my brit friend sang lao shu ai da mi!

as a testament to how drunk he was, my brit friend confessed to me how much he missed karaoke in china. =P (in britain karaoke is nothing like how it is like back home. for starters, only losers or drunkards sing.) he then proceeded to holler lao shu ai da mi, quite in tune actually, with pronounciation that would put sheryl (or tim) to shame! (ehhh immunity sought here uh!) hilarious. i asked him if he knew the meaning of what he was singing, he did! cool. i should burn him a cd of my chinese songs one day. he loves fir and jay chou too.

it's lousy english weather nowadays. too cold, too wet (showers really, but annoying nonetheless). my friends (not the singaporeans hoh) can't believe they have to switch their heaters on in summer. conducive to studying, except of course i do little of it. listening to chinese songs, bouncing on my big big gym ball and teasing abiel about his chinese more like it. heh.

holed up in my cosyish room, bundled up with soft slippers and comfortable trousers and all, i'm now feeling very guilty. i can't imagine how the homeless here must feel. no place to hide from the cold, no place to shower, few public toilets to use, no place to keep dry, no electricity, nowhere to sleep. and here i am wondering if i should splurge 20pounds on bath products. my first real econs tute today with my new smashing tutor made me realise - with a thud, how economics is now so geared towards the real world, towards solving problems regarding welfare, towards third world poverty. it's very easy to forget why you're studying when you're preparing for examinations. econs is not a bunch of equations put together in a fanciful way - it has the ability to impact many, for good or for worse. here i am wondering if homelessness if the result of aggressive privatisation and cost-cutting efforts during the thatcher years - or cold cold humanity? i see the homeless everyday, but how often do i actually think of them, or even just try to emphatise? better yet do something to help? isn't empathy something that makes us 'human'? (philosophy here - doing an essay on personal identity this week). or can we actually get desensitized to suffering in general? perhaps the only concrete thing i can do to help is to buy the big issue, or just give them money. i hope they don't use it to buy drinks or cigarettes though. sigh. or perhaps, when oxford has a be homeless for a night thing, participate.

sigh too many jumbled thoughts in my mind now.