East End Film Festival 2010

http://www.eastendfilmfestival.com/index.php?/home/

DROOL. I am so disappointed that I did not notice the flyer in the ULU gym earlier. Argh!

Still, so many lovely movies and so little time/money. I just want to catch them all!

Will be watching Disco and Atomic Wars with Christoph, hooray. I hope Zoe wants to watch some movies too. I would ask Jia, but she's got exams. Damn.

"Passim"

Dear GV101 Coordinator,

You are an asshole for writing "A. Lijphart ed. Parliamentary versus Presidential Government, OUP, 1992, introduction and passim" as part of the course reading when a more accessible word would have sufficed.

Yours Sincerely,

A GV101 Student

The Golden Age

Economic History talks of the Golden Age of Economic Growth which occur mainly from the 1950s to 1973 - the post WWII recovery era till the first Oil Crisis. For the past few days I have been up to my eye(balls? brows?) with such readings. They are a most happy thing compared to readings on The End of The Golden Age (post-1973) and things such as Failure of Russian Economy, The 1930s Debt Crisis. As a course, EH101 is lovely lovely thing to study. It is a wonderful convergence of history, politics and little bits of IB economics converging together. Preparing for exams however, is quite a pain because the scope is far too wide and amorphous. It is probably one of the most structureless, anchorless modules to study for in the LSE exams.

Anyway that is not what compelled me to write again. I am more than often frustrated with the course, let alone wax lyrical about how it is (because I am always leaning to complaining more than appreciating, yes I am that crotchety old cat lady that lives down the street). Instead it made me think about my own Golden Age, which I know well is happening before my eyes now - despite all the negativity that has been flowing about my veins about everything related to life in general (and no, contrary to certain rumours I am nowhere near suicidal or anything pertaining to the matter of depression).

A Chew told me once (or perhaps many times?) about how the Golden Age really occurs in ones youth, when we are not belaboured by words like Boss, Responsibility and Mortgage and at the same time possess the new word of Independence. I think I got a false start at this, mainly because when I came down to London I fell quickly in love with another that preferred playing foosball to spending time with me. I never had time to discover myself in a new country, though there was definitely development in experience and character.

Now 3 months on, I find myself surrounded by new things and new people. I am faced with new and happier possibilites after old doors have been shut to me. As for the distant past, I have now come to peace with it in my own odd way and talked to old friends that I once consigned into the past. I've freaked out about being alone enough, travelled with friends in the UK and strengthened old friendships. As the academic year draws closer to the end with (urgh) exams, I am left once more to evaluate my time in London, and though the diagnosis is bittersweet in the short term, I know in the long term it will bring about sweeter things.

I hate Bran Flakes

On the second day, Jiayun and I missed breakfast because we were so tired and slept in. Daryl, ever the wonderful and conscientious person, woke up on time and collected breakfast for us instead. Well, he took two boxes of Bran Flakes and I hate Bran Flakes. Something about it just sounds too healthy to be tasty. It's like eating Cardboard Flakes. So I came up with a wild notion (my mind is most fertile of wild notions when I am around Daryl, especially) to feed it to ducks.

At the end of the day, when we were all too exhausted the three of us gathered next to the river than runs next to St Hilda's college and I finally got to feed Bran Flakes to three ducks that wandered by. They started pecking at each other to get to the food and three soft duck down feathers floated down the river after a fit of violence. Daryl stopped me from attempting to murder a duck by throwing an apple at it (also obtained from breakfast).

And this event, is how I choose to remember Oxford with Jia and Daryl - random, silly and bathed in the soft hues of sunshine in a city of spires. Also probably wildly inappropriate and surprising, with a gigantic goose who flew to the ducks and scared me so I ducked behind Daryl.

We had two really exceptionally good meals - one Japanese at place called Endamame (lovely pink and green seaweed salad, salmon hotpot and free flow tea) and Rice Box, 4 overflowing plates of meat and rice for 8 pounds per person. Then there was Moo (I think), the milkshake place where this lactose intolerant person had a fruit blend drink instead. S&D ice-cream, Bailey's cream was also absolutely delightful. Even the random Chicken Tikka microwave meal tasted good - because these were all meals that were eaten together with the best of friends.

The Ballroom, this vintage store nearby St Hilda's was also delightful. We ended up going there everyday and I bought 2 scarves, a handbag and a dress for 14 pounds. Plus I finally got Daryl his 19th birthday gift, a nice manly scarf. Arcadia was another treasure trove and I bought some nice cards and 3 books - one a delightful collection of dirty limericks for a pound 50p. Jia and I also somehow went to Bicester village as well (with an extremely reluctant Daryl who ended up buying a pair of shoes and two pairs of pants I might add - Jia bought the least with a pair of gloves and a scarf I think) and I got two blouses and a pair of gloves.

Best of all of course was the conversation - next to cold fires while drinking in a very Oxford pub (you could hear names like Grotius echoing in the background), lying in bed in our room, whilst walking along Magdalen Park, up in some church tower, in Blackwell's Art and Poster store, on the bus to Bicester village and back, over multiple meals. I don't think I've been so silly or laughed so much in such a long time.

In short, Oxford was awesome, and would not have been so without my two lovely companions, Daryl and Jiayun. However good things cannot last, and it ended with the three of us half sprinting down to Gloucester Green to catch the 9:10pm Oxford Tube to London Victoria. As I was about to leave Jia at Warren Street tube station, we hugged and were surrounded by a group of black youths who started laughing manically at the sight of us hugging and half surrounded us (11:30pm-ish, London). Then as I was one block away from my dorm, I passed a prostitute who shouted 'what are you looking at?' at me, still clasping a condom between her teeth, when I was just trying to glance at the road in order to cross safely.

Oh God, London. I do loathe thee.

Chicken Stir Fry

Inspired by the stir fry I had in Strasbourg and in the 4th Floor Restaurant in LSE, I cooked stir fry recently.

Long Beans - 1 pound

Leafy Veg (Pak Choi or something, can't remember the name) - 1 pound

Can of corn kernels - free from relatives

Chicken 400g - 3.50 (buy two for 7 pounds)

Soy Sauce

1 cup rice

Black Pepper

Serves 4 meals = about 1 pound 40p per meal

Om nom nom nom. That and the Waterzooi I cooked last week with Hardeep. I shall aim to cook chicken curry before school reopens, and boring old spaghetti bolognese. That's for next week I suppose since I'm going to Oxford from Wednesday to Friday. School is school, life is life - though my life might have just taken yet another unexpected twist just 24 hours ago. The end results are yet to be seen.

Meanwhile: I am hungry again >:(

500 Days of Summer

I don't think I could have watched a movie that more reminded me of my past relationship. At the end of the movie, I was depressed, because it reminded me of everything - yet where was my Autumn? This got me thinking about the relationship all over again, and the things that have been happening recently.

1) Falling in love take courage, and it is this courage that I now lack;

2) I'm over him, but I'm not over how everything played out. I still remember the hell that I went through;

3) I am incredibly scared of being taken for granted and dumped on a vague lark again;

4) I am more traumatised of committing than I have ever been;

5) The idea of commitment gives me panic attack like feelings;

6) I want to fall in love again.

7) I don't know how people stay married for life anymore.

All At Sea

I wish I could make the problems of all my friends and loved ones go away. If not, I wish I could make all of their problems mine so that they least may be spared the heartbreak and heartache that life in it's own various ways brings to us. It seems ever so evident to me now that I have only been granted half of my wish - but I always wish I could do more. It hurts me that I am unable to help as much as I want to.

I am undecided if this is a curse or a gift.

The last stir fry I had was in Strasbourg and it was surprisingly yummy. Om nom nom.

So apparently I've started revision today - starting with my favourite monarch (maybe, I can't decide if that thought came to my mind in earnest or sarcastically), Charles V.

I went to the gym today and it was a nice short stroll. As I walked outside Gordon Square park, a black London cab passed me with two men in suits inside. My first thought was 'oh no, Patrick Bateman!'. I think I'll either watch American Psycho soon, or Psycho. Zoe is back anyway, ohoho. Though of course I doubt she'll be much help if a raging crazy psychopath comes and tries to drink my blood.

I cooked Waterzooi the other day, with Hardeep. It was all a very silly affair and we were giggling like shit because I was quite lost and didn't buy all the ingredients (it was expensive!!!) and he came and helped me. We stole butter from the fridge and salt and pepper (because I couldn't find mine). Plus I had to use leek in the ingredients, and I didn't even know what it looked like just hours before (I had to read all the labels in the supermarket) and when I chopped it up it was based on a wild guess about which the important bits were. I realised I even forgot to peel the carrots before throwing them in, hahaha.

It could have been an unequivocal disaster, but somehow, it turned into some awesome stew. Well, it wasn't quite Waterzooi, but it was creamy and nice, and ohmahgawd the leeks were awesome (so I did put in the proper bits). I think I am in love with leeks. It's got that onioney feel to it without being overpowering like the way onions are.

For tonight I'll attempt random stir fry. I remember buying garlic last Nov because I was a good girlfriend who wanted to cook Ba Ku Teh for her ex's birthday and ended up with left over (okay I so need to stop being bitter), so hopefully uh they're still edible and cookable. Fingers crossed again.

It seems I have my fingers crossed often, especially when it comes to cooking.

I feel very sick and unstable.

How My Heart Behaves

Just a few weeks ago, outside Euston Station, I bought a copy of the Big Issue from a man. He sat under one of those yellowey street lamps. I just had dinner with Hardeep, Chai, Chen, boy Zhi Wei and Shon Lee at Ed's Diner. As I leaned over to give him 2 pounds for the Big Issue, his dog which sat by the side of him startled me by getting up a little and I giggled. He thanked me. He was sitting down and and huddled under sleeping blankets. It was like 5 degrees out and windy. I remember the issue was on Craig David and I flipped through it and giggled at the the classified ad I found at the back. Later in the night, we watched 3 Idiots (which I highly recommend to everyone).

Today I walked by the spot and there was a little sign stuck onto a tree nearby his spot. The sign said, RIP Big Issue Seller, Dermot. There were flowers laid against a tree.

I almost cried there and then. It pains me to think of how he possibly could have died.

I saw a large lost looking dog digging through the Garbage at the Quaker Friend's House later. I could swear it was his dog.

I feel incredibly overwhelmed coming back to reality. The holiday with my parents was great, and I was effectively operating on autopilot for the past one and a half weeks, but now I find myself suddenly thrust back into Adulthood and Exams and I feel overwhelmed, like there is so much to do but I don't know how to do it. I wish I could have gone back to Singapore with my parents. I don't think I'm very good with the whole growing up thing. Or being alone for that matter.

I feel terrible again, and I want to go and stay home.

Brussels-Luxembourg-CharencyVezin

Today we traveled down from Brussels. I must say, I really really enjoyed my day in Belgium. We went to Tournai, Ghent, Brussels and Namur. The food was really good (mmm Moules and Waterzooi), the place we stayed in nice - a beautiful loft apartment owned by an Artist and her husband - she decorated everything and hung her paintings in the apartment, the people could speak fairly fluent English and there were all sorts of lovely perfumes and chocolates (both of which my mother and I purchased a few). Transport was convenient too, with a metro going right into town.

Namur today was pretty dead. As we drove into town, we ran into a film crew with a guy all decked up in a suit and bowler hat, clutching three lovely lime green juggling pins. He stopped in the middle of the bridge leading to the main town square and the crew would film him as he juggled. When we left almost 2 hours later, he was still filming, and it was cold out :/

Namur has a nice old citadel, but it was a bit of a disaster. It's a Monday, and hence a lot of attractions, the citadel namely, were closed. We ended up walking about the ruins looking at things and I wandered off, through a tunnel and found myself on a wooden bridge over a very high gorge/moat ): I ended up standing in the middle, where the highest point of a cottage lay underneath, thinking that if the bridge collapsed at least I would fall the shortest distance. I stood there, stuck, for a few minutes because I could see through the gaps of the wood and got scared. It was all very silly really.

I learned today I am scared of tunnels (because they might collapse on me and kill me) and that I am afraid of bridge (because they might collapse under me and kill me). I already know I am afraid of the darkness (I always sleep with a light on if I am alone and in a new place), afraid of dark woody old rooms with dolls in them (like tonight and the first night where we stayed in a 300 year old Chateau B&B) and afraid of thinking about my future when I am 40 years old and potentially possessing 2 bratty children I want to kill, a husband who is cheating on me/and totally disinterested in bed, a mediocre dead end job and holding on to lots of shattered dreams. I am scared of a lot of things.

Anyway after I managed to unstick myself and shuffle back to the tunnel, where I kept trying to push thoughts of all those horrific Malaysian North-South highway landslides on the way to Ipoh and people go BURIED ALIVE, I emerged to find my parents exiting a nice perfumerie. Yesterday we all bought 3 vials of perfume from this nice charming Belgian guy in the market near the Brussel's Grand Plaza (between that and the Central Station on the metro line), and mine smelt like nice floral-ey apples. Today I ended up getting another bottle of perfume that reminds me a little of the Issey Miyake smell, something confirmed by the perfumer himself. Its a bit of a wonder how I'm going to use it, since I usually run out of my dorm to anything - late, and thus forget to spray even my Cacharel's Scarlett perfume on. All I know is I smelt so many perfumes that past 24 hours that my sense of smell has official imploded.

Lunch was a random Pizza Hut affair on the way to Luxembourg, since we had no choice. Before we entered a nice lady gave us a coupon for 0,30 euros off any drink. There were lots of random British kids running about the place, on a school trip of sorts.

Luxembourg was a disappointment. Not much really in the way of shopping, culture, or places of interest. Oh well.

On the way to our nice B&B in a little place called Charency-Vezin, we ended up crossing the Belgian-French border 5 times because we got lost. Boo. My dad is seriously so cheap. He refuses to pay for a damn GPS system so instead it's all map reading (for me) and we end up getting lost because the road and direction signs are not labelled clearly. This means in total we ended up crossing the Belgian-Luxembourg-French borders more than 7 times today. Imagine, if it was still the days before EU and every border crossing meant going through immigration customs...

Bruxelles

Today in Brussels, I learned that the metro system is done through the self-validation system, moules are awesome, chocolates too and that this B&B has no hot water because I am bloody cold now. Fail.

Two Oh

So I am now 20.

I remember around New Year's Eve 2010, Daryl was going on about how we were turning! twenty! A quasi-milestone in our lives where we were booted out of being terrible teenagers to legitimate young adults. I also remember sort of wondering what the hell he was going on about. And today, I turned 20 (going by Singapore time, since I was born there anyway).

This is probably the birthday that will be celebrated with the least pomp, being both out of Singapore and my adopted city of London. Already my friends in Singapore as asleep, and my friends in London are out celebrating Ruben's birthday which is the day before mine (and Chen's which is the day after mine: we planned to have a mega celebration together). Even though I am with my parents, I have never felt so alone, or a birthday so un-celebratory in atmosphere.

Instead tonight I am online and looking for people to mitigate this feeling, but the only person really talking to me (or rather who I am talking back to) is a drunk, homesick, oddball who stays in my dorm and everyone avoids. I'm actually kind of scared of him because he can get violent and has a tendency to drink till he's well and truly fucked. And I'm only talking to him now because I feel bad for him. Plus I hope he won't remember this tomorrow and think I'm his new best friend and follow me around Passfield.

I wish I could be happier about all of this, I ought to be anyway. I've made progress from who I was in 2009, and I've definitely come a long way since Jan 2010. But somehow, that niggling seed of dissatisfaction, the bit in me that always values human companionship over a lot of other things, is always present and shall always be. Fingers crossed for tomorrow then.

Should I look forward to turning 21 then? I already dreamed the dress I shall buy myself for the celebratory dinner, oho.

Goodness

Yesterday I wrote "I feel like gnawing away at my cup now" in my diary. 24 hours later, another teabag of Twinning's camommile, honey and vanilla tea, I still feel like gnawing away at my cup.

I kind of miss the good old days of ACSI where after one gets dumped (well for me anyway, certains females have proved this is not always the case - either that or they are good hunters) everyone stays the fuck away and I get more than a year to recover and find my bearings again. Here I get bombarded with the silly advice of "get a rebound!" and tossed about by many people who think I would do be good to be out on the dating market again.

And I have tried. Meeting new people and all. But those who I am remotely interested in are not interested in me. Then there are the really creepy ones (like Monobrow who loves staring at me, has bad breath, the sense of humour of a brass doorknob and the severe disposition of a hundred year old wooden floor of a funeral parlour, then there's fucking Korean small eyes who kept trying to kiss me against my will and started groping me like crazy while clubbing and had to be rescued from - made me cry the next day and feel an extremly strong aversion to Korean looking people with small fucking eyes, to a nice guy friend who thinks horses lay eggs and tells everyone he likes me after two drinks) who are invariably ALWAYS interested in me ($*@$NDX@(VC.

I really wish I could take a break from it all and shrug it off. Be rid of relationships and all the damn ways it affects my life in a most negative manner. BE ASEXUAL. But no, there's the part in me I actively recognise as always wanting to be in a relationship for all the (supposed) love and security it brings. So it's bad enough I need to fight myself, without getting traumatised by all the weird frogs around jumping away at me and making me feel that little bit worse about myself.

Ribbit.

So, what now?

The term has ended on far less than a cresendo, and somehow because of this I feel a sense of loss. A loss of Not Knowing What to Do and a loss of This Should Have Felt Better. This was soon followed by a cross examination of my inner self on the drizzly walk home, a quiet dinner and then getting ready for Crush to the strains of Bob Dylan singing Things Have Changed.

Despite all the craziness that lasted from 9pm to 6am (sitting on steps talking with Nithi, Hardeep and Suan), upon waking up I felt that seed of disastisfaction that keeps going 'what now? What now?

-----

I get a new laptop on Monday.

Cheesemaker

During today's History presentation on the success of the British Navy during the Seven Years War, a classmate said "giant penis from North America" instead of "giant pine from North America". A previously mentioned McDreamy with the blonde hair and blues eyes and I were the only ones who caught it and laughed as silently (and childishly) as possible. But he has ugly nails that need to be cut, a habit of appearing for lectures and classes late in the midst of a situation where it is impossible to know thy fellow classmate.

In other news, I seem to STILL be wildly attractive to weird, silent guys who like to stare at me. Those that want you, you don't want - those that you want, don't want you. And thus life goes on in a neverending merry-go-shitpile-round.

I miss my laptop.

I know it's a lie I wanted to be true

I am boyfriend-less, laptop-less and now comparatively-friendless with Miss Yuen having gone back to Canada early. I so need a job to take up my time. Next year I suppose.

I think I am quite done with trying to live a life as 'right' as I'm supposed to - I'm young and have so many years ahead of me to do that. I spent the past few years of my life being so upright about things and the actions of other people, and for what? In the end I still get screwed over. Might as well be less uptight, see another side of the world and have more fun if I'm still going to end up with the same result as before.

I also give up on relationships and compromising. If a guy wants me, he can bloody well chase me good and proper. I don't think I can live through another heart ache like the last one. I shall stick to my limerances, with fresh memories of pain to prevent me from falling for anyone anymore. An open heart brought me nothing but pain, and I don't think I'm strong enough to maintain it any longer.

Oh, I am turning 20 soon.

This proves it - I'm jinxed for life blablabla. URGHHHHHHH.

Marched into March

Apparently it is March now. I never noticed February ended, or even remembered that February had 28 days. Time passing seems to have degraded into an abstract concept. Yes time passes, and I keep having to find ways to fill it up as best as I can. I sleep, wake up, Monday turns into Tuesday, Tuesday turns into Crap day, Crap day turns into Good day - time flies and I am aware of its passing but the realisation that I have let 3 months of 2010 slip by without noticing is startling. I feel like all I have been doing is watching time go by, and willing it to go faster and faster without any active participation in life.