Ohoh I just had to blog about PE.

We're doing Golf now, and it's everybody's favourite module because you don't have to move LOL. Not mine though, because my hand-eye coordination is terrible and I'm better at games which involve running (SOFTBALL FTW!!!) and less motor skills.

Anyway we started with putting, which was sort of lame because we used the cable holes in the KSChee floor as golfball holes -.- Damn boring hoho.

But I LOVE CHIPPING OKAY. That's when the ball flies into the air and lands far away and rolls a bit more before stopping :D We're supposed to chip the ball across the track, and I love it when people are running on the track. We shout at them to run faster, but they look like they're dying and refuse to go any faster, so we just chip the ball at them ahaha. Haven't hit anyone yet, though D: I did hit my own ankle (as did Xinyuan) with the club while dragging it around, sigh.

We're using hula hoops as targets, and somebody decided to hulahoop after PE and the entire class joined in. Everyone failed including Xinyuan who kept hogging it, but I KEPT IT IN THE AIR AHAHAHAHA.

Stupid Vic just had to ruin it by saying I looked like a hooker. HMPH.

I just realised that I hate it when people change. And if I feel this way even now, what about next year? Maybe people grow apart when they can no longer connect with each other or when the focus of their lives changes to something the other person can't possibly understand.

I'm scared of losing friends.

And by the way, I'm starting to rather dislike Facebook with all its trappings of fake friendship. You can have a few hundred friends on FB and still be utterly alone. It dilutes friendships like anything. There's no need to remember a friend's birthday anymore; there's FB Events to remind you! A dear friend of mine recently had her birthday, and I couldn't bring myself to add my own Happy Birthday to the others on her wall. It just felt like I'd be cheapening our friendship by doing so.

I remember now why I hated MSN at first, because with MSN people stopped talking on the phone. I hardly talk on the phone anymore, and miss having 3-hour conversations with friends. Somehow it's hard to convey feelings via MSN, because if words were skeletons, facial expressions and tone would be the flesh. A skeleton does not a complete person make.

So, dear friends, I know my birthday is coming up next month, but for all of you who read my blog, please do not wish me a happy birthday on Facebook. You can do so IRL or on the phone; I'll appreciate it more (:

Oh I forgot to blog about 411's social experiment during lunch yesterday.

Our class table was full because there was a bunch of sec2s taking up a third of the table, so Denise and I stood up since we weren't holding bowls or anything.

Denise suddenly started swaying and went all "Hey Crystal, let's see how long we can keep this up before people start noticing us!". So the two of us swayed, then Leevoon and Xinyuan swayed, and soon the whole class started swaying together.

Then we started singing 月亮代表我的心，Yellow Submarine and other songs. Really loudly. While swaying.

People started noticing us.

Then I looked around and saw that the bunch of sec2s at the other end of the table were swaying and dancing too! :O

--

I don't know what this says about conformity, but it's pretty cool. Imagine what could happen if more and more people started swaying together and it spread to the entire student populace!

(Am trying not to think of the many disturbing psychology experiments that've been conducted to find out how far people will conform to the actions of the majority. OUR EXPERIMENT IS NICE AND HAPPY KAY.)

Today was pretty interesting.

We had SS first block on Singapore's foreign policy, and while the article Mr Azahar gave us basically said that Singapore was "self-servingly rational and legalistic" to the point of being highly annoying, I don't see what's wrong with Singapore's foreign policy. Yes, we're cold and unfeeling and terribly calculating, but I fail to see what's wrong with that. It's the way we survive! No room for touchy-feely sensitivities. TOO BAD, SUCK IT UP. MUAHAHAHAHA.

Math was supposed to be a free block because Ms Kum didn't come to school today, but she made us finish Assignment 2 and teach ourselves Linear Law -.- Most of us just did the assignment and heckcared the Linear Law. Xinyuan and I ended up discussing SS for most of the block.

Stayed in class during recess to do math. My life is sad.

Physics - unexceptional. I stoned during class and just randomly threw out answers because I just had physics tuition yesterday :D Well, at least my uncle will be happy to know that I actually do pay attention when he's explaining stuff.

(My uncle's style of teaching is quite frustrating, though. Instead of explaining concepts to me, he made me explain them to him :X I spent half the time struggling with technical terms and the other half trying to put them into a coherent sentence while he sat there smirking at me.)

We listened to Hallelujah during RALA; it's really soothing, but the Christians in the class had to explain the Biblical allusions in the song to us non-Christians, because most of us (obviously) haven't read the Bible before. I only read the kiddy condensed version with all the nice stories :D It got a bit awkward towards the end, because we had to discuss the sexual innuendos ("orgasmic pleasure") in the song. Then Sarah was like "Sex is divine!" HAHAHAHAHA.

For CLE we had to do a life-timeline thing. Mr Toh told us his life story, which ended in his fulfilling his dream to, uh, become a teacher in RGS. LOL.

Vic and I left CLE early to lunch with the HOTA team in the canteen :D Maggie was eating her kueh bulu (sp?) when Vic told her that she'd get a sore throat eating it. Maggie dearest promptly dropped her half-eaten kueh back into the box full of kueh :X and then offered the same box of kueh to Jing Hui, who ate a piece before she realised what was going on. Poor Jing Hui.

MoF debates were pretty cool; a certain school provided humour as usual, and Maggie+Jinghui were somewhat intimidatingly calm and composed. We were bitching with the Outram people during the debate ahaha. I think our school stood a good chance of winning, but ah well. Well done Maggie and Jing Hui anyway :D

Everything started with Xinyuan's good luck message to Maggie and Jing Hui for their Ministry of Finance budget debates:

Xinyuan Hxy good luck Maggie Ng and Teh Jing Hui for MoF and really hope we can go down to watch! :)*blah blah*


Maggie Ng

ACT 2:

-----

THE STAIRCASE OF THE OPERA HOUSE
(A gauze half conceals the tableau of guests at the
opera ball. The guests (whom we cannot yet see
clearly) are in fancy dress a peacock, a lion, a dragon,
Mephistopheles, a highwayman, a clown,
knights, ladies, an executioner. M. ANDRE enters.
He is dressed as a skeleton in an opera cape. Almost
immediately M. FIRMIN arrives.He is also dressed
as a skeleton in an opera cape. The two skeletons see
each other and approach nervously)
ANDRE
M'sieur Firmin?
FIRMIN
M'sieur Andre?
(Each raises his mask to the other. They recognise each
other.)
FIRMIN
Dear Andre
what a splendid party!
ANDRE
The prologue
to a bright new year!
FIRMIN
Quite a night!
I'm impressed!
FIRMIN
Well, one does
one's best . . .
ANDRE/FIRMIN (raising their glasses)
Here's to us!
FIRMIN
I must say, all the same, that
it's a shame that 'Phantom'
fellow isn't here!
(The gauze lifts fully to reveal the staircase of the
opera house. The opera ball begins. Among the
GUESTS are four carrying strange percussion
instruments: a monkey with cymbals, a toy soldier
with a drum, a triangle, bells. Together they play
weirdly throughout)
CHORUS
Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade . . .
Masquerade!
Hide your face,
so the world will
never find you!
Masquerade!
Every face a different shade . . .
Masquerade!
Look around -
there's another
mask behind you!
Flash of mauve . . .
Splash of puce . . .
Fool and king . . .
Ghoul and goose . . .
Green and black . . .
Queen and priest . . .
Trace of rouge . . .
Face of beast . . .
Faces . . .
Take your turn, take a ride
on the merry-go-round . . .
in an inhuman race . . .
Eye of gold . . .
Thigh of blue . . .
True is false . . .
Who is who . . .?
Curl of lip . . .
Swirl of gown . . .
Ace of hearts . . .
Face of clown . . .
Faces . . .
Drink it in, drink it up,
till you've drowned
in the light . . .
in the sound . . .
RAOUL/CHRISTINE
But who can name the face . . .?
ALL
Masquerade!
Grinning yellows,
spinning reds . . .
Masquerade!
Take your fill -
let the spectacle
astound you!
Masquerade!
Burning glances,
turning heads . . .
Masquerade!
Stop and stare
at the sea of smiles
around you!
Masquerade!
Seething shadows
breathing lies . . .
Masquerade!
You can fool
any friend who
ever knew you!
Masquerade!
Leering satyrs,
peering eyes . . .
Masquerade!
Run and hide -
but a face will
still pursue you!
(The ENSEMBLE activity becomes background, as
ANDRE, FIRMIN, MEG, GIRY, PIANGI and CARLOTTA
come to the fore, glasses in hand)
GIRY
What a night
MEG
What a crowd!
ANDRE
Makes you glad!
FIRMIN
Makes you proud!
All the creme
de la creme!
CARLOTTA
Watching us watching them!
MEG/GlRY
And all our fears
are in the past!
ANDRE
Six months...
PIANGI
Of relief!
CARLOTTA
Of delight!
ANDRE/FIRMIN
Of Elysian peace!
MEG/GIRY
And we can breathe at last!
CARLOTTA
No more notes!
PIANGI
No more ghost!
GIRY
Here's a health!
ANDRE
Here's a toast:
to a prosperous year!
FIRMIN
To the new chandelier!
PIANGI/CARLOTTA
And may its
splendour never fade!
FIRMIN
Six months!
GIRY
What a joy!
MEG
What a change!
FIRMIN/ANDRE
What a blessed release!
ANDRE
And what a masquerade!
(They clink glasses and move off RAOUL and
CHRISTINE emerge. She is admiring a new acquisition:
an engagement ring from RAOUL, which she has
attached to a gold chain around her neck.)
CHRISTINE
Think of it!
A secret engagement!
Look - your future bride!
Just think of it!
RAOUL
But why is it secret?
What have we to hide?
You promised me.
CHRISTINE
Please, let's not fight . . .
RAOUL
Christine, you're free!
CHRISTINE
Wait till the time is right . . .
RAOUL
When will that be?
It's an engagement,
not a crime!
Christine,
What are you
afraid of?
CHRISTINE
Let's not argue . . .
RAOUL
Let's not argue . . .
CHRISTINE
Please pretend . . .
RAOUL
I can only hope I'll . . .
CHRISTINE
You will . . .
BOTH
. . . understand
in time . . .
(Dance section, in which CHRISTINE, almost
coquettish almost jittery, goes from man to man. But too
many of her partners seem to be replicas of the
PHANTOM, and each spins her with increasing force.
Eventually RAOUL rescues her and holds her tightly. He
whirls her back into the dance, as the music heads
towards its climax.)
ALL
Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade!
Masquerade!
Hide your face,
so the world will
never find you!
Masquerade!
Every face a different shade!
Masquerade!
Look around -
There's another
mask behind you!
Masquerade!
Burning glances,
turning heads . . .
Masquerade!
Stop and stare
at the sea of smiles
around you!
Masquerade!
Grinning yellows,
spinning reds . . .
Masquerade!
Take your fill -
let the spectacle
astound you!

Okay, I removed it. Cheers to all of you who didn't manage to hack my password prompt.

I have just finished my 4.5-page long monolith of a Chinese essay on the merits of learning Chinese! Congratulate me. I haven't learnt tingxie, though :X But who cares! We just had one yesterday, I'm having another one today, and there's yet another one on Monday. Bah.

Am also rereading Fast Food Nation, and meatpacking sounds like a pretty gross job. Slaughterhouses, ew. And Schlosser describes the smell a little too vividly.

Since I'm nearly alone here, I'd might as well confess something: I kind of like Jay Chou, actually. (Shh don't tell Cheryl (my neighbour and senior, not Cherylchan).)

发如雪 is so sweet!

So. If you managed to hack your way past my password prompt, I salute you. Feels good to be a geek god, huh :D

Maybe only Vic (and possibly MrLee) will end up reading this, until I decide to remove the Java prompt. Teehee.

My muscles are still aching from Circuit Training - the good, muscle-building sort of ache - and I'm proud of yearmates for staying at their stations till the end. Yay :D

Going for tin-packing tomorrow with Verna and Audrey, but I'll be alone until they arrive. Sigh.

I haven't many things to blog about lately. Ohoh today Chenyan and I hauled more than 10 cardboard boxes from the CLC to our classroom for class deco, and found a veritable treasure of computer games, Windows XP installation packs and back copies of the Digital Brittanica in them. Delightful. Xinyuan and Chenyan took photos with our loot.

Sigh.

--

I sort of really don't feel like blogging today. So I shan't. I'm like really really tired, and I can't think or talk or whatever. Maybe Denise was right the other time and I HAVE burnt out, but I can't for the life of me figure out why.

I can't really remember what's been going on these few days.

Monday was boring. Left school at 12.30 to go for this Lit seminar at HCI by Dr Kirpal Singh. The Sec4s were expected to shepherd the Sec3s there O.o Anabelle claimed that she'd never been to Hwach before except during APMOPS. (Yeah, right.) The food there is awesomeeeee. Xinyuan, Vic and I all ordered a baked potato each for $1.50, and it seriously owns everything in our school canteen. Xinyuan was talking about how this Hwach guy told her that the food at the poolside café was the lousiest in the whole school, but we thought it was good. RGS girls lead such sad lives.

I sort of (ungratefully, because there were only 10 spaces and Vic and I sort of wrestled 2 of them away from our juniors so we could go) zoned out during the lecture itself, because it wasn't anything we didn't already know - felt more like a confirmation of what we've always been thinking more than anything else.

Q&A session was interesting. Xinyuan's such a realist -.- no wonder she hates Korean dramas. I suppose it's a good point; is Lit a form of escapism or a way to deal with reality? I suppose it depends on the subject matter, really.

The requisite Amusing Moment was provided by a girl from one of the other invited schools. She paused importantly before speaking, and then said in what she evidently thought was an intelligent tone: "Firstly, can I assume that literature is made up of words?"

The poor guy looked rather stunned. Can't blame him, really. It's got to be one of the dumbest questions ever posed to him in an academic seminar. Intelligent Girl then went on to ask whether Twitter feeds, Facebook statuses and blogs could be considered as literature.

Vic (later, after the seminar): "So if I post 500 tweets about my making out with my boyfriend, can that be considered as literature?"
Xinyuan: "That's not literature, it's porn!!"
Vic: "Show, don't tell. (:"

Then Vic, Xinyuan, Joshng, Kimberley (RALit/Rosyth junior, and my neighbour + mortal) and I took 156 back together. On the way Xinyuan stole my phone and accused me of trying to touch her when I tried to get it back -.-

And then at the Rosyth bus stop, Ms Khoo got on! Vic, Kimberley and I started waving madly at her, and even Joshng had an expression on his face. He looked vaguely surprised. Ms Khoo's no longer teaching GEP D: But she's still leading the Taman Negara expedition, except that they combined it with caving lol. And they don't crawl through mud anymore.

--

Today: Chem was horrible. My ionic equation-writing skills suck. RS - amusing; poor Jinghui and Maggie looked rather sad by the end of the session though D:

AVPA GM was over in 45 minutes. Mr Lim kept blowing at all the dust particles caught in the beam of light from the projector LOL. Then he said something like "I have a baby at home" and I heard it as "I just had a baby". Whoops. Profi trainings, tests etc coming up, sigh. MrLee is evil. And there's an Exco meeting next Tuesday (YanHan kept trying to make it today hahaha).

Meet Samuel Le-Umas, the Silent Poet.








I've got to admit one thing: it's brilliant. And also that I DON'T BELIEVE IT HOW COULD I HAVE MISSED IT?!?!

I wasn't sure if I could blog this, but since Vic doesn't mind losing her dignity as a senior online, I shall reproduce this from her blog.

IT WAS SO DELIGHTFULLY FUNNY. Love P5 jokes.

I cannot believe I'm still so juvenile. Human reproduction in Bio today was horrid, because everytime the teacher said "penis", I felt like sniggering so badly. But everyone else was copying down the word "penis" onto a diagram of a penis like their lives depended on it, with a totally straight face, so I had to follow them and smother my inner instinct not to snigger at "penis". I think it's got something to do about the time in P4, when penises were the rage, and we all went around whispering into other peoples' ears...

"Penis."

And then Crystal and I went over to 413 and repeated the above paragraph (and a bit, if you want to get technical) to Maggie, and her face grew redder and redder with the effort of not laughing, until we hissed the final "Penis" at her and she just exploded, like kaboom. See that's why it's not healthy to repress your laughter.

No, actually, she just kept laughing, and that made us laugh, while Clarisse and Charisse sat there looking very prim and proper and not at all amused by our saying "penis" over and over again. It's actually a very fun experiment to do; work out the number of times you can say "penis" to someone before they burst and start sniggering.

So to all you uptight people out there:

...
...
...



...PENIS.

I AM SO TIRED.

Kim, Mala, Lingyue and I went to teach little kids how to paint rocks today after school. It was fun at first when there were only 4 of them and they were sitting down doing their homework, but the kids soon got sick of homework and stuffed it back into their bags and started playing instead.

...By "playing" I mean they started pushing each other around and shouting.

One of the girls looked and acted a lot like Xinyuan. That one was, well, cute but annoying. She came in and started throwing stuff around (like her chair, but it landed in the right place so that was still okay), and then began complaining about her homework. Which we couldn't exactly blame her for, because her homework really WAS boring. Penmanship, sheesh. No wonder she got bored. One of the first things she said to us was "I AM NOT A HE!!!". To which I automatically replied "Just because you look like a 'he' doesn't mean that - " before I realised that I was talking to Xinyuan Mini and not Xinyuan herself. Luckily Mala stopped me :X

Then Xinyuan Mini (let's just call her J from now on) and her friend G decided to hold hands and dance around in a circle. But that wasn't enough to make them happy, so they suddenly skipped over and before I knew it, their hands were linked again and they were dancing AROUND me, their newfound prisoner. Wtf. And they had such gleeful looks on their faces too. Kids are pure evil in cute packages.

Rock painting was okay. Only 2 kids got paint on their clothes :D One decided to paint his hand gold-green instead of his rock (he was later heard shouting "I HATE MY ROCK! I HATE MY ROCK!" O.o) and the kids wasted loads of gold paint. But overall it was still fine :)

Then we gave out the balloons, and soon kids were playing balloon chapteh ("1! 2! 3! ...100 YAY I REACHED 100! *balloon falls to the floor*). Well, at least they had something to do before going home :X

Cleanup was horrible. Mala, Kim and I (Lingyue had to leave early) ended up mopping the floor with toilet paper because someone spilt half the contents of their full water bottle onto the floor, and there were paint streaks everywhere.

The kids were quite fun to play with (they taught us the new version of O Pillar Caterpillar!), but things got bad, fast, when two groups of them started pulling me in opposite directions while shouting "JIEJIE COME PLAY WITH US/ME!!!!!". Why do they even like me so much?! I'm such a frightening, antisocial person!

Okay, so I finally have some time to blog properly.

How's life been so far since school started? Incredibly busy, pretty stressful, and not at all rest-filled.

I'm going for Chinese tuition on Saturdays. Vic's in my class (we signed up together), but neither of us could've guessed that we'd be the ONLY students there. Which is quite stressful for me, because Vic is like SUPER efficient and finished her tuition homework on Saturday (the day we got it. WTF) and I'm only half done with mine.

Our new Lit text is killing my back. I walked around with my bag for just a few hours today, and now I get regular stabs of pain going up and down my left shoulder and upper arm. It hurts worse everyday sigh.

But on to the happier things! Bio lessons are slightly more interesting than they were last year; we're doing the chapter on reproduction and got to watch a video of different animals having sex. The tortoises (or were they turtles?) were the best - the female headbutted a male because she didn't want to mate with him, but lost the fight. Then another male came and the two male tortoises fought. Finally one won and the female mated with him. Someone said she saw the male tortoise smiling as he climbed on top of her O.o how disturbing.

Today's lesson was on human reproduction, and you wouldn't believe it, but 411 was perfectly blank-faced throughout the ENTIRE LESSON. Only Ariel and I were giggling. People were glaring down at their worksheets and copying down vocab and completely ignoring the unwritten rule present in all Sexual Reproduction lessons: Giggle whenever the teacher says something!

I miss Rosyth. Back then, we burst out laughing every 5 seconds during P5 Reproductive System lessons. It's juvenile, but boy was it fun.

Been very very busy lately. Can't catch a breather. The world can't leave me alone!!!

No, I'm not nuts, just stressed because of GAC Coreate SCMUN (which I quit already so nevermind about that) and other possible MUNs.

Why is Coreate so spammy :X wethecoreate is eating into my applecore.

And yes, I say the world can't leave me alone because whenever possible people grab hold of me and start talking about this or that and I'm like yeah yeah okay and then I promptly forget what they told me unless I write it down somewhere and most of the time I don't bring paper around with me.

I don't feel like doing my tuition homework!!!

Mostly because I've never had tuition homework before, yeah. My uncle never gives me homework. Argh. 报章报道真讨厌。 为什么不能写记叙文呢？

I feel quite...drained. And slightly numb. But not depressed, which I guess is a good thing? Considering the amount of emotional stress that's been piled on this week and all. I don't feel like I'm at breaking point yet, not the way I did last year.

Tuition later. I don't know what to ask my uncle :X and my piano teacher thinks it's risky for me to take Grade 6 practical this year, but I don't have a choice, do I? Sigh.

I am Rather Unhappy because I can't go for SCMUN. This sucks so much, it warrants its own post.

Haven't really had time to blog these few days.

Monday: Had Exco meeting. We were Quite Productive (: Then Xinyuan and I went off to J8 to eat lunch (she ate at Subway while I watched, then I ate at the food court while she watched) before meeting up with Denise, Machang and Fengjing to watch HOLMES :DDD

It was pretty good (if slightly different from the original short stories), and I'm glad that they made Holmes fall in love with Irene Adler. They were practically MADE for each other. We suspected that Holmes might be bi, though, because he had this totally jealous look on his face whenever Dr Watson talked about his fiancé, and he kept trying to sabotage their marriage.

Tuesday: Was not a very happy day because MrLee is no longer our FT + SS teacher, and having new teachers means they'll need time to get used to our Rather Unorthodox Style. Yvonne gave them a rather...startling introduction to the class character. 411's basically a bunch of weirdos thrown together.

Then Vic and I met up with the juniors to film Sec1s eating lunch, which really meant that we went around holding huge videocams and harrassing Sec1s into answering our questions.

I'll quote Vic's blog here:

Crystal and I went around undoing all the welcomeness that PSLs gave to Sec1s during filming, by hissing "Sec onessssssss." in their general direction whenever a group of Sec 1s with high buttoned collars went past us.

And we tried to convince this group of Sec1s who were complaining about the 90secs it takes for the Hotbake machine to dispense a sandwich that you're actually supposed to do jumping jacks while you wait. We had totally straight faces and all. Plus we even managed to look really puzzled instead of outright smirking when I wondered out loud why they hadn't seen anyone doing that yet.

So if you see someone doing jumping jacks while waiting for Hotbake... DON'T SPOIL THE DAMN JOKE.

It was totally classic man. They looked like they actually BELIEVED us. Well, if all of them get Golds for PFT this year, they have us to thank.

GAC meeting was also productive. Heh. Coreate O.o Why do people even bother with names anyway? And SCIMUN! But RMUN's probably better la, so see how.

Today: Was okayish. We met our new Bio teacher, who seems all right. Lit was a free block for RALA, so we just read our new Lit texts (cost us $25 sigh). Art of the Short Story!

Physics was just the usual reflect-on-last-year's-attitude-and-set-goals-for-this-year stuff. As for Chinese, we got to meet all the Sec4 HCL teachers and find out which classes we were streamed into. Nothing interesting, really.

Training after CLE, which was quite bad because I had a pounding headache throughout (except during PT. Exercise actually does work wonders), and it refused to go away until a few hours ago. Sigh.

On New Year's Eve, I went to check my Statcounter for the first time in 2009!!!!!

(It's amazing how people manage to find my blog using the oddest search terms. There was one "Shenkeng tofu street directions" LOL.)

Audrey has the honour of having the most "Came From"s! Congratulations, Audrey, your links weren't put up for nothing. :O

And here's the part we've all been waiting for...

In 2009, I had:

13,727 page loads
10, 368 unique visitors

and 6,785 RETURNING visitors.

I LOVE ALL YOU REGULARS! COME BACK TOMORROW, THERE'S A PROMOTION! 50% DISCOUNT ON DRINKS AND BLOODY MARYS!


--

Oh, I forgot to mention this.

It's over, but I hope you had a

HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A MERRY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!11111oneelevenonehundredandeleven