Horse

Smile, Loyang — you've beaten schools that weren't expected to lose! Go out there and do neighbourhood schools proud! :)

Arena today was less exciting than the preliminary rounds. There were the usual peacocks parading in drag and I felt like attacking some speakers with my plastic clappers but I couldn't do that on national TV could I? And then the level of misunderstanding and ignorance was excruciating, especially on the fragile audience stand, but few can perform under pressure (and distracting lighting), so kudos to the speakers! A sudden breath of fresh air awaits them post-Arena.

And, I'm reminded of the urgency to complete my portfolio for CAP and I'm having serious doubts about whether I have enough time/talent because the English lessons on common spelling mistakes and grammatical errors were demoralizing to say the least. Suddenly, much like algebra, English becomes less natural and more tied round rules of grammer that steers clear of complicated sentence structure. Blah. My creativity is being supressed in economically-driven Singapore that doesn't believe in a future in the arts.

In fact, I'm so tired of having to conform to standards that I don't believe in ie. become a doctor, get rich, have fat little kids who demand PSPs and iPods, that I have started to re-contemplate my sec 1 whim of going to LaSelle/NAFA to study visual arts or music and get a cultural medallion. (Frankly I was pissed when the opp came up and said that anonymity will somehow lead to a better economy, and the audience cheered. It's as if we have sacrificed culture, history and values for money. How great your country stands when everyone looks at your GDP isn't everything, especially not if pragmatism becomes infused with traditional Chinese values of prosperity and good fortune in Singaporean society, and when visitors from other countries have nothing to say except the usual 'Singapore Is A Very Clean City' nonsense. OK. We're clean. We're pretty darn spotless. But so what? It doesn't say much about ourselves except that we hire lots of cleaners to clean up after us, how embarrassing.)

This may be slightly juvenile but I've put up a list of infectious songs that I'm into right now. As a response to annoying ghetto music I hear blasted from handphones across the bus stops of Singapore.