The Epic Trudge

Off we went, the three of us,
To our farewell party via a bus.
We reached the East Coast, and looked all round.
To our horror, we three found,
That Pit 61 was on the other end of the coast.
Boy were we toast.
Thus we began, our epic journey, from Pit 5
And walked on, determined, that for all our lives
We would surely make it there in one piece or otherwise.
We advanced, past Pit after Pit, footsore and weary. (Let's hijack bikes.)
On and on, the beach was a vast sea of sand and wind,
Punctuated by alternating pit and pitless lands; the horror it seemed,
When we past a deserted coast and Pit 45 was no where in sight.
A curse and a blight!
On whoever booked the pit!
Unfortunately, there was no way we could rest or sit,
For fear we'll be later than we already were.

Past the deflation hollow (an empty lake),
We walked on, blisters and all. And followed,
A bunch of boys, who might've been as lost as we were.
Cursing the J1s (though it wasn't their fault)
Wondering if being stabbed by pinecones was worth the walk.
I think I can see Changi.
Even worse, "Bedok" was the name of the jetty.
All the way from Marine Parade. I'm happy though,
For I see familiar faces, ready to accept us into their fold,
Though we walked right up to the pit, and no one (at first) noticed us.
We sat down on the stools, the result of an hour and half's march.

Don't ask me why we didn't take a cab, and for good measure I'll highlight where we began, and what major landmarks we saw...
Started near the old road safety park. Walked past Barbecue Pit 22++ near Mac. Past Costa Sands (Pit 30-40++). Past the No Signboard Seafood and Long Beach Restaurant. No Pits here. Walked ROUND enormous empty lake under construction. Then through a hawker centre. Found ourselves at the end of EC, near car park F2.
I had lots of fun last night, despite the stupid walk. If anything, the absurdity of our arrival made the party even more memorable. There was not bad food, though BBQ onion rings are a bit strange. Played Frisbee and Monkey. It was great fun, though I kinda wished everyone could make it...so few turned up, no doubt the effect of the oncoming prelims...All in all, a party to remember, especially photo taking sessions and the free smoke machine courtesy of the J1 (the BBQ had a lot of smoke), lovely special effects turned out in some of the cameras. I’m gonna miss drama. Never really wanted it to end. Even the sleepless nights and exhaustive and stressful bits.

Chaotic times

Ah yes. The spanking new TVs decorating my school compound are happily flashing the news: 7 days to Prelims!! I feel so happy. I should be studying. In fact I'm going to, after blogging though. Am now waiting for Geog lect to start. Spent last Tuesday with the similar situation of waiting around, nothing to do. Oh well. Life's like that.

So.. this is going to be a random blog. Few things to say. No.1. Sorry Kappa, I can't go out with you to enjoy your b-day present. Really and truly and absolutely sorry I'm gonna miss the concert!! I am getting mushy, which is a bad sign. Then again, I've been getting a lot of bad signs lately.

In Harbin, your breath mists in front of your face when you breathe. We are all smokers! Ice isn't cold to the touch when your hand is colder than ice. Ice slabs are really good to sit on though... My face was really cold...felt as if my nose had fallen off...kept touching it to see if it was there. Being a general klutz, I fell down on the snow slide, before even getting on the float thingy for the slide...shit. lol. Was really winded, because falling on ice is NOT a good thing...the coldness of the shock gets to you. Had apple strudel after that. Anything warm to taste after -10 degree celsius weather is good.

Broke my no coffee rule that day. Bad time to be doing that...coffee was really gross. Even seasoned coffee drinkers like my aunts said it was appalling. Sigh. Coffee has no effect on me. Was stoning by 8pm. Fell asleep round 10+ that night (Sunday) waiting for hair to dry out after bath.

Maybe coffee wasn't strong enough.

Go to www.animalinyou.com

This is a decidedly unconformist creature, for as an airborne personality, the bat tends to look down at the conventions of the ground animals. And yet, since it is not a true bird and having not mastered the art of smooth controlled flight, it often appears awkward in social situations. (Hence the term -- acting batty). But as compensation for this social ungainliness, many bat personalities sport a built-in radar, which enables them to intuitively read the motivations of others.
Identifying bat personalities is not difficult. Being nocturnal creatures, they come alive at night and can be spotted in underground clubs or dimly lit bars. They prefer the sanctuary of dark clothing and dark corners, and you'll never see a bat sporting a heavy tan. These are intelligent, spiritual, creative individuals who use their full range of senses (other than their poor eyesight) to carefully navigate their way through life.
Bats have a habit of flitting in and out of social situations, swooping down to interact briefly with others before quickly flying off to resume their bat lives. Unassertive and aloof, they'll take flight at the first hint of a confrontation to seek comfort in their personal spaces that are decorated in unusual but expressive ways. The bat's sixth sense gives it a number of advantages in its work, and its insightful nature enables it to understand others better than it understands itself.
In the romance department, bats are enamored with the idea of love more than they are with its colder realities. Decidedly untraditional, they are prone to flights of extraordinary fantasy -- and it's not the traditional Ken and Barbie type of romance that tickles its fancy either. It's the Bram Stoker kind: dark, moody and gothic.
Bat personalities have an enormous sense of loyalty and if you ever do a favor for a bat, it will never relax until it has paid you back. In fact, in nature, the bat is the only animal (other than man) to demonstrate true altruism when unrelated individuals will unselfishly offer food to a cave-mate without expectation anything in return. This powerful sense of quid pro quo is one of the defining characteristics of the bat personality and anyone should consider themselves lucky to be in a bat's good graces.
Bats have no strong yearning for parenthood, for the kind of ego gratification that comes with having one's own children doesn't appeal to its karmic temperament. They are instead quite content to satisfy their maternal or paternal instincts by adopting or merely baby-sitting. If they do have children, they prove to be perfunctory parents: methodical yet unconventional . Still, bats place great emphasis on ethics and morality and insist that their children be indoctrinated in the values of good citizenship.

Hit/Run

You know, sometimes things just hit you and you end up flying back a mile or more. I've just gained access to my school's new server and there are tons to copy from my tutors' private files. Everything from tutorials to lecture notes and extra readings. Then I mail them to my classmate. I SO need to buy printer ink. Why am I procrastinating. All that work (the size of a mini mountain at the least) are the result of not bothering to migrate to a new server. Yup. I feel like I'm caught up in a backwash dating a few months worth of work. Actually I don't feel it, I'm trapped in it literally. It is quite a shock for me...all that things to read and do. I'll be having a busy weekend. And printer ink...been printing multi-coloured notes since one printer prints blue ink and the other has been reduced to doing red ink. I'm in a mess.

Funny, I've been repeating the same thing over and over again. Well, I guess the impact is just so strong. Serves me right for running away from all that. Must be the approaching prelims (12 days and counting!). So yeah, I don't know why I'm blogging this...except that...all my friends out there doing their 'A' levels....good luck. We're in the deep end now and it's about time I woke up to that...

Timetabling woes and other stuff

Today might just rank as no. 1 of The Top 10 Most Pointless Days of 2005. Let's see...most Tuesdays are usually pointless anyway. It's the day I spend more time waiting for classes to start than actually attending something useful. Here is my normal Tuesday timetable:

0740-0840: Geog lecture
0840-0940: Lit tutorial
0940-1110: break
1110-1210: ct
[which is a sort of form teacher's period for all the admin and occasional enrichment things]
1210-1340: GP
1545-1800max: Geog lecture

Today's pointless timetable:

0740-0840: Geog lecture
1210-1340: GP

That's it. Yup. I've to wait 4hrs for a lesson. Yay. The 2nd geog lect was cancelled because the tutor is sick. Ah well. I've got the whole day to do revision and homework. I expect I should somehow feel happy...hey...there is also free internet!
Right. somehow I had an ominous feeling that today was going to be a day of pointlessness.

See. My day began with this announcement at assembly: "I will now read out to you students a message from the principal of a certain sec sch...So went on the message...blah blah blah. It was abt some J1 from my JC who had yanked two misbehaving sec students back to thier school to be dealt with. The mesage ended with a grand and ostentatious praise of this J1 - 'I congratulate him on his moral courage..." in the hope that all of you should emulate him and bring glory to our JC. Oh yes.

I cannot help but think that the congratulatory email was slightly out of place. Praise for reporting on misbehaving students? I've this impression that it is like praising someone for being nosy. It is silly to magnify the litle things in life. If we were to go on glorifying the little things in life whose true merits are dubious I shudder to think what will happen to us. Oh let's trumpet gloriously on about our 'clean & green' environment. May I know why it is so clean and green? Oh. It's because no one dares to litter for fear of that $10000 fine.

Things like reminding others of proper behaviour and disposing litter responsibly are things that are EXPECTED. Just because someone reported the students doesn't mean it is right because the sch think it is. I just can't help thinking that the J1 should have just told off the students. Was there really a need to report them? Of course there is the issue of the degree of misbehaviour - was it just being noisy? Or vandalism? Or something worse like harrassing the public? Whatever it was, punishment does not change such behaviour overnight. Instilling fear only makes one cynical and rebellious. And maybe, that's what I am.

Shh!

Am so tired. Too...tired...to...blog... Haha. I AM blogging, which is the irony of it all. After 2hrs++ of Econs mock prelims today, my hands feel like lead. For some strange reason, my left hand aches too. Could it have been due to the Hazelnut dance yesterday? Well. I do not wish to post anything in relation to my least favourite subject. U might like it, Kappa - it is a very evil subject.

Anyway, PY, Jane and me went to the National Library to study. We had lunch before that at the Food Court. Poor PY found ham slices in her supposedly vegetarian spaghetti - the nerve of some cooks. The ham tasted gross too...like plastic.

The NL was really nice. Didn't like it initially - it was obstructing my way to Bras Basah, and I recall being forced to walk on the double yellow lines on the fringe of Victoria Road when the NL was still in its construction stage. So many cars...it was quite scary. But that is besides the point. Today marks my first visit to the newly constructed National Library, and it is really a beautiful building, inside and outside. There is this zen-like landscaping with lots of bamboo trees, and black/white pebble paths. It looks so cooling and airy compared to all that concrete. The whole building comprises of vast glassy panels, and looks a tad too futuristic, but if u look at SMU just down the street and I guess the architecture is comparable, though SMU has a wavy glass facade that looks as if it is about to topple anytime.

When u enter, u are greeted by a blast of cold air, which Jane tells me, is due to changes in the air pressure...cool. The building looks fantastic in the interior too...lots of glass linkways that criss cross the various levels...very very sci-fi. And the silence. U sound like u are yelling when u are really whispering as softly as u can. They say silence is golden, but I would have given anything for a bit of noise. It feels like you are sitting in a vacumm when it is too quiet.

Spent an afternoon there. Was completely disoriented when we left the building - one gets the feeling that u are on the same floor all the time because each floor is structured similarly. Only changes are floor tile colours. It doesn't help if u've contracted a headache reading tourism notes...well. Will stop here I guess. My fingers are dropping off...

Twisted jelly and pretzel legs.

Can't BELIEVE the things they make you do fpr P.E. OK. So Teacher's Day is coming and say, why don't we learn some social dances the liven things up on that day?? Yup. The dances have such interesting names too. Names like the "Little Hazelnut" (do they mean horses or falling nuts; all that prancing could mean either) The other was even funnier - didn't know blacksmiths originated from the Institute of the Mentally Inept. The dance was called "Hammersmith" and it involved lots of clapping...and I mean really. I always thought smiths were busy people, didn't know they had time for dancing in circles. Then again, they might have been freaking out because it was the Black Death, and that's when the song "Ring around the Roses" originated from.

After all that is said and done, the stupid dances were quite fun. At the very least it was excercise...but wouldn't I give anything for badminton lessons again next week... Now, I ache in all the wrong places and my feet feel permanently twisted from all the feet crossing steps...But hey. It wa all in the name of a bit of fun.

Chocolate Charlie is so Sweet.

Watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory today with my sis. Was not impressed by it. Instead I was Totally Blown Away by the film!! What an excellent piece of work! Haha. I've not even gotten to why I love the movie and already I am singing its praises. Hmm. I suppose it was because the film was way better than what I expected it to be. I did think it will be good, just not that good, if u follow me. Well, happily, even my sis was impressed and that's saying something. She is a picky movie goer (how can anyone not like LOTR??). Anyway, am feeling the itch to review the movie. Beware of spoilers. (see post below for safety sake).

You look really Weird...

WARNING: Spoilers ahead!
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
reviewed by none other than ME. of course. Who else is there?
The film opens with a nice bit of music (composed by DannyElfman - don't know who he is? Well I don't either), with really nice graphics of the chocolate packaging process. Knowing Tim Burton, it is weird. The chocolate bars all have individual white mini parachutes that float down in a spiral. Really nice. The sets are lavish. I mean, it is Tim Burton after all; so you can expect things to look a little less ordinary. The story, as anyone knows, is adapted from a Roald Dahl book of the same name.

The movie follows quite truly to the book, in terms of the things said and sequence of events. What deviates from the book, however, is Willy Wonka. There is an added feature on Willy Wonka's youth. The movie also strangely shifts focus away from Charlie, the lead protagonist to Will Wonka. Now that, in itself is not a bad thing (more screen time of the world's coolest actor can't be bad). However, Charlie does play a crucial role in helping to adjust Wonka's skewed world view that parents are nasty creatures that inhibit individuality. I suspect that as the anticipated audience would largely consist of kids, it would be neccessary to restore the morals of the story. One tends to get carried away by Wonka's evil antics, especially that sinister smile on his face whenever the 4 rotten kids get their just desserts.

Some people have remarked that Johnny Depp looks really weird. I mean what's with all that white makeup? I however feel that the costume sits well the "look" of the film, especially since Wonka is such a child-like character - it would be wrong to portray him as the old eccentric complete with goatee and all. Rather, the androgynous look is a success here.

Great film overall. Go watch it. There were some misses though. But hey. Perfection is boring.

Invasion!

Today began normally enough. Woke up. Ate breakfast. Read newspaper. Go to school. Got D&D ticket fixed (For some reason, I was given a torn ticket). Went home. Computer hanged. Gave up on it and decided to just help my mum prepare lunch. I was slicing prawns while she de-veined them. All pretty normal, especially the comp hanging bit. Then things got a little weirder.

I was clipping my fingernails when I thought I heard a knock on the door. Turns out I did hear a knock - when I opened the door, and out of the blue I see Jane and PY standing outside, and I was thinking...OK...umm what are they doing here?? Haha. Teach me to look at my handphone more often huh. PY was convinced that after missing 3 days of school, there was actually a lot of notes for her. Funnily enough there actually wasn't much. We discussed the mysteries of Balance of Payments (BOP). Played with my hamsters. Laughed and talked a lot. Complained about this strange theory found in our Atmosphere and Climate notes (the earth wobbles every 21000 yrs?! You've gotta be kiddin!) Then they went home and I had lunch. Lunch was yummy!

Then my sis' classmates came and played x-box. I suspect it is because one of them broke his x-box and was suffering from withdrawal symptons. Haha. Nah. So they spent the afternoon oogling at the gogglebox and talking really loudly. Went to buy dinner. For some reason, the guy at Mac's gave me one twister fries when I asked for two and two fries when I wanted only one. I kinda felt sorry for the guy and decided that the extra fries could go to my sis' classmates. Went back home. There is a lot of air pollution out there - it's the first day if the chinese 7th month. So you know what I mean...Got home. Was still eating when the two guys (my sis' classmates) decided they had enough of oogling the gogglebox and went home. Funnily enough, one of them actually said "Thank you for having us". Not the typical reaction from a gaming addict if you ask me. They usually walk away with a slightly bemused look on their faces... Shows how much you can judge from people's appearances yeah... At least this time someone was nice enough to say "Thank you". Goodness knows I've to put up with weird people every time they come here. Who eat my food and don't go home. Oh well. Nice to see that my sis has SOME polite classmates, always did have the impression that they were all ah bengs. Haha. Prejudices will get you nowhere, but I can't be too trusting too.

Hah! I am going to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Monday!! I can't help announcing to the world!!! I am so excited. Finally! A movie worth every cent I'm paying for!

July/August

I've not been blogging for a while as you can obviously see. Anyway, I'm glad the stupid tag-board is up and running again. Was so frustrated when it decided to do strange things. Happily, it wasn't just me for once...friends had a similar problem too. When you have a temperamental computer akin to a grouchy old man, you question every weird thing it throws at you...

So. Just an update. Last WKEND was spent doing things...decided to wrap Kappa's present a day in advance. It was a blue wrapper, with darker blue teddies I found off Google Images. I was lucky that my printer was printing blue ink...I ran out of black a few months back. Just haven't bothered to replace ink. If I had black ink I would have to print them in greyscale, which doesn't sit well with the light blue paper, and of course, I've no photoshop to do things with the teddy photo. Yup. Luck or something I guess. Anyway, we had lunch at Hans. Am HAPPY that I was late for once. I've complaints that I go to pre-arranged venues too early. Hans was ok. Watermelon wasn't sweet enough if you ask me. Went shopping after that. Thanks Kappa, for humouring ol' indecisive me while I circled Borders like some insane metal institute escapee with a fetish for walking in circles.

Bought Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. People who watch the OC would know Seth mentioned it in one of the episodes. Dun know if this is true. Ask Kappa. The book is very thick. It's about WWII. Its also a book only mad people would recommend. Have found nothing entertaining from it so far. But hey. I've only read like...4 pages? Haha. Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring was great though. Finished it already. For a historical fiction, it really is quite well written. Go read it.

Went sofa cloth shopping with Aunt and Mum in Choo Chiat. For those out there who suffer from chronic "Where is this place hah?", Choo Chiat is in Geylang. But that is besides the point. The point is, I went cloth shopping with them, and we bought the cloth that I picked out. I shall take the liberty of looking smug. It's a light cream coloured cloth with silvery leaf and vine motifs on it. It LOOKS nice. Anyone who says otherwise will answer to the chopper poised in my hand. Nah. Just kidding. I don't like choppers in the first place...so violent and unwieldy.

Last of all, my pet hamster gave birth to 3 babies on the 2nd of August!! That's same as you Kappa! They look quite gross actually - all wobbly and pink and for some reason, a bit shiny too. Heehee.

Last night was bad though. Fell asleep waiting for Inuyasha to start at the unearthly hr of 11pm. I missed the damn episode and woke up just in time to catch the ending credits rolling. Luckily my sis wasn't too pissed off that I only managed to tape Shaman King for her. Sat through that with a highly dissatisfied feeling of having missed a TV show you stayed up for.
Well. here ends this post. Will blog again some time soon.