A scary deja vu is unfolding. Around 2 months ago, I dreamt of something that I thought I would never do, because I think I am not so superstitious. Today I find myself brewing tea, and then putting aside a cup of tea everytime.

In that dream, I was also cursing because I got rejected from a graduate school. Cannot remember which school though.

Successfully held the International Students' Night 2008 despite hiccups occurring even throughout the performances, i.e. projector-laptop incompatibility and what not. Good that its over, imagine how overworked we the 5-man committee can be.

Anyway, a few representative shots of the performances from that night. 5 of the following shots are taken by me. You can go about guessing which. The rest were done by Mr Hay, because I left him to babysit my camera while I went around troubleshooting everything technical.

South Korea - Hip Hop

清华物业中心 竹竿舞

哈萨克斯坦 合唱 的主唱

American 快板 - 说大话

African Dance - African countries

Malaysian Skit 拍照片

朝鲜 板栗之歌

Trong Com by Vietnam

I wonder how many people still read this space. Perhaps people passively keep track by using readers that inform of updates, but I'm convinced few actively visit the site.

The 08/09 SSA exco held its last activity today - Christmas Party at Peter's Tex Mex Grill. Can tell that everyone was in a jovial mood, especially the boss. Glad its over, was nice working with them.

Anyway, the mood had little effect on me, given that the entire Christmas Party preparation and celebrations was held in between the two CDs of 그로싱 （Crossing) I was watching. It was heavy matter that I was attempting. Despite the lack of subtitles and my poor korean, the movie still managed to achieve its point. Just kept the day solemn and tense.

Don't even think the others had any idea that I wasn't in as jovial a mood as they were, and I obviously put in less effort to dress up as the whole world. While people looked pretty and took group shots, I kept to my sums and making sure that the finances matched up. I never liked taking photos of myself. People I want to take photos with, are unlikely to initiate a shot with me, so I'm better off doing my own things.

Can you believe it.. I listen to the song below at least 25 times today!
And erm, its a boy band la..

SS501 - U R MAN

전화길 다시 내려놓고 꽃다발 가슴에 묻어두고
밤새워 써둔 편지도 비에 적셔 내리네
창문을 또 열어보고 그대 이름을 불러도
대답없는 벨소리만 귓가에 들리네

아까 아까워 난 모든것이 그리워
아까워 난 모든것이 괴로워
아까 아까 아까워 난 너말고는 다른 여잔 몰라

I'm your man I'm your man 그대여
따라다따 오늘도 나는 오늘도 그대만 생각해
I'm your man I'm your man 그대여
따라다따 오늘도 그대가 떠나질 않아 I'm your man
I'm your man 거리를 또 헤매죠 어딘지도 몰라요
혹시라도 또 그대가 나타날까
I'm your man 꿈에라도 모르죠 웃으며 반겨줄까
다시 찾아올지 몰라 I'm your man

눈감으니 더 선명해도 귓가에 목소리 들려와도
그대 향기 맴돌아도 이미 그댄 떠나고
떠나니 더 생각나고 가고 나서야 알았죠
이게 바로 사랑일까 떠나간 그대여

아까 아까워 난 모든것이 그리워
아까워 난 모든것이 괴로워
아까 아까 아까워 난 떠나버린 니 생각에 돌아

I'm your man I'm your man 그대여
따라다따 오늘도 나는 오늘도 그대만 생각해
I'm your man I'm your man 그대여
따라다따 오늘도 그대가 떠나질 않아 I'm your man
I'm your man 거리를 또 헤매죠 어딘지도 몰라요
혹시라도 또 그대가 나타날까
I'm your man 꿈에라도 모르죠 웃으며 반겨줄까
다시 찾아올지 몰라 I'm your man

떠나간 니가 울던 걸 알아 그래도 이젠 지운 걸 알아
이젠 나란 남잔 잊은거 잖아 비참하잖아
왜 난 안 되니 내가 니 사람이잖아

I'm your man I'm your man 그대여
따라다따 오늘도 나는 오늘도 그대만 생각해
I'm your man I'm your man 그대여
따라다따 오늘도 그대가 떠나질 않아 I'm your man
I'm your man 거리를 또 헤매죠 어딘지도 몰라요
혹시라도 또 그대가 나타날까
I'm your man 꿈에라도 모르죠 웃으며 반겨줄까
다시 찾아올지 몰라 I'm your man
I'm your man

Somehow, this term i don't feel as though I am a student, because I don't do much studying, and actually do a mess of random things. For instance, the somehow introverted me steps beyond the comfort zone and does a lot of socializing within and outside school. And I find no reason to explain why there are much more people visiting Beijing as compared to other terms.

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Yesterday was an interesting day. I started the day having just slept for 2 hours, and went with the school's international student badminton team for the beijing inter-varsity badminton competition. Witnessed high quality badminton as realized the domination of indonesians at this game. Anyway, was also great fun learning that Chinese in Medan speak Hokkien, so I spent the time there talking to them in hokkien!

In the evening, there was this ASEAN bowling night event, and I attended as due to SSA participation. Was fun though, and good that my group was actually not really comprised of full-time Peking Uni students. In fact, two exchange students from U.Penn and Wilkinson College respectively, and this Filipino language student. Haha, and guess what, I learnt that alot of Chinese in Manila speak Hokkien. Well it is not exactly new, because I heard of that long time ago and even contemplated backpacking Manila, but I don't exactly have Filipino friends till yesterday, despite having been offered an all-expense paid undergrad education in Philippines some time back. But anyway, we spent most of the time speaking in English; though hokkien would make it seem more friendly =)

It really feels alot alot more 亲切 to speak in hokkien.

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Anyway, I cannot seem to remember names in Chinese.

On Saturday, had dinner with my roommate and his GF, after which we joined 3 others for a chat and some light drinks. I'm sad to say I cannot remember the Chinese names of all 3! But I actually remembered the Japanese guy's name in English/Japanese, the Taiwanese gal's name in English, and the Korean girl's name in Hangeul. In fact, the korean introduced herself in Chinese, and I translated the name subconsciously to Korean and deleted the Chinese name. I can piece it back to Chinese, but instintively the record's in Korean.

Same thing for Indonesians. You ask me their Chinese names, and I will shrug my shoulders, because I really just know their Indonesian names.

So what the hell am I doing in Beijing??? My mind obviously doesn't operate in Chinese. It operates in its own complicated mix of language with little Chinese presence.