I will live my life as a lobsterman's wife on an island in the blue bay.
He will take care of me, he will smell like the sea,
And close to my heart he'll always stay.

I will bear three girls all with strawberry curls, little Ella and
Nelly and Faye.
While I'm combing their hair, I will catch his warm stare
On our island in the blue bay.

Far away far away, I want to go far away.
To a new life on a new shore line.
Where the water is blue and the people are new.
To another island, in another life.

Ingrid Michaelson, 'Far away'

Once upon a time, miss goody-two-shoes went to Amsterdam with her goody-two-shoes friends.

They saw tulips in all the colours of the rainbow,

they saw the picturesque countryside,

The grass so little has to do- a sphere of simple green- with only butterflies to brood- and bees to entertain- and stir all day to pretty tunes- the breezes fetch along-

The grass so little has to do- i wish i were a hay.. E.D.

I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high over vales and hills;

when all i once i saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils.. W.W

they let the wind tousle their hair..

Then they hopped on a bus to a little village named Edam, and tried every flavour of Dutch cheese there was.

Next they went to a fishing village by the sea- Volendam,

and basked in the sun,

and ate fresh herring with pickles,

and smelled fishy for a long time afterwards.

They saw mandarin ducks and flowers everywhere they went..

I hide myself within my flower, that fading from your vase, you, unsuspectingly feel for me, almost a loneliness E.D.

And they finished their stay with the Heineken Experience,

where yours truly guzzled down 3 glasses, and felt very happy afterwards.

The last lecture.

I had the last lecture in my life today, so this warrants an entry since it's a very important event. yes, i am very sure about 'last', because all i want is to get out of the system. i can hardly wait for graduation.

i have tried on a summer dress, yet to decide if i will buy it off my housemate. i have chatted about nothing with spring, summer and winter (monikers for my housemates). i have snuggled up in bed with a book and mug of juice. i have listened to 'feet-tapping' Celtic music on a Gaelic music programme. It is eleven pm now and i can feel the first signs of panic creeping up on me. So to allay my fears i wrote out the days of the week on a piece of paper and stuck it the wall. it's better when things are written out, i guess i'm a list-maker. list-makers are all at least slightly mental, i'm so sad to join the club.

my new hobby is copying excerpts from books. i am going to indulge in it a bit for its therapeutic effects. i have a feeling that sleep will be elusive tonight. Work shall start tomorrow, i might as well enjoy what's left of today guiltlessly and worry-free. that's the wise thing to do. i am wise, am i not?

sleep dysfunction = dyssomnia?

(this post is another bid by me to 'open up', as being urged by many concerned parties)

so I'm writing.

What is there to say? Today the frump finally got out of the house. There's something liberating in the fresh air. It was a fine day today- warm sunshine and a gentle breeze. Boys were playing ball on the JBC lawn to the blast from a radio; couples were lounging on wooden benches at George Square. We walked to the newly opened Sainsbury's local opposite the Co-operative. Our morbid prediction of Co-op dying a sad death from competition by Sainsbury's doesn't seem to be likely after all- Sainsbury's local is sadly lacking in choice of wares. Seedless grapes cost £2 when you can get 2 for £3 at Sainsbury's Central. Also, they don't have the 4 for 29p yoghurt.

(wait, i'm going to get some yoghurt from the fridge now)

(nyam. eating peach-flavoured probiotic yoghurt)

(hardly any bits of peach inside. that's what u get for 7.25p yoghurt i guess)

Ok what else is there to say. I have come out of hibernation because it's spring already and the sun shines at seven something in the morning. We took a shortcut by taking the narrow little winding path next to SIPBS on our way back. The pretty little brook was going merrily along its way, tripping over moss-covered stones. It briefly crossed my mind that if this were Malaysia the little water-stagnant crevices would be fertile breeding ground for Anopheles and Aedes mozzies. And further along the brook, we saw snowdrops! With their little droopy heads of white; in clusters. One wonders if they laboriously pushed their delicate heads out of the soil upon smelling spring after a long sleepy winter, or if someone had just bought them from a store and transplanted them. There were oh-so-pretty clusters of yellow tulips as well. Why are spring flowers so shy; they hide their hearts within their petals closely drawn together. We crossed the creek and climbed unto the field of grass with the weird architectural structures where we spotted the first two daisies of spring! Their tiny petals were slightly ruffled; but being generous, i forgave their scruffy looks. They had after all, just woken from a long slumber.

Ah what more is there to say.

I was woken up at seven thirty this morning by such intense itching i freaked out. i literally tried to scratch the skin off my hands in those few minutes of all-consuming madness. Then I popped 10mg of cetirizine, wallowed teary-eyed in self-pity for a bit before taking a fearful peek at the damage done. applied some cream and put my mittens back on. After a while i remembered that some people had no hands, then i went back to sleep until 1.30.

what else is there to say.

I want to go for a movie and eat kfc.:P

It's March already and my new year resolution number 3 has failed miserably up till now. It is staring accusingly at me this very moment from the post-it on the wall.

'Resolution no. 3: sleep early, rise early.'

But i got dyssomnia la.

Found this on twitter. lol

i'm going to grow gloriously fat. i remember the women in paintings hanging from the walls of the Louvre and Orsay, all white flesh and dimples, the epitome of beauty.

the sensation of being fat gives me a sense of satisfaction, almost sweet. i feel contented, well-fed, placidly happy.

do i have a perverse nature? or maybe my serotonin system is shot since i seem to have no control over my sleeping and eating habits.

llp came to visit so i played host and brought her around to see Scotland. Since I decided that skiing was too much work (HY organised a ski trip to aviemore), we took a minivan tour up to the highlands instead.

Most of the tour was spent looking out the window at the scenery. it was breathtakingly beautiful. the day was cloudy and foggy, but there were intervals when the clouds cleared to reveal an amazingly blue sky and the sun shone down upon snow-capped peaks and undulating plains of varying shades of brown.

Our first stop was Loch Lomond, the largest loch in scotland. 'loch' means 'lake' in gaelic, which is the language of highlander scots. there are 5 million people in scotland; only 50 thousand speak the language (warning: the accuracy of all facts reproduced here relies on my memory which is rather fallible).

Loch Lomond

We made friends with a guy from China. China guy is from shantung province and has a heart of gold, we called him 赤子之心.

at loch lomond,

china guy: 仙境! 太神奇了！真是仙境啊！！(fairyland! unbelievable! it's really a fairyland!!)

and in the van later on,

china guy: 瀑布！快看！那里有瀑布！ (waterfall! look, quick! there's a waterfall!)

i wanted to laugh but i think awe is a good quality to have. too often life has eroded our sense of child-like wonder so much so we are left jaded and unfeeling even in the presence of such profound beauty.

one of the 'Ben's ('Ben' translates as 'beacon' in english)

Etive Mor

Loch Lochy

The picture says it all. the mirror-like waters of loch lochy gave such a perfect reflection i struggled to distinguish land from water, real from illusion. bbc's pictures were true after all.

Loch Ness (do you see Nessie's hump?)

We took a riverboat cruise on Loch Ness. i wouldn't recommend it as there is really nothing much see or do. i spent a large part of my time listening to the guide who revealed to us in secret that the Loch Ness monster exists. he said he was a marine biologist who has been studying the loch for years. Among the evidence were numerous images from the riverboat's sonar system detector showing a huge mass about the equivalent of 50 tonnes of fish and a picture of part of the monster above water. it could be true, who knows.

some scenery snapped from the moving van

llp says i've changed. become clammed up, unfamiliar. All the more reason for my new year resolution number 2.

i had better go sleep. resolution number 3 will be broken for the umpteenth time if not.