I've been so tired out lately that I just haven't had the energy to update. It's ironical how post exams seem even more stressful than during the exam period. BAh.

Now I have to settle university applications stuff and go out and blah blah blah. Oh crap.

I want to read a good fantasy book, but I need some recommendations. I have virtually finished Tamora Pierce, Mecerdes lackey, David Gemmell (the good books anyway) and even Raymond E feist, which I thought wasn't all that impressive at first. I don't like Terry Goodkind's books, and David Eddings has reached the point of repetition. I've tried the three Piers Anthony books which are good. I read a few books of Babara Hambly and decided she isn't that great an author. Ann MacCafferey is not bad, but has a tendency to repeat.

Well. Now here I am, stuck again.

Before I forget, let me first pay a tribute to this very cool poem I heard a few days ago, created by Justin of 03s62

The Exam Poem

One more week
That is all I need
Oh, Shit

So apt.

Anyway, I spotted a cockroach enroaching into the insect-free confines (well, except for mosquitoes) of my room yesterday night, which galvanised me into Immediate Action. It disappeared under the big pile of stuff under my sister's table, so I had to remove several files, the huge luggage bag containing (?), some stacks of papers and a few mysterious packages to target it properly. Unfortunately my first try didn't work, and it crawled speedily under the new pile that I had just created. But with my great persistence, I killed it in the end.

Ha. I hope this serves as a Warning to all other cockroaches. Perhaps in their next annual gathering from wherever they came from (I strongly suspect under the bed in my grandmother's room, which contains a number of things that we haven't dared to touch for fear of incurring her wrath and a lot of mould), they'll talk about finding new territory and expanding their horizons, then cower back and say, "hey, but you know so-and-so? He went off to explore and he Never Came Back."

RIght.

Haha, I think I really am crappy. But I simply cannot abide cockroaches. And ants, unlike Judith who shares her home with a large garden community of them. WEll, a few individual ants are ok, but I destroy any nest on sight (In my house, anyway). I remember once when our room was in a huge mess with both my sister and I refusing to pack, but we cleared out the entire room when we suspected a new ant nest inside. After discovering it behind the air-con cable, we placed ant poison near it, the kind that prevents queen ants from laying eggs, patiently waited for the ants to take some to their nest for half a day before swamping it with insecticide and water. The reasoning behind this is even if the queen ant somehow manages to escape, it won't be able to lay any more eggs and start a NEW NEST.

I saw a man with the largest ass I've ever seen in the MRT today. Worse still, his huge pair of black pants were pulled up high all the way on his waist, which only enhanced the size of his posterior. Due to the amount of shirt he had to tuck in, I could observe the many undulating layers of cloth covering the huge expanse of flesh. To top it all off, he was wearing an ill-fitting starched white shirt, which made him look rather like an overweight waiter with a fatter older brother who used to be in the same occupation. It occured to me later that had our genders been reversed, I would have been the very picture of teenage lust, because I was staring at his buttocks with a stupid grin on my face.

All right, I shall stop.

But just as a final word, this is the exact thing any self respecting guy should never wear.

Econs was god-awful terrible. I sneakily hope that many other people found it bad as well, so that I would at least stand a chance. Well, even if they screwed up they wouldn't screw up as badly as I did. I find myself praying that I would get at least four marks for my last one page essay, which is, I admit, a pathetic mark to pray for. And that my first essay was really as excellent as I thought it was. Sigh. I find it incredible that I wrote both my personal best and worst economics essay I ever have in my life in the very last paper of this nature I would ever take. What a time for dramatics. Unfortunately, my middle essay was not mediocore but somewhat (significantly) below average, because even in my brain-sieved (a new term I have invented, because I felt like my brain had been passed through a sieve after my first essay) state I could tell I was completely rambling by the second part.

These days I have realised a sudden urgency to claim back all my debts and rebalance my accounts, because of the large unbalance created by my rebonding and my cousin's birthday present. My brain has been churning out figures like this:

1) Rebonding: - $221 (which my mother has already repeatedly assured me that I overpaid for, and I keep telling her that she could nag all she wanted if she just paid half of it).
2) Cousin's birthday present plus earrings for myself: - $101
3) Father's and sister's birthdays, which are nearing: - $ ???
4) Currently in possession, planning to save: + $100
5) Liquid spending income available for the month (underestimate): + $ 22
6) Felda owes me: (+) $ 55
7) Kathryn owes me: (+) $ 90, for tuition
8) Lin Zi owes me: MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT
Overall balance of accounts: - $ 77 - $ ??? + BIRTHDAY PRESENT FROM LIN ZI (with the assumption that I can collect back my debts and Lin Zi would eventually, after the A levels and after inspiration has struck her, get me a birthday present, because I've just reminded her and laid on the guilt that she still owes me one. Hahaha.)

There. I tried to tell my mother that I had financial planning despite my stupid impulsive decision to rebond my hair in an expensive salon, but she wouldn't believe me. And that sometimes teenagers do make impulsive decisions and still stubbornly don't believe they were stupid, however much nagging they recieve (oh, cos apparently rebonding goes for less than a hundred in neighbourhood salons and I should have done a survey first despite the fact that I hadn't been intending to do it in the first place. Blah blah.).

But overall, I'm still in debt to myself. In the true Singaporean way, I will assure myself that this DEFICIT will be covered by past budget SURPLUSES, but also in the true Singaporean way, I'm rather unhappy about having a deficit in the first place.

I had a major quarrel with my father yesterday, which ended with him slamming the door to his room in a huff, me crying in front of the computer while chatting with my sis and us carefully not talking to each other today. It's been coming for some time, I guess. Not that I'm sorry for it. Because he's not talking to me he's not grumping at me either. I feel rather liberated, actually.

I'm sick of his lack of conviction. It's bad enough that he never believes me to be as good as my friends because my standard is just my standard. Smart means smart, dumb means dumb, yeah, my quality is just there. Just because he doesn't see me studying doesn't mean that I don't, and the fact that my lifestyle habits are different from his doesn't mean that they're wrong. There's nothing more adding to your stress level than having a family member that will say "I told you so" if you score badly. I've been hearing his complaints for the last few weeks when he thinks I'm sleeping in my room and I'm fucking sick of it. I'm lazy and stupid, not deaf.

Worse, he thinks I'm wrong and I think he's wrong. Well, yeah, I probably shouldn't have said some things I did yesterday but he started it. I tried to shut up at the beginning because I didn't want to lose my temper, but he's rather like my grandma--keeps harping until he gets a reaction, which was me losing my temper. Ha, yes, I have a temper. I bloody inherited it from him.

And my mum probably thinks I'm deluded from stress and has nagged at my sister who is no doubt one of the reasons for my distraction. Can't she understand that if she likes chatting to my sis I would too? But it's ok, I had a long talk with my sis this morning and it buoyed my mood considerably. At least when two of us were at home the nagging was split evenly. Now it's just me. I feel stifled and lonely; it doesn't help that the As has guaranteed a lack of companionship.

Crap crap crap. Lucky it's math tomorrow or I'll be feeling terribly stressed.

News for yesterday: I REBONDED MY HAIR.
News for today: I PIERCED MY EARS.

Amazingly enough, I accomplished both without any intention of doing so. After fighting a losing battle with tangles, I decided that I am just not suited for long hair and yesterday was the day where I would finally do something about it. So I walked into the salon some time after math, fully intending to convert back to my secondary school hairstyle.

And I told the hairdresser: cut short. He asked: how short. I said: something like yours, slope cut.

He took a double take and stared at me with a totally appalled expression on his face, like I had violated some sacred rule of hairdressers: hair of My Length should not be reduced to That all at one shot. Very distressed, he reminded me of the long tedious journey from short hair to long hair--the mushrooming in between, the heat, the etc etc etc. SInce my experience of this was particularly agonising, I wavered.

But I decided, must stand firm. So I told him that it was getting impossible to manage. Rebonding would make my hair limp blah blah, and I simply do not have the time for it. The hairdresser then assured me that he would have two people working on my hair simultaneously to cut the time short, and all could be settled before the closing time.

What could I do in the face of such enthusiasm? I made one of my rare impulsive decisions (and had no time to rethink because the chemicals were produced with unbelievable speed). The whole process was quite amusing, really--I was very interested in all the chemical processes (Ms Tan in sec school: they destroy the hydrogen bonds in your hair...) but wisely decided not to ask. The hairdresser keep muttering over my hair; he didn't quite say that it was very thick and very tangled (for those who don't know, rebonding involves this ironing process) but repeatedly assured me that I had "a lot" of hair and that my hair quality was "very rare".

In the end it still took three hours, even with two hairdressers, because my hair was (surprisingly) resistant to chemical attack, and took a lot of time to iron out. Now I'm a total convert man. I hope it lasts. I don't particularly care if it looks better or worse. It's a certain thrill to be able to comb right to the ends of my hair and not wake up with hair all over the pillow because they strangled each other to death in my sleep. I must admit I'm quite relieved not to cut it too--I need to soften my image. I already have a domineering and bossy chracter; sHort hair would complete the image of a dragon lady. A girl has to consider her future prospects. BWahahahahaha.

I shall talk about my ear piercing now. I went to a jewellry shop to buy my cousin's birthday present today, and I was short of nine dollars to reach a hundred, after which I would get a membership that gives me twenty percent discount on all future purchases. The salesgirl was trying to convince me to get a pair of earrings, then took one look at my ears and exclaimed loudly: YOU HAVEN'T PIERCED YOUR EARS? (Fingering my ears somewhat protectively) I said: er, no. BUT YOU'RE EIGHTEEN! THen I was told that it was very fast, I could just do it there, free if I bought a pair of earrings (which would conveniently mark up the price to a hundred).

It went downhill from there. So, after years of not bowing to peer pressure, I succumbed to the relentless persuasion of a very charming and very persistent salesgirl. It really didn't help that she was such a friendly soul, in an unagressive way. I was utterly convinced that she had my best interests at heart.

Some people have optimistically described ear piercing to be like "getting an ant bite". After firsthand experience today, I can only conclude that it must have been a really huge ant. It feels like really what it was: having two holes bored into your flesh.

I had this amazingly vivid dream last night. In the dream, I woke up to a brightening sky and discovered that it was already seven plus in the morning. My mother didn't wake me up because she misunderstood me when I said that my exam was at eight--she thought I meant I was going to leave at eight. I even remember wearing my uniform and telling myself not to panic because there was still time, and was hailing a cab when I woke up (again) to the dark, at four in the morning, feeling slightly disorientated. I didn't get to sleep again, unfortunately.

I recall that in secondary school (for some reason it didn't persist in JC) I used to have very detailed dreams about getting up, wearing my uniform (down to every small action like buttoning up), going to toilet etc etc, only to wake up and discover, to my disappointment, that I had to do it all over again. This is what extreme tiredness and examination stress does to you.

I realise that I feel quite chunky next to extremely skinny and fragile looking people like Yiling, or small people like Amanda. SOmehow my voice seems louder than usual, and my every action amplified by the sheer presence of another dimunitive individual. I don't feel fat, just...big.

Oh well. Anyway, it's not like it matters much, since I'm naturally obtuse by nature.

After watching a documentary on Parkinson's and Alzhiemer's disease, it occurred to me that my greatest fear lies in losing my mind. The people who live on and make the best of their lives truly have courage.

Today has truly been an unlucky day.

First of all, I woke up with my left eye almost completely swollen shut. I had to lie on my bed for more than an hour dripping eyedrops before I could see with it without tearing too much. Of all the days to get conjuctivitis, it had to be the day of chemistry practical.

So with one leaking eye, I got out of the house and proceeded on the way to school. Halfway to the MRT station, it started drizzling on me.

When I reached it, I missed a train despite running to catch it, because of some bulky people who were rather slow in reacting when I said "excuse me".

Not to mention, chem prac was a disaster because I got hopelesslessly confused for the titration.

After that, I went to have dinner with Hannah, which improved my mood marginally. Unfortunately, on getting home, I discovered that I'm allergic to something I ate because I'm itching all over now.

Fuck fuck fuck.

My mother said she was contemplating giving away our parrot fish to my uncle so that she could replace it with discus fish or something. Discus! What a dumb name. And my uncle! The reason for passing on the fish to him, she said, was because his own fish were dying. And I said: precisely! How can we give him our fish to die. And you know what? I think his fishes are dying from STARVATION. And probably boredom. He has no respect for the intelligence of parrot fish.

Anyway, I told her that if she gave it away, I would go to my uncle's house and steal it back.

A rather small but amusing incident occurred today. When I got off an MRT, on the way home, I saw a flyer distributor somewhere down my path. Being the only person walking in his direction, both of us carefully did not look at each other, until I was within arms' length of him, where he stuck out a flyer and I, well, took it.

After reading several romance novels in one of my stranger moods, I have decided that nudity is overrated. Clothes hide all the flab that exist in the wrong places (for girls), (or for guys) fat that's supposed to be muscle. Those perfect breasts, well-defined chests with hard angular planes simply do not exist. Or perhaps more accurately, they form a minor enough proportion such that romance novels are written about them. This brings to light that Imagination is frequently better than the Real Thing. Not that i have any experience in the matter, but I suspect that in our world, most couples spend less time looking at each other and get down straight to, er, business.

In a nice long conversation with Lin Zi yesterday, we happily recapped some of the more ludicrous examples of romantic fantasy. One particular case that stuck in our memory was a fanfic detailing how, in a dark and stormy night, person A saw a blurred figure flashing by in the distance, who conveniently turned just before he disappeared so that his amethyst eyes could be observed. Under the conditions described, we all have to admit that those eyes must have been glowing as described by the author.

This brings me to my next point: it appears that attraction has surprisingly little to do with looks. After years of ridiculing my friends' choices, I mentally compiled a (dismally short) list of all the guys that I found marginally attractive in my short years, and come to the reluctant conclusion that my taste sucks too. Other than certain character traits or facial features that distinguish them (in my eyes) from the normal crowd, most of them are really amazingly ugly.

To the everlasting disgust of my conscious mind, I also identified a pattern among them--tall, skinny with relatively square shaped jaws. For some reason, the well-built, handsome variety merely inspires general appreciation equivalent to the experience of discovering a nice item in the shop window. This has led to the conclusion that there's really no accounting for hormones.

And (horrors and horrors), after all that criticism, I actually found the novels rather sweet.

I am forced to admit that pack-rat tendencies run in the family. With my mother, this is especially so with regard to food, though I think my grandmother possibly surpasses her.

After rummaging in the fridge for a while (because I was hungry), I found one-quarter of a mooncake carefully stored away, which I discovered to have a layer of crust over its paste. This is presumably due to the more wintry conditions in the refrigerator, which slowly dries non-living things after a prolonged period of time. Having the same instincts to conserve food, I ate it.

Next was the discovery of half a turnip, leftover from a turnip dish cooked about one month ago. Before yesterday, it had several uncut companions sprouting in a corner of our kitchen.

My grandmother inquired over the nian2 gao1 (you know, the sticky brown cake that's supposed to symbolise prosperity and suchlike) that my mother threw away yesterday as well. We all complimented her on her memory, because it had been there since Chinese New Year.

There is also a little bag of sauce that was provided a few days ago, when my parents bought chicken rice. I have established a pattern to this. Usually, out of a desire not to waste food, my family will carefull keep such leftovers in the fridge, where it will reside for a few days until it becomes undeniably rotten. Then we will throw it away with a clear heart and an unburdened soul.

The house floor has been polished, and the furniture shifted back. Today I accidentally pushed back the chair after finishing my dinner, and this resulted in me and both my parents poring over the floor, gazing mournfully at a new scratch. I have thus far sworn to carefully slide off my chair in future.

So this leads to a discussion of a solution. My mother, as usual, suggested that we put a carpet under the dining room. This is certainly not a new preventive measure, since after the floor was polished, she went out to buy several carpets to prevent scratches. So now there's a carpet under the chair in my room, under the chair at the computer table, and a new one in my parents' room. I believe the ideal solution to this is to carpet the whole house, so that on occasion, we can lift it up to stare at the shiny polished marble, and feel a great sense of satisfaction that we have a nice floor now.

Today was a terribly unproductive day. I was supposed to go to school early for the second post mortem of our econs s essays. After carefully reminding myself to bring my Nitrogen Compounds notes (to check with my friend) and handphone before going out, I promptly forgot both on leaving.

When I arrived at school I sat through 4 hours and fifty minutes of Mr Cook RAMBLING. Rambling transcends simple REPETITION, requiring a certain long-windedness and lack of organisation. This must be one of the few lessons where I keep feeling a continuous urge to go to the toilet, and I did go for quite a number of times. Not that it made any difference, because when I came back he would still be talking about the same things.

Since relatively exciting events are taking place in my otherwise dull life, I have decided it is time to update.

First and foremost, is the farewell assembly yesterday morning, which consisted of a powerpoint presentation by Mrs Chan and a rather lame concert which I actually found inordinately funny. Later, we went for a special CT session, which was actually a phototaking session (and in the case of my class, a storytelling session). After some great deliberation, the guys in my class decided to attempt lifting Mr Ng for a picture, despite some rather vehement objections from the latter.

The scene played out something like this:
(Mr Ng, face contorted in a rictus of terror. Many guys lifting him rather precariously from the sides.)

Guys: One, two, three! (Mr Ng is tossed up slightly into the air)

(Strangled shout ensues from Mr Ng)

Guys: One, two, three! (Mr Ng is tossed up slightly into the air)

(Strangled shout ensues from Mr Ng)

Guys: ONE, TWO, THREE! (Mr Ng is tossed up slightly into the air)

Mr Ng: ARgh

I also noticed several new additions to our school compound, the most notable being that of big red banners proclaiming: SingTel welcomes you to VJC! (Leaving us all in no doubt who our biggest sponsor for OpenHouse is). This is certainly a company rich in tradition, because the banner design looked twenty years old.

The second exciting thing happening in my life right now is that my house is having a major upgrade. This is truly an example of something that Started Out Small, but Became very Big.

The seeds of this project were planted in my mother's mind two weeks ago, when she saw two polishers working on the marble of our neighbours' flat. So she invited them over to give a quotation for our floor, and began to Make Plans.

Problem 1: How to shift the furniture out?
Solution: Our sofas are old. Good, teak wood; resources should not be wasted. Conclusion--Why not send it for a polish?
The Thought This Leads to: The display cupboard has VENEER doors and drawers, although the frame is solid teak. Therefore, we should replace the doors and drawers, since we're at it.
The Next Thought: Might as well do the coffee table too. It's in good condition, but it Can Be Improved.

So the contractor which helped to do our in-built cupboards was invited up to see a price. Since he was already in the house, it was Only Convenientthat he takes a look at the kitchen as well.
Overhanging in my mother's mind: The stoves are a little spoiled. How much to replace them?
Then: Come to think of it, the tiles are somewhat loose as well.
On top of it all: The cupboards are creaky.

The Final Conclusion: Major Upgrade

As of yesterday, she was eyeing the toilet, though fortunately no concrete plans have been made in that direction. I've been spending the week looking as inconspicuous as possible while my parents grumble at each other and at me; and I stayed up to three this morning to clear my room so that the polishers could work on it. (I must admit after coming home today that the floor is a lot shinier). Actually, this is a lousy time to be in the house.

I realised when packing the room that the Singaporean Kiasu spirit was ingrained in me. There is a burgeoning stack of written foolscap paper from practice papers in my room, which I hardly look at and don't know what to do with, but I just can't seem to bear throwing it away. I managed to recycle some though, because at least that satisfies the instinct for conservation.

Oh, and miracles of miracles: MY COUSIN CALLED FROM AUSTRALIA. (!!!) WE had a good chat though.

This post is just to prevent my blog from dying, really. I'm feeling quite antisocial lately. Maybe this is due to the realistation that I don't feel like talking about exams, results, or university admissions, which leaves me rather little to talk about, unfortunately.

My mother's plants were eaten by a catepillar today. Well, I did mention there were holes when she first bought the purple periwinkle, and now it's purple periwinkle no more.

My sister flew off today, and quite a number of interesting events occurred en route to the airport and before we sent her off.

First was a strange and totally unexplainable disappearance that I shall simply term as The Mystery of the Missing Tissue Packet. I was sniffing on the way to the taxi, so my mum gave me her tissue packet (ok, it wasn't just a tissue packet, it was a tissue packet in one of those fancy tissue holders that both my mum and I happened to like very much) which I held until I boarded. So it was with us till we boarded. I remember the last time I saw it I was holding it up for my mother, and suddenly it was gone and both of us were wondering what on earth happened to it. We spent about three quarters of the journey searching: first my bag, then her bag, my jacket pockets, my bag again, her bag again, my sister's bag, my father's pockets, the taxi (below the seats, at the sides, under our butts and every cranny we could think of), my bag again, my mother's bag again, the taxi again. And when we got off, we searched the taxi one more time.

AND THERE WAS NO HINT OF A TISSUE PACKET! We were completely mystified by this--finally we concluded that it must have dropped into some deep crevice in the cab that we somehow had not noticed. I'm going to try to find another of those fancy tissue holders later in west mall to replace what we lost, and take this incident to be one of those unexplainable things that happen occasionally in our lives.

After my sister checked in we went to have breakfast in burger king. After queuing up for about twenty minutes we made our orders for three breakfast meals, with two teas and one coffee. The person at the counter asked a few times to confirm our order and we waited very patiently as he slowly (I repeat--slowly) keyed in numerous things into the keypad. Aften waiting for yet another ten minutes we discovered that they had gotten two-thirds of our order wrong (two different meals with two coffees and one tea) and it was the fault of the stupid cashier. Deciding finally not to kick up a fuss, I went back and opened the little paper box, only to find that my bacon--supposed to be nice and succulent in the advertisement was instead a rather reduced brown crisp. Anyway again we did not complain, so my family took turns to polish up the bacon, eating it like potato chips.

So it was time for my sister to enter the departure hall. Due to enhanced security checks only those with passports could walk through the check-in counter, so my the four of us took a long leisurely stroll to one end, where we figured would be open. Unfortunately upon arrival we found that end blocked off as well, and we had to take another long, leisurely stroll back to the opposite end, where we could finally pass. But that was ok, no complaints, because we had to exercise away some of the crispy bacon.

On impulse I bought this lovely interior design magazine (it was more like a soft cover book because it didn't have the customary advertisements) for this rather exorbitant price of $15.90. I discovered that it seems to be a Singaporean custom to have television sets in the living room, for many of the foreign house designs I looked through had only sofas and coffee tables in that area. I also realised that the soap dispensers in Changi Airport are automated--I was looking for something to press when liquid just came out in my hand. Cool, right?

On our way back on the MRT we managed to find seats halfway through our journey, so I promptly fell asleep. Sometime earlier in the distant past I told my mother that I had this automated internal mechanism like most poor students did, that would wake me up at appropiate times in public transport, except when I was very tired. Apparently she didn't believe me and was waiting to see what I would do when we reached the right stop. What happened was that I slept soundly all the way till the lady's voice said "Jurong East Interchange", where I woke up, put on my spectacles and prepared to get off. My mother believed me henceforth.

My mother doesn't understand me!

I have embarked on a jogging routine to keep fit and hopefully prevent myself from become a couch vegetable. So as usual, I went jogging today, and after I came back I attacked the marigold chocolate chip ice-cream that I just bought with my sister, which I did not eat immediately upon return only because it was too melted. (By the way for chocolate chip ice-cream lovers marigold chococolate chip ice-cream sucks. Chips are very hard but very small.) Anyway my mother went into an analysis on the number of calories chocolate chip ice-cream has, and after much repetition concluded that I just ate more calories than I managed to jog away. The logical extension to this is that I would Gain Weight rather than Lose Weight, because a Healthy Exercise Routine must go Hand in Hand with a Healthy Diet.

But she can't seem to see that the whole point of exercising more is to eat more! What incentive would I have to exercise if I have to switch from high-fat yogurt to low-fat or (horrors of horrors) non-fat yogurt, and forgo sweet, sticky stuff like chocolate and ice-cream? Sigh.

My sister's flight was delayed from today to saturday, due to the typhoon in taiwan--fortunately because the news just reported that many people were stuck at the taipei airport today. Due to my sister's last minute nature, this must be one of the rare times so many people are happy about such a delay.

I was going to write something but I forgot what.

I've been corrected by Judith about the Scrambled Eggs song--so I checked my diary and found she's right! How could I? It makes all the difference between pure rhetoric and sheer brilliance. So here it goes:

Scrambled Eggs, Scrambled Eggs, Scrambled Eggs,
Lalalalala!
Scrambled Eggs, Scrambled Eggs, Scrambled Eggs,
Lalalalala!
Scrambled Eggs, Scrambled Eggs, Scrambled Eggs,
Lalalalala!
Scrambled Eggs, Scrambled Eggs, Scrambled Eggs,
Lalalalala!

*repeat ad nauseum*

We're geniuses, aren't we? *beams*

Ghostly Encounters

This is the seventh month, so in keeping with the mood, I shall put up my share of ghostly encounters.

One night I when I entered my room I saw an old woman with a chalk white (really white, my god) face staring at me. Fortunately before I got a heart attack I realised that it was my grandmother, who was trying to use up her talcum powder. (Though what she was doing in my room in the middle of the night she never quite explained)

I think I was in sec 4 then. I was doing my work on the computer in the living room (it's just right next to the door) at eleven plus when I suddenly smelled perfume. After stoically continuing for a few more minutes I decided that I was freaked out so I abandoned the computer and went to sleep. Rather mystified, the next day I went around asking people what franjipani smelled like, because it was supposed to be the favourite flower of ghosts. (Judith I remember you offered to bring me a franjipani scented candle though we both kind of forgot later). Anyway a few weeks later I FOUND THE TRUTH when my mother complained about my father, who, upon waking up to relieve himself, found the toilet to be too smelly for his liking, so conveniently took my mother's expensive bottle of perfume and sprayed it around. After hearing this I concluded two things:

1) The perfume must have been very expensive
2) He must have sprayed a lot

I arrived at this after qualitatively measuring the distance between that toilet and the computer, which were at two different ends of the house.

One night, when I was asleep and my sister was about to, I suddenly sat up ninety degrees and a girlish voice (which she swore was not mine) from the other side of the bed said, "you2 gui3 ah" (there's a ghost). Then I laid back down again. Staring at me, she poked me tentatively but I was asleep, so she told me the next day. I'm quite flattered that I actually had a personal ghostly encounter, though sadly I can't remember a thing.

Another night, I was woken up by my sister who punched me three times and pinched me three times, all while she was sleeping a feet below on the pullout bed. This time I poked her but she was asleep. Because there can't possibly be any reason for her to specifically reach up and attack me in her slumber, she must have been possessed.

(This one is really freaky) My grandmother dreamt once that she was walking with her mother, who disappeared. The next day she recieved a call that her mother died in her sleep. Another time she dreamt that nui2 tou2 ma3 mian4 (you know, the horse-headed and the cow-headed humans that are supposed to take souls away in hell) took her father away, and he too, had died that night. When I was in sec 1 she felt an urge to call my uncle, and got very frantic when she couldn't reach him, ordering assorted relatives to go to his house to check. He was found lying on the floor in his room with high fever and in convulsions. He was brain dead in two days and died that thursday. (I remembered that the day after was good friday).

I hope I haven't inherited any of this from her, because these days I've been having strange dreams. I'm a little worried about Lin Zi, who told me she had serious breathing problems, though it shouldn't be due to three types of cancer. (I called and asked, "how are you?" and almost died when she said "not good"). Anyway she's having a check up on Thursday and I await the results. I hope they can find the cause because they already checked her heart and had an X-ray of her lungs.

GP essay topics today were horribly difficult, though I'm sneakily glad because that means I wouldn't do too badly relative to everyone else. I took a look at the questions and realised that my existing knowledge wasn't going to be of much use (and that would apply to all the other candidate's haha). For someone like me who didn't prepare for GP at all it was actually quite advantageous.

I think LHL broke the record with the 3 hour ++ national day rally yesterday--the people seated there must have been either very thirsty or very urgent by ten plus. After hearing him I've confirmed my opinion that he'll make a good prime minister, but I'm even more convinced that he'll

1) Try to do everything and accomplish many things during his term
2) Age rapidly in his job, and die early after he resigns

After hearing LHL's comparative fluency in Malay and Chinese I really had to give it to GCT, because his speeches sounded like, and probably were solid memorisations of what started out as a foreign language, an ardous task that should never be attempted unless national television and a very large audience is involved.

This has been a truly shitty day.

I can't do the RJ physics paper.

Li Jiawei lost, which was quite heartbreaking if you watched the match.

Against my better instincts, I went to a poetry reading performance by HC, which I thought would take two hours but it started late and took more than three hours. I frankly didn't understand most of the poems and couldn't appreciate a number of jokes that many other people seemed to find funny, but I liked the performance by the string quartet (it was really good) and some of the Singapore-related poems not because I was feeling patriotic, but because they were the only ones I could relate to. There was this perfomance by a comedy band at the end, which reminded me uncannily of a song "scrambled eggs" I invented with Judith. It goes something like this:

Scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs
Scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs
Scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs
*repeat as desired
*tune subject to variation

On the way home as I looked at the time I inexplicably started crying, because the five hours of wasted time suddenly seemed so precious. You have no idea what I felt like I was giving up when I dragged myself to this, just because of five stupid words which probably weighed more heavily on me than it was intended to, "please, it's very important to me." My presence didn't make a fucking difference, not even as company or as a seat filler, so next time please remember character differences and how such a phrase would look like to me. And I'm writing this because I'm in a shitty mood and feel like letting you know because it is your fault so don't take it to heart.

To top it all off I discovered upon reaching home that my sister forgot to switch off the computer, so it had been running for the last few hours.

Bloody hell.