Sometimes I play around with the idea of making this blog private.

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ICCS today was quite okay la.

What scared me was when I reached the Dhoby Ghaut bus stop at 6.20 am in the morning and found a whole horde of men there. I don't know what they were doing there and I wouldn't have cared, but they were annoying.

They had a PORTABLE RADIO with them and were basically playing it for the, ahem, benefit of everyone else at the bus stop. At 6.20 am in the morning. It wasn't even good music; was basically some woman yowling to a 1980s tune. Wtf.

Then the bus came, and the whole bunch of them freaking SQUEEZED RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME to get onto the bus. I'm not even talking about the Ladies First thing. They don't even have the common courtesy to let those already in front get on first. I felt like elbowing them, but they smelt like they hadn't taken a bath in ages.

And they talked really loudly on the bus. Plus everyone else had to smell their B.O. for the entire bus ride.






























Still don't think I'm xenophobic yet? That's because I didn't mention they were foreigners. I won't mention which country they were from. You may start screaming "INTOLERANT BEEETCH" at me now, but remember, you were all angry before you let your preconceived notion of chauvinistic Singaporeans take over. Even foreigners ought to obey laws of common decency. You can push and shove in your country, but don't you dare do it in mine.

I haven't been online much lately, because EYAs are coming up and I have super alot of papers to study for :X

I suddenly had the inspiration for a poem titled "7 Ways to Torture a Teddy Bear", but I haven't actually written it yet.

(Haha yes it was obviously inspired by "Teddy Bear", the original poem by Proletariat Poetry Factory that we gave to Mr Lee. He looked rather put out after we gave it to him, though. Probably because he looks like a teddy bear, and in the poem the teddy bear was locked up in a trunk by its heartless owner who'd grown too old for it and it started beating against the lid with its soft paws and begging to be let out but she just ignored it...I think. Didn't read it properly.)

Sigh this week has been really sad :/ And all my old insecurities are coming back. I need full marks for my EYAs in order to get a 4.0 for Bio. Practically impossible. My Lit sucks. Today I was talking to Cheryl about Lit, and we wondered why our Lit grades went down instead after we joined RALA...I hope we made the right decision last year. I've never gotten less than a 4.0 for Lit before, but now I'm struggling to maintain a 3.6.

Worse still, I suddenly thought of you just now, and missed you so much it hurt. See you soon.

RA ( Literature) 10:45-12:45 ( 2 hours)

Yay yesterday was fun :D

I slept in, had breakfast etc and finished assignment 2 on Trigo (rather belatedly, I know).

Around noon I realised that my mum hadn't started cooking and I only needed to be at Raffles City by 3 = nobody was going to lunch with me! So I started whining about my sad, no-lunch-company life and promptly got sent into the kitchen to chop up ingredients for lunch (mum: "If you're going to moan about my not cooking, go help me with it!")

After lunch I chionged out of the house to meet with Yoony, Charisse, Jinghui (who couldn't come in the end) and Xinyuan to see the PROLETARIAT POETRY FACTORY in action :D It was a pre-Singapore Writers' Festival event. Cool.

It was awesome. Yoony's mentor (Ng Yi-Sheng) was there, and all the poets were dressed in red boiler suits (which we thought were jumpsuits; Yoony's mentor later clarified that it was an "overall") and instead of nametags they all had "SERVILE POET" sewn onto their suits!

Apparently people were supposed to order poems by giving them a word for inspiration, and come back to collect them later. Paying was optional, but of course everyone felt bad and put money into this little kettle they had for donations (:

We ordered three poems:
1. For Yoony's mentor: "Clear"
2. For --- (until the person receives it I shan't say): "Teddy Bear" (okay this is kind of a giveaway, but never mind.)
3. Can't say anything about this one. It's for someone's birthday.

It was all too cool, and Ng Yi-Sheng's finely choreographed wrist exercises were fascinating. Xinyuan was too focused on getting me to stop staring at his wrist exercises to notice -.- too bad for her.

Okay shoutout to Yoony: Thanks for telling us about it; it was awesomeeee :D Wish they had seats outside Gloria Jean's, though. My legs were dying after 1 1/2 hours of standing around. At least I wasn't wearing heels or anything.

Today was relatively interesting.

Vic burst into class this morning looking for Xinyuan so they could give the AV jackets to the Sec4s together, but halfway up the stairs she remembered that no Sec4s were in school today :X

Sigh I sort of wish I'd bought a jacket. But they're so ex D:

Then we had Physics; got back Physics SPA marks (which were worse than I expected, but looking at how I screwed up...suppose I should count myself lucky I didn't fail lul). I am so dead for Physics. I don't even get Moments much, and it's already easier than WD and Forces.

Lit was okayish. Hahaha Ode To Psyche :D "Now let's move on to the first two stanzas, which everyone has been Not Discussing." (The first two stanzas are about Psyche and Cupid having sex. Lol.)

Oh Chinese = major fun! I like 唐诗 :D And it's so cool; one of the poems is also a song.

Chem was boring. Skippity skip. Mrs Lim was weirdly cheerful today. And she LAUGHED omg. I am super dead for reactivity series, and I think it's unfair that some people have to slog while others get to sit at home and mug the reactivity series. ANNOYING.

We got back a LOT of papers after RALA CES :O Lit was terrible, Lang was WHOA SIAO and Oral marks were mediocre. CES itself was interesting, but I kept almost-falling asleep because I was really tired :X

Sigh I'm not being emo or whatever, but it'll be quite hard for me to stay in RA next year. My GPA is sucky and Lit GP is hanging by a thread :/ Ah well I'll see how things go.

Okay I haven't enough words to express my gratitude towards Henry David Thoreau.

The entire year (and especially Term 3) for Lit so far has been filled with freaky monsters, emoing and nature-worshipping by the British Romantics (they couldn't even come across natural scenery without waxing lyrical about the ABSENCE of civilisation, instead of the beauty in front of them). Blake was, at least, reasonably interesting especially when his poems had an underlying message and a cause.

Wordsworth, on the other hand, was profoundly boring. Oh man. I have no idea how we managed to haul our butts through around 2 weeks of Wordsworth (I think) without dying. Call it the tenacity of RALA. Wordsworth is such a SELF-INDULGENT EMO. I can just imagine this happening to Wordsworth:

Wordsworth's Thoughts On Coming Upon A Lovely Forest:
'Sigh it's a forest. The absence of people feels so restful. Dorothy! Where's Dorothy?! I need to dedicate a poem to her so that I won't look like a nutcase emoing by himself. Ah there you are, Dorothy. Sister, dear Sister! My dear, dear Sister! How I have changed since the last time I came upon such a forest! For the last time I chanc'd upon this lovely glade, I was but seven, a young boy with glad animal movements and in complete harmony with nature...DAMN, I NEED TO FEEL YOUNG AGAIN. But I can never be the annoying brat I once was, so let me settle for making others emo by ruining the landscape with bad nostalgia. Yay.'

And that, thankfully, was when Thoreau came into the picture. (Well, not really, seeing as the slightly-suicidal-but-more-interesting female Romantics came first, but I don't have a quarrel with them, so.)

His Civil Disobedience is AWESOME. My love-hate relationship with it can be likened to, um, the Twilight love story arc! You know, when Edward Cullen is repelled by Bella's tastiness at first, but later he tells her "I was tired of avoiding you" or something. I was trying my best to not get sucked in by Thoreau's logic, but it's really...attractive. Or in bimbospeak, hot.

Link to the original essay here. He's really cool, but you need to get past the big words first. I shan't analyse it here - it'd be spoilering everyone. I love his account of his night in jail and his super neat roommate :D

Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my father attended,
but never I myself. "Pay," it said, "or be locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. But, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest
the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax bill, and have the State to back its demand, as well as the Church.
However, at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing: "Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I
have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know
where to find such a complete list.

I have paid no poll tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet
thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some
way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone
woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.

-- Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau

Yeah see. He is TOO COOL TO BE TRUE. I am infinitely glad that Dr S chose to put American Lit into the RALA curriculum or I'd never survive the year. The Americans don't whine and bitch; they actually Do. Good for them.

Omg why is the first day of Term 1 so...free :/

Must. Do. Worksheet. Eight. Or I'll die of nothing to do D:

I spent 1 hour wrapping my books in clear plastic just now. Oddly therapeutic.

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

-- Derek Walcott

Hello! Someone's waging a war on me via my tagboard.

But what she DOESN'T know is that Cbox has a "select all" function! MUAHAHAHHA. Two clicks to delete all tags wheeeee~

Whee I just finished reading the last book of The Princess Diaries! It's a good ending (:

Arghhh zuowen. I hate zuowens. I almost always end up ranting, not keeping to the question and getting that 用词不恰当 problem. Or writing cuozi.

Redox reactions are killing me D: wish Mrs Lim hadn't started on that topic when we weren't there, but ahwell guess it's our own fault for missing that class. Sigh.

I desperately want to watch a movie but I've NO TIME. So annoying.

POP Parade '09 was quite scary but fulfilling in a way, I suppose.

Morning: Reached school, found yearmates and ran to the year hideout at the 209 classroom hahaha I feel so mean la. Shouldn't we be taking classrooms from our own level? I volunteered to polish everyone's boots for them and now my polishing skills are pretty good :D Shir's left boot looked as shiny as mine (which was the product of don'tknowhowmany hours of polishing over the past few weeks because we've been wearing them often) by the end of, like, half an hour. Pwn. And I made friends with Audrey's boots (:

(Ohgoshh remind me why we DON'T use liquid polish. It ruined my boot completely and I had to spend at least an hour repairing the damage.)

Parade prep all the way with lunch in between (which I took ages to eat because of my braces)! Somewhere along the way we also played Truth Or Dare muahaha Audrey :DD And I proved something to Peilin! Teehee.

Parade itself was somewhat surreal; emceeing was quite paiseh because Germaine kept having to remind me not to be kancheong X.x

Yay grats yearmates for whatever posts we got (: I like mine! Think most yearmates liked theirs too. Oh but it was totally hilarious because just before parade Yingxin and I were like

Me: "Yingxin, I DON'T WANT TO WORK WITH YOU NEXT YEAR."
Yingxin: "Why!"
Me: "One should aspire to work with new partners every year!"
Yingxin: *O.o*

...and we're working together again lolllll. External Affairs hahaha. And OA with Ruth will be cool because we meet nearly everyday for RALA (:

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Hmm the days pass in a blur. Term 3 was really weird in a way because we were crazily busy and I actually had a minor mental+emotional breakdown somewhere in the middle, but after that it's like...oh, okay, I did this much work? And you only realise how little of a life you had when you look back on it.

Mr Lee really does look like a teddybear. He was holding one during MPP celebrations (which he and Ms Lim paid for, omg SAKAE SUSHI LEH.) and the resemblance was totally uncanny. So scary.
Hall assembly on Friday was somewhat annoying. Discipline talk much? And yeah MrLee/MrYang announced that they probably won't be following us up next year, and people were sad, but it was so odd because I was like...okay. I can't imagine RGS without Mr Lee and Math without Mr Yang, but I really really can't feel sad precisely because I can't visualise it in my head. Like SS will just cease to exist and Math will be different. I'm the sort of person who cries during Korean dramas or when my apartment is going to be sold, but I can't cry over people. When it's about people I have an emotional shutdown instead. Hoho.
Who wants to watch a movie with me during the holidays? :D

Eek I kind of don't know whether or not to hope for Evac Gold results to be released faster. Quite scary la. Anyway the sirs said they'd send us the results by this week.

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I don't really have time to update, so basically:

1. Silver@Rosyth was awesome. After that we went to Kester's house to play mahjong/Wii/foosball. All the ex-Rosythians just flooded the entire restaurant, including a couple of really old 20+yearold guys. Most prominent were batches '05, '06, '07 and '08 (for obvious reasons).

2. Went for year meeting today! Haha Carey kept up the tradition of too much food during year outings.

3. Bookshopping after that was quite fun la. We spent ages in there because tickets for Up were sold out D: