http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z301/theclotheshorse/NYCFW2010/IMG_1667.jpg
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z301/theclotheshorse/NYC%20Fall%202010/IMG_5222-1.jpg

I want to have hair like her! :D The fringe, the redness...
http://theclothes.blogspot.com/

我想，如果自我认知并无法给我自信，
那么什么才会呢？
我是要让自己所有的缺点消失才会相信自己是好的吗？
那时不可能的啊！
我的缺陷是我的一部分，如果改变了，我只是对一个陌生的躯壳感到满意。
或许只要让自己再漂亮一点，聪明一点，勇敢一点。。。。

到头来，只有改变成不是自己的自己才能让我更相信自己的能力。
这也没办法。
自信是无德无能的庸人唯一的安慰，
唯一能让我放下追求完美得到自信的方法，
恐怕只有接受和以往我的缺陷才行吧。

自恋一点，自爱一点，自信一点。

So my friend wrote the above. She asked the question; "Is it true that one will only have self esteem if one does not have ANY negative qualities?" (我是要让自己所有的缺点消失才会相信自己是好的吗？) Because you tend to think lowly of yourself because of your negative qualities, and sometimes, if you're feeling exceptionally low, you think, "oh, if only I wasn't _______". But everyone has their weaknesses, and most people have self esteem regardless, so why isn't it possible to feel good about oneself?

She continues to say that our weaknesses are part of our identities; that they are inherently part of us. She asks the question, "In the end, won't I have to change my entire personality in order for me to have confidence in my own abilities?" (到头来，只有改变成不是自己的自己才能让我更相信自己的能力。)

Which made me think about how I regularly think about myself. (meta-thinking!) In the end, she encourages everyone to "love themselves a little more". (自恋一点，自爱一点，自信一点。) <3

hello!

So today there were more than the usual blogposts in my feed aggregator.

I'd like to respond!

I don't care what I did in RJ or what I did as part of school or what I did outside academics. I don't care about anything in relation to RJ. I don't care :D :D :D

fin.

B-quartet again! I picked this one because there's drums in it and you can see the DRUMMER. (more about that later)

Anyway. Went to see them again on saturday, and they are SO much better live. Admittedly everyone is better live (except Backyard Surgeons, who are better on myspace) but this was a really different experience. I think they tried to make it an integrated audio/ visual thing, because there was a projector set up, as well as an OHP, for light demonstrations.

To start, the whole set-up made a difference to how you would listen to their music. The performance was held in the Substation Theatre, and the entire band was spread out across the room. The audience had to sit on the floor in the middle of the band, so to speak, and some people were sitting really close to the bass guitarist, or the supporting vocalist. The lead vocalist was at one end of the dance-studio sized theatre, the sound engineer and guitarist were next to him, OHP was right in the middle, the drummer was near the OHP projection, the other guitarists were at the corners of the room opposite the lead vocalist, and the supporting vocalist was at the corner opposite the drummer. (unfortunately, I am not learned enough to identify who was playing bass.)

In this way, with the audience in the middle, you could see the leader of the band communicating with his bandmates, and the vibe they had going on. Rather than playing to us, I felt that B-quartet were playing through us, so to speak, as if we were a conduit for their music. When we were all sitting on the floor, you could feel the drums and the bass vibrating through the floorboards, and you felt as if the music was possessing you for a little bit. I said earlier that attending a gig was like giving permission to the artist to take some of your time, and I really enjoyed giving B-quartet my time and mind space.

All this time and I haven't even discussed how they sound like! The whole time I felt as if I was being reminded of something, and then I realised that they're is like Jack Conte and Ursula Rucker COMBINED. I like the range of instruments they use-- they used an oboe, and ethnic malay instruments, among others. The lead singer plays as if he is in his own world (hence the resemblance to Jack Conte) They also do spoken word to some impressive riffs and synth music. (hence the resemblance to Ursula Rucker.) I like the way they use the pedal to record and playback and loop :)

The drummer is also super INTENSE and really into it. I can't describe it. It's hard to find any online recordings that is remotely like what he plays, because the live experience is so different, and so real. It might be a far stretch, but if you listened to Brian Viglione's drums on the last few tracks of Face of the Sun, it's just like that. The drums are mesmerising and they almost put the audience into a trance-- I could feel myself moving to the same beat, along with other people in the crowd, and the guitar players were also getting into it at the same time. That's why I like live music-- it's like sharing the experience with total strangers in a collective body. They played music video-like film at the same time, and the images were kind of surreal. There were lots of jump cuts, obnoxious, blinding flashes, and playbacks of mundane things like rain falling on a window pane. Do you see what I'm getting at? To describe the experience as "trippy" is an understatement.

I was talking to a guy after the show:

PERSON: So how did you find it?

ME: I liked it; it was like an acid trip 8D

PERSON: So have you had one before? *cough* excuse me, I meant, have you heard them before?

LOL.

Good stuff. They're playing at the Substation on saturday, so I might see them :)

Prelims were over today, attempted (the nominal word here is "attempted") to have lunch with Chele and Nat, but failed horribly xD Because me and geeru were kind of really late to meet Chele and Nat, but they'd already had lunch and a bit of a shop around already. But Nat! Was nice to see her, I haven't been out with her in ages. <3

Geeru dragged me to this japanese buffet, which is all-you-can-eat, with a 1 hour time limit. I like eating! I like buffets! There were a ton of vegetarian options, which made me a happy bunny indeed ^^ You would think this was a perfect fit, right? xD We ended up eating so much we were going to burst. At one point geeru flipped down the timer (everyone has one, they set it for 50 min) because it was so stressful haha. But the buffet was nice; it had omu rice, curry rice, soup and bread, japanese pasta, pizza, ICE CREAM CREPES, and tons of mousse-type cakes. Next time we plan to start with dessert. #strategy Needless to say, I skipped dinner today.

After that we went to the art museum (SAM) and it was nice visiting with someone, because you could talk about the pictures and squee. *reminds self to send MoMA song to geeru* I like that Art is as much a process for the creator as for the viewer; if the viewer didn't feel anything or think anything about the picture, then the picture almost ceases to exist. I'm getting philosophical now. I really really want to take a philo class in uni, seeing how arka is enjoying his classes at BU. Not sure if I'll apply to BU, but I'll probably apply to the liberal arts colleges in New England because they have the SEA semester thing. And it's a easy eliminator.

Gosh I miss geeru. We only get to see each other what, once a month? And that is way too little. Today we talked about how we would keep in touch, as we looked at people's correspondence. Geeru kept on bringing it up, and I couldn't help but be reminded by imminent separation. We've been friends for ages now. I don't believe that you can measure friendship by how long you've known the person, but geeru's my go-to person for everything, and always has been. She's done things for me I don't even think she's aware of.

I'll miss her.

watched this again and got emotional xD

I first watched it 2 years ago.

ah, good times.

new song! You Say Party are going to tour with Tegan and Sara, and they're a canadian band. #woop Canadian acts are awesome. Although I may only say this because of alanis morisette, and The Nifflers, therefore I am Not A Reliable Source. But still.

They sound like a cross between The XX (2010 Mercury prize winner! yay) and Ellie Goulding, or just like any other hipster stuff that you're hearing nowadays. They're not as dancy as Robots in Disguise, though. Just good not-top-40 stuff to drown yourself in. And honestly. How could you not listen to a band with a name like this?

"So, what kind of music are you into?"

"Oh, just You Say Party." [+1000 indie points]

see? Perfect for any social situation where you'd like to demonstrate your refined taste in music.

they sound like the Beatles! or John Lennon. go look up their myspace; they have entire albums uploaded there, and the sound quality is better.

esther passed away today.

I don't know what to think. I'm thinking so many things but I'm too lazy to wallow in it.

This will probably be a bunch of succinct, disjointed thoughts.

I really should make a public blog, so that people online can keep in touch with me better, rather than through short bursts of tweets.

This blog/ personal posts are mainly read by pooky, michele and geeru anyway; so I could write emails to them instead. Anyone else reading this who would also like to be updated personally please tell me, and I'll email you.

When I got home this afternoon, I was just following up on @maureenjohnson's earlier tweet about esther being critically ill. @arkapain also said some stuff about it, and he was worried to wake up to find out that esther died. Checked esther's caringbridge to find out that she had been admitted into the ICU, and wrote on her guestbook. I was optimistic, and thought that this crisis would one that we could tide over.

Later on in the evening, 5 hours later, I checked twitter to read that someone had RTed john green's tweet about esther's passing. I couldn't believe it at first, but then it shocked me that this could happen.

I keep thinking about how much life she had in front of her; people to love and be loved by, school to graduate from, death eaters to defeat.

Selfishly I want the world to stop, and everyone on my twitter feed to just stop tweeting about their stupid insignificant lives and feel sad about her death.

Of course not everyone I follow knows who esther was (it's so strange typing "was") and just. It's ridiculously counter productive but I don't know I just want people to stop being happy; but the world goes on.

Now I'm thinking about mortality and death and how your existence: no matter how famous you were, you will still only remain a tiny blip on the space-time continuum.

I can't talk about this to my friends irl; they won't understand. I mean I can tell them about esther but they just don't feel the extent of loss. I'm just bathing in the condolences and tribute videos and tumblr posts. Kind of glad that there are people out there who feel the same way.

I don't know. It's presumptuous to say that my sadness is too large for others to understand, but there were so many people like john green, arka, andrew slack, lauren, matt, etc who have met her in person, and for them the loss is far greater. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of grief her family and close friends might feel.

the reason why I'm so sad for her is because I know that she had her own circle of nerdfighter friends like I do, and she likes harry potter, and there are people like me who like her. I'm terribly sorry for her friends. She was wise beyond her years, and had so much promise, you know? I've read her blogs, watched her videos: she was an intelligent, articulate person, and when you see her, you just know, she would grow and do great things.

oh dear. I don't know how she thought about her future. In high school, you're supposed to plan your career and have your goals, and consider what you're going to major in in university-- how do you do all this when you know you might not live to do so? How do you live knowing that you're going to die? How do you keep going and not try to off yourself, knowing that treatment is a burden on your family? How do you keep going, with such a lousy quality of life? How do you live, knowing in small ways your sickness is hurting the people who care for you? What motivation do you have to live when you know that you're not going to grow up and have a job and achieve things?

She must have been enormously brave and strong. You rarely-- towards the end; you almost couldn't tell she was sick-- she was so enthusiastic and talkative. I mean. It's so easy for her to wallow in self-pity and feel sorry for herself and not talk to anybody, especially when you're an adolescent. But she stayed positive and happy and made the effort to love people and talk about life.

arka: "I don’t know I figured I would just tell you how awesome she is since she’s probably not going to be… around much longer."

Sometimes on youtube and twitter, the environment is mostly fun and not serious, but sometimes, when things happen (like this, and like the time tom had an accident and went into a coma) that you kind of think your posts about song lyrics or how your day was pales so much in comparison to someone's death. I can't help but feel it's disrespectful to talk about anything else other than this, and I kind of not want other people to talk about anything else. I don't know what is significant enough to tweet? I don't want to fill the twitterverse with a bunch of useless jokes that take up too much internet real estate.

At the same time, at some point things have to go back to normal, I guess.

Also I think esther wouldn't have wanted the whole world to stop if she died.

I'm just shocked that this happened, to such a young member of our community. As in, she was a part of the community I am grateful for all that it has done, and I know how this network of friends is so incredibly helpful for someone who feels alone. Even though I haven't met her, esther feels like a friend. She's a part of the community that has helped me so much. She knows what it's like to help and be helped, and I think that's why the loss is so sore. She understood and upheld the values nerdfighters hold true to our hearts: bravery, loyalty, kindness, humility, and in this way we have tragically lost one of us.

Music recommendation! They were featured in the papers today, and they're going to be in singapore 9th/10th September at TAB http://www.tab.com.sg/ this bar in orchard hotel.

haha idk why I'm saying all that, because none of you reading this would go, but I just like how they sound :) :)

And TAB sounds like a cool place to go, because they're hosting ryan cabrera and david choi, before The Album Leaf comes on. Otherwise it's convenient for music recommendations lol.

p.s. The Album Leaf sounds like they were too lazy to come up with something more original xD like that time in sec 2 we had to do a music elective and come up with an imaginary recording company, and michele, geeru and I named our company "Gramaphone Records".

#funfact

I interrupt regular transmission to bring you this:

I watched this when I was around 4 or 5, and it made me want to go to a water park so bad.

According to the comments, it seems like I wasn't the only one xD

... I still like water parks, but I have only been twice in my life-- once when I was 6, and another time was earlier this year, with geeru and michele <3

Maybe I'll go when I go to leakycon! #plans

Amanda Palmer recommended this kid who was at a college music summer school in her area: http://bit.ly/d6j8rU

He's Tristan Allen, and he's basically insane at the piano, does MUSIC PRODUCTION/ SYNTH, and is 17.

Looking at this reminds me how I am basically an asshat with a very big mouth. The people from twitter who live in Singapore all have a Thing, which means they write, have websites, make music etc. I can't do ANYTHING. I can't write fiction, most of the time I spend on the internet now is just being smart-alecky on twitter, or making vlogs. As in, ANYONE can make a vlog. Anyone can turn on a camera and talk about himself. That action in itself is almost disgustingly narcissistic; I don't see how anyone can be entertained by it. (okay I watch people like meekakitty and wheezywaiter and the vlogbrothers vlog, but that's different. They're funny.)

I mean ok I have a thing with vlogging: I don't see any concrete artistic value in it. You put in minimal effort and afterwards you have this product that you can't exactly be proud of, because you didn't even try to make it good, you know? It's not like with a review or one of the videos I took longer to make, and even with those things-- I'm just being critical of someone else's work, and going all smart assery on it.

And then afterwards with my videos, after I'm done editing, I can't watch them again. I can't imagine that I put this shit up and expect people to watch, because the videos suck so bad. But I don't want to take it down because I've spent 2 hours straight editing, and with harder videos it takes more than 1 session, so it would be effort gone to waste. With editing I really like the fact that you have the power to make everything perfect and the timing spot on, which is why it takes so long.

People ask; "So do you write?" and I can't say anything. Then they're like: "So how did you get to know the nanowrimo people?" "I'm just a fan idiot who reads F&SF." Which is akin to saying that you put yourself within the ranks of Stephen Fry because you watch television.

I just feel that I've spent the last few years of my life doing... nothing. At the end of this I have no skills, I'm not particularly good in anything but I'm interested in everything; I'm not even good at academic things. This is a direct result of spending all your free time reading. People say to get better at video making I have to make more videos, but it's not something I can manage right now, especially with prelims. Videos of reasonable quality need scripts, locations, different angles, daytime lighting, time to edit... I really should work on it once the As are over.

This leads sensible adults to ask the question: "What are you doing this for? Isn't this a whole waste of time? Shouldn't you be spending time after your Alevels doing your college reading?" (My mum suggested starting university in JANUARY because she thought I would waste the 8 months I'm out of school.)

"Do you think this would, in any way, help in furthering your career?"

Which is a good question, really, because nowadays no one does anything that wouldn't look good on a resume. I'm not even intending to study film in university because I don't want to give up on fieldwork opportunities in environmental biology.

And people will be like: "Will this pay your bills?" Which is, as we all know, the question of all questions. Let's be honest. Most of my peers are going to university to be able to earn a higher salary. If you spent all that money on your college education and you're not going to be able to reap the returns of your investment in the future, university would be a fruitless exercise.

I don't want to agree with that last statement :( In an ideal world where I don't need to repay my parents in student debt, I would major in theatre studies and get an MFA in film. I'm seriously considering going to a liberal arts college and then getting an MFA in film afterwards, but I think I'll need to fund the MFA myself, because my parents would flip.

Although. Viewing university as an investment is completely valid, because afterwards when you're trying to pay back your student loans when you're 30, you'll want to be able to feel that university was worth all the money. Also sometimes you can't afford to spend money on university without full knowledge that you will be capitalising on this opportunity to earn a higher salary.

I'll probably come back to this in the future. Maybe it's just me and my annoying tic of having to compare myself with *anyone* who's the same age as I am.

hello :) it's been some time. Today's theme music will be Our American Cousin, by Molly Lewis. This is a fanvideo! Even though the recording's pretty crappy, I like the lighting in the last lincoln bit.

Been watching (and re-loving) molly lewis because @HereBeGeeks on twitter gifted me a w00tstock poster from the time they went to #sdcc !

My birthday week went as follows:

tuesday--- met Peter from @HereBeGeeks to get my poster, we talked about geek stuff and conventions and amateur singaporean writers. So awesome meeting people from twitter.

wednesday-- finished reading Demon's Covenant, talked to kiru on msn for the first few hours of turning 18, made a vlog.

thursday-- real birthday, received lots of well wishes, thank you <3

friday-- crazy long lunch with geeru that's long overdue. We ate. And ate. And ate. till the place told us they were closing down.

So! That's what I did. This weekend was not as awesome, though. The 'rents.

Managed to get some mugging done on saturday, which was good.

It's about time that I buckled down, and last week was a good pick-me-up :)

2 weeks to GP, 4 weeks till other papers start!

3 and a half months until all this shit is over. WOOP.

Been looking at universities.

This makes me kind of excited and pumped :) idk to really learn the things I'm passionate about, and to start life in an entirely different place with people I don't know-- it's so exciting :D Kind of grateful that I have this chance to go away ><

Although it's been really hard to make a decision, and it's been hard trying to talk things over with my mum. I'm so indecisive as it is, and you just have to throw in another factor (sigh) and it's not just my mum; it's my dad, it's the #1 question relatives ask, etc. But I'm glad the people I've told about university-- especially the people I know online-- aren't pressuring me about uni applications, or trying to do the whole "when I was your age, I wanted to go to ____ and study ___" They've just been really supportive and helpful-- holtza, sarahcoldheart, kiru-- so it's nice :)

Sometimes I feel bad about getting to go to university so soon when most of the #adcrew-- avariel, jo, sarah, rsilvers are going/ went to poly.
It's such a silly thing to worry about, though. But still. I don't really mention it in front of them.

Now I'm trying to narrow down to 6 choices on my UCAS application, and it's so hard >.> because I'm going by course, and the 3 courses I want to look for are conservation biology, anthropology, and um. something. Some academic thing that will let me look at society and culture and maybe a little bit of philo. I want to do philo. St Thomas (this liberal arts place in canada) has the aquinas programme and University College Amsterdam has the Big Questions program, which basically means you read all the stuff major thinkers have written, and you attempt to discuss morality and ethics and humanity, and it's all pretty fascinating. I think I want to have a chance to develop my critical thinking like that. And write essays. I need to learn how to write better essays. At school I've only ever done machiavelli, but I liked it. I like the big moral and religious questions SF novels raise, especially Le Guin's.

Sometimes I worry that I'll never get in for any of my UCAS choices, and I'll have to go through Clearing and Extras, which is a pain in the ass. You end up having to negotiate and practically have to beg for a place anywhere, and they throw you in the least popular courses. Fingers crossed! And I'll be spending a lot more time on my prelims.

P.S. It's not completely decided that I'll be going to uni in the UK; things are still pretty open right now. I'll be filling in all my 6 UCAS choices, but I'll also do the 3 choices that the ontario admissions people allow, and I'll be applying to University College Amsterdam and Leiden University maybe, and probably a handful of new england universities. Not to mention macquarie in australia. Just decided on the UK first because the admission deadline, because my mum insists I try (and will get rejected) for Oxford, is on 15th October.

Here are The Pinholes! heard them play at night fest a few weeks ago.

I love live music, but it has to be /good/ live music. The Pinholes are a local band which plays mostly tribute music of the 60s, but they also have a few originals of their own. I really liked their set, and when you're watching a band live, the atmosphere is totally different. What venue the band plays in affects the experience as well.

At night fest they put The Pinholes at the Peranakan Museum, and the museum has 3 floors, and the band plays on the first floor. The lobby space is really tiny, so some people stood on the 2nd and 3rd floors to watch them play. I stood on the 2nd floor, and it was awesome because the bass and the drums were so loud that I could feel the music vibrating through the banisters. I really really like it when the music engulfs you and takes you somewhere and fills your head-- it's a feeling you can't get from listening to music through your headphones or through speakers at home. And when you see a band live, you see the different ways the artist can interpret a song, and see the take he does on it. It's like how different actors take the same script but are able to have unique interpretations of it through the inflictions and emphasis on dramatic significance.

It's not the best place to play in because some of your audience is in the rafters and there isn't much space for people to stand in front where you can see them, but the great thing was that the band made the most of it. In between songs there was some banter with the audience, and the lead singer tried to talk to the people watching directly above, and chat with random people in the crowd.

The energy and the intimacy of the gig was great, too, because some people were dancing in the front on the first floor, and band was surrounded on both sides by people watching from the staircases. So for the last song, the lead singer carried his wireless mic stand through the audience in the front, up one set of staircases, through the second floor, and down the the other set of stairs, rockstar style :) And they responded to an encore!

If you have a chance, you have to listen to live bands-- even if you don't know them ;) You may think local bands aren't that great (and yes, some of them are kind of crappy) but part of the experience is allowing the artist to have a few minutes of your attention and time, and if you like, you can lend them your soul for a while, and then afterwards you can make your judgement. Sometimes I there's a slight risk with seeing a band you don't know for the first time- like a blind date- but that't the whole thrill of it. I like that at live gigs it feels like I'm giving permission to the artist to have a little bit of my time; that the whole experience is a shared agreement between listener and artist, and in return you... give yourself to the music.

Both parties know that they're taking a risk: the band doesn't know if it will be well-received, and the listener doesn't know if he'll like the music or not, but in that short space of time, a contract is being made. A sort of mutual lending, if you wish- an understood agreement, that if I'm giving my soul to you, I want to trust you to take me on a journey-- and you let yourself be taken away for that short set. Judgement can be reserved for later.

Today was an icky day. But I don't want to talk about it.

I mean I can choose to:

a) wallow on my own- not a good idea, will only make things worse

b) wallow with someone else-- not a good idea either

c) distract myself with work and things

So I'm choosing option c)!

Recent Good News:

1. My Demon's Lexicon review will be in the paper sometime SOON :D

2. I've been inducted to style council!

mm yes and if any of you are interested, this is more articulate than I am, and very precise as well, if you want to understand.

Connor Goodwin

We’d head west, no set destination, just a direction. Chasing the sun, making the day last for all its worth. Hopefully the car would break down. We’d have to walk for ages to the next town. We’d stay with a family, do chores in exchange for meals. Once the car was fixed we’d barter with whatever we had, and continue on our way. We might head north next, wanting the only warmth to be each other’s bodies. It would be a road trip to discover that other person more than anything.

I think you'd like that quote :) it's from the morning news.

I'm waiting for a video to upload. I should be sleeping, but I can't sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a long day; I end school at 5 :( but with breaks in between. I'll probably use them to finish up on homework.

Sometimes I think the youtube uploader/ imovie rendering thing lies to me. It's a lot less painful than editing/ trying to upload on windows XP, though. I remember leaving my substitute video for bestwishesfromNL to upload for the whole freaking day-- 8 to 9 hours, and it still wouldn't be done. And then I would edit on the laptop with wmm, with a ridiculously small trackpad, and the stupid thing would crash every hour, so I had to remember to save the edits or resort to redoing them. So I'm grateful for the smooth editing/ uploading experience.

I don't know what to say on here.

I'm pretending to sound very musing and philosophical but really there are just plastic bags billowing about in the emptiness that is my brain. *billows*

umm hmm so the other day I got kind of ish rejected by the international book tours people. (international book tours is this blog-thing which sends out Advance Reader's Copies or donated books for people to review. Once you're done reviewing the book, you send it to the next person on the list. And so forth. The whole point is that they want books to have international exposure, so they're more likely to pick you for a tour if you live somewhere not in the UK/US.) They said it was because my book blog is inactive, since the last review I had written was in nov 2009. I'm not mad or anything, I'm just surprised that I stupidly put my name in for reviewing, because really no one knows about the existence of the book blog. As in, why would they send me books to review if no one reads the reviews, right? It's not like there isn't anything on there; I've put up my portfolio of sorts, but it just hasn't been publicised yet. But I was thinking it's going to be so weird to publicise it when it don't have anything recent up, and when I don't have time to write new reviews :( so I was caught in this dilemma.

For the next 5 months, I have a choice of 1. working on my book blog, talking to people about plugging it, writing reviews, so that I'll be all set to receive books to review next january or 2. making youtube videos. I don't have time to do both. I shouldn't even be making videos. But at the rate I'm putting them up, it's like an average of 2 hours a week spent on them? Which is all spread out; 15 minutes here, a 1/2 hour there. So it isn't much, and it's a cheap way of keeping me sane. (self-justification in play here) So obviously I'm choosing the latter, which will be a pain for the book blog when I finish exams in december, because it will take time for it to get revved up and get people to follow again, and the sending of ARCs will be delayed.

I don't know why I'm so impatient to get this done, though, but the fact that the book tour people favor international bloggers is a big factor. I'll probably be moving away to somewhere not as exotic as singapore by september next year, so they might not send me stuff. Then again, it's not like a lot of singaporeans will read the blog, because I don't have as many contacts here as compared to other countries. I could do a collab with, oh I don't know, the writers group whom I'm friends with, or review stuff from booksactually and their publishing arm, but sigh they'll only send anything if there are people *actually* reading my blog. The numbers, I realise, aren't really important to me, but they're important to the people who might want to send me stuff, you know? who will send you anything if there isn't anybody to read it? Who will read you if you don't have a bunch of followers? Who will _care_ if you don't have a following?

I don't do videos with the aim of getting more subscribers; I do them to keep contact with pooky and my other friends, and it's an outlet for creative expression. I'm proud of myself when I'm done editing and I have a coherent video, but I can't bring myself to watch it again after I've uploaded. I look at myself when it's live on youtube and become so disgusted and vow to make a better video next time, much better than the one before, something I won't be disgusted to watch, but you know, the cycle continues. I'm really crap at making videos. They suck, technically, because I haven't given myself enough practice. I don't like it, but more practice is not something the A levels allows at the moment. I hate it.

I can't make money from videos. They won't give me a living in the future. What will give me a living, my mother argues (along with a shitload of student debt) is a medical career. I don't know. As in, it's not worth it to spend so much time on them when they can't give you a living, you know? My A level certificate has a much better chance of doing that. I don't really like the A levels. (does anybody?) I don't want to make a living from videos in the future either. It's not because film making or anything related pays little, it's because that I think if I start out with the aim of making money, it'll cheapen the whole enterprise. I'll become one of those shane dawson types. Ick. The youtube equivalent of Nora Roberts.

I think I'll take a nap now.

pooky, I think you'll like the video :)

mm yes.

I've been thinking, the thing about hanging out with older people is that sometimes they think they are responsible for me? As if I were their younger sister or something, they are hence responsible for my safety, academic progress, etc. As much as I hate being treated as a child, I think the reason why they treat me like this is that I'm irresponsible myself.

Beyond how young I look-- tbh my friends don't look too old themselves ;D -- it's largely how immature I am. Mostly I dive into things headfirst without thinking of the consequences, and this is a sign of immaturity. Secondly of course is that quite recently I've been immersing myself in all that is not school-related: making videos, blogs, twitter, etc and they think this is affecting my academic work. I think it is, to be frank.

I don't like it. I don't like being talked down to and being perceived as incapable. It's like drawing a white line between my relations with older friend and I. They know this, of course, and very tactfully try to do this as little as possible. They also regard me as an equal most of the time, which is a fact that I appreciate tremendously, because I know they could just brush me off and they don't *really* have to talk to me. But whenever they bring up the subject of age and advising me, I just feel out of place and embarrassed.

Most of this is my doing, of course. It's not just my older friends who tell me off, it's friends my age too. Proving the fact that I really need to be told off, and it's not just my older friends thinking that telling me off is a result of their position. I feel I should be responsible, and that I should disconnect-- both mentally and physically-- from the internet and focus on passing my tests. But it's so hard when sometimes I feel that connecting with someone else who understands me through the internet is part of how I feel human. Being cut off and isolated in an environment where nobody understands anything is frustrating.

I mean. Last term I skipped a few classes, thinking nobody would notice. Sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they did. Ultimately I know that this isn't going to benefit me in the long term, and I have to make myself stop doing it, at least till the end of the school year. Sometimes I get mad at myself for not being able to hold out for what is just five more months now, and just make myself go to school and sit and study. I hate it. I hate school. Not learning in general, though, and not all aspects of school. Just. argh sometime I think that I don't have the willpower to stick it out and pass my A levels.

Damn I can't just pass, I have to get, well, As, or I'll have to retake the year. I don't want to do that. I can't stay in there for longer than I have to. But I don't have a choice. Really, sticking it out and getting good scores is the fastest way I can assure myself a ride out of here.

Lately my mum has been threatening me about what she would do with me if I couldn't get into university. I couldn't find an answer she would be satisfied with. Obviously, not getting into university seems to be a very realistic consequence at this point.

I really need to stop procrastinating.

Speaking of family, though, right now I'm trying to block out all the stress originating from my family and my extended family and from aunts whom I've never seen in years-- I'm just letting the pressure from my peers and teachers push me, because I cannot handle the concerns of a thousand other people. Who all seem to have their own, DIFFERENT, opinions on where I should go for university and how hard I should study and when I should be applying. I mean no, honestly, quite recently my getting into university seems to be a convenient, inoffensive, topic of conversation. I don't want to attempt to please everybody, like I used to. It's all just a bloody waste of time. (This is only in regards to what I should major in/ which university I should go to, not in relation to how much I should study.)

There. WATCH IT.

oh my god if I ever get to leakycon 2011 I'm going to cry.

I felt emotional watching this video.

if I ever get to go next year, it will be a culmination of four years of waiting.

And the community and the spirit is NEVER GOING TO END.

I am insane.

But you knew that already.

I had a dream where-- okay let's just start from the beginning. And, also, just ignore the absurdity of things happening in this post and accept it as it is.

So I was having tuition, with a few people from my school. Cherie was there. We were planning to go for a movie outing as a class (cherie isn't in my class, this doesn't make sense, but never mind) after we were done with tuition/ our work. As usual, I take too long and I was one of the last ones to finish, mainly because for some reason I had received a NOTE from my other friends- darran, dith, ling, kiru etc. The way the note was delivered was that a messenger had to knock the classroom door and announce: "Is nicole chen here? There's a message for her." In such a way that everyone else in the class knew that I had gotten a note, and the note was from my other friends. For some reason they also knew who the note was from.

The message was written much like a text, something along the lines of: "Are we having lunch later?" But the content of the message wasn't important, as the main thing was that everyone knew that me receiving/ reading the note slowed me down and caused me to take even longer to finish my work. This made me leave the class late, and I was late for the class outing-- because the movie started at 1pm and I arrived at 1.06pm.

Everyone was waiting for me, and Cherie got mad at me, and said: "You were late and made us miss the movie all because of a BOY? You ditch us because of a BOY? Are we less important than your other friends, now? Do you know how LONG I've known you compared to your other friends?"

And I was struggling to explain: "No, no, it's not like that-- please hear me out-- please it's not like that..."

Cherie: "So you mean your other, more glamourous friends are more important than us? That now you have older friends you can ditch us whenever you like? That you hang out with older people you are better than us, now? If you don't want to go out with us and would rather hang out with your cooler friends then TELL US so we don't have to wait around for someone like YOU to turn up."

And then suddenly I was looking at my gmail inbox, like a jumpcut happened, and in there were emails from Michelle T., my classmates and cherie, with titles all starting with "B". The common thread among these emails were that they were all mad at me. I couldn't open these emails, though, I could only see them piling up in my inbox, and every time I refreshed the page there would be more. So I tried checking the internet and realised that the mobile modem wasn't even connected to the laptop, so I was trying my hardest to access the internet from my phone and things and to reply to these emails to clarify the situation.

And then I woke up.

cherie appeared, I think, because she's the only person from my school who knows the people from writer's fest and knows what they look like and hence knows darran and kiru. She isn't the kind of person to get mad at me in real life, though, but the above situation seems very plausible at the moment.

The dream just opens a can of worms. There are so many questions to address... or not. haha.

There is so much SYMBOLISM.

idk @jay_lake analyses his dreams, so I was thinking of analyzing mine. And also because this dream unnerved me a little, and seemed so real.

clarification: darran isn't "the boy" and I am not "the girl", however much FRIENDS *coughgeerucough* like to say so. haha.

To be honest, though, if I knew people like that I would definitely egg them about it because the premise and the whole setup is comical xD If I were geeru I would definitely tease myself, just for the fun of it.