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I have received a parcel today (chocs from France!thanks Romain!) and I wanted to take some photos but then I realized that I haven’t seen my camera since a few days. The last time I used it was on Sunday evening when I took pics of something which I had cooked. I’m not at home right now and I’m using someone else’s computer. I wasn’t planning to write today but I’m in a lousy mood and writing makes me feel better. I’ve looked for my camera for around 30 mins before I gave up and went out. Seeing that the only place I can look for my camera is my small room, 30 minutes is more than enough. I haven’t been able to find my camera anywhere. I can’t remember where I last put my camera after I used it on Sunday. Usually, I leave it on my table. I’ve looked in my cupboards, under the bed , under my table and even in the fridge! My boyfriend laughed when I told him that I looked in the fridge too. I only looked there because I had opened the fridge when I had cooked and I was half-hoping that I had somehow absentmindedly put my camera in there. I was getting desperate. I won’t look for my camera again today. I’ll have a good night’s sleep and look for it tomorrow. My digital camera is very old now and covered with scratches but I love it. It has been with me almost everywhere I’ve been and I’d hate to lose it. It has to be somewhere in my room. The only other possibility is that someone passing in the corridor stole it while my roommate or I went cooking. We usually leave the door open or half-open when we are in the kitchen. I doubt that someone would do that though. I trust all the students living in my building.

The camera is somewhere in my room, the camera is somewhere in my room, the camera is somewhere in my room, the camera is somewhere in my room, the camera is somewhere in my room, the camera is somewhere in my room, the camera is somewhere in my room, ….
Saying that a few times kinda makes me feel better. I hope that I find it soon.

-edited on Friday 12th May at 17:47-
I’ve found it!!! So relieved. It was behind my huge pile of books in my cupboard. I think I had put it on top of the pile of books but the camera fell behind the pile.

I was even telling my bf that I won’t be going to SG during the holidays if I don’t find my camera. I can’t live without my camera. I would never go travelling without it. If I had lost my camera, part of the money I’m saving for my trip would have been used to buy another camera which costs around the same price as the plane tickets.

Ever since my childhood, my mother keeps comparing me to her friends’ children who are around my age. It seems to me that it is some kind of unspoken competition between parents. They want their children to be ‘better’ than other people’s children and they aren’t satisfied with their own children’s achievements. With time, I became very touchy when it comes to being compared to others.
—

The other day, out of the blue, a friend of mine (Shanghainese guy) told me that he thinks that my skin is darker than the average Chinese girl. My other friends who were present at that time were as surprised as me to hear the guy say all that. My gal friends started saying that I don’t have dark skin but the Shanghainese guy persisted in saying that my skin is dark compared to Chinese girls. I told him that I like tanning and that my skin color has always been like this. I was hoping that he’d stop talking about that because there was no point in telling me all that. Still, he wouldn’t stop and even started comparing my shoulders (I was wearing an off-the-shoulder top) to my friend’s (also a Mauritian), saying that my skin is darker than my friend’s. I’ve never seen that Mauritian friend wear off-the-shoulder tops so I knew that her shoulders wouldn’t be tanned. Still, her face wasn’t as pale as her shoulders but for some unknown reason, the guy was focusing on our shoulders. After a few more minutes where he kept saying that I have dark skin, I got really angry. Being told “你的皮肤很黑”(“your skin is very dark”) many times isn’t pleasant at all. He has the right to say his opinion of course but does he have to say it so many times? I am not deaf. It was really annoying. I bit back a retort and got up to leave my friend’s room. I didn’t want to lose my temper there. The guy, finally realizing that he has offended me, pulled my arm, trying to stop me from leaving but I wrenched out of his grasp. I don’t hold grudges against people but I need a few more days to calm down. His comments really irked me. The way he was talking was like he thinks that I shouldn’t have ‘dark’ skin (maybe because of my Chinese background? ) and that he thinks that fair skin looks better. He didn’t say that directly but I’m not stupid, I got the point. Who is he to tell me things about my skin? Right now, my skin isn’t even as tanned as it usually is in Mauritius and I’m being called ‘dark’. I can just imagine what he would say if he saw photos of me taken in Mauritius after a day at the beach.

Unlike most Chinese girls here, I don’t have an obsession with fair skin. The amount of skin whitening products in China is really amazing and even scary too. I was born and grew up in Mauritius,a sunny island. Back in Mauritius, I don’t use sunblock, I don’t walk around with an umbrella and I don’t wear clothes which cover every inch of my skin. It’s no wonder that I don’t have the fair skin that most Chinese girls here have. In fact, the word fair isn’t the best word to describe what type of skin they want. If you see the skin ads in China, you realize that the Chinese people are aiming for white skin. Once, my friends were watching TV and we saw an ad about a skin whitening product. The model’s face was so white that we all said that she looked scary and artificial. In China, those with white skin tend to be those people who are wealthy or at least have enough money to take good care of their skin and buy whitening products. The Chinese people with darker skin are usually those who work in the fields,i.e, people who don’t have the time and money to take good care of their skin because they are busy working hard. I know that some Chinese people with fair skin look down on those Chinese people with dark skin. Did they even stop to think about the fact that those people they are looking down upon are those who are providing them with the rice, fruits and vegetables that they eat?

Even if I have 100% Chinese blood in me, I wasn’t born in China. I didn’t grow up here. In other words, here in Shanghai, I am a foreigner. Don’t treat me like a local Chinese girl. Don’t expect me to behave like one. I love the sun, I love beaches, I love tanning. White skin just doesn’t suit me. I look sickly if I’m too pale. Moreover, my skin color shouldn’t even matter to my true friends.

I was going to write Xiamen part 2 today but I’m going to get out of my room within 5 minutes. Right now, my roommate is kneeling on the floor and praying (I think) ,totally freaking me out,esp since I’m not a religious person. I have nothing against religious people as long as they don’t try to convert me but there’s a limit to how much I can take in my own room.
I’m out of here. I’ll try to update later.

–edited at 11:35 pm–
Looks like Xiamen part 2 will have to wait! I’m going to Yangzhou tomorrow. We are leaving at 7 a.m . So early. :no: I hope I manage to get up early. It’s a trip organized by the International Students Office. I’ll be back on Friday night.

Two hours ago, my boyfriend phoned me when I was in class. He usually never calls me in the morning so I ran outside to answer his call. He told me that when he woke up, he saw only one of the hamsters. Upon closer inspection, he found the missing hamster half-buried under the soft wood shavings. It was dead and covered with blood. The other hamster was nibbling on its head. :confusion: Arghh… what happened? They were still okay when I left them at my boyfriend’s place the other day. They were well-fed and in good care. The remaining hamster is the fat one. I don’t know why it’s so fat. Pregnant? or maybe too greedy? Did it kill the other hamster? or did the other one die first (somehow) and then the hamster started eating it?
:weeping:
I never even got around to naming the hamsters.
——–
edited on 31st March 2006
The other hamster died too.
My friend told me that maybe the hamsters I bought were not in a good health condition. I bought them from someone on the street after all. She advised me to buy from a pets shop instead next time, if there is a next time..

Bah. Sick again. I’m coming down with something. I was a bit feverish and headachy but now I also have a sore throat. My darl bought me some medicine but they are in the form of pills. (to be taken 3 times a day and 3 pills each time. wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! ) I’m still unable to swallow pills so I had to pop them in my mouth.. * crunch crunch crunch*, break the pills into tiny pieces, then gulp down lots of water. The pills taste awful!:confusion: :weeping:

I could barely talk this morning and I had to tell the teacher that I cannot read out loud in class because it hurts too much. Reading a few short sentences is okay but reading one whole paragraph is not only painful but also requires many pauses in between, sips of water,clearing my throat after every two sentences. Too slow, too 麻烦(ma fan), too painful. My voice is almost back to normal now but I still cannot talk too much and probably sound like I’m mumbling.

I’m re-reading a comment made by KW the last time I wrote about having a sore throat:

Be careful if you’re not a big drinker of water. Your throat sounds inflamed from the coughing. Keeping it ’soothed’ will help you. That probably means avoiding dusty areas, drinking water regularly and perhaps taking spoons of honey, or honey in hot water to soothe your throat.

Be careful that your ginger tea drink at night isn’t so strong that it lets your throat dry overnight. Sleep with your air conditioner on ‘fan’ if you think it might be drying out your room too much.

hmmm.. I need to buy honey. Also, I’m not a big drinker of water. I tend to ‘forget’ to drink water or juice or tea or any other drinks. I just don’t feel thirsty. Maybe I should put bottles of water in several places in my room so as to remind myself to drink.

Still, I can’t get over the fact that I’m almost 22 years old and unable to swallow pills.
Interesting links (and which will hopefully help me):
Helping the Medicine Go Down
How To Swallow a Pill
Pill swallowing tips
Pill swallowing protocol

I’m not going to start learning right now because my throat is too sore. I have to admit that I’m actually happy about not having to start right now. I’m thinking about my past attempts,e.g, Trying to swallow one pill but only managing to drink a litre of water. (and having to rush to the toilet not long after… It is really frustrating. It will be a big challenge for me.
And how do some people manage to swallow pills without water???? wah!!

There’s this guy who phoned me on my cellphone at 02:30 . I stared at my ringing and vibrating cellphone, wondering whether to pick up or not. The phone number was a local one. I was thinking “what the heck… it’s 2:30 a.m! ” Then the thought that maybe one of my friends was in trouble and calling me from the police station or something ( er… watched too many movies when I was younger… ) flashed across my mind and I grabbed the phone. The conversation started as follows:
aline: “喂 (wei) ?”
guy: “hello… Are you busy? ” …(bla bla bla..) ….I want to be friends with you……
aline: *silence*.. “Who are you?? Do you know that it’s rude to call someone at 2:30 in the morning?”
…………………………..etc..
I was getting impatient already. What a weirdo. He wouldn’t say his name and even told me to save his number under the name ‘unknown’ so that I know that it’s him the next time he calls. Sure, I will save the number…. *rolls eyes* so that I know it’s him the next time he calls but only so as not to answer his calls. I did my best not to sound too rude (*shrugs* too kind sometimes but I don’t believe in using foul langauge. ) and hanged up the phone shortly after.

The voice had sounded kinda familiar and I had to rack my mind trying to remember whose voice that was. By now, I have an idea who the guy might be. It’s a guy I met not long ago. He has my number because I gave it to him. grrrr… I was so stupid. I had lent him some dvds when he knocked on my door a few weeks ago, looking for my roommate. My roommate is in Beijing for the holidays and I had told the guy so. He came back minutes later, asking me if I had any dvds to lend him because he was so bored in his room. He seemed quite ‘normal’ and friendly. I didn’t think twice about it. I have so many dvds lying around. I lent him a couple and (out of politeness I guess), he insisted on lending me some dvds too. He asked me for my number so that it would be easier for him to find me and give me back my dvds. Tomorrow , I’ll give him back his dvds and ask for my dvds back. As to whether to ask him about the phone call, I thought over it and the best thing to do is feign ignorance. I don’t want to complicate things.
I can’t help hoping that he’ll come clean about it and even say that he was joking but….*shudders*