haylontane

2006-06-07T03:46:00.000-07:00

it's all over, finally. i have finally passed out from basic military training.

in truth, the time i have spent there has had some effect on me. i shall always remember, i think, all that passed there--the good and the bad. while it is true that i did not always enjoy myself whilst trapped on that remote corner of the country, it is undoubtedly true also that i shall miss that rock and some of those people. indeed, they are a rough, unrefined, uncultured lot, but some of them are very nice people. they may not have the decency and civility to be agreable, but they can be amiable, generous and supporting. of course there are those with whom i would always find myself disagreeing or of whom i would disapprove, but so too are there those whom i find myself, truth be told however shocking, admiring. they are good people in the most part, and they deserve that good things should come their way.

as we look away from the past, we turn our gaze upon the future. i know not what life has in store for me (especially ns-life), but i hope truly that it shall not be too hard on me. i have no chance at all of ever going to command school, i am quite sure; so for me it is a choice between a rock and a hard place. perhaps i may have the good fortune of being sent to military police, or i may be so unfortunate as to be despatched to be a rifleman. nevertheless, i suppose where i am posted i have no choice but to go. alas, such is the fate of man!

i shall hope my very best to spend this time of freedom to the best of my ability and enjoy it while i can. who knows where life may lead me!

2006-04-14T00:51:00.000-07:00

i am utterly and totally grateful to the mighty wonders of Providence. this lenten and holy week season i have experienced something that, sad to say, i don't think i have experienced very much at all in my life. others, of the more sceptical point of view, may beg to disagree, but i do believe that miracles exist. many things have stood in my way and proved insurmontable obstacles to me; however, by the grace of God, they have been overcome. it is, truth be told, quite wondrous and magnificent; and one needs to have personally experienced it to truly appreciate its existence.

to be frank, without His strength, i would probably not have survived each day that i have in the army. i have not, for very long, felt the feeling of just wanting to stay in in the morning--that desire to just remain where i am and give not a fart about what is to happen. since i entered into my military life however, i find myself feeling very much so. but i still do wrench myself (and i do indeed mean wrench) from that ridiculous nonsense the army calls a bed.

it's been a gruelling five weeks, though it is probably a miracle that these five weeks have passed so quickly. one may still find difficulty adapting to the swillpool of cultures one encounters, but perhaps one has accustomed oneself to the stench so much so that it irks less. certain mannerisms still punish and torture my sensitivities; however the army dulls not simply one's mind, but also one's will to resist and to think. the command of english possessed by my "peers" continues to appal, and i fear the day when my command of english shall slip accordingly. constant reading and the development of the mind are my only bastion of strength against the hordes of illiterate barbarians who are only waiting to pass through these walls to rapine, pillage and murder.

the other day, the most frightful suggestion was made me. one of my section mates suggested, upon noticing that i was reading keats, that since i appreciated poetry, i should also like rap music. this, he explained, was due to the close similarity between the two. he also asked if i should like to hear a poem of his which was generously endowed with many vulgarities.

how frightful and appalling! i should have swooned! first, to have likened most beautiful graceful music, which lifts one's soul unto the high ethereal, to most base noise! secondly, to have desired to recite a "poem", which no doubt was most crude, appreciated only and most fittingly by the vulgar masses! how that would have injured my ears accustomed to more civilised converse! undoubtedly, he must have given the name of "poem" to his work simply because of the rhyme, which i suppose it possessed. ignorant plebeian! he must have had no knowledge of what indeed is poetry. an exalted name given to a most base condition! how many great poets would have turned in their graves!

moreover, i realised how very ignorant of various matters these individuals are. for instance, the true nature of the church must be highly obscured. for indeed, they, including some "christians", made many assumptions upon which denomination is of the church and which is not, as if to make judgment upon the doctrines like some great ecumenical council. at most, they were but a council of the ignorant in us. theology and the history of the church seems to have come into the minds of these plebeians in a most incomplete fashion.

furthermore, their immaturity is something which one should find reason to be shocked. they know not when to speak, nor how to put it across, lacking both tact and thought. the insensitivity to the situation is quite frightful indeed, and it truly reflects their own development in the mind. truth be told, they probably have not simply the intellectual but also the social condition of a four-year-old.

as one can easily see, i cannot wait till my bonds are broken, and my term of national slavery is over.

2006-04-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

i just realised, over the week, how much i now find myself understanding the predicament of and sympathising with marlow from the heart of darkness. my situation is quite different from the book, but one must acknowledge the similarities.

for example, he pilots a boat up the river congo; i take a boat across the straits. he lands in the middle of a jungle in deepest darkest africa; i land in the middle of a jungle, so to speak, in deepest darkest hell island (it's actually only on the coast, but metaphorically speaking, it is deepest darkest hell island). he is surrounded by people he despises, and so am i. there is a plenitude of obscure evil satanic rites that can be observed at the inner station; there is a plenitude of obscure evil plebeian rites that can be observed at the outer camp. he experienced one incident of near-death; i'm nearly dying every single day i'm there. he can see the truth behind the mask of the faux mission civilisatrice; i can see the truth behind the mask of the faux mission patriotique. he finds work to be superior; i find that work deafens my mind into passing the time faster.

indeed i have truly served his excellency, the president, and our glorious republic well, and i have found great fulfilment as a soldier and a human-being in my hard work there.

i scrubbed the walls of the toilet.

2006-04-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

i'm finally out of hell island. it has been a gruelling week, and to be sure, without the attend b, i'd probably never make it out alive.

to be frank, and perhaps somewhat mean, i feel very awkward in my company since unlike the rest of the people in general, i am not a lowly low-life plebeian scum. the manner and demeanour in which they behave themselves is most appalling! they have absolutely no sense of decorum, dignity and honour. their minds cannot conceive any thoughts that exclude acts of intimacy. no wit precedes from their lips, nor intelligence from their minds. to be sure, i speak only in general, whereas there are many individuals in particular who are most kind and noble. nonetheless, when taken as a whole, i find myself as a fish out of water.

there is the added disadvantage that my sergeant does not like 'a' level graduates, and i'm the worst of that kind--a straight 'a's one. while he attributes it supposedly to the fact that "'a' level students dunno how to do anything one", the more likely reason is simply that of jealousy.

for more reasons than one, an "a" level student is more likely to have it better in life than a polytechnic student. he is more intelligent, and hence, he is able to enter into more courses of higher education, and hence, he is able to obtain a higher paying occupation. he is, in a word, more highly skilled. have not the countless drqs in our economics lessons dealing with labour taught us all that education is an investment, in the layman's point of view, for the future. spending a little more effort and money now will ensure a much higher rate of returns in the future. of course there are the poor and stupid people who will be obliged to spend their lives in merciless servility to others.

moreover, while the polytechnics, in general i suppose, train one for a vocation, one is educated in the junior colleges. we all know what the greek philosophers had to say about this. education should be an imperative for all freemen, but slaves should be only trained in what they are meant to do. not to say that one is a slave upon entering a polytechnic, simply that it reflects a social distinction as apparent then as it is now.

and the horrifying thing is that there are some people who have dropped out of polytechnics! or that their highest qualifications are those of an 'o' level graduate! frightful indeed!

not to be aristocratic or anything, but it certainly is awkward. there is, if any at all, very little intelligent conversation. i do not require intellectual discourse every second of my waking time, simply a level of wit or sparkle in one's conversation, which should follow the proper rules of social conversation, that is to say, one should not enter upon topics of serious politics, religion, finances and certainly not intimate issues! unfortunately i have not that luxury, but am left with base, disgusting and awful noises produced by the vulgar masses of plebeian conception.

i hope no one would consider this offensive. i do not look upon anyone individually as such. i'm simply ranting after a most tiring 5 days in hell island. my mind probably isn't even working. so it might be best to just ignore me.

2006-03-01T02:08:00.000-08:00

results are out! and it may sound incredible, but i did rather well! thanks be to God for his grace and providence! despite all my doubting and intense fear and horrid nightmares, it turned out very well! so exhilarated! the plenitude of exclamation marks probably testifies to this marvelous miracle!

2006-02-26T08:07:00.000-08:00

i find it quite irritating when people read certain books or watch certain films and superficiously judge them. for example, i was watching the film adaptation of anna karenina by leo tolstoy. although i never really liked tolstoy (the length of most of his novels is generally a put-off), i respect the framework of his works, their meaning, their purpose and their themes. my parents, however, do not; they see it as, from my point of view of their thoughts, nothing but a senseless story of immoral existence led by people whose entire lives have no purpose because they are too rich. my mother kept harping on the fact that sophie marceau, playing anna karenina, had cut her fringe in a very awkward manner which did not accentuate her features. she was astonished when vronsky shot his horse after the fall had broken its back, arguing that a horse is still an animal (i believe most of us know that). my father simply commented that these people had no life. is it that they do not comprehend, or that they choose not to? i prefer, and i may be wrong, to appreciate a piece of work and to try to delve deeper into the meaning (and at times contemplate the means through which this is achieved) which the author, or whomsoever created the work, intended for it to carry. sometimes i just can't understand how my parents think.

also, have you ever realised how badly informed are our journalists in singapore? with regard to current news either domestic or foreign they don't seem to be too ignorant. however, when it comes to writing general articles about anything else, some journalists probably couldn't tell white from black, or right from left.

just the other day, i was reading this article on beards (just since i was being whimsical. rest assured i have no intention of growing one myself!), the writer claimed that the vandyke beard is named after the "19th century" painter who wore such a beard. vandyke was already dead by 1641, so it is highly unlikely that he continued to paint into the 19th century. moreover, it's really called a vandyke because it was the fashion at the time of his greatest works in which he portrayed people with vandykes.

and today, i read in life page 25 this article that was attempting to conclude whether an original book or the film adaptation was the preferred choice. pride and prejudice was one of the books/films under review (everyone should know that i heartily hate the film adaptation but love the book). the writer actually claimed that pride and prejudice was an "1813 Victorian comedy of manners"! you will not believe the shock i had to suffer and endure! we all know that despite having coincided with the romantic movement in english literature, jane austen was hardly much of a romanticist. however, it is inconceivable that she should be considered a Victorian author. first, having died in 1817, two years even before the birth of Victoria, she most probably would not have been able to have seen Victoria alive, let alone on the throne. thus, her work would not have coincided with the reign and hence the movement called Victorian literature. second, austen's work clearly suggests a dissimilarity with Victorian novels. hence, one can easily see that upon reading what was written, i received a most unduly required shock.

these are only two examples of singaporean journalists not getting their facts correct. i wonder if the rush to get articles ready and printed has dictated the basic need in journalism to get things right no longer necessary! is the straits times something our nation is proud to count amongst the plenitude of our so-called "world class" objects? should we boast to the world and flaunt our glorious journals? let the world come and judge what is for them "world-class". i can call myself a genius of the first degree, but not everyone need believe me. perhaps, one might be thinking that i am making a mountain of a molehill, but if the papers can barely get simple general knowledge facts correct, what more can we expect of this our only source of information in print? do we expect that they might, for example, report all the facts and arguments during the general elections faithfully and not "get things wrong"? this is one reason why i have to be forced by my parents into reading this "trash". after all, they never seem to get things right!

"the horror! the horror!"

2006-02-24T03:30:00.000-08:00

14 days left! only 14 days left before prison and jail! oh what terrible fate awaits me! oh what misery waits to devour me in her fangs of servitude! oh pity me!

how i wish that election day will come soon after enlistment. then, i will have a day of liberty. how that will seem a drop of cool water in the midst of the raging heat of a merciless desert!

on another note, this time next week will probably bring news of my results--another cause for concern. how will i deal with the good/bad news? i think i'd better look around for a nice little corner for me to cry in--maybe in the toilet or the corridor. or better yet, i should bring a mask with me, a mask that never ceases to smile. i should also practise my replies to people's questions, especially if they didn't do so well or did so wonderfully that they instantly become public enemy no.1!

on yet another note, i think the people at video ezy should recognise me. after all, i have been there so many times--once a week for close to two months. at least i recognise them.

is not my life so very pointless and empty? what sort of lives do the youths of today lead? are these the kinds of people we want to lead our nation of tomorrow? someone should suggest to moe that a new syllabas should include a course on how to lead one's life. oh wait, they probably already have that--is it moral education or project work?

also, i'm starting to think that my mother wants my career path to be in the agricultural sphere. she has been pestering me to help her plant some seeds and beans all month long. maybe i should ask if she wants me to start planting rice, and rearing chickens and ducks. that way, we will never need rely on evil oligopolistic firms like ntucfairprice and coldstorage which are only bent on stealing our money. after we accomplish that, who knows, we may even be able to rear silkworms or cultivate cotton, and make our own clothes. if we continue in this path, it is possible that we will become the most self-sufficient family in all of singapore!

2006-02-18T19:21:00.000-08:00

i went for funorama today; and yes, if you're wondering, funorama was indeed fun. what a pun! the horrible pun (and rhyme) comes from my very tired body and mind, so do please excuse me.

funorama was as usual--a funfair full of essentially over-priced goods and games (until of course around 4 or 5 when everyone's ready to cut their prices to below the bare-minimum), and having the chance to meet a couple of people whom i have not seen in ages, like jacob seet, matthias, nadim, or even merillee and rouhui. maybe it's more of an ac-thing since most of the non-ac/mg people i asked thought very badly of funorama--that it was too expensive (how can you think so when the money's going to buy a car for a certain someone?) or that it was simply too boring and elitist. with regard to the latter argument, it's most possibly a result of their not having any friends that they know there, and not due to funorama itself.

as a result of my financial constraints, i could not afford to spend too much money on worthless treats like food or games, but had to direct all my resources into the haunted houses. frankly-speaking, at times i knew not which was more horrifying, the haunted houses themselves and their array of frightfully-disguised actors (who frightened me inside and out of the haunted house) helped on by the darkness, and hence surprise, in which all of this took place, or the long, arduous wait outside (coupled with disgusting people who cut the queue with impunity).

the haunted houses that i went to were in ascending order in terms of scare-factor. the first (crazy hospital house) wasn't too frightening--a couple of insane people running around after us, along with some rather fake-looking blood. at the "morgue", i touched one of the "bodies" to see if it were real. it didn't move, so i thought that it was merely a block of wood, until it suddenly got up and growled. i noticed that the first house was also very gory, while the other two focussed more on psychological thrills to scare. one memorable event in the first was that isaac recognised one of the actors and, upon exclaiming his name in greeting, was scratched viciously. it was really quite funny.

we were originally going to the sc-one horror house, but the indian girl was such a bitch, so we missed on that one. i hear it wasn't too good.

the second haunted house was somewhat cheesy at first, its theme being a brothel apparently. the wait there was the longest, and we had to contend with irritating creeps who attempted to cut the queue. we were probably there for nearly an hour, and joey had previously let a few people in front since their friends were there. a while later, a whole bunch of them tried to cut again, this promptly threw joey into a fit in which he aggresively flung back their evil schemes to profit by our loss. the house itself began with a dance-routine like the kind seen in tv shows of the 1920s shanghai brothels. scary scenes included the girl coming out of the well (which incidentally i thought to be a pot) and the horribly made-up girl kneeling just outside the exit-door who pounced on us as we left, that particular one scared me quite a bit. the most memorable event was the sadako-girl who crawled up to my feet. i felt this hairy object at my legs, and when i looked down, i saw this white shape, whereupon i screamed and kicked the poor girl.

the last one, by the ah-blue people i think, was the scariest. it was on the theme of chinese operatic theatre. we noticed the girls in cheongsam outside the lt adjusting their underwear and seriously thought that was part of the horror act. as we were mounting the steps after entering, hands came out and kept brushing past our legs, and that was very scary when i realised that it wasn't the lining of the cloth used to create a passageway. at the top of the stairs, there was this chinese idol-like figure, and we anticipated that it would move at us. it did, but what really caught us off-guard was the girl who, once again in sadako-style, came crawling out from beneath the table. then, something funny occurred at the windows at the back. the actor was supposed to suddenly open the window and thus scare us. unfortunately, the window came off and hit isaac. what's more is that we had to stop and help the actor retrieve his window. lastly, there was this girl who was apparently trying to feed her dead master's bones. i felt some pity for her until she suddenly turned and pounced on us, screaming and causing us to scream at the same time. i realised that despite the air-con in the lt at the time, i left it sweating more than when i was waiting outside. moreover, we were all flushed with fright. nonetheless, it was extremely exhilarating and exciting. the last one was also the only one in which we ran out at the end. it is possible that the accompanying screams of our party induced increased fear and hence screams. all in all, a wonderful experience.

the rest of funorama was fun as well, unfortunately, the thrill of the horror houses took most of the whoa-factor out of the rest of funorama.

2006-01-12T07:12:00.000-08:00

yesterday, when i was at the national library with eugene, as he was looking at a map of london, i took a peek at it to see if i could spot ucl. it turns out that ucl is rather near to the british museum. that caused me to remember that dream i had quite sometime ago; basically in it, i was walking along this road in london, with the british museum on my left. then i entered it and began walking around (i think i was searching for ucl). after some searching and asking around for ucl, i opened a door and someone announced,"welcome to ucl!". do note that until i looked at the map, i had no idea whereabouts ucl really was. thus as you can expect, seeing that ucl really was practically right next to the british museum quite certainly gave me a shock, and but of course it gave me quite a pleasant surprise.

anyway, all i can say with regard to the national library is that they should open up more of the books in their collection of reference books to public loan. the selection of books for loan is awfully mediocre at best, not only in choice, but also in quality. the books in the reference section upstairs on the other hand is much more superior. there were quite a few books that, if i could, i would most certainly borrow. we, eugene and i, both came to agreement in denouncing the general lack of interest in and taste for reading, especially good reading, in singapore. hence the pitiful range of available books for public consumption.

moreover, writers should in future title their books more obviously and more blatantly tasteless with no regard to irony, sarcasm or satire, or even humour. for indeed the most honest librarians of our republic and nation have no understanding at all, or very little, of the above or, for that matter, any form of literary device available to the conception of man. in one instance, a book entitled along the lines of "the long march: a story of xenophon" was placed side-by-side to "the long march"--the former, evidently a work on greek history (note that xenophon by no accounts is a chinese name), the latter, on chinese communist history. the use of allusion simply meant that the unfortunate librarian could not decipher the obscured meaning.

on another note, is not it strange that prisoners apparently cannot vote! is the convicted felon less of a citizen? if so, does he thus lose his citizenship as a result of his crime? for to be less of a citizen is to not be a citizen at all. and if not so, do the crimes he commits, of varying degrees, deprive him of his inalienable rights as a citizen to elect the government he sees as best to serve the needs and wishes of the people? how very strange indeed! i did not know of this until joshua seet told me.

lastly, i find, as i had mentioned to eugene, that unfortunately, for the really obese, gender seems to be obscured to the outsider.

2006-01-06T04:45:00.000-08:00

i have been told that i write in a formal, rigid style. is that really true? well, anyway, it was eugene who thus informed me, and he added, upon my asking him which writer my style most resembles, that i write like george eliot. he meant it as an insult, at the very least, but i take it to be more of a compliment than otherwise. the worst thing of all is that he bases his judgment on my essays, which he finds are too academic and not whimsical enough. the strange thing is that if one thinks about it, essays are meant to be academic and not whimsical. i hence conclude that eugene suffers from strange-ideas-which-really-make-no-sense syndrome, or more appropriately eugenesitis.

they've quite entirely re-done holland village, or at least parts of it like the windmill thing, if that's what you call it. it's barely the holland i used to know and cherish. but at least somethings still remain the same. i think i shan't recognise it anymore once i come out of ns.

actually, i never thought i would say this, but i find myself missing school-life. i don't really like this stoning-around-having-not-much-to-do lifestyle. i miss the regulated, clearly controlled lifestyle of a student, or at least the fact that i know specifically what i have to do next. it just hit me, and i know this is rather late, that i no longer am a student. sure, we all have to go to university, but not as a child or a teenager, but as an adult. how very strange a thought! to be frank, i don't like the idea at all! now i have to really make all my decisions! and i have to be responsible to myself, which is really a lot more daunting than being responsible to someone else if you think of it.

another thing that sort of hit me the other day is the need for a second plan in life, a plan b if you will. i realised that i had geered my entire life towards reading law and becoming a lawyer that, if any unforeseen circumstances should come in the way of that path (touchwood), i have very little idea of what to turn to. it's quite horrifying. maybe i should become a writer and eventually turn myself into a latter-day george eliot (i wish!).

2006-01-04T04:21:00.001-08:00

they re-opened my pes case after i fainted the other day. unfortunately, these horrid occurrences really always seem to appear when their presence isn't desired, but never when i want them to (sort of like some people, if you think about it). i had a good chance of being downgraded to some more humane pes status, but i wasn't lucky enough, and the stupid symptoms refused to show themselves. remember those sun wukong stories where the demon-transformed-into-human-form-creature refuses to show its true colours, thereby tricking the whole party of monk-like characters or whatever they are, but eventually is forced to do so through the monkey's ingenuity? why don't i have my sun wukong to reveal to those silly monk-like characters (the doctors) the true colours of my condition? at this rate, i'll probably be fainting in ns, in the genuine sense, while my officer thinks me but a lazy slacker.

i spoke to my cousin the other day. i think she's so lucky, or maybe not. they aren't doing shakespeare at her school for 'o' levels. i probably know nothing of 'o' level literature other than from hearsay, but isn't shakespeare like one of the pillars of english literature? i mean, it's fundamental to a study of english isn't it? quite strange, i feel. she's probably lucky because she finds reading shakespeare tiresome, and i can sympathise. like i know george eliot is a great writer, but reading her work is so very hard on my nerves. on the other hand, not to have had some experience of shakespearean works while taking lit does not speak well of one's education.

"rome", on hbo, is quite a nice show--full of murder, intrigue, adultery. not to say that such a life in real-life is nice and good, in fact it'd probably be quite appalling, but in terms of a television programme, i find it ranks as one of the better ones produced by americans. of course its success as a picture may also be due to the fact bbc co-produced it... anyway, i thought "rome" quite faithful to what most people conceive of rome itself. i personally think "rome" portrayed rome as quite cruel and brutal. but, of the true nature of rome and her civilisation, who are we to judge? first of all, we don't exactly live in a world utterly devoid of barbarism; it is afterall a place where hostages get their heads sawn off by insane masked terrorists, where men are not only subject to ruthless physical abuse, but also the loss of any decent sense of human dignity through the pitiless humiliation imposed on them in certain prisons. second, we should simply judge history from a historical and objective perspective, and not delve into discussions of morality condemning what seems to us as barbarity only because it does not fit into our own naive perception of reality, which is in truth only a sanitized version of it.

2006-01-02T03:20:00.000-08:00

so starts the new year. how dreadful a way to commence what should in fact be a new year. it should be a fresh start, where the past with all its horrid memories simply vanishes and fades into history. unfortunately it isn't so for me. not only have i got to deal with the prospect of losing my personal liberty and basic human rights in two more precious months, but i also have to deal with those terrible monsters that have surely been plaguing me endlessly for ages. so many vengeful harpies attacking me from all corners of this wretched world, sparing me no respite. when will happiness prevail? sigh. what an inauspicious start to what most would regard as a happy new year!

sorry for spreading my ennui around.

2005-12-16T20:40:00.000-08:00

well, since everyone has been blogging about prom, i suppose it's my turn to submit a very belated entry.

okay, where shall i start?

right... prom was fine i guess. i mean all i basically remember experiencing in prom was general blindness, a headache, very loud but not necessarily nice singing, not very good food, and a very obnoxious mc. haha... fun in a way (i have never taken so many photos in my life!), but also a bit dull. should have gotten a room, oh well. i practically got to eat two portions of nearly everything since hanyang can't eat seafood and nearly everything was seafood. well, i suppose the main thing about the prom was the photo-taking. sad thing is i think i looked horrible in most of the pictures... sigh.

post-prom was okay too... damn dxo! shut off the freeflow just when charmaine was about to get another drink (for me of course!). drank a bit, danced a bit, shouted a bit. someone kicked me, and i had a bruise. who would need to kick on the dance-floor? now that's a question one needs answering. mike seemed to enjoy it a great deal, but then perhaps the fact that he would be entering ns soon made him enjoy what little freedom he had left.

done.

a word of caution to everyone, i know that "pride & prejudice" (the film) is a little passe, and practically no one will be watching it anytime soon, but i must warn everyone not to watch it. despite the obvious attraction of having keira knightley in the cast, the picture was, to me, a most disappointing piece. after reading the book, i felt a plenitude of emotions, sentiments and feelings. after watching the film, i have but one thought--utter contempt for the creators of the film who have massacred jane austen. the whole film was played very badly, and i daresay the script was not well-done at all. it became a rather boring (and in this respect i agree with ian and charmaine) romantic lovey-dovey picture when, though romance does play a part in it, i believe it a social commentary and satire discussing societal norms and behaviour. the ending was the most appalling ending of a jane austen remake ever, so very cheesy indeed. the only character i feel played well was lydia who irritated and disgusted me in the film as in the book. i'm no film critic, but all i can say is "an utter disappointment"! awful! awful! awful!

2005-11-25T23:24:00.000-08:00

a levels are finally over! well, they were actually over like on wednesday, which is so much of a relief. however, has anyone ever felt a slight sense of ennui or lost sight of what to do after the exams end? i mean, after studying like mad for so long, don't you kind forget what life must have been like before the exam period even began? strange, don't you think? to not be able to think of how to divert oneself or entertain oneself? strange indeed.

nonetheless, despite the obvious disappointments of the exams, i am glad. i must say though it is awfully wretched that my, and many others along with me, only probable chance at good grades is based not on my own merit, but merely and simply on the failings of others. mike says that he feels we are like the manager in heart of darkness who managed to remain in his post not through his own merit, but simply thanks to the high mortality rates in the colonies. how terrible it is!

well, to say that the a levels were well-done is to lie. after all, for nearly every subject, i suffered the miserable fate of not fully comprehending either the question or the answer. but all i can say is that i tried the best i could, or so nearly the best. at least i don't have papers next week. so perhaps it's a blessing in disguise.

well, my sister's back in singapore and she wants me to go clubbing with her... crazy girl... haha. yeah, and when she asked me which university i would be planning to go to, i sincerely thought i had nowhere much to go, except perhaps for manila where one learns the science of maidology (surely they have an institution which instucts one in the arts of one's vocation). but then again i'm quite sure that the filipinos are a smart race.

i don't understand how it is possible that so many singaporean students can have such a low opinion of our neighbours in the region. so much so as to say that there can be no possibility of there being any persons of note in our quarter of the world other than in singapore itself. surely this must be the product of an insular culture, just as it is in america; and it is such a culture that, as i noted in my international history essay, bred the sorts of men, "new to the job and inexperienced" such as truman, that led the americans into what is possibly the greatest blunder in their history of blunders, that is to say the cold war. as one might fully see now, i, with the ease of mind one obtains once one's obligations to the formal education system and edmund kwok's lectures are over, subscribe to the revisionist school of thought. indeed i do agree that the soviets did act in a manner that would have engendered much suspicion and mistrust. however, one cannot accept the lie of the americans as a race utterly as altruistic and noble as they always have falsely portrayed themselves. for instance, they had, even before the war (strange how the second world war is always referred to in my essays as the war) ended, already concocted schemes and plans to open up not only the soviet union, forcefully (in a diplomatic sense of course) if need be, but their western european allies as well. many authors and historians have noted that the americans viewed the british with equal if not more suspicion than the russians for their policies of imperial preference. one cannot compress all of the arguments of cold war history into a simple blog, however, it would, i hope, suffice to say that i do not agree at all with all those hollywood, americanised versions of the cold war, mostly written in, if i may have leave to say, that bastardised version of english--american.

oh my goodness, i didn't know how that diatribe against those wretched colonials suddenly came out. perhaps exam-stress has finally been released.

oh, and i have to write something about that horrid experience i had with the waitress at this restaurant candy suggested we go after the lit paper on wednesday. it's next to rendezvous hotel (which i must admit looks like the sort of place one goes for paid sexual favours), in the same building as the big kopitiam. candy suggested it and we, those of the class who went, thought it a good idea, after all it was two-for-the-price-of-one buffet and no one can reasonably refuse a good deal. we waited for what must have been 45 minutes, and people who came after us were all going in. well, perhaps some of them had made reservations, but certainly not all of them. how then was it possible that we could be asked to wait for so long? we were then given the immense privilege and honour of being offered, after such a long time of endless waiting, a horrid seat at the bar (which to me is where one goes to eat when one has been kicked out of the house by one's wife) that expressed the epitome of pathos! not to mention the fact it was such a small miniscule place for six people, we could under no circumstances feel obliged to spend our celebratory lunch at a bar! but considering that there was such a crowd in the restaurant and concerned that we should not have a place to take lunch, we decided we would ask to be seated at the bar until a table or booth would be made available whereupon we would change our bar-seats for the more appropriate setting of a proper table. this we suggested to that waitress, only to receive the perfunctory and superficial reply that such an arrangement, which was surely so unreasonable as to merit it such a response, would only be possible if no one were to arrive at that moment from off-the-street. that is to say that unless the restaurant were to receive no more customers, we would be left, so-to-speak, on the bar. and this information was conveyed to us in such an affronting manner of tone and voice as to make me, most indignant, quite bent on leaving the restaurant. we eventually did leave that place for the much more suitable and comfortable locality of marche.

the point of this lengthy account is to comment on the service industry in this glorious and perfect nation one is proud, even perhaps to the point of arrogance, to call without a doubt home. or well, at least the service one encounters in restaurants such as the one i visited. it is unequivocally, horrendous. i can understand fully that certain individuals have no propensity for taking orders and suffering the indignity of waiting on tables, after all i am probably one of them. however, if this is indeed the case in one's personality and situation, perhaps one should consider the need to be in an occupation other than that of waitering whose very name seems, if i may presume, to imply waiting on others. that waitress to whom we spoke evidently is of the mind that whosoever enters her privy and magnificent domain of the restaurant ought to be, so long as they wear the uniform of some school, obedient and submissive to her every dictate. who is she that i ought to obey? is not she but a waitress? and the purpose of being a waitress, is not it merely to wait on others? with what insolence dares she to speak to me as though i ought to beg at her feet so as to pay her her wages! what does she think she is! for indeed, the members of the service sectors in singapore really should reform their mindsets and aim not only to serve well those members of the human race with fair and white skins (many of whom simply walked in off-the-street and got in without any fuss), but also the rest of us human-beings! when i see these waiters or salespeople or anyone in the service industry speak with impunity to a fellow singaporean, while going to his/her utmost to make a caucasian feel he/she is monarch of the world, whether or not he/she truly is, i cannot but be reminded of kurtz and his african worshippers in heart of darkness. while they, evidently, kill other blacks ruthlessly, they perform "unspeakable rites" grovelling at kurtz's feet and put on stakes the heads of the blacks they killed in front of the house in the inner-station--kurtz's house. though it is rather far-fetched to suppose salespeople behead fellow singaporeans to present as tribute their heads to caucasians, it is not totally inconceivable to see them serve the whiteman extremely shamelessly while accosting the singaporean like a filthy rat in the gutter which must be flung out mercilessly and savagely. when will we the peoples of asia finally raise up our heads with pride and dignity?

2005-10-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

yesterday, i had lunch with joey. it's been so long since i last met up with him, and so we went to crystal-jade. it really just seems that for lunch the only place i go to is crystal-jade. hmmm... but oh well, i guess it's much better than a certain place; i simply don't see why people like it that much. oh, and i saw bryan sio at holland too; he seems to have changed quite a bit, i mean his appearance just seems to have altered somewhat since sec 4, let alone sec 1. and he thinks i look grum. yeah right! but yeah, met him.

so anyway, lunch was, as usual, good, though i didn't really have any appetite (probably exam-stress). the usual stuff with noodles and xiao-long-bao. then we went to study, first at delifrance, where they still play the exact same tunes as when i used to study there in sec 4 over and over again, then at essential brews, where studying is really pleasant if you ask me.

there were so many distractions while we were studying, not least the urge to stop, and start talking. but as for external distractions, at delifrance, there was this crazy group of nanyang girls who were celebrating someone's birthday. that wasn't really a problem, that is until those girls had the brillant idea of inhaling helium from the balloons, after which they promptly broke out into frenzied laughing sessions. while everyone else was frantically trying to study, those mad girls burst into some laughing hysterics. so we decided to leave.

and we came to essential brews, which is really conducive and nice, and continued until we overheard some fairfielders(?) and what we originally thought were either convent girls or plmgs girls. we realised they were actually rg girls in the end, of course, and the fact that their uniforms weren't really convent blue and that they didn't really look like lesbians also helped in deciding us. anyway, the rg girls were interviewing them about schools (not our fault, we couldn't help but listen to their conversation since they evidently wanted everyone to by speaking so loudly), to be precise, the difference between neighbourhoodies and the supposedly "elite" schools. surprise surprise, the fairfielders actually thought themselves "elites"! hmmm... we were quite shocked at their temerity and delusions! to think that some people actually consider themselves as such! upstarts! and so we continued listening to them while sniggering along the way, until those girls left. we were really tempted to go over there and humbly offer ourselves up as interview subjects, if only to put those wretched creatures back in their rightful lawful place. alas, kindness dictated otherwise.

i have to say i really miss acs and maybe even acjc, joey agrees with me more or less. i mean, those were probably the most enjoyable and wonderful years of my formal education years. secondary school plays a very important part in one's formation as a person and a member of society, whichever one that may be. believe it or not, this is what kah hung told me. and meeting up with joey really brought back all those really pleasant memories. sometimes regret does seem to seep into life. but maybe it isn't even regret, it's but a link, a connection, with one's past. like silas marner.

oh and if you're thinking "what acsian snobs!", i'm not really a snob, comparatively (apparently boris has become somewhat of one though, but i'm not sure), and neither is joey really. but nonetheless if you think so then so be it. haha... i don't care. and i don't think there's anything wrong with being proud of who you are or where you come from or something along those lines. plus, a degree of justifiable snobbery and elitism is merely the last lonely guard our vulnerable civilisation has against the vile and cruel mannerisms of the vicious and vulgar masses, thronging and ready, at any moment, to pounce on any scrap of culture and to totally and irrevocably consume and rip it to bits.

2005-10-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

finally, the stupid school computer has loaded the webpage. it's so slow, and they should really think about upgrading the computers.

anyway, i do believe i may be the most hardworking student ever. i've passed up two essays in two days. and i intend to do another later tonight. the problem is that i don't really think those essays were of good quality. oh well, at least i did them.

i think, and eugene agrees with me, that i may have studied too much. and especially for lit. during lunch today, i kept quoting lit texts, like calling the bookshop owner a weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly for not seeing that i wanted to make my purchase. or telling eugene that he was a green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on because he couldn't remember any more quotes. or telling him that he ought to be quiet just in case i had to make him leap up, like that, like that, which evidently comes from his most hated poem, home burial, by the poet i can arguably call his most hated, robert frost.

talking about robert frost, yesterday, during the frost revision lecture when we were told that most of his poems were about winter, eman shared his insight into the reasons for which frost wrote poems about winter. believe it or not, he did so because of his name. yes, that's right, in eman's opinion, frost may have written winter poems because his name, frost, evokes the cold frosty season of winter. i promptly asked if mrs perry's occupation was to run around pear trees, at which point he laughed.

and some teachers are so ungrateful. when the lecture theatre is practically empty and a few kind souls stay back so as not to cause you humiliation, it's certainly terrible manners to act like you don't know who they are, even though you have taught them for two years and occasionally remark to some of them, "you're from 1e right, i know you!" no wonder he's so not well-liked, and students ran out the other door as he entered shouting "run! run! he's coming!"

2005-10-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

i'm busy trying to study in school. another flop. oh, but at least i found out that the notes for singapore history are faulty. apparently, the percentage of indians and malays eligible for voting in 1948 but who were unfortunately illiterate in english was 78% and 88%, instead of the notes' 8% and 58% respectively. that shows that in addition to one's notes, readings are near essential.

the farewell assembly last week was quite dull. i thought i'd reflect on it since it differed rather vastly from the farewell chapel in sec 4. somehow, after the farewell chapel, i felt like i was going to miss school a lot, which is sort of what did happen in the end. the emotions are really quite different this time around. somehow, it just felt really boring and i was itching to get out of the hall (and maybe college too). farewell assembly was so, what is that word, soporific. and so cliché with all the photos and boring speeches about "plan b". i mean we sort of had those in acs too. just more interesting. and i don't think we were all that panicky about the exams, so maybe that played a part too.

well, after assembly, took some photos. david huang had the weird idea to sit on the chair while we stood around him. i thought it would have looked a bit like a funereal portrait. and i actually wanted to sit, so i pulled the chair from beneath him, and he fell. and then he kicked me. but that's not the point. oh, and ian low had the brilliant idea to squat at the side of huang. that is until i asked him if he wanted to look like the family dog. oh well. i guess i will really miss them and sailing. actually i already do. but life must go on. hopefully the j1s will be kind enough to throw a farewell party for us, considering that they didn't have an sg party.

another thing that happened which i think is worthy of my blog is that when i was taking the bus home, the bus-driver kept making hawking sounds with his throat. does not that prove marlow's view of the fragility of the veneer of civilisation? are not we all really beasts covered by a few miserable scraps of silk? well, that's eman's point of view and opinion. when evans was going through heart of darkness, he explained that "mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose" was a reference to the theory that we, as human-beings, are just here to propogate the species. when i remarked on the ridiculousness of that theory to my most esteemed and most learned colleague, eman, and that it was ludicrous to think of our very raison d'être as human-beings of superior intellect to be a romp in the wild like animals, he said in his most base tone, "uhhhr... isn't that what we are? animals?" well, then perhaps he is, not me. nonetheless, the bus-driver proved to me the scant covering our barbarism has in the form of civilisation.

evans also said that whatever we dream about we actually lack in real-life. so does not that perhaps mean that i lack buffets and mooncakes?

2005-09-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

i just looked through my comments and shockingly, porn sites tag on my blog! so scary! what is wrong with my blog? i hope it isn't considered porn material because it definitely isn't!

hopefully, i'll have more to blog about next time. after all, with my stupid computer screwing up all the time, blogging has become a once-in-a-blue-moon luxury. better make the most of it next time round.

2005-09-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

yesterday, after we got our sea history essays back, one of the most scandalous remarks ever was heard to procede from the mouth of what we now know as the "chest-nut-buns" woman (whose name i have not the temerity to mention). she asked me to share my anus with everyone! well, okay, she actually meant "a-ness", but when she said it then, it sounded quite disturbing. i wonder, does that somehow give insight into our impression of her?

talking about "ness-es", the marker of my gp paper has a problem. she (i'm assuming it's a "she" since it appears to be a woman) underlined "rapacity" in my exam paper and marked it as a wrong-word mistake, replacing it with "rapaciousness". in case you don't know, the noun for rapacious is rapacity, not "rapaciousness". one doesn't just add a "ness" to everything and expect the word to miraculously turn into a noun. for example, the noun for "angry" isn't "angriness", it's "anger". it's quite irritating when teachers think their english is so perfect, when it isn't, and just assume that the student must be wrong whether he truly is or not. there were countless other mistakes in her marking, and it just goes to show that she is nothing but presumptuous as to what i mean to express. she really should have had an open mind and tried to understand what was being said instead of insisting what she thought.

on the whole, things seem disappointing. maths dropped drastically far beyond my expectations. while econs improved reasonably considering how much work i put into that stupid subject, i didn't get what i had expected for history, so close yet so far... and lit... it'll take so long to get them back, but i don't really think that the results will be very good. disappointing and demoralising.

today, something terribly embarrassing happened to eugene. if i were him, i would try to hide my face from the world forever (probably by burrowing into the earth with his worm-instincts) . let's just say that it was four storeys of awkward tension, not just for him, but probably for someone else too. and he must admit that it was indeed funny. i mean it definitely would have been so if it weren't him.

*sideway glance*
"i saw that!"

oh, and eman stinks. he really should try bathing, i think it should help.

i just can't seem to blog today; must be due to the shock of exams.

2005-09-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

finally, i get to use the computer for a while. better make the best of it for now.

well, i guess i'm just glad that the exams are over. i don't really think there will be much to look forward to in terms of grades for this round of exams. but i suppose that it was a good experience. now, i'll have to start much earlier for the a levels.

the only ray of light in all this darkness so far is my mcq grade of econs. i think that the idea of going through the mcqs with eugene before the exam was quite good. had i not done that, i may not have clarified some of my questions and hence may not have answered some of the questions correctly for the paper. well, i think i improved quite a bit; after all, i only made half as many mistakes in the prelims for econs mcq as i normally do at other times. obviously i'm not as much of a genius as eugene who only made three mistakes, but i think i did reasonably well.

anyway, went out with the class to watch some stupid adam sandler (is that how you spell it?) movie after the last paper. i would have rather watched the dinosaur movie or the brothers grimm. but i guess the majority prevailed upon me. so oh well...

the show's really silly if you think about it. like for example, who has ever heard of an american-football-playing-prison-guard-team. does the state pay them to both guard the prisons and play football at the same time? and i don't really think the public actually pays taxes just so that prisoners and guards can play football against one another. like hello, they are prisoners you know. i mean other than getting abused physically and mentally all the time by the guards, the prisoners seem like they are at summer camp with all that amusement and entertainment that they enjoy. and what's with those guards? they just go around hitting anyone they wish for no apparent reason. like, okay, let me ask you a question so that no matter what your answer may be, i shall hit you till life comes out of you.

also, would you pay to go watch a football game between guards and their prisoners? i guess the texan crowd in the show must have been suffering from intense boredom, especially with all those terrible refugees from katrina streaming across the border, so that they'd rather go and watch a prison game.

lastly, you'd expect that prisoners, being prisoners, would be worse off than the guards, at least materially, who seem to have all those wonderful facilities and what-not for their training in the prison. but once they step out into the "real-world", the prisoners get branded stuff, shoes and jerseys etc, from reebok, while the guards just get plain white stuff. how do they manage to get all of that? obviously the guards have been playing too much football to realise the extent of the smuggling that has occurred under their noses.

oh and i find that throughout the film, i was reminded of heart of darkness and the natives' grotesque faces and dancing and jumping-around since the blacks in the film fit conrad's descriptions almost perfectly.

the whole show is basically ridiculous to the point it gets amusing. and if you think about it, the fact that ridiculous things can eventually become amusing is ridiculous in itself.

2005-09-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

and as usual eugene resents much of what i just typed and thinks i should change it. unfortunately for him, no is my answer. muahahahaha. and he thinks i'm ridiculous. ridiculous!

2005-09-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

ridiculous computer! i hate it... never ever ever ever works. why buy something that never works? i actually have to use the school computer to access my email. how ridiculous is that!

on another note, apparently helen tan thinks my essays are improving. i thought she praised me on teachers' day for handing in new essays, and that she only praised me because she hadn't read them. that is that once she had read them, she would cringe in fear and absolute terror. but it turns out that my essays were surprisingly quite good. i beat eugene!!! now that's the important point. but then again, helen tan always says that his essays aren't very good... haha.. and he's right next to me! so weird...

well anyway, good luck everyone for prelims. i'm sure that you'll all do quite well. it is after all the end of the year. if you still don't do quite well, it really must mean that you haven't been studying... tsk tsk

and, eugene is being his usual weird self. argh-ing and hey-ing away. at the same time, nicole is pestering us to hurry up and leave. so that ends my foray into the world of the computer for some time.

2005-08-26T23:37:00.000-07:00

i don't think we should cede our rights to the air-con classroom that easily. especially to those who came to find out about the classroom only through our good graces. and also even to those who have classes there on a regular basis because of their timetable. i mean, by law, we have the right to occupy the classroom. after all, we have practically been squatting there for so long that the classroom should belong to us now.

and the next time someone comes to claim our legitimate heritage, we should either adopt the pretend-like-we-can't-see-them-tactic that helen tan so ingeniously devised against evans, (though, alas, to no avail), or use eugene's vengeful actions as an example, namely punish them by raising the temperature to 32 degrees celsius and taking the controller with us. it worked to a certain extent actually; the class inside looked like they were suffering a great deal and had to open all the windows and doors. i think having the temperature at 32 degrees celsius is worse than having no air-con since normal room temperature rarely exceeds the 20s.

and teachers having lessons should really not try to be too loud. there was this teacher, science i think, who was arguably trying to teach the whole school. his voice was booming! like hello, not everyone is so crazy about physics or whatever it is you're teaching... crazy man. on the other hand, we have teachers like evans who, for the first few weeks of his teaching us, spoke so softly that we would probably have had to have been right below his nose for us to hear him at an audible volume.

2005-08-26T23:14:00.000-07:00

i got so frustrated today. just not my day.

firstly, i thought i lost my phone because i may have dropped it on the road when i got out of the car. i tried calling it and no one picked up, so i figured it must not have been with my dad. then when i tried calling it again, it just did the "caller-busy" thing, so i thought that someone must have stolen it and refused to pick up for fear that the owner had called, which further intensified my worrying. when i finally called home, my dad told me i left it on my table...

today was like crash-course 101 for maths and lit. during lit, we rushed through the country wife so fast that i don't think i could catch all that was being said. we finished two acts and, i think, one scene in less than one period. crazy... when it was maths, mr tay finished the entire statistics syllabus (with the exception of hypo testing) in about 50 mins. and to think the lectures lasted for months and months without end. it was really hypo testing that was most important, after all i wasn't listen to bai-gu-jing at all .

when school was all over, we had to stay back so that chengtju could talk to us about our history papers (and i wanted to go home early to study a bit). well, at least i did quite well. the thing is that we also had to stay back to wait for the science people from dunno-which-class to finish copying the econs stuff so that we could copy. and for some reason, it got all mixed up here and there and i got damn pissed. [so if you're reading this, cat, i'm sorry for barking at you today. i didn't mean it, just super stressful day. oh and no pun intended.]

the worst thing is that some people suggest for us to write essays so as to practise our critical skills, then, either because they forget, couldn't be bothered or just out of pure malice, the papers never get marked and returned until the day of the exam itself! how lazy can you get! and it's not like the past two months were well-spent in teaching us the basic syllabus. all we did were pointless exercises that would be nice and fun and useful, but only if like the prelims were like two years away! not in the near future like say, 3 days away!!!

and to cap it all, i bit my tongue twice while having lunch today. and it was my ulcer...

stress stress stress!

and i'm definitely not letting someone who's only my superior in attraction to the ground beat me.

2005-08-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

i watched "l'allée du roi" yesterday, i really like that show. it's uniquely french. you hardly see such shows in english, probably since the majority of english shows shown in singapore are really american shows. since america has barely had any history, such historical dramas are hardly possible. however, it doesn't necessarily mean that the lack of a long history makes a country less likely to produce shows to do with history. despite our utter lack of history (modern singapore only commencing in 1819), we have so many war-dramas.

anyway, it was the second part and it was wonderful. i was so excited when they had those trailers on tv5. i must say that the french do their historical drama things very well, even better perhaps compared to those from china (and those are good).

the cast looked like the characters involved and behaved like how you would expect them to. louis xiv was, as usual, regal; mme de montespan was full of wonderful aristocratic rochechouart-mortemart tone; mme de maintenon was full of grace; even marie-thérèse appeared like how she would probably have appeared in real-life.

i thought what louis xiv said to mme de maintenon was especially representative of what he, as a king, felt: "madame, les rois ne se tombent pas malades; ils meurent." or indeed what he said to the dauphine when she did not wish to dance after the death of the queen: "madame, je veux qu'il y ait appartement et que vous y dansiez. nous ne sommes pas comme les particuliers; nous nous devons tout entiers au public. allez, et faites la chose de bonne grâce."

a good film all-in-all...

2005-08-24T19:46:00.000-07:00

the sailing juniors are such nice people. i thought that the stuff written on the funny net-like-plastic thing at the concourse was merely another futile attempt by council to do something, as opposed to just going up on stage and saying ridiculous and very pointless stuff. but, it turns out it was actually some sort of "encouragement-board" for the j2s from the j1s.

so anyway, they're nice people. encouraging in a way, though when you have two weeks to go to prelims and haven't even reached midway in your study programme, then it is tough to be very encouraged. nonetheless, it was very kind of them; if it doesn't encourage me, then it'll be my fault.

and yes, while everyone else in the team got to have their names properly spelt out, they must have forgotten how to spell mine since it was curiously spelt without the "r" or the "n", but with "l", "e", "y" and "s". namely, that they spelt it "baileys".

in my defense, i wasn't drunk at all on that day; if anyone was drunk, for which i give no allowance, it was probably seet. it was he after all who was playing with the marshmallow and making all sorts of incoherent remarks. and i think he was just lightheaded, not drunk. well anyway, i guess we should thank him for lightening up the mood, most kind of him. and i don't really see how i was drunk, so maybe i was. but i still deny all charges.

anyway, i still feel really grateful for their words of encouragement. it's nice to know that there are still people who would take some time out of their schedule to do this for their seniors. you know what would be even more encouraging, if they would have an sp party for us... haha... and they could then have the chance to, maybe, see one of us drunk again (personally i think it might be seet if we don't control him--tip-seet). isn't that an incentive? haha... i think i couldn't be more explicit. haha...

well, whatever they choose to do, be it party or not (i favour the former), i still thank them for their kindness and thoughtfulness.

2005-08-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

i realised that sparknotes has nothing for the country wife by william wycherley. not that i'm some raving lunatic who can't even get his work done without reference to someone else's work, it's only that i just woke up and can't get my brain to function on lit mode after the extremes of history mode yesterday.

while i must admit that compared to, say, othello, the country wife is indeed a more lighthearted piece, it does not deserve to be left out of sparknotes when frost is included. i mean, wycherley's language, while laced with too much double-entendre for anyone's good, is infinitely superior and more elegant to that of frost, with his clumsy use of verse, imperfect metres and plain pathetic attempt at rhyme sometimes.

if you know you can't write really good verse, you really should not try, because it just makes you appear silly and, worse, presumptuous and pretentious. instead, write in prose since it's a well-known fact that americans tend to be better in prose and all the new-age kind of literature. but then again, it makes sense that the american sparknotes would include a crappy and terribly rustic american poet ("the greatest american poet", just shows how pathetic americans are at poetry) and not an arguably more sophisticated english playwright.

anyway, back to wycherley. it's the classic restoration play that's lighthearted but serious at the same time, it is a satire after all. and since it's a satire, i think it wrong to merely dismiss it as nothing but a "sex-play", though of course for the sake of convenience, the sex-play is something infinitely easier to say than the country wife. it, to me, is not just about the sex, rather, it uses the sex to accomplish its original purpose. that is, that the sex is a means to an end, not the end in itself. you could even, forgive me for suggesting, consider the sex a dramatic tool, somewhat like some other image or irony. the play isn't only about sex, it's really about affectation and pretence, about the hypocrisy of society and the images society tries to project about themselves. to look at it and conclude that it is nothing but a raunchy restoration sex play is, i fear, far to shallow.

would the markers at cambridge be appalled if they saw scripts that viewed the play as solely about sex? what would they say? "sacrilege! those wretched barbarians that are singaporean students have traversed the hallowed boundaries of literary good sense in analysis and massacred our literary heritage! oh 'the horror! the horror!'"

it's a satire, and satires use images or objects to satirize people.

2005-08-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

i had a terrible nightmare yesterday. in my dream, there was a famine, so everyone was, evidently, starving. then there was an ogre who said that we should eat whatever we could find. so he caught a huge rat that ran past, and took out a spoon. i don't know how (ogres must be quite strong), but with that spoon and a few strikes, he lopped off the rat's head and started gobbling it down. it was so disgusting, both the eating of the still-moving rat (which i find is an abomination) and the ogre (he was just so revolting). so so gross...

derrick m'a dit que la bête peut jouer le personnage d'un orque dans le filme "le seigneur des anneaux" sans avoir faire du maquillage à cause de sa laideur! et franchement, je ne peut jamais regarder ce monstre, même de le percevoir, sans avoir senti le besoin de dégorger et de dégobiller! maintenant, je suis sûr que ce n'est pas moi non seulement qui le trouve désagréable et dégoutant. tant pis pour lui, mais c'est la vérité pure et simple dont je parle. d'ailleurs on ne peut jamais trop cacher la vérité. (et pour ceux qui peuvent comprendre le français, si vous pensiez savoir qui ce monstre est-il, je vous proposerais de penser encore, vous pourriez en avoir tort. enfin, nous avons tous un petit monstre dans notre âme.)

2005-08-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

i just finished studying the charater analysis for othello. just a little more to go and i think i should be done with it. after re-reading the play, i find myself thinking othello more of a hollow egotist than before. i'm becoming more and more convinced that iago is the one who deserves, more than othello himself, to be the main character of the play. he is the active party while othello just sits around and has things happen to him. well anyway, imagine, instead of othello, we have iago. hmmm... and i also read in some book that the name iago that shakespeare used is really iacopo. just that venetians don't pronounce the last syllable and so it became iago. interesting.

anyway, after this will be transy woman, george eliot. people have mostly heard of men trying to be women, but for a woman to try to be a man is something out of the ordinary. changing one's name from mary-ann evans to george eliot... tsk tsk... no wonder hardly anyone wanted to marry her. upon seeing the name, men would immediately switch off, and women would be disappointed by what they find when they do meet her/him. and add to that the fact her portraits show her to be terribly ugly. imagine if she wasn't as great a writer as she is... she'd just be an ugly female transy.

conrad is such a jerk. can we ever use his name when writing an essay? everytime i write "conrad tries to..." or "conrad's view is...", evans (not the transy woman but the teacher) strikes "conrad" out and replaces it with "marlow". how are we going to know when it's conrad, and when it's marlow? what's more, don't most authors express their views on things, to criticise or praise, through their characters? so why doesn't conrad? do he or his opinions ever appear in the book? or do we only have marlow and the unnamed narrator to rely on? of course he may reveal himself later in the book. it's probably just that i haven't reached it, that's why.

2005-08-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

okay, so i didn't get it in the end. oh well, i still have the form i got on my own. no loss in a way. the reason why he didn't have enough to go around is probably because it'd take too much time and effort to travel, at most an hour (after all how big is singapore anyway?) to the british council to pick more up. lazy teacher ghosts...

i wonder... do you think a likes b? or is a just acting like a likes b? and is b really freaked out by all this? or is b just acting like b is because b wants to uphold b's reputation as well as everyone's image of b? if b is really freaked out, why would b go around and tell everyone about it? genuinely fearful? or more likely attention-seeking? hmmm... i apologise for the lack of names and use of pronouns. i would use them but then everyone would know who i'm talking about and then it wouldn't be fun anymore. but then again, you probably might be able to guess who they are anyway...

history readings can get boring if there aren't any pictures to draw on. that's why the readings i'm reading now are conducive to one's learning. there's a picture of attlee, truman and stalin together at potsdam.

attlee looks like a joke, some lackey of the superpowers (kinda like blair now). and stalin is fat (i think truman is too, just that unlike stalin, he knows how to look slimmer by wearing black). so i decided to doodle. now attlee looks even more like a loser, and truman has become bao-ching-tian after i coloured his face and added a crescent on his forehead. and stalin can now sing,"josef, the red-nosed commie".

what would ranjee, the mandarin-orange, say if she found out what her students have done to history?

2005-08-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

i went to get an application form from that englishman yesterday. i assumed you'd have to be early to get one since they were supposed to be limited (as was announced last friday which also noted that we could get them the next monday, i.e. yesterday), and so i was early. i went four times to the staffroom before i finally managed to get him.

when i politely asked him for it, he was extremely scornful and haughty. he told me he had to get through all the science people then all the humans people and then and only then, if by some miracle there was any left, could any possibly be left for the arts people (oh those poor stupid arts people indeed!). then he asked how i did for common test 2. i told him my results, and he remarked that he had many people who had 6 "a"s throughout. so what foul demon had possessed me to make me think i could get into oxbridge? he also had the temerity to ask me what made me think i was better than him! so anyway, he ended off by saying that if i managed to get a form, that is by whatever miracle, then i would get it on thursday.

bloody jerk! i was being extemely polite and civil, for obvious reasons (i want the form), and he was anything but. it's not like only the science and humans people are capable of doing well in the end. and i don't think his place is to decide who may or may not apply to the universities. if indeed it isn't, which i suspect is the case, who is he to say that someone should be allowed to apply because of his 6"a"s, or that someone who hasn't done so well but is improving nonetheless should not, if both should do well in the end?

his question about what made me think i could get into oxbridge was, in my view, legitimate however hostile it was. but the question that followed was plain unnecessary and overtly personal. it was definitely not a figure-of-speech. i hardly think a comparison is fair since we don't know each other personally, but if you must, he evidently didn't make it into oxbridge, so who's he to judge? what? just because he's from the uk means that all of a sudden we, as asians, are inferior to him? moreover, i made it into the top, if not one of the top, schools in my country, did he in his? i highly doubt it. who in the world but the english have heard of the school he came from.

well at least i have got the form now on my own, without his help. so now, i don't think he can stop me from applying. after all, it is my right as a student to apply to whichever university i choose. he is nothing but a facilitator of the application process, for if otherwise, i had no knowledge that he was an employee of the universities of either oxford or cambridge. if it so occurs that i truly am not oxbridge material, let the admissions officer decide, not some puny joke who didn't make it to oxbridge yet is so critical of all who hope to, and who is only in singapore because he couldn't make it in his own country!

you think he's the only one capable of scorn and disdain?

2005-08-05T20:05:00.000-07:00

i hate ulcers. i have three of them in my mouth, and i can barely eat, let alone talk. it's so irritatingly painful. argh...

finally got steinberg today. after having a closer look at it and then at sardesai as well, i realise that sardesai isn't as helpful as steinberg. well, i guess it's good for when steinberg is being hogged, as it was last year by evelyn gay (is that how it's spelt?). anyway, i really don't know how i'm going to finish studying. but i know i shall.

i'm not very fond of that englishman. for whatever reasons, he always appears, if he isn't in reality, horribly condescending, insulting and offensive, not to mention arrogant. and i hardly think he's in a position to be so. afterall, did he go to oxbridge? he always seems to be trying to put people down, what with the if-you-haven't-been-getting-'a's-so-far-what-makes-you-think-you-can-get-into-oxbridge sort of attitude. and that tone! but that's probably the least horrid of his horrid behaviour. i can see where he's coming from, as in apparently he has to sift out the less capable people because too many "low quality" students have been applying to oxbridge in recent years and that's pissing them oxbridge people off. and indeed there is the issue of being realistic. but perhaps he hasn't the decency nor the manners to soften his approach with some tact and encourage such applicants in other more suitable areas.

i don't think that, as a teacher, he ought to be so harsh; instead he should make an attempt at some kindness. if the world were to have followed his you-can-never-make-it-so-don't-even-try logic, we'd be nowhere. if we were all as cynical as he is right now about our chances of success in life, we might as well just give up on an education and work in the dumps. if, by this time in life, one had no ambitions nor the drive to pursue them, then certainly it holds no promise and the only next thing of note one should consider is the location of one's grave and the arrangements for one's passing. and even that may require some ambition.

the least he could do, if he had to show people the door, would be to be tactful and smart about it. i only hope it is nothing but an appearance. for if not, what a frightful man indeed!

2005-07-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

went for the imperial college talk yesterday with derrick. okay, i admit, it wasn't like i expected. let's just say it's not really the same college my aunt, whichever one that is, went too. but nonetheless, i got a lot of helpful information. so it was quite good.

can't think of much to write about... oh well...

2005-07-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

there was something on the board of the air-con classroom today. don't really know what it is, but i think it's probably some econs thing since everything else on the board was about econs. it's just that i've never heard of it before... "diversify the loss leader". hmmm... does anyone know what it means?

all this wondering was going on during gp, and amazingly, when i asked jasmine tan what it was, expecting her to get all angry about me not listening during lesson, she just nonchalantly said,"i don't know. econs maybe?" just goes to show that perhaps she too feels the futility of gp essay presentations.

the only funny moment that occurred during the whole lesson was when, for i'm-not-sure-what-reason since i wasn't paying attention, dinosaurs were suddenly brought up and i immediately pointed at eugene. he is after all the same age as most of them, ancient qian-nian-lao-yao. he proved that he did indeed have superpowers when we found him and bena waiting for us at the ground floor lift lobby even though we had taken the lift and they didn't. kinda reminds you of those ghost shows where the ghost just pops out wherever you turn.

the warwick woman was quite nice. i think i may consider warwick uni. looks good. and most importantly at this point in time, gp isn't a major criteria when taking law there. charmaine thinks i can do business studies there (i think she wants to) because i speak french. that may be, but if you looked at my econs, you'd know i can never take business studies. i'd have a better chance getting into medicine!

took the sailing photos today. finally. mabel doesn't believe that the army is sending me to check for epilepsy. i'm so sure the doctors are so incompetent a simple jc arts, not even science, student can trick them into thinking he might have epilepsy. what did i do? alliterate all my sentences? seriously. ian is so retarded. i was trying to tell him he had eye-shit in his eyes and he thought i was calling him eye-shit. so he said "ass-wipe" when i pointed at his eyes saying "eye-shit". haha... and he completely forgot we were retaking the photos after assembly even though david huang told him (and huang is in his class!). then during the first photo-taking, when dunno-who pushed from behind, david kan bit charmaine! haha... so... weird. and joshua seet is a pervert. he wanted to take the photo with everyone sitting, and the girls in front... haha... what was he thinking? tsk tsk. wonder which photo chng is going to use?

napfa is a complete waste of time.

2005-07-27T23:12:00.000-07:00

oh, and my mom asked me the most ridiculous but quite amusing question today: "did the army people ask you about your hobbies and interests?"

i'm like... ma... do you really think that they'd care? i don't think they engineered ns for us to relax and enjoy. i'm not going for summer camp you know. i'm being conscripted. like if and when we go for war, what are they going to ask as they conscript people? "hello and good morning, we are in the midst of a war now. it'll be wonderful if you could tell us your hobbies and interests in life. that'll better facilitate our allocation of jobs for you so that we could make your stay here more enjoyable and you could have an interesting and personally-fulfilling conscripted life while killing lots of enemy soldiers. thank you for flying singapore ns airlines. please come again." seriously you know.

2005-07-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

i returned to that evil place today to finish off my stupid test.

the security is really lax. i walked in and they stopped me for a check, asking for my identity card and the letters for ns. then i showed them my i/c and told them i don't have letters. so they paused for a while and just let me pass. i know i don't look like a terrorist, but imagine if i were. cmpb would be a mound of rubble now. of course there will be those who say:"who in the world would want to bomb singapore?" and to a certain extent i agree. but you know what i mean...

so i went in for the personality test. i think they must think i'm super weak and a bit psychotic. i remembered to mention every illness or injury i ever had and could remember. and i gave all sorts of fears and thoughts that i ever had in my entire life. some were real, others more like slight exaggerations. maybe they'll think i'm crazy and not send me to combat unit.

so after that, i proceeded to take the vocational computer test thing. that sucked. now i know that the calculator is my most precious belonging when it comes to maths. and physics was weird. the funny rotating exercice made my neck ache. i thought it was going to be some kind of test that had something to do with military life. guess not.

the last test was the survey about all sorts of things. they asked all sorts of stupid questions like "will your supervisor be a good supervisor?", "will you feel stressed in the army?" or "will you fit in in the army?". i mean i couldn't answer a lot of them for the simple reason that i haven't been to army, so i don't bloody know what it's bloody like in the army. how then am i supposed to answer questions that ask me about army life? so ridiculous.

and they should know what kind of answers they'll get when they ask questions like "do you feel a sense of loyalty to the saf?" or "do you feel an obligation to defend singapore?" only the most idiotic joker will reply "disagree"... asking to be shot... and for questions like "do you think the saf is ready to face any threats/terrorist attacks?" i felt so tempted to disagree strongly, but common sense overpowered me.

well, i did disagree when asked "do you feel that the saf is necessary for the defence of singapore", and agreed to "do you think the saf uses resources that could be better used in other areas?". i mean seriously speaking, geopolitical boundaries have more or less fixed in recent times. and war isn't the best form of defence, diplomacy is. the important thing is to integrate asean to such an extent that the threat, if any, that comes from around us dissolves. i mean you don't see any threat of france invading belgium or spain claiming portugal, do you? so being belligerent and forcing the entire male population to go for ns isn't the best way to go. anyway, does anyone seriously think we will be able to survive an invasion? where will the battles take place? orchard, cbd, bedok or holland? maybe the field outside school... that'll a nice place for a murderous battle... imagine... the famous "battle of the-field-outside-raffles-junior-college".

oh, i asked my granddad today about my "epilepsy". he said it's possible i may have what's called a petit mal form of epilepsy. which may mean i don't need to serve full ns... yeppie...

2005-07-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

well, went for stupid ns checkup today. i have been provisionally posted to pes d. the reason... they think i'm an epileptic! so they need to check if i really am. like hello, do i have big brown protuberant eyes, a hunch and a big bag of wool on my back? do i weave like the spider? do i turn into a machine while my tools take on a life of their own? do i find little kids at my fireplace (which in singapore's heat one must be crazy to have)? in a word, do i look like silas marner, the weaver of raveloe?

i mean i must say i finally got what i asked for, i got into pes d. but i was hoping it to be because of my neck or migraine. epilepsy just sounds like insane people, frothing at the mouth and bitting their own tongue while babbling some nonsense gibberish.

the government should scrap ns. all the manhours wasted and swallowed up by this shit must be costing the economy a huge opportunity cost. all the people there looked so bored. maybe their boredom results in their most uncivil and rude behaviour... plus, the whole thing was so bureaucratic it disgusted me.

i don't think i can survive ns. not really because it might be tough physically. everyone somehow manages that, i think. it's the social aspect. i don't think i can mix around easily with vastly different types of people. take today for an example. i spoke extremely little to anyone around me, just the bare essentials, partly since i don't consort with that kind of people. but maybe it's all due to my epilepsy and the resultant silas-marner-like-behaviour. i shall try to be kinder and talk to more people. so find me an eppie now...

2005-07-25T20:13:00.000-07:00

today, for i'm-not-sure-what-reason, the topic of haylls's being sued by someone and the possibility of her winning came up. she'd probably lose. i mean, if you were the judge, would you rule in favour of her? like she would keep saying "c'mon judge..." while you cautiously deliberated the merits and demerits of the case. or during her testimony, she'd keep going "arrrrr....", whenever her mind went blank. whats more, if you took a bit too long to decide, this would probably be what she might say: "judge, you have so many cases. if you take all of them, surely cannot do well in any. best to cut your losses and drop some..." okay, i think it's kinda lost its original flavour; sounded much more amusing in the library.

this morning i had the worst pre-assembly stomachache ever. so after i left my bag at the assembly ground, i ran off to the toilets. as a result, i missed the announcement david and charmaine made. must have been quite funny to see them up there together. they must have quarrelled. kevin teh is disappointed that they didn't mention his great personal achievement. haha... next year lah... after all, he'd be the one making it next year.

so anyway, i made mike rush so that we could get back to class for pc (not because i want that man to read out the marks). when we finally got back, that man took so long to get to class. after he arrived, he gave us some crap assignment, acting out the scene, and sent us out of class to get it done. then after a while, he left class too. so retarded. should have just stayed in library as mike said.

the next time you want to do better than foh-boy in your exams, just tell him he has bad luck and book him a flight to bangkok. that'll be enough to get him out of your way while you go on to score whatever grade you can in the exams. when he comes back, he'll just get Virtual-Reality, like this time around, and you'll beat him even if you failed, bu-gong-zi-puo.

yesterday, i learnt that tim got into pes d for ns because of his heart-condition. so lucky. he doesn't have to do bmt, or at least minimal, and it's near confirmed he's going to be a clerk in air-con room. i'm so jealous. funny mr tan noted that if i eat many many eggs, i may get high cholestrol and so get into pes d like tim. haha... i don't think it'll work though.

2005-07-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

just finished watching the lost marathon on axn. it's quite interesting. the only thing is that they always leave off just when it's getting to the climax. but it's probably a way of making sure you remember to watch the next episode.

i think all they said about the monster in the jungle is really like crap. i mean, the real killer isn't the monster. yeah, it happily comes along once in a while and kills one or two people (of course it normally just scares them a bit and takes off). but then it disappears for like the next two episodes. poor fellow, always having to take the rap. the real killer is, as in most cases, man himself.

the episode i just watched was the one where ethan gets killed by the rockstar guy, can't remember his name. well anyway, i don't think he should have killed him. they could have got so much information from him. considering the abilites of sa'id to get it out of people, it's impossible that he wouldn't have talked. well anyway, he had to die. if he told his secrets, then the show would have to end. so yeah... can't wait for next week's lost marathon!

lit was good. jasmine tan wasn't lying when she said i did well. she's sly you know. outside the staffroom i asked her how i did, and she just gave that evil smile and said,"i don't know...", when it was so obvious from her expression that she did. i'm really happy about it and give all thanks to God for his bountiful gifts. guess sometimes, He can really bless you when you least expect it. but i hope this doesn't get to my head. i mean, as in this is good and all, but what really matters is doing well in the "a"s and prelims.

je n'aime pas les secrets. ils me font incapable de dire ce que je voudrais. lorsqu'il y a des choses qui se sont arrivées, j'en parle à quelqu'un, n'importe qui. mais dans cette situation, à mon avis, il ne faut jamais dire un seul mot à personne. sinon il y aura des circonstances désagréables. mais ça, c'est difficile. néanmois, je pense qu'il a ce qu'on mérite. tant pis pour lui...

2005-07-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

i shall post a quick entry about handover on wednesday.

i went to the library for a while, then met charmaine and seet there. later, ian came too. and we saw mabel when we were about to go to the track. this just proves what we have been saying all along. sailors are muggers. like you could always seem to find a sailor or two in the library before training. haha... we either sail or mug or sail and mug. quite amusing.

so we went to the track for handover. charmaine's symbol of office is... a pencil. which she bought for $0.14... a bit queer right? haha... so anticlimax. i think she couldn't find anything. mr chng said it was for the girls' cap to stab people in the eye... quite funny. imagine lydia stabbing someone in the eye.

david gave quite an inspirational speech, surprising because he looked like he was going to crap some speech at first. well, he does give inspirational speeches. i wanted to have a group hug, but nobody wanted... sob sob. so anyway, david asked me about a certain person, he asked if the person gets a lot in bed. i don't think so actually. i mean i don't see anyone who would want to do anything of that nature with the person. and the rumours must originate from that person, eager to sound more desirable to others. well, anyway, i thought it was a bit of a weird question and conversation. i mean talking about someone's intimate-life that is that intimate is not exactly my cup-of-tea.

then when seet gave his symbol of office to cat and lowell, ropes and the book, he said this to cat:
[seet says:
here are your ropes. i wanted to teach you the ropes, but brian said i should show you the ropes. so here, i'm showing you the ropes.
(shows cat the ropes while everyone turns around to look at me with the "what-the" expression)]
he took my words completely out of context. he asked me if the expression was "to teach someone the ropes", and i replied that it sounded a bit funny, and he agreed. so i suggested "to show someone the ropes", and we agreed it sounded much better. and then he goes and gets lame, as usual. sigh... but quite funny nonetheless.

well, it's officially over. we have passed on the duty of making sure sailing doesn't get scrapped or turned recreational to the juniors. wish them all the best in that endeavour. i'm quite sure they'll accomplish it.

2005-07-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

can't get an extra mark for my gp, which means i can't jump a grade. oh well.

i've been watching this series of cds my mom brought back from my grand-dad's house, which was actually my uncle's until he gave them to my grand-dad. it's about the boxer rebellion in china, and surprise-surprise, it's in chinese, made in china after all. anyway, i'm quite happy and proud to say that i can understand quite a fair bit of it. of course there are moments i just lapse into a dream-state when i can't comprehend, but on the whole, quite good.

anyway, i view the 19th century troubles experienced by china as largely due to the inability of the manchu government to adequately react to challenges faced from foreign powers. part of this was their inability, unlike that of meiji japan, to achieve the balance between the old and the modern that their position necessitated. this in turn was created by the weak succession of emperors through the manipulation of the empress cixi. nonetheless, i don't feel sorry to see the manchus go, unlike what i feel with regard to the maison de france. after all, they weren't even chinese but barbarians from the north. and how ridiculous is the pigtail? only pigs should wear pigtails.

but i do concede that the rapacity of the westerners, and japan, played a large part. as in most of the world, the west exploited, and to a certain extent still does exploit, other peoples for their own gain. their invasions and occupations of other territories have caused these peoples to lose part of their cultural heritage, witness the egyptians and the greeks with their treasures stored in european museums. in fact, the invasions made during the boxer rebellion and western attitudes to the imperial court strangely parallel the fourth crusade to constantinople when the famous bronze horses of venice were stolen from constantinople. and constantinople itself greatly resembled imperial china. so it's not very new, this rapacity leading to intervention and interference in oriental states.

yet, western influence has played and will continue to play an important part in world culture. ideals such as democracy, human rights as well as constitutional parliamentary government have, to one extent or another, been entrenched in the minds of many of the world's people. and so too have european languages, conduits of european thought, spread across the world. i mean, i am writing in english, aren't i? and this influence comes, in great part, from the era of colonialism that found its apogee in the years of the boxer rebellion.

whoa, sounds part ridiculous rambling, part history/gp essay. sorry to have bored you. haha...

2005-07-19T22:17:00.000-07:00

i need closure. i need my lit marks back to that i can feel like it's all over. so that i can start studying for prelims. but they're taking so long. might get them back, if we are lucky, before we go to ns.

derrick told me that he can't wait for college to be over. as in to finish jc life. but then i remarked that after jc life comes ns life and that isn't really very desirable, is it? he agrees with me. nonetheless, i can't help but feel somewhat as he does. don't you want school life to be over?

i need to shop. not because i want to get new stuff, but because i need to get new stuff. as in i have to spend my stupid voucher or it just goes kaput... sigh, never felt so desperate to go and buy stuff.

conrad isn't nice. i mean, it's not because of his content. i think that's quite nice. it's his style, it is like some translated work, which it probably is, considering english is like his third language. as joshua seet says, imagine yourself writing a chinese novel (and chinese is your second language). but still, just feels unnatural.

2005-07-18T20:03:00.000-07:00

it really sucks. i like did terribly for gp. so disappointed.

on a better note, got back my history papers today. they look good. i mean, i got an "a" for sea. probably could have done better had it not been for kwok. gave me like some stupid grade. and he's so sarcastic. he actually wrote "you are actually answering the question" at the end of my international history essay. like hello, if i wasn't answering it, then what does that piece of paper in front of you with words on it look like? ass-wipe? and he put exclamation marks behind his comments for others (like "nice!" or "interesting!"), as if to say it were a surprise that we managed to interest him with our essay. well, at least he gave me 14 for a one-and-a-half side essay, which if you come to think of it, means that i could really have done much better had i had the time.

i totally don't get continuous random variable. in fact i don't get stats at all. there's a reason why i didn't even touch stats for ct2. and derrick see actually thinks it's easy! science people... somehow, they manage to see things otherwise hidden to the average arts person's eyes. bet they say the same thing about us.

bena does a lot of funny things in class. she was like arguing in class with candy. can't really remember about what, but it was quite funny. maybe because it was so trivial, which explains why it was so funny and why i can't remember it. she's full of queer antics... haha... so weird.

eugene seemed happy kevin didn't sit in front of him today because, then, he wouldn't have to suffer interrogation again. he supposedly doesn't like it, but who knows... haha... and anyway, it's sure to happen soon. so genie, whatever your sentiments regarding it, be prepared for another round of intense questioning. it's just a matter of time. haha...

stupid college... they really shouldn't keep switching timetables around. it's getting so confusing. today, which is monday, is supposed to be on wednesday's timetable. but i, for dunno-what reason, thought it was friday (it appears i wasn't the only one since mr tay also thought it was friday). so i was wondering why we weren't going for econs lecture (notice the repetition of the "w"s, like frost's "what was it the scythe whispered?", i assure you it wasn't on purpose). so silly. but i guess they have to find things to do, right? if not, they'll just get bored and die.

2005-07-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

argh... so frustrating. missed the lost marathon.

at least the shed is kinda done. now it's so packed. just like the old one. just add a couple of rats and leave to rest for a couple of months and it'll practically be a carbon-copy.

kevin teh killed a lizard today. well, okay, it was an egg and he crushed it. we now have lizard yolk in our shed. he also saluted me on my staying back longer than he expected. like hello, i always stay back until like i'm one of the last few. what is he talking about? joshua seet said that it may be because of the image i project. what? do people look at me and instantly think slacker?

cat asked me for my blog address today, and i immediately thought kevin teh told her. but apparently that isn't the case, so whoever you are, you anonymous creature, make yourself known and confess. maybe i'll grant you a pardon. haha... so anyway, i found out supposedly that people i don't even know read my blog. i'm quite shocked. as in like why? i don't read the blogs of people i don't even know. so weird. do people actually go online and search around and like go,"ooo.... this looks interesting. i shall read this even though i'm absolutely clueless as to who this person is"? quite pointless what...

someone, forgot who, said today that blogs were for artsy people. is that true? well maybe. i mean, like in order to have a blog, you kinda need to write. sorta basic don't you think? and arts people already have to write so bloody much (like i have to pc some stupid conrad crap by tuesday). so it's kinda like second-nature when you're typing in a new entry. so if "artsy people" is defined as people who express themselves through words and not numbers, then maybe yeah, blogs are for artsy people.

oh, and i have to warn everyone now. vj-ians and saj-ians are thieves. stole our booms and probably countless other things. made us walk around to find them. plus some of the things they stole were like stolen at the beginning of the year. we should have taken some of their stuff. now that isn't stealing, as joshua and cat think; it's punishment.

we ought to punish them for stealing from us. of all people, us!!! there are several ways of punishing them. of course there's the take-their-equipment-as-"reparation boom" way. you know, like "reparation candy" in the woman warrior, so here, it's "reparation boom".

for those who for some reason think it's immoral to take "reparation boom", or as seet mistakenly calls it stealing, there's always another form of punishment. add some dirt into a pail of water after using it to wash the shed with all that shit and everything. then, throw the dirty water into their shed. specifically at their lifejackets, sails and foils. make sure the water stinks. you could combine the two by taking what you need and want, then throwing the water in.

of course, you could use biological weapons. take some ants, huge ones preferably, or centipides, plenty at nsc, and throw them into their shed, aiming for their lifejackets. or put lizard eggs into the lifejacket pockets. hopefully they only emerge when those fellows are out at sea, and have to capsize to get rid of the shit.

for those who think this is like rather "harsh", think again. at least we aren't cutting off their hands or burning them. now that would be cruel and barbaric.

2005-07-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

hmmm... today in lit, bena told me that i was like horner in the country wife. at first i was quite shocked. i mean, wouldn't most people, not including those rakes who find or hope to find themselves waking up next to someone new or someone they don't even know every morning, be quite scandalised to be likened to such a character? thankfully, i think we don't have many such people in singapore.

anyway, what she really meant was the witty side of his character, which i got only after remembering the context in which she made her comment.

do you think i'm witty? i don't really think so. i don't really think that i'm that fast on my feet. i mean at times i'm really himbotic and blur. and yvonne makes fun of that when i call her bimbotic. so i don't really think so.

now here's an example of witty. we were in kunming in sec 3 for that overseas enrichment trip, and we were having dinner at the hotel. no one wanted to eat the vegetables, so karno tried to make us eat it.

karno says (in his somewhat low-pitched voice):
joey, eat up your vegetables. good for pregnant women.
joey says (in a mock innocent and ignorant tone):
but karno, you eat so many vegetables and you're still barren.

now that's a witticism; made us all laugh for quite some time. you have to have been there to truly understand and comprehend it. they've probably already forgotten about it, but i don't think i can. that's a comeback line.

so you see, i'm really not as witty, compared to others, as you think i am. or am i? as eugene always says in response to kevin's persistent questions, "up to you to find out."

2005-07-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

blogging today because mike tells me i don't blog. i'm sure i don't blog.

anyway, i feel so sad. so ridiculous. had to give my wonderful woman warrior essay back because fat man hasn't noted the marks down yet, so now i can't look at my good marks. but i still congratulate him on giving me good marks for lit (at least he's a good fat man), as in really good marks. i'm really hoping that this isn't one of those fluke flash-in-the-pan kinda results.

while talking to joshua seet in econs lecture today, i said something to him that was quite loud. hope no one unneccessary heard it, if not, things won't be too nice. i mean, i'm one of those people who find civility very important. like i rather everything seem harmonious even if it may not really be so. i don't really like people who'd just tell you to your face that they don't like you or something along those lines, especially if they aren't your friends. so direct. so i'm quite pissed with myself for making such loud comments even though it is the absolute truth.

and as i said to him during lecture, i think sailing is going to face a lot of troubles next year, for a variety of reasons. i hope they are ready to take on those challenges and prevail. one problem is that the team next year is probably going to be much bigger than for this year. so there is bound to be undercurrents that we didn't see this year.

and joshua seet is evil. there's the lost marathon tomorrow, and he said i still have to go, what's worse is that he refused to let me sail. now i'll have to miss the lost marathon and then still not even get to sail.

during lit today, mike and i were struck by the similarities between lit pieces and real-life. maybe that's the reason why after so many centuries we are still intrigued by shakespeare. the lit piece that we were talking about was the country wife. note how similar eman is to sparkish. there were other people who also resembled the characters in the play, but i don't think i should mention their names here. might hurt their feelings. see, i'm so kind and nice. if you want to know, you can ask me. and then, we can discuss their faults behind their backs. haha...

keith wong definitely played some character in some play before. i mean he really sounded like lady fidget. okay, it's quite gross for him to play a woman, but maybe he was acting in some old playhouse where all parts are played by men. and he did read the lines quite well, in my view at least.

during math tutorial then later during history, something amusing, but somewhat disturbing at the same time, occurred. in math, kevin started his usual interrogation directed at eugene and his sexuality. perhaps a better word is recommenced. after all, he's been doing it a lot. it's come to the point that i'm starting to wonder if kevin is hitting on eugene. well, okay, mike and i have been thinking that for quite some time. like we came to the conclusion that he wanted to know if and when eugene was going to tell his parents about whatever he was supposed to tell because he wanted to plan in advance. you know, like "okay, eugene's telling in august, so that gives me like up to september to propose, and up to december to get married". for a "homophobe", he's surprisingly open to such discussions. haha... then keith joined in. and so did firas. it got a bit queer for me. but they all seemed perfectly blissful discussing eugene. poor qian-nian-lao-yao. i bet that for his thousand years of existence, he probably hasn't had to deal with much of this.

that wasn't the worse. history was by far more disturbing. if i'm not wrong, since i'm not exactly sure (i tried not to look in that direction), weixian, firas and keith were taking turns to touch and coddle eugene. i feel sorry for him. as mike noted, it was as though they were marking their territory. maybe they might piss on him soon.

somehow it reminded me of what i heard used to happen with achawin, or whatever his name is, back in acs. the only difference was that he carried and wore makeup, dressed really weirdly, had baby-blue everything and was thai, which then explains everything. they actually asked him if he was going to have a sex-transplant and he replied that he hadn't thought of it but was happy that they brought it up. i'm like okay.....

today has been... so... weird. this is just to freaky for me to handle.

haha... hope this is enough.

2005-07-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

got back math today. and history marks yesterday. i must say i'm really quite pleased with my performance this time around. much better than i expected. now i can safely say i'll probably do better than in the first common tests. i think it's really possible for me to do well in the "a"s after all. quite hopeful that i'll do well in lit too. haha...

this week has been bad. as in i really can't seem to get into the school life mould. i don't know why it is, but, i just feel like it's still the holidays. maybe it's because of the nationals and the cts. like yesterday, i felt like taking a blueslip after the first period. oh, and now, chengtju has to call up home before giving me a blueslip. thank goodness i skipped so many classes last week.

anyway, i left my phone in the car today. felt so... devastated, naked, amiss, bare. so lacking. then i started asking myself. what is wrong with me? i mean, not like i use the phone so much that i should die if i found myself without it. and it was only for a day. what was wrong with me! i guess it has become a comfort item. you know those things you just need for no-apparent-reason? yeah, one of those things.

oh well. i'm going to bring my "tank-phone" to army. my nokia 3310. well, actually my mom's. but i'm claiming it for my own now. anyway, so even if a plane drops a bomb on me, and i am reduced to nothing but cinders (touchwood, hope it never happens), my phone will still remain totally unscathed. that's the power of a nokia phone.

talking about phones, mike's case is so amusing. he tried to simply fling his phone onto his sofa and ended up having to go downstairs and ask for the remnants of it from those poor folks who probably didn't even know what hit them. and he's still keeping them! but well, at least this will, if it hasn't already, give him an excuse to get a new phone.

it just seems like all the bad stuff is happening to him. today, he was, once again, too strong for his own good and broke his glasses. his attempts at looking without them were so funny, for us, not really for him.

on another note, the country wife is the sickest piece of literature i have ever had to read, other than the occasional sections of woman warrior. it's so full of sex. when the word "hardening" or something like that appeared, and kevin thought it had some double entendre, keith wong said it could be possible. i mean like nearly everything then could be sexual. like "good-day, sir" could be sexual. and so could "no! no! no! foh! foh! foh!". so gross. oh, and i think keith wong may have played lady fidget before. he just looks like he has experience in the character. haha... quite a turnoff if you think about it. i mean like... ewwww.......

2005-07-09T17:53:00.000-07:00

it's over. ahhh... finally.

guys got a silver, and girls got 4th. well, training kinda paid off then, i guess, for the guys at least. not that bad, i mean, considering we could only have started training after the march holidays, and so vj, as well as the other schools, had three more months of training compared to us. just that the 4th place for girls is a bit disappointing.

what's also disappointing for me is that the race for which i rushed back from shore to get there in time and actually did quite well was not counted. apparently i ocs-ed. i'm quite sure i didn't though. sigh. could have done better.

sajc should have been disqualified i tell you. all of them. blatantly breaking the rules and swapping sailors. plus the guy who was supposed to sail 420 but sailed laser instead is quite a jerk. he was the windward boat while ian was the leeward boat at the upwind mark. so he should have given way. ian just nudged him slightly and he made ian do a 720. sigh. ian should have protested him. hmmm, sa probably wanted to go out with a bang. oh well... doesn't matter now i guess. it's over after all.

but i guess i'll really miss sailing. i may not be very good at it. but i like it. it's fun and refreshing. exciting too, and quiet. maybe i could join the juniors when they train. only on the powerboat of course. hopefully.

went out with the team to modestos after the prize-giving ceremony. i don't really like their plates. very 80s-ish. i mean, they had leopard print on them. roar! a bit passé, wouldn't you say? but the food isn't bad. i had a shock when i saw the size of the pizza i ordered. it was huge. but luckily, it wasn't thick so i could actually finish the whole thing myself.

well, got my econs back. must say that i was hoping for a better grade. but i'm still happy with it. i mean, at least i improved. looking forward to even more improvement.

2005-07-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

oh and watched this show on hbo, strip search. i originally thought it was some porn show. so i thought it was quite gross. but it's actually about the post-9/11 world.

it's quite terrifying to imagine a country where the citizens don't even have basic rights. frightful. i mean, if you are going to allow your freedom to be trampled so that the state can go and pursue terrorists, you're probably giving the state to go-ahead to become a terrorist itself. arresting people and detaining them without even telling them their charges. the lack of habeas corpus. no chance at presenting your case before an impartial tribunal.

but complete liberty to the individual is, on the other hand, irresponsible and likely, in my opinion, to lead to violent expressions of individual freedoms.

somehow, the show reminded me of the arab or pakistani-looking people we saw on the bus from nsc. they had turbans and beards, but didn't look sikh. joshua seet was actually more panicky than i was. i mean they looked like nice tourists and all, but something just pushed my "terrorist-you-should-panick-for-your-life" button. and people who got on the bus looked a bit fearful. they'd rather stand at the back of the bus than sit near them, even though there was plenty of space there. perhaps it was because of the large suitcases they had.

2005-07-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

i think i'm a perfectionist. and it may not be all that good. what i mean by perfectionist is not really like everything must be perfect. but more like it doesn't have to be perfect, just that it has to fit into the image i created in my mind.

like when i did drawings in secondary school, for art class, i'd actually try to make it as like the image in my mind as possible, which resulted in the waste of a lot of paper. similarly, when i write essays, i imagine it a certain way, and i expect it to be like that when it comes out. that's why, bena, i make all those "loud" tearing sounds during the exam. it's not really because i want people to know i finished a page. i mean seriously-speaking, do you think that i, the slowest writer in class, can finish one page in 5 mins? or perhaps when i freak out after forgeting something. i know i don't show it, but yeah, i do freaked out.

okay, it's true i'm not the neatest person around, and my room is in a mess. now that my sis is in australia, the mess's kinda moved into her room as well. but i don't think my "perfectionism" is that kind of "perfectionism". so i'm not really like everything-must-be-in-order-bree from desperate housewives. it's more of everything-must-follow-the-plan-i-formed-in-my-head kind of "perfectionism".

maybe this is the reason why i try to psycho myself into thinking the worst. so that when the end result comes, if it isn't according to my plan, at least more often than not, it'll turn out better than expected. and maybe this is the reason why i still haven't totally gotten used to life in rj. i mean i have sort of gotten used to it, and it's not that i don't think of all of you as my friends and all, but frankly-speaking, (and i think candour is very important amongst friends, so pardon me), before i came to rj, i would seriously never have imagined you in my life. i probably wouldn't even have known you. it's just that in secondary school, which is usually the time when you choose the jc to go to in future, i didn't form that image of me in rj. maybe that's why i still haven't gotten used to it. oh well... hope you don't take it wrongly.

2005-07-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

sigh. today's the start of the nationals. and it doesn't seem like a great start overall. i mean yeah, lasers really did very well. lydia came in first for the first race of the day, even beating all the national sailors, and truth-be-told, it wasn't part of our expectations. but we were all ecstatic on the powerboat. wenqi had to tell us to quieten down just in case the jury got pissed with us. charmaine did rather well too, she could have done much better for the second race, just that her kicker rope snapped, and even then she didn't die. overall, she came in fifth and lydia third. mabel and pearlyn did reasonably well too. if i could do as well as either of them, i'd be extremely satisfied.

if that was the end, how glad we would be. but unfortunately, the 420 must be included. i don't want to say anything about jasmine or sook zhen now. i think at this moment, it's more important to encourage them than reprimand or even just appear disappointed. but i have to say this, i do feel disappointed, at least for the girls. if only they could have done a little better, maybe it'd have worked out fine.

anyway, there's still one more day for the girls, then it'll be our turn to go on stage. i can't say much since i don't think anyone should even consider me a good sailor. but i shall give it my all, and i hope no one can blame me after that, no matter what happens. plus, i believe God will help us. i mean His hand must have been with lydia. not to say anything, but even she herself didn't think she could have got first. but see what He has given her. that should be enough encouragement. see, prayer helps. nonetheless, it is His will, and not ours that must be done. and we must understand that.

2005-07-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

such a boring day. my mom wants to go see the art exhibition in asian civilisations museum from the vatican (quite ironic don't you think? european art in an asian civilisations museum). but don't feel like going out. nothing nice on tv. just feel like lazying around, but it's not good if you just woke up. sigh. what to do?

for once i do feel like going back to school. not really to attend lectures and learn. but to get my results back. not because i want to know how i did, though i do want to know how bad my econs is, and my history too... but more of making sure my shitty results don't get passed around to make everyone else feel better about themselves. but then again, who knows... everyone might do exceedingly well.

if i do go to school, that will mean that i won't be going for the girls' races, which i'm supposed to go for. so that means i can't go for them. but then again, do they really need me to be there?hmmm... oh well... guess i have an obligation to be present, so my personal desires will have to wait. (now doesn't that sound like frost in stopping by woods on a snowy evening?)

yesterday, during tuition, my tutor went through the maths paper with me. after that, i'm hopeful that i'll get at least a "b". i mean, most of the questions i managed to finish came out supposedly correct. the worst would probably be a "c". i'm hoping for "b"s and "c"s generally and maybe a pass for econs. no "a"s. it sucks. i did study as best i could, considering my other obligations... so like not doing well isn't nice.

tim wants to go for cg. asked me to go too. but i think we'll probably back out again soon. i feel bad about it. been telling amias that i'd go after my nationals, but if i end up not going, it'll be so bad of me.

tim's really blind, he and vic. the both of them were probably standing right behind me during holy communion, and neither saw me. they actually thought i didn't go to church!!!

he saw yvonne though. haha... that girl ah... she walked to the front, passed the dancing people (i wouldn't call them dancers) disturbed her sister for a while and walked back. then she repeated the whole thing. later tim asked me what she was doing. we didn't know, but i speculated that she felt that since her friend was going to do the osim triathlon thing, and because she wasn't participating, she decided to do two rounds around church, so as to seem like she wasn't the worse for it.

anyway, saw titus xie on the bus after that. he doesn't seem to have changed a bit. maybe a little less bald, but then maybe because he did his hair differently. whenever i see titus now, i immediately remember that time in class in sec 4. we were having chinese ting-xie, and everyone was trying to listen to mary lee. then titus kept talking to val phua and refused to shut up. everyone was getting pissed and telling him to be quiet, but he really just kept talking. val was probably also trying to listen, but i think titus thought he was trying to listen to his story. then val was like "shut up titus!" in that funny tone of his and then everyone felt quite shocked, especially titus, but then we started laughing. it was really quite funny...

2005-07-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

saw a documentary about dan brown's "the da vinci code" yesterday. all i can say is that brown appeared really foolish (a bit like michael jackson on that martin bashir piece), and his "research" or what he claims to be "research" is really quite poorly-done and unprofessional.

like he would claim that all the people of a certain village in france firmly believed that mary magdalene, carrying the child of Christ, came to their village in provence. then the next scene would be all the villagers acknowledging the legend of mary magdalene coming to their village, but repudiating his claims about the child of Christ and calling it sacrilegious. basically there were many occasions when he would make a claim, and then many of the people who are experts and spent their lives researching on that particular issue or are intimately related with them would, in the next scene, instantly denounce his claims as false and baseless.

the worse thing is that i think he really believes in what he claims. he's either seriously deluded, or an evil, sacrilegious, blasphemous and satanic man. i'm actually leaning towards the latter. but that's just me. and even if he were only deluded, his delusions would still be evil. he makes absurd conjectures and jumps to conclusions with instant conspiracy-theory ease. if there's any doubt of events in history or any gap in the historical records, just claim that the church is covering up the truth about Christ.

i think he's just out to make a quick buck, which is just so typical of americans (witness iraq, bush's probably out to make a quick buck too). but the problem is that he seems to really believe in what he says. quite sad and pathetic if you ask me.

2005-07-02T01:35:00.000-07:00

oh... and today i realised that i'm doomed to mugger-hood. i woke up and the first thing in my half-asleep half-awake mind was... what should i study? silas or international history... this is getting terrible.

2005-07-02T01:20:00.000-07:00

today's meeting was really useless. just went to get scolded and taught the value of working together as a team. like that could change or help anything now. goliathodge told us about indian hindu weddings. frankly i didn't care. plus i thought the most important part of it all was the dance around the tree, not the dunno-what granite thing he told us about. oh, and someone is really quite rude and ungentlemanly. i can't say his name because he might go and complain to the teacher, then the principal, then the ministry, then the prime minister, then the president, then the head of asean, then soon, the un general-secretary. and he probably wouldn't stop there.

on to something more amusing. the post-exam party at kayhian's house. yay!!! so fun. i learnt how to play mahjong. i actually thought candy would have known how to play since mahjong always has seemed hongkonger to me, but it turns out the both of us didn't. always believed it to be some inaccessible chinese game. it's actually quite okay. went on "pong-ing" when i think i shouldn't have, purposely to irritate them. haha... candy and later michael were extremely tricky, the two of them, really tricksters . they "accidentally" knocked the tiles down. then michael "helped" others take their tiles, in the process possibly taking a peek at them... really very tricky... tsk tsk... haha

during the game, we learnt or confirmed many of eugene's names:
1) eugene the white-boned demon (bai-gu-jing)
2) eugene smeagol
3) eugene the thousand-year old demon (qian-nian-lao-yao)
4) eugene tan-oh
5) E.T.

let me explain. bai-gu-jing because he's extremely fair (fairer than my mom!), and he's actually a skeleton in disguise. he draps some skin over him when he goes out so as not to scare people. really very kind if you come to think of it. aww...

we have all known all along that eugene is smeagol and he proved it today, refusing to let go of the ice-cream (his precious) while we were playing. there is absolutely no way he can gain any weight by eating ice-cream since he has no digestive system, eat-also-no-use. when i handed him his other precious, a mahjong tile, he was quite grateful actually. think he thought i meant it as a projec-tile to throw at bena and michael.

after confirming eugene's identity as smeagol, we can also say with conviction that he is also the thousand-year-old demon. after all smeagol is very very old in the book, isn't it?

since he is qian-nian-lao-yao, he surely is also related to the other qian-nian-lao-yao, who is the inspiration for my blog's name. however, i shouldn't reveal that character's name. anyway, since they are relatives, i feel it's only right that the names should be joined together, thus, eugene tan-oh. wait, does this also mean eman and eugene are relatives-by-marriage as well... hmm... intriguing.

now the last one is obvious. if eugene's name is eugene tan-oh, what would his initials be? E.T. of course...

knowing him, eugene is sure to get pissed. so, an-no-neh, please try not to, yuppono. only joking, that's all.

lots of other funny stuff (resulting in a lot of laughter like that time when michael returned to, in the words of bena, foetal position) happened during the mahjong game, which i shall not mention here since it's kind of... uhm... wrong. okay, shall indulge in one.

me says:
is there any tissue?
everyone says:
no, don't think so.
michael says:
i think tissue is a very singaporean thing.
eugene says:
yeah. people use hankies overseas.
me says (hearing incorrectly) :
what! people overseas use panties?!?!?

it wasn't my fault okay. plus i do not have a dirty mind if that's what you're thinking. just that that was frankly what i thought i heard. haha. if i were really dirty, i wouldn't have been so shocked after all... just a bit high. and i did not drink.

anyway, all lots of fun.

2005-06-30T22:38:00.000-07:00

exams are finally over. well, okay not really the exams, it's only been the common tests. strangely, i don't really feel overjoyed. somehow, it feels like just any other day; it's like the common tests came and went and it's really no big deal. all that i can say is that it's over. don't really care that much to find out how i did though. hmmm.... weird.

had a weird dream last night. guess you can call it a nightmare. couldn't sleep the whole night and kept twisting and turning. dreamt that i was taking econs all over again. then out of a sudden, it switched to maths. quite disturbing if you think of it. it's like econs always seems to come back and haunt me.

somewhat like that time when helen of raffles appeared in my dreams. and though i was hitting her face with my file, and quite forcefully if i may add, she somehow managed to find the strength to keep repeating, "why are you hitting me, 'brine'?" and "c'mon class". and even after i threw her out the window, from the 7th floor mind you, those words kept reverberating in my head. now that was a nightmare.

never realised that people, like of my age, actually like read fantasy and play with magic cards. isn't it childish and rather satanic or something? i think there's something wrong with them (i mean the cards and books, not the people). just so... je ne sais quoi... can't seem to find the words to describe my disgust and scorn. went with eman to hmv today. his choice in music is... really disturbing. and he reads really weird things. well, okay, in my view that is.

then he told me of a certain somebody he saw last year or thereabouts going into a porn shop in some sleazy joint (well, sleazy to me, he calls it his hangout spot, so obviously he likes it). tsk tsk. never knew. but i guess it's no big deal. nonetheless, i'm really quite happy i went to acs. what if i turned out to be like eman. the horror!!! haha... plus he is most likely a michael jackson as well, considering how he was behaving in front of that poor baby in the mrt.

guess there are really a lot of differences between peoples. like i wouldn't go, on my own account, to the kind of places he goes to. so... queer. really really sleazy. it's his hangout after all. do please remember to shoot me if i ever enter that place again. unfortunately, with my beloved college's move to bishan, i am now forced to go to j8. degrading--but i don't have a choice. how i miss holland. how i really miss holland.

or like the fact eman thinks my choice in clothes is extravagant (that's what i got from his tone). what complete nonsense! i do however think my clothes are a bit too youthful. as in, like yvonne says, people my age are starting to move away from what i'm still wearing. hmm... i feel poor. should go get more clothes.

anyway, i don't know what the stupid meeting tomorrow with goliathodge is about. but it better be worth my time. after all, it's not like the school is right next to my house, and i do have to waste my precious time to go there and listen to him talk. hope we aren't going there to get scolded or something like that. now that would really be such a waste of time.

2005-06-28T19:50:00.000-07:00

i think i should be studying for literature which is tomorrow. oh well. what's the point...

exams have been really sucky. it had already started terribly with gp. then history was really bad because, once again, i couldn't finish my last essay. well, it was really part of a strategic plan to get more sbq marks. sigh. and i think i didn't even discuss situation in my prac crit drama essay. i blame booth by the way (note the alliterative explosive effect, as though he were about to burst). he didn't even touch on drama, let alone finish it. if we hadn't asked evans, we'd be wondering why drama suddenly popped into the exam. and i can't do poetry for nuts. econs wasn't that bad, i think, though i wrote till a bruise developed on my pinky. oh... and no matter what i think of the paper, when i eventually get my econs back, it usually sucks. so as you can see, i'm really going to get shitty marks for at least half of my subjects. though i hope not. anyway, what's the point. well, at least i have today and tomorrow morning to study for lit. so i won't be that stressed.

i surprise myself at my ability to dislike people just 'cos. well, not really just 'cos. he is extremely manipulative and did, after all, back-stab me, quite like regan in that scene in king lear which is also quite appropriate here for other reasons. that thing is quite terribly insufferable. i shan't mention his name since i think it insults all those who, unfortunately, have the misfortune to have him to share their name. the amusing thing is that i stored his number as bastard on my phone and i didn't even know until someone told me who it was. well anyway, the minute i saw him, i was forced to turn away. i don't think he's done anything else that is extremely malicious to me so far yet, though as mr. ipod says, if he can do it once, he surely can do it another time. it's just his appearance and face, so horribly disgusting and repulsive (both physically and charater-wise). do i sound superficial and shallow as well as vengeful? yes, i know i have been known to dislike ugly people, but if you know what i have had to endure concerning him, i think you would see things from my point of view. anyway, the point is that, assuming he hasn't done anything to me so far, i have been disliking him for no apparent reason. i must try to be nicer and more friendly, which is not to say that i am not, just more.

well, at least the bruise on my eye is healing and i don't look as much like a panda as before.

anyway, sparknotes, come save me from complete ignorance!!!

2005-06-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

this will probably sound quite childish, but i hope that next week won't come. if next week does come, school will start again. that means that i will have to go, in most cases, to school. i'll have to get up early again. then there'll be exams for which i have really barely prepared myself fully. i'll have to make conversation with some people. okay, i'm fine with most people, i think, but i know it's impossible for everyone to please me, unfortunately, so i forgive you. and there'll be the nationals, for which i don't think we are that prepared either. sigh. school school school...

i used to be okay with the start of school. hmmm...

2005-06-24T16:58:00.000-07:00

have you ever stopped to wonder why it is that when you are waiting for, say, a particular bus, it never seems to come, but when you wait at exactly the same spot and time for a different bus on another occasion, that particular bus is always passing you by? or perhaps that a particular set of notes always seems to be lying around, but when the time to finally use it comes, the pixies have passed your room and spirited them away? maybe pixies really exist... and there might really be a conspiracy to keep you waiting at the bus-stop for a particular bus. hmmm....

i think i'm becoming such a klutz nowadays. as i was getting into the car to go for tuition today, i carelessly walked into the door and knocked my eye on it. still hurts, i think i bruised it.

then when i got to tim's house, i asked if he had any ice and if it looked very bad. he unkindly told me that he couldn't see my eye because of the huge bruise when there obviously wasn't any. it sort of really freaked me out. but i think it's okay now.

while we waited for the bus outside his house after tuition, he started to make fun of the fact i'm such a patriot in wanting to serve my beloved country for two more months. i shall try not to. he suggested visiting me while i was "inside" and bringing stuff in for me, like i'm going to some prison... wait, it is a prison.

but he has to go and become a commando i think. i mean i can't be one, i'm my parents' only son. but he's got a brother... and how many boys are there in singapore who have brothers? he thinks he'll be able to play squash for the army though. yeah right. haha... it's off to put his head in some toiletbowl for him...

2005-06-21T23:22:00.000-07:00

today was the last day of training in june. quite happy that it's finally over, now i can start truly preparing for the opening week of school. but now that it has ended, i feel like i still need more training sessions. plus, this does mean that the holidays are nearing their own end too.

i find that there are distinct differences between the way people from different backgrounds behave. the reason i say so is because of a certain teammate of mine, from a particular school, who made a general remark while we were hitching a ride from one of the sailing teachers to marine parade or whatever they call it (i wouldn't know these names, i'm not an "easterner").

it went something like this:
[the certain teammate of mine:
you know, if we got out and walked, it'll probably be faster.]

well, to be true, he was correct. if we did get out and walk, it'd have probably been faster. not to appear critical, but although the teacher was in the jam and in a rush too, she was still kind enough to give us a lift. he's nice and well sometimes a bit queer, in an amusing way (like the time when he got drunk and started to play with a marshmallow, that was really funny), but just thought it was quite insensitive and somewhat ungrateful (tsk tsk tsk...), well, at least it's a rare sight.

not to say anything, but you don't see such behaviour in... okay, better not continue. you'd probably know what i would have said anyway. oh well... haha

2005-06-20T00:32:00.000-07:00

shall try shorter posts in future

2005-06-20T00:30:00.000-07:00

tried to do some work today, but just find it really quite impossible. you know when it used to be that you started to get scared about 2 to 3 weeks before the exam, and then that fear helped to pull you back down to earth to do some proper studying? it's gone now. common tests in a week, and i'm like nowhere done, not even halfway through. i feel like such the mugger. i feel like andrew tan you wei.

haha... he was, and probably still is, extremely muggerish... quite an amusing fellow. i remember when we used to make fun of him all the time. he would always have that weird shocked laughter of his, only he can do it and make people laugh. then, for some reason, wee "big ass" keat would always throw his stuff around or smack him or something like that, basically bully him. and he'd just act panicky. that poor dog... oh well... and we used to joke that he surfed animal porn, specifically dog... the poor guy. but the most outrageous and amazing thing he did, i think, was to push his prelim results, i think, up by a grade for 1 or 2 subjects, bargaining, with i think geck kim the original "thousand-year-old demon", for marks from the essays... i mean, it's very hard to be able to do that in my opinion. and i sort of still admire his tenacity in going after what he wanted. of course at that time everyone just thought of it as "kiasu-ism".

now, he's got a girlfriend. probably the last person anyone would have thought of as boyfriend-material. my mom told me she saw him selling flags or something when she went shopping. then i asked if he was with some girl. she said he was with many people, some girls, some boys. probably went so as to be with her, priscilla if i'm not wrong (hope i'm not wrong, just in case she chances on this). the andrew i remember wouldn't sell flags for no apparent reason. but now he's changed a bit; after all, he's got attached. and i think i lost our bet, it's been more than 3 months.

saw kah hung today while i was having dinner. he was waiting for his dinner to begin. some wedding i think. both of us agreed that the wedding dinner was really weird. it's some malay wedding, which is supposed to be held, as is customary according to most people, in some hdb void-deck, where chinese funerals are held (how ironic). but here, instead of the usual void-deck, it's in a chinese restaurant with chinese food. do malays eat pork? is there not a chinese wedding banquet with at least some pork somewhere on the table? hmmm... so... abnormal. my mom said that kah hung looks taller, like i'm sure... i think she just said that because things like that are just said. sounds very brave orchid in woman warrior-ish.

don't really know why, but i think i'm entering the miss-old-ac-days phase again. missing the times when things weren't so complicated, and friends, more or less, were closer. just hanging around with joey and isaac, discussing-others-faults-behind-or-in-front-of-them and having wit-sharpening-contests (gives a whole new meaning to the "iron sharpens iron" theme we had in sec 4 now doesn't it). being what joey either decided to call us or said he heard us being called (i can't remember), "the firing squad" or something like that. haha... quite ridiculous come to think of it. teasing and teased by and joking with tim or andrew or kah hung. being incredibly lame for no reason while at the same time having insightful conversations with ian goh, karno, russell, daryl and others. hmmm... rather idyllic, in a way, don't you think?

i think i've changed somewhat and come to know more about myself and others?

i didn't know that people, at times, really couldn't stand it when they were teased, eugene oh "qiuying" is one example, and so i think i have become nicer (not to say that i wasn't nice in the first place). maybe sensitive is a better word.

i didn't think that i was considered rich, and i still don't though. still can't comprehend the fact some people may have problems eating in a hawker centre as tim once told me, and no, not because it's dirty.

i didn't realise that there were so many misconceptions about acsians. as in some people can actually hate us without even knowing more than say 2 people from acs, and that's what i don't understand. i didn't fully recognise the importance of being acsian, that sense of belonging that seems so lacking in rj, for me at least. obviously this sounds very weird coming from someone who probably only cheered a couple of times, and very unwillingly if i may add, in all the competitions we were obliged to go and cheer for. but, things change and you cherish what you no longer have.

and most importantly, i think, is that there are some people who have radically different opinions from my own, and unfortunately, i will have to live with them existing on this earth. sigh.

2005-06-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

oh... they aren't together apparently. i was right. people were tricking me. oh well... like it really matters, just don't want either of them to chance on this and think the worst. i think he's quite pissed with people thinking and saying so. and people seem to go blog-shopping... so....

cats

2005-06-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

today, i think i saw what is like the gross-est thing ever, at least for the rest of this week. as i was happily minding my own business and walking back to my boat to get my rudder, my eyes chanced upon this little cat. i don't exactly know what it was that it was doing, but basically it was like this funny up-and-down shoulder movement. so i thought it was doing some funny cat dance, and frankly it, the cat as well as the dance, did indeed appear to be quite cute and amusing. that was until it opened its mouth and puked. eww... it was like some disgusting crap, and right at my feet (figuratively of course). furthermore, it didn't just vomit in any-old-corner, it had to vomit right on the spot where i normally sit when there's nothing to do after rigging-up. hmmm... don't think i'll ever sit there again...

daniel lee nearly got his face scratched off by a tiny kitten today. he tried poking at the poor little kitten with a chopstick. then it got up, started purring really loudly and arched its back. i think if he continued, he'd look quite bad, as in scar-ey, now.

i found out just today that kevin and katherine/catherine are in a relationship, as in officially together. as in i thought he liked her but didn't dare ask her or something. basically that they were on the edge but not quite there yet. seems i was wrong. why do i only get to know of things after everyone else? anyway... they look quite good together, plus, i also realised that both their names create an alliterative effect. and we saw two k-ats cuddling together in the rain today, how apt. hope they weren't doing anything else... hehe... well, i actually think i might be wrong and that everyone might be playing a trick on me, but for now i shall assume they are together.

seems like today's all about cats

2005-06-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

cip yesterday wasn't as bad as i thought. it was actually okay on the whole. nothing impossibly bad happened, just that my terrible briefing skills were confirmed. what? shouldn't they have at least read the email before the briefing? if not then what would the briefing be for? might as well not even have sent the email right? but most of the people knew what to do in the end, so it wasn't too bad. maybe for me, that was because i barely talked to the kids, but still...

realised how mean a particular junior of mine can be. for most of the time, i think, he's quite nice and helpful. then occasionally, he gets mean. as he and i were walking off to the hall to get things ready, i told him how ridiculous it was that we had to buy bottled water for the kids. he said that they couldn't drink from the water-coolers because either their drinking our water would poison the water, or that the knowledge, intelligence and information and what-not accumulated in the water through our drinking the water would cause an information-overload in the kids, and they would explode. quite mean eh? oh well... as long as he doesn't direct it against me, i have no problems with it. can be amusing at times.

then, there was this little boy who was really quite queer. he started wandering off to somewhere for no reason and with nobody looking after him. he first tried walking out of school till i caught up with him and told him not to leave school. he mumbled something in return, and i walked off. then, when we brought the snacks down for tea, we saw him wandering around again. towards the end of the whole day, as the kids were supposed to be playing games, we found him strolling around doing nothing really. he looked really sad, so mabel and charmaine asked me to go talk to him. well, i thought i should, but didn't in the end. i mean i really can't talk to them. i don't know what to talk to them about or how. plus if i talked to him, he'd probably be worse now then before. sad kid. oh well... we can't do everything, can we?

2005-06-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

forgot about tuition today. i think i'm becoming so forgetful nowadays. maybe it's because of stress? but don't really know why i guess. (did i just rhyme?) anyway tuition was quite fruitful. managed to comprehend the lesson and complete the exercises in one hour when my fellow tuition-mates took two. does that make me smarter than those hwa chong boys? hmmm... duh...

when i first heard, or more correctly saw, the new hwa chong name, HCI, i thought the "I" was really an "l". and so i thought it was HCl, as in hydrochloric acid. see, i don't forget all my secondary school stuff. bill chia should be proud, despite the fact i probably learnt nothing from him, stupid gep-per teacher. once again saved by tuition. anyway, i thought it was such a weird name for a school, and i still do. i mean, if it's a school, why do you need to give it another name. not like "school" is some unpleasant or vulgar word that you need to use a euphemism for it like "institution". it's probably an attempt at product differentiation which makes the consumer believe he has a wider variety of goods and services and thus a higher standard of living. i have been studying.

talking about hwa chong, from what i hear about it from kah hung, it sounds terrible. well at least the fact they need to have assembly in the mornings with chinese high. ewww... plus i heard the festival they celebrate the most is mid-autumn. sounds really cheena. not that there's anything wrong with being close to one's roots, but i'm not cheena, i'm chinese. i believe there is a difference.

went to lunch and to buy water for the cip kids after that. still don't understand mabel when she says the kids can't drink from the water-cooler and so we have to buy mineral water for them. i don't think the water-coolers are poisoned. if not wouldn't something bad have happened to us? perhaps it already has, just that we don't know yet.

then i went to school to renew my books and book some venue for tomorrow. the school staff are really quite tough to work with. first, i can't book the concourse without a teacher (i wasn't told that when i called to inquire). the reason for which shall remain a mystery until some kind soul explains it to me.

second, that old librarian seems to be on perpetual pms. if i looked at the floor, i would be sure to find a pool of blood wherever she goes. kept scolding me for dunno-what when i was renewing my books. don't see why i could enter the library in what i was wearing. not like i was sweaty or indecently-dressed. so what's the big deal? the other time i went to borrow a book, i gave up after a while because while signing out some stuff for this girl in front of me, she kept complaining about not being able to go to the toilet amongst other things. this just proves my point that there's something wrong with rjc.

obscene

2005-06-09T21:58:00.001-07:00

i originally wanted to blog about today being a happy day with me not doing anything on the beach while we went on to narrowly lose to vj in the stupid team race, and later making fun of and joking with ian low, who really is brad pitt in disguise, or so the taxi driver yesterday thought while we were watching scenes from mr and mrs smith in the cab on the way to nsc. but i decided on this instead.

if you are a girl (horny girls not included) or anyone else easily offended or scandalized by certain suggestive words or phrases or images, i would seriously suggest not reading on. i also apologise for possibly sounding crude and obscene in the following paragraphs, though i am not remotely crude or obscene, there is a difference in case you didn't know.

if they ever ask in a gp comprehension for the meaning of words like irritatingly, persistently, non-stopping-ly or any other adverb along those lines, that includes perversely as one of my classmates correctly pointed out during one gp lesson, i will know exactly what to write as my answer now. hmmm shall not mention his name on my blog (he's quite pissed about it, so i'm being nice as usual). let's let him speak for himself... (red is the colour of passion and danger, quite appropriate here in referring to him)

[that person says:
i noe i have a big phalus]
that was him by the way, not me trying to impersonate him. i only do that with his low low voice to mock him. "ha ha ha"

i think he spelt it wrongly. but what doesn't he spell wrongly? let's see... neccessary, presception and countless others. i try not to remember. might make my spelling become as good as his, should perhaps be as bad... i know my english isn't perfect, so i could be wrong, i realised the other day that i have been spelling defence in the french way for dunno-how-long, but he really needs to pay attention to, as evans once mentioned, his spelling. then maybe he can get more "a"s and "b"s eh? but maybe, as helen tan said, it was only a "flash in the pan, ****", so we don't really know, do we? (**** was so you wouldn't know his name, nothing vulgar intended).

i can just see his reaction to this right now in my head. it'll probably be either one of the usual predictable following six reactions.
1) "what the f***!!!",
2) "what the hell!!!",
3) "screw/f*** you!!!",
4) points third finger in that weird way of his,
5) winks in that weird way of his,
and the last which is highly improbable,
6) laughs in that weird way of his, "ha ha ha".

anyway, he, being bored, decided to talk to me tonight on msn. how happy and overjoyed and honoured i am to have been granted the greatest privilege in the entire world!!! i should be prancing around for joy right now... i was having a conversation with him, the biggest dick in the whole world, or so he imagines, and it was then that he started to refer to whatever it is that he presumably has while giving suggestions for a new name to my blog. i really have nothing against him, except for that imagination of his, or should i say fantasy. he really is quite a pleasant young man, except for, yes, that imagination, and the occasions when he casually forgets to turn away from other people when his pretty little nose stuck to his pretty little head decides it needs to sneeze. but he isn't bad at all. just that, ****, you bloody kkj (i think you know what that means), you have to stop thinking you are or have a huge penis.

ps. if you, mr. p, are reading this, please don't get pissed. i feel really sorry but as you can see, i'm bored as well.

2005-06-08T18:35:00.000-07:00

today has been.... depressing

might tomorrow bring something better? hope so, but frankly speaking, i really doubt it. shall try to find something to cheer me up, maybe ice-cream or popcorn. a couple of nice people did try to cheer me up today, or so it seems, but it didn't really work very well. nonetheless i think i'm feeling somewhat better. and yes, i shall try even harder to flatten my boat tomorrow (not that i didn't try today). that is of course if i sail tomorrow.

2005-06-08T00:37:00.000-07:00

should really be typing my email to the teachers about cip now, but it seems like i rather be doing this right now.

i must say that i don't really like cip. plus i don't really like the people we are having cip with and for right now. don't mean to complain or discriminate, but they're from some funny dunno-duncare-what-name neighbourhood school. it is absolutely imperative that no one even think i'm just being an elitist, high-and-mighty ac boy at this moment because i mean it's not that i don't like them just because they are from some neighbourhood school, i probably have some friends who were or are neighbourhoodies (just that i can't remember their names), but they have their problems and i have mine. right now, i'd rather be concentrating on what matters. unfortunately for those people, it just doesn't include them. maybe this is why when cip day comes, i shall be forced to delegate all the duties that require any form of communication or interaction with those kids to someone else and just handle the logistics and food. those are important things too okay... plus something bad is bound to happen when you put me next to some neighbourhoody thingy... anyway happy talking to delinquents y'all!!!

[and the people from CARE should really realise that a delinquent is still a delinquent no matter what name you call him---"at-risk children" is nothing but a euphemism]

well, cip isn't going all too well. i guess it's as good as it gets considering how much effort i put into it. actually i did try to put more effort into it. just that our beloved ungrateful popular bookstore will not give us a sponsorship in spite of the fact we were actually going to use most of the money they would have given us to buy stuff at their bookstore. don't they realise how much students actually spend at their bookstores buying this tys and that tys? so now we have to get each of the volunteers to contribute money to get more cip hours. at least there's "free" lunch...

i was told tonight that an entry of mine sounds like i'm a certain someone else. i have no choice but to keep both their names secret, if not this would just be terrible. if you want to know who, you can ask me. anyway, might i add that i'm quite horrified at having been likened to that person. i believe that person is nice and all, but i don't sound like that person and never hope to. precisely the thing i have explicitly said i am not, if you refer to post 1 you will see what i mean.

sent dad off to the airport already. the airport seems so empty... i thought that one of the world's best airports would have more people, but maybe the planes are coming in. we, well more like i, actually spent some time wondering where the mrt station for the airport actually is. i have taken the mrt at the airport before if you were wondering, just that i can't remember where it is. not my fault, i can't remember insignificant things like where the airport mrt station is. and no, i'm not implying at this point in time that neighbourhoodies are insignificant. if you think so, then that just goes to show what an arrogant little snob you must be. anyway, he'll get there by 12 tomorrow. i think singapore-time because i don't think london's that far. hope the trip's safe.

2005-06-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

my dad's leaving for london tonight on some business trip. shall pray for journey-mercy and success for the trip. this may actually mean i will get to use the computer a bit more over the weekend, but probably not because i have to start studying (shall not use the term mugging because i don't mug).

anyway, i like london. it's so english and chic. okay, maybe not chic, but it's definitely english, and, well, london's supposed to be the most hip european capital. my mom prefers paris, and so do i, but for different reasons. i like it because it's more beautiful. she likes it because in the metro, there aren't as many indians, no, people-with-a-darker-complexion, as on the tube. i do agree with her, but that's no reason not to like london.

[oh and if you were thinking "what a racist family", take note, she's not racist and nor am i. i have plenty of minority-races friends, and she doesn't like the darker-complexion-people on the tube because they are rude and noisy, not because they're dark.]

well, london is nice, what with all that history and culture, isn't the queen an example of the history? but seriously, london's got a much prettier and appealing skyline compared to singapore. i mean, unlike singapore, there aren't any of those ugly hdb flats and buildings, no offence at all to those who might live in either, and one big example is RJC Bishan, really quite "wrong-looking".

there's a regatta tomorrow and i must say i'm not really looking forward to it, not because of my wonderful position during last week's regatta, well actually yeah, it's partly because of that. what if it repeats this week? so embarrassing. i continue to maintain that it was all due to my stupid sail and it's inability to do what i wanted it to. oh and plus i have to get up at don't-know-what-ungodly-hour to get there. for some obscure reason we have to be there at 8?! like for what!! to watch the sun rise? or so that we can happily waste another 4 hours doing nothing after we rig-up like last week? well okay i think the sun does rise by that time, but seriously? is it that necessary? the only consolation is that my mom is kind enough to send me there, so i guess i don't have much to complain about. oh well. wish me the best of luck!!!

returning to the topic of studying, i strongly urge all you students out there preparing for common test 2 to start as soon as possible. in preparation for today's meeting with helen tan, i had to study sloman from 7 to 12 last night. it does feel weird that one has to study to ask questions that are supposed to help one study, i mean, if you did study, why would you need to ask questions? and normally people study to answer questions, not ask them. but i may be wrong and that's not the point here (and she did say she would never ever help those who either didn't turn up or didn't even bother to sign up). despite my valiant effort, i believe i have only chipped at the surface of the enormous iceberg that is economics. and that's only one subject. how am i going to finish everything in time? therefore, it means that we should all just bury ourselves in our books, at least until the exams are over.

there, my first real post. so long

2005-06-06T04:12:00.000-07:00

thanks to michael's persistent persuasion, i have begun my first blog. and i'm naming it after the object that has influenced many of life's moments, the spirit of the black dragon pool. i actually was thinking of naming the blog just that but guess not. just in case anyone even dares to think i am some queer cheena person like i-shall-not-mention-names, i must make this clear, i am not. anyway, i realise i have little to say now haha. well, it's about what's going on, that's all. yupyup... so i hope not to bore anyone, but if that happens then oh well and too bad.