Today in the afternoon when I was really bored I went back to read my blog. I clicked on the screenshot I posted yesterday and realised I left the douche's name on my startbar. Then I realised I didn't care about offending such a person and decided not to edit it. Also I went to do some further research about the books in question and Naipaul's is (surprise!) non-fiction. However this little saving grace of his is negated by it appearing in both the fiction and non-fiction sections.

Still fail.

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On Monday and yesterday during the National Day celebrations rehearsal and rehearsal itself, among the remixed shit songs by Asha (it's Singapore's own version of Usher! Get it? AHAHAHA.), a song that I haven't heard in years played. It was Singapore Town (which was also remixed incidentally...).

Hearing that song and the familiar lyrics brought me back to a time when I was still (vaguely) innocent. The year was 2000 and we'd all just survived the y2k bug, and I was again stuck in the shittiest class of the lot, 4.1. We had to do some sort of item for the National Day celebrations in MGS as an inter-class competition and we chose that song to sing and dance to. We made a bus out of many pieces of vanguard sheets. It had windows and was painted. I remember being very proud and happy during that time, but now thinking back I feel an aura of wtf.

Thinking back about my classmates now, I realise I don't actually remember who was in that class who went to MGS Secondary. I'm sure they were definitely the majority because at 200 points for PSLE, almost everyone could go in - but their faces and names escape me now. Ah what a shitty class.

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I watched a bit of the National Day Parade just now when I was having dinner. Here are some snippets of the things I observed and thought:

1) Last year at this time I was sick and at my grandmother's place, the planes flew overhead her house
2) During one of the shots, the view changed to that of a rag running across the camera's lens. I found it profoundly amusing.
3) It was raining. What a shitty day for marching
4) Jacintha's singing was bad and off key, she also sounded very uncertain
6) What life would have been like if I did marching for NDP in 2006
7) They played Lifehouse's Blind during the Black Hawk Aerobatic Stunts. Someone up there has a very cruel sense of humour (don't bother googling the lyics, this is more as a note to myself)

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This reminds me again of a point I keep forgetting to blog about: I very often have thoughts that begin with "In a parallel universe..."

In them, I proceed to think of every decision making vaguely defining moment of my life, and then think about what would have happened had I taken the other route. (Damnit, I just thought about Frost's poem The Road Not Taken which was my favourite poem by him) I imagine that somewhere on parallel universe #23, Melodie who chose not to reject Chinese in K2 is off living a happier life because she is better at Chinese - or even mundane parallel universe #707 where Melodie who chose to take a shower at 6 pm today is now reading Lear in bed - and then there are the downright vaguely sad ones where on parallel universe #313 Melodie is still happily attached to the people she was attached to. And then I think about this parallel universe I am on, and wonder if they think of me as being on a parallel plane too.

Then my brain explodes because it is thinking in a loop. Ha.

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I finished reading Su Tong's Madwoman on the Bridge last night. I must say it exceeded my expectations of it. The plots were haunting and insightful, giving me a glimpse into the life on present day modernising China and it's varied effects. While I think the setting could have had extra work done on it (it helped a lot that I was in China last year and saw the less shinier city of Guangzhou), the characters were wonderfully fleshed out and they struck a chord with me. The plots ran the gamut - from the creepily supernatural to rather negative views of present day society. It is also a very China Chinese book in that it does not really centre on Chinese traditions per se, but the new culture that has been created in the wake of the Culture Revolution and the general displacement of things that only such a great social upheaval could have caused.

I would rate this book above that of Zadie Smith's The Book of Other People and Yoko Ogawa's The Swimming Pool, and at par with Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. However as with all translated stories, the prose should be taken with a pinch of salt. All the evocative English words used are due to the craftsmanship of the translator - he might have enhanced what might possibily have been a duller prose. Still, Su Tong puts together a fine prose.

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"We have a role in life
But only a few people
Dare to rewrite the script"

And finally for the last section break, a wonderful advertising campaign by Kenneth Cole promoting diversity. Do check it out. If you're interested in finding out more, check out http://www.kennethcole.com/.