Oh BTW, this is what happened to my crutches:


It became a clothes rack of sorts.

-----

I'm quite terrible, every time I see Mr Intense Stare now I keep bursting out in laughter. This included just now when he randomly popped his head from the 3rd level to look down to the 2nd level bench area where I was seated with Steph, Mong and JLC. JLC told me that I was probably scaring Mr Intense Stare. LOL.

It's been exactly 1 year.

Odd how my scar is tingling today, when usually it is fine.

I just averted my first eye contact lens crisis - I got them out after they got stuck in my really dry eyes. I panicked a little at first, it was freaky because usually you can place you (clean, washed with soap) finger on the lens and move it a bit. But this time it was so firmly stuck on that I thought I was pushing my own eyeball ): Then as I moved my finger, my entire eye changed direction proportionally :x I just put a little pressure on it, and my eyeball felt squishy. LOL. It made me think of the eyeball dissection I did in Sec 4, which I was quite disgusted with because it was so hard to pierce and cut through the fibrous (not the proper scientific description) sclera. Then the vitreous humor came out, all jelly like and poke-able.

Actually come to think of it, this is a really sick post.

-----

Today I watched Mosaic's Camera Obscura at the Esplanade. They played a whole host of old favourites like Razzle Dazzle Rose, Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken, alongside new songs from their upcoming album - which sounds really good from the samples they played. As usual, I am tempted to complain loads about the people there, all these ~indie~ people with their skinny jeans, geek glasses and chequered lumberjack shirts, I even saw a few gladiator sandals there and someone wearing a Diana+ camera around their neck. There was also this random girl who stood up to watch at the 'last' song with her friend, blocking everyong behind her. Then she started dancing. Not in a proper way but a I'm-so-feeling-this-song-that-I-am-compelled-to-repeatedly-reangle-my-body-10-degree-10-second-intervals. The song wasn't even dancable too -________- It was a song that even the enthusiastic people downstairs had stopped dancing to. Needless to say Jiahui and I high tailed it out of there as soon as the concert ended. (I just realised that anytime I talk about Mosaic, bitching about the people there is a given)

Anyway the main point of this post was not to bitch about people, but about associative memory. I used to listen to Camera Obscura a lot last year, especially during the month that I was stuck at home because I couldn't walk. One of the songs Camera Obscura has is a song called Let's Get Out of This Country. During that period, I couldn't even bear to listen to that song because of it's implication - a want to get out of the country and being unable to. Listening to that song today being played live was an experience. I felt a sliver of past emotion slid into me, and for a moment felt like I was back there on that day.

Another song they played today was Suspended From Class (please ignore the actual video), which the singer talks about an attraction to someone in class. And then the memory came to me of a time where I used to check last.fm incessantly because of someone, and how he'd always listen to this song over and over, and how I just realised today that he listened to it with the thoughts of me.

Perhaps that is a problem with such a strong associative memory. In my case such a memory is tied very strongly to songs. For instance I will always associate Fools In Love with a certain boy and remember how I used to cry over him in 2006. It it something that I might not remember everyday, heck it's someone I don't think about any more, but it's a song that even a mentioning, can take me back to that day. And I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing, to have my emotions and memories so strongly tied to something that can be sometimes unpredictable.

This will of course pose a dilemma when Stars comes to Singapore. Of course I love Stars, they were my most listened to artist on my last.fm. But then there is the fear that listening to them will conjure up old memories of my past - of the songs we used to share and the songs that reminded us of each other. They were our band (odd considering a lot of their material was about the end of relationships). That's not to say of course that I'm not over him, but I think I can attest to this through experience - a lost past love will never leave you - not even when you're pushing 70 and surrounded by your grandchildren (I am suddenly reminded of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day).

Memories can be suppressed and repressed, they can even be blotted out by hallucinogens and prozac, but in reality they're always with you everyday.

I enjoyed the interview immensely.

If college experience is going to be like that, then well I'm sold! Honestly!

I arrived at the college all apprehensive and was the first to arrive among the 2:30 people. I made my way though hordes of scary staring RJC students, avoiding their penetrating gazes as I walked and instead closely examined the flooring of RJC (mostly poured cement). I ended up sitting down and reading Time while waiting for the interview to start.

Inside the reading room, I jotted down notes that came to mind, stoned a bit and read the scratchings on the table "Did I ever do something that *unreadable word* to you?". At first I thought it was Spanish because of the upside down '?', but later realised it was written upside down. I also kept thinking about 'Be Thou My Vision' even though 'Eye of the Tiger' is my 2008 I-can-do-anything! song (Be Thou My Vision was my 2006 song). I also noted how the hair of the girl next to me seemed to be falling out in alarming clumps :x

The guy who interviewed me was from Lady Margaret Hall. He was bearlike. He was also very friendly, and that helped a lot. The passage I got was the same one as Arjun, on the Great Man Theory, so yay, it fit in nicely with the History I've been studying for the past week on Lenin. We also ended up talking about my Extended Essay (and the thought that if I had to do the essay verbally I would have scored better flitted through my head). Overall it was a interesting and invigorating experience, I genuniely enjoyed the discussion. At the end I even asked the Professor if he'd enjoy having a student like me, and he said yes. I felt much better after that because it means no matter where I go, I'm someone that people want to teach :D

Of course this also brings up the Theory of Backwards. The better the interview, the worse you have actually done. This is because the Profs save the missives for the ones they deem smart enough to fight back. Whatever it is, even if I don't get in, it was a truly enjoyable experience discussing History with that Professor (I very sadly, forgot his name).

On the Eve of My Mind's Rape/Utter Humiliation:

I am sanguine.
I have nothing to lose.
It is a growing experience.
It is a learning experience.
It is an exercise in mental gymnastics.

I am intelligent.
I don't know if I want it that badly.
It's never been a definite end all dream.
I still don't know what I really want, after all.
So I need to remember: it is not a do or die matter.

I might end up there anyway.
I still want to go post-graduated studies.
Loads of people who didn't get in for undergrad got in for postgrad.
Some of the interviewing panel didn't even come from O. University themselves.
And most importantly I need to remember this: I as a person am not defined by where I go

but what I make of life.

Really random post before I post my main blog post (because I am anal this way):

I keep listening to SexyBack over and over again, despite the fact that I made fun of Suat when she was listening to it excessively around 2006 -___________- It's just well. Damn addictive, and I'm a sucker for good heady beats, like the Womanizer remix that I still play frequently.

----

On facebook today I recieved a message from a group where there was a guy seeking out girls like me for marriage. Yes, I can so imagine the smut flying through your heads now, like youngteenageasiangirlsapiosexualdominatrix kind of fetish. Instead however it was my INFJ personality status. I kid you not. They guy was basically on the lookout for an INFJ female who was also a Jewish Orthodox. K, that so rules me out.

He even has a website. Part of me is inclined to LOL like shit (which most of you probably are doing right now), but part of me likes the idea that someone thinks my personality type is special enough to specify that when looking for a marriage mate.

I don't know how many of you guys use Wordpress, but for those not in the know that is a screencap from the Wordpress dashboard. It is from some other sort of rubbish project that I'm doing now that I feel is not of a high enough calibre yet (damn you Americans and your 'caliber' spelling!!!) to be released to the mass of cynical readers of the blog. Plus, I'll be laughed at.

Thing is, I made absolutely no mention of it before on this blog, so what the hell are the odds of it appearing on something else completely seperate and unrelated? CREEPY. My online life is stalking me.

-----

Today was the first time I had tze char at Wah Chee. I was with Jon Pang, Mong, JLC, Steph, Kaijun and Gerald. We had butter sotong (which was droolsomely good), sweet and sour pork, cereal chicken and stir fried kai lan.

Later after studying, Mong and I went about taking pictures. Admittedly sans a SLR, I was following Mong along a lot more than taking pictures with my very sad toy camera. Still I got some shots done and used up a roll, and hopefully they will come out exposed adequately though I realised I screwed up something only when I got home -__________________- It was also amusing watching the little kids run around playing night games for their UYO camps. For the water bomb game by the BB, they erected massive barricades of tables tied up together in the randomest of places in school - like the roundabout and some obscure place at the area behind the MPH.


My most favourite picture of the lot is this shot taken with Mong's SLR, green flash courtesy of my dinky little Diana Flash with green gel filter. It makes the steps look like they were glowing green when in reality it was DAMN DARK (and a little freaky) outside the cage area where that shot was taken. It also reminds me a little of the slides I saw of the light painting photography my dad did before in Bidari cementary with his friend.

Developing film is a pain in the ass -___________-

The thing I most like about long bus rides is that I am given time to think without any outside distractions. The thing I don't like about bus rides are that they usually denote a transit between two points, which means I am unable to recall or record down my exact thoughts en route because there is no recording device on hand. This means that whatever Fantastic Things I have been thinking about often temporal and result in no great epiphanies.

I shall now attempt to record down the random things I was thinking about today, in my 1hr+ spent in 156.

1) A rough list of Things That Made My Heart Stop Yet Beat Faster At The Same Time (in a bad way)
2005 - Prefect Interviews
2006 - Chinese O levels, thinking about O level results
2007 - O level results, IOP
2008 - TOK presentation, IOC, Mid Years, Pre Lims, University Interview, University Test, IB exams
(expected) 2009 - IB results, University Application Results

2) The failure of capitalism and the idea of communism and other new yet to be discovered ideologies (this was a rather short short thought)

3) Implications of the 1st ever recession of my maturity

4) Stereotypes and pigeonholing (I planned to blog about this, but I forgot most of my thoughts)

5) The concept of being 'lost' as a modern (or is it post-modern?) concept

6) The ever present divide between 'elite' schools and the outside world (started by some Nan Chiau High kid talking/shouting really loudly in the bus, having a conversation with his friend who sat across the aisle)

7) Paranoid observances of JC uniform wearing people on the bus (are they applying for the same colleges as me?)

8) Scattered thoughts about how I'll miss random parts of Singapore when I leave next year

-----

I really, really, ought to carry a small notebook with me around.

Here's an interesting link: 'odd' questions that interviewees were asked during the 2007 Oxbridge interviews, courtesy of Arjun who got it from my ex-lover, Adriel (yes he broke my heart one too many times).

Personally, as the days towards IB trudge along, dragging their scarred and calloused feet, I've been assailed by bouts of feeling lost at an increasing frequency - namely the question of 'what the hell exactly am I doing?' My mind has also gone into either denial or self preservation mode, depending on how you look at it. Thoughts of maybeIshouldgotonursingschoolormaybeIoughttotakeayearoffandwriteaboutbeinglostormaybeIshould applytoWasedaUniveristyandseewhathappensormaybeIshouldgoapplyingforaFrench/Finnish/PolishuniversityandlearnthoserespectivelanguagesandseewtfhappensormaybeIshoulddosomething
completelywildandincomprehensibletoeveryone...

It goes on and on and doesn't ever stop coming. Ordinarilly I wouldn't be so bothered by such feelings, but it comes at a time where I really do need to be concentrating and putting my all into studying, convinced that I'd barking up the right tree - not wondering what happens next after it's all over. Plus for someone like me who runs on passion and passion alone, not knowing what exactly it is that I'm passionate about disturbs me to no end

So boo. After years of thinking I managed to accelerate past the issue, I am back to the age old question - who am I?

Today I spent the day with Sir Brythain, Daryl, Arjun, Ian, Kaijun, Chong Wee, Ted Kin and Gen. We were celebrating Daryl's 18th at the really retro The Ship Restaurant (where my parents once dated, wtf!).

The day started off on a dodgy note though, with Daryl, Arjun and I stuck temporarily at RELC as it started to rain like hell around 11:30 am. We had gone there to pay for an admissions test. Scouting around, we found out that umbrellas cost $16 and $10 in the shop and vending machine there respectively. We then opted to take a cab to Shaw Centre instead ($4). There we wandered around Isetan supermarket, cumulating in Daryl and I buying sushi to supplement hungry stomachs since we anticipated that people would come late anyway.

We then went to The Ship Restaurant to wait, and Kaijun was first to come. This was soon followed by Sir Brythain, Ted Kin and finally Gen. We then ordered our food. Finally when we finished our main courses, Ian and Chong Wee finally came. Sir Brythain left around 1:45 because of other engagements and the rest of us ended up bumming by wandering first to Borders, then McCafe and finally Kinokuniya. What a bum day -_-

Then afterwards I went to the photo shop at 6th Avenue to develop the first roll of film taken with my new Diana+ camera. Let's just say to my dying day I will eternally regret having gone there. What a bloody rip off -_____________________________________________- blah live and learn.

Here's to hoping I can concentrate and study properly for the rest of the remaining days.

And I just accidently ate a piece of tissue paper. I thought it was a crumb of potato chip. Wtf -____-

Most awesome Sarah Palin video to date that does not originate from Saturday Night Live:

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Ryan's school is punishing us again for not being able to control him. They suspended him for a week (again) for biting two people within the span of one week. So now he's stuck at home, watching barney over and over again (obviously he could not be more pleased with the predicament - let's just hope he doesn't recognise the correlation between biting people and being rewarded with No School) and carrying out some new odd behaviour, drawing on the walls with crayon.

Meanwhile, I'm stuck listening to Jingle Bells in the middle of October. This is certainly an absued situation.

So wow. I've just finally completed my UCAS application, complete with reallybad reference. I've also just received my interview timing (so that's one hurdle done with, now for the next 3 hurdles), also complete with a mangled Melanie Wong as my name.

I don't feel really prepared in any what whatsoever for this. It also has not sunk in that I'm going to university next year (but Sims 3 coming out has!).

Similarly, it doesn't feel like the IB exams are coming at all.

I'll continue with my end of school post another day - sorry Jim!

I still remember my first few days of school clearly. I came in, completely disoriented and stuck with a bunch of MGS girls I didn't know. We bunched together, introverts (believe it or not am I introverted) lost in a sea of extroverts from Other Schools. We ate out recess in silence, having gravitated towards the one recognisable store because it was similar to the Red Bowl Noodle Store in MGS. The first recess I ate wanton mee. I remember staring at my chopsticks rather despondently, hoping to hell that I wasn't making a damned fool out of myself because of my woebegone chopstick skills. Then two unfamiliar faces came and asked if they could join us, one was Sarah and the other was Tricia.

So that was how I made my first non-MGS, ACSI friend (minus the rest of the people I knew prior, like Jono and Petrina). We ended up sitting together with Tricia for most of the rather lengthy, pointless and boring introductory courses. There, my attention was also caught by two particular noisy boys by the name of Calvin and Lex. I remember right before classes were released, I scanned my eyes down the list of subject combinations that were listed and realised that Lex had the most similar combination as mine, and I wished really hard that we'd be in the same class together.

When the class assignments were first released, I remember being excited that I had Lex as a classmate. On the other hand I was sad we were the only two people assigned to .9, I didn't like the idea of not knowing anyone else. Someone came and led us up to class, and I remember being really nervous as Lex was laughing and joking away. When we stepped in, the first thing that I noticed was the ang moh teacher, and I remember thinking 'holy cow, this school is so rich that they can afford ang moh teachers!'. Then I noticed Cielo, someone I recognised from MGS but didn't know. That afternoon, I ended up taking 74 and 165 back home with Joash - the first of many such trips.

When I came to class in the morning, I felt really scared. Some people came and showed me a seat, so I placed my stuff there. Looking around, no one looked particularly friendly or made a move to talk to me at all. At a loss of what to do, I went outside of class and stoned for a bit. The first lesson was Chinese, which was utterly chaotic. Various people came in and out, and I remember Xian Yi talking to me, which I really appreciated. This was because the two people seated next to me, Nic and Ted Kin were silent (I later learned this is because one was a zombie and was sleeping with his eyes open, and the other is just silent by nature) and this really made me feel like shit.

The next lesson was History, and it felt really odd being the only girl there in a class full of guys (this ended up later repeating itself, as the 3 other girls started to disappear from lessons altogehter). The lesson was something on Russian History, and I could barely remember my O level stuff. Then WTY paired us into groups to do RAFT. When choosing the topics for the RAFTs, the guys started a bidding war. This started when someone started yelling for a particular topic, then all the other guys from other groups started yelling. Gradually the group members joined in, and the teacher's voice was drowned out in a sea of yelling, with hidden tones of utter amusement. Somewhere in the middle of this whole mess I sat, wishing to hell I was back in the office working again, and feeling out of place like never before.

The other lesson I had that day was SL1. Because of a mix up before, I wasn't sure if my SL1 was Math or Bio. I was frantically trying to ask my classmates about this, but lots of them were rushing off for Chemistry. Finally, Gabriel came to help me. Problem was, he didn't know where the lessons were either. I followed him as he started to make various phone calls. Time started a-ticking, and soon he need to rush off for classes. At this point, lost outside a random C3 classroom, I felt myself on the brink of tears. So far I had spent this entire day in quasi-solitude, lost, out of place and feeling oh-so-unhappy, and now here I was about to miss a lesson on my first day of school. After Gabriel apologised and ran off for Chem, I shed a few tears and walked about aimlessly. I soon ran into Sarah, who was taking SL1 Biology, and I ended up sitting in her class. Later, The Indian Lady helped me get my classes in order and told me where to report for SL3 Biology.

After returned from Biology, I remember finding the entire class empty, save from a random guy (Gen) who was playing with a soccer ball alone in class. Afraid of going down to eat alone, I ended up eating only a light snack for recess (also eaten alone) and ended up with gastric pains. My memory gets patchy at this point, and I remember asking someone what White Space was.

Because we were new students, we had some fail orientation thing planned. We were supposed to stay back after school and mingle with the student council nominees for some games. However in the middle of the games, the 4 of us, Mary, Judith, Tricia and me got called out for choir auditions because we had earlier expressed interest. Though the auditions were casual and simply, I was too terrified to sing in case people laughed. So I didn't sing. And that is how I ended up not joining choir (this trend repeats itself often, not auditioning for things).

I remember being really shaken by this inability of mine to sing. Burdened down by the unhappy events of the day, my mind started to spin into a litany of self pity and general generic sadness. Watching the odd activities that majority of the Second Intakers were playing, I felt such a great sense of displacement and kept wishing I had gone to ACJC instead. Finally when Cielo asked me how the choir auditions went, everything that had be swimming around in my head rushed to the surface and I started to crack up - so I walked off to go home. As I walked out along the astroturf, the tears kept coming and on the First Day of School, I cried as I walked out of those gates.

My MSN dp was a picture of Mong with some intense ass stare.

Mong says:
your display picture is turning me on
Melodie says:
fuck you
Mong says:
lol.
what?
it's highly sexual
Melodie says:
you're gay malcolm
getting turned on by a guy
since it's effectively you
so you can go fuck yourself
Mong says:
narcissist
Melodie says:
gay fag
Mong says:
given the subject i can hardly be blamed
Melodie says:
urgh you're disgusting

-----

This ALMOST destroyed my sappy mood. I blame it on this song, that keeps playing over and over in my head. Damn you Lulu.

For some inexplicable reason, my brother always switches the TV in the living room to the Kids/Arts/Vasantham channel. This means that almost every Sunday afternoon we end up watching some random Bollywood/Kollywood movie. Sometimes these movies are downright incomprehensible, sometimes they are downright LOL and other times like today, they are so awesomely LOL WTF? That they demand retelling. Today's movie was 1998's Jeans.

The bit I started watching from was when the girl's family (played by Aishwarya Rai) was about to leave the guy's family at the airport for God-knows-where. At the airport, it is evident that the girl has something on her mind, and she keeps looking at the guy. Then as she finally decides to confess to him and say everything, he turns to the guy and starts speaking... only to realise later that she was speaking to the twin brother of the guy she loved. That was the part that got me hooked as I started laughing manically away.

The girl then tries again with the right guy, but then some random weirdo comes by and pulls her away to seek out her grandmother. This then results in her being unable to speak to him as she gets pulled towards the Departure gates. The shot then changes to that of the guy, who is now all tormented inside because he realises that he's been in love with her all along, and that it might be too late to let her know how he really feels. Then he starts running! He does the 100 yard dash towards a Candy Shop. The screen then changes to her, as she keeps returning to the Departure gates to get a glimpse of him. We then see him again! He gets hold of a stalk of rose, dumps the money at the cashier's and starts running for the Departure Gates. Finally we see the shot of her, at the gates for the last time as her grandmother screams for her to get her ass into the security lines.

At the security lines, the guard opens her bag to check her things. Inside, he finds a crushed up coke can, a plastic bag containing shredded leaves, empty sweet wrappers and two powerless batteries. We are then treated to interjecting scenes of him crushing the coke can, tearing up a random leaf, littering with sweet wrappers and doing something I forgot to the batteries. In a knowing voice the guard says, "It's all from a special someone right?" and she smiles weakly. Then screen then returns to the guy at the Departure Gates with his rose. He stands there with a look of utter loss across his face, staring into the mass of humanity inside - knowing that she is there but cannot see him. He runs into some random corner and starts crying.

At this corner however, his brother pops up and tells him to Chase After Her. In a completely plot-holey scene, they get inside the Departure Gates and he tries frantically to ask the guards to get her out of her plane. His request gets turned down. When he desperately asks why, the guard points out the window and we see a shot of a KLM plane taking off. His face crumples.

They return reluctantly to their house. Then poof! Out she jumps with some other guy, yelling 'SURPRISE!!!'. (I died from disbelief and laughter at this part) When he asks how come she's back, she replies that her grandmother had a splitting headache while waiting in the Boarding Area and a doctor recommended that they return home to rest. Then the shot changes to the grandmother, who is very obviously feigning a headache. Later when we see the grandmother at dinner, she's all smiles, with no sign of a headache at all.

That night, the grandmother 'goes to sleep early' and he comes and visits her in her room. They walk out to a patio. There we see him hemming and hawing as she turns away shyly. Finally he walks up to her and says something (THE SUBTITLES STOPPED HERE! ASSHOLES), places a hand on her cheek. She shyly, places her hand on his cheek and they kiss. AWWWWW.

The next shot was so stereotypically LOL that well. I just LOLed. They started dancing in the patio, then Ellis Island, New York (with the still intact Twin Towers as a background), Greenwich Village, Random Road in USA and Rocky Outcropping that looked like Ayer's Rock in Australia. This was where I kind of stopped watching since I thought the movie was over.

But no! It was not. There were a few random scenes after where Conflict! came into the picture. This guy who liked Madhu (the girl's name) tried to sabotage the Vish (the guy) by cutting off his hair when he's sleeping (LOL biblical reference). But the bastadly deed gets stopped by Vish's father. Then the showdown scene happens, where Vish's father explains to Madhu's grandmother that because of some past conflict with his twin brother that I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND BECAUSE THERE WERE NO SUBTITLES, his sons were only allowed to marry twin girls.

(At this part the subtitles returned) To this the grandmother coolly replies that Madhu is a twin, something that is news even to Madhu herself. The grandmother goes on to explain that before Madhu's mother gave birth, a fortune teller predicted that the birth of twin girls would cause Madhu's father to die young. As a result when Madhu and sister were born, the grandmother spirited away Madhu's sister and passed her to her cook and supplied him with money to raise her up. So ta dah! Problem solved. I really died at this part. It's like things were so out of this world and fit into solving the problem so nicely that it was all so farcical and LOL.

At the next scene in private, Madhu excitedly asks her grandmother about her twin sister. The grandmother replies then that she lied and Madhu had no twin sister. I died again, from being mindfucked yet again in such a short window of time. Finally at the last scene I watched, Madhu's grandmother was trying to convince her son that he did the weird deeds she had earlier 'recounted' to Vish's father in front of Vish's family. At this part I gave up watching, because I knew my poor mind could no longer take any more of such pure mindfucking.

But that was, an awesome movie.

In the morning today we ended up being locked out of class. This is because Darren, the usual person in charge of the keys didn't come to school yesterday. This resulted in someone leaving the key inside of class as the Estate Office people came around to lock the doors in the evening. When today came, the class key was understandably missing from the Estate Office. So for once in my entire time at ACSI we spent an exam-less morning camping outside the class.

-----

This afternoon I met Asyikin at the bus stop on my way to Holland V. This resulted in probably the longest conversation I have ever had with her, a little sad when you realise that we've been in the same two schools for over 6 years together but never really got to know each other.

I then met Vicky at Coffee Bean to try and help her with Literature. It was then that I realised how different IB was from O level lit. For example when I saw the guiding questions for their Unseen extracts, my brain died. I couldn't remember how to answer them properly anymore. In fact, I even kind of forgot that they existed. Then I looked at the old essays that I brought along and realised that from 2 years ago, my handwriting is now a lot more messier. And then I realised how my writing style has changed from technique-to-technique to line-by-line for written commentaries. And that I now suck at writing more.

I have no idea what point I'm trying to make here other than the fact that things have changed and I feel weird now because I didn't really consciously recognise those changes.

For some reason, Britney Spears has recently reappeared in my life. This is partly due to the line "always and forever you and me/that's the way our lives should be" running over and over in my head until I got frustrated and googled the line. But no, that was not all! It was only the beginning. The worst onslaught of Britney came on when Jiahui sent me this link for a remix of Womanizer, which for some reason is damn addictive - so I ended up listening to it a few tens of times. Or maybe hundreds. Whatever.

In school I wasn't spared either. Justin and Elliot started singing Oops I Did It Again during the English paper review. Then this morning I started thinking about Oops I Did It Again and ended scrawling it over Joash's Econs stuff.

Now I'm on a roll. I'm going to listen to every single Britney hit tonight. I feel my brain cells dying already - and I'm actually enjoying it. I kind of miss the time where almost every single bit of music was happy!!! innocent!!! and sugar!!! instead of omg bleed death die so deep/music that makes no sense because it's about 'hos and umbrellas.

-----

On a more sombre note my brother has gone and bitten one of his classmates again. In case some of you don't know, he's a low functioning autistic 14 year old and he's currently attended a school in the Moverment for the Intellectually Disabled. The only reason why I'm actually bothering to mention this here is because for once it's gotten a rather interesting reaction. By interesting reaction, I mean that the father of the bitten child called up my mother this morning and threatened that if we didn't put him back on medication, something bad would happen to my family.

This made me think actually of something that happened on Friday morning (which pretty much marked my entire day, but I forgot about it subsequently). When I opened the front door, I almost fainted. In front of the door was a dead rat, with ants swarming all over it. I stood still for a few moments, staring at the dead rat in shock. Then I hopped over it's dead body to get out of the house. Even when on the bus I couldn't help thinking about the rat. I kept imaginging it running at a really fast speed blindly, then colliding head on with a door and just dying like that. Talk about morbid thoughts.

This morning again I found something weird inside my house boundary. It was placed near the front gate and it looked a bit like a half eaten fried chicken fillet/coconut husk (yes I know that sounds weird). I stopped for a moment to stare at it again, because I found it's placement highly unusual.

My dad now keeps talking about someone playing a hex on our family because of the weird stuff placed in our house (the front gate is unlocked) in a joking manner. As for me? I'm inclined to let my imagination run a little wild, but then again this is really stretching it. Hmmm.

I've always been a huge fan of police shows. When I was younger there was Triple Nine, which I followed faithfully. Then there was Crimewatch. As I got older this evolved into watching Monk, Law and Order and finally Criminal Minds. Then there were the novels, like Patrica Cornwell who always knew how to spin a compelling yarn. It should come as no surprise then that throughout my life my one constant ambition was always Crime/Justice related.

At 8 I wanted to be a Policewoman, at 12 I wanted to be a ballistics expert, crime scene investigator or coroner, and at 15 I toyed with the idea of entering criminal psychology (don't ask me why I never wanted to be a detective). However that year I gave up on my dream. It was partly practical reasons like jobs being rather scarce in supply and it was part recognition that I might not be mentally strong enough to face up to such overwhelmingly negative aspect of life.

Now however, I stand at the crossroads of life. I'm not really sure if God is trying to tell me something, or am if I just imposing my subconscious desires on this whole thing, but for once in 3 years I reluctantly admit that I no longer know what I want to do with my life. At the beginning of the week, I was still all Hist! Politics! Journalism! But then Tuesday night came along with Criminal Minds. I started reminiscing and finally realised by tracing all my ambitions that criminology was what I wanted to do in a time before practical concerns came into the equation. Then finally yesterday came and I was forced to reacquaint myself with the cruel truth that passion and hard work does not always equate to ability. Perhaps I have been barking up the wrong tree all this while after surpressing my dreams. Or have I come up with new dream that I am now running away from because of fear? I don't know.

This new doubt doesn't just throw a spanner into a machinery that has been well oiled for the past 3 years, it throws a freaking truck load of spanners. The only thing possibly worse than uncertainty is the feeling of certainty melting into uncertainity - because you now have to deal with missing certainty in addition to uncertainty. Then there are the new branches and options open - Durham and Leicester offer BAs in Criminology (taking them will really really fuck up my plans), and then Oxford and Cambridge (have not reasearched this one too extensively yet) offer MSc.s in Criminology (which would still fuck up my plans, but less so).

The problem with all of this is that I don't have the luxury of time to mull over all the rubbish that has happened recently because I need to submit UCAS by 15th Oct. Then there is the nature of UCAS' personal statement - say I throw Durham into the mix, how the heck would it look when I'm prattling on about History Politics? There is also the earlier worry, that I might be subconsciously trying to fling myself into something else because of my reckless nature and propensity to destroy established things. Or that I may be missing out on my true calling.

I don't know anymore, which is terrible for someone like me who likes to plan things out carefully with clear aims. Then there is also the nature of things where many! things are uncertain - my future, my health, my heart, myself and now even my dreams. For once in a long time, I need to sleep on this decision.

Today while in a queue to withdraw money at Far East Plaza, I was eavesdropping on a conversation between two guys. They were speaking in the usual chinese-english mangled language, and they were talking about this girl, then something about fighting, three divorces, a sex tape (he made fake orgasm sound here) and shitloads of money. Of course I was interested. Just as I was thinking about how the hell the guy knew such a screwed up bunch of people, it suddenly occured to me that they were talking about Dirty Sexy Money. But no! He mentioned a school, and someone going to boarding.

Then I realised it was Gossip Girl.

-----

Last night I went for the Art exhibition in school, to support Chaya and Chong Wee who invited me. I ended up wandering about with Jono for most of the duration and wrecking havoc like playing with the lights. Of all the exhibits there, I liked Chaya's, Chong Wee's and Yihang's the most - not just because they're my friends but because I felt they were genuinely good.

Afterwards I went for dinner with Deb Khoo and Cielo. We ate at Rocky's along Sunset Way and then we wandered off to The Daily Scoop where Deb treated Cielo and I to Strawberry Shortcake ice cream (there was no Tiramisu!!! Oh the humanity ): ). Then I went home and in a rather futile effort tried to do some SAT stuff.

-----

Today was the SAT. My brain died after 2/3 of the paper. Nothing unusual. After the paper, Malcolm, Arjun, Kaijun, JLC and I went to eat Pepper Lunch. Then Mong left to study in the library (WTF.) and we wandered over to Takashimaya. After convincing Kaijun he was hungry and getting Arj to go with him, JLC helped me pick out a pen for Kaijun (Parker, blue casing and blue ink). After purchasing the pen we then found out that the two were shopping.

What followed next was an eye opening experience as I ended up following the guys shopping. For starters I never realised how limited were the places that guys could shop. I also stick to my guns by insisting that freaking all long sleeved shirts have the same 10 patterns, so why the heck did we look at what must have been 300+ shirts today with not one of the three guys liking any of them?! They were fussier when it came to clothes than I usually am.

Around 5:45pm we dispersed and I headed for Far East Plaza (where the above dodgy eavesdropping took place) to meet my mother. I ended up getting my rather cumbersome fringe trimmed further and tried to look for Naipaul in Sunny Bookshop (they had nothing by him). Then we hopped into a cab for an $11+ ride back home.

This is a really cute video of a couple's first wedding dance. It's anything but expected, and I couldn't help LOL-ing at huge parts of it. Perhaps one day I shall dance such a nonsensical mishmash with equally significant person.