no title for today (when was there one?) just trying to work from a tangent.

So. This person on youtube was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. So I looked it up, and looked up the criteria for diagnosis, and found that they were very... iffy. There are so many grey areas I can think of, compared say to an orthopeadic diagnosis. From the medical encyclopedia on answers.com:

Psychologists and psychiatrists typically use the criteria listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) as a guideline for diagnosis of bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses. DSM-IV describes a manic episode as an abnormally elevated or irritable mood lasting a period of at least one week that is distinguished by at least three of the mania symptoms: inflated self-esteem, decreased need for sleep, talkativeness, racing thoughts, distractibility, increase in goal-directed activity, or excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences. If the mood of the patient is irritable and not elevated, four of the symptoms are required.

How do you tell when a patient is "irritable" and not "elevated"? I mean I know friends who sometimes have the symptoms "decreased need for sleep, talkativeness, distractability, racing thoughts"-- although admittedly not for a whole week. From this information I feel quite insecure from the thought that I could be very easily misdiagnosed if I went to a psychiatrist.

ooo post #202!

I'm in Davos, Switzerland right now, and I have wireless!! YEAH. oh dear it's sad that I'm spending my holiday on the internet, but I have the flu ): and therefore I have to stay in. But it's good that I have wireless, so I can reply to nerdfighter kimberley. This is odd. I don't have anything to say right now. It's like when people start their vlogs and say: "I'm bored" and then ramble for the rest of it.

I realise that if I don't paragraph, only the first bits of the paragraph will be read and people's eyes will skim over to the next and not read it completely. I have to go out for lunch soon, or it will get crowded. Maybe then I'll post a postcard to harold v crick and geeru and michele (I don't have other people's addresses, damn.)

I like having internet. Because today is dec 17! When all the project for awesome videos go up. I can't post a video, because my memory card doesn't fit into the laptop, so I can only edit/post videos when I get home. Okay link to the project for awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4hqWfp3374

I've got to go now, because the internet is getting laggy and it takes like 10 minutes to dress up to go outside. Tchus!

This is an epically PHAIL attempt at bumpity bump. Rush of posts is going to end when I finally realise that this blog is not a forum, and that I am the sole contributor. Oh, did I mention that this template is awfully outdated? Not that I have strayed from the Fandom or anything, but hbp is going to be out in 6 months, and I still have the GoF layout?!

Response response response to what people have talked about lately.

Poor, poor, geeru is stuck at home babysitting for most of the holidays ): I would love to drop by, but things are not convenient at her side at the moment. Please, please geeru answer your bleeding phone so that both of us have a respite from boredom.

Recently met a singaporean nerdfighter on youtube!!!!!!! [YES.] I hope we will be able to get together, along with the wrock people in time for the hbp release. The last time there was a harrypotter event, I failed to turn up and was a lousy wet blanket, despite fangirling about the DH release for more than a year prior to the event.

Speaking of nerdfighting, lauren's yule ball video and john's response has strangely reawakened my love for the awesomeness that is papertowns and the vlogbrothers.

Looking at lauren's video has also reminded me not to blog past 12midnight or regret it the morning after. [*sigh* it IS past 12 already.]

I really really need to call people/ talk to them in person. People like aforementioned geeru and colonel mustard and yingling and felicia. Except that it is a) never really the right time to call and b) I keep on forgetting. Although! between the hours of 12-3am are always great times to call me :D just text me in advance so I can keep my phone on.

This blog shouldn't be too personal. I will aspire to be dignified and less frivolous and angsty on whatever is available to the general public because it will ruin my Image! ("as what, an internet ___ star?" my other self retorts.) Revealing too much personal information is never never never safe on the internet, as italktosnakes, owlssayhooot and billilovesmargot have so expertly demonstrated. I don't want to get stalked. I don't want everyone to know what's bothering me at the moment. It's not something everyone should know. *whines* ["Then why are you on the internet in the first place, you naive ___bag?" taunts Other Self.]

Revealing bits of your personal self online makes the things you tell your friends less valuable and private. It also makes you look like a self-absorbed, emotionally insecure prat. It also can be used as potential blackmail material, not very ideal if you're financially inept, like me. I can be so contradictory at times.

oh oh go visit yingling's blog-- link in the left sidebar.

bumpity bump.

The cons next year are LEAKYCON and AZKATRAZ! yay. I think that there will be people in the fandom going to both, but I just don't have the money. Right here are the facts:

LEAKYCON will be in Boston, MA from May 21 to May 24.
After October 1, 2008, the price goes up to $185 for registration, and then up to the full price of $199 after February 1, 2009.
$189 per night for up to four people per room at the historic Boston Park Plaza Hotel.
Total Cost: $185+$189= $374USD=$570.50SGD

AZKATRAZ will be in San Francisco, California from July 18- July 21.
$145 - Basic Registration, available through February 28, 2009
$165 - Basic Registration, March 1 – May 31, 2009
$190 - Basic Registration, June 1 – June 30, 2009
$200 - Basic Registration online, July 1-15, 2009
ONLINE REGISTRATION WILL CLOSE ON JULY 15, 2009
$200 - At-the-Door pricing
$165 plus tax per night, for up to four people in a room. In other words, there's no extra-person charge for the third and fourth person in the room.
Total cost: $165+$145= $310=$472.80SGD

So altogether azkatraz wil be cheaper than leakycon, but I don't think I can make it because I'll be having school. Leakycon is closer to the school holidays and I *might* just make it since it's at Boston, where I'm permitted to go for summer school. (how coincidental!) However, at both cons there are age restrictions. I'm over the age of 14 (that's good.) but anyone under the age of 18 needs to have a parent accompany them, or have a chaperone over the age of 21 who is registered for the conference, and complete and notarize the chaperone authorisation form. That's the most sticky bit.

On programming, I have the feeling leakycon will be more wrock-centric than academic-paper-centric. Not that I don't like going to a wrock concert, but the academia of harry potter is something I've not experienced before, and it would be fun to go for a lecture or two. (or three. or four.) And I want to watch a panel and participate in a discussion! They haven't confirmed formal programming yet, but it says there will be *some* of it there. There's also youth programming at leakycon, which sounds promising. But I'm not old enough to go for the snarry events! damn.

Azkatraz looks to be a bigger event, since it's being promoted by HPEF, who did Portus and Lumos. But but but I haven't considered transportation from boston to SF, where azkatraz is... unless I can find a summer school in SF.

And most of you have noticed by now that I haven't considered the flight costs, so here they are:
NWA roundtrip from sg to boston= $2318 SGD (leakycon)
NWA roundtrip from sg to SF= $1909 SGD (azkatraz)

Northwest is one of the cheaper airlines from experience, so I stuck with that. I might research other airlines if I'm really serious about going. Turns out that a flight to SF is cheaper and faster, by about $400.

The Boston University summer school releases its exact dates on dec 15, so more updates then. In the meantime, I have to worry about money matters.

I thought about your braces today.

About the brown pebbles by the sea.

Sitting on the worn sofa.

A nervous handshake.

The only telephone call

when I thought I was dreaming.








THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS.





someone please slap me.

Haven't been updating in ages-- was busy with... um... hmm. reading papertowns and first among sequels and a book about feynman the theoretical physicist. (can't remember his first name ><) And busy with a secret project!

Speaking of secrets, I sekritly like hsm. The same way I sekritly like the spice girls. BUT I pledge allegiance to the wrock fandom! Right. so I went to watch hsm with my sister because she needed a chaperone (yeah right) and I felt kind of sad during the first song. During the part that goes "sixteen, sixteen minutes" I was thinking about rgs and leaving and how that what we did the last few months was "what we leave behind". This bit:

This is the last time to get it right
This is the last chance to make it or not
We gotta show what we are all about
Work together
This is the last chance to make our mark
History will know who we are
This is the last game so make it count
It's Now or Never

Because remember a while ago there was this barrage of emo "I'm leaving/ going to jc" posts? I kind of went through that phase in the middle of the year, and then tried to distract myself afterwards with books and things, so I wouldn't feel so... cliched. [damn I'm using a lot of ellipsises today] I tried to move on quickly so leaving would be easier and less sad, and distracted myself with things; azkatraz and leakycon were some of them. And then at that time I felt that things with my classmates/ yearmates wouldn't really be the same again.

this is what I have been doing all day!



yay.

grumbly. Yesterday I went to Times at marina square in search of Harry, A History and Paper Towns, and guess what I found instead?


heh watched the movie on youtube *is guilty* It's just another teen movie, though with british accents. I like the music, though. ><


both of which I ended up buying, with my birthday vouchers.

oh and you know what they ALWAYS have instead of john green?



I don't think they're related; it's only john and hank.

something to keep you going till the hcl paper :D

starring andrew slack of the harry potter alliance.

interclass karaoke today :D
There was lots of dancing! Though it's still amazing that more people didn't dance :(
I was looking forward to having the whole hall stand up and be mosh-pit-like for most of it :(
Ah well. At least 415 danced :D

songs performed, and Don't Stop Believing added for good measure. [someone tell me which songs I missed out!]

I interrupt regular transmission to bring you: Hank Green.
watch the video! I don't think he allows embedding ):
It's exactly when I think I mean when I say I don't want to get older.
But the problem is, very frequently in my daily life I find that I'm telling myself to act more mature. The conversation in my head often goes like this:

A: why did you do that? why can't you be more responsible! If you aren't responsible and mature, you can't be an adult and function efficiently in the adult world! What is wrong with you???
B: WHAT. IS. MATURITY?
A: Maturity is having respect for other people and yourself. It also includes being punctual.
B: BUT I think immature people are people who are too stupid to think analytically about their problems. You could take care of all your responsibilities and still be immature.

*angst*

I am not very eloquent. Anyway, I think right now my conscience is trying to convince myself to be more boring and adult, to ease my transition into the adult world. If this goes on for too long, I'm afraid I might forget to have fun altogether. However there are a million external factors that are making you be more adult. In fact, because of these million factors, I think I'm almost halfway there! These factors include: teachers, parents, exams, colleges, peers, and irritating mean old ladies.

It's not that I can do anything about these external factors, though. Honestly, becoming adult is almost necessary sometimes to have fun. It's only when you act mature people permit you to do fun things, and go places to have fun. All you have to do is make these external factors believe you are mature, and then you can go have all the fun you want!

In a less abstract manner, you need to make your college admissions officer believe that you are responsible and mature before you can enter college, and you need to enter college for your future employers to trust you enough to pay you a salary, and THEN you can start having all the fun you want. It sounds like I'm cynical, and I'm being anti-nick (just like anti-helena) at the moment, but it's my perception of the real world, and it's kind of what yingling was talking about during that endless night.

Although-- even though I have this perception, I don't necessarily act according to it :(
which is good and bad.

haha I seem to be posting more these days-- the last couple of entries came within 3 days of each other! (I hope) I have more to say today than before.

First things first: go buy The Graveyard Book, the latest by Neil Gaiman. Just found out that it's available in kino -.- so go get it! It's supposed to be really prominent and they put it up and things. Plus try listening to danse macabre before/ while reading it-- yeah it's that kind of book.

Oh yes and if someone finds Let it Snow by JOHN GREEN, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle, please please tell me, because I figured the only way I can get it now is through amazon... and I don't have the financial means at the moment. For those who aren't nerdfighters, John Green is this really awesome YA writer who did Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. (that just came out/ is coming out)

Speaking of coming out, last saturday, the 11th of october, was National Coming Out Day in the states. tyleroakley on youtube and italktosnakes did very funny videos on it, so go forth! (right no pun intended.)

Today I am not very bothered to write anything um remotely fresh, so let's pick up something from the stale bread bin!

On [Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?]:
In most SF novels, I've always noticed that the female is ALWAYS the object of lust, not the male. Even when the narrator is female, they don't objectify the male, but the female. Lust and the promise of it has always been a recurring theme in SF novels, even good ones, so I don't blame Philip K. Dick or Orson Scott Card for that. It's just that the male protagonist always sleeps with the hot female, and the hot female is always the forbidden fruit or the irresistible bait.

Why can't males be hot instead? In today's society, it is entirely not justifiable for only females to be objectified and used as an object of temptation. This only propagates the idea that females are only to be utilised as tools for pleasure, and they are not worthy of being anything else. It is only recently that females have been sufficiently empowered of proper characterisation -- Un Lun Dun by China Mieville and Philip Pullman have great examples of female protagonists.

This is coming from a humanist to boot.

the graveyard book

I wish you peace and love and happiness in everything you do
I pray everywhere you go someone will be in love with you
and I know that if you stay within these loving arms of mine
that every single one of these dreams will come true

- A Pensieve Full of Unrequited Love from The Mudbloods

Scored a acdc shirt today :D for $18 :( but it was really cool and thank you geeru for waiting for me xD even the salesperson got irritated that I took too long. I also saw this pretty pretty led zeppelin shirt that was coloured in front and had an actual zeppelin [a little steampunkish], but I figured it would be difficult to alter since the graphic went almost to the end of the shirt. Because the shirts are men's size M haha. They don't make band shirts for girls because it would be too... wimpy. So anyway I'm going to have to alter it to make it fit better so I don't look like I'm wearing pyjamas.

If you feel like getting one, it's a shop in fareast, on the third floor. Stand where the directory is, near the escalators, turn 90degrees to your left, and keep walking till you see it. They have a lot of, um, fetish-like costumes if you're into that thing. [geeru kept staring suspiciously at them] but good if you want halloween masks and outfits. The band shirts are the three whole racks of black tees that look all the same, so you actually have to look at every shirt to find the one you want. Which was quite enjoyable, really, because I saw pink floyd, muse, guns and roses, metallica, and a lot of old school rock things. And that's why I took so long.

*sigh* and the salesperson kept asking me "are you okay?" when I squeed at the shirts, and it was more than evident I really really wanted one, so I might have been cheated. Because $18 is a bit much for a oversized shirt that can't fit anyone, right? plus the graphic was just a simple black and white, nothing special. [someone who buys merch a lot please correct me]

jazz jewel

Guess what I was doing all weekend!!!!!!!!!11!!


Having my soul sucked out by the computer, reading, um, the pdf of new moon.

SO. I'm inspired to come up with the trash index. Like the happiness index!

5.0-- romance novels with half-naked men/ women on them, bad fics.

4.5-- the new paper, gossip mags. oh and xiaxue.

4.0-- the straits times, soap operas, dan brown

3.5--meg cabot, twilight, Mitch Albom

3.0-- Harry Potter (haha yeah I'm biased xD) Christopher Paolini, Barry Lyga, an abundance of katherines

2.5-- Looking for alaska, David Levithan, Rachel Cohn, Paul Zindel, Garth Nix

2.0-- Asimov, Prachett, Gaiman, Water for elephants

1.5-- Ray Bradbury, Orson Scott Card

1.0-- Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke, Dumaurier, George Orwell

0.5-- People like Dickens, Hemingway, Wordsworth

There! *just realised that I don't read very much, out of F&SF* I'm prepared to defend any positions; waiting for a good argument/ discussion to come along.

In other matters, I'm having my social entrepreneurship option later. Let's just say in this class I finally understood what Kayley of the 5AG meant when she said she hated school because of the stupid people. I'm elitist! :(

Quote of the day!

FCT: Who's borrowed my 20cm ruler? I liked waving it at people and saying "Mine's stiffer than yours!"

You know it's bad when...

I don't feel like reading!

Really, I don't. Oh dear what is wrong. But I read an abundance of katherines over the weekend, so I'm kind of sick of YA at the moment. Katherines was good, and it made me think about purpose and mattering. [note to self: talk about this more] And also that I am happy to be a Dumper. (as opposed to a Dumpee) yay! oh I also have to post something very interesting that I remember but you have no reference to.

Back to reading. So today I walked into the library, and didn't feel up to anything except looking at the pictures in Crafts and Things, and this pie-making book. [this reminds me of a nerdfighter- kavithaispadfoot-- finding paper towns in her school library, though I don't think I can take another john green right now. It's like too much... david levithan or barry lyga-- you get tired and a little guilty about reading so much fluff] Sigh. What is wrong with me?! John Green and aforementioned YA people are good, really. And I really recommend you go read them. But it's something about the language or tone that gets to me. As in they are good if you, say, read ray bradbury before, but not philip k dick. Because I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? right before katherines... haha they are totally different things.

Anyway, to make sure I get done with Silent Spring, I'm not allowing myself to read The General in His Labyrinth (by the Garcia guy who wrote the very old man with enormous wings) until I'm done with it. Pffft. Silent Spring is taking forever! I swear it gives a whole new spin on the idea of a bio essay. oh gods screw the spelling /grammar right now it's 3am for pete's sake. I'm reading it at the same time as Lady Chatterley's, because... I can't read it in one sitting. Mostly because after the good smutty bits you can't think of anything else, so you have to put it down. When you pick it up again, you're more focused on the bigger thematic picture--which everyone seems to be missing, by the way. Granted, having a passionate affair with the gamekeeper is more sensational than gender/ class distinctions in the 1920s.

Ah this is getting to be longer than I expected. I need to learn how to swear properly! OK in catcher in the rye, holden knows how to swear, even though he just says "goddam" or "damn". And then in katherines, they go "fug", "fugging" and so forth. In Paul Zindel's The Pigman, lorraine makes john go @#$! which is used to great effect. I don't know what my point is. Oh yes my point is. that. writers should use swear words properly, when needed, and not just unrealistically restrict all the swearing to one character. Like the people who write those thriller novels that basically have the same plots.

I'm being arrogant today, aren't I? and making mean and sweeping assumptions. I'm becoming anti-nick, just like anti-helena in the Mirrormask, the complete opposite of my past self. Rawr. Next thing you know, I'll have Other Mothers and inherit a whole alternate universe, and a savior named Valentine who works in a circus.

It seems like I've been posting so much these days. But it'll probably be inconsistent anyways so don't count on me posting anymore this week. Will be spending lots of free time in school, so I'll probably use the time to do math/ chinese/ endless list of writing things. I swear I would miss all the deadlines if I ever worked at a newspaper, and end up being fired.

Today we gave the room over. It was sad. and funny, strangely. Ah, good thing esther didn't make them cane themselves. It would have been so, so wrong. I mean more wrong than our demands for flesh. I'm being sick aren't I? I hope noone reads this. They would think red cross was undermining people's human rights, and that we were torturing people like in guantanamo bay. It was very funny, though. We made a scene of ourselves *sigh* 7 of us on the two tables, and then *someone who wishes her name not to be mentioned* said that there would be a dent in the middle. I didn't realise so many of us fit on there, actually. haha no wonder people got scared.

And then some yearmates got tired just standing there and laughing, I wonder why. It was so insane because before that yearmates were having... lots of fun taking pictures with odd props in odd places in odd positions.

Made me sad again, but also I think if you want to take off a band-aid, it's better to rip the bleeding thing off quickly, and not peel it off slowly, bit by bit. We'll still have each other. And tcamp and facomp to look forward to. We've got to get used to this, people! Talk about separation anxiety.

hello.

Yesterday I said I would say more today, but huiqi's kind of sums it up, so yeah. It's settled a little, like sediment. It was so bad because I kept on being distracted by pop thoughts in the worst times ever, like during tuition, and then now when it really needs to come, it's stuck. I think I'd like putting out my thoughts on this here to keep a record, but I would have to not say the entire thing, so then I'd have to rehash everything again privately. Sorry I'm not making sense.

I foresee a lot of writing in the future, but I really really have to MAKE myself do it because now I desperately want something to read. Even though I've got my stack of F&SF mags, they are a last resort. But I need to refer to the actual books [alaska, catcher] to write the review so it's a good source of motivation when I can't borrow new books without returning the books to review and I can't return those until I have actually written the review.

POP thoughts are coming, slowly. So huiqi talked about thursday until she and some other yearmates left for lunch, and esther and I stayed back. And then I finished my rcv present. Yongruoxi came, and finished her evac thing, and then both esther and ruoxi did the chocolates, which were quite pretty, though later on the secthrees were too smart to get tricked. And then I think jane came and finished her present, joan came, then liangsi and jiaying. They finished the notes [wow the juniors have a large lucky stack to read each xD] and the other baton presents.

So we didn't feel like taking the train to aloha changi, and took cabs, 4 of us in each, and on the way junru called esther to complain about being early, lol. Arrived at the chalet, ate lunch [thanks, sihui!] {damn I still owe ruoxi and esther money} and waited for the juniors to settle in, haha and gave them time to stick the pads on the door. [a tampon could have symbolised... fly?]
Okay and then things happened, evon and I scored at cluedo :D even though it's been a long time since I last played and I forgot the rules >< carey's team could have won, actually, because I forgot that you didn't have to be in the particular room to guess the correct suspect/ weapon/ location. Ah, boring technicalities. I suppose you're waiting for something more scandalous, gossipy or interesting. Sadly I'm never directly involved in these things, although I am very good at passing on gossip.

So anyway I'll skip to after present-giving. I brought my sleeping bag! and didn't use it. Not that I expected to, of course, but I had the feeling yearmates would forget, and last year everyone just pulled out all the sleeping bags available to use so I thought someone would use it but no one did. I brought my sleeping bag last year and didn't use it either, lol. I slept on the road! This entry is getting to be very informative, isn't it? Oh haha and I found out how easy it was to come up with crap. But of course this entire blog is testament to that.

Because I fully intended not to sleep, I found people to stay up all night (well, almost) and talk to. So at 12.50 yingling fiona adeline and I went out to the sitting room, where yingling could watch Fahrenheit on yulebaifenbai at 1am. I love late night tv, but all the good late night shows are on cable, like ugly betty. On a side note, jiayan was complaining about the lack of a dvd player or a laptop on which to watch shows on, and I agreed with her, because channel 8/ u dramas are AWFUL. But then again if we did have a dvd player, it would kind of stop people from talking, which is a bad thing.

Then after farenheit came out, siling joined in the conversation/ roundtable discussion, and we talked and talked and talked and talked. Esther sihui and joan dropped in a while, but mostly because the couches were 10 times more comfortable than in the room (my sleeping bag is comfy!) or the room was too cold or that there wasn't any space in it. Which was ironic because one of the reasons that we wanted to give the secones the room was that we thought it wasn't safe for them to sleep out in the open. (and lots of us slept in the open, and huiqi took unglam pictures -.-)

Around about 3.40am we got exhausted by talking, and started crapping. And we are all good at that! Adeline got tired, so did siling, and they fell asleep. Joan and sihui kind of migrated a little during the night, and esther ended up on the floor (oops!) Around 4.15 or so we thought it was a good idea to steal all the sofa cushions and put them on the floor because there was more space to spread out. I got excited, (so did yingling) and pulled out everything :D There was more space on the floor, but I didn't feel like sleeping on the smelly sofa cushions, and ended up embarrassing myself in front of the juniors by doing handstands -.- I mean after a certain time, if I stay up late, I go a little crazy. Or maybe more than a little.

haha then after pulling all of the cushions out it was hard to figure out how to put them back, because we were all kind of hungover by then, and I was giggling a little too noisily. The morning after, it was reported that people could hear our voices the whole night. [sorry everyone who wanted to sleep! Because I've had people talking when I wanted to sleep and I know how irritating it gets.] But I supposed yearmates got to sleep like logs and woke up at 8 xD Some secones were awake and trying to entertain themselves at 5am ><

So at 5 yingling fiona and I went on our long-awaited walk. Heard someone play dance music on the speakers in another chalet, and I actually thought there was a party I could join, and a lone person with a laptop and speakers was kind of a letdown. Found the beach path which had a lovely view of the sea, and we sat down in the sea breeze and waited for the sunrise. It was quiet, and in fiona's words, "romantic". Napped a little till it was too cold, then went to sit at a bench near a barbecue pit to sleep somemore. Gave up on waiting for the sunrise, and went back to the chalet to discover that we had waited for an hour by the sea. Yingling and fiona had the patience to wait for the elusive sun, and I gave up and collapsed into a sofa seat and slept for approximately an hour, and sleepily said good morning to evon.

Went back to the beach path briefly at 7 in the morning to look for my phone, which turned out to have fallen in between the sofa cushions -.- but it was nice getting a look of the sea anyway.
So ends my eventful night, and this is for everyone who was wondering what we were up to xD

Personally I know yingling will talk about the more important things on her blog, but I'm still hesitant to talk about emo stuff here, because unintended things might escape from my cavernous mouth. Just wanted to say that talking was very enjoyable, and waking up to the company of yearmates was a very warm and fuzzy feeling indeed. I didn't think that juniors would cry for us, and their items were very sweet(: and haha sometimes literally sweet, with the abundance of flying sugar bombs. Will be missing rgsrcy lots and lots, especially the juniors. Thanks for all the presents (they looked like they took a whole lot of effort to make, for all 27 of us) "whenever you remember" has been playing in my head all day!

*sigh* had last pop chalet today, and huiqi's blog is very appropriate. go read!
Not posting much today; I think it needs another day to simmer, and I should sleep early. (haha slept for an hour or so today from 6am to 7+ on the comfy comfy couches)

Defining moment, when we were doing year item-
siling (on my left): Oh shit mona's crying. Okay everyone don't cry. *squeezes my shoulder and promptly begins to cry herself*
esther (on my right): *makes sobby noises and continues to sing*
me: *starts panicking, because esther isn't the crying kind, and proceeds to laugh/ cry/ sing/ stop self from crying, all at the same time. *

And then afterwards we talked from 1am-5am-
me: ooh we're having a roundtable discussion!
fiona: No, the table is rectangular.

Really, we only started to talk crap around 3.45, when siling fell asleep.

MOAR TOMORROW/ LATER. have to do this justice.

In other matters, I'm done with catcher in the rye and looking for alaska, both books with boys in boarding schools in them. Strangely, despite the fact that they were written 60 years apart, the themes are very much similar. Will be saving the reviews for cats classified. [I desperately need the munny, after pop presents.]

this is a quick one, because I want to repay my sleep debt.

so this is what I ate/spent:

hot chocolate coffee------------$2
dark knight--------------------$6
nydc mudpie-------------------$13
marks and spencer's biscuits---$5.50
opaque black tights------------$14
total spent: $40.50

and that was my day.

I interrupt the mind-numbing, disappointing, caffiene crash-inducing EYAs to bring you-- Neil Gaiman's definition of slash:

Lastly, for those who wrote to ask what the "slash" in yesterday's entry meant -- and, honestly, I suspect that questions like that are just trying to egg me on -- I give you Mr. G writing on April 10, 2002:
.....slash fiction is basically erotic fan fiction, normally TV series based, pairing off two (er or more I suppose) members of the same sex who don't normally couple for the cameras. From the "/" mark in the middle of "Kirk/Spock" or "K/S" fiction, which is where it all started. ("But Spock," said Kirk, huskily, realising, finally, irrevocably, what his true self had been trying to tell him ever since the beginning of season one, "it's so huge. And it's green." "And it would be logical for you to... touch it, Captain," said Spock. And so on. It's normally written by extremely nice ladies. I have several very sane, respected, and respectable friends who write slash fiction, and do not try to make me read it.)

The Star Trek fandom looks promising...

I can't stand it.
I want to go away for all the wrong reasons.
I don't even have munny to go away.
But I have to go away really really really really really badly.
I have to take this opportunity and RUN FOR IT or I'll be too old, or never get to go anyway.
I'm getting old! I'm 16! I'm not going to be 16 again, ever.
And then before you know it, I'll be 25, and regretting all the things I should have done earlier.
Because when you get old, you get less impressionable, more judgemental, less idealistic... experiencing things won't be the same anymore!

People say it's a big decision, going away, but I've decided. I'm running out the minute... I have the money to. Which is the biggest problem at the moment, besides, of course, my gpa.
Actually regarding money, I can take an education loan and things, but you can't exactly get a loan for your gpa.
Which makes the EYAs seem more like a large green monster, with sharp teeth, a cavernous mouth, and of course the menacing grin.

But but but I so badly want to be financially independent, though of course older more experienced people will go: "You don't know what you're getting yourself into."
*sigh* because being financially independent obviously means more than being able to buy what you want; it entails paying bills, paying income tax, paying off debts, managing the household accounts, GETTING A JOB, among other things.

Another reason why I have to get away, is because my parents have separation anxiety.
Okay going away is not exactly the solution, but I have this theory, that the sooner I go away, the sooner my parents will get used to me moving out permanently.
MY MOM hasn't moved out all her life.
Which will be a *little* problem when I try to convince her.

Said mum has also been looking through my mail. This is preposterous! Isn't it against the law to do that? *will look it up*
I don't look through her mail.
I don't look through her overdue phone bills, credit card bills and traffic fines.

And Kayley from fiveawesomegirls [this group on youtube, which includes kristina from the parselmouths and lauren from the moaning myrtles] is 16. She gets to go to terminus [a hp convention], and is going to azkatraz next year. But it helps that she stays in the same country these things are held.

We're going to have a serious topic today! EYAS.

So lately everyone's been agonising about how close it is, how important it is, how much the teachers haven't covered. It doesn't come as a surprise when people start crying, pulling off all-nighters, complaining, and sometimes acting weirdly. It's scary, a little, how an exam can affect us so much. But looking at the bigger picture, it's not the exam itself, but the implications of having a mediocre gpa, the pressure everyone feels and sometimes the attitudes the teachers have.


Personally, I think the stress everyone feels is exacerbated by the fact that people around you are all studying and worrying about grades, and then you feel like you haven't done enough when people announce how far they are on their revision schedule, or what they have not done. There isn't anything much to solve this problem; most people in our school are like that-- i.e. they need to achieve as much as possible, and do the best they can. They are admirable qualities, and I'm not faulting anyone who is like this. It's just that when you put a bunch of overachievers together [and an underachiever, me, in the mix] the energy/ pressure produced is greatly increased, than if the ratio of overachiever to underachiever (not counting people who are neither) was more equal.

Another factor also increases this stress: teachers. Sometimes it's in an active manner-- take a physics teacher, Mrs Q. She rushes through the syllabus quite quickly, and scares everyone by saying that our exams are near, and leaves lots of time for revision. This pushes people to get cracking on their revision, to bring "good questions" to the next class. Sometimes it's in a passive manner-- a chem teacher, Mr P.S., is very inspired by Socratic questioning and aspires for all of us to attain understanding on our own. Which is great, of course, because I remember things better this way, but not when we're 2 weeks from the EYAs! So people start to panic because there's so much more he has not covered, and they rush to finish the syllabus on their own, and do their own work.

Ah, the consequences of the IP system. If, say, I were having the olevels, I could do all my revision / mugging on my own, because the curriculum is standard and doesn't differ from school to school. It would be so much easier because there's a set syllabus to follow, and if you manage to do well on other school's prelim papers, and keep on doing questions, you're all ready. But the downside is that the olevels test things you learnt in lowersec, so you have to dig up your old notes, and waste time revising them all over again. haha like angle properties of circles. Still, I'm happy that I'll get to finish 6 out of 9 subjects at the end of august, and start celebrating early.

SAVE THE QUIBBLER FROM THE MINISTRY"S LIES

The free-for-download voldermort album has been on repeat in my mp3 for a while. Though it's a little late to fangirl over it since it was released last year... but it's still good! OOH and the moaning myrtles and the parselmouths' new albums are good too :D BECAUSE OF WIZARD ROCK I DON'T FEEL TRANSPARENT ANYMORE! Discovered roonil wazlib and gred and forge! *is reminded to send geeru and felicia music* Go to their music myspaces! Buy it if you have paypal/a credit card!

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Heh this is coming one week late, but yearmates made apcg week all that better <3 I want to hug you all to bits! [yingling will be very happy xD] On thursday during faduty we just talked and talked and talked because there weren't many casualties, and um did work together and I shared my pins [free!] and chatted from 2-9pm. Made faduty a lot more interesting! Though I wouldn't have minded being treated to ben&jerry's...
And then on saturday very harkworking yearmates all did math, which made having all the pts and math that more bearable, because I was staring at the teetering pile of work all week. And if the people around you are doing work, it's not that difficult to do math too, especially since math is so easy to put off.
And cac! esther huiqi fangyi jane yingling sihui evon junru siling all came down and we screamed (yay) and I want to hug all the juniors (not just the cac ones) now since we're having the last training next week. *sniffs* I'm going to miss everybody loads :'( Actually I want to hug everyone a million times over. [how many times have I said that in this entry?!]

Okay if I go on anymore it's going to turn sappy [in a bad way], so I'll stop right about here.

Oh jeez people are going to hug ME once they've read this.

Concealment

Yay I am starting to put titles! People will actually know what I am writing about! :D

You see, there are a four types of blogposts:
1) blogs which say what you did that day, etc.
2) blogs which describe your angst in as much detail as possible without incriminating anyone.
3) blogs which use... codewords and mysterious language so that the reader's curiosity is piqued, but if he's not in your circle, he won't know what you're talking about.
4) blogs for FANGIRLING/FANBOYING!

So. There is a reason why I'm not overly angsty on here nowadays, and not being what sihui calls a mature person. Partly because I see no point in hinting at something that you want people you know to know and people you don't know not to know, because you might as well tell your friends about your angst straight, end of story. Also because I'm not a very... open person and would prefer that the less people know about me, (other than various fangirl inclinations) the better. Of course it helps a great deal if you share your troubles, and your friends know, and then they counsel you [other than awful school counsellors] and you feel better. But I don't see the need for the whole world to know about my personal life, however much I need comforting. It's not professional, because, well, orson scott card and gaiman don't do that on their blogs, and you know, if you want people to see you as being credible about the issues you're talking about and not overly emotional, you just won't make an angsty entry public.

Though there are people who get by the distinctions just fine by friends-locking their angsty entries and making the fangirly ones public, like chanel. Or there are people who f-lock their entire blog, which is kind of safer. But I don't think I can do that because I don't have a lot of human traffic as it is xD and the exhibitionist in me actually wants people to see what I think.

It all depends on what the purpose of your blog is, I guess. Gaiman's purpose is to update his fans about his appearances and what he's working on, so it's more work-related stuff interspersed with general what-I-did-today. Xiaxue's purpose is to get as many people visiting her site as possible, so she posts lots of pictures, controversial entries, bitching and the lot. She does live on the ads, after all. Yearmates are more like food-for-thought people, and they use their blogs to think out their theories and views on what is happening, hence the insightful reflective entries.

Reader, think about your blog (if you have one) and what it means to you. What makes you update it regularly? What makes you put in effort to structure and organise your entries? What makes you practice self-censorship? In all, consider the reason why you write what you do, to make your entries more meaningful, not to other people, but to YOU.

whoa! Three weeks was a long time.

Oh, and if you were wondering about the library thing, I have been sitting on the first and only entry since school started, and I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE. Maybe because I'm being perfectionist, because the book reviews are an hour at most... maybe it would be faster if I just typed the stupid thing out. I think the library is not very happy with me, because as a friend of the library you have to do an orientation course before you can start on any actual (i.e. physical, non-blogging) volunteer work, and I missed it, without rsvp-ing. I mean I confirmed my attendance 2 weeks before, and woke up late on the day itself >( Have I said this before? Well I'm saying it again for emphasis. But I think I underestimated how long it would take to get there, because it was at Jurong West Community Library, and it was 1 1/2 hours actually by bus. Oh dear and because I don't normally go there I thought it wouldn't take too long. Right. End of rant.

So for the library blog I've been thinking of possible topics. The first one I've been sitting on is about Cons. (where like-minded fans meet up and have panels, not disadvantages, nor incidents where people get scammed.) And then maybe I'll do a couple book reviews as filler? Or I can talk about threadbangers, or bookmooch and freecycle, and plug that. [threadbangers is a DIY sewing channel on youtube, and freecycle is this network for people to exchange unwanted items] Or I can talk about how lousy school counsellors are. [unqualified generalisation] Urgh because a couple days ago I had all these ideas bubbling in my head, and now apparently gas is not produced because electrolysis has ceased and I can't remember them anymore. Ohoh one thing I thought of is my experiences on the singapore transport system. Interesting! heh. Why people choose to stare into blank space while commuting and not try to do something constructive- the subways in Boston, MA are more interesting than that. People will come in droves to read me! I will be adored by whoever reads the library blog! I will get offered a column in a major newspaper!

Speaking of newspapers, Dr [S]akhar (sp?) recommended The Guardian (UK) and The Atlantic ____ (US) instead of newsweek to read for english/ current affairs. And I was quite puzzled (yeah, you know me, I'm not a very discerning reader) because I thought newsweek was quite enjoyable, and informative. Maybe this is because I don't really read international newspapers, but I really thought their coverage of the US elections was quite thorough. And I also subconsciously like it partly because they're pro-democrat, and so am I -_-" So my household subscribes to The Economist as well, and even though they tend to have more international stories than newsweek, does it mean that they are both substandard? I'm not saying newsweek is better or anything; because any other paper is better than The Straits Times, and I have nothing to compare newsweek/economist to. I like the international herald tribune because of its arts section, and I've read the new york times and washington post. The question, then, ultimately is: how do I tell if a periodical is good, if well-known and established ones are not? I think I shall go look up copies of The Guardian the library has.

hey, haven't been updating lately. that's because of my lack of internet access! I have to go to school or the internet cafe to use it. And also because I'm contributing things to the NLB blog for my sl project, so I won't be posting here for a while.

let's see... oh singtel's automated answering service is very annoying. It keeps on making you dial the number over and over again, and THEN it says to use the line that your're calling regarding, so I had to look for the phone line connected to the modem, figure out which number it is [there were a total of 3 numbers to choose from and I kept trying different combinations of line and number] and try not to run out of tries-- they give you 3 tries and hang up on you >( Thank goodness the phone was right next to the computer. haha and then I was so happy at FINALLY got to speak to a human voice that when the operator answered I cheered and I'm so glad she didn't hang up on me. Guess what the problem was? Billing issues. [again] oh jeez not that I'm complaining, but it always happens. I should be grateful that I even have internet at all. At least I'm spending less time on the computer because of this, and prioritising internet use.

Orson Scott Card liked Prince Caspian too! :D please go watch it; it's really good-- much much better than the book. Ooh I have a pair of free gv movie tickets-- anyone wants a movie on me? haha the only condition is that you have to watch caspian.

Prince Caspian Review!
[spoilers begin]I LOVED IT! It was really much darker and grittier this time, complete with angst on the part of Peter (William Moseley) and Prince Caspian (This guy who was in history boys). It's more depressing than the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, obviously but there still runs a "Aslan saves the day" thread. The religious undertones in this one were quite evident, too, when Aslan only appears in front of Lucy but not the others, and when Aslan is represented as this disembodied voice. Also a carving of him is in the stone table chamber, and in the movie, he is represented as this huge foil to the white witch, which peter then is remorse in front of.

Gosh I sound like I haven't read the book yet, but the last time I read it it was when LWW came out, so I can't really remember. But the most significant images that left an impression on my first reading when I was quite young were the hag -werewolf- nikibrik fight, and that turned out to be really good. Though I really wanted to see bacchus and the naiads and dryads dancing in the streets at the end/ defeating the telmarines. I mean in the books there were 2 kinds of trees, right? The old ones, like ents, as featured in the movie and the dryads and nymph-like dancing women. The trees weren't that...alive in the movie than in the book. I think you know what I mean. Okay enough nitpicking.

Lucy's (Georgie Henley) performance was very believeable, in the Aslan scenes especially. I mean when you're a child it's easier for you to imagine and interact with something that isn't actually there, right? So her interactions with Aslan were more beliveable than say Moseley's or Anna Popplewell's (Susan). But they were all great as actors and they were very true to the spirit of the books. The chemistry between them is great, too, when they trust each other and the conversations now are geared more toward an adult audience, because there's some induction involved. I like the way they communicate; like they're not just spiteful to someone without a reason, and there are bits where they hint that peter and susan are getting too old for narnia and they need to be moving on.

Another thing I liked were the epic battle scenes, and grim mood throughout. and the way they illustrated the fauns, centures and minators. It was more lord of the rings, than, say, philosopher's stone, which is good. Something which I really really hate is the way the director tried to sneak in the susan/ CASPIAN pairing oh god that was the worst. I mean it's not evident in the book but if you read especially into it, it might be, but it made susan seem so... old. Oh but she is but the pairing is simply AWFUL because Ben Barnes (caspian) had to put on this really fake telmarine accent. And in the movie he is dark. has long hair. is repulsive. And in some ways he should be more of a monach than someone who fancies susan. [spoilers end]

you must think: finally! I am writing an entry! after the myas. and I am!

On Prom/ Farewell Alma Mater

A while ago nicolelin liang and sihui were talking about prom and things, and it got me thinking. I what IS the whole point of FAM? To get people to show off their dresses, to have dinner, to have a good time with friends while watching other friends vie for ms farewell alma mater (did I get that right?) It sounds kind of boring, to say the least. Okay I think I might go, just to make people happy, but a sit-down dinner will be kind of boring. And the other day we had to vote for the themes? Some people have already brought their dresses anyway; it's not like kids in our school are willing to modify their outfit to suit the theme. No offence to the organising committee of course. I've heard people planning to go in tuxes, which would be really fun. Other than that, when you see photos, everyone just wears more or less the same thing. Honestly, with no relation to the theme.

I think if I ever go, I'm going to make my own dress, with the help of some patterns from the threadbanger forums. And I'm only going to go if there's dancing. We could go to an afterparty afterward! Or do something interesting other that staying in the hotel room watching tv. A movie marathon sounds good. Or walking around the streets at night, although illegal. Or go to the park and run around and play in the playground or just go somewhere to talk.

Farewell Alma Mater is just a formality after all. A celebratory farewell dinner with bells and whistles. A night you're supposed to remember as the last time you're ever in secondary school. A night where people turn up for the sake of it.

hihello I'm posting now so that I woun't come online tonight; can't fail math tomorrow. oh jeez I think I've unplugged myself too much. As in you know disassociated and taken away. because i've been losing things. And I never ever lose things. Things like my waterbottle and pencils and chemnotes when may seem insignificant, but it's difficult for me to lose things. When I travel, even if I've lost something, I KNOW I've lost it, but this time I just don't know immediately that I've left it somewhere; I only know if I've lost it when I'm looking for the item. And I've kept the water bottle for 4 years already and not lost it. Right that sounds gross. And that time I left my jacket in the melbourne holiday inn -.- I didn't even notice till 24 hours after we left. And it's not like a tiny item, say a pencil. Do you know how big a jacket is??? Urgh I need to plug myself back in, though I don't think I can anymore. I spend... 75% of the time unplugged just so I won't act like a big emotional wuss. It's like a coping mechanism I can't do without. I used to sm, (safely, of course) and it helped for a while but sometimes it just makes it worse):

okay on JC. I don't want to go to RJ. really. This sounds really ungrateful and all, since some people would die to get there. But I don't,. It's like in Never Let Me Go, and when the people "graduate" they go to the cottages and it's where everyone goes and it's practically a given that you go there; it would be just weird if you didn't. Okay, in the year above me, not everyone went to RJ; some went to NJ or HC, but I might not want to go there either. :/ Though I don't think I can get in. Because you have to get >2.8 to get into RJ, I have a really bad feeling I won't even be able to meet that. [sidenote: the lead singer of The Parselmouths hasn't gotten below a 3.5gpa before o: and this made me think, more later.] I mean when you have a reputation of being this psychopathic addict in the staffroom, how much of a testimonial can you get? Although, granted, my results aren't dependent on how I come accross, and I should buck up on math and physics and LIT OF ALL THINGS oh you know, on just about every subject.

Back to The Parselmouths. So I saw her vid yesterday, and I thought: What the freaking hell am I doing with my life?! Bumming around, not bothering, disconnecting, and look at her! she writes fiction, gets a good gpa, did nanowrimo TWICE, is in a touring band... and she's still about 20 or so. And I felt really stupid. I mean I don't think I can even get a job with this attitude, never mind getting a job that I enjoy. What am I? This fat leech that eats and sleeps all day. It would be a miracle if I could get through to uni even: just look at my report book! Although everyone expects you to go to uni, and get not just a degree, but at least a masters. I mean in my school it's taken for granted that you'll go to uni, then be a good public servant or ceo or politician or specialist and be really outstanding... right someone's asking me to study so that's it for now I guess

Here I am, sitting here, stealing internet from the school... not that many people are on the server right now. Is that the correct word? God I suck at computer-related things. I can't do html, I can't do photoshop, can't do EXCEL and all the crazy functions, can't do movie maker... [which is what I really want right now after being inspired by the vlogs on youtube. look up lemonfacee, mememolly, billilovesmargot! they're very cool and funny. lemonfacee has this cute except of The Adventures of Fanboy And Goth Girl... and there's this rhodo-something person >< she's friends with lemonfacee and some other uk youtubers... *sigh* just go look all their friends up; it's this big cool community of artsy and funny people who range from being 15 to people in their 30s]

Somebody tell me to stop using ellipses. As I was saying, hang on what WAS I saying? Oh I wasn't really saying anything. Just that when they decided to teach us excel and html and photoshop at school I was not listening/ have forgotten everything now. haha the only thing I remotely remember listening to were when we learnt how to make webpages using this program and I discovered fronskifeint in p5 and I was making a harry-potter themed website. Yeah yeah, an emerson spartz hopeful. Though that website kind of turned into hpzlotrz.blogspot.com and I'm so glad I deleted it (actually mum made me delete it; though that's another story) because the url itself is embarrassing. musicroom was like this concurrent project; originally it was a joint blog from oh p5 (again) where I would put news about simple plan and 987fm *cringes* thank goodness I don't have public archives. And there you go! A brief history. So this blog is 5 years old this year! I don't know when is it's birthday, though. But 5 years is pretty momentuous, don't you think?

Let's see. I should be going on a brief hiatus like huiqi because the myas are on; and everyone seems to know that I really need to study, heh. But I feel I have to put something up because the last time I did that was 2 weeks ago? or so and I didn't want to leave the blog to die. Not that anyone reads it though; I signed up for a blog counter and NOONE, I repeat, noone, not even a bot, has visited the site in the past week. So I can say whatever I damn well want. Woot! *throws inner editor out of the window*

After the myas I want to go shoe shopping! because *someone* has stolen my black flats xD not that I really want to buy another pair of black flats but what about sandals? or sneakers? because shoes are the one thing I can't buy online because of the weight and the fit--- I have small feet): and delias sometimes doesn't even stock my size. It was difficult enough to find something that fit me in london. I think I'll buy heels. But I want a nice pair of sneakers/ high tops so I don't have to wear running shoes if I don't want to wear school shoes. And I want heels maybe because flats don't exactly go with everything.

I don't know how to conclude this. I'll probably won't update in the near future because I'm terribly behind in Math and physics and bio [30%] D: plus lit SA was terribly depressing.

I visit the rgs congress forum sometimes, but lately it's been getting irritating because on some threads, when something is a common problem, everyone goes and describes the problem she has. In the end, the posts in the thread tend to repeat themselves because everyone has just described her problem that has been talked about at least 10 times before by other people. bchew has already asked people to come up with constructive strategies that actually help to solve the problem; but no one seems to take note. There aren't really a lot of alternative perspectives because everyone just sits around whining about things.

And for some contentious topics such as "to have an SA week or not" there is no definite solution because last year people _hated_ SA weeks because they didn't have time to study and then now people _want_ SA weeks. And someone said (sorry if I'm not crediting you!) that the grass would always look greener on the other side, and I absolutely agree. I bet if they implement SA week again people will want the SAs to be spread out. Therefore, to solve the problem, the school should have SA week only every other year, so people are kept happy. :)

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I just told someone to f___ off. [don't worry, the person isn't a friend nor family] Two years ago, I swore that I would never do this kind of thing, and then now I'm saying it in my head all the time. It's awful, crude, disgusting, and immature. But after I told that person to go away, I felt oddly satisfied. And relieved. But it's just a stupid word! And I felt better than if I would have used any other word. ._. I think I have succumbed to insidious influences. Not that I would shriek and run away if I heard someone say it, but I'm using it once too often.

Morgan used to say it all the time though, and I assume goth girl does as well, and they both had this "I don't care" vibe, i.e. sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. (okay that was a little ironic.) Gaiman uses it. Margaret Atwood uses it. So why can't I? Because it demonstrates that I don't have sufficient vocabulary to express myself. So I could have said " stop bugging me, you repressed creep. it's not my fault if no one else wants to talk to you" instead. {even though it isn't eloquent ><}

Okay if I ever ever use this word here, even for effect, someone please flame me/ physically threaten me if it isn't censored. Please.

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AA was really fun! :D and ally was great as the ringmaster!

it's been some time. a week.

let's see. today was ORA. You know in my 4 years in rg, the only time I ever participated in ORA was last year, where you could do a fa duty cum support sch activity, and I didn't really really participate because there wasn't much to do. Ah well. Talk about my school spirit (or lack thereof) I spent my time at home bumming around, doing math, physics, being sloth-like, the works. Imagine! Other people at the wrcd thing, and at ora, and I am at home being a pig. I disgust myself. Mum isn't very approving of me going to school on saturdays though; she thinks the time could be better spent studying, and I did study, so.

The point is that I should be writing more insightful things like yingling does, and not talk about insignificant frivolous things. Though I should be getting around to clearing the computer table; the pile of papers is now high enough that it is partially obscuring the monitor. That's how bad it is.

You know, I've realised that physical boundaries are not enough to keep people together, however much it might help, though. And it's irritating when there's no authority to get people going and to provide the incentive for people to _hand things up on time_ even though this speaks volumes about my assertiveness. I should not focus on myself so much >( I should focus more on other people! It isn't an onion anymore; it's more like battenberg cake. But I'm happy just as long as it's not the red seas, and sometimes crisises help divert focus, so it's not all that bad. idk, the groupie who sleeps with the band, contrary to popular belief, does not know everything. Haha the analogies don't really fit. But they're funny.

stupid. the lit review is STILL pending for me and I'm not doing anything ._. and I expect other people not to be tardy. WHAT AN IRONY.

Had lunch with mich (412) today; haven't talked to her properly in ages! It was quite pleasant and giggly, and I remembered what it was like again, because we laugh about the same things, and I don't get stared at for laughing randomly, because she does too :D And I had a $5.60 milkshake from carl's jr, which was lovely and thick, not like the mcdonalds one [I abhor that place], but overwhelmingly sweet towards the end. Don't buy it unless you feel depressed and need to drown your sorrows in something creamy and saccharine, because it's not worth it otherwise.

What else happened? Oh I made kidney bean stew (yummy) for the protein and it was surprisingly good and moreish :D I made it after midnight, of course. It had green pepper, copious amounts of onion, pepper, cumin, leftover pasta sauce, a can of kidney beans, and korma curry sauce from a jar.

Basically you put vegetable oil, pepper, salt, onions and green peppers in, stir it around a little, then put in the kidney beans. Stir somemore, and I put in pasta sauce and the curry-from-a-jar, and stir as you would stone soup. At this point the mixture will start to smell deelicious, and it's very fun stirring it. Oh put some water in (1/2cup) so it doesn't dry, though now it will look deceptively watery, because it will get thicker later. Then pop the lid on the saucepan and go do the washing up, but stir it every minute, so it doesn't stick to the bottom.

[the recipe I had didn't tell me this, and I thought it was burning when I couldn't get the stuff off the bottom. D< and it did say medium heat. Put it on low just in case. I ended up having to scour the pot ): ]

The waiting's the worst part. You are close enough to smell it, but it isn't quite done yet and you're practically salivating. But patience is a virtue! Listen to your mother. Okay after 10-15 mins, it's done, so scrape as much as you can off the bottom with the wooden spoon and turn off the heat. Then I ladled it into tupperware to freeze and keep, but you can eat yours on the spot if you want. I couldn't help sneaking a few spoonfuls, and it was difficult to stop. Lala.

It freezes quite well, just microwave for one minute, stir, and microwave for another minute when you want to eat. It's okay on its own, but not filling, so I microwaved mine with leftover rice and was good enough for lunch. Even though mine was ugly (a murky brown colour) it leaves you wanting more! and anyway you'll like it better if you cook it yourself(: Let's see. I didn't give any values, because most of them were guesstimates--the values in the recipe was in ounces): and I rounded up a lot. Just put whatever you feel like-- I did 1/4 of a pepper and 1/2 an onion and 1 tbsp of pepper.

okay! and thus ends a long post.

[/edit] OMG I just read this and it turns out the kidney bean stew thing is... chilli! yaya. YEAH. I've always wanted to eat chilli con carne because it's mentioned in a nat king cole song [don't laugh] and then now I realise I've eaten it :D Only "real" chilli in shops always has beef in it): and then I can't eat it and then now I can eat sloppy joes! and make them myself! Next time, I'll put alcohol in it, and more veggies, and crackers.

very very funny xD didn't know the beatles were like that, though I do know they used to "mach schau" in their hamburg days.

IT IS. eleven pm. and I told xavier I would study bio. I have bio- related websites open, but it is not getting in >:( it's just a lot of memorising, not like lit. I have to do well for bio, because my general gpa is falling. [Falling, yes I am falling/ And she keeps calling/ me back again]

and I forgot to mention, like huiqi did, yay rgsrcy for Arts Fest :D Even though some yearmates weren't really satisfied, you will always be winners in our hearts(: Plus the fact that the songs are permanent earworms say something, doesn't it? The sec3s were appropriately emo on saturday; and it was very fun (haha scary) with all the makeup. It was quite deep, actually and had meaning :D The sec2s buying shoes+elastic was really worth the effort. And they learnt the dance steps yingling jiaying huiqi liang taught them quite quickly, too(: Unit Dinner was... an interesting affair. sihui and I were feeling broke and hungry, so shared mushroom ramen and went to mango lingo to get icecream and shakes. yumyum. AND THEN I bought a mocha doughnut on the way home. [someone was craving shilin chicken, btw]

Goth Girl: "Comic book wannabe."
Fanboy: "Ha! Wannabe? You want to talk about that? You're a freakin' Goth wannabe. You're a Neil Gaiman wannabe. You're a suicide wannabe."

very very funny. Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga is something I found amongst the new arrivals in the library today :D It's about this comic book geek who gets alienated in school, and then meets Kyra, who reads comic books too, but of the Sandman/ Gaiman variety! (Fanboy reads superhero stuff, x-men, that kind of thing -_-")

It's very unfortunately YA though, like Twilight [stephanie meyer] and Are we There Yet? [David Levithan] I mean mostly YA is lousy. Most of the new arrivals are YA; emo angsty things which revolve around the same themes, but Fanboy is an exception. Pretty soon I'm going to say everything is an exception, at the rate that I'm going, but I digress. I'm quite happy that amongst the new arrivals there's one addressing GLBT issues, like Luna and The Realm of Possibility. ^-^

Go read it! (if you can get ahold of it) I went there before lunch during free block to read it and then after school it was gone! It is that popular. If you get it, can you lend it to me? Please? Actually now all my borrowing spaces are taken up by a Jasper Fforde and andrea's books, but the Fforde is due on thursday-- after bio, luckily-- so I should be able to have spaces then.

Oddly, Fanboy reminds me of Xavier :/

hello world. or whoever's reading this.

right now I am listening to metallica, which is okay, but I can't really hear the lyrics. They have very nice guitar riffs and drum bits, though, which I suppose makes up for it.

I want a drum kit! Or the opportunity to play around with one. Miming with pens along to songs pretending to play is not satisfying enough. Anyone have a drum kit? Then I can come over to bang on it and pretend that I am Ringo Starr. I can't buy one myself, because it's really expensive, at least more than $100. There isn't space for one in my house, and it will annoy my family. Speaking of annoying people, I've heard someone playing the drums before, from someone else's house... or was that in tuition? Sorry, getting mixed up now. Because in chinese tuition there's a music school right beside it and then they have drum lessons while I have chinese lessons, and um sometimes I play along. (kinda) An electronic drum pad isn't loud enough, nor satisfying.

On another tangent, I wonder if bendemeer's band has a drum kit. It would be a big pain in the butt to transport though.

Speaking of vulgar words, I find myself saying them in my head more often these days. You know a while before I did an entry on someone saying f*** left, right and centre on his blog? (sec 2 I think) I kind of sympathise with that person and his need to swear. Though when you think properly, these words are only sounds that happen to offend people with their connotations. Assuming that one needs to swear to release pent-up anger or fustration, it would be more or less the same if they swore with "cantaloupe" or another innocuous word.

This is what Orson Scott Card thinks: "I put "bad" in quotation marks because in my opinion, there are no bad words. There are, however, forbidden words that acquire power within a community because they cause offense or outrage. To use such words with the intention of causing offense is bad. But in the sounds themselves, or even in the meaning, there is nothing intrinsically bad. After all, there is not a single "bad" word for which we do not have other words with the identical meaning which are perfectly acceptable."

Good Luck to everyone in arts fest :D we will own!

*sigh* the only metallica song I kind of like is Enter Sandman...

You know when I first read American Gods at the beginning of sec 2, [I remember not having enough time to read ! oh dear what is this saying about my work ethic] I interpreted it as being slightly moralistic. I thought gaiman was trying to tell people not to forget about their gods, but it felt a bit weird to me at that time because I had read smoke and mirrors before that, and he didn't seem like the moralistic type.

At that time I didn't have much experience with Adult Fiction, so I must have read everything quite literally, like how you read Young Adult fantasy. I also remember taking a long time to read it, firstly because it was quite long, and partly because of the complex themes you need time to think about. Because anyone can plow through, say, GoF quite quickly, and it's probably longer than american gods, it doesn't really have the depth of american gods, so you can read and understand it quite quickly. (sorry, jkr!)

Though now I'm reading it for the second time [gaiman put it up for free; the link is on his website till the end of march], and even though I've mostly forgotten the details of what happens, I think I've got the big picture: about gaiman trying to illustrate the situation of how gods are represented (or misrepresented) in the present, and in the american context, where almost everyone is an immigrant. Immigrants brought their gods, religions and beliefs to america when they migrated there, but right now people see themselves sometimes as american first and their ethnicity second. For example, ethnic Chinese living in the states sometimes see themselves as "American-Chinese" and not Chinese, or chinese-american.

Personally right now I'm reading it with a more open mind than in sec 2, but it's like reading the book for the first time actually, because I rediscover things I missed out, such as the relation of mr nancy to anansi boys. I think this is also partly because I've read some of sandman, (which is um, quite graphic, haha hence graphic novel) so when I come across the sick bits I'm not like: " oooh fascinating!" but "what is the significance of this to plot/ themes/ characterisation?" HAHAHAHA I've been studying hedda gabler, okay.

let's end with a quotable philo quote: "All we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world: our sight, our touch, our memory. If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted. And even if we do not believe, then still we cannot travel in any other way than the road our senses show us; and we must walk that road to the end."

Was browsing people's wishlists on BookMooch, and I saw that many many people have neil gaiman or the sandman series on their wishlists! Is there hope for a future Con(vention)? Meaning like a comic con, what they have in the states, or orbital, the con that gaiman is guest-honouring RIGHT NOW over the easter weekend, at this very moment. Gosh I sound like a fangirl. But I AM a fangirl! :D Orbital is the British National Science Fiction Convention, also known as Eastercon because it's held over the easter holidays. They have very very cool programmes lined up from friday to monday, which include SLASH DISCUSSION! yay *hyperventilates* I mean where else do hordes of people gather legitimately to talk about slash??? It's adults only, though): I count as an adult. If adult = not a kid. I am fifteen! And mature enough to talk about slash without breaking into giggles, really. Grr it says adult programming means no under 18s. But won't they need a voice representing the sexually repressed youth of today? Won't it vary the discussion and give an alternate perspective?

And then they have this thing called Rope Bondage Workshops o_o for people like geri, and mich [not the 415 one] I suppose. xD I didn't know so many people were into these things to have special classes for them.

The con programme is so long that it fills up more than 10 pages. I want a con like that in our region! There are so many people in the uk who like SF to validate a con like this... what about the leisure reading scene in singapore? Other than nanowrimo, or random poetry slams, they hardly do anything to prove their existence. But it could be that I'm not in their circles so I don't really know what's going on, but the bottom line is: we should have a fantasy/SF/ or YA (young adult) con. One that is actually affordable for regional fangirls (and fanboys) to attend. Partly because lately I've read so much about cons on neil gaiman's and orson scott card's blogs: the terry prachett discworld one in Pheonix, Arizona, the pending YA con which wanted to invite Madeline L'engle as GOH, the comic con that maddy, (gaiman's daughter) got to go to >( and the list goes on. I think the closest things we have to a con in singapore are things like cosfest, but these only serve the people who read/watch animae/manga. Though if we had a really general con- like the comic con- there could be a masquerade, like in orbital, where people walk down a runway like a fashion show, and show off their costumes. We could even invite local writers as GOH, since what are the chances of, say, Jasper Fforde coming to singapore just for a con that hasn't established a reputation?

Though looking at the volunteer list for a con, I didn't realise that there were so many things to do in preparation: you have to book a venue/hotel, invite GOHs, get retailers in the Dealer's room (where they sell their stuff), get people to do lights/ logistics for things like the discos and masquerade, get the website and publicity up, plan the programme, print and pack guides for people attending the con, and people who keep track of people who sign up/ have to pay for a con ticket. So I suppose there are professional event management people who do this in singapore, but traditionally people not in the exco are volunteers, so it keeps costs down for attendees.

I'm in the library now, and somebody's listening/ watching to american idol outside really loudly. I don't know how xD but they are putting Michael John's cover of Eleanor Rigby on repeat, which is fine by me(: I'm kind of following AI now, even though I don't watch much tv (because my mum and sister are watching korean dramas on it) OH OH I KNOW HOW THEY [people who are playing outside the library] ARE DOING IT! You can buy the videos' songs on iTunes, and they're probably playing it on an ipod with speakers. Because I think I'm hearing past seasons too. The person right now has a really good voice, actually. Right, I digress. Anyway, I watch american idol on their website now, because iTunes sponsors it. I like it because you can watch them over and over again, with the judge's comments edited out. Though I watched in last night on star world at 12am, and kind of missed having a large screen to watch it on, but whatever. Gosh I sound so teen.

On another note, someone please remind me to write more book reviews now (after lit, bio and math I suppose) so that I might be able to win movie tickets from the cats people. Additionally. the people who are writing reviews now on sunday are reviewing YA stuff, which gets boring after a while. I mean it's the kind of YA that is terribly high school and um cliched. Jeez this is elitist. I mean I think I would deliberately write a SF review, or an Oliver Twist one, since I'm reading it now. Luna was passable the last time; maybe I should go with Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan because I really like his GLBT descriptions. They make me melt. I'll just submit all three and they can pick... or I can submit them every two weeks, so that they won't have to choose between all three and pick mine all the time. *is selfish*

Ah, look at all the lonely people.

note to self: look up danse macabre.

I haven't talked about ecamp, even though blogsurfing was illuminating. I'll just put a couple lines for posterity. I think ecamp was okay; though the sec3s could have prepared for things like station games and meals in advance so things would proceed more smoothly. Mmm what I have to say has been said, so there's not much point putting it here. We always stay back to talk after camp, and for this one we stayed back... until 10! (or later, for the sec3s) Quite frankly, the best part was the pizza. [Which we haven't paid for ><] The JC2 ma'ams helped a lot, though it's mostly up to us if we are going to commit and put things through. da da dum. I remember the last time we had a day camp was when I was in sec2, we sang the red cross song really loudly, and were really enthu after camp.

I think I'd like to take drugs. You know, probably in the near future.

Okay that sounded bad- because you know the 3 big things they tell you to stay away from: sex, drugs and alcohol. Oh dear. I think I'm becoming a delinquent. But it's mostly because of the Beatles (and Across the Universe)-- they took LSD (acid) and marijuana, among others. I don't think I seriously want to take drugs, just you know, try them a little. Gosh I think after people read this they will go whoa hang on what's nick doing? actually I wanted to try them more yesterday, when I slept for an hour the night before. (don't ask) And then when I didn't sleep and geeru started me off with "pink butterflies" and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, (first thing in the morning, lol) it made me feel a little... off of the present plane. Like I trancended to another place that is not this one but almost like it. Maybe I just felt very escapist and put off by the things that were happening on monday.

But the beatles took drugs openly! They're like one of the few celebrities who are not dissed for it. Look at lindsay lohan, for example. The media portrays her in a very bad light because she had to go to rehab. What about amy winehouse? "They wanna make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no." There's this big stigma about taking drugs, = obviously, I shouldn't take them. Maybe I shouldn't. I don't know, I just like toying with the idea, mainly because it spurred creative output. (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, I am the Walrus)

and then I was pretending to seriously take lsd;
me: If I wanted to get lsd, where would I find it?
geeru: on ebay?
me: what if it turns out to be washing powder?
I mean how can I comtemplate this seriously if I don't know how it looks like? So on wikipedia it says: In pure form it is colorless, odorless and mildly bitter. LSD is typically delivered orally, usually on a substrate such as absorbent blotter paper, a sugar cube, or gelatin. In its liquid form, it can be administered by intramuscular or intravenous injection. The threshold dosage level needed to cause a psychoactive effect on humans is of the order of 20 to 30 µg (micrograms). That's not a lot to have hallucinations. Haha I was just thinking that we always have someone having hallucinations during mass evac; they could be taking lsd! It's also known as acid-- John Lennon was on an acid trip when writing I am a Walrus. Ooh it says intelligence agencies were interested in lsd as a social engineering tool during the cold war. o.o It was popular in the hippie movement, where the drug supposedly helped with enlightenment and meditation, and known as a psychadelic drug. However, "The United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances (adopted in 1971) requires its parties to prohibit LSD. Hence, it is illegal in all parties to the convention, which includes the United States, Australia, and most of Europe" so it would be difficult to obtain.

Therefore. I think I'll just stick to coffee at the moment. Anyway, it won't be easy to get it because a) it's illegal b) I don't know people who have/produce it c) I don't have a credit card for it on ebay. This is also the reason why they make drug-related movies nc-16, because 15 year olds are still stupidly impressionable and easy to influence. (i.e. me)

Brainwave!
because, you know, Beatles songs are not easy to analyse-- you don't know if they wrote it when they were on LSD or if they really mean it, or both. Strawberry Fields Forever, taking it in the context of across the universe:


Let me take you down cause I'm going to strawberry fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever
Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me

I was trying to understand what the Beatles meant, because the symbolism of strawberry fields does not relate at all to the rest of the lyrics. The way Jude pins the strawberries makes me thing of minefields and military formation (lol like FD) but if it means that, than why does he say "forever"? Then I thought and thought and thought. I think slowly, but because it's 3am! I have a brilliant brainwave. Jude is escapist! Like me! The speaker likes to not have to think about the war going on, in this case the vietnam war, because he thinks "living is easy with eyes closed" like "ignorance is bliss". But then the war is always nagging at the side, so he can't completely escape, and he is irritated at this. Because he knows that he isn't supposed to shut everything out and pretend that it isn't happening, as a kind of punishment for escaping, "misunderstanding is all you see".
When I think of closing your eyes and seeing misunderstanding, I think of the imagery of opening your eyes and gaining enlightenment. Or in this context Living with your eyes open is paying attention to what is happening, and because you look at all this destruction, you have a human moral calling to change things, and this might be the "enlightenment" bit. But when you change things, you become political and this forces you to pick sides and take a stand, and the speaker doesn't seem to want to take a stand, because fighting against the war may render you as eager to gain power as your political opponent.
The speaker might also find that it's "getting hard to be someone" because his conscience is telling him to go to something about the war. He finds it hard to be someone with principles and beliefs when escapism is refuting all the values you're supposed to have. He might also feel that he doesn't have value as a person, to be "someone" when he isn't doing anything for the war; he is just sitting and pretending things aren't as serious as they really are, or that nothing is happening, i.e. being useless.

*reminds self to talk more about symbolism and imagery of strawberry*