The infrequent blog postings point to two things:
1. I have kept to my New Year resolution: DON'T WASTE TIME.
2. I am so lucky to have friends to listen to my grousings, so I don't need to have a gut-spewing session with an electronic diary.

Lately, life's been pretty good to me, but I'm still not feeling that sense of tranquility and positivity that I so yearn for. Perhaps I should start from my last posting. After my thesis was submitted, I was tied down by work (temp-ed for a few days at the company where I did my internship), being a research assistant for a day which entailed administering an experiment and debriefing a group of 60 (my first experience being a "lecturer"), project meetings, business meetings, final assignment (submitted on Monday@12:36am), and doing up the final project of my undergrad course (due on Sat). Hectic but fulfilling. This week, the schedule's less hectic, and restlessness and boredom have started setting in. My brain is starting to turn to mush, despite an ongoing project, my eyesight appears to be deteriorating at an alarming rate (I can't see the screen clearly even as I type now), my metabolism seems to have slowed (putting on fats), and I am losing my ability to speak (no one to talk to as everyone's either working or having exams). But it should not come as a surprise. Every year, at this time of the semester, I will feel this restlessness and pent-up frustration. I want to get out there and do something. Some sport, some exercise, some shopping, some traveling, some sight-seeing. But stuck. Stuck I am, in my home, in Singapore. I feel caged. I start yearning for those days in Rotterdam. The days I go to the market to buy mini-mandarins (see! even I forgot what it is called now), smoked salmon, chicken fillet, fried fish, and stroopwafels, and scour the market for little items of interest. The relaxed life, the cool weather, the nice and healthy food, is what I so long for now. I wish someone, something, can whisk me away from the monotony and materialism of Singaporean life to the wonderfully relaxed life in Rotterdam. Why, why, why do I have to be here? Not that I'm lamenting, but everything appears to be against me. 2 pairs of heels broke, one after another, 1 pair of heels gave me 2 watery blisters, and my toilet door fell on me on the same day, giving me ugly bruises (bad timing for the Vera Wang fashion show that I'm attending on Sunday). I feel totally lethargic and brainless. And now it seems that I will be starting my MSc research in May, leaving me no time for rest at all, since I will be rewriting my thesis into a journal article from now till then. It will be 1.5 boring years with no friends, and a plethora of restrictions because I am "indebted" to NUS for giving me the scholarship. Not that I am not grateful for the scholarship. I want to do my MSc. However, upon learning of the restrictions that will be imposed "no part-time, full-time, or self-employment", I feel so restrained. What about my business ideas? What happens if something good comes out of it halfway through? Where has all that NUS bullshit about promoting creativity and entrepreneurship gone to? Look at NUS Business School's advertisements. They all show graduates who are in high positions in big companies. But none show entrepreneurs. Why? A lack of entrepreneurs? Arcade ideas that high-flying positions are better than risk-taking entrepreneurs who work hard to follow a dream? It's perhaps no wonder that NUS Business School is not attracting as many students as SMU. Loud music was blaring from huge loudspeakers in SMU in the afternoon when I went there. The campus seems vibrant, lively, and unrestrained. Walking into NUS Business School, you will see a boring old sign that says "NUS Business School WELCOME" on a pale yellow sheet in red letterings. Not that I'm betraying my own school, but the inflexibility and old school management styles of NUS Business School is so apparent. Even more so when looking at the administration. I think 99.9% of students who have gone on the Student Exchange Program have had problems with the administrators of the program. The most common problem faced is that they tell you one thing (before you go for exchange) making you think that everything is settled and smooth, and then after that, they give you all the problems (e.g. your module cannot be mapped back, you cannot be selected for honours until...). Now with the new Thesis Library that's supposed to make it easier for students to loan theses, it becomes another avenue for inefficiency. Get this: (a) it opens from 9am-11.30am (most final year students are not in school everyday, and seminars are usually from 9am-12noon), (b) the staff manning the counter takes 10-15 minutes to process a loan, even when it is as simple as you filling up a form (30sec), and them getting the book (can be done in less than a min), and them scanning in the barcode of the book (1 sec), and (c) the processing time to return a book that is overdue (20-30min) - the reason being that, on top of the slow processing, you will have to proceed to the computer lab one level below the thesis library loan counter to pay and then bring the receipt back up again. Efficiency? ZERO. Bureaucracy? 100%. I'm sure most of my friends have more "horror" stories to share about the administration. Mine's considered extremely mild. Anyway, the grousing has to stop here. My stomach's growling so I have to start hunting.

And... for the smart ones reading this... you are right. I:
1. Am wasting time
2. Have no friends online to complain to when I started writing this entry. :P