+ posted by M @ 10:58 AM

...

i'm getting sick of Plato, and Plato's Socrates. and for next week's drama class i'll have to have read Sophocles' Antigone, which i think will be interesting except now it feels like i signed up for a major in Greek lit or something.

i've always been more of a literature person than a philosopher - but oh well. that is, the art of language rather than ... thought. which sounds wrong, i don't quite know how to put it. philosophy isn't aesthetically beautiful. i'm attracted to beauty.

Peter Weiss' The Investigation is a very moving and powerful play and really ... there are just so many things i have learned.

my math course is incredibly incredibly simple it's insane. we're currently learning how to write set notations which we all learnt in like ... the 'o' levels. it's almost so far behind and simple that i really just can't remember how to do such things anymore. i know i can do so much more than that and probably handle calculus but i don't want to care about how much potential i have in that area anyway. i'm just doing the math to satisfy the core requirement.

i realize all i talk about are classes, classes and more classes but really, people study a lot here and all the time. and they enjoy it, greatly, not in a mugger-ish fashion that was njc, but in a search for intellectual rigour (UH HUH). it is intense, man. i'm hoping the film club presents to me some sort of outlet where i can actually start doing something creatively rather than reading all the time. but it's good that i'm immersing myself again, after not having read very much for the past nine months.

+ posted by M @ 9:23 AM

...	Thursday, September 28, 2006

party time, or whatever pathetic glimpse of it i had during o-week, is over.

i'm currently reading Plato's Apology (actually done with that already) and Plato's Republic at the same time for TWO DIFFERENT classes and also reading Peter Weiss' The Investigation for drama class - and while all these things really are very interesting to read and learn about, they're incredibly mentally exhausting and i'm wondering if it really was a good idea to take Humanities, Social Sciences and Theatre all together this quarter.

it's only the fourth day of the academic year and people who say it gets easier after the 'a' levels - damnit, not at the university of chicago.

+ posted by M @ 12:33 PM

...	Wednesday, September 27, 2006

people keep bugging me to blog, and i suppose i should. i apologize for not replying emails but i hope people will read this and thus feel updated.

in the past week i've met all sorts of people. i went for a party which got shut down by the cops, drank good beer, tried smoking but only because i was sure i wouldn't pick it up after (and i'm not), been confided in about one night stands, gotten into a stranger's car and really done all sorts of stupid things either by circumstance or just plain bad luck.

but don't worry - i am okay. i guess you could say i'm being subjected to some sort of culture shock and that's pretty unexpected considering that i like to think of myself as a pretty open-minded person and maybe i am sheltered but i've read fairly widely and watched a lot of films and things and i like to think this would make me a more rounded person than most others i know from singapore. the other singaporeans don't seem to be in as much shock when i talk to them the few times that i actually run into them on campus - possibly because they kind of stick among themselves.

is it good shocking, bad shocking? well i guess i'm learning.

haven't really made any friends i think i can really depend on as yet (i thought i met someone but then things became very BIZARRE with that person and i will not write it here. let's just say it involves some sort of marijuana, or pot, or a substance akin to that type) but hopefully things will get better in that respect - it's only been two weeks and my floor is not very united unlike some of the other dorm floors but i'm kind of used to situations like that anyway.

i'm plan to get more involved in the theatre and film groups here though it's trying because the theatre group especially seems very competitive and i did not get an Assistant Director position i tried out for which is kind of sad but i won't dwell on it. there is a lot of work to be done if you want to direct something - which i do and i want to to A Language of Their Own partly because it's done by Chay Yew and mainly because i love that play but a lot of red tape goes into such proposals and i foresee college life being very stressful. the film club seems very active and i'll probably get more into that more than theatre this quarter because they seem to have a lot more opportunities for first-years.

i'm taking four classes, World Lit, Classics in Social and Political Thought, Reading a Staging/Staging a Reading and Math (mandatory). i took DUH math, or at least i thought it would be DUH because everyone else is taking Calculus (basically like A level math except probably easier because it IS america) but i realize that while the math course i took is for non-math majors, we're going to have to learn how to write Proofs. which could be interesting or could be really 'oh my god kill me now' depending on my attitude. but i mean i've always been interested and admired logical thinking and theories and how people could write proofs - i mean that's pure math - like A Beautiful Mind and Proof kind of math rather than finding logarithms, i just don't know if I PERSONALLY can handle math of that level. it's almost like the philosophy of math and i don't even know if i could handle the philosophy of theatre or something like that.

i'm learning that i really have to get back into school mode because my brain feels dead after a long nine months and i need to participate more actively in class. i feel really awful that i'm unable to contribute as much as i would have used to before ... so i have to seriously start reading all my readings very carefully tonight and over the weekend. i've got a whole stack of things to read and it varies from Morrisson to Plato's The Republic to Machiavelli so it really is pretty cool. I'm also really glad i got my drama class because it's usually pretty hard for first-years to get in due to lack of space but i guess i got lucky.

so okay that's kind of it and i'll try to blog more often. you know i hate blogging like this but i know that i have to tell you guys what's happening or else you feel alienated and i feel alienated from you and yes i still think of all you dear friends frequently and this is what i've been up to. i really will try to email some of you soon.

LOVE FROM MEL

+ posted by M @ 6:27 AM

...	Monday, September 18, 2006

okay. so i've moved into my dorm and o-week has started. it's been pretty okay. everyone's really friendly because americans seem to generally be very talkative and outgoing. it's like everyone's so enthusiastic it's a little ... i have to get used to it i suppose, after schooling in singapore for so many years. but it's a good thing. anyway i took pictures of my dorm room. mandy your chocobaby and meiji chocolates are really a LIFESAVER though i found shops in chinatown that sell yam yam - the chinatown here is pretty good. still looking forward to my kaya and teh tarik though.

+ posted by M @ 5:45 AM

...	Wednesday, September 13, 2006

my very own academy speech

nineteen now, officially and it feels a little strange. i can't hide from my age anymore and still say eighteen when people ask so i sound younger. it was a little weird though, going to a bar for dessert last night with my parents and then asking for a cosmopolitan and getting ID-ed and then the realization that i cannot drink legally anymore now that i'm in america and i was refused the alcohol by the waiter even though my parents were around.

i want to thank everyone for coming down to see me off on saturday because it really meant a lot to me. thank you for all your individual presents! i cannot say how happy i was that everyone came. thank you chew (i don't know if you still read this) for your postcard, classmate. thank you dawn and angela for chunky rice (which i LOVE) and the spray (which got confiscated at customs lah. no liquids and aerosols remember?). thank you to the gang for all your love AND chunky rice and the individual cards which i have brought with me. thank you ed for the SEC TWO NEOPRINT (it is great!) and the jingmao. thank you mandy for the cupcake briefcase ( : ) ) and the japanese sweets! very clever of you to get me those. thank you cel for the gumball machine. thanks to dav, van, shiwei, yif and samuel for coming down. thank you dav for the necklace. thank you carol for Youth and apple pie, thank you carol's brother (Sam) for the chocolates. thank you kai for the card and present all the way from melbourne. and thanks to SO MANY OTHERS for their wellwishes. thank you aly, for everything, and i don't think i even need to write it down here.

BUT BEATRICE LIM FORGOT MY BIRTHDAY, (OF ALL PEOPLE!!!!) AND THEREFORE SHE BETTER REPLY MY EMAIL/SMS SOON.

+ posted by M @ 6:44 PM

...

dear friends,

i am in chicago after having spent three days in NYC. i am safe and in one piece. i'll email all of you very soon.

love,
mel

+ posted by M @ 8:14 AM

...	Friday, September 08, 2006

i haven't been blogging because all i've been feeling everyday is how damn hard it is to leave everyone. and it's not just you anymore, it's every single person that has touched my life. reading all the birthday cards has really made me feel so very depressed. how can i leave?

oh God, help me.

+ posted by M @ 10:00 AM

...	Sunday, September 03, 2006

i said, 'i think i love you.'
and she said, 'i know i love you.'

+ posted by M @ 1:37 AM