i think i'm one of the most fortunate people, but one of the unluckiest. fortunate because of my parents, because of singapore, because of my two languages, because of raffles, because of virginia and the people i met whom i loved, and who loved me, because of our set, all of whom are witty, neurotic, warm, intelligent, imaginative, open-minded, and all of whom are children that books built, and who have been there for me through thick and thin.

but i am so - unlucky -

maybe it is in part a function of carelessness, but losing purses, missing planes, computer crashes, illnesses at the wrong times, these sorts of accidents always seem to happen to me.

it's ironic how this is nearly exactly like when my computer crashed before the thesis was due, for once again i find that of the few things i can still do are checking my email and updating my blog, but i can't write my paper because my microsoft office suite has disappeared overnight. yesterday morning i was sitting in the kitchen adding a few notes to a paper. and then chucking it for an early dinner and night's sleep, and the next morning office doesn't seem to be installed anymore. the documents are there, but they can't be opened. none of the office applications work. i haven't got an installation disk. i've taken it to the university computing desk who say there's nothing they can do about it and advises me to buy and reinstall office. good grief. $500 and i will have to wait 2-5 weeks. so i'm writing my paper on notepad with the intention of emailing a txt file to von's computer when it is finished and then formatting it in word and doing the layout and annotation then. ah well.