excited!

first i'm excited because i've been missing these babes for so long, and i'm finally going to see them again!

i'm also excited cuz my cousins and i are FINALLY going clubbing together, the third get-together this week before i fly. just the excuse to tear the house down. =)

had a lovely birthday celebration yesterday, i realised all my cousins are photo-crazy. they took some nice pictures though, especially of the food. shall post some when i can!

two worlds

i was just telling abiel the only difference being at home and at oxford is that my home's messier, filthier and worse, very noisy because of all the quarreling.

i jest. but only just.

looking through facebook i realise just how much i miss my friends back in oxford. i was looking through my friend anna's photos today, and that really jolted me. what i really appreciate is the effort that all of them take to keep in touch - i am so lazy it'd have taken me quite a bit to just email them, but there they are faithfully replying with email-length messages.

i have been telling my juniors that if there's one thing they should do, it's to keep their spirits up, especially during orientation week, and socialise as much as possible, as tiring as that may be. i truly regret just switching off halfway through orientation - i was just too tired to keep up that british accent, too tired to have people think i can't speak proper english, too tired to repeat my name (often mangled, i had to spell it as li-sin) and most of all so shy. i regret that because i could have made more friends. i thought i could just make some friends joining some activities, but that's really not the case, because first impressions are so crucial.

one thing i think that british are very good at is mingling. it is more than a skill, it's an art. and gosh i suck at it, like i do at all arts. i have to learn to start a conversation (not with the weather i hope), ask intelligent questions and smile smile smile. not be afraid to introduce myself and just make more friends. sounds easy right? even just thinking about it makes my heart pound.

my resolution this year is not just to do well academically, but also to make more friends. friends are treasures, as all my friends have shown. thank you.

explain to me human nature

imagine this. person A and person B were both caught for shoplifting by the store detective. person A stole one $50 item. person B stole two $50 items. in addition, the store detective finds out that person B has overstayed his tourist visa. yet, he lets person B go free. you see, person B and him used to go to the same class together in a different country. they are friends. person A, however, has no such luck. he is handed over to the police.

now the searing unfairness of such a situation infuriates me. i'd have thought that if the store detective decided to do his good deed of the day, maybe he should consider doing two good deeds - after all person A did not commit a big a crime as person B. if he chooses to nab person A then, well he should nab person B too, because he nabs person A for his crime (not because person A isn't his friend).

so reasoning this out doesn't work. now let's appeal to the emotions. the store detective is being a good friend by letting his friend go off, his friend is sensible enough not to commit the same mistake again, so it's deterrance without punishment. of course, he needs to be responsible and fulfil his job requirements (why now he thinks of it!) and so he nabs person A. in light of what he's done before, however, the fact that he can now hand person A over to the police shows somehow his spitefulness. i mean, aside from shoplifting and not being his friend (misfortune of all misfortunes!) what other crime has person A committed?

how to reconcile this?

of course, if we go by the letter of the law then the outcome for person A will be the same, whether or not he was caught by this store detective or the other store detective who is friends with neither person A nor B. however, the fact that the outcome for person B is so different because of his luck - really it's nothing else is it - despite committing a worse offence just makes me feel so indignant.

don't tell me it's a fact of life that we have to accept. what do you call this? corruption? no money passed hands. what is this called then? have we no name for this? compassion? that's bull.

someone explain this to me.