"Date, or date not -- there is no 'let's just friends be'."

*snigger*

plato's republic (or rather on the just) is a damn good book. ironically it's because he was so absolutist that we have this book. he couldn't see the grey areas for the...um..black and white? speaking of which [and with the arrogant blind confidence of the adolescent], i now believe that for the basics in life there are no absolutes, but absences. like dark is the absence of light, evil the absence of good etc ["good men do evil by not stopping evil"] but on a higher level, there are absolutes. like the idea of yinandyang (absolutes) versus absences - you can believe in one or the other, but not both. so there's your absolute. or you could be greedy like me and believe in both but qualify them. speaking of qualifiers i should probably note that i'm only on book 2 of his republic and so probably not qualified to voice out stuff or opinions on the book but what the hell.

i think it was the early morning run and the piano.

MAY THE FARM BE WITH YOU!! HAHAHAHAHAHH GOLD!!!

zouk was interesting. phuture has better music though. the para para moves on the podium was hilarious. a horde of 15 or so people on the centre doing para para moves all at the same time is NUTS.

am also very dry. i <3 vodkaredbull. still missing. this is ridiculous.

now this is really what blogging is about. its about all these people dying to let others know about their little secrets that common (and i do mean common) society deems unfit/not polite/too smug/too self-centric to reveal. it's like hiding your cancer pills in plain view when people come over so they can notice and make a fuss over you and then you can play the tragic hero[ine] and revel in their pity and concern. and this canker in you just keeps growing, the need to be noticed keeps crying out, and you keep posting and posting.

it's all fake really. but it's addictive. just like downloading music off the internet.

music of the moment - savage garden - i want you
mood of the moment - ironic, really, what i'm listening to.

“CAPACITOR!” said a tree and blew up.

social circles social circles like windmills thr[e/a]shing you out from golden tall wheat to faint soft flour bone-white and blowing in the direction of each and every wind that puffs your way, unable to determine your life and unable to admit to anyone about anything.

AAUWMAGAWD so tragic! raikkonen's one lap loss...suspension failure! like hakkinen's 100m-before-the-line failure...ze paaaaiinn..

hehe the renault pit crew are amusing-cute. when massa went into the gravel they put their hands over their eyes...

nooooo the lions-allblacks match is on the 4th! i'll be in camp! GWARRRRGH.

wow class outing fun. but waking up to rama's (class teacher) practical joke isn't funny, especially when it says "i've talked to mrs chan [our P] and we've decided to suspend the whole class for 4 weeks starting monday. so for 4 weeks you're not to show your face in school, understand?"

NOT best thing to wake up to.

spent more time travelling around than doing stuff.

...there again. should i use my invisibility for good or evil?

heh 23-0. justin really goes nuts on the pitch, there's no other word to describe it at all. and jon yap was playing. he kicks ok yah.

had 4/12 class dinner after that. quite fun :D

very shagged. running at 11am is kinda draining, but i think it's also the rugby.

...and i'd give up forever to touch you
'cause i know that you feel me somehow...

would you believe people put up signs advertising "mathematics olympiad gifted education programme" for your kids? it's like they're plonking everything they can get in there in order to gain the business. all they lack is the IB programme.

but what makes it pretty sad is that people actually fall for these things.

on another note, banner painting be fun :D

"son, can you play me a memory,
i'm not really sure how it goes.
but 'twas sad, and was sweet and i knew it complete
when i wore a younger man's clothes."

a pile up on the chicane, a great bun fight finish, amazing leads, but the best bit were the stormtrooper outfits :D

speaking of which, ep 3 was quite fun. especially with the debate people and making fun of ben's royal guard outfit. nearly went clubbing but they dont accept student passes now :|

did you know mr rama took part in the big walk? MWAHAHAHAHAHH....

i think i'm too cynical. and i think i'm also very idealistic. what a contradiction. i'm most definately bifurcated (probably).

i'm hundred today!

i'm not making sense, am i...

slashdotdashdotdashdotdashdotslashdotdashdotdashdotcom

i have just eaten a banana cake so dense it could sink a ship. it's sitting in my stomach like a bowling ball and it takes a lot of effort to stay upright :|

on another culinary note, i have discovered an ancient relic: a jar of horlicks. considering i've not drunk horlicks since 4 years ago or more, i'm inclined to treat this like malt death.

music of the moment - bruce springsteen - streets of philadelphia

i'm very tired of myself...

wth. i have a 404 error from hotmail. claerly teh pwnt.

let it be so.

brother has brought back the "holy grail". it's a tub of hello panda, all 450g of it. think twisties or cheezballs kinda cardboard tube thing. i am happy :D mine!!! *runs from brothers*

hey, i take em where i can get em.

well, he's gone. do you know how hard it is to say goodbye, how hard it is to force yourself to see your friends name on the bright red tickertape scrolling across, telling you which hall he is in? you go up to class, thinking it's normal, you see every teacher there, your class teachers, your principal and vp, and you think, shit, what's wrong? did we do something wrong as a class? did a teacher complain about us? and then she starts talking and you think, no, no, not this, no, why am i crying, why do i feel like something's horribly horribly wrong, what now and then she says it and all you can say is "oh fuck" in this small voice and bow your head to the table and think of the friend you knew, the one who ate recess with you, who gave you encouragement and support and strength and made you laugh and you made him laugh and now he's gone.

i miss you. a lot. and i miss you more, because you're never coming back, at least not in the way that i know. i wish...for many things, all of them futile now. but we will all remember, in our own ways. we're keening pain, but i hope you knew. and even if you did, can you absolve us all? futile wishes galore - i hope i never have to deliver that again, to fight for control before i go up there and mumble platitudes that can't deliver, not ever, the things i want to say, that probably sound fake the minute i say them. so yeah. i hope you're where you always wanted to be now, and i hope you make peace with yourself.

2SB22005 forever[insofaraswecanwewill,ihope]

i was goign through my old chat logs to find an elusive video about 2 men and a piano and guess what i came across...:
bzzzzZZZZZZZPOW
our chem teacher would never condone this
NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON because IRC is just multiplayer notepad.

feet treading the deep path inwards, holding a yellow flower, wondering what to say when i reach the end of the pilgramage for someone i never knew but should..

solongandthanks!forallthefissshhh...

looks like they be having lucasfilm problems with the l33+ video

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. why the FUCK does this happen to me. i dont i dont WANT to be people's burdens, but i am. and yet i want to shoulder all their burdens, i want to make the pain go AWAY, i dont want to make them cry before they sleep even though it kills me. i've turned them all away, i've fucking hurt them all, and i dont know how to stop it i dont know i dont want to play this game any more take it all AWAY. but i want everything to stay the same, the pieces to stay the same pieces, the pipe dream to remain a reality, no matter how faint.
can you make the pain go away, to dry the tears and stop the hurt. i'll take your burden from you if you want me to [even if it'll kill me].

can you give me a certainty, that you wont kill yourself by the time i get there?

third time's the charm, apparently. argh.

on a side note, i've been asked (no, ordered) to spread the word by the powers that be in comics mart in serene that aaron chong is present. for those who watch eye for a guy on those late late wednesday nights (i'm sorry, i dont.), yes, -the- aaron chong. for those who don't, click here. the powers that be expect a horde descending on their poor shop (or if not, they will have confimation as to why the horde is not descending on their poor shop) sometime soon, so girls, you know what to do ;p

he looks better in real life, i must admit.

it takes two to tango. i cannot do it alone.

yet again, my belief in a tokenistic method of governance has been almost irrefutably bolstered (i have to stop using qualifiers and quantifiers). they give us a morning talk show on "teenagers are mollycoddled, spoilt, pampered, ill-equipped to deal with the real world and selfish and etcetc" yes. but we talk about so many things we never really deal with "are they really all these things". i dunno. sounds like beuracracy to meeeeee(maggiemaggiemaggie)...

on a side note, i now have 5 white mice at home in addition to 1 dog, 2 hamsters and 3 brothers. what a zoo.

eyes trace the contours, sketchily and yet sculpted like michaelangelo's masterpiece. quiet, subtle appreciation from an inimitable, unimaginable distance. warm tracery - so near and yet so far away - a touch, a breath, and life comes in all its smouldering swarthy glory.

"but he doesn't say a f-----' word, you know. just goes upstairs to his room, locks the door, and lays down on his bed." -stephen king, the body

3319. yes i'm bored.

i conclude that religion is selfish. naturally, i start from the back, the gut instinct, the feeling that someone somewhere will read this and flay me for it. and the end is also the reason why i think it's selfish. i should probably include a caveat here, to say that not all of religion is selfish and stuff like that (i actually do, but fundamentalists will never believe it anyway so why bother.)

when i say selfish, i mean the idea of self, me, mine, numero uno, my own me personality, me myself and my ego. strangely many religions believe in a "self-after-life", the fact that one oneself and one's ego still persists when one dies. which is strange in religions preaching society above self and god above all. don't you become one with the divine, one with the whole (in)effable plan? why the necessity for the persistence of self? then again, do you remain yourself in heaven or the afterlife? do we become happy mindless automatons content with doing good singing praises saying prayers meditating playing harps? fine, that's not self, but that's not an afterlife one can be happy with.

no wonder the world's getting secular, and people are falling away from their faith quietly, subtly, like a shadow of a moth on the ceiling just before it is devoured.

then again, religion is also the worship of the essence of society, it's values, beliefs, norms, culture (what an anachronism. it doesn't hold real meaning in this globalised world of pontification communication (and excommunication) and cultural crosswinds that travel with the tradewinds). religion can justify society, can hold up society, can tear down society, but ultimately it can define and be a society. so we worship a society, the society we believe it. we can pick and choose from the 80 billion or more societies in the world (each one inside each little bit of humanity but oh so amazing that humanity can sometimes be lacking), and yet in the end doesn't that mean we worship ourselves? selfjustification. just like attributing all wondrous things to god and leaving no room for humanity to even have a chance to prove itself.

for the sake of ms.j, lets just give a balanced side of this [tokenistic though it may seem with my current status quo]. religion can be good. such a powerful force is like a gun - good in the right hands, bloody hell if not. religion does save those who want to be saved, it does provide purpose for the aimless and it is the reason for many [i forget the end of this sentence. fill it in yourself. you can probably do it better.]. i wouldn't prescribe three dosages of it and call-me-in-the-morning, because if you don't believe it'll just kill you from the inside. so this is why i'm not comfortable around the seriously deeply religious who attribute everything to god [and i do mean everything, sometimes] because i'd like to think i give humanity a chance, or at least the benefit of the doubt.

and here i am doing what i accuse religion of doing, taking the moral high ground in order to point out how sucky we are so that it can feel good. [how hypocritical.] but then, i never tried to take all the moral high ground, just a little bit of it. [selfjustification.] whatever.

this is what you get for waking up in bible sharing at the wrong moment. cynicism can be a pain. so can lack of sleep.

i know this is a bit late, but heck. fun stuff.

doo, doo doo dadadaa daa doodoodoodoop doodoop doodoop doop

now this is somewhat scary. its on realplayer, goto 48:30.

on a side note, i have rediscovered tom lerher again. WHEEE!!!

mood of the moment - pacifical. in every sense of the word
music of the mo[o]ment - tom lerher - the hunting song

..you just stand there looking cute,
and when something moves, you shoot...

all the cows are gone....:(

on a side note, have effectively taken self out of training for a while thanks to tendon being sprained for a month at least.

still not over it all...

all the cows are gone....:(

on a side note, have effectively taken self out of training for a while thanks to tendon being sprained for a month at least.

still not over it all...

i'm bouncing from blog to blog like a random puffball blown by eddy currents. too much has changed. i should, i guess, but there's a certain charm in not changing.

heeheehee. we have a pink cow now.

started when we were driving back home, and realised that there were significantly less cows in the field than there were before. so we decided to get ours that night. what's amusing is that we worried over being seen and caught and worked out escape routes and stuff and many, many excuses until we got there. we piled out of the car, jumped the fence...and what do we see but a fellow cow stealer trotting along the roadside toting a pink cow on his head.

we kinda gave up on secrecy at that point.

and we ended up stuffing 2 cows in the car (mom refused to get more than one :( ) and giving him a lift home. turns out he was planning to walk nearly a third of 6th ave with a cow on his head :| how daring.

i <3 cow. want an orange one too.

you know how they go out in the us at night and go cow tipping??

heheheheheh....

i just saw the pictures. and i couldnt not cry.

today is link day. therefore:
kitties and stunts.
l337 517h
black knnnniiggget!

mwahahah. today, we see the briefed, true side of our glorious military. in the now misconstrued and deliberately twisted words of a self-proclaimed "glorious opposition" acting in the absence of one, we see they have admitted to spying (what a shock! and such a trusting world we live in! so much for civilisation), deliberately choosing the winning side (which begs the question/situation of whether we'll pull a kerry once in a while on global issues [ok so i'm being mean. ish.]), positive (affirmative action people! only not institutionalised! so they say!) and negative (lets waffle until i see your eyes glaze over and then pretend i answered your question, okay?) discrimination! shock and horror! or maybe not. i suppose he is telling the truth, insofar as he can, and some of it could possibly (shock and horror again!) be true. certainly they sound sensible. we probably should not have put him on the spot. i mean, of course making a value judgement on the united states is so much more taboo than making one on china. and we should waffle on homosexuals - it makes it so much harder to hide our assumptions otherwise.

unsurprisingly,
[and this is a happy link word to link two disparate paragraphs together]

i have never really felt patriotism. or rather, (i should qualify), i have never felt school spirit. i dont know if i will, or what i'm feeling now is school spirit, but it's probably the closest i'll come to it. it's kind of hard to distance your friends from your school/group when you're all running under the same banner, so when you cheer them on you cheer on the school as well because that's what we're all bursting our hearts and lungs for.

and it hurts so badly to see them suffer through themselves that you really really want to take it all away and stop the pain they're putting themselves through but you can't because this self-scarring is one they have to come to terms with themselves and all you can do is be there for them. and you can't take it away because you have no right to, none at all, and this really is something that you shouldn't interfere in. is this pity or empathy? i'd rather the latter. i'd hesitate to use the four letter word (l---) and f-----ship (fill in the blanks, buy a vowel!) because some things are easily misconstrued and you'd -never- hear the end of it. but if a symptom of this is protectiveness, then yes. i love my friends.

i dont remember if i've posted this already, but it's freaking hilarious.

on a side note, my mom has resorted to asking me her credit card number so she doesnt have to refer to it when she has to write it down. don't even talk about lazy (>Þ); i don't even spend that much!

it happened twice, a week apart, same place, same damn situation :| and somehow everyone knows but me, but that's to be expected i suppose.

so, no worries.

time to post more often

..higher now, in the sky, you make me feel like i can fly, so high

elevation

mood of the moment - musing.
music of the moment - u2 - elevation

cool stuff. for free, too.

"..we will open this issue to public debate, but there will be no referendum..."

well, i'll be. isn't this surprising. just like us to offer "freedom" and sneakilysneakily curtail it through red tape and behind-the-back actions that are in plain view. no wonder we're apathetic

Your Discworld character by anglepoiselamp
Name
Favourite Discworld novel
Race	Antropomorphic personification
Birthyear	Year of Sarcastic Eggplant
Residing place	Terror Incognita
Once in Ankh-Morpork you met	Foul Old Ron
...who gave you	a stick and a bucket
...and you said:	Millennium hand and shrimp!
Quiz created with MemeGen!

heeheehee...

well, chinese new year was fun. most of it was spent helping out at the (plant) nursery selling pots and plants...the people there are nice. it's actually quite an eye-opener, working in the service industry. you learn how to deal with people and vultures (i.e. those who come at the last minute looking for bargains because "you're gonna have to clear the stock at midnight when chinese new year starts"), and maan, do i have stories about vultures. the twins were quite fun...and it's interesting when you first see them - they really do look alike. hard to believe they're already working...them looking like army boys and all. then again, a lot of the guys i know are in army, so maybe its just me. that aside, the reactions of people to see females pottering around carrying pots is quite amusing. for example, i get asked if i'm someone's sister. i say no. then, "are you his wife?"

yeeek. interesting thought, but no. i'm too young for this sorta thing.

actually, come to think about it, that was my chinese new year: selling pots and plants. the rest of it was the usual whirlwind of visiting, although the party on the first day was fun. what with 5 girls going out on an ice-buying trip because the poor guy just asked everyone along the path to the door to come buy ice. we probably made him nervous. i do know his driving was a bit more jerky than usual. and one of them is an rjc gp teacher, heheh.

bleah. and now's the time to buckle down to work. yeesssh.

i told myself i was on a self-destruct sequence and it sounded so esoteric and meaningful and wise and literature-y that i thought it might be a nice thing to post (note post, not write) on the blog. then i realised it was called life, and felt that this made it was even more so so i did.

then i felt foolish and like a pretentious ass.

so i did it anyway.

it just hit me how those "type in these confirmation codes so that we can verify through magical psychic powers that you aren't an alien/spambot/technologically impaired sod that wants to post a random comment on this blog" things that livejournal has are so, so evil to dyslexic people. the dots and warped and misaligned letters simply do not help people who have difficulty figuring out the difference between a c and a d, much less the position of the letters...

pokepoke.

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

due to an unfortunte misclick, i have lost all my contacts for the upteenth time. feel free to pile misfortune on me, and please do let me know your numbers, because i have no idea who you people are. again.

AAAARRRGH.

ooh and i probably have your outdated numbers.

#*%Y@(^

Conservatives Pick Soft Target: A Cartoon Sponge

i dont know if you can see this article, but it seems that spongebob has replaced harry potter as the root of all evil, or at least the insidious brainwashing of thousands of kids. because spongebob was used in a video to promote "tolerance", apparently conservative christian groups included "tolerance of sexual identity" under that ambit. "according to one spokesman for the conservative christian group: "We see the video as an insidious means by which the [We Are Family Foundation, not the We Are Family gay and lesbian group] is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids," they know he's gay because "he holds hands with his animated sidekick Patrick and likes to watch the imaginary television show "The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy."

wth. spongebob evil, spongebob must die.

if we turned our attention from these rediculous accusations and petty pickings, we'd probably be more productive.

i'll probably get flamed for this. whatev.

on the way back in the cab, the song playing on 95.0 was oddly appropriate to what rah and i were discussing. tragedy strikes in waves, and leaves you floundering to avoid the riptide that threatens to wash you away in the aftermath. and now it's playing fragile by sting and all you want to do is forget but you can't, because it'd be a dishonour. you may not know them, but if you are human and i hope to god you still are in this era of brutality and insensitivity, you'd grieve too.

its alright i'm ok
i think god can explain

amusing quotes from little kids:

1. elaine's 2 year old precocious girl is playing with her toy farm, and the rest of us are eating. after a while we hear "little pig, little pig, let me come in, little pig, little pig, let me come in..." over and over again. so elaine asks "so what did the little pig say?"

"cannot!"


2. everyone's eating tea discussing brother being the shortest boy of his secondary school class, the only shorter one being a girl. so other brother reminisces that he used to be the third shortest in his class in acsi. original brother:

"were you the shortest boy?"

that one never thinks before speaking...

you're just a one liner at the end of a paragraph.

...all they see is the facade. they don't notice the people behind the bars, the blood behind the window, the tears behind the mask.


and it's better that way.

lesson from yesterday at city hall mrt. if you are going to wait for people within the ticket barrier and look out for them by peering down at the stairs in the belief that you can spot them in the bleeding multitudes that issue forth from that gaping maw, do not wear a short skirt. if you do, wear shorts underneath (with reference to school uniforms, though that will probably not be a problem). denim skirts that have problems extending to mid-thigh are a no-no. then again, if you are actually wearing that kinda thing, you probably wouldnt mind the attention. no, i'm being mean.

well now they seem to have resolved it. good grief. we do more dangerous and stupid things at home, from climbing out onto the roof to romping around storm drains, scuffling and outright brawling. pity the poor kid whose parent wrote in. i'll bet the warning is purely tokenistic.

anyone else read the taupok letter? come on, jc just isnt the same without the rough play, the pain and the black eyes. and, oh yes. a thousand kilos of bodies on your poor spine that is lying flat on the ground. your guts are in more danger. even our teachers get taupoked.

i'm sorry, i just find it horribly amusing that parents would be (undertandably) horrified that their delicate kids are getting taupoked even though worse happens through people running through corridors and playing rugby or basketball. and taupok isnt the half of it.

wow. i last posted a month ago. how shocking.

in any case, i've changed from happy-going-to-whistler to oh-crap-i'm-gonna-die. i mean, my position in life and with regards to Knowledge of Topics and Subjects is under Woefully Inadequate, capitals, warts and all. maybe it can get up to Barely Passable or at least Vaguely Uncertain, but i can't see past that. heh. in any case, expect posts every 2 months i think. considering my post frequency.

diploma achieved. landed (with) lrsm. will die. 'nuff said. moving on.

have also discovered bonnie pink, a jap artist. not bad.

have also discovered catharsis. it's quite good. i recommend it to anyone.

TOO MANY THINGS!!!

oh, before i forget. would you believe in living history? the refugees we met were kmt members who came over from china during the purge, fought with the shan rebels against the drug lords and are now refugees from burma. i met a sargeant, and he speaks "kmt chinese", or rather, mandarin with a strong accent, possibly from yunnan. and many of the refugees come from yunnan. it's really fascinating.

i miss the kids, though.

on an unrelated note, a strange (as in unfamiliar) indian man talked to me on the train. considering what he was doing before that, i am highly disturbed. ok, maybe strange as in the other way too.

YAARG.UGH.

so i'm back from thailand. and gods the first damn thing i do is run 21.1 km. joy of joys, i feel so accomplished. well, i would if my knees wouldn't stop hurting. as it is, i just feel like crap, especially my knees. they feel like they're popping out sideways.

in any case, the trip's been interesting. already i miss the orphans. if they've taught me anything, its that now i can laugh more. dont sweat the small stuff. piggybacks are always appreciated. communication transcends words. not to say that learning a bit helps. i can now count to 100 in thai (marvellous accomplishment, that. thai sounds like a mix between hokkien [mostly], cantonese and malay). its simply amazing, their independance and tenacity, and how they cooperate. i dont think a 2 year old toddler in singapore will be able to fall down in the mud, toddle down a 50 degree slope, wash self and come back up to play more soccer. it'd probably cry itself silly.

and the bonding was fun. i really liked the group that went up. coke-rum is highly amusing, to say the least. and my wrists still smell of jpg and l'oreal (i think) perfume. it's been good.

i saw shooting stars!! *happy*

when i pixellate my thoughts, they never come out right

22k. 22 f***ing k. so painful.

and i shall be away helping refugees and orphans up north (no, further north) so will not be around until the 4th. night. and will run on the 5th. morning. diediediediedie.

every body needs to know.

la da da da da da da...

woohoohoohoo! PLAY THIS!! unless you're having exams. in which case, DON'T.

if you want more go FUNKY.

THIS is why you should buy/not buy non-pirated games, depending on your view.

so i'm running down portsdown road feeling crappy because i've snot flowing down the nasal passage and phlegm coming up the throat and suffocating the mouth (yug.) somehow or the other my ankle gives way. now this has happened before - i get lucky, flow with the fall and just end up with a temporary pain. so i figure its the same thing. WRONGO. have been hobbling around ntu with leg in wrap. yesterday was CRAP. today better. tomorrow, who knows? pfft.

now have 2 weeks of sitting down to do. if i havent fractured something. if you get back and tell your mom you twisted your ankle and she says "serves you right", it gives you this feeling of utter solidarity and happiness with your fellow men.

on the other hand, had fun with soldering iron today. even soldered hair. wheee. now finger is sore from drilling and scraping off copper from solderboard thing. but soldering is fun. unless you burn yourself. which, klutz that i am, i promptly did.

i am a walking mucus machine. how can one nose produce so much snot?!?!

in other words, i have discovered that the ability of the mouth to multitask is severely limited by your nose. talking and eating is fine. talking and breathing is fine. breathing and eating isn't. obviously breathing, eating and talking isn't.

needless to say i nearly suffocated during dinner.

as of tonight, i have taken no less than 4 different types of medicine. my table is so full of tissue paper i can't even find my volume control. someone called up and thought i was my brother. i have pw tomorrow, and i'm a walking chemical factory. joy of joys. and it's cold.

don't we all love to pity ourselves.

am pissed at results. ok, i'm pissed at me.

but am not too bad off because finally found the funky soundtrack. so i think i've saved myself from eternal damnation.

i'm running on empty, and this is my will, because it feels like the last thing i'll ever write. you know you're tired when you cannot take even the littlest things, when a disappointment can mean a battle with tears that you are on the brink of losing, and a loss of your humanity. not the humanity of compassion, that is something you must never lose (but still do, at some point), but the humanity of yourself, the little bit that makes you you. the walking death lives, it does, and you know it. society says elsewise we are changing the system, changing it such that no one will ever feel pain, the burden of work, the pressure to conform, the depth of death and the meaning of life. kahlil gibran got it right, and the only other one i have ever seen to understand is orson scott card. how do you think ender felt, destroying the enemy he loved? how do you feel, when the enemy is you? and all thise while i understood, really understood, but the sham that i am (the suess that i was) knows i left that long ago.

i grew up, i guess. no more playing in gardens with the sun, waiting for the prince and the plum to come up from the depths of the pool, carried by two copper orbs that blinked at me and waited for my response. to kiss or not to kiss, and i chose the path less travelled. it made the difference. regret? i think not. i forgot the sun, the moon and the stars in my hubris - it is hubris now, that i write this. it was the pride that scoffed at my fall, and it was the broken relics that i picked up from the bottom of the cliff, where elijah cast me for failing them (he held not his hands - his sons ran away to the battle and both fell, and for that he cast his staff out, no more, no more.). the passage to the burning bush is long and narrow, and i have lost my sandals (no need to take them off now, then!), and the ember has died.

it is sad to note that we can never pity those greater than ourselves, only aspire to. and yet, who needs more pity? pity is an indulgence that we can have, being able to concentrate on such a "need" for the "compassion" we all live for, the farce that stops you from remembering and learning, for the knowledge that "someone understands me, somebody does". no more time for them, no more. ruthlessness is the way to go, to live, to survive.

but algernon taught us something to. the quality of mercy is not strained; it drippeth as the gentle rain from heaven onto the ground beneath, it is twice blessed - it blesseth him that giveth, and him that recives, the crown of kings, the scepter of authority, and weak and the strong pay it both, and a thousand deaths are a mere statistic, but one, for one the hero stops, for it is a tragedy. weep not for me - i am presumptious in presuming i deserve it, for the thought to cross my mind is mere self-censure the minilove will get you, minitruth will eat you alive!, but for yourself, because you cannot save your own until you understand, but vincent, oh vincent, they never did, and they never will.

these days have been an education into the mentality of little prebubescent boys. i get home after fun class dinner, and the first thing i hear is "there's a snake in dad's room". so far so good. ok. maybe dad's slightly afraid of snakes. but that's fine - he's a big boy, he can handle it. then: "we tried to use a hamster to lure it out".

i suppose it's logical, but what part of "snakes eat hamsters" and "snakes are fast" dont you understand????

in anycase, managed to fufil our nkf criteria of "do not embarrass the school by having it host a round without it's own team in it" and "do not lose to scgs". lost to uwc, but that's ok. we'll survive. yesterday's debates were crappy - i dont wanna ever have to do something of that standard EVER again. but today's was not too bad. so i'm happy: it wasn't a washout. good enough. and we've the rest of the week free.

on another note. do not conduct pw in a room full of computers and more specifically computer games. bad for concentration.

on the same note. screw. i have pw.

i fucked up my promos.

gods know how i did it. i think it was complacency, arrogance and cockiness. everything gets ladled to me on a silver platter i forget what a spoon is for.

so today i try to outrun my mistakes during training. i think i could have run forever, just so i could forget my demons, to keep the wind blowing in my ears to block out the sounds of my guilt and people discussing grades. self-disappointment is the hardest to take, and the most necessary.

i feel human. but you need to be superhuman.

friday was an almost epiphanic rach 2. i had a lot to say about it, but now i don't have that much. while it wasn't perfect, it was better than the other 2 i've heard before. the sso still has this annoying habit of drowning out the soloist. apart from the shostakovich no. 5, which was fascinating (hear the second movement). the third movement was very...vivid. i could see images...*shiver*

and the exams are over. somehow i don't feel very relieved. i think it's the oppressive feeling that you get when you KNOW you've screwed up but you dont know just HOW badly.

well, i'm back.

You are ...on crack.


What Breed of Hamster Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

mwahahahha. FWAAAAAAAH.

"The other great blot on American democracy—redistricting—has already made a nonsense of elections to Congress...In 2002, four out of five congressmen won their races by more than 20 points. This is because most states allow their politicians to determine the boundaries. The result is gerrymandering on a grotesque scale, with incumbents stitching up safe seats by drawing absurd districts that look like doughnuts, sandwiches and Rorschach tests."

WAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!! sounds familiar? i live in a doughnut!

y'know, in the fine tradition of slackers, i shall outsource a revolution. i will get fanatics from the poor developing countries and get them to be my army and overthrow a government or invade and conquer my own island and usher in a realm of despotism and benevolence.

or i could just do my work.

blogsurfing can be pretty depressing.

well, rather i go around and see people making differences in others' lives, discussing, using brain cells for more meaningful things than regurgitating dead facts for a forgotten wasteland of learning, and i wonder, what the hell am I doing. i mean, i just sit here on the chair and feel like a potato on plastic, maybe a guilty one for eating too much and currently feeling stuffed (haha, would you believe it, with potatoes. me cannibal.) and also for not doing work when promos are barely 18 days away. and there are people living and influencing others and discussing and retrospecting and navel-gazing (i dont know if that's a good thing. dont really care somehow) and here's me working at being slob of the year. and now i'm feeling stupid and guilty for whining. blearGH.

i feel like the jack of all friends and master of none. in more ways than one.

and i wonder WHY i keep blogging when i feel guilty for whining. it's like those weird drama serials or things where someone suddenly says that "doesn't this seem like we're in a recurring drama serial?"
if the world's a taproom, the drinks and jokes are on me.

story time: i was walking along orchard road when this guy comes up to me and says "you know, your eyebrows need plucking. i'm steven lim the famous eyebrow plucker and you can see me in this article *gestures to big blown up poster of newspaper article*...etc". all this delivered at breakneck speed. so i say no thanks and get the hell out of there. not that i have anything against the guy, just that i'm not used to getting told i need a sudden facial hair trimming.

and then i saw www.stevenlim.net. my eyes my EYES. gods i need to scrub my history. and my hard disk. and my retinas. they BURNNN with horror at the invasion of the ego. it was the photos. *twitch*.

anyways. PIANO EXAM OVER. phew. nearly had a seizure through the waiting. the actual thing wasn't too bad, it was the torture of anticipation, the ice-cold feeling you get when your brain comes up with much, much worse tortures than what could possibly happen to you within the bounds of the geneva conventions. but it's over. so yay.

i have a bright orange fender and 2andahalf cups of beer. this is a relatively good day. as long as you don't mention the 4 more days to go LALALALALAAAA WHAT ARE YOU SAYING....

and have also come to the conclusion that all kids (no, wait. children keep the grammar alive) have to go through a little period of "obnoxious-know-it-all-ism" when you desperately need to prove to others that you do know something of the world and aren't the ignorant sod others think you are and probably still do. ironically, in shooting the mouth off, you just end up looking like a bigger and more pathetic sod instead of the other way around. and why do i ruminate on this like a cow chewing a particularly unpleasant cud? because i think i'm regressing. it's either me, or everyone else around me, and i'd rather stick with the less depressing aspect thank you very much.

i think it's the twoandahalf beers.

i hate being sick. the worst is over, but my throat feels like it's been scrubbed by radioactive wire wool, my nasal passages have been used to test extremely corrosive substances and my headaches, well, i can't even begin to describe the pain when the headaches come. you know how they tell you that your head is "two sizes too small" or "stabbing pains"? they dont even come close to the lightning flashes of agony if you move too fast. i dont walk - i lurch. when it's a good hour, i waddle. when it's not, don't ask. when i cough, my whole body decides to join in the fun. hooray for utter negativity. and i wasted my day, how's that.

this has probably been a total waste of your time. unless you enjoy whinging, or are a sadist.

here and gone...

poof.

i typed in a livejournal addy and recieved a cheerful message telling me that "This livejournal has been deleted and purged." deleted, and purged. what an interesting word. carries the connotation of utter, complete and final eradication of a plague that scourges your lands/health/insert-noun-here. of course, it was a typo. but still. what a way to go. probably a word used by dictators ("let us purge the world of !!!!!") and religious fanatics ("death to the infidels! we shall smite them and purge them from our lands! yaar!!!"). compare the exclamation marks and tell me who's saner.

ahmigawd. ja yin tan tetra janjanjan quildë quildë el hethra melindo nwalya-aini tulin rámalóké tulin tulin tulin.

i'm feeling very rach 2 adagio tonight.

woooo. my dad is too fit. biking 45 km is no sweat for him, while the rest of the family straggles and struggles behind him.

i am envious and mildly disgusted :P

and ndp was fun. what a gathering :P

ahmigawd. shocute!

i am running on empth. zero, nada, zilch and sheer oompth thanks to adrenaline fuelled by fear of failure. i am dei-fied, and make what you[r] will of that. 5 minutes to touchdown, and i'm flying on the fumes of the fire they built to roast me alive. it's nice to look down on the blaze and watch the bonfire of work spiral up to the ceiling, but that's a stupid thing to do when it's up to your ears. watch the teachers do a tribal dance around the sacrifice, with tea and cakes all round after it. and after all that, it's time to go headhunting.

spot the allusions, 5 cents a guess.

it's weird. i get to now go home at early times when i can actually see my way out of the building without having to use mel's flashlight phone. and i feel so slack. or something. it just doesn't feel right. and don't get me started on the work. that looks like it could fill the marianas trench. and somehow i'm still staying up later than during season.

wanna debate againnnn....

how suicidal can i get :|


we were gods, i tell you.
we were f***ing gods.
and everybody knew our name.
...
faded into obscurity,
but some remembered, still the same.

uhh. k. everything's over. hooray. back to work. phooey.

debate. was scared shitless. now finals. am more worried.

its interesting, how the straits times tries to justify this. i mean, i know he's capable of leading the country and all, but why justify it as "proof that our political succession works"? there are better ways to justify it, and really, i don't buy it. certainly it isn't nepotism (really). he's had his time to prove himself. yes, it is a big deal to singapore, but WHY bring political succession into it? oh, and all the testimonies from the "average man on the street" (3) and the "average MP on the street" (also 3). practically farcical.

oh, who am i trying to kid. it is

oh gods. my dog thinks my hamsters are food. it just tried to eat it. while they look like bite sized snacks, they're not edible.

stupid dog.

hooray for debate! we won everything, and i do mean everything :D 'twas fantastic, the coordination and the analysis and stuff..let's keep it up! despite flower sniffing...>P

rmun fashion parade was painful. i mean, it just didn't seem as funny as my years. maybe it's just me, but it just was..draggy. gah. spent 14 bucks on a cab down too because i was scared i was gonna be late...>( they'd better recompense me for that! >P

ugh. brain dead. guess why.

so cool/freaky (to be played at 1 am in the morning).

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. computing pwned everyone. possibly because we were tested on things we weren't taught yet. graah.

on the bright side, brudder is now a metalmouth. conversation goes something like this.
me: "say 'ee'."
bro: "go 'way. i can't eat english food now. rare steak i hear you calling..."
-short pause-
"well, we could mash them."
"shut up."
"i mean, what about steak tartare? soft and non-chewy-ish."
"shut up."
"or we could have mashed potatoes. that fits the bill."
*thump*
"ow. or...wait for it...shepard's pie! two in one! bonus! owowow..."

heehee.

omg. i just got down to looking at the World of Warcraft screenshots (having given up on my midyears) and OMG they PWN j00r 455. +0+4||y. AAAAAAAAaa.

i think i'm in love.

WAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA! PWNAGE!!!!

i slapped my brother. he slammed the door. and windows. i suppose it was justifiable in a way. both ways. tell me, what do you do with recalcitrant little buggers who refuse to sleep? and believe in giggling as the main form of entertainment, along with randomly playing with the intercom and reading books?

then again, what right do i have?

hello world. am back from conquering ophir with battle scars. my blisters have blisters (apparently), and my muscles are attempting to put me through yoga, even though i don't want to. blister on arm and palm are related, thanks to a reflex action which sees me slamming my hand on hot oil that lands on my arm during camping before the ophir trip. so i go climbing mudhills with open wounds. unfun. but the actual climbing was quite fun, surprisingly. everyone was supremely uncomfortable, but happy nonetheless. unless you were sleeping next to my brothers, in which you risked a knee in the ribs somewhere around 2 am in the night if you were lucky. if not, you wouldn't sleep because they'd hog the sleeping bag we use for blankets, and this would probably spoil your whole morning. the situation was not helped either by the fact that little brothers are motormouths, and do not stop talking. ever. even when you're attempting to navigate a vertical cliff face and feeling like little bugs are stabbing you with knives, they persist in pretending to be stuck in a war zone. which is partly true. getting them to stop deserves a purple heart for compassion to fellow human beings.

ok screw this. the fact that i can sleep in a proper bed after 1 week means more to me right now. will continue later.

PARENTAL

ADVISORY

QUETZALOVERCOATL CONTAINS EXPLICIT LYRICS

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

How to make a quetzalovercoatl

Ingredients: 1 part friendliness 3 parts crazyiness 3 parts instinct

Method: Combine in a tall glass half filled with crushed ice. Add a little lovability if desired!

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Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

goobyeworld. off to ophir. if i dont come back alive i've been sucked dry by leeches.

ahmagawd. just came back from count basie's orchestra. WHOOOO. funfunfunfunfun :D was really good. from the vocalist to the drummer. butch miles owns as a drummer, and james leary is an AMAZING bassist. great stuff.

ahh, preusem. its been one day and already i miss the group. after all the stuff we did, its hard to forget the bonds forged. i mean, i doubt any of us will forget vidhi's wonderful eccentricity and her "coy" rendition of "wo yao ni de ai", or mark's rendition of the same and his "little boy's" shampoo ad. or benjamin's pool jumping. or eddie's bridge. and peiling's laugh. how about our slo vladimir johannes ("djugashvili") cute indonesian accent that got better as the days went on (just like the food)? how about CHUBBY BUNNY!!! and our friendly neighbourhood murderer sudeshna with her mouth full of marshmallows. and pooja's multiple names and handphone conversations. viknesh's and ben's 69 enquiries. whee...it was just really really fun. just like the cheers. and staying up late on the last night, bribing the guards and watching the sketch show while playing bridge and chinese chess. priceless.

i also now know that speaking to xxx newspaper reporters is bloody hazardous for one's health. they will misquote you and get everything wrong while subverting objective reporting. gods, that was bad. though the presentation was fun :D all the innuendoes and mistaken identities..;p oh, and trying to avoid teachers on the last night puts you at risk for a heart attack from anything. and swearing was extremely excessive that night, i know.

maan. preusem. for all those involved, participants and slos and all those i know, i salute you.

i wondered where i could get a life. then i realised i didn't have time for it.

i think i took on too much. it's the problem of not just being a jack of all trades, but trying to be good at it with the problem of procrastination compounding the work.

3 weeks just doesn't seem enough.

bloody term exams.