I hardly ever post anymore but this is a special occasion. Making my way around Budapest for my second time I realize many details are missing from my memory... I can hardly remember visiting Saint Stephen's Basilica (maybe it's cos I don't really care for historical landmarks and stuff), eating Goulash etc..

I do not DO NOT want to forget this trip... May got married! (holy shit) I never really felt like marriage was a huge hairy deal even when cousins/close friends got married but its another deal when its your own sis whom you've known all your life. Suddenly Peter is MAY'S HUSBAND, they live together and plan to have kids and stuff. Sidetrack I am so excited May might move to Houston!! *cross fingers*

May's in-laws are great even though there is a huge language barrier. Their house in the countryside has inspired me to add a cherry tree and raspberry bush to my imaginary dream house. Add a few sprigs of dill and lavender too. They cooked goulash soup in their backyard and I feel so damn lucky to have had this experience... imagine having Hungarian relatives! Being the family of the bride in a Hungarian wedding dinner! WLE.

Today I hung out with May and Peter at their house, which looks like it came out of an IKEA showcase.. gave me a few ideas about what to do with my Stanford studio. At night they convinced me to give in to temptation and try absinthe, which was served on fire. I am never doing that again and will prob forget what transpired two hours ago by the time I wake up with a hangover tomorrow so here goes...: First thing you feel is the alcohol evaporating from your lips, leaving them oddly cool and dry, then the vapours rising through your nasal passages about 5x as violently as say, a good undiluted vodka. It feels just like a really strong vodka until the damn thing reaches the bottom of your oesophagus and begins to constrict your chest, and it feels like your heart is burning... even now I can feel lingering pressure on my sternum. After a while your legs start to have this weird numb but not really numb feeling... like... the blood volume in your lower legs rose about 5cm up your body.... I consider myself a decent drinker and this first time I've actually felt pukey after a drink. A SINGLE drink. Thankfully i managed to keep it down. And oddly enough I am better at taiti under the influence. I'm beginning to think I really should try starting everyday with a vodka. Maybe I will be able to function better.

Also went to Esceri Flea Market. Almost didn't, but glad I did. Not so much for the limited number of antiques for sale (which were interesting, but not mind-blowing), but for the adventure of venturing into a foreign country's heartlands by my lonesome.

God! You still love your lost sheep!! I can still hardly believe it!!

After 2 months of sleepless nights, with more cortisol in my blood than blood, the proverbial sun is out again! How did this miracle happen?? After three years of misguided undergrad, one year of being the fish-out-of-water, one rejection, another year of resistance from the forces-that-be, how did I end up EXACTLY where I want to be? How?? When only a week ago I was resigned to my fate??

THANK YOU GODDDDDDDDDDD

I'll probably never get married. Cos I'll just run away from the altar at the last frikkin' minute.

Damnation!!!!! I'm so running out of time argh.. What do I do???

omg omg omg omg A* might budge but now I dunno what to do ahhhh whattodowhattodowheretogo???

Mmph. I've been thinking and I realize that I am becoming the very type of person I do NOT want to be. I mean, my life isn't fantastic right now but it's not like it sucks either. And yet, here I am wallowing in self pity when I should be happy that I have so many opportunities open to me.

For one thing, when I was training with the IBO team yonks ago (or was it after I was kicked out? haha), we heard a story about a senior who tried to kill herself because she got like bronze or something while her teammates got silver, and I was like knn jb balls wtf get International Biology Olympiad medal still buay song, bronze or not who cares, it's still frikkin' awesome!! Can you imagine people coming up to her to say "Omg congrats you are a genius!!", then she replies, "STFU I want to die I only got a lousy bronze."

And then now I find I am griping because I am not being given the choice to accept Stanford's offer. I guess I have truly become a scholar. Slap me if I complain about this again!!

Until a few months ago I thought that there was no way I'd choose Duke-NUS over Stanford, but thanks to my boss I have been forced to think about it hard, and I think I see some sense in picking a relatively ulu little college town over the promised land which is Stanford.

But then again maybe I am just comforting myself that I got admitted to the highest ranking psychology program in the English speaking world (or whole world, or whole universe, whatever) but my unnamed funding agency won't lemme go cos of their inflexibility and I feel like I was somewhat emotionally coerced into my 'decision'. Hmm.

So this is what I will be giving up by not going to Stanford, and what kept me up at night for a good while:
1) Money (I will be missing out on a substantial USD allowance for half my PhD)
2) Friends (Holy shit I have tonnes of friends in and around Stanford)
3) Weather (DAMN YOU RAIN SHADOW and your annual 15inches of rainfall)
4) prestige (*ahem* numero uno psych program on earth, not to mention Stan-freaking-ford)
5) Nice profs
6) Minor point - Nice location, near big city, good public transport system, near Chinatown, nice launching pad to visit the rest of California and beyond...

and a couple more reasons which I am ashamed to admit
7) EVERYONE (okay lah 90%) is in Stanford/Harvard/MIT, if not some super famoose skl... Totally peer pressure can.. like last year a friend was choosing between a good lab in relatively unknown NW vs MIT.. guess where he picked.. this year, scene repeats with 99% of the former juniors..
8) He is going to Stanford, and perhaps subconsciously, stupidly... (You're probably not reading this but if you are, you said there's nothing to forgive, but damn I was a Bitch with a capital B, and even though we might not have been right for each other I never should've done that, and perhaps even if you forgive me I will still never forgive myself...)

But anyway, the more I mull over it, Duke seems a pretty good deal:
1) PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience (Kavi says it sounds cooler than PhD in Psych... tt's debatable)
2) Potentially working under the guy(s) who wrote the fMRI bible...
3) Course specifically tailored to Cog Neuro (no extra cell molec neuro classes and all that)
4) Unnamed funding agency is supportive of my chosen field at all, which is actually an improvement from a year ago
5) WILL NOT AGGRAVATE THE BOSS, whom I dearly wish to work for in future
(Said boss has connections, and though he is fierce as heck when pissed off, will at least let me know when I am performing crapassly... like now... I really dunno if this is a pro or a con)
6) Will be back in two-three years! :) vs a full five ... so will not have to miss the bro / hello panda/ yakun etc etc for too long
7) Cheap as heck compared to bay area.. can get a car

So it makes theoretical sense to go to Duke. In theory. But I dunno why I just can't bring myself to sign on the dotted line. Maybe I am just buay song that I am not being given a choice? That since they are blocking my Stanford acceptance on a technicality, I feel compelled somewhat to fight back? Is that dumb? I don't even really know why I am blogging about this. Maybe just to make things clearer for myself. Meh.

I just realized that in two years time I will be the only person in my household with an income.

SHYT.

Can I support a household of four people with a grad student's pay? Dad's retiring mom's not working (well, not really) bro's in school and still needs moolah for college etc sis's getting married and has her own new family to think of... well sure of course we can live off my parent's savings for a year or two till I start getting postdoc pay, but still I wish I could earn enough to support everyone and still live comfortably. UGH. I've been lucky enough all my life to never really have to worry about money but this is bugging the crap out of me, and I finally realize what all the fuss is about..

An incredibly nice doctor from HSA called me up today! Apparently, my veins aren't fragile, just smaller than their freaking needle! Just how huge is this needle again??? Actually I'm feeling quite heng that I didn't go through with it haha.

And apparently I don't bruise more easily than normal people.. Bruises just are more obvious on people whose skin is the color of raw tofu.