Things can change a lot in two and one half years. Obviously, the most drastic change I saw was Orchard Road. Well, after my family picked me up from the airport, we went for breakfast at Whampoa market. After breakfast, I decided to stop by kotekitai (Singapore Soka Association's Fife & Drum Corp) practice and surprisingly stayed till 3pm. I don't know what pushed me to do that because normally, after a 23-hour flight, any normal person would head straight for his/her bed. In fact, I was pushing myself to the point where I hung out with my kotekitai friends at Orchard after kotekitai practice. It was a late Sunday afternoon, but it felt as if the whole Singapore was gathered in Orchard, mind you. It was packed everywhere we went. Bumped into Marcus on the way to catching the bus. We ended up catching up a little and eventually shared a cab home 'cos it's impossible to get onto bus 124.

For a moment, even though I am a Singaporean, but I still felt really foreign in a country I've grew up in for 20 years. How ironic. But, oh well, I guess I'm trying to readjust to life here. I miss my boyfriend but I'm happy to be back home with friends and family. I miss Singapore food, but definitely not the weather. One good thing about living in America is that you would never perspire no matter how hot it is outside; can't say the same for Singapore. argggghhhh.

Right. I'm off to the embassy. Later.

I can't help digressing every time I am supposed to be focused on writing my paper.

I have two more exams left before the semester ends. Looking forward to flying back on the 18th (arriving on the 20th), but not looking forward to taking exams. History shouldn't be a problem for me but I haven't even touched it because I have to finish writing my paper. I'm scared about physics because I haven't been doing great throughout the semester because I couldn't understand what my professor was saying. It's not her accent, even though she's Indian, it's just her style of teaching. Merely teaching us formulas instead of concepts are not going to help no matter what.

I'm thankful for Thao, David, and Johana - friends I met through this class. We've been studying together and "failing" together. LOL I need to create a miracle on Wednesday because I technically only have less than 12 hours (from end of History exam) to study for Physics.

I'm tired, but I'll keep going. Can't wait to do well at school and be back in Singapore! :D

i buried my face in my hands.
hot tears streamed down my face
as i cried silently because of a stupid mistake.

i had no intention to plagiarize,
yet my paper revealed just that.
will i be able to rise above that and do better?

So... what's up, yall? I've been MIA-ing for the longest time but I doubt anyone noticed, so it doesn't really matter right?? haha

Anyhoo, yesterday night (Wednesday), the most amazing thing happened. I'm still reeling from the excitement (i.e. goose bumps, cold hands etc)! One of the student organizations, Council of Ethnic Organizations, organized the International Explosion talent show, and our campus club (Soka Peace Group) participated in it. Our group performed on the Taiko drums (representing Japan), and we rocked the house. Like literally! The thing about this talent show is that the winner will get extra funding for their campus club, which is a great because our group is trying to re-establish ourselves and we want to bring Peace, Culture, and Education to benefit the campus. The most surprising thing was that our group was pitting ourselves against other established groups (e.g. Vietnamese Student Association, Nigeria Student Association, etc; they had tons of support), yet we emerged as the winner. Our taiko group only consisted of 7 people (2 UH students; 4 high school members of Kofu Taiko from SGI, and our taiko instructor) whereas other groups had more members performing.

This whole journey has not been easy (even though I wasn't one of the performers but was supporting from behind the scenes). I had to struggle within myself - to do what's best for the club or what's best for myself? Eventually, I realized that I did not have to sacrifice one for the other, but instead, I can do both at the same time without begrudging my circumstances. I learned and grew so much from this experience. When they announced that our group had won, everyone else in the hall went quiet. Only our own members (and members from SGI) cheered, but that didn't matter because we all knew sensei was cheering along with us. :)

I feel sooooo fortunate knowing that I have such a wonderful gakkai family. One of the reasons why I'm not gonna drown in the deep end of the pool.

I love you, Josh!

Don't mind me. I just had to put it out there.