It feels weird to take a break. No, I'm not crazy. It feels weird because I actually have a ton of other things to do, but I can't bring myself to start right now. Since Monday, I've been doing nothing except going to school and when I reach home, I start working on homework or translating a couple of articles for EDB. I feel bad because I was supposed to finish translating everything by this morning (cos it'd be afternoon in Singapore already) but I took longer because I didn't do anything last weekend. Was in Cologne for the SSAG-EDB gathering. So anyway, after the whole week of sitting at the com and staring in dictionaries and at the computer screen, I finally completed my task. It's really hard work. I mean you'd think translating German articles into English would be a piece of cake...but dictionaries (online or otherwise) are not perfect...so now you know why translators and interpreters get so much money. The use of language is so sensitive...the nuances and hidden spikes...sigh. And not to mention, I hardly know anything about the semiconductor industry..those articles were the hardest to translate...as a complete layman, I had to think about what ICs, wafers, mixed signal/RF CMOS or whatever that was mean and think about whether I'm making sense of what I'm translating. What on earth do 90, 65 and 45 nm Fertigung mean? But, it was all kinda interesting. I'll have to do more translation as part of my course later...this is really good training. I really believe now, that the more you practice, the more easily it comes to you.

WTF!! Some a**hole left his pot burning on the stove and smoke has engulfed the entire corridor! And I mean so much smoke that it makes you cough badly and you can't even see. And I can smell the smoke from my room. Those of you who've been to my place will know how far my room is from the kitchen. I really hope the smoke clears. Phuong and I went out to open the corridor door...blah...we really RAN into a huge cloud of smoke.

I don't know what's happening to me...I'm getting really clumsy. I actually tripped over goodness knows what and fell in the corridor just now. I mean pain takes a while to hit you, but it did hit and when I lifted my pant leg to get a look, it was red and swollen. I sincerely hope this is the worst it gets...

And I've also become more pronouncedly short-tempered. Well, I've always been impatient and snippish, but these days, it's kinda going over the top...I don't know why. I mean sometimes, I even think some people are damn stupid...examples?
A: Are you going swimming today?
Me: Sure, why not?
A: It's so cold today...won't be water be freezing?
Me: The pool is indoors, in a hall.
A: But the water...won't it be cold?
Me: It's heated...it's the same all year round...the weather outside doesn't matter.
A: Are you sure? Well...ok.
Me (in my head): HellO!!! You're been to the f-ing pool more than once yourself...why should it be different in winter? Plus, while I'm going swimming in an INDOOR pool, she's going ice skating under the naked sky...so who'll feel colder, I ask you?

So, should I be worked up about that? I guess not, but these days, I can't help it. I can't even not get angry even when there's no real cause to get worked up. I know I'm not intelligent..so why oh why do I treat people who are a little less quick up there with such contempt? Well, maybe sometimes it's cute to not know stuff...but when it happens often, it gets annoying.

But it might be that all this isolation has caused me to become quite antisocial. Sometimes I don't even know what to say to people anymore. I don't even know what I'm thinking about the whole day. It's eat, sleep, do work, go to school. I hardly talk to anyone at all during all this time...and since I've gotten really busy with my work, I've also neglected my emails. I owe many people emails...but when I'm so busy, I just can't sit down to write an email that lasts more than 10 minutes...because I'll feel guilty about not doing my work.

As usual, this frustration is causing me to binge. It happens whenever I'm stressed out and staying at home. I hope it never gets as bad as it used to be in JC. At that time, I really couldn't control myself and I felt so lost. I'm glad that phase of my life is over, but at the same time, I'm afraid of a relapse.

There's something happening to my self-esteem...it's why I get so easily agitated and so easily jealous of people who have what I don't. For a while, not having everything was fine with me...but the perfectionistic, controlling streak is coming back to me...and it's ugly. I hate it. I want to be comfortable being who I am. But it isn't easy when everyone around you weighs 15-20 kg less and they insist that they need to lose weight. It is a lookist world out there. Remember the song.."Loving you..is easy 'cos you're beautiful.." When I heard it on TV last night, I realised how true it was. I wanted to believe that love isn't just for the beautiful, but reality seems to have proven me wrong (again..what's new?).

Well, some people have all the luck...but maybe when you're lucky all the time, you don't know how to appreciate it. I mean it's pointless to get jealous...and usually I couldn't care less...because what's the point of wanting what you can't have anyway? But at the same time, I can't help but feeling someone gets the bigger half, if you know what I mean. I feel damn guilty for having these thoughts...not like they can help having more luck right?

Sorry for all the rhetorical questions. I'm trying to purge these damn thoughts which have been plagueing me for a long time. I guess I really need to find an outlet...

I guess now that I'm done with this translation stuff, I'll have to plan the other things I have to do before the Christmas hols. Going to Austria with Lee Ting and Xizhen, so I won't have time to do any work. Before that, Yuhan is coming over for Christmas..it's great! I mean I really wouldn't wanna have to spend Christmas alone. The first Christmas I spent here was the worst, really. I didn't know anyone...and I didn't have anywhere to go. It was pretty pathetic. Then last Christmas, I had a major fight with my then boyfriend...also ruined Christmas for me. I hope this year's Christmas is better than the previous 2.

Tomorrow morning, we're gonna wake up early and go to the supermarket to get stuff in preparation for Mai's birthday. We are planning to make chicken pie and pineapple rice. It's gonna be very hard work, because I didn't see any frozen puff pastry anywhere. The shortcrust pastry is no problem...I could make that with my eyes closed...but puff pastry...now that's a challenge.

I don't know...it seems like the whole world doesn't like to wake up before 10am. I mean I wouldn't wake up willingly at 6am, but surely 8am is not too much to ask? I know everyone wants to throw stones at me for saying that, but I think 8am is the perfect time to wake up. I guess no one likes me for that, cos I always make them wake up earlier than they want to.

Anyway, I guess I never got to finish the story about Hamburg...I've forgotten what I wanted to say, but I got to sit in a Ferris Wheel for the first time! And I ate a lot of junk: fries, gebrannte Mandeln, and a chocolate covered banana. And Rach and I sat on some weird ride thing...hard to describe...maybe like a play mobile spinning at lightning speed with people instead of toys attached to the strings. Haha. But it was fun. The erotic art museum that Rach and I went to was also interesting. It's not for everyone though, cos there were some really gross exhibits inside. Will not outrage your modesty (haha!), so I won't mention what we saw inside...but man...what some people do for kicks! We also went to Reeperbahn...it was the red-light district...and there's this street where women are forbidden. It's for the prostitutes to ply their trade. Liangzhu told us how to recognise them.

Well, then the week in between passed really quickly and before I knew it, it was time to travel to Cologne. Oh yeah...it was funny...I kept thinking to myself that I should call Raymond and ask him how/when he was going to Cologne...but every day, when I remembered that I had to do it, it would be 11pm, when it's no longer polite to call. But on Wednesday night, I finally got down to it...surprise surprise, we were taking the same trains! I mean I had to take a train to Leipzig first, but basically, it was the same connection to Cologne. We talked all the way there and it was great...cos we really spent a LOOOONG time in the train..it would be very boring if we had nothing to say to each other. We went for lunch in Cologne...then we went to meet Azman and the rest. But for a while, it looked like the rest was no one else..but 2 girls from Hamburg, Jasmine and Eupho joined us. We dumped our stuff at the hostel, then went back to town. We walked around...I felt proud of myself cos I didn't buy anything for myself...Raymond bought a scarf and Azman bought a tie. It was funny...Azman asked what colour tie he should buy, so I asked him what colour shirts he had. He had blue, green and red...so I suggested yellow. But to be honest, the yellow ties weren't that great. Azman half-heartedly picked out a couple of yellow ties...and I could see he wasn't too satisfied...then he said he wanted a pink tie...haha...so I said, "If you want a pink tie, go ahead and get a pink tie lah!" haha...it was so funny. So he got it...and said if he needed a tie to match something else, he'd buy it then. Well, then we went to the chocolate museum, but it was closed...so we just looked around the shop a bit. I got chilli chocolate...it was deceptively chocolatey...but it packed a real punch when it came to the chilli powder. But boy, the chocolate's really good. I'll probably buy more of that brand...but without the chilli...I just wanted to try it for its novelty value. We had a dance party where no one danced...everyone just tried to talk really loudly over the sound of the music. It was hilarious! But I think we enjoyed ourselves. The next morning, we went for a hike at this place called Königswinter, up to a place called Drachenfels. The weather was nice! It wasn't too strenuous...which I liked. We took some photos at the top...the view was pretty! And for once, I actually looked ok in my photos. Not great, but acceptable. :) Better than nothing lah!

Ok, so then it was time to go back to Dresden...guess what happened? Yes...this is the FIFTH time something that that has happened. Well, the train I was supposed to take had 40-50 minute delay. Cause? Apparently some cows were playing on the tracks...so anyway, they announced that people heading to Frankfurt am Main central station should go to platform 6 (2 platforms away) and take the train to Frankfurt Airport, where there will be a connection to the central station. By the time I got there though, I'd missed my connection to Dresden...so I had to wait over an hour...but Fu Wei and I met there and got Haagen Daaz. The vanilla caramel brownie or whatever it was called was really nice. Then we got on the train....and there was ANOTHER delay on the train...see...I NEVER EVER get back to Dresden as scheduled whenever I come back from an SSAG event. NEVER! And this time I didn't even meet a cute guy on the train...this sucks man!

Anyway, I just watched "Red Corner"...not bad. Richard Gere looks cute. And then I watched "Pimp my whatever"...and it was "Pimp my brother" haha! I am becoming a tv addict...I watch TV from 1pm to at least 9pm..I guess it creates artificial noise, so it doesn't get too quiet and drive me insane...

Ok, should do something else now..have been typing this for hours!