Happy thing of the day!

I've finished reading 13 Little Blue Envelopes by you know who :D I couldn't borrow it from the library earlier because I didn't have enough borrowing spaces, so before that I had to sit in the library just to read it. Today I finally brought it home, and also borrowed suite scarlett! Read Envelopes all the way home on the bus, and it took about two or three more hours to finish the rest. It was lovely! And made me think. And renewed my desire/ epic NEED to travel and go places and see things.

Full review tomorrow or after my sat test, depending on how much practice I still have to do. Most likely saturday. Or sunday, since I have a school camp over the weekend. Okay today's post is short because I have a proposal to finish and mock tests to muddle through, and I've spent enough time reading 13 little blue envelopes. (but I could not put it down!)



Lunch! Roti prata (extremely greasy but tasty pancake) and vegetable curry. I've eaten better prata with more generous helpings of curry. Ah, school food. Thankfully it only cost SGD$1.40= $0.95USD for one plain and one onion prata. Usually it's at least $2.50= $1.70USD, but school food is subsidised. yay!

A while ago I was mooching around youtube, and I found a video about a japanese school lunch. It consisted of rice with curry and cucumber salad.

Part of the video description says:
"BTW - I didn't eat ANY of my kyushoku today (not the day the video was filmed) - didn't even take the tray over to my desk. :(So it was ritz crackers and oreos today for lunch."

Speaking of people in general, and not just the person in the video: I cannot, for the life of me, understand when people go to a foreign country and choose not to eat the local food, and instead eat what they are used to.

I once went to europe with a tour group, and after a few days, they had had enough of the local breakfast-- cereal, bread and preserves, cheese and cold cuts, yogurt-- and decided to just have instant noodles instead. Which was quite pathetic, since the whole point of going to a foreign country is to experience all it has to offer, and they didn't want to experience the most basic aspect of its culture: food. Afterwards they mentioned that they were expecting something along the lines of a full american breakfast, i.e. warm eggs, french toast, pancakes, bacon-- what they usually have when they go on holidays in asia. In singapore, people usually have toast, fried noodles, or fried rice for breakfast, so the culture shock is pardonable.

But still! Shouldn't one go overseas with an open mind, prepared to expect an environment that doesn't resemble home? I expect some people might latch on to their creature comforts, in a strange place with a different culture.

How have I digressed. Anyway, I just wanted to talk about school lunches, since I was interested in what kids in japan get to eat. By the way, the person making the video is a person from the states who teaches english to elementary and middle school students in japan, as part of the JETS program. I like his other viking video-- one day where the kids get to pick out their own lunches, and they get all kinds of lovely stuff. yumyum. I suppose it's less of a culture shock for me than for him, since I'm more used to japanese cuisine.

This is what I had for lunch today!

On the left is tofu and french beans in curry, and on the right is bergedil, a fried potato cutlet. It's Malay cuisine, since our cafeteria (canteen) is like a food court with stalls selling different kind of foods. I feel lucky that I get to pick what I want to eat every day, and have seconds if I want to-- the kids in the video have to eat what's on the menu that day, and you can't have seconds.

Tomorrow I'll try to get something different, so things will be more interesting. I'm vegetarian too, like Alison (yay something we have in common) so usually I get rice, tofu, and vegetables. Which would be really boring to read about, so I'll get something different.

Oh! And I'd love to know what you have for lunch :D Comment, or put up a picture in a blog entry. Pictures are really good space-fillers.

Listening to daniellesmagic now, and it makes me feel cooler.

Not cooler as in the "I am incredibly fabulous" cool, but the "I feel less hot and sweaty" cool. Meep it's the dead of the night and it's still sweltering. I thought nights were supposed to be cooler on account of the fact that there is no SUN. Oh Mr Sun, Sun, Mr golden sun, please shine down on me [oh julia R, you are going to hate me.] Maybe it's the heat capacity of the building material. Eg Water has a high heat capacity, which explains why swimming pools are warm in the evening and cool in the morning. The concrete has a high heat capacity, so it absorbs the sun's heat and radiates it at night i.e. NOW.

But the concrete is painted white, so it's supposed to reflect light energy, right? Not absorb it. Although a paper I read today about green roofs says that the plants on the roof "process and diffuse" heat rather than merely reflecting or absorbing it. There aren't any plants on my roof. In fact, the roof of the apartment is inaccessible to any residents, because the management is afraid that we don't know well enough than not to fling ourselves off the top. Whee.

About barney, again-- (last time I will bring this up, I swear)-- hearing the songs again makes me understand why they are so annoying. I could understand how I could be put off by this. I can now understand why my parents wanted me to put "The Land Before Time" into the LD player instead of barney. Why, why, why, do they deliberately make children's media awful? And deliberately set out to annoy everyone except the kid who is watching it? Teletubbies and "again! again!" is a case in point. Said kid stays quiet and still, so this is a trade-off.

Was flipping through my old enid blytons before mercifully giving them away at the library-- I could have tossed them into a large bonfire, only it would release greenhouse gases and make me feel hotter-- and realised that my innocent childhood was marred with awful, awful, vomit-inducing writing. Do you not realise how bad the writing is? Think Beedle the Bard and Dumbledore's notes, and you will get what I mean. Enid Blyton introduced me to the concept of being spiteful. On whether this has positive or negative impacts, I will leave you to decide for yourself.

I am wasting the last days of BEDA doing this!! D: Okay I have to settle down and make a list of things I want to talk about before beda ends.

I won't be commenting as often in the coming week, because I have to study/ cram/ mug for my SAT test this saturday, in addition to all my other homework. If I do okay, I won't ever ever have to study for them again! [This is a reward in itself.] Rest assured I will catch up on things once my SATs are over, and comment accordingly :D

urgh my neighbour has Taylor Swift's Love Story on repeat.

A continuation of the Time Warner thing.The fact that Time Warner owns major media sites, charging for additional features of the internet would means that they would be controlling most of the media on it. Charging extra would require them to pass this on to most of the sites offering additional features, as compensation for these sites suffering a decrease in traffic. This compensation will make sites offering additional features subject to the opinions of Time Warner Inc, if the compensation becomes substantial. Or they could choose not to offer compensation, in which case the media companies owned by Time Warner Inc would have a monopoly of the market share. Stockholders will then have a larger control over the media and hence are able to determine what is reported, resulting in disinformation or misinformation in biased reporting.

On a smaller scale, charging for perks on the internet will change the world for future generations. If the fees are raised to such high levels that most people are deprived of these features, applications like facebook, youtube, and twitter will no longer be part of mainstream media. These applications have changed the way we gather and distribute information, allowing the common man to air his opinions and update himself on the most relevant and up to date news. If these apps became less commonplace, the progress we've made in media distribution in the last 10 years will amount to nothing. When celebrites can twitter an appearance and have their tickets sold in hours today, this would not be possible once internet extras become chargeable commodities. We would have to rely on newspapers, radio, or the telephone to make our orders, and these are much slower modes of communication.

User-generated content on blogs, podcasts and videos will have to represent the opinions of Time Warner Inc, since they are in charge of allowing users to view your video. When someone pays your salary, you wouldn't bite the hand that feeds you, would you? There would also be less opportunities for us to generate our own entertainment, since we are attracting less viewers than big-label companies such as CNN, and sharing websites wouldn't be so keen on us producing things when we don't generate a steady flow of revenue for them.

What do you think if someone owned the internet?

What will the consequences be for future generations? "When I was your age, the internet was free..."

Or do you think, like inflation, the expense of the internet is something that comes with the passage of time, and cannot be halted?

meep. I am tired. Will pull out a blog idea from my bag of tricks.

*fumbles* [/commercial break] Did any of you watch Barney (the purple dinosaur) when you were younger? Every episode will have this part where barney pulls out his barney bag (a sparkly gym bag, on hindsight) and from this bag will emerge all these crafty things so the kids can do art and craft. I remember wanting a bag like that. [/end commercial break]

So anyway, I'm on the free press mailing list. It's this organisation that advocates, for, well, free press. i.e. freedom of the press or the rights of the underdog to trump media moguls. (>< here. )The HP alliance has talked about it before, I think, back when the Wrocking Against Voldemedia cd came out.

A few days ago, they sent me an email saying:

Congratulations!
Time Warner Cable’s price-gouging scheme came crashing down yesterday.
In a spectacular victory for Free Press and supporters like you, the company buckled under public pressure and abandoned its plan to impose Internet penalties against those who go online for more than e-mail and basic Web surfing.
If they had gotten away with this scam, users of online innovations like Web video and radio would have been forced to pay up to $100 more per month for full broadband service.

It got me thinking. What if they started charging for reading corporate blogs, or playing games, or watching videos? We're already paying for internet through our telecom service providers, additional fees for viewing online media might put people off altogether. Why would I pay an ISP the same rate that I used to pay, for accessing less features? Why would I even bother paying for internet anyway, since what is currently available is so limited and I could probably live without it?

Not sure what "basic web surfing" entails, but I would think that it excludes videos, news blogs, podcasts, or even games, since Time Warner Cable is a (oh! I just found this out) company that offers cable, internet, and phone services. I think it wants to make the additional features of internet like cable, so then people can pay them for what they initially offered for free. As part of their internet services, they're also offering road runner, a service that they claim is faster than broadband. And the road runner website? A a news site complete with weather reports and horoscopes.

Doesn't Time Warner Inc. already own CNN, AOL, Mapquest, TMZ.com and other entertainment and media companies? It's a large slice of the internet pie. It's a large slice of the media pie too, if you consider the impact CNN had on the 2008 elections. Not that I feel that corporations should stop making money [this is impossible] but it would be all too easy to charge for more than "basic services" if they started to make people pay for aol or CNN first. If they decided to charge for these services, it would be making a significant part of the internet not free, at least to users in the US.

{ to be continued tomorrow. }

*squee* Was catching up on my bestwishesfromnl videos, and I saw this one with sanne, and she was talking about schipol airport! And I transited in schipol airport when my family went to switzerland !! And um I remember that there were a lot of gift shops selling clogs and pretty china windmills and "weed is legal" tshirts. And there were noodle shops! Because they didn't exactly have a lot of asian food in switzerland, so I got very excited.
(heh. this is bordering on pathetic lol)

Topic of the day! Illiteracy.

So I was watching a show on bbc entertainment, and there was this prison inmate who couldn't read. The prison had an adult literacy programme, and his friend had progressed to reading newspapers.
Back to the point. As I was watching this, I could not believe that someone could live so long without being able to read! Not in a discriminatory you-are-stupid way but in a genuinely shocked way. I mean this guy was in his thirties, and he could have spent 25 or so years of his life not being able to enter the wonderful world of books! I've heard about adult literacy classes, but I never thought about illiteracy in such a personal manner before. I never realised that it meant not being able to read not only books, but signs, menus, brochures, advertisements--- things we usually encounter and take for granted in our everyday lives.

And then I didn't know how I could live without reading. I wouldn't have found out about nerdfighting, for one. I wouldn't have had my 10 year obsession with harry potter. I wouldn't even be able to experience all of the amazing books I have read since I was about three or so, that have influenced me so much as a person. Things like the Chronicles of Narnia, Roald Dahl, His Dark Materials, Nina Bawden, Julia Alvarez, Madeline L'engle... There are so many things that I would have missed out on if I was illiterate for all these years! And for someone to be illiterate for 25 years is unimaginable for me, because I know that I'm going to read so much more in the next 7 years of my life-- things by more influential and experienced authors. For someone to miss out on all this is unfathomable.

Additionally, since reading is such a big part of our lives, someone who was illiterate would be severely handicapped. He would not be able to fill in forms to lease a flat, get married, apply for a job, or even apply for identification papers. Most importantly, he wouldn't be able to sign up for welfare or cash his cheques on his own. He would need someone to read his divorce rights or rights as a citizen, if he ever needed to go to court. A illiterate person then is dependent on those who can read, and the self-consciousness of this being dependant would have to affect their emotional self in some way.

To be honest, governments do not exactly want to advertise their adult illiteracy rates, so this would be a hard problem to tackle. Sometimes, it is also hard to justify the time and money spent on educating these people, because they aren't going to be working for long due to their age, and the money would be better spent on childhood education. In my community, those illiterate are usually senior citizens, who were too poor to go to school when they were little. This number is dwindling, so authorities do not see a pressing need for adult literacy programmes. Usually it would be a Voluntary Welfare Organisation who would initiate a programme like this, but the public would be reluctant to donate if the cases of illiteracy were uncommon, and the rationale for education weak.

What do you think about adult literacy? Do you think it is necessary when these people have been able to survive in modern society all this while?

Meep! I've missed another day. I have a legitimate reason! There was a math test I was studying for. And, if you've seen me flail/ fail in math, you'll know why the revision was urgently required. But I'll still be doing a video to make up. That's... four non-vlog videos to do. Maybe I'll do cooking or something. Post midnight, usually.

I'm listening to One Year Later by daniellesmagic, and I keep thinking it sounds like a spring awakening song. The tone (heh not talking music here) of the lyrics is also similar to that of SA songs, and this is a good thing! Because I haven't been able to find Duncan Shiek-sounding music yet. My brain is ridiculously capable of doing only one thing at a time, so I can only either listen to the lyrics or the music at any time. The lyrics are great! I want her cd. Go look up daniellesmagic, if you haven't already! She has really good originals.

Speaking of spring awakening, I received their email on summer tour dates, and then one of show is in Boston around the time of leakycon! *envy* It's playing April 28th to May 24th at Boston's Colonial Theatre. And leakycon is from may 21st to 24th. I bet the people on the forums are already making plans to see it! Watching it with a group of like-minded people would be awesome, and then you could discuss it later. Like the time I watched wicked and got to talk to my friends about it straight after, and my friend had bought the cd and I bought the program, and we were just swopping them around after the trip. (yes we are cash-strapped students!)

And. Oh yes. The tickets to see John Green in melbourne were sold out yesterday D: Not that I could ever go, but at least john green will be in the southern hemisphere? And Neil Gaiman also did a signing in melbourne. I was sneakily thinking of asking pooky (friend who lives in melbourne) to do me a humongous favor and go for the event for me, but the tickets were all booked so quickly! And I didn't know there were so many nerdfighters in melbourne/ australia! How shall I stalk them? (So that, if I ever go to melbourne, I could find them and ambush them outside their house or something.) The Ning would be a good place to start.

And about australian fans, I didn't know there were people living there who were interested to fly to the states for Harry Potter cons! I remember reading it somewhere; not sure which forum it was on. I mean the flight is longer and more expensive than if someone were to fly to the states from singapore-- their desire to go to a con, and actually GO is amazing. It's like saying to mugglecast/ pottercast/ other famous people : "Look what your fans DO for you! Talk about dedication." But they'll probably go to the states for a holiday and do things like a spring awakening show and to sightsee/tour, and not go just for the con. But still. Think of the munny ): But of course a con experience is priceless.

And I've noticed that I've been using too many explanation marks and being overly enthusiastic and fangirly. Can I help that I am naturally full of pep? (Though honestly, if you were to meet me in person, "pep" would be the last thing you would associate with me. All the pep is in my head, in a bid to avoid being associated with "insanity".) I talk to myself occasionally, and I'm also known as a "nutter".

Back to exclamation marks. Do you notice, when reading archie comics, that every sentence ends with either an exclamation mark or a question mark? It's like the characters are incapable of having moderate emotions. And reading Wuthering Heights makes me feel as if the characters are made of exclamation marks, but the exclamation mark to full stop ratio is at least more than 1:0.
Thankfully not all graphic novels are written like archie comics.

Happy Thing of the Day!
I received a book I mooched on bookmooch recently, and in the envelope there was a note! It said:

Your Book
With Compliments
(username)
Enjoy! I have used the cheapest method of postage and recycled packaging to save money and help save the planet. I always get Proof of Posting.

In retrospect, what the note says isn't very interesting, but I love it when people take extra time to be nice to the moocher. I also love it when people use recycled packaging :D The person sent the book to me from the uk, and international mail is so much more exotic. And of course who doesn't love getting packages in the mail?

[this sounds incredibly canned, but] What was your happy moment today?

Moving on.

I feel guilty about copying off other people's homework, when I haven't done mine. It feels like I am insulting the time and effort this person spent to write his answer, and passing the homework off as my own time and effort. However, I don't really mind letting someone copy off me, especially if it didn't take a lot of work. (heh.) Or if the answers are stock answers, like in Bio or Chem.

But I get really cheesed if someone looks at my essay that I am proud of, and tries (usually miserably) to use my ideas. The result usually looks really forced and fake, so it would look much better if the copier at least used his own ideas and then actually knows what he is talking about. Sometimes people copy from me because they aren't sure of their own ideas or whether their arguments are valid or not, so they would much rather copy and get a good grade rather than risk showing his own work and get a bad grade.

Once, in english class, we were supposed to do peer marking. I happened to receive a paragraph that looked awfully like something I had written before, but obviously it wasn't mine. It turned out that a classmate who wasn't confident of her own work read an earlier essay of mine, and simply rephrased my points and put them in her paragraph. She wasn't even aware she plagiarised just to get a better grade. It's so annoying because I took time to craft the paragraph and think of an original take to the question, and then she just had to take it and pretend the ideas were hers.

Discussing this issue on a larger scale, plagiarism is at its worse when grants are at stake. Someone could chance upon a fellow researchers' work, manipulate it, generate results, and if his paper was published first, the copier would get credit for the discovery, not the person who really thought about the breakthrough.

This is part of the reason why I like the term "Intellectual Property" , because although ideas are intangible products, this term makes ideas a commodity that belongs to its owner. The owner then gets appropriate credit for his work, and isn't sold out on the time and hard work spent.

It's 12.53am and the neighbours are bouncing a basketball outside in the corridor. It's just a little irritating. But I also think there are better places for them to play basketball. Even though it's 1am in the morning. But just not outside my apartment.

=Will bore you with events of the day because I am not in a thinking mood. ("How can you be too tired to think?! It requires less energy than clicking your mouse!")=

Today I wanted to get a smoothie and there was avocado snow, avocado banana, mango, berries, and strawberry orange on the menu. Because it was late, they only had avocado snow and avocado banana left, so I picked avocado banana, with the little voice in my head protesting: "Avocado doesn't go with banana, much less in a smoothie! Avocado is only for guacamole and california rolls; having an avocado banana would put you off avocado FOREVER."

But I went ahead and bought it. And asked for sugar.

Guess what? It was awesome! I didn't expect it to taste so good. (And it kind of made me feel better because I had convinced myself the fruit in it was good for me. Even though they only used half a banana, and put in sugar and milk.) The texture's a lot smoother than the smoothies from Boost (an australian juice shop) or even dairy queen. Whenever I get smoothies from these places, the straw always makes an indentation in the ice, and all you can suck is what's under the straw, and you end up with a slushy drink with a lot of holes. When I drank the avocado banana smoothie, I didn't have to poke the straw around at all, and everything went up smoothly.

With the avocado, you don't have the grey colouring you get from a banana milkshake, and the avocado neutralises the bitter aftertaste of oxidised banana. The overall smoothie colour was pea green, which was quite interesting. But smoothies are satisfying, especially when it's hot. (it's so hot that I could sweat while sitting down and not moving.)

And it made my day. (I'm very easily satisfied)

So go out and get a smoothie. Or something cold, sweet, and smooth. Because it will make your day :D

hi buddies!
It's 11.40 pm now so I guess I'll do this zippy quick. Urgh it's sunday night and I have homework to do, and I finish school pretty early, so I have to finish the work that's due tuesday tomorrow (way to go captain obvious) and keep a study date with friend and post the book that I was supposed to post a month ago.
Clearly I am needing time management skillz.

Proof that, at 16, I am not becoming more mature/ intelligent/ adult-like:

FRIEND: *is studying*
ME: Oooh I like your graphic calculator! *snatches*

=5-minute interval in which I spend pressing random buttons=

ME: How do I turn it on?
FRIEND: ...

What, can't someone like the feel and sound of clicky buttons? And the colour and the shape of different buttons...
Clearly, I am destined to be in preschool.

By the way, that happened a few months ago, when everyone in my year was supposed to by a graphic calculator, but I put off buying it because there was this thing about seniors/ school leavers selling their second-hand graphic calculators at half-price, and it wasn't confirmed yet, and I'd rather spend less money. Eventually, I ended up buying a new graphic calculator, because the second hand ones were being sold on a first-come-first-served basis, and I had signed up too late. (a silver edition costs $185= $123.30 USD and looks like this. ) Now we're supposed to be proficient at using them, since we've been using them for the last three topics, and, mercifully, I have found the "on" button. I can use it to solve math problems and... play games, but not much else.

This made me think about one's maturity and self-perception. Because in my head, I still think that I am a child. ("No surprises there when you behave like one," my conscience says.) That because of my inability to pay bills, drive, or manage a bank account, I am absolved of adult responsibilities, and I am therefore technically a child. And I still have this feeling that adults will always be watching out for me and making sure that I'm doing the right thing, so I let my guard down and stop making the effort to become more independent.

My classmate, who recently moved to a boarding school, was afraid that he couldn't get up in the morning on his own, because his mum always woke him up. Being able to wake up in the morning and get to class on time may seem like a small thing, but it's significant of a bigger worry that there is no one to tell you to fulfil your responsibilities, and so you might neglect them. But he realised that when he lived away from his parents, waking up wasn't a problem at all. So I think maturity and adult-ness doesn't come with age, but it is a product of necessity and adaptation to adult life. That you have to work at it, and knowing how to manage your money doesn't just come like that, and it is a skill that you learn on the job.

Therefore, the feeling of not bothering to become more adult might just stem from the fact that you know there are people there who are going to clean up after you when you mess up. Like the time when I went on my first overseas school trip, and my parents were so worried that THEY CAME ALONG. They wore worried that I might hurt myself, get sick, or run out of money. The irony is that I came home without a scratch, and with 200 of the 300 pounds they gave me. (the money was only for meals for two days and other misc shopping things, and my friends were cheap.)

But I keep thinking that every year I lose being stupidly dependent, it will be more difficult for me to adapt once I move out and everything. Perhaps this is my mother's evil ploy. She hasn't moved out of her parent's house her whole life.

Squee! Was so happy when I read maureen johnson's blog today, and she said she had finished with the grouping of beda buddies. I mean she actually took the time to look at everyone's profile and match people up according to... interests? age? I'm very appreciative of the fact that she read everyone's info and genuinely wants us to get something more of beda-- she had to do this with (77 x 4)+1= 309 people :O which is incredible.

My buddies were very on-the-ball and friend-requested me first, and I was so surprised when I read my email and there were all these friend invites. And I only just realised that we're the group of 5 -_-" More buddies= more fun! I'm going to look at their profiles later, and find out what they said on the beda buddy discussion. What _did_ we have in common? (oh! darn doing underscores to replace underlining has become a habit.)

funny immature conversation of the day!
My friend and I were at a sandwich deli, and decided to share a salad. The salad had pinenuts in it.
ME: You can have the pinenuts, and I'll have the sprouts.
FRIEND: Where are all the pinenuts? *pokes around* They have deviously hidden under the leaves from my grasp. Ahh, I'm losing my nuts! They are so slippery.

Space-fillers ftw. Sorry. As beda progresses, my blogs are getting shorter and lacking intellectual depth. But I didn't really have any in the first place, so I'll throw prudence to the winds!

The library board here is organising a book exchange for next saturday. People bring in their books from 11-24 April, and they get a coupon for every book they donate. On 25th April, there is a one-for-one book exchange, so people trade their coupons for books. It's environmentally friendly because they won't be giving out carrier bags, and instead of discarding books that they have grown out of, people are giving them away and someone is receiving them, hence reducing waste created by discarded books. It's also an easy way for people to get free books, since cash is tight in these tough times.

I think I'm going to be giving away my old enid blytons and other books I had as a kid I can bear to part with. enid blytons and chinese books don't "sell" well on bookmooch, so this would be a good way to get rid of them. I've not had any luck with places which buy books, because once when I brought down a shopping bag of at least 10 of my friends' books, the person went through everything and only bought one(!) book for $3. (that's $1.99USD) Partly because the books were all brown and spotty, but they were still readable. Anyway, I think I'll bring the shopping bag to the library exchange because those books aren't really to my liking, and they're just collecting dust.

However! I have a problem, because recently there was a book sale that a large bookstore had to clear stock, and I just got new books. And there have been numerous times where I see a book that's $2 and I HAVE to get it because it's so cheap, and because if I got it new, it would be $12-$15 ($10USD). And these are usually books that are friend-recommended, written by authors whose other works I've read, or books that I've borrowed from the library and found interesting. So now I've got lots of books, and no shelve space.

You would say: "Why don't you get new shelves?"
To which I'd reply: "You have to come to my house to see for yourself. There are shelves lining the four walls of the study I share with my sister, and these shelves are put in front of existing wardrobes that are filled with stuff themselves. There are books everywhere: in the dining room, in the living room, in all the bedrooms, and even in the bathroom. Things are so drastic that I have had to resort to stacking books on the floor."

So um, yes, you might say that my family has a habit.

Now I just have to figure out which books to give away, dust them off, and cart them to the library.

Hello one and all! Today's post will be quick because I've got to go edit a video! (and some might say FINALLY nicole puts up a video; I've been posting for weeks and she hasn't done anything-- this is not fair!) So yes, it is very obviously an urgent matter.

Today my friend and I sat at the It Table for lunch. It wasn't intentional, really-- I was halfway through with eating and realised that a lot of It People were sitting within close proximity. We only moved there because there was a ceiling fan (yes yes, I practically live in a sweltering desert) above the table, and also because it wasn't "exposed to the elements", as my friend calls it. Anyway once I realised that we were sitting at the It Table it was so funny because there were people sitting closer and closer to me, and they all had this "who are you?" vibe. And if we had any social skills to speak of, we would have moved away but they couldn't tell us to shove off, because It People want to seem nice and friendly to their It Friends.

And then friend B came over:
FRIEND B: Hi :D can I crash your table? *sits down*
FRIEND B: *pause* "Isn't this the It Table?"
ME: heehee yes it is
FRIEND B: Okay I think I'll go sit somewhere else.

*shrugs* It wasn't anything big, anyway, because I was having lunch at 2.30pm, when everyone else probably has class or after school activities-- we don't have fixed lunch periods; we just eat when there's a break in our timetables. On fridays I have a really long break from 10.30am to 3.15pm, so I had a lunch date with friend A, who only ends class at 2.20pm.

The concept of It People, in my school at least, is not often discussed because it is not an issue. To be honest, there are too many people to have a social hierarchy (there are about 1100+ people in my year) and usually social groups are too varied for any order to be established. For example, you could belong in your class, afterschool activity, or interest-social groups, all at the same time. And the "power" of the It People is non-existent, because anyone with eyes and ears knows that they really are bitches.

Questions!

1. What do you think of the stereotypical high school social structure? Does it apply to your culture/ school?

2. Do you think that a social hierarchy has to exist in any society, even in the microcosm of high school?

3. Is the social structure in your high school a representation of adult society? Because how we behave as young people might be indicative of how society will behave in 10 years. ("children are the future" etc.)

Yay! Made it before the midnight deadline :D

First things first: Thank you thank you thank you maureen for setting us up with the blog buddies thing, because it will probably take you ages and ages to plow through 17+ pages of profiles. >< And it would be an absolutely lovely thing to get to know other nerdfighters with similar interests :D and support each other through BEDA.

And thanks maureen for starting BEDA, because it's a great avenue for everyone to share their thoughts on issues close to their hearts, and good practice for putting these thoughts into words. Without BEDA, I would never have gotten to know so many lovely bloggers or get to read john's/ maureen's/ kristina's/ hayley's blogs every day. Prior to starting this, I thought it would just be another way of getting me to write crap every day, but knowing that someone out there is reading my entries gives me more incentive to write better blogs. I also have more ownership of my opinions and respect for others' perspectives as a result of this.

[The above sounds awfully like what I would write on the last day of BEDA, but I felt that I had to say this now before I forget. And I never thought I would say this, but I'll be kind of sad once BEDA ends ): And yes, I'm repeating myself from yesterday, but it doesn't hurt to say these things twice, does it?]

Today is the first time in forever that I have a title on my blogpost. This is a result of reading untitled blogs on google reader, and not knowing what the entry is about. Though admittedly the title has nothing whatsoever to do with what I'm saying/ about to say. I just discovered the "baby it's cold outside" cover by julia nunes and wade johnston (lol I'm always late) and LOVED it; went on to look up the christmas collab playlist and found a bunch of awesome musicians, so that's great :D

And it's never usually "cold outside" in singapore anyway. It was so awfully hot a few days ago that I almost melted, because my fan wasn't working. (a high of 33 Celsius, which doesn't seem hot relative to places like dubai, but it was kind of hot.) And then yesterday it was raining so heavily that I actually wanted a jacket. But in terms of weather here, it's either hot or raining, so there's not much to talk about. Good for small talk though, because you can never go wrong with: "Hasn't it been warm lately?" or a similar variation.

dumdumdum. It's strange that I originally intended this to be an "I'm irritated and this is why" post, because I'm more than halfway through and I've never mentioned any of that.

Three months into my new school, and I'm not so miserable as I thought I would be. This is because of my lovely caring friends who make it a hell lot easier to get through the day. My days are relatively bummy; more of this on another post. It's exciting to get to know new people who happen to be funny and interesting-- before I started school I thought most people would be boring, (an underestimation! and proof of my pessimism) but I digress. There are also english lit classes on thursdays and fridays (tomorrow!) and in my thursday class I am so lucky to have friends who understand all the literary references. The fact that the teachers are funny makes lectures very enjoyable. And then I have my philosophy class on monday mornings-- we're doing Machiavelli's The Prince now-- which casts away my monday blues.

haha I was in class today doing a presentation and this happened:

ME: So this article mentions "Catcher in the Rye" and how its violence is a negative influence on society; does anyone think something is wrong with the author's argument?
EVERYONE: =gives me the "I have no idea what you are saying" look=
ME: Has anyone read "Catcher in the Rye"?
EVERYONE: *silence* (I could hear crickets.)

I can't blame them; I only read Catcher after reading Looking for Alaska last year. And we were supposed to be leading the discussion, but I wasn't expressing myself clearly enough, and it was epic fail. No one understood what I was asking 80% of the time, and I didn't understand myself either.

Blogger is having out outage at 2am PDT on thursday. When is that? *grumbles* I'm +8 GMT and it's ALWAYS confusing when people go on blogtv and they say EST or something, and I don't get it, and always miss blogtv shows. But I would miss the shows anyway, because when people in the States are awake at a civilised time, I would be asleep or at school. There was once I saw meekakitty on blogtv really late at night my time, so it depends. Anyway, to solve this problem, we will utilise the power of the internets!

dum dum dum. Okay wiki says that PDT is Pacific Daylight Time, which is UTC-8. But this other website says it's UTC-7? And then between january and now daylight savings started, and I was blissfully unaware until Hailee told me. (she lives in illinois.) I should keep up to things. That's what the internet is for! Back to wiki. UTC means Coordinated Universal Time: "In casual use, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) can be considered equivalent to UTC or UT1 when fractions of a second are not important." Ah ha! Right so if PDT is kind of like GMT-8, then they are 16 hours behind, which would make 2am on thursday 6pm on thursday for me.

Oh snap. That's kind of when I usually blog. But school ends at 4.30 on thursday, so I'll probably go home. Maybe. Or I could finish tomorrow's post zippy quick, before it happens. And here's another thing: "Time zones around the world can be expressed as positive or negative offsets from UTC; UTC replaced GMT as the basis for the main reference time scale or civil time in various regions on January 1, 1972." Whoops. I'm a little off. And if any of you were interested, it's 4.06pm wednesday afternoon here, 3.06am where Hailee is, and 7.06pm where phoung nghi is. (melbourne) Which reminds me to reply to Hailee's email.

In other news, it's so amazing that maureen johnson is doing the BEDA buddies system, because it's going to take her ages for her to match people up with their buddies. I mean AGES. There are more than a couple hundred blogs registered for BEDA; who knows how many people would want to be/have buddies. I thought she was going to get a little help from the more web-literate nerdfighters out there-- it was looking to be a daunting job. Nevertheless, I will sign up! And do up my profile page so everyone can know what I'm about. YAY for making friends :D

Though these few days I've been getting comments from people (which is always AWESOME) and then I visit their blogs, and we become friends! Or, rather, I friend them so I don't forget to visit their blogs. Beda's been a great opportunity for us to get to know the rest of the nerdfighting community and get to connect with each other as peers. It's always comforting to know that somewhere out there, someone believes in decreasing worldsuck, like you do. It makes my day a lot better and I don't feel so bummy. And it's lovely getting to read about other people's funny days, and their struggles with theatre/ reading/ youtube etc.

I think this is where I'll end today; I'm off to the discussion forums :D

video count: 3

I have made it before the midnight deadline again~
Oh, how the words flow from my fingers.

Today I am not going to attempt to discuss any serious issue. There are 16 more days of april to do this, and we are *almost* halfway through BEDA :D Go friends!
I think that blogging every day is some form of payment for getting to read everyone's awesome entries, and for getting to read john green and maureen johnson's daily blogs. I caught up with a friend today, and he writes blogs that are 10 000 words long at least o_o But he talks about things that happened and analyses things. Like our elections for student council, and um current issues.

Darn I should write longer sentences. There's this addiction to short-sentences-are-dramatic thing, and I can't stop it! *grumbles* Do you tend to copy another blogger in your entries? Because when I started doing serious blogs, I followed a style of a classmate, and Neil Gaiman's and Orson Scott Card's style, because it was mostly who I was reading at that time. Now I tend to mimic maureen johnson and maya (http://sarahtales.livejournal.com/). [In my head, she will forever remain as maya, since geeru recommended me her fanfiction and her screen name was maya. She's really Sarah Rees Brennan, author of The Demon's Lexicon.]

This "copying" thing usually happens subconsciously, and I can't really stop being influenced, because it just comes. And then I try to be funny/ witty too, but it usually fails, and I am the only one being entertained. I used a lot of parentheses the other day-- the one about tv and the media, and when I was rereading the post, I found them to be really distracting. Thing is, I use parentheses when what I want to say doesn't really relate to what I was saying, and I have to use them because I'm just stupidly writing down whatever is in my head at the current moment. So of course this shows that I'm easily distracted.

Do any of you get annoyed when you type too slowly for your thoughts to come out? Sometimes I am positively bursting with things to say, but my typing speed slows me down and it is so irritating because then I miss things, and it takes so long for my thoughts to be properly expressed. Note the impatience. Although I think typing/ writing slowly allows one to think about what one is saying, and allows one to at least attempt to structure one's thoughts first before putting them down. Otherwise it would just read as this Stream of Consciousness's thing.

Speaking of Stream of Consciousness, the first time I read a passage of that genre, I remember thinking that it read awfully like a blogpost that I would have written out, had all the things in my head been fully documented.

Urgh. Had a rough night. *shields eyes*
Shall put the video count at the end of the blogpost.

Today's post is coming early! It's 5.30pm. (yay not after midnight) Because the probability of me making a blogpost later when I get home is close to zero. But, um, it's good that I'm posting! ...right? I'm in the school's computer lab, and sometimes people eat here and leave food in the keyboard... yuck. [HAY the guy in front of me has paypal! *envy*] And uh haha obviously privacy is an issue.

Today I'll be talking about television! About how awful it is and how I should seriously stop watching so much of it. Because last night I spent three hours watching Say Yes to the Dress, E!, the Style network, Strictly Come Dancing, and London Ink. (which is way better than LA ink, but nevermind.)

The point is! That I should be watching less tv and spend less time watching trash. Ever since we signed up for a new cable plan, I've been watching too much tv! It's so easy to just sit and channel surf because there are so many channels, but the thing is, I don't usually watch the good stuff. This is in light of the fact that we have animal planet, natgeo, discovery, discovery science and the history channel.

I should be going to uni! That way I'll watch less tv, because I won't bring one and I'll bring my laptop. I won't have time to watch tv or anything of that sort because I'll be too busy doing homework, making videos and reading. (Says the one who spent two weeks at a collage prep program watching korean dramas till 3am.)

And as an alternative to watching tv, I should spend my time on youtube/ creating my own content. The power of new media is that it is made by the people, for the people and is truly democratic. I'm also supporting original and awesome creators of music, art, and literature! (i.e. wizard rock, fanart, and fanfics)

But really, choosing what kind of media we wish to fill our minds with is more empowering, and lets the right people know that they are appreciated. I don't want to give credit to the "creators" on E! and encourage production of even more shows of low quality. [HEY guy in front of me is on youtube and listening to craig david. Ew. Darn I get distracted easily.]

The point is, that when you have the choice, you should choose to consume media that is representative of the democratic state, not media that represents the opinions of conglomerates who fund it.

Again, I am doing this after midnight. *sigh*
One thing about BEDA is that I find myself planning what to blog about today, which is quite interesting. And then I actually sit down and start typing... and mysteriously my mind is blank. I distinctly remember thinking about what to write, but I don't remember _what_ I thought about.

Um. Good news today! A nerdfighter friend and I are going to be penpals! Good thing she lives in singapore too, or else postage would be expensive.

Yeah, yeah, we could even call each other and meet up and things, but isn't letter-writing a lovely idea? I would get to see her handwriting, for one. And it would make us think carefully about what to say before putting it on paper. It would also revive the ancient art of letter-writing. Since, you know, there already is skype, instant messaging, email, facebook, youtube etc. I could send her things, and use cute stationery! (that I will steal from my sister. I do not own any of that scented stuff.)

And zaielle (lovely name, that.) of BestWishesFromNL commented on my video in which I plugged them! Good thing that my next video planned will be a plugging one, so more famous people will comment. What can I say? I love sharing good music and awesome wrock fans with everyone. Even though on average my videos get about 30 views each.

I like meeting people on youtube! It makes me feel connected to the community and I feel more participative, and not just an observer. Maybe it's just human nature to want to connect with people whose interests you share. I like discussing things on the ning, because then I have the assurance that nerdfighters (i.e. people with brains) will be responding/ airing their thoughts and I won't have to read rubbish from flamers or people with nothing better to do.

Not that I don't welcome opposing viewpoints, mind. They are what make discussions interesting! But flamers (i.e. people without brains) do not contribute to the discussion. And there is this thing I learnt in philosophy last year that was about the importance of having dissenting opinions or a counterpoint, and all I remember is the dead dogma argument. *wikis* Ah ha. "Skepticism: a method of intellectual caution and suspended judgment." [oh people who know better please correct me]

So in short it is important to raise opposing points of view, because otherwise the issue won't be discussed at all (eg evolution) and the importance of the issue will be underrated. It is also important to question because otherwise the knowledge you know might be taken for granted and then you will not learn to be skeptical and raise your doubts and therefore become vulnerable to false information. (eg propaganda) Discussing the issue also helps you strengthen your arguments for the issue and helps you understand why you believed in that issue in the first place. (eg when people ask why I'm vegetarian/ When people ask others about the existence of God/ a higher power.)

I need to take a philo class in uni/ read more on it; there is so much I do not know! eg Skepticism is part of a larger idea called Certainty, which encompasses Epistemology (theory of knowledge), Agnosticism, Solipsism ("My mind is the only thing that I know exists.") and Justification, among others.

I hope YOU have an inquiring mind; heck, we all need one-- remember all the different takes on the presidential elections last year on CNN/ related networks? We need to be able to decide for ourselves what we think is right, and the media does not need to do the job for us.

[I am painfully aware that I started and ended this post on different tangents, but never you mind.]

what is this!
I'm subscribed to at least 10 nerdfighters on google reader, and only maureen johnson and john green have updated today?! I suppose everyone has their days. And I missed two days so far, heh so it's a bit "look who's talking."

And I suppose that short paragraph is going to show up first on the blog previews, darn.

Today I will talk about friends! Not the um, tv show.
So, again, I will start with a quote. (cut and pasting ftw!)
A while ago, john green blogged this:

"Q. If not fame, what *do* you recommend to fill up the empty spaces inside?

A. Well, the reason people think fame will fill up the empty spaces inside them is because we want to be acknowledged and loved and cared for. Like, say that someone breaks your heart. The pain of that heartbreak is so real and so profound and so deeply felt, and you want other people to acknowledge it. And it feels like if millions of people cared enough about you to read about your heartbreak in US Weekly, then you could bear it. The holes inside would be filled by the thoughts and attention of strangers.

But in fact this does not work. It's a snake oil cure. The only thing, in my experience at least, that fills up the empty spaces is caring for other people and allowing them to care for us."

And this got me thinking. I feel whole and lovely and warm inside when I spend time talking with my friends, but sometimes I think I take them for granted. Because I've been in a new school for about three months now, and my new classmates are really really awesome, even if I don't really know them well enough yet. We slog through homework together, have lunch together, look out for each other and generally help each other through school.

But sometimes I feel guilty that I've been mollycoddled by my friends because they always remind me to do stuff, or do favors for the class, and I don't reciprocate at all. And to a certain extent, I feel bad if someone has to do something for me-- say lend me his/her things, or carry stuff for me, or even wait for me outside the bathroom. (I swear this is a culture-specific thing) I think about it and I really don't give a second thought when I do this for my other friends, so it shouldn't be much bother for the person doing it, but I really feel bad if someone has to do something for me. And it made me think of the "allowing them to care for us" bit.

I'm a bit iffy when it comes to affection/ the demonstration of it. Not in the romantic way, mind, but when someone does something nice for you. Like I'm comfortable if someone I know well does it, but I'm not comfortable if someone I just got to know does it. (eg opens the door for you) A while ago I was feeling bad about needing people to help me out (I even feel bad when someone has to wait for me to do something) and I wanted to be more independent and less reliant on others. A little like not allowing others to show that they care.

I was wondering if this was a pride thing, and I'm not sure myself, but I feel awful when people have to help me. (mmm for example that time I was travelling in a school group and someone had to help me check in at the airport because I was too noob to do it properly.) Although. I think it is a pride thing, because during those times I feel embarrassed at my own deficiencies, and less sorry for the person. And I used to go: "Am I too fussy/ demanding/ slow?" and then the person responding has to say "No", right? out of politeness, which makes the question the dumbest one to ask because it only serves to reaffirm your arrogance.

So, um, Revelation! I have discovered I am too proud to let others "care for me", and until I learn to stop being proud, the empty spaces will not be filled.

I just typed up something on msn to a friend, and I realised... that I'm more blunt on msn than I am in real life. Nothing new, I suppose, everyone does this. It's like the classic argument for online bullying-- the repercussions of what you say online are less immediate, so you are more inclined to say something mean and not be afraid of the consequences.

And I am, again, obnoxiously cutting and pasting just to fill up space but anyway.
Kayley from the 5AG said this on her blog today:
"I hate when reading blogs and people are so desperate to cater to what people will want to read. It’s a BLOG. You type what you want. Stop talking about how people won’t like it or how it will confuse them or whatever. Readers don’t care. If they don’t want to read it, they don’t have to. It’s a place for thought, not a place to please people. Don’t stifle creativity. Done."

And it made me think about when I first started blogging-- more than five years ago, wow-- that I was convinced I had a readership, and was concerned about my audience and who I was writing for. Today I am still under the delusion that there are people out there reading this crap, so I keep in mind not to mention things. I self-censor.

There was a time that my friend was strongly against self-censorship (she talked about religion, sex, bad gossip etc) and tried to advocate that people just say what they want. I tried to go with it for a while, but realised that everyone and anyone can see you on the interwebs, and teachers or juniors whom I didn't want reading this blog would be able to read it anyway, and I couldn't stop them. Maybe it's just me, but I am/was extremely self-conscious about what people thought about me, and I couldn't stick having people think I was sex-crazed, obsessive over harry potter, overly liberal, too vegetarian, too agnostic... you get the gist.

And then I tried to frame my blogposts so that I sounded as moderate as possible and inoffensive, but it got kind of dull. So in the end I gave up and mostly did fangirly things about movies or books, or ordinary boring this-is-what-I-did-today posts. Yay for archives; go see how I was when I was eleven.

Right now I kind of like this medium of expression because it lets me put things I have floating in my consciousness into words, and lets other people know what I am thinking. Or at least, I feel someone out there is reading what I've got to say. It's an outlet of sorts, but I am still careful not to be scathing or overly grumpy... because I am in some degree afraid of what people might think. Also because personal attacks and whining would reduce my credibility and professionalism, and make me sound like an immature spoilt idiot. (which I am, actually. )

Now I've started the BEDA thing, I'm a little worried about talking about issues such as same-sex marriage, slash, smut, religion, the origins of life, LSD... since there are new nerdfighters who are going to read this and start flaming. (okay I'm a bit paranoid here) Though of course by mentioning the above already is hypocritical, but there's still hesitation and doubt. This is not without reason-- you don't start talking politics or violence with someone you've just met, do you?

So I suppose I don't know if it is appropriate to take the plunge or not.
But if these issues really matter to me, I shouldn't be afraid to bring them up and encourage healthy discussion.
*Dilemma*

[/random] I hate it when you're im-ing and people think you're being sarcastic but you're not. Or you're being sarcastic and they thing you aren't. Emails with a context are so much better. [/end random]

Welcome to Day 8 of BEDA. It's only day 8 and I've missed two days >< this is not going well. Punishments are in order. I think. I have to upload one good video for every day I miss? If I upload crappy vlogs then it's cheating. If I do no uphold this self-imposed punishment, you can quote me on this.

Back to business. So recently jbdazen uploaded a video which talked about homosexuality and whether it should remain an issue. Because if it is widely accepted, legalizing same-sex marriage shouldn't be something to cheer about; it should be a given. And then there are people who upload videos like these, which sometimes make me stop believing in the human race.
Wrote the above at 11.30pm thereabouts, and it's 1.07am now, and he's replied to my comment! *is happy* I think I should go reply a couple comments now. And emails. *guilt*

Right back. Oh jeez when I read things from people I respect it makes me feel so so happy that there are people/ adults existing who believe in change and the ability to make it happen. Although in a, well, xenophobic way the internets make me a little narrow-minded, when I can choose to read/ consume only media that affirms my beliefs. Solution: I should read newspapers!! And it makes me so so happy when someone replies that there are people who are lovely and willing to share their thoughts, or take time to consider your opinions and say something helpful or thought-provoking.

Gosh I sound crazy-- all this over a reply but still! Here it is for posterity:
I said this--
"urgh in my school the glbt thing isn't even taken seriously enough to be discussed! When someone calls someone else "gay" [and it still happens a lot D:] it's considered an insult. And when a girl in my school was talking about being lesbian, people thought it was just a phase."

and then jbdazen replies:
"In high school, when everyone's going through a lot of changes, the need to 'fit in' is the highest. So people who fear to be left out are instead singling out people who are brave enough to show themselves as they are. It's a problem of all times. It gets better when you grow older. However, teachers and parents should be more supportive and protective for people who dare to be different, because the bullying can cause traumas at later age."

*is honoured* I think I need to find synonyms for 'happy'.

Today I was delighted because I got to eat soy ice-cream. On a cone :D
if you know me and my vegetarian thing, you'll know what I mean.

hello hello hello.

So anyway, today I went online and checked my yahoo and gmail inboxes, read all the emails, delegated all mailing list emails to a folder, deleted spam, and decided trotting off to google reader would be more interesting. This is the reason why I rarely reply emails on time, because I will look at the email and go: "Hmm I could do this later... I don't know what to say to the person. Replies are always better if one sits on them, right?" And then I go off to the tubes or something and never return.

*sings* "Past the point of no return, no going back now; our passion-play has now, at last, begun"

=end musical interlude=

Urgh I don't know who's reading this. If you are, comment? Link below if you're on blogger or convenient commenting avenue if you're on the Ning. This is so hypocritical-- I always want someone to comment... but I don't comment often myself/ don't reply comments. >< bad bad habit-- it shows that I am not appreciative of the comments! And then I will never get any comments! But really I like getting comments; it's just that I'm not very skilled in demonstrating my love ! Excuses.

And I don't think I don't have time to be ning-trawling today for other blogs doing BEDA; mountain of homework awaits. Tried doing that yesterday, though, and found the featured blog funny and cute. There were only 28 comments! Considering there are over 500 [?] blogs on the Ning. This is a sign that I should leave comments more liberally, and not be stingy with my words, to encourage others to blog more, or make even more exciting and save-worthy posts. [/random] In school we were taught about the different aspects of leadership, and this is considered "Enabling Others To Act".

Actually since I've been doing beda for a few days now, it's becoming less and less difficult to find something to write about. Well maybe later I'll have a mid-month crisis and end up doing one-paragraph posts in despair. Hang on, I've got to replace the battery on the wireless keyboard. snap have resorted to using the onscreen keyboard because for some reason the replaced batteries don't work. Maybe its the kind of thing that only works when you reset the comp.

think shall end now; onscrn keyboard takes ages. ciao

hello one and all.

Spent today mostly watching CSI NY, and yesterday kimberly (a nerdfighter) introduced me to a csi wiki but then now I can't remember the url D: snap. Will search for it.

I know two characters! Gary is the head guy, like gil grissom, and Danny is the guy who has a real new york accent. That's all I know. Danny's colleague is his girlfriend or um Danny's girlfriend happens to be his colleague and I kind of not like this relationship because Danny's girlfriend (I can't remember her name!) cares a lot about him. And is a really, well, good girlfriend. It's so straight edge! No tension etc.

Okay it's ironic I'm talking about being straight edge in a show about law enforcement, but still. The Grissom/Sara pairing in CSI Las Vegas is so much more interesting! (is it canon? someone enlighten me) But of course no pairing can beat Snarry or Edward/ Jacob.

OMG the Edward/Jacob pairing is like the new snarry. Really! Someone should have a podcast on Edward and _____ pairings! Excluding Bella, of course. I mean other vampires are so hot (hotter than Bella) and there would be "I Would Like To Eat You" tension, you know?

My friend suggested that in Breaking Dawn, Bella would die in childbirth (FINALLY no more whining) and then Edward and Jacob would raise baby Renesmee together!!! Preferably Bella could die before she gets to name the baby, and then baby could have a name that is actually pronounceable.

Oh dear I hope I haven't turned away people who are not into slash. It's only the... 5th day of april and it isn't a good time for people to stop reading. Friend B who was overhearing our squee-filled conversation about edward/ jacob got a little peeved.

It was almost like this: (my imagination has filled in the cracks in my memory)

ME: I hate twilight. Why would I read its fanfiction!
FRIEND: Oh, but you haven't heard of Edward/Jacob.
ME: *squees* Forks is a lovely picturesque place for violent shagging, what with its windy beach and deep forests.
FRIEND: And on their honeymoon they would break more than just pillows...
ME: And the ways they could deal with the werewolves are hot/ vampires are cold thing...

[and we get carried away.]

People in real life think I'm weird after they learn that I like slash. They think that it's weird that anyone would like slash because it's so perverse. And then I learn not to mention Merlin and Queer as Folk and Snapecast again.
There's more to slash than just the shagging-- the best slash sometimes doesn't have sex at all, because the portrayal of love between the two characters is just so much more endearing, intricate and filled with conflict. It's these human elements of slash that makes good fics enjoyable to read, since sexy oneshots are a dime a dozen.

Just another day in the life of a harry-potter-obsessing, beatles-singing and spring-awakening-reciting nerdfighter.

oh dear. this is getting to look like Blog Every Other Day April (BEODA)
What am I going to say!
It would be absatively boring to talk about what went on today. How people do [vlog every day april] is incredible to me. To take time out to film and edit a video... every day?! Maybe it's just lack-of-time-management-skills me.

In other news, lemonfacee (rachel) has uploaded a new video! Yay! She's studying for her gcses, and I sympathise.

I think my blogskin is terribly generic at the moment. The only worry I have is that I'll pick a skin that about something I like for only a period of time, then I'll get tired of it, and not change to something else because I think it's too troublesome to pick out another one. Also, having a generic blogskin is more professional! (I only think this way because people I follow don't have kitschy blogskins.)

Right. I'll look up maureen johnson and her advice on how to write a blog. How do her blogposts get so long?! (I'm obviously not considering the fact that she is a professional writer.)
Meep. I think I'll go with #2: TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DID ALL DAY

Hmm. Today I woke up at 8, had tuition, then breakfast. SLEPT from 10-12.30. I had to repay my debt to the Sleep Bank. Really. I sleep at 1-2am most days and wake up at 6.30 for school. Ah. This still doesn't justify why I am such a pig, but back to the point.

Went for lunch. Had pasta at a japanese place.
Had a haircut, ended up looking like V from V for Vendetta. Laughed at mirror when hairdresser was done, like I did with the last haircut. This time, at least, I merely giggled. Hairdresser makes indecipherable expression, moves on to next customer. Dad agrees that I look like V. Despair! At least I resemble a fictional revolutionary.

Came home, watched CSI: NY on dvd, was impressed by cinematography but not much else. My alliances lie with the original CSI, the one with gil grissom!

Sat myself down to a 3 1/2 hour online practice SAT test while listening to internet radio playing 50s/ 60s music; scored dismally. I swear it was the music.

Watched an old movie on cable after dinner (I need to watch less TV) and successfully missed project runway.

And that was my day! On weekdays this gets less interesting, so I might start to agonise a lot more. tchus!

OH snap snap snap it's the third of April already, 1.28am.

Can we count this as the second? Because, well, it's technically the _night_ of the 2nd, right? I'll do another tomorrow. For the third of April. And if you are in a different time zone (i.e. Hailee's) it's the afternoon of the 2nd of april for you. So there.

I don't know what to write today. I can type fast today yay!
Because a lot of people on youtube are doing the VEDA thing, I got a lot of new videos in my subscriptions list. Those whom I know for sure are doing this are calliedonia and nerimon. And italktosnakes is doing the blog thing!

Oh darn I haven't registered or done the admin things that maureen said on her blog ><

Great news! My friend is a converted nerdfighter :D she's on the ning already and watched some of the brotherhood2.0 videos and gets "in my pants" jokes! yay. She does videos, too: http://www.youtube.com/user/feltonfeynman They're mostly stop-motion, which take incredibly long to do. And they're funny, and she does all the voices herself. (in a german accent)

Should this blog be longer? This sounds bad, but I don't really *get* the point of Blog Every Day April. Maybe when I have done the required entire month, I will reach enlightenment, and understand the truth of the universe! I've read maureen johnson's blog and everything, and part of the reason for this is to encourage you to write. A good thing, obviously, but what about people who don't use proper language? And the things I write on this blog don't really count as good writing, on account of the disorganisation and the lack of quality.

Urgh does anyone watch American Idol? I'm so sad megan got voted out. Almost as sad as last season when michael johns got the boot. My friend was so surprised because CLEARLY he was the best in terms of skill (and taste in music) Megan does jazz and it is lovely and not overly mainstream (sigh what is american idol but mainstream) but anyway she sounds good. And I would buy her album straightaway IF she had one :(

The current music scene doesn't need more Adam Lamberts who play up to market demand and popularity. Megan should have a myspace page. And put songs up on itunes. And people would buy them! At least, the people who voted for her and posted her songs on youtube.

meep. I think I'll do the blog every day april thing that maureen johnson did. (BEDA) Will fix up the links on the next post.
This is the first one! It's 2.18am first april so technically it counts.

Interesting News of late. (haha- "late" get it? Right the wee hours aren't good for making jokes.)

1. I have discovered Google Reader, as recommended by jazza. (rhymingwithoranges on youtube. he has a blog too, rhymingwithorangesblog.blogspot) It is so amazingly useful to catch up on all my rss feeds, since google desktop is not very favored by my family, who also use this computer.
Right now I have all the blogs I'm following on blogger-- various youtubers, neil gaiman, veggie blogs etc. So probably I'll put in all my friend's ljs-- chele and pooky included because ever since I took their links off for safety reasons, I've stopped visiting! So take this as good news as I will be popping by for tea and infringing upon your hospitality.

2. Realised hailee doesn't really know this blog, unless she follows the link from tumbleweedrabbits. But then again I don't exactly update very frequently...

3. Decided that I will do a vlog for Blog Every Day April (vlog every day april would be great if I had 30 hours in a day) and talk about it. Talk about maureen johnson. Be embarrassed that I am more familiar with YA writers than respected Modernists/ Romantics etc.

4. Realised, as of a minute ago, that I probably wouldn't follow through with BEDA, considering my past track records with nanowrimo. And also that I'll be taking my sats on the 2nd of may and my mum is crazy about getting me to practice as much as possible, and I won't really have time to blog. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because if I score well this time the score will be valid until 2014, when I am 21! Being the tender age of 16 permits me to naively think that five years is a long time.

5. Speaking of ages, a friend has a birthday this month, and I have to get her a cardigan. I Will Not Miss It. Really. ohdear um don't be my friend if you want birthday presents given to you on time? Yes. Although a much less hostile way of saying it is that I am a terribly forgetful and notsome friend. (YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE IN FOR when you fratenize with me)

6. will trot off to sleep now. The last time I slept for half an hour, I was amazed that my glasses were on my face, and got mildly shocked when I saw water in my waterbottle.