so.
i've tried my best, and if that's not enough, there's nothing i can do,
except to move on.
ps, i can tie the longest part of my hair up! it ends up being about an inch long =D.
i was green-ed at 7:12 pm
Wednesday, March 29
getting drenched is not a ... comfortable feeling. trudging around nushigh anticlockwise, then clockwise, to realise that before i turned clockwise i was only 10 metres more to the gate, is also not a very good feeling. generally, i love rain, but heavy-rainy days with thunder and lightning are best appreciated at home when one is nice and warm. not for 25 minutes walking around and around in school uniform, soaking the books in my bag, the papers in my file, myself, my socks and shoes - yeah, not nice.
so i turned up at the lecture 35 minutes late, drenched from head to toe and shivering in the general coldness of the nushigh audi. although the audi WAS a pleasant enough place. although i really wish nush would open the gate thats closest to the bus stop. not that it'd have helped me much, considering i missed the stop, then went on to nus instead, then had to cross the road and take the bus back to nush and WALK. sniff.
that was 3.35. when i reached home four hours later, i was still wet. not soaking anymore, just wet and damp. still not a very comfortable feeling. right, i need to work on my chinese essay about wolves. its quite interesting, am using wolves to symbolise loneliness and pride. all much fun indeed, except that my mind aint working at all today, so im working uber slowly. which means i wont get to sleep until much later which means i'll be even more tired. sigh.
ohh well, whatever! life rawks anyways. there were two rj girls in our group for the lecture thingum. they were both very nice and very pretty, and one of them tied her hair into a bun using a real wooden chopstick! so fun. =D
i was green-ed at 11:57 pm
its one of the prettiest pieces i've ever heard! le coucou, translated to the cuckoo, as in cuckoo bird type of cuckoo. am glad i have the score for it, its quite an easy piece in terms of technicality, but i really want to master it and play it on a harpsichord! am listening to the harpsichord version right now and it really rawks. although it IS meant to be played on a piano, being composed in the 20th century by daquin. his only memorable piece, i believe.
but anyways! its really so nice i love the modulation to major in between the minor and repeated segments. i dont know why its termed the cuckoo, its very much like a dance in fact. the kind of dance thats very quick and rushed, in a flash between two people who are not meant to be together. sniff, its beeyooteefool.
"why're you crying?"
" because sometimes beauty does that to me."
[perfect] by judith mcnaught (a trashy romance novel).
so true. not that im crying while listening to this piece although its absolutely gorgeous, but i do believe that there're so many things in the world that can make a person cry, and beauty's definitely one of them. =D i cant recall myself crying because of beauty though. hmph.
been on a classical music craze tonight so for the first time in two weeks i turned off FORT MINOR and JJ LIN and switched to tchaikovsky, & the lot. which was very nice. and argh I WANT A HARPSICHORD. haha of course that is all rather ridiculously ridiculous, if there are any harpsichords around they'd be standing around concert halls and stuff. not in my house where it'd be destroyed by annoying children passing by and slamming on it like they would a piano. and like what they do to my guzheng and guitar. SNIFFLES.
shall end with a lovely quote i saw today:
it was such a lovely day i thought it a pity to get up. - w. somerset maugham.
i was green-ed at 12:20 am
Tuesday, March 28
today i caved in to temptation and went down to 7-11 to get a green apple slushie. and it was ahh so good i havent had one in 5 years! heh. its a waste of $1.40 though, kuz it actually just takes like green apple with lots of froth and bubbles and ice. but tis nice indeed.
sleeping only 3 hours on sunday night is taking its toll on me and i cant believe how lethargic i am. but aye shall gather up whatever energies i have and go practice piano later at about eight. yes, self-discipline is the key to success indeed.
and i know i have a lot of work today, but i dont want to flip open my organiser and see the painful list then get a nervous breakdown. a lot of it is overdue work, or SIAs that are started too late. no worries, shall complete about half of that and worry about it all later. then i need to write an email to matthew lim because he is also un-findable, and then i need to write an email to the st.lukes oldfolkshome in clementi to ask if they let students do cip there. schniff. argh.
right off i go to practice piano!
and thought of the day, as provoked by jasmine on friday.
is placidity merely my escape?
i was green-ed at 7:41 pm
Monday, March 27
if my memory does not fail me, the choices for end-of-year programme are as follows:
1) china attachment, or jing-ru.
2) china thing thats not exactly exchange.
3) regional cip - vietnam, india or krabi
4) local cip
5) work experience programme
6) outward bound sabah
7) attachment to various places in new zealand. exchange, basically.
8) stanford university thing over at hwa chong
so basically from the start of the year i've already decided i want to do regional cip. and whee im pretty much set on doing it in vietnam! fun fun. my main reasons are to i dont know. teach myself to be less self-centred? and er, try to pay a few of the debts that i owe the world for being such a lovely place.
my parents were rather intent on getting me to go for an attachment of some sort. especially since im in bsp and all that, but yeah. managed to convince them that attachment is something thats very fun, and meaningful, and educational, and you get loads from it. but its not what i want! i mean, endofyear programme and i go to study some more? like gah lol. but anyways because my parents rawk a lot, they've decided to let me do what i want!
after all, cip is not a common thing and one doesnt get much chance in life to do it. and if i really want to go for attachments and whatnot, there'll be more chances in the future, im sure. and regional cip would completely PWN local cip because i could do that anytime too!
regional cip = $1500 to $2000.
china attachments = $2500
new zealand attachments = $3500
which is another reason i dont want to go for attachments, itll mean extorting too much money from my parents. sigh. although they did say they dont mind and can afford it and all. but thats not the point. of course, some might argue i could stay in singapore and do the $15 work experience programme. but i think work experience is quite...how to say, i dont believe you'll really get to have actual handson experience in that sense. shall wait a few more years for that!
(oh and i can use the extra leftover money for my MARIMBA! no wait im saving for that myself. okay fine the leftover money shall be used for my intensive dizi/sheng/xiao/flute/coranglais lessons during december!)
so vietnam regional cip it is, wootz!
i was green-ed at 8:49 pm
Sunday, March 26
so. a conversation between my sister and me in the car.
her: what do you want to be when i grow up?
me: i want to be ... happy.
her: huh? you mean you dont want a JOB?!
(mum and dad erupt into guffaws. sister is unaware that she has said something amusing.)
anyways, of course its not really funny at all. but it DOES set off a chain of thought. i mean, i do need a job to be happy. and for me to be happy, the job needs to be one i like. which leads me to think what subjects i want to take at jc.
cryeth. i've always thought i'd take something sciencey. and with chem and physics, seems like i'd most probably go into engineering or something like that. i do think majoring in physics is a lot of fun though. probably the aftereffects of reading 'angels and demons' and books discussing physicists doing amazing research. and i love physics!
but then and again. if i had the time and energy to, i dont mind sitting for hours on the piano practicing one single piece. so music is really rawkass too. sniff. and i think its the only job which doesnt involve doing the same things over and over again. (practicing pieces doesnt count. each time you play, its different and there's more beauty to it somehow.) but music isnt really that big a field? especially pianists. considering half the world are pianists. sigh.
which is why i want to take up at least one more instrument. i have guzheng, but my ability there is currently quite stagnant because i dont practice. must start practicing regularly! guitar doesnt count because i dont play classical. so im hoping somehow i'll find the time to learn dizi or xiao or flute or cor anglais. a woodwind instrument, anyways.
so about the music field, its not really very big, that is, i dont appear to have much choice about profession if i do take music. i mean, okay piano teacher is one. or i could go into conducting! and go back to peps to do conducting hahahaha how fun. OR the really kool but impossible one is to do arranging and composing for singers. or music teacher in secondary schools, but thats all rather dreary, methinks.
if only i can get into band. in which case i'll play percussion, and that could be another thing i know how to play. especially if i manage to get my marimba at the end of this year. but wait i want to start learning my woodwind instrument at the end of this year too. ARGH.
perhaps music really is my passion. but im not very good at it. as in all the hmp people are much better than i am. and i can effectively only play one instrument well.
then theres chinese. which im not very brilliant in, but i like very much all the same. and chinese lit is really loads of fun. HMPH. am very confused. should i go into arts or science stream in hcjc! if science, it'd be physics chem maths definite, and chineselit or music. which results in confusion. if i go into arts stream itll be er, chinese lit and music and SOMETHING I DONT KNOW (econs or accounts or elit), and maths as my contrasting subject. which is really annoying because i'd have to give up physics. SNIFF.
if only we could take two sciences, two humans. physics, maths, chinese lit, and music. perfect!
but im only in sec 3, and jc is faraway. i suppose.
i was green-ed at 8:38 pm
Friday, March 24
anyways. lol, yep i finally got my newsweek! (just subscribed, you see) and im so absolutely happy because newsweek is such a rawkass magazing thingum! whee.
so i think i broke my record today, for least hours of sleeping, that is. i slept @ THREE THIRTY this morning, and woke up at six. okay for some people it might be perfectly normal, but being a pig by nature, it really isnt my fault i felt rather groggy during midday today. im quite okay now though. goodness knows how lynette survives on no sleep! piang.
duael tomorrow! hope its good.
im yawning a lot but im all hyper so im going to be a couch potato for tonight and watch watch watch! watch what, though, i havent decided.
anyways, piano today! ms foo said i can take my dipabrsm next year, like in the first quarter! WAHAHAHA SO FUN I LOVE HER SO MUCH. and she's right, doing repertoire is so fun. although i think my standard right now is below grade 7. still! thats what not playing for 2 years does to you. now i've started again, i never want to quit! heh.
sorry for chanyi if it was annoying asking for pieces from you. ARGH DIPABRSM why all these pieces and none of which can be found!
i was green-ed at 10:40 pm
Thursday, March 23
perhaps you're looking in the wrong place =D
okay so anyways.
i've been gorging myself with all kinds of food, mamee, sandwiches, chinchowthingum, randomkoreansnacks, magicPOP, banana cake. feels very childish, satiated and satisfied. now i can hardly move, kuz dinner was yongtaufoo which RAWKED. food makes me happy.
have a lot of work today, because teachers are lazy creatures and like marking over weekends, so they assign work to be handed in on fridays. and because students are also lazy creatures and enjoy procastinating, here i am not planning to sleep tonight.
oh but before i start. i love days that start off well, they make you feel awesome altogether and you just feel capable of anything. so i woke up in the morning, and upon picking up my handphone groggily, i saw a message ... from judy! yep JUDY CHEN PEI YU! whee i love her. for the unaware, she's one of my best friends in shanghai, taiwanese, cute, funkeh.
so she was saying she and annie were in nanjing, and having lots of fun and staying up very late (she sent me the message at like 3.30 in the morning) and that they missed me! so that made me very warm and loved inside, and the day has been great.
except one thing. I LEFT MY [ bian cheng lang zi ] AT SCHOOL so i cant read it tonight! SNIFF. its so horribly upsetting. but i suppose tis a good thing. if it was around i wouldnt be able to concentrate very well on my work.
haha and oh ronnie is so fun to hang out with!
our house has icecream again! west mall was having some sale like selling 2 for 1 so i coerced my mum into getting some. HAHA but i feel no guilt, she admits that she was missing icecream too. =D and ladidadeedums. everything rawkxers. one of the best days in my life!
hiho, hiho, its off to work i go!
i was green-ed at 7:36 pm
Wednesday, March 22
that this is where we've come to
if you don't want to
then you don't have to believe me
but I won't be there when you go down
just so you know now
you're on your own now
believe me.
WHEE FORT MINOR IS HARTHS!
(yeah, those are lyrics.)
so im all much better today, yesterday was just a ridiculously moodswingey day, dont ask why, dont ask how. dont take the angsty upset post to heart, just remember the normally-goodmood-blur-me. heh.
progress reports - were not good. but shall not care too much about that, thanks jiawei for listening to me rant ridiculously, and i've realised how stupid it is to complain and wail about my depressing marks. all i can do, and what i should do, is to improve. and AYE WILL.
bian cheng lang zi is coming along very nicely, the wuxiaxiaoshuo im reading right now i mean. im awfully slow for some reason, but its really very interesting. and gu3 long2 's sentence format is just lovely.
foreword for chinese indiv SIA due friday, so i need to decide what the five articles im going to write are about. possibilities as follows:
1) guan1 dan1 xiao3 ji4 - basically, on kuantan life when i go back. cheers!
2) xing1 jiang1 - this would be describing scenery. am thinking of purposely imitating gu-long's short sentence format, but short sentence is very un-me, so i'd better not. but itd be fun to try! especially since xingjiang is desert. i can make up all kinds of exaggerated short sentences like. " feng1 chui1 zhe4 sha1, sha1 lian2 zhe4 tian1." translates to the wind blows the sand and the sand rises to the sky. HAHAHAHA WHAT CRAP.
3) lang2 - wolf. while describing a wolf in action, or poised to kill, hopefully i can somehow capture the essence of suspense and tension in the moment, as well as do that TUO WU YAN ZHI rubbish. like er maybe. how the wolf shows us the frailty of the human heart. my gosh i seriously can win awards in talking absolute rubbish.
4) hui2 yi4 dang1 shi2 - memories. of the time when we were in band, innocent, idealistic and cute. this would be quite hard to write though.
5) a contemporary chinese poem.
6) ke1 xue2 yu3 xing4 yang3 - the all-explored topic of science vs religion. i could do it in an yilunwen format. and quote from case for faith, angels and demons, etc. would be fun but i dont think i'll score.
7) kristin! you shall be one of the topic options.
8) ren3 - one word titles rawk.
WAHAHAHA I SUCK THATS ALL I CAN THINK OF. HELP.
i was green-ed at 11:18 pm
Tuesday, March 21
june - somehow find time to take bowling lessons. with my sister =D
december - pick up a chinese instrument, a woodwind. dizi or sheng or xiao would be nice.
there, settled.
i hate my darn mood swings.
i was green-ed at 11:48 pm
im having a darned breakdown. the kind when you sit in front of the computer screen, chatting on msn, listening to random music, and tears just gush out, but you dont dare to cry out loud because your parents are sleeping in their bedroom opposite, and you cant let them hear.
i was green-ed at 11:00 pm
Monday, March 20
MY GOSH I FAILED THE PERFORMANCE SO BADLY I SLIPPED UP FOR ALMOST EVERY BAR AND NOTHING WENT RIGHT AND I WAS FREEZING MY FINGERS OFF AND I SUCKED AND WHEE I SHALL SHUT UP RIGHT NOW BUT IM REALLY PISSED OFF ABOUT MYSELF.
no, actually, im not pissed. i just realised that im really very lax with myself. as in, too easy on me. i expect very little, whether its personality, temper, or academically. and i must change, yesh i must.
anyways, today i managed to spend only $1.40 on recess! =D whee im going to start savingsavingsaving and hopefully by the end of april i'll have enough for one thing on my wishlist. im hoping its the qi jian xia tian shan vcds. ahhhh. if not, i'll settle for the tchaikovsky scores.
SO i am going to change. resolutions as follows:
- to spend as little as possible on recess, but still remain full. this can be possible ( like today ) and especially if i bring sandwiches from home.
- to really practice piano 1 hr a day, 6 days a week (the other day is my piano lesson)
- to scrape out time for general revision, at least 2 hrs a week.
- to complete homework on time. which means i'll be up til rather late tonight. if i should get to sleep at all, that is.
- to learn how to prioritize.
- to scrape out time for guzheng practice. hm shall not be too ambitious. 2 hrs a week.
- if i do get vcds to watch, i am going to watch them only after doing my work.
- to read papers regularly. both chinese and english. and read my newsweek & asia weekly (the chinese one) like how i would read my wuxia xiaoshuos. (which means, back to front, front to back, and can memorize the main ideas and most of the quotes.)
- to get cracking on my various SIAs.
- work first then play. put msn status on busy until 12 has past, or when there's only 7 people left online, whichever is later. blogging is an exception, but i am not to spend more than 20 mins a day blogging.
- to not slack off during weekends. most of my homework piles up during the weekends, because i cant do any work on sats or suns. normal days i manage to finish stuff.
- if i really want to read my wuxiaxiaoshuos very very badly, i am to do so on the bus, or during lunch, or after i finish work. but by the time i finish work, its really suggestable for me to go and sleep. but of course, its up to me and my moods at that point of time.
- to tighten the reins. on myself. very very very much more.
there! okay i have forty-nine more days to improve my piano so i manage to scrape a pass in class performance (which will be marked this time) so yep. i have to do this. i have to perfect flight of the bumblebee. i know i can.
see you darl. i've broken one of the resolutions already, i think i spent quite a while blogging.
and the whirls of the mind
we will never understand
or need to.
for in there lies the beauty
of the soul
of man.
-alena. (dont ask me what the stuff in green on top means, i dont know either. just an on the spot thing. it sounds weird and stupid, i know.)
i was green-ed at 8:15 pm
Sunday, March 19
quote above taken & translated from [ bian1 cheng2 lang4 zi3] pg 19, written by gu-long. i couldnt think of any other word for (ren3 shou4), so enduring it is. other words could be persevering, tolerating, etc.
anyways, that quote has nothing to do with my mood today. just thought it would be a sort-of effective way to start. yeah, im exploring ways to begin.
so, i read a few pages of bian1 cheng2 lang4 zi3 today while waiting for jasmine in the mcdonald's near west mall. and i realised how much i underestimated gu3 long2. of the three most famed wuxia writers, i always thought gulong was the least deserving, because well his books seem more adventure and thriller, accompanied with lots of beautiful (naked) women and wine. & e main characters seem too perfect to be true.
but i was very wrong. of what i have read of his books, maybe i was younger then, but well now i appreciate his style of writing so much more. in a few simple words, he portrays a picture, a scene, a mood, an atmosphere. something liang-yu-sheng & jin-yong cannot do. for example, he starts the book this way: the house did not have any colour, only black! and on the same page, he portrays the image of an elderly woman and her young son, both dressed in black, welding black weapons.
imagery of the son:
the setting sun illuminated his face. his features were well-defined and handsome, but they seemed as if they were carved from the ice from the mountains yonder.
the setting sun waned, the wind raged.
its just so nice okay! my translating does it no justice, im afraid. go read the chinese version online to understand! okay and in the same scene, (the very first few pages of the book), the woman tells her son to take revenge on the people who killed his father. the son hesitates, but the woman is so full of hatred that she tells him, "if you dont slice the heads of your enemies off, and come back to see me, not only will the heavens curse you, i will curse you myself!" then the next line is " the wind raged. she watched him walk out of the temple slowly, walk into the darkness of the night. gradually he seemed to blend in with the darkness as one. the knife in his hand seemed to slowly blend in with the night, as well. at that moment, darkness enveloped the earth."
feel the imagery, its beautiful, seriously. especially in chinese, everything is so much shorter and crisp. you feel the woman's evil, her hatred, her pent-up loathing. you feel her son's lostness (portrayed in the darkness of it all, note all the clothes were black, the things in the temple were black, the knife was entirely black, outside the wind raged etc.)
and later you find out the son's name is hong-xue. as in red snow. which the woman said was name because when he was born, his father died and dyed the surrounding snow red with his blood. thusly the name. its really amazing larh. gulong really uses short sentences to illustrate and sketch the image of what he wants us to feel. and it works =D
okay, enough irrelevant stuff. today was quite kool, am feeling guilty because i overslept so i missed morning service and only went to youth. where we learnt how to write our testimonies! whee im half done with mine (typed out) so i'll paste it on here when im done. im very longwinded.
and jasmine came over to do work -coughs violently-.
whee im praying desperately for God to help me tomorrow because of piano performance. i havent practiced since like er, forever. sigh. not my fault exactly, my finger was malfunctioning as you know thanks to kayaking injuries. wait actually i didnt tell you. my finger was bruised all purple-black, (yes im serious. no exaggeration.) and its still painful when i use strength on it but it looks fine now. not the point. im gonna practice lot tonight. and heck care about my finger. though itd probably hurt. -sniff-.
alright shall stop boring you all with insignificant details of my mundane life.
have a g'day, mate! kuz schools up tomorrow. groans.
i was green-ed at 5:20 pm
Saturday, March 18
with 10 photos taken @ the jinyong stand @ expo! SQUEALS. of course, very few other people are interested. the first photo is a pic of jinyong's own handwritten " fei-xue-lian-tian-she-bai-lu, xiao-shu-shen-xia-yi-bi-yuan" so its really kool. & the next 9 are pics of the various versions. its all really really kool. but only to me of course lol. =D
[/edit]
happy birthday mum!
today was so far quite a family-ish day. as in i spent the entire day with the family instead of going around doing my own stuff. & i harth having such a fantastic family so thanks God!
whee. so today i went to EXPO! im sure my dad burned lots of petrol driving all the way but it was all fun because the book fair ROCKED. & never underestimate my powers of estimation, because i said in the shopping list that splurging @ expo would be above 60, and LO AND BEHOLD i spent $62.20! whee! im broke. but ma subsidized a bit of it.
i got two sets of gulong - wu3 lin2 wai1 shi3 and bian1 cheng2 lang4 zi3. well the first set i've always wanted, and the second i've always heard a lot about the main characters so whee. & i also got a cai lan book because there's much gushing in taiwan about her too. oh and i got cd pockets and a cd file thingum. pa was nice & bought me a stamp thingum, as well as lovely lovely ink cartridges for e ever-dying printer! -hugs- and my mum got a chinese-english Bible and some Bible thingums for my sis. all quite kool.
AND MY GOSH there was this stand that SPECIALISED in jinyong. they had all the prettiful covers and they were positively droolable and aahhhh. so i asked the lady who was standing there looking over everything with a hawks eye harbouring a malicious glint (okay, so i am exaggerating, she was actually very teh nice) whether i could take photos of some of the jinyong book covers. and she looked very surprised but she said yes.
so i have 4 or 5 photos of nice covers stored away in my handphone! am planning to have them printed out nice and big so i can stick them all over my room. i think my mum would have objections though. ohh well!
afterwards we went to take a look @ e civil service club which is a 15 mins walk fr our house! (we're members) and its very funkeh indeed! cant wait for the tennis courts to be up. the bowling alleys are nice, they've 24! and of course the wave pool, the general pool is nice. plus although the layout is darnnit confusing, its also darnnit pretty because everythings like wood and rustic-ky.
speaking of tennis i managed to watch a bit of the pacific live open today, before going to expo! the match between baghdatis & rafael nadal, tis the quarter finals? & yesh. nadal really rawks larh his strength is incomparable and if one observes his arm muscles theyre so well defined its scary. has that vein thing. i dont know the outcome of the match, but surprisingly baghdatis was proving quite a worthy opponent. ohh well hopes nadal wins, he's amazing! =D and he likes orange, doesnt he. everytime i watch him play he's wearing orange.
yay dinner time! i da-baoed a nice big portion of indian rojak from our market. =D heh. then i'll go drool over my new books. and oh yes. i still havent done any homework due monday, or some of the homework thats overdue from before obs. doom.
- alena.
i was green-ed at 7:22 pm
Friday, March 17
which will only apply after i learn how not to spend all my money on food.
1. qi-jian-xia-tian-shan [wuxia drama, 39 episodes] $49.90
2. xian-jian OST $21.90
3. tchaikovsky's die jahreszeiten [english: the seasons. has 12 pieces, one for each month] $30.80
4. JS Bach's inventionen und sinfonien $13.20
5. answers and reasons - to questions regarding Christianity. $16.90
6. case for a creator $27.80
7. a new calculator though not entirely necessary $18
8. how to speak malay (yeah, im serious. im getting sick of being embarassed when people ask me about malay and im like sorry i only speak the very basics and they go BUT YOU'RE MALAYSIAN!) approx $30, i think.
9. renting the last ten episodes of zi-jin-zhi-dian $7
10. birthday cake for mum & dad $26
11. fort minor's album mike shinoda! $18.90
12. splurging @ the bookfair @ expo above $60
13. and if i can find these books, im willing to pay a LOT for them.
- sai4 wai4 qi2 xia2 zhuan5
- qi1 jian4 xia4 tian1 shan1
- bai2 fa4 mo2 nv3 zhuan5
- yun2 hai3 yu4 gong1 yuan2
feel my pain, people. especially combined with the fact that i get $100 a month, that the bookfair ends this sunday, and that my parents' birthdays have to be celebrated by this sunday. oh and how could i forget. if i wanted to i could spend the entire lot of my pocket money on food alone.
with much headache,
- alena.
i was green-ed at 9:38 pm
Thursday, March 16
anyways. i figured out my general taste for drinks today. i like hot tea, any flavour, any kind, blah blah and blah. includes chinese ones like longjing, and those herbal english ones with mango essence etc and whatnot, lipton and so on. & most definitely rotiprata shops' TEH TARIK & hawker centres' TEH! for coffee i only take cold. =D. & then i like water chestnut, sugarcane, lemonbarley, chinchow, and oh water of course.
so, that was just a completely irrelevant piece of information. but i really really harth tea. - insert image of old woman sipping tea from a china teacup with her pinkie up - heh.
today was e thing. e poetry workshop thingum @ grange road, teachers' network. nothing special, but i liked e poem "thoughtscapes singapore" its really funkeh. at least thats what i think. got rather inspired i think.
i mean i was never a poetry person, & today i sat down to read my past poems, a compilation of about er, five?! & they really make me cringe. the forced rhyming words, the depressing tone in four and a half out of the five poems, everything. it doesnt work for me anymore. but im JUST NOT A LIT PERSON so it all sucks very muchly. wish i could write decent prose or poetry. one of the two.
gah. ideas, people, ideas! i need to take lessons fr li-en.
& my gosh the christian bookshop in great world city is twice better than how i remembered it. the range of books is just so wide & everythings just so nice & i just feel like SPENDING but im all broke and feeling guilty because i spent it on cds. still. will IS good. and gosh he's really kool. but jj is so much love too!
seventeen-leaf-chlovers & seventeenhundred-degree-angles,
- alena.
i love the number 17. its so alluring, and so mysterious and like whee such a pretty perfect prime number.
i was green-ed at 7:34 pm
Wednesday, March 15
OBS! now i start.
DAY ONE 060306, Monday.
well i woke up @ e usual time, donned on e obs tshirt and my dads trackpants, & off to school i went! bringing w me lots of overdue homework which i managed to complete on sunday to hand up. heh. we gathered @ e LT, chatted for a bit, 310 & 311 were there, so we figured if we were mobile, we'd both be mobile, and same for resi.
SO anyways. the bus trip to punggol jetty was loads of fun! apart from jasmine attempting to molest liza and stuff. which was a bit disturbing. of course, nothing was taken seriously and suaku said i look auntie with my hairband! PFFFT.
we reached pulau ubin! & started getting sorted into groups. i was the first on the list to be called and to be present, and i was in BO SENG, oh trust me i was giggling like mad about e name. then after a while, sarah cheang and i realised that e people coming to boseng were from 310 and after 9 people ..... some strange unknowns came along!
we had our first circle w chiobu! or chew yien, to be more politically correct. e hostility between e 307ers and 310ers was fairly obvious. chiobu was like " why are you all quiet, look so sian " and someone from 307 said "because we're different class." so there, not a very good start. needless to say, i was relatively pissed off by that. but anyways.
we were shown around obs camp 1, then off to our bunks. which were a LOT better than expected. with nice mattresses, blankets, pillows, pillowcases, bedsheets. after much ado with packing our stuff nicely, cum chatting a bit, then eating, we started!
we had a map activity, chiobu sorted us into groups so we couldn't just stick with e ppl fr our class. it didnt actually succeed in bonding us, lol. trust fall! was very interesting. although i dont seem to be able to fall backwards straight. i remember doing it before a long time ago, but i never could. ahh well. cowardice. & we also had our group activity, the group to be standing behind a line, and a ball of twine a distance away fr us. we had to figure out the quickest way to get the ball of twine in a way so that everyone in the group would be touching it. we clocked 5 seconds, but chiobu said her record was 2. pah!
we also took our watch group photo, (which turned out not very good). afterwhich we learnt about wearing a harness, and belaying. then we had our first work-together with kurt, & found out their instructor was rather kool, wee how, his name is? so our first climbing thingum, just a log with metal staples sticking out. quite amusing, i was with yulin, melissa and baihui. i think, the same people in the group as the map activity.
we had a first-aid talk but that sucked. i didnt really take any of the advice in. like dark clothes to keep away this, bright clothes will attract these but keep these away. gah. its better to let go & stop worrying! then we had supper (YES WE EVEN HAVE SUPPER, who ever said OBS was a torture camp? but then i think us resi people have waaaay the best deals.) which was red bean soup and that was awesome. totally warming & stuff. also got a nice shower!
DAY TWO 070306, Tuesday.
started the day with PT. which was interesting. the flagraising was strange lol, literally just flag raising with no anthem-singing and pledge-chanting. and PT involved lots of stretching, warm-up exercises, a rather short jog, plus a couple of pushups and crunches. not exactly very tiring, but it wakes one up.
had our first height element thingum! the external rock wall, the one outside the MPH. naturally we separated into 7ers and 10ers again, taking the two halves of the wall we were assigned. congrats to all those who reached the top and conquered the horrible part which i got stuck in! i guess i shouldve stayed there and continued on, i've no idea why i came down anyways. partly because time was running short, partly because i was just like AIYAH ITS JUST A WALL I CAN DO IT ANYTIME FOR THREE BUCKS AT TANJONG PAGAR. anyhow. can't say i was tired, because i seriously wasn't. sarah, when she saw me coming down was like "are you tired? because you dont look tired @ all." whee i have stamina! actually, thanks for jasmine dear for being such a fantastic belayer. the wall was quite kool, as jas says, i've never tried a wall w e actual rock gradients. only e ones with sticking out blobs of colourful plastic.
then it was backpack carrying! aside fr stuffing all my stuff into my bag, i stuffed in about 7 cans of can food (YES ITS HEAVY.) and 20 tentpegs (OH YES THOSE ARE HEAVY TOO) so the weight nearly murdered my shoulders. but it was just for a short distance anyways, we heaped them off into a speedboat, where they'd be then transported to obs camp 2 for us.
so we learnt to kayak! something i've never had any experience in. and our capsize practice. while we were kayaking there initially to do our capsize practice, jasmine and i started paddling and all right, then someone from kurt came in from our left so we steered to our right, but then another gust of water came along and so we capsized. w/o any forehand knowledge that we were going to. twas rather amusing, & not a very good foresight of my kayaking skills. (jasmine has experience.)
SO WE KAYAKED TO CAMP 2! with no injuries, i think. and no capsizes, woot! i still think i really suck @ kayaking. but anyways. jas lost her patience with me quite a few times. but ahh.
we got a nice place to put our bags down in camp 2. but that was the only use for the place, we had to built our barshas! which is smth similar to a tent, but basically a big sheet of canvas in an inverted v shape above the ground, with groundsheets for us to lie on inside. so a tent with airspace. a lot of it, actually but anyhow, not the point.
camp 2 was nice, there were toilets and stuff, but i just took a powder bath and it felt so darn good okay. thanks to jayne for lending me the powder! never expected powder baths to feel just like a shower. whee.
sarah, joanna and annie cooked our dinner for us! (we got GIANT rations okay, so much food, seriously.) which was great, maggi with sardines and chicken curry. & that was all nice but not very filling, and we still had lots of food to lug around. SIGH. but they're great cooks! the rest of us built the barshas, but the sad thing is that the 7ers took one and the 10ers took one. chiobu tried to change that but it didnt work, unfortunately. it was also freezing during the night, im so glad chiobu suggested taking our ponchos to use as blankets because i was really freezing, especially as i was @ the side, with my whole body to the open side of the barsha.
sarah says everytime she wakes up, im awake. which is interesting. i never knew im that light a sleeper, i just know that when i sleep in a group, once somebody wakes up, i automatically do too. ahh well. but that day was prob only kuz i was freezing my arse off.
DAY THREE 080306, Wednesday.
the giant hike. today was the apparently ultra tiring day but it was a great day for me seriously. after breakfast, which was bread and coffee buns, OFF WE WENT!
we had to find 3 checkpoints, then go to ubin village, ubin resort, and e highest point in ubin. be aware that we're still carrying our terribly heavy backpacks, with slight modification because we packed up everything again! so, whilst switching navigators throughout, we chufa-ed!
first checkpoint was led by felicia, yulin, and someone i forgot. oops. anyways we walked for quite a short distance, then we had to follow a small trail off e main route. after much fuss & backtracking & re-checking, we finally found the sign hanging on a tree! with a famous quotation. i think obs rawks, the use of quotations, they all seem to fit w e situation. whee. & i harth quotations myself.
then the next walk! jayne & two someones navigated, i forgot TOO. wheesh. feels stupid. anyways, this one was direct, they're wonderful navigators we just walked, into a small trail, and were told to put down our backpacks and go off to search! i found it entirely by accident, saw this path which seemed trodden off into the trees, so i was like, okay lets try here, and when i got up and turned, on a giant tree, there was the obs sign. whee! pats myself.
the third one, jasmine annie and i became navigators, but jas did most of the work. i felt we were taking too many breaks in between so was like " we'll only rest after finding the third obs sign and then we'll have our lunch!" this one took ages and a LOT of backtracking because we mapped the coordinates wrongly (SORRY!) but we eventually found it thanks to wonderful accidents, cheers to chaiping!
lunch was tuna and bread. not too bad.
then was a long walk to ubin resort, much further away. we took two breaks in between, which i also felt were excessive, because with each break i believe people got more tired. but we made our way to the resort, which had nothing much! but was quite amusing anyways. then the highest point of ubin, which i dont regret going to.
the view was amazing okay, the quarry was shining aquamarine from our view. it was really calming, and with the light breeze, you really feel like one of those SIA ladies on the playing cards, you know the ones where a stewardess would stand on a cliff and the wind would ruffle her hair and she'd look all pretty and her uniform would tighten around her showing off her fab figure. anyways. my point is, one feels wonderful there.
then we were given a time limit to reach another quarry by. we managed it and for our 'prize' we were allowed to go for a dip in it! which was fantastic, acted sort of like a shower for us. we learnt the art of spitting water from wee how, but unfortunately joanna & i simply cant do it. we end up spouting water relatively unsuccessfully and it sortof drips off instead of spraying out. lol disgusting indeed.
then the walk to the campsite! we managed not to break but it was really tiring, especially after the dip in the quarry. sigh.
BUT WE FINALLY STARTED TO BOND. yes! we all left to either cook or build barshas. & guess what, we connected our two brashas, so we'd all sleep together instead of 7 in one and 9 in the other, separated by class! that really rawked okay. & we cooked lots of noodles mushrooms anchovies etc and that was all really good. & oh campbell vegetable soup which was nice too!
there was a residential wild boar we were warned against. it managed to take off with a loaf of bread i think, but after that we wrapped up our food and hung it up on our tree. we were also told to bury our leftover food in the beach (our campsite was at the north of ubin, opposite e johor shore) but because we were all too lazy to, we ended up scraping til the bottoms of our mess tins and pot, finishing the food. WOOTS!
then we had a circle with chiobu where we actually played TRUTH OR DARE. gosh lol. bu that was fun. chiobu said she doesnt have a boyfriend, but according to people from boonshi, their instructor boonwee has a girlfriend who's a fellow instructor & comes from nanyang girls and has a chinese name so everyone's pointed glances are in chiobu's direction, lol.
there was no toilet, so yep, peeing in the bushes/sand. very interesting indeed. changing behind ponchos, too. night was okay, we did SENTRY DUTY! joanna, sarah, jayne and i combined so four of us stayed up for 1 hr 40 mins, but when it came to jayne's and my turn, after a while, the three of them fell asleep (HARRUMPH) so i was left to do duty all alone. sobs. well not exactly. the dhanabalan ppl were there too, with cheronne, liza & melissa sng. harths those fantastic people! liza gave out speculoos =D and i shared a muesli bar w cheronne dear.
we didnt talk much, but i really loved the surroundings there. from across the shore, you could hear the muslim chantings and they were beautiful, especially from across the sea. some said it was eerie, but amidst the eerieness it was truly amazing, matched with the chantings of the monks/nuns from ubin itself. there was apparently even indian karaoke from malaysia too. bu that wasnt too obvious to me @ the time. then the night crickets, leaves rustling. the quietness is fabulous, & i love e darkness that settles itself on me. apart from the flashes of the torches of the sentry, its just darkness and still trees.
" i reckon when the darkness is close to us it is a friend. But when we sorter push it away from us - divorce ourselves from it, so to speak, with lantern light - it becomes an enemy. " - Captain Jim, Anne's House of Dreams.
wahahaha okay fourth and fifth day will be recounted in the next entry because im geting bored of typing this all out!
i was green-ed at 10:49 am
Tuesday, March 14
well m'sia rawked as usual, kuantan is teh love & all my cousins are absolutely wunnderful!
so obs. havent much to say about it, i dont think im boliao enough to post the entire list of what happened. itinerary, its called? yeah. but i cant spell the word, nevermind. but it really rawkedass larh. especially the hiking day.
when everyone was exhausted etc, and then we finally sortof bonded! and the seveners really rawk okay. it was so kool, joining the two brascha thingums so we all slept together! loads of fun. and meeting all those amazing people like chaiping! and melissa, baihui, etc etc. wheesh.
okay thats it for now. yeah, im lazy to type. and I HARTH MY NEW LAPTOP!
i was green-ed at 10:25 pm
Sunday, March 5
although im lost about whether to bring jay or boonhian. jay's my (soft toy) pig and boonhian's my (soft toy) cow. so cute! i know its rather bimbo and stupid to bring pigs and cows along for a roughing-out-and-learning-independence camp, but i'll miss them so badly. sniffs.
so. help me choose.
but afore that, my inventory;
1) Bible! and the Lent devotional book.
2) 4 sets of clothes
3) toothbrush toothpaste shampoo soap
4) rope and torchlight
5) lighter
6) spare glasses
7) extra shoes for water
8) towel
9) deodorant and sunscreen and mosquito repellant
10) plastic bags
11) swiss knife
12) 2 pairs of socks
13) plasters for that disgusting blister on my right foot which i got fr wearing court shoes for the performance yesterday. dargh.
14) wallet and with it, cash.
15) 2 mugs, one for jas and the other for me.
16) BOONHIAN or JAY??
17) notebook and pens, and NYAA booklet.
i was green-ed at 9:29 pm
Wednesday, March 1
the feeling of inadequacy is eating at me again. i think it comes together with the 'overachieving' streak, which has somehow been found from within the marrows of my bones. it was lost for, i dont know, almost four years? and now its here again. grrrsh.
but the fact is, overachieving four years ago is nothing compared to what it is now. when i try to work hard @ something, i see people beating me effortlessly. when i don't study at all, i see the muggers beat me. and i dont know which feeling is worse.
yeah. how pratty and pissifying, i know. anyways. i talked to swayn about this whole overachiever streak thingum, and she said she'd pray for me and all. thanks darl. i've been praying a lot for this already, like how to put God more first in my life than caring about my grades, but well. i guess i need more help!
whooph. was talking to jayne and jasmine as we pranced along orchard today. decided that jack neo should really film a movie about students in top schools instead of the normaltech students or whatever. kuz the fact is, while people have plenty of sympathy for the so-called underdogs, they only know how to set expectations for us. and think that we're stuckup prats.
i mean, i've been i dont know how to say, teased and pai-d by even CHURCH people for being a nanyang girl. like its a permanent label. nanyang girl. fact is there's about FIVE nanyang people in our church so i dont see the big deal.
they also dont realise that it is, in fact, people from good secondary schools that have the lower self-esteem. same issue as the whole gep thingum. goodness.
read jasmine's post, about bsp and her rants. i agree with a part of it - that we should be judged on a subject by passion, not marks.
anyways, lotsa people are starting to pick up drums/guitar! hahahaha is reminded of yciss yr 9 days. a great deal of fun indeed. but i dont get the craze, that is, it seems like a passing fad. i know its a horrible thing to say, but yeah, thats just it. the only person i've seen so far who really really seems to care would be jasmine. yeah, her. with the kind of reqing that is found when a person has been useless all his life suddenly finds something he's good at, and he pursues it with all his energy. and he excels. whee!
does playing the drums or guitar really make a person any kooler? because i dont see that.
anyhowdies. thank you muchly lynette! for helping me think of a topic to write about lol. harths. except i dont really know how to go around doing it, but ahh well.
- refiner's fire, my heart's one desire, is to be holy, set apart for you.
i was green-ed at 9:24 pm