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I will not mince my words: Indeed, a fuckwad has my future at stake, and it still continues to disturb me to no end. The nightmare will be over soon, but at the end I can freely say Fuck You, because saying this is so emancipating and I feel almost completely and wholly justified in distilling down my grief, anger and trauma into something with immense brevity and gravitas because you are marvelously sensitive to the nuances of language.

I'll go brush my teeth now.

In happier news, I am going off to my Chinese Picnic with CTITW later! Andrea and I will probably get laughed at the girls who display more linguistic prowess when it comes to Mandarin, but we'll be most chivalrous and give them their time in the sun. :D (Pun begs to be appreciated.)

I've been listening to The Magnetic Fields' majorly epic album "69 Love Songs" all day, which is awesome.

This week has been crawling by so darned slowly like Samara in The Ring. Anyway, my results leave much to be desired, although I am relieved that I can take up H3 Lit and keep my 4H2s (depending on whether or not my Econs is a pass or a fail... this is the only part which terrifies me.)

Today sucked: it's as if I had clocked up a sanity debt during the previous weeks and I now have to repay all the periods of blissing out and calm that I was so enjoying, interest compounded hourly. Yesterday was a big cryfeste for everyone, and I am still not regretting my decision to spend 10 bucks on a chocolate stash and tissue paper. Today, the class was *this* close to beating up a certain Man In Our Life. (Ladies: I apologize on behalf of all males, both dead and alive. Not all of us are jerks. We need a masculine response to feminist literature.) Somehow, I managed to walk out of double period chinese with a slight bounce in my footsteps and a flutter in my heart. Kidding.

We have a major holiday assignment for international history. It is so important, our lecturer spent an entire lecture period briefing us on the task requirements and prophesying the nightmares to come. UN debates from the days of yore are coming in very handy now!

I'm in the process of thinking of a research topic to propose to my tutors (both for Lit and KI). Ideas include: The Romanticization of Plath - High schoolers and Confessionalism; Beat Poetry - the evolution and devolution of the hipster aesthetic; An Exploration into the Gender Binarism of Peter and Jane; Obituary Poets and Eurocentrism in the Literature of War; The Teenage Psyche - An exploration into insipid Written Reports and their Freudian readings; The Relevance of Literary Criticism in Chick Lit and its Sub-genres; Lost in Translation - the humour, wit and wisdom in Chinglish and other modern non-native Englishes.

I will never find anything. :(

It's the body telling you it doesn't want to die.

It's that actor from third rock from the sun and the actress from harriet the spy.
This convergence of everything from my childhood

makes me want to cry.

Hi.

Have run 17 km, 10 with Angeline and Debbie, and have also offset the calories burnt. Have also typed a long-ish post about the weekend but have lost it in cyberspace. Have stared blankly at computer screen. Have given up.

Have also watched 500 Days of Summer. Have watched it for the second time. Have laughed, have wept. Have spiraled into something dark and malignant.

Have had two nightmares about tomorrow. Have woken up with panic attacks. Have had lunch and dinner alone. Have bought chocolate. Have bought several bars. Have not eaten them yet. Have had visions of pigging on them tomorrow. Have not contemplated suicide, yet. Have realised that Have makes up part of Haven. I have none. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. Have. I have reached semantic satiation. I want to Have everything.

Have been trying to be happy with nothing. Have struggled. Have robbed words of their meaning. Maybe I just want to say that I Have, or Have Once Been.

Omg. They are hilarious.

1813-1883

listening to Wagner
as outside in the dark the wind blows a cold rain the
trees wave and shake lights go
off and on the walls creak and the cats run under the
bed...

Wagner battles the agonies, he's emotional but
solid. he's the supreme fighter, a giant in a world of
pygmies, he takes it straight on through, he breaks
barriers
an
astonishing FORCE of sound as

everything here shakes
shovers
bends
blasts in fierce gamble

yes, Wagner and the storm intermix with the wine as
nights like this run up my wrists and up into my head and
back down into the
gut.

some men never
die
and some men never
live

but we're all alive tonight

- Charles Bukowksi

rise like two angels in the night and magically disappear

I've just finished watching Mysterious Skin on Youtube and it is so horribly sad it makes you feel awful inside and then confused and then depressed when Samskeyeti plays and the characters become smaller and fade to black and the credits roll in and I want to curl up and die right here and right now.

Only I can't, because I have road marshall duties tomorrow for the 5 km event for Titans and this untimely death would really put a damper on the whole celebratory mood of the sports carnival.

Anyway, stories of child abuse never have happy endings. I look at their ways of coping and feel a huge immense sadness so vast it feels like an ocean had been compressed and shoved into my chest. This has also cemented Joseph Gorden-Levitt's position as My Favorite Actor (alongside Ellen Page as My Favorite Actress) because he is so crazy-good here.

In other news, PW is being such a hemorrhoid at the moment. If the science-arts divide is anything to be rueful about, it's the dumb retrograde insights that are better left unsaid (by Whoever He Was) i.e. the bitterness and veiled insecurities re: the command of the English language. For an arts class, your language is very poor. Fine - our language may not be perfect all the time, but I was so intensely offended by the need to mention that we are an arts class. Other tutors don't obsess about what stream their students are in; they simply note the potential differences in learning styles and adapt their teaching methods accordingly without bemoaning it day in and day out. See? It's simple.

When I become a struggling mid-level bureaucrat in the future, it's these pointless things that I will probably lobby against. The objectives are sound but the means are questionable. Education is an annoyingly human enterprise but it was education, again, which taught me say that.

Oh, teenagers.

Am posting these as a sort of tribute that will hopefully be cathartic proselytism.

Song that seems permanently on replay in my head:


Dance sequence that seems permanently on replay in my head (although not in movie):


Dance sequence that seems permanently on replay in my head (even though I thought was going to be cheesy):


Help, I'm so cheesy in love with a movie.

Anyway, anyone wants to watch it? I don't mind accompanying. I really don't. I want to watch it again. And again and again and again until I memorize every single scene and can watch it in my head whenever I feel like it.

3 days of 500 days of summer

Once again, I find myself deeply in love with a hipster film. I love the obscure music and literary references. I love the mad fluttering in my chest when the FOX SEARCHLIGHT screen comes on and bathes my enthralled countenance in a golden hued gold. I love how the audience is smart, intelligent and considerate. I love how I can almost sing along to the music in the soundtrack. I love basking in its warm afterglow and the sadness of feeling its absence growing on you. I love the conviction of liking it not because critics raved about it, but because it truly affects me aesthetically and at times emotionally.

This morning, my iPod was set on loop to the 500 days of summer OST, all throughout the commute and through to PW.

And in the same vein, I have been watching a record number of movies within the span of a few weeks. It started with Paper Heart, which I love too. Shortly after, I watched Juno after buying the DVD on an impulse while at borders. The following Sunday, my sister I caught Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and spent the next morning talking about it. Today, I watched Juno again, John Tucker Must Die, and finally, Julie and Julia. I still have the Lost in Translation DVD which remains unwatched.

Julie and Julia was a lot of fun in the beginning, but towards the end, *SPOILER ALERT* I was extremely frustrated with the notion of Julia Child "hating" Julie Powell's endeavors — why build up the romance and the cross-dimensional relationship, only to tear it down again by undermining Child's maternal role model characterization? Is the film suggesting that our notions of people and personalities are merely imagined, and that is all that matters? Why discount the truth as it is and delude oneself with a simplified version of a complex character? The intertwined stories developed characters rather flatly, with Child in an ideal position with an ideal character, and Powell as a person with evidently more struggles to deal with. A better ending would have never mentioned the interaction between the two at all, since the huge incongruence between the kindlier, more altruistic Child the movie strove to build up and the last-minute veiled reference to a mean streak in Child of Powell's time was decidedly unsettling and came across as a jarring plot progression that left the audience confused. *END SPOILER*

Reviews aside, it was fun celebrating Andrea's (Yew) birthday with the movie. She, Jamie and I went for dessert at McDonald's after being assaulted by food porn blown up on the big screen, partly because we were too broke for anythings worthy of a post J&J meal.

Honestly, I had so much to do this weekend it's difficult to record all of it down.

Oh. The last few hours found me agreeing to substitute someone for Titans. I await 7 KM runs and log-throwing with much trepidation and anxiety. Praying for malignant and dangerously high levels of pent-up energy on Friday and Saturday for the greatest test of physical fitness in my life thus far.

but we're all alive tonight

I think PW exists solely as a sort of morbid joke solely for the purpose of injecting a little ironic humour for the post-promo period.

Person A and Person B are walking down the stairs balancing sweaters and random articles of stationery in their arms.
Person A: Promos are over! Over over overrrrr!
Person B: Can't wait to start on my OP now!

Cue canned laughter.

Anyway, now that the papers are over, the Weekend of Selfish Pursuits is going full steam ahead. Immediately after choir on Friday, I went for an art gallery opening replete with artists and the rest of the arty ilk who held plastic cups of punch with the practised bend of an elbow while disinterestedly contemplating the significant forms on display. Later on, I pigged out on a double cheeseburger and fries with Zhiyuan and Tate. Together, we formed a trinity of disgrace to the millennia of Chinese culture and language over greasy trays of truly abysmal excuses for a proper and sustainable diet. It's like Sex and the CIty for the younger, stubbornly monolingual and hopelessly geeky set.

However, the highlight of the week has to be the Tatami Mat Film Festival organised by Esther and me for Esther and me. It consisted of laying tatami mats and pillows on the floor of our bedroom and watching Juno in the dark, while reciting every line in the movie. It was so much fun! Next time we'll hold a David Attenborough Slumber Party in which we'll attempt to watch all his documentries, or perhaps a Daria Gala Dinner when my parents are gone, when we'll order pizza AND watch cartoon characters eat pizza on screen.

Surprisingly, even after a late night, I awoke at 7 am and had a nice breakfast of yoghurt, grapes and whole grains.


I'm still recovering from the night out in Chinatown, but my trauma has spawned a side-project that I'm really excited about committing to. *Glee*

Tomorrow I will brave the crowds at the Singapore Flyer while trying to get my hands on my race pack, and then watch 500 Days of Summer and eat my first post-promo macaron. In-between waiting for joyful things to happen, I will read more Bukowski and massage Prickly Heat powder into my sore and aching writing joints. I am so thankful for this break.

I guess I'm destined to fit into the "sad bastard" stereotype.




I don't mind.

Hello all! In the span of three days, I have had a dengue scare, experienced extreme states of mind and a manic phase. I lied about the last one.

Promos have been gawd-awful. KI was OK, but in the middle of Econs my health started deteriorating rapidly, causing me to lose focus entirely for my case study, which coincidently makes up a significantly higher proportion of my total marks. Perfect: am going to kiss my 3H2s + KI goodbye, alongside my dreams of taking H3 Lit (which will of course turn into a nightmare, who am I kidding.) I am surprisingly still numb to all of the madness.

In the end, I missed my Chinese paper and had my name announced throughout the entire hall. I think I appreciate their efforts in trying to track me down, but I would have also appreciated it more if there was some form of protocol or contingency plan to avoid tarnishing My Good Name over and over again. Beside, I informed the GO and the MT HOD, who very compassionately said that life is still more important than an examination. I wish the same could be said for my A levels, unfortunately.

On Wednesday, I dragged myself to school and slogged all the way through Lit, complete with awkward phrasing and smudged ink as a testament to the sweat and tears in the measly 2 hours we were given. If my paper doesn't give some bug to my markers (as my illness has to nearly the entire household), it's probably going to make them ill with the incoherence of a stoned college druggie.

Anyway here is an optimistic projection for promo results:

H: C
L: B
M: hopefully A
E: D
K: C

And here is the pessimistic projection, seeing how I have been severely affected by my medication:

H: E
L: U
M: a pass
E: U
K: D

Makes me want to burrow into a large soft pillow and then die there.

P.S., am not the brilliant person you so like to envisage. Cut me some slack kthanks.

GUYS this is an excellent way to waste hours of your entertainment-deprived existence:

Translation Party

Where "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" becomes "Spiritual wimp optics". Hilarious, every time!

Celebrate National Poetry Day, the announcement of the BBC's poll to find the Nation's Favourite Poet, The Poetry Society's centenary year and the launch of the Southbank Centre's global poetry system with an extravaganza of some of the superheroes of British poetry… And it is all completely FREE.

Join John Hegley, Roger McGough, Lemn Sissay, Selima Hill and Anjan Saha and Lost Luggage all reading their work, emceed by the indomitable superhero partnership of Mr G and Joelle Taylor.

It will be first here that Britain’s Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy reads her first National Poetry Day poem. Expect a verse of heroic proportion.

Alongside these readings, stunning (and rare) archive footage will be shown of the poet-heroes of history: Stevie Smith, Dylan Thomas and TS Eliot.

Enjoy a world of words and wool with the creators of the world’s first giant knitted poem. And to end the afternoon there will be Valerie Laws with a new interactive game of beach-ball haiku.

Don't miss the celebrations - come and join us on National Poetry Day 2009!

In an ideal world, I'd be whisked off on a plane in the middle of the night and awake somewhere in London with my friends playing Bridge at the foot of the hotel bed, and they'll be like "Hurry we're going to be late" and I'll be like "OK OK I'll just get changed quickly but you guys have to stop your game too" and they'll be like "LOL FINE" and I'll be like "Great, do you have the tickets with you?" and they'll be like "It's somewhere around" and I'll be like "That's awesome I am totally loving this" and etc. etc. and etc. and yeah.

:(

si jeunesse savoit; si vieillesse pouvoit

In-between watching Beyoncé "Single Lady" spoofs and gushing madly about the Where The Wild Things Are Soundtrack (OUT NOW!), I have been studying, yes. I've got my questions to ask, but I'm very bad at making questions more directed at a specific area since they are don't stem from confusion/clarification but rather, in extension of general concepts being taught and ensuring that I'm applying them correctly. That sort of thing.

On Friday, I watched Paper Heart with Twee Sister and walked out of the cinema feeling as if a major goal in life had been achieved. Reviewers tended to decry its "paper thin" plot — gotta give them credit for clever witticisms — but I don't think that was the point of the film. It broached a multitude of ideas regarding the much mused-upon subject of True Love, but it does so in a fairly tolerable way. Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi played out the awkwardness to hilarious effect — they shook hands at the zoo at their second meeting following numerous IM conversations — but I did appreciate the sardonic humour and verbal irony which tied up the cinéma vérité feel of the film rather nicely.

Indie quirkiness aside, the audience was awesome. There were no annoying children to ruin dramatic moments with their incessant whining, and not a crunch from a nacho chip was to be heard. I did not stumble over errant mounds of spilt popcorn or gobs of coagulated nacho cheese. People laughed at appropriate moments. I did not have to contend for elbow space with the people beside me. For a good 85 minutes, I felt the joy of being in utopia.

Anyway, reverting back to The Here and Now, my parents have come home from a holiday-planning session with friends. "We have booked tickets for the Spirit of Tasmania!" a voice jubilates in total and complete ignorance of the pain and torment that my sister and I feel. Now turn the knife counter-clockwise.

"We have to postpone our family holiday this year to next December," they announce, feigning remorse, over a disappointing platter of chili crab. I know, I know — I'm still 17, young, vapid in my obedience, dull in my appearances, apparently superficial in my A&E and GI points, talentless, penniless, and utterly undeserving of a year-end vacation on my parents' savings account, but as they say, youth is wasted on the young. I nearly died this year and it has made me decide to live my life to the fullest, i.e., time to fight for a trip somewhere else on my own.


Karen O covering Daniel Johnston? Some awesum shizz!