Friday was so weird.

Xinyuan and I thought that Vic was confirmpluschop going bookshopping and movie-ing with us yesterday, but I called her 15 minutes before we were supposed to meet and she said she wasn't going because she had something on. RAWRRRRRR.

Then I called Xinyuan (or the other way round) and realised that she was heading for Wheelock Place after telling me to meet her at Kinokuniya. -.- I thought Wheelock only has Borders in it?!

Saw Joanna AND Chenlaoshi at Kino lol. Apparently everyone from RGS goes to Kino whenever they want to buy books.

After paying for the books we walked to Wheelock Place where Joanna was headed to find more books, left her there and walked back to Shaw. Unfortunately, due to our prodigious lack of planning, neither of us realised that Angels and Demons only started at 4. We ended up watching Monsters vs Aliens -.-

-PLOT SPOILER ALERT-

So the story goes like this:
Susan, a young woman, is about to marry Derek, who she thinks is her one true love. It's actually pretty evident in the beginning that he cares more about his job than her, but love is blind and she goes to the altar with him anyway. But before the ceremony starts, she is hit by a meteorite and absorbs a substance called quantonium through her skin. As she and Derek are about to be married, she starts to grow taller and taller...until she breaks through the church roof and towers over everyone else.

She's sent to a prison for monsters, where she meets Bob, an indestructible blob of goo, Dr Cockroach, a mad scientist, Insectosaurus, a gigantic insect, and The Missing Link, an egoistic bodybuilding ape-fish hybrid.

To cut a long story short, they save the world from aliens together. Yay.

--

After the movie we chionged to National Library to meet the rest of our MPP groupmates. We spent about an hour trying to get a printout of our bill because nobody'd printed it out :/ Finally Charisse approached a guy for his ezlink card so we could pay for the usage of the computer terminal.

The discussion was pretty productive; I suppose we were lucky in that our expert-mentor fully agreed with Ms Lim and Mr Lee instead of the other expert-mentor. We also realised that far more than anyone else, we were the ones poking loopholes in our own bill. Which is a good thing, I suppose.

Argh my blogging touch (if any) is gone. Sigh.

Oh, today was totally screwed up.

Went to school today with a light heart and a lighter bag (containing only my pencilcase, a paperback and Math worksheets on Logarithms) expecting to miss half the day's lessons for the Lit talk at RI.

Everything went fine until assembly, when halfway through all the Lit students who signed up for the talk were asked to assemble at the foyer. We thought the bus had arrived, but it hadn't, so everyone waited around while Vic and I went to drag Xinyuan out from the announcement queue.

Xinyuan started dragging me towards the announcement queue instead. :/ Apparently she and Jinghui were supposed to announce Inkspiration's new themes for the month, but Jinghui wasn't around and she was stuck there by herself. -.-

We made the announcement (I didn't even know what the themes were, but we survived somehow) and chionged back to the foyer...only to realise that the bus STILL hadn't arrived. The talk was starting at 8am. It WAS 8am by the time we got back. Oh, joy. The bus finally arrived at 8.10am, but by then we'd already given up hope and had started shuffling back to class. The teachers were pretty disappointed, but explained that it'd be somewhat rude to have 70 girls barge in halfway through the talk (which was supposed to end at 9). Sighh.

Zombied through the rest of the day with no notes for half the classes because I didn't expect to be there anyway.

Am I really becoming oppositionparty-ish? What a scary thought. I think I shall go read the Straits Times to brainwash myself back to normal. :D

Lul we got back our interim reports today. Whoever did the calculations for the report phailed math O.o Sarah was in charge of writing down people's correct GPAs, and like half the class flooded her with their requests for a GPA change. My GPA was off by 0.04 points :/

My GPA went down today because of Chinese D: Ah well I'll hold out for a 4.0 in English. Sighhh. Stupid Chinese. I got okay (in some cases, rather pro) marks for compre and everything else but 6/20 for cloze. EPIC PHAIL.

I need to get 3.6+ in order to stay in RALA. PERSEVERE, CRYSTAL.

The lazy slope of those polished lips is a work of art.
Give me those.
Never mind the belligerent twinkle in her fluttering emeralds
or the fiery rubies in her hair,
clinging to the marble arches of her cheekbones.
I want the lips. Full stop.

Forget her flawless figure, gilded in perfect proportion,
or the curl of her glittering talons beneath the spotlight.
Keep her sultry stilettos and the milky feet that she weaves into them.
Not even the smooth contours of her glimmering bronzed legs
could dissuade or detract me
I just want the lips.

I could buy a picture frame and lock them inside forever,
selfishly enjoy the breathless whispers
that I know they’re so keen to give.

Or a gallery.
The perfect pout would turn the heads of a millions beauties,
envy shading their faces as red as your pretty mouth.
But never quite the same.

I could take a photograph, leave behind the dripping of another time
and bury myself in sheer black and white. And red, of course –
their bold subtlety lies in the scarlet.

Or maybe I should just claim them for my own?
Lay my rose petal mouth against hers and watch
them entwine before they walk off hand in hand into the sunset,
my newly claimed prize.

But I don’t really care. Speculation aside, I have only one desire.
Just give me the lips.

-- Madelaine Jones

Read that one in the Foyle YP 2008 booklet Xinyuan gave me. It's nice. (:

Lit came back today, and all I can say is that this is the first time a mid/end-year report is going to come back without a 4.0 for Lit.

Do I deserve to be in RALA at all? I'm barely hitting the overall GPA standard and failing the subject GP standard. No 4.0s for English or Lit. Oh, brilliant. Why don't I take myself out of RALA now?

But apart from the emoing, I have to admit that my essay was pretty crappy. Probably didn't deserve the mark it got, except Dr Sakhar fought for all of us so hard. Haha *someone's* script had two cancellations in the "Marks" area. I can imagine her marks slowly inching up one by one as the teachers discussed them. Must've been painful, but we all really do appreciate it (:

--

Some songs are looping in my head, like the "WA MENG TIN, WA MENG TIN" song and the Chinese songs from Open House and more recently, Beat It by MJ because Vic and I were thinking of ways to niao everyone during 2.4 retest, and almost decided on moonwalking the entire 2.4km before remembering that moonwalking literally gets you nowhere. -.-

Hmm that was a long runon sentence.


(Update: Looks like moonwalking DOES get you somewhere; I just watched MJ doing it on Youtube. Apparently you end up moving backwards. :O)

RGS had its Open House yesterday, as did RI, Nanyang, School of Science and Technology and the ulu convent full of lesbians behind your house.

Okay, I was kidding about the last one. But there IS a convent that's rumoured to be full of lesbians behind my house. Not sure whether they had their Open House yesterday, too.

Reached school at 9+ amid a whole horde of RGS girls and a few visitors. Every year there're more students than visitors during Open House. Signed in and got one of those colourful OH badges with a cartoonised picture of the school standing on...the planet? Anyway I hunted for the year classroom but couldn't find any, so I put my stuff down with Sara's in a 3rdfloor classroom in J2.

Since I was early, I decided to go exploring the booths by myself. Dropped by Lit booth where RALA people (particularly Jessie) were trying to explain Upper Sec Lit to some parents who were more interested in whether or not we liked RGS than whether we liked Lit. FPS booth was conspicuously empty (only Ms Ong SJ was there) next to the CAP booth, which was manned by 4 people and Ms Sharon Ong, so I started my shift early.

FPS/CAP booth duty was rather boring. Chinese booth on our left had a whole crowd of enthusiastic volunteers singing "对面的女孩看过来" to attract visitors, and Cherylchan's CD was playing on our right. We had nothing, so we tried shouting poetry over all the singing to no avail. Basically explained the mechanics of Scenario Writing to parents, conveniently leaving out the fact that we're the smallest RS group in the entire school and applying is a huge pain in the ass. Then a set of mothers arrived who looked really interested, so I started my sales pitch...only to realise that they were more comfortable with Mandarin. Excellent. If you haven't explained a wholly English-y programme in rudimentary Mandarin to a bunch of parents who speak it perfectly, you haven't hit the bottom of the Pit of Embarrassment yet. -.-

After FPS/CAP booth duty was crowd-seeking duty with Lingzhi. We basically stood outside the hall and talked to parents about Red Cross, or rather attempted to; there were a fair number of parents who were more interested in finding out how to get into RGS via DSA rather than ask us about what we were supposed to be promoting. Can't blame them, really; how to think about CCA when your daughter hasn't even gotten in yet?

AV was pretty slack. I went to the library late and attempted to find Karmun's two NCC friends, but they'd gone to find Cherylchan so I just stood around and waited. Met Ashlynna and her other student ambassador there; while we were talking this parent started talking to us about DSA (what else?) and RA and RALA and what we do for RA. Sigh.

KSChee duty was mostly sitting in the gallery with Denise and listening to the Principal's Talk. Listening to her speak made me feel like joining RGS all over again - it was that inspirational. I could see myself in P6 sitting there in the same theatre watching almost the same powerpoint and thinking about how I was so close to my dream of getting into RGS where there were wonderful choices to be made and so many things to do. I think many kids there saw possibility just like I did. Everything in the powerpoint sounded so good - RA became "Raffles Academies - Talent Development" (with its supposed army of mentorships, scholarships and professors) and the much-vaunted 52 CCAs were trotted out.

Is disillusionment putting on blurred pair of contact lenses, or the moment of their removal?

400th post.

Omigosh today's booth setup was HECTIC. We spent all of RALA plus class cleanup doing Lit booth preparations; luckily most of RALA was done with their prep so everyone chipped in for deco and we finished by 10.45am.

VISIT LIT BOOTH TOMORROW! It's got a not-yet-animated Creature lying across the boothtop and I painted the bottom half of him :D

The Lit booth (at least, the Sec3 half of it) looks AWESOME. And RALA finished the planning etc within one week! We are such amazing people, yes?

Now the school had better reimburse us for all the money we spent on it X.x

Didn't really help with the booth setups; by the time I reached FPS/CAP booth the setup was more or less done already. Sigh.

OT meeting was hilarious. Mycrophoneromance, anyone? :D Cherylchan (otherwise known as Dear Senior Cheryl) managed to sell 2 copies of her CD to OT after repeating her sales pitch over and over again HAHA. ("Buy our CD! It's just TEN BUCKS.")

Argh I called for KFC delivery and screwed up :X at least we got our food in the end.

The roadside tree is crying,
acid tears dripping
onto passers-by.

If it could tell its story
perhaps it would say
that the storm snuffed out its gaudy twinkle-light dress
or maybe
it mourns the loss of fashion sense -

'Were my leaves not enough to charm you?'

--

stir paint in water
the pigments will bleed red/yellow/green/black/blue/purple
concentric circles of impurity
or of a rainbow, swirling into darkness

Okay we've gotten most of our papers back, ie. Math (M1 and M2), Chem, Bio, Physics and SS. English and Chinese will be given out during the hols/Term 3 and Lit will be returned next week.

I have only one 4.0 :/

And it's so tragic how I lost my 4.0 for Physics. I got back my paper and aha, 4.0 for Physics! Then I flipped through the paper to check if the marker added the marks correctly.

Well, he/she didn't. I was supposed to get 2 marks less.

If I wanted to be melodramatic here I could say that I painfully raised my pencil to cross out the 4.0 mark and slowly wrote the 3.6 mark in really faintly in erasable pencil. Sigh. Either way, buh-bye 4.0, hello 3.6.

But it's not that bad a mark, so...whatever I guess.

I benefit from the new GPA calculation system :D

--

I've absolutely no idea how Xinyuan manages to squeeze so many shifts in for Open House. I'm doing like 3 booths and dying trying to make them not clash X.x

A certain teacher we all know and love was super classic today lol.

"Oh, most of you will be quite happy with your marks. You met my target, right? 4.0. You're my strongest class so I'm not worried about you. I'm not worried at all."

Thing is, she apparently tells every one of her classes that. (:

And the "IF YOU GOT 81% STOP COMING TO ME FOR MARKS ALREADY! I'm only going to look at your marks if you're a borderline 2.8 or 3.2 and need another mark to go up to the next band. 4.0 still need marks for what?"

Lol!

--

Oh and we had our RALA individual talk with Dr Sakhar today.

And, well, there are some things I hate to admit to myself, but he got them spot on. That I should talk more in class, that it is true that everyone there is smarter (he tried to be nice by saying "just as smart, if not smarter") than me, that I should pretend to myself I don't care about all that and just voice my opinions, speak up, share my views with a class of way-too-intelligent people.

But I realised today that I truly am intimidated by my beloved RALA classmates. They're sweet and everything, but they're just so damned SMART. Am I secretly scared of people who're smarter than me? Scary thought, that is.

And I need to improve on my insights in my essays. Which basically means I need to improve my quality of thought, because I am too shallow. Or rather, my thinking's too shallow. But how? My mind really IS filled with all sorts of unimportant things like calculating my GPA 10x to check how much I've deproved, or finding out what happened to Mia in book 10 of The Princess Diaries, or how to make Japanese potato salad.

Maybe I should start reading Intellectual Stuff. Yawn.




PHANTOM:
Down once more to the dungeon of my black despair!
Down we plunge to the prison of my mind!
Down that path into darkness deep as hell!
Why, you ask, was I bound and chained in this cold and dismal place?
Not for any mortal sin, but the wickedness of my abhorrent face!

CHORUS:
Track down this murderer!
He must be found!
Track down this murderer!
He must be found!

PHANTOM:
Hounded out by everyone!
Met with hatred everywhere!
No kind word from anyone!
No compassion anywhere!
Christine, Christine ...
Why, why ...?

MADAME GIRY:
Your hand at the level of your eyes!
... at the level of your eyes ...
This is as far as I dare go.

CHRISTINE:
Have you gorged yourself at last, in your lust for blood?
Am I now to be prey to your
lust for flesh?

PHANTOM:
That fate, which condemns me to wallow in blood has also denied me
the joys of the flesh ...
this face - the infection
which poisons our love ...
This face, which earned a mother's fear and loathing ...
A mask, my first unfeeling scrap of clothing ...
Pity comes too late - turn around
and face your fate: an eternity of this before your eyes!

CHRISTINE:
This haunted face holds no horror for me now ...
It's in your soul that the true distortion lies ...

PHANTOM:
Wait! I think, my dear, we have a guest!

CHRISTINE:
Raoul!

PHANTOM:
Sir, this is indeed an unparalleled delight!
I had rather hoped that you would come.
And now my wish comes true - you have truly made my night!

RAOUL:
Free her!
Do what you like only free her!
Have you no pity?

PHANTOM:
Your lover makes a passionate plea!

CHRISTINE:
Please Raoul, it's useless!

RAOUL:
I love her!
Does that mean nothing?
I love her!
Show some compassion ...

PHANTOM:
The world showed no compassion to me!

RAOUL:
Christine ...
Christine ...Let me see her ...

PHANTOM:
Be my guest, sir ...
Monsieur, I bid you welcome!
Did you think that
I would harm her?
Why should I make her pay for the sins which are yours?
Order your fine horses now!
Raise up your hand to the level of your eyes!
Nothing can save you now - except perhaps Christine ...
Start a new life with me -
Buy his freedom with your love!
Refuse me, and you send your lover to his death!
This is the choice -
This is the point of no return!

CHRISTINE:
The tears I might have shed for your dark fate grow cold, and turn to tears of hate!

RAOUL:
Christine, forgive me please forgive me ...
I did it all for you, and all for nothing ...

CHRISTINE:
Farewell my fallen idol and false friend ...
We had such hopes and now
Those hopes are shattered!

PHANTOM:
Too late for turning back, too late for prayers and useless pity!

RAOUL:
Say you love him and my life is over

PHANTOM:
All hope of cries for help; no point in fighting!

RAOUL/PHANTOM:
For either way you choose, he has to win/you cannot win!

PHANTOM:
So, do you end your days with me,
or do you send him to his grave?

RAOUL:
Why make her lie to you, to save me?

CHRISTINE:
Angel of Music ...

PHANTOM:
Past the point of no return -

RAOUL:
For pity's sake,
Christine, say no!

CHRISTINE:
...who deserves this?

PHANTOM:
... the final threshold...

RAOUL:
Don't throw your life away for my sake!

CHRISTINE:
When will you see reason ...?

PHANTOM:
His life is now the prize which you must earn!

RAOUL:
I fought so hard to free you ...

CHRISTINE:
Angel of Music ...

PHANTOM:
You've passed the point of no return ...

CHRISTINE:
... you deceived me.
I gave my mind blindly.

PHANTOM:
You try my patience - make your choice!

CHRISTINE:
Pitiful creature of darkness ...
What kind of life have you known ...?
God give me courage to show you you are not alone ...

CHORUS:
Track down this murderer
He must be found!...

PHANTOM:
Take her - forget me - forget all of this ...
Leave me alone - forget all you've seen ...
Go now - don't let them find you!
Take the boat - swear to me never to tell
The secrets you know of the angel in hell

CHORUS:
The Phantom of the Opera is there inside your mind!

PHANTOM:
Go now! Go now, and leave me!

Masquerade...
Paper faces on parade...
Masquerade...
Hide your face so the world will never find you...
Christine, I love you...

CHRISTINE:
Say you'll share with me, one love, one lifetime...

RAOUL:
Say the word and I will follow you...

CHRISTINE:
Share each day with me, each night, each morning...

PHANTOM:
You alone can make my song take flight -
it's over now, the music of the night!

Okay so we had our preliminary Bill Presentation today at NYGH.

Getting there was awful. I was working on the script till midnight the night before and didn't have time to map my route like I normally do, so I just grabbed the bus guide and left the house, hoping that Nanyang would be easy to find.

Yeah, right. I had to ask someone at the bus stop for directions; even then I suspect I got off at the wrong bus stop, because I walked DAMN FAR before I got to Nanyang. In the end I went up on a random overhead bridge and tried to spot Nanyang's clocktower. Couldn't find it but I saw NJC. Close enough, so I ran in that direction and eventually got to the school half an hour late. -.- Eventually my teammates told me that the presentation would only be starting at 9 :/ And I ran all the way! Spent the next 30 minutes editing script/rehearsing.

ACS(I) went first, and they brought their own Apple with them wtfomg. Their Powerpoint wasn't even a Powerpoint but some sort of pro presentation. Xinyuan did some research and realised they were using Keynote :/ They were pretty good in terms of content, too.

Then Nanyang went. I won't say much, but they were quite kelian D:

Ours was...okay? We didn't really get very good feedback because people were looking for clarification as opposed to finding holes in our bill, but at least we didn't get slammed. Much.

HCI's bill was the closest to ours in terms of topic; they did a bill on the Public Order Act. I was full and sleepy after our presentation so I didn't really hear what they were saying.

Anyway it was fun asking questions and everything, but I think I was pretty mean to one of the teams during their Q&A. Still, as Mr Lee said, it's better to die today than on the 27th next month when the judges will be watching.

Some people are fairly annoying -.- I don't know if it was residual anger/resentment from the presentation or from 3 years back, but flicking your hair is NOT a good way to show that you're, I don't know, not bothered or something. Neither is nodding curtly when people say hi, but at least it's better than preening O.o or whistling, for that matter.

Just now after 2.4 Denise, Xinyuan and I were talking about random things when the topic suddenly turned to, well, why things suck.

Anyway Denise said something really admirable. She said "I might suck at 2.4, but I don't think it sucks."

Which I fully agree with. Her point was that how well you do for something should not affect your opinion of the thing itself. But how many of us have the courage to admit it? I say I hate Chinese all the time, but to tell the truth, I don't. Really. I do think the way it's taught in RGS should be changed, though.

I'm running the risk of social suicide here, but I am going to categorically state here that learning Chinese can be fun. In fact, I like the language because it's meaningful; more meaningful than English, even. But I'm terrible at it because I don't like it as a subject and I don't understand it.

Xinyuan brought up another point: Do people say they can't be bothered about something because they really don't care, or because it's easier to lie to themselves and say doing badly doesn't affect them at all because, well, they don't care for it anyway?

I think we're all guilty of that, but it's pretty much a part of human nature. Ah well.

--

I don't wanna wake up today
'Cause everyday's the same
And I'd been waiting so long
For things to change
I'm sick of this town
Sick of my job
Sick of my friends 'cause everyone's jaded
Sick of this place, I wanna break free
I'm so frustrated, I just wanna

Jump! (Jump!)
Don't wanna think about tomorrow (Jump!)
I just don't care tonight
I just wanna jump (Jump!)
Don't wanna think about my sorrow
Let's go
Forget your problems
I just wanna jump

-- Jump, Simple Plan

I missed listening to SP. (:

We got back Math today.

*moment of silence*

Uh I don't know what to say about my marks. I got class average, which I suppose is pretty okay, seeing as our class is well known for being brilliant at everything. (I'm not even kidding. Can't think of a subject 311's lousy at.)

But as I was walking home I thought about how many people seemed so scared about their parents' reactions to their marks (which in some cases wasn't even that bad), and I suddenly felt grateful for mine. I mean, I think part of the reason why they don't scold me whenever I do badly for exams is that they can neither do my papers nor tutor me, but they'd still have every right to reprimand me for not doing well. But they don't. And the only person I'm truly afraid of disappointing is myself.

Which is a good thing, by the way.

--

2.4 was pretty bad. My timing sucked, but I disappointed myself by not giving my best - I was practically cruising along the whole way. The fact that I could sprint when yearmates told me to was proof that I hadn't been pushing myself hard enough after all.

But thankyou yearmates for running with me <3 Couldn't see because I didn't look back, but it felt like half the year was behind me cheering me on. That last round was...well. Amazing.

Sigh. At least it's still a Gold for NAPFA (:


P.S. Congrats Alicia and Ruth :D Jiayou!




Koped this off Wesley's MSN personal message heh. But it's...unbelievably beautiful.

(Sorry for the multiple embeds these few days. It's just that when you're sick and bored at home, you watch lots of Youtube...and dig up a few gems along the way.)

Another update: Fever seems to have subsided, though I can't check because my thermometer has mysteriously disappeared. Blocked nose gone hooray.

--

So, Mas Selamat has been captured. What creeps me out is all the footage of him being led off to prison by the Malaysian police officers.

He's got this really weird look on his face. His expression is all "Oh, damn, they've got me AGAIN. Ah well another snag in my plans. I suppose I'll get around it soon enough. Any toilets in Malaysian prisons?" It's slightly resigned, yet he's smiling a bit too. The smile is what scares me. Anyone who's just been rudely woken from sleep by a whole bunch of policemen and is facing a lifetime in jail SHOULDN'T LOOK SO HAPPY.

And I can't believe the people in Skudai didn't recognize him. A bit blur leh. He doesn't even look that different from all the posters they've put up of him. Hello, you'd think he'd bother to come up with a more elaborate disguise than just a moustache and beard in the exact same style as his picture on the posters.

At least dye his beard pink la.

New Update: Now I have a problem. My body tells me I desperately need to sleep but everytime I lie down my nose gets blocked, because...I don't know, it just gets blocked. So I sit up and the blocked nose more or less goes away, but I feel like lying back down again because DAMN I NEED TO SLEEP.



Lying at home in my bed

When I should be having maths instead

But they've closed up my school

'Cos some children were sneezing

And they got us believing

That we'll all be ill and get the swine flu

The doctors gave us some pills

Saying "This is so you won't get ill"

So stay at home

Study on your own

Oh Tamiflu, what did you do?

I was fine before you came along

And now I've got a pain in my head

So I think I'd better stay in bed

I get to watch the TV

And no one bothers me

I fall asleep and wake up feeling queasy

And ev'rything's reeling,

It's not very pretty

I'll have to go ... to the loo again

I remember they gave us pills

Saying "This is so you won't get ill"

But now I know

This is worse than any cold

Oh Tamiflu, it's down to you

That I'm feeling slightly nauseous

And now I've got a pain in my head

So I think I'd better stay in bed.

-- Hugo Houseago (His school in London was closed due to fears of swine flu.)

And so I screwed Lit yesterday. Almost cried when I reached home and realised the magnitude of what I'd done; started calculating GPAs like crazy and realised that I need at least a 16 for MYA in order to get 3.6, and a 21 to get 4.0. Nearly impossible, yes, but I shall dream. Let's just hope I haven't failed it, though I probably have - argument still relatively coherent but my thesis statement and conclusion didn't match the stand I had in my analysis.

Self-contradiction, yes. I should just have done what Dr Sakhar jokingly suggested we do in the event that we find ourselves contradicting ourselves in the exam: flop and pretend to faint, then ask for a retest.

But why did I go ahead to take the paper when I was in a feverish stupor?

Seems like I'm going crazy over grades and exams. During both the Math papers I was holding back tears because I couldn't do the papers and I didn't get the questions and there were just all these waves of disappointment coming at me - why can't I understand this when I spent so long preparing for the exam, why, why, why. Maybe it's the expectations I set for myself, but Math is driving me crazy and the 4.0 I got in Sec2 seems like a distant dream now.

And sometimes I wonder if I should've joined RA in the first place. I am so Not The RA Student Type. Too unfocused, too dreamy and too quiet in class.

--

Grooming yesterday after Lit was pretty fun, though (: Arrived late and ended up getting a seat in some weird area of the class where I couldn't see the projector screen or anything else properly. And I had to turn around in order to see the teacher. Yearmates got the best table right smack in the middle of the front of the room hurhhhhh. >:(

Audrey has all the yearmates' face shapes on her blog (as well as their, um, leg lengths) HAHA. Now we know why Lingzhi's so pro at Sit&Reach :D

Ms Tang was super mean to Xinyuan la. She made Xinyuan go to the front so that she could restyle her hair, and commented that she was using the wrong shampoo. :/ Apparently Xinyuan's face is a triangle, Vic's face is round and my face is, in the words of Ms Tang, "a classic square with baby fat". How nice.

All 3 of us have long legs; Vic's are slightly long, Xinyuan's are long and mine are disproportionately long. Sigh. Unfortunately it's hard to see that I've got long legs because they're so fat, they look short and stubby.

Haha Xinyuan declared that she likes to wear muted colours before the lesson. When she was in the toilet, the teacher announced that muted colours are for "people over 65 years old; that is, your grandparents."

Damn, I'm sick and feverish. Hope it's not swine flu. I shall see the doctor by Monday. Arghhhh.

My temperature's rising 0.2degC every half an hour now it's 38.1 degrees nuuuuu

Can't concentrate on anything, not Physics nor English nor Chinese. And I need food. But getting food means leaving the house.

Shucks.

Heh I'm immensely proud of yearmates for PFT (:

Most of us are on the way to Gold, and those who aren't got tripped up by SBJ, which kind of wasn't even their fault because the teacher I/C refused to allow a retest for some odd reason.

But Silver's good too!

Jiayoujiayou yearmates for 2.4km run next week, we shall pwn NAPFA as a year :D

(Shan't post my own results here because it's embarrassing. Haiya if I get Gold I'll blog that la.)

Oh but situps were amusing la. I got B last year because I took too long to do my situps and missed A by one situp, so this year I decided to chiong situps. I did my 31st situp just as the teacher went "10 seconds left!" so I slacked for the last few seconds and put on my glasses and apologized to Kim for making Weird Grunting Noises while doing situps, as I'm wont to do when trying to rush through an exercise.

(Stupid Audrey did 40 situps with 5 seconds to spare AND had enough energy to finish all her other PFT stations rawr. So much for conserving energy. I shall do 50 next year HURH. >:( )

TEE HEE HEE.

SS FA2 Powerpoint Presentation is SO MPP.

In fact, it's not so much MPP as it is OUR MPP PROJECT. Political freedom FTW!

--

Ohno ohno my calf muscles ache and so do my feet! And I've got a painful blister on my left foot how how how.

5 items tomorrow :/ super nervous arghhhh.

Yesterday was...draining.

Temperature-taking exercises are conducted twice-daily now; the whole atmosphere is somewhat reminiscent of SARS except that the tinted innocence of childhood no longer exists and it feels a little more sombre this time round. Nostalgia, maybe, but I wish for the time when we took our temperatures robotically each day before school started - and when we worried about nothing but getting scolded for forgetting our thermometers; when we knew how but not why.

As for the exams, well, SS was pretty expected but I think I got rather incoherent because time was running out and everything. There is so little time to finish nowadays. Chem was okay; would even have been easy if only we had another 10 minutes to do the paper. I made a calculation error with one of the questions and screwed up the 7-mark one by anyhowly writing down my statements.

And then I got a slight fever before training, but miraculously my temperature was pretty okay throughout training and shot back up after. Apparently I got a stress-induced fever, because when I got home and relaxed, the fever was gone. No fever today, either.

Tomorrow's PFT oh how will I cope with everything and please, somehow, let me have the strength to survive tomorrow and after that, till the end of next week.


--

[edit] On a creepy note, I finished reading Lord Of The Flies today. It was equal parts creepy and depressing. Not good.

But on a creepier note, Xinyuan is becoming increasingly violent (she hit me at least twice today) and bimbo (sensually draped herself right across the teachers' table during MPP). She is also slowly morphing into a female cyborg. This can only mean that she, not Vic, is morphing into the Matriarch. Uhoh. Unexpected turn of events. But it can only get more interesting from here. Teehee.

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you

and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

-- Carol Ann Duffy

Okay, the AWARE saga may finally be over.

But from what I saw of the coverage of the EOGM, the event was a total mess. People really WERE booing and interrupting Ms Josie Lau's speech and the whole thing was a riot.

It's quite unbelievable that grown men and women can't restrain their impulses. They refused to give Josie Lau and Thio Su Mien a chance to defend their stand and the Old Guard supporters hogged the floor mike. There was probably a good reason why the floor mike wasn't switched on, and it was proven when speeches kept getting interrupted and voices raised.

True, the Old Guard might have won, but its supporters could have been a lot more civilised.

Still, I'm relatively happy at the final outcome - at least a neutral organisation is no longer led by people who joined the exco in an underhanded manner and who seem to be prejudiced against homosexuals. More importantly, secular NGOs cannot afford to be taken over by any particular religion, because if they can't be trusted to be the bastions of non-religiousness, who can?

9 Nov 2005
Straits Times Forum

3. Press freedom? I would choose S'pore anytime

I refer to the letter, 'Press-freedom ranking Why need for concern' (ST Nov 5), by Mr Leong Chee Tung.

Mr Leong thinks Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong downplayed the significance and methodology of the press-freedom survey while highlighting other surveys in which Singapore did well.

I agree fully with SM Goh's observation that it has not been proven that having more press freedom would result in a clean and efficient government or economic freedom and prosperity.

Let us look at those countries ranked above Singapore. I find it much more disturbing to note that most of them did not manage to break free from the grip of corruption and improve the lives of their people over the last 40 years.

Yes, the Press Freedom Index constructed by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RWB) applies the same criteria and yardsticks in compiling the ranking of the 167 countries. Yes, we even ranked behind Sudan (133rd) and Afghanistan (125th). However, in compiling the index RWB missed out the most important ingredient that makes Singapore tick: The Government's political will to ensure multiracial and multi-religious harmony.

The Government's zero-tolerance policy on corruption and its relentless efforts to create wealth for the people through rigorous economic development have brought Singapore from Third World to First World in just over 40 years.

If RWB included conflicts between ethnic groups as one of the criteria, the ranking of Singapore would be different.

Let us also look at press freedom from another angle. If a country is bogged down by power struggles between various ethnic groups, constant conflict among political parties, corruption and flare-ups among religious factions, does it help its people to have press freedom?

We should never forget that a fair and responsible press in a multiracial country is key to maintaining harmony and ensuring economic development and prosperity.

An irresponsible free press can spark chaos, violence and conflicts, leading to untold miseries for the people. This kind of freedom is too high a price to pay for developing countries. We certainly do not want this.

I would rather live in Singapore, ranked 140th in RWB's international ranking of press freedom, than in a country which ranked 125th but is devastated by internal wars, riven by factional divisions and plagued by foreign intervention.

Paul Chan Poh Hoi

I've never seen a better letter-writer in my entire life. Kudos to him for missing the point entirely :O

Math was awful. AWFUL, I SAY.

I'm going to fail it and I don't really care.

--

A certain teacher:

"Have I told your class this before? Oh, I haven't? Well, let me tell you: I always get free tissue from the petrol kiosk whenever I top up the petrol for my car. I keep all the extra tissue in the boot. On the day you get back your ______ (her subject) papers, I hope I won't have to start moving out my boxes of tissue to comfort you. "

But she's really quite nice;

"You all should do well for _____. In fact, I think your class is the strongest out of my 4/5/6 (can't remember) classes, so I shall set a goal of 4.0 for everyone. If your entire class gets 4.0, I'll treat you to ice-cream. WITH MY OWN MONEY. Teehee. I set a goal of 3.6 for all my other classes because I don't think they can do so well."

And her most classic quote ever, my favourite:

"I don't understand how some of you can get 19/25 for this worksheet when others can get 22 or 23/25. I am SUCH a thorough teacher. I have given you all that you need to score full marks! Haven't I given you enough examples on how to write a proper statement? *rolls eyes* But some girls just refuseeeeee to read through the examples, they refuseeeeeeeeeee to do their corrections, so I make you all do your corrections in class. But some people insist on doing it THEIR OWN WAY. If you all listen to me, you can't go wrong. I am very thorough in my teaching."

I know the above sounds super sarcastic and everything, but don't get me wrong; I like her a lot, really. She's got an ego, but she really is a good teacher. It's just that her mannerisms and the way she speaks are so unusual that I couldn't help but blog them. I think those in her classes will understand what I mean.

--

And I don't care if PCK Pte Ltd is low-brow humour that takes cheap shots at stereotypes; I still love it all the same. Wth is M.A.S.H anyway?! High-class humour? What's that? I think placing yourself above "the rest" is plain arrogant and elitist. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but this deeply unsettles me.

fifteen. a chopstick (though not chopstick-thin). ex-coralite, ex-riverlite, ex-rosythian and now a rafflesian.
member of rgsrcy&aikirinashi; love always
and rgavpa - girls in black.

hobo. part-time PUSSian.