intergalactic train journeys here I come

So it appears that I didn't get into that college, because I've been waiting all evening for that promised notification but I've been dissed by the selection committee. Again. Honestly I don't even know why I bothered.

Anyway, I think I'll be much happier in TJ, despite the fact I will not enjoy MRT rides squashed between grumpy caffeine junkies in their own early-morning stupor, despite the fact I have to explain where that is to most people when I tell them all the time, despite the fact that I will once again live in the shadows of more illustrious forebears, and despite the fact that my chances of clinching a pre-university scholarship of my own preference has suddenly dipped.

I'm obviously pissed that I've been left worrying all day without some kind of closing to this debacle. Oh well, I'm sure the choir has done everything it could to help with my appeal. I'm looking forward to joining some other CCA in JC, like photography, or odac! etc. The opportunities are endless...

Plus, I know two people in my OG! I am kind of excited still anyway. And I can take KI now, and it might be a little easier to get into the hp there too.

I don't really know how to end this post so I'll just stop abruptly here.

OKAY URGH.
I know something I'm not supposed to know and all I can say is I really really really really really really supremely hope that the general appeal will get through or else I'll be honestly and truly screwed. Not in the academic sense. Just the dragging of my reluctant self all the way to school in the morning.

HELLO IF THERE'S ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS ME TO DO SOMETHING, I'M SORRY THE ANSWER IS NO. No No No No No.
Grh. GRHJL! GDFYDO DIUYG PWIUDGNOUWRW{ORI°‚ €‹‡$(* EFNIPU´ÏŒÁ ØÔÓÏÚL!

I THINK I'VE FOUND THE ONE. The shirt's not too avant garde but somewhat structural enough. It looks really good on the model, but honestly I'm not sure how it'll look on me. Unless I grow out my hair. And reconstruct my cheekbones. Yeah.

Ah well, I'm so jaded by what's hanging on the racks out there now :( If only the government gave out shopping grants like edusave awards :(

link

When sickness and disease strikes someone you love, the last thing on your mind is figuring out what items to write down on your list of achievements for your scholarship application form.

Anyway, my grandmother got warded for a UTI. Apparently the inflammation has affected her kidneys too, and from one of the greatest gifts to modern man that is Wikipedia, I'm guessing it's pyelonephritis, though fairly common, may lead to complications in older people. (Urgent kidney transplants and blood transfusions and melodramatic Jack Neo-esque scenes of families with tear-streaked faces running along with a hospital bed are playing in my mind right now. Even though this seriously cheeses me off.)

I wrote a prose piece about her once. I really do wish that I can look back and say that "well that was that and it all ended happily with one course of antibiotics and lots of rest and peaceful music". However, I do realise that everything is in His timing and in His hands, and although I can self-centredly mourn a passing by going "I should have asked her for her pineapple tart recipe/I should have skipped work to spend time with her making sugee cake/I should have appreciated salty buah keluak now", I'm just immensely relieved and assured that God is in control, and no matter what the outcome may be, he has his reasons and his plans.

And it's dawning on me how pathetic it is to read The Bell Jar and listen to depressing shoegaze music in trying to attain catharsis when what I really I needed to do was to trust in him.

Besides that, I really enjoyed shopping/trying to shop with Andrea, Mingting and Angeline just now! We met up with Shiyun first, who was left all alone in a Helen outlet surrounded by a sparkling sea of light-synthesizing rhinestone-studded accessories. We went bag-hunting for Angeline's school bag at various nike and adidas stores, and while in search of The Perfect Tee, I rummaged through rows and rows of disappointments. At least I tried on a t-shirt, but it was not worth the hefty $49 price tag for its very average quality and design.

Later on, we drifted placidly along with the crowds with lowered expectations and ennui floating through our minds. I discovered a cheaper ice cream maker at Tangs, Angeline finally resolved her first-day-of-school-with-no-bag crisis, we bought things from Muji, and everyone reached home safely. I, however, have no new clothes at all because recent shopping trips have all been uninspiring to say the least, and I end up buying food items all the time! This time, I bought mango lassi from Muji and tomato soup that I shall have first thing in the morning. Sounds nice huh.

OK.

I can't find my results slip or my CCA records anywhere!!!

I have the entire humanities scholarship form to fill in and it's in microsoft excel and there's a compatibility issue with the date format! If I wasn't so sleepy after all the festivities and random merrymaking, I would be awake and buzzing with panic alarms going off in my head simultaneously as I rummage through all my belongings.

Anyway, I need to get new clothes tomorrow because I've run out of nice-enough ones for more CNY visits and whatnot. The stress! The horror! Only 17 and already tortured!

More interestingly, here are some photos from my Chinese New Year!





If I ever do have kids, I want them to be as cute as them!

clouds yum

Over the Chinese New Year holidays, I have been trying to digest the literary theories of overdetermination and deconstructionism, along with the familiar pineapple tarts, ayam buah keluak and inedible waxy hockey pucks parading themselves as chocolate coins. I haven't studied much for such a long time, it is most alarming to wake up to the idea that school is starting immediately next week and I have no idea what to expect or prepare myself for the people I'll meet. Or even the uniform I'll find myself wearing, for that matter.

And then we'll be worrying about SYF, competitions, PW, and finally, A levels — all in a matter of 2 years. It sure feels like we'll all be thrown into a food processor to get blitzed about at the highest setting, before being emptied out into a startlingly formless, homogenous mix where our faces shall be indistinct from our textbook covers. I'm wondering how many pens I'll be dumping into the trash after sucking them dry of their ink, and I'm guessing 2314 and a half.

On a more festive note, I'm getting sick of new year goodies, and the entire idea of eating holiday-themed food. Considering the fact that I'm still recovering from Christmas and the New Year, I've been availing myself to heaps of sugee cookies and shrimp rolls, and I'm very sure all these tiny health monstrosities will do absolutely no good to my cholesterol levels. Chinese food is hardly ever healthy or wholesome, and Peranakan food isn't any better. Everything on the plate is salty and spicy, and since tastebuds grey with age, copious amounts of salt and chili are added to deliver a greater "kick", as the more ancient folk would say as they volunteered to give their own critique while frowning pensively in mid-chew. In the end, my grandmother, who views people who don't take chili very condescendingly, confronted my entire notion of what constitutes and warrants a person's right to identify himself with his own ethnicity by hissing something about people who refuse sambal belachan are never Peranakan. Of course, she was only kidding. I hope.

My cousins are visiting later. Will I survive one more round of CNY lunch? All I want right now is a salad tossed with lemon juice and toasted pine nuts, and a couple more clementines. Or a bar of really good dark chocolate.

1) Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle mode.
2) For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3) YOU MUST WRITE THE SONG NAME DOWN, NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4) Put any comments in brackets after the song name.
5) Tag 6 people.
-------------------------------------------------------
1. Are you male or female?
Thirteen - Big Star

2. Describe yourself.
Wooly Mammoth's Absence - Mount Eerie

3. What do people feel when they're around you?
Ghosts of Boston - The Cyanide Valentine

4. Describe your current relationship.
Firecracker People - Hotel Lights

5. Where would you like to be now?
Love is No Big Truth - Kings of Convenience

6. How do you feel about love?
Sipping on the Sweet Nectar - Jens Lekman

7. What's your life like?
When it comes down - Miaow

8. What would you ask for if you only had one wish?
Rock and Roll Suicide - Black Box Recorder

9. If someone says "Is this okay?", what would you say?
Waiting - Taxi Doll

10. How would you describe yourself?
Traveling Through a Sea - Grouper
(Uhh)

11. What do you like in a guy/girl?
No More Tomorrows - Rocektship

12. How do you feel today?
Brand-New-Life - Young Marble Giants

13. What do your friends think of you?
Poetry for the Winter - Komon
(I am poetic and oh so slightly emo I guess. Ha.)

14. What do you think of your parents?
Photograph - Eagle*Seagull

15. What do you think about very often?
Bed Wetter - Summer Cats
(No way.)

16. What is 2+2?
Canto Gregoriano: Gloria - Monks of Silos
(RANDOM INDEED.)

17. What do you think of the person you like?
The Icarus Song - The Cyanide Valentine

18. What is your life story?
Her Star - Holiday Flyer

19. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Merry Christmas I Love You - Velocity Girl
(I shall be a santa claus in some mall.)

20. What do you think of when you see the person you like?
Uffington Wassail - Half Man Half Biscuit
(Huh?)

21. What will you dance to during your wedding?
Travel - Girl of the World

22. What will they play at your funeral?
The Picnic Song - The Maccabees
(Perhaps the world shall rejoice and come together to sit on plaid mats.)

23. What is your biggest fear?
Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen
(I'm scared of hunger I guess.)

24. What is your hobby/interest?
Teenager - Camera Obscura

25. What do you think of your friends?
Beautiful Beat - Nada Surf


Ok anyone can do the meme ;)

lead me to a quiet cell

Ugh I'm gonna be so grumpy these few days. I was most ungracefully socked straight in the jaw during basketball today by a ball which I could have caught but missed because my hands were not at their most cooperative today. My glasses are now bent and gnarly because the ball fell from the air right smack into its frame. I have a few mysterious gashes on my hand that I suspect came from someone's refusal to trim his nails.

I am almost three inches away from the screen now because I can't see much without glasses, and it hurts when I chew.

However, the lights look very pretty when their sometimes grimy details are masked by a light-diffracting, diaphanous cloud of myopia. I could sit on the grass all day and watch the green on the leaves sparkle like baubles under the sunshine, if only I could take a day off to inhale deeply and block out the maddening hive of activity around me all day.

I want to crash through paper walls

Here are some overdue videos from Tel Aviv.




I haven't been blogging lately because project serve has been taking up most of my time, in a good way. I've got a pot of mushrooms and stock simmering in the kitchen to bring to lunch tomorrow, hope that turns out yummy!

Anyway, if that last post left you hanging and writhing in suspense, I managed to get past the first round, thank God! There's still one more round of appealing to go (!) after JAE results are released, and then there's that mad rush to buy sets of uniform and books. I'm almost certain that I shall overdose on chocolate one of these days.

And I'm getting cold feet about applying for hp. The odds of me getting in are second to none and even so, I'll probably end up delusional and suicidal by the end of the year. But I guess there's no harm in chasing your dreams.

Class chalet was fun! After seeing Lucas off at the airport, I made my way to the country club (classy huh). We took a walk by the beach and looked at the stars. I slept really well and woke up surprisingly refreshed. I came after all the teachers had left! Missed out so much.




My prose is getting boring. We're growing old too quickly. Arhjk;k11!JK#"jk'-039#&*

oh the things I would have given to be torched by orange flames that moment

and conversely, an abject desire to be impaled by hyponastic arrows.

Auditions today sucked big time and I can't say I'm too shocked or surprised to see whatever hopes I've had of traveling under an hour a day to school crumble before my puffy sleep-deprived eyes because it had taken me by surprise. Anyway I'm too tired to elaborate further right now, but I'm feeling like the biggest walking mediocrity of the modern era and shall continue to feel this way when the results come out tomorrow.

Also, I bumped into my ex-teacher at the carpark before the auditions and told him that I have finally earned a distinction for physics. Like many of my teachers, he's absconded to greener pastures such as the girls' school nearby. Well I was really glad to see a familiar face in the midst of dreadful uncertainty. And at least the teacher-in-charge remembered me from the last time.

But somehow, while wandering through the corridors, I had second-thoughts about applying once more. Perhaps it was the continual clashing of Chinese cymbals and the raging pulse of drums from what sounded like a lion dance troupe that added to my gradual sense of displacement upon entering crimson-coloured gates. Maybe it's the lack of seniors who apply for the jc that gives rise to this pervading sense of alienation, and it seems as if the degrees of separation between Kevin Bacon and I are smaller than that of the seemingly random faces I see.

Sometimes I wish I could see His will for me etched out more clearly. I wish I could be more thankful for my results but honestly I find myself not knowing where to head to or feel a sense of belonging in.

and then the parquet flooring opened up and started speaking to me

Okay now that I've finally caught my breath I can attempt to communicate with some coherence.

I'm really pleased with English and humanities and E Maths!
I'm alright with maths and sciences.
I'm horrified with chemistry because I couldn't get a 1 from there.

And I have so many things on my administrative to-do list and am so relieved that I did my CV a long time ago.

Anyway someone was donning Tina Fey glasses on stage and looked like Sarah Palin! You think so? So many things have changed.

Also I realised how much my teachers meant to me when they came up to talk to me and helped with peeling open the envelope because my fine motor skills were not functional then.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

I sound stupid but

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

:) God is so good.

O LEVEL RESULTS! TOMORROW! AFGSYIYTFAAAAGHJKKKKKK!#$@&CH:IUW{()*

touch the water with the end of your fingers

I wish I could be slower to anger.

Because there are bizarre instances beyond my comprehension that display the wildest lapses of logic and sense. Because there are times when an ice cream maker is less viable than a Swiss pineapple slicer of equal pricing. A pineapple slicer. A pineapple slicer that could buy 7.5 tubs of Ben & Jerry's. I don't even like pineapples.

OK, so it cores pineapples as well. Clarification: It is a pineapple corer AND slicer — a Swiss multitasking appliance. (Worth the experience and novelty I guess.) I could caramelise the yellow mediocrities into a pineapple jam or something.

Anyway to my horror I realised that class chalet starts tomorrow and I am so not mentally prepared for it. I've been so busy with project serve it was only a few minutes ago that I discovered that tomorrow is a Sunday and I am going to church in the morning.

Having said that, I really enjoyed spending time with the sec 1 kids today. They're really playful and cheeky, and have caused me endless worry at the science centre this morning, but I've burnt enough calories running after them in the Global Warming and the Virus exhibits ("No! You may not pin your friends down on the fibreglass HIV virus!") and most importantly I think I've been able to make friends! Whee :)

sometimes it feels like you're sinking into marshmallow

The JC orientation after project serve today was good :) We listened to a dean of economics at SMU talk about his walk with God during the trials of his life, such as the army. I'm always so amazed at the way God works in people.

I bought a simple cream coloured organizer from Muji because I'm trying to keep track of my schedule and dates, but I've not written anything yet! Filofaxes are annoying because of the rings in the middle. I've got an issue with that impeding my writing.

And tomorrow I shall be off to the science centre!

a picture of all of us waving at the gate

Here's mandatory mention of that moment of horror and expectation and uncertainty and relief when the SEAB gave notice of the date and time of the release of the O level results. I was excited, worried, joyful, and then these emotions gave way to general apathy. I had another nightmare about it last night, but it was a very "fitful" dream, if you will, because I woke up a little every 10 minutes, and I was in the wrong attire for results collection all the time! Worse still, I kept picking up wrong things when I came back home to change, like batteries and catalogues. It was surreal to say the least.

I keep reminding myself to trust in God's plan for me, but it's all so hard when I'm striving towards achieving academic excellence (because it's the local pastime, that sorta thing) in the pursuit of so-called stability in the future (because that's what most people do) and praying hard that it's in line with His will. Argh, if only I could so easily say that Yes I'm going to wholly lean on his name and have faith in wherever he takes me so onward faithful servant etc., then maybe I wouldn't make such a big deal out of this.

I'm just thankful that no matter what happens, I have someone to depend and count on.

Besides, I know the words I spout are often hideously grotesque and clumsy when compared to things I read in the Bible. I guess depending on oneself has never been a valid option.

P.S. - The debaters and Lucas gave me a really really really cool calendar! It's so awesome I HAD to mention it here! Nicest birthday card thing I've ever received, honest! Thanks guys :) So sorry no one was there to see my joy haha.

toasty

What is a birthday when it all ends, anyway? I think I've had SUCH a blessed day, not because more things happened or someone gave me everything on my crazy wish list, but because I've been more aware and thankful of the people God placed in my life who care so much for me and for all the opportunities that have come my way.

I had dinner earlier, at Crystal Jade in Ngee Ann City. It's the epitome of everything chi-chi and ostentatious in that it seems to cater to the "I order shark's fin whenever I'm feeling peckish, oh wait let me massage my Birkin first" clientele. I realised I loathe finding myself caught in such presumptuous realms, like how I found myself feeling like I was stuck in a 90s Home Alone scene in the dining hall of the hotel at the Dead Sea surrounded by the career-weary middle-aged holiday makers. The chili was great though! And my parents brought us for ice cream and gelato at the food hall. We had Azabu Sabo AND Venezia, and I chose my favourite flavours :)

Anyway, I spent the last few moments of the 5th of Jan replying to smses and Wall posts and chatting to Zizhao on Facebook. Mainly, reminiscing old times, especially the old piano corner.

It's so hard to imagine that I'm 17 now. But I thank Him for today :)

5 January!

Happy Birthday myself! :D And Leonard :D And Amos :D And Huishan :D And Karling :D and Amos' friend Stanley :D and Sarah from YFC :D

And suddenly I'm a prime number once again! Whee :D

I am furious yellow!!!

Pudding! I don't mind this pudding. (cutesy blinking)

*Anyway I'm not furious. It's just a TV reference.

And thank God my parents didn't mind me returning the shirt since I'm allergic to that colour. I asked my mum what other colours there were, and she said there was a pink-purple one, which I think is a level worse than this.

happy supposed-to birthday to me

Today is the third of January, the date I was supposed to be born on. 17 years ago, my parents were probably really annoyed that I didn't budge and refused to comply with the gynae's suggestions and gentle coaxing. Anyway, after the 2nd day orientation for project serve, I went for lunch with the debaters at Sumo House, which was an interesting experience because I had never eaten there before. Later on, we had dessert at that snow ice place in AMK hub. (my current favourite dessert) Thanks a ton guys :) I wish I had brought my camera and dressed in clothes that were actually not covered in mud to start with!

There is one colour that I singularly detest, and it ruins my day to think of its existence. It doesn't have a name, but instead borders on purple and dark pink and maroon and dark green altogether to form a shade of purple-y maroon so vile and rife with notions of evil, viewing it makes me feel as if there is a whole micro-universe in my bone marrow that seems to consist largely of organisms that communicate purely by scratching their nails on chalkboards.

OK, so my parents lovingly selected a shirt that happened to be in that truly discomforting colour, remembered my shirt size, remembered that I once mentioned something about lapels and cufflinks to them, and chose a tasteful and expensive brand associated with quality and heritage etc. etc., thatsortathing, and I'm really grateful and touched that they took time off their Saturday to look for a present for me (after breakfast at tiong bahru and while shopping for other things around centrepoint e.g. some Swiss pineapple cutter).

I'm just whining again, am I not? I think I'm going through the angsty phase again when I think the universe should revolve around me again.

And my grandmother nearly claimed the really nifty and magical instant warmer Andrea gave, probably because hot water bottles are so two centuries ago. I think I shall buy a larger one for her.

Also: obviously no one in my family got the hint that all I want for my birthday is the Cuisinart ICE-20 despite sneaking it into every conversation. I assure you, you will not regret the returns from this machine.

before opening a door

Hello 2009. You're looking a little sallow 'round the edges. You can leave your coat down by the piano. Tea? Coffee? Bishop? Daisy? I hear you've been practising real hard. So play me the blues, new year. I won't laugh, no I won't, promise. One day we'll paint the town red and you can wear your favourite top hat too.

May your new year be a very blessed one. This year, I'm trying my best again to please God but as usual it's immensely difficult and I'm amazed that He refuses to give up on me.