weekend, over Monday, Jan 28 2008

It’s Sunday afternoon, and the end of another long, uninterrupted three-and-a-half day weekend. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that you’re actually a full-fledged student when you have such a long weekend, and only spend two and a half days at school a week… But that’s the reality I face every Sunday evening and I’ve just got to live with it!

I’m possibly going to have a fantastic next month or so. I’m heading up to Oxford for their Malaysian Night, which the Bruneians have semi-hijacked, and I think a whole contingent of London-Bruneians will be joining the Oxfordian crew for a night of festivities. Dress code: Black Tie, which is muy exciting because I have two dresses to choose from for the night, and none of them repeat outfits too. I also don’t see Syaz and Jances as often as I’d like to, so this trip will hopefully give me ample time to catch up!

Amanda and I also have Brunei Hall errands to run on Wednesday (the case of the non-existant allowance, for one…)… and then we’re going shopping — entirely for her benefit! She has this effect on me where she seems to talk me out of a lot of decent purchases, but I completely turn her into a spendthrift and she really dislikes that. However, I am the only one who seems to be able to tolerate her mad shopping excapades ;] and I guess she loves me for that! Anyway, I don’t know when the last time I went out with Amanda was, so hurray for a girly afternoon out!

And then, AND THEN, there’s the Imperial Bruneian Society’s annual Brunei Night… sold out two years in a row, apparently, but that’s more than a month away…

And in between, Chinese New Year festivities, Reading Week (which is only two weeks away!) and a bunch of spontaneous events which will almost certainly crop up. I really can’t complain.

My room’s been tidied up, I’ve located my cute (and new) purple top which I got from GAP two weeks ago for an insane price of 6 pounds (KCS, are you jealous yet?), which I thought I’d lost somewhere, as well as my favourite ESPRIT babydoll tee, laundry’s been done, bed’s been made, lunch with the girls tomorrow… I think I’m having a pretty good Sunday and an end to the weekend, all in all.

Oh, and I’ve managed to find some time to begin reading fiction again too. Book of choice: The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. It isn’t proving to be as fantastic as The Lovely Bones yet, but I’m sure it’ll take more than 20 pages for me to warm up to it. Reading has become an interest which has been swept aside for other, more pressing matters, these past couple of years — though the IB really exposed me to a wide range of literature I never would have picked up off a bookstore rack ever (though David Malouf, pfft!). I made a list of 50 books that I intended to finish last year, and I never read more than four of them. Ah, there’s time in summer. Jasper Fforde’s new Thursday Next novel will be published by then, and if all goes to plan, I should be able to attend another one of his book signing sessions again. Though I know I’ll be taunted for being a geek for saying this, my greatest regret was not having a proper conversation with him while he signed my copy of The Fourth Bear last year in Melbourne. This time around, I’ll make it a point to be well-read and intellectual and a literary marvel, and impress him to bits. (8

Time for a shower and then, work continues!

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… uh oh Sunday, Jan 27 2008

I just opened my LSE inbox to find an email announcing the second round of the Internal Mooting Competition — and no surprise there, it’s a contract problem!

Everyone knows of my aversion to this module; its concepts I find impossible to grasp, and I actually have to put in a gargantuan effort in order to scrape merely satisfactory marks when I hand in coursework! I have a good month to prepare for this moot though, and I won’t let Carolina down. There’s no chance of both of us reaching the finals, even though we won our last moot, but another (and final) win this year would be the most fantastic way of ending mooting season this year.

Speaking of ends, so many things have recently come to an end — most significantly, the end of the Australian Invasion, aka Charli, Brendan and Arlie’s collective-yet-not visit to the United Kingdom! Charli was here for nearly two months, although she spent only three days with me (not nearly enough, my dearest Qianlong!); Arlie stayed in Bankside with me for nearly a week; and Brendan was based in a hostel in Bayswater for three weeks till the beginning of the term. Together with Jiang Yue, we all took London by storm! Over three-odd weeks, we more or less managed to cover most places touristy in the city (and beyond!), which took quite a toll on my pocket!:

Brendan, Arlie, Jiang Yue and I caught Les Miserables, explored the Tower of London, went shopping on Boxing Day (though the one lasting memory of the day was spending 7 pounds collectively on shopping, and 30-odd pounds on FOOD and drink), visited Charli in Guildford, spent New Year’s Eve at Waterloo Bridge and the Slug & Lettuce with a couple of Banksider Singaporeans, gallivanted around London until all hours of the day, hung out at LSE and Kingsway, Portobello Market, Harrods… ‘Twas an amazing holiday! With Charli, I also watched Avenue Q, which was raunchy, rude and downright hilarious, and spoke till odd hours of the morning on not one but two occasions! Although I absolutely love to pieces many of the people I have recently met at LSE, there is nothing quite like the comfort of old friends, the revisiting of past memories, and strangely enough, catching up in a city which is foreign to all of us. I miss the sunshine of Byron Bay, of St. Kilda Beach, of Sorrento, that all three brought. But come August, I shall be reunited with them, and with my Asian Five (Yunn Shin, Squek, Nat, Steph!) and Cheryl and Lyn and Nabila and Laura and Candice and everyone that made my two years at boarding school some of the best years of my life so far!

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