TV has never sunk so low

The scene - a nippy bankside at one of Singapore's water catchment areas
The cast -
one standard clandestine young couple meeting secretly
one standard story line about young girl being sent overseas by ambitious parent to pursue music career. They are about to be separated for 3 years.

They cross the small distance to clasp each other's hands. The girl is visibly distraught. She is, as they say, stuck to be filial, pursue her own career, and in the process leave her boyfriend behind. The young man is understandably upset but what happens next doesn't make sense, even as cheesy R&J speeches go.

Girl (rough approx of lines): It can't be helped, my mother has already paid them the money. I'll have to leave for 3 years!
(They hug passionately) Both are miserable at the cruel twist of fate.
Boyfriend: But, can you bear to let me go?
Girl (shaking her head in frustration): I don't know! I don't know!

Yeah. I sure don't know either. Let me go sounds kind of pathetic when it comes to comforting your girlfriend and it's unnecessary to ask such a stupid question in a scene that is already visually coded to yell happily-in-love-couples-to-be-separated.

The most difficult 800 words

The most difficult 800 words has to be this stupid report that I am banging out right now on my laptop. I have moved into the room which may sister usually occupies when gaming and the table faces the window, where a very, very drafty wind is blowing in and attempting to freeze me to my seat. While the draught has been very refreshing, it is also mighty annoying in the way it keeps expertly blowing aside my blanket or nipping insidiously at all the places where the blanket doesn't reach or cover. I feel ready to throw in the towel.

A quick post in the dead of the morning

Woke up feeling all disgruntled about the co-op. How is it that NONE of my psychoanalysis books are in on Tuesday but all sold out on the next day? Obsessing isn't helping but I absolutely refuse to have to photocopy anymore bits from it to tide over my current non-book ownership status. And lvl4000 here I come. Urk.

Attempts

Attempt 1:
And in one night, I learnt to play poker, blackjack and taiti. I used to suck so bad at these kind of games that I wonder how I even pick anything up at all.
Attempt 2:
In other things, origami folding still remains as dismal attempts by me no matter how long I spend twisting and folding bits of paper up. The paper crane looked as though someone put it through a rack (no pictures, fortunately). My sister on the other hand, makes pretty little sculptures while I sit there and flap bits of paper at her and whine, my vocab having being reduced to the following: "darn.", "shit.", "what do I fold now?", "help me", "arggghhh"
Attempt 3:
Then, finally, my attempts to rework a different blogskin has more or less ended with me sticking to the old skin anyway. I feel like taking out the Twilight poster. It's irking me.

Bus stuff

It has lately been observed that public bus fares have been exhibiting strange behaviours. Peruse for instance, the following four observations made by my colleague, Suz:

Trip #1: BUS 151 Kent Ridge Terminal to Jln Toa Payoh (aka longkang bus stop) = 133 cents

Trip #2: BUS 59 Tampines Ave Two to Bishan Interchange (via Toa Payoh) = 143 cents

Trip #3: BUS 105 Serangoon Ave Three to Jln Toa Payoh = 93 cents

Trip #4: BUS 135 Ang Mo Kio Interchange to Serangoon Ave Two = 31 cents (71 cents minus rebate)

Consider exhibit 4 again. Where did the rebate come from? I have no idea. But 31 cents was exactly how much I paid today. And as to why it costs 93 cents to go from my home to Toa Payoh and only forty cents more to get to NUS from there is to my mind, ridiculous. Consider that on very good days when and if I have the time, I can walk to Toa Payoh. No one walks from Toa Payoh to Kent Ridge. The difference in distance isn't a marginal 400 metres. It's kilometres of difference. And I just know that the 105 bus has something against me. As if it hasn't done enough making me either run for it, miss it, or is unfashionably late, arrives in an entourage and plies a route riddled with jams, crowds, and short roads with many turnings to increase my bus fare.

Alternately, I am baffled that I have a rebate on my way home. 31 cents from Ang Mo Kio to Serangoon? That's even cheaper than when I paid the 45 cent student fare.

Shoes.

On examining my poor knee yesterday, I found that it was still red and scrapped looking from a minor fall on Thursday. I can’t remember what I was laughing about, but that was exactly what I was doing before screeching loudly and tripping on the uneven tar between the Computing/Business Faculty and the Arts canteen. I had been wearing a pair of sandals which I detested and which on further examination, looked as though the shoemaker had never met a physicist during the designing stage. The base is narrower than the top. Which means that the centre of gravity is high. Which means said object topples at the merest whim. Possibly at the slightest thought too. So of course the wearer, and a careless one (me) at that is going to stumble around quite a bit, twist ankles, fall ungracefully and scrape knees. The thing is, I didn’t even know I had been bleeding until I rolled up jeans in the lift on the way home 5 hours later. Then, yesterday, I sat in front of the shoe cupboard at home and whined about my lack of footwear. My old flats had given way months back, and I was left with a pair of smelly brown ones which make my toes curl if worn for extended periods of time. I bought a new pair of shoes, and after giving me a bruising under my left toe nail, gave way not two weeks later. The rest of my shoes are heels, which are wrong for revising exams in, and both my pairs of slippers are in dismal shape. PY has seen the newer pair looking holier-than-thou and the older pair still survives in a semi-retired state out of some exaggerated sentimentalism on my part. My blue slippers have been all the way to Venus Drive, trudged through forest mud and river water and remained intact in spite of me having bought them since I was in upper primary.
Oh God.
That’s how long it has been???
Yes. And they cost me only 3 dollars. The newer pair cost 19 bucks and expired less than 6 months later. They just don’t make footwear the way they used to. So yes, I am now trudging around in borrowed slippers, which is upsetting because my mom’s feet are slightly smaller than mine, and I keep stepping on the edge of the slipper. The poor (this part is through. I feel miserable revising) starving (BK is eating all my money) artist (as in, I am from Arts) look is but a poor excuse for the embarrassing footwear I have at home.

The Neverending Cyber War, or Angsty Stream of Consciousness

UPDATE:
OK. It decided to work after all. After I worked up the nerve to swtich it on again that is. Don't know how long it'll last though.

At the risk of sounding like a choric extra out of some homeric epic, The Fates are against me. I had a nasty feeling when I saw the windows update prompt about downloading a new service pack just as I had sat down finally to do planning for the SEA Lit essay. In any case, this being an important looking update, I let it get down to whatever it (it, here being my laptop) had to do and I proceeded to do what I had to do. So, after coming to a rut in the planning, which from the beginning has been a painful and mind-freezing affair, I checked the service pack installing thing and it had hung. Typically. As per usual. Something had to go wrong at the wrong time.

Now. How did I know it had hung. I knew it had hung because the installing bar wasn't moving one peep. Having wisened up to the incredible and seeming incompatibility with me and all things electrical, I saved my work in my thumbdrive before forcing a restart, only to have that stupid blue screen staring belligerently at me. Only this time it had words on it, which went somewhat along this line: Your system configuration installation is incomplete (duh. whose fault? not mine. not exactly). Rebooting to previous configuration.

Am now sitting panic stricken in front of the desktop. I am absolutely certain that there is unsaved data in the laptop. Which at this moment looks unretrievable, because the stupid creature is still rebooting. The first step, as gd ol' lappie proclaimed is successfully complete. The second, which it is calling a rollback, is still in the midst of being completed. And has been for the past half an hour. Someone let me know if I should be pulling the plug yet.

Why why why now. Now. When I have essays. It could have been last week. Or the week before. Anytime would have been preferable to this week. I can't lug my desktop to school... or to work... I am so forwarding my plans to buy a laptop before I graduate to sometime soon.

The library as a sanctuary of study

I quite fail to understand how anyone can miss the point. Yes. by all means shush the crying child. It is after all, standard, responsible behaviour for a child's guardian or parent in the library - the sanctuary of silent study in nice air conditioning.

But, when the guardian's phone makes loud noises and her shushing *repeatedly* is louder than the child (now happily cooing), I seriously wonder at the irony of it all. Part of me wants to say: strangle the child, no noise! and the other part of me of course is doing the admonishing for saying such nasty things in the first place. The best solution is of course, not to bring the pram, the baby and the toddler in and seeing as the parent did not seemed inclined to read or borrow books or use a laptop, I really really fail to understand why anyone would come in here.

Dream reads

Right. As some of you know, I've been reading ahead for one of my lit modules, and that book (Middlemarch) unfortunately, is thick, and while not exactly boring, is not exactly engrossing either. My life is being ruined by the Internet age. In any case, this book is suspected as being the first book to be covered during lectures, hence it being read ahead. Also, as to how badly this book is affecting me, I started having weird dreams about it last night, which essentially consisted of how the reading ahead was a futile attempt at getting ahead because, in my dream, Middlemarch isn't even the first, or second book on the lecture list but the 3rd, or the middle of the lecture schedule. As if that wasn't enough, a check with the ivle workbin showed that Eliot will only be covered after the term break, and as such, I doubt if I would even remember who is who and what is what in the book by then. Bleah. Wasted effort for now. I am better off going to refresh my memory of reading Alice in Wonderland...

Ity and Bity

Children nowadays should not be underestimated.
See here, the (almost) accurate true-life accounts from a first-hand source.

Lost Notes from the Memory Bin
Exibit #1
At the tender age of 9, they curse better than hardcore sailors:

Go to _ _ _ _
S_ _ _
Various choice Hokkien epithets.
I F_ _ _ Y_ _ (said to me) *you idiot. I am not into being a paedophile. Plus, the next second, you complain that phrases like kiss and make up are "eww" and "gross". If ONLY you know what that word means.*

Here, one must wonder. If I point out that F_ _ _ is a bad word for "kissing", do you think they'll buy it and stop using that damnable vulgarity?? I expect angry parents would go after me instead.
Of course, vulgarities are not directed at only me, but more frequently, at each other.

Exhibit #2
They whine better than anyone else.

It's not even the vulgarities that kill me. No. Not when certain of your friends and the TV use them all the time. (Thank you, TV, and friends, for building up my insensitivity)

It's. the. whining.
Everytime one of the boys says something rude, the girls will start protesting: "teacher! Teacher! TEACHER! TEACHER! XX USE THAT WORD!"
*yes. I heard that. Now stop whining. I'm getting a headache*

Teacher clears throat: "XX! Stop using vulgarities! It's very rude!" *sigh. groan*
XX: "S_ _ _ lah" (glowers at other boy, who says something just as rude in return)
Girls *altogether now, 1,2,3*: "TEACHER! WHINE..WHINE...WHINE..."
*uggh. stop! stop! Your whining is worse than the swearing! Ignore them! If you show that you aren't bothered by their bloody (oops) swearing, they'll get bored and stop! Stop whining already!*
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Exhibit #3
The Artful Dodger (Singapore Edition)

Flashback:
Teacher: "JJ! What are you doing standing on that chair? Why are the tables and chairs like this?" (gestures at classroom, which has been turned into a maze after class has ended)
Girl 1+2: "His name is not JJ."
Teacher (baffled): "Eh?"
Girl 1 bangs on the table.
Teacher (intelligibly): "Huh? Table?"
Girls giggle. "No. He's called Knockknock!"
*I see.*
Girl 2: "Actually, before this, he had another name."
Teacher: "Oh? What's that?"
Girl 2: "He is called Food-stealer!"
Teacher glowers accusingly at JJ: "Did u steal food?" JJ protests: "No!"
Girl 2: "Yes! He stole my sandwich before. The small kind."

-End Flashback-

It is the end of class. Deja vu anyone?
I pack, and am ready to leave when I recall that I had lent one of the students my pen.

Attempt One to retrieve pen: FAIL
(notes: imitating the trademark coy, wide-eye innocence of student does not work)

Attempt Two to retrieve pen: PASS
(notes: but now, the marker (on loan from office) is in student's possession)

Attempt Three to retrieve one's own item: NEVERMIND

As I leave the class, the evil artful dodger decides that it'll be funny to pick my bag. Naturally, having anticpated this from Day 1 since I got this bag, the only a pickpocket will be able to steal will be something useless, like my water bottle, which is of the old, cheap plastic variety. It's a pity, after wrangling all my items back, I forgot the stupid bottle. It's not something that I miss, but I was rather thirsty on my way home.
______________________________

It's odd. But even with all these nonsense, I seem to well, enjoy meeting them week after week.

Whatever happened to the other modules??

I can't believe I have a paltry FIVE core modules to choose from for the coming semester. That list had better be incomplete. And I wouldn't even be complaining if not for the fact that two of modules that I want to do already clash. Arggh!

Poster Talk: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Everyone knows what this poster is. No need for introductions I think. In any case, skipping the poster harping that has accompanied my movie posts in recent months, I just want to forget the unpleasant staff and slow-crawling queues at Cathay Causeway and just focus on the sole fragment of light and hope for mankind in the whole of a pretty bad day. We entered the cinema in medias res no thanks bloody slow staff, and by the time I'd settled down, I expect I had missed some ten minutes of the film.

I liked the movie, because Andrew Adamson, the director, has made the film his own. It's pretty much nothing like C.S. Lewis at all. Which does remind me... I recall not really liking (loathe is too strong a word) Lucy of the four Pevensie children, but really, the choice of casting is pretty darn good, and the on screen chemistry of the siblings seems to have taken off quite nicely in this sequel, which, if I may add, is really really nothing like the dull, stuffy book version. I do recall, in spite of the years seperating us, that Prince Caspian (the book) was not one of the better Chronicle of Narnia as I was reading the series in secondary school... My favourites are the ever famous The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Silver Chair and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is the subject of the next film in the Narnia franchise. (Yay). It's a pity that Adamson is not directing, as I think he made the films a lot more palatable to a general audience in some ways, for example, by being less morally didactic and emphasizing the value of imagination. Very very important, the latter.

Warning: Spoilers ahead. You can still read though.

The concern of course is that without Adamson helming the third Narnia film, it remains to be seen if the franchise can play catch-up. Already, certain all too familiar images are appearing on the screen, such as walking trees and mild-mannered little New Zealand streams suddenly materializing violent and rapid flooding that kill off a good lot of the enemy. There are of course a few little other details that may also suggest the same production company had some dealing with another famed trilogy, but that is speculation for another day. In any case, I suppose imdb has all the gossip and data to make the comparisons. Alternatively, one may argue that seeing as Tolkien and Lewis were such pals anyway, it is unsurprising if this is Adamson's way of paying homage to that friendship. Or maybe the trees and the river already were in the book.
I honestly can't remember. In any case, I hope it wouldn't turn out to be another X-Men-Ratner debacle. What a way to end the series.

Singapore Arts Fest Opening Act: Complaint

As an econs tutor once said, "if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys", and if you pay zilch, you don't even get monkeys; instead what you get is a ridiculous crowd squeezed against the border of Boat Quay in the sweltering heat. grumblegrumblegrumble.

Sure, there were tricks with flaming rods and cyclists pedalled on the watery surface of the river, but still, it was not worth the heat, the unfriendly security or the monkeys (hanging off trees) that have come to watch a free show too. grumblegrumblegrumble.

The performance, as PY remarked, was untidy; one doesn't know where to look - the pretty fireworks spiralling dizzingly above our heads or the acrobatic act below us in the river... The indecision can be costly - in fact, I missed the end half of the closing scene. Humans. So easily distracted by pretty shiny things that make loud noises. grumblegrumblegrumble.

This is a street show. Whatever happened to the free and easy attitude that comes with open performances? I like where I was standing and I'm still a little annoyed that security kept nagging at people to not stand on the benches. I expect for the security, heat and stress led to bad tempers flaring up, but I fail to see the point in even trying to get people to behave in the appropriate way at what is supposedly a big spectacle. A street show is carnival, and as the word suggests, indicates that social customs are about to go topsy-turvy. Who cares if it's pure madness to climb a tree in the middle of the CBD? On a day like this, one can hang off the branches and no one (unless you're in danger of being hit by wobbling branches) is going to care.

Considering the maxim adopted year after year by the Arts Festival, the arts is supposed to be something everyone can enjoy, and I however, for one didn't feel quite so welcomed thanks to irritable staff lurking in the dark. As I've discovered, its nonsense to say that Singaporeans are straight laced (the people crouched in funny positions on trees and benches are definitely not), it's the staff. Still, the organizers should just live and let live - being oppressive at an Esplanade concert is one thing, but at a street performance?? Why?? It's the opening act! People should have been having picnics, laughing and smiling and wowed by the performance. I don't know about other people, but I left feeling distinctly unsatisfied by most aspects of the opening act.

Remind me to go for a ticketed performance next time.

Wired on Wireless

Ohhohohoho. I am connected. My laptop is connected. Yay! I spent last night growling furiously about how I had limited connectivity on my laptop... and this morning I went online and had 2 read a bunch of messy forums and finally discovered the network key given by stupid singnet was a wrong one... sheesh.

Happy-esque

If happiness is a measure of wealth, then I am pretty poor.

The day the printer died

Damn damn damn damn.

Which is why I hate cleaning up. Everything works before it is cleaned up, packed away or thrown. Dunno why. The fates insist on a dirty shelf perhaps.

Lost lost lost

Why oh why can't I go through a semester without losing something?!
Last sem, it was my earring and nearly a textbook, and this semester it has to be my thumbdrive. The worst part is. I don't even remember where I lost it. Or HOW. Did I leave it hanging on a computer somewhere (most likely right). Mercifully, most of my stuff are in the other thumbdrive and my laptop, but still! Waaaaaaaaaaah.
Come to think of it, I also lost a newly topped cashcard too. All on campus. Damn damn damn!

Am feeling like an idiot. And miserable to boot. My faithful thumbdrive.. that saw me through the busted laptop period...lost. gone forever. taken by some twit. ungrateful twit at that.

Where do I start?

I could start by burning all my books. And papers. Yes. In particular those. There's too much of them.

Small Things

Having decided finally what topic I want to do for my Japanese film paper (hail all Ghibli fans), am feeling much better. The vague sense of anxiety which has plagued me for the last two weeks is over (for now), and I can move on to other matters that as time passes, become even more and more pressing, thanks to time's ability to move forward without you noticing. This means datelines loom forever closer, even as I space out thinking of smart things to say in my ultra smart Romanticism class, whom some are already marked out for not being appreciators of Coleridge. Mwahahahaha. The reason that I'm wrecking things to say are twofold:
One, which is also the most pertinent, is that my CA grade depends on it, and Two, because umm. come on, one must defend what one likes even at the great risk of looking stupid. Then again, I am not sure I like critiquing what I like in the first place... I mean, I'm not even sure I like doing lit this way, which is to say, critiquing it. I feel like I'm not up to it, not to mention, these are great writers. How the hell do you criticise them and where do you start???

Life is beautiful.

Theatre

Oh spare me. WHY is there a couple two rows in front of me???? As if what I'm watching isn't sappy enough... Plus, she's blocking half the stage (leaning heavens knows where (and you know too)), and creating a gulf between every on-stage couple. Love. can be so selfish.