okay last year I was watching one of jbdazen's liveshows at 4am and being stupidly ecstatic

This is the song that was in my head the next morning.

So Charisse talked about this: (yes, I still read her blog but we're not close friends I feel like such a stalker)

cynicism, low-hanging fruit
Every time I reread The Importance of Being Earnest I discover something new.

It's perfectly easy to be cynical. You don't gain anything from it either except a self-righteous stroking of both the intellect and the ego. Yeah the weak little ego that most likely had to face the cruelty of the world and couldn't take it.

I'm tired of people being weak and refusing to face up to the fact that sometimes you just have to face up to the world.
You're not being romantic when you say you wish the world was all fairies and lollipops growing from christmas trees, and that since it isn't you're just going to hide your teeny little head in the sand forever. That's just plain dumb and guess what, you can have a reasonable facsimile of a world like that if you wake up and create it for yourself.
I'm tired of whining, but not because I don't care. It's because I know how much better it could be for you.

Seriously why why why can't people see that giving up short term pleasures for long term happiness is the only way they can achieve the latter? So much for homo economicus.

Delay your mindless self-gratification and wake up your idea.

About short and long-term goals, sometimes I think I have to think about it myself.

Right now, I don't have any long-term goals.

I do have Dreams, though, which are very unlikely to be fulfilled, and they are:

a) Going to a liberal arts college and after that doing an MFA in film. I don't know what I'll do after the MFA, but I (hope) will be very happy doing the MFA.

b) Majoring in Biology in university, with a concentration in Ecology and Evolution. Spend lots of time at coastlines, wet bogs, or coniferous forests. Die happy.

c) Majoring in Anthropology in university, and spending equal amounts of time talking about gender studies and uncovering skeletons at field sites in Morocco. I would feel clever talking about feminism, and I'll meet a cute girl in the GSA, and we will write for autostraddle together. We'll live in a cute loft and fill it with lots of books, and she wouldn't mind my vegetarianism, and we will go to Tegan and Sara concerts. When I post outfits on chictopia she will be my model or photographer as she feels like, and I will make short films starring her. We'll listen to indie music and dance and not care who is watching. Replace "girl" with "guy" as necessary.

You see in all of those Dreams everyone says I will have no way to feed myself, and there is no talk of this abstract concept of a Career Beyond University, hence they cannot be long-term goals.

My short-term goals are to get enough money to go to LeakyCon and to not get disowned by my mother until she stops funding my education.

Sometimes I get so sad I lose sight of my Dreams and think they will never ever come true unless I was born 50 years ago or 50 years in the future. So I pull out my short-term goals and they make me stop feeling sad. I don't have any long-term goals at the moment because I do not understand the abstract concept of a Career. All that I care about in the next year is whether I go to LeakyCon, and whether I'll get to move out of the country. Quite frankly, I don't have an inkling of what will make me happy in 5 years time, or when I am 30. Also, I have very little faith in 1) my Dreams becoming true and 2) me still being satisfied with them when they do come true. I am additionally intensely afraid of being exceedingly sad for long periods of time. Therefore I find it hard to "give up short term pleasures for long term happiness".

Many people say that The Real World is shittier than school. From what I've seen of The Real World, I'm not even sure the other people and I are living in the same World.

I wish there was a reblog function or something with yingling's blog. I could put this on tumblr but I won't look back on it, and people who read my tumblr don't read chinese >( so here:

就只剩下三天了.
很快的,考试将到来,
彻底把我认识的世界颠倒.

其实害怕的并非考试,
而是考试过后.
虽然大家嘴巴说很希望考试赶快结束,
然后就有大把时间玩了休息,
但是大家也明白这次大考后,
意味着大家已经离开了简单的校园生活.

以后,犯错误是没有回头路的.
以后,你的成功失败都不能以简单的A和F分出.
大家很残忍的被推入着可怕的世界,
有的只是怀胎九月(就是大考和上大学的那时间)的时间适应.

这次的考试就是我们最大的辅助.
若考得好,
以后的日子也会顺一些;
考得不好就得拐个大圈,
生活更艰难一些.

虽然说一切都会在死亡那刻化为乌有,
但是生活着,总希望一切比较美好,
少点痛苦,多一点快乐.

所以大家的压力越来越大,
希望考试能助自己一臂之力,
而不是起反作用,
害得自己没好日子过.

真是烦啊.

the other day I put my mp3 on shuffle, and it turned up a bunch of spring awakening songs. I was singing along to Left Behind, and I started crying.

Even after all these years, SA is still so resonant.

okay I remember listening to this in march or february. I remember it being really poignant because at that time I was sad about something but now I can't remember what the HECK I was feeling sad about. -_-

Does anyone know? not that I expect people to keep track of my moods, haha. But I want to know WHY it feels like it means something but I don't know what it MEANS.

Also, it's officially a year since I saw amanda palmer live.

I would like to think that so many things have changed, and it has, really. I don't know, maybe she started everything. I've really liked this past year, all things considered. Sometimes in my head change happens overnight, but I keep forgetting that growing up and moving on is a continuous process that takes time, and is only as fast as the effort I put into it.

Not that I want to grow up quickly. Or do I? DUN DUN DUN.

I want to improve myself, definitely. i.e. get better at talking to people, and at chatting to people I don't know in real life. this is something I didn't really have to do very often before, but now I realise that it is advantageous to have Connections (and also fun to boot) so it would be a good idea if I got used to this.

I think I'm also comforted by the fact that I'm more optimistic and less desperate that I was a year ago.

or am I just trying to convince myself that I've changed?

I feel like I've changed.

I look at last year's blogposts and I think that I'm so different from the person who wrote them.

I feel more secure with myself, if you know what I mean. I also feel more sure that everything is going to turn out right and things are going to be okay. I'm less uncomfortable with who I really am. I'm less afraid of being myself, whoever "myself" is. Still trying to figure that part out, heh.

I don't know. I like the person I am today more than I like the person I was a year ago. Or this might be just egoism at work. I think I'm more able to kid myself that I'm adept at communicating with people. And then I realised that "confidence" just involves a lot of bluffing yourself, and hoping that the other person will be hoodwinked as well. When I'm chatting to someone really well, I tend to pretend that I'm the ideal version of myself? Let's call this tumblenc. When I'm in a conversation and everything is going well, I pretend that I'm tumblenc. And naturally socializing would involve a lot of pretending.

But sometimes pretending is tiring, or I don't have any energy to pretend, and then I don't really like talking to people much. Trying to be tumblenc is tiring, more so than I perceive. It's like I can be out with someone for, say, 4 hours, and all that time I'm tumblenc. I only realise when I'm tired when I'm alone, like in the bathroom. And then when I stop focusing and my brainspace starts becoming my own, I realise that I'm really actually tired. I enjoy being tumblenc, but sometimes it's exhausting. Sometimes I discover that I don't have enough energy to be completely tumblenc, and things don't go the way I want them to. And then I get exhausted. Sometimes I get really exhausted and I don't know why, because I haven't been doing anything physically demanding. Maybe I can attribute it to the pretending.

When I get really exhausted, and I feel my brainspace is reaching its maximum capability, I decide that I can't really handle meeting anyone that week and shut myself off. I don't know yet if this exacerbates the problem or resolves it. But lately I've just been really tired and overwhelmed, sometimes stressed. Sometimes I'm really uncertain about the future, but I try not to think about it because it makes me sad. Today I was wondering why I was so sad when I was in sec 3, and for the life of me I still cannot understand why. Whenever I think about that, though, I think that what I'm going through now cannot be worse than what I went through before, because in my memory it was really bad.

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.