Those were the days!

Here's a real good e-mail chio yanwen forwarded to me, I think it's really damn funny recalling these things:

Fond memories For those who born in the 70s and 80s.
1. You grew up watching He-man, MASK, Transformers, Silver Hawk and Mickey Mouse. Not to forget, Ninja turtles, My Little Pony and Smurfs too.

2. You grew up brushing your teeth with a mug in Primary school during recess time. You will squat by a drain with all your classmates beside you, and brush your teeth with a coloured mug.The teachers said you must brush each side 10 times too.

3. You know what SBC stands for.

4. You pay 40 cents for Chocolate or Strawberry MILK every week in class.

5. You watch a very popular Malay dubbed Japanese drama on RTM1 about schoolgirls who possess powerful skills in volleyball called Meoro Attack.

6. You find your friends with pagers and handphone cool in Secondary school.

7. SBS buses used to be non-airconditioned. The bus seats are madeof wood and the cushion is red. The big red bell gives a loud BEEP! when pressed. There are colourful tickets for TIBS buses. The conductor will check for tickets by using a machine which punches a hole in the ticket.

8. Envelopes given to us to donate to Sharity Elephant every Children's Day.

9. You've probably read Young Generation magazine.You know who's Vinny the little vampire and Acai the constable.

10. You were there when they first introduced MRT here. You went for the first ride with your parents and you would kneel on the seat to see the scenery.

11. Movie tickets used to cost only $3.50. (What the!@?)

12. Gals are fascinated by Strawberry Short Cake and Barbie Dolls and Polly Pocket used to fit in your pocket.

13. You learn to laugh like The Count in Sesame Street.

14. You longed to buy tibits called Kaka (20 cents per pack), and Ding Dang (50 cents per box), that had a toy in it and it changes every week not forgetting the 15 cents animal crackers and the ring pop, where the lollipop is the diamond on the ring.

15. You watched TV2 (also known as Channel 10) cartoons because Channel 5 never had enough cartoons for you.

16. Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, The Three Investigators, Famous Five and Secret Seven are probably the thickest story books you ever thought you have read. Even Sweet Valley High and Malory Towers.

17. KFC used to be a high class restaurant that serve food in plates and let you use metal forks and knives.

18. The most vulgar thing you said was asshole and stupid idiot and THE MOST EXTREME WAS 'super white'...you just couldn't bring yourself to say the hokkien relative.

19. Catching was the IN thing and twist as the magic word.

20. Your English workbooks was made of some damn poor quality paper that was smooth and yellow. PETS still existed and you'd spend USSR or Contact Time on Wednesdays looking for the squirrel/rat/rabbit on every double page.

21. CDIS were your bestfriend (Mrs Chan our principal used to host those documentaries!)

22. The only computer lessons in school involved funny pixellised characters in 16 colours walking about trying to teach you maths.

23. Waterbottles were slinged around your neck and a must everywhere you go.

24. Boys loved to play soccer with small plastic balls in the basketball court.

25. Teng-teng, five stones, chapteh, hentam bola and zero point were all the rage with the girls and boys too...

26. Science was fun with the balsam and the angsana being themost important plants of our lives, guppies and swordtail being the most important fish.

27. Who can forget Ahmad, Bala, Sumei and John, eternalized in our minds from the textbooks. Even Mr Wally & Mr. Yakki. What abt Miss Lala??? And Zaki and Tini in Malay Textbooks Chinese exercise book squares were HUGE!

28. We carry out experiments of our own to get yourself badges for being a Young Zoologist/Botanist .

29. Every Children's day and National day you either get pins or pens with 'Happy Children's Day 1993' or dumb files with 'Happy National Day 1994'.

30. In Primary six you had to play buddy for the younger kids like big sister and brother.

31. We wear BM2000, BATA, or Pallas shoes.

32. Your form teacher taught you Maths, Science and English.

33. The worksheets were made of brown rough paper of poor quality

34. You went to school in slippers and a raincoat when it rained, and you find a dry spot in the school to sit down, dry your feet, and wear your dry and warm socks and shoes.

35. School dismissal time was normally around 1 pm.

36. There would be spelling tests and mental sums to do almost everyday.

37. Your friends considered you lucky and rich if your parents gave you $3 or more for pocket money everyday.

38. You see Wee Kim Wee's face in the school hall.

39. You freak out when the teacher tells you to line up according to height and hold hands with the corresponding boy or girl

40. Boys like to catch fighting spiders.

41. Collecting and battling erasers was a pastime for boys.

42. Autograph books were loaded with "BestWishes", "Forget Me Not", and small poems like "Bird fly high, hard to catch.Friend like you, hard to forget".

43. Class monitors and prefects loved to say "You talk somemore, I write your name ah!"

44. There were at least 40 people in one class.

45. Large, colourful schoolbags were carried.

46. You brought every single book to school, even though there was one thing called the timetable.

47. The first line of defence was, 'But Teacher he make me first!' or 'He say me one!' or 'Eee.. you complain queen/king'.

Don't you think this is all damn cool?

Kaya

I miss jamming, it's so darn fun when people randomly play stuff and end up syncronising with each other to produce some nice sounding crap. It's a good way to get you high, though vocalists are extremely important if you want to experience the full effects of jamming. But the most enjoyable part of jamming is the spontaneity it involves with comming up with riffs and suitable grooves.

=(

The band always says we want to and will jam but never do because we take time off to catch up with lost conversations during the week. And with the clashes in schedules, we never seem to have our key players around to jam. Plus the fact that there's no one singing, so dumb la.

Haiya, lonely guit. I hate what school has done to us.

Jam!! Kaya!! Toast!!!

Colour blind

You know what? Males can only see 2% of all the colours in the world. Can you imagine what the percentile is for the colourblind? Haha, all right it's not as bad as it sounds because all of humanity can only see that 2%. Don't ask me how they came up with that seemingly baseless piece of statistics.

Sometimes I think I'm colourblind too. I'm constantly bickering with Nat and Cons over whether the keyboard cable is purple or blue. I've been insisting that it's purple for 4 years now and that's not about to change. But it's damn funny because I really see it as purple and I'm not about to accept the fact that I'm colourblind. Isn't coulourblindness merely a difference in perception? This shade to me falls under my catogary of purple because colours, after all, is one huge gradient from black, the absence of colour, to white, mixture of all. (How can no colour become colour? haha... stupid philo shit.) So I may want to say that this is purplish blue whilst you insist on it being bluish purple. (Now there is a difference in those 2 colours)

And I find it pretty amazing how Nippon and Dulux/Dulex/whatever are able to come up with Shades of White. off-white, pearly-white, snow white, seven dwarves, White is white la! Then we should have shades of black then, charcoal-black, opal-black, jack black, ok I'm becoming lame and incoherent here. Oops.

New Thingi!

I managed to put something new on my blog!! It took me pretty long to get the songs up so appreciate them! Tell me if it works ok? Double click the arrows next of the songs, it works, =)

Okay I'm talking to my sister on Skype now!!! so happy

Sleepy

Here'er some videos of how we students look like when we doze off during lecture, onyl we're a thousand times uglier, sloppier and droolier.

Funny video 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8evrYMYMvo&NR

Funnier video 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOhvG3hVG44&NR

When Loke begins to talk, this is what happens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOhvG3hVG44&NR

And I think this is how yanwen is like when she sleeps during lecture!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzVCjF32T5Q

Here's what you do if you get punished
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUjVWgBSViw&mode=related&search=

Blinded

I'm physically blinded because my glasses had an unfortunate fall to the ceramic toilet floor a few days ago, trust me, they're TERRIBLY missed. I'm currently using my inability to see to stop studying. It's not helping anyone unfortunately.

AND... I've taken this blinding opportunity to sleep for unbelievable hours! I slept for more than 12 hours yesterday! My body has never been capable of such stunts even if I deprive myself of sleep for a 2 nights. It sinmply goes against my body's principal of indulgence in sleep, haha...

I think I'm beginning to suffer the ill effects of prolonged stress. When people ask me of my threshold of stress, I find myself unable ot answer them directly because I'm unsure of whether I've realyl experienced stress of if I've never even experienced it. Is brushing stress off considered as handling it? Or does taking it on full force and thinking about stuff 24/7 without freaking out only qualify me as a good tahan-er of stress?

I woke up once last week in the middle of the night simply because my mind was swarming with issues. class cip, cca issues, physics formulas, you name it. It was thoroughly unpleasant and I woke up simply with that sick feeling in my stomach. I wanted so much to punch something/ stay up and study but I knew I'd suffer the next day and hence decided to prolong my sleep for another 2 hours before waking up to study at 4. Maybe that's why it's taking a toll on me. However Iam completely unable to pull myself away form the tele at night to study, that's why I've resorted to sleeping at 10 and waking at 4. At least that's a alittle more stability as conpared to sleeping past 12. sleeping at ten gives your body the impression that you're sleeping early (which by fact you are) and I feel it makes me feel happier (Perhaps I'm merely psychoing myself)

I need to go study despite my blindness.

Roses and Noses

The title has no meaning, it just rhymes. haha.. But here's one by the really dynamic and ever-comical Mr Woolhead (I think) from my school.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet,
And so are you.

But the roses are wilted,
The violets are dead.
The sugar bowl is empty,
And so is your head.

HAHA!! I couldn't help but crack up when I heard it during the morning announcements a couple of weeks back. One thing I'll always appreciate about AC is the abundance of eloquent, witty, sarcastic and dynamic teachers from the Language/Arts department amidst the less-blessed collegues from the Science/Maths department.

Main point. LAst year, I spent my Valentine's Day with Feifei in an office entering the entire phone directory of civil servents for $6.50/hr. This year seems to be no better as I'll be spending it on the school stage rehearsing a stoopid song about a rusty bell and the reflection of the moonlight. How enticing is that? Argh. Hey, we'll even be having the school's chicken rice to sweeten the deal! Ugh

Oh! Should my prince save me from the evil clutches of the double bass and chinese orchestra-ing on that day! Well, at least it beats typing things like
limkohpee@mcys.gov.sg
or
subasupersubrabananium@mcys.gov.sg

Don't click on any of them ok.. they are for illustration and are purely fictional. Any similar cases in real life are purely coincidences. =)

Mixture

I'm officially allergic to my study table! My eyes get watery and my nose decides to go on a sneezing frenzy each time I sit down at my table, perhaps it isn't my table but what's on it that I'm allergic to-Homework!

That aside and the fact that I have completed a negative amount of homework this week, I've been spending 5 out of my 7 day week in school doing stuff related to my CCA. And that includes a freaking Saturday. (Who says everyone kia cheng hu, ACCO clearly isn't) I'm not exactly feeling the strain as yet, but trust me, I know it'll hit me sooner or later. (Possibly real soon when the darn Tests start) Add to the fact that my attention span has seemed to deteriorated to that of the length of the radius of a fullstop, it's no wonder why I'm swarmed with mounds of work. This doesn't include the stupid CIP rubbish I need to settle for the class. Oh, we're going to IMH and Batam for CIP! How exotic is that? Bet you don't see THAT everyday in a Graduating Cert!

As the JC1s near the moment of truth on Monday/Friday/Whateverday, it reminds me so much of last year and how my time was spent in SA. As much as I hate to admit it, SA is way darn fun-ner than AC. For crying out loud we have to go to school in the morning of our Cross country!!! Cross Country leh!! Why can't they just give us a freaking half day?? As if the Physics lectures will enlighten us a whole lot more than us running 5km. Gosh... What a rigid school sometimes.

Honestly, I miss the first couple of months I spent, I felt so high and mighty that I must have been intoxicated long-term. And I miss eating prata and talking to my chicken rice eating Indian friends, we seem to be void of any for of minorities in AC. Oh except for mixed-bloods.

I miss roaming around the tennis court when my brain got too swelled with information that I couldn't produce any coherent piece of writing.

I miss wearing that awful polka-dotted skirt to school and watching the various antics of people.

I miss being able to follow lectures and finishing tutorials way before lectures began (This, sadly, only occured for a selected few chapters of Chemistry)

I miss wearing my fiendishly mismatched coloured shoes to school.

I miss PEs where things weren't done in mass and I didn't dread going for.

I miss choosing to go to the library independantly during my breaks, sitting down with whatever shit material without a care and without any obligations to anyone. I must say the library was my most common hang-out place with my friends, haha... (What friends? I hear you ask)

But I'm here now, one year older, a lot more aged(due to stress) and a lot more mellow and stressed. No, I'm not stressed, just... passive.
Oh well. But Valentine's day is coming! I've ordered a super overpriced flower for my SA friend! She's really stressed up, a flower would do her good. (sorry ping and shiyun if you're reading this! If I were to send you a rose each, they'd be worth 4 plates of chicken rice in my school!) But it's really cool, this inter-college flower delivery service thing. If only my school didn't jack up the price of the flowers to like 250%.

My mouse has suddenly died on me for no apparent reason and I have hence resorted to pressing the 'tab' button aimlessly and hopelessly, stupid technology.

Swing

This is my first time I've experienced such a large mood swing, or a mood swing for that matter. Normally my swings are rather gentle and low in velocity. This time, BAM! It just hit and I decided to pon my Physics lecture to come home. I was pretty cheerful and enthusiastic this morning, I mean, how dead can you be after 10 hours of sleep? Yes, I slept for 10 hours from 7pm to 5am. (Be jealous!) I lost it somewhere between my break and Econs Lecture. Perhaps it's due to the fact that my bloody contact lens refused to focus (AGAIN) or to the fact that the lecturer was 20 minutes late, or because I wanted to pee but was too lazy to move from the lecture theatre to do so, or something my friend said that pissed me off. Crux of the matter is, I hate being unable to control emotions. Heck, I hating losing control of anything.

I'm not a control freak, a control freak is someone who
1)Likes control
2) Has it most of the time

But I only have one quality, I'm always out of control of myself. especially when it comes to work. Maybe I have a higher standard for the level of control I want.

I hat ebeing a perfectionist sometimes, stresses you up.

~Spiders~

What to you is the most fascinating creation on Earth? An array of choices are presented to us. Humans especially, present a tempting choice. I however, find spiders to be highly intriguing. Seeing that these little critters are often 'invading' our space and building their homes like nobody's business, I've had plenty of encounters with these guys over the past few years. From the sadisctic killing of spiders to keeping them as temporary pets, I've always been surprised one way or another on each occasion.

The Killing

My friend, once being very irritated by a spider, decided to use a rather creative way of killing it. She used a piece of sticky tape and conveniently attached the spider to the floor. As we girls were still in shock and disgust, we took a look at the carcass only to find that in the process of being squashed, about a hundred million (ok not so much la) eggs were squeezed out of the spider as well as toothpaste would have been. That was my first time actually seeing minute spider eggs. Talk about caviar.

The Observation

After several dinners at the dining table (which was rare), it came to my attention that our little aracnid friend had made his home right above us. I spent about half an hour craing my neck to see the fella rebuild his nest. It's damn cool! (why else would I stay there for half an hour) IT taught me something, spiders truly are a breed of perfectionists! I think that spider built his web at least 3 times. After completing his web each time, the dissatisfied spider retraced his steps, collecting his excreted silk along the way and rolling it into a ball of white fluff until finally returning to the centre and conviniently releasing the fluff onto our dinner table. Damn cool.. I think watching a spider spin its web is one of the most interesting things. IT's a true display of foresight, planning and architechtural skills. It's something I'll show my kids next time.

Baby sitting One

The first time I kept a spider, I kept it for 4 days. It didn't die, I jsut got tired of catching idiotic ants for it. But here's the interesting thing that happened: One Day 2, my little spider (I think I named it Mimi) moulted! In case you ignorant people don't know what that is, it means it shed its skin. The only other time I had seen this was on a documentary. Imagine the shock when I saw another 'spider' hanging on the web! Bet you guys have never seen a spider skin! Haha!

Baby sitting 2

This tim e my spider didn't moult despite me keeping it for an equally long period. Instead, Fifi( i think) turned out to be an impregnated spider! she laid this HUGE pile of eggs and surrounded them with a soft, thick comfy layer of webbing. And then she sat over them like a king on a throne. Once again, I'd only seen this happen on a documentary. It's really cool to have all these things happen in your own little Brands bottle! But I never saw them hatch, I had no patience and was afraid she'd die on me. I hate it when things die.

Of course I've kept several other spiders for shorter terms too, but these guys were boring. I normally don't keep jumping/fighting spiders, too fast for me. I like the weird exotic looking ones, or fat ones. haha...


Don't you think they're cool??

Hilarious!

All right! My internet's all nice and working! And I realised how much free advertising I've been doing for Nathan Hartono, man, I should be charging! (See it's not me who has paedophilic tendencies!) But anyways, this week has been one hellofa rush! (And it's all thanks to you Cons!)

Anyways, my tagboard's not the only chaotic place in my life right now. MY mouth is a WARZONE. For one, I've had 4 premolars extracted within the apst 2 weeks of which 2 I think are getting infected. This meaning that it hurts like crap and makes me feel realllyy cranky. So don't mind if I snap at you . Secondly, as if sensing the loss of fellow brethren, my upper wisdom tooth has decided to come out and pay it's condolences. And as if disturbing his other grieving molar brothers isn't enough, this idiot has caused my gum to partially detach itself from the other par tof my mouth. It's pretty hard and gross to imagine, but here's the gist of it-It basically feels/looks like a fleshy toilet seat cover. It's extremely disturbing, sore and troublesome and I simply can't wait to remove it. My mum's analogy of it is a foreskin (go check the dictionary if you're clueless) that needs circumcision. SEe, it's not my fault I tend to be uh... crappy some times!

Hence, with a permenant headache and an inability to eat what I want to eat, I anticipate myself to be rather moody and whiney next week. I'll try as hard not to be the latter. I hate whiney people. So try not to irritate me please!! =) Instead, please refer to the previous post to source ways of making me happy! =) Like get Nathan (first name basis!) to serenade to me.. hahha...

I wanted to add photos but am temporarily unable to. Unfortunately I have to keep this short too because I have TONNES of undone homework to finish before tomorrow. :( Love ya people!

Being Happy

This is the first time I find myself having nothing to write. But I shall sit here and force myself to come up with something since I know my FANS request it. heheh.. It's not often that Cons visits my blog, so I shall have to continue enticing her with my wonderful, insightful entries.

I was thinking of what to write about in school today, simply because I didn't want my entry to be another chronological update of my life. Honestly, I think that's not exactly very captivating but as dull as my Physics teacher. (Simply because I get pretty bored reading about other people's daily activities and rants) I know your blog is supposed to be about you, but I prefer using my brain to do the talking instead of my heart(emotions) or my activities.

What horribly written paragraphs, my apologies for I was listening to a rather distracting song.

So let's get down to the crux of the matter-Being happy is good! Now don't you think joy and contentment are such beautiful things? I personally prefer the latter. They actually pretty much come hand in hand. You can't be content without being happy, that unless you wish to be upset and emo. It's so nice when something makes your day, or makes you smile. See! Even seeing the word

Smile

Puts a smile on your face!

:D

Here are somethings that make me smile in school or when I'm having a cranky day. I hate being upset, it makes me moody and nasty to the people around me, turning me into and unpleasant biatch.

1. Understanding/Learning something from my Physics lecture/tutorial.

2. Satisfying a craving that I have during lunch.

3. Talking to a chirpy person.

4. Catching a glimpse of a cute guy.

5. Eating fried rice! The most economical meal in my school!

6. Using a super clean, dry and unused toilet.

7. Having an exceptionally good hair day.

8. Feeling comfortable and just bonding with my class.

9. Being able to spout useful, intellectual jargon during GP

10. Seeing a considerate/gentlemanly/helpful/nice student help our a fellow mate or teacher or whatever. It's nice to see humanity.

So there's a short list taht I could come up with. Things that made me unhappy unavoidably raced through my mind as I was typing this of course and I realised how much easier it was to make me upset than to make me happy. I suppose it's human and we all have insatiable wants.

Try making your own list, and try and make it go past 10. Gives you a brighter (or dimmer)outlook to school life.

Ups and Downs of being back to school

Being back to school has been thoroughly refreshing. It wasn't as bad as I expected and I was surprisingly able to keep up with lectures and tutorials.(meaning that for once I wasn't stoning half the time) It felt good to be brain-fed. Anyways, it was fun looking at the JC1s undergoing Orientation and all the prep talks, everyone says the same thing - It's all way too fast.

Here's a few interesting facts as yet. There are a couple of actors in this batch of freshies! (So exciting!) For one, we have that Chinese actor from I not stupid (Shawn sth) and I just spotted in our ACsian theatre today, that other guy from ABC DJ (the recent failure local comedy) I have no idea what's his name, all I know is that he rocks at acting stupid/retarded.

Sadly Nathan Hartono is still in Barker (darn!) but my friend's mum is his teacher! (he got caught playing with blu-tack in class and fell off his chair!)

MY class... has been rushing around most of the time, I haven't gotten much of a chance to speak to some people lately. But I wan soooo glad to see Mings after so long. Life was really dull when she was gone sitting for supplementary papers.

The food seems yuckier this year.

My timetable rocks and I get to WALK home everyday!! YAY!

And here's a GREAT link, damn cute!!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8922875251875301807

And my sister's gone.... :(

I'm beginning to not really enjoy CCA, there's so much... detest and hatred around. It affects me really badly.

=(

My sister's gone and I miss her terribly. =(

Thanksgiving

I've been looking at people's blogs and realised that I haven't been giving some people due credit for being such impacts in my life. They didn't necessarily cause very huge impacts in my life, but they definitely mean a lot to me. So here's my tribute to them. (Excuse the lousy writing, I'm currently multitasking. And if you know me well you know that I don't exactly do it very well.) So here's the first on the list.
Ta-Da! These 2 angels in my life have really made it wonderful. The thing about close friends is that you think about them most of the time. I've known these sisters for quite a large portion of my life, hence they're names would often pop up in my conversations as often as I talk about my family. (which is also pretty often) I've practically grown up with these girls, and am thoroughly grateful for it. Encouragement, support, little spats here and there, they all contribute to our growth and development. Shan't give too long a describtion here, people want to read about them selves too you know, haha.. =) Love you girls and I love every minute spent with you guys. =)

NExt up...

(You wanted a change mehmeh!!)! Now I'll go on about them individually. Annie was like a comet that crashed into my life. =) This BIMBO has educated me in more ways than one. On being an airhead (HAHA), Jazz(the love of her life), she even made me realise what great friends I had and taught me to be grateful for all the backstabbing I never went through. One of the most affectionate friends I have, the silly dummy is halfway across the world but still bothers to tag my pathetic blog and conduct one-way video conferences. (Narcissist you!) :) LOve you dear!

I once reviewed 4-5 smses that Aiping had sent me. And ALL of them either had HAHAHAs or CHUIWERNs or OEIs. ALl in CAPs mind you, you see the most ah-soh side of this girl through her text messages. But I must say that it definitely conveys the true feelings of the sender immediately! I can always envision her expression whenever I read her messages! And she's ALWAYS boosting my ego la! She's so encouraging, she can make pond scum feel like superman!

And I definitely didn't forget my Feifei. She's one that's really REALLY close to me. Someone whom I can let go and talk crap with for hours. One where I really really feel comfortable with (I like her soft arms!!) :D She's really like a second sister to me, (basically someone besides my sister who sees/hears me behave like a complete IDIOT) But her blog ah, tsk tsk.. so wordy! Haha.... Okay feifei, we're embracing singlehood with pride!

Cute right, I do for her one. Haha, That's my sister for those who don't know and I think she'd kill me if she saw this. But after she entered hostel and spent 5 days a week away from me, I began to miss her. And even after she's been spending most of her time around me the last few weeks, I still enjoy every moment of silliness and bimboticness she exuberates. She's someone who can make a kid feel like a genius, but hey, don't be so quick to think she's jsut a dumb uh.. black, her cap scores in uni for the past sems have been above 4 ok. IT's upon 5, so essentially, that's like getting an 80% for your overall results. And Uni's no easy thing! Her being around adds soo much life to the listless one I already own. If not I'd be studying all the time.(as if) Finally! Someone who has a shorter attention span than me !

And of course there are those whom I choose not to post pictures of just in case they strongly object. Yee,and Dhab have been the ones dropping occasional tags that tell me that my blog has visitors. (This is really encouraging) And JOan, haha... Iwas reading her birthday card to me when we were in Sec 2, IT was HILARIOUS!! But she's always been the one writing funny letters and cards to me in her illegible cursive handwriting . I quote,' All the best in your studies except for English and Maths and Science and Geography and History and Lit!' that's Joan for you! haha...

Not to forget Anli and Mings! who are so every supportive and encouraging! MY future study buddies! (because we ARE going to sit down and MUG) I love you girls!

Skipping Christmas

It's seems like ages since I've touched a keyboard and visited my blog. I know it has been dead for a rather long time. My computer has died so many times it's a wonder it's still alive, and moving from a three to two-room flat is no easy task, trust me. Especially when you have 4-5 people in the house which is actually really rare for my family. Our maximum is normally 3-4 and our average is 2.5. (Average mah...) Anyways, since my grandma's down for a couple of months, it's going to be one interesting Christmas and New Year. However my sister will be gone for the next 6 months 2 weeks from now, so I guess it wouldn't be that bad.

As you can guess, all the hassle, trauma and fatigue from the nomad-like transitions have inevitably caused me to completely lose the feeling and mood that normally automatically comes with Christmas. Man I don't even feel like caroling on Saturday. I simply feel exhausted from all the moving, packing, sneezing, sweating...

The frustrating and tiresome thing is not the strenuity of it all, but knowing the fact that you won't be able to return to a comfortable home/haven to rest your sore feet. It feels like you're living in a dusty motel long-term, period. Having to home to return to truly is sad and I've just learnt that.

Anyways, one thing that makes this fuzzy place any home-like is the fact that I've stenciled our livingroom with pretty Maple leaves! Yay, they simply look gorgeous.

So to stop digressing and transforming this into verbal diarrhoea, I shall cut straight to my point - I feel like skipping Christmas.

But since I've gotten most of my gifts, the final but most difficult stage is next. Cards. Letters. The sincere stuff. + MASS GIFTS! Darn!

=)

My computer's alive again! I've learnt my lesson and I promise to back up ALL my stuff now... well, soon. Anyways, this is pretty hilarious, it's a REAL exam script! Thankfully now mine though, but THIS PERSON ACTAULLY EXISTS!

Oral

I'm DONE with Project Work for the year!!! I've cleared my desktop and hard drives of any trace of 'Mentoring Through Blogs'. I've gone to completely destroy the remnants of my voice by eating and drinking whatever I want and talking as loudly as I can. Some of you might know, I was on the brink of completely losing my voice right before my Oral Presentation. Thank God He spared me just enough to pull me through today, or I'd still be fretting about it till Friday.

No more Meetings!
No more 'remember to upload on the internet hor'.
No more deadlines!
No more 'Rejected! Redo!'
No More senile PW teacher!
No more PW tutorials and lectures!
No more 'Must bring laptop anot har?'
No more 'sorry I'll be late'
No more Bras Basah Macdonald's and National Library

But No more group bonding sessions as well. :'(
It was great while it lasted guys. 163, a bunch of complete strangers turned good friends.

Grin

I'm several levels happier than the previous post. This is due to several main factors. For one, I met the bunch yesterday! That's such a comparatively classier name than Cheapskate Clan which Joan calls us, haha... Change name la joan.. Seeing all the girls were so much fun, but one thing's for sure, they're the most tiring bunch ever! Well, perhaps it's the combination of AiPing's ultrasound voice and Dhab's claustraphobic-sauna-like room that tired me out. Seriously, I felt like I was doing a full workout without even moving! Meh and me were literally melting and losing inches. Height wise la, haha...

Despite the Sahara Heat, 2 things undoubtedly put a smile on my face, Dhab's cat (whose original name MAO MAO was changed to MOMO, though I don't see how that's any better) and the fact that we all sat down to dinner and ate with our hands!! It was so fun and cross cultural! I quite miss having Malays around, it's such a rare sight in ACJC. Do you know my friend's class in TPJC has a majority of Malays? like, wow. I'm pretty glad I got to mingle with people of different races through out my secondary school life, looks like it pays to be in a non-chinese school!

Last but not least, I am for once thankful to ACJC for pushing all the deadlines on us. We've submitted EVERYTHING that's not OP for PW. Isn't htat fantastic?! :D While my friends are still struggling with their I & Rs and GPFs.. Muhahaha... I love acronyms. And the fatso said that my EOM was good! Goodness I was like thank God thank God thank God!! That copy of my EOM was my one and only copy, I didn't submit any drafts to him at all! Gosh, thank God.. Haha... And I've decided to wash my hands off my problematic PW group member, it's just a couple more days and I don't wish to go throught he next year with any bad blood beween us. I'm just going to forgive and forget.

Although I'm finding it very difficult ot forget the T SHIRT THAT THAT IDIOT GUY IN SAJC OWES ME. I'm this close to becoming a 'da er long' to get my 17 bucks back. It's a matter of responsibilty and principle that I want that shirt/money so badly. I mean, hello, you planning to give me like when I'm 50 is it??! Call yourself a student councillor.

PIG

see la, now my mood is spoilt by that moron. I shall send my runners after you!!

-Nil-

I hate being emo. I treat it as a sign of weakness. I'm a person who supposedly uses her mind and not her heart to think, so why the hell do I lack the discipline to get down to doing anything right?

Ju's stupid Dog

My friend has a stupid dog. Take note that I say stupid in an endearing way. Her little silky terrier is this bouncing (literally) furball. You know, kind of like putty covered in long silky hair? Yep, that's Suki. Haha, I've never seen soooo much energy in a living creature! This little fella actually BOUNCED behind me from across the living room to my friend's room! It was pretty hilarious, perhaps Suki's experiencing some sort of identity crisis, unsure of whether it should have been born with longer, fluffier ears and a shorter, poofier tail. Haha... That's dog is really one hell of a jumper! But I must say its really adorable. It's innocent stupidity is what makes a dog a dog. However I just recalled that this silly dog also drooled all over my sock and almost put holes in it, I think I should have just given it to her as a parting gift.

here, I managed to steal a photograph of it from friendster! [Tell me if you don't want your dog displayed ju!]

Awww. She's adorable ain't she. However she really is amazingly dumb at times, haha, kind of like a bimbo dog. =)

Random

Ah! My strings have been snapping like nobody's business, first it was my electric's E string, which isn't so bad since I have a spare pack of strings. Now my cello's A string snapped! And this stupid string costs like 40 bucks? might as well gold plate it la...

Argh. And not to mention my double bassist who keeps breaking G strings and whatever wires he has on the double bass. Never before have I seen such a weak instrument.

Stupid.

Hua Yu Cool! >.<

Jing ran wo men de hua yu kao shi kuai yao dao le, wo jiu jue ding ba jing tian yong han you pin yin lai xie wo de 'post'.

Haha, kidding. You'd have to pay me a million bucks for me to continue! I don't abhore Mandarin, I'd be lying if I said I did because for one, I'm serving in a Chinese Ministry. Secondly, I'm in the Chinese Orchestra, so how can I say I hate Chinese when I've chosen to be constantly surrounded by it? Well, not really chose, having Mandarin lessons 4 days a week definitely isn't my choice.

I actually envy those who are extremely well-versed in Mandarin and I really do feel embarresed when I'm unable to articulate myself properly in the language. Honestly, there is nothing to be proud of if you take CLB or are 'suck' at Mandarin. We are afterall, Chinese and should be proud of our language.

It's not a matter of English being a supposedly more 'high class' language, being English-educated doesn't necessarily put you at the top of the food chain. Why there are plenty of people who come from decent and even admirable Chinese backgrounds. Mandarin just happens to be their first language. I often find myself nit-picking at people's pronounciation and usage of the English Language. Soon I find myself trying to hide my own terrible pronounciation and erroneous usage of Mandarin.

Here's the main point, being inarticulate and incompetant in ANY language is nothing to be proud of. If you want to use it, use it well and don't flaunt what you don't have.

And no this entry isn't directed at anyone. =) CHingchingchCHingCHing!!

The Class of 2007

All right by request of Ow Yong Feifei I shall start rambling some nonsense. Haha, I'm still pretty upset about not being able to score with English. I think I'll really go to China. All right, bring on the Cheena Princes!!

Anyways, as you can see from the title, I shall dedicate this wordy entry to the people who surround me daily - SB6. I initially started out being rather pensive about this new group of people whom I would spend most of my time with. Initial polite nuances and the occasional awkwardness ensued. But week after week, month after month, you learn to accept and love the people for who they are, not who you want them to be. Nobody conforms but simply adapts, (as one of my classmates says) I think that's the beauty of it, that people of such different upbringings and personalities can all accept and have fun with one another. Imagine if there was a class of 25 you's. Urgh, how boring life would be.

So this has been one hell of a week, it was a week full of ups and downs. Downs obviously due to the fact that the WR was due this week and a certain MEMBER in my group proved to be EXTREMELY uncooperative. (I bet my blood pressure spiked several times this week) Plus the ominous looming of our results. (ACJC insisted on releasing ALL our results only at 1430 on Friday) The haze was a mood killer as well, considering that two thirds of our time spent in school was spent rotting in the void deck/cafe/anywhere-else-but-classrooms-and-LTs, (you see the 'pon' spirit is one of the strongest school spirits in AC, haha)

Despite all that, I was still able to find the rose amongst the thorns, the glimmer amidst the darkness, the olive branch amid the tremulous waves... you get the idea. This was, of course, the company of my classmates! I had been pining to Mings and feifei a couple of weeks back that the class wasn't communicating and bonding. Everyone was busy with their own study schedules and were hence left with little or no time or topic to talk about. Life became SERIOUSLY dead. Everyone simply said their 'hi s' and 'byes' and moved on with their struggle with centripetal force and Social Efficiency. I have to say that AC games did a lot for the class. So did the 'communal' rush for PW this week and the long hours spent playing bridge. One can learn a lot through playing cards ok, its important to understand BeHAviOurAL patturns!

It was a bad week, but the shortened bonds between the mates have made all that crap I went through the whole week worthwhile. =) Priceless (as quoted from our ex-Student Council Pres)

Look at our levitations man...

Rock on SB6, no, I shan't label you guys, its an understatement, Rock on you special people you! haha... I love my class, at least we don't have noisy buggers like those inthe next class, or angmoh poseurs from uh-um! certain schools. Yea, we have great balance.

Go Korea Go!

All right this may seem like I have abundant amounts of time to update on the tiniest things, but THIS I have to share with the rest of the world. Some of you may remember the couple of cuckoo Korean Girls on youtube (The ones that had me cracking up like an escape IMH patient each time I saw them) Thinking that it couldn't get any funnier, my cousin just introduced a couple of similar guys. LAUGHING IS THERAPUTIC!! >.< Haha!! And hey guess what, they're friends of my cousin! haha, I think it's more hilarious when you watch people you sort of know doing stupid things on youtube, it humanizes them in some sense. You know that this kind of insanity and ridicule really exist and you're not the only one doing stuff like that in front of your bedroom mirror!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PSqtE1ACDM

I so love youtube man. Endless entertainment, whatsmore, its free.

Love of my life

There he is. I haven't showed you guys any photographs yet right? But this hunk of expensive, varnished, exquisite, fine-sounding wood is mine. yes mine. Now I'm so not going to die and let any of you have it! Muahaha!! MY lousy camera isn't working and hence I am unable to conduct a photoshoot for him as yet. but trust me, he looks better in real life. Whoo.

Death

This is going to be apretty dreary post despite me ending my promotional examinations yesterday. Obviusly it wasn't a very good end for me, in my whole 3 years of being a science student, my major examinations have always somehow ended with Chemistry, which is a Science I have little confidence in. It started with the swaying ego of my Chem teacher in secondary school. His sexist and egotistical remarks put me off Chemistry quite a bit. So unlike the Chemistry teachers I hear about who engage the students with endless encouragement and fun tidbits, Bak-ar simply shot down any questions which reached beyond the sec 4 syllabus. Moron.

Anyways, that's not the point, I've been wanting to talk about this for a pretty long time but simply never had the pleasure to do so. I've seen so many people die so suddenly and quickly. I even dreamt of someone(I think it was Cynthia Koh) dying yesterday. It was a pretty nasty and depressing dream. Anyways, there was Steve Irwin, a Hildan, another young secondary school kid, my mom's old client.. I probably encountered these deaths on a weekly basis! All of them had one thing in common, the fact that there were no warning signs and that they happened to extremely normal people. It's one minute you're here and the next you're in a wooden box piled with makeup and with chemicals coursing, well, not really coursing, through your veins. I wondered too how life would proceed on should I suddenly die.

Anyways, should I have the unfortunate event of doing so, I came up with my own little will since I'm underage of making a will and my mum's too busy to get one done for me(haha).

The living will and testement of ME

All text books, TYSs, guidebooks etc will go to the school's student welfare section.

All other books I have can be shared amongst Shiyun and the bunch. (you people need to be educated about the brain! hehe)

MY electric guitar will go to the church, the acoustics... man, I can't bear to leave my Ovation, but fine, they'll go to Aiping and Mings who supposedly wants to learn the guitar after Promos.

Cello, it can go to Anli who's cello absurdly got stolen.

All the stuff in the topmost shelf of my white cupboard can go to Nat, she LOVES toys. :D

And all the stuff in the bottom drawers to Cons! Haha...

Ooh! My clothes! (Which aren't much by the way) Ah, have a jumble sale and give the proceeds to my mummy.Hmm, of course my sister can raid and take whatever fits her first.

And of course my diaries.. Hmm... Publish them and I'll be famous like Anne Frank! Only It'll be 'Cuiwen, the Diary of a spoilt Singaporean girl'.

All right you people, aren't you glad you're included in my will? Huh? Huh? Haha... Now, now please, no plans to annihilate me ok!

All right, so by the requests of cerain PERSONS, (haha) I am obliged to add in a few more things so that the one miles away won't die of loneliness and the one I'm going to see in a couple of days won't kill me when she sees me then.

All the softtoys which belong to me can go to Dhabitah, I know she specifically likes stuffed poohs, but I've only got stuffed other stuff, but hey, there sure are a lot of them ok!

And my new, still unopened wall mirror from IKEA can go to Annie since she's such a Narcissist and simply can't take her eyes off herself, haha.. Oh yes dear, you can raid the CDs and MP3s too, haha.. although I've practically burnt half of them for you already, =)

And how can I forget all the gaudy 'costume jewellery' I have! They can be shared amongst the girls now, now, no snatching! Haha..

you know after making this list, I realise I don't really have much besides my gorgeous babies hanging on my walls. Hmm... Aren't I low maintainance? *Grin*

HTML ignorant!

All right people, excuse my futile efforts to put up a sound clip of Nathan Hartono that resulted in a pretty disfigured blog. Hey, at least I've got it uploaded ok. So stop complaining and simple scroll to the end of the page and click on the tiny triangle which will allow a wave of soothing and oh so charming vocal chords to ring at you.

Oh my, it's a crime to allow such a young boy to charm girls off their feet. Ooh!! Sadly I think he's an AC buy, and we all know what kind of ego that packs in. heh..

Ah, I just realised that you can't play it straight from my blog, so I'll just give you the URL

http://www.bolt.com/CUI/audio/2093428

Yue Liang

Hey hey, I've discovered another high side of being the daughter of a nice, friendly lawyer - Mooncakes.

The Mid Autumn Festival is yet to arrive in a couple of weeks and my mum has already brought home 3 rounds of mooncakes ( not including the first from my cousins). Each came with their own delightfully aesthetic hardy boxes and most probably rather high prices as well. The first batch came in 2 boxes of 8-9 delectable mini mooncakes with the unique filling of custard purchased from the hotel's restaurant above my mum's office(a last minute buy as you can see). Just 2 days ago, I came out of my room to meet an gold, oriental box with mooncakes held within individual gold boxes. They looked like those boxes the Chinese officials used to present their dowry with. As I was staring in awe at the shimmery effect of plastic gold reflection in my face, Shiyun anti-climatically added (in her typical auntie tone)

'Wah, fine knife and fork some more.'

as she pointed at the text printed on the small rectangular box nestled in the middle of the golden aura. This batch came from some fine dining place. Impressive looks aside, the mooncakes were fairly fresh and yummy too. And now, just 2 days later, my mum walks in with a multicoloured, flamboyant looking plastic bag from 'Hong Kong Disneyland' . And as you can guess, yup! Mickey Moose (I prefer calling him that) Mooncakes! Apparently this client works there.

Behold the benefits of the daughter of a nice lawyer. (I bet the lawyers at Khattar Wong don't even get a sweet!) So anyone who wishes to kidnap me may now ask for mooncakes as ransom. =)

Patenting

You guys know the author Michael Crichton? Here's a truly entertaining essay about patenting. Read it if you have the time, I know you're all mugging for the exams. =)

THIS ESSAY BREAKS THE LAW
· The Earth revolves around the Sun.
· The speed of light is a constant.
· Apples fall to earth because of gravity.
· Elevated blood sugar is linked to diabetes.
· Elevated uric acid is linked to gout.
· Elevated homocysteine is linked to heart disease. · Elevated homocysteine is linked to B-12 deficiency, so doctors should test homocysteine levels to see whether the patient needs vitamins. Actually, I can't make that last statement. A corporation has patented that fact, and demands a royalty for its use. Anyone who makes the fact public and encourages doctors to test for the condition and treat it can be sued for royalty fees. Any doctor who reads a patient's test results and even thinks of vitamin deficiency infringes the patent. A federal circuit court held that mere thinking violates the patent. All this may sound absurd, but it is the heart of a case that will be argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday. In 1986 researchers filed a patent application for a method of testing the levels of homocysteine, an amino acid, in the blood. They went one step further and asked for a patent on the basic biological relationship between homocysteine and vitamin deficiency. A patent was granted that covered both the test and the scientific fact. Eventually, a company called Metabolite took over the license for the patent. Although Metabolite does not have a monopoly on test methods-other companies make homocysteine tests, too-they assert licensing rights on the correlation of elevated homocysteine with vitamin deficiency. A company called LabCorp used a different test but published an article mentioning the patented fact. Metabolite sued on a number of grounds, and has won in court so far. But what the Supreme Court will focus on is the nature of the claimed correlation. On the one hand, courts have repeatedly held that basic bodily processes and "products of nature" are not patentable. That's why no one owns gravity, or the speed of light. But at the same time, courts have granted so-called correlation patents for many years. Powerful forces are arrayed on both sides of the issue. In addition, there is the rather bizarre question of whether simply thinking about a patented fact infringes the patent. The idea smacks of thought control, to say nothing of unenforceability. It seems like something out of a novel by Philip K. Dick-or Kafka. But it highlights the uncomfortable truth that the Patent Office and the courts have in recent decades ruled themselves into a corner from which they must somehow extricate themselves. For example, the human genome exists in every one of us, and is therefore our shared heritage and an undoubted fact of nature. Nevertheless 20 percent of the genome is now privately owned. The gene for diabetes is owned, and its owner has something to say about any research you do, and what it will cost you. The entire genome of the hepatitis C virus is owned by a biotech company. Royalty costs now influence the direction of research in basic diseases, and often even the testing for diseases. Such barriers to medical testing and research are not in the public interest. Do you want to be told by your doctor, "Oh, nobody studies your disease any more because the owner of the gene/enzyme/correlation has made it too expensive to do research?" The question of whether basic truths of nature can be owned ought not to be confused with concerns about how we pay for biotech development, whether we will have drugs in the future, and so on. If you invent a new test, you may patent it and sell it for as much as you can, if that's your goal. Companies can certainly own a test they have invented. But they should not own the disease itself, or the gene that causes the disease, or essential underlying facts about the disease. The distinction is not difficult, even though patent lawyers attempt to blur it. And even if correlation patents have been granted, the overwhelming majority of medical correlations, including those listed above, are not owned. And shouldn't be. Unfortunately for the public, the Metabolite case is only one example of a much broader patent problem in this country. We grant patents at a level of abstraction that is unwise, and it's gotten us into trouble in the past. Some years back, doctors were allowed to patent surgical procedures and sue other doctors who used their methods without paying a fee. A blizzard of lawsuits followed. This unhealthy circumstance was halted in 1996 by the American Medical Association and Congress, which decided that doctors couldn't sue other doctors for using patented surgical procedures. But the beat goes on. Companies have patented their method of hiring, and real estate agents have patented the way they sell houses. Lawyers now advise athletes to patent their sports moves, and screenwriters to patent their movie plots. (My screenplay for "Jurassic Park" was cited as a good candidate.) Where does all this lead? It means that if a real estate agent lists a house for sale, he can be sued because an existing patent for selling houses includes item No.7, "List the house." It means that Kobe Bryant may serve as an inspiration but not a model, because nobody can imitate him without fines. It means nobody can write a dinosaur story because my patent includes 257 items covering all aspects of behavior, like item No. 13, "Dinosaurs attack humans and other dinosaurs." Such a situation is idiotic, of course. Yet elements of it already exist. And unless we begin to turn this around, there will be worse to come. I wanted to end this essay by telling a story about how current rulings hurt us but the patent for "ending an essay with an anecdote" is owned. So I thought to end with a quotation from a famous person, but that strategy is patented, too. I then decided to end abruptly, but "abrupt ending for dramatic effect" is also patented. Finally, I decided to pay the "end with summary" patent fee, since it was the least expensive. The Supreme Court should rule against Metabolite, and the Patent Office should begin to reverse its strategy of patenting strategies. Basic truths of nature can't be owned. Oh, and by the way: I own the patent for "essay or letter criticizing a previous publication." So anyone who criticizes what I have said here had better pay a royalty first, or I'll see you in court.

Teacher's Day

My first school event spent in ACJC. (Skipped National Day you see) The whole programme was rather entertaining and well planned. Afer obtaining feedback from my sister that JC programmes are general 'fun-ner' and hipper since they were fully organised by the students, which was pretty true. There were several reasons why I chose not to return to St Hilda's. I know some of them seem rather petty and insignificant, but they ultimately form a huge massive ball of a reason why I shouldn't be loyal to my secondary school.

1) I'm pretty angry that my neighbourhood school deprived us of a lot of opportunities. When you compare what other schools, even other neighbourhood schools gave their students the opportunities to maximise their potential. Well, the only person I'm to blame is myself for ending up there in the first place. But looking on the bright side, hey, it earned me $1500 in 3 years. But there's not much point being a big fish in a small pond, you simple get a hell of a shock when you enter the ocean and meet Jonah the BIG FISH.

2) I was extremely secure and content in my secondary school after spending a good four years there. Well, the first two weren't exactly the most ego boosting considering that I had hair akin to imploded cauliflower, but the following years got better as I proved myself to be better versed inwardly rather than be a cheena bimbo. Anyways, I'd already got past that face and submitted to the fact that I wasn't going to be a Miss Singapore or Miss Hilda for that matter any time soon. I simply enjoyed my friends and the intellectual hold I had over my life. I qutie a control freak you see.

Yes, the main point is, being in a level where there are 1000 students who are equally if not more capable and intelligent than you are automatically gives you a tinge of inferior complex. As much as I miss that kind of recognition and familiarity back in SHS, hovering in the past doesn't eliminate the fact that you're still as incompetent as ever. I want to resist that temptation of lingering and grappling at what's gone.

3) It's bloody Tampines from Buona Vista la.

4) I'm still annoyed at my form teacher for giving me such a slip shot testimonial, if it can still be called that. How can you call 'Cuiwen is a nice and pleasant blah blah blah' a testimonial? Ther's no personal touch in it whatsoever!! All our testimonials were basically cut and pastes.

ok I need to mug. Actually no, I'm simply too distracted by youtube to write anything more coherent.

Irony

Hmmm, I found it a tad humourous when I saw someone post up pictures of his/her relief work done in some dilapidated kampong inclusive of all the little starving kids, and following that the pictures of him/her and friends at NYDC and starbucks.

Talk about charity. I'm not saying the person was awfully insensitive and hypocritical for posting such contrasting photographs, I mean, honestly we would probably be guilty of that. The thing is more of how insensitive we have all become. we have all become so swarmed with poverty, adversity, oppression, misfortune and the works that we simply disregard it and catogerise it under a whole new section in our lives: 'Things we know exist and people we feel pity for but can't/don't/won't do anything'

And so off we go to buy $5 cups of gourmet coffees, scones and crumpets. Hey, why not throw in a Prada whilst we're at it? Anyways those people in Aceh would probably die before the US agrees to send my money over.

And the saddest thing is, I know that everyone who reads this, inclusive of me is just going to feel guilty for perhaps a nano-second at most and then move on. Why's that so? Are our lives as sucky (see prev. entry) as we claim? No! Thankfulness and gratefulness, the church never fails to endorse that. However it's so difficult to always keep that in mind, I suppose that's the reason for them revising it week after week to get it into our high-density, uber-thick super-strong skull and into that mushy 70% water-constituted thing we call our brain.

Hey People!

For all you musical fans out there! Or actually, any one who's looking now, here's a song my friend sent to me and which I later went to check out on youtube. If's a musical with a different twist! It's great for some ego boosting for some of us.=) I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mK9ssCpFyI

Smile!

Here's what I have to smile about!

1) I just got a new phone! Despite it being one of the early predecessors of Nokia phones (It's a 6070) I'm nonetheless extremely happy with the buy and the phone. The previous Motorola I had was successfully upping my blood pressure and frequencies of migraines with it's laggy internal processer (if it even had one) I've described its lagginess rather vividly to quite a number of people already, but allow me to once again elaborate how I would probably die if I were to need to call the police/ambulance urgently. It's as if my phone is this 70 year old woman who's incapable of any action once in a state of shock, which by the way happens pretty often. You open the flap too quickly, it goes into shock and you can't key in anything for about 5-10 seconds (which sadly is considered eternity in a world where occasions are considered to the nanosecond) If you press too many buttons too fast, BAM! Worse still, you recieve a call on a second line or a message comes in half way and stuff like that. Basically, the phone is akin to an 80 year old man who's slightly senile, slow, unable to multitask, slow, extremely un-human-friendly, slow, yea you get the point.

Hence, unable to take this traumatic frustrations, I decided quite strongly to get a new phone.

Yay!!

2) We saved $50 whilst getting the phone! I kept telling my mum we'd earn $2 from the Motorla since we bought it at 98 but would be selling it at 100. (haha, yipee 2 boxes of muar chee for us) To our delight, we ended up trading it in for 120, which means we earned $22! haha, and somehow, Nokia is selling the phone for $38 more than those little mobile phone shops under the housing board estates. Yay!

3) The salesmen were really friendly and pleasant! They even freely told us about their experience of nabbing a mobile phone theif! (Apparently some Malay student had attempted to sell a phone filled with Mandarin contacts, pictures, ringtones etc) Haha, ain't that nice that our friendly shop owners are doing their part in keeping our streets safe? =)

4) I had a great time with a bunch of my class bowling at a really cheap rate of $1.50 per game! And I discovered (for the first time) Marina South! I think it's gorgeous really, I can barely wait for our promos to end! Fly kite! fly kite!! (Throwing 9 pound balls aren't really my thing you see, I have this affinity for longkangs)

5) I really enjoy my classmates sometimes! They can be quite a breath of fresh air sometimes!

Things I'd like to hollar to the world

Well, not exactly hollar since typing and hoping that people have the time to read isn't exactly vocalising. But anyways, here's a little trivia to start your reading my post.

1) The defininations of the following words seem to differ slightly across different dictionaries. But anyways, here's what I gather from the one in my room;

Egoist - Person who is concerned about his/her welfare
Egotist - Selfish person; A conceited, boastful person
Egocentric - Marked by extreme concentration of attention upon oneself; self-centered

Hence, contrary to how people normally call those people who seem to think of nothing but themselves egoists, it seems that it is actually a term far too mild for them. Henceforth, since you have now been educated by moi, please correct your insults to others to 'egotist' or 'egocentric' for better effect. It works even better because of the authentic usage of the term as well as them probably not having heard the term before. =)

2) I have extremely straight feet! You'd be able to notice a perpendicular tan line across my feet due to the short construction experience in Batam a couple of months back. (I know, it looks damn funny and I was a moron to actually wear sandals to a construction site.) Take a look at your feet now and notice the general outline of your feet. You'd probably notice that you have 2 nobs on your feet, one on either side. However, one of them seems to be absent from mine.
You can use my feet as a ruler!

3) Ovation produces GORGEOUS guitars with GREAT sound. Just see for yourself.

I can't seem to upload the other pictures but I'll try again later. So... it's off to work/mug/die. bye!

Angels/Foot

Don't be taken over by these 3 apparently chio bu. Firstly, the lighting is bad for one thing, and secondly, looks can be decieving. Now these 3 pretty ladies here, actually, the main perpetrators were the 2 at the bottom who chose to torment my gigantic ego by ensuring that I looked like a COMPLETE idiot. Actually, not that idiotic la, I mean, considering that style practically oozes from me, I do idiocity with style man. ;)

Haha, anyways, enough of that, I shan't elaborate on how stupid these 2 girls made me look and how they had the cheek to record it! (As you can see Fei fei has already resorted to blackmailing me) Unless of course they choose to upload it on You-tube after which I would boycott and buy humongous paper bags to hide myself and change my face by living in the dark. Fei you better not lose your phone ok, or I'd have to change my name to some bimbo English name like pammy so as to attract more people to watch the online version of my stupidity being captured and continue the trend set by the predecessor Tammy. =)

Anyways, here's what the girls got me, and as you can see, majority of them were on my list! haha, though I've experienced quite a number of repeats this birthday, theyre all none the less welcomed and well-appreciated by me! And I love the pens, aren't I a cheapo. haha...

Watch out for a longer and more elaborate list next year. I reckon I'll have a checklist and hotline too.

My Family!

My house was filled yesterday! Even though it happens pretty often considering that 1206 square feet ain't much to work with and as you can see, that's my miserly puny dining area. Allow me to do a quick introduction round the oblong table, starting from the guy in red

Liyang (pretty soon to be family if you know what I mean), my all-grown-up cousin Zach, his mum (my ee-ee), dad (my uncle), *gay* lawyer cousin and my other *gay* programmer cousin (they cohabitate) haha... Zach's sister and her husband. So anyways, never before have we had so many relatives down all at once in our comfy, cozy abode due to the majority of the Lims living in Malaysia and anywhere else but Singapore.

You see my grandad had wanted a family of lawyers/doctors/scientists, you know, the prestigious makes. Unfortunately for him, most of his chlidren had the vision of educating little kiddies. And so, one scientist and 3 teachers later, my mum had no choice but to pack her bags and be sent off to little ole Singapore to study law when all she wanted was to teach little mal-ay-sian devils. And hence, here we are, the Singaporean family living in exceedingly constrained spaces as compared to our relatives who have plenty of land and space to live in.

The night went really well with the cousins and older generations jamming. Out of the eight cousin, 3 play the piano, 1.5 play the cello, 2.5 play the guitar and all are pretty competant at bellowing lyrics out. And thus, the Asian Von trapp family was formed! You would never guess how BeeGee's Words can be jammed with 2 guitars, a cello and a whole bunch of people strugging to harmonise with each other! No matter how many chickens/cats we killed that evening, boy did we have a good time. Sure enough it was damn tiring, but it was real worthwhile. I like my family, =) inspite of a few members being pretty screwed, we've still got it all together more or less. =)

A Fantabulous Day!

I had one of the most memorable, traumatic and gorgeous days ever! And here's a little tribute to those who made all of it possible for me, I would have just wallowed in a waterhole on my birthday if not for these people!

1) The hot babes and pimps in my class! (aka Mingxiu and gang!)
Now these few people, (the illustration given above is not entirely accurate due to absentees on that night) decided to be really quirky in their funny methods and gave me things that simply made me smile and gleam, I was really touched by the efforts of the girls in getting the card (and the guys in getting a Banana) It truly surprised me and shocked me, coudn't help but give these people hugs and squeezes! =)

People: Mings, Joanne, Sang-gali (hee), Singning, Clovis, Michael, Chinhong, Yan-chiobu-wen, juliza, qianzi, sijie (+entire class )

2) My damn cool and loony Cello section!

These bunch of clowns had decided to send me a bouquet of handsome roses (below) to my seat in the morning via my classmate Juliza whom by the way has managed to prove her acting prowess. Now after spending most of the day humiliating me by screaming/shouting/attracting attention as how Anli does so professionally, they finally chose to end the torment by admiting that they were my 'Secret Admirer(s)'! Now how cunning and caniving is that! But it was bloody sweet and I couldn't help but proudly and openly parade my bouquet after they told me. People: Tovya, Anli, Singning (cunning you), Elgin, Chialing, ShiJing, Zixing, Jovita, Siyi(nice hints)

3) All the miscellenious people who messaged/called/tagged/testified me!

People: wendy, deo, janet (although it went to the wrong number), natalie, shijing, elias, tricia, sijie, annie, shiyun, aiping, dhab, constance, bert, serene. Sorry if I miss any of you guys out. =)

4) Family! My mommy gave me a mirror claiming that I was vain. I'm s0oo0 not la. Jie gave me a couple of jazz Cds~ Tovya a Personlised cap (absolutely adore it!) that brown thing is the banana wrapped in the ACJC foolscap paper pad cover, cookies from the girls in class and of course my bouquet from my STALKERS. =)

Never occured to me that God had blessed me so very abundantly in friends and loved ones. =) Even though I'm such a terrible friend treater, ok fine I'll buy you guys sweets ok, haha...

A Coveted Image

I'm consequencially happy today considering the fact that I skipped 2 lectures today. 2 you know, TWO!! Yes, I am such a studious one that the most classes I've cut in a day come up to a sad, skinny 1. Can you believe I even went for GP classes during the first three months when I wasn't required to?! Gosh cuiwen you're such a nerd.

Anyways, I was pretty disturbed during my break though, however unlike some people, (in no reference to anyone in particular) I shall choose not to wallow in these minute matters concerning the social cohesion of me and my surroundings. Anyways, my day was made when I was debating with my conscience (though it was obviously putting up a futile struggle) on whether to cut the last lecture of the day, and I know I shouldn't exactly be publicising this but a couple of my friends decided to share some of the loot they had gathered some time ago. Lo and behold! They produced very much coveted ACS ring files! They had apparantly stashed quite a nice pile and were nice enough to share them with us.

I can tell you people honestly that I am extremely proud of my school crest. And I'll bet my last dollar on it that I'm not the only one. In my opinion, the ACS crest has pretty much become an image of branding. One which says - exclusivity, wealth, pro-expatriate, English and what not. Our school logo is very much coveted by many. It seems to come to the extent that splashing the tri-coloured logo across any good would make it several classes higher.

So then, I went home feeling much more pleased with myself for being in the right place at the right time and managing to get my hands on 2 lovely files. And being the cheapskate that I am, I would have been happy even if they were cheapo china files. =) And anyways, knowing that I have great friends around me who somehow never fail to give me support simple makes me smile. =) (even though my ulcer hurts like crap and my smile risks the craters in my cheek enlarging.)

My Day's Coming!

I'm hardly looking forward to my birthday actually probably because it signifies the end of July and the coming of August and hence the coming of Promos. Yuck. In addition to that I know that the way my friends and I are so stringent with our time, the bunch and I wouldn't probably be able to gather for the time being. I've already set my sight on a simple budget dinner at a fast food outlet which is considerably empty such that we can proceed with our funny antics without half the customers regurgitating their Big Macs back on their trays.

I actually have a rather big lot of rubbish to spout, however I shall stop myself and allow the priority to go to my birthday. =) As you can see it's pretty evident how sad my life is that I have to actually blog about my own birthday even before it has happened. Sheesh, what a loser. Well, like my sister's entry, for those who actually read our blogs and are clueless on what to get for us on this special day, here are a few major pointers:

1) I want a colourless, clear Nalgene bottle since I'm running out of plastic bottles to use and throw because I always seem to have the affinity of leaving them in toilets
2)Rod Stewert Jazz albums, any jazz albums (China budget CDs are welcome)
3)If you're filthy rich, love me, have $800 to spare or either, an Ovation (NOT Ovulation) M.O.B. (My Other Board) guitar is very, very welcome.
4)A one way ticket to Nebrasca for my dad
5)Flowers! I'm damn sad la, never received flowers in my entire life ok...
6)a bag of vaccumed Mushroom chips (from NTUC)
7) Six pack of Nescafe coffee, or a Java Chip Frapp from Starbucks. =)
8) For those with even tighter budgets, grab a guitar and serenade to me.

You know it took me really long to come up with a list like that, I'm not really craving for anything... hmmm, how nice and low-maintainance I am, =)

=)

I'm so happy!! My darling's coming back! Darling in this case refers to Annie of course, my b*tching cum crapping partner back during the good ole' days. All right, we did much more of the latter than we did the former, we are rather nice people you know, haha...

Anyways, for those who aren't aware, I shall devote this little segment to her, she's completely in love with AC and endlessly covets the fact that I'm in and she's halfway across the globe studying American history, haha... I don't care to how much extent that is true, it looks nice and if she disagrees, what's a tagboard for? haha....

Yay. She already semi-condemned me for joining the Cheena-est CCA in AC. What the heck, I love the Chinamen teaching us and I love that she's coming back!

Gosh, what an absolutely brainless entry, for the first time, I'm really beginning to feel the unfamiliarity of thinking profound thoughts. Darn.

Fact is...

To be completely honest, the CO barbeque was a complete waste of my time and effort. Well at least the onus is no longer on me to 'bond'. well, I did manage to know one the girls in my section better. Anyways, there were nice people around, and I suppose it's too early to say anything, (I'm being extremely positive here) but I guess lets see. Anyways, it came to my realisation yesterday that bonding is a spontaneous reaction and by product, guess it can't be forced. Well then, shall apply that to the youths in church too, haha... Can't really force them to sit down and bond you know.

Well then, I can't believe I'm actually sitting down and using the computer, it seems like such a thing of the past. Damn, more work and even more work to do.

Why my post so boring ah?

My muse decided to take an uncalled holiday. Darn.

Ah!

You unsupportive people, never tag! Flooble threatened to close my chatterbox because no one posted stuff la. >:(

Anyways, back to the civilised AC English, uh-um, lets see what I can write about, I had a terrible CHINESE oral, my CO's going ot be performing to old froggies next week (I highly think that half of them may end up dead) and most of our playing still sounds like shit, to add on to that I lagging as far as the distance of Zimbabwe to Singapore in school work and life has never seemed so screwed. I've lost all the skill to push myself to mug. I just succumb to bloody distractions so darn easily. Sleep, cello, digging through my pile of papers to figure what to complete first only to end up piling them up once again before I can even finish writing my name, it's a bloody vicious cycle that doesn't seem to be able to end. The crappiest part is that Promos are barely 3 months away. Thank God PW seems to have progressed (we no longer want to attempt suicide) All right, thank God for that. Whew.

Shit, that still doesn't change the fact that I'm lagging miles behind time.
Shit.

Tipping Point

I've realised than wordy entries tend to be rather dull, and yet I'm not quite willing to post pictures due to the high time comsumption. So I'll keep this entry quick, simple and hopefully interesting.

I've been reading The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell. It's a darn good book. Go get it if you can.

All right, that's waaay too short, haha... I realised during the last few days that ACJC is not exactly the school that I would recommend for my juniors in St Hilda's. It being a neighbourhood secondary school, most of the kids there already lack initiative and pretty much need to be spoon fed everything. And that's definately not what you'll get in AC. For crying out loud, our teachers are the ones who seem to be cutting classes! There are 2 simple reasons as to why AC has gone into the top 5,

1. The teachers in the Arts Fac are good. Even our H1 Econs teachers are good. Thus resulting in nice pretty scores for the Arts students.

2. What about the majority, namely the Science students then? Aha... Here's where the trick comes. Most of the science students are rich enough to pay for tuition, books and the works.Why slog through the whole year when the $200/hr ex-VP can help me?


And thus, st hildan's (science kids) have neither money, nor independence and self-sufficiency. So what else do you expect me to say?

Man do I miss these people... =

Exceptionally Distressed

I feel like shit. No, I feel like the shit of the bacteria that feeds on excrement (shit's just too plain crude.)

My terms are coming, so are all my fellow friends', the only difference is that I haven't been studying and am so going to screw them up whilst they have been studying and are already brilliant to begin with. Even though I constantly console myself with AC's good reputation and standard of being top 5 JC, that definately does not automatically guarantee me a place in Uni or eliminate the huge risk of retaining. However improbable and distant the idea of retaining may seem to you people, it is, sad to say much closer to all of us than we think. It has no longer become a challange to fail subjects in JC, very much in contrast to examinations in secondary school where one could easily do the papers whilst paying more attention to the usage of sadistic means to end the life of the scurrying ant on their desk but still be able to pass or even ace the bloody exam.

Germany and Vienna!

I decided not to write much but simply upload photograps and captions. People these days require colour and visual aids.

Pathway to The Enchanted Forest

My sister and I just aren't apt at taking self photographs

Just look how large the Dandelions

Plenty of pretty buildings and skies like this.

We actally saw a rainbow! And I actually managed to take a photograph of it!

Look what's ahead....

The famous World Cup Stadium in Munich!

Look, another pretty street.

Haha... Funny brand

Flies Anyone?

We recently returned from Malaysia from our tri yearly visit to our relatives down in KL. Hygeine conditions never seemed so terrible! To think that we, Singapore, the uber clean and green city resides just next to the fly infested Malaysia. Or perhaps it was only JB. However large the extent of this infestation, it is still enough to make my stomach do dozens of somersaults in a minute. During our lunch stop at some place near the causeway, we came to this fast food place. As we know, fast food places are supposed to boast one of the cleanest environments out of all the food places. This place however, chose to serve flies with their fries. Bloody disgusting. The air-conditioned mart next to it wasn't any better, flies were being zapped and fried by that deadly looking wire grill every half a minute. The even more terrifying thing was that the number of flies never seemed to cease!!

Fry Fly Fries.

Been a long week.. I actually came home close to 12 4 out of 5 days this week! There was AC's choir, then TP's choir, (Which was well performed by Aiping and shiyun) then a friend's birthday, then SYFC's Garage performance. Whoo! By far one of my busiest weeks!

Sorry I know there doesn't seem to be much link between flies and late nights. my brain ain't functioning clearly right now.

Musicals

The pictures here depict the 2 musicals I recently went for with my mum and sis. Just if you're wondering, no I don't go for 2 musicals a month.

Anyways, the one on the left, Aspects of Love, is based on a novel (a rather stupid one I must say) and the music-written by the one and only Andrew Lloyd Webber. It starred one of the big names Monque Wilson. The one on the right, on the other hand is inspired by a sweet love story and music-written by none other than our local Beauty-World-Cha-Cha-Cha musician, Dick Lee. Starring local talents Emma Yong, Robin Goh (Oo!) Gani, Lim Yu Beng, George Chan and a whole lot more.

Now as much as you would like to trust the more foreign sounding one to be more entertaining and worth watching, I would have to say our seemingly hopeless local production surpassed it hands down. Man of Letters was not only well written and directed, but well sang and acted as well. I must admit Dick Lee has finally moved on from cranky sounding musical attempts. The songs were smoothly layered, the lyrics well versed and the orchestra was simply charming. All right so his lyrics did get a little meaningless and repetative after a while, but hey, it was much less painful than watching the actors in Aspects of Love making out with each other every scene change! And oh, what CHARMING leads we had!! It was a simple plot to follow, the fairytale story every girl needs once in a while whilst the storyline of Aspects of Love proved not only to be screwed and incestrous, it was bloody sappy as well.


Man of Letters was simply gorgeous. I haven't been to a good musical in qutie a while, and considering that AOL was a hundred bucks a pop to see 2 pianos and loads of kissing whilst we paid 60 to get not so good seats but loads of quality, I'd say Man of Letters rocked. RJ Rosales was there too! Though he only did one song as a guest singer, boy was he a charmer!

Oo yes, to continue with the mood, here are a few Utube videos my sis spent the entire day hunting. People like AiPoing should appreciate it! (if that silly girl would come online la.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy-A-wyzj7c&search=miss%20saigon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsJpfwYBx2U

Random`

Here's one for you,

( Over the phone)

Me: Eh, you guys lost is it?
Friend 1: Uh... ya I think so.. wait ah, (passes the phone to Friend 2)
Friend 2: Hello?
Me: You guysa re lost is it? Where are you?
F2: Don't know...
Me: What do you see?
F2: A signboard.
Me:What sign? (expecting a road name)
F2: It's a 'slow' sign.
Me: Huh? (noisy la) what does the sign say?
F2: Slow sign, you know the sign tell you to go slow one,
Me: !?!?

Can't understand how someone can give that kind of responses, haha....Seems like guys cannot process info fast enough!
Note: This re-enactment above is completely non-fictional.

Expectations?

Here's a post for all the females out there who share my sentiments; Guys these days just seem to get more and more insensitive, unimpressive and disrespectful. Now if you're one with testerone and shaking your head in disagreement to this statement, just hear me out for now.

I'm not completely sure if a majority of the female population share my view on how our male counterparts should know how to treat a lady. In my personal view, guys should consistantly be on the look out on public trains and buses to give up their seat willingly to the old folk who comes up the train or even to the office lady. Or how they can afford to be more initiative in offering to help a girl return her cutlery or buy her her drink on the way to the canteen. I'm not insisting that guys should begin picking up the role of Mariam the maid but little actions such as these compliment the idea of females being the fairer sex. Recently, I'm beginning to lose hope on ever finding this kind of chivalry and am glad enough if the guy next to me agrees to return his own plate without much hassle.

Actually, the thing that really puts me off the most and which I regard as a basic courtesy that guys should have concerns their behaviour in front of girls. Now perhaps it's because it doesn't occur to them but FYI, we don't really delight in the little anecdotes or jokes about frivoulous sex and what not. Fine if you really can't help yourself and talk about it, but couldn't you at least wait till the girls aren't around to hear about how gays do their Thang. Not nice.

This is just my point of view as a female, I have been wondering whether guys have been expressing their disappointment with the fairer sex amongst themselves like how girls do. For instance perhaps how girls these days don't have high frequency voices which are sweet enough to send the bees flying, or how girls are not gu niang enough, or perhaps maybe how girls these days don't have long enough hair or not sweet enough, I don't know. I'm not a guy. I think should conduct interviews on both parties and view the dissatisfactions, yes, then everyone will be happy with everyone and we'll all go on and procreate happily ever after.

Man I should have used this for PI or something.