You know, the purpose of the "short introduction", as it says in your CA brief, is for "explaining the purpose of this report" and to give a "brief description of the fieldtrip".

In other words, you are supposed to talk about WHY you're doing this report, NOT go on and on about whether there is actually any semblance of religious harmony in Singapore.

So SHUT UP JESSICA, SHUT UP.

Great. I've spent another 1 hr 20 min not doing anything. In like 5 min I'm going off to catch Saiyuki Reload so that's been sooooooooo productive, as you can see.

Maybe I should just skip the intro.

I had a verrrrrry long nap on Friday night, after getting practically no sleep on Thursday night. My intro seemed to go on and on and on and on and I decided I had better sleep since it was nearly 7 a.m. and I had to get up at 9 a.m. for my little field trip.

Well, by the time my mother and I got to the place, it was past 10.30 a.m. so we missed the tour. :P Managed to get my photo though. After which I decided we might as well head across the road to Raffles City. We entered through Robinsons and didn't leave the store for a very long time because I finally found my navy blue shoes (for the record, my shoes seem to all be falling apart) and there was only one pair left in my size and none left at the Centrepoint outlet and yada-yada...anyway, there was a storewide 20% so it was okay.

I hovered around MPH, where I once again griped about the 20% off fiction titles...since the book I want is non-fiction. And while I'm on the topic, when my mother went down to Borders on MONDAY MORNING to get Marie Antoinette: The Journey, all copies had sold out! What the #$%^&!!! There were like how many thousand left on SATURDAY AFTERNOON!

Anyway, so it turns out $31.90 is the wrong price and every bookshop has reduced it to $26-something. I shall keep that at the top of my list. Although I don't think I'll have time to read until mid-December at earliest, early February at latest. Stupid school.

And speaking of school, I have decided to be optimistic about something for the first time in my life. I HAVE LESS THAN HALF MY 3 YEARS AT SP LEFT. See? That raises my spirits a little. Time could pass a lot faster though. That would be very helpful.

Now I really need to go do my essay, so I'll end with three words:

IN DEBT. AGAIN.

Jessica wrote home at 1:26 am

I always have this problem whereby a sale starts at the end of the week and I go buy something and go broke...then on Saturday it turns out Borders has a discount coupon and I have no money to buy a book.

Soooooooo...by coincidence (since I'm not usually out on a Friday night) I was at Marina on Friday and found out it was mid-season sale time. I didn't get anything and figured if I did, I would go broke and find a coupon on Saturday.

Guess what was in the newspapers on Saturday.

It's a conspiracy I tell you.

Anyway, like I declared previously, I finally went to Orchard after a month only because I wanted to visit the bookstores.

I was in Borders an awfully long time. I mean AWFULLY long time. My mother wanted me to find a book but didn't know what genre it was (not even fiction or non-fiction!!!) so I had to search every possible section twice (I was very amused when I found Steven Gerrard's biography in the religion section).

I gave up and finally went to the information counter. Turns out the book was in stock but all the copies weren't on their supposed shelf (the book was apparently very popular at that point of time...). Sheesh.

Then I had to bother about my own book. I found Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, which had unfortunately been moved to the Recommended shelf, so that there was only one copy left (in not-so-great condition) when previously they had been in abundance.

After which since I couldn't get my mother's book, I was therefore left with another coupon. Seriously tempted to get a history book. I found the movie tie-in version of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, which has a nice pink cover and nice layout inside and is about half as thick as the original version. The original version (which is blue) I wanted to buy like 4 years ago in Australia but never got around to it since its thickness kinda freaked me out. This time I was very tempted to buy the pink version...but that version is like $5 or $6 more. :P

Oh and I didn't know the movie was based on the book. Speaking of which, when is the movie coming out? Jessica is so gonna watch it.

In other news, I mentioned in the chatterbox that I was sick last week. I woke up on Sunday and my throat was all scratchy and I was probably running a slight fever. HOWEVER I didn't tell anyone and persevered through my stupid film idea PowerPoint. I spent 4 whole days working on the film idea thing actually - Friday night and the whole of Saturday to come up with a story, Sunday to decide the story was un-workable and to change it, then the whole of Sunday night (and part of Monday morning) to do the 29-slide PowerPoint...on Monday I find out we're limited to only 6 slides, so I had to redo the whole thing...and on Tuesday after class this new story twist hit me and I spent some more hours working it into the PowerPoint.

ANYWAY, sorry for digressing. I was sick on Monday too - not as bad, but I was still not in what I call "tippy-top condition".

It seems that everytime I fall sick, I CANNOT take a day off because I have some important test or project presentation or whatever on that day. For instance, the very first time I was sick in Year 1 Sem 1 was on a Wednesday. I managed to give the FOM lecture a miss, but I had to DRAG myself to school for DTP and stay back for over an hour after that just to finish my Photoshop project which was due the next week. (Unlike most people, I do NOT have the luxury of the program at home.)

Last semester, I was down with the flu (and worse off this time round) on a Friday. Normally on Fridays I get released at 12 p.m. so what's the big deal right? The big deal was that on THAT PARTICULAR Friday, I had an MMR presentation at 2.30 p.m. (or was it 3.30 p.m.?) followed by an Astronomy test ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE SCHOOL at 5.30 p.m.!!! And because I was so sick, I couldn't think straight and made two stupid errors in the test. I could've gotten full marks damn it.

And now this. I would've skipped the extra four hours of class on Monday, but nooooooo, it was time to present my story idea. Except that I never did get the chance to present it.

Oh well.

I stayed away from VivoCity this weekend! Yay! Although granted I'm too freaking busy to go to that freaking crowded place anyway. I meant to make up for last weekend (i.e. absolutely no progress on my essay)...BUT this weekend I am supposed to review all 19 of my spec dip classmates' story ideas (and there are quite a lot of things to write about in one review)...so I'm only done with 8 and it seems like I won't get any sleep tonight at all, what with my not having done my MLE tutorial either. AND MY UCCD ESSAY!!! #$%^&*!!!

And I still haven't solved the church problem. ARGH. Someone help me.

Jessica wrote home at 5:26 pm

It was crazily crowded. I think I'll stick to Wednesdays and Thursdays, thank you.

Oh yeah, so GAP opened. Damn the jeans are nice. I'd ask you to remind me when I have $129 to spare, but that won't happen in a million years, so too bad.

I spent most of last night playing FE! I wanted a break and it lasted too long as usual. Now I have to go ballistic coming up with the whole plot of my wonderfully crappy film for spec dip, then beg my sis to lend me her laptop so I can do the PowerPoint tomorrow.

And speaking of spec dip, we're watching The Departed at Vivo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Both of which I voted for. Mwahahahahaha. They're postponing it for another two weeks though.

In other news, I am SO regretting not lying about my religion. For our UCCD essay we have to go to the place of worship and take a photo of ourself as proof. It's sooooooooo bloody unfair because you can saunter into any big temple with a huge camera and pretend you're a tourist from...erm...somewhere...and NOBODY WILL BOTHER YOU BECAUSE IT'S USUALLY TOO NOISY ANYWAY.

I seriously doubt you can do the same for any mosque or church. I could drop by the SHS chapel (on pretence of visitng the school? Yeah right) but I have nobody to go with since everyone is busy with the A levels. BOO. :P

Jessica wrote home at 11:01 pm

I've been to Vivo like 4 times in 6 days. :P

Had dinner there yesterday at Carl's Junior. Ate that Bacon Swiss Crispy Chicken whatever. It was...a lot. And I'm used to eating a lot (whether you believe it or not), so that's saying...a lot. BUT we still managed ice cream at Haagen Dazs!

Today's dinner was, naturally, at the foodcourt. Rushed there right after UCCD (which as usual ended early).

This week has been my shortest on record. I could get used to this. I was off before 2 p.m. on Monday since I didn't go for spec dip, NO ONE told me spec dip was cancelled on Tuesday so I was pleasantly surprised at having only two hours of school, Wednesday started late and ended early, Thursday as usual...tomorrow will begin late again...although everyone would much rather end early instead. :P

Oh yeah. Spec dip class going for a movie next week. Funnily enough I was gonna catch a movie next week by myself. Oh well. I hope Vivo won the location vote. :P And while I'm on spec dip, our CA is due on Monday and I HAVE NO FREAKING IDEA WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO. And why does the class contact list mysteriously not have my contact details? Everything has to be forwarded to me. SHEESH.

Jessica wrote home at 10:39 pm

Well, I would've gotten everything done by last night if I hadn't gone to VivoCity again on Sunday. Basically what happened was my sister ran off to a kelong for the weekend and came home late Sunday afternoon.

Sister: Did you visit Vivo? How was it? Do you want to go again? Then change NOW!

(Obviously I answered somewhere in between.)

At that point of time I was doing extremely tedious research, so I printed my last chunk of notes and tossed them aside and was off. Thus ignoring the fact that I had wanted to read those notes, along with Persian Fire, before dinner.

We were out for over four hours I think. Basically we left at 4 or 5something and only returned at 9something, by which time I was surprised my mother didn't kill us 'cos she had prepared dinner. :P

ANYWAY. Let's backtrack to Friday night. I brought my GBA SP to school on Friday, so I got 2 full hours of FE in the library. By the time I got home there wasn't much left to do with the game, but I was super sleepy so I left it for Saturday.

Saturday I woke up early to go to VivoCity with my mother and aunts.

I sum up my visit with the following: "Man this place is big! AND I LIVE ONLY THREE BUS STOPS AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Everyone now agrees we will never step into Orchard again. Well, except if Borders or Kinokuniya have discounts. :P

The views from the place weren't great because of the haze (but I don't really mind the haze because I like to think of it as a mist) and like half the shops weren't open, but it was fun enough.

I was stuck in the biiiiiiiig Forever21 for...well, forever. In fact I went in thrice - once to look around, then to try and buy 3 (cheapo, of course) tops, and lastly because erm, some people wanted to look at leggings. I don't get this leggings craze. And oh yeah, apparently with any purchase on the first day, you receive a nice Forever21 keychain. Because my sis spent a bomb there yesterday (well, she did let me pick something) and didn't get it.

I also went into Toys "R" Us, which was chaotic. They had a sadly small stuffed toy collection though. :(

Didn't go home till dinnertime. Have never seen the HarbourFront area (which has always been as lively as a dead frog) so crowded before.

Have a few gripes though. Where is DP and Miss Selfridge? And most important of all...

WHY IS THERE NO KFC?!

It's a travesty I tell you.

And now I had better go do what I was supposed to do half an hour ago, i.e. my MLE tutorial. :P Some external examiner thingy is disrupting our classes this week so they're being cut short or postponed. Not that I mind.

Back to work.

P.S. Oh yes, before I forget, a lot of my pictures will be in pretty bad quality because I took them with my phone. Can't trust phones to take nice pics in dark surroundings. :P

Jessica wrote home at 10:11 am

My usual hangout. Varied between the tourism and financial and Colours shelves.

What I ate on Friday. Basically what I always eat from there.

Jessica wrote home at 10:09 pm

Sometimes I think I would kill to go home at 2 p.m. on Mondays. And 1 p.m. on Thursdays.

*hums very loudly*

Just spent almost one hour at the main library. Borrowed two more DVDs.

Jessica is watching too many movies for her own good.

Anyway, remind me never to have both mee soto and grape soda for lunch. Very weird reaction.

My mother was irritated with me last night 'cos I started playing FE again. Well, there wasn't anything better to do. Other than clear my desk. And my cupboard.

Hmm. Ran out of things to say. Stay tuned...sometime by this weekend (hopefully) I will finally start transferring pics from my phone...

Jessica wrote home at 3:10 pm

Anyway, I woke up early on Saturday not to go out but to check movie listings. My verdict is that it's ridiculously hard to find screenings of Singapore Dreaming!

I had no choice but to head for Plaza Singapura for the 4.50 p.m. screening, which did not make me happy because 1) I HATE Plaza Singapura - there's nothing to see there and it's always so bloody crowded, and 2) I didn't want to fork out $9.50 for a weekend movie...oh but like it's my fault, do you see any better day for me to watch it, considering my SCREWED UP TIMETABLE?!

The queue was extraordinarily long and the tickets were "selling fast", so I was kinda expecting front row seats or something. I realise now that they were lying 'cos the cinema hall wasn't all that crowded...anyway who cares, the people at GV decided I was too much a hazard to everyone else and needed to be isolated in the single seat in the back row (seat H-01).

I'm kidding about the above though, because I much preferred sitting away from everyone else. :P

The movie started at 5.07 p.m. and ended slightly before 7 p.m. (which was the time I was supposed to meet my mother at Marina Square).

I took 106 to Marina, obviously arriving slightly late. After a lot of indecision, we finally ended up having dinner at Han's. Dinner ended slightly after 8 p.m., which meant all the discounts had started. Topshop was, as expected, crazily crowded, but there was nothing there. I had planned on getting two tops from Miss Selfridge but it seems they were seriously running out of stock or something, so I only managed to get a nice purple hoody (yes I already have a purple hoody that also happens to be from there, but it is 1) too large, 2) fuzzy, and 3) my sister's).

Oh btw, Sam, they finally have grey paper bags! No more huge pink plastic bags!

Ahem. After that we walked around some more, by which time it was 9 p.m. and the discounts had started at Suntec, so we walked there, dropping by DP and Topshop and Times.

Then it was time to go home. 131 came at once, thankfully.

And that was basically my weekend.

Now I need to email some assignment I could've emailed days ago (mwahaha).

I can't wait for this week. What's there not to like, when the earliest I get to go home is 5 p.m.?

Jessica wrote home at 10:14 pm