Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore —
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore —
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door —
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; —
This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you" — here I opened wide the door; ——
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" —
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore —
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
'Tis the wind and nothing more!"

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door —
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door —
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore —
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning — little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door —
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered — not a feather then he fluttered —
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before —
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore —
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never — nevermore'."

But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore —
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee — by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite — respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil! —
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted —
On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore —
Is there — is there balm in Gilead? — tell me — tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we both adore —
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting —
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore!

-- The Raven (1845), Edgar Allen Poe

Aaaah yesterday was so tiring.

Woke up bright and early and had to pack for my Taiwan trip. After that my mum and I went to look for the Chinese tuition centre so I could register, but GUESS WHAT? IT MOVED. All the way to where the sports complex was! Rawr. The people we asked for directions kept saying it was "not that far from here", but I suppose that only applies if you have a car or lots of free time. It was, like, at least 15 minutes away if we were to briskwalk.

So we decided to just drop the idea and go back some other time. Sigh.

Home visit was pretty...educational. I can speak Cantonese omgxzxzxz! Never realised, because I speak English/Mandarin (English for my dad, Mandarin for my mum) to my parents at home. They don't want me to pick up the dialect, because they want to have a secret language to communicate in without my figuring out what they're talking about. -.- My grandma, on the other hand, is a lifesaver. Everytime I go on a holiday with her, we have to share a room and I get to practise my bad Canto on her. She doesn't mind, because my cousins don't want to learn the dialect but I'm enthu about it O.o

I just realised that I never end my posts properly.

...Whatever.

This whole furore over learning Chinese is complete crap.

What's the big deal? If your Chinese sucks, work on it. If you can't speak Mandarin, watch Mandarin TV channels/listen to 100.3FM or whatever and LEARN. Duh.

I can't stand wusses who give up just because the going gets tough. And the woman who wrote in in 1989 about how she migrated because her son was too soft and couldn't take the rigour of the curriculum?

WELL, GOOD RIDDANCE. Singapore doesn't need people like you.

But now they're going to teach Chinese in English! This is beyond ridiculous. If the kids come from English-speaking homes, get their parents to speak Mandarin to them! And parents, if you can't speak Mandarin, there's a whole range of free-to-air educational shows in Mandarin on Channel 8. Or you can get your kid addicted to Channel 8 dramas -.- The plots are bad, but just bear with it. Anything to improve your Chinese, right?

This is beyond ridiculous. If the Chinese who come to Singapore can become proficient in English, why can't we do the same for their language? Doesn't make sense.

Gosh. No wonder Singaporeans are complaining that foreign talents are "taking away our jobs". You know, if people spent less time whining in the Forum pages and instead used the time to upgrade themselves (say, by improving their language skills), maybe their jobs wouldn't get stolen by other people. Seriously. If people steal your jobs, FIGHT THEM FOR IT. We are too soft nowadays.

(Minutes later the White Witch rolls up and, confused, tries to tempt the probe with a firmware upgrade.)

This song popped into my head when I was in the bathroom. Wonder why. But I like the sixties!

Didn't really feel like posting the entire week, so.

Monday's Exco meeting was fun :D Somehow having lots of people around makes things more efficient, and we were done after 2 hours! Yay. Then we all trooped off to Shaw to eat brunch, and Xinyuan made me buy Subway subs with her ): Super annoying la, the meal so wasn't worth it. I was hungry again after 3 hours. No wonder she always orders the footlong. Veggies don't fill you up for long.

We have crazy juniors lolol. YanHan, Jiaxing, Ningxin and Karmun were sitting opposite us, and they kept laughing at absolutely nothing at all! Vic reminded them that the loud laughter coming from our table might disrupt the PDAing of the couple near us, which elicited this response: "HAHA then we'll wait till they're almost smooching *makes smoochy face*, and then LAUGH EXTRA LOUDLY HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA~ (x100)"

...Yeah, my AV juniors are nuts.

--

Wednesday was okayish; sitting in the old playground after 7 years with new friends and memories felt really strange and wonderful and familiar all at once. I couldn't recognise my first primary school anymore, but I don't really have feelings for it; when I was 8 I didn't know anything but books and praises and being shut out.

Maybe after 7 years, I'll return to Rivervale Crest as a world-weary 23-year-old and reminisce about the good old days. Hmm.

Today, I stepped out of my apartment and was greeted enthusiastically by my neighbour's three-year-old who started banging on his gate and smiling at me. I was about to say hello when he shouted "HELLO AUNTIEEEEEE!!!!!". FML


(Supposed to be posted yesterday, but I forgot)

Note to self:
Monday - Exco meeting + lunch, 8.30am to whenever
Tuesday - Tidy room, catch up on Sec3 Chinese
Wednesday - Meeting at Pasir Ris MRT, 10am to whenever
Thursday - NO PIANO. DO SELF-PRAC.
Friday - Public holiday, make sure grocery shopping for Wai Gong's birthday party's done.
Saturday - Refer to Van's email. 2-6pm. Rest of the day: help mum with prep for Wai Gong's birthday party
Sunday - Birthday party at night.

Haha now the wordfilled post. ;D

Okay I don't know where to start.

So we've had to go back to school the entire week because of FAM video editing; was slightly stressful but mostly fun (:

On the last day of school (Day 2 of Arts Fest) Denise and I went round the school taking videos of the Sec4s and their teachers. Some of them gave really, uh, interesting answers. Like the Kickaboy one; totally classic. Huifei says they're her seniors. I'm not surprised (: LD people are cool.

Monday was props-making day! Apparently sugarcanes aren't always green, but who cares. Denise drew all the sugarcanes because I can't draw for nuts. Luckily we have a house CAD for a comm I/C, or we'd have died on Tuesday.

Tuesday: filming plus editing. Subtitling is fun but really really tedious D:

Wednesday: We just went back to school to put in photos and slack around in the Magic Lab playing Neopets. Lol.


And yesterday! It was raining really heavily when I stepped out of the house, so I went to school in my AV shirt and culottes. The entire OT glared at me when I walked in :X Huifei promptly started a rant about how only Pageant comm was dressed properly (duh, they're the PAGEANT comm. If anyone should be suitably dressed it'd be them). So I ran off to find everyone else at the Koi Pond, where they were testing lavalier mikes and Vic's laptop with the DI box. Apparently the spoilt mikes that Hanis used during Arts Fest weren't broken after all! Yay.

Then we loaded all the equipment onto the bus and got the rest of the OT to help us hold our tripods heheh. Elaine had to hold hers between her knees :X

We reached Hilton early, but it turned out that we didn't need to be; they were having some sort of important meeting inside the Grand Ballroom and overran by one whole hour because their stupid VIP didn't show. And the hotel people kept shoving us away from the ballroom because "VIP COMING THROUGH! VIP COMING THROUGH!" -.- how annoying. They shooed the RJ streetdance people away too.

So we didn't have a lot of time for setup, but AV was still okay; the people in charge of putting the teddy bears on the tables looked rather flustered though.

Then FAM officially started, and everything was cool except that MrLee and Mr Nuh both left and we were left to run the show ourselves ):

The beatboxers and streetdancers were really good! I was bouncing to the beat the whole time and YanHan kept telling me to chill haha.

Pageant was probably enjoyable for the Sec4s. For us, it was just nerves, nerves, nerves all the time, and especially when the Countrymen (sp?) were being used. I had to use the tip of my fingernail to inch the fader controls up and down :X And some of the nominees' tracks were way too soft, so even when the volume was maxed (and the feedback really loud), the music still couldn't be heard. People kept gesticulating at us to make the music louder. At some point in time Denise finally stood up and shouted "IT'S AT MAX ALREADY!!!!" haha awesomee.

Murphy's Law was at work the whole time, I swear. Everytime I thought it was safe to take a bite of my food (we had packed dinners), something went wrong, like sudden feedback or people trying to use the mikes I'd muted.

Ohoh but we did manage to watch one performance: Brenda's teh tarik item! It was damn cool okay. When we first heard of the teh tarik item we thought it was going to be some coffeeshop talkshow, but it turned out to be way cooler. The one with the volunteer looked a bit...wrong though hahahaha. But anyway she totally deserves to be Miss FAM '09 :D

Video screening was okay, except I guess we should have made the font bigger for the opening message. Nobody except those near the screens could see it.

(Vic do you have a copy of the video? I want one leh (: )

The event ended early, so we had a sort-of afterparty with loads of music and (for the Sec4s) phototaking :D We tried to get Mr Nuh to sing but he refused, so Vic, Denise and I jumped around to Candyman, and the Sec4s went wild when we played Mirotic -.- Mr Angullia came to us when we were playing some song from Hannah Montana and asked us to stop, but we begged him for a last song and he mumbled abit and walked off. TEEHEE >) So we put on Womaniser and jumped around some more. The Sec2s, Mr Nuh and MrLee looked mildly horrified at our zi-highness. :D

Then Jaslyn came to us and said that there were still loads of teddy bears left, so we chionged over to the boxes of teddy bears and started grabbing them; it was a totally crazy teddy bear freeforall. VanessaC was waving a packet of packets of Oyster Mushroom Crisps, so I decided to be nice and lug that back to the AV corner too, but nobody wanted them D:

Cabbed home with my dad after that. The Christmas decorations on Orchard Road are beautiful, but I prefer the Candyland theme from last year (:

Good job FAM '09 OT :D and especially AV comm hahaha, and the 3 juniors from Exco who came down to help out: Yan Han, Ningxin and Jiaxing! Love y'all :)

Poetry is the Pensieve of the soul; with some luck the words hit home and actually, does it really matter if no one but you understands the layers that you peel off for the world to see? We shave off the shiny layers of each poem, always looking for the grain of truth (or of someone's heart) in the middle - but run up against references, unshared vocabularies or little key-secrets. So be it, then. To decipher messages that were never meant for you is picking the lock of someone's life without a key.

OMG WHY AM I NERVOUS! EEEK. But I'm damn scared we'll screw up :X

Omg I just found the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

Oh wait, that's 42. And everyone knows that already.

Um, but I did realise why FAM always starts so late! I thought of it all by myself! (And not just because it starts at night, too. Who doesn't know that!)

It's so that the Sec 4s can do their makeup, nails, hair and last-minute shopping all day. Not to mention squeal about dresses with their friends.

I am brilliant. No wonder the people at FAM are always so heavily made-up.

Next year, I shall spend the day thinking of how to dress up as a guy. Teehee how fun.

Eeek I'm going mad. Shall do something more constructive now, like sleeping, since I probably won't get much of it tomorrow night. Sigh.

I'm out of money AGAIN. Sigh.

And I owe Vic 4 bucks for the black flats we bought at Ion today. Ehhh don't judge me kay, I really really need them for WEP and other upcoming events :X And we got a $5 discount! So the shoes were $2.50 cheaper ahaha we're awesome bargain hunters.

--

We're rather efficient! Heh with some luck we'll be able to finish our work before lunch tomorrow and go home and slack yay.

I'm quite tired, actually. But everything's going fine (except for one thing, but that one's out of our hands for now) so I don't know what else I can do.

Went to Denise's house today to finish prep for tomorrow. I feel quite bad la she drew EVERYTHING and all I did was paint a bit and slack.

But I didn't dare draw anything on the thing itself. Every time I draw something, bad memories of art class in N1 come back to me. My teacher actually told me I had no artistic talent. TO MY FACE. I cried and quit the class like the wuss I was then. Now I'll never know whether my inability to draw is due to a real lack of talent or a self-fulfilling prophecy.

--

Gosh I love Cold Storage. Everything there's unaffordable, but window shopping in its stores is so fun. Jason's is even better, of course, but it's quite hard to find a Jason's in Singapore :X Mmm Cold Storage has like an entire row of shelves dedicated to nothing but cheese of all types. Like, the super high class sort. Stupid NTUC next to my house only has cheap processed fake cheese -.- and nearly no whipped cream. It does have a wide selection of Super Low Price Xiao Bai Chye and Baby Spinach and Baby Sweet Potato Leaves, though. Wonder how it feels about ending the lives of so many vegetable babies prematurely.

I woke up it was seven; waited till eleven just to figure out that no one would call. I think I've got a lot of friends, but I don't hear from them. What's another night all alone when you're spending everyday on your own? And here it goes -

I'M JUST A KID, AND LIFE IS A NIGHTMARE
I'M JUST A KID, I KNOW THAT IT'S NOT FAIR
NOBODY CARES, 'CAUSE I'M ALONE AND THE WORLD IS HAVING MORE FUN THAN ME...

tonight.

--

Denise Denise where art thou Denise?

--

Everything's crazy. Will have to go back to school nearly everyday of the week starting tomorrow. Why can't we just get a break for once. And WP's having a barbeque and I can't go because it's at night and full of cheem adults. Sigh.

Hoho Claire can't imagine me in a miniskirt. I wonder what sort of character she thinks I am.

Day two of Arts Fest = sian ttm.

Missed half the day programme today to do filming; it was pretty fun and I can't wait to see the end product :D It's amazing what you can do with a half-empty Kickapoo Joy Juice bottle.

I'm addicted to Love Song again and (dare I say it?) Stacy's Mom. It's quite cute if you don't watch the video :X

I miss Rosyth ): and those days in P5 when we thought we were so cool just because we sneaked out of school before house practices to go to Hougang Point/J8. We had that Rebel Club thingy on Neopets, too.

My mum sometimes wonders why I'm not your typical angsty teenager - it's almost like she's getting off way too lightly on what was supposed to be a Difficult Phase of parenting. I don't know why either; sometimes I feel like I'm waiting for the angst and frustration and stuff to creep up on me, but it never does. Hmm. I'm far too at peace with the world.

--

Had two dreams last night; one was a good one and the other was an absolute nightmare. :/

Basically, in the good one I got an answer to the question I've always wanted to ask someone but never dared to ask, and in the nightmare I tried to stop another person from changing too fast. I hate it when people change too much in a short period of time. It messes up my world.

I'm so bored and lonely at home. Sigh. Even going online doesn't help because half the school's at UCC. _______ isn't going well because we forgot to video Mr Ow today and he's probably gone back to camp for reservist.

At least we have the gloves for tomorrow. The DIY shop sells EVERYTHING, from black boot polish to white Mickey Mouse gloves.

AV for Arts Fest day programmes again tomorrow. I'm so not looking forward to it because THE TEACHERS' BAND PERFORMANCE IS OVER.

At least there's the juggling masterclass.

Maybe for the next Arts Fest we can focus on the day programmes instead and scale down and have fun. Heck RGS Nite. The teachers' band was awesome, and it's not like they had a lot of time to practise.

Love Drunk is stuck in my head now, mixing weirdly with...Nobody. How odd.

Tralala.

The day programme for Arts Fest rocked :D

Opening ceremony (if it counts as one) was infinitely cool. HAHA ALICIA WAS AWESOME AS TARBET'S MASCOT. And I didn't realise what the pole was for yesterday and attempted to wrestle her for it after training. Ended up pulling off a piece of foil whoops sorry Alicia :X

Got pulled out halfway by MrLee and Denise and got a crash course on the placing of the mikes for the *cough* Surprise Performance (that according to Denise was described in loving detail in the programme booklet which was given out earlier LOL). Anyway it was great; people were headbanging and jumping around in front and the people upstairs (us) got a pretty good view of everything. Mr Nuh's sense of style never fails to disappoint :D Silver highlights today!

Then everyone left for recess/masterclasses, leaving only Jiayi and I to manage the sound system and lightboard for RI's jazz performance D: We did fine, but it was quite hard to keep tabs on everything and we couldn't pay attention to the performance. Sigh.

Couldn't find 311 after I left the control room, so Manfang and I went to see the Sec2 ACP booths and kope free food. But we got paiseh after entering the classes and didn't want to freeload, so we ended up in the canteen eating regular food.

Um and we spent the last hour sitting around and making cute little figurines out of jumping clay :D If nobody wants our jumping clay lessons, we'll teach ourselves! Tee hee hee.

I am so bored at home!

Like, seriously. Yawn. I just slept for like 1 1/2 hours. There's nothing to do for _____ until ______ replies my email, but I suppose we'll just have to corner her after morning assembly tomorrow and ask.

I also played a whole lot of Maple. Enough to blow my brains out. This is horrible. I came out about secretly playing Maple on Facebook, and now people are commenting and saying that they play too. Wow.

--

Passer: Let's do a trade. You'll tell me who you are and I'll tell you everything. Because I hate blogging long posts (basically anything that takes me more than 15 minutes to write is, in my dictionary, a "long post"), and I certainly will not do it for someone whose identity I don't even know. Besides, no one else seems interested. Meh.

--

I feel like I've lost any semblance of a writing touch (if I ever had one). So whenever I feel up to it I'll try to write something and post it up somewhere.

How about a marathon FPS scenario blog? I think most of my fellow FPSP writers don't read this blog, but if anyone wants to contribute they can.

Past/present topics are here.

I rather like scenario writing :D But since I'm probably not going to be invited back next year, I'll just give myself a break and not limit myself in any way or bother about craft/word limits/etc. Yay.


--

On my way out of the HDB Hub food court yesterday, I met this lady with her daughter who was from a CHIJ Primary Something (could tell from her convent-girl uniform). She walked right up to me and asked where my primary school was.

My first reaction was 'Huh don't tell me I still look like a P6 kid?', but then she clarified that she was asking about RGPS. So I told her that I honestly had no idea because I wasn't from RGP, but that it was probably in Bukit Timah (checked with Xinyuan later; it is). Then she asked me if RGS was the one next to Shangri-La. That one I could answer, at least.

Why on earth do people like to assume that all RGS girls come from RGPS? It's basically slighting the people who came from other schools. I never thought so myself; even when I was in Coral/Rivervale/Rosyth I never even had the idea that someone from RGPS would have a higher chance than me of getting into my dream school. Statistically it IS true that loads of RGS girls came from RGPS, but it doesn't always have to be that way.

People, dare to dream that you'll make it on your own without the help of some top primary school. If you're always hankering after the things you don't need to have, you'll never concentrate on doing what you need to do.

(No offence intended to any RGPS girl who reads this. I'm not against you people, just those who think that becoming one of you is an automatic ticket to everything they want for their kids in life.)

Uhh so we (the Congress forum Arts Fest thread posters aka Troublemakers Extraordinaire) met Mrs Hoo this morning, and she basically got things sorted out with us.

We're supposed to pass along the message. That it is okay for performers to be imperfect as long as they've tried their best and can truly perform happily and with pride for their CCA/instruments/art.

I believe her. We'll see how things go. There is no option but to trust them, for what other choice have we got?

--

The screening of My Sister's Keeper was fraught with delays, but okay. Xinyuan was sobbing her heart out next to me. Vic, on the other hand, was busy insulting the movie and crunching on nachos. I hope Mr Lee got some sleep during the movie, but it sounded like he actually paid attention. Ah well.

Then we got lost on our way to HDB Hub and found Mr Lee at the bus stop. We asked him if he could point us in the direction of HDB Hub, but he walked us all the way there :X We all felt rather bad, and everyone kept shooting evil glares at me D: I don't ALWAYS know the way! It's not as if I'm the tour guide (just the tour guide's daughter).

Lunched with Xinyuan at the HDB Hub food court; Leevoon and Haitong were sitting at the next table. Somehow along the way we lost Mala. MALA IF YOU READ THIS I'M REALLY SORRY. I thought she was behind Xinyuan who was behind me, but after Vic left (she's the one who always finds the empty table) I sort of lost my bearings while searching for a table. Major paiseh laaaa.

-----

Anabelle, is it possible for LJs to have tagboards?

Anyway, I have only one thing to say: IF THAT TAG MEANS WHAT I THINK IT MEANS, I'M SORRY ANABELLE M'DEAR BUT I DON'T SWING THAT WAY. :O

WELL DONE RGSRCY FOR FAC '09!!!!

Yay 2nd and 2nd :D

--

And thanks Germaine for updating me yay (: I could do the imagine-I-was-there thing again ahaha.

Think everyone's having unit dinner now sigh. So near yet so far D:

Sigh nevermind la can only blame myself for getting busted for sneaking off after school yesterday to play mahjong. At least we weren't playing with real money :X

WE ALL PASSED! :D

Well done yearmates!

Haha I thought I'd screwed up MOI, seeing as I ended up playing games with my audience instead of teaching them stuff :X Uhh it was meant to be an educational game what! Heh heh heh.

[edit] Haha I thought I should thank Audrey for persuading us all to sign up even though only some of us got recommended. Thankyou Audrey for believing in us (:

My feet look badly abused D: And my legs have like 3 different types of injuries (all sustained in the same day).

I got the blisters first, from playing like one billion games during Netcarn with lousy shoes. (No kidding; they're really lousy. I stepped in a puddle today and got my socks wet because there were large gaping holes in my shoes).

But since my blisters are the really smooth sort, my feet basically...lost friction. I don't know how to put it. I went for training after Netcarn. And since I'm, like, a professional klutz, I managed to slip and fall outside the RC room AND cut two toes in the process. Cheerful. But yearmates were around and their FA is awesome, so it wasn't actually painful, just interesting (because I mean, fresh blood! How cool is that?!).

Then I got home and desperately needed a bath, but I couldn't let my toes touch the water, so I had to step on the wall and balance on the other leg the entire time while bathing. My muscles were screaming bloody murder by the time I finished bathing. To add insult to injury, the gauze still ended up soaked in water. Yay.

500th post.

Netcarn :)

I'll just copypaste my email to the class yahoogroups.

Oh hello!

(Sorry long rant. If you're busy don't read.)

Personally, I think this was the best Netcarn I've ever been in. I mean, coming from classes I didn't really love in Sec 1 and Sec 2...whether or not my class won or lost it didn't really matter then, but today it did. That we all felt rather sad today is natural, because we all love 311 and want to see it do well.

But seriously? When we did that class put-hands-together thing after losing like 10 games in a row? I don't know about everyone else, but I felt like crying (with happiness!) because I thought that after losing so many games we'd start bickering and getting pissed off, but everyone just...banded together and tried harder. It was so touching D:

It doesn't matter if we win or lose the competition, because really, we gained a whole lot more today than we ever could have if we were a class full of athletic people. Many of us can't play for nuts and probably hate netball, but still joined the games today so that the regular players could take a break. If that's not called being bonded, I don't know what is.

Yup and the class photo we took after Netcarn today is on Facebook :D Check it out!

Haha I love 311 :D

Yes, we appeared loserish.

Yes, we lost 12 out of 14 games, except for 2 0-0 draws.

Yes, every other class owned us in everything else.

But seriously?

PFFT WHO CARES.

We played together. We lost together. We emoed together. And seriously, that's all that matters. Like Denise, I spent the last two years sitting on the sidelines and cheering for classes I didn't really feel for. And last year, I ran away to do FA duty because I didn't even feel needed at all, and couldn't really be bothered to see if we won or lost. Didn't matter anyway.

So good job 311 :D I'm insanely proud of everyone.

TOC's coverage of the Whose Right? workshop.

And I want to go for this! But it's NC16, sigh D: Ms Braema said they'd be checking IDs. How annoying.

(Mouseover caption: "I bet she gets you to mow the lawn, doesn't she?")


It seems Stacey's mom ain't got it goin' on after all. (:

Ohyes I just remembered. Everyone go read the Congress forum :D It's alive again thanks to Ruth and everyone else who posted. I wonder if Mrs Hoo's speech this morning was prompted by the sudden flood of posts on the forum (and all about Arts Fest too!).

Maybe the school admin just needs to be prompted/reminded. I mean, they can't be expected to know what we're going through unless we tell them. Somewhere there has to be a bridge between the student body and the school admin. (Xinyuan: That means you :D)

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Russell: You're right; it IS almost a counterpart. I'll post it up here.



(Credits go to xkcd.com, of course. What else?)

Okay I don't know where to start. I guess I'll just recount everything from beginning to end (though we're apparently not allowed to quote people, so).

So Xinyuan and I had an agreement: if by the end of the month I was no longer homeless, I'd go with her for this workshop on human rights organised by MARUAH (Singapore Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism) and UNYAS (United Nations Youth Association of Singapore).

Well, as everyone knows, we found a place the day I got back from POP chalet. So I had to attend the workshop with her.

I don't regret it, though. It was good.

--

Somehow there was a last-minute change of location for the workshop; it was moved to the AWARE Centre at Block 5, Dover Crescent. I was quite annoyed; other people get driven, but I had to take public transport all the way from Sengkang to freaking Dover. Wth. It took me one and a half hours to get there, and to make things worse Xinyuan decided to walk off by herself to find the place instead of meeting me at the bus stop (not that it'd have helped if she'd met me there anyway; it turned out that we were at different bus stops).

Anyway I found the place too and hung around outside to wait for Xinyuan, during which both Yeong Wei (one of the organisers) and Braema Mathi herself tried to welcome me in. Slightly intimidating (my first reaction was 'omg I swear she looks really familiar - HOLY CRAP IT'S BRAEMA MATHI!!!!!111' *fangirl*), but quite cool.

Then Xinyuan came and pushed me in and we both registered for the workshop. Xinyuan noticed Ms Braema too and started fangirling.

Most of the people in the room were in university and at least 18 (except for a couple of Republic Poly people and 1 Sec3 guy who came because his mum's in MARUAH too or something), so it was quite scary but intellectually stimulating. I mostly just sat around and listened in to their conversations but didn't really join in :X

Then the workshop started proper; since I can't quote individual speakers I'll just summarise my takeaways from the plenary. Mr Siew Kum Hong was the moderator (or whatchamacallit).

The first speaker was from UNYAS, so she spoke about the issue of youths and their involvement in human rights. Apparently ex-victims of human trafficking in Cambodia are now involved in giving talks about their experiences. Basically youths of today have a responsibility to start changing the world they live in - though a good point was raised during the Q&A: why only help those in Cambodia or Vietnam? Why not promote education for the poor in Singapore - those that end up having to drop out after PSLE? (At that time I wrote "SG chauvinism" in my notebook, though it's probably too harsh a description.) Still, I think Singapore would be a better starting point for youths wanting to help in the rights movement. We're not all as blessed as we think we are in Singapore.

The second speaker was Alex Au himself (of yawningbread.org fame). His lecture was insanely cool. He basically drew comparisons between the "extended family" and "condo management" forms of governance, the difference being that the patriarchal structure has a fixed hierarchy of power which cannot be challenged while the condo management structure manages the condo for the residents, but the residents have the ultimate say on things once a year at the condo GM when they vote on stuff like whether or not to change the sauna to a steam bath (am speaking from personal experience here lol. We actually had a discussion about it at the GM last year.) He also mentioned that he believes in freedom of expression, so I asked whether or not he believes that it is possible to have complete freedom of expression in society. He answered yes. I salute him. (No, seriously. If you're going to express a view then you'd better stick to it when people ask you about it.) But he did mention that lines must be drawn to prevent abuse, which I fully agree with, except that imo it won't be complete freedom of expression anymore. But whatever. Definitions, definitions. He just earned my respect.

The third and fourth speakers were Sumi and Braema Mathi. Quite interesting, but I didn't really take notes so I can't remember what exactly were their topics. Basically Sumi linked human rights to businesses and Ms Braema summarised everything and inspired us to...do more and go forth? Something like that.

Then we had lunch (vegetarian halal LOL) followed by group sessions; Xinyuan and I were in Group 1 with...okay I can't remember their names but the 3 from Republic Poly and the other Sec3 guy (Akhil? Xinyuan says) were in there. We had to rank 9 different human rights in order of importance, but it was hard to decide so we put "Right to life" in the centre and everything else around it. Then we had a role-playing session with different characters from all walks of life to see who was the most deprived of human rights; ironically it was the NSman who had the least rights ahahaha. Some guy got the role of a 20-year-old lesbian and shared a story about his friend who's a lesbian and likes a straight girl, but the straight girl doesn't like her back so she lets out her sexual frustration by going around having sex with 15/16 year-old xiao mei meis. How dysfunctional :O

Finally we split up into groups of 3 (Akhil joined Xinyuan and I to form a group) drew this tree thingum that involved a problem (tree trunk), its roots (tree roots) and its consequences (foliage). Our group chose traffic jams ahaha. We had a field day finding roots and consequences (example of root and consequence: Shell has $1 offers for petrol, which cause traffic jams, which use up even more oil, which cause oil prices to go up, which cause Shell to give discounts for petrol again and the cycle continues).

Everyone else did Serious Problems like racism and the issue of housing foreign workers at Serangoon Gardens, which was probably why ours felt more like a filler comedy act than an actual presentation. But whatever.

Then the workshop ended and for some odd reason people found us fascinating and talked to us just because we're 15 and everyone else is like...at least 18 and above. Left at around 5.30 and took the bus back to Dover; at least we knew the way back this time so it didn't seem to take that long to walk back to the bus stop.