Tuesday, September 30, 2008

There's this person is school who keeps boring holes into the back of my skull every time he looks at me. And by that I don't mean he stalker stares at me from behind, it means that this guy is like Mr Intense Stare Universe. Today I was talking to some people along the linkway when he walked by and he turned to look (probably at the female that was standing next to me, something he's been doing consistently since last year). His eyes met mine for like 1 second and I swear I felt two holes being drilled into the front of my skull, through slushy brain matter and then out at the back of my cranium. Then my insides froze as my blood stood still till he broke off his gaze. What a scary boy.

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Today in school there was epic rain. Walking up from the 3rd level to the 5th level (from Math) at the staircase at the .16 end of the corridor, I got drenched. The rain was blowing so hard, and the stairwell so ill built that it was raining there. By the time I reached class, a layer of rain had formed on my skin, hair, uniform and bag. Then class itself was freezing cold as usual, and after I put my bag down on my desk I started shivering.

And the only reason why I have chosen to record down such a mundane and common occurance is that my time here is soon at an end, dysfunctional building plan and freezing air conditioning included :x

Sunday, September 28, 2008

All I can say is tsk tsk. Only in Singapore can things be so turned on their head. I admit I'm disappointed that Ferrari was so fail this time round - and Raikonnen's and Massa's accidents truly disappointing - but I'm glad that Alonso won again after so long.

So thus this marks the end of my 1 week+ bummery and F1 participation for this year.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

I just spent the last 24 hours+ with Cielo. It was fun and my nipples are still intact. So hooray! We went to lots of dodgy places last night, joined with pimpmeister Mong and reached back at my grandma's place at 1:45am~ish on 5N (first time we ever took a night bus!). We then settled down watch the extremely campy Strictly Ballroom before going to sleep around 4:45.

Today we had brunch at La Petite Cuisine, and we went to borrow The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and A la Folie Pas Du Tout (LOL I just realised we french-ed away our afternoon, bad imagery intended) for viewing. Afterwards we wandered over to Botanic Gardens to walk about before heading back to bathe and finally grab dinner at Holland Village.

Then I came back and watched the F1 qualifying round. Watching the racing however, I felt like an old woman. From the early 2000s till 2006, I used to follow F1 pretty religiously. That was of course the era where there was some dodgy free to air Singapore channel devoted to sports, and they showed all the F1 races. There were also free viewings from our oft rediculed neighbour (AT LEAST THEY SHOWED F1 ON TV!), albeit bad reception. Then in 2006-2007 they disappeared. No more free F1. Damnit. As a result, my dad and I stopped watching.

Now in this short 1 year+ of racing that has gone by, half the guys I used to remember are gone, replaced by new people like Kubica, Hiedfeld, Kovalainen and Vettel. Most prominently, the two Schumacher brothers are gone! Horrors. Some things still remain the same however, like Alonso being hairy like a dog and Button still sucking. Then there are new LOLs, like Force India for obvious reasons. As for me, I'm just glad I can finally watch a race after such a long period of time. Ferrari FTW!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

I've been feeling really tired the past few days. I also realise that since the Prelims ended last week, I have not really spent any time at home resting. Instead almost everyday I've been out and about - something which is taking it's toll on me and manifesting as headaches.

Thursday was Stepbrothers with Chiang Ming, A. Wang and Cheam.

Friday was spent out by myself, the joining Pong, Mong and Nic to watch Snatch.

Saturday I was at Vivocity with my mother.

Sunday I went to the maternal grandmother's house, then to the nursery.

Monday was Wall E with Louis. Arjun, Kaijun and Stephanie, followed by random spontaneous ill-concieved Night Cycling that I got owned badly for and ended up spending watching bags. Then a sleepover at Nic's place with Elliot, Gerald, Cheryl, Mong, JLC, Jim.

Tuesday was spent meeting random people on the train back (Song Yeong, JTek) and running errands in Clementi.

Wednesday was Honours Day where I almost finished The Inheritance of Loss, followed up the class movie marathon sleepover (American Gangster - draggy but good, Van Helsing - wtf, Definitely Maybe - watched it before, Harold and Kumar Escape for Guantanmo Bay - stupid, vulgar and amusing beyond words).

Today was more movies like 3:10 To Yuma - excellent and Zohan - extremely silly, politically incorrect and amusing.

In short: I am exhausted.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Once again I am reminded why I fucking hate people. Nevermind that I have to put in effort to try and making the damn Oxbridge applications easier for everyone, but to have my person accused of treachery for misstating my application?

Really now.

So:

FUCK ALL OF YOU. FUCK OFF AND DIE.

AND WHEN YOU DIE, I'LL FUCK YOU WITH A RUSTY SWISS ARMY KNIFE.

ROT IN HELL ASSHOLES.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Virchow's Cell Theory states that:

1) All cells are derived from pre-existing cells
2) All cells are the most basic components of living matter
3) All cells pass on hereditary information
4) All cells are part of living things
5) All cells are capable of independent living

So if I am a living thing and I am made of cells, why is it when I go watch a damn film by myself, people say I'm abnormal?! I am simply being an independent individual.

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Yesterday I watched Coppola's Youth Without Youth. By myself. It's definitely not a movie I would recommend many. It was extremely deep (Siddharha + time travelling + linguistics anyone?) and I am 100% sure I missed at least 20% or more of the underlying message. Linguistics wise, it was like an orgasm, if you're into that sort of thing. Here is a vague list of the languages spoken (or purported to have spoken) in the film: English, Romanian, German, French, Chinese, Sanskrit, Babylonian and Egyptian. The usage of colours and lush sets was also breathtaking - the acting splendid and the costuming even better. I now have an urge to cut my hair to shoulder length and perm them in tight curls, '40s - '50s style.

After watching the movie, I headed to meet up with Malcolm, Nicholas and PONG at Shaw before heading to his house. There I saw another film, Snatch. It reminded me of Trainspotting crossed with Gangster/violent elements (that is to say, senseless violence aside I liked it). Then we had curry chicken and bread from Golden Pillow which was really good and bummed the rest of the night away antagonising Asyikin on FB chat and MSN.

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Thursday was the day of my last papers, Biology 3 and History 3. It was also the most stressful day ever. I woke up, feeling like dying because of my insomnia and combined lack of sleep over the past few days. I basically sat for my Bio paper, completely stoned. I had to take a break every 5 minutes because my mind couldn't think anymore and I just felt like falling from my chair to the floor. To make things worse, my old symptoms of exam stress visited me again. For the past week or so I've been plauged by excessive strength sapping stomachaches and had been living with a permanent dull pain at my side for some time. Thursday was the ultimate because my stomachache and insomnia left me severely incapacitated. I literally felt like I was dying a slow death. So, fuck all of you who said I was lucky to finish on Thursday and then proceeded to whine about how much your life sucks because you finish 24 hours later. You don't even have papers next week.

As I started writing my 2nd essay for History 3 (out of 3 papers), I felt the knot in my stomach slowly dissipate into nothingness. Now that it's back, I know it will visit me again for the actual IB exams. At least I enjoyed a rather good 8 or so months with reduced stomach problems.

After the papers, I hung about talking to various people before leaving for the bus stop with Wang, Cheam, Jono and Debbie. Jono had Chem to study for and Debbie had to get home early, so in the end just Wang, Cheam and I went to watch a movie. Chiang Ming also joined us. The movie was Stepbrothers. Oh dear God. I felt so repulsed physically and mentally by the leads that for some parts I was beyond amusement. I think I was more horrified than amused :x Meanwhile the 3 guys were laughing like mad, especially Wang who at times was the only person laughing in the cinema. Then the random balls (yes I mean the genitals) and wtf sex scenes came out and I died even further. Admittedly though, disgusting over the top plot and inapproprate crude humour aside, it wasn't a bad movie (or have I just removed every single element there was to the movie?) - just not really my kind of a movie.

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Today I went out with my mother to Vivocity, a change of pace from the usual Orchard Road stretch. I ended up getting a pile of books from Page One:

1) Porno by Irving Welsh
2) Q & A by Vikas Swarup
3) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
4) Real World by Natso Kirino
5) Out by Natsuo Kirino
6) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest byKen Kesey
7) The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was a bit of a fluke. For some reason, I had mistaken it for A Clockwork Orange (I suppose it's the connotations of a clock, like cuckoo and clock?). But that's no the best bit. The edition I picked up had cartoons all over. So in my mind I thought it was some absurd graphic comic edition of A Clockwork Orange. My curiosity was piqued and I bought it. Then a while later I realised they were both renowned books, had films modelled after them, but weren't the same thing -_______-

Something I was quite disappointed about was how Page One did not have Lahiri's The Interpreter of Maladies, Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas or even McEwan's Amsterdam (instead there was an explosion of Atonement). Also, I did not find any other Booker nominees except for Ghosh's Sea of Poppies which I didn't get because it was in that very large first edition size that I hate.

I also rented Mind Your Language from Gramaphone. May the mind rotting begin now!

P.S. for some reason Britney Spear's Born to Make You Happy is stuck in my head now.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

As of late I've been feeling overwhelmed by this feeling called disappointment. It comes in the most inopportune times (as such negative feelings usually do) and stays there like a tree root in a sidewalk. Disappointment also brings along its other rather disagreeable friends, Doubt and Helplessness.

Needless to say these fools all play up each others negative sides, leading to the tree taking firmer root and finally crashing through the hapless cemented sidewalk. And thus I am filled with these emotions. As I struggle to come to terms with things however, to try and regain some semblance of control over my life - a life that uses Reason and not Emotion - I find myself inwardly pressured by all sides. Sides that have Expectations of me, both intolerably low and suffocatingly high, which leads only to further enhance my helplessness and slow building frustration. Then there are my own emotional wants, my 'intellectual level' wants and my own expectations to contend with, all which I am quite unable to relinquish.

I would like, more than anything else in this world to both simultaneously fill up those Expectations and run away from them at the same time. I am only after all, terrifyingly mortal. Perhaps evidently more so than most.

I would like to be free to be me again. Whoever 'me' is.

Sunday, September 14, 2008


That is a picture of two daddy long legs having sex on my bolster last night, circa 2:30 am. I know they were copulating because one kept bouncing up and down in a pumping motion. I find it mildly amusing that there are other creatures getting more action than I am on my own bed.

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Based on the summaries given by Lifestyle today (yes I know that's a terrible source of obtaining literature but it's just a summary), I can't wait to get my hands on these Booker nominees:

A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz
The Secret Scripture - Steven Barry
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

The one by Ghosh also looks really good. Also this is a very bad time to be lusting over books in the middle of prelims with IB looming in the very near distance. That and I have like 10 books - classics and contemporary fiction - awaiting me in my aunt's house in America.

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Friday had very weird papers.

First off there was Math - which was suspiciously easy. This meant that I kept second guessing every question ("no no can't be, this must be a trap!") which made me take me take more time. This also means that Paper 2 will be really hard in order to compensate. Or something.

Then in the interim while waiting for Hist, I was in the library with Johannes, Cheam, Eliel and Andrew. Hidden in the back of the library and sitting on the floor, I kept getting distracted by the lot of them -____________- Finally just as things quietened down and I started concentrating, Johannes popped out behind a corner and said a dodgy word which he deserves a smack for and throughly scared me. I reacted by (as recounted by him) first screaming, then punching him, then falling over in shock. I left the library feeling like nothing had entered my head at all.

Hist Paper 1 was weird because of the comparision question. A lot of the things were very implicit and thus hard to dig out, so I ended up skipping the question and doing the others first before returning. Hist Paper 2 was however, weirdest of all. This was because of the question on wars. Question 1 asked about guerilla warfare, question2 asked about limited warfare and question 3 was on the world wars - but was on some minor bit. Faced with a mind that had barely consolidated anything beyond the Chinese civil war and the world wars, I ended up doing the 3rd question - which was on women.

The nature of the question was so obscure that I could barely remember any factors. Thus armed with bits of information gleaned from wiki circa 2006, I named dropped Emmeline Pankhurst, then I recalled those war movies where there were women in the SS who worked in concentration camps (and also a dodgy porn movie along the same lines) and finally Horrible Histories (thank you Terry Deary) where I talked about women in the SOE during WWII. It was a very odd experience trying to combine all of them together into one coherent argument, which I still think is better than my Single Party State essay where I mucked up the structure.

After the paper I went about with Jess Mallek and Chaya to try and find the Year director, but he was missing. In the end we stayed till J. Ho came and she spoke to Mallek about her application and the History exam in general. Then we went to the SAC to eat and Lex joined us.

When all of us had finished eating, the rest of them went back and I went to join Ryan, Steph, Daryl, Gen and Arj. In the mood for some bumming after a killer day, the lot of us sans Ryan went to this ice cream place in Sunset Way (when Chun Wui brought a few of us last time) and we talked about rubbish (ohohoho RURU!) and ate sweetened cold cream. I had tiramisu - an odd choice considering that I've never eaten real tiramisu before. But it was overall an enjoyable outing.

In the evening I went to my grandma's place to celebrate the mooncake festival. We walked to Botanic Gardens with lanterns and there I took quite a few pictures which I like enough (and could have been better if I had an SLR!) and uploaded on flickr. Then we went home and I bummed more :x a bad thing for someone who still has exams.

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Suat is the sexiest and best to-be doctor known to mankind. She also now has the right to claim my 3rd child after Daryl claims the first 2. Thank you and have a good weekend.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I have just finished watching Dirty Sexy Money Season 1. In the middle of my pre-lims. Nice. This reminds me of how I watched Haruhi Suzumiya in the middle of my Sec 4 pre-lims and ended up bombing :x This had better not be some sort of pattern.

I am also stalking odd people on Facebook. Oh my gosh. I swear I need to be chained up. I even found a picture of 5 where there were 3 of them! I ended up looking at that picture admiringly before my brain kicked in and went 'OH GOD WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?!' ten seconds later.

I need a life.
I spent the supposed last day of my life on earth studying for the prelims. I spent it in the library with Gen, Arjun and Steph, reading notes about Lenin and doing Math Paper 2 (because I can't seem to find any Paper 1s for some odd reason) and smelling the musty sour smell of unsocked ~Sec 2 feet.

This is sad.

Ideally I should be more panicked about the LHC. The idea of the end of earth and life as we know it should be more tangible and real. Instead I am more worried alternatively of History on Friday and the words 'everlasting commitment' (I blame the dream where I dreamt I got married - I think I have commitment issues now). As a result I have spent the scarce free time of today watching Dirty Sexy Money and other more routine mundane things.

This is bad! This is not normal. I should be running around doing multiple things with Consequences that I am unable to do under normal circumstances. Things like telling the Truth, "you're really hot/an asshole/a poseur/Satan you know" or alternatively "you! you! you! I like you! I know you don't like me but since this is the last day on earth I'm the only person who might possibly do the horizontal tango with you" or other equivalents. Things like getting drunk on good vodka - not the cheap shit I got drunk with previously, eating all the food I love and not caring if I gain weight, getting on a plane and flying to places with white sand and blue seas. All in the effort of being able to think in my last moments as I'm being sucked into some neverending black hole about how maybe... just maybe this life was worth living after all.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

"you know something. the great leap forward divided China's agricultural land into 70,000 communes, of which each had 750,000 brigades, of which each had 200 households. Assuming that each household has about 4 people, that comes to about 42,000,000,000,000 people in china. that means that china had 42 thousand BILLION people according to lynch"

- From Elliot
Getting to school today was -_______________- I left the house 15 minutes earlier than usual because I was afraid of being late. I ended up waiting for the bus stop for like 15 minutes before a bus that I could take came by... and it was 156. In the bus I kept thinking of whether I should switch to 74 or go to Clementi where I could take 14 and 166 to school. I then chose to maximise my chances and go to Clementi.

The bus however kept on getting trapped behind red light after red light. When I finally got off the bus, I saw 14 and 166 go by, and it was already 12:40-ish. Oh God. I ended up running to the MRT station where thankfully there was a ready stream of waiting cabbies and for the first time in my life took a damn cab to school. -________________-

And I arrived on time. Hooray. I think. I really hate afternoon papers.

Monday, September 08, 2008

At first I thought about posting about my thoughts on my future - my reactions to filling out the damned Oxford interview forms over and over due to silly mistakes - and then I went to LJ and read my friends page. Needless to say I am now vaguely disheartened and disenchanted. I am filled with a vague urge to be able to do stupid shit things and not give a damn about my future. I want to be free from all these damn forms and my dreams which make me push myself harder.

I think.

:x

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Oh hey look. I got the comments working. Lol?

In order to preserve all that has been said about the previous Palin post, I'll stick them here:

Chun Wui: Wah.... hard hitting political blogger... very aggressive... lol. How how, mend your words lest you may incur the wrath of others... hahaha

Malcolm: First and foremost, the prolife/prochoice stance is something that will be forever contended - Palin's nomination to the office would not be the be all and end all of the pro-life argument.

Malcolm: Subsequent candidates can and will contradict with this. However you can argue that it could be a political move as well since a large portion of America is comprised either of christian fundementalis

Malcolm: Subsequent candidates can and will contradict with this. However you can argue that it could be a political move as well since a large portion of America is comprised either of christian fundementalis

Malcolm: her background, would it not make it all the more impressive that she chooses to adopt a prolife stance in spite of her premature pregnancy and downs syndrome kid? In some sense she does conform to

Malcolm: the "superwoman" tag entrusted upon her as she - at least in her personal life - shows that it is possible to triumph over the baby-vector role. Thus it is still a step forward for femminism - it's a

Malcolm: highly publicised example of a strong woman. In addition, you can hardly blame her for running, after all it was Mccain who elected her - she didn't campaign on the basis that she's an emblem of

Malcolm: female empowerment. So while the motivation behind her nomination is suspect, you should blame the system and not the candidate. To wrap this up, I have absolutely no idea about Palin's background and

Malcolm: constructed this based solely off the content of your post and the sentiments that i formed as a result. Probably for the purpose of playing the devil's advocate. Either ways, take it into

Malcolm: consideration, and have fun reading it off your chatbox. In an unrelated vein, where the heck did you find time to do this?!

daryl (who wins an award for being most succinct): Yeah, Palin is a scourge

daryl: Palin is a political gimmick. Obama picked Biden because he was weak on foreign policy. McCain picked Palin because...? He was weak on being young, probably.

Nic: Mong, you do realize that anyone caught in the situation of pregnancy via rape is not going to be able to be apathetic about pro-life issues, yes? It's not some hypothetical game - if Palin's veep,

Nic: there is a high likelihood of women in that situation who will be essentially forced to become 'superwomen' like Palin, juggling careers with unwanted additions to the family.

Nic: Okay, the grammar is that last tag was ****ed, but whatever you get my point. Palin

Nic: *in

Nic: goddamn.

Nic: Mel can you just enable comments

daryl: Heh, Palin's pick is not advancement for women. It's a step behind because McCain doesn't respect her for anything but her gimmick value.

daryl: *the Palin pick -- It's quite insulting, in fact, "I'm choosing you because you can attract disenchanted Hillary supporters simply because of your biological traits"

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Lol? First off I think the main point of my writing that was missed - which is that women wanting to elect Palin on the basis of obtaining gender equality are misguided and that Palin's own policies would make gender equality worse off. Also, I'm not going to bother to respond to all that has been said because 1) no time, 2) my brain is fried from econs.

Oh God Econs.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

I admit when I first heard that the Republican vice president nominee was a woman, my interest was piqued. This was for two reasons, one that the Republicans have notoriously been stereotyped as misogynists and secondly that a woman had once more been brought to the top tier of the American political scene. However minutes after my first reaction, the realization sank in that this was a very political move. Firstly as McCain himself said, if he picked Joseph Lieberman who was one of the front runners, the Republican delegates would have walked on out him. Secondly, the hopes of (misguided) feminist America had been brought up when Hillary Clinton was in the running for the Democratic nominee. Feminists everywhere were saying that 2008 was their year – their year to finally prove that they were politically capable. When Clinton dropped out however, so did their hopes. By choosing Palin as a vice president, McCain knew that he would no doubt be able to pick up votes from the dissatisfied Feminists. Essentially picking Palin was a political move and nothing more.


I now turn to the brouhaha that has been brought up in the wake of Palin’s nomination. As expected rather pessimistically by me, women are essentially emotional creatures. I’m not saying that there is something wrong with being emotional because I certainly am – but the responses that most women have shown seem to lack any semblance of reason. Is this not then playing into the hands of misogynists by fulfilling a stereotype?


In today’s Today (6-7 September 2008) on page 24, there are two commentary pieces written by women on Palin’s nomination. The first one is purely emotional, written I believe by a reporter. The piece goes on to talk about Palin’s life, how she eloped with her husband and she raised her kids – therefore the writer sympathises with her AND THEREFORE SHE IS A GOOD LEADER. I kid you not. Nothing is said about Palin’s political stance or actions while in office (don’t forget that for someone running on an anti-corruption platform, she has done some dodgy things while in office).


The second piece was written by Constance Singam of Aware. She managed to live up to he organisation’s name by actually coming across as more aware of the issues at hand (Oh God I finally succumbed to making a pun). She mentions Palin’s anti abortion stance and even goes on to call her as a “role model…for pre-feminist days”. However at it’s very core the article expounds again largely on Palin’s personal life, even going so far as to call her a “superwoman”.


How how women? Mend your speech a little, lest you mar the fortunes of all womenkind. By turning Palin’s nomination into a feminist issue, are you not throwing us one step back? Yes, women have come a long way. We’re had Thatcher, Merkel, Wu Yi as examples of exemplary female political leaders, then we have the dodgy such as Megawati and Arroyo. So yes, women have already proven their ability at running a political office. So why then is putting a woman into the White House such a big issue?


By turning Palin’s nomination into some huge feminist issue “OMG SHE’S A WOMAN THEREFORE WE SHOULD SEE THAT SHE GETS INTO THE WHITE HOUSE”, are we not forgetting that fact that the main argument we’ve had for years is that Women Are Every Bit As Good As Men? If Palin is really as good as political candidate, should we not see to it that she if elected on the basis of her merit as a political leader instead of simply her being a female candidate? If a woman is elected based on her gender, we have already lost the argument because women need to trumpet their gender in order to be elected. It is only when a woman is given a prestigious position based on her own ability that females all around are able to say “We are every bit as good as men”.


Furthermore by espousing largely on Palin’s personal life, these women writers are shooting themselves in the foot. Yes she might have had an interesting life, eloping with her husband when she discovered she was 1 month pregnant to giving birth to a child with Down’s Syndrome, but how is this remotely relevant to how she is going to behave politically? Governing one’s home is vastly different from that of political office – sure you can argue that they all require good foresight and excellent multi tasking skills, but at the end of the day knowing the best places to do your marketing doesn’t equate to knowledge about fiscal and monetary policies. If someone is going to be having a big hand in running a very large and important country, don’t you think it is more important to look at her political record rather than simply talking about her background? In this aspect dear women writers, you have failed.


Lastly and more importantly the significance of having a woman nominated to the White House is that it is a triumph for women because the glass ceiling of the highest office one could ever aspire to be has been broken. Thus hails a new era of women rising to the top without being oppressed by sexism and sexual harassment with freedom and equality for all. Wonderful. Now only if that would actually come true if Palin made it to the top. Instead women would be sent back to the ‘dark ages’ where our lives would once more be dictated by our bodies.


The whole debate about abortion stems from the fact that some people consider a fetus an already living thing, therefore killing the fetus is tantamount to murder. Others however believe that the fetus is not a living being, therefore abortion is acceptable. Now I’m going to put my neck on the line here a little and express my own personal view: I do not believe in abortion but I believe in a woman being allowed to make her own choice.


My reasoning for this is that in the event of a rape, a woman would be further psychologically traumatized if she has to bear the child to term. Furthermore if a mother is unable to care for her child, then the child is worse off for being born. I do not quite accept adoption as a viable alternative because simply there are always more orphans than wannabe adoptees – there are bound to be children that remains orphans their entire lives. Therefore I believe in the woman being allowed to make a choice. If Palin was elected to the government, people who do not believe that life begins at conception will be forced to conform to something they do not wish to. Young girls who have made mistakes will be forever forced to live with them, their lives irrevocably altered. Couples who are struggling to earn a living will be further weighted down with an additional burden. Furthermore since the argument against abortion has its roots in Christianity, I will go so far as to say it is a deliberate imposition of one’s religious beliefs on another. So much for America being a secular state.


That dear women, is why I thoroughly refuse to even conceive the day they Palin enters the White House to take a Vice Presidential position. Not only will feminism take a step back because she’s been voted for the wrong reasons, it will forever be flung headlong into the dark ages where women would be mere birthing vectors once more.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Filial piety is defined loosely as showing respect to one's elders. In a traditional Chinese society, this is one of the values that are deemed most important - more so than earning as much money as you can even if it's through dodgy ways (unofficial Chinese value). Today's dinner was on my part, an exercise in filial piety.

This is the bit where I delve into my family's history. A long long time ago before I was born, there was conflict in the family. In fact there was a lot of conflict, so this is just one of them. My kaugoong (which apparently is the wrong term for calling him since I'm already one generation down, just that no one bothered to correct me so I never know what to call him) - my paternal grandmother's elder brother married a woman of a 'disagreeable disposition'. As a result she often came into conflict with my grandmother and my grandfather (who is the most easy going person I know). This however would not have been such a problem if my grandmother was not so close to her elder brother - but she was. As a result, they often traveled together, with my grand uncle's unhappy dour wife in toll.

This woman went on to bear 3 children, and my father and his siblings growing up were relatively close to their cousins. Then they grew up and goot married. Enter the wife. The wife of the eldest was also a woman with her own mind. She too constantly came into conflict with her mother in law. She apparently did not really like my family too much either, because they never came to visit us during Chinese New Year for the last 6+ years - as dictated by Chinese tradition. What a pity, since I was a flower girl at their wedding.

About a week ago, my kaugoong and his wife flew in from Sydney where they've been living for the past decade or so. In the interim they've been staying at my grandparent's place. So there I was, this late afternoon, trying to sleep on the couch when I heard them come in. I didn't know what to do, so I just continued pretending I was asleep. I heard the lady's voice and my blood stopped. It was every bit as dry and humourless and scary as it was 9 years ago.

It was my Uncle's wedding and I was also a flower girl. I was running around the lunch buffet and picked up a card. It said ''the wedding of Mr Andrew W- and Miss xxx". Thing is, I never know my Uncle had a Christian name. No one in the family called him Andrew. So I very loudly exclaimed "WHO THE HELL IS ANDREW?!" The look on that woman's face showed that she was throughly scandalised. Her mouth opened like a goldfish. Oh God.

Finally my grandmother came around and 'woke' me up. The first thing I saw was the woman, giving me a disapproving look for sleeping on the couch on the living room. Oh the joy. I then saw my kaugoong, smiley as always. He looked much more frail and lost than when I last saw him a number of years ago. In the car as I sat next to the woman, I felt so nyeh that I couldn't even ask her generic polite questions. Instead she just asked me about IB - so I started prattling on.

Tonight dinner was supposed to be a combination of my family and theirs. That is my family of 4, Uncle's family, grandparents, kaugoong and his wife and their eldest son's family. In order to better facilitate the eating, we were split up into two tables. At one table my family started to congregate, including kaugoong. At the other the woman was left alone because her family wasn't here. D'oh! I felt bad, so I went over and sat next to her. Giving her an insane totally fake smile and not talking. Kaugoong saw us and went over to join us with my grandmother following him shortly. So there we sat.

When her son finally came, I was all set to escape back to my table when my grandma got up and left. She came to me and giggled in my ear, "eh stay here please, you know why I'm leaving". Alamak? When I returned to get my bag, my father said "yeah! represent us there". No one wanted to sit at that table.

So that is how I ended up sitting at a table of people I had not seen in 6 years+.

The wife appeared. I realised I forgot her name. She sat down and asked her mother-in-law how her day was. The woman replied in a gruff tone that she rested the entire day. I could have ignored it if I didn't know for a fact that she was out the entire day. Oh my God what the flying fuck have I gotten myself into (imagine me saying this with the perma-smile that was on my face)! Then they tried talking about the plans for tomorrow and the woman started complaining. So the wife gave up and peppered me with ten thousand questions about IB (no, I have no idea why I turned into an ambassador either). Somehow through this strategy of talking to me instead of each other, we managed to get through the dinner without any eyes being clawed out.

After the dinner I realised I couldn't smile anymore. My cheek muscles were slack and they refuse to contract. I blame it on excessive fake smiling. As a result I ended up wandering throughout Giant with a very bad attituide expression - looking very much like the woman who had caused it in the first place.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

When I first started taking the bus in secondary school, I used to be absolutely petrified of missing my bus stop. As the bus wound advance closer and closer to my usual stop, I'd sit upright, heart thundering away as I counted the remaining bus stops to mine. Today however, some 6 years after I first took the bus independently, I missed a stop.

This happened when I was on 156 and as it passed by Pine Grove, I started thinking about a good friend I used to have who stayed there. By the time I realised that my stop was next and pressed the bell, the bus zoomed by my appointed stop. Oh hooray. Now I was stuck in a fine predicament. I could either get off at the next stop and trudge to the main road, a walk that would take about 10 minutes, or I could brazen it out and stay on the bus till it got to Clementi. When the bus finally came to the next stop, I started acting like I didn't know who pressed the button. To my relief however, two people got off the bus.

At Clementi, just as I got out of the bus and looked across the road, I saw 14 and 166 simultaneously leave the bus stop. Joy joy joy. Finally another 14 came and I managed to make it to Wah Chee in one piece.

My next spot of bad luck came just as we were heading back from Wah Chee to school. It had just started to rain and I took my umbrella out of my bag. Problem was I couldn't actually open it. I ended up sturggling to open it as the others made comments like 'by the time you open the umbrella you're going to reach the shelter'. And sadly, that prediction came true. What a useless umbrella -______________-

Finally as I was clicking away on my mechanical pencil to extend the lead, it exploded. The top bit flew off, nevermind that it was securely fastened just moments before. This rendered my pencil utterly useless -__________- Mong and Jon Pang tried to help me search for my pencil top, but to no avail. Nyeh. It was a good pencil too.

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Today after the Librarian kicked us out of the Library, Gerald, JLC, Elliot, Mong, Jon Pang and I headed to C3-04 to do work. There I took out my skipping rope and skipped a bit, followed by Mong and Elliot trying to skip as well. It was a most amusing sight. I also ended up walking about where I found JC and Shao Xiong studying on the 4th level on a bench. Then I returned back to the classroom where I did more reading before heading to Botak Jones with Mong and JLC. After Botak Jones we headed to KFC to do some studying before JLC left at 9:30 and Mong and I finally left at 9:50.

Gosh, I can't wait for this lot to be over.

University apps are also looming over my head :x

Monday, September 01, 2008

Whoah it's the 2nd September already. 1 year on and my life is still shit. Some things don't change really - HAAAAAAAH. -_____________________-

Now back to dealing with the present shit instead of thinking of the past shit.

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As Fabriz and earlier checking with the Nike Run website showed, I completed the race in 1 hour 29 minutes and 13 seconds. I also finished after everyone else from school. So yay. -_________-

Okay I really need to stop being so bitter and thinking about the past. Bye.