unhappy tales

deserting Blogger

2008-02-07T09:52:00.000+08:00

Moving house. My lifejournal blog has a nicer background. For more digs on my personal life go to Cake Monster at http://zhenteng.livejournal.com/ .

mood

2008-01-25T09:27:00.000+08:00

Woke up this morning feeling mellow. I'm going to sit at home all day and work. And for lunch I'm going to cook. Currently I'm averaging once a week on opportunities to cook; how pathetic is that? First time with sauteeing mushrooms, I'd better not kill it.

reasoning

2008-01-24T17:08:00.001+08:00

I finally realised why I prefered cyclocommuting to the other kinds of cycling I'd experienced so far: namely, you're not allowed to stone at the wheel. Having to avoid people and take speed bumps and navigate traffic lights means that you have to use your brain as well as your thigh muscles while you travel, which gives me (at least) an incredible feeling of connection with the road. This doesn't happen on the lame flat track I'm restricted to most of the time or even the comparatively hilly (though organised) Pasir Ris park. Moreover, you have a goal to reach, so you don't get the deflating feeling that you're cycling just because you have nothing better to do for exercise. If I have to go anywhere between Pasir Ris and Bedok on an individual errand nowadays I think I will cycle. Unless, of course, it threatens to rain.

NEVER. AGAIN.

2008-01-24T15:38:00.000+08:00

Now that I no longer have to beg my parents for 50 cents every time I want an ice cream (though nowadays it costs 60 cents), it's time I realised that I can refuse to be accosted by anyone whose company I don't enjoy. 'Guilt' and 'duty' can go hang themselves. I'll go at my own pace; screw everyone else.

scatterbrain

2008-01-22T21:28:00.001+08:00

I've been losing things left and right lately. Today I left my thumb-drive in someone else's computer.

MOST inconvenient.

my parents go out in pairs

2008-01-20T17:51:00.001+08:00

Screw my parents' ban, cyclocommuting is good. Today's ride was fantastic. The sky half-heartedly threatened to rain, but it never did (save perhaps a few drops), and the cloud cover provided excellent shade. I rode in comfort for the whole round-trip. The sky was blue and the grass was green and Tampines looked very pretty, not in the least for the two void deck weddings I spotted in passing. (um, congratulations to them?) A stick got lodged in the back wheel around Sunplaza park as I was returning home and I had to stop to coax it out. That disoriented me a bit so that I veered off the road safely into the grass patch. (Thanks be to the government in their infinite wisdom for their grass patches and their roofed connectors.) A biker coming in the opposite direction laughed at me. Sigh.

Another trip of puddles, people, dogs, wheelchairs, bus stop crowds, unreasonably narrow corners and nefarious traffic lights accommodated WITHOUT ACCIDENT. Let this be a record of my erstwhile competence. (Stick notwithstanding.) I played so safe with traffic lights that I must have lost five minutes of good time on the road at least. I'm just glad it didn't rain.

Weather continues fantastic. Pretty birds everywhere. Must resist urge to take bike downstairs and disappear forever.

I'm in a really good mood for the first time all day.

shinigami eyes

2008-01-18T21:06:00.001+08:00

My left eye hurts. I don't know why.

If it continues into next week I'll have to do something about it.

Furtive bike love

2008-01-15T23:02:00.001+08:00

My feet hurt (my left foot hurts more than my right foot) and I am pissed off. I am pissed off not only because my feet hurt. I have hardly been so pissed off before. My parents are leery about me cyclocommuting! In fact, they have explicitly forbidden it AGAIN! It's not even as if I have had any accidents. I point this out. 'But it's dangerous!' they chirp. This will be a long battle.

What's dangerous? Learning to walk is dangerous! Your precious baby could fall on his face and squash his malleable ickle nose! Or look, it's dangerous to go to school because you could get bullied, you could get trampled in the canteen, you could get a ball in the face at P.E. Oh, and it's dangerous to sit at home and eat and sleep, because then you have the 5 Cs after you: Cholesterol, Coronary heart disease... it's far more dangerous to drive than it is to ride a bicycle on Singapore's comparatively empty walkways. (Certainly it's more lethal.) And if you want danger you can go downstairs to where I live at 7 a.m. or 6 p.m. respectively, and stare all you want at the crowds of competent mums balancing two or more children (along with their shopping) on one bike on their merry way home.

If you want SAFE, you've already GOT it. All things considered, I'm a pretty safe daughter to have. I don't smoke weed, drink alcohol, ogle porn or stay out partying all night. In deference to my parents' wishes, I don't even go to sleepovers. On the other hand, cyclocommuting makes for healthy exercise and is practical to boot considering the skyscraper cost of transport these days, thanks to oil economics and other clever things. So for fuck's sake just let me on that bike.

Because I'll be on it anyway.

Bike journal

2008-01-13T11:27:00.000+08:00

I can't remember which number this bike journal is supposed to be. I don't really care any more. I've started cyclocommuting :D :D

It is fun! Slopes and puddles and people to dodge and road bumps and traffic lights! My thighs died and my heart sang!

Now that I'm reasonably competent in this business, I think I won't write another bike journal until I finally get into an accident. Hooray nobody can stop me now. Not that I've relinquished being a plodder (slow walks are good when your thighs have died) but bikes are so much more efficient -- and so much more exciting.

WAHAHAHAHAHA.

WTF

2008-01-11T19:54:00.000+08:00

I could have screamed when I heard, off the grapevine, that there was only ONE KI student left in J2 at MJC. All the others had left! Wtf! WTF WTF!!!

At least the J1s look promising... Even if Mr Wee said they were really off today. (Everyone except that particular talker was very quiet. Maybe it was my malicious aura of post-seniority emanating from the back of the classroom.) One nice boy told me afterwards that he was worried about whether he was clever/knowledgeable enough for the subject. I told him that he had two whole years, and that I'm actually very stupid. It's not very difficult to do KI. You've just got to be interested in it. Like everything else, I guess.

So why, WHY did like the whole bloody second batch leave the course????? It pisses me off. Oh, but that one brave soul left, I want to shake his hand and offer him tips on the IS. I hope he has friends from other schools taking the subject willing to chat with him about it. It's hopeless to take KI properly without people to talk to. Poor lad won't get the kind of round-table slander and inside jokes even we the screwed-up first generation got, sigh.

The third generation has SUCH a compact curriculum. I'm jealous. But then, they're soloing it with Mr Wee, while we had Dr Alfi AND Mr Cheong. So I guess it balances out.

chopped

2008-01-07T17:28:00.000+08:00

So much for agonising over cutting the hair -- it's done. CHOPPED. Bye-bye. All it took was for my mum to drag me into Jean Yip after pacifying me with super spicy tori karaage ramen and a silver starfish. The guy was so appalled at my dandruff that he insisted I get a shampoo and a blow-dry as well. Then he slashed, snipped and cut. I brought the remnants home in a bag and my naughty mother put it on my father's table. I expect him to scream when he sees it.

I look strange. I met Yan Han in Tampines Mall and he didn't recognise me. I think he's still wondering who was the mad girl who waved in his face this afternoon. I kinda miss my long locks already, but it IS easier to wash my hair now.

save the roots!

2008-01-06T22:23:00.000+08:00

I know I swore once that I would only chop off my hair if threatened with imminent hair loss. Well that is happening now. So I shall have a (well-paid, alas) expert take scissors to it soon -- probably about next week. I'd probably have done it this week, but it took me three years to grow this waist-long monstrosity and it's terrifically hard to just let it go. Moreover there is the prospect of having the hairdresser tut over the state of my scalp -- the very reason why I'm killing most of my pretty hair. Sigh.

Considering how my life has been flattening into one contented progression of days, perhaps a change might be a good thing. And I swear, once my hair has recovered, I'll grow it out again. May it then have long life and prosperity.

camera.

2008-01-01T20:23:00.000+08:00

Speaking of which, if I am to go overseas after all (hahahaha FAT HOPE), I would probably spend my wages on a proper camera. I could learn to shoot things there, where it's probably legal. And my parents would have incentive to help sponsor some of it.

Bike Journal #4

2008-01-01T11:43:00.000+08:00

Five rounds today, windy weather. Felt the intense irony of being cold on the outside and burning on the inside (from exercise). Tried to go down two right-angled slopes like an idiot, nearly crashed into brick wall. Put out my hand to the brick wall to deflect the crash, was successful, but jolt sent saddle right into my arse. Gave me an immense wedgie. My bum doesn't hurt quite so much as it used to, but it IS still kind of numb. Either the saddle or my bum needs some intense breaking in.

Numbers and varieties of birds spotted today grazing about the shorn grass were huge and strange. Usually there are exactly two white-collared kingfishers perching along the rails -- today there were four. Then there were the usual pigeons, crows, sparrows, and along with that, a fat white egret with a browny tail and green feet flying with it's neck tucked in. The same white egret squirting out a white wad of poo. A thin-legged brown thing with a spotted belly, a smaller cousin wading the flat waters of the canal. A small round bird with a back of iridescent russet. Another one with a beige-feathered chest that puffed fatly. And, best of all, a huge creature with feathers like scraped bark and a great long neck and an orange bill that stalked like a king. Marvellous. All this along the woodlandish far edge of the canal.

first of january

2008-01-01T10:27:00.000+08:00

New year! Planning to work, learn to speak passable Chinese, start drawing one comic per two days and go for scholarship interviews. I'm definitely going to work somewhere, though my ideal places mostly consist of bookstores. I love being surrounded by books. There is a place in Funan that is hiring, will check it out tomorrow morning!

There are plenty of good reasons to want money. For example, if I'm going overseas, I'm going to need as much money as I can get for computer equipment, transport, cold clothing and other peripherals, scholarship notwithstanding. If I'm NOT, the money can be put to buying my Cintiq. It's a rich woman's world.

my money!!!! Part IV

2007-12-31T20:22:00.000+08:00

I've decided to work. Kino looks like a good place!

my money!!! Part III

2007-12-31T17:14:00.000+08:00

A longer sweep of the internet has me find a fair number of sites that actually list the EP-630 as a reccomended product. Apparently it IS the best you can get for this price.

I just can't get over the sadness of the sound. Perhaps my standards are just too high. But HECK, what is music without good SOUND?

my money!! part II

2007-12-31T16:49:00.000+08:00

Okay I seem to be most pissed at the canned-sounding inteference that my in-ear headphones makes with my sound, especially when it comes to the vocals. The vocals come out sounding harsh and bright and fuzzy. I might use it on the train on the way home if I'm desperate for distraction, but for serious listening I'm going to have to use back the earphones that came packed with my Zen Wav. At least from there the sounds are clear and nuanced and coloured all the way down -- the reason why I purchased a portable music playing device in the first place. If only the earpieces weren't so BIG.

My only priorities to buying any earphones are price, durability, sound quality and comfort (in no particular order), so I'm afraid the Creative EP-630 didn't really fulfill any of these. Being a poor student I blew my pocket open paying $45 for the silly things. I'm not sure about the durability, that will take me time and use -- and since I'm not using them, this point is moot. I've just described the quality of sound I got. And about comfort -- ah, perhaps I'm not suited to having in-ear earphones in the first place. It feels awful, as if an air bubble is building between my eardrum and the plugs and is threatening to implode my inner ear. Maybe they take time to break in, as Pong suggested, but since the sound quality is so bad I don't feel AT ALL inclined to go to the trouble. I'll take my $48 as wasted.

According to a quick sweep of the internet the EP-630 are surprisingly well-regarded. Most gave the sound quality a 4 out of 5 or thereabouts. Maybe it is actually normal to have sub-standard sound quality even if the music is meant to be deliviered directly into the ear. If THAT is the case, I might as well start saving for $500 to buy the high-end sound-isolation HEADphones that, although heavy, deliver music so good you'll never want to take them off. Or at least the $200 headphones at Best Denki, which I can at least try on before I buy. I feel my pockets springing leaks at the very thought. I wonder what it must be like to be, oh, Gatsbyesque rich.

my money!

2007-12-31T16:28:00.001+08:00

My new Creative in-ear earphones isolate very well, but the sound quality is TERRIBLE!

Fuck it I seem to have wasted $45

Bike Journal #3

2007-12-30T10:23:00.000+08:00

The view at the track is unfailingly pretty. Little waterfalls cascading between long vines and little mobs of morning glory, even on the far end of the road where the grasscutters have commenced their dastardly work. Now they've worked their way to under my window. I can her their machines BUZZ. They're scaring away the kingfishers.

Bike saddle without cover excellent. Stiff but can support bum properly, at least my fats know where to go. Made four rounds, would have done more but that my bum died anyway -- the saddle is kind of hard, so I went numb and this affected my riding a little bit. Travel sickness all but disappeared, but hat interfered with vision and gave me a little headache. Next time I'll just risk sun and freckles.

There was a crazy woman on a unicycle. Her legs went twice the rate at which mine did, but she was a bit slower than me. Her control was amazing -- she dodged kids on four-wheel bikes and baby-carrying daddies and a dog-walker with two leashes. My mum thought she looked comical from the back (hard not to, what if YOU saw a woman in stripey kneepads on a unicycle wearing a bright yellow shirt) but nonetheless, WOW.

Speaking of control, I'm getting noticably better at maneuvering. I can turn tighter corners and have learned to apply my brakes better to weaving around pedestrians. Used the bell for the first time today (at a bugger who was blocking the path making circles with his bike.) Passed the bike to my mum at the Pasir Ris end of the track and plodded home on a numb bum, feeling like a slowpokey landlubber. I think I have been converted.

Oh, and Grace was supposed to come down this morning too, but she overslept (again)!! My fault, I guess, for not calling her half an hour before 9. Although I seem to be managing quite well on my own -- for one, I haven't fallen off yet.

Bike Journal #2

2007-12-28T11:25:00.000+08:00

I am badly out of shape. Two rounds about the track and my thighs are completely busted. Good exercise nonetheless.

The saddle is really uncomfortable. It's not so much that it's hard, but that I have no idea exactly where my bum is supposed to go. Perhaps it really is the seat cover's fault.

Am making progress with turning and control issues, but still haven't figured out which brake is for the front wheel. Pong was supposed to meet me this morning to Give Me Pointers, but I assume she was asleep. Will take first real look at bicycle this afternoon, before I go and kill my backside again. Beats running certainly.

I love my bike.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T22:31:00.000+08:00

230 posts!

Jobbing done, portable music device bought, SAT II results in. I feel vindicated and hopeful. Whee!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

sayonara, XT!

2007-12-24T20:14:00.000+08:00

Now that you are flying into a new world of white chrismases, Inuit dances, elk and glacial crumbling, be sure to send me some pictures!

Bike journal #1

2007-12-21T22:12:00.000+08:00

Just went downstairs to give my new bike a spin. Writing ten things here so that I won't forget them the moment I drop off to sleep.

1. posture.

2. don't look down. Look in front.

3. Confidence good.

4. Prudence better. (i.e. Carelessness bad. Nearly careened into partition and nearly sent flying into the longkang)

5. Trust the bum.

6. If absolutely vital to fiddle with bike parts, fiddle carefully.

7. Ring bell

8. Know limits

9. Take drink in basket next time

10. More practice

The ticking sound my bike makes only happens when I'm pushing it, not riding it. I am told that this is normal. But it is still very annoying.

My bum hurts. My balance went off because I wasn't seated comfortably at one point. A combination of that and inattentiveness (I, like a silly wank, was wondering how claymores were balanced when I went sideways) nearly flipped me into the adjoining canal.

Saddle, even with cushion, is unforgiving. Seat will train bum muscles until they are as hard as rock. Soon I will be able to kill someone by cudgeling them with my impeccable bottom. Cycling very good, feet don't hurt -- one of the main reasons why I hate running. The sense of speed, the wind in my hair, my height from the road, all of these are amazing. They took my breath away. (Literally. I'm still slightly breathless, and I want orange juice!)

There is the very real joy of having a machine beneath you to regulate your rythem. I find that when I jog this is a real problem. I get bored so easily that I attempt to run faster, only to find that it is unsustainable. And since I'm naturally lopsided one foot receives more weight than the other, which is clearly bad. Not a problem on a bicycle. On a bicycle, you are told very concisely the moment you go off balance i.e. you fall over. Once you have a vested interest in keeping balance, you pay very close attention to the rythems of your blood. It gives me a high, it does. Except when I'm about to run into freefall if I miss a step or... drop into the canal.

More practice needed. I have trouble navigating corners or doing u-turns in a space less than three metres wide.

I feel a little nauseous during and after my ride. I begin by blaming my flabby abs, and then the relatively new circumstances of going beyond walking speed at night. (because sometimes I get travel sickness sitting in the front seat of the car at night also.) If the former is true I should be cured of it very quickly as I intend to cycle often, but if this continues a week after daily cycling I might get into trouble.

I look forward to when I can graduate from the track beneath my window to the track at pasir ris, and then the whole of the park connector linkway. And, blasphemously, (because my parents have explicitly forbidden it,) when I finally decide that I am competent enough to cyclocommute.

I love my bike.

Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium

2007-12-21T20:22:00.000+08:00

Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium is not just holiday twee. When it comes to pacing and concept it is infinitely better than the screen adaptation of the Golden Compass. It is thematically meaty and wonderfully ambient. But if you don't like being told about life and death a-la Tuesdays With Morrie, that is still no reason not to go and watch a toy store throw a magnificent temper-tantrum. The opening credits alone are worth the $8 ticket.

bike porn

2007-12-19T21:41:00.000+08:00

taken direct from diary.

9.25 p.m.
My mum is mad.

She is so nuts that if she ever booked a flight to Fruicake Land they would automatically upgrade her seat to ambassador class and, upon arrival, crown her their queen.

Only my mum would think of walking 3 km to buy a bicycle and THEN, with it in tow, buy a pair of fash footwear (nothing for me, as the ah Beng family assistant at the offending shoe shop drawled out in his fresh-faced,neighbourhood-secondary school way), and then hop along cheerily to taste DURIANS. And then, because it promptly started to rain, travel 3 km home dragging along said bicycle, its basket now stocked with durians. Her daughter was in attendance to hold their one umbrella over her and the durians (admittedly that was my fault, because I live in mortal fear of a poke in the side from the handlebars.) We yelled at each other all the way home. It was great fun. It would not have been such great fun had the rain been anything beyond a mild car wash spritzer affair, so for this small mercy I thank the gods of weather and dedicate to them the durian that now resides within my tummy.

I love my bike. I would be the first to admit that it is a very girly bike. The top bar is missing from the frame (to allow missish people to ride in skirts, or pantaloons if they so choose) and it is coated in a lovely silver. The bell is alarmingly pink, but then that's what bells are for (to alarm, duh.) The ticking sound it makes when I move it is even more alarming, but that (I think) is because I must have done something clumsy and inadvertant to the geras as I was attempting to steer it for the first time. The silly thing ticked all the way home. But when my father fixes it I shall love it much better.

My bike has only been with me for two hours and already I've had an adventure with it! I love my bike!

hello stranger

2007-12-17T22:32:00.000+08:00

The scholar returns to his family, looking like an unshaven Harry Potter (minus scar, plus actual hair) and bearing treasures within his laptop. THERE IS NO ODEX IN AMERICA. WA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

My mum is making huge feasts out of every meal now that he is back. I am enjoying the side-effects of this. I am exactly the same weight of my mum. I should be ashamed of myself.

Perhaps before he returns next time I should ask him to help me buy some peanut butter cups.

arm candy

2007-12-16T22:11:00.001+08:00

My family invited my grandmother out for dinner, and when we drove to below her block my mum asked my younger brother to go and escort her downstairs. He turned in his seatbelt and gave her a LOOK.

I said, 'You couldn't make me to do something like that even if you threatened me with the worst thing I could think of, like extra exams.' What I really wanted to say was 'for love or money', but come to think of it love would be the ONLY thing that would make me want to escort someone, apart from money. I would gladly do it for fifty bucks. But I can't speak Hakka and I nearly can't speak Chinese, so my grandmother is a special case. i.e. NO WAY.

But my brother went, and when he came down with my grandmother they were both smiling like crazy he was hiding a pack of raspberry chocolate in his shorts. Awwww. 'Gentleman!' we greeted him. RI has trained him well. And if common home patterns are anything to judge by he's stuck with this job for the rest of their lives, may he accumulate a mountain of raspberry chocolate in reward for his labour.

Me, I don't do escort -- not even for raspberry chocolate. Though I might consider it if you offered me a donut.

I love my job.

2007-12-14T17:47:00.000+08:00

I love it so much I am, for the first time in my life, seriously considering it as a future career.

But I'll save the future-related turmoil for later, when I've actually finished my job.

bourbon jelly

2007-12-13T18:03:00.000+08:00

At Carrefour today I was standing in the line at the exit counters when the cashier suddenly disappeared.

It was an intensely magical feat. She darted around a pillar and she was gone. I didn't even need to blink. She had simply vanished into empty air. I and the rest of the queue stood around like idiots, waiting for her to reappear in a burst of flaming sparks and cheese.

She returned five minutes later bearing two large broccolis in two plastic bags with price tags taped on them. It seems that she had disappeared to perform her adopted function as errand-runner for clueless old women who don't know that they need to weigh their broccoli at supermarkets before they buy them, even though everything but the things that need weighing have already been pasted with a price tag. Perhaps Clueless Old Woman assumed they were free.

I wouldn't have been quite so bitter about this if the clueless old woman in question didn't have her hair sprayed BRIGHT BLUE.

Obviously she wanted to make an impression as part of the hip younger crowd. But I'd rather she stuck to washing her hair with the usual stuff and cleared out with her purchases without making all of us wait for the poor cashier to run away with her broccoli and run back so that she can pay for her food. My bag was quite heavy, you know! Why don't I pelt you with it!

And all I wanted was a damn cup of bourbon jelly.

huayu

2007-12-11T21:52:00.001+08:00

My father is going to teach me Chinese. He's serious about it. (More serious than Japanese anyway -- I don't blame him) I think I'm serious about it too. I've committed to the extent of getting him to order the Chinese newspaper for me (and to reading it once it starts arriving, ARGH) and talking to me in Chinese, despite the huge possible misunderstandings that used to wreck most of our conversations. If anything it will force me out of my comfortable one-language equilibrium. Between this and work, I shall have no life.

Actually sort of looking forward to it. I am a masochist.

I'll dip into Japanese once I am absolutely certain that my Chinese does not completely suck like it does at the moment.

old quotes unearthed.

2007-12-09T16:17:00.000+08:00

'He believed it was always a mistake to open a conversation cold; more than a mistake, a kind of assault. It took time, he felt, for two people to organise their feelings about each other, to bring them out of store, before it was appropriate to speak the first words.' -- Firesong, William Nicholson.

My table looks pristine and I'm completely, as the Feegles would claim, 'pished'. I'm going to have to gallivant hard tomorrow to make up for this.

The number of posts per day should show you how free I am right now

2007-12-07T20:40:00.000+08:00

The personality test results on Pong's webpage got me curious, so I grabbed it. The results are really very accurate. I can't put it on the blog, though, because Blogger doesn't have the option of obscuring a huge chunck of text with a link -- as far as I know. I am computer-illiterate and ashamed of myself.

Huh?!

2007-12-07T20:00:00.001+08:00

My cabinet doesn't look like my cabinet any more. Sigh.

Here is the flaw in the diary: I've just lost it.

althea

2007-12-07T17:37:00.000+08:00

Jobbing has been delayed (again!) until Next Tuesday! On hindsight this is a good thing. It means that I have the whole weekend to clean my room.

Am in the middle of digging out crap from the recesses of what you would normally think is a straightforward glass-fronted cabinet. I unearth stuff from primary school and stare at it as I would some new species of moth. On the way, however, I have also managed to find all my old photos -- Tioman photos, class photos, baby photos, polar bear photos. Looking at them makes me happy for a while, until I move my books from their shadowy hidey-holes into the newly cleaned cells and notice how oddly pretty my cabinet looks!

I love all my books.

Stopped cleaning halfway to go and watch the Golden Compass. VERY GOOD STUFF. Nicole Kidman does evil like nobody else. No complaints about animation, amazing soundtrack. Tension was masterful. Dakota Blue Richards was Lyra all the way to the set of her mouth. Lee Scoresby was cool, not nonsensical. (I confess I worried about this a little before I watched it, because his character is so susceptible to abuse by his accent.) I like the way the witches fly. Everything was very strong, very natural, very quietly dangerous. All the way down to the concept of Dust and the eponymous Golden Compass, and especially Lyra. VERY cool. Completely sucks you in. If I were a nitpicker I would complain about how you can never really translate a book into film without losing something. What would have made the movie a must-see-twice for me would have been at least one good introspective scene, or if the characters didn't find it necessary to explain everything through dialogue to their daemons. I imagine the latter was a practical concession to the target audience, and therefore a very good thing, but I am a sucker for subtext.

Oh, and my third complaint about the whole experience. Nothing to do with the movie itself. A group of noisy young nuts were sitting behind me near an important scene. 'Stop it, stop it stop it,' laughs a female voice. Suspicious giggles and some smacking sounds. 'Kindly shut up,' I say. I am a TERRIBLE specimen of wild youth.

I've decided to keep a written diary. This is so I can scrib things down when I think them up and not misplace them before I blog. This is also because I may need somewhere to rant inappropriately. The fact that you are reading this already shows that, at best, the blog is a semi-public space. At worst, it is tabloid fodder.

Now, to clean out the rest of the cabinet.

going jobbing!

2007-12-06T22:42:00.000+08:00

I should be wriggly with anticipation for tomorrow. But I'm not. Instead I feel vaguely disappointed (at WHAT I am not sure) and a little distressed at how much money I've been spending lately (this feeling hasn't appeared in a while).

Damn I am craving pasta. No, I must hold out until next week.

pasta, soup and drink = $25 (estimate, with %GST and service charge)
library membership = $21

*money left for the rest of all my meals = $24, despite
*amount I had MEANT to save for the week = $20

solutions:
1) stay at home a lot.
2) go to the library if staying at home becomes too sad, but go home for meals!
3) S-11 has great food for $3 - $4.50. Plus it is near the library.
4) eat cereal. (this works until I get tired of cereal. From previous experience, getting tired of cereal takes about a week. Without more expensive supplements, it is also unforgiving upon both the colon and the weighing scale-dependent ego.)
5) work like mad and enjoy it so much that I'll forget about wanting lovely food. This one works best. All the better for some extra moola.

I plan to do all five, anyway. Okay except the cereal part. I value my colon very highly. And I love my mum's cooking! It's just that I've eaten it all my life. HELL AND HEAVEN WILL WITNESS HOW I WANT PASTA right now.

I go home at nine o'clock while my friends are able to frolic at pool parlours deep into the night! Perhaps I am a Freak. But I enjoy being alive in mornings, for they are pretty. Not to mention that if I stayed out past the last bus playing games with balls and sticks my parents would throw two fits and never let me out of their door again.

I make a very poor specimen of wild youth.

penne

2007-12-06T21:00:00.000+08:00

Oh for the second time in my life I have had a pasta dish which I didn't get bored with before I've finished it. In fact, I am craving for more. And the best part is that it costs less than $10!

Fare thee well Pastamania, with the attraction of your 30% discount lost due to my fading studenthood, I embrace the happier alternatives with enthusiasm and a teddy bear.

I'm going back next week!!!

F-BOMB. not pissed, only annoyed.

2007-12-06T15:20:00.000+08:00

aaaargh MUM you do not start JABBERING AT ME ABOUT THINGS I COULD PROBABLY DO VERY WELL WITHOUT YOUR damn NAGGING THE MOMENT I STEP OUT OF THE BATH. FOR GOODNESS SAKE I HAVEN'T PUT ON MY GLASSES AND MY HAIR IS OVER MY FACE AND THERE IS A PIECE OF WET PINK UNDERWEAR HANGING FROM MY LEFT HAND. I AM HALF BLIND AND LOOKING FOR A FUCKING HANGER. Please stop now or I swear I will make good my threat to bring earplugs into the shower so that when I finish my nice bath next time I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HEAR A SINGLE BLAZING THING YOU SAY, BE IT RELEVANT OR NOT.

Okay, calming music, calming music...

torrent

2007-12-06T09:45:00.001+08:00

no reason to exist: no reason other than to have eaten nasi lemak, to sit very straight and watch the rain.

it might sound like a very stupid thing to say, but the library is really the best place for reading books. time don't pass in the library. I read there until I got hungry. Nobody to ask you to vaccum the floor, no screams of the fallen coming from the computer, no oddly comfy bed to invite you to doze off. Mmm.

stuffed

2007-12-04T18:09:00.000+08:00

It is very nice not to have to do anything that your life depends on just at the moment. I feel as free as a desert animal who has just left his oasis.

on the other hand, there is more space for books!

2007-12-02T22:54:00.000+08:00

The hit count for disposed worksheets rises. The stack now stands to my abdomen. I am not sure how many arch files that makes.

fisheroos

2007-12-02T18:15:00.000+08:00

I've completed 3/4 of my genocidal campaign against the dust bunnies residing in my room. On the way, I have also evicted a complete set of fine lizard bones and a stack of newly outdated worksheets (comprising approximately 1/2 of what I intend to throw away) that could choke four arch files. I wonder what kind of fortune I could make that the garang guni man could give me for those?

My parents are home! They took 500 photos on their trip and were bent on showing me them all. My mum swears she would have taken 100 more if my father hadn't stopped her.

Serial Experiments Lain is so strange and frightening and superb and abstract that I don't think I can watch it more than once. The opening music, though, is stuck in my head.

Hurricane Chronicles

2007-11-30T14:02:00.000+08:00

SAKURA IS COOL.

I give up too easily and my arsenal is flawed. Sigh.

Add one more thing to post-exam to do list: exercise.

the rain is very slanty today

2007-11-30T13:50:00.001+08:00

By tomorrow afternoon all this shit will be over, for real. And the first thing I swear to do is clean up my room. It's got to the point where the piano has become a ranching post for dust bunnies.

And AFTER that, I am going to so frigging watch the whole 4 DVDs of Serial Experiments: Lain. It has guaranteed weirdness and a reported existential count of +9 3/4. And then I'll have to look at scholarship applications (since all my uni applications but one has been completed). All this before I run off to a class reunion dinner, begin killing myself trying to relearn Chinese, and start jobbing two jobs.

It feels so good to plan.

happy birthday ets!

2007-11-28T22:40:00.000+08:00

It is so fun to have long hair. It's something to play with, like fingers. What amazing things they are.

Perhaps one day I will chop it all off, but that day is far away.

eyelids twitching.

2007-11-25T20:47:00.001+08:00

I'm tired.

I must trust that there is enough time.

dun dun dun DUN

2007-11-22T11:02:00.000+08:00

It's over.

...

Euphoria, where are you? I thought we had an appointment!!

Oh, right. There's still SATs.

Mug bio now.

schizophrenia

2007-11-19T22:05:00.000+08:00

Please let this be over soon!

Please let this be over SOON!

PLEASE LET WEDNESDAY BE OVER SOON and yet PLEASE LET ME HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO HAVE BECOME FULLY CONFIDENT BY TUESDAY NIGHT.

Eyelids are boiling in sockets. Does this bode sleeping? No no that is OTHELLO not Heart of Darkness -- the horror! the horror!

the horror!

clay chocolates

2007-11-13T20:13:00.001+08:00

Very slowly as I consume my little chocolate I come to wonder why I am alive, and what it meant to be.

!!!

2007-11-10T18:51:00.000+08:00

the University of Newcastle upon Tyne hath made me an offer o_o

O_O

O____O

My A levels aren't even over yet!!! Perhaps this is my inspiration for the Lit paper on Monday?

--

Newcastle upon Tyne sounds very nice indeed. And it is in a city so I don't think I'll feel too lonely. But if I go there I think I'll be a prude and forget to investigate their famed nightlife. (A student's gotta sleep.)

More important thing now is the scholarship. No scholarship, no overseas.

I can't help but feel now that I'm wasting my parents' money on SATs.

my candle is burning at both ends

2007-11-09T18:59:00.000+08:00

A little before four o'clock on this day I discovered that I could study no more. Nothing has gotten done since.

I should try again after dinner.

Stupid thing is, doing a Lit paper requires inspiration, and right now I have neither the space nor constitution to find it.

200th post

2007-11-08T21:20:00.000+08:00

Robert De Niro! OMG Robert De Niro. It takes a real actor to do what I saw him do in Stardust. Similarly for Michelle Pfeiffer. I liked the succession storyline very much. And Ian MacKellen has a damn cool voice.

It also had amazing makeup. You couldn't tell it was makeup, you see.

All the rest was so-so. Worth the ticket, but not the DVD. What I thought was strange was that Tristan Thorn learnt how to sword-fight in three days. I believe it's all in the hair.

The sods had given it a swashbuckling climax and a happy ending.

fizzle

2007-11-05T22:27:00.000+08:00

Random thoughts:

1. In between mugging fanatically and shedding like a distressed feline I come up for air only to find myself surrounded by sharks.

2. Ets has a boyfriend! Gosh!

3. I love my piano, though I'd love a new one far better.

4. Math paper tomorrow.

I think I might be unhappy after all.

2007-11-04T19:55:00.001+08:00

I want to go out there and learn things. Singapore is so TINY.

my wrist hurts.

2007-11-02T20:17:00.000+08:00

Exams enable such levels of inspiration that time passes not, and it is always 'now'. It is very strange; at the start of my paper my brain sort of runs into hyper mode, and by the end of the paper there are eight pages of very dense handwriting and my wrist aches, and that is all of the paper that I can remember. I cannot imagine writing the brilliant things I see on my prior exam scripts under normal circumstances, being conscious and distracted. I hope I have written brilliant things. Exams consume a lot of sugar so I'm glad my mum cooks big dinners. Now, there are three days before my next paper, so I shall spend tonight slacking like a slacker who's been starved of slacking ever since slacker kingdom got put to the sword by the invading menace of Pragmatic Utility.

sudden shiver

2007-10-30T18:28:00.002+08:00

Tomorrow I will begin the three-week process of deciding how to screw up the rest of my life.

At least this time I have three weeks.

kyrie eleison

2007-10-29T22:41:00.001+08:00

Today I admitted to myself that I need to rest between pieces of music. Following 'Dies Irae' from Mozart's 'Requiem' with Japanese rock or Avenue Q is not always a good idea.

I love music.

P.S. small, insidious existential crisis. There seem to be so many of them around lately.

BRAIN IN VAT

2007-10-29T20:37:00.000+08:00

HIPPOCAMPAL SLICES CAN BE MAINTAINED ALIVE AND FUNCTIONAL FOR MANY HOURS IN ITS NUTRIENT BATH.

OMG!!

cookbooks

2007-10-20T17:54:00.000+08:00

At Kino yesterday, at the gift-wrapping counter:

'Excuse me, I think that's my roast chicken on the shelf behind you.'

The saleslady stared at him.

'In that Cold Storage plastic bag.'

The saleslady wrapping my book stared at him too.

'Excuse me?' the other saleslady said.

'I think you have my roast chicken, it's in that Cold Storage plastic bag behind you,' said the guy. He looked like a big stubbled family man and he was twice my height. 'I left it in the store just now.'

The two saleladies looked at each other, and the saleslady wrapping my book went back to wrapping my book, and we sort of giggled at each other.

The other saleslady, somewhat bemused probably, said, 'Where did you leave it?'

'At the tarot section, I think. Yeah, tarot section, across the science section...'

'Wait a while,' said the saleslady. The guy got his roast chicken back.

Who remembers that one about Julie leaving her baby in the supermarket?

oh!

2007-10-18T19:41:00.000+08:00

I am in love with a hat.

I saw its face in a crowded place!

It's made of patchwork!!!

okay, adrenaline up.

2007-10-17T22:57:00.001+08:00

Thank you so much teachers for the mock exams and the notes.

Mugging IN EARNEST now.

head count

2007-10-15T11:09:00.000+08:00

Pertaining to my A level work, there are 13 arch files and 5 normal-sized files in my room. All of them are stuffed to the cover with paper.

Overall, counting preserved work from secondary school and other things, there are a grand total of 27 files in my room.

Happy birthday!

2007-10-12T22:20:00.000+08:00

Happy Birthday XT!

(Thank you everyone for the pretty presents!)

Logical fallacy?

2007-10-10T22:07:00.000+08:00

People can't be trusted => Trust no one.

What are the odds that I'll die of ventricular fibrillation before I'm twenty-five?

general arghness

2007-10-06T19:23:00.000+08:00

I think it will be a good thing to have a rest day after every six days, so that I can take time off to do things like draw and bang on the piano and talk to my friends without having to worry that I'm wasting time. I will pretend that I am not wasting time by calling my rest day 'personal well-being' or 'a sanity-preservation neccessity' and keep my school materials far at bay so that I will not feel guilt pangs when I chance upon them. This is nearly impossible because my school materials are all over the place. My files are bursting with them and I shall have to buy two new ones on Monday to relieve their burden and welcome an influx of new loose sheets. Math prelim and practice papers have cost me $14 so far in photocopy fees, and history isn't much better off. I will see how I can have a guilt-free day of relaxation, and if that one guilt-free day of relaxation would cool my internal engines so much that I can't get started again, which is as likely to happen as anything else. Tomorrow I will do nothing but KI, in a chat with 4 friends, 1 acquaintence and 2 strangers, and nothing else. That will be a start.

I had my SATs today. There was one question I didn't know how to do. I still don't. If I get less than a perfect score it will be because of my essay and that one question. I remember that question perfectly but because I have agreed not to tell anyone about it at the back of the test OTAS booklet I probably can't, alas. But the essay is another thing altogether. It was the first section and I had missed it out somehow, so I was doing the second section when the invigilator, bless his eagle eyes, spotted me and went over. Then he turned my OTAS booklet one page back and I saw LINES, to my eternal horror, LINES. It was a one-in-a-thousand fluke and it cost me 5 minutes off my 25-minute allotment for essay time. Basically, SHIT. And given the quality of my answer (GP-style questions like that baffle me; I haven't had any training in what is acceptable, and that question asked about a specific something in which I have no opinion), the most I can get now is probably 4 out of 6. Argh. Argh!

One thing I am most sad about. There's a particular TV series that is coming to a close. It is the most tremendously fantastic live-action television drama I have ever seen. Love, family, politics -- lots of politics -- war, and all that. Filming, lighting, costumes, ACTING, characterisation down to the bone. It's coming to an end. Now is the final climax. Argh okay. Second last episode. I am watching it now.

Argh.

humdrum

2007-10-05T19:38:00.000+08:00

I've spent the day out, in school and in the library, and am now so sorely tired that my bum is ready to fry. SATs tomorrow (good, I remembered), groceries bought. And I feel as if I haven't done anything. Frustrating.

I now have books to buy!

money! :(

mugger, mugger, muggeration, blast and damn and botheration

2007-10-02T18:57:00.001+08:00

I feel strange. Not unhappy, just strange. Unmoved. Unexcited without being serene. Coasting. Hmmmmmm.

I should be raring up to go for the SATs on Saturday, but at the moment what I'm really worried of is that I'll forget all about it on the crucial Friday night. It's 7.45 on a weekend morning. DON'T FORGET DON'T FORGET DON'T FORGET.

Am I regressing/progressing into a muggering profeciency?

If you don't hear from me for more than three weeks, assume that I have died.

Bye.

my traitorous fingers

2007-10-01T08:24:00.000+08:00

Okay, now that jobbing is over, I feel a barely controllable urge to write.

3 weeks to A levels!

Money!

2007-09-25T17:09:00.000+08:00

My future comic-drawing career looks like it's going to take off sooner than I'd expected O_O

Prelims are over, but the pain ain't over yet -- A levels in a month, SATs next week!

I think I'll take tomorrow off to shop a bit. I need a big stabby hairgrip that can maintain a bun for a whole school day. My current ones aren't big enough -- and they're not stabby at all. Having to pull a long ponytail out from between your back and your bag can get sad after a while.

Burnt.

2007-09-19T18:38:00.000+08:00

The days of homework and little assignments and big huge communal relaxed meals seem so far away. In fact it's just been one month.

after the prelims failure,

2007-09-17T19:43:00.000+08:00

Today's paper was... I'm not sure it was easy. I know some people didn't find it easy. Thing is, I could do it.

With extra time left over. I mean, I haven't been able to know how to do all the questions in a major math paper since... since...

I can't even remember if such a thing has EVER. Happened.

Wow.

Dare I hope for an A?

crunch

2007-09-13T09:39:00.000+08:00

Having to go for a wake and a funeral between exams is... a strange new experience I'm going to try my best to enjoy. Despeite being sleepy, aching, unsociably foul in mood and frantic from being away too long from my revision.

H3 and KI due on monday. New developments in H3. Burning midnight and 5 o'clock oil now.

funeral woes

2007-09-11T19:03:00.000+08:00

Kelly is the only person I know at this point who may know the boiling feeling of wanting to scream obscenities at someone, and having the obscenities at the back of the mouth too, ready to be screamed -- but can't because it'll make things worse.

I just had my history prelim paper. I did not do it very well. I'm hot, and tired, and my abdomen is writhing with menstrual cramps. I'm hungry. I want a bath. I want to sit down and strain all the history fluff from my brain and get ready for the next two papers, which are both tomorrow. The bus was very bumpy and my abdomen is writhing with damn menstrual cramps. My eyes hurt. I've just come home. Guess what.

Mum: Your grandfather's just died. You know, the one who ****. You'll need to go to his funeral. So sorry, hor.
Me: The man's more trouble dead and alive.

I quite regret that remark. But my mum has no tact and I have no self-control when it comes to such tactlessness. The moment I come home:

Mum: oh, you're back. You can vaccum the house.
Mum: why didn't you close the kitchen window when you left this morning?!
Mum: did you do any math today?

Me: BRISTLE.

I don't really mind going to my grandfather's funeral. I just don't think I should. And I wanted my mum to explain it in a way I could understand. But all she could say was 'he's your grandfather. You wouldn't be here without him.' HELLO, mum! I wouldn't be aware of that if I didn't exist! And then I'd be spared all this existential garbage keeping me awake every night!

And so I asked her to explain it in a way I could understand, but she had been upset at my intransigent indifference, and it went downhill from there.

Now.

Why shouldn't I go to my grandfather's funeral? Simple. The man was a wastrel. By some very strongly subjective accounts he was a lot worse than a wastrel-- even if I'm not exactly moved by the subjectiveness, the strength of the subjectiveness makes it clear that he had not been very nice. At least, all reports come back saying that he had dumped my grandmother and his eleven children on sprees with two other women, leaving them to the misery of utter poverty, no less.

Secondly. His funeral interrupts my examinations. It might be the prerogative of the dead to bother the living, but why now of all times do you want me to waste my precious mugging time at some meaningless fireworks show on the other end of Singapore? Why meaningless, you ask, since the burning body used to belong to my grandfather? SIMPLE.

I've seen the man for all of twice in my life.

He is a stranger. He never existed as anything more than a vague nuisance. I don't have anything against him personally, but there's nothing going for him either to make me go to his funeral. I view him as another person, no more and no less. People die every day. And what would I do if I had to mourn every other random dead person in the world? Today is September 11. A very memorable date, where hundreds of other random dead people had died in different ways. Some in a blaze of fanatical glory, some in a building rammed through by a mad plane -- some from heart attacks when they saw the evening news, maybe. Others killed by misfire in Iraq. Someone dying of kidney complications. I should have flown to America and cloned myself into a few hundred duplicates using Calvin's transmorgifier machine so that I could go to all their individual memorial services. But I didn't. I had a history paper this afternoon.

A funeral is a chance to pay someone his last measure of respect before his image fades beyond accurate retrieval by memory. If I go (as I am planning to, because I feel no personal attachment to him) with nothing but a vague interest in traditional Chinese customs and show respect, without actually having any, I will be being disrespectful. It would be much more respectful to remember him during lunch hour spontaneously as a shadowy wastrel of legend who might have been very nice if we could have talked to him properly. (hypothetical situation. I don't know how to speak Hakka.) Forcing me to turn up at a funeral is tantamount to having me perjure myself before all the sacred customs you like so much.

Funerals are for the comfort of the living. I don't know if they matter to the dead. If they do, then it is a good thing, but if they don't, it is still a good thing. The living need comfort from the fear of dying and the bereaved need the external predictability of ritual when they're preoccupied with wrestling with mighty inner conflicts. More so if they believe that the dead still need them: perhaps the duty will save them. It is all good. Moreover, if the dead really do need us to do rituals for them, then by all means we should. It's the least we could do. So why do I believe I should not go to my grandfather's funeral?

Because he was a stranger, and because there are people who can tend to him better, and because he has bloody legions of grandchildren. He was a very virile man. There are so many grandchildren that they just become a number. It's meaningless.

And because, from what I hear, the funeral will be a hotbed of extended-family politics among my ten aunts and uncles and their legions of children. (For simplicity's sake I will discount the presence of any half-aunts or half-uncles or their legions of children.) I see them more than twice in my lifetime. In fact I see them once every year. And I will be forced by courtesy to converse in my somehow inadequate chinese, at which I hear the spectre of all my ancestors laughing. I can deal without the extra stress at this point in time, thank you.

Okay, I've lost steam. I get angry very quickly, but I loose steam very quickly too. In any case, mother, threaten me again -- go on -- just try it. You'll like it.

As I've said before, I respect your culture. Please respect mine.

I think my mum's trying to make amends now. Ah well. Mum.

When I die, I would like only people I have ever liked to be there, but if they don't want to be there it's all right too. And I'd like everyone to sing Monty Python at my funeral. Yes, that song!

urrgh I feel funny

2007-09-11T08:10:00.001+08:00

I have the worst luck!

blurry thoughts

2007-09-09T20:47:00.000+08:00

IS finished.

I refuse to touch it any more, apart from formatting and other worrisome stuff.

H3 evaluative essay is nonexistent. Tonight.

My head feels funny.

I'm doomed for math!

scaffolds

2007-09-07T19:44:00.000+08:00

Last night I had a panic attack about my IS. If that wasn't bad enough, I seem to be developing real insomnia. Waking up absurdly early that morning didn't help. I lay in bed for about two hours feeling vaguely frustrated, and then I got up and wrote down a list of all the possible professions I could go into in the future, between graduation and the fruit of my comic-drawing career. The list is pitifully scanty. And then I wrote three strange poems.

The last one I wrote still scares me in a very existentialist way.

Scaffolds

I have wide cheekbones:

When I was a child,
they could not be seen
because my cheeks pillowed
about the bones:

But now they have hollowed
and I can gather skeins
of skin
about them like a sweater,
and feel their hinges quiver
when I speak.

I can feel my mouth
through the hollows
of my cheeks.
About the cheekbone is
your smile, and
its own metaphysics.

It amazes me
to think that we are whole persons,
when it is our bones
that are alive.

mmm.

2007-09-06T16:40:00.000+08:00

I get the feeling that I'll be all right. Somehow.

Perhaps the lamb stew helped?

fiery eyes

2007-09-06T07:59:00.000+08:00

3040 words. IS is more or less done.

I seem to have lost the art of falling asleep gracefully. I'd climb in with my eyes bagging up with tiredness and lie awake in bed feeling somewhat sleepy and very comfortable, trying not to think metaphysical questions. Clever phrases come into my head and I get up to write them down. And then I think about how much I like my room, and then I think about death.

Every night is an existential milestone. How am I going to last the prelims like that?

Only four more days after today. Madly enough, I think I will take short break. If my mum feels inclined to eat lamb stew, I will very gratefully leech off her for lunch.

maintaining comfortable thoughts

2007-09-04T18:36:00.000+08:00

My mum viciously, passionately hates eaters of whale-meat. She was positively delighted at today's reports of mercury poisoning cases in Japan from eating whale-meat. 'Nature's fighting back,' she said. 'They deserve it. The poor whales.'

Most of the victims were children. It appears that there's something about eating whale-meat in Japanese culture. Unfortunately the seas off Japan also appear to be polluted, and toxins accumulate in creatures the higher you go on the trophic levels. Given the amount of plankton and whatnot whales eat, the amount of mercury they accumulate reach impressive highs. Of course they're poisonous. The cause is in people polluting the sea, not in people eating whales. Nature's not fighting back. We cause all our own troubles.

Poor whales, sure. Guess what -- poor cows, poor chickens, poor ducks, poor pigeons, poor deer, poor frogs, poor mussels. Poor sharks. Mad cow disease, avian flu, eutrophic poisons, hepatitis B, indigestion. Do people die of facial acne because they consume shark's fin soup? Is that a filleted/sauteed slab of chicken I see on the dinner table? We eat animals and that involves blood. You know that yourself. You were still alive in those days when they kill live fowl for you at the wet market when you buy them. You were still alive when people had to kill live fowl for themselves whenever they needed to brew a good protein soup for their sick aunts or something. You visit pig butchers every day and select dead fish from a bloody truckload of dead fish on racks of ice. You see them raw and fresh and eyeless and hanging off hooks in recognisably corpselike forms close enough to touch (certainly close enough to buy). But show you a lump of marbly red stuff on TV and you start screaming like a nut. We eat meat. You feed us meat. Why are you such a hypocrite?

My mum likes whales a lot. Of all the programmes on Discovery Channel there are a disproportionate number on whales, and I swear my mum has watched them all. I don't doubt that whales are cool creatures. But after seeing a pod of killer whales relentlessly attack and tear apart a sperm whale baby on one of the multitudes of programmes, my feelings are somewhat more ambivalent. Creatures eat other creatures. Fact of life.

It's not that I think eating whales is right. In fact, if it's commercial or illegal or, so help me if there is even such a thing, recreational whaling we were up against, I'd be the first to help harpoon the godforsaken poachers. But you don't tell me that eating one creature is evil and then point me to the dismembered leg of a chicken in a pot. And you don't tell me that a wedding's not a wedding without shark's fin soup. I appreciate that you're a fantastic cook, but if you can stomach enough to treat a formerly living creature as just another article of food you better bloody well be fair enough to do enough for the others. I don't care if 'whale-meat' is just 'whale-meat' in English while a live 'pig' evolves into impersonal 'pork' components after it's been slaughtered. Keep your convenient superstitions but don't foist them on me.

I don't think I would be quite so worked up if I hadn't been reading Voltaire this morning.

P.S. I'm still against cannibalism because I'm prejudiced enough to root for the preservation of all my species in whatever form. And I'm selfish enough to not want to be eaten. So is every carni-omnivore. Deal with it.

1300 words left to cut

2007-09-03T11:32:00.001+08:00

3514 words! H3 is DONE!

If only my IS were as well off.

I think I need someone to read my H3 and tell me if it's too flippant. I am not sane enough to tell if words like 'daft' should appear in an academic research paper next to words like 'polysemiotic' and 'equivocation'.

I woke up today feeling refreshed. A novelty!

back to work

2007-09-02T21:05:00.001+08:00

The $125 I spent on LOTR earlier this year was not a waste of money.

My father popped in and thought it was 'Star Wars'. I know he tries.

My teeth hurt. I'm too old to be teething!

teachers' day pilgrimages

2007-08-31T21:21:00.000+08:00

Today Cheryl gave me a can of canned air. The label says that it is authentic Mt Fuji 'fresh' air. Cheryl advises me that the air inside the can smells rather tinny and that it is not quite worth it to actually open the can. The can itself is rather pretty, and a worthy exchange for a Death Note. : )

Revisiting your alma mater is affirming and annoying at the same time, because while it confirms that your troubled adolescence wasn't just a figment of your imagination, it also drives in the paradoxes of change and inertia. You've changed, the school has changed, the teachers have changed, but we're forced to communicate on a level of stagnancy based on what happened years ago.

DHS people, however, are as nice as ever. I was running about looking for Ms Devi and a netball player was kind enough to go out her way to tell me that she was probably in the staff room. Of all the teachers I met, though, I sort of slid past 杨老师, and I completely ignored Ann Ang. Brr. Shu Yuen was nowhere to be seen, but by all reports she looked 'dead'. Mr Ng's promotion probably galls her sadly.

Mr Kiw is hale, healthy and as hawkish as ever. When I bumped into him during my quest for Ms Devi he took a quick look at my attire and said, '还不错，挺像样的哦！'

The DHS temporary campus is situated within walking distance of Ghim Moh hawker center. They are unbelievably lucky. The makan there is fantastic.

The uncle at the drinks stall is still there. He has been there ever since DHS was born, over 50 years ago. His son was manning the place when we went to buy drinks. DHS has a tradition so traditional that it is unbelievable.

study break.

2007-08-25T10:48:00.001+08:00

Being at home makes me feel sleepy and comfortable. Unfortunately it's the only place with a good computer that's accessible to me. Worst is that this good computer is in the same room as my bed.

Getting started is always annoying.

oh my gods!

2007-08-21T18:03:00.000+08:00

BOOK VOUCHER WINDFALL!!!!!

shrimp paste

2007-08-21T18:02:00.000+08:00

You know those frid snacks that look like tiny little spring rolls, but are really stuffed with fiery shrimp paste? You know them, right? Well they taste absolutely FANTASTIC eaten with kiwi.

Absolutely FANTASTIC.

...

2007-08-20T22:27:00.000+08:00

I don't know what to say.

wolves

2007-08-19T14:03:00.001+08:00

I will risk my priceless middle-class existence when the time comes. Perhaps when I am old and useless to it; certainly by then it should be useless to me. All expectations are over when you have grown old.

SATs was expensive.

2007-08-14T22:49:00.001+08:00

I signed up for SATs today! After a whole life of essay-writing and two years of absence from the sciences I CANNOT BELIEVE I am facing an MCQ exam. This is going to be a damn breeze after my A level torture. And after having looked at the sample questions for the subjects I'm taking along with the SAT I papers, I had better damn well ace the shit or I swear I'll eat my toenail shavings. I mean, I could answer most of the Bio paper sample questions and I haven't so much looked at curricular Bio since the O LEVELS.

This is a reactive mechanism I'm going to put into place because I'm so freaking scared of what will happen to me if I screw up this year on a level I mostly ignore, but nevertheless seeps into my conscious existence in evil ways. I refuse to underestimate an exam, but I'm having difficulty NOT overestimating this one. In any case, I'll have two weeks or so after Prelims to get ready for SAT I, and about a week (give or take a few paper-burning sprees at the class chalet after the last paper) after the A levels to prepare for my SATs II. Compared to the rigours of everyday life as a J2 student in A-level panic, lots of time.

In the meantime, I'm still freaking terrified for myself at the A levels even though I'm doing everything I can to change that. On the other hand I'm serenely confident. One doesn't need academic credentials to draw good comics. And for the first time in my damn life, I got a 20/25 for a History SBQ.

four days of anime and hermitting

2007-08-11T20:35:00.000+08:00

It's been four days now that I've stayed at home to (mostly) study. It feels good not to have had to navigate people as if they were vietnamese minefields. Well, there's my father, but after close to eighteen years yelling at each other we've learnt how to communicate past the mutual thorniness. The best thing is that I think we both know that, at the most fundamental level, we can trust each other.

The air-con isn't working properly. It emits a horrible continuous vibrating noise that makes it impossible for me to think, much less sleep. I hate loud continuous vibrating noises even more than I hate being too hot or too cold. Sleeping without air-con is proving to be quite nice actually, apart from the mosquitoes, and maybe it'll help save 1/36ths of a tree by the time the repairman comes on monday.

I didn't study ALL the time. In fact, I've finished watching all 24 episodes of Fate/Stay Night. It started slow but all of it was interesting, and I like all the characters except Ilya (and Gilgamesh, but that's because I felt like kicking him in the face, not because I had problems with how he was made). Some small plot-strings were left dangling, probably to keep the story tight around the main characters -- but also probably to keep the show PG. (Sakura's backstory is very horrifying and it's not likely going to make it past even online censorship in an anime.) The ending made my heart ache. I like happy endings, and this was only SORT OF happy. But it was also the most elegantly powerful ending I have ever seen.*

The battle scenes were fantastic.

My brother's flying off to New York tomorrow. I won't see his hammer-shaped chin any more after that until about next year. The thought is slightly dislocating.

*Note: I meant what I said by 'elegantly powerful'. Nothing has moved me quite so much for some time. Not even, to my everlasting horror, King Lear. (Partially because of bloody Cordelia, who was horribly portrayed, but that is another story.) The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi's ending was definitely elegant, definitely more technically so than that of Fate/Stay Night: seamlessly tied in, suitably climatic, epic in force and resolution -- but in the optimistic kind of epic way. The element of tragedy was just missing (it wasn't MEANT to be there in the first place). On the other hand, what Fate/Stay Night had going for it was dignity and death, which shook my deepest heart to its core, and anyone who reads this now can probably tell that I'm a closet romantic. There goes my image, sigh.

I can't please everyone and by heck I'm going to stop trying.

2007-08-08T14:14:00.000+08:00

Deal with it.

parentally-approved absence

2007-08-02T18:28:00.000+08:00

I ponned school for the first time in my life... yesterday.

It feels good.

oh, do I give a flying fuck.

2007-07-23T19:10:00.000+08:00

1. This has been a most fuckingly crap day.

2. Will blog about King Lear if I ever get round to it.

3. My mum believes in fate.

4. Neil Gaiman writes most amusingly.

5. My mum is boasting about my brother on the phone now. It's amusing and painful at the same time to hear.

6. Homework.

7. This has been a most fuckingly crap day. It'll be an even more fuckingly crap night, and the next morning will be the epitome of fucking crap. Murphy's Law is one thing, but regularly sheduled vomiting is another.

pencilly

2007-07-18T20:03:00.000+08:00

I realise anew that the one thing that can put me out of a looming existential apocalypse is a good long draw. Long being the word, because if I am forced to stop halfway I end up feeling worse than ever.

Unfortunately, it has also eaten up 3 precious homework hours, but I believe I'd rather be sleep-deprived than sprayed ten floors below my bedroom window from an escapist fit.

erk.

2007-07-17T18:16:00.001+08:00

What are my values?

I want to kill the person responsible for this

2007-07-15T15:33:00.000+08:00

I was foolish to trust MJ's reputation for efficiency. It doesn't extend to their online dominions. They've just fucking deleted one and a half hours of my fucking work.

Witness, you ever-burning lights above

2007-07-14T22:17:00.000+08:00

Providence has been kind to me. I feel happy and adequate and competent. Please let this mood last!

I must do well for the A levels. I want to retire into cartooning without scruples.

What are my values?

humph

2007-07-13T21:13:00.000+08:00

King Lear is very stupid. It will be up to Sir Ian MacKellen to help me pity him properly. As it is I have no patience with parents like that.

3-bit threatre

2007-07-09T19:26:00.000+08:00

My blog is starting to read like inspirational slush. My performance this mid-years was disappointing, considering how hard I'd worked. Now I should at least manage to give birth to the H3 thing by tonight, and THEN I will find my solace on Youtube.

good things. think about good things.

2007-07-08T20:18:00.001+08:00

that H3 thing just won't come out. 16 hours of labour and counting.

I love my com. It doesn't hang on me. I love you, com.

potential energy

2007-07-07T20:08:00.000+08:00

I'm quite in love with archery. Money and hurting fingers notwithstanding, it's something I'm going to go for as a serious hobby. The feeling of standing up to shoot something -- that infinite moment just before releasing when it's just you, the target and your bow-arrow -- is immensely satisfying. If anything in my life can be zen at all, this moment is it. It's a moment of complete potential and you don't even have to need to want to concentrate, unless the bow is unsuitable for some reason and you aren't comfortable with it. For that one moment verything goes taut -- your arms, the limbs of the bow, the string, your brain. For that one amazing moment you're alone and liberated. And then either you release the arrow or you don't.

A simple recurve bow with a 20-pound draw weight cuts my fingers... I feel like such a wimp. I hear that the average English longbow has a draw weight of about 70-80 pounds, whereas for the famed Mongolian composite bow it can be anything between 100 and 160 pounds. What I need before I can talk about anything is to practice a lot and build up callus. Again, after the A levels.

After the A levels T___T

Now, H3. What am i doing blogging when I'm supposed to be pushing it out. Sigh.