Something to last you for a week

After being sick and appetiteless for the weekend, last night I decided to torch my throat with a healthy dose of tomyam. Wahahaha take that, you wimp! *throat shrieks, keels over and shrivels into a pea* And therefore, I woke up this morning without a voice, and have been rasping and coughing for hours at end since then.

I am unrepentant. Not a morsel of remorse. The tomyam was all worth it, and if I could do it again, I would.

Anyway, KF is on the plane to Shanghai now, and I am left with three major tasks to complete before he comes back from America (He flies to America this Saturday and will be there for about a month). I have got to: a) finish my thesis (duh!), b) take GRE and TOEFL to process my application for NUS and NTU, and c) start looking for a job in NZ.

I found out during my trip to Singapore that NUS's deadline is on 15th May instead of end of June as I originally thought. This means that the application has to be sped up - I have to start preparing for GRE and TOEFL, and write a good research proposal. All before 15th May. That's 2 months away!! *pant pant pant* The last time I sat for GRE, I naively went without studying for the verbal section. Not wise. Not wise at all. The first time in my life that I had higher scores in Math compared to English. What an insult!

But never mind. I've learnt through my mistake and have, during the weekend, bought THE book to read for GRE. Word Smart for the GRE by The Princeton Review. It is chock full of long, bombastic words that nobody ever uses, hence is quite perfect for GRE. I will, in the following few weeks, be peppering this blog with words like "paean", "jejune" and "picaresque". What fun!

This brings me a flashback to the good ol' days of Form Five when I was seated beside KF. I had just discovered my feelings for him and was trying to engage him in active conversation - by quizzing him with a dictionary. A typical conversation would look like this (translated to English from Chinese for your viewing pleasure):

"Hey hey, wanna know something cool?" Prods him with a finger.
"Erm... what?" Looks up from his math homework.
"Know what 'pusillanimous' means?" Waves the Little Oxford Dictionary.
"Erm... no." Gives me a not-again-what-a-weirdo look.
"It means cowardly!" Blissfully oblivious to his meaningful glance. "Who would say pusillanimous when they can say cowardly? Hahahahahaha..."
"Umh." Looks back at his math homework.

Well, needless to say, my moves did not get me very far and he fell for a sweet charming girl who did not see the need to torture people with dictionaries. It took about 18 months for him to come to and realize the lovely person beneath the dictionary freak. Long story for another day.

Anyway, I have to take GRE. I'm aiming for the test date of 19th April, before which I will have to go through about 700 new words and revisit the horror of math. Though I don't remember the GRE math part being exceptionally hard. I just don't get why they need to grill us with all those vocabs that are hardly used anyway. Would I be using "pusillanimous" in replacement of "cowardly"? Maybe, if my motive was to confuse the person that I'm insulting. I don't think that's why I am enrolling for PhD.

Therefore I will be quite busy these days - aiming to finish the first draft (I know I have said this and busted myself so many times but just bear with me) by end of March, and studying for GRE at the same time. I'm also going to update my CV to get a job in NZ. University of Auckland, please hire me!

Well then, cheerio! Will not be updating as often unless interesting stuff happens (like if a Stampede of 8,000 Highly Agitated and Fictional Unemployed Female Bloggers happens, you bet your ass that I'll be on it)!