Dear Melody,

A review of your academic record for the 2005 Summer Session by the Faculty of Science has resulted in the assignment of “fail” standing. In accordance with the regulations under Continuation Requirements in the Faculty of Science section of the 2004/2005 Calendar, a student with “fail” standing is required to withdraw from the University. I have decided to permit you to continue studies the 2005/2006 Winter Session. Your academic record will be reviewed at the end of Term 2 to determine if you are eligible to continue at UBC.

etc, etc...

Sincerely,
Paul G. Harrison
Associate Dean, Students


wait, i WHAT???

mind you the bolded letters are in accordance with the original e-mail, along with the missing "in" on line 7.
posted by melody at 1/31/2006 03:49:00 p.m.

i burnt my thumb with a giant sparkler.
the last time i did this was when i was 6 and was holding a bunch of lit giant sparklers. i was walking over to hand them out when for no reason that i'm consciously aware of, i stopped in my tracks and touched the tips of the sparklers with my finger.
this time around though i was just tryong to light the darn thing.
and neglected to pull away my hand after it lit.
with all the different fireworks that end up shooting towards me, why do i always get hurt from innocent sparklers...?
posted by melody at 1/30/2006 10:16:00 p.m.

my recap of my week in taiwan.

i had the best sendoff at the airport ever!
thanks to everybody who showed up, and everybody showed up!
the video was terrific, i've watched it so many times!
and hey there's some pictures that i don't have yet...

i found out what it feels like to be a fish! sort of.
i was eating mackerel, lots of little bones, and one of the little bones hooked my tongue and took a piece away with it. i think it took exactly one papillae near the edge/tip of my tongue, so things won't taste as sweet anymore for me.
as revenge, i cooked fish for lunch AND for dinner a couple days afterwards. oh yeah, i COOKED! i cooked curry, i cooked fish, i cooked fish/vegetable miso soup...

today i went shopping. it was guilt-free cuz it's on the government. it's a long story but basically the government pays its workers to spend money in other cities. i ate delicious pot stickers and had REAL bubble tea. not the crappy stuff we have to put up with in vancouver. it must've been like 600 calories but it was so good. as expected i'm now too fat for my new jeans, which i haven't worn yet cuz i can barely sit down in them.

oh and my MG thing has officially spread to my arms. i can't get through the sequence of washing my hair, showering, washing my face and putting on face cream without resting lots in between. can't really lift my arms after a while, they shake and i have to support one arm with the other. i'll be seeing the doc after my blood test results arrive, at which point we'll be discussing alternative therapies, possibly a thymectomy. my vancouver neurologist suggested we do open heart sugery (except u know, we're just sawing through the rib cage and not opening my heart). i think the taiwan neurologist means for me to use that umm... mediostenumoscopy or whatever u call it thing, where they cut a hole between my collar bones and use those umm... thingies... to go in and make an excision. big ugly scar on my chest or small ugly scar on my favourite collarbone area? very likely presdinone treatments as well (that thing that makes you all bloated), unless i get a say in it. blegh.

eee... umm... that concludes my update! textbooks won't be arriving till feb so i'm putting off school work as usual. GRE psychology exam is scheduled for april and regular GRE exam is scheduled for june. whoop-dee-do.
posted by melody at 1/26/2006 08:20:00 p.m.

i boxed him up.
i've never done this before.
it has never been necessary before.

本來氾濫蔓延的回憶
當被塞進一個扁扁的紙盒裡後
突然之間覺得少的可憐
posted by melody at 1/17/2006 05:00:00 p.m.

是我沒有耐性
我只想這一刻
所有的憂傷都能煙消雲散


there's nothing you can say
nothing you can do
nothing in between
you know the truth
nothing left to face
nothing left to lose
nothing takes your place

when they say you're
not that strong
well you're not that weak
it's not your fault
when you climb up to your hill
up to your place
i hope you're well

there's nothing left to prove
nothing I won't do
nothing like the pain
i feel for you
nothing left to hide
nothing left to fear
i am always here

what you want
what you lost
what you had
what is gone is over
what you've got
what you love
what you need is real
if it's not enough
it's not enough
it's not enough i'm sorry
if it's not enough
it's not enough
posted by melody at 1/16/2006 02:20:00 a.m.

i have just come up with a theory of why i like my lab work as much as i do.
i can't see how anyone would enjoy spending endless hours transcibing and scoring survivor accounts. the stories you come across are interesting but also very disturbing. but now i see that i like them because they are distrubing. it makes the sorrows in my life appear trivial. even though what i learnt from the interviews haunt me over and over in the day, it's still a good thing because that means other things won't be intruding my mind so much. exchanging one sad story for another. it's sick but it's adaptive.
posted by melody at 1/14/2006 03:09:00 p.m.

a long day.

got up at 8 after a series of dreams involving various old crushes. having to wake up was a little bit of a disappointment. :p
read a bit in bed until it was time to get up.
had plain bagel with cream cheese and a latte for breakfast.
headed out at 10, drove to richmond for the sole purpose of picking up the parking pass, and got something for lunch.
got my ticket.
arrived at the lab at 11am, worked on transcribing till 3:30pm, transcribed 60 minutes of video interview. only 60 minutes!!! #)%(*#%^##
talked with dr. suedfeld about me leaving. if he finds someone to finish the project before i come back then i'll be working on something else in the next academic year. i really hope not. transcribing is total hell but i love this project.
drop off pass, pick up dewi, retail therapy on robson and pacific center :)
couldn't find a bag for mom, but got my long coveted lip venom and starfish necklace. it's really weird, i have a lot of impulse buys, but this necklace was only $15, yet i've walked into the store, picked it up, put it back, and repeated a total of 3 times. what the hell? got "empowerment tags" as well. keke

even though i have returned everything i bought on boxing day, the floor of my room is still littered with bags of new purchases. most of the stuff remains in their original shopping bags. some of them are gifts for people, but some of them are just things i haven't gotten around to using or wearing. this is horrible. there are still 5 bottles of unopened perfume lying around...........

dinner at guu. didn't get to oogle the cute chef (who for the first time ever did not wear a bandanna). it was probably a good thing, dewi might've made me buy him a beer and hit on him. >__________< but i ordered everything on the menu that i normally order. ahhh... guuuuu'd.
got home, did some dishes, organized all the things i have to give back to various people. come claim your belongings!!

it's now 10pm, 12 hours since this day officially started. should i go out, or should i continue cleaning up...?

i feel more stressed than during finals. there's so much to do. except this is a very fun final... on my to-do list are "hang out with friends, eat at keg, cactus club, guu... etc." so the only way it's like finals is that there's not enough time. nooo timeeee!!!
posted by melody at 1/14/2006 01:54:00 p.m.

過了八年多 還是一樣的孤獨
朋友們喧鬧的聲音環繞著我
胸口卻仍壓著巨大的寂寞

突然想要去讀 凱西的 寂寞殺死一隻貓
還有 朱紹麟的 藍色咖啡店之歌

我還沒準備好 而已經準備好 離開
posted by melody at 1/12/2006 04:37:00 p.m.

the latest recap ever.

it's beginning to feel like 2006, but i didn't feel anything on new years eve. maybe i got used to much, much bigger celebrations and much, much bigger countdowns. but it was alright. i was honored by being the butt of the last good joke of 2005 - "bare/bear hands". hee hee hee.

i can't remember what else i did this year so i'm just going to fast forward to the ski trip. it wasn't perfect but it was still awesome. i think it's because i finally kinda learned how to kinda snowboard. i wasn't even going to rent a board at first, but then i kinda thought "oh what the hell, it might be fun to spend hours trying to stand up on the board, i'm all the way here anyway." i ended up learning how to stand up pretty darn fast. i still had a bit of trouble controlling my speed and direction but i can snowboard now!! wheehee. unfortunately the second day i started off on a green run and as soon as i got off the lift i landed on my tail bone. that HURT! i had to walk/limp down half the run. then it got too steep to walk, so i had to ice my ass until i couldn't feel it anymore and board down. and when i was about to fall i had to make sure i fell on my face cuz i couldn't land on my backside again. jenny took a video of me falling flat on my face, it's really funny. would've been funnier if i had been able to turn towards her and fell a little closer to the camera. hee i'm weird, i'd rather have a video of me falling than boarding. anyway it's been a little over 72 hours and my tail bone still hurts. from the outside there seems to be minimal bruising, but it hurts to bend and it hurts to sit and sometimes it hurts to walk... if it still hurts in a couple days i might actually have to go see a doctor. i don't trust doctors.

oh another interesting thing from ski trip - after i got off the green run i decided to walk back to the condo for a bit of rest and then maybe go out again to the bunny hill for a bit, but i took a wrong road. i tried to make a shortcut back to the condo by trekking through some snow, but i pretty much sank in and had to fight my way back onto a road. i sat down for a rest... and while i was taking deep breaths my snowboard slided away from me... it slid off the side of the road, down a slope, hit a house, kept going... my brain was half frozen and very slowly i watched it disappear out of sight, and slowly went "oh shit... that's not good..." i couldn't even see where it went, i could only assume it was lodged against this building it hit. at least i hoped it was, cuz if it slid further it would've gone down another road and another slope and hit another house and kept on going. it would've taken forever to find the road that leads down to the house, so i took a risk and slid down a two story high mound of loose snow instead. that was kinda scary, and some passersby were staring at me like i've gone nuts. i then found that my board was lodged against a house, but it was kinda high up, so i had to somehow climb up a mound of loose snow... that was not easy!! i had to dig and dig and dig and then attempt to build some kinda staircase using the snow... and even with that it was still kinda ascend two steps slide 1.5 steps back. by the time i retrieved my snowboard and found the path back to the condo i could barely breathe. but... it was fun!! haha. roz said "aww too bad we weren't there to take a video of you attempting to climb a mound of snow." at first i said "you mean it's too bad you weren't there to HELP me!" but then on second thought, that would've made for a hilarious video. heehee. i'm taking the whole "anything for a good laugh" philosophy a little too far these days.

aside from the boarding part the ski trip was still pretty good, even though i did not like the people on our bus or the people who shared our condo. before the trip i totally forgot that i'd be going on a massive trip with 800 hongers. i don't know how that slipped my mind. since the NTG/TA ski trips were so cheap this year i think i might've been the only twnese person on our ski trip. i was also the oldest person in our condo... =_________=" within one hour of setting out on the bus a bottle of jack daniels had been devoured and someone had already puked in the bus washroom. ugh. and people can be really, really, really immature and inconsiderate. i was so people-phobic that by the end of the trip i was totally looking forward to going home and being completely alone. i was telling jenny though that somehow she doesn't register as a person. i don't mean that in a bad way (although it does sound really bad). i mean that say if there's just the two of us in the bedroom watching tv, it doesn't feel like i'm around people. oh yeah, the whole people barging into room thing was a big issue...

now i'm just complaining and not listing.

so much to do, so little time. i'm so screwed.
i actually have to go to school this afternoon, ugh.
need to:

return some textbooks
sell some textbooks
buy some textbooks
meet with biopsyc advisor
go to science advising
go to english advising
re-apply for double major
get refund for term 2 u-pass
lab meeting
meet with dr. suedfeld about holocaust project
pay tuition
and if there's still time left i should actually do the holocaust project.

ermm... maybe i should leave right now instead of at 2...

other stuff to do:
book a freaking ticket!!
i did book one a long time ago but i didn't confirm it with the travel agent, and he's been calling me 10 times a day about it. at first i didn't pick up cuz i was asleep, but he's called so much that i simply don't want to talk to him anymore. i know it's irrational, but i've been avoiding his calls for nearly two weeks now. darn it i need a ticket real soon though.
banking. lots of banking.
settle insurance stuff.
cancel cable, internet, phones.
car maintenance.

oh, and call evangelos to pretend that i'm dying and convince them to schedule an earlier time for jenny's grad photos so i can be in them. HAHAHA. i don't think that's going to work...
posted by melody at 1/12/2006 04:08:00 a.m.

to begin packing you must first unpack.
a fresh start would require not having to lug around old baggage.
it's just hard is all.

the new year has been filled with lots of ignoring of things that need to be done.
posted by melody at 1/06/2006 12:47:00 a.m.

went digging for my ski pants and came across lots of really really old stuff instead. i was going to throw most of it away but it's a good thing jenny talked me out of it. it might be interesting to look through them again in another 5 years. old wallets with old sticker pictures in them, various tiny souvenirs from japan, ticket stubs... interesting stuff. not as interesting as the boxes of old correspondance though. i went through about 1/6 of them and found some interesting things -

winnie: you said in 2001 that it was sad b/c it might be our last christmas together... but it wasn't!! see?? see?? we're still having christmasses together! you also said we never had turkey though... *sigh*

shao: did u know that u've been calling me melly since 2001?? and haha in retrospect i can sense the animosity in the card... i'm sorry if i used to come across a tad bitchy. hahaha.

and dammit everyone wrote about me leaving to the states. dewi wrote that me and ann will probably be the only people to leave vancouver cuz we're smarty-pants (funny how jenny JUST used that word today). ah lookie lookie, none of us has really left.. yet...

and i got jane a chocolate bomb??? how many chocolate bombs did i buy??!! (i think it was 17)

and i totally forgot that ooyama used make the class sing happy birthday songs.

and there seem to be suicide threats in my christmas cards... take a wild guess who from!

and i forgot that i got fish for my birthday one year. how interesting... now i remember kai killing one, and shao FLUSHING one... and the last two eating jenny's fish... i forgot i had cleaning snails though. i never took pictures of my fish... funny how people never take pictures of their fish.

and roz... "it actually took me a while to decide whether to give you this funny, nasty card, or the cute hampster one. well, i thought i'd give you this one in the end cuz.. hmm i dunno why." GEE, what did u mean by that!!!! hahaha

oh and shao: "i was going to get you a card before, but Hendra said don't get one, it's not like they'll keep it for more than a monthy. okay, yes, i know you're going to ask why i listened to hendra... haha." A-HA, hendra was wrong, i STILL have the card! and as a side note... why don't ppl put dates on cards... i dunno which card is from which year...

oh oh and linda's nickname was "cousin linda"! as well as lillipad, but cousin linda was funnier.

and dewi once wrote that she decided to embrace chemistry because "pysics" is "for losers like Shao". hahaha sorry shao, it's just really funny. especially since you're kinda in "pysics" now...

and what does this mean...
"la nuit, c'est toujours la nuit
avec quelle fu es foute seule
chacune est un moment d'amour perdu."
i only understand the first line. did i write that???

i'm tired now. that took up a good 3 hours.
posted by melody at 1/04/2006 09:12:00 p.m.