This person here, is an idiot. Please click on the image, all my comments have already been added to the image in question. Name and other major identifying elements have been removed to protect the hopelessly pretentious.

I really cannot stand pretentious people. I may not actually have read Naipaul, Greene, Golding and Rushdie - but I sure as hell know that they are known for their fiction work, not non-fiction, so what the hell (especially Golding and Rushdie!) are they doing on that person's 'non-fiction' list? The quote is also so holier-than-thou, OH LOOK AT ME I AM BETTER THAN YOU ARE, YOU JUST DON'T GET IT. Sorry kiddo, you've been exposed for the fool that you really are, did you really think you were so awesome that everyone else around you is stupid? GTFO please (AND what the hell are you doing in my !nk photo, get away from me, I've never seen you at any meetings before).

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I spent most of National Day Celebrations today taking pictures using Elliot's dslr, which was quite an eye opening experience because I had to operate under low light conditions + zoom which meant my shots were more susceptible to camera shake. This meant I had to find all sorts of angles to prop my body up against so I would shake less when taking pictures. I have also discovered that the two things on my torso are a hindrance when it comes to propping one's arms up. Dodgy :x

Afterwards Daryl, Arjun and I went to Vivocity. We ate at Superdog and Iordered chili cheese fries, which tasted really great, but I couldn't finish. Then we wandered off to Page One. After browsing about and picking up and putting down books like The Return of the Native and White Teeth, I bought 5 books using the $60 voucher my uncle gave me for my birthday. They are:

Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss
Mohsin Hamid - The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Marisha Pessl - Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Elie Wiesel - The Night Trilogy
Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

The first three books came in a set from penguin, and cost me about $30. What a steal! That's like $10 a book. I'm glad I never got around to buying Desai individually. Wiesel was the most expensive of the lot at $30, but after picking it up many times over many trips to Kino, I finally decided to get it. The last one I bought because it was on 20% discount, and it's a book Nic really recommended.

Daryl bought Henry James' Portrait of a Lady.

We then wandered over to Harbourfront Centre and bummed at McDonald's before heading over to Orchard to go to Borders so Arjun could spend his birthday book vouchers. He kept asking me for recommendations, but I felt really useless. Nothing there really jumped out at me either except this book I saw about giraffes and a James Frey book. There, we made a pact that if he read Soul Mountain, I'd read A House for Mr Biswas even though I dislike Naipaul. So he bought Soul Mountain, and I just added Biswas to my Amazon shopping cart.

From the books section, we also drifted over to the music section. I was very very impressed to see the music ("indie" anyone?) they had there, selling at ridiculously cheap prices. They even had Blonde Redhead's 23 for $23.95. I wasn't sure if I should buy it so, and so went about clutching it and scanning it into every music listening station I passed, like about 10 or so - so they all played 23. Yay. In the end I borrowed Daryl's card to buy it, but I only had $17 in cash. Oh no :o

This meant that I had to use my ATM card. Except I had no idea how to. Arjun had to prep me. "Just say 'I'm paying by nets' and look confident, like you know what you're doing". In the end I almost reached over and grabbed the wrong console, and started trembling slightly when I keyed in my password into the machine lest I get it wrong. What an adventure. What a lousy adventure. This reminds me of the time I was mildly stupefied when out with Daryl, Chong Wee, Arjun and Kaijun. They had to prep me on how to use an ATM machine to take out money. I am so fail.

Anyway I survived my first Nets incident! Hooray.

Happy National Day.

PS: CAMERA OBSCURA IS COMING TO THE ESPLANADE ON THE 29TH OCTOBER! I WANT TO GO. TICKETS $39.

Facebook is a very evil tool. It allows me to look at pictures of my ex-boyfriend (oho! Dodgy dodgy) and laugh at his popped collars and rather obnoxious wealth (Mustang anyone?) while being simultaneously surprised to learn that he is doing the IB exams in Nov. 2008 as well, even though he is one year older than me. This also means of course, that he also gets to see all the 10,001 stupid pictures I have of myself on Facebook and all the other rubbish there is there. That's the problem with Facebook, it makes people who would ordinarily not have kept in contact 'keep' in contact.

This means people like ex-boyfriends, ex-best friends, ex-friends and even the random crazy guy who used to follow you around obsessively - people who you'd have wanted quite badly to forget and move on with your life - are there at the click of a mouse. I would daresay there is something a little unhealthy about this for the simple reason it means that it is quite impossible to escape from one's past completely. Sure, I could always have opted to not click on his profile and I could have opted to not accept him as a friend, but let's face it, how many times have random people from Zimbabwe added you on facebook as a friend - and you accepted out of common courtesy? What more someone that you actually know?

This of course does not apply to people you actively have a distaste for. Like I just blocked someone from my profile the other day when he tried to add me as a friend. When I tested the system to search for him later, it gave me a 'no results found' notification, so in short he's been completely erased from my facebook life. Yeah, I'm nice that way.

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I've been hearing from my friends often enough that they have the notion I have a very interesting life. This is completely wrong. I have no idea where you people get such ideas really! To prove you people wrong once and for all and expose how loser I really am, here is a rough summary of my entire day yesterday.

0930 - wake up, lie around bed
1030 - finally get up and switch on computer. Go to facebook and play Crusades
1100 - bathe
1130 - wander downstairs, parents appear with lunch
1145 - throw a soybean at my father because he's taunting me to
1200 - read newspaper
1230 - watch martin mystery
1300 - go to room and bum online
1400 - watch Gundam Seed Destiny
1500 - mother comes into room and lies about
1501 - resolve to start doing work
1530 - open up biology powepoint 5.6 on homeostasis and start typing notes on Fokker
1531 - mother wants to buy a coach bag online: does not actually know how to shop online
1532 - open up Amazon.com and search for coach, leaving her with Saoirse
1550 - get frustrated and search for IB SL Biology syllabus online
1555 - find awesome Bio notes website, stop typing notes, mother leaves my room
1600 - attempt to read Fairbank/end up bumming on internet
1700 - wander down to eat a salad and an apple
1730 - read Fairbank
1800 - text Cheam to ask if he wants to go running later
1805 - Cheam replies saying he wants to run now
1815 - run to Cheam's place
1830 - reach and start stretching while waiting
1835 - Cheam appears
1840 - start running
1845 - start feeling like dying
1900 - finally stop running, sit at pavement to catch breath, watch the sunset and toy planes and real planes fly about
1930 - reach home and eat dinner
2000 - use computer
2030 - bathe
2100 - use computer, wander about and join the parents to watch a bit of entourage
2330 - com freezes up and dies, restart
2340 - com cannot connect to the internet, get annoyed
2345 - decide to clean out cupboard
0045 - start packing up clothes
0100 - eat supper, joining brother who is awake for no apparent reason downstairs, watch Veronica Guerin which for some reason is showing at a shitty hour with no apparent advertising. Curse mediacorp for showing shows like Elektra and Hell Boy at popular timeslots instead.
0130 - wash up
0150 - finish reading A Man of Property
0200 - sleep
0201 - get woken up to go clean up after brother
0210 - wash up again
0215 - sleep

What a useless day.

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On Thursday after PC, WTY called Darren and I to stay back. When we met him, he claimed that he ran our EEs through Microsoft Word and that we were both above the word limit, mine by 70 words. So, he wanted us to count our words. Manually. Nice.

Thankfully Daryl and JLC were still around, and amidst much cursing and tediousness we finished counting the words only to find that they formed a total of an inexplicable 3,969 - short of my declared word count of 4,000 and short of WTY's count of 4,070. *$(C@$^D@*$&

On Friday, JLC, Gerald and I met up to do more Lear extracts at my grandmother's house. After Gerald left, John and I stopped doing work and wandered off to Island Creamery where I had a Brownie and Cookies and Cream Ice Cream. I think he had an Apple Pie and Cookies and Cream Ice Cream. Then we walked off to explore Botanic gardens, admiring the many dogs that were out and about.

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And to a certain Mr Hadi who complains I have not updated in a gazillion years, I can be found here sometimes.

Today after dinner I managed a productive session of Econs IA touch ups. This might normally have taken me the entire night as I usually get distracted by 10,000 things calling out to me on the internet and thus don't do the work as I should. But not tonight! I finished my work within 20 minutes. So hooray, go me.

Then I set off for a brisk walk to Greenleaf to join Cheam for a run. However as I walked along the tree shaded-burnt yellow lit streets (empty too I might add), I noticed a man walking in the opposite direction. Most oddly he crossed the road to my side even though there was still pavement to walk on and no cars were about (this was in the middle of a straight road), plus this was the darkest part of the road. Immediately I felt fear coursing through my body and eyed him warily as he approached. As he walked with a cursory glance to the road, he turned to stare at me deliberately, sending chills up my spine.

My pulse started racing as I quickly mentally calculated how I'd react if he tried anything funny, there were quite a few houses nearby, but there was also a large construction site nearby... My hair was also tied up in a ponytail, making it easier to pull and most obviously this man was larger than I was. As my mind started exploding into a multitude of rapid disjointed thoughts, two feelings were clear: fear and regret. Fear is obvious, something I nary need to explain, but regret! The feeling was regret because I didn't know how to defend myself, because I hadn't been bothered enough to learn how to defend myself.

Of course as most of you know I'm here typing this post right now, not lying in some ditch in some darkened area somewhere bleeding to death, so obviously nothing happened to me. The guy stared intently, passed by as I steeled myself for any hard blow, and I quickly scampered off to the well-lit meeting area to wait for Cheam to appear.

In order to end this post on a better note, I must add that Cheam very nicely provided me with Cha Ye Dan (literally: Tea Leaf Egg) from Queensway Shopping Centre. He bought them for me when he was there buying stuff earlier in the day, even though he hates the smell. When I got home (escorted, thank goodness :x) I peeled the eggs and heated them in the microwave oven. Yum yum yum! He's not the only one who hates the smell though, my dad hates it too.

Every time I eat Cha Ye Dan or even smell the scene of the herbs, I always think back to my PSLE days. This is because right before the PSLE exams when my Lao Shi (Huang, of the many many Huang Lao Shis out there) called us back for extra revision classes in the afternoons or on Saturdays, she always boiled Cha Ye Dan for us. For those not in the know, the process of boiling takes at least 6 hours, not to mention one had to shell out (HAHAHA PUN!) money to buy the herbs and eggs. It was really a labour of love. Even though I turned out to be one of her worst students (C for PSLE!), I will always remember fondly how she treated all of us equally and even bothered to make Cha Ye Dan for us. Xie Xie Lao Shi, teachers like you are the only reason why I didn't completely give up on Chinese.

Attempting to write 3 essays within the span of 24 hours is really proving to be a killer. Today I finished editing World Lit 2 essay by 12:30pm and went to school just to hand it up to Gen (after a trek around the school trying to figure out where everyone was) around 1:30 before running away lest my attendance be questioned.

Now I sit at my laptop staring blankly at a Paper 2 essay word .doc that demands itself be written by tomorrow, disjointed ideas floating about my head and a bareboneskeleton outline written haphazardly between the thin margins of question 5a and 5b.

I would quote something about The Chronicles of Jane here, but it was a highly irritating play that got on my nerves (which is probably a sign of good acting on the part of the ACSI Independent Stage depending on how you look at it). Competition Piece however, was fully worth the $15 - so congrats to all the people who starred in it. It was a wonderful play.

I have found the quote which most explains the quirks I have, from refusing to get a Mac because everyone and their sons wants a Mac because it's 'hipster geek cool' to shying away from Nikon for the same reason (it's so bad my goodness! I've seen people camwhore with a Nikon dslr. GTFO please).

"There's nothing more satisfying than to be counter to a counter culture."

Somehow I have managed to go one week without posting anything on this blog. This is rather odd considering that I sometimes go through bouts of OCD where I get distressed over the fact that I am wasting space on the intarwebz without actually contributing anything that might possibly give a marginal social benefit (laughter at my expense/interesting rubbish).

This also means I have forgotten every single musing I had throughout the week but neglected to record down. Boo. I shall now attempt to give a very patchy recollection of my entire week.

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Wednesday:
The day started out on a rather ominous note. Outside when I was waiting for my school bus to come I noticed a large dark and angry cloud mushrooming over the area where school was. Later on the bus I noted how as we got closer to school the area around seemed to get darker. Turning around, I also noticed how I saw the dawn approaching from the edges of the dark cloud as we drove deeper into the heart of the storm. Night had literally sunk it's hooks into day. Then just we reached school it started to rain heavily. What a start to a day. As a bonus there was no assembly.

During the major huge recess/tok/sl2 break today, Huang Yihui came over. I ran down from the library where I was with Cao and Pong printing EE stuff to the roundabout where she popped out of a cab. Then she followed me back to the library and spoke a little to Pong and Cao. Cao and I (+ Yihui) then traipsed over to Uncle Tony who appeared to be more knowledgeable about the EE format than Cao. Afterwards I went to the SAC with her to talk about random things and people and then dragged her up to the Y6 level where we met an irate Pthong who owned us because visitors were not allowed ):

It was really nice meeting up with her and it was great that she was thoughtful enough to meet up with me & travel down to ACS to do so. In a way this is ironic because it means I've met up with her more even though she's in Australia most of the year than I have with my other MGS friends who still remain in Singapore. Life is odd indeed.

Then after school I stayed back to go over my World Lit 1 with John (thank you!) and Stephanie who was attending the useless UCAS talk with me. Then I reached home around 5:30.

Thursday:
...was a crazy day. I didn't even attend a single lesson the entire day because of charity cafe. I originally wanted to skip school to do work at home, but then I felt guilty at the thought that I'd be abandoning my classmates so I went to school -_______________________-

The first lessons was Econs, but Daryl and I didn't do the Indian reverend's work, so we went to 'help' Darren set up the Wii for the charity cafe. This entailed a lot of bumming around till I got bored and went back up to class to get the stuff to set up the milo dinosaur bit of .9's charity cafe. As I was setting up I noticed that we had no tumbler, no cups and no can opener. D'oh. So off I went to get water from the water cooler and left the tiny kettle to boil as I went off to watch Darren mess about to get the Wii to work. As I sat there watching the Wii, some kids came running into the SAC, tripped over the kettle wire and sent the kettle flying. SMASH the kettle fell down the ground in multiple pieces, spilling boiling hot water all over the damn place. The kids then ran away. D'OH!

The noise sent quite a few people from other classes over to our end to investigate and they all very nicely helped pick up the mess. Chong Wee then helped me piece the kettle cover back together, only for both of us to realise a spring was missing from the inside to the cover couldn't be opened properly anymore. Then Jamie came by and tried to help prise the cover open but failed, so in the end the kettle remained 50% spoiled. At least it still boiled water. So off I went to refill it again.

When I returned I discovered to my dismay that the Secondary recess crowd had just appeared in the SAC, except we couldn't make the milo dinosaur because we still had no cups. Some of the class people appeared but then quickly disappeared as they had to go for the survey and I was left with Jim to man the place. This probably marked the beginning of me starting to get very frustrated and angry at how badly everything was coordinated which made the D in me shoot up. That and I did not like the feeling of getting mobbed by 10,000 kids and trying to get their attention long enough to make them pay for the game.

After some time people from class appeared again and we started making milo and getting mobbed. Then as quickly as the Secondary school mob appeared in the SAC, they were gone. I forget everything else that happened in the interim except bits like:

- playing guitar hero for the first time on the urging of Stephanie and failing because I kept pressing the wrong key
- a series of 5 showdowns by various people playing Through the Fire and Flames by Dragonforce on Expert (for some reason the song looks different from the one on the Wii) and getting almost perfect scores. Wesley from !nk was one of them, Ian Liew and Mong were others
- being really surprised by how good some people were at guitar hero, especially a certain person who played the console like a guitar by actually strumming using a coin
- getting frustrated that we were unable to sell the milo
- eating food and wandering around
- making a lot of milo
- ordering (!!! what the) my classmates around to sell/make milo --> how uncharacteristic of me, I cringe thinking about it now
- getting told to chill out multiple times
- feeling very tired and exhausted
- getting a headache from the loud songs blasting from guitar hero
- watching 2 kids getting owned by a teacher for ponning class to play guitar hero
- getting sick of Cliffs of Dover, Through the Fire and Flames, Welcome to the Jungle and When You Were Young
- getting even more upset when someone opened another tin of milo even though we were done selling

All throughout I kept thinking of how useless the entire day was because I had so much work to do and there I was doing rubbish for charity cafe. Finally after school I managed to get some work done in the library with Louis, so at least the day was not entirely a waste.

Friday:
After school I joined Eliel, Ted Kin, Elliot and Clarence to watch The Dark Knight Again, one of the few times I was willing to see a movie twice (this is a testament to how awesome it is!). Upon reaching the Hotel Rendezvous bus stop, the bunch of us ran to the Cathay to get the tickets in time for the 2:00pm show.

Watching the movie a second time was great because it gave me a chance to notice all the details that I had missed before. This also meant it gave me a false sense of confidence that I knew what was happening next - so I was less prepared for scary scenes. *spoiler alert!* When the scene where the dead fake batman slams into the mayor's window, I literally jumped in my seat and grabbed Elliot and to my chagrin later found out that I had screamed. Loudly. Oh my goodness, how embarrassing.

After the movie we migrated down to the basement to get the fried chicken from the Shilin Taiwanese snacks, meeting a balloon throwing Louis and Zhikai on our way out. We then walked to Dhoby Ghaut MRT station and Elliot and I then took 77 back.

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This post is so badly done I refuse to think about it any further. Buai.

I find this song really amusing and fascinating:


Sublime - Date Rape

Musically it reminds me of Panic! At the Disco, with regards to the beat and the odd voice. However it's far from a song sung by pretty boys. It's lyrics are both witty while being a social commentary of sorts, narrating a story of a date rape.

"Well, I cant take pity on men of his kind,
Even though he now takes it in the behind."

I have been confined to the house. This is because I am sick. Last night I was huddled in a swaddle of blanket, tissues stuffed up the nose and pouring over Ouran Manga. I also emptied my cup of water frequently and made excursions to the bathroom every 30 minutes.

Yes, I have hit a new low in my life. I have also just secretly eaten a packet of ready salted chips, locking the door to my room as I committed that cardinal sin. I only call it a sin because my parents can't get over the fact that I'm not really sick now - just drugged - and thus unable to go for the !nk party tonight. So my act of rebellion is to eat chips behind closed doors. Yum chips. Actually since the brand is Waitrose it should be crisps instead. Yummy ready salted crisps.

This is partly brought about by the sad state of my love life (read: it does not exist), a suffocating school schedule and a wonderful state of mind that is equal parts stress and 'cannot be bothered' mentality. I shall now proceed to elaborate on these points further.

1) 'sad state of my love life (read: it does not exist)'

The only thing I have vaguely romantic in real life now is the presence of this junior in !nk, initials D. C. (come on, I'm sure you can guess who!) who whenever he talks to be me always sounds like he is flirting. This would actually translate to more points if this person wasn't always talking to people like that, including the senior male editors. I don't know, maybe he's an exceptionally horny bisexual. Emphasis on the exceptionally horny bit, because in order to flirt with someone like me I think the person must be really desperate.

For the past week, I have been rereading the entire Ouran Host Club manga series (including rewatching the pilot episode). For the uninformed, the Ouran manga (as well as the Love Hina and other random manga I have at home) was a remnant from my pre-indie fag days. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy manga anymore because evidently I do - I'm just in the process of being able to mould everything into a congruent image of myself. Anyway as I read Ouran again, I am once more reunited by the stream of emotions that comes with being involved in something and my old crush on Kyoya Otori. Yes, I am that pathetic. This mades me want to continue reading more manga, so I ended up staying a little bit more later than usual every night to read before sleeping (though blame must also be accorded to Guterson's Snow Falling Over Cedars). This thus made me sick, because I was not getting enough sleep.

2) 'suffocating school schedule'

On the night of The Dark Knight, I returned home to a frantic call from Malcolm because we had yet to do our History presentation. After quickly showering, I logged on even though I was seriously dying from the exhaustion. Then, I had to struggle through cyberspace and work out another Biology practical proposal because the last one got rejected while trying to be helpful to Mong and Elliot who were doing the presentation with me. So while I was reckoning with all of this, my exhaustion passed and I was in a state of nirvana tired-but-unable-to-sleep-anymore. This thus led me to read, eating into even more sleeping hours.

The rest of the school week also felt rather tedious, with little to dissipate the monotony and pointlessness of everything. This was especially compounded by how there was so much free time in school, leading to frustration building up because that time was essentially dead time, a dead weight loss, because I cannot do work when there are so many people around. I couldn't really read either because class was so noisy (which led to me hiding outside class with Snow Falling on Cedars almost every break I had). I literally felt time seeping through my small hands.

Economics also posed another problem. Other than being the one subject I most hate, it is also the most frustrating subject because of how it is taught. Yes, I like the Indian Preacher, but damn if I don't enjoy the grueling sessions of non stop past year papers grilling. It makes me feel stupid, frustrated and bored. I don't use my mind in class except to think about how pointless everything is and how frustrated I feel.

The two different points of frustration for me then converged into a mass which demanded exceptional bummishness at home. So I started rereading Ouran this week. This then led to me sleeping later, so I fell sick.

3) 'wonderful state of mind that is equal parts stress and 'cannot be bothered' mentality'

I think most of you know what I'm talking about. This is the feeling that you get when you know you have a mountainload of work to do and feel stressed out, leading to feelings of being burnt out and thus not caring for your work leading to sub-par work which then leads to more stress and bla bla bla.

This thus results in a feeling of avoidance of work and of frustration. So I end up reading Ouran manga. Ouran manga this keeps me awake at night, so I sleep less and fall sick.

So to sum it up, Ouran manga is something else that is bad for my health.

Today I watched The Dark Knight and wow. It was simply one of the most awesome movies I have seen in a long time (I hear the sound of my indie cred dying). I loved almost everything, from how nicely the colours were shot and hued in the scenes, the fast paced action scenes to the multiple explosions. The movie was also downright shocking and terrifying at moments, making me jump in my seat and cover my ears almost throughout the entire movie. This is definitely not a child safe movie.

Some random things (those who have not seen the movie might want to skip this bit):
1) Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You

Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.

Note how their hairstyle is THE SAME. I kept thinking that the Joker was Patrick from 10 Things in some warped parallel universe.

2) Two Face's face kept making me think of a terminator when it's outer skin got melted off

3) I kept expecting Harvey Dent's face to be melted off with acid. When it didn't happen I thought I remembered wrongly and forgot about it for the rest of the movie.

4) Batman has a very ugly batmobile

5) Batman always sounds like he has a sore throat

6) Batman's face looks really fat under the mask. This is a pity because Christian Bale is quite good looking.

7) The instances of humour in the movie seemed really badly placed and inappropriate. Also the audience in the movie theatre laughed oddly

8) Maggie Gyllenhaal has a really weird body. Parts of it bounce inappropriately in random scenes. Oddly enough I preferred Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes

Alright, 8 random thoughts (there were probably more, but I forgot them) and I still need to rush off some work. Blah.

Listening to Air's Biological did nothing to help me in the way of my EPIC Bio Prac Planning, so finally after 3 and a half hours of research and discussion with various well meaning and equally suffering friends, I have finally gotten a viable area of research and some sort of outline written out (thanks to Stephanie and her Bio Brain) - so yay!

Oli mentioned something he heard of the News about these two twins who swopped places for Taiwan NS, so here it is in it's lolness. I really can't help but think of how this makes a nice parallel with Ted Kin and Jim's displeasure at not obtaining the letter for the Commandos interview while almost everyone else that has gotten the letter has complained like hell.

Oyasumi!

Thinking on a macro level about the events of today and the recent amusement I have found myself, I realised I created a mini monster. This is mainly because what was once a personal blog where I could at least allude to something that was bothering me with the idea that the majority of people who would read my words would be those who I was close to has now been thrust into some sort a public eye of LOL-ness (which it is really, I can't deny that).

This then leads to the problem where I am forced to censor myself in order to try and maintain some sort of dignity about my being (yes, please laugh at that statement) - but on the other hand part of me finds the idea of self censorship quite distasteful. I am who I am after all, why should I hide it? I am human, I feel when things do not go as expected. Except this leads to the problem of everyone knowing how much my life 'sucks' and bla bla bla when I don't want them to know. What a conundrum.

Whatever it is, today was saved from the fiery depths of day hell by my visit to Ianthe's house to surprise her for her birthday. While waiting for Miss Leong to come home, I ended up playing with Masie (oh no is that how you spell her name) for about thirty minutes. As I played with her, I kept thinking about how nice it is to be a dog. All they need are belly rubs to be satisfied and happy with life. Humans on the other hand, fall prey to the problem of having insatiable wants. Boo.

Today also marks the day in which I foresee a few things going downhill, and frankly this realisation brings about an almost unbearable pain to my consciousness. However I know there is nothing I can do about it, all I can do is brace myself as best as I can for the upcoming business and hope enough of me remains unscathed to continue fighting the battle known as life.

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OH NO ADRIEL LEONG WHY DO YOU RUN FROM MY LOVE?

You make me very sad ): All I want is for you to hold me close, take me away from this madness called IB!

LOVE ME LOVE ME, SAY THAT YOU LOVE ME!

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On a more serious note, tomorrow will be really fucked up. More fucked up than Adriel Leong. Damn. Here's to hoping we survive :x

Edit:

OMG LOOK WHAT I FOUND! VIDEOS OF MY LOVE ON YOUTUBE :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

Things that have amused me so far this lazy weekend afternoon:

1) A Kawaii Not comic

2) This necklace (click the middle picture)

3) Cthulhu in a cute brooch form

I really ought to find something better to do.

I am sad. Since my wonderful profession last night, I have been greeted by a resounding wave of 'OMG BAD TASTE MELODIEEEEEEEEE' from people as varied as Jim who went 'Oy! Explain what you wrote on your blog!' to Ted Kin who gaves me this grimace, Daryl who laughed derisively, Johannes who complained about dying inside about my sincere declaration and Cheam who simply smsed me and went: 'I just read your blog... Words fail me."

):

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Today on the way back at the 2nd bus stop, I saw a guy around his twenties reading a book. This was a pleasant surprise because being an avid reader myself, I seldom actually see people around my age reading much - much less outdoors. So anyway yes, I noticed this guy because he was reading. Then I as I was looking at him, trying to see the title of the book he was reading, I noticed that his legs were excessively vein-ey. The veins on his leg was bulging in large clusters, starting from his knee to his sandal shod feet where the veins just seemed to get larger.

As I studied him from afar, I marveled at how vein-ey his legs were. He looked like a morbid version of The Thinker... he also looked like a human version of a Treant. And as I thought the last thought and LOL-ed to myself, my bus appeared around the corner and I jumped up to flag it down.

OMG OMG OMG ADRIEL LEONG IS THE SEXIEST THING EVER!!!!

School is obviously bad for my health: I was fine the entire month when we had holidays, fine when there was hardly any school beyond the examination hours and now not fine when school has just reverted back to the normal hours. Now I'm stuck with a stuffy nose, which is still better than the constant noisy sneezing and runny nose I had to endure with earlier in school I suppose.

During the weekend I finished Yoko Ogawa's the Diving Pool which I had the fortune of stumbling upon in Kino in May. I don't pretend to be the best reader there is around - most of the time when reading short stories I am greeted by a unmistakable sense of loss when the story has come to an end: a 'wait wait wait, did I miss something here?' For the Diving Pool however, the feeling that was most pronounced in me was a sense of creepiness, of nerves tingling from suspense and vague horror: I felt like I actually understood the stories properly.

The book which I am currently reading now is Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting - prompted by the book's appearance in Arjun's bookshelf and Johannes' expressed desire to read it. I must say, I have never come across so many unsympathetic characters gathered into so few pages before, unsympathetic characters that one can relate to at the same time. Everyone in the book is either an asshole, an alcoholic or a junkie and the tales spun using colloquial language are so wonderfully authentic in their feel and their (vaguely warped) sense of humour. I have not actually finished the book yet, but this is one book that I have quickly grown to love. It is well worth the trouble of navigating the colloquial English!

On a more random note, there were three disposable chopsticks in a sealed chopstick packet that I was given by the Beef Noodle hawker when I da bao-ed my lunch. I found it mildly fascinating.

Wow. School has just started and I feel stressed and exhausted already. This is bad because in actuality the shit has yet to hit the fan. It's just merely being loaded onto a trebuchet now - but I'm already feeling the strain of it all. I can just hope random pleasant events along the way somehow sustain me enough to not go crazy - or alternatively I can come up with a personal amusement plan similar to the activities of May and June (though this one was kind of fail). I don't know, I just hope I think of something in time.

Today's form of amusement came when I decided to follow through with the wild idea I had last week to wear a cheongsam to school. I had two people ask me if I did it for a bet. I have also learned that the slits of a cheongsam make for some pretty scandalous sitting and when I leaned over to eat the collar choked me. Sitting and eating aside however, I kind of enjoyed wearing the cheongsam because um, it looks nice. Leg movement was also easier because of the slits. I also felt like Madame Chiang Kai Shek wearing the cheongsam together with the cardigan - which is weird because I don't like the KMT.

Later when Kaijun and I were off on the spontaneous act of the day(tm) - we crossed the bridge linking Clementi to Sunset Way - we walked past this bunch of army boys doing some sort of mass run and one yelled 'gong xi fa cai' in a very discernible Malay accent. I was very amused.

My room is in a huge mess, oh my God. I feel slightly sick looking at the mess, a bit like feeling faint and half wanting to freak out in a mass of suppressed OCD. I already can't find:

1) 1 512mb SD card... which still has pictures inside from the class party :/
2) 1 white waist belt, which I hope in find in time for tomorrow

The mess coincides with another problem: I am acquiring stuff at an astounding pace. Like yesterday I bought an electric eraser of all things. And a pack of colourful pens because they were colourful. Today however, I have set a new record by acquiring a shit load of books. This is because when I go shopping with my mother, she loves to head to places that and crowded and have clothes I don't like. This results in me waiting around aimlessly and giving off 'CAN WE GO NOW?' vibes. So to solve this problem she does what she has been doing since I was young enough to be addicted to books - she sends me to the bookstore.

This weekend Zara has a 40% sale going on or something. There is one Zara in Liat Towers and one Zara in Ngee Ann City. Note how one is close to Borders and the other is close to Kinokuniya. So today my grand haul is:

1) David Guterson - Snow Falling on Cedars
2) Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go
3) Su Tong - Madwoman on the Bridge
4) Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude
5) (ed.) Sebastian Faulks and Jorg Hensgen - The Vintage Book of War Stories
6) John Galsworthy - The Man of Property (Forsythe Saga)
7) Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting

I actually feel guilty for getting my mother to spend so much on books - but on the other hand the price of all my books equals to one skirt for her. I still think shopping online is cheaper + they have better clothes. I really can't stand the clothes they sell in Singapore.

It feels like a pneumatic drill. You just hold it over the area you want to be erased and it rubs the words away without you having to exert any force whatsoever. Only catch is that it's heavy because of the two AA batteries inside. Get your electric eraser today, only $2 and another step to mankind getting more useless, from Daiso!

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Today I went out with Arjun, Kaijun (and Louis, for a while). We met at Ikea first before following Louis to Orchard Road and bumming around Plaza Singapura for the rest of the day.

Bumming is good. Also being able to buy rubbish from Daiso, like electric erasers and food products :D Butter chicken is however, better.

I just realised I really love the keyboard for Saoirse. It's so much better than Fokker (the desktop in my room now [I named it one day when I was really pissed]). The black keys are nice and big, also possessing the right amount of springy-ness for my little hands. I love the feeling of typing on the keyboard. So well, the adage 'you don't know what you've got till it's gone' holds true once more. I don't like Fokker's keyboard because the keys feel further apart and yet smaller, and the keys are hard and un-springy.

Saoirse, it is nice to have you back.

"Ah! I want to sit next to my favourite person who never finishes her food" - Ted Kin

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The exams are finally over! Thank goodness. However it still doesn't feel like the exams are over in any way at all - the tension is still present in my muscles, the stress hormones are still flowing about my body and the room is a mess of a mass of papers. Oh dear.

After school today we had an impromptu class outing to watch Elliot's favourite movie of all time: Hancock. Chun Wui very nicely bought the tickets for us first, confiscating our EZ links at the same time. This reminds me, I owe him $1. The movie was alright at first, good for some laughs - then some weird ass plot line developed and suddenly the brainless movie started going emo-ey. To this I have only one thing to state: -______________________________________-

The movie ended about 4-something, so a few of us, JLC, Nic, Elliot, Ted Kin, Joash and I wandered over to the National Museum. There we played with a few of the exhibits and found ourselves visiting a rather odd and completely bull shit art installation. It was so bull shit that the introduction to the exhibit sounded like one of Nic's essays, something he himself admitted. It was around 5:30 when we finally left the Museum and I took the bus back with Joash.

On another note throughout the course of the past few weeks I have finished reading quite a few books, the most recent being Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. There is something about the book that I find rather haunting, like how the implied romance was ever so slight that when I felt it intuitively, I thought I was again trying to impose my own wants onto the story. There is also the idea of a rather wasted life.

While I can't say that it has been one of my all time favourite novels I can't help but admire the craftmanship by the author - how the voice sounded so authentic to the point where it seemed to be fulfilling a stereotype. So yes, perhaps I should try getting Daryl's most admired Never Let Me Go next.

Others books I've finished in this interim is The Book of Other People by Zadie Smith, Marley & Me by Josh Grogan (LOL! A book about a dog. Books don't get more sentimental and mindless than this unless it's a badly written historical romance) and A Russian Affair by Anton Chekov.

In other news Saoirse has returned to me. I almost cried when she died and I was told none of the data could be restored - then she got sent to a data recovery centre and my entire 2 years of computer life was reduced to a bunch of cds for $650... and now she's back and alive $250 later with all of my data inside? WHAT THE HELL. I actually feel a little pissed off now for the money wasted. BLARGHHHHHHHH. Okay this is as far off tangent I'll go tonight. Ta.

Heard on Channel Newsasia's Amazing Asia:

"They have a wonderful vision for the future" - about a blind cricket club in Bangladesh.

I facepalmed.

Also, the world is returning to normal. Anwar has been accused of sodomy again (k I know this is old but I keep forgetting to mention it). Malaysia accuses another country (Turkey) of infringing on its rights. I laugh. At least the Malaysian newspapers will have something else besides Pedra Branca to bitch about now.

Today after the Math Studies paper, I walked home. The last time I had walked home from school, it was from a completely different school - so that was some 2 years ago. The route I took today was through Ghim Moh - which took me about 15 minutes of walking from school.

Walking through there in my grand ACS uniform, ears plugged with white apple earphones and carrying a brown f aux (I think) leather satchel with converse shod feet, I felt like the epitome of the stereotypical 'rich' upper class kid. I felt that with one look, everyone could tell that I didn't belong there. As I walked I saw various eyes wander about and land on me, studying me for a second before dismissing me as an outsider. It made me feel weird. I wanted to say "look I share the same skin colour as you!" but then they'd point out that I was speaking perfect English, and when I cry out "dan shi wo we ke yi jiang hua wen!" they'd laugh at my accented Mandarin.

This odd feeling of being in a world separate from mine was added too when I decided to cross the railway bridge at the back of Ghim Moh CC. Spanning a small depression where the railway tracks lay snugly in the middle and were bounded by lush growth on both sides is this peculiar bridge. I say peculiar because it looks like just any old overhead bridge, except there isn't a road underneath it. It's like the LTA got lazy and just used the same plans for every other overhead bridge. At the bridge, I stopped for about 5 minutes to admire the greenery and the quietness of the area.

While I was standing there and looking about still, I found myself suddenly struck by the symbolism of the railway tracks and the bridge. To my right lay Ghim Moh with her HDB flats and to my right lay Easy Sussex Lane, nicely split into two distinct areas by the train tracks. One area was decidedly Lower to Middle class and the other was definitely Upper Class. I found myself thinking about this quote from I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings which was about how the railway tracks in Stamps seperated the Black area from the White area. The exact quote I forget, but the gist was Maya saying that it was like stepping into a seperate world when she walked into the White area.

I again found myself struck by this idea that as a Singaporean who patronises Holland Village/Orchard Road often, has been going to nothing but 'name brand' schools her entire life and has never stayed in a property that was not landed - I am living anything but the typical Singaporean life. While Stamps in the '60s is a far cry from Singapore of the present, the idea of segregation remains. The situation is however, markedly different.

My grandparents were not born with silver spoons in their mouths - they came to Singapore with practically nothing in the '60s and started their own business on borrowed money. Along the way they took many risks, often sacrificing their health in order to run the business, bringing them to where they are today - able to enjoy a more than comfortable retirement, see that their offspring and their offspings's offspring live comfortably and travel the world according to their whims.

My mother was much less fortunate compared to my father. She was born the youngest daughter in a family of 8 to a illiterate mother and a taxi driver father. From a young age however, she set herself apart from the rest of her siblings by excelling in school. She was rejected from Paya Lebar MGS and instead opted to take the long commute home everyday by attending St Margarets' School. She ended up mucking up her O levels but somehow ended up in what was still know as RI then. She ended up mucking up her A levles again and couldn't attend a local university, so she kicked her heels about by working as a bank teller for a while. It was then that she realised she wanted something more for her life, she didn't want to be a bank teller forever! Instead through donations, loans from siblings and friends and using the savings of her parents and herself, she managed the scrape up enough money to minimally fund her education in Australia, working part time in order to pay her school fees and living expenses.

This might be taken to be an elitist view, but the point I'm trying to make is while I didn't do anything to achieve the status I'm enjoying now, my parents (and grandparents) put in their hard work to get where they are today. Sure, we'll never live in one of the grand homes I was gawking over as I walked through Queen Astrid Park, but I can't really say I'm poor either. Somehow, somewhere down the lines it has been this hard work put in that has made all the difference between 'Ghim Moh' and 'Sixth Avenue' (I'm not rich, don't kidnap me please), and as a result impacting my life greatly. I'm not saying that the other people didn't work hard, it's just that for whoever thinks they have worked hard enough, there is someone else out there who has worked harder and is still working.

Anyway to sum up this rather pointless expository, this idea of 'hard work' is something that should be kept in mind anytime a debate about 'Elitism' comes up. I might not be the best of examples, but if this ignorant child did not cram like hell for the PSLE, God knows where she would be today and what she would be like. Hard work, literally, works. This is something that all (especially people with the name L.L.H.L. who aspire to be a doctors) of us as students should keep in mind especially for the next 5 months whether its A levels or IB exams. So never mind that I've fucked up this round of exams rather nicely, it's still about 9 weeks to the Pre Lims and that's plenty of time to adequately pull up my sagging grades into something presentable.

I have just accrued the worst possible thing for a lactose intolerant person like me: Cheese Hello Panda. LOL.

In other news, this Wired article is highly recommended (thanks to Mong!) for all litfags out there. Hello.

I love the one by Margaret Atwood:

"Longed for him. Got him. Shit."
- Margaret Atwood

OMG what the fuck?! Nightwish singing The Phantom of the Opera:



It sends shivers down my spine in an immensely creepy way, yet I find myself oddly drawn to it. Imagine listening to it right after turning up the volume to listen to Winds of Change, then being faced by an avalanche of weird Scandinavian accent and loud death metal :/

BRRRRRRR.

One of the positively worst emotions to feel is that of helplessness. As I write this, sitting in my room facing the busy main road, someone just across the road from me is lying on the asphalt. Now some 15 minutes after I first heard the bang of initial impact between motorcycle and car front wheel bumper - I hear the wail of an ambulance which is undoubtedly stuck in traffic somewhere behind. I personally wonder if it is the same paramedics in the ambulance as the ones that were right outside my doorstep yesterday, also tending to yet another road accident victim.

After the first bang, I did what all good kay poh Singaporeans concerned civic minded people do: I went outside to have a look. It was mainly to see if I could give any help, like call the ambulance or something, but a few people had already encircled the yellow shirted figure that was lying prone on the ground and I figured that they didn't need any more useless help. It's situations like this that I sometimes wish I had gone into Nursing school instead of trying to kill myself with the IB Programme (except there is one fatal flaw: how can a nurse be afraid of blood?)

I sometimes try to console myself with the idea that I'm a certified first aider, except this in itself is very fail because my own license has lapsed (I vow to renew it next year when I have the time!) and I don't think I can remember very much of the stuff I learned. Oh dear indeed.

Reading the newspapers earlier (speaking of which, did anyone read the piece of yellow journalism smashed right on the front page of The Straits Times on the 27th June? If not, read it's wonderful yellowness here) before the unmistakable sound of metal being crushed I read a terrifying article about a NUS student that got raped in Clementi Woods Park. The thing I find the scariest about it is that:

1) It happened to a university student - that's me in about 2 years
2) It happened in Singapore - what more when compared to other cities with higher crime rates?

The worst possible thing that could ever happen to a woman in my opinion is that of sexual assault. It is even worse than death because at least when I'm dead I'm not psychologically traumatised. I'm just very dead. I won't suffer from post traumatic disorder, I won't suffer from nightmares and I won't suffer from immense paralysing paranoia. So yes, I'd rather be killed first then raped, rather then the reverse where I'm freaking out as I'm dying. Also: I don't know why I'm thinking about such morbid stuff at 1:30 in the afternoon.

This brings me back to a point that Cheam brought up the other day when I was talking to him, which was to learn Krav Maga or some other self defense derivative. The thought of someone like me being all bulked up and hopping around trying to punch someone's lights out however, is extremely laughable. Still, the fear of being caught in a situation where one is helpless is very real and one that should be addressed whenever possible - just like the one I will encounter tomorrow when I face a Paper 1 Math exam that I have not studied for yet :/

Hi. I am a rat. I am not a very pretty rat, not a rat than can run very fast or a rat that's very intelligent.

All I can do is not stop people dead in their tracks with strikingly bad whiskers and woffly nose, get up and run as best as I can when I fall and learn the scent of cheese and avoid it.

I am a very lousy rat. But at least I am still a rat and not a sloth.

Today is an rather bloody day, which I am glad to have survived in more ways than one.

1) I had a nasty shock in the beginning of my English exam today when I looked at my left hand and realised there was blood smeared all over it. It took me a second later to realise that the source was a tiny scab I was mindlessly picking at just moments earlier while pondering over which question to do for English.

2) When I got home I found a letter from the um. Blood donation people. Inside was this very odd origami box thing that I blew up so it became rather ball like

3) I need to study blood transportation for Bio tomorrow.

So yes, very bloody indeed.

Okay, I feel quite frustrated now because someone (eh you know who you are!) told me the June SAT scores were coming out today! So after spending like 1% of the day thinking about the impending SAT results, I came online only to discover they come out on the 26th. In my best ah lian voice I will now say this to sum up the feeling in me now: DIAOOOO.

Well that and the knot on my chest which still refuses to untie itself even though I'm fully aware that the 26th is on Thursday.

Chalk up another victory for google adsense! In other news, my EE is due tomorrow and the Commons Tests begin tomorrow as well.

Here's to hoping we all survive the next 2 weeks! (and next 5 months...)

Tonight I have made the decision to finally come clean about my secret double life: I am a toilet inspector for the WTO (World Toilet Organisation, not World Trade Organisation you dummy!). If case some of you haven't noticed, I use the bathroom often. This is not actually because I have a small bladder, which is the excuse I give when I need to perform my duties. So tonight I shall give my wonderful readers an insight into my area of expertise: bathrooms.

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1st Bathroom: Tanah Merah MRT Station

The first thing I noticed when I enter the bathroom is that it is very small. Already, a queue of 2 women waiting to use the bathroom cubicles has formed. Another thing I notice about the bathroom is that the floor is wet - urgh. When it is finally my turn to enter a cubicle I notice there are only 3 cubicles available. This is unacceptable and must be reported to headquaters. Most surprisingly however, the cubicle contains toilet paper. The floor however, is disgusting. There is also a rather unpleasant smell in the air. Outside in the sink area, soap is available and there is no hand drier.

Rating: 2/5

2nd Bathroom: Bathroom outside Tutorial Rooms, level 2, IB Block

This is a bathroom I used to visit very often and inspect in Year 5 because I had class in one of the tutorial rooms. There are many cubicles here and all of them are stocked with toilet paper. The floor is alsop very clean, and there is a fan which helps keeps the area well ventilated. Once however, the soap that came out of the dispenser stank like unholy heaven. It even looked bad. FAIL. Overall however, this is one of the better bathrooms. It has a nice working hand drier.

Rating: 3.5/5

3rd Bathroom: Basement 1 of Esplanade Theatres on the Bay

This is a really nice looking bathroom. It is also sort of dark. There are many cubicles here, I have yet to see a queue even once even right before big ticket events like the Broken Social Scene concert and the Phantom of the Opera. The cubicles are also well stocked with tissue. Space wise however, the bathroom loses some points. The corridors are narrow with only 1 person able to walk at a time - even in the sink area. Soap however, is always present. As a bonus the bathroom is usually cold with air conditioning and the dispenser for tissues is also automated.

Rating: 4.5/5

4th Bathroom: Wah Chee

This is by far the worst bathroom I have been in so far this year. The floor is wet, there is only one cubicle, and there is no tissue or soap inside. There is also a smell. FAIL FAIL FAIL. Only thing it has going for it is that the toilet can be flushed.

Rating: 0.5/5

5th Bathroom: Starbucks in Holland Village

The bathroom is nicely lit by natural light and the walls are painted in nice earthy tones. Bonus points! The floor is also nice and dry and the toilet looks clean. There is nice smelling soap in the container and paper towels provided for drying hands. There is also no smell to be discerned. Not bad at all.

Rating: 3.5/5

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I hope this exercise has enlightened you on the inner workings of a WTO toilet inspector. Thank you and have a good night!

Today I have been visited by ghosts of the past again. One was a chance meeting with Zhi Wai in Rail Mall - where Kaijin, Arjun and I were studying in coffee bean with Karan. Two was when Oliver mentioned the first time we met, which was accompanied by another memory of the past that I had forgotten and which now brings a certain sadness to my heart.

Sometimes, when I think about the past, I feel traumatised.

In a way even though I survived and tried my best to come to terms and resolve this 'past' of mine, I don't think I've been very successful. If I still feel twinges of hurt and sadness, does it mean I have never fully recovered? Or is it natural to still look back on episodes of life and still feel an attached emotion, but more watered down than when it was fresh? I don't know. I've not quite lived long enough to learn that yet.

But the past is something we cannot change. Whether we can change the future however, depends on which school of thought one follows. Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five brought up something interesting about the concept of free will. In the book, an alien race captures the protagonist and one tells him that, "I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe... Only on Earth is there any talk of free will". Vonnegut's main intention of using fatalism as a main theme of his book have been said by many as a criticism of the concept - that we do have free will.

I personally believe that yes, we do have free will. We can't control the external factors that come and go which will ultimately affect our lives - but there is also much that we can control. There is the ability to weigh risks and gains in any decision we make, the ability to say 'stop!' when we are displeased or uncomfortable, or even the ability to see shit happening and do one's best to avoid it as much as possible. So yes, my past may be riddled with experiences that I cannot help but feel a certain sadness at recalling, but I believe that I can manipulate my destiny into a life that is worth fighting for!

(This is odd, why am I so optimistic?)

A consequence of using the old desktop computer again is that I have once more been reunited with my old 'My Recieved Files' folder. There I found some old bits of rubbish that people have sent to me over the years (well okay, emphasis on 2 people who sent me that sort of rubbish) - in addition to reminding me how much things have changed since 2005. Do I miss the old times? Yes, I do. I miss all the innocence, the feeling of the present which felt like no other. The feeling of being in love for the first time in my life, of a future that I thought I saw. Now 3 years later I can only look back with a wry smile for everything that has changed and been forever impossibly altered. But such is the unpredictability of life. So it goes.

On the upside, I have videos of other rubbish too. Ohohoho.

/end reminiscience (this stuff should be left for my still undone autobiography in one day)

(and yes, that is John Tay snoozing in the middle picture)

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I bought more books again yesterday! Even though my shopping was limited to Sunny Bookshop - I still managed to walk away with a title by a Japanese author.

Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day

Erich Maria Remarque - Arch of Triumph (I am a sucker his books because of All's Quiet on the Western Front)

Zadie Smith - The Book of Other People (Cheryl was reading this during the 3rd Student Council Elections)

Jonathan Spence - Mao (LOL!)

Meanwhile, I have just finished Freakonomics. I really recommend it, even if you have no interest in Economics whatsoever (like me). It's highly accessible and enlightening while also managing to be entertaining.

I don't know why but for the past few days I've been feeling rather unbalanced physically - like I'm still on a boat that is rocking back and forth. I feel half like I am floating and half like I'm about to list over to one side and about to topple over and NO I have not been drinking by myself again. It is a most odd feeling which I do not quite like.

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Today while studying, I was listening to Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. It occured to me then that it was ultimate IB song. I quote:

"More Than Ever Hour After
Our Work Is Never Over"

I badly need to survive the next few weeks. Meep!

I have once more been visited by an odd displaced feeling again. This time it brings along many questions that I cannot help ask myself but cannot quite answer, like:

1) Why I keep avoidng every single MGS person I can faintly recognise from my level (+ the random girls in uniform I see around)
2) About myself - in relation to the concept of 'love'
3) About 'love' - in general
4) Why I find myself searching online stores everynight without fail
5) Why I have this huge compulsion to keep buying books - and then read them (5 in the last week! Enright, Katayama, Vonnegut, , Christie + almost half of Freakonomics)
6) Why I always mentally pair people in stories up (in And Then There Were None, I kept hoping Lombard and Claythrone would get together and not die in the end)
7) How I can be simultaneously rational to the point of being mechanical and robotic and irrational - then mix the two together to create a very terrifying scenario

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I have also been compiling a mental list in my head of things I want to achieve this year:

1) 41 points for IB
2) ER, gather enough confidence/self esteem to wear a bikini at the beach or equivalent
3) Get a proper wardrobe/style that suits me
4) Get around to finally buying + reading World Without End
5) Maintain my size 4 size (how the heck did I increase from size 0 to size 4 in one year?)

Oh dear, I just realised 3/5 of those aims are superficial. On the other hand, IB eats up all any vaguely intellectual brain power, so that is the main aim with the rest as mere appendices. Ho hum. I need a healthier sleep cycle.

The most absolutely wonderful thing has happened to a computer addicted person like me: Saoirse (my laptop) has died. Died as in really died - it won't boot up anymore.

Oddly enough I was feeling rather sanguine about the whole thing, but anxious enough to realise that if I think about it further I'll get horribly depressed and distressed. Oddly enough the last thing I ever did with her was to attempt to bug Karan on MSN, only to have him not reply. WHY WHY WHY ME OMG.

Okay I've started thinking about my laptop again and simulataneously have worked up the urge to go online shopping again. I had better stop.

K. I resolve to never drink enough to come near getting drunk anymore.

My floor feels funny, my clothes still need to be packed for tomorrow's trip and my head hurts mildly. Also, I do not like having to bathe twice.

Oh I do hate you SATs, and the bad feeling you have me, enough to go buy some dodgy drink and get surprised that I didn't get carded.