; I just wanted to see how good I am at playing a player. You know, just for shits and giggles.

As I discussed later with Mr. Polish Boy:

According to him: seduction+interest+attraction=sex
My opinion for the night: seduction(obviously)+interest(mildly)=kiss

No attraction.
Sorry!

But maybe I'll save him for some fun later ;-)

Cheers,
K

A Tribute to Margaret Thatcher (Not That She's Dead...)

2007-12-04T17:18:00.000Z

"Margaret Thatcher...wasn't she the one who fought for women's rights...the one who went to the International Human Rights thingy...who's...dead?"

I don't remember how my debater-teammates and I came to discussing Margaret Thatcher, but my comment above caused them to have looks of extreme horror (Read: "OH MY GOD YOU DON'T KNOW WHO MARGARET THATCHER IS??"). Yeah, I know that I'm incredibly uneducated already, you don't have to rub it in =P.

From what my fellow debaters told me, it seems like she is a really cool person. And so, I did some more research on her, and found some quotes I really liked:

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left." --This is why I love it when people attack me personally; it just shows how weak they are.

"I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end." --Patience is truly a virtue.

"If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing." --Those are the exact people with zero personality who want badly to be accepted, who are used and taken advantage of when the person they are trying to impress needs them, and still ends up not being liked by the person.

"If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman." --Plainly true.

"You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive." --This is just plain awesome.

Margaret Thatcher is apparently someone who is either hated or loved. I think we'd be good friends one day =]

Cheers,
K

Weekend Away @ Cambridge & Manchester

2007-12-04T15:20:00.000Z

[This continues my saga of the last few weeks at Oxford...]

During 6th week I randomly decided to join OUHKS (Hong Kong Society at Oxford). They needed people to join their debate team for a competition at Cambridge that weekend. So I was like, what the heck, why not.

The motion was: This house believes that China will surpass the US in influence in 20 years. Cambridge was the proposition; Oxford was the opposition.

There were 3 debaters on each team. Cambridge split up their argument into political, economic, and cultural points. And all three of them were so cocky.

All I remember from the political debater was him saying "Again, the US is OWNED...the US is OWNED." So fucking annoying. The US obviously surpasses China in military power, with bases all over the world and technology that can blow the brains out of everyone. Moreover, morally, though the US has recently been in decline, can't beat Chinese corruption and hunger for money--think lead in toys and milk formula that kills babies.

The economics debater obviously argued about China's 10% GDP growth and investments, etc. That's reasonable. But then he makes up data about the oil prices to counter our argument. We argued that China's economic growth is unsustainable because of the depleting energy resources as shown by the raising oil prices. There is no way that for 20 years, China can go at the pace it's going. Period.

Finally, the cultural debater was the funniest of all. He said something about Chinese culture taking over the world. More funnily, he said that '20 years is a relative number'. (Yeah, seriously.) No, you dumbfuck. 20 years is 20 years. 2-0. I think he was studying Maths at Cambridge too. Ok, fine. I made that up =P

As you can tell from my annoyance, Cambridge won the debate. According to the judge, it was close, and the reason why Cambridge won was because 'they organized their arguments better'.

We had organized our arguments according to the US's superiority in hard power (military, politics, economics,etc.) and soft power (cultural, moral, etc.); we also ended our argument by putting a twist in the debate, saying that there is no one who is ultimately better, but that there will be spheres of influence.

I think we tried to talk about too many things in our argument. I also think the judge was a dumbfuck. He was from Cambridge. Self-explanatory.

Anyhow. After the debate I took a 5 hour train ride to Manchester, UK to my job as a mock interviewer for the first time. Basically, to make it short and sweet, what I do in my job is interview the candidates who applied to Oxford and Cambridge to prepare them for the real interviews.

Examples of questions I ask them:

1) There are three baskets, labeled 'apples', 'oranges', and 'apples and oranges'. They are all labeled wrong, meaning in the 'apples' basket, there are either pure oranges, or apples and oranges. From which basket do you pick a fruit (you are only allowed one pick) to re-label the baskets correctly?

2) There is a mafia and a hostage. The mafia puts two bullets adjacently in a 6-shot gun and holds the gun to the hostage's head. He shoots, but luckily, the hostage survives; the barrel had landed on an empty shot. Now, the mafia asks the hostage, "Would you like me to spin the barrel, or stay, and shot again?"

3) The Monty Hall question.

Point of the questions: To watch the candidates writhe in agony. (Haha, I'm so evil [and proud of it]!!)

Real point of the questions: To test the candidates' reactions to unfamiliar problems.

Cheers,
K

A Stupid Misunderstanding (Whoops.)

2007-12-03T11:41:00.000Z

Yesterday I promised to tell you the story about how I almost failed my history course at Oxford (and consequently been kicked out...it's like the joke during 5th week was going to come true). But anyways. See, I keep my promises now =D...love me yet? =P

So...this history tutorial that I was taking involved 4 papers, and we would meet on weeks 2, 4, 6, and 8.

Week 2: On-time essay. "Inadequate". Needs to be re-written.
Week 4: Late essay. "Adequate".
Week 6: Not passed in...

So here is the string of emails that explains what happened:

[16 November 2007]

(From Me) Is it alright if we postpone the tutorial today to sometime next week? I don't feel like I will do this essay justice without more time...Please let me know. Thank you for your understanding.

(From the Tutor) That's fine. I'll arrange a time and let you know. Are there any particular times that you couldn't do (eg times that clash with lectures)? Also, I was going to mention in the tutorial today: Mansfield asks me to write a report on you by the end of next week. With this in mind, you might want to try to get your re-written Medieval essay in before next Friday, so I have three decent pieces of work to base my report on.

One week passes and the essays are still not passed in...

[21 November 2007]

(From the Tutor) Your essay is now an hour late for the deadline I set you. That means I won't be able to read and mark it tonight. Assuming it arrives, I'll try to give it a look tomorrow morning before our tutorial, but I'm not much inclined to bend my schedule to you any more than that. As I said before, I'm also expecting your re-written Medieval essay.

[22 November 2007]

(From the Tutor) As I still haven't received your essay, please consider today's tutorial canceled. If you manage to get either of your two outstanding essays to me today, I will try to mark them before I write your report, but of course I can't guarantee this. So far, I'm only able to base that report on one adequate essay. I shall expect your fourth essay by 5pm next Thursday, with a tutorial as usual on the Friday.

(From the Director of the Visiting Student Programme) I have just heard from your history tutor, [Dr. Undisclosed], that you have failed to hand in an essay, despite an extension, and are not responding to his emails. He also tells me that of the two essays you have written, one was inadequate.

I was very concerned to hear about this very serious situation. I will not be in college tomorrow, so please email me as soon as you receive this to explain why you have not written an essay or responded to your tutor. It is also imperative that you email [Dr. Undisclosed] immediately to make contact, and hand in that essay tomorrow. He tells me that he will be writing your report soon, and I should warn you that he has no choice but to fail you as things stand. If this happens it will have very serious consequences for your future at Oxford.

[23 November 2007]

(From Me) Please find attached the last essay that was due; I will send the Medieval essay before noon today, I promise.

Also, as an Oxford tutor, please refrain from sarcasm on your students. I understand your frustration. But for the sake of professionalism, I advise that you keep your language neutral.

I can't guarantee that the essays will be 'outstanding'. But if you must know why I have been a bad student and unresponsive--which I don't believe you care--I flew back to the US during 5th week to take care of a family emergency and haven't been able to concentrate. I also was not responding to your emails because I caught the flu the night after I bumped into you.

Sorry that our tutorial was canceled.

(From the Tutor) I'm sorry to hear about your family emergency.

I used the term "outstanding" in the sense of "unfulfilled" or "remaining to be dealt with", and certainly not in the alternative sense of "remarkable" or "exceptional", as you suppose. Under the circumstances, I can understand why you may have misunderstood my meaning, but I'd prefer not to be lectured on professionalism.

So yeah, I learned that "outstanding" means "not passed in yet", and that it wasn't used for sarcasm (fuck). Anyhow, the fiasco's all over now, and I'll be staying at Oxford (I got a C-).

*Breathes a sigh of relief*--That would have been so embarrassing--I pictured myself telling my mom at Logan Airport: "Hi Mommy!! Um...I got kicked out of Oxford..."

Cheers,
K

P.S. And oh yeah, the family emergency was non-existent--I'm such a cunt, hahahahahaha.

There She Goes, There She Goes Again...(Getting Drunk)

2007-12-02T17:49:00.000Z

Tomorrow 4.05 pm, I will be landing in Boston--and I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually really excited about coming back and seeing everyone, especially my family <333 [Granted, I've counted and I'll be away for 11 days and at home for like 10 days...whoops.]

Anyhow, right. I've been MIA for more than 2 weeks. I've just been really lazy--lazy to the point that I almost failed my history course at Oxford. But that's another story for another day >< =D (Most likely tomorrow =P)

Recaps of the last 2-plus weeks at Oxford will come later in the week (see what I mean about the laziness and procrastination??), but this post will be about my visit to my super-awesome cousin, TSgt Chi, at Mildenhall Air Force Base. [Yay, Air Force!!]

Sparknotes version of the weekend:

~Wii~~~!! Few hours of Wii tennis with her husband...and Chi's friends...and her husband's friends. I lost count of how many matches I lost...because I lost every match. Hahahahahahahah~~Damn. And my body hurts today. But you know what? I'll take on any of you any day ;-)

~Catchphrase! Another game that we played, kind of like a hybrid of Charades and Taboo. One of the funniest moments was when the phrase was "The Farmer in the Dell"--the girl hummed, "The blank in the blank..." and expected her teammates to get it. Funny shit, if you were there, haha.

Another moment was one of my teammates gave the hint, "What is something that flies?" And I said...[drumroll]..."pigs". I can explain, I swear.

~Clubbing & Pre-gaming. The gang I was with are big trash-talkers and heavy drinkers. Itemization of my drinks:

`[2] Lychee Martinis
`[3] Shots of Patron Tequila
`[1] Shot of Vodka Pear
`[1] Shot of Hennessey & Hypnotic Mixed
`[1/2] Shot of Double-Shot Vodka & Cranberry Juice

Total: 8 shots.
Result: Making friends with the sink.

Hehe...It was just last week that we had a drinkfest in Aleks's room with Polish Vodka, Smirnoff, and Bailey's. I was out at 4 shots. One more shot would have sent me over. 'Guess my tolerance is climbing =D

~Texas Hold'em. First one to leave the table. I don't want to talk about it.

~Freaky Girl by Gucchi Mane. NumbAAAAAAA....NumbaaAAaaA--HummAaaAaaaa...HummaAaaaa. YouTube it ;-)

It was an awesome weekend--I can see why my cousin is attracted to blacks =D

Cheers,
K

How to Be a Player wink

2007-11-14T07:51:00.000Z

The Dating Game.

Of all the games I play, or have played, this has to be one of my favorite games. One reason is because I feel like I've always won; I personally feel like I've only lost, at most, twice. Reason #2 is because it's one of the most interesting games out there. Why? Because it's not a zero-sum game--in most cases, yes, one side wins; the other side loses. And sometimes, both parties lose. And finally, the best-case scenario: both parties win.

In this post I'm going to first dispel some myths about 'players.' Then, I will share my some hints and tips on how to become a successful 'player,' because I consider myself one (haha, how I flatter myself! But bear with me...). I hope my wisdom (haha, how I flatter myself again!) will help you win at the game of dating, and stop getting pummeled and beaten by love or infatuation--Because really, life is short, and there is no need for that ;-)

Dispelling Myths

I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine two weeks ago (see, I've been wanting to finish this post for a while), before I broke up with my ex-boyfriend.

Jimmy [referring to my Facebook status]: so you're single now????
me: yea
Jimmy: how come...
me: and looking for random play, hahaha
Jimmy: ...OMG i cant believe you're a girl...maybe you should be a guy...Don't surprise your bf at a bad timing you know...it will totally ruin his life, like when he's with a girl lol
me: lol oh, i soooo wish to surprise him at a bad timing--that'd be sooo cool!
Jimmy: omg...you're freaking crazy...can't talk to you anymore
me: lol why not?
Jimmy: you are just not normal >.<
me: don't you like abnormality?
Jimmy: only when ppl are drunk
me: fine. dont talk to me then.
Jimmy: i was just kidding
me: hehe iknow
Jimmy: but do give me a call when you are back to boston
me: ok i'll make you the third person i call =)
Jimmy: lol...wow again soo honored!!!!
me: hehe
Jimmy: thank you so much kuriko san
me: np
Jimmy: oh jeez go do your paper
me: doing it!

Myth #1. Jimmy makes a good, albeit incorrect, observation. He was implying that my behavior was characteristic of what guys usually do. Sure, guys usually are the players in this cute little world, but with a few worrying statistics--e.g., the female cheating rate is increasing, while the male cheating rate hovers at around the same percentage--we see that females are increasingly at par with guys. The lesson here: To the male population, BEWARE. Girls can be even more dangerous players than guys can be. I'm a living, breathing example ;-)

Myth #2. I say "Girls can be even more dangerous players than guys can be," and that implies that players, in general, are bad people. But not all of them are. Haha, this is not just me trying to redeem myself! Please allow me to explain...

Here are several reasons why I like to behave like a player.

[1] It's fun. Isn't it?! There's nothing better, at the age of 20, than to experience many different types of people and not have an emotional responsibility to them--there's no strings attached.

And sorry to say this, but it's almost like a game of Risk. Well, to be honest, I've never played that game, but I believe it's a game of strategy, and you win by conquering territories. Being a player is the same idea--you use strategies to "conquer" other people. It's fun to think of ways to win over other people =)

[2] I'm doing a favour for other people. Yeah, that's right. I am. Confused? Read on.

Think about it. Just take a second out of your busy life and look around at the people around you. When I'm on the train, I look (not "check out", but observe) at the passengers; when I'm in a restaurant I look at the waiters and waitresses; when I was at the Boston Career Forum I looked at the interviewers at the booths.

Most of them have one common sad characteristic: They are bored and/or unsatisfied with life. But it shouldn't be that way. Life is about experiencing all sorts of things, trying something new, carpe diem. And so, I try to add some spice to their lives. People like to be liked, to be agreed with (for the most part), to be smiled at--I learned all this from my history tutorial last week:

So on Friday I had my second history tutorial. My first meeting with him was a FIASCO, because we were arguing and stubborn that the other person was wrong. So this time, I decided to do a little experiment. We were talking about history--I zoned out a couple of times, but was aware that I was zoning out--and I decided to be agreeable to see what happened.

So all I was hearing was "blah blah blah" and decided to smile and nod. As I smiled, I saw his face break into a smile as he was talking. His body language told me he was warming up to me, and didn't see me so foul as before. That's the thing about people--97.34% of the time, they want you to agree with them and be interested in them. I know--that's a "duh".

I can't stress enough how much people like to be liked--that's why flirting is a good thing. For example, I sometimes blatantly smile and flirt with the waiter; in return I get better service. I flirted with the interviewer, and now he has an interesting and/or funny story to share with his friends over drinks.

The point is, I'm doing a favour for them by (A) making their lives less boring, and (B) making them feel good about themselves.

[3] I want to protect myself. I see people around me, and people in movies, and at first, they're really happy to have a special someone; but then, they can become so unhappy when they really start caring for that someone--when it gets "serious". And I'm thinking, they can be so much happier if they didn't care. In a way, I'm stopping myself from caring too much, so that I'll never have to develop emotions of worry, anxiety, or unhappiness.

There are loads of reasons why other people become players--for example, just to be a cunt--but the above are my reasons, and it makes me a very happy person =]

Secrets to Being a Player

Here are basic things that all players have in common:

[1] Hate to break it to you guys, but looks do matter. Face it: Beautiful people are more likely to score than ugly people. But don't fret--the mass of people tends to be "average". And if you're only "average" or think you're ugly, still don't fret--go to secret #2.

[2] Being beautiful makes scoring easier, but if a beautiful person is not confident or charismatic, he/she will not be a successful player. For example, I've lost attraction for good-looking people because of their lack of confidence and/or charisma, and I've fallen for "average" or "ugly" people. Confidence and charisma are things that can be acquired--which is good news because anyone can be a player!

[3] I think the most important skill that players have is being able to create psychological dependence. I learned this the hard way at the end of my first year of college.

Before I met the first person I liked, I had the policy of playing "Hard-to-Get": I'd wait a while before returning calls, sound disinterested, etc.--you know the deal. And he showered me with attention and flatter. And then shit happened--err, basically I was continuously mean just for shits and giggles--and of course, he was like, fuck it, and stopped talking to me. Let's just say that I'm still not over him.

Basically what happened was, in the first two weeks that I knew him, he had the perfect mixture of paying attention to me and being unavailable. He was probably "unavailable" on purpose--but when he became available again, he would apologize profusely and make it sound like he really feels bad about missing my return-call. He also drove two hours to see me--and it was our second meeting. So he made me feel really special.

The point is, you have to be the first to "strike". Playing Hard-to-Get, in this age, I believe, is an outdated concept. You have to be the one "giving" in the beginning to create "psychological dependence". This is the reason why some girls get screwed over--because guys traditionally "give" in the beginning. Here is the traditional model of dating:

[Step 1] Girl goes out with Guy whom they don't particularly like.
[Step 2] Guy makes Girl feel really special.
[Step 3] Guy loses interest; Girl gains interest.
[Step 4] Guy stops seeing Girl.
[Step 5] Girl gets screwed over.

I'm sure the girl just misses feeling special, which is why she is able to forget about him once another guy comes along, but still, the initial guy and being treated special by him are connected in her mind--at least it's true for me.

Disclaimer: If all the above fails, it's not my fault. Tell me your situation and I will be able to access what steps you should take. [Sidenote: I moonlight as Hitch; I charge by the project--Contact me for a quote; there is a "Friend's Discount".]

Concluding Remarks

I do realize that it's a trade-off between carefree happiness and deeper emotions of, I guess, if it exists, love. But at the age of 20, c'mon--Make the most of it before the biological clock submits you to marriage.

Cheers,
K

Week 5: The Best Week Ever

2007-11-13T11:59:00.000Z

Yesterday I think I flew back from the most productive week of my life.

Last Tuesday I jetted to Boston from Oxford for the Boston Career Forum. Yes, I flew back primarily for a job fair--I really wanted to intern in Japan for the summer, to have that once-in-a-lifetime experience in Tokyo. [Did you really think I was going to settle for something so clichéd as banking in NYC? You don't know me well enough =P...not that there's anything wrong with New York...there's plenty of opportunities there, but...I'm digressing.]

I arrived at Logan at around 8 pm and called my mom to pick me up. I was going to surprise her at the front door, but no one was able to drive me, so I had to call. And boy, was she shaking as drove to Logan.

The first thing she said to me was, "What happened? Did you get kicked out of Oxford already?!" Thanks, mom. And so, for the week, when people asked why I was back, I told them, "I got kicked out of Oxford." And that's not the cuntish thing--the cuntish thing was that most people believed me! Yeah, I appreciate the faith they had in me--haha just kidding.

Highlights: Honorable Mentions

That Tuesday night, my mom and dad took me out to Ginza for sushi--Scorpion maki, soooooo goooooood. For the rest of the week until the time that I fly back on Sunday night, I ate everything possible that I wasn't going to find at Oxford--Korean BBQ, dim sum, REAL chinese food, shyabu-shyabu, and of course, my mommy's cooking =D ...Jealous?

I also carried through my plan of surprising my boyfriend...and then breaking up with him the next day. Yeah, anyways...moving right along...

I was a good niece & cousin this week as well--my cousin is interviewing to get into a highly competitive high school, so I helped him with his application and practiced interviewing with him.

I spent most of Friday at Wellesley! (...when I was supposed to be at BCF--you know, the thing I paid $500 to go to...) But it was sooo good, I saw so many of my friends, had lunch with them, and dropped by my professors' offices. It was so nostalgic...I even missed going to the dining halls!

At 4 pm, after going to the wrong convention center, I finally made it to BCF. And of all the people I bump into, I bump into a friend I met from Monster DLP last summer--and he goes to school in NYC. What are the odds? It was so awesome seeing him again--and we will be hanging out in Hong Kong in January =)

So finally, at 4.30 pm--when they started closing down everything--I made it to Goldman Sachs, which didn't have summer internships for Sales and Trading, and UBS, who acted really funny--I bumped into Keith, this really nice guy from UBS I met last year--no, that's not the funny part--they seemed really interested in me, made sure they had my contact info, but didn't give me an interview. Oh, well--their loss.

The next day, I still dawdled and didn't get to BCF until 10.30 am. I think I went to over 10 banks and at least 7 turned me away because I didn't have enough of a proficiency in Japanese. For example, when I was at RBS, I literally was tearing in front of the Managing Director because he was saying that I had an impeccable resume, but my barrier was language. And so he said he'd recommend me for New York.

#2 Highlight of the Week

Storytime! The gist of the story is, I hit on an interviewer at JPMorgan. HAHAHAHA!

So I was at the JPMorgan booth, leafing through their flyers because I was waiting for my friend, who was still interviewing. I look up, and this guy, who must be a first- or second-year analyst, looks at me and tells me to come over with his eyes.

I shake my head, because I wasn't interested in FX marketing & sales, or whatever it was. And besides, these two people started talking to him, so I continued to leaf through the pamplets. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the two people had left, so I looked up and he motioned for me to come again. And so I thought, what the heck.

I smiled, walked over, and sat down in front of him.

Me: So tell me more about FX marketing & sales, or whatever this is for.
Him: Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah...
[Fast Forward]
Me: So what do you like to do for fun?
Him: I think talking to clients is a lot of fun...
Me: No, I mean, what do you like to do in your free time?
Him: Oh, I like to play golf...and work out...
[Fast Forward]
Me: So do you live in Tokyo?
Him: Yes...
Me: Look, I might be in Tokyo in December. Maybe we can grab some coffee then. [I hand him my business card.] It was really nice meeting you.

He's completely confused, with his superior on his left shaking his head, and his colleague being nosy and looking at my business card (I saw all this when I looked back).

No shame. No guilt. No good. Hahahaha!!

#1 Highlight of the Week

So of course the #1 highlight was when I signed my contract--I'll be spending the summer in Tokyo!! Woohoo~~~!! The $500 was the best investment ever =D

But I can't reveal with which company it is--I think I'm bound by contract to not say; I'll have to double-check that when I get back to Boston in December.

All I have to say is, I think these people are even nicer than the people at UBS--I used to like UBS for their people.

*Breathes a breath of relief* I had never had so much fun interviewing. Seriously. Surprising, right? My first interviewer--he's really genuine, and we just had a nice, candid conversation. We talked about my blog, the Prisoner's Dilemma, poker; I kept trying to guess which nationality he was; and he refused to test the extent of my Japanese skills. He was awesome!

My second interviewer was nice, but I thought he was going to dump me >< He said, if you were interviewing for a full-time position, you would be rejected right now because of your Japanese skills. I thought, SHIT, DAMN, FUCK. So I said, so...am I not going to the next round...? And he said, oh no--you still have time, so I'm giving you a chance. So I was like, YES--I was in the final found!

My third interview--which wasn't an interview, really--gave me the news of the offer. And so I was off to dinner with the people I'd be working with for the summer =)

I think I'll really like the culture of the company. My first interviewer told me that he didn't believe in those "trick questions" and also didn't believe in being mean to the interviewee not only because is it bad business, but also because it takes so much energy--it's just natural to be nice.

At dinner we were exchanging horror stories about interviews--not only stories of trick questions, but also of interviewers throwing papers at scared-stiff interviewees and pouring water or curry at candidates who've rejected them--and these we true stories. Yeah.

At dinner at 33, we were just fooling around with the Monty Hall question--and apparently everyone got it wrong because it's so counterintuitive. But I knew the answer, since my roommate and I fooled around it with last year randomly. And I felt bad because I felt like it was cheating--I knew that question already. But the first interviewer reassured me that it wasn't, that it wasn't cheating because I thought it through or something like that.

Anyways, I am already starting to learn stuff--random knowledge--at dinner. We were on the topic of sports, and one of the equity salespeople how important it is to know about sports, like the Superbowl, NBA Championships, and the Premiership. And I was like, The Premiership?? They were shocked; they couldn't believe I didn't know what it was! And so I learned that the Premiership was the Sumo Championship. And I also learned that my clients will like to talk about stuff other than stocks. Cool =)

So yes, it has been a great week. Hopefully I'll catch you in Tokyo this summer ^_^

Cheers,
K

Fate: The Perfect Surprise and the Almost Perfect Ending

2007-11-08T05:14:00.001Z

Haha, I seriously have seven (I just counted) drafts of posts in my blogger archive thingy that I've been meaning to write in the past week, since the last post...but I haven't gotten around to finishing it...or writing it, for that matter. They're just thoughts and things I've been thinking about--nothing uberly exciting has happened last week. And so, I'm going to write this post first, since I believe that the content of this post would make the week-long-plus wait worth your while =)

So here it goes...

Prologue: Fate and Me

If you know me, then you probably know that I'm not one to believe in Fate (notice how I capitalize "Fate" similar to when people capitalize "God", but anyways). But these past two days it's like Fate has been biting and grabbing onto my ass and not letting go.

Part I: The Perfect Surprise

In the second week of October I had decided to come back to Boston for the Boston Career Forum--a gimongous job fair for Japanese-English speaking people. And so I was like, "yes!--an opportunity for me to surprise my parents and my boyfriend!" (I love giving surprises.) Surprising my parents would be easy--them just seeing me is amazing enough for them. But I wanted to do something special for my boyfriend.

Here was the progression of ideas since October:

1) I messaged my best friend. I asked her for a big box that would fit a human in. I was going to do the clichéd thing of "delivering myself"--hiding in the box for him to pick me up.

But that idea was too obvious. And stuffy. And un-guarenteed that I wouldn't suffocate.

2) I messaged my best friend. This time I wanted a big box that would fit my luggage in. This time he'd pick up the box (i.e. help me with my luggage) and I wouldn't suffocate.

Not special enough and not guaranteed it'd work.

One day, as I was waiting for my partner to be done with her questionnaire in a psychology study, I realized that at the time that I'd be back, it'd be around the time of our 100th day. I counted, and what do you know. The second day I'm back it was our 100th day of being "official." And so, instead of him being the first person I saw when I got back, I decided it was much better to wait a day.

3) The final plan: A week before I was to fly back, I challenged my boyfriend. I emailed him, if he could figure out what special day Nov. 7th was, I'd give him a big surprise.

He didn't figure it out, but I didn't care. I gave him the answer. And then I told him, "Baby, I have a request. I know you've been wanting to go out with the hot Venezuelan in your Mandarin class, and that you'd have class on Wednesday, Nov. 7th. But on our 100th day can you please not hang out with her? I just want to talk to you on Skype all night." He said, "Of course baby."

So I locked him in for the night. He wouldn't be hanging out with anyone and he'd be by his computer all night. Sweet.

I got home on Tuesday night. I called my mom to come pick me up (I have no friends who have cars ><) and she was shaking...and surprised...and happy. Boy, mothers are easy haha =P

I spent the next day buying ingredients to bake a cake. I wanted to bake a cake for our 100th day. I bought cake mix, pans, vanilla extract, walnuts, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries--it was going to be one hellava cake =)

And what I did was that I got a medium sized box, put all those things in, as well as my laptop and stuff (I was going to need it for the next day). The plan was that my best friend was supposed to call him and tell him that I told her to give him this box and letter and there were instructions on the order in which he was supposed to do it.

The instructions:
1) Open the box.
2) Open the big purple letter.
3) Open the little white letter.
[And he was supposed to do all this only after he was in his apartment.]

The plan:
1) Best friend calls him to tell him to come down to pick up a box from me.
2) He comes down. I sneak up to his floor and hide somewhere.
3) He picks up the stuff, goes up to his apartment and reads the instructions, while I carefully wait just outside his door, and listen outside to discern what step he was on.
4) He opens the box and sees my stuff. He's like, wtf...
5) He reads the big purple letter. It reads: Bundy--Happy 100th Day--Jasmine. He's like WTF.
6) He reads the little white letter. It reads: Bundy--Open the door--Jasmine. He's like WTF!!
7) He opens the door and finds me standing outside. He's speechless.

The conclusion of Part I is...everything happened according to plan. The surprise went absolutely perfect, all according to plan.

I'm good ;-)

Part II: The Almost Perfect Ending

He was absolutely stunned speechless, not knowing what to do, and not knowing how to act and react.

I somehow didn't feel exactly happy though. I mean, I was crying and stuff when I saw him, but it was one of those things that you're just exhausted and tired when you've been working on a plan and your plan worked.

After about an hour and a half, my lack of exuberance started to bother me. The night made a 180 degree turn. I said some things which a normal person would normally not say to their significant other, but I'm honest so here it went: "Baby? I...I don't think I exactly love you. I mean, I like you, but I'm not sure I love you." I also said I don't find him attractive physically...yeah, way to spend the night with a boyfriend you hadn't seen in a month, right?

Hey, you haters. Truth hurts. But anyways.

We didn't sleep until like 3:30 am. We were talking about random stuff, and I can't even recall what we were talking about. It was hideous. I mean, sleeping that late, and then making something to eat used to be our routine--we used to microwave pizza bagels or bake cinnabons or boil lobsters at around that hour. But this night was just really blah.

The next day, our 101st day, was better...in the morning. Holding him while he was shaving felt more right. But the train ride was a bit uneventful. We left each other after the train ride because he had to get to work and I was having lunch with my uncle. The little affection that we gained in the morning was quickly going to deteriorate.

I changed my plans to see him and his best friend for lunch; I went to my uncle's instead to help him with some admissions stuff. We talked on the phone; we broke up then, and got back 3 seconds later; we figured out what was wrong in the relationship right now; it was because we were too burdened with the expectations of marriage and crap. We resolved to the policy of "no expectations."

I said I was going to have dinner with my uncle, so he decided to have dinner with his best friend. He said he was going to be back at this apartment by 9.30 pm. Things started to go really wrong here.

My uncle drove me to his place, after driving me to the grocery store to get milk, eggs, ice cream, and whipped cream for our rendez-vous tonight; we were going to rekindle things by baking the cake--we always used to do random fun things like that. We got there at 9.45 pm. I called and no one answered; he must not be back yet--he had left his phone at his apartment that day. But it was so out of character for him to be late--I was worried.

We waited five minutes, I was starting to feel bad--my little cousin was in the back seat, and he would have school tomorrow. So my uncle drove me home.

I was angry, upset, and wondering what happened. He called me at 10.07 pm. He called, but I didn't pick up. I texted him to go on gmail. I didn't want to pick up the phone and wake up my already-asleep family members.

We talked on gmail. He's not one to talk about relationship stuff via electronic ways, so he took the train and walked to my house. I kept on telling him to go back. I knew I wasn't going to want to open the door. My heart was stone hard and stone cold.

He texted that he was outside and kept calling. I had written what I wanted via gmail--to not talk for the next weeks and start completely over as strangers in December--but after 15 minutes I decided that he wasn't going to leave until I came out.

I packed the cake stuff and got the car keys--I planned to go over to his house, bake a cake together, and break up. [Haha, aren't I melodramatic? I loved my plan.]

What happened was, I opened the door--he was very upset. I was expressionless and said, "Get in the car." I did not feel anything...I just wanted to bake the cake and say bye.

We got to his place. He wanted to sit at the couch and talk; I wanted to bake the cake and talk.

After an hour, they following conversation (paraphrased) happened:
Him: I have a question for you. Do you think this is worth it?
Me: I thought you were worth it, but when my friends and family keep on saying otherwise, it's hard...
Him: Get out.
Me: Wha...? Ok.
Him: Do you know why?
Me: [shakes head]
Him: You said I were worth it, which means I'm not now. Do you really mean that?
Me: I really thought you were worth it.
Him: Take your stuff and leave.

I know I could have said "You are worth it," but I wasn't sure if that was true. It was over.

Part III: The End.

One tenet of my life is that I would not regret anything that I did. While I was packing my stuff, he was saying stuff like, "You're making a big mistake. I could have offered you so much in life" and then it turned into "Your friends and family are stupid and you are stupid for listening to them. With that attitude, you'll never succeed in life." All paraphrased, of course--I was back in my own little world at the time, trying to grab everything in his apartment that belonged to me.

With his networks, family support, and business mind, I'm sure he'll be a very rich man one day. But no, I won't be regretting my decision. I had simply fallen out of love.

It's funny how we broke up on our 101st day (well, 102nd if you're anal because it was past 12am). I had fallen out of love in less than 48 hours, or less than 36 even? Around less than 25. Anyways, the point is, it was ridiculously short. This reminds me of the quote my friend has on his profile: "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." [Quote by Warren Buffet.]

I'm sure my feelings didn't just vanish the night I saw him. It slowly deteriorated in the month I was at Oxford. Our arrangement was to be in an open relationship. He had said things like, "Let's do that because we'd both be lonely. Let's just keep it physical for the other people. I'm not going to start doing stuff with other people until you do. I'm not OK with this arrangement but I know you'd want it that way."

Well, I started dating someone five days after I arrived at Oxford. We met at a club on the second day of Fresher's Week (week of drinking and partying and getting sick for freshers), haha. It was five minutes into being at the club, hahaha. Ask my hallmates. It was the funniest shit. I had my friend's phone because she didn't have any pockets. So when they decided to leave, they called me to get back the phone and to leave together. Our conversation:

Me: Hello?
Her: Hey Christina, where are you? We can't find you anywhere! We're about to leave...can I get my phone back?
Me: Um, I'm at this person's place...can I give it back tomorrow...?
Her: Oh...OHHHH....don't worry about the phone....have fun tonight!

He's Japanese with a British accent and was just too cute to pass up. And it just started with a "Wanna dance?" Funny shit. Anyways.

Of course my American boyfriend(?) got really upset. So he started dating this girl from his apartment complex. [Yeah, very smart.] But he said, "She's fucking hot and I just had to, baby. The time was right."

So I was like, ok, sure. It was only fair. I mean, I "defected" first--look at what I learned from my "Games of Strategy" class! Our situation (or at least from my point of view) had the following payoff table:

Sorry it's a bit blurry. So this "game" is a classic Prisoner's Dilemma. We would both get a better payoff if we "cooperated" (i.e., didn't see other people). However, both of our dominant strategies is to "defect," or "cheat." And so, the equilibrium was that we would both defect, which is what happened.

On the night that we broke up, he kept telling me that perhaps I was too immature, that this relationship would not work because of that. (I mean, before me, he only dated older women.) Looking back on the month I was at Oxford after he found out about the guy I was dating, he straight away found someone else; we told each other about the people we were dating and we kept on trying to top each other. Example of a conversation:

Him: So what did you do today?
Me: Oh nothing, showed Maki around--she's visiting from LSE, met up with Koda, and then met his parents because they were here...
Him: Oh cool...yeah, this girl I'm dating is fucking hot, and [insert inappropriate word (for this medium) here] me like a professional...
Me: Great, I'm glad. Because frankly, I don't like doing that, so it's good that she's doing it for you. You know, when we're together and you want that, feel free to call her up to do it, because I'm not going to.
Him: What? You're not going to? But baby, I like it...and I don't want to call her up when we're together again...

So yeah, I may be immature, but I don't think he's so mature himself if he needs to retaliate against my dating other people. I mean, for me, dating Koda just happened naturally.

What I also think--and this may be me being narcissistic--was that he was seeing all those girls (oh, yes, there are more than one) in order to forget about me dating Koda. He said he had been also drinking a lot because he was depressed and stuff.

Anyhow, from my point of view, he hasn't been getting his job stuff together, he hasn't been working out at the gym, and he has been drinking a lot. I wouldn't care so much about him dating girls if his life were together. I.e., instead of respecting himself, focusing on his goals, and getting his act together, he has been spending time with her and drinking. Yeah, pretty mature, right?

So I think that was one reason I fell out of love.

This is me being selfish, but if I had been going out with someone, and he knew, but didn't go out with anyone, one of the following could have happened:

[A]I would keep going out with Koda for a while, but then think, wow--he really just only wants me--eventually break up with Koda because it wasn't fair, and be in a real LDR (long distance relationship) during my time at Oxford. And then I'd come home, get back into the relationship, and probably eventually get married.

[B] I would have thought he was a dumbass.

Thinking back, I think it would have been option [B]. I'm cruel. It sucks for guys.

I also think there was another reason. On the night we broke up, he told me, "Baby, I'm sorry I'm broke and can't take you out on nice dinners..." I mean, if he said that, it means that (A) he thinks it's about money, and (B) he doesn't know me very well still. I would have just been as happy if we were cooking or baking something in his kitchen for dinner. Actually, I would have been a lot happier. But he didn't understand.

So I guess it was really good that he came home late--I guess I was waiting for something to go wrong; I was awaiting for flaw, an excuse, even--because then I was able to let go completely.

It seems like being late is a really stupid thing to break up on, especially since "[i] am late all the time, and it was [his] first time" but while he was gone, all I could think about was either:

[1] He was drinking with his buddy and got really drunk; he believes in "bros before hos,"
[2] He didn't care about being late because the night before, I was an hour late on Skype; it might have been retaliation again, or
[3] He was hanging out with the girl from his apartment and ignored my call.

So at that point I realized that it was not the lateness that got me; it was that I no longer trusted him.

And so, I guess it was really great that we both have other significant others. He even told me he was keeping the girl just in case we don't work out. I guess she came in handy!

I think the lessons I got out of this are:

[1] I will have a policy of "Girlfriends Before BSSOs" (BSSOs meaning 'bullshit significant others'). Well, I've always had this policy for the most part, but I just wanted to announce it.

[2] I realized the stupidity and futility of open relationships. Just break it off for god's sake!

[3] I will not get into another serious relationship until I'm like, 25 years old, because I just need to be free to do whatever I want.

So, after 101 days, I'm liberated.

Epilogue: Fate Went on a Holiday

Back to the idea of Fate.

Right from the beginning of our relationship, I felt a strange connection whenever we communicated. For example, we were almost always thinking of the same thing--at the same time. We were very compatible, almost identical people. And weird things always happened in our favor. Examples:

[1] He bought tickets to the Red Sox game and it was pouring all day. By the time we got there, the rain had stopped.

[2] We were going to the Yankees game in NYC, but the bus driver got lost and was an hour behind schedule. There was a rain delay and so we didn't miss any of the game.

[3] I really wanted to stay at his apartment one night, but my mom didn't let me. That day, the door was locked in a weird way so that she wasn't able to open the door. So she let me stay at his place because she didn't want me to be in the cold.

[4] The story of how I met him--being rejected from all the banks I applied to, applying to INROADS, getting into BBH, and turning down a month-long trip to Vietnam--for more information please see this post.

All summer, things always went perfect. Perhaps we really wanted to fall in love, but it really was as if Fate wanted us to fall in love.

He says that he doesn't believe that the summer was Fate, that he had worked hard to fall in love. We had many amazing and fun moments--moments I'll always think of fondly.

~when I killed him in the game of mafia and I shot him in paintball, even though he was on my team
~when we went to Home Depot 7 times in one day
~when we infiltrated Babson one night...and almost got caught by the BabPo
~when we cooked dinner for "The Barbara"
~when we danced in the aisles of Fire&Ice and got yelled at by the manager
~when I threw up in the Scorpion Bowl for drinking too much alcohol for the first time
~when we had the most romantic dinner at L'Espalier
~when we watched those Red Sox and Yankees games and made bets
~when we cooked pancakes in the morning
~when we caused all the mayhem at BBH
~when we saw the largest, most amazing shooting star the night I came back from NYC and he cooked me a romantic dinner
~when he said "I love you" while taking a bath with rose petals and candles

But funny thing is--those things we great, but my deepest memory of him was on the night before my parents came back from Vietnam, when he stayed up until 3 am to do all my laundry while I was asleep.

In the two days that I saw him, it was as if Fate was wanting us to fall out of love. First of all, he forgot his cell phone, so he couldn't be contacted, and second of all, he said he just missed the train; otherwise he would have gotten back 20 minutes earlier. I remember the timing used to be always perfect.

I almost think that we would have still been together if, when I was sneaking up to his floor to give him the surprise, we had bumped into each other in the elevator, thereby causing the surprise to fail. I would have been like, all cute and whiny and we just would have hugged and kissed and everything for a long time, just both elated. But I missed him in the elevator by 2 seconds. Perhaps it was a sign that the relationship would no longer work--that we would just miss each other.

Post-Epilogue: Fate Remembers Me

But I think Fate came back to me right after we broke up. Examples:

[1] The day after we broke up, I was looking through my missed calls to see how many times he had called me the night before--just out of curiosity. I went to the beginning of the list and "he-who-must-not-be-named" (haha) had called on October 6th! I had called him the night before from Oxford because I needed some help on my economics assignment. It was funny because I kept on thinking that he was no longer talking to me, or ignoring me or something. But he called back. And the fact that I discover that is a BIG thing because if my ex had called just one more time, I wouldn't have found that out--it would have been deleted from the list.

[2] The day after we broke up, this other person--nicknamed "The Sin" by me--messaged me on Facebook to see how I was doing. As for this person, there was a trend of me contacting him first, but it was just really surprising to see that message. Definitely got back to him.

So I mean, I think Fate is pointing me in other directions. To be honest, I did hear me and my ex's song "Hey There Delilah" on the radio. The first time was when I was waiting in Health Services at Wellesley; the second time was when I just got into the car after dropping off my sister at a parade. Each time was sort of painful, sort of nostalgic, but it's nothing but a fond memory now. The second time, though, they played "Clumsy" by Fergie afterwards--and I felt so happy and cheerful listening to it. I'm not sure what the song is about, but it might be about getting over an ex easily or falling in love easily.

The point is, "Hey There Delilah" will always be a beautiful song, but "Clumsy" is my tune now.

Cheers,
K

If I were Anna Tang [the one charged with intent to murder]...

2007-10-31T08:56:00.000Z

Today nothing much happened (or will happen, as I'm writing this before noon on this lovely Wednesday), as I have two papers due by tomorrow at 7 pm and have not started yet [typical], [So why are you updating at so early an hour and not writing your paper, you ask? Because. And I'm also waiting for post-lunch to go to the Bod.] So yes, today will consist of the exciting event of writing my two damn 2000-3000 word papers.

And so now I'll tell you about what went on yesterday and what I was thinking. Because what I was thinking was a bit scary and/or demented, as the title of this entry alludes to.

But before I do that, I want to announce that I'm the worst joke-teller in the world. Haha! Seriously. Today I went to another "you-get-paid-to-be-studied" things, this time in the Social Psych department. We had to tell a pre-selected joke to a stranger, and she did not really laugh. Yeah...

Anyways. Back to Anna Tang.

In case you haven't heard yet (I'm sure you have--I only found out two days ago and it happened over a week ago),--in a nutshell--a Wellesley College junior (i.e., my year) went to her MIT ex-boyfriend's room in the wee hours of the morning and stabbed him 7 times with a buck knife. They had dated for 8 months, and ever since they broke up 3 weeks ago, she had been sending him scary emails saying that she's going to kill him. She obviously followed through--she's now charged with with home invasion and armed assault with intent to murder. For more information on the story, go here.

I recognize her face; I've definitely seen her around campus, and it just boggles my mind that she did that. I also found a video of her on Fox. The Bostonist wrote, "Even though she allegedly committed an unspeakably cruel crime, her face registered nothing but a blank as the lawyers did their work." I'm not taking sides; I definitely feel some of what he Bostonist is saying, but I was also thinking that if I were her in the position right now, my expression would probably be about the same--just as blank and expressionless.

I just can't understand why she did that; I was thinking about what could have possibly gone wrong--she seems so mild-mannered, and I finally came up with something as I was walking to Korean class yesterday (I actually missed my turn and was 15 minutes late because I was so deep in thought about this, haha).

So if I were Anna Tang, my story would be like this:

"Wolfe and I had been dating for 8 months--he was my first boyfriend, and my first. We were very much in love--or at least I was, I guess, now. About 5 weeks ago, I found out that I was pregnant with his child. I had missed my period and took a test--it was positive. I told him, he was shocked. Looking back, I think it was more of a look of disgust.

We talked about it, and he urged me to take RU486--the abortion pill. I'm pro-choice, but I found out that it's a different situation when you actually have a baby inside of you. But I guess he was right. We're both young still, and there's no way that we'd be able to take care of a child and do everything else we want to do with our lives.

And so I did it--I went to the clinic by myself because Wolfe had class--and took the pill. And then I began to bleed--a lot. I've never bled so much in my life, but the doctor said that that was normal. Two days later, I took the second pill in my dorm room, and 20 minutes later, I bled even more than the first time. I felt intense cramps for the next 8 hours--it was so frightening. But, I guess, at least, the situation was taken care of.

That night, I took the shuttle bus to MIT to see Wolfe. He was in his room with another girl. I confronted him. He said he had been seeing her for the past 2 weeks. I couldn't believe it--I loved him so much, I gave up our baby--how could he do this to me? I was so angry and exhausted from the abortion, I fainted right in front of them.

When I woke up, and we had an angry confrontation. He pushed me out of his room and locked it, with the other girl inside. I banged and pushed at the door, but it failed to budge. So I took the shuttle bus home, and wrote him that first email from 3 weeks ago.

You have the rest of the emails. And you know what happened a week ago.

I plead not guilty because I don't believe that my actions are unjustified. How would you react in this situation? If you want me to plead guilty to what physically happened, then fine, I plead guilty to that. But if you think that it was a simple they-broke-up-and-she's-angry-so-she-tried-to-kill-him story, it can be that simple, but I hope that after you have heard my story, that you sympathize with me and understand what happened."

That's the only explanation that I can come up with for why she did what she did.

[*Sigh*]

Anyways, onto other matters of my life...

On the business front, I had a team meeting yesterday. Right after I pitched our idea about Fairtrade to potential mentors--which was quite scary and nerve wracking, but really cool--we turned into greedy bastards and changed our business plan to selling Oxford University sports accessories--or something like that.

Our main concern with our original plan was the following. Our idea had been wanting to make sweatbands--sweatbands that you wear to show your support for Fairtrade--much like Lance Armstrong LIVESTRONG armbands. But we didn't know how well the business would catch on because the success of the original armbands were probably because of what Lance represented. But really, the success of the other colors show that it did catch on as a fashion trend.

So now, we're serving a need for sports people out there, making Oxford University gloves (for rowers, bikers, etc.), sweatbands, etc.

But for me, I really want to give the Fairtrade thing a go, because it'd be cool and I want to support them. It's a really good cause, but I'll have to see how things go.

On the relationship front, I finally want to write something about my "status" right now--I mostly want to say "thank you" for everyone who's noticed my status as a "single" and all the support that my friends--you know who you are!--have offered me.

So yes, I'm single.

Or as another person accused me--*cough*Xin*cough*--I'm in an open relationship. But what is the difference if you're both dating other people that you "kind of" like and care about, but not really in a relationship with? So I think it's fair to say I'm single. At least I'm acting and behaving like one.

So it's a peculiar situation. Basically, I had(ve?) a boyfriend from the summer, but we've decided to make it "open" when I left for Oxford. We are now both dating other people and spending a lot of time with them. Observe our situations:

1. Boyfriend's(?) Situation. Last night I called my boyfriend(?), and I caught him in the middle of him cooking with his girlfriend(?). She's someone from another floor of his apartment (yea, very smart). I didn't want to interrupt them--so I said I'll catch him at another time--but he insisted on talking, so he stepped out of her apartment to talk to me. She doesn't know about me. It was like he was cheating--and he's the biggest advocate of fidelity--on his girlfriend(?) with me. Haha, isn't that WEIRD?

2. My Situation. I think about a week ago, Koda found out about my boyfriend(?). I had decided to casually mention it to him. He was a bit shocked and flabbergasted--it was kind of funny. And since then, he's been sweeter and more aggressive and everything, knowing that he's got competition--not only my boyfriend(?), but also 5 other guys I have crushes on right now. So it's cool.

I even think we kind of exchanged "I love you's (at least as a friend)" in the last few days. I think it was triggered by the fact that we were fooling around with some of his friends in Dot's room. Let's just say that Sean said, "Well, you're technically single," and it followed with my physical contact on the bed with Sean and Josh--all while he's in the room. I'm an exhibitionist. I'm not a cunt--I was just retaliating to what he did to Dot [which I won't mention here]. And so, I think he got jealous. And I think he wants to be exclusive, but knows that I don't want that, so he mildly hints at it, but doesn't say it outright--He's the biggest sweetheart.

So my situation is that, when Koda and I go out and there are introductions one way or another, there's always a how-do-i-introduce-him/her. Examples:

a) "This is Christina and she's Koda's um..."
b) "Oh! So you must be Christina, Koda's um..."
c) "This is Christina and she's Koda's um...mistress."
d) "This is Koda."

I don't know what will happen to our other significant others (can we even call them that?). Koda's been definitely more gay (read: sweet). Like yesterday, because I was sleeping in my own dorm for the night, he said, "It feels weird not seeing your face when I wake." [Yes, awwwwww...]

So yea, I don't know what's going to happen, but on my front, I think we'll be able to keep being good friends, no matter what happens, because of our honesty.

So yes, for you Facebook stalkers out there, that's why my status says I'm "single"--I technically am.

To some of you, my situation may be kind of demented, but just be a good friend/potential lover/standby person and wish me luck on this year of [freedom? exploration? experimentation? bachelorette party?] at Oxford.

I'm kind of happy that I'm able to experience all sorts of love and relationship situations before--gasp!--marriage. I have a bunch of things I have to check off my list before I return to the States and monogamy ;-)

And--it would be a wonderful world if I could write like this for my papers. I should have been a creative writing major GAH -_-"

Cheers,
K

The First Time I Got Studied by the Psychiatric Department

2007-10-29T15:30:00.000Z

Whoa--hold it right there. Before you start assuming things, I am telling you now that I'm not crazy. (Um...well, I guess you can only be the judge of that...but, anyhow.)

I went there to be a test subject for their experiment on intrusive memories. What they did was let me play tetris, write down how I'm feeling, watch a 12-min clip on horrible things (like car crashes and surgeries), do some busywork by answering some questions on random things (like "Give an example of a split infinitive.")...and now I must record all my intrusive memories from the video clip for the week. And then I make £10. Pretty sweet deal.

But wait, let me tell you a little bit more about the video clips that I saw:

1) A little girl lies dead against a tree, he blood starts to reverse and then she is dragged into the street, as if the scene were reversing itself.

2) A guy is shaving, but as he is shaving, huge amounts of blood reveal and splash into the sink and floor and everything.

3) An angry elephant kills the circus guy by stomping repeatedly on him.

4) You see a 5-year old boy playing soccer. You see another scene where a guy is having fun at a party. He then is on the road, driving his car. He hits the curb, his car flips--into the backyard of the boy playing soccer--and kills the boy.

5) A girl sits on a stone wall; her boyfriend stands on the ground, looking up to her. They're cuddling, having fun. A car comes out-of-control towards their direction, and hits the boy, crushing him. The girl screams in agony as her legs are crushed by the car, and as her beloved dies right in front of her.

6) Two groups of friends, one of girls, the other of boys. One of the boys and one of the girls are texting each other for a date. They find each other across the street from each other. As the boy texts her and crosses the street, a truck hits and kills him. The scene ends with the girl going to his funeral.

So yeah, it wasn't that easy. But I mean, they bothered me bit, but it wasn't too traumatic. A lot of movies are worse.

And I did learn something from this--don't text and cross the street. I do that a lot here, yikes.

Other than that, nothing special happened today...just went to the Duke of Cambridge for happy hour with the usual gang, who are always a lot of fun to be around =)

Cheers,
K

[The] Forgone Experience[s]

2007-10-28T08:28:00.000Z

Today I woke up and I was very confused. My mobile said 9.13 am, while the computer read 8.13 am. And then I got angry. Last night was the Merton Time Ceremony, and I had missed it, thinking that daylight savings time happened on Sunday night/Monday morning.

I don't know what I was thinking; I should have known, because every year during the first Sunday in April--the other daylight savings time--the Chinese Memorial Day happens, and everyone in my extended family is required to wake up at like, 7 am and go to visit one of my deceased relatives. And some of my aunt and uncles are always an hour late, and always use the same excuse: they forgot to adjust their clocks. *Uber-lame.

I had been really looking forward to the Time Ceremony too, since I arrived at Oxford, when a Merton boy told me about it. He said he'd bring me. He lied. And so now I'm not going to be nice to him. And if I'm normally cruel, you don't want to see me when I'm deliberately not nice.

Anyhow, the Time Ceremony sounded like it was going to be a lot bacchic (read: drunken) fun. What happens is that everyone gathers in the Merton quad and walks backward in a large circle at 2 am for an hour, while drinking a lot of alcohol, such that, at the end of the hour, it would be 2 am again. Oh, and they do it to preserve the space-time-continuum.

Oh well, less alcohol = good for me, right?

I also was going to go to this mushroom hunt-thing with the Food Society this morning at 10.30 am, but I was too tired and lazy...And my initial euphoria/enthusiasm for mushroom-picking was gone. I'm actually in the mood to go clubbing, hm...

So those two were the forgone experiences. Anyhow...

Tonight Kodes and I cooked chicken legs...we deboned and and cut it up into pieces. It was the first time that I'd ever handled raw meat--in the time that I did one leg, he'd done three--and it was quite fun! I'm going to be a hellava cook when I come back from England ;-)

I'm finding that I'm being more and more domesticated as I'm on my own. For example, I actually like doing things like tidying up, pouring tea/coffee, cooking--for other people. See, when I was younger, my mom would always yell at my grandmother when she comes over to our house and wants to cook for us and wash the dishes afterwards, while of course, my mom just wants her to relax. So she yells at her instead, "You must have been a servant in your past life!"

So the point is, I kind of understand my grandmother now--maybe it's not that she wants to do nice things for us (well, I'm sure that's not the case), but that she actually enjoys doing that stuff (my case).

Therefore, when I tidy things up for you or poor you coffee, it's not that I'm being selfless like your mother, but rather it's for my self-satisfaction.

And further therefore, you should take advantage of my selfishness. Because, for once, we both win.

Cheers,
K

A Very Short and Chill Saturday

2007-10-27T16:37:00.000+01:00

Did I mention that I didn't hit the bed until 5.18 am this morning? Yeah...I was working on my resume--my japanese one. Poor Kodes stayed up to help. I think it was his first-ever all-nighter (haha, and it was non-academic, poor thing). The Brits are very good about doing work at reasonable hours. And with essays due in the evening the night before a tutorial, there really isn't much reason to have an all-nighter. *Sigh* I love Britain.

I woke up at 9.20 am. Four hours of sleep. Niiiiiiiceee.

Anyhow, didn't do much, but found this great fresh fruit smoothie place called Shaken Steven's. I had a sudden craving for something fruity, and I was willing to trek 15 minutes to get what I wanted at Boost (that stuff is like cocaine), which would have costed £3.50 (yes, that would be $7 for a smoothie). But instead I found this place that was half the distance and 2/3 of the price. And they use fresh fruit--far better than Boost, which has a lot of crushed ice. So Shaken Steven's is very awesome indeed.

Then I had a nice romantic dinner with Suzi at Bella Italia. It's like our ritual--we hadn't seen each other in a while and needed to catch up, which was very nice.

Then I went to OXCIA to watch Infernal Affair. I never seriously watched it, and now that I have, I conclude that it was a very good movie, but also a very bad one as well. I usually only cry at romantic lovey-dovey movies, but when the undercover cop died, I got really upset. Moreover, I didn't know how to feel about the undercover mafia, so I got really blah =(

I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. So sweet dreams!

Cheers,
K

High Stakes Poker. [Hell Yeah!]

2007-10-26T17:49:00.000+01:00

Today I got up just in time for lecture (10.28 am for 11 am lecture). I was soooooo sick and disgusted from all the cheese puffs I ate yesterday that I think I won't be having any prawn crackers or cheese puffs for a long time. Actually, cheese puffs sound pretty good just about now...

Highlight of today was participating in the International Poker Tournament held jointly by the Greek, Polish, German, Scandanavian, and some other societies that I forgot. Guess which society I was part of? Scandanavian. I love being random.

The Scandanavian people were so welcoming of me too! They're a very small society, so it should be very intimate. It was so funny because I didn't even know where Scandinavia was! Apparently it's comprised of four countries--Denmark (Copenhagen), Sweden (Stolkholm), Finland (Helsinski), and Norway (Oslo). They were totally playing the "Dumb Americans" game. "They" as in the people from the German society. It's cool though. We're probably gonna be good friends anyways.

Anyhow, I was the last one to get there (40 minutes late), first one to re-buy (meaning I lost all of my chips first), and ended up being at the final table, capturing fourth place, winning £11.50, meaning that after over three hours of play, I made a profit of £1.50.

But Hey,

[1] Who would have thought I would have lasted that long??
[2] I'm glad I went because not only did I have a lot of fun and make a lot of friends, but I also learned all of the capitals of the countries that comprise of Scandinavia.

Haha!

Cheers,
K

Michiru's Visit

2007-10-25T11:33:00.000+01:00

Today was very hectic, because we had to prepare things for Kodes' friends, who came to Oxford to visit for half-term.

Snapshot for today's happenings, plus my eating log (because it was a bit weird):

[6.15 pm] Run to Deutsche Bank info session (1 bag of prawn crackers + large latte on the go, i.e. dinner)
[6.30 pm] Deutsche Bank mingling (1/2 glass of champagne)
[7.00 pm] Chinese language class
[8.15 pm] Chinese writing class
[10.30 pm] Clubbing @ Ocean & Collins (1 Smirnoff ice, double-shot voka and coke, and a few other things = total of 3 shots)
[1.30 am] Hanging out in Jeremy's room (1/2 bottle of Stella Artois)
[2.30 am] Head back to dorm (1 bag of cheese puffs, 545 calories)

To summarize, what I had for dinner were crisps and alcohol. Nice.

Oh! And I also kissed a girl today. Twice.

The end.

Cheers!
K

Kuriko, A Wannabe [1] Columnist and [2] Entrepreneur Extraordinaire

2007-10-24T14:10:00.000+01:00

Wednesday, 24 October 2007

Today I thought that I'd like to start a column in either the Oxford Student or the Cherwell. It'd be something along the lines of "What He's Thinking" or "It's Not Cruel--It's Just Smart" or "Oh, How I Love Cruelty." It'd be about things people think to do, but don't do because it'd be cruel, or things that don't come across people's minds because it's too cruel or horrid to think about, or it'd just be about using psychology and game strategy to play and win at life. I think I'd be pretty darn good at it. I did get an A- in Skeath's Game Theory class--there's a reason why I did well ;-)

Today I also went to my second Oxford Entrepreneurs meeting for a "team building" session. I learned that in this club you actually form teams, and you actually start real companies. That blew my mind. It was like when I found out that the D in Disney WAS a D. Only a little bit less intense.

The week before, when I signed up for OE, I put down the following information:

Interests/Skills/Idea...
~ bar + club
~ café by the beach
~ asset management

I want to work with...
~ artists/designers
~ people interested in cooking/baking
~ traders

And somehow, they put me in the Foreign Culture table (I was expecting something more like Finance?). But it was very awesome that I ended up at that table because

[1] I was grouped with people who had a similar genuine interest. I mean, if I had to choose between Foreign Culture and Finance, I'd pick the former any day, really.

[2] We have four people our team, representing four countries--Russia, Thailand, China, United States. Other groups average 10 people, meaning more difficult coordination and smaller share in the company.

[3] We have a diversified set of interests and skills. One wanted to be the Sales Manager, another wanted Marketing Manager, and the last wanted Operations Director. And so I became the Managing Director. I perceived that there would be too many A-types in finance, and everyone would want to be the MD.

And everyone's so nice on my team! I think what brings us together is our common interest in Foreign Culture, as well as our excitement in our product. I don't want to reveal too much just yet, but it has something to do with fashion and Fairtrade, which we're really happy about, because we are going to be donating part of our profits to support the organization.

So sit tight, because a lot is going to happen in the year! Not that not a lot has happened already =D

...But this should be extra-exciting!

Cheers!
K

"You're Gonna Be a Good Wife One Day" (Except...)

2007-10-24T14:08:00.000+01:00

Tuesday, 23 October 2007

Today Tristram told me that he found out I thought he was "cute" from searching for himself in my blog. He's like, "I'm not cute! I'm a big burly man!" At first I was a bit embarrassed (But really, when am I ever embarrassed? I'm usually too oblivious to know that I am supposed to feel embarrassed), but then after we went our separate ways after class, I started to feel worried.

Why? Because I suddenly remembered that the British have a definition of "cute" that is different from the American definition. "Cute" in the British dictionary means "pathetic."

Per Sean's example: "Look at the poor cripple trying to get back onto his wheelchair! He's so cute!"

So you could understand why I started to feel worried. In the American definition, per Urban Dictionary, "cute" means...

1) little kids doing funny things
2) someone that is attractive (i.e., fit) in an innocent way
3) used to describe someone or an act that's sweet, nice
4) something that you just want to squeeze, or keep
5) used to refer to something little, or related to being young
6) someone doing something silly, special

So yes, Tristram. When I was saying you were cute, I was using the American definition =). And now that I've praised you publicly, you should treat me to a drink at Brasenose =D.

Also, Kodes and I had our first "official" date. Right, yeah...I know what you're thinking--we've known each other for a month already, and just today we had our first date. Not that I mind. No--Really, I don't. Whatever our situation is, to some people is so twisted/messed-up/demented that...yeah, they would be confused about how it's working. But it's working for me and that's all that matters. I don't think anyone will ever be able to come close to my Baby Boy's creativity and sweetness, so no worries.

We went to watch the "Heartbreak Kid" and there is one conversation in particular that I want to share.

Stiller (thinking of reasons to not marry the girl): But she's not that funny!
Stiller's Dad: Humour is a guy gene! Only the manly women are funny!

I'm offended. Stiller's Dad thinks I'm manly.

Right. Anyways, moving right along...

We decided to cook for each other for dinner. He pan-fried some chicken (Four legs--we had two each. Damn.); I cooked spicy Korean ramen with poached egg and tofu--We were making chicken ramen! At the time we were cooking it was already 9 pm, and we were starving, so we had a leg each for starters. The timing for the rest of the food was perfect because by the time the ramen was done, the other chicken legs were done as well. So as I was deboning the chicken, cutting it so that it laid out perfectly on top of the ramen, he said, "You're gonna be a good wife one day..."

I think that's the sweetest compliment anyone has given me in a long time.

But of course there's a "but"--he then points out the major flaw/complication I'll have in a marriage. I won't tell you what it is, nor tell you if you're right or wrong when you guess. If you've known me long enough (he's only known me for less than a month and he's still on point), you'd probably know what my flaw is. I'lll give you a hint: It's not the snoring ;-)

Cheers,
K

The Secret to Happiness is in Not Caring

2007-10-24T14:07:00.000+01:00

Monday, 22 October 2007

Today my first essay for my "International Economics" tutorial was due. It was 1500 words (the standard is 2000-3000), and 1 hours, 23 minutes late. Typical me.

After I passed in my essay, Nao and I went to the Duke of Cambridge to grab a few drinks. And then, I guess it was the alcohol, but we launched into a deep discussion about life. Or rather, he was a bit down, so I gave him a lecture on life and/or how to be happy.

So here goes the general formula for being happy: Just, don't care.

Please allow me to elaborate. Have you ever heard of the phrase, "blissful ignorance"? It describes a condition where, the less you know (the more ignorant you are), the happier you are.

It's the same reasoning. Too much of life is plagued by worries--worries that, in the end, really don't hold too much weight in how your life turns out. Life takes too many unexpected twists, turns, and jumps, and people freak out when life is not as they planned. So the solutions are:

[a] Don't let it get to you when things aren't as planned. I.e. Don't care so much.
[b] Have a plan B, C, D, E...Z, infinity when things don't work out.

I have a little anecdote that I'd like to share. I'm really not particularly good at anything--sports, academics, extracurriculars--but there is one thing I'm good at, and that is being optimistic and happy (which, I think are important things to be good at). But I have to confess that there was a time when I was really depressed--namely spring semester of sophomore year--and I was really, really down. It was that experience that has led me to realize my philosophy today.

So what happened was, basically, I was a study-whore during my first-year at Wellesley (which, thank god, because it got me into Oxford). Near the end of my first year, I met this frat boy from Yale who I came to like a little bit too much...yadiyadida, after we stopped talking to each other, I thought about him and wondered why he was able to have so much fun (at least on the surface) and still do well academically and career-wise (i-banker). And I realized that I was missing fun in my life. Seriously, I was so stuck in my little world that I hadn't noticed it until then.

So then in my sophomore year, I was sort of stuck up about my academic abilities (taking on five classes), took on two jobs (marketing positions with a start-up and a corporation), and also had a little bit too much fun (e.g., I went to a networking event with Brandeis MBAs/MBA wannabes at a bar on a Wednesday). At the end of fall semester of sophomore year, I accomplished nothing but less-than-outstanding performance on my two jobs, less-than-ideal grades that led to few internship interviews, and weak friendships. Needless to say, spring semester of sophomore year was bouncing back to being a study-whore to get my grades up.

As my sophomore year was drawing to a close, I was still without an internship offer and was getting very worried. After all, this year, spending my junior year abroad makes landing an internship very difficult, especially in banking. To augment the problem, my parents had bought a plane ticket for me to vacation for a month with them in Vietnam right smack in the middle of the summer. Read: I can't do anything serious during the summer because I'll have to leave in the middle.

What ended up happening was I scrambled to find something last minute, and found INROADS (I had to hunt them down). They had me interview with Brown Brothers Harriman, and I landed the internship. Keep in mind that with both INROADS and BBH, I had gotten an offer, turned them down, and begged them to take me back. I was THAT indecisive. And so, I didn't go to Vietnam, had a very chill internship, and found the love of my life. It was a hellava summer.

And so, the point of that long and tedious story is that things will always work themselves out. You just have to make what you think is the right decision at the time, commit yourself to the decision, and never regret the decision. Always be optimistic, and the sun will always shine, no matter how hard the raindrops fall.

Cheers,
K

The Mah-Mah Weekend of Ups and Downs

2007-10-24T14:06:00.000+01:00

Saturday, 20 October 2007

Sailing tryouts were five miles away from the centre of Oxford, and started at 9.45 am. Nao and I decided to slowly stroll to my dorm at 9.30 am and then slowly stroll to god-knows-where five miles away.

Needless to say, I didn't get there until 11.30 am. It was a great day, (so strolling for 4.5 miles and taking the bus for .5 miles was fine), but no wind. So much for sailing.

Got there, and they haven't even gone onto the water yet. When we finally got onto the water, though (after slipping on a swan poop--I don't want to talk about it), it was just soooo nice. There's a reason why I love the water so much.

After taking into consideration the five mile distance and swan-poop incident, I decided that whether or not I got into the squad, I'd pass.

Tonight was the Korean Society Welcoming Dinner. Just highlights:

[1] The food was just so awesome. There are no Korean restaurants in Oxford, so they had to drive a van down to London to get the food. That's impressive. Kimbab, bugolgi, kimchi, tap che, mMmmmMmmMmmm.....

[2] Besides awesome food, I also got to try several Korean (alcoholic) drinks. My favorite was "Bokbunja", which is a raspberry wine. Soooo good. Perhaps, you would say, a Red Reisling?

[3] There was piano playing (yay, Korean dramas!) by an Oxford student, as well as a violin performance by a very accomplished Korean violinist. My favorite song that he played was a traditional Korean folk song, called "Arirang." To Koreans, it might have been boring, but to me, it was very nice =)

[4] And of course I got to see my hot Korean crush! Let's just say it's looking good. That is all.

After that, I forewent going dancing (wayyyy tooo tired) at Zodiac with a bunch of Mansfield people. I feel so detached from them! But I guess it has its pros and cons...at least I am meeting a lot of Oxford students from other colleges! [Sigh...tradeoffs...economics...]

Sunday, 21 October 2007

I bought £20 in Chinese groceries today. I'm very happy. And so is my mom. Hahahahahaha~~~~~~

Also, Marrisa, Suzi, Nao, and I came up with a tradition for Sundays! We will have lunch every Sunday at the RedStar NoodleBar on Cowley. The Zaggat for Oxford gave the place 5 stars, and 1 dollar sign (meaning it's good and cheap!). So yea, it's cool =)

It was either today or yesterday that the following happened. Nao and Sean decided to cook some chicken-skin-only-à-la-chili-pepper-powder because...erm, they like it. So we were at the kitchen in the Beehive, where there are no windows, and Sean is marinating the chicken skin with salt and chili pepper powder. Then he throws them onto the frying pan--and pans here at Oxford have the peculiar characteristic of lacking pan-covers. So the skin cooks...and there are four of us friends and two other innocent bystanders in the kitchen. And the door was closed because we were afraid to set off the fire alarm... And we all started coughing our lungs out. It was so painful, yet so funny at the same time, haha.

Boys will be boys...

Cheers,
K

A Special Rant About Historians

2007-10-24T14:05:00.000+01:00

The study of history.

I just don't get it. Didn't get it in elementary school when we were singing that Columbus song. Didn't get it in middle school when the teacher gave us a pop quiz on writing the "Pledge of Allegiance" on the first day of school. Didn't get it in high school when we were studying for AP exams. Still don't get it today.

I've had two history courses at the university level so far. One I took at Wellesley College last year during the fall semester on "Japan and the Great Powers" (or something like that). I don't remember my first essay (it might have been something along the lines of "Why did Japan rise while Korea and China fell behind?), but I do remember the drama behind it. The professor was all like, "Write what you think! There are many answers!" We all pass the essay in, get it back, and were like, what the fuck.

What happened was that there was an answer, sort of, to the question--you know, his answer. And whoever had his answer received the highest grade, naturally. That was why were were like, what the fuck. I mean, you said that there are many answers. We as students gave you reasons as to why we think our answers are plausible and logical and all that jazz. To punish us with a lower grade, just because you think your answer is the best answer, is blatantly wrong. It was a nightmare.

And so, now on to the rant about historians. They are stubborn. Basically. To put it mildly. Whatever they think is right, is right, is right. And they're not going to change, even if you reason with them.

So I had my history tutorial on Friday with this youngish guy, just graduated from Oxford undergrad, pursing his Ph.D or something at Oxford right now. So my tutor's a grad student. Lovely.

So we talk about my essay. It was on the topic, "Did medieval interaction produce more or less diversity?" I chose to study the Mongolian conquest. Now normal people would think that because the Mongolians unified so many territories, there would be less diversity among the countries.

But of course I argue the opposite (Who do you think I am?). I argued that there was more diversity because of the Mongolian experience because people were able to experience different things and their culture was changed as a result of that. Anyways.

So my tutor and I debate. Our discussion led me to conclude and few things useful for students studying history, or when you come across a historian:

[1] Take the conservative route. Write what has been accepted as the "normal" way of thinking, and, if possible, write what your professor/tutor/teacher wants to hear. History is not a creative writing class.

[2] "Make gross generalizations." (I quote my tutor.) [Just to let you know, I have a HUGE problem with this. Gross generalizations are a waste of my time and energy.]

[3] You will not win in an argument with a historian. Even if you have damn good arguments--so good and clever that people in the streets would change their minds and follow the way you think. The historian will follow what he has been taught in the books (i.e., they lack an independent mind).

And so, I further conclude about historians and their lives, and how it differs from people with creativity:

[1] They don't think outside the box. We do. To further that, we solve problems better. Because we don't confine ourselves to the way people think before us. We innovate. They stay in the present, and keep looking back, never into the future.

[2] They are sadder people. Seriously, I haven't come across one happy historian, save one sweetheart, Kay. Everyone I've come across has a fatalistic view of the world and are pessimists. My tutor told me that their was an answer to the essay question (I know, WTF?). That, interaction can only cause less diversity because you learn about other systems of government, economies, and ways of doing things. He's like, after the Mongolian conquest, you suddenly see traces of Mongolia in Hungary and China. I.e., they're becoming more and more similar.

I mean, come on. You asked me to write about "diversity." I have my definition, you have yours. The dictionary defines "diverstiy" as "differences". You can't punish me for writing an essay under my definition of diversity. You say that historians have their definition of diversity--tangible things such as looking at economies and governments, and that intangible things, like people's experiences, don't count. That's bullshit. I don't give a flying fuck about historians' definition of diversity.

I mean, I don't even understand the point of studying history. I understand why it's important to know in general what happened, and that we study history so that history doesn't repeat itself. But guess what? History has repeated itself over and over again. Doesn't that give you a clue as to the stupidity of studying history to prevent it? Moreover, why study history intensely, Mr. I'm-an-Expert-in-19th-Century-British-History? How will that better the world? What will you do to make the world a better place? You dumbfuck.

In conclusion, the study of history is dumb.

The end.

Cheers,
K

Week 2: The Week I Got Killed. Twice.

2007-10-16T17:59:00.000+01:00

Wow. I haven't updated in so long. It's just that this week was an "even" week. Oxford has 8-week terms and prefers to go by weeks, rather than the actual dates. Even weeks means two tutorials, i.e. two essays for me. And so I've been using my time, energy, and computer for essays. (Surprising, right?)

I've decided to update this blog everyday starting tomorrow. Because [1] I know my mom will want to stalk me everyday, since I gave her the URL yesterday (hi, mom!) and [2] it's such a bother updating for hours in one sitting and trying to remember everything that's happened! Ok, enough of my whininess--here's the update:

Monday, 15 October, 2007

Last night I curled up in Baby Boy's Polo sweatshirt and went to bed at 9.30 pm. I woke up today at around 6.30 am. My sore throat was killing me, and I had been coughing like crazy.

And I had a paper due tonight at 7 pm which I hadn't done any of the reading for, and therefore, had not started the paper yet. So you might reckon I'm sort of screwed. But I wasn't scared [Not starting a paper until two hours before it's due is a cherished hobby of mine].

I didn't manage to get to the Bod until 2 pm, which means that I was occupying myself with something between the hours of half 6 and 2 pm. I don't know what happened, really.

So I got to the Bod at 2 pm, and I really needed to use the toilets. I asked for directions; they said that it was just outside the stairs. I went to the stairs, and walked up and down two flights, still not finding where it was. But I noticed signs for the "cloakroom". So I was like, what the heck, I'll check it out. And what the heck. "Cloakroom"="WC"="Toilet".

Today I cooked dinner (ramen+poached egg+tofu!) for James, this really nice kid from OICCU. I was really glad I got to teach him a few tricks. For example, to poach the egg, I cracked the egg into the broth, and he was like, "Oh, I didn't know you could do that--It's like frying an egg in water!" Yup, James =P

Conclusion of the dinner: It was goooooood ;-) I'm not a bad cook after all--Thanks, mom!

Tuesday, 16 October, 2007

Today I had a fancy smancy free dinner at the Quod. It was Credit Suisse's Women's (god, I love being a woman!) Event that I RSVPed for (There are rewards of joining every society and going through 13 kg of paper, you know).

I had crab on toast for a starter, seabass for the main, and chocolate pot for dessert. That night I remembered why I wanted to go into business--the free food. Haha.

Anyways. I met this really nice bird (Brit word for "girl") and we basically talked about everything. What we want to do with our lives, our boyfriends, how many kids, what we want to name them--it was amazing. We really hit it off. I mean, I've only met her for a few hours and I felt like we've known each other for months!

Another thing. There were five representatives from Credit Suisse, and I struck up a conversation with one of them, who had an American accent. And it turns out that she is a Wellesley alum! On top on that, she is the mega-alum whom Irma had told me to get in touch with because she headed all of the M&A crap for Credit Suisse! (What are the odds, right?)

We didn't have a real connection though--you know, it's always sort of awkward (actually, maybe only for Americans) to "kind of" know somebody and share a "sort of" background. But she and this girl next to me did have a connection though. It went like this:

Girl: OMG, I love your bag!
Alum: Why, thank you. My husband likes to collect [Milano Blahnik bags]. This is going to sound like banker talk, but I have seven of them; three of them are black, one for each of my homes...
Me [thinking to self]: *uber-jealous*

I really wish I knew more about fashion. I'm always in awe when people just look at a certain style of clothing and say, "Is that [insert designer of your choice]?" I still remember my conversation with Baby Boy:

Me: Why are your jeans yellow right there and there?
Baby Boy: They're supposed to be like that. Usher wears these--they're $300 jeans!
Me: *shrugs*

And Sara proceeds to say to me, "I can't believe you, Christina!!" Right. How am I supposed to know these things?! However, though. There is one designer, when I flip through Vogue and pick out my favorite clothes, whom I always pick out.

Versace. So sexy.

Wednesday, 17 October, 2007

Today I went to the first Oxford Entrepreneurs event. They had this guy who made "ReggaeReggae" sauce (good BBQ sauce, by the way) to come speak to us. Apparently he won $50,000 from this show called "Dragons' Den", a show where entrepreneurs try to get venture capital from five self-made millionairs, or "Dragons". Most contestants go and try to impress the dragons with the "numbers and figures". This guy went and sang a song about his sauce.

He was entertaining. Hahahahahahahahaha!

Oh! And by the way. You know how I'm in the Guild of Assassins, right? Well, anyhow, I am. So I checked my mailbox today and there was a letter for me. I opened it and felt this sticky, oily, viscousy sustance. It was a poison letter! (Fake, of course). And so I died, for 12 hours. What the fuck. That's like the lamest way you can die. I suck at this game.

Thursday, 18 October, 2007

Today was a very cultural day. From 6-7 pm I went to Japanese class; and from 7-8 I went to Mandarin class. Every Thursday will be like this from now on, plus the Chinese writing class from 8:15-9 pm. I'm excited!

I also went to watch a German film at St. Catz called "Das Parüm".

The synopsis: In 18th century France there lived a man with a phenomenal sense of smell: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. After a tragic event he gets obsessed with the idea of creating and preserving the perfect scent: that of young, beautiful women. A passionate and merciless quest unravels.

It was a mind-boggling film, and I highly recommmend it--It's unlike any American movie you've ever seen, and I would say that the shock value is along the lines of Pan's Labryinth. However, this film is less gory, but much more demented.

Friday, 19 October, 2007

Today I had a lot of pudding. No, really. I did. Café 360 was holding a "Yummy British puddings night" and they didn't lie. I also had my first scone! Or "scon" as some people call it. And I thought I was having like a KFC biscuit type thing, but yea, it was actually a scon. It was reeeaaaaaalllly goood, especially with jam and clotted cream on top. I can feel my arteries clogging up already...

Today I also had my first meeting with my secondary tutorial. It was a tutorial on "Imperialism and Nationalism"--a history course. And it was a nightmare. I will be ranting about it in the next post.

Cheers!
K

P.S. I got killed again on Friday. What the fuck. And I feel so sad about it too >.< Because this time, what happened was I got this email from "Tom Keyton" who said he was a Black Widow and plans to stone some people from St. John's to death. And so I met up with him. Talked for a bit. He was a bit weird, but he's also studying physics, so I was like, ok maybe it's just his personality. THEN. Out of the blue, I get squirted with water from a member of Team Viper who said he had overheard our conversation, so he knew we were the enemy! And he kept squirting me! And I was looking at Tom, and I was like,what the fuck why don't you do anything??? And he's like, oh...err...I'm shot. And I was like, oh. And that guy keeps squirting me. I was like, Stop it! And then he pokes me with his pointy umbrella. I was like, Dude, you're weird. (But then, what can I expect from the Guild of Assassins?) So since our plan went awry, we just all parted ways in the end. The WORST part of it all was that I felt GUILTY to Tom because I thought I foiled his plan because I was such a loudmouth. It turns out that after I sent my report to the Umpire, the Umpire let me know that one one Black Widow (me) was killed that night...

That Crazy Weekend with Maki & the Spit Roast

2007-10-13T11:49:00.000+01:00

Saturday, 13 October 2007

We didn't wake up until 12 noon. Or rather, Maki didn't wake up until 12 noon. I, on the other hand, woke up at 10.30 am [to a text, gah!], which gives me a whooping 6 hours of sleep! Have you noticed my sarcasm yet?

Anyhow, I took her to Tick Tock, where we had these really good paninis, and then showed her around Oxford--down High Street and Cornmarket, and the Bod, where we found out that the many marked doors indicated the successive stages of academia that students back then had to pass to graduate or something.

We then met up with Koda, and the three of us walked to Port Meadow (yay!). It's like a 5 mile walk, and when I got there, I was really excited with the cows, but they were not happy with me at all, haha. [Just as a sidenote, if you visit me at Oxford, I'm going to show you Port Meadow. Tell me ahead of time if cows don't excite you, or you will be taking a nice 5 mile stroll into the British countryside.]

After that, we met Koda's parents at Starbucks, and I have to admit it was a tad awkward. Especially for Maki, so I felt bad. [Sorry Maki!--If you're reading this...] Anyways, yeah. His mom liked me, so it was cool.

And then we had some Pizza Hut and Smirnoff Ice [sooooo good!!!].

Finally, there was a ridiculous party tonight hosted by my college cousins and their housemates. Two words: Pig Roast. Here is a picture of the pig by the time we got there [which was around midnight-ish].

There were lots of drinking, lots of hanging out, and lots of eating the pig, which was surprisingly good. I was very impressed--they dug a pit, built the two poles on each side to hold up the pig, had it dug two feet into the ground and secured with concrete, speared the pig through its anus to its mouth, and cooked it since noon, turning the pig every half an hour. That's dedication, and that's Oxford for you.

And then some housemates decided to eat the pig's eyeballs. Right. Gross, right? Oh well, at least my praise for them lasted all of two seconds. And I would upload a video of the process of the gouging of the eyeball, but stupid blogger is not cooperating with me. I shall find another means. And thou shalt be very grossed out.

Cheers!
K

Week 1: The Bodleian Library & My First Tutorial & Auditions & All That Jazz

2007-10-08T12:49:00.000+01:00

Monday, 08 October 2007

Today was crunch-time for me. I had 26 items on my International Economics tutorial syllabus--readings that I had to get through by tomorrow at 9 am. And I hadn't even started, nor step foot into the main library--the Bodleian--yet. Damn.

I finally got my ass up to walk to the library, and requested the books. They have a very peculiar system here. You use the terminals to request the books, tell them to bring the books to one of the reading rooms, and then pick them up at a later time. Oh yea, and you're not allowed to take any of the books out, so you have to read everything at the library.

My books were ready at 2.30 pm, but I didn't get to the library until 6 pm for some reason. Oh, I think I was talking to Baby Boy. Figures.

The library closes at 10 pm, so I was like, ok, I'll spend two hours reading the four books in the Lower Reading Room and two hours reading the four other books in the Lower Camera Room. I got there, got through one of the books in 15 minutes, and proceeded to go online on FaceBook and email. For the rest of the time until 10 pm. Who was I emailing back and forth? Baby Boy. Of course. He just wants me to fail out of Oxford.

After being in the library for four hours, I came back to my dorm and was exhausted. Feel right asleep and didn't wake up until 4.30 the next morning.

My count for the number of items read on the reading list--a whopping TWO (out of 26)!

Tuesday, 09 October 2007

So it's 4.30 in the morning, and guess what I do for the next 3 hours and 15 minutes. Right! FaceBook! Good Boy! (And a delicious breakfast of croissant with chocolate spread, yogurt, and milk. I also did the dishes, of course.)

So now it's 7.45 in the morning (my tutorial's at 9 am), and I scramble to google the question I was supposed to answer. It was 8.10 am and I wasn't satisfied with what I came up with. And so I proceed to call my friends familiar with economics. I called someone in California (four times), but he didn't pick up. So I tried another person, whose number I luckily found in my emails, and he picked up! [Thank God!] He answered my questions, gave me all he got, and it was awesome. I asked him why he sounded so tired. Apparently it was 2.30 am. Whoops. [Hehe, I really don't understand why I have friends. I wouldn't be my own friend. You guys are awesome for being able to put up with me!]

So it's 9 am and I go to my tutor's office at Brasenose. I was there at 9 am sharp. My classmate was 7 min late. But he was really cute so my tutor and I forgave him. My tutor gave an intro to the class and then it was time for the presentations. He presented for the rest of the class, so I never got to give my presentation. I'm starting to really like this kid.

I also had lunch with this person I met at Barclays the first day I was here. I literally met him for 2 minutes, exchanged numbers, emailed back and forth, and finally found a time that worked for both of us (which took almost two weeks). We agreed to meet outside Boswell's on Cornmarket and Broad, and i began texting him at 1:02 pm. I looked up and there was this blond bloke next to me, and I was like, "Are you...?" Apparently it was. Haha, I admit I couldn't remember what he looked like! Anyhow, we went to the NoodleBar for lunch, where I got a fortune cookie again. This time, it read, "You will make many changes before settling satisfactory." Hmmm, sounds exactly like me.

Wednesday, 10 October 2007

Wow, today was a really hectic day. Here was what I did:

3.30 pm Gilbert & Sullivan Auditions for "Gondoliers" @ Queen's College Music Room
4.10 pm Photography Society's Beginner Class @ Central Chem Lab
7.30 pm Oxford Revue Auditions @ Oriel's Harris Lecture Theatre
8.00 pm Food Society @ Pembroke College, MAC JCR
8.45 pm Yatch Club Drinks @ Lincoln College
9.45 pm Drama Society Drinks @ Freud Cafe, Walton St.

So it was exciting (but not as exciting as when I found those cows in the meadows!), a lot going on, with a lot of adrenaline going. I was also going to go clubbing at Escape, with all these Asians, but decided to treat myself to a little R&R&S.

Thursday, 11 October 2007

Today I found out I was rejected from the Oxford Revue >.< 'Guess I wasn't funny enough for them. Oh well, as you all know, it was their loss ;-) [In case you haven't noticed, my conceitedness knows no bounds.] I also went to two Fresher's Drinks--one for the Asian Society and the other for the German Society--and dragged Suzi along with me [after a great dinner at Bella Italia]. At the Asian Society drinks, there were these two very bold guys--but utterly unattractive--who approached us and started talking to us. We knew something was up. So I used the line, "Is that where you sign up for Mandarin classes? Suzi, wanna come with me? [I knew she wasn't interested, as she was studying Italian.] Alright, gotta go--It was nice meeting you!" and thus saved us both from those two blokes. Oh, and in case you think that all I do is party and socialize here, I want to let you know that I went to my first lecture today!!! It was very exciting because I had planned to skip. But I really liked it and learned a lot. Macroeconomics kicks major league ass. Woohoo~~~~ Friday, 12 October 2007

Today I had another lecture. It was on exchange rates--and I loved it! It's so interesting...See, although I love having fun with people and slacking off, at the end of the day, learning keeps me going as well [Take that, Manuel!]. Yes, I'm a dork. [But a cool dork.]

After that, I went to London to go to this alum's house for drinks. She was very gracious to hold a party for all the Wellesley people studying in the UK. She had a beautiful home--right in Central London, like Manhattan--with a giant kitchen, 3 floors, and a garden [to put it in perspective, let me add, in the middle of a city]. Yes, she's loaded. What do you expect from an ex-ibanker with Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan, and an ex-consultant with McKinsey? Anyways, it was a lot of fun just talking to the alums, and seeing what the other students are up to. [And she had two cats!--and I normally don't even like cats!]

I had originally planned to party in London all night long, but apparently all the pubs close at 11 pm. And everyone was too tired to go clubbing. [Dammit!] So I spontaneously invited Maki to go to Oxford. And she did! After waiting an hour for the stupid tube that was supposed to come every 20 minutes, we finally got to my dorm at 3 am. And we proceeded to stay up until 4.30 am, talking random shit, laughing like maniacs [I think we scared the two people in the kitchen whom we randomly bumped into], calling random people, and making hot chocolate. Yeah, we had a fun night =]

Cheers,
K

A Random Weekend of Random Thoughts and Random Happenings

2007-10-07T21:55:00.000+01:00

Saturday, 06 October 2007

Yesterday I went on a tour of Oxford with the Korean Society. It wasn't very enlightening--except for the Chinese supermarket (Hallelujah!)--but it was so much fun meeting people from the Korean Society.

I'll tell you a few interesting things that happened today though =)

1. On the Korean Society tour, on the way to our first destination, this CRAZY PERSON punched the girl i was talking to on the shoulder. He was fuckin' scary--his eyes were angry and murderous. And he not only punched this très petite girl very hard, but punched a number of the guys on the shoulder even harder. I was lucky that he didn't punch me--or shall I say he was very lucky he didn't punch me? This guy was probably 48 years old--I don't give a fuck how old he is--I would have punched him very hard in the face had he punched me. And then we would have probably gotten into a fight. And it wouldn't have been pretty. And I would have won. It would have made me feel gooooood =]

2. We had lunch at the NoodleBar in Gloucester Green. It was very good--and the proportions were big; another girl and I shared a plate and I couldn't even finish my half. My stomach must be getting smaller =) But the interesting part (to me, at least) was my fortune from my fortune cookie: "Romance will be in the air next week. Thought for today: education will never become as expensive as ignorance." Perhaps the first part refers to the thing Baby Boy sent in the mail for me...No idea about the second part.

3. I met Oana, a Romanian pursuing her second BA at Oxford. She's into Asian cultures--very cool. Point is, I am going to visit Romania, specifically Transylvania and Budapest, this year. Woohooo~~~~!!!!

4. We proceeded to hang out and have tea at Cafe Puccino. I had blackcurrant, ginger, and vanilla tea, and a "Stupid Little Biscuit" (Haha, see picture on FaceBook. Not joking...that's what they call their biscuits!). Both were very good. The interesting part was that I finally got to talk to the cute Korean boy (By the way, why is everyone here so attractive--or "fit," as they say?)! Hahahaha...anyways, he loves to travel and plays football for two colleges. Hot. And he's potentially my Korean tutor. Even hotter. And I didn't even catch his name. No worries. I'm sure we'll meet again sometime soon--like at the Korean Society Welcome Party. Hahahaha...

Tonight was also the first College Bop of the year ("Bop" meaning dance/party/etc.) and the theme was "Mmmmm...Bop"--you had to dress as anyone whose name began with an "m". I had the brilliant idea to dress up as an M&M.

I walked down High Street in search of an arts & crafts store and a large cardboard box to be cut in the shape of a circle. As I saw all the shoppers in the streets, I had another brilliant idea to use colored shopping bags to make the outfit--namely, Sainesbury's orange shopping bags. And so I was an orange M&M.

The outfit took me over four hours to make, and by the time I was done and picked up an everything, it was already 12:30 AM on Sunday. I never made it to Mansfield's Bop, nor St. John's Bop, but I was very satisfied with the result. At least we got to take a picture after everyone got out of Kazbar!

There was one really annoying thing that made me sort of angry last night--and that was that Naoya (the Smurf who was the first to see my outfit) said that I looked like McDonald's! I was like, "What the Fuck? I am clearly an M&M." So I thought, he's Japanese, what does he know. But then, Charles (my gay best friend--the one with his leg up) also said I looked like a McDonald's. What the FUCKKKKKKK....and then random people in the street were like, "Look at the Smurf and the McDonald's!" At that point I was like, the next person who says I look like a McDonald's will receive a complimentary punch from me. Thence, for some reason, people thought I was an M&M =D

Sunday, 07 October 2007

Today I set out to go to Port Meadow to go kayaking with the Canoe & Kayak Society. It was a ridiculously long walk there. I was like, "Fuck, where the hell is this place?!"

After I got there though, it was so beautiful I was in awe and bliss. It's a very peaceful place--what you would call the English countryside, I guess. What I was most excited though, was seeing a lot of cows and ducks!!! (I mean, what can you expect from a girl who freaked out buying getting 8 litres of milk?) Freakin' exciting. Hot stuff, I tell you.

I also saw these people--a guy on the steering wheel and two women lounging, drinking wine--on a boat that was chugging down the Thames. I saw them, and decided that my life's mission was going to be a luxury boat. I'm going to get a luxury boat someday. That's in addition of course, to my other life missions of owning a little latte café and a chocolate (tentatively) factory for homeless people to work.

*This is me going back to my dreams of chillaxin' on my luxury yatch...*

Cheers,
K

Fresher's Week

2007-10-01T17:38:00.000+01:00

Monday, 01 October 2007

Today was the beginning of orientation week, so I had another chillaxing day. It was pouring all day and it's always cloudy, but the weather never seems to get me down =)

Have you ever heard of Thorntons ("the Art of the Chocolatier")? I bought their "Fruit & Nut Special Toffee"...so rich and yummy. I think I'll be visiting them a lot, haha. Oh, and with that thought, with all the bread and chocolate spread I eat, instead of losing weight, I might actually be the anomaly and actually gain weight this year in England. Ahhhh~~~~NO~~~~~~~!!!

BUT. I also went to Argos and bought a yoga mat today. If you don't know what Argos is, let me tell you right now it's the best place to get anything and everything (except for webcams for Macs, as I learned today) for cheap. It's a really cool discount store, where the business is run with people looking at catalogs, paying for it after writing their order on a slip of paper, and picking up their order when their number is called.

AND. For my own sake, I bought two pairs of boots today~~~! Boots in the US never fit me, and for just £33 pounds for two pairs of boots, c'mon--you and I both know it had to be done =D

A bunch of freshers and visiting students went to a nightclub today. The club kind of was sucky, even though there were a lot of people there; I think it was because of the music. British DJs don't really know what they are doing, really. And British people don't really dance. Unless they're really drunk. And therefore during the time I was there, there was a mob scene at the bar. Quite scary. First time I saw anything like it. Think: a bunch of refugees on the shore of the beach, trying to catch a boat to get the hell out of wherever they are. Only this time, a bunch of college students were trying to get drinks from the bartender. But pre-gaming was unexpectedly fun.

Oh dear, how my gay best friend and I rocked the scene!

Tuesday, 02 October 2007

Visiting Students' Orientation. 10:00 AM.
When I Started Showering. 10:02 AM.
Talking to Bundy on Skype Until 11:21 AM. Priceless. I mean, timeless?

And that's not the whole story, haha. I also lied to the Chaplain today.

So what happened was that the induction crap was happening and people were there sitting in the Council Room already. I wanted to be polite and not interrupt. So I was walking around in the hallway, and there were these pebbles stuck in the grooves of my brand new shoes. So I went to a bench to get the pebbles out. The bench was next to the Chaplain's office. The Chaplain saw me, and said, "Are you looking for me?" What was I supposed to do? Say "No, actually." So again, to be polite, I said, "Yes, I am looking for you."

I had a cup of tea with him, and he was asking me about the induction and him speaking.
Chaplain: So you were there in the morning when I gave the speech?
Me: Yes, it was very interesting and helpful.
Chaplain: I'm glad.
[More small talk later...]
Me: I actually missed all of induction this morning.
Chaplain: So you didn't hear me speak? You're not supposed to lie to the Chaplain!
Me: Sorry...So did I miss anything important?
Chaplain: Oh no, nothing you couldn't figure out on your own. I don't think there's much importance in what they say anyways.
Me: Me too! That's why I skipped induction! [We then high-fived each other.]

He's awesome. A very cool guy indeed.

Wednesday, 3 October 2007

Today there was the Fresher's Fair. It's sort of like "Spring Fling"--the thing where all the organizations on campus have a table and try to recruit members--only it goes on forever and ever.

I was so excited in the beginning...I joined the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Romanian, Polish, Greek, Italian Societies...haha I'm sure there's more ethnicities I joined, I just can't remember...and then sports there were Wind Surfing, Kite Surfing, Yatching, Gliding...and others were Drama Society, Chinese Drama Society (I swear I'm going to be in a production this year or I'm going to die trying), Cherwells (a student publication)...and random ones are Guild of Assassins and Wychwood Warriors (they fight with real swords from the Middle Ages!). I'm also going to be studied--you know, those psychology experiments they pay you to participate in--and my brain is going to be scanned (MRI)! Soooooo excited....

My head was starting to explode after the two big rooms with tables...there were about six more little rooms with organizations' tables. But when I got to the end it was worth it...tons of freebies (like two packs of cards) and joining the Gastronomic Society. Yay, food!

Tonight we also had the Fresher's Dinner, Formal Hall style. We had to dress 'smart' and then go to the chapel, where there was a banquet. It was like prom, without the dancing. Much food and dessert later, the President of Mansfield College gave a speech, telling us essentially that studying is our #1 priority--which is sooooooo different from what they tell us in the States, or at least at Wellesley College. I vaguely remember our president saying that college will be a time to grow as people, learn about ourselves, and to make lifelong friends, and I specifically remember an alum telling me that "When there is a night with a paper due and your friends invite you to dinner, go to dinner because that paper always gets done." I love Wellesley.

Thursday, 4 October 2007

This was the most uneventful and worst day ever. Not only did nothing happen--the most exciting thing was grabbing a milkshake named "Dave"--but I developed a fever during the evening. It's probably Fresher's Flu--the infamous sickness that freshers develop in the first week of arriving because of partying and drinking every night. I was supposed to go to Mangos Bar and then clubbing at the Imperial Nightclub. I went to bed at 10 pm.

Friday, 5 October 2007

I woke up at 10 am, giving me a full 12 hours of sleep. At least my fever's gone. And now I'm heading to the OICCU's Fresher's Dinner. They're going to start thinking I just go there for the food (well, it's not necessarily untrue...haha)

Cheers,
K

Toad-in-a-Hole

2007-09-30T22:24:00.001+01:00

That's what I had for dinner at the Mansfield Dining Hall tonight.
Enough said, yes?

Cheers!
K

Is that the place where tourists try to make the soldiers move...?

2007-09-30T11:24:00.000+01:00

I've settled in to my dormitory and done all my administrative affairs at last, and it's been a fun-filled three days--is it possible to have fun unpacking and doing paperwork?...Believe me, it's possible at Oxford.

Thursday, 27 September 2007

I arrived in England on Thursday afternoon. I used a trolley for the first time in my life--I felt like Harry Potter when he was walking around on Platform 9 3/4. I had two large suitcases--both of them three-quarters of my height--a dufflebag, and a large totebag. No way in hell was I going to be able to, or look like an idiot and try to, roll them around trying to find the bus station to take me to Oxford. I still remember my mom yelling, "How are you going to carry all that?! Don't bring so many clothes and shoes! You're going there to study! It's not like you're going there to enter a beauty pageant!" Yay, trollies!

I found it--Platform 14a from the Central Bus Station at Heathrow Airport, purchased a ticket for £20--single route was £17--it's always cheaper to get the return. After a lovely bus ride, got off at Gloucester Green, where there were these wonderful Oxford students in yellow T-shirts--people from the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (OICCU) participating in the Oxford International Welcome--to help me with my bags and to show me the way! [Thanks, Jenny & James!]

That day, I must have walked at least eight miles. Back and forth on High Street and Cornmarket Street and Mansfield Road, getting a cell phone, trying to open a bank account, other miscellaneous items, and meeting a few random people along the way. The day ended with a nice dinner with four other visiting students at a Japanese restaurant called Edamame and left me exhausted.

Friday, 28 September 2007

I woke up at 1 pm...didn't think I was jetlagged, but I guess I was, haha! Today was de-mess-ifiying the mess I had left from the day before. God, am I proud of my room now!

Highlight of today was going to Cafe 360--the hangout of OICCU. They were hosting a British dinner--Fish & Chips. Apparently that's the commoner's meal, or something...Anyways, I had a lot of fun drinking tea, having dinner, playing games--I played Mancala with this nine-year-old kid, who apparently never lost a game before, and I beat him every time. I could tell that he was getting mad after the 6th game. [Haha, aren't I the scum? But I mean, I can't spoil him and let him win, you know? =D] I also had a lot of fun talking and meeting so many new people. Everyone is not only very engaging and academically intelligent, but also has interesting backgrounds.

Oh, and by the way, some British vocabulary I learned along the way:

Self-catering = cook for yourself
Staff required = help wanted
To let = to rent
Chips = fries
Crisps = chips
Trousers = pants
Pants = underwear (i.e., don't say "I'm going to wear my leather pants today" because you'll get stares
Chav (sp?) = a getto person, kind of
Rah (sp?) = a prep (i.e., rich kid with attitude and popped collar--think Harvard boys)

I'll post as I learn more =)

Saturday, 29 September 2007

Today I took the OxfordTube to London to represent Wellesley College at London College Day (Yay, Wellesley!)--spent some time with Lin and a very gracious alum--all us Wellesley students will go to her house in Windsor to have a dinner party some time!

I also went to the Horse Guards, the Royal Park, the Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, the Jubilee Bridge, and the Thames River. You can tell that I don't really have much enthusiam when writing this. That's because IMHO, London is not a charming city. The Underground (their "T") wreaked of piss, the streets were dirty, and there were more tourists there than in NYC! I'm so glad I chose Oxford and not London...

I came back to Oxford at around 8 pm, and by the time I showered and got ready, the barn dance thing I had wanted to go to had already closed their doors =( [It had begun at 7:30 and they are really strict about time, just as an FUI.] So I went to Chicken Cottage and got some chicken poppers and waited a little while to meet my college cousins at 10 pm.

I received a text from Alex [college cousin #1], who suggested that I should go down to his house. Apparently, his housemates were my hallmate's college cousin, so we went there together. They were all very welcoming, intelligent, friendly, not "I-go-to-Oxford-and-you-don't" type of people--unlike the "I-go-to-Harvard-and-you-don't" type of people I encounter at Boston all the time. Dave [college cousin #2] plays the guitar and his band toured Europe for the summer. They're cool, sort of nerdy [I think we had a 20 min conversation about Dave's email password and we played Tekken at a house party], but troublemakers and badasses as well. I think we'll get along just fine.

Impressions Thus Far

I basically love Oxford. London, not so much. Oxford. It's a small town with a city centre, so maybe I'll get bored of it soon (which I don't really see happening). I love the people here. It's a very international city--people from all over the world, people of many ethnicities, mixed nationalities. And people are so willing to help. I was looking lost during the first two days, and random people offered me help; I didn't even have to ask. And people are so genuine. There's no "We're-in-the-smartest-town-in-the world" attitude at all. I just love it here...

You know, when I first arrived at my dorm, there was this heart thing on the bulletin board in my room. Someone must have left it there from last year, or the year before that. Of all the rooms, I get one with this. I wonder if it's a sign...I wonder if it has anything to do with the OICCU, or just Oxford, or someone. I'm pretty sure it's a sign, and a good one at that!

It's going to be a fun-filled year. I can't wait!

Cheers,
K

P.S. Oh, by the way, "moron" comes from the Welsh word meaning "carrot". So when you call someone a "moron," you're actually calling them a "carrot." Haha. Just an FUI.