Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind.
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UC WALKOUT Saturday, September 26, 2009 courtesy of the daily cal:  just look at the number of people. newspaper reports 5000 students and imagine that this is just a glimpse of it. i went home after my discussion class at 10am so i didnt manage to see for myself since this happened at noon at sproul. but i did manage to catch a glimpse of it. at the entrance where i usually walk into school, there were a group of people picketting starting at 7am. cars that drove by would honk and it obviously got crazier later in the day. i would have loved to stay and watch except that i had a midterm the next day and if i did, i'd probably have quite some trouble getting back to bart with this crowd of people. i'm kinda on the fence about this whole deal. well, at least through this walkout, more people do notice the situation and hopefully it'll get better soon. not overnight for sure but eventually. for one, i think berkeley is too well known to be put off the map and for people to not take notice. and with all these political groups who are standing strong on their feet, they're not gonna let this matter rest until something is done. oh berkeley. such diversity and dynamics, can i ask for more? anyways, didnt want to say too much about this. some videos about the event below if u wanna see what went on. or just google uc walkout and you'll get tons of info. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyVIgM3B5hc&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pYBLbE5KbI&feature=player_embedded watching toys story 1 and 2 in 3D tomorrow morning. excited. dont remember much of the story so it'd be a good recap. lol. just to get a break away from school and to reward myself for not having enough time to finish my midterm. well, no one did. good thing we still have a take home portion :) crisis Wednesday, September 23, 2009 this is probably the one and only time that im not totally happy or relieved that my midterm has been postphoned... so i was supposed to have a midterm for my endocrinology class on thurs but it got moved to friday because of the walkout. initially, the professor wasnt going to go so the midterm will still be carried out but i think something happened somehow, and he made this whole inspiring speech today and he's going to walkout so midterms got moved and im not happy. not in the "but i studied so hard" sense but the walkout sense. basically, the UC walkout is a day where faculty and students walk out of school. no classes. but of course not for holiday sake. im going to experience my first political 'strike' after 5 weeks of school. after all, berkeley is well known for its political and free speech sort of thing. so why the walkkout? what other than $$$. the UC system is raising our fees by 30 percent, as though its not high enough and its cutting back costs and all. so faculty is getting salary cuts, theres gonna be fewer classes offered, and the list goes on. bottom line: economic crisis. the system just doesnt have enough funds and all the bonds, endowments are all tied to other stuff and cant be touched to help solve the problem which in no way is an easy one to solve. it was a crisis in the making. sadly, if this goes on, berkeley may no longer exist on the world map as an international public higher education univeristy and premier research instituition. our rankings will plummet. we're not like stanford or harvard or oxford or yale that is privatized so they get their funds by wealthy rich money hogging people. but even though we're public, we're being compared to those colleges. we're getting our funds by grants earned by faculty well part of it and if the crisis goes on the faculty salaries continue to get cut, they might just go on and accept the offer from those schools. after all, the faculty do constantly receive offers yearly. who doesnt want more money after all. my endo prof is only obligated to teach 1 class and he'll get paid 10000 for that. but he's teaching 3 classes and getting paid the same amount. he asked to get more GSI because of the huge class size and they refused until something was done somehow. the situation is just bad. so hopefully the walkout will do something. its not going to happen overnight for sure but perhaps some good will come out of it. i guess i'll be going to see what its gonna be like on thurs. i only have one discussion class in the morning. theres going to be pickett lines at the entrances so i wonder how chaotic its gonna be. sproul is going to be packed for sure. heh its all part of the berkeley culture. well, if theres gonna be a berkeley like we know it now in 10 years that is. i should get to bed. unproductive weekend :( Sunday, September 20, 2009 is causing extreme guilt right now. im surprised im not even worried YET about the midterm thats coming up this thursday. my first midterm at cal. oh yay. really didnt do anything at all apart from flipping my notes back and forth surfing the net in between, watching ghost which is an awesome classic and got scared towards the end because of my cousin who got freaked out by my aunt who appeared out of no where and said hi and the perfect timing when the guy died, watching parts of the emmy's and the list of guilty pleasures goes on. hopefully, my self discipline comes back to me starting tomorrow. my GSI did say that a procrastinator is a perfectionist. and it is partly true i guess or more than partly. i dont know. anyways, i should get to bed now. procrastinating is exhausting too, somehow. my poster is going to the printer this friday. exciting stuff! have to proof read it again just in case. and below are just random pictures from school when i got bored. view from a patch of grass outside VLSB. lol. i just thought it looked really peaceful  squirrels! theyre not afraid of people at all. so so tamed. i zoomed thrice only cos i didnt want to step on the shrubs. using my phone by the way...  oh how adorable. just another shot....  caffeine makes you depressed Saturday, September 19, 2009 and i say that because that was exactly how i felt when i got home. got a latte as i did for the past 3 days in the morning while walking to school and an iced coffee when i was walking to bart to head home. i usually can handle more caffeine than that without any side effects including the ability to sleep super soundly so i dont know what got to me today. of course the caffeine theory is unsupported and thats my claim for now since its the only thing that i could think of now. everything was still fine in the afternoon. i only had mcb lecture then an hour break then endo discussion which i totally bombed. totally forgot about the reading assignment but the cool thing was is till knew what they were talking about. it was about primary literature and how it was written up or rather the format and since i wrote one myself, everything made sense and i kept relating or comparing it to my own paper or rather poster. then i had a one half hour break since i had scheduled an appointment with my GSI to ask questions and clarify stuff. during that one half hour i sat outside VLSB trying to generate more questions and a little bit of review for the midterm next thurs and i got soo distracted by all the little critters-squirrels! they were running around. so adorable! like they came up so close to you on the sidewalk and stuff. not afraid of people at all. there was this dog that was being walked and it saw the squirrel and couldnt stop staring at it. the owner had to really pull him. school grounds is seriously like a park. good and bad since i get so easily distracted once i see animals. anyways, office hours were really helpful. got lots of things cleared up. hopefully i'll do well on the midterm. weird we're having it on UC faculty walk out day. its basically a day where University of California faculty and students walk out of classes/teaching. sorta like a strike but not mandatory. its i think due to the budget cuts and tuition fees hikes. so its up to the professor if we still have class on that day. apparently, i have all my classes. including a midterm. awesome. back to 5 hours ago... i got sad for no reason and got really annoyed at i dont know what. no, im pretty well sure its not PMS if thats what youre thinking. i just wanted to do something happy but there was nothing. actually i wasnt sure if i wanted to do anything at all at that time. bleah whatever. im feeling better already, or not. im not even making sense now. i should just go to bed. maybe its from the lack of food i ate today. but im not hungry. i still cant stop thinking even though its been so long. i dont even know how i feel now. messed up. 090909 Thursday, September 10, 2009 so i didnt get the apprenticeship. quite a disappointment really. but oh wells, i didnt even expect to apply for anything at first so i guess im not that sad. i was really excited about it at first though. i would check his virtual office door almost 5 times everyday! hopefully, he has it again next semester. for now, i shall still be content with what i did over the summer. its not quite over yet since ive yet to see my printed poster or in that matter even gone to texas yet. really looking forward to that as ive said a million times before. 1 more month. cant wait to be with my lab peeps again. i can already tell its gonna be so much fun. that also means i need to go shopping again soon for formal attire.its a pain though. i'll drag someone along with me then. school's been a drag this week. been feeling really sleepy. i think real school life has start to sink in once again. the fantasy that the school once felt like is over. workload is starting to pile up and i always feel like im behind even though im doing a lot more studying than i did at skyline. im actually reviewing my notes of the day when i get home. impressive eh? i guess its also because we dont quite have official homework. but then again, who wants to grade 500 papers every week? so it makes perfect sense. yay self study! so far my favorite class would have to be endocrinology. its really interesting but technical too of course. alright, didnt really intend to blog but its 9/9/9 so i had to crine out a post somehow. skyline college shooting Saturday, September 05, 2009 never in a million years did i think that i would be affliated with a school that has a shooting incident. still, im glad that everyone was fine and there were no fatalities. oh this happened on wednesday. i first heard of the news on facebook so i went to the school website to check and right on the front page read emergency: active shooter at large..... i was so shocked. i never ever thought this would happen at skyline, the small peaceful school that i so love. i mean i know shooting incidents happen, but 5 mins away from where i live? and the school that i just graduated from 3 months ago? my facebook started to get flooded with status updates and comments. the school went into a lockdown and there were live footages online with the swat team and polices officers and helicopters. just like what'd you see on news. i googled to find out more details but there wasnt much.after all, it did just happen and it was still ongoing. my friends who were still at skyline were stuck in the classrooms and had to wait an hour or so before they were escorted out. but im glad no one was hurt other than that one guy who was involved in the argument. he got shot in the butt and abdomen? so what happened as far as i know now is that these 2 groups of people got into a fight in the school parking lot (why cant they just fight outside of school and none of these would have happened?) and this one guy pulled the trigger. they fled the scene of course in a purple car and the injured guy ran into the learning center bleeding and shouted i got shot. so thats when everythign happened. people called 911, he was taken to the hospital, emergency protocols carried out, text messages sent out, lockdown mode, classes stopped, swat team comes, investigates, people slowly evacuated blah blah blah. classes cancelled the next day too for investigations to continue. i really was shocked at first and could not believe it but the more i thought of it, the more stupid it seemed. irresponsible people had to cause so much inconvenience and worries. it really was just an argument that turned ugly and not like the virginia tech case where a guy randomly goes around shooting people. of course, no one knew that then so im sure they did the right thing. glad its over now though. school has resumed though i know i would be paranoid and all if i still went there. theres still additional security officers put in place for the next week and escort services in the evening plus extra counseling for people who need it. i would still like to say that skyline is indeed safe and this was one isolated case. im still proud to be a skyline-ian. wouldnt you think it would happen in berkeley first rather than skyline? there really was a higher possibility but i guess not. that aside, second week of school is over and here comes my 3 day weekend because of labor day. gonna go out tomorrow to tilden park. heard the scenery there is really awesome. oh im going with these bunch of peeps from the SMSA club (singapore malaysian student association). so its meet more people time. going to be fun from the sound of it. since im spending tomorrow having fun, sun and monday will be dedicated to school work. school's been quite crazy or starting to at least. the pace at which the lectures go are really fast. i didnt review my notes for endocrinology on wed since i was so distracted by the shooting incident which was a bad idea so i was really behind and lost at thurs lecture. bad sign. have to use this weekend to catch up. but this is how crazy it gets. on tues, it was just introduction of the different hormones and stuff and thurs is introduction of the hormonal axes which has to do with the various hormones and it was just confusing. yay for not knowing my hormones. i wonder how im gonna cope when i miss school during sacnas. i know its gonna be disastrous. ive also been eating alot these few days so its been costing me greatly. i cant help it since berkeley has such great food and all these deals. im constantly thinking about food and everytime i walk past a store, i m always tempted to go in and grab something. but then again, the cost scares me. each meal is about 5 bucks on average? i had jamba juice to accompany me with on bart. i got matcha green tea blast. so good. love anything green tea. next day for lunch while waiting for my next class, went there again but got the mango peach topper which is mango, peach, yoghurt topped with granola and bananas. so good. im still craving that now. plus its healthy soo thats a plus. got fries on the way home since i was craving something salty. today went to sf soup company since it was too cold to get a cold meal. had southern corn chowder. so so good. i could have had the whole pot. top dog's hot links are awesome too. have yet to try the other recommended places though. cheese board pizza, this japanese place, thai place, korean place. yoghurt land. i m gonna be so broke and fat after. but i assure or comfort myself with the amount of walking that i do daily. alright, thats mostly what i wanted to blog about before i got lazy and went to bed. more tomorrow maybe after our picnic at tilden. till then, we should all stay safe :) |
About a girl
when i put on a show.  nine-teen 100790 ilovepupsndogs @hotmail.com dogs! -i wish upon the star- more dogs=) hamsters cats a sack of gummy bears get into UC Berkeley travel around the world Bark
cause i cannot hear you. Cbox
Music & lyrics
find a way back into love. falling in love. jaime marlene huihui junhao kelly jervenne huiping crystal felicia diana
Layouts & credits
my thanks. Editor: shanggg!rong Basecodes: 1, 2, 3 Photobucket & DaFont
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