D: twitter was down yesterday and I couldn't check jbdazen's tweets. *sigh*
On the bright side, fiona has found my blog! *waves* after the whole ___room fuss. haha.

Haven't been posting for two weeks or so. What has transpired in my absence? hmm http://redbicycletea.blogspot.com has updated. So has tumbleweedrabbits. We're starting from scratch! It's relieving because all my icky pictures used to be on there and now they are not. phoung-nghi takes better pictures than I do. So does michele.

I keep watching jbdazen's The Geeks Are Out video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ae8mCVje0M) and I keep seeing myself... and the quality of the video pales in comparison to the other participants. I mean it's only a couple seconds (thank god for that) but argh seeing yourself in widescreen amongst other better youtubers is a bit discouraging. It's because I'm thin-skinned. I could have put in more effort, though, because when I filmed the video I was in a rush to go to school because I stupidly slept the night before. darn.

Happy thing! Washed the shoes I got from youswop and they fit like a glove! Because they were a bit big before and they shrank while washing, I guess. Got them for $12 in youswop money, which I swopped 1 sudoku player for. Yay for not spending real money. Though sometimes the youswop thing doesn't work because I really want shoes, but the shoes there are ugly/ don't fit me. And I can't buy any more clothes, because my closet is filled to the brim. I mean really. I can't fit my new clothes in. A wardrobe full of clothes and nothing to wear.

I don't think it's because I'm buying too many clothes, though. The last time I went shopping was two months ago (at the fleaflyflofun thing) and I only got a skirt. It's just that I have things that my parents/ relatives have gotten for me, but I hate them and never wear them. But it's not polite if you throw it away, because then they'll be like: "Where's the shirt I got you? Why aren't you wearing it?" And I still have things that don't fit me, that I used to wear when I was 10/ 11 years old. When you think about it, I'll be turning 17 next wednesday-- that means I've kept the clothes for far too long!

Don't think I should be shopping from now till exams though. I don't know. Sometimes when I haven't been going out, I really really feel that I need to get out of the school-home-tuition loop and do something or my brain will get fried.

Pfft won't get my camera back till tuesday so I can't catch up on video-uploading during the long weekend D: sigh. Yesterday during national day festivities, this ensued:

CHELE: *holding video camera, filming* Could you help me film?
ME: Sure! (jumps and grabs camera from her hands)
CHELE: (goes away)
PA SYSTEM: Could everybody sit down?
ME: oh crap oh crap (messes up footage)
CHELE: (returns) I'll take it from here
~another group comes on~
ME: Can I film this? I'm really good at keeping the camera still, I'm really good with video cameras... (really, I have only used video cameras twice in my life)
CHELE: But it's not mine-- I don't think you should be playing with it. If we can delete the footage it'll be ok.
ME: Okay, hand it over. I'll figure it out. (presses too many buttons and has no idea how to do this)
CHELE: It's not yours, woman, don't spoil it.
ME: But it's so shiny! Don't you realise how much memory this has? The quality of video? The battery life? (rambles and still can't figure it out)
OWNER OF CAMERA: (I do not know this person at all) Could I have my camera back?
ME: (Grudgingly returns camera with a sad look)
CHELE: (kicks me)

I deserved to be kicked. But! video cameras are so shiny...

Quote from AFP: (heh amanda palmer, not agency france-presse)

"Being alone is hugely important. I've often thought that if I'd had the internet as a teenager, I may never have become a good songwriter. I think would have been too addicted to all of the wonderful possibilities online - I was a very connection-hungry kid. But that time to INCUBATE as an artist, to really spend a lot of time alone and improvising and being bored and finding ways to fill up space, that's what made me blossom creatively. It took SPACE. I'll be really interested to see what happens with the next generation. The ones who are more tempted to play guitar hero than play guitar. But once again, I don't think there's a "better" or "worse"....I think it might just be a breeding ground for a new type of artist."

from http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/07/interview-amanda-palmer.html hypebot.com, in an email interview.

As good an argument as any to get my butt off the computer and start writing/ reading critically... and pass my Alevels.

Alas, I am wraught with a terrible inertia. (excuses.)
And a bad "I have to finish this, so I'll pull an all-nighter" work ethic.
Have been sleeping 2-3 hours a night for the past three days, and running on $1 coffee. That might explain the jumpiness and extreme emotions.

Hello readers. I suppose now you're going to get a blow-by-blow account of my reactions to what is happening RE: hbp and my video on BestWishesFromNL.

I subbed for Jonneke yesterday on the channel, and it took a freaking NINE HOURS to upload and a lot of agonising but it's up and I'm so ~happy! Have to find synonyms for happy; I'm using it too much. Right. I feel lucky! delighted! joyful! ecstatic! glad! no not just glad but very very satisfied and um Ah Ha. I am THRILLED.

There's only 1 tiny problem: I can't bring myself to watch it. I mean after I've edited the video it's hard to watch myself once it's uploaded because it's so mortifying. The thought that other people have actually watched you... do stuff is so scary. [lack of vocabulary much?] Okay in short: I am embarrassed of myself.

And I find myself questioning, over and over and over again:
Was I in the right mind while doing this?
Do I need Prozac?
What the heck was I thinking?!
aaand ohmygoodness I can't believe people are actually watching this.

Am going to squee on the blog mostly, I think, because people in real life would go: "What's a nerdfighter?" And think I am crazy for screaming, happy-dancing and mock-fainting. Because that's what I was doing (embarrassingly) when I was watching HBP.

Speaking of HBP, *spoiler alert* did anyone catch the reference to the Parselmouths when Hermione is at dinner with Slughorn, and she's like: "My parents are dentists, that means they fix teeth." ?
From "What Kind of Name is Hermione?" :
Have you heard that her parents are dentists? (Dentists?)
That means they pick around in dirty muggles' teeth. (Ew!)

Okay on hindsight it may not be a reference, but if you actually watched the movie, slughorn's like: "Your parents are muggles?" And the whole table turns and stares at her.

And during the felix felicis part I just kept on thinking about the Harry and the Potters song!
There's a part where someone mentions "Slug Club", and I squealed aloud -_-' because then I thought of Scarhead and HatP.

After the movie Nat and I were chatting:

NAT: Did you see Snape? He was like: *scowls*
ME: More like *smoulders*. Did you see the part where he pushes draco up against the wall?

I was talking about all the smutty snape bits, and Nat (who is not the slashy type) had to shush me and go "That is not the focus! The point is his acting skills!"

I was a little disturbed by the part where Ginny goes to Harry: "Oh, shoelace." *bends down to tie it*
And then she rises, trying to keep as much eye contact with Harry as possible. It's so suggestive! No you have to go watch it's so funny.

After that it's "Merry Christmas, Harry." Loved the way Bonnie Wright delivered the line, packed with meaning and sadness and all. But... isn't this supposed to happen in DH? The part where Harry is leaving the Burrow and then Ginny invites him into her room and goes: "Here's your birthday present. *Snogs*"

Would jump at the chance to see it again, since geeru and michele haven't watched it yet. Will bring a notebook and write down all the references and nifty things I want to talk about.

[/edit] Amidst all the hype, I forgot to mention the ginny/harry kiss! For the record, it was so much better than the harry/cho one: quality trumps quantity. Just because cho got more action doesn't mean the scene was *good*-- there was no subtlety in the cho kiss, just a lot of "wow harry's first girlfriend wow better take your time!" The way ginny and harry kissed was more adult but they were more comfortable around each other, so you KNOW ginny's in it for the long run. Cho's kiss felt more like Harry liked the novelty of having a girlfriend-- very lavender brown, actually.

And! I absolutely adored Helena Bonham-Carter in this one-- she made bellatrix seem less like a bitch and more like a crazy person I'd make friends with. But she's not so much scary as schitzo, which might undermine her power/ meaness/ malice as a character.

--Reading Hayley's and Kristina's blogs, and Kayley's and alwayspureblood's videos, hence the intermittent commenting--

Think nat and I like the scriptwriter [Steve Kloves] this time because the lines were actually _good_ and packed with meaning. I mean within the constraints of a movie there's only so much you can say, but every line had a purpose. [comedic humour doesn't really count] Like you have to listen really carefully because the lines convey as much as they're supposed to, and more. It was also lovely that the first few bits of the movie were quoted word for word from the book, I kid you not.

Though. I sorely missed the King's Cross part; it was the scene I was looking forward to the most. Provides closure and everything. The underground scene at the beginning is a good effort to allude to King's Cross, though. OH I know why they couldn't do King's Cross-- they've renovated the station a lot, so it wouldn't look the same as Philosopher's Stone.

AHHHH

OH MY GOODNESS

OH

I THINK I'M GOING TO FAINT.

I come back from HBP, and there are a TON omg omg omg of new subscribers omgomg omg omgomg I haven't even read them yet.

There are 11 new emails in my gmail inbox, 7 of them are youtube-related, and I HAVE 5 NEW SUBSCRIBERS.

I mean on a good day I only get 1 or 2 youtube messages and they're mostly advertisements, or "come watch this!" and today ahh OMG I totally didn't expect such a reaction. !!! *so insanely excited*

OH MY GOODNESS this means I have viewers! Who actually watch!

I've never had viewers or readers before.

if you'll notice, the blogposts lately seem to be CAPS CAPS CAPS and are usually either intensely angry/ annoyed, or intensely excited, but I tend only to blog about exciting things. And this blog is mainly for ranting, and an outlet for fangirling. Will try to moderate my emotions somewhat.

Even though people who know me in real life think I'm dull, mild and boring. Psychoanalyse my blog! :D :D :D

The other day I was having an English lesson, and we were reading an essay about new media vs traditional media. The writer talks about the evolution of media in the introduction, and the following conversation ensues:

STUDENT: What is movable type?
TEACHER: Um, I don't know. Portable type, I guess?

Issue #1: !!! wtf The essay was talking about movable type in the 16TH CENTURY yeah there were PORTABLE TYPEWRITERS in the 16th century, right? I mean the sentence even mentioned "printing press"-- isn't that an anvil-sized hint that maybe portable typewriters wasn't what the author was referring to?

From wiki: "Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual letters or punctuation)."

MAYBE my classmate was just trying to kid the teacher. But still! Argh how can you be so ignorant. This is the reason why I so badly want/ need to be somewhere else.

Issue #2: I was too hesitant/ too stupid/ lacking guts to correct the teacher and say something to the contrary. Out of my class of 22, no one else bothered to correct her either. [but that is not the issue] The issue is that I should have more gumption to correct her. If people in the class genuinely didn't know what "movable type" meant, they would go home with the wrong impression, all because I was too lazy to say something. Really, I'm just a selfish, spiteful idiot.

I haven't posted in ages! To a certain extent I think twitter takes the place of this. For those of you not following me on twitter, I have NEWS.

I've won a book!!!! Extreme Kissing by Luisa Plaja, all thanks to Ink and Paper Specials' Sex in Teen Lit Month.

So there. In Yo Face.

(To detractors: yes a YA book isn't much, and a month dedicated to YA sometimes doesn't sound like very in-depth reading, but Sex and the way it is portrayed to teen readers is important. Partly because teen readers are so impressionable, and partly because adults/ readers in general want to make sure that young adults get the right information about sex: what it is and what it isn't.

And sometimes people have different ideas about what is "right information" for teens. Should there be graphic sex scenes? Should there be clear messages/ preaching in the book? What about abortion and safe sex?

Sex is also more than intercourse itself: in Sweet-Valley- High type novels, the "good girl" doesn't want it at all, but the "bad girl" does. Does that mean that girls shouldn't have the urge to have sex at all? Guys, also, do not just have One Thing and one thing only on their minds. )

Further Discussion! over at http://inkandpaperspecials.blogspot.com/

She only has 26 blog followers! So go follow. There are reviews of YA novels, interviews with YA authors, as well as discussions. (Jo, the reviewer, replies to most comments!) Ink and Paper Specials is also on twitter: http://twitter.com/jo_scrawls

Okay after I put the link to Sex in Teen Lit Month in the sidebar --->
(proper writeup for that in due time, I've got 15 min to do this post)

I feel that a more dignified blogpost is warranted! No silly rants about movies or wasted money. None 0f that frivolous, trite stuff. Today I am going to blog about something that is of grave importance.



*drumroll*




Oh my goodness I simply cannot wait!!!! *squee* Oh my goodness Oh how long have I waited for this movie to come out!

(YEAH boycotters, what are you going to do now, huh? When almost EVERYONE is squeeing and planning gatherings for the premiere in MAJOR CITIES. )

I cannot imagine that it's only a little more than one week to its release! Have been waiting and waiting and waiting since november when they postponed it, and even before that we were all waiting and WB released promo material already and they HAD to postpone it...

No matter! I am loyal to the fandom! (Not to mention to those in the film industry.) I will watch it! On the 16th of july! On the 15th if I can score tickets/ permission.

I will find someone to go with me! (Finally, the one potter thing where I know people in the area.) If YOU, lucky person, would like to go with me, I will be going on the evening of the 16th most probably. So comment! Email! elocin12@gmail.com and we will ~gather~ and fangirl/boy and squee. I will be taking video! So Be Warned.

The following is a extended rant/ complaint, so HEADS UP PEOPLE.

Argh I know this sounds selfish but I don't want to want Transformers 2. I mean REALLY? You really think I like watching movies of that nature? There's nothing good on and the reason why I don't watch movies in theatres because I hate wasting money on a horrible 2-3 hours. And argh I only spend when I KNOW the movie is going to be reasonably good, (haha this means I only watch 1-2 movies a year out of my own volition) which means I don't mind spending on HBP.

Yes I sound ridiculously poor but the cheapest movie ticket is $6 and that's on weekdays and I'd rather spend on bookmooch/ youswop postage or postage to friends than on MOVIES which are like consciously condemning yourself to a bad time. If you watch a crappy movie. I might be only talking like this because the last movie I saw was race to witch mountain, and I thought they'd stopped making movies with awful writing. But they didn't, so.

I am not willing to take the risk of Transformers turning out to be a cheesy, I-am-going-to-puke-movie. That's what I felt when I watched Witch Mountain. If the writing is horrible (which it probably will be) I swear I will walk out and go cd-hunting. No matter who I'm watching it with.

This is bordering on being pretentious but I _wanted_ to watch Hannah Montana which is practically the movie that tops B grade movies. This says volumes about my taste.

Oh great oh great I really don't want to spend my after-exam-time with lavender brown. I mean I keep thinking of all the post-midyears, and how incomparable they are to what I'm going to do tomorrow. 2 years ago I went out with charisse and michele shopping for SIX HOURS and I didn't regret/ dread it at all. And I never used to willingly go out with someone when I know I'm going to have an unpleasant time.

And then last year me and geeru went to the science centre after lunch with michele and nat. Although that sounds dorky, it was quite intriguing, and I had fun being defeatist with witty geeru who was nice enough to agree with my crazy ideas. I remember a conversation from that day-- we wanted to find out how to acquire a tourist map, in order to figure out where to go.

Okay tomorrow if I really hate it I can fake sick and go make/ edit videos and acquire books and everything will be better.

Another something on Hard Work by Orson Scott Card:

"How about opportunity? The great geniuses of the home computer revolution all seemed to be born at around the same time -- three or four years after me. (Which is fine -- I wouldn't have been in the running because I didn't care enough.)

What was so magical about 1954 and 1955? Because these kids were coming of age at precisely the time when computers transitioned from punch cards to terminals with screens. Instead of carrying your computer program in a shoebox, it was stored electronically, and you could change it on a screen.

So if you were just as smart, and just as in love with computers, but were already out of college as a punch-card computer programmer, the revolution took place under your nose -- but you weren't really part of it. And if you were just as smart, etc., but were born three years later, when you got to the party the punch was already gone.

But it's more than talent, and more than luck. How about 10,000 hours?

The number is approximate, but that's about how much practice and work the "geniuses" put into their careers to take them over the threshold into the big leagues.

Sure, there's some natural talent or aptitude. But then comes decision time -- are you going to really do this, or just continue plinking around at it?

Musicians. Painters. Writers. Mathematicians. Computer programmers. Game designers. Actors. Singers. They don't sit around feeling good about themselves and building up their self-esteem. They do the work. They put in the time.

I didn't even know I was going to be a writer. I was in drama, not writing. But I sat there, hour after hour, filling notebooks with play scripts or short stories or essays. I was a writer, whether I thought of that as my career or not.

And I put in my ten thousand hours.

It's like I tell novice writers. You learn more from writing a 100,000-word novel than from any number of classes. (Except, of course, the ones I teach.) (OK, I was including them as well.)

I also tell my students that every writer has to produce ten thousand pages of pure drivel. Some people have to write all ten thousand pages before they produce anything good. Some of us are luckier and get to have our lousy pages spread out over our whole career, so we can be earning money along the way.

Talent? Sure -- any amount of it above a certain threshold.

Opportunity? Absolutely -- grab it when you see it.

Hard work? Essential. As Gladwell makes clear, nobody gets to the top of any creative field without working at it until they simply know things that other people can't even guess at. "

Putting it in because heh motivation is sorely needed-- Chem (my first paper) is in 4 days! So, if I want to go anywhere and get out and away... I need decent A levels. And decent A levels requires one to be able to answer questions, but I can't do that :( Practice, my friends, is in order.

This is not the time to be whining about subject combinations, Nicole!!! You picked what you wanted to do, so stick with it. Be grateful you don't have any papers on monday or friday. Stop reading amandapalmer's tweets! Is she going to help you pass chem???

Back! From week-long hibernation.

During the WLC (World Leadership Conference) there was a recurring conversation:

FRIEND: Are you planning to go to a university in singapore?
ME: No not really. *mumbles something about expanding horizons*
FRIEND: So where would you like to go to university?
ME: Um. The UK?
FRIEND: Any particular universities in mind?
ME: Um mm uh Melbourne Uni if I can get the scholarship?
[Yes, melb is kind of not in the UK but I've said that New South Wales was in WALES, so you understand my aptitude in geography.]
FRIEND: Oh okay.

So friends! Naturally I embark on a quest to find The University.
A vietnamese friend who went to the conference goes to Wesleyan University, so I google it, and do the campus tour and all that jazz. To find out about what other people thought about it, I tried collegeboard.com, and then I see this amazing academic program called Semester at Sea. So I google that, and I found this!

SEA Semester is this exciting program in Woods Hole, MA. You get to earn 17 college credits while spending a semester of college there, plus actually sail and learn to man[?] a working ship. You spend a few weeks on shore first, attending classes, and then about 3 weeks at sea carrying out an independent research project. When I first read it I was like [!!!] I would kill to be able to earn academic credits while doing fieldwork and learning about conservation, sustainability, genetic anthropology and the like.

It sounds a lot like what I did in wales-- fieldwork, testing your own hypotheses, understanding the significance of the tests you're conducting, getting to be up close with intertidal organisms etc. There is a large variety of programs they're offering:

"Ocean Exploration takes an interdisciplinary approach that combines data and insights from oceanography, the humanities and social sciences, and public policy – together with practical skills in nautical science – so students can develop a broad understanding of the sea."
You take courses like Oceanography, Nautical Science and Maritime Studies.

Aaand in Maritime Studies you get to do Maritime Literature, which I hope is what the kid says in the video about NOVELS about sailing like The Old Man and the Sea, because then I would squee! It's like... studying The Great Gatsby before going to NYC or doing something like Wuthering Heights or Rebbecca or even Brideshead Revisited before visiting an English estate complete with country and moors and things. Ahh omg I can't imagine earning credits for this.

and then there's "SEA Semester: Oceans and Climate provides an unequaled opportunity for undergraduate science students to study the place of the oceans in one of the pivotal scientific questions of our time – global climate change."

If I want to do this I have to do a science major, but I shouldn't base my decision on SEA Semester because I might not even get in (25 people per program; there are only so many people that can fit on a sailing ship) but still! It's a good reason, right, to do a science major? Ach the non-science majors I would take might be political science or sociology, but sometimes when I choose my major I think: I would like to be able to take philo classes along with ecology and environmental studies; there is so much that I do not know o_o but that's for another blog post.

Anyway in SEA Semester: Oceans and Climate there's a Oceanographic Research Techniques course which means I'll get to do fieldwork!! :D And look at plankton samples and intertidal organisms... there's a wide range, with [acoustic measurements of water flow] as one of the research options, which is very physics. Exciting exciting

When you look at the pictures, also, the ships they're sailing are REAL ships, with sails and masts and everything. Not like lame cruise ships/ yachts with no sails. The sails are so Dawn Treader, right? Go go look at the pictures. There's a part where Lucy leans off the bowspirit and looks at the merpeople and sometimes Reepicheep goes up to the crow's nests and the rain will fall on deck like a real STORM, just like in Dawn Treader! If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's just a lot like Pirates of the Caribbean.

eee it would be lovely to go. Really exciting. And there is TRAVEL involved! And managing on your own! And no cellphone signals or internet in the middle of the OCEAN. (Onboard computers are only for research purposes) You're just left alone to do your research and work and let the sea inspire you. Talk about isolation! :D The ship also docks at places like Bahamas, Cuba, and Jamaica, and you get to go onshore to visit.

Has anyone read Troubling a Star by Madeline L'engle? It sounds A LOT like that, with the lectures and sense of community.

omg omg omg LOOK at the hbp posters in a nyc subway station!

I love this photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33124343@N07/3619082336/in/set-72157619574502635/

and and alan rickman and tom felton look so hot in this one!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33124343@N07/3618314885/in/set-72157619574502635/

*fangirls* I seriously CAN'T WAIT.
Especially with the stupid 7-month delay and all, and the trailer excitement... I can only be patient for so long!
*squee*
I think I'll have to catch up with mugglecast, pottercast, and snapecast.

In Neil Gaiman's blog it says that he and amanda palmer are dating and it is so !!! exciting. I mean they are both awesome people who produce things that are macabre, fantastical and intriguing-- I wonder if this will lead to more creative collaborations, like the coffeetable book.
Yes. Like a selfish, impersonal fan, their creations are the only things I'm worrying about.

Talking about the tabs I'm being led to here-- so neil gaiman links to kyle cassidy, the photographer of Who Killed Amanda Palmer, and I'm reading his lj. There's a post that talks about the value of hard work in a different way, and it kind of makes me hopeful that One Day I could volunteer at a harry potter conference or One Day I could be at an anthropological excavation site and discover something exciting or One Day I could be studying succession along the eroding coastline of south africa. As in if I really really want something and I really work hard at getting at it and looking out for opportunities the chances of me getting it are higher.

There's a similar trend of thought in on the nerdfighter blog by alan lustufka (fallofautumndistro) that talks about working at building up one's audience.

It's not that I've never heard about the value of hard work before, but to hear it from people I respect and admire puts another spin on it. Honestly though, who else to learn the value of hard work than from people whose jobs I would kill to have, and from people who have put in years of effort to get where they are?

another gaiman/palmer link: http://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/469136.html (watch the video!)

Kyle Cassidy quote: (taken from the comments of the post with the gaiman/palmer video)

"i can truly say that it doesn't capture the moment. it merely proves that it happened. it might have been lack of sleep, it might have been wearing the same clothes for a week ... it might have been a lot of things, all on top of one another ... but it was a Very Special Moment that i don't think can ever be explained or quantified.

sadly. because part of me would like to reach out and grasp it from time to time. but that's the lazy part. the rational part of me realizes that every day should be better than the one before. and we march onward -- trusting in sweat and luck. the harder we work, the luckier we are."

Right gtg offline now to attempt to cancel the effects of my mooning (WHAT was I thinking?!) and to make it for the WLC tomorrow. I need to remember to bring my camera!

[/edit] And I thought teenage girls were the only ones who did blogged in white font or small undecipherable letters. Blog link here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/06/edinburgh-in-august.html Picture here: http://twitpic.com/7acx7

hello I just have to say after catching up on google reader-- reading sam's sydney's mustard rabbit's hailee's and kristina's blogs-- I feel happy and convinced that the World has promise and hope and All Is Not Lost. :D *happy*

like the mario kart love song. ahh I can't link it now because I'm in school and you can't get youtube but if you watch meekakitty you'll know or try searching it on youtube? Trust me it's wonderful and pretty.

Realised that I could embed a video by just going to someone else's blog with a video embedded and clicking "view source". >( all the fuss for nothing.

I only know this because of a puzzle game I played in sec 1/ primary 6 in which they give you the first page and you have to find the url to the next, and sometimes clues will be in "view source". It was like thisisnottom, for the nerdfighters reading this.

--since the days I played the puzzle game, (for the life of me I cannot remember what it was called! former classmates you played it too... remind me?) I have realised they have made the source code (correct me if I'm using the wrong term) coloured 8D I'm using internet explorer 8, if that makes any difference. However, the coloured source code DOES make a difference! It is so much easier to read. Like technicolour. --- [anyone watching Joseph, by the way?]

okay I hope this works.

[/edit] view source didn't work; will try to trawl for the crack way. In the meantime, here's the link


Above song made me feel like I was being swept up into the teen movement where you go out and buy cool clothes and go to cool concerts and listen to cool music and adopt the attitude of the times.

Back to the last post! On Writing.

I think I would like to start writing again, but D: in my head I just know it's going to turn out horribly cliched, like all teenage writing [yes yes stereotype] And I've written too many book review- like things which attempt to be witty and have Structure as opposed to Style, if I were to write fiction or poetry. Ahh how how how I don't know how to BEGIN. The moment I start putting pen to paper out comes these horrible horrible things that are dredged up from the recesses of my mind that should not be allowed to see the light of day, ever.

Maybe I should write some pretentious parody/ humor thing that won't be so pressurising because people are _meant_ to laugh at it. As opposed to writing something that will be laughed at but is supposed to be serious. (I laugh at serious writing all the time. It's the Seasoned Critic in me. ) I don't mind doing art-critic type things where you can cattily flame somebody or fangirl another and sound pretty clever doing it, without even trying.

Meep I guess if I continue to stay within my comfort zone of doing editorial-like things-- which don't sound much different from blogposts, actually-- I won't be learning anything new. Challenge is a good thing! You learn from it and gain skills and are better equipped for the next challenge! So I will do it! I will, um, write a short story by next monday! okay you know when I say these things I NEVER do them but uh hope? And a REWARD. hmm. I like rewards.

Someone go out with me next week! And politely decline my invitation if the writing is not produced. I don't know.
oh yes Shopping. I will ask someone out and we will go shopping and I will stop wearing clothes I wore when I was 12.

Whenever I lack the motivation, I will remind myself of judy garland's love poems she wrote when she was 18. No offence to a lovely voice, but she wrote some pretty b-grade poetry, I can tell you. Reading her biography right now, hence the reference. I didn't know there was more to her than dorothy gale before reading it. After looking up wikipedia, I now know that she was a gay icon (yay!) and took speed. (felicia's drug of choice, by the way)

This song appeared in my head during the 2-hour marathon bio lecture. Actually when I say it, it doesn't sound long, but it felt long because it was hard to grasp a lot of the details of dna transcription. And I was woefully confused. Back to my trusty colourful bio book!

arrgh I don't know how to embed youtube videos when the code isn't there! And it isn't there for a lot of the videos that I want to embed D: but on the nerdfighter blog and the maureen johnson blog they can embed ANYTHING and it's easier to watch the videos/ know what they are referring to straightway. I'm sure there's a crack way to do this for videos whose uploaders don't want it to be distributed.

um. Yes when I looked up kimiko glenn, who plays Thea in the touring cast of spring awakening, I saw that she went to _Interlochen_ and went to look that up again, and thought that I would die to go to a place like that. It is so incredibly awesome and crazy but O_O in a good way. {realise the extent of my eloquence at this point} oh dear and then what did I spend my formative years doing?? I feel so pathetic, and talentless. Actually I really am pathetic and talentless... but you know that already. Those people are so amazing technically and to be able to go to a school like that and focus and cultivate your talent is an enormous opportunity.

Then I started thinking about my Creative Writing (that I used to do when I was in primary school and more hardworking than I am now) and what would have happened if I went to a place like that. That if I'd worked harder at actually writing and creating a proper portfolio I might have had a chance. So I'm here thinking "missed opportunity" and aw shucks. Which brings me to the conversation I had with a friend the other day:

LOVELY FRIEND: So why aren't you in the Creative Writing Club?
ME: I think that... I'm too old to write.
LF: How can you be too old to write? You're only 17-- what would have happened if [famous author] decided to stop writing at 17?

And her argument is supremely valid, because of course john green and all the writers whose blogs I read started nurturing their writing abilities from the minute they knew how to form a sentence, and if they just gave up at 17 we wouldn't be able to read what they have written today.

So yeah it's kind of like a pity, as she says, that I have stopped. I mean the last time I did anything of that kind was at that summer programme with Harold V. Crick, which was... one and a half years ago. And I haven't written anything since then. Except an epic elegy mourning lost love that is drawn out and excruciating like the "seventy times seven" bit in the beginning of wuthering heights. And a couple book reports for munny. i.e. the newspaper sends me movie passes and I pawn them off on youswop to get something I actually want; they are too poor to send actual money.

Anyway. I think I stopped writing because I thought that I sucked compared to my peers. You know when you're a kid everyone thinks you're precocious and showers praise and everything but when you get older they kind of expect it from you, and if you don't give it, it's like :( I thought I was lousy. And gave up. And was too lazy to do anything about it or attempt to work harder at it because I thought any effort would be useless since everybody's so much more adept than me. This inferiority complex-thing.

Arggh and now that I think of it, it's so dumb to give up because why should anyone tell you that you aren't good enough? I mean it's ok for someone to tell you that, but that shouldn't stop you from trying again. Even if your writing sucks, if you work at it and take constructive comments (oddly, the internet is a good place for this) you will get better. Or at least more tailored to people's tastes and be able to sell yourself/ make money out of it. Like Nora Roberts. But that's another story.

meek I have these points but they are jumbled up in my head and it's 2.25am and I can't sleep in math ==== Will continue tomorrow. Feel free to spam if I don't.

Today I went for a long car ride and to the supermarket, and felt dizzy and faint from over stimulation.

... I need to get out more.

um. I have concluded that the main reason for wanting to go to university somewhere else is because I want to be physically separated from my parents.

This is the dumbest and most immature reason there is, but no matter how many times I think it over, it always comes up at the top.
It is also not saying anything about my sensibility or rationality either.
Not that I am known for being rational.

icky ick I can't stand it here I need to get away and the mindless gay marriage/ sex education debate that's making the rounds is just making it worse.
Though I understand the religious reasons for it. And I can see the need for the government to be diplomatic about everything, since asian/ traditional values are still very fundamental to the framework of our society, and they are interwoven with the community. eg mendaki, singapore hokkien association help people find jobs and do things like meals on wheels and financial assistance.

I just can't stand the drivel I'm being made to hear, about people saying that being gay is just an inclination and that it can be "conditioned". There's this adult I know who says that it is the parent's fault if the child is gay because the parent has spoiled the child and has been too indulgent. There's also this general view that people are being gay because of single parent families.

And URGH the thing I hate most is that people can't tell being transgendered from being gay, or rather differentiate between wanting to be a member of the opposite gender and liking someone of the same gender.

There are SO MANY misconceptions and it's so disappointing.

I mean when I hear this I'm like: ohmygoodness how can people even come to these conclusions why are they oversimplifying things and urgh treating lgbtqs like freaking aliens!

And I increasingly want to leave for greener pastures.

AHHHHHH



Saw the spring awakening tour videos, and was mooching around online, and found out that I *might* just make it for the one in baltimore!!!!!!!!!!



Because the parents want me to sign up for a summer programme in the states, and if I get accepted into the one at johns hopkins, I MIGHT GET TO WATCH SA. The one at johns hopkins is from may 26- june 26, and the SA tour dates in baltimore are june 9-21, and I am convinced that THIS IS A SIGN that I have to apply for summer school there. AHHH I'll be watching the same cast as the people at leakycon will be watching! I have to do my research! Get to know the cast! Like, Intimately!



Damn and blast why can't I type fast enough. When I noticed that the spring awakening tour dates so COINCIDENTALLY coincided with leakycon I felt like: WHY. THIS IS NOT FAIR and ALL THE NERDFIGHTERS WOULD BE SQUEE-ING TOGETHER and they would all have fun and be at wrock bands and... you get the gist. And then now I *just* might get to see it and I am so STOKED although darn I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch. As in I have to get accepted first, right? And settle the flight plans and school plans --ARGH june holidays don't start till may 30 and I have an effing TEST on the 27th so I might have to work things out.



But I really REALLY hope that there will still be tickets left... (checks)

Okay there are still tickets left, and good seats too, but meep this might mean I have to book online to ensure I get a ticket. Which is the least of my problems. OH CRAP what if the people there are strict and everything, and they don't let me go out to watch it? At trinity we were allowed to go, but it was in large groups and with a PA.



Actually finding someone to go with might not be much of a problem on the ning or on SA forums.

And the chances of this plan actually going through are practically 10% at this point, because there are so many things to finalise. And it's late, and people have already planned their summers by now >( It wouldn't hurt to try, though, for JH.

[edit: turns out that I missed the deadline by a month D: This post is going to be funny when I read this in the future, but not at the moment. ]

The Last Day! This is sad :'(

Before I started, I did not really understand what was the point of BEDA. All I had to do for BEDA was crap a little for every day of the month, and if I did that, I could say I did BEDA.

But gradually, knowing that there were actual people reading my blogs and commenting, I began to have more ownership over what I wrote every day. I discussed interesting issues, and tried to make sure all the bases of the argument were covered. I made sure the writing and expression was clear, paid attention to paragraphing, and basically attempted to make my blog marginally interesting to read.

It was a lovely feeling, knowing that at the end of the day, someone on the other side of the world was going to read what you had written. I looked forward to reading the comments on my blogposts, so thank you for commenting continuously every day :D I'm going to miss Summer, Rachel, Abby, Ingrid, for encouragement when beda first began, and most of all, my BEDA BUDDIES :D Alison, Julia, Julia Rios and Riane, thanks for commenting so contentiously, and for introducing good music and writing insightful posts. We will be the only 5-person group of BEDA'09! (there isn't a name yet, is there?)

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.