would you rather freeze to death, or burn to death? freezing takes longer, i'm told, though burning is more painful, i suppose? the fire alarm went off suddenly, to everyone's great irritation. it can't be a drill though, they wouldn't, during exam week, so it's either a prank or a real fire, i was pretty sure it was the first, or someone dumb enough to smoke indoors and setting off the smoke detector, but there wasn't really stuffing your ears and refusing to go out, the alarm was shrieking so loudly. i only had on a thin skirt, not even long, for goodness sake, just below the knee. and a big loose shirt. even with a coat over i didn't think i could go out like that. i know from walking home earlier today that it is sub-zero, and goodness knows how long we'll have to wait for the fire engine to turn up. on the other hand, having to undress and dress will take ages, and as i rummaged for jeans and a sweater i wondered what i'd do in a real fire. stay indoors and burn, i think. hey. what's tt poem about fire and ice. not the queen elizabeth one. the other one. some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice? is it robert frost? from what i've tasted of desire, i hold with those who favour fire. but something something perish twice and something something something something that ice is just as great and would suffice? can't remember how it goes, though the sentiment i think i quite understand. i have felt like that before. anyway, i don't know what it was, but the fire engine came and then the alarm was turned off suddenly, and the crowd let out a cheer, but even before the end of that the alarm started again. should have seen everyone's faces. and then off again, and we trooped back upstairs, and - i don't believe this - just as i stepped into my suite the alarm shrilled at us again. i am going to count to 100, i told my suitemate, before i go out. by 18 it turned off again. so i'm in here and after waiting 15mins i have undressed again so if it goes off again i will be VERY pissed i can tell you.

addy called me this morning. she finishes on the 16th and is hanging around till she goes to joel's later in the month. if i were staying longer of course I'd go up to nyc and hang out with her only i'm not even flying out of ny this time. we talked about that travel scare that ken-yu, my dad's former student, had sent me, essentially advising me not to leave the country in case i couldn't get back in. i appreciate his concern although as poach was saying, that just sounds too ludicrous to be taken seriously. anyway, who cares? if i can't get back that would be a perfectly good excuse to miss school, ha! his own visa had been so delayed he'd had to defer starting his phd program by a year, and i feel bad for him. i certainly don't want to think about whether, when i come back for grad school in a year's time, the same thing would happen. not that i won't be happy to bum and do something else for another year but i shall be very pissed indeed.

i am running out of everything. tissue paper, food, lightbulbs. maybe I should go to the supermarket, provided the bus comes. now that exams have started i'm taking the bus a lot more, because i can read on the buses, but not while i'm walking. also cos it's so darn cold and the buses are warm. if it started snowing again i wouldn't mind walking to school but today i was being pelted by icy wet bits and my fluffy grey hat was soggy by the time i got home. (hey poach, i nearly lost it again. in the stacks. had to go hunting through rows of shelves to find it. it was lying in the logic section where i had gone to get w.v. quine's methods of logic.) definitely not a day to be out. and i should start thinking about gloves!

i can't really concentrate on work, so i'm just sitting around revising vocabulary, which doesn't take real brainwork and it would help before i start the readings. after I finish my dinner - chicken corn soup and guotie. rather makes me miss my mother - i always know the day after we have crab for lunch she'll be making crab and corn soup from the leftovers for dinner. argh. i want crab. black pepper. very badly. crab isn't a very american thing is it? it's not the kind of thing you see on menus all the time, and i'm sure they don't cook it the way we do. in the way fish here is never ever cooked the way it's cooked in our part of the world. only teochews know how to cook fish properly, as choonping would say :)