pandemonium!

lies.

2008-01-17T06:15:00.000+08:00

"I pretended too. Different things, of course. You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone." Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea.

sometimes, pretension is all there is, don't you think? you deceive yourself into thinking that you're a better person, that you will be unaffected by emotions or flaws that afflict those with a less righteous upbringing or a more mercurial temperament, that you will remain, in all things, true to yourself.

"true to yourself." what does that even mean?

truth. bah.

you lie to yourself.

and sometimes, it's easier just to pretend.

it's been a while.

2007-12-11T21:10:00.001+08:00

i realise, it's been a while since i blogged, or written anything of meaning, anyway, and so here i am, ready to pour out my distinctly complicated emotional patterns into a rambling, emotionally overwrought piece of prose that will confound the pragmatic, frustrate the cynical, and very much annoy the skeptical.

not really. :p

geoffrey says that i only blog or get in contact with people when something's wrong, and here's proof to the contrary! i am not:
a) unnecessarily emotionally charged, reading too much into situations and/or dwelling on things that cannot be altered.
b) necessarily traumatised and/or worried, although my dwindling financial situation should be something to be traumatised and/or worried about.
c) completely numb, although in which case i wouldn't have anything to say about the matter anyway.

the truth of the matter is, life is.. alright. it's.. pleasant enough. there isn't many ups or downs, but somehow there's always something somewhat buried beneath the surface that continually comes up to bug me. i realised i just used three "some"s in the past sentence, which has to be the most vague illustration of anything ever. bah. in any case-- there's just something intrinsically.. wrong with the situation. i'm sure everyone has felt a bit like that before.. i'm not precisely UNhappy. just not particularly.. joyous. and although that may be the typical situation for most people, i generally like to think that i'm a normally happy person, and thus this vague LACK of complete and utter joy and ecstacy is a bit.. worrying. haha! but i'm just whining now, and i've said i won't whine during this post. so the whining shall cease.

it's eight days till i get to return homeeeee!! :) and although that does make me feel significantly better [i have been ridiculously homesick this term], there are things back in york that i feel like i'm leaving behind. and i'd better remind myself to tell my employer i'm going home. hmmm. :P fairly important point that i have completely forgotten up till this very moment; putting it in writing = first step to remembering it. haha!

anyway, i've not really got much to say but.. well, looking forward to christmas, and to seeing everyone again!

ciao.

sometimes some lyrics just speak to you..

2007-11-27T09:00:00.000+08:00

while you were sleeping, they knocked upon your door.
while you were sleeping, they crept along your floor.
while you were sleeping, they rifled through your drawers.
while you were sleeping, it was no concern of yours.

on this world that spins on selfishness and lies;
such an awful sight; you close your eyes.

while you were sleeping, they all passed through,
you entertained fair-weathered friends and pretenders.
while you were sleeping, they all left you,
without a penny for services rendered.

i never sleep, because sleep is the cousin of death.

while you were sleeping, they torched your home,
tore the clothes off from the body you surrendered.
while you were sleeping, they all left you,
without a penny for services rendered.

just because you turn away from everything, doesn't mean to say it isn't happening.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

sonic boom six is unbelievable.

this is completely anti-thetical to my last post, i know, but..

2007-11-16T12:09:00.000+08:00

-gives life the finger-

F***. YOU.

do you know what i need?

2007-11-15T20:17:00.000+08:00

i need God.

writing.

2007-11-13T06:33:00.000+08:00

i've been advised by so many of my predecessors in the tradition of writing that writing can act as a form of catharsis-- a form of relief, of altering your perspective on things and finding new meaning in life that you can only find in retrospect, and perhaps that's what i need now.

in a perverse way, i'm really glad no one reads my blog anymore-- it means i can be candid, and the honesty could perhaps help me find a way out of this.. doldrum-like existence.

you know, when you find something, or someone, that you trust in implicitly, without even a hint of a doubt: no questions, no hesitations-- you jump right in, you find your 'groove', and you meander along that 'groove', rejoicing in the feeling of unabashed excitement and exhilaration that it gives you. you put your whole heart and soul into it, keeping nothing to yourself, sharing your deepest thoughts and feelings, baring your soul, as the cliche stands, and the headiness; the rush; the emotions that make your heart race and your head spin-- that gives you adrenaline. it gives you momentum. force. you move. you keep moving. you never look back.

and one day, as things undoubtedly will, things cave in. people turn their backs, deservedly so or not, and you're left stranded in the middle of this... 'groove'. you can't head towards the sides, because you've run so long in this 'groove' that the slopes are too steep to climb. you can't go forward, because you've lost momentum, and you no longer have strength to carve a path out for yourself. you turn your head, wondering if you could head back, but all you see is this.. 'groove'. this straight, unending path that disappears over the horizon, the start of which you can't even see anymore.

what do you do?

you, as all people do, sit. and wait-- for someone to come rescue you. fly over in a helicopter, maybe. drop you a rope, maybe. flood the 'groove' and come floating along in a little paper dinghy, maybe. whatever. the mechanics aren't particularly important. the important thing is that you wait. and you hope: for a miracle, so you can escape the situation. but the sad truth of the matter is-- there is no helicopter, there is no rope, and there certainly is no magically floating paper dinghy. that's it, baby. end of the road.

so you sit, and you wait. and you wish. wishful thinking, more likely. the tedium of the days of waiting begins to get to you, and you no longer remember what day it is, or what day it was when you sat and began waiting for help. and eventually you get up; you begin crawling, maybe, because your legs don't work anymore. you crawl.. and eventually you stand, and begin to walk. and slowly, slowly, you start to run. back along that 'groove', towards that faraway starting point again; retracing your steps, hoping to find someplace, ANY PLACE, where there was a crossroad that you hadn't taken.

you eventually find it; the crossroads, and the uncarved 'grooves', and you choose another one, hoping this time it'd take you someplace new. someplace where you wouldn't be stranded. and people join you. and you run again, along that new 'groove', that new path, as FAR AWAY from the old 'groove' as possible, knowing that's where you don't want to end up again.

but the truth of the matter is-- you'll always end up there again. all 'grooves' lead to the same place. you sitting in a ditch, waiting for someone to rescue you.

and no one will, baby, no one will.

it's cyclical. or perhaps not. perhaps it's this neverending set of 'grooves' heading in different directions, and you keep running back to that set of crossroads, trying to find another path you can get onto, so you can get as far away from the previous path as you possibly can. but where does the running end? the 'grooves' never head towards a destination, just.. AWAY from the previous 'groove'. and you're never running to-- you're running away.

so what is the point to all of this? do you stop running? just sit down right there in the middle of those crossroads and mope? or choose another 'groove', with another set of people, and keep hoping for the best, like a silly little carebear heading down that magical rainbow to whoknowswhere? or do you sit there, in the middle of that old, tarnished, worn out 'groove', and wait for that fantastical paper dinghy? or do you climb out of the 'groove', all by yourself, KNOWING.. that it's going to be a lonely journey. no one's there beside you to give you momentum, to make the groove go forward and grow, so it's not going to be much fun on that ride. you walk, alone, barely making a dent in the sand, and you know you're all by yourself-- but at least you're on flat ground. and you can walk wherever you want. front, back, left, right-- you've got free rein, baby.

so tell me, what do you do?

homesickness.

2007-11-07T08:18:00.000+08:00

i think sometimes when you get a little older in life, shaped by experiences, by taking stock of what you've achieved, you learn things that are secondary to what you set out to learn in the first place.

you learn that homesickness doesn't necessarily manifest itself in some sort of overwhelming outpour of nostalgic emotion. it's occasionally, and for me, more frequently, this visceral, physical pull towards the idea of return-- and the hormonal, emotional and mental imbalances that that creates.

it's a tug-o-war, really, the idea of balancing two lives; the predominance of one would undeniably place the other in the shadow.. and sometimes you realise that it IS that delicate balance that you have to achieve. the knowing when to let go of one and to go to the other; the careful arrangement of both your lives around a disciplined schedule and NOT detracting from that, in order to achieve the optimum level of enjoyment of both arenas.

using clinical language, i've learnt from james joyce, is a nice way of detaching yourself from your emotions so as to correctly evaluate the situation.

hmm. not working.

still miserable.

want to go home.

scrubs has the answer to everything.

2007-11-02T20:20:00.000+08:00

i can't get to sleep;
i think about the implications
of diving in too deep
and possibly the complications.
especially at night,
i worry over situations
i know i'll be alright
perhaps it's just imagination!

day after day it reappears;
night after night my heartbeat shows the fear;
ghosts appear and fade away.

alone between the sheets:
only brings exasperation--
it's time to walk the streets;
smell the desperation.
at least there's pretty lights,
and though there's little variation,
it nullifies the night from overkill.

day after day it reappears;
night after night my heartbeat shows the fear;
ghosts appear and fade away.
come back another day!

i can't get to sleep;
i think about the implications
of diving in too deep,
and possibly the complications,
especially at night,
i worry over situations
i know i'll be alright
it's just overkill.

my new addiction to w.h.auden.

2007-06-22T08:05:00.001+08:00

always makes me laugh.

Foxtrot from a Play

The soldier loves his rifle,
The scholar loves his books,
The farmer loves his horses,
The film star loves her looks.
There’s love the whole world over
Wherever you may be;
Some lose their rest for gay Mae West,
But you’re my cup of tea.

Some talk of Alexander
And some of Fred Astaire,
Some like their heroes hairy
Some like them debonair,
Some prefer a curate
And some an A.D.C.,
Some like a tough to treat’em rough,
But you’re my cup of tea.

Some are mad on Airedales
And some on Pekinese,
On tabby cats or parrots
Or guinea pigs or geese.
There are patients in asylums
Who think that they’re a tree;
I had an aunt who loved a plant,
But you’re my cup of tea.

Some have sagging waistlines
And some a bulbous nose
And some a floating kidney
And some have hammer toes,
Some have tennis elbow
And some have housemaid’s knee,
And some I know have got B.O.,
But you’re my cup of tea.

The blackbird loves the earthworm,
The adder loves the sun,
The polar bear an iceberg,
The elephant a bun,
The trout enjoys the river,
The whale enjoys the sea,
And dogs love most an old lamp-post,
But you’re my cup of tea.

-------------------------------------------------------

this was my pre-performance entertainment for the past two days-- camped out behind the screen reading "the selected works of w.h.auden. :P which of course, brings me to my first REAL post in ages. Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents, directed by Mary Larew [the most patient person in the world, i swear], was staged at the National Centre for Early Music on the 20th and 21st of june.. and all in all, it went preeeetty well! :P imagine-- a 13th century drama, entirely SUNG, performed in medieval latin in a church that's older than my country.

doesn't that sound fun? :P

well, it was.

the past few days have passed in a rush of three hour long rehearsals and run-throughs, taking ju around and essentially trying to make full use of my time left in york. it's slightly heady, actually, the feeling, when everything slows down and you think back on what you've been doing for the past academic year, and suddenly it hits you-- life's just passing you by. like that. it's frightening when you think about it, really.

but yet again, did not mean to go off on a strange, maudlin tangent.

my point was-- it was good fun. honestly. i think there's something about plainchant that really just grabs someone by the gut and forces them to concentrate on WHAT'S being sung. perhaps it's the purity of the line, the clarity of the melody unsullied by messy harmonies and polyphony. perhaps it's the use of the dorian scale, the intrinsic haunting qualities which it possesses. perhaps it's because it's in latin and everyone's just squinting at the translations trying to figure out where they are in the play. or perhaps it's just because there aren't any instruments that they could listen to as an alternative. :P but there's just something awesome about it that i'm absolutely addicted to, and i wake up sometimes hearing plainchant in my head.

which, admittedly, can sometimes be a little bit scary and foreboding. hehe.

but it's powerful, and kudos to mary, because the staging was pretty damned powerful as well. :) tableaus. so much fun. haha! looking forward to performing it again!

international medieval congress. how cool does that sound?! :P

i think with each passing day-- i revert more and more into my early teenage, inexplicably optimistic, rose-tinted-glasses-wearing self. which isn't necessarily a bad thing, i admit, but sometimes i fear that it's just.. you know. calm before the storm and all that mambo jambo. carebear-ness.

i have to stop worrying. garnering some sort of a reputation as a worrywart. bah.

something still feels wrong with the world. it's been what? three days, and something, something inexplicable, still feels wrong with the world. sigh.

and this is why i keep coming back.

2007-06-19T21:04:00.000+08:00

having judith over in york is possibly the most joy-inducing thing i've had in a while. although, strictly, i can't be sure if it can be considered a "thing".. but well, grammatical issues and my deteriorating grasp of the english language aside, MY BEST FRIEND being over in the UK with me has made life.. sort of complete.

she takes my mind off things, and she's here to talk to me about anything and everything, and well, she's judith. and she makes life simple.

it's strange how i can see her once in months and completely feel at home-- there's no strange "i haven't seen you for so long and i'm not sure what to talk to you about" awkwardness-- there's no judgment, no hesitation, no discomfiture.

i love judith.

this is why she's my best friend in the world. i never ever have to explain myself.

this post isn't making much sense, i realise. rambling post-- probably a good indication of my mental and emotional state.

auntie wai chin passed away yesterday. God bless her soul. it's actually pretty difficult to come to terms with the death of a close one-- it doesn't feel.. real. i mean, in the past year i haven't seen her often, because, well, being separated by an ocean kind of makes it difficult to meet up with people, but i remember a time where i saw her everyday, when she was almost like another mother. when our cellgroup was so closely-knit, i would stay over at ruth's all the time, and watch "don't worry, be happy" on auntie wai chin and uncle singkong's bed, listening to spice girls and playing silly games. i remember holidays to malaysia together, where the parents would take turns watching us while we devised some way to escape their attention.

it just.. doesn't feel real, you know what i mean?

i can't imagine what it must be like for them now.

how surreal.

she's one of the best people i have ever met-- one of the most righteous, and down-to-earth, and loving, and giving, and God-fearing. she's an inspiration.

it doesn't feel real.

this is the only thing that's holding me up right now.

2007-05-30T05:20:00.000+08:00

and i am determined that it shall be my guiding light.

i will not back down. i will not give in. i will not allow myself to blame, or to be angry, or to be upset. i will sympathise. and i will care. and i will love. even if everything caves in around me, and even if i am broken in spirit and have no outlet. because i was first loved. i will leave it in Your hands. and You will make it right. i will trust. i will pray. i will give and keep giving, and not expect anything back, at least for the moment. i will wake up everyday and tell myself to keep giving-- to keep giving and forgiving, and to be there, no matter what.

The Prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
where there is hatred, let me sow love.
where there is injury, your pardon know.
where there is doubt, let there be faith.
where there is despair, let me bring hope.
where there is darkness, let there be light.
where there is sadness, let there be joy.

oh, divine master--
grant that i may not seek to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
for it is in giving that we receive,
and it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
for it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
amen.

so even as i go through this, i will banish all thoughts of feeling betrayed, all thoughts of feeling forsaken. because.. i have You, don't i? and You are enough. You are more than enough. You will help me through this, You will be my friend when no one else will. You are ever there, and You are love, and You are all that i need. i pray that this prayer will be the cornerstone of my every action, and that whenever worry enters my mind, i will be reminded that i have given it up to You. You will touch hearts. You will change lives. all i can do is to do my best, and to keep trying, and to keep being there, and to keep praying. and You will make the difference. i will not be angry, or disappointed, or depressed, and i will be a light for You. help me to understand. help me to sympathise. help me to put everything else before my own unnecessary feelings of hurt. help me to be selfless. help me to remember that there are people going through much worse. help me to remember to love. help me to be a better person in You. help me to be tenacious. help me to never give up, even if i am mocked and turned away like so much rubbish. help me to be the person i know i can be, the person who never stops loving and never stops giving, because You loved her and gave to her, and never wanted anything back.

i will be strong in You.

and now that i've taken this to You in prayer, help me to not worry. because i have left it in Your hands.

i will have faith.

and i will keep loving, no matter how much it takes out of me. no matter how much i hurt.

i will not back down, i will not give in.

i will love.

okay, FINE, fine.

2007-05-24T08:18:00.001+08:00

well, if all my beautiful ardent fans, made mostly out of my sister and the lone cousin who reads my blog, want an update, here's an update.

there is absolutely NOTHING going on in my life at the moment. :P i'm studying for my finals, which is a pain, really. and unless you want me to go on and on about orderly heterogeneity or koinesation or rapidly expanding lexical innovations, i suggest i really shouldn't be nagged to blog for this next couple of weeks. :P

as far as life goes, life is good. liverpool just lost to ac milan in the champions league final, which was amazing to watch in a pub full of screaming liverpool fans. HAHA! and considering liverpool beat arsenal out of third place in the premiership because of a measly two goal points, i really am NOT inclined to be charitable about it. :) but they did put up a valiant effort, nonetheless, and it was a pretty good game aside from inzaghi's horrible fluke of a goal in the second half. DEFENCE, for goodness sakes'. bah.

anyway-- God is good all the time. :) and life goes on. and i'm happy. so again:

ciao!

shoot me.

2007-04-26T06:28:00.000+08:00

+44 and angels and airwaves playing at the same festival, about thirty minutes from where i live right now.

and i will be in singapore.

shoot me.

:(

nonsense.

2007-04-03T11:24:00.000+08:00

i cut my hair yesterday.

actually, that's an incredibly singaporean turn of phrase.. because i mean, technically, I didn't cut my hair. i was not the agent of the cutting [in terms of thematic function] and i am clearly not the subject who performs the action of cutting [in terms of grammatical and syntactic function], so i suppose that that sentence would be considered as pragmatically and syntactically inaccurate-- so i shall revise it and instead say: "i got a haircut yesterday." or perhaps "my hair was cut yesterday".. but the use of the passive voice always irks me in some indefinable way.

anyway, back to my point, or lack thereof, before i began correcting my own grammar.. my hair. yes, sadly, my life has dwindled to the point that i am now, as a almost-twenty year old university student, reduced to talking about my hair. it has been hacked off by slightly more than four inches due to the ridiculous number of split ends one acquires in a country where the relative air humidity levels hover between fourty to sixty on good days. [singapore's hover between seventy to a hundred on bad days.] and well, i don't hate the fact that i had my hair cut, although i did bid a teary farewell to the pile of dead hair surrounding my chair, but i very conveniently forgot WHY i decided never to cut my hair a middling length again before i went overseas.

why? because one does not want to wake up fifteen minutes late for one's nine-fifteen class [as i am often wont to do] and have to fight with one's hair for about an hour before one's ready to go out. and that is exactly what i ended up doing today. and it still looks terrible. how frustrating.

i would very much like to claim that shorter hair makes me look somewhat.. more.. sassy. [as my mother has assured me time and time again] but the sad, unfortunate truth is-- shoulder-length straight hair, unfortunately, brings me right back to the days of secondary school where i couldn't figure out what to do with my hair, because well, long hair was too much of a hassle, and short hair was too sacrificial for my tastes, and well, shoulder-length hair, despite it's annoying "i can't do anything with it!" phase, just seemed like the most natural default.

that's IT! shoulder-length hair is the mark of the indecisive and the weak-minded! i knew i was griping about this for a reason. hehe!

now that i've sufficiently bored everyone with talk of my hair, i shall talk of something else that's incessantly boring and extremely self-important. haha. the life of a blogger-- it always promotes self-indulgence and self-pity, and that's quite a pitiable thing in and of itself.

i realise that no one actually reads my blog-- and this is a GOOD thing, no doubt. the truth is, so many of the things that i write down holds utterly no significance to anyone aside from me, that part of me sincerely regrets writing it once i do, but then i have too much pride to retract it. -grins- so the fact that no one reads my blog? a good thing!

i am such a glass half-full person, it scares me sometimes.

it does, though, bode very badly for the current occupation of my life. how am i to aspire to be an award-winning, best-selling author if people don't even find piddling interest in the things i pen down for FREE? i see my future flash before my eyes-- if i'm extremely blessed [i really dislike the word "lucky"], i could end up ghost-writing for celebrities who very much like the sound of an autobiography, except for, well, the "auto-" part of it. i'd never see my name in print, but at least i'd get the satisfaction of seeing my work published. OR i could end up being an editor, which, well, admittedly, would drive me into insane fits of professional jealousy all the time and secretly plotting the death of all the authors under me. of course, there's always writing hallmark cards. or childrens' books like "the adventures of peter and jane!"

hmm. i'd better find a nice, big cardboard box to sleep in before i graduate. heehee.

okay, i'm going off to school to eat the best chicken rice in the world now! [with extra skin, eggs and dark sauce. yuuuum.]

ciao.

remember the times we shared.

2007-03-29T23:21:00.000+08:00

today, i spent the day with two people who knew the lyrics to every song i sang.

admit it-- they're the cutest things you've ever seen.

the kids aren't alright.

2007-03-26T00:37:00.000+08:00

what happens one day when three slightly mentally unstable siblings return from a particularly hyperactive game of tennis one sunday night, not ready to go to bed..?

they invent a game. :) mehehe.

the mechanics of bedroom baseball:

1) it involves, normally, four players: the pitcher [no, not the jug], the batter [no, not the thing with flour and water in it], the fielder and the referee. in cases where there is a lack of a fourth player, due perhaps to the absence of one sibling who resides overseas, or perhaps just plain good fortune of NOT having so many siblings, the fielder can double up as the referee.
2) the players stand in a diamond [though, truly, a square, a rectangle, a rhombus, a quadilateral, or any other shape with four points will suffice.] of course, if you only have three, the only shape you can form is a triangle. more pity to you.
3) the pitcher is armed with a ball [or in this case: a teddy bear], the batter with a bat [or in this case: a bolster], and the fielder with the ability to save the pitcher's life.
4) the pitcher takes aim, throws the ball/bear as hard as he/she can at the batter.
5) the ref shouts: strike one, strike two.. and all that jazz. if the batter strikes out, they rotate position. but if the batter manages to gain CONTACT..
6) the batter is then given the liberty to whack the pitcher with the bat/bolster as HARD and as repetitively as they want to.
7) the fielder then has to retrieve the ball/bear from wherever it has fallen, and throw the ball/bear at the batter. only when contact is made between the ball/bear and the batter, can the batter stop hitting the pitcher and the pitcher's life be saved.
8) everyone then rotates position and the game continues.

as you can tell, this game acts more as an excuse to abuse your siblings than anything else, but that, my friends, is the crux of the game.. muahahahaha..! PHYSICAL ASSAULT UNDER COMPLETELY INNOCENT CIRCUMSTANCES! they make for the best sports. :P

anyway, just in case anyone wanted a sample of bedroom baseball, here is a little video sampler for you.

*disclaimer: this is a highly retarded and very bad video and SHOULD NOT be viewed. EVER. :) well, except by sookie, because she asked me so very nicely. also, yes, my sister likes tweety bird. and also, yes, there is a very large and very unattractive poster of person X on my glass cabinet. please note that this poster has not been moved since the year 1997, and is still there more out of deference to its relic-like status than actual appreciation for said person. hehe.

i told you so. -shakes head- sigh.. suckers for punishment..

ciao!

my gosh.

2007-03-22T13:35:00.000+08:00

something i haven't seen since october the eighteenth, year two thousand and three. rediscovered it while reading my old diary. alongside many other things. [some of which i wish i hadn't written down :P]

still think it's brilliant, though! i especially love travis' ONLY line in the whole thing.

have i ever told you?

2007-03-22T12:39:00.000+08:00

about the girl who knew my every thought?

how about the girl who gave me hope for the future?

the girl who changed my perspective on life forever?
there it is, isn't it?
eternity in one photograph.
how we, and the apparent quality of digital photography, have changed.

these are the ones who never leave you.

no. matter. what.

"wait. advertisement! commercial break! wait for ju to come back then i'll continue the story!" / "but i'm so pissed off already on your behalf! such a twat."/ "huh, huh? what? wait, i don't get it!" / "aiyohhh why you all so mah-fan one!"

four distinctly different people; and we still laugh at every joke. :)

my jay-six. :)

2007-03-18T15:03:00.000+08:00

i miss you.
all of you.
feels like something's been... displaced.
and it's only been three days.

fancy that.

<3

annnnnouncement!

2007-03-08T19:59:00.000+08:00

eveeeeeeeeeeryone!

jo has made a mistake again! [as she is often wont to do]

jo will be leaving the uk friday sixteenth at 10.00 am and arriving in singapore saturday seventeenth at 7.10am.

so whoever i've told that i will be arriving back on the eighteenth, clearly i am a numbbrain and cannot sort out information in my head. :P

seeeeee you in a week or so!

ciao.

lieder festival.

2007-03-04T09:36:00.000+08:00

i actually have quite a long post stored somewhere in my head-- but because it is one thirty five in the morning, and because i'm not quite sure if i'm ready to sit here for two hours and rant, cry, laugh and ramble to a unresponsive piece of electronic equipment, i am just going to write a short, succinct, and completely meaningless post.

observation of the day: music majors are the weirdest, albeit most interesting, people i have ever met.

actual conversation that occurred during the emma kirkby workshop [which, i am still unsure how or why i managed to attend, considering i am most definitely not a music major]:

music major #1: you know, i went into banks [amazing sheet music store in york] today.. spent so much money.
music major #2: oh yeah? what did you get?
me: [sitting quietly at the side eavesdropping]
music major #1: oh, i got the K.466.
music major #2: whoa, really! you got the d minor concerto? good buy! how much was it?
music major #1: a quid fifty. real bargain if i ever saw one!
music major #2: that IS a bargain.
music major #1: i was thinking about getting the K.595, but it seemed a little too expensive.
music major #2: wait.. that's a piano concerto, isn't it? the.. wait, don't tell me.. the.. number twenty-seven?
music major #1: yeah! good shout.

they. speak. in. k. numbers.

K NUMBERS! MY GAWD!

for people who, like me, are somewhat musically illiterate [as compared to THEM, at the very least.] and don't know what K numbers refer to.. basically, some crazy person called ludwig von kochel one day decided to catalogue the complete works of mozart according to numbers, and these are called the kochel numbers or the k numbers.

and these people can randomly name k. numbers, and their interlocutors actually KNOW EXACTLY what piece they're talking about.

tis a scary, scary world.

ciao!

sobering.

2007-02-22T01:06:00.000+08:00

judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.

quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?

rex tremendæ majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me, fons pietatis.

salva me.

how time flits its wings.

2007-02-04T04:00:00.000+08:00

the coolest thing happened to me today.

i was online, procrastinating as usual, refusing to write my three thousand word long essay on the American Civil War, when my brother suddenly messages me. he tells me: "hey. your primary school friend called the house today and asked for you." naturally, i was stunned; astounded. my first thought was what primary school friend?

if you knew me during primary school-- you would understand what i mean by that. i had to be the most grumpy, uncooperative, and wholly unpersonable overweight child EVER. i hated everybody and everything, and all i did was sit in the corner and count pokemon cards and write long, overwrought and angsty stories about death, destruction, and having a roller coaster installed in my backyard. :P

so my brother gives me a number, and tells me to call this friend. so, intrigued, i sms this person, leaving a message essentially saying, "hi, who are you?" and said person replies me. and i am, for an instant, completely dumbfounded, and extraordinarily excited.

it was kok jian. foo kok jian! this name, of course, means nothing to you, but he was the person who sat next to me for two years in primary three and primary four. essentially, my only friend. :)) we used to pass notes in class, and we would ALWAYS get caught. and we used to draft up horror stories together, and he would draw the accompanying pictures! he was amazing at art, then.. always got ninety percent for art class. :) he was the single greatest influence on my handwriting-- he had the neatest handwriting for a nine/ten year old. i used to emulate his handwriting, and he would teach me the value of the ballpoint pen as compared to a gel-ink pen. and up till now-- still using the ballpoint pen, i am. ohhh my gosh. the memories.

i remember his long flip-flip ruler. :)

messaging him brought back so many memories of primary school, and for the first time in a long time, i can look back on my primary school days and smile, not cringe. i remember going to em1 [class: primary 5EE] in the year 1998, and feeling so utterly despondent and regretful that i didn't just choose to go to em2 because, well, kok jian went to 5GG. [i cannot believe i still remember this.] i remember he used to stay at ang mo kio ave 10, and he used to take the 53 home. [i can't believe i even KNOW this.] my very LAST memory of him was when i was in primary six, and we met on the bus after getting back our posting results. and i remember him telling me he was going to anderson secondary. and i remember telling him i was going to raffles, and i remember smacking him on the shoulder because he was so surprised at my apparently fake intelligence. :P

oh my gosh, that was eight years ago. and we haven't SPOKEN spoken in ten years.

it's amazing, how God brings back people into your life. :)

and he STILL has the horror stories we wrote when we were nine. i'm afraid to read them now; i might be tempted to strangle nine year old me.

SO FRIGGING COOOOOOOL!

ciao.

the utter boredom of my existence.

2007-01-26T23:31:00.000+08:00

i realise i've already had several posts with similar titles. but yes. i'm sure you can understand why..

here's a video that i took on a particularly boring night in my flat. really, you don't have to watch it. it's meaningless and.. well. boring. :P i'm mostly uploading it to relieve my boredom.

i've been feeling really ill over the past couple of days.. had a fever, a cough and a bad throat. but hey, what do you expect when you come from a country that averages 30 degrees celsius to one that currently averages.. what? two degrees? the lake froze over that day. i was highly tempted to step onto it after seeing a whole gaggle of geese traipsing their way across the surface. but, naturally, i wasn't THAT feverish.

i'm rambling, really, because i can't seem to focus on one thing long enough to think. i keep getting slightly woozy. bother.

going to take a nap now.

ciao.

fooooootball.

2007-01-22T21:16:00.000+08:00

yesterday: the fateful day of the arsenal-manchester united match..

it was utterly and completely brilliant!! after enduring matt's impassioned complaints that we didn't watch the chelsea-liverpool match, we traipsed off to the deramore arms to catch the match, along with about sixty other half-crazed, mostly drunk football fans. most of which were united fans, sadly enough. [makes a face]

imagine. sixty people squeezed into a tiny little pub with three television screens, all showing sky sports super sunday.
it was utterly fantastic. adrenaline was pumping, mucho screaming, gloating, and from the more fanatical [or drunk] cussing and crying. i've never been one for watching matches in a large group.. but ohhh man, this was fun. especially considering of the four friends i had that were there with me, one was a liverpool fan, one only watches the la liga, and the other two were manchester united supporters.

after clearly disproving that i loved arsenal purely for the eyecandy by listing out their first team, we watched the first half as rooney's nearly amazing shot got neatly deflected by lehmann, several half-hearted and rather pathetic attempts at the goal got made by rosicky, and all round screams and hair-tugging began.

in the second half, things got a lot more exciting. [especially since we moved towards a bigger screen :p] i'd have to admit that one player that particularly impressed me was evra.. never gave up, that man. even though he was clearly playing for the wrong side. :P the manchester united goal wasn't too bad. [grudgingly] but somehow i KNEW, i KNEWWWWW that we would make a comeback.

and then they brought on van persie, recovering from his injury. [i honestly wasn't expecting him to be able to play.]

a little backstory: robin van persie is one of my most loved arsenal players EVER. henry still ranks pretty high up on the list, but he tends to get a little too cocky for my tastes. [and the diving yesterday. -shakes head- gad.] the only reason why i watched the netherlands during the world cup was for van persie. he's a solid forward, and ever since he made his first arsenal appearance in august 2004, when we WON the match against manchester united, i have been an undying supporter.

so of course, when they brought on van persie, i let out a little shriek of joy. matt was rather astounded, because during half time, we had been talking about my undying affection for van persie.. and.. he comes out shortly after the second half begins. HA. i turn to matt and i go, "van persie will do something." craig shakes his head, matt laughs at me, and i cross my fingers, hoping against hope that he would do something.

and he DID. amazing. :)

you can imagine just how loudly and unstoppingly i screamed when that first goal was scored. the match goes on, and i turn around and say to my friends again: "they're gonna win." everyone scoffs. and then henry pulls that last minute goal.

see. i AM psychic.

best day EVER.

neh, not really.

but in all seriousness, van persie is my hero. broken metatarsal or not.

GO GUNNERS!!!!

ciao.

2007-01-20T23:29:00.000+08:00

my relationship with my adorable little rat of a sister is fairly.. odd, i just realised.

I LOVE WATER! MATT WATTS IS HOT, KENNY IS CUTE AND TOM IS GREAT! says:
i hate you! you suck
I LOVE WATER! MATT WATTS IS HOT, KENNY IS CUTE AND TOM IS GREAT! says:
suck suck SUCK
-jo- has slept too much. [ootgr] says:
haha. YOU suck too! but i love you!
I LOVE WATER! MATT WATTS IS HOT, KENNY IS CUTE AND TOM IS GREAT! says:
i HATE you

haha.. such an angsty little teenager. which reminds me. in exactly two hundred and eight days, i will cease to be a teenager.

how utterly and completely depressing.

this was a nonsense post.

ciao.

coffee, crossiants and firefly.

2007-01-18T19:00:00.000+08:00

i am on a coffee hiiiiiiigh at the moment. lots and lots of caffeine. very good for you. la-dee-la-dee-la!! [spins about dizzily]

i have realised that no matter how angry, frustrated, and close to murder you make yourself, these emotions are eventually.. meaningless.

think about it. you spend a whole half-day picturing the scene from jpthree where the tyrannosaurus rex's neck gets snapped by the spinosaurus, imagining substituted heads with necks that snap as easily as the veriest twigs, and basically indulge yourself in violent imaginings of the most brutal nature. you then sit down, and you eat lovely, fresh-baked jam-filled croissants, gulp down at least five cups of cappuccino, and you realise.. what on earth is the point? you get yourself riled up, exasperated to the point of hair-pulling, so upset you're close to tears, and in the end, what does it matter? time passes, you forget, and you're back to square one.

so what on earth is the point? better just to be.. zen. you know. c'est la vie. que sera sera. all that mambo-jambo.

a huge double-dosage of serenity and firefly helps to calm the soul somewhat, despite all the rabid killing and space chases and unexpected deaths of main characters. [i swear i almost cried when it happened. after being completely stunned and going "what just happened?" repeatedly for about five minutes.] one of the best sci-fi movies i've seen in a looooooooong time. of course, star wars will always and forever remain right at the top of my list, but this is coming pretty darned close. and it definitely surpasses the star wars prequels. -snorts in derision-

imagine this: a world many years into the future, where earth's population has burgeoned so much so that the earth can no longer sustain us. new planets and systems are rooted out and conditioned for human habitation, and the superpowers of the world [a frighteningly probable prediction, actually], namely the USA and China, form the Alliance, the government that essentially runs the universe. of course, with all forms of tyranny and fascism comes rebellion, and the Independence is formed-- people who want to break free from the control of a government who tries to brainwash their people. a war ensues, one that renders almost all of the Independence dead, and the universe is again taken over by the Alliance.

now imagine a sergeant for the Independence, one who has been through the entirety of the war, now carrying his dashed dreams and his stoic, silent war buddy, Zoe, with him across the universe in a ship [codename: firefly] named Serenity, basically acting as a professional thief for fences across the galaxy, evading the Alliance at every turn. add a crew made out of a jovial, optimistic pilot, a redneck ruffian, an ever-cheerful, happy-go-lucky female mechanic, a pastor [who's not quite what he seems], a renowned courtesan, a brilliant fugitive doctor, and his creepy psychic sister on the run from the Alliance... and you've got an amazing series.

i am completely and utterly addicted. i can't believe singapore missed out on this one.

wash: "everything looks good from here.." (stops piloting and starts playing with plastic dinosaurs over his console.) "yes, yes. this is a fertile land, and we will thrive." (as stegosaurus) "we will rule over this land, and we will call it... 'this land.'" (as t-rex) "i think we should call it... your grave!" (as stegosaurus) "ah, curse your sudden and inevitable betrayal!" (as t-rex) "ha ha HA! mine is an evil laugh! now die!"
zoe: "proximity alert. must be coming up on something."
wash: (alarmed) "oh my god. what can it be? we're all doomed! who's flying this thing?!" (deadpan) "oh right, that would be me. back to work!"

haha. i love this show. :)

mal: (wounded very badly) "we're not gonna die. we can't die. you know why? because we are so.. very.. pretty. we are just too pretty for God to let us die."

i agree wholeheartedly.

ciao!

... you know sometimes...

2007-01-13T19:18:00.000+08:00

when you just feel like curling up in a corner and wasting away?

haha. emo, i know, and completely not me; but either i'm going through a period of severe singapore-withdrawal or i'm just bogged down by exam stress or whatever-- but for days now, all i've felt like doing is curling up in a corner and watch life pass me by.

the exams were a period of mixed feelings-- gladness, relief, frustration, and eventually, resignation. the sociolinguistics exam was particularly defeating, i think. all i remember from that exam is coming out and thinking, "that was a complete and utter waste of my time." phonetics and syntax were loads better. well, there you go, my specialisations picked out for me by process of elimination.

speaking of mixed. -shakes head in frustration, not knowing quite what to say-

this is why i say i'm going insane.

i've got no FOOD food barring one quarter of a packet of frozen mince beef and one eighth of a packet of chicken bits lying somewhere in my freezer, so i've resorted to rationing and only eating lunch. of course, these lunches are HUGE, so no worries about me physically wasting away-- i'm not that psychotic. or disciplined.

all my flatmates have noticed my ridiculous moods; matt keeps asking me, "are you alright?", charly keeps patting me on the head and saying, "feel better?", craig just gives me very concerned looks, and everyone else just gives me a wide berth. haha. it's understandable. i am a bit of a monster nowadays. -grins- we celebrated the end of exams [and actually, we celebrate the same way everyday] by watching 'finding nemo' and playing some ridiculous japanese game on matt's wii. cheered me up a lot; even though it's probably quite sad that i'm still reliant on video games to give me joy. -sheepish smile-

i miss choir.. and i'm so thankful for the people who keep updating me.. :) even though i think it's become an addiction i might have to wean myself off while i'm over here.. but. i'm glad. and i'm praying for them, every single one.

ciao.

introspection.

2007-01-08T02:44:00.000+08:00

it's probably not a good thing; at least, not on the eve of an exam and the same day you happen to return to the united kingdom.

the constant drizzle outside exacerbates the process; the dreariness makes one see the negativity in everything.

talking to limmy sobers me. it's bizarre, that way, considering i merely ramble and she listens. but it helps me come to my own conclusions.

and sometimes knowing too much about yourself and your inadequacies make you just that little bit sadder.

there's something about my life that needs to be changed. i haven't figured it out quite what it is, yet. but i feel it, more so tonight than any other night in, perhaps, the past year.

quite the most frighteningly effective, or effectively frightening enabler i know. :)

i'll take some time to sort it out.

ciao.

one day more; another day, another destiny.

2007-01-05T10:52:00.000+08:00

... the never-ending road to calvary!! [garbles happily at valjean's distinctly reachable notes]

i really think i should just retire from singing girls parts and move on to less challenging and usually more enjoyable male parts. :P

my sudden outburst of "ONE DAY MORE!!!" isn't completely due to my schizophrenia; have no fear. i am, in fact, leaving singapore in a matter of a day, and strangely, my christmas holidays seem to have passed so fast that i can't even remember what i spent all my time on.

i certainly didn't STUDY, as i ought to have.

it just seems like yesterday [cliches abound!] when i flew the necessary but gruelling thirteen hours back to singapore; and now i've got to fly off again. eminently unfair, in my opinion. but i have to say that this christmas break for me really symbolised everything i have to be thankful and joyful about back home in singapore.

i got to spend time with my family, making sure they hadn't forgotten my existence; i got to spend time [however miniscule that fraction of a second was.. :p] with my best friend, the still beautiful judith yee; i got to spend time with people i hadn't seen in a LONG TIME [well, person.], my old friend qing, even if it were only for a few minutes; i got to spend time with ernest, even though that evidently wasn't enough time for his liking; and i'm going to see nartz in a few moments, so that's another important person to see struck off my list! :)

but i'd have to say, the highlight of my return, and to be honest, my life in singapore, would have to still be THE choir. [yes, yes, i can hear the groans now. but bear with me.] truly, my christmas holidays were given such meaning because of the time i shared with them; with everyone. carolling was, for me, so fulfilling, and intensely addictive. and with the music comes the people, that part of the choir experience that i really treasure beyond belief. seeing stefff again was just great, and well, i've missed everyone so entirely that coming back, being able to be around people who GET me, who understand so intrinsically how i feel, was just.. the quick, life-saving gasp of air that you take in as you break through the surface of the water, before you dive in for another long stroke.

okay, bad analogies and choking sentimentality aside, i've missed my friends. and it's really nice to have something so precious to come home to. :)

ANYWAY, an alarming piece of news: geoffrey ho allowed me to CUT HIS HAIR yesterday!! haha.. i can almost SEE your reactions as i type this. but in complete truth, he did. and even though, according to bong, i'm too scared and unadventurous in cutting his hair, i'm still amazed by the faith he showed in me. despite ernest's tauntings and "have you seen her barbie dolls?", he still let me do it! and even though it doesn't look much different and it'd probably grow out in a matter of days, it was still an experience, nonetheless. :)

a little photo sample.

alright, i'm late to meet natasha, so.. [breaks out into song!]

... one more DAAAAWWWWWN, one more DAAAAAAAYYY, ONEEEEE DAAAAAAY MOOOOOOORREEEEEE!!!!

ciao.

back to life; back to reality.

2006-12-28T19:16:00.000+08:00

returning from bangkok to singapore was, admittedly, a less joyous event than my uk-singapore flight. firstly, the anticipation was considerably diminished; not to mention the fact that MY STUPID CONSOLE wasn't working and thus i played "beat agents" on my brother's nintendo ds-lite [the most amazing thing ever invented] the whole way back.

TWO HOURS playing the equivalent of "dance dance revolution for the stylus".

it's enough to 1) get you completely addicted or 2) drive you completely insane.

thankfully [or not], the situation happens to be the former. and thus, i have been STUCK to the ds-lite from the moment i got hold of it to.. well, a little bit before now, when my brother [very rudely, in my opinion] gave an irritated little huff and literally wrenched it from my grasp. harumph. evil little devilchild.

i'm only kidding. i love the bloke. it IS his ds, after all.

ANYWAY, most importantly, i have to blog about the carolling season; which is, to me, the best thing that has happened to me since i returned to singapore. actually, more accurately, it's the ONLY thing that has happened to me since i returned to singapore. from the 18th to the 24th, my everyday revolved around getting up at eleven, showering, getting changed into my concert gear and cabbing down to twenty-five dover close east for warmups before we went carolling at wherever it was we were supposed to sing at on that particular day.

it might not sound like much, but i'd have to say; it was fantastic.

i haven't felt that sort of undiluted joy since i'd left for the uk. the lack of purpose and the feeling of having been uprooted that had been, frankly, not gnawing at me, but hovering on the fringes of my consciousness these past three months quite effectively obliterated itself, and my christmas season was truly made beautiful-- made beautiful because i shared it with people i loved; people i've managed to miss without even realising it. it's strange that way; you don't feel it until you're back; when you're back spending time with them again. then it hits you, and you wonder how you're going to return there without feeling like something has been robbed from you.

ARGH. sentimentality. gah.

shall not say too much; or this post might move from being sentimental to downright disgusting. i don't seem to have a lot of pictures from my time here; but i'm gonna post those i have anyway. :)

a horrible self-taken picture of ernest and i.

a really nice; albeit POSED; picture of david, jamie and geof!

alumni girls in concert gear.

the acjc choir; performing at keppel towers. :))

AND NOW, for the special segment of today's programme.. the many faces of the beautiful, the wonderful, the one and only... JAMIE HO!!! :)

the slightly irritated.

i call this the "face stuffed with food", but that's not precisely accurate in this particular situation.

the confused.

amused, and slightly smug, i would say.

and finally, the.. uh. i don't really know what to call this.

and there you have it. :) the many faces of the beautiful jamie ho. :) i love her to death. you hear that, jamie? I LOVE YOU. so you can't disembowel me for putting this on the internet. :p and for not allowing you to delete that last photograph.

ciao!

just to prove that i DID NOT STAB MY DOG TO DEATH WITH A POKER...

2006-12-18T22:00:00.000+08:00

this is sisqo, my beloved tri-colour rough collie.

who has yet to die of any stabbing or poking.

life as a "singie".

2006-12-18T21:56:00.000+08:00

singapore's a beautiful place.

beautiful people, beautiful music, beautiful prices... beautiful food.

too MUCH beautiful food.

i literally am finding it difficult to breathe.

seoul garden is truly dangerous. :(

two days till operation return-to-sanity.

2006-12-11T23:51:00.000+08:00

i am, yet again, being nagged to update by my lovely boyfriend, and thus, the poor world of information technology will have to endure my imbecilic ramblings about nothing in particular, all due to my extreme subservience and deference to the wishes of ernest xue ren kai.

i'm not exactly sure how people update their blogs when their lives are as inconsequential and mundane as mine is currently. i mean, what exactly is one supposed to write? a daily account of one's activities? the delirious, circuitous narratives of the ups-and-downs of one's emotional landscape?

ernest suggests that if i have nothing to write down, i should just blog about work. [yes, i do hear the chorus of groans from across the miles.] and so again, because i am so absolutely attuned to the every whim and fancy of aforementioned boyfriend, i WILL blog about what i study.

here's a little excerpt from Old English [i.e. Anglo-Saxon] that i found extremely amusing. it's a translation of a modern christmas carol-- in fact; if any of you manage to tell me what the title of this carol is, i will reward you with a CHRISTMAS PRESENT! [as in the glorious example set by geof]

of course, i do this knowing fully well that no one has yet been able to foist a present off him. :P

Incipit gestis hrodulfi rangifer tarandus

Hwaet, hrodulf read-nosa hran-deor --

Naef-de paet nieten un-scine naes-pyrl-as!

Gliten-ode and glad-ode god-lice nos-grisele.

pa hof-ber-end-as mid husc-word-um hine ge-hefig-odon;

Nolden pa ge-neat-as hrodulf naefig

To gomene hran-isc-um gangan aetsomne.

Da in Cristes-maesse-aefne storm-ig-um clomm-um,

Halga Claus paet ge-mun-de to him mapel-ode:

Neah-freond niht-eage nosu-beorht-ende!

Min hroden hraed-waen ge-laed pu, hrodulf!

pa ge-lof-odon hira lad-deor pa lyft-flogan --

Waes glaed-nes and gliw-dream; horn-edra sum ge-giedd-ode

Hwaet, hrodulf read-nosa hran-deor,

Brad spring-ep pin blaed: breme eart pu!

you know what? after putting it down, i realise that this might be a little too easy. OH WELL. :P let's see who gets a christmas present from jo this year! :)

ciao!

oh gaaawd.

2006-11-25T00:46:00.000+08:00

omg. my pants are getting tight again.

damn it.

thanksgiving!

2006-11-24T20:29:00.000+08:00

thanksgiving night was a fantastic night; everything about it. [although my significantly drunk and hungover friends might not altogether agree with that notion.] we had a gigantic meal comprised of an eight kilo turkey, honey-baked ham, mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, corn casserole, carrot and celery sticks with dip, honeyed carrots, sage and onion stuffing, pigs in a blanket, and for the finishing touch, raspberry and apple crumble, all home made! yuuuum!

of course, the supply of alcohol was pretty incessant. we went through four bottles of vodka, twelve bottles of stella atois, beautiful cocktails called "constantine the great", shots of donovan's [bailey's rip-offs], one bottle of cabernet savignon, one bottle of chardonnay, and three bottles of limoncello. [courtesy of charlotte's mom] of course, this was between twelve people, so that isn't as bad as it sounds, but as i only had two glasses of wine and a cocktail, you can imagine how utterly hammered most of my friends were.

the things that you discover about people when playing "i have never..". haha! -shakes head in resignation-

here are a couple of photos from last night.

the legendary turkey, fresh out of the oven!

a really sweet, loving picture of sebbie and sookie.

the FOOOOOD.

a couple of the guys and girls in a group photo!

sookie, seb and i.

a great night spent with good friends does give people a general sense of well-being. :) still, i miss everyone at home sorely.. i really wish nemest was there to celebrate it with me; to meet my friends, to share in the joy. it's hard not to think of him during times like this, when i'm reflecting on a particularly good day/night and want to tell him about it but not knowing how. haha. and especially when i'm skyping with him and he's dancing to "earth, wind and fire". HAHA. my silly boyfriend. i love him so much.

i miss all of you, and i'll be back soon!

ciao!

nothing much to say.

2006-11-20T20:04:00.000+08:00

ernest is nagging me to update, so i shall update.

reading week was last week, and it was pretty much the best week of my life so far here at uni. no tutorials and minimal lectures gives one time to catch up on his/her work [which i, admittedly, did very little of], go out and spend time with friends [which i, admittedly, did a little of] and generally slack off and sleep until three in the afternoon [which i, admittedly, did a LOT of].

don't look at me like that, i DID finish a 2,500 word essay. [albeit in 2,911 words]

matt's girlfriend, verity, came over to visit matt this weekend, and the envy nearly killed me. why doesn't ernest xue ren kai want to visit me...? :( such a nehneh. i miss him so much, and he doesn't even want to spend TWO DAYS [well, hee, and two thousand dollars] to come and pay me a short visit. haha. [i'm kidding, nemest.] but truly, it was fun hanging out with the flat again, going out to evil eye [now our usual haunt everytime we actually bother to go out] and teaching verity how to play mahjong and daidee. :P

we're celebrating thanksgiving this thursday! [even though, well, british people technically DON'T celebrate thanksgiving.] the only two yanks [although charlotte gets affronted when i call her that :P] in our flat are doing most of the organising and planning. hmmm. turkey stuffing and pumpkin pie. :) yummnm. how exciting! [gastronomically, of course. the commemorative significance kind of passes over my head :P]

anyway, i've got to finish reading my textbook before my next lesson in an hour so...

ciao!

photo updates: night out in town and guy fawkes.

2006-11-14T03:07:00.000+08:00

these pictures are from a LOOONG time ago, but well, just thought i'd put it up to show you guys what nights out in york are like. usually we just catch a movie, but this was the first time we'd all gone out together to get a few drinks at a couple of different pubs. [although, well, i wasn't really drinking. :P] it was a good night: plenty of laughs, ribbing each other, and generally watching other people getting smashed.

us walking along the streets of york!

in orgasmic, second pub of the night.

sitting around the table in orgasmic.

craig falling off his chair and hitting his head. the poor guy was totally hammered. :(

craig!

the guys posing for a picture.

a group picture, kindly taken by i'm-not-sure-who. not everyone is in here at this point [where's liz and charly?] but oh well.

it really was a good night. everyday i thank God for my roommates.. they've made life here bearable. :)

ciao!

2006-11-14T02:31:00.000+08:00

remember, remember, the fifth of november; the gunpowder treason and plot.

i see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

guy fawkes night at york was a pretty damned fantastic night, pretty much since i've never in my LIFE been able to set off fireworks. i launched into a little pyromaniacal phase-- all my flatmates seemed intensely tickled by the fact that i was laughing and clapping and jumping about whenever someone set off a new one. -_-" so anyway, i should have probably blogged about it a long time ago.. but i never really had the chance; i was sort of waiting for the photos from charly's camera because, honestly, one can't describe the elation one gets when you set fireworks off. :) it's brilliant, i tell you.

i only set off one or two roman candles that night, because we only had a couple of rockets, i think, and everyone was clamouring to set them off. but it was still fun. squatting in the grass holding huge matches to a fuse, and then watching the fuse light and RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE away from the explosives? best feeling ever. it's like a thrill to match no other. [again i display my pyromaniacal tendencies.]

another rather pyromaniacal character was andrew.. he truly went a little bit bonkers that night, and kept threatening to run TOWARDS the fireworks rather than AWAY from them everytime someone [or himself] set them off. haha.. he's such a hilarious character. charly got rather peeved after a while and just instructed everyone to restrain him and keep him away from the matches.

anyway, a picture says a thousand words [omg, the cliches], soooo here they are.

my flatmates and the usual usurpers of my kitchen in the hallway of our flat before we went off to set off the works.

the guys very graciously let the girls have the sparklers to play with [because well, there were only five.]

how bright the sparklers ACTUALLY are in the dark.

FIREWORKS!!!!

FIREWWWWWWOOOOORRRK!!!

the girls, posing for a little group picture. yes, i am THAT short.

the guys, posing for a group picture. [i don't know why there's this white sheen over it]

GROUP PICTUREEEEE! [from left: giulia, liz, meg, chaos, craig, andrew, matt, sookie, me, sebbie, charly and michael.]

they REALLY should allow fireworks in singapore.

ciaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaao!

update: after a LOOOOONG time.

2006-11-10T03:52:00.000+08:00

hola! mi llamo jo, tengo diecinueve anos y vivo en york! soy de singapur, y soy estudiante! yo tengo una hermana, es mas pequena que yo, y dos hermano. tengo novio y [someday-to-be] marido, se llama ernest! mi padre y madre soy medico, y ellos viven en singapur!

well, that's about all the spanish i can say after two weeks. :( i am a gone-case.

anywayyyy! hello everybody, it's been a while, hasn't it? my life has been uneventful, or at least, relatively uneventful, and i was planning to wait until i got some pictures from my friends so i could make my life SEEM somewhat eventful and exciting but i decided that that was pretty pointless, since it's evident that my life is uneventful ANYWAY.

it's been four long weeks of proper schooling [woe betide whoever decides to go to university thinking that it's going to be a breeze compared to jc], getting into the swing of things [finally], using up all my foolscap paper, starting of tutorials and having reading lists piled onto you. i get the feeling i should be studying a lot harder than i am currently, but well, i figure i'll eventually get around to it when someone finally kicks me. [i'm only kidding, i do study hard. :P]

i've been called a LOT of things by my friends, or rather, FRIEND, recently: "uptight" is one.. "prude" is another.. and of course, who can forget the classic one.. "bitch." haha. i wonder how you're supposed to NOT take it offensively, but i know [or rather, i think] they, i mean HE, doesn't mean it offensively. well, if he does, -shrugs- what the hell, right? haha. i'm coming back soon, in any case. you guys love me, don't cha? haha.

well, if you don't.. it'd only be three more weeks before i head back here anyway. :P

i can't believe i'm making a joke out of my sad, sad life.

the weather's getting really crappy. one night, it went down to negative FOUR, and i don't have a warm enough jacket OR gloves so i was basically freezing to death. haha. i bought a nice warm scarf, though, and the nine pounds i spent on it was REALLY WORTH IT. the daylight hours are getting shorter and shorter, and it's beginning to turn dark at like five pm. :( that effectively means that i pretty much walk back from lectures on tuesdays, thursdays and fridays in the dark. it can get pretty creepy.

mostly i'm worrying if i'll step on duck poo without realising it.

sometimes i ring up seb and sookie to come pick me up and walk me back, and they ACTUALLY DO IT. such nice people. :) i think the constant darkness and the cold are getting to me.. i'm feeling slightly depressed and, occasionally, startlingly lonely. it doesn't really make sense because well, i'm surrounded by people almost all of the time, but yeah. sometimes you just need your family and your friends, and they aren't around, and that gets pretty tough.

i want to tell you guys more about the fifth of november and guy fawkes night, but i'll talk about it when i get pictures. :)

until then,

adios!

first rehearsal at the university of york choir.

2006-10-31T18:44:00.000+08:00

culture shock.

there are three hundred individuals forming the university choir.

the alto section has sixty people.

that's more than twice the people we usually had at alumni practices.

and that's more than ten times the altos we had in my batch.

ppp is sung as fff and fff is sung as ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.

scary, sia.

ciao.

my first assignments.

2006-10-27T00:39:00.000+08:00

i know the title of this entry is probably the best indication that this is going to be the world's most boring blog entry, so yes, the wise would probably stop reading right about now. :)

i got my first lit essay back today. thankfully, the english are a very sympathetic lot and have decided that the first year of literature doesn't count towards my final degree grade.. hence, there's no GRADE for my first essay. thank God, really. haha. i personally think it was the worst piece of crap i've ever written in my entire life, not to mention the fact that i overshot the word limit by about a thousand words. :P surprisingly, my tutor still went, "oh, why didn't you number your pages or give the word count?", even though the fact that i had written too much was blatantly obvious. he's such a nice guy. haha. he gives really in-depth comments about the essay, like those ms j used to give at the end of the essay, so that's extremely helpful. thank God for great teachers. :) and even though my essay was clearly uninspired, over-analytical and extremely unselective, at least i got some good advice! haha. i hate political poets. perhaps it's the fact that i can't remember anything about the political history of anywhere except singapore. haha. close-minded education, much?

next assignment's shakespearean plays. hoping for the best. :)

my other assignment for this week comes from my linguistics department [the dual-department thing is driving me nuts, btw.] and you're really going to love this.

my assignment is to LOOK UP A WHOLE LIST OF WORDS on the OED [Oxford English Dictionary], and to classify them into being of French, Latin, French or Latin, Nordic or Other origins.

yes, French origin, Latin origin, and French or Latin origin are DIFFERENT categories.

and get this, the list of words must be contextually accurate. they give us a passage where all the words are found, and we have to identify the cultural and syntactical context in which they are used in order to correctly determined the use of the words and their meanings. and there are about a hundred and fifty words.

a HUNDRED AND FIFTY CONTEXTUALLY ACCURATE WORDS THAT I HAVE TO CLASSIFY INTO FRENCH, LATIN, FRENCH OR LATIN, NORDIC or OTHER ORIGINS.

i'll be looking at the bloody dictionary all weekend.

oh, my poor accursed eyes.

ciao.

photo update!

2006-10-24T08:54:00.000+08:00

just thought you guys might want to see how nights in Flat 6, Block J of James College are spent. EVERY NIGHT.

this is meg. she's the sweetest, most understanding human being alive, and the only one who can tolerate us screaming like madmen in the middle of the morning.

this is andrew.

and this is what happens when andrew is given control of the camera.

this is what happens when i'm trying to study in the kitchen. :P not that i'm complaining, actually.

this is matt, looking at.. actually, what the hell is he looking at?

that's andrew, seb and sook, playing dai dee. [as previously stated, that is ALL we do.] and the aforementioned competitiveness? didn't believe me? observe the fact that andrew is SCREAMING.

that's meg, and michael. the quieter ones in our flat. :)

that's my first encounter with a tree with ORANGE LEAVES.

that's matt, saying "good game." [this is getting a bit tedious. -sheepish smile-]

the one on the far left is giulia.

okay, i'm too tired to elaborate.

ciao.

just something odd that happened today.

2006-10-23T10:26:00.001+08:00

jo: [on the phone with geof] hmmm.. yeah, YES, you must come and visit me. YAY! okay, okay bye.
matt: who was that?
jo: oh, that was my friend geoffrey. he's in london. is it my go? [plays her ace of diamonds.]
matt: you have a friend called geoffrey? [sounds extremely taken aback]
jo: uhh. yes.
matt: is he singaporean, then?
jo: haha.. of course. yes.
matt: [looking extremely perplexed] you have a singaporean friend named geoffrey?
jo: yeeeess. his name is geoffrey. why do you sound so surprised?
matt: it's just that... geoffrey sounds like such an english name.
charlotte: well, her name's joanne!
matt: well, but yeah, joanne i can accept, but GEOFFREY?
jo: [laughing uncontrollably] yeahhhh. most of us have english names, you know.
seb: so wait, your friend's coming to visit you?
jo: yep, why?
seb: does ernest know geoffrey?
jo: yeah!
matt: [interrupting] what? you have a friend called geoffrey AND a friend called ernest?!
seb: ernest is her boyfriend.
matt: so is he singaporean?
jo: yes, of course he is!
matt: oh my god. a singaporean called ernest. i don't even think i know anyone ENGLISH called ernest.

haha. my flatmates crack me up. :)

life, love, and jay chou.

2006-10-23T06:29:00.000+08:00

it's sad how life seems to degenerate over the weekend. there's no more school, no more rush [except for that one bloody essay that you seem to take forever to finish], there's nothing really much to do except bum around, wonder what you'd do for the day and go shopping.

oh btw, speaking of shopping, I HAVE MY BOOTS! they're brilliant, i tell you, absolutely brilliant. they come all the way to below the knees, they're brown, suede, and have heels about two inches high. amazing, amazing shoes.

okay, bimbo moment over.

so for the past few days, i've been valiantly trying to finish my expiring food, and as a result, have been eating nonstop. and not to mention the fact that the cold REALLY makes people feel like snacking. another thing that the cold makes a person is lonely. and it's not really a loneliness bred of being alone, because i'm surrounded by very nice, extremely friendly people who really try to include you in every way possible. it's more of a loneliness that's very intrinsic.. like a feeling of bereavement, a LACK.

i'm not extremely articulate for an english student, am i? :(

there are times when i really miss ernest, and most of the time it's during the nights where i'm sitting at my computer and listening to jay chou and wondering what time i'm going to sleep.

**SPOILER: cheesiness alert. please avoid reading if easily nauseated.**

i miss the way he used to sing me to sleep over the phone at night, and the way he used to make stupid comments just to annoy me. [although he still does that.] i miss the hugs and the way we held hands under the dinner table. i miss the way he used to insult me and then apologise fervently everytime i threw a fit about it. there are so many things that i miss about nest that i can't put into words, and it's difficult when he's so far away.

but i just want to tell him that i think about him all the time. :) and that no matter how worried he may be, no one will ever replace him.

OKAY. enough. i'm so corny.

yay! i finally located geof! come visit me, you pig!

ciao.

i looooove my mother.

2006-10-18T06:32:00.000+08:00

beef rendang. best meal i've had since i've gotten here.. and i can even say I MADE IT. [sort of.]

i love my mother. :) bless her sweet little heart.

ciao.

singlish.

2006-10-17T10:02:00.000+08:00

a quick blog update before i go to bed, again at two fifty five am. :(

somehow i haven't quite gotten used to speaking fully proper and syntactically accurate english yet. writing is, of course, fine, but when i speak, somehow i still manage to inject singaporean references/phrases into the middle of my sentences that someway or another muddles everyone i try to speak to.

one example.. just today i was talking to one of my friends from hongkong, and i went, "ohh, tomorrow i confirm late one." the friend went, "huh? what are you on about?" and i just stared back blankly, for the love of myself unable to see what was wrong with what i had said until several seconds later.

another example. earlier on today i was rushing for my history of english lecture, and i bumped headfirst into this abominably tall british guy. i looked up, and well, because i was frazzled from running from one place to another, and because the air was so cold it apparently froze my brain, i went, "pai seh."

PAI-frigging-SEH.

the guy, obviously perplexed, frowned down at me and said [naturally], "pardon?"

i just gave him a sheepish smile and rushed off again.

singlish is really incomprehensible to anyone else other than singaporeans.

ciao.

well, hello there!

2006-10-16T08:19:00.000+08:00

after my brief respite from blogging i am happy to say that i have made an unfortunate return! BUAHA! all of you are now doomed to endure my pathetic ramblings about my hapless and so very sad life. :)

in the past three days, i have somehow managed to fall extremely ill, and despite all the medication i've been pumping into my body, the latter evidently refuses to cooperate and allow me to have a decent first week of academic school work. :( as a result, i am now, for the third day in a row, completely mute, save for a few croaks and some halfway decent squeaks here and there.

that's actually the second reason why i hate the weather here so much. the dry air coupled with the cold wind and the occasional rain doesn't exactly promote healthy living and a fully functional respiratory system. the first, of course, would be that the cold weather gives one the munchies. and then i eat, and eat, and eat, and eventually return home fifteen kg heavier. gad. i swear, these three years will be my downfall.

anyway, back to the awkward narration of my uneventful life. so basically, i wake up every morning, spend ten minutes coughing my bloody lungs out, then stumble to the bathroom and wash up, only to realise, hey, i've only got thirty minutes to be at blahblahblah place. [mind you, this happens EVERY MORNING.] so i rush like crazy through my shower, grab all my stuff, run out of the flat with only a light jacket and my hair still wet, and proceed to basically get myself sick all over again.

it's a vicious cycle, i tell you, a vicious cycle.

i wish i could say i have the strength of will to drag myself out of bed earlier, but well.. i don't. so what would be the point in lying about it? :P in any case, sometimes i sleep so late i'm amazed i can drag myself out of bed at ALL. this has to change once lesson proper begins.. which is, well, tomorrow at ten fifteen a.m.. and it's well, one nineteen a.m.. so this isn't exactly a stellar beginning to my newfound resolution.

why do i sleep so late, you ask? well, it's fundamentally because of one, stupid, retarded, absolutely addictive card game, famous in singapore for bringing down all bengs and lians, secondary schoolboys and schoolgirls, university students and yuppies alike...

dai dee.

yep, you heard me right, dai dee. big two. the evil card game we used to play outside the classrooms while waiting for our chinese common test to start [because face it, we were gonna flunk it anyway.] basically, after a couple of hong kong, malaysians and singaporean friends taught it to my flatmates.. there was NO STOPPING THEM!

every night. every single night, we're up playing dai dee, competing to see who wins the most times, until unearthly hours of the morning. UNEARTHLY, i tell you. it's great fun, really, seeing everyone swear at each other [not that i necessarily participate, of course] at the rubbish deck they've been dealt, watching people [especially guys, omg, they're so damned competitive] drive each other nuts with taunting and screaming. we basically wake all the neighbours everytime someone plays the 2 of spades.

it's crazy, but mannn. it's fun.

officially siong school starts TOMORROW. at ten fifteen. soooo. goodnight!

ciao.

i would blog more.. but...

2006-10-11T09:37:00.000+08:00

my laptop is making funny rumbling noises and becomes hot to the touch after like half an hour.. so i'm thinking it may blow up and the less time i spend on it, the better.

ciao.

it's not so bad.

2006-10-10T00:44:00.000+08:00

today was the official start of freshers week in york, which is pretty much matriculation week cum orientation week where in the day, everyone rushes around trying to get all their admin stuff done, and at night, everyone goes crazy and drinks until they pass out. haha. somehow all the overseas students seemed to have bonded together after last weeks surprisingly un-happening events, and some of us have decided to boycott the evening activities and spend time doing less inane things in less crowded places.

thank God.

so, considering the mad rush of the british invasion of the past day, some of us, i.e ME, have been feeling a little bit overwhelmed. suddenly a school that was practically a ghost town: beautiful, but quiet.. has turned into this massive drunken orgy-like place where every night there's something going on in all the pubs and drinking games being held in every kitchen.

it's enough to scare me, a sweet but homely little girl [cheeky grin] who thinks that standing around in a crowded hall with blasting music, smiling stupidly at the person across from you, unable to hold a conversation and consistently being shoved in the back by jostling crowds, is extremely imbecilic, half to death.

i do apologise if that convoluted sentence confused you.

anyway, i am, unsurprisingly if you know me, rather antagonistic towards the turn that events have taken. haha. i always imagined the start of school to be.. you know, the start of SCHOOL. when people settled down to do their pre-course reading [which of course, any sane individual would leave to the last minute] and you know.. STUDIED.

instead, the start of school has, well, brought to york a slightly insane aura that brings to mind.. pardon my crudeness, but.. well, mating season. when all the animals go into this hazy fever and start rutting like crazy without any thought of the consequences. utter and complete stupidity.

haha. i'm such a wet blanket, aren't i?

i guess i'm just one of those stay-at-home kind of girls who occasionally go partying under extreme duress and only if i'm surrounded by good friends. haha. in england, that renders me entirely a snooze, who doesn't know how to have fun.

and guess what?

i don't care! :P

i wonder if being in ac has made me a more confident, or at least, a more resolute individual. i'm glad my parents didn't send me overseas for foundation year. knowing my lack of discernment two years ago, i would probably have ended up drunk and dead somewhere if i were thrust into this environment.

anyways, i'm glad.

i gotta call geof and see if he's going through the same phenomenon.. it's really quite a curious thing. :)

ciao!

and life continues. unfortunately.

2006-10-08T05:04:00.000+08:00

i need school to start SOON. like really soon. otherwise i might just kill myself out of sheer desperation and boredom.

anyway, life in york isn't too bad at the moment. getting settled down into things a little. went to sainsbury's today and got like thirty-five pounds worth of groceries, which is what? a hundred dollars? my mom spends that much on groceries for the ENTIRE family of nine people.

NINE. to ONE. the exchange rate is killing me and all my financial sensibilities.

talked to judith on skype [wonderful, wonderful skype] today for over an hour. it was great to hear her voice again, and not through stupid voice clips that the crazy girl LOVES to send, but through an actual conversation. even though more than half of it was spent listening to her sing karaoke [bad karaoke, might i add] through the speakers. haha. my best friend is so bloody adorable. i miss her.

i'm gonna go to church tomorrow at heslington church, which is just east of heslington hall. haven't been there before, but i really need to find a good worship environment. i hope people there are friendly. :) it'd be a pretty traditional service, i would think. it's like an ecumenical partnership between the church of england and the methodist church.. oh well, we'll see tomorrow.

i received a really exciting e-mail two days ago, and only ju, nest and bert [because, well, the bloke was the only one online when i got it and i needed to scream, and of course, because he's such an utter darling] know what the contents of this e-mail is.

it's a secret, so you don't get to know. hee hee.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. so bloody exciting.

i have decided that i want to join the TRAMPOLINING CLUB!

haha. don't laugh. it's mean.

ciao.

you know what i miss?

2006-10-05T07:49:00.000+08:00

people say that when one goes overseas to study, the thing one misses most would be the food. home-cooked, amazing food. everything else, they say, one can find wherever they may be.

that is a total and complete lie, in all honesty.

you know what i miss?

i miss ernest.
i miss my family.
i miss my friends.

and you know what i really, really miss to death?

the acjc choir.

and the sun.

it's one in the morning and i gotta get up at seven so..
ciao.

i've moved in!!!

2006-10-02T20:24:00.000+08:00

YES! i finally have internet access from my room! so.. a quick photo update.

mommy and i outside campus central.

my bed in my new room! complete with travy, meep and blue bolster.

view from the goodricke computer lab. AMAZING.
somewhere in campus. look at the duck faeces in the corner. they poo EVERYWHERE.

fire station in york city centre.

my study table.

i swear, moving to my new room was the ultimate, ultimate, ULTIMATE blessing. i love it. I LOVE MY NEW ROOM. [of course, its nowhere as great as my room back home in singapore, but compared to the prison cell i was in before? it's a GODSEND.] i now have skype and msn and yahoo and EVERYTHING. AHHHH this rocks.

ciao.

salvation!

2006-10-01T21:47:00.000+08:00

i have found it! the solution to all this dreariness, gloom and general feeling of sorrow that hangs over me in this place!

there is something hallowed in its name.. something so elusive, found only because mindy, who is [i never thought i would EVER say this] possibly the most brilliant girl i have ever known, encouraged me to get off my ass and do something. so i went into town in an attempt to alleviate my pathetically low spirits, and what do i find?

the third [aside from calls from my dearest ernest and my QT] most emotionally uplifting thing i have encountered since i've came to this place:

the romantic fiction section of borders.

i have been saved. :)

york.

2006-10-01T16:04:00.000+08:00

hello, my dearests!

a little update from york:

1) york is as pretty as it was in july.
2) the weather's fairly nice but starting to get a tad bit colder.
3) i moved into the college yesterday.
4) i have to move again tomorrow.
5) my accompanying baggage has grown from one suitcase to two because my father bought an entire restaurant full of crockery, cutlery and food for me.
[as you can see, the combination of points 3, 4 and 5 does present to me a rather large conundrum.]
6) my parents left for manchester airport last night.
7) i made friends with two gigantic spiders who deigned to visit me in my bed last night. i named them daddy and mommy long legs, respectively.
8) my temporary room is the size of a closet.
9) all bathroom and toilet facilities are COMMUNAL and UNISEX.
10) i have, as of yet, no internet access from my room.
11) i only get my debit card in two weeks.
12) no singaporeans aside from yours truly have arrived at york, heretofore.
13) i have been vegetarian for almost a week now, and...
14) i am slowly sinking into depression.

haha.. don't get me wrong, york isn't all bad! people here are generally quite friendly, and well, the ducks outside my window seem amiable enough. one thing i really enjoy is the quietude.. you don't really have to rush anywhere, and there's really nothing much to do. although, right now, doing nothing is essentially what is driving me to near insanity.

the truth is, it's probably only this interim period that's leaving me feeling rather unsettled. the fact that i can't unpack, because i'm moving again. the fact that i can't get my internet access, because i'm moving again. the fact that i can't even STUDY, because school hasn't started. it's just all slowly building up into this crescendo of "WILL SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM THE INANITY OF THIS EXISTENCE!?!"

i really long for school to start; for some people from home to start arriving and for my internet to start kicking up so i can talk to the people at home a lot more often. talking to yourself all day is just SLIGHTLY, only SLIGHTLY, insanity inducing.

my only saving grace is ernest xue ren kai, angel of the highest order. he's been faithfully calling me whenever i express the slightest need for company, probably resulting in the heftiest phone bill anyone has seen since the dawn of time. he's been smsing me everytime i seem bored, and he's been comforting me everytime i feel sobs threatening.

he's honestly the best. the BEST.

i miss everyone sorely, and it's.. well, only 76 days till i come home!

pray for me, please?

ciao!

twenty-eight hours to go.

2006-09-25T18:13:00.000+08:00

so here i am, at the twenty-eighth hour countdown mark before my departure from lovely sunny singapore: at ernest's place, singing out loud from his "dan coates' easy piano collection - pop, country, movie and tv hits" scorebook, passing the time by blogging about how depressing life is on the day before one leaves the country one has lived in for practically one's entire life.

i finally finished packing [sort of] this morning, and i couldn't help but feel a strange sense of resignation as i stuffed pictures of everything and everyone i held dear into an envelope and zipped up my now-overstuffed suitcase. i really have to go. there'll be no more "well, maybe i could just wait and re-apply to NUS next year..", which, admittedly, was a distinctly unbrilliant idea brought on by temporary insanity. but this is really it. in about twenty-eight hours, i'm going to have to kiss my boyfriend [and my bolster] goodbye, get on a plane filled with people i don't know, and head off to a country and a place i know virtually nothing about.

if you tell me you wouldn't be just a wee bit daunted by the prospect, i'd bet you a million dollars that you're lying.

goodbyes are always the most horrible part about any truly significant changes in a person's life, and i'm hoping to leave all of that to tomorrow. hopefully i don't burst into tears at the airport and become entirely incoherent. it's not a particularly probable event, actually, despite my self-proclaimed emotional instability. i have never been much of a "oh no, i'm not going to see you for three months! [cue loud sobbing noises]" kind of girl. but still.. i haven't been quite myself these few days, and if anyone does happen to catch sight of that unfortunate occurrence, please turn away.

anyway, i shall cease to be maudlin now because ernest has just emerged from the shower dressed in a HAPPY shirt [he has been having this thing for bright colours recently] and i'm going to smile at him and tell him that he smells like a flower, because he honestly does, and we're going to go back to my house where my relatives are going to throw me a huge buffet party with all sorts of chinese food junk.

so yes, if you're coming tomorrow, i'll be there at like.. nine thirty-something?

i'll see you.

ciao.

i love parties!

2006-09-23T00:27:00.000+08:00

just came home from one of david charles tay's legendary lamb parties, held in honour of geoffrey ho who will be leaving for london in three days. [with me.] needless to say, i couldn't eat the lamb, despite the sounds of ecstacy that were coming from everyone else seated at the table. but maaaan. david's helper really cooks amazing, amazing, amazing food.

the beef was.. unspeakably good.

after stuffing our faces with more food than i usually would eat over a week, we then proceeded to sit around in groups, playing with david's dog, SHIRO, who is absolutely the most adorable dog i have ever encountered in my living, breathing lifetime. i know that technically i'm supposed to stoically defend sisqo's honour, but honestly, you haven't seen a cute dog if you haven't seen shiro. a

nyway, most of the guys eventually broke off and started playing winning eleven, and the rest of us crowded around david's piano [which, admittedly, is much more well-maintained than mine is. :P] and sang. [again.]

in short, it was great fun.

i still haven't packed, btw. :P

people have been asking me OVER and OVER and OVER again where on earth York is, so here it is! it is NOT in the US, it is NOT in london, it is NOT at the border of scotland, and it is NOT near to the ocean in any way.

so there you have it. the city of York, below Middlesbrough, above Castleford, beside Leeds. :)

three more days!

ciao.

the story of my utterly inane life.

2006-09-19T11:39:00.000+08:00

here is a little re-enactment of my every morning:

11.00 a.m.
"rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiing."
jo: w..what? huh..? [picks up phone] yeah?
nest: jo, you just woke up?
jo: mmm.
nest: hey i need to ask you about... [voice trails off in jo's head as she falls back asleep] JOOOO!!!
jo: huh? what? what? i'm listening lah.
nest: you're half-asleep lah! i'll call you later.
jo: mmm. [hangs up and goes back to sleep]

11.30 a.m.
"deedee, deedee, deedeedeedee, deedeedeedee, DEEDEEDEEDEE, DEEDEEDEEDEE, DEEDEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
jo: b..bloody hell. [reaches out, turns off alarm clock and goes back to sleep.]

11.35 a.m.
ruth: eh, miss chong! [whacks jo's rear with jo's extremely hard "God is watching over me" pillow.]
jo: h..huh? whaaaaaat?!
ruth: eh you eating lunch here or not? then i go buy.
jo: mmmm.
ruth: yes or no?
jo: mmmm.
ruth: aiyah you so lazy. lazy girl. [whacks jo again for good measure and leaves the room.]

12.20 a.m.
jo: [stirring.] waah, it's so cold. [tries to get warm under blanket.]
clearly, this fails because jo's blanket is ten years old and honestly provides no warmth whatsoever
jo: [gets up, stretches] what time is it? [looks at the clock]
jo: damn, i just wasted my whole morning.

and that's the story of jo's life.

sorry for the extremely uninspiring entry, but hey, i'm sure you can understand why.

ciao.

2006-09-18T00:42:00.000+08:00

here are a couple of photos i took last night:

usfour minus one.

this is my favourite picture of the night. haha. hilarious.

jamie, me, huis, ju and pam.

we were supposed to be standing in order of height.

nest!

my best friends in the world, no matter where i am. [minus one.]

everyone who came, gathered around my dining table.

ju, sihui, pam and i.

meeting old friends.

2006-09-17T23:43:00.000+08:00

it really is amazing how time flies when you spend good, quality time with people you've known and loved for so long.

yesterday was my somewhat-farewell-ish barbeque, where twenty [or what was supposed to be twenty] of my closest friends from every part of my life gathered together to have an evening of great [or what was supposed to be great] food and conversation!

thank you to everyone who came and contributed in some way or another.. :) it was really great. and of course, thank you to my very own personal event organiser and house husband, ernest xue ren kai. all credit goes to you! [honestly, it does. he cooked most of the food himself, did all the organising and calling up and got stressed about everything under the sun.]

anyway, it was an especially good day for me; choir in the morning was great. man, i really love early music. reminds me of the times when people played everything on the harpsichord and women walked around in big hoop skirts. [i have a victorian-era fetish] so i was already in an amazing mood by the time the afternoon rolled around. then we went back to my place and played OUTRAGE! while david entertained us on the piano [which he really couldn't stop complaining about].

i won, naturally, due to my greater intelligence and excellent strategy, but then again, that's no surprise.

when pam and luke arrived, they decided it would be a great lark to write my surprise farewell letter RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, so they sat there for half an hour musing about what they could say as we finished playing outrage, and then we all sat down and did nothing for a little bit more before we started playing around with the food. then JU CAME!!! and after a while, HUIS came!! so there were introductions all around, while david continued to vigilantly play the piano. [one really has to respect him.] i'll have to fast-forward, because this entry's getting a bit tedious, so ANYWAY. qing and rugrat eventually came, but only after pam and luke left, so that was a bit.. strange. but i [who, face it, is the most important character in this little recounting, haha!] had a GREAT time, because well, it's a gathering of my best friends.

and what can beat one whole night with your best friends?

anyway, then ju, nest, joshua he [because of nest] and i went for prata. it's the strangest thing, because i've never actually seen joshua outside of a school context, so it was particularly interesting to find out that HEY, he's actually a pretty nice guy. haha. :) we ended up going home at one plus, after a couple of teas and milo dinosaurs, and i ended up sleeping at three because i was talking to ju.

so today, i met up with another group of people, my lovely altos! krys, limmy, esther, jolene, pam po, and enci, who rushed down just to spend fifteen minutes with us and rush off. haha. and of course, the honourable mindy tan, who has been my alto companion for two whole blooming years. went to fish and co at glasshouse for dinner, and ended up ordering SO MUCH FOOD [how typical, eh]. had a good evening talking and catching up, with plenty of laughs, especially when esther started speaking in this EXTREMELY condescending tone to the waitress about how you must "press the button and HOLD when you're taking digital photographs".. it was amazing, i swear. then limmy, esther, mindy and i headed off to ben and jerry's where i bought us a merlionster [six scoops of yummy, fatty goodness with toppings] and talked the night away about ponds and sharks and br****n. :P

it's been a good weekend.

haha. and it can only get better!!

meeting with flops to go back to ac on tuesday morning; meeting qing and her boyfriend for lunch on weds afternoon; meeting ju again for dinner and to chill on weds night; maybe meeting jy, layhoon and ruth on thursday; meeting nest, josh and ju again to go out on thursday night and meeting ben next monday before i head off the next day for york.

i've missed everyone so much.

and looking at my schedule, one almost wonders where i'm going to find the time to pack. hmm.

ciao.

so.

2006-09-10T23:13:00.000+08:00

so.

i've been sick, and busy, and hence i haven't been blogging and/or venturing out of my house. but i feel much better now, and my suitcase is fully packed [sadly, only with the bare minimum of jackets, towels and books so i'm just going to have to venture to york without any clothing, toiletries and electrical appliances whatsoever.] so i'm back here to blog!

unfortunately, i have nothing to blog about.

i missed the alumni welcome tea. BAH. i missed saturday's church service when clement led worship. BAH. i missed one driving lesson. BAH.

what a wonderful way to spend my third-last week in singapore.

anyway, if you've read my little post entitled "who's afraid of the big, bad happy ending?" [yes, the one advocating 'trashy', 'lurid' novels], i've recently found this author who wrote a newsletter regarding the anti-romantic bias! yes! love-starved voyeurs of the world unite! if you're interested, you can find it here: http://www.jennycrusie.com/essays/defeatingthecritics.php

i personally think it's fantastic.

there was another article which i read that was so stunningly funny and amazingly sarcastic that i forgot who actually wrote it. but there was a line in it that went like this, "romance is for uneducated, sexually repressed voyeurs. yes. just as crime novels are for repressed murderers and psychopaths with a taste for necrophilia."

in my humble opinion, we uneducated, sexually repressed voyeurs are bloody brilliant creatures.

ciao.

monster house. GRR!!!

2006-09-04T20:23:00.000+08:00

so, i have reached this absolutely pathetic point in my life where my only company is that of my darling, DARLING younger siblings [one of which is reading this post from over my shoulder while she pretends to do her cizi.] therefore, today, i decided that i HAD to get my lazy arse out of my house, right? so i decided to treat my little siblings to a MOVIE! my younger brother staunchly refused to watch something as inane as "lovewrecked", so we eventually decided on MONSTER HOUSE.

disclaimer: if you are going to laugh at me, please leave my blog before that happens, or i may have to disembowel you.

in essence, it's a show where two precocious, albeit adorable, little boys go into a frenzy after 'killing' their abrasive next door neighbour who has a rather freakish tendency to speak to his house. they believe that the house is haunted by their dead neighbour and feels a need to exorcise the ghost that has possessed the house to prevent others from being consumed by the house that has suddenly sprouted a mouth and begun eating people. throw in a strangely rafflesian-ish young girl in pigtails who likes to take charge of the situation and you have a "house-killing" escapade of the greatest proportions.

surprisingly, the show was better than i originally thought it would be. but go in hoping to laugh and be entertained and you will be sadly disappointed.

why?

because it is absolutely the MOST SCARY ANIMATED FILM I HAVE EVER WATCHED.

well, those who know me will probably scoff and say, "yeah sure, but you're scared of everything." which is TRUE, i'd have to admit, but only because i am in possession of a very active imagination. so yes, i am slightly wary of houses coming to life in my neighbourhood at the moment. truth be told, as the story unfolds it gets less and less frightening, but there are a few positively creepy moments at the beginning of the movie.

but yet again, i got chills watching corpse bride, so you probably shouldn't take my word for it. my sister and i were holding hands throughout the movie, though. and using our twisties to shield our eyes. and we both resolved never to watch the sequel if they decide to launch one. so yes, there you have it. another individual who agrees that it is a BLOODY SCARY MOVIE.

nevertheless, it was a good afternoon spent with two kids determined to spend all my money on movie snacks, taxi fare and mosburger. in a way i'm glad about the seclusion that the schedules of NUS, SMU, NTU and the SAF have forced me into. i get to spend a lot more time with my family and re-visit old memories with old friends who i've forgotten mean the world to me. so yes, i'm glad. not to say that i don't miss people. i do. sorely. but it's just a strange feeling of contentment amongst the intense loneliness.

besides, it's preparing me for my life overseas, ain't it?

i'm going to talk to joshua online now.. he's devastated by steve irwin's passing, the poor bloke.

ciao.

check out my new picture!

2006-09-04T03:38:00.000+08:00

isn't it NICE?! a bit cutesy; not my usual thing, i'd have to admit. but i SWEAR it was a totally candid shot. i was ACTUALLY musing something. REALLY. you HAVE TO BELIEVE ME.

all credit goes to SHANNON LIM HAO FA the brilliant brilliant brilliant boy genius. he took the photo, edited it, slapped on the font. EVERYTHING was done by HIM and HIM ALONE. [which also means you can ask him if you don't believe IT WAS A CANDID SHOT.]

he claims i'm very hard to photograph when i'm trying to smile in any case. -sighs in resignation-

yay! i like!

how great our Lord is.

2006-09-03T22:50:00.000+08:00

church today was pretty edifying. pastor aow was sharing with us from ephesians 5:1-21, and somehow the sermon really spoke to me. sometimes we truly forget that we ought to be living as God intended us to live; we tend to take the easier way out, because, well, it's easier. i was caught between this feeling of extreme guilt and thankfulness for the reminder throughout the sermon. God really does prompt each and every one of us in the smallest of ways to reflect on what we've done.

one hymn that was stuck in my head after the service:

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord, Who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires ever have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, Who hath fearfully, wondrously, made thee;
Health hath vouchsafed and, when heedlessly falling, hath stayed thee.
What need or grief ever hath failed of relief?
Wings of His mercy did shade thee.

Praise to the Lord, Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord, who, when tempests their warfare are waging,
Who, when the elements madly around thee are raging,
Biddeth them cease, turneth their fury to peace,
Whirlwinds and waters assuaging.

Praise to the Lord, who, when darkness of sin is abounding,
Who, when the godless do triumph, all virtue confounding,
Sheddeth His light, chaseth the horrors of night,
Saints with His mercy surrounding.

Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

one particular part of the song that really remained with me was: "what need or grief, ever hath failed of relief? wings of His mercy did shade thee." i keep forgetting how GOOD God has been to me. He's protected me from so many things that others have been susceptible to. i truly have led a blessed life, and sometimes i'm just too caught up in my own mini-melodramas that i forget how BLESSED a life i've been given.

today i watched two new lives being brought into the world. [don't ask how come, because i'm not allowed to tell you.] but man, it was miraculous. seeing little eyes opening, taking their first gander at the world they've been brought into. [even though i know they actually don't see anything until they're about five days old, it was still a very moving experience for me.] especially when a little baby girl's eyes flickered open for the first time and those black pupils fixed themselves [or seemed to fix them] on my face. there was this strange curdling in my stomach and an awesome new appreciation for the beauty of life. perfection in those little, fragile human beings. God's creations.

it overwhelms me.

ciao.

memories.

2006-09-03T01:33:00.000+08:00

went to re-visit PLMC today.

i'd forgotten what it was like; why i loved it so much that once upon a time. seeing everyone made me a bit maudlin. i kept thinking, "what would have happened if...?", which is the stupidest and most fruitless mind game one can ever play with oneself. but of course, more than all that sentiment and vague sense of regret was this amazing.. joy.

i'd forgotten how much i missed them. it's like what happened with ju. haha. the funky-five! gad, it's been so long. seeing lukie [who i had seen the day before, so that really doesn't count], rugrat [who i see every week, so that really doesn't count], qing and pam was absolutely amazing. it's just.. having all the five of us back together again. we have to have some outrageous outing like we used to before i go.

and then there were the other people; people i'd almost forgot to miss. people like terence, the absolute cutest boy on this living, breathing planet, rachel [who looks EXACTLY THE SAME, how uncanny.], joshua [who looks pretty much the same aside from the fact he was wearing a nice jacket], PAULIE, who looks the same, zhengxian, who didn't actually talk to me [i'd returned his money already!!!], shan.. dang, i just realised there's nothing much to report about because they all look the same. but gad, seeing them again was like realising how much i'd missed their company over the years. missed playing bridge and having worship practice, playing captain's ball and hanging out in the small rooms NOT studying.

it almost feels like i've forgotten how to have fun.

anyway. i've missed them. gist of the post. i'm tired.

ciao.

most certainly.

2006-08-20T22:26:00.000+08:00

to be upfront about it, i really have nothing to say nowadays, which is precisely the reason i blog so little. the truth is, when you have absolutely nothing to do, or rather, when you have MANY MANY things to do and absolutely no time/determination to do them, you tend to lose focus of what you want to do/say. let me just catalog them for you.

things jo needs to do before she leaves:
1) get visa [of utmost importance. shall do it tomorrow.]
2) settle insurance [very VERY important, shall get mom to call up AIG tomorrow.]
3) finish driving lessons [fairly important but extremely uninspiring.]
4) start searching for all my reading material and compiling them so i can cart them over.
5) buy mic and webcam.
6) fix laptop fan. [i might just leave it alone, depending on how much it rumbles over the next few days.]
7) new walking shoes.
8) get all my certs together.
9) medical check-up.
10) PACK.

unfortunately, things i have done:
1) buy mic and webcam.
2) new walking shoes.

isn't it uncanny how the only things that i have gotten done are those that require me spending money? :)

on a slightly more positive note, i went out with JUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! it's been a loooong, long time. we were discussing about how strange it is that you can go many months without seeing a person and not really missing them because well, you just get used to it, and then you see them and BAM! you realise how much you miss them. i've really missed ju. there's just something about her that never changes, and that comforts me; gives me a sense of security like you wouldn't believe. being with her is like a balm.

it's like finding the pillow you used to cuddle to sleep every night in your childhood, the one that your mom tried to wean you off when you were ten (remember how you burst into tears when she took it away from you?) you get used to sleeping without it; you don't really even notice its absence.. then HEY. my pillow! and you feel this almost crippling sense of nostalgia and happiness at having found it.

i just realised i essentially just repeated the previous paragraph, except in analogy. oh well. reiteration makes for good emphasis of important ideas!

anyway, i just wanted to tell ju that i love her! and how fantastic she is!

does anyone want to watch westlife with me, btw? it'll be like being back in secondary school all over again!

how one occupies one's insignificant little life in times of boredom.

2006-08-03T22:23:00.000+08:00

if you please, i will now proceed to display to you what i have been doing over the past few days.

in the last three or four days, i have successfully completed watching every single disney princess movie produced, including some NON-disney-princess-but-still-disney movies. the classic ones, that is. and i have successfully gathered a list and memorised the lyrics of all my favourite insipid, and yet so strangely STUCK-IN-YOUR-HEAD songs that disney has surreptitiously incorporated into their movies so that stupid sots like me keep coming back for more.

Cinderella- A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes

a dream is a wish your heart makes
when you're fast asleep
in dreams you lose your heartaches
whatever you wish for, you keep!
have faith in your dreams and someday
your rainbow will come shining true!
no matter how your heart is grieving,
if you keep on believing,
the dream that you wish will come trueeeeeeee.

----------------------------------------------------
honestly, how cheesy can one song get?! oh wait, here's a cheesier one.
----------------------------------------------------
Snow White- Someday My Prince will Come

someday my prince will comeeeeeee
someday i'll find my loveeee
and how thrilling that moment will be
when the prince of my dreams comes to meeeeee

he'll whisper 'i love you'
and steal a kiss or two
though he's far away
i'll find my love someday
someday when my dreams come true

------------------------------------------------------
i am beginning to detect a certain lyrical pattern. dreams, wishes, coming true. hmm. we'll check that one final time.
------------------------------------------------------
Sleeping Beauty- Once Upon a Dream

i know you, i've walked with you once upon a dream
i know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam
yes, i know it's true
that visions are seldom all that they seem
but if i know you, i know what you'll do
you'll love me at once
the way you did once upon a dream....

------------------------------------------------------
AH HAH! i have found the secret to disney movies! I SHALL NOW MAKE CHEESY MOVIES OF MY OWN AND BECOME FAMOUS! BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

i am going quite insane.

depression.

2006-07-30T23:59:00.000+08:00

premature pre-departure depression is setting in rather rapidly these few days.

ever since bert left i've just gotten this very sinking feeling in my intestinal region. i really don't want to leave. not so much that i don't want to be at york, just that.. i don't want to leave here. i know that once i go there that everything will become routine and i'll be happy, or at the very least, content, and all these fears and insecurities would fade to naught, but right now, i'm just drowning in my own friggin misery.

talking to ernest about it often makes me feel like crying. more often than not, i give in to that feeling, and then the poor guy has to do his duty and console me. poor thing. i'm going to miss him so bloody much. and to be completely brutally honest, i get horrendously jealous when i hear him making plans that will occur after i leave, or hear him talk about the universities he's planning to go to and what he wants to do. which is so unfair. it's just that in some completely selfish, self-centred, self-important way i always wish that his life would stop whenever i'm not by his side, that when i return he'll be the completely same individual, in the completely same world, doing the completely same things. which is completely insane. because it won't happen. and i shouldn't want it to happen. but i do. because i love the now him so much. so i do. and so i'm selfish, and heinous, and evil, and inconsiderate, and unloving. and the knowledge of that makes me feel even more depressed.

and then there's all my friends. especially nartz and ju and huis. i just wonder if i could have done more. actually, there's no wonderment involved in that. i could have done more. i SHOULD have done more. we should have been so much closer, shared so much more, known so instinctively that we'll always be there for each other. but now everything's changing, and school is starting, and i'm leaving, and i miss them so sorely, and i wish i could see them and tell them every single insecurity that's pulling me under, to listen to their insecurities and fears. but i've been procrastinating, and i've been assuming, and i've been indulging in the companionship of so many others that i've forgotten the people who've always meant most to me. so i'm selfish, and heinous, and evil, and inconsiderate, and unloving. and the knowledge of that makes me feel even more depressed.

then i think about my family. my sister, who can't even go a month without me sleeping in the bed next to her. her with all her fears of being alone, her fears of the dark, her fears of the unknown, her fears of people who won't accept her for the annoying and adorable brat that she is; fears i've been through. fears i understand. fears i can help her through if only i were to stay here. then there's joash, who is so much more than he seems. who can be so much more than he is; who is afraid to show the world how bloody great he is. i want to see him grow up. i want to see him take a stand and be the person he's cut out to be. and there's mommy and daddy, who've never supported this, but who've been there nonetheless, who've nagged me into action, to applying for schools, to filling in my forms and applying for visas. daddy, who has been so worried and so insistent, and who now sees that he was right all along, and that i was wrong. i should have known. but i was stubborn, and i was so insistent on doing what i loved that i forgot that i'd be giving up being there for the PEOPLE that i loved. so i'm selfish, and heinous, and evil, and inconsiderate, and unloving. and the knowledge of that makes me feel even more depressed.

josh called me today, just to talk to me, because he knew i was feeling rough. he told me that he had been through it, that after a while, everything becomes routine and it becomes a part of life. that i'll meet new people and see many new things. he talked to me about australia, and about being part of a new place and a new life. about growing up. about being an adult. and although it didn't really quite make me feel better, it was just sweet how hard he tried, and how genuine he seemed. can't ask for a better older brother. life has changed him. maybe it'll change me too.

just to clarify, i'm not regretting going. or at least, i'm not regretting the decision to go. i'm just regretting having to leave. there's just so much. so, so much.

i need to learn to let go.

bloody depressed.

Lord, be with me.

where i've been the past month.

2006-07-26T10:11:00.000+08:00

you know, the truth is, even I can't remember where i've been the past month. a month away from home. that is truly phenomenally scary. i almost didn't recognise my bolster. oh my poor, darling kevin.

so, after two weeks of utter ecstacy, beautiful music and amazing friendships formed, and two weeks of.. well, eating things like "mr panino" and trudging halfway across europe, what have i learnt? isn't that always the key question people ask? what have i learnt?

well, for one, i am now acutely aware of the horrors of conversion rates. for another, i am now an expert [or at least somewhat] on all kinds of european transport systems. although, you know, if you have any questions, qh will be more well-informed. heh heh. -sheepish grin- well, anyway, yes! the tube, the paris metro, the ROME metro, florence's LACK of the metro, as well as vienna's u-bahn. been there, done that, eh?

also, of course, the ART in europe is absolutely stunning. the louvre was truly incredible, although IMHO, the mona lisa is truly highly overrated. i still wish we had gone to the musee d'orsay on our last day in paris. oh well. i personally adored the accademia in florence, although the queue was VERY LONG. michelangelo's david was a lot larger than i imagined it to be, and i honestly wonder how he got the proportions right. if i were only half as talented. but the medici music display was really interesting. never seen an oval spinet in my life. fancy that!

churches in europe are truly inspiring. never seen one? then find sometime, head down to europe, and pop into almost any church lining the road and let your jaw drop. intricate interiors and somewhat grandiose exteriors are practically regulation in european churches. apparently every city was trying their best to outdo each other with the best looking and most architecturally challenging church. st. peters' basilica [in the vatican city] was astounding, in size, stature, as well as plain beauty. the duomo in florence was also remarkably beautiful, with an amazing exterior cloaked almost completely in three different types of marble. imagine the expense. st stephen's in vienna was in a class of its own, however, with the elaborate gothic architecture it boasted. i was honestly dumbfounded. you've never seen anything quite like it, i promise.

now that i've sufficiently displayed my geek-ish-ness and tendency to sound like a travel guide from frommers, i will move on to giving advice, as i so blatantly love to do. first, do NOT go to europe in the summer. i know that would have shocked you a bit, so to qualify that statement, i shall EXPLAIN. firstly, europe is in the same hemisphere as northern america, yes? so what you tend to get while you're backpacking through europe in the summer are all these americans/canadians on summer break who get drunk and party in train carriages. which perhaps won't be too disturbing if not for the fact that you've just spent almost forty-eight hours travelling and you need SLEEP wherever you can get it. secondly, i'm not sure if this is a coincidence, but almost everything worth seeing is going through some kind of restoration efforts. commendable, definitely, but also very disappointing, as you can't really experience the full grandeur of churches, buildings and palaces.

i seem to have strayed somewhat from the topic, so i shall return to it. what have i learnt on this trip? well, the truth is that i learnt a lot about me. i learnt that, well, however independent i may claim, or wish, to be, i'm still somewhat of a homebody. i missed my parents sorely, and after two weeks away from home, essentially i was just extremely homesick. i also learnt that after i've been travelling for a while, i tend to experience flashes of irritation at very minor things, and as such i have concluded that i am not perhaps the best travelling companion except to perhaps someone who tolerates my every flaw. [my beautiful ernest :)] i've also learnt that i am really, very often, afraid to put myself outside of my comfort zone. after experiencing the choir tour, and all the indescribable aspects of it that were.. well, indescribable, i was in some sense dreading backpacking. it was just too.. sudden, like a fall from grace. from organisation and discipline and being surrounded by so many who loved you and who had the same common focus to well, four of us, all with different goals for the next two weeks. and i essentially ruined my paris experience being somewhat mopy and homesick. but after a while you get used to it, and truly, it can get pretty fun. especially italy. i love italy. :)

just as a little side-note: i DID step rather far beyond my comfort zone on this trip. for the first time in what.. eight or nine years, i was forced to go on a roller coaster. i REALLY HATE roller coasters. fear of heights and all that jazz. but i was practically PHYSICALLY COMPELLED to go on not one, but THREE roller coasters, two of which had loops, and it turned out i actually had fun. after experiencing several severe palpitations and near-death experiences, of course. so yes. comfort zone breached. yay for me.

even though i am certain i have sufficiently bored you to tears, i am still going to add in this one last paragraph, just to describe LES MISERABLES. what can i say? my favourite musical of all time never EVER fails me. i've watched it quite a few times before, and each time i watch it, i just understand it so much more, and.. well. what can i say, i love it! the current jean valjean is truly fantastic. amazing. and fantine was really impressive! usually fantine's so much of a secondary character, but in this cast she really steals the show. this is not to say that the rest of the cast paled in comparison, FAR FROM IT. even the ensemble was great. great vocals, great musicians, great costumes, great staging. what can i say? it's a great production. twenty-one years and running. still my favourite musical BY FAR. genius.

do you hear the people sing?
singing the song of angry men;
it is the music of a people who will not be slaves again!
when the beating of your heart
echoes the beating of the drums,
there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes!

ciao!

how to write good.

2006-06-26T22:38:00.000+08:00

ripped this off a link kokphai sent me. had a good laugh.

how to write good:
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. Be more or less specific.
15. Understatement is always best.
16. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
17. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
18. The passive voice is to be avoided.
19. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
20. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
21. Who needs rhetorical questions?
22. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
it's nice to know someone's a worse writer than me. :)

God bless! tour in three days!

i for insomnia.

2006-06-24T00:39:00.000+08:00

so, as the title of today's entry implies, i can't sleep. and that inability to sleep, therefore, is why i am still up at 12.38 am when i have to wake up at six thirty tomorrow to make it in time for an eight-thirty rehearsal.

alright, instead of boring you with my whining about the total realignment of my biological clock because of the DAMNED WORLD CUP, i am going to instead talk about something more interesting!

V FOR VENDETTA. okay, honestly? i've never read the graphic novel. being an "arts" person by nature, this is, patently, something i should have done some time ago, yes? while the hype was still on. i mean, graphics are good. i appreciate art in every possible form and incarnation! [there is some sort of subtle innuendo in that sentence but i shouldn't point that out for fear of being touted as a pervert.] and of course, novels are good. so graphic + novel = graphic novel, yes? therefore, positive + positive should by right give you a positive outcome.

sadly, this is where mathematicians have so blatantly failed in addressing the reality of a true-life situation. another reason why the study of math should be abolished, but i won't go into that now. anyway, to make a possibly very long and verbose story short, i don't like comics. in any form OR incarnation. i used to, i'll admit. there was a point of time in my childhood when my entire vocabulary stemmed from marvel or archie comics. gawd, you can't imagine the sad, sad state i was in. of course, that time was quickly cut short when my primary three teacher commented to my mom that in every single mini-essay i wrote, my characters were named "bruce" [as in batman], "peter" [as in spiderman], or "jughead". JUG-bloody-HEAD, for pete's sake. damage control was quickly done, and my bookshelf was crammed full of laura ingalls wilder, agatha christie, and every other feminist author you can ever think of.

another story for another time, jo.

in any case, yes. i don't like comics. no manga, no strange "celestial zone" crap that my sister reads, no MORE marvel/dc comics, and NO MORE ARCHIE BLOOMING ANDREWS.

so of course, i didn't think i'd like v for vendetta much. it's purportedly a lot darker than other graphic novels/comics, which i agree with upon watching the show. that much blood? can't be good for a kid. i'm strangely curious to read it now, having watched the movie. it was pretty intriguing. and the way V speaks. ggggggawd. a man after my own heart! if you discount the angst and plans to blow up big buildings and kill off everyone who had ever offended him. a little sample. this is the first thing that you hear V really SAYING. [after he proceeds to incapacitate a few people]

"This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is the vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."

how bloody cool is that?! okay, for fear of sounding teenybopper, i shall cease yammering on about hugo weaving's amazing speaking voice and the sheer brilliance of his lines in the movie and move on to other aspects.

so well, effects were pretty solid. didn't have trouble convincing ME that they weren't cgi-stuff. but of course, i am the most damnable technophobe on earth, so this is probably not a good gauge. and come on. fascism and anarchy? brilliantttttt.

so.. i would say more, if i were not so tired, but to cut it short? go watch it! and see if you like it!

oh how my life bores me.

2006-06-21T01:20:00.000+08:00

my parents are BACK! after one full week of absolute liberty, late night soccer [or as my brother insists on calling it, FOOTBALL] matches, and absolutely no money, my parents are back! i know it doesn't sound like something to be rejoicing about, but frankly, after a week of living like a pauper, having my parents back to give me allowance is a GREAT THING!

ha, i love being such a spoilt brat.

anyway, they brought back many many MANY dvds from china, including season one and two of GREY'S ANATOMY, which i am NOT going to watch until i come back from tour. i am NOT going to stay up and watch it and exhaust myself. absolutely NOT. [yes, continue saying that to yourself, jo, and it may eventually be true!]

in any case, they also brought back the da vinci code, which my younger brother and sister have been longing to watch. [even though, IMHO, the movie was pretty bad.] so my siblings make a beeline for my parents' dvd player. we sit on the bed, take out our stocked-up packets of potato chips, and settle down to watch the show just to pacify them. so the movie starts, and we see the old man running through the museum with a look of desperation on his face that in no way matches the stately speed at which is he moving. and then.. he starts speaking.

in chinese.

not just.. mandarin, but CHINESE mandarin. which includes, of course, all the inflections, drawls and run-on lines that form the chinese accent. [if you still are missing my point, basically the voiceover speaks like someone from the PRC] after we erupt into laughter [a completely unprejudiced and unoffensive laughter borne only of our surprise, i would like to add, just in case anyone incorrectly takes offence], my younger brother fumbles with the remote control, trying desperately to get to the english track.

but guess what?

THERE IS NO ENGLISH TRACK!

of course, anyone else would just watch the show in mandarin, but one has to understand that my younger siblings have a combined chinese language score of about what.. seventy percent? so yes, my siblings whine and complain and eventually give up and switch off the tv and slunk off to do whatever is it that they do when they're not attached to the couch.

okay that story's not as funny in print as it is when you're there. oh well. -shrugs-

i've gotten into the strange, and unsettling, habit of watching taiwanese tv shows. not just ANY taiwanese tv shows, but the really insipid, badly scripted ones that star young taiwanese singers/actors/hosts that can either do all three, or more often than not, can do neither. this is only strange and unsettling because.. i really like them! no, not the actors, the SERIALS. bad, cheesy scripts and actors notwithstanding, i just like the way they don't make the effort to speak in perfect, clipped chinese, but just drawl on in their badly pronounced, slang-tinged mandarin. it's interesting! kind of like.. a reflection of the taiwanese society. it's fairly intriguing to note the differences in culture. :p and of course, the prevalence of happy endings always helps, romantic that i am. :)

tour's coming up soon.

ciao.

too tired to function.

2006-06-17T23:25:00.000+08:00

disclaimer: this will turn out to be a relatively nonsensical, illogical entry due to the complete shut down of my mental faculties about three seconds before i started typing.

it's quite depressing actually, the idea that something could at the same time give you immense satisfaction and completely drain you of all your energy. maybe it's just because i'm not resting enough. world cup syndrome. speaking of which... i thought the holland-ivory coast match was fantastic. sure, the netherlands' defence wasn't quite up to par, but their offensive maneuvers were pretty solid. and they've got robin van persie! :) arsenal players.. how can one argue with that?

okay, that was a very bad start. i'm rambling. bad.

i am VERY TIRED, i would like to stress.

anyway, yesterday i watched this really bad show called casanova. i actually bought the vcd, because, face it, i am a sucker for all victorian-regency-georgian era period dramas where guys are clad in waistcoats and girls wear humongous skirts. but yes, it was bad. entertaining, perhaps, but of no emotional/intellectual value as far as i could see. sienna miller is beautiful, as always. an unconventional sort of beauty, i find, is always more attractive than the doe-eyed goddess look.

again, i'm not quite sure where this train of thought is heading, but we'll see.

okay, maybe we won't. i'm too tired.

goodnight.

sometimes...

2006-06-08T12:07:00.000+08:00

it's nice to know that after one year, eight months and thirteen days of fighting, arguing, sulking, screaming, shouting, yelling, complaining, whining and crying...

you're still the only one who can make me smile.

insanity and indecision.

2006-06-02T01:15:00.000+08:00

anyone who knows me well would know that the past few days haven't exactly been "oh jolly good fun!" for me. why? perhaps it's due to the fact that my indecision has never been so clearly illustrated to me as it has been in the aforementioned past few days. and of course, it is always strangely awakening, and extremely uncomfortable, not to mention immensely embarrassing, to realise your own shortcomings without people having to tell you. just shows how OBVIOUS your shortcomings are.

i think my life [well, at least my life in jc] has been a constant struggle between natural romanticism, borne of an excessive influx of glorified emotion through romance novels and cheesy movies since my early adolescence, and rationality, pounded into my head by my amazingly effective teachers since secondary school. of course, being the typical arts student and FEMALE, i tend to make decisions using the former rather than the latter.

this time is no different.

of course, a certain amount of rationality does go into making the decision. i made pros and cons lists and all that jazz; but in the end i went with the little hypothalamic function that generates emotion [because face it, the heart is just a huge muscle] and decided to do something which i really think i would love.

why am i even saying this? it makes for a boring entry and the likelihood of the situation is that none of you would care any less.

anyway, yes. naturally, i face parental discontentment and disappointment daily due to this daring deed of deliberate daftness. [never underestimate the power of aliteration] i get strange looks; some pitying, some snide, some laced with such utter hatred and contempt that you cannot believe these people actually love you. but they do, and i know. :) i know they care, which is why i am all the more confused.

but the decision has been made, and as someone [who is probably infinitely older and wiser than me] once told me, "if you've made your decision, whatever it is, just bite the bullet and press on." and so i will. bite the bullet, that is. figuratively, of course. literally biting ammunition, live or otherwise, would do nothing to help my cause in the least.

i am rambling because it is one thirty-right and i am so damned sleepy i could fall asleep in my chair.

any... way... what i was trying to say, and plainly, failing to say, was that i have decided to go.

people who are going, "huh? go where?" probably don't know me or anything about me so you're just gonna have to live with the suspense. AH HAH! :P

well, that being said, let's move on to less complicated and much less important aspects of my day, yes? i cooked today! [and yes, that is rare enough an occurrence to deserve some sort of commemoration] i cooked today, and though i never profess to be THE IRON CHEF like some people :P, i can cook. and i am relatively proficient at it, too. i cooked for gina, jamie and geoff, and we had such a HUGEEEEEE feast that none of us could finish anything. we never really announced who the winner of our cook-off was, but i personally loved everything. :P yes, even the soup. my point was, [actually i never really have a point, i just talk for the sake of talking and garnering attention, but you already know that], i can cook. which means that i won't starve over there. now all i have to learn to do is knit and darn stockings and i'll be all ready for finishing school and my debut!

i need to go back to my books. i think i'm becoming slightly unhinged.

photos from AEWF and beyond.

2006-05-30T15:28:00.000+08:00

mindy and myself, in the dressing room.

desiree and myself, preparing for the concert.

alumni choir girls.

i thought jiayan deserved special mention for NOT SHOWING UP.
kudos to the ones who did, though.

honestly, thank you all, especially my darling colleagues, ruth and layhoon, for coming to support me. although a watermelon wasn't really the flowers i expected [or demanded :) ] it was greatly appreciated and i assume i will come around to eating it some time. :) to my dearest old friend sng jiayan, thank you, even more, for conveniently forgetting. [i am so vindictive, am i not? :P]

to my dear floppy, i really missed talking to you! seeing you again was fantastic. and yes, get off your skinny little bottom and organise the class party you keep mumbling on about! lazy little bugger. but yes, seeing you was nice. and it's gratifying knowing that you have gone from a life of danger and extreme excitement to spending one hour a day in an air-conditioned room and then sweating for the remainder of the day. safety over sanity, i would say!

special thanks to my mother, who bothered to come support us even though we (meaning my mom and i) had just argued the day before.

to the acjc choir and all the various individuals who make it, thank you, for everything you've given me. it's indescribable.

an evening with friends 2006.

2006-05-30T01:22:00.000+08:00

this is why i love the acjc choir.

so exciting!

2006-05-26T23:11:00.000+08:00

ACJC CHOIR CONCERT IS IN TWO DAYS!

it truly never fails to amaze me how excited i get when i think of AEWF 2006. it's my first year as an alumni, so i suppose my excitement is justified, but it still never fails to amaze me. today was a grueling day of PTMs, so when i got home and was looking through my scores i was somewhat shocked by the sense of rejuvenation it gave me. i think the music this year is truly brilliant!!! YAY!!!

okay i'm running purely on a high at the moment.

i think it only truly struck me some time this week how integral choir is to my life. when AEWF is over and alumni practices end, i honestly don't know what i'm going to do with my saturdays. i've gotten accustomed to knowing that every week i'm gonna get to make music with people i love.. it's become like.. sustenance. or perhaps i've just become more maudlin.

in any case.. i'm surprisingly happy on weekends, and i don't know how things are going to change once it ends.

okay, my excitement has just fallen due to depression.

goodnight.

Lord, help me!

2006-05-26T00:44:00.000+08:00

have you ever had this feeling that you were quite, quite dead, only that no one knew it aside from you? probably not. it's highly unlikely, in any case.

basically, i'm dead. or if i'm not at the present moment, i will soon be.

the truth is, i'm just feeling really horrible because.. they have officially ruined x men three. utterly ruined. the indignity of it! i shall not give spoilers to anyone else who wants to watch the movie, but honestly. a scriptwriter stupid enough to kill off the two best characters in the comic thirty minutes into the show has to have some screw loose somewhere.

argh. i am fuming with righteous indignation, and it's just fiction. in fact, it is MORE than fiction. it is a fictitious off-spin of an original fictional work. which is, essentially super-fiction... or hyper-fiction.. in any case, it is fictionalised fiction, and it is UNFORGIVABLE.

i am very tired because i am writing this at one am when i should be prepping for the PTM tomorrow.

THE INDIGNITY OF IT ALL.

anyway, what adds to my colossal frustration is the fact that my parents never seem to get out of the whole "you're so irresponsible; you don't deserve this; we're your parents and we know better" rut. true, on a certain level, they do know better. but this is ridiculous. a decision about my life, and i'm just supposed to leave it in their hands hoping that they'll make the right decision for me?

okay this is taking an uncomfortable turn into the memories of my adolescence, and i refuse, absolutely REFUSE, to go there.

i am better than that. you hear me? i am BETTER THAN THIS.

harumph.

ah, bugger off, all of you.

bye bye, my babies.

2006-05-25T17:19:00.000+08:00

saying goodbye is always tough. but it's worse when you're leaving them behind.

goodbye, two charity; miss chong will miss you. :)

"We, the class of Primary 2 Charity, pledge that we will help our teacher to clean up the class and we will help her to do something when she needs our help and we will be good students and we will be a very good good and to be a very nice girl we will behave like a girl and not like a boy. We will always be a good good girl and listen to you. We will do anything that you want us to do. And we will polite to teachers, uncles and aunties. We will also study for our exam and be good students. We will care for each other and pay attention in class. We will also share our things with each other."
-P2C Class Pledge, written by: The Pink Rabbits

"We, the class of Primary 2 Charity, pledge that we will be good pupils and help one another. We will work hard and pay attention in class. Champions are not those who never fail but those who never quit. We will love and respect the elderly. We will show gratitude and humility, sisterly love and dignity for all. We will lead and serve, create and celebrate and learn from life. We will be good girls and treat animals nicely. We will always be quiet in class and listen to our teachers that teach us. We will appreciate what we have and help those who are in need."
-P2C Class Pledge, written by: The Golden Retrievers

thank you for making it so easy to love you.

health is severely overrated.

2006-04-10T21:49:00.001+08:00

before i start my entry, i am going to warn anyone who knows me extremely well to prepare themselves for the greatest shock of their lives.

-takes a deep, indrawn breath-

i ran today.

it's amazing, isn't it? i take pride in just looking at those three words. those three little magnificent words. -contented sigh.-

well, for the benefit of the cretins who have not taken the time, or not had the utmost privilege, to truly know and understand me.. i had better explain the sheer incredulity of the statement. the truth is: i NEVER run.

NEVER.

some would say i'm hiding behind my mcs. some have said i have a permanent aversion to the track. i would just label it general sloth. the truth is.. i hate exercise. all that action, and what are you left with? sore, aching muscles that do nothing for the improvement of your mental faculties. but really, after two years of complete inactivity, the body DOES need to find some way to release all that non-existent bottled-up physical tension.

so i ran today.

of course, i did so under some duress and peer pressure, but that notwithstanding, i still ran. jiayan and layhoon effectively made me run around st. nicholas, which, all in all, isn't much of a jog, but at the speed we were running i was surprised i didn't just fall flat and die. actually, it's a high possibility i did, and i'm just imagining all this in my head as my spirit leaves my body.

enough of the rubbish.

we ran less than 2 km, i would think.. it was a very SHORT jog, albeit one that required you to run quite a ways upslope. this being said, i didn't think i would suffer any aches. that'd teach me to assume anything from now on. after two years of complete shutdown of all bodily functions with regards to aerobic activity, a slightly-less-than two km run is an evil, EVIL thing.

and now my back and hip ache like the devil.

don't ask me why my back and hip hurt, because honestly, i don't know. it's fairly impossible to hurt your back during a RUN, but well, things never happen logically in my life.

okay, this has been sufficiently boring and awkward.

ciao.

such immaturity.

2006-04-03T20:30:00.000+08:00

"the story in whose misleadingly calm shallows you're standing right now is not a tragedy. how do i know? because a tragedy is the tale of a person who holds the seeds of his own destruction within him. this is entirely contrary to my situation - everyone else holds the seeds of my destruction within them. this story is therefore not a tragedy, for technical reasons."
-Things my Girlfriend and I have Argued About - Mil Millington-

this is, pretty much, the story of my life.

i sometimes find it so pathetic that i can, on occasion, lapse into utter adolescent frivolity.

today was such a day.

after a rather gruelling day at work, i decided that i would just leave the entire, growing pile of marking that i have to do, and go for a completely relaxing, "play" day at our dearly beloved orchard road. of course, the "playing" also implied the necessity of "spending money", which unfortunately threw my scheme of saving three thousand dollars for my backpacking trip out the window. so now, i can probably save... two thousand, nine hundred and ninety. hmm.

i found out something interesting today. hee hee. but that's another story for another time.

anyhow, i had a pretty good day.. spent my hard-earned money on unnecessary things, ate too much ice-cream for my own good, spent time with a couple of colleagues, and met ginarella pearl for dinner.

and then my day descended into an adolescent nightmare.

well, all of us know what the teenage years are like. we are hopelessly dependent on our parents-- for money, for food, for transport. EVERYTHING. well, i surmised that had changed once i started working. after all, i'm saving for my own tour, i'm buying clothes out of my own pocket, i tithe using my own income.. i USUALLY go home on my own. today, unfortunately, was the exception to the rule.

in a moment of utter idiocy and a horrible lack of foresight, i decided to take the mrt to ang mo kio mrt station and get picked up by my mother. imagine this. i am standing completely still, at the exact same place my mother picks me up from all the time [at least in jc], looking blindly out into the oncoming traffic waiting patiently for her arrival. ten minutes pass. i do not see her car. finally, about fifteen minutes since she told me she was coming towards the mrt, her car appears. she drives ALL THE WAY PAST ME, stops at the taxi stand, and i, of course, turn around and run after her car, most cleverly evading the traffic that threatens to run me over.

when i get into the car, relieved at having kept my limbs and life intact, i get yelled at.

"WHERE WERE YOU?!"

i look up, stunned.

"huh? i was waiting here."

"DID YOU NOT SEE ME GET STOPPED BY THE POLICE?!"

"huh?"

"NEXT TIME I'LL NEVER FETCH YOU AGAIN! YOU ALWAYS DO THIS! NEVER WAIT WHERE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO! I WISH I HAD JUST TOLD YOU TO COME HOME ON YOUR OWN, BUT I WAS JUST BEING KIND."

"huh? what?"

this last "huh? what?" of course, is accompanied by a rise in volume and an incredulous look.

"YOU ARE A SELFISH, UNGRATEFUL GIRL!"

"what the...? mother, why are you screaming at me?! i was just STANDING THERE."

"i didn't see you." take heed that this "see" is in italics because she intoned it in an altogether unparental, condescending tone of voice.

"i didn't see you either!"

"that's your fault! you weren't looking out for me?"

my eyes goggle and i stare blankly at her, unable to digest her utter lack of logic.

"mom, that could also mean you weren't looking out for me, because you didn't see me?"

"just shut up!"

"don't say that to me!"

"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP."

i then proceed to sit in silence, stewing in my fury, unable to understand how she could possibly be so unreasonable.

and so, there's the story of a good day gone sour, courtesy of my mother.

the end.

companionship is like a drug.

2006-03-25T23:38:00.000+08:00

i'm devastated.

ginarella pearl ong yu will be moving out of my place in a couple of days... and rather surprisingly, the notion makes me feel extremely, EXTREMELY sad.

this is very odd indeed.

part of me has realised that i have been very lonely these past few months. of course, there are the constants in my life.. nest, lene, my parents, my colleagues. but you realise that sometimes you just feel empty. that there's really no one you can just... call up for no apparent reason and talk to. or just.. laze around with.

gina is that person, at least for me. i still remember pissing off my parents because i was at her place all the time.

and having her here was a blast.

being able to talk.. just talk, about anything and everything.. complaining, bitching, even holding midnight sectionals that greatly amused my parents and siblings.. it was amazing. knowing that she was just.. a level away. just walk upstairs, and you've got a ready-made, living, breathing friend sitting there waiting for you to unload your trash to. she's like the older sister i never had.

and the more used to it you get, the more you realise you need it in your life.

maybe i'll just tie her to my brother's bed and never let her leave.

BUAHA.

okay, this is very disturbing.

a day in the life of a relief teacher.

2006-03-06T15:54:00.000+08:00

it is a bright and sunny morning. you awake to the unfortunate sound of birds squawking, drag yourself to the bathroom and bang your head against the door while your brother takes his own sweet time showering. after an abnormally cold shower, if you could count the tiny drips that emerge from the shower-head as a shower, you stagger back to your room, still half asleep, and put on the same kind of thing you are obliged to put on every day. after running your comb through your hair a couple of times, being too lazy to make sure you look presentable, you make your way downstairs.

once downstairs, you are greeted by the fragrant aroma of... absolutely nothing! it is surely far too early for anyone to be up to make breakfast for you! thus, you grab the hand of your younger sister, who is half-asleep as well, and proceed out the front door towards the school. when you arrive, you are greeted by a cacophony of screams, shrieks, shouts, and the pitter-patter of little, and NOT SO LITTLE, feet as the little ones scamper towards their classrooms in a frenzy to get there first, for some strange reason. you go into the office, declare your attendance, and then make your way upstairs to the relative safety and security of the staff room.

this is followed by a long period of administrative details that do not form very interesting blog entries.

your usual classes are of course, fairly tolerable and sometimes even amusing, because after all, you've seen these kids many, MANY times in the past couple of weeks and you have grown to love them. the usual crying fits, water attacks and choruses of "miss chong, she took my pencil and won't give it back!!" ensue, but are made tolerable by the adorable little letters they seem to write to you every single day.

you depart from your classroom and return to the staff room, only to find, HORROR OF HORRORS, that there is a piece of paper saying, "relief teaching of class *** at *** time". you look at the classes. primary four, primary five... oh blast! primary six. relieving primary fours aren't that bad. they generally stay quiet, and are not quite trained enough in interpersonal duplicity to make up excuses to leave the classroom. they do their own reading and drawing, and in the corner, a few little choir girls are singing "hotaru koi!" very softly. it's quite sweet, in a sense, watching them. gives one hope for the future.

you move on to the primary five class, and OH NO. someone neglected to tell you that they were supposed to be having music. so you bring them to the music room, and then sit there, not quite knowing what to do. so you assign them groups and begin an impromptu singing competition. you hear groans across the room. "but teacher, i don't know what to sing! you should have given us a day to prepare!" evidently, they don't realise that they have been sprung on you like a surprise. so you tell them, "girls, music is supposed to be fun!" halfway through the lesson you realise what works on j1 girls usually works on primary five girls as well. playing the star wars theme on the piano with the sustain pedal depressed works wonders for making people pay attention and keep quiet. :) and so the lesson goes, fairly smoothly.

then comes the p-sixers. don't get me wrong, i have nothing against p-sixers. some of them are pretty sweet. one of them draws a picture of you. it's adorable. you are temporarily pacified. you tell the class to keep quiet and allow them to talk softly, as long as the noise level stays down. i mean, what else can you do with p-sixers. small pockets of noise cost you a few glares and a bit of patience. after a while, you realise that planting yourself in the middle of their discussion usually lessens the noise substantially. you feel fairly pleased with yourself, even if you know you haven't really kept them completely quiet, because, i mean, you can't expect them to be COMPLETELY quiet.

then you go for lunch and your colleague, an infinitely more experienced teacher, tells you that six girls from that primary six class you were relieving were wandering about the corridor, getting into trouble, while you were in class.

you decide that they're gonna fire you.

you ALSO decide that you'd rather lecture at a university where everyone sleeps when you speak then at a primary school when you actually have to CARE.

and so the story goes.

gone.

2006-03-01T22:12:00.000+08:00

gone, going.
gone, everything.
gone, give a damn.
gone be the birds when they don't wanna sing.
gone people, all awkward with all their things.
gone.

sometimes it's really hard to see what He has in store. now's one of those times- when the utter elusiveness of His plan drives you absolutely nuts. not that i did very badly; i just didn't do as well as i hoped. no biggie. that's not the question. is it me not getting into law? no, not really. it's this realisation that i still ultimately don't know what to do with my life.

that's what stings.

and stinks.

it makes me realise how indecisive a person i am; how easily swayed by life, by my parents, by societal expectations, by everything that comes along and makes me doubt the integrity of what i believe in; what i'm living for and striving for.

this has to end.

someday i'll look back on my life and realise i kind of.. wandered through things. stumbled. got pushes in various directions by several overzealous, albeit loving individuals. and eventually ended up where i was. not by my own volition, NO. "you can't really expect jo to know what she's doing. she doesn't know what she wants. she never does." i wish i could say, "that's not fair! it's not true!" but sadly, it is. and sadly, i still don't know. whether or not my own opinion would make a difference. this frigging insecurity that underlies everything i do. it grates. makes me ill. makes me feel like saying, "hey you stupid little girl, don't you realise you have a MIND somewhere in there? that you're secretly protesting to all the decisions everyone makes about you in front of you FOR you?" but i know that stupid little girl would just look up at me with widened eyes, her hands in her pockets and tears streaming down her cheek. and i know what that little girl would say.

"i don't know."

i hate myself sometimes.

the quiet before the storm.

2006-02-28T23:02:00.000+08:00

it's the night before the release of the 'a' level results, the signalling of the end of whatever peace of mind us eighteen year olds have been able to gather in the past three months.

there's something strangely poetic about tonight.. something strangely poignant, something in the air that makes one know one cannot possibly re-enact this same moment. like.. the calm before the storm. the building up of the waves before they crash. the huge drawn-in breath before you let out a humongous, wet, germ-ridden sneeze. it's almost like waiting for death.

the melodrama in the air tonight is evident. the various nicknames online that so evidently illustrate the communal anxiety, the wishing of luck to everyone [hopefully sincere. there IS something called the bell-curve, yes?], the musing of different avenues of death upon the receipt of one's results. it's like a maelstrom of negative emotions, a nexus in which poor, pathetic creatures such as myself lose themselves... in shared panic. it's probably the best way to trigger stress... shared panic. works every time. the damned ripple effect. i'm not going to talk to anyone tonight.

but yet amongst all the flurry and the nerves there are those brave souls who dare to stand up and say, "don't worry, lah!" of course, those brave souls often get railed at, or grumbled about behind their backs about their "overconfidence". it's unfair, really. they're just being those jewels in the rough who dare to use optimism to regard a practice so clearly without merit, it should be outlawed. they should implement an internet system. you log on if you want to know your results. if you don't, just.. never open it. and people won't have to endure that gnawing feeling of.. "shit what if i wrote this thing wrongly?" or "dammit, what if i forgot to..". that's the worst part. the waiting. it actually reminds me a little of war lit.

but despite all the anxiety and angst.. God still speaks to me in such small ways. James Dobson once said, "trust involves letting go and knowing God will catch you." it's written on a little card that i used to use as a bookmark. i chanced upon it again as i was looking through some things in my book closet, just a couple of minutes ago. it was a reminder, i'll bet.

i need to trust. i need to know that He's got a plan, and that's all that matters.

it doesn't matter.

Lord, help me to realise it doesn't matter.

"Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid." -Isa. 12:2

good luck, everybody. God bless.

bye bye big brother.

2006-02-13T13:31:00.000+08:00

while you were packing i thought about all the little things i'd miss about you.

i'll miss the way you moaned and told me to "f*** off, b***h" whenever i hugged you. i'll miss the way you made me nauseous everytime i sat in your car. i'll miss the way you ordered everyone to get you a drink and tried to cuff them on the head when they wouldn't. i'll miss the way you listen to abominably loud music in your car and tried to sing along although the volume made you so deaf that it was impossible to keep in tune. i'll miss the way you would sneak into my room at two am and irritate jolene by trying to wake her up. i'll miss the way you shouted at joash to do push-ups and then once he was down, grin so widely everybody knew you took perverse pleasure from it. i'll miss the way i always smelt you before i saw you. heh. i'll miss the way you always tried to defend us from the parentals when we were being scolded, and how you inevitably ended up caught in the crossfire. i'll miss the way you love to rub your four As in our poor, less intelligent faces. i'll miss the way you insisted on sitting in the front seat ever since you were eight. i'll miss the way you always tried to act like you were so much older and so much more mature than us, even though you yourself didn't really know what you were talking about. i'll miss the way you cracked jokes that were nowhere near funny, but somehow seemed hilarious because of your straight face as you told them.

but most of all, i'll miss your unapologetically abject stupidity. it made us all laugh.

bye bro. take care of yourself. i love you.

so who's afraid of the big, bad happy ending?

2006-02-06T21:04:00.000+08:00

today, class, we are going to deal with a topic which is very, very close to my heart. please forgive me if i sound needlessly impassioned during this entry, due to a pressing need to drum a very important fact into the poor, uneducated heads of male cretins all over the world. the romantic fiction genre, or as men universally term it, ROMANCE NOVELS, is being severely underrated and unjustly condemned. and today, i HAVE to address this problem.

the merit of the romantic genre is often ignored or disregarded, which makes it easier, and less taxing on the brain, for males to very callously label all books of that genre as "trash." naturally, i have to begin this entry by clearly delineating all the positive qualities of this sort of fiction, as to dispel the notion that romantic fiction hold no real, tangible merit.

firstly, romantic fiction is doubtlessly one of the best selling genres in the book market, and thus, it evidently holds great economical merit. a survey conducted in north america testifies to the fact that more than fifty-one million women in north america reads a romance novel at least once a week. not impressive enough for you? the same survey also states that these fifty-one million women altogether spend well over a billion us dollars per year to indulge in romantic fiction. how's that for economic value? and that's just in one country.

"well, popularity alone doesn't guarantee its value! what about its literary value?" you might argue. think about it. some of the greatest writers in the past couple of centuries have written, both prose and poetry, strictly about love and romance. to cite a very obvious and often overused example, Jane Austen. needless to say, she is known by popular opinion to be one of the most brilliant writers to emerge from the romantic genre. Other evident examples include Emily Bronte (one of my favourite authors), Lord Byron, Ann Radcliffe, arguably Marcel Proust, even the great bard himself, Mr. William Shakespeare! dare you question the literary value of their works? how then, can one so frivolously discard romantic fiction as a product of popular culture without literary value? how many of you harsh critics out there have ever picked up a romance novel? i think not.

of course, then one would combat this argument with one of their own. "but romance novels are so torrid! they're morally incorrect! all the characters have movie-star good looks or great bodies! look at what they symbolise? what they convey to our influenceable children?"

and what, precisely, is that? what romance novels display, essentially, are very basic principles that are required for one to achieve a proper "happy ending". passion, of course, is necessary, hence the "torrid, vulgar" scenes, which are often neither torrid nor vulgar. with all fiction, authors seek to show, not tell, and is it not more effective and literally rewarding for the reader to read about the subtle touches and actions that make up the.. torridity, or, after the whole build-up of romance and courting and the beginnings of a blissful relationship, be left with a short sentence: "they had sex." of course, an author, when writing in the perspective of either protagonists, have to create in the reader the feeling of being "in love", as the reader is led into the point of view of the protagonist. in general, people in love tend to think the world of their loved one, and even if said loved one had a club foot, a huge boil in the middle of his/her nose or a deformity framing the entire edge of his/her face, there is a great likelihood that the protagonist would find beauty in that repulsive countenance. hence, beauty, or at least the image of beauty projected from the POV of the protagonist, is a necessity in romantic fiction. how can one then convict the author for doing what is necessary in the literal arena to achieve his/her intended effect on the reader? ridiculous, isn't it?

naturally, the more intelligent of the cretins would then rebutt with the universally approved fact that "romance novels are 'trash' because they are UNREALISTIC. they are overly idyllic, idealising scenarios that probably would never occur in real life." yes. true. it is hardly likely that one is going to one day be transported back to Regency england or the old West, or fall in love with a vampire or be rescued by a knight who travelled through time. [for the non-romance readers, romantic fiction does sometime deal with time-travel, paranormal or historical scenarios.] but isn't that the appeal of fiction in the first place? the escape. "no," they argue, "it must be true to life.. applicable and realistic!" well, i would like to know then, especially from the POV of males, how, in any sense, is Dan Brown remotely realistic? finding the Holy Grail through a series of clues left behind in paintings? REALISTIC? TRUE TO LIFE?! please. same goes for Jeffrey Archer, Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, and half of the male-adored generic authors. not that i don't love their books, i do! i'm just proving a point. if i can't label them as "trash" just because they're unrealistic, then... what's your argument?

some would then reply with the comment that, "not only are romance novels 'trashy' because they're unrealistic, it's also because they are so utterly PREDICTABLE." "it's brainless," they say, "there's no conflict! you know, even if they're having some great big argument and you get all weepy and sentimental, that there's going to be a happily ever after in the end!" well, firstly, if you believe that, you haven't read many of Sparks' novels. i guarantee you that one in five of his books that you pick out, one of the protagonists is gonna die for some sudden and absurd reason and the other, in some books, mourn for eternity, or in others, move on happily, and in others, get a sequel where they fall in love again with another girl/guy. some happily ever after, huh? but that's romance for you. predictable? not likely.

guys argue that romance novels are the "chick flicks" of the literary world. "chick flicks," they say, "are trashy. because they're predictable. happily ever afters in the end." given that romance novels ARE the 'chick flicks' of the literary arena, and they ARE predictable, are not fairy-tales, disney flicks, childrens' books, even ACTION movies, equally predictable? good wins evil. that HAS to be the way, or our kids would end up jaded by the world by their fifth birthday. so are we going to write off fairy tales as trash because they're predictable? please.

of course, again, romance novels are also deemed trashy because they're all "mushy" and "sentimental" and they only cater to women. i am not even going to dignify that utterly sexist comment with a retort. i am, instead, going to give people the benefit of the doubt. taken into consideration that romance novels only cater to women [which they don't, btw.]. are they going to be condemned for then serving their purpose? correct me if i'm wrong, but cartoons, also only cater to children. are they then going to be criticised for having a lack of emotional depth BECAUSE THEY FULFIL THEIR PURPOSE? for pete's sake! they're SUPPOSED TO BE MUSHY AND SENTIMENTAL. just like action movies are supposed to be BRAINLESS AND BRAWNY with many things being smashed and cars bursting into flames. it's their FUNCTION.

okay. breathe.

now, at the end of my not-so-lengthy dissertion, i would like to encourage any non-romance reader or even one of those emotionally immature, juvenile critics of this genre to go out and purchase themselves a romantic fiction novel. i heartily recommend anything by Julia Quinn, Suzanne Enoch or Lisa Kleypas. If you're into more contemporary romance, read Susan Elizabeth Phillips or Deirdre Martin. no one's going to question your macho mojo, okay? maybe if you really read a romance cover to cover and use colourless glasses to truly enjoy the sensation of falling in love alongside a fictional character, then we can truly see who's afraid of the big, bad, happy ending.

ciao.

life at the office.

2006-02-03T15:29:00.000+08:00

i am a very naughty girl. i am using the clinic computer to blog. if i get found out, i'd get fired.

shhh. don't tell anyone.

:)

cheap thrills are the highlights of my life.

update.

2006-02-01T17:12:00.000+08:00

just a relatively recent photo update on what i've been doing in my life besides musing the maudlin memories of growing up, listening to johnny cash, planning trips to taiwan, watching 'the sisterhood of the travelling pants' and eating many many many mandarin oranges.

my darling joel, my very latest infatuation.

the folks and the fiends.

does this look familiar?

my lovely cousins! they're the best. :)

suemorly aka my darling rat. isn't she lovely? and so full of smiles and approachable too. :)

the current state of my dresser.

all in all, my life's a breeze. i need a job. or something to do. i'm considering reading joshua's entire A level biology and chem notes, just for fun. maybe i'll do really badly and retake my a levels in the science stream! hmm. that or go to poly. decisions, decisions.

ciao.

i miss..

2006-01-31T23:24:00.000+08:00

i miss: acjc. singing in the void deck. getting glared at by other students who are trying to study. alex complaining that we took too long to decide songs and that his back hurt. arguing over the fine line between classic/oversung. studying until ten. walking around the track at night looking at the stars. talking our hearts out. crying at the bleachers. sectionals. star wars theme songs. rehearsals. kkmc. NL1. stoning during gp. recess in the canteen. yong tau foo. geog lectures with mr lynn. the glass room. grinding glass. listening to power 98. slaving overnight to finish prep work. wiping glass. painting display units. hokkien techno. 248D pasir panjang road. fruit salad. movie marathons. feeling that exhilarating rush.

i miss: my best friends. studying for o levels. getting distracted. watching tv and eating any trash we could salvage from my cupboard. cooking spaghetti. pounding chicken fillets because we didn't buy ground meat. eating pizza. over-eating pizza. smuggling food into mrs sushilla's class. mushroom cheese. abraham's promise. scolding juniors for cutting the queue. eating orange bowl. drinking ice tea. searching for hindi ringtones for uncle mobeen. prom shopping. dress-making. haircuts. phone calls. sleepovers. watching silly chinese shows. eating noodles and guo tie at the shanghai stall. walking to the food centre. feeling so so stressed, but with the people who mattered.

i miss: ootgr. bright red choir uniforms. staying back after choir and sitting in the canteen. ribena and seaweed chicken. the "bian tai" western stall uncle who always opened late. yuanzhen laughing about everything. changing the words of "candle on the water". making gold stars. "i pray we'll get a gold." michelle screaming on the phone with her mother. crying jags. "forever in love". "best in me". seeing the young ones chasing birds. flamingo uniforms. rushing under tables to duck the cat high choir guys who were coming down the stairs. screams. "datang dari empat penjuru...". our own private dock in australia. alto sectionals. beating the floor with the drumstick. separating wanjing and ah boy. jas eng sitting beside the metal cupboard and turning red from laughing. feeling young and full of hope.

i miss: misc. meeting on sundays [or was it saturdays] above citylink. getting stared at by street dancers and skaters. singing the same stupid carols over and over and over and over and over and over again. spending almost everyday of the christmas holiday together. losing our voices, and then getting them back again. eating lasagna at the expat's house. singing the tenor part. heh. reaching low Cs. watching treasure island. making esplanade our second home. buying snacks from seven-eleven. teasing each other. lying around doing nothing most of the time. basking in our unproductivity. learning songs last minute and hopefully getting them somewhat right. clement and his face screwed up as he goes "..are their tones!" feeling careless and carefree.

i miss: plmc. backup practices. rugrat shouting at everyone. watching luke play the drums. trying to harmonise and then laughing at ourselves when we couldn't. arguing about attire and formal shirts. great P&W sessions. funky five. moshing. walking qing and pam home. eating nasi lemak. eating katong laksa. eating prata. batch barbeques. sitting on the pseudo beach singing random songs. luke beatboxing. listening to punk rock. jamming. sum 41 concerts. feeling immortal.

i miss: being nine. recording silly songs and trying to sell them to our aunties for a mere five cents more than what the blank cassette cost. playing with paper dolls and designing their dresses. spats with the cousins. barbies. polly pocket. snowy. lea. pretending our dolls had gone to school by chucking them in the cupboard. making our own "albums" and taking pictures to stick on the cover. theme hospital. sim park. pizza tycoon. walking over to st. nicks to see the baby crocs. the bread uncle in his little khaki-coloured van. what we regarded then as an amazing selection of cakes. watching power rangers. pretending to be kimberly. making up songs about captain planet. watching channel eight serials and memorising the opening songs. feeling sheltered.

so many memories. but they're not enough.

i'm not ready to grow up.

p/s: spending time with my cousins really makes me sentimental.

gong hee fatt choy, everybody.

2006-01-28T21:17:00.000+08:00

happy chinese new year, folks!!

you know how it's often perceived bad luck to owe other people stuff when chinese new year rolls around? well.. to ward off bad luck i'm listing down the things i owe people.. a pathetic effort, considering the SMALL, TINY, MINISCULE likelihood that i'll ever find all these people to return the things to, or even find the things i'm supposed to return.. but hopefully God will see my efforts and decide to reassure me that chinese new year superstitions aren't really real by sending me lots of good luck!! HAHAHA! haha.. ha. haha. heh heh.. uh.. heh. hmm.

well, i have to forewarn people who don't really know me to refrain from being too shocked by the sheer number of things owed, and people who really know me to refrain from sighing and clapping their hands to their forehead and shaking their heads in resignation.. i WILL RETURN YOUR STUFF. i promise.

okay. sooooo.. i owe:

gina: one white t-shirt, one yellow acjc t-shirt, one full set of gilmore girls' season four vcds, one full set of american juniors vcds and various other small, somewhat unimportant things that i have yet to return but cannot remember.
jamie: various coloured pens and highlighters. and a birthday present.
bert: one stevie wonder cd.
ju: one book entitled "Cherished" by Elizabeth Thornton that i never really read.
sihui: one dark blue highlighter, that i wouldn't really remember i borrowed if it weren't labeled "sihui".
dawn: one acjc drama t-shirt and one pair of brown shorts.
terence: one pair of grey checked shorts.
cheryl: one pair of olive green bermudas.
toshi: one set of japanese vcds which name i have forgotten.
my mother: my life, and one purple t-shirt.
my dad: an innumerable amount of money taken in little amounts of five and ten cent coins since i was four, from his bedside.
pam: a japanese comic which name i have forgotten, but is the number "three" in the series.
diona: a polly pocket set, and if i'm not wrong, a pair of tights that i borrowed in primary three. i'm hoping it hasn't been taken as a rag and used to clean windows yet.
luke: an outing. :o)
darcy: a couple of edited chapters.
shannon: a big apology.
siska: her alto-senior present which is STILL lying in my room fully wrapped.
josephine: her birthday present from three years ago which i promised i would get her but eventually forgot.
carmelita: a book which name i have also forgotten, but is lying in my bookcase somewhere.
my chinese tuition teacher: a chinese novel named "ai de chuan shuo", which, despite its cheesy name, was a brilliant read and very, very moving.
floppy: his precious, precious scissors. heh.
nenest: as of now, a great big hug, one black nike jacket, one khaki jacket, my sanity, and a pair of sunglasses that i can ASSURE YOU, is still around somewhere.

if you, and your stuff, are not mentioned in the above list, feel free to tag your complaints!

i will RETURN THESE ITEMS or die trying!

someday.

random entry.

2006-01-25T14:30:00.000+08:00

again, i am sitting at home because my mother decided she has no use for me in the clinic today.. and of course, ernest is working and driving later at night, and my three best pals appear to be too busy or disinclined to venture beyond their front door, so i am, yet again, stuck at home with my adorable rat of a sister. who, by the by, cannot stop complaining about how these "stupid irritating girls in her class" were "crying over" some argument over the games stall vs. food stall dilemma.

oh the beauty of a simple, secondary one life in st nicks.

went for a colonoscopy yesterday, which was quite an experience. i never quite knew it was regarded as a form of surgery, and my hatred for needles has, btw, returned with a vengeance. it's fairly intimidating, being ordered into this oversized blue robe. [which doesn't at ALL cover your back, btw.] of course, decency is crucial in a hospital filled with poor elderly folk who could easily get a stroke at seeing such a horrendous sight, and you are given this even LARGER blue robe to cover yourself. after which, you are escorted to this little room with lots of beeping machines and tv screens and trays and [can you imagine the horror!] needles. they make you lie down on this tiny little bed, if you can actually term it as a bed, and then the anaesthetist sticks a needle in your wrist. then, he holds up this amazingly, startlingly, impossibly big syringe full of white stuff, and then he tells you, "you'll feel like you're flying.", which is, not exactly a comforting thought, actually. and of course, the next thing you know you're being pushed along a corridor in that same little bed, and then moved onto your ward bed, and you fall asleep again, only to wake up two hours later feeling like you got hit by a bus.

of course, i have to be the luckiest scope patient on earth, having my mommy hold my hand while my daddy puts a needle in my arm, and the endoscopy nurses, very astutely, reminded me of that while i was lamenting the size of the needle in question. and of course, i am probably the only person to ever get a dozen gerberas for a half a day's stay in hospital.

he's the best.

but well, just in case anyone was curious, i do not have colorectal.. whatever, and i am evidently not going to die at the tender age of twenty-two, despite recurring dreams to the contrary. i have, as my mother puts it, a rather severe case of cramping of the intestines, which, despite sounding rather disgusting, is actually curable by medication. apparently, my innards are twisted into several knots.

stress signs.

HA.

stress.

me!

ha!

seriously.

i left my heart in fran-san-cisco.

2006-01-20T21:46:00.000+08:00

hello all! i'm in my lovable ernest's house, and while he's occupying himself with looking for fiona xie's picture in his st. hilda's yearbook, i am entertaining myself by blogging about him doing just that.

who can say my life isn't fulfilling?

i left my heart in fran-san-cisco;

high on a hill it calls to me.

to be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars.

the morning fog may chill the air, i don't care.

my love waits there in san francisco,

above the blue and windy sea,

when i come home to you,

san francisco,

your golden sun will shine for me.

i love you baby.

no, i won't write what you just said because it's so cheesy.

but i love you.

my new new year's resolutions.

2006-01-15T22:36:00.000+08:00

better late than never, aye?

1) to love the unlovable. [as in people, yes.]
2) to reach the unreachable. [as in people, again, yes.]
3) to pass my driving test at one sitting.
4) to lose seven kg.
5) to reduce my book expenditure per month to below a hundred dollars.
6) to finish writing what i began writing.
7) to read Swann's Way at least once from cover to cover without falling asleep in the process.
8) to do bible study every night without fail.
9) to salvage the remnants of what i call a room before it turns into a complete and utter sty.
10) to finally be able to sleep without every light in the room turned on.
11) to spend less on my phone bill.
12) to take the bus.

and finally, to have complete conviction to keep to the aforementioned resolutions, and to make certain that i keep my heart, mind and soul prayerful and reliant on the Father as i go about the year.

may God bless the year, and everyone who lives to enjoy it!

damnation.

2006-01-14T09:30:00.000+08:00

the weirdest thing about work is that while you're working, time actually passes really fast. and then you get the amazing feeling like you've actually done something productive during the day.

except you haven't really done anything but type a couple of documents and answer telephone calls and chuck a couple of pills into a little plastic bag.

work is thus, termable [if termable is, in actual fact, a word] as deceptively hard. by this, i mean that it fools people into thinking that you're actually doing something infinitely difficult and extremely adult and thus by this it means you are growing up and learning new things and being very productive, when actually, you really haven't learnt anything that you haven't already known since you were in kindergarten. pick up the phone. put this into that bag. form complete sentences. and while you are preoccupied with the joy that you're growing up so fast and learning so many new things, your brain gradually disintegrates into nothingness, and you truly forget whatever you've learnt in school.

the good thing about being employed by your mom is, she doesn't actually need you to be there.

in fact, in an almost sad, pathetic kind of way, you are like her own personal charity case. no matter how hard you work, you are still, rather evidently, hideously overpaid. the fellow staff, of course, cannot truly b**** about you, because, well, word might get to you, the prissy daughter of the boss, and they might all get themselves fired. [not that my mom would actually lay off anybody for my sake. it's highly more probable that i would be sent home to wallow in self-pity.] thus the situation eliminates all forms of office politics, and you are completely freed from any need for artifice and interpersonal duplicity. which is actually a very good thing, considering i probably wouldn't be able to pull that off. you are also provided lunch, right at your desk-step, and from company coupons so you don't have to pay for ANYTHING.

in a sense, it's like being back at kindergarten, except you're getting paid for it, you don't have to do ci zi, and the bigger kids can't chase you around the playground and put sand in your pinafore.

but what was my point? ahh. yes. she doesn't need you.

therefore, if you betray even the smallest hint of a flu, she tells you to stay home and happily traipses off to work by herself. leaving you quite effectively stranded with nothing to do. but of course, the good thing is you get to stay home and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and.. ahhh. but well, considering i've slept quite enough and already made my bed... what can i possibly do now?

*whistles

my life is really much, much more fulfilling than it sounds, i assure you.

epiphany.

2005-12-28T00:16:00.000+08:00

i realised today, or perhaps more accurately, yesterday, that when you stop to think, a lot of things actually become clearer in your head. and sometimes those thoughts can really drive you rather mad. after all, ignorance is so often, mostly inaccurately, termed as bliss. surely there IS some merit to the old cliche.

i suddenly feel so old.

the first realisation came to me when i went to mel's house for our class gathering. we were just sitting around, having dinner, and then suddenly people started talking about jobs. who's got this job with this firm, who's got that job at this place, how much it pays.. the usual post A level stuff. and it abruptly struck me how... productive we suddenly seem to be. i mean, gosh. we can WORK. we earn MONEY. INCOME. we don't have to, although a large portion of us still do, live off our parents like bloodsucking leeches! that was a sobering thought, considering i had at no time in the recent past EVER considered not living off my parents like a bloodsucking leech. i suck blood, and i'm enjoying it. and yet, morally, legitimately, and on all counts of piety, i should go out and get a job. it only makes sense. after all, i can't just while away the next six months, right?

then why did it suddenly make me feel eight years too old?

the second realisation came to me slightly after the party, when we were sitting in mel's room, and indulging in some idle talk. jamie suddenly told me something about someone telling her about how a particular incident was the first time that someone had spoken to me in a long time since the other incident occurred. [if you're lost, forget it. you're probably not meant to understand it anyway.] and suddenly i realised how stupid everyone, me in particular, was being. when you're young and you make a stupid mistake and wrong choices at the wrong times, how can you go on with life allegedly hating someone for being the receipient of your stupidity? in all fairness, i didn't actually hate the person, or even hold mild resentment, i have to admit. it was just more of.. a feeling of finality. like a friendship couldn't go on. and today i realised how infantile that actually is. so, to whoever you are, if you know i'm talking about you.. :D i suspect you do. i'm sorry for having wasted your time, and i forgive you [even though that sounds rather high-handed, i DO like to think of myself as the queen of the universe] for wasting mine.. after all, you DID make up for it by inadvertently leading me to the love of my life. :D and to draw all things to a close, i would love above all else to be friends again... [because i evidently have so little of those to begin with..] forgive me?

now, that wasn't too hard, was it?

the third realisation came later on, when jamie and i were in the taxi, and i dropped her off at her home. she said, "i'll see you at alumni." and suddenly i realised. gone were the days when i could just pop into NL1 and expect jamie to be sitting there in her old place to listen to me complain about my youthful melodramatic life, and expect gina, because she is so so sooo far away, to open her home to me to drop by and share crying sessions. no more could i expect nartz to be there in school to stay back for art with me, or to have recess on thursdays, or to be able to see nest whenever i wanted to because he was always in the same building. i couldn't just call floppy during recess and expect an open space at his table in the canteen for me whenever i felt lonely. and as all these maudlin sentiment churned through my head, i suddenly felt.. really really sad. school's out. for good. i would never again be obligated to step back into the hallowed halls of 25 dover close east [although i probably would go back pretty often]. and, horror of horrors, i realised something extremely positively scary.

i'm going to miss school.

who would've thought?

change of site. [obviously]

2005-12-26T16:19:00.000+08:00

one day, i'm going to learn how to use my damned computer correctly.

i have been evicted from geocities, sadly, due to something called a "data transfer limit" that i apparently exceeded.. how i exceeded it, and how i can UNEXCEED it, i fear, is undivulged to me by the server, sadly. thus, here i find myself trying the tried-and-true blogspot, which i have yet to learn how to operate.. so if my entry today fails to appear, i will officially retire my blog and go on to living a perfectly satisfied life without the interference of bothersome technology.

and people wonder why my ipod malfunctioned only after a month.

anywayyyyyy.. after keeping away from my blog for about.. what? three months? [no love lost there.] i have decided to stage a COMEBACK!!! why? because, unfortunately, or perhaps i should say fortunately, there is absolutely nothing to do after A levels.. and so, to keep my mind at least reasonably active for the next six months, i decided: "what better way to pass the time than to lament the circumstances of my horrible, worriless adolescent existence!" and true enough, here i am.

well, today, i found myself baking a cheesecake for the second time in my life! all by myself, too. of course, i had to holler for help with the food processor when oreo chunks started flying out at my unarmored face, but other than that, i am proud to declare that i baked it ALL BY MYSELF. preparation work, included! an achievement, indeed, considering my culinary efforts in the kitchen are more usually suited to a wok and an open flame. and my daddy's gonna cook dinner! [a damned fine cook he is, too.] so my foodlust today is, or is going to be, officially satiated.

so. other than food, what is there to speak of in the life of a post-A-level teenager?

of course, there's the carolling season.. :D i can't really think of a better time of year than christmas, and not for the conventional reasons. [after all, i stopped receiving gifts from relatives when i was what? twelve?] carolling this year was different, in a way, especially not being with my batch.. in fact, only five or six of us came for the carolling season, and it was pretty sad, knowing that we'll probably never get a chance to sing together, all of us, again. but carolling was a markedly special experience this year, although in a different way from last year.. well, first there was a fact that i was officially coming back as an alumni, which honestly feels VERY different from being in the college.. i'll never forget the first time i really FELT like i was part of the alumni this season. it was the first time at paragon, after soundcheck, when i was still slightly reeling from the shock of singing in a place where, honestly, barely anyone listened to you, and the noise, while not exactly a din, was comparable to well, the acjc hall after assembly has ended. yeevon turned to me and said, something like, "you can't be scared of the place, because the college choir has never sung in a place like this, and they're likely to be scared. you have to sing out and project." then as i nodded, she said, "welcome to the alumni." it was positively the most scary, and yet amazingly comforting thing to hear at that point. and when we sung, gave, all throughout the rest of the season, i felt, i was part of the alumni. active or not, and i hope i will be, i was part of that legacy that had been left down to us for so many years past. i was, at that point, part of the group that we used to gawk at when we were in the college choir just a year ago, amazed at the sound they produced, awed by the beauty of the music and the life we witnessed in their faces. and knowing that the reason i was there, the reason why all the alumni were there, was because of the shared pride and love instilled by the choir, the legacy of music-making and sharing of so many years. and we were all there, God blessed, voluntarily, without obligation or duress, because we wanted to be. and that shared camaraderie, that feeling of knowing, intrinsically, the purpose that you were there with all these people, was exhilarating.

i can't think of a better way to spend christmas, can you?

i love the acjc choir.

and so, a day after christmas, sitting here in my extremely brightly lit room and tapping away at my stupid, malfunctioning computer, i am still living and reliving the twenty third and twenty fourth of december.. which reminds me, i have to teach shannon how to draw tomorrow. i'm not quite certain how i'm going to go about it, only that he wants to learn how to draw figures, primarily. which i suck at. i should tell him to go to david, 'twould be a much more effective and fruitful session, i'll wager.

speaking of which, if anyone would like to offer to alter the design of my blog for me, [technology idiot that i am, i have yet to learn how to use html], i would be very appreciative!

i have to go check on my cake now.. have a blessed post-christmas and new year until i next see you! ciao.