Ok, I just discovered how certain people know about my blog, though I realise I'm a little slow in the uptake. It's the first thing that appears on any search engine if you type "Zhang Xuwen". Dammit.

It's my mother's birthday today! I had to go out in the morning in a last minute rush to buy her a present--fortunately I found a shop in west mall that sold branded perfume, though it didn't have samples for everything. After going through tons of bottles, I realised two sad facts:

1) I appear to have an allergy to perfume, despite being female and everything.
2) Some women must like wearing insecticide out, because I can't think of any other commercial reason for some of the scents produced.

The former was discovered when, instead of feeling a heady euphoria and increased confidence that any woman is supposed to, the back of my hand started itching and I started tearing after trying out a few samples. My mother wanted a 'flower scent', but after repeated sniffing at a brand that apparently specialises in flower perfumes I decided that I couldn't recognise any species, be it 'Rose' or "Sunflower'. There were also some rather unique scents like 'Green Tea' and 'Garden', which probably included the pesticide as well.

In the end I narrowed down to two options: Red Door (Elizabeth Arden) and Fifth Avenue (also Elizabeth Arden). I was considering Estee Lauder as well but they didn't have samples for most of them and I wasn't about to risk my money. After further deliberation I finally decided on Fifth Avenue, because it didn't have the characteristic sharp smell (solvent, I think) that most perfumes have. It cost $90 for a 75ml bottle but there was a 20% discount so I paid $72. I'm happy to say, though, that it is indeed true that the more expensive brands are longer lasting, because after several hours and many hand washings the scent is still there.

I also bought a water bottle that my mum mentioned she wanted and paid for everything to be gift-wrapped in nice gold paper (to match the bottle). Overall I spent $78.80. With that in a bag I rushed to IMM to have a celebratory lunch at a nice Chinese restaurant there, which my father paid for, because I'm broke by now. (It's at the top floor, good service, relatively cheap prices, quite worth it; I'm doing promotion here. For six dishes and good service it was only $52.80.) My mum liked the present! Lalala:) I'm glad I took the trouble to have it nicely wrapped because I discovered some time ago that it really does make a difference.

Now I shall go around sniffing at different perfumes even though I don't need to anymore to convince myself that it was a good buy.

Been a little while since I updated, so I shall go day by day.

Monday:
Went out with Judith at night for round two of birthday celebrations. We went to Sakae Sushi, then down to MOS to eat frozen strawberries, where we exchanged what I will term as the NUS Ushering Experience.

After our lunch in cultural centre (we bought it from a Dome branch in there and it took supremely long to come, with all of us wondering whether they had to catch the chicken and pluck it so that Fresh Chicken Sandwich could be created), we went to the backstage, having assumed that we were supposed to go there. Somewhere in there, we encountered an Usher, who told us that we were supposed to go to the second floor of the cultural centre. So we backed out and went into the theatre, and went up to the second floor and stayed there for a while before we started wondering why we were the only team there. So we asked another Usher, who told us that the teams were in the dressing rooms somewhere behind, and the ones on the second floor was for us. To cut a long story short, we went up to the second floor, then back down to the first floor, up to the second floor and back down to the first floor again where the Ushers then abandoned us. Rather fed up, we then went up to the second floor, tried all the dressing room doors till we found an unlocked one and stayed there, until we figured the guest of honor was done and we went backstage.

What happened to HC, as Judith told me later, was that they were told to go to the second floor of the cultural centre, where they ALSO wondered where the other JCs were. An Usher then saw them and said, "Oh no! You're supposed to be backstage!". SO they obediently trooped down backstage where they encountered yet another Usher, who told them to go up again. So they trooped up. This process repeated itself for six times until HC got sick of it too and stayed put at the backstage.

I presume this is how all four JCs eventually ended up at the backstage, with everyone complaining about being led up and down and round and round before they figured they would have to come here eventually. What I find amazing is that NUS had such a studied lack of coordination that it even managed to not let any of the teams meet on our tours of the cultural centre. If any of us were less intelligent, the quiz would probably start late so that one or two of the missing teams could be found.

Anyway, I got a shirt with stuff written over it and a tatty bear from Judith. Wait, I just realised! Judith you didn't give me a card! How can you not give me a card? You must give me a card. (I sense myself repeating here) Having a message written over a shirt doesn't Count. :P

Wednesday:
I went for a debate gathering at night, at Outback in Millenia. The food was pretty horrible, except for the fried mushrooms which were quite novel. I ended up eating Felda's pasta because she lost her appetite for it (first time I saw pasta with so much vegetables), while she mangled the remaining drumstick that I gave to her in exchange.

I thought the most entertaining part of the whole event was listening to Ben describe his wedding plans, which truly reflected a Methodical and Organised mind. I quote, "By November I'll send out my first batch of invitations, and if they don't RSVP me by December I'll just cut them out. After that I'll send out my second batch of invitations..." It sounded very much like university admissions.

What I also found amusing was that although Ben hadn't really thought about minor things like the presentation of the ring, he appears to have planned angbao collection in great detail. Ram (being one of his best men) was told repeatedly that all the angbaos he collected would be passed to him, presumably so that he wouldn't be distracted from collecting some more. Haha. His best men have also been delegated the roles of drinking in his place, protecting him from drunken men, and clearing the crowd in front of him, not unlike the job of the Secret Service under the president.

I've been reduced to checking my email and updating my blog in school because my computer is (hopefully not permanently) sick with (what I hope is) a virus. If it's due to some circuit hotwiring from overuse I really don't know what to do. Thank goodness it happened on Friday, after the ppt was safely uploaded in Munbbill's laptop and the research was pretty much done, or I would have died.

Many exciting things have happened since the last time I blogged. In order of excitement: we got second for NEFMQ! We screwed the quiz horribly and had seven points from AC (who was second), so before they announced the results for fourth place we all had our heads bowed and mumbling, "Not fourth, not fourth" and there was quite a loud sigh of relief when the MC said "Anderson Junior College". Then we all thought we were next and all came out and lined up, so there was really a moment of jubilation when AC turned out third.

What really meant the most to me was that we got best for presentation. It's the first time I've ever gotten best for anything; in debate, SYC presentation, PW and everything else something will crop up or there'll be just the lacking factor for us to get top. In the end it'll be a not bad (like making semis) but just not quite there. Only what my sis told me, "to know how to win all the way you have to first learn how to" made me keep trying and tryin and trying. I feel like what we achieved was for me, very much a personal victory--I really pushed a lot in the beginning, and only in the last three days did everyone in the group really start chipping in equally. For the two weeks plus before that almost none of the meetings had a full house; Munbbill and I were the only constants. I thought about renminbi waking and sleeping and kept trying to figure out structure, rebuttal, etc etc. But later on everybody got the excitement and drove toward the goal, and FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, the final presentation was what I envisioned it to be. I've done it. And my team did it. For a group that started out without much team dynamics, with most members not very good at econs and with lousy grades that's quite an achievement. It's rather strange though, that although in the end we have a good working relationship and I quite enjoy doing the project together with them I still can't imagine us going out together. I guess that's what colleagues feel like.

I went to Lin Zi's house after and we chatted till eleven plus with both of us not realising the time. Like so many of my other dearest friends, she has no idea what to get me so I shall have to think of something I want. She got me the Star Wars trilogy last year but this year I can't think of any VCD I'm going to have time to watch in the near future. Sigh. Lin Zi won the National Econs Essay writing quiz with her classmate! To think that Judith got second for MAS essay competition with Zhi Peng too. Oh man, I'm surrounded by smart friends. I feel stupid. Very proud of both of them, though.

On Sunday I went out with Yiling, Hui Fen, Hannah, Grace and got treated to ice-cream at Esplanade Haagen Dazs. I had an 'ultimate', a slice of ice-cream cake, a little of Hannah's and Grace's cheesecake (which wasn't that great) and after walking at the riverside we came back again and I had chocolate covered strawberries. I must have eaten about 1 kg of sugar. I also got this around the world travel guide from them, though I would have asked for a China one if I knew they were going to get me that. But I'll travel to other countries too so it might be more useful in the future:), like Yiling said.

Oh, for people who don't know, thanks to Felda, the cat's out of the bag. Due to some misunderstanding she thought they knew from Ram so she pratically announced it to the debate team. But it's ok. Nothing to be embarassed about, though I didn't want it known orignally cos I thought it might be a little awkward for TAT.

I'm going out with Judith later for the second round of birthday celebrations. I wonder if she's gotten my birthday present yet, haha. And my sis will treat me again when she gets back from India. This is a thousand times better than my last birthday (the worst one in my life) where I got stomach flu and couldn't eat anything.

Now I shall keep on contemplating what to get for my mum's birthday, which is on the 31st.

I discovered many new things today.

Discovery 1: Most humans are stupid

This theory has been built up steadily throughout the day. The first lesson I had in the morning was econs tutorial, where I never cease to be surprised how Mrs Leong manages to turn every single period we have with her into a torturous stretch of time. I thought nothing much could go wrong since we were just getting back our econs MCQ papers, but she still somehow gave us the Look (the "you little dumb worm" look), and asked us all questions that we couldn't answer, not because we didn't know how to answer but because we really didn't know what she was asking for.

I have some general observations with regard to this. Mrs Leong asks us a question. We don't know what she is talking about. In order to avoid the Look we try to answer what we think she is asking. We hit nowhere near the right answer and she gives us the Look. She repeats the question in another form, and she continues to Look at us. Deciding that saying someting is better than just sitting there and looking back at her, we sprout half-formed theories linking interest rates and unemployment that we know are crap once we hear ourselves saying it. It is, however, too late, and her overall estimate of our stupidity level increases even further, and her way of overcoming it is to ask us even more questions that we cannot answer. This forms a Vicious Cycle where both sides think that the other is stupid, with the class wondering why she is asking such dumb questions and Mrs Leong wondering why we can't answer such dumb questions. I rest my case.

My theory was further substantiated in the next lesson we had, Chemistry lecture. We were told, in no uncertain terms, that the lecturer had a Very Short Time to complete the syllabus, as well as the biochemistry summary which will no doubt Help In Our Revision. I fail to see how reading the lecture notes in the speed of a bullet train and jabbing the notes on the visualizer rapidly to emphasize her points manages to accomplish this. Even worse, her efforts to draw in as little breath as possible to finish her words also keeps her voice a constant monotone; and unfortunately for me, her somewhat shrill voice has the effect of penetrating my consciousness, so that I was unable to slip into a restful sleep. I don't think that many people had that problem, though, considering that most of my row looked gone to this world.

I discovered further stupidity when I was retaking my NAFA test. While the average female pretty much stops growing taller by the age of 14, the standing board jump passing mark increases every year. So the typical adolescent is expected to somehow find greater spring in her legs, even when puberty causes her hips to enlarge. For a butt heavy person like me, the stupidity of the sports council or whatever organisation designing this test is an especially sore point because I jump to the same mark every year but I'm getting a bloody bronze (which in the PE dept's opinion is a fail) because the mark keeps increasing. Argh. I got three As and 2 Cs for the rest, so I was supremely irritated after my second NAFA today.

ANd then when I went to the concourse after PE, I encountered further stupidity. Those nice silver tables replaced the big, ugly, white ones presumably so that MORE Vj students could use them. But what has happened thus far is that everyone is just moving the table together because they find that they have no space. I don't see why the money had to be wasted in the first place.

Discovery 2: Failing a test when you didn't study feels infinitely better than failing a test than you did study

This is because in the former, you know that it's partly cos you're lazy and suspect it's possibly cos you're stupid; while in the latter, you KNOW that it's because you were stupid. I find it rather ironical that I spent the most time studying for Chemistry, yet I scored the worst marks for it. The remaining nine out of ten days I had after my competition was wholly spent doing Chemistry, becasue I knew it sucked. One day was spent on math, and I left just the day before for econs and physics. To my amazement, I passed physics, math and will probably pass econs, but I GOT MY FIRST BLOODY FAILURE IN VJ ON THIS CHEMISTRY PAPER. Argh. It was almost amusing, actually. The first thing my chem tutor did when he stepped into class today was to pass around photocopied articles that quoted "success is not forever, failure is never final". With sinking hearts we made educated guesses on which category we were approximately under.

Sigh, now I feel like an idiot in more ways than one.

My third discovery is that I have:
1) Underestimated the number of people reading my blog
2) Underestimated the gossip index of the average student

This comes after certain curious souls whom I didn't know knew of my blog, as well as several individuals whom I know knew of it tapped me and asked, "ay, who is it? Is he among those on stage this morning?".

(sweatdrop)

I deleted the previous post cos it was having problems...the words were screwed on my com.

Haha, how fast scandals spread!

I just had a very entertaining and enlightening converstation with Ram, who was telling me about rather nosey speculation about my level one crush among the current debate team. It appears that some rather kepo individuals (or perhaps ONE kepo individual) go on blog-surfing frenzies through links on different blogs. Everyone who comes to my blog should leave a tag or something. Since presently I can still count on one hand the number of people I've told my blog address to, and they're only eight pple that I know know of my blog. That makes things quite confusing.

Anyway, thank goodness this is only a level one crush, or I will probably be EMBARRASSED. Since I'm not, I shall happily provide my views on the matter.

Apparently Robin was traumatised that anyone could like tat's smile and tat couldn't imagine who could like Robin's smile. I now think BOTH of them are so cute! The way they bitch about each other is really quite adorable. Yet again, there's really no accounting for taste. But it does make sense that a big mouth goes with a nice smile.

This comes with a startling realisation--guys are really more bitchy and busybody than girls are, especially guys in debate. Though I'm happy to say that most debate guys admit it more than the usual breed of male gossipers, who feign a studied lack of interest but seem to know more crap than anyone else. I get surprised by my own dear father sometimes when he starts talking about his colleagues.

I think the one main difference between the typical female gossip and the typical male gossip is the concentration. Male busybodies tend to specialise; they pick one subject and they harp on it/him/her for an extended period of time. Girls, however, tend to bitch about everything under the sun when they're in the mood for it.

The same goes for nagging. Mothers tend to nag about everything in particular--the state of your room, your homework, your clothes etc etc etc. Fathers, on the other hand, pick one thing they wish to nag about, and will remind you of it constantly day and night (This is based on empirical evidence, after I failed my math exam in sec three). The MF duo is a truly frightening combination.

To Judith and all others who say I lack hormones: I think I have a level one crush! I find one of my debate juniors rather cute and I think that he has a nice smile. My mind also wanders to him occasionally, so it fulfills the technical definitions. Does that count?

Other than that, my life has been dreary. I was rather grumpy today and especially didn't feel like talking to my parents. I'm sick of explaining myself. Can't people just accept what I do and say and just stop asking? Oh from my parents there's a whole slew of questions, but even in school now some people go, "WHY do you still take Chinese?" or "Why did you come VJ? (after one and a half years some pple still ask that)".

Especially parents. You know, I think school and the stage between adolescence and adulthood doesn't suit people like me. I'm so sick of the restrictions that surround us: for God's sake, EIGHTEEN IS NOT YOUNG. If it wasn't for education, I would be working, starting my own family and basically making my own decisions. It isn't the rebelliousness of teenagers either, and I'm not this hot-blooded youngster that has a big ego but little brain. I find school so childish--so many rules just to instill discipline, like it hasn't been done continually in my last ten years. Respect for authority just because it is authority. Well, yes, it's not that I see no point in it at all; but suddenly I just feel too old for all these. Urgh, man, you know I really always thought Brenda was this little old woman inside a young girl, but after meeting her on Saturday i realised that I feel even older. This is terrible.

There's still university to go through. I had everything clear within me a few months ago--my direction in life, what I wanted to achieve in the end, and exactly where I wanted to go in the next few years. Now I feel so lost and trapped. And so tired. The details of my process has become blurred, yet my end point is clearer than ever before, leaving me stuck in the middle of nowhere not knowing where to go.

I realise that I'm a bloody workaholic. Too bad I can't seem to apply to my studies.

Had a headache today, causing me to sleep through GP and miss some rather exciting stuff. Exciting for GP, anyway. Thanks to drugs, my headache is now gone, but I intend to sleep early tonight.

Here's my little anecdote of the day:

I went to Pulau Ubin with my sister and her Japanese friend last year, and after some cycling, we went to this hawker-centre-restaurant near the jetty to have lunch. My sister wanted to eat Hor Fun, and on the menu, a plate of 'normal' Hor Fun cost $4, but our attention was caught by this 'Moonlight Hor Fun' which was one dollar more expensive. WOndering what the hell was 'Moonlight Hor Fun', we ordered it, and waited with anticipation until we discovered, to our disappointment that the one dollar was paid for an egg cracked on top of the brown mess.

In future, I'm going to open a restaurant and sell 'sunshine noodles'.

During the bbq Amanda came very late because of some fire near her house, and we were all laughing when she said that the strange thing was, it seemed to be coming from the fire station. Yesterday's papers did report a fire, and she was right--it occured at the fire station workshop. Apparently there were no fire engines there. Congratulations to Amanda for having witnessed a rare and embarrassing event.

I got a date for my birthday! Yiling asked me to keep my afternoon free and said she's going to treat me ice-cream at the very nice Hagen Das (spelling correct?) in esplanade. Or rather, she said 'we' so I think Hui Fen's coming along too. So happy that she remembered, although I guess I was rather explicit about it. But honestly, when I said "I'm going to get someone to treat me ice-cream here on my birthday" I really didn't mean it as a hint. As in, the party I was going to coerce was not intended to be Yiling. Thank you so much! (I thank you first, so you can't back out of it=P) Really very touched. I love these little thoughtful gestures.

Uh, come to think of it, I still have Yiling's and Hannah's present plus two nice cards sitting somewhere in my room. I better get them out. We can have a gift exchange on my birthday! Brilliant idea, isn't it?

Sigh I want to call my sis tonight but I want to sleep early too; there's a two and a half hour differential between here and India. Never mind, I shall last it out.

My fishes' home is now complete, and they're now swimming around doing nothing. Maybe I shall create another earthquake soon, though it's quite a pity. It's nicer than before; the slope is neater and the circle is more, um, circular. It was quite funny watching them at first because they kept changing their minds, they were shifting the pebbles in and out under the log like they weren't quite sure where to put them.

I realised the Judith was right--my parrot fish are HUGE. This realisation came after my mum came across smaller (quite significantly smaller) parrot fish being sold at the aquarium for $88. (The small ones are about $2 to $5, so $88 is considered very big). Of course my mum sniffed at it and commented that they were half the size of ours. After that, my sister joked that we could sell them both for $888 each. The lucky red fish! Will give long life, good health and good luck.

I was thinking about the theory of evolution when another question about God popped into mind. If God created man, who created God? If we can accept that God just existed, then why can't we accept this at a lower level: that man just existed?

I think I can never take up a religion because I think too much.

I was just recalling a conversation I overheard from my mum's tuition pupils the other day. It went something like this:

Boy A: "What's a condom ar? Can eat annot?"

Girl B: "No lah! Where got condom can eat one?"

Boy C: "But it has chocolate flavour what."

Boy B: "Yar loh. If cannot eat then why got chocolate flavour?"

Girl B: "But I never heard of condoms can eat one leh?"

Boy D: "Then maybe it's not a condom..."

Boy B and C: "But it wrote there 'condom' what!"

At that point my mother gave up and told them what a condom was. Come to think of it, condoms in NTUC are sold beside the sweet section near the counter, and are packaged in small attractive boxes. I was mistaken once myself seeing a bright pink package with 'strawberry flavour' on it.

Had such a tiring day yesterday--when I was at the bbq at Woon Teng's house at night I was on the verge of falling asleep. I was drifting off on her bed after the bbq. I asked the bunch whether they wanted to backpack in China--Brenda's interested and will probably go, Hui Chu will depending on when we go and Amanda depending on her parents and results. Woon Teng's interested but she says her parents may not allow. In any case, Woon Teng, you better not complain too much or I'll really knock you over the head and leave you somewhere (bares teeth).

I think between Lin Zi and I we've recruited enough females for the trip. So now we are desperately short of males--the thing is, Singaporean guys will be going for NS, so we need to find interested non-Singaporeans. That considerably limits our pool. Sigh, I hope Lin Zi's PRC classmates are agreeable to it.

I just found the most effective and cheapest dieting method.

1) Buy three sardine currypuffs, at three for one dollar, from the nice lady selling them just outside the MRT station.

2) You will eat the first sardine currypuff and discover it to be made of a lot of flour, a lot of butter, a lot of grease and very little sardine. You feel your jaw aching from the effort of chewing the unaccountably tough pastry, but you think that this is breakfast and you should be eating more. So you eat a second sardine currypuff.

3) After the second sardine currypuff, you realise that you really cannot stomach down the third. So you tie the plastic bag carefully and put it in your bag, not wanting to waste food. At the same time you think, in a very virtuous mood, "I'll eat it later, when I'm hungry."

4) You go to school and attend your lessons. Somewhere in the middle of the day, you start to feel somewhat like eating. You think of the sardine currypuff in your bag, and you decide that you are actually not that hungry after all.

This is how I managed to survive my day with two currypuffs at around seven in the morning and one untouched in my bag all the way until dinner.

I think it'll work with potato currypuffs as well, provided you buy them from the same nice lady I got my sardine ones from.

I shall thus name this as the Currypuff Diet.

Ok, I'm writing again because this is about my fish, which requires a special entry all by itself. Fish tank cleaning has occured! I was feeling rather bad about it because they were just doing final touches; a few days ago I saw the pale fish swim upside down, to press against the gravel so as to smoothen it. Really perfectionist, this fish. Anyway, now its all gone and they have something to do again.

I argued quite vehemently with my mum because she added this chemical to prevent algae in the water, which made the water very clear but the fish very sick. They were disorientated and weren't eating for the next few days. My mum replaced some of the water to make it less toxic, and a day later they adjusted and started eating and working again.

Haha, I wonder what their next home would look like.

We beat SAJC! Hoho, it has been a long while since I've come online without the intention of ploughing through huge PDF files by various famous economists doing studies on economic aid. BUt it was worth it, more worth it than what the HC team did cos at least it was a good fight. The rest of my team unfortunately abandoned me after, leaving me to stay for the results, because they "all live far off in the east and it's the most convenient for me." Whatever. I was going to stay to watch Judith anyway, just too bad the debate sucked as it was pretty clear that HC would win by default, if nothing else. The crossfire round was one of the most amusing things I've seen though. The second speaker of MJ was just so obtuse that you really couldn't believe how much.

Tagged along with the HC team after the whole thing, since I had no team to tag along with. Went to KFC second floor, only to troop down again five minutes later because Judith wanted Burger King, where Kristy and I got wet (for a certain reason someone would know...). Accompanied Judith to buy green eyeshadow, then her aunt gave me a lift all the way back home. (It was very kind of her, Judith, pls help me express my sincere appreciation for her. Your aunt is really the nicest lady I've known)Then I talked to my mum for two hours, for family communication.

Hannah returned home today, but I'm going to meet her again tmr to watch Around the World in Eighty Days, a presumably exciting Jackie CHan show which on of the bleating masses like me like to watch. Haha, had to drag her to it, cos she doesn't watch movies much, so it might as well be this one. In fact, we'll probably talk more than we have in the last three days, since I kept leaving home to go to school for the debate. She studied a hell lot more than I did, though, and very kindly left some of her math notes with me so I wouldn't die a horrible death during the common test.

Fortunately, I discovered that the finals are on 24th July (one day before my birthday!), not 20th June as my teacher-in-charge led us to believe. That means I have three more days to study, and I might die a less horrible death than before.

I shall make this momentous announcement:

*drumrolls*

I packed my room! Which may not seem like a big thing to you, unless you've
a) seen my room before last night
b) been living in it for two months

So last night at eleven plus, i decided that I couldn't stand it anymore, and I stayed up the entire night doing packing and filing. Nine straight hours of solid packing. I'm so proud of myself.

Of course, part of it is because Hannah's going to stay over for a few days next week, and I can't let her sleep in a dump. Which was pretty much what I felt like i was doing for some time.

Ok, my blog design has changed once more! It now contains my famous fish, thanks to Judith again. Actually the fish has changed their home too, so its not the newest update.

I still don't like the blog design, but I feel bad about bothering Judith again. SO I shall just hint quietly here and she can choose to ignore it if she wishes. Haha. Aren't I brilliant?

It occured to me that I'm actually quite fortunate in terms of relationships, despite all my previous angst about feeling lonely. I have a few good 'pair' friends and a reasonably close clique that I feel absolutely comfortable with. And I have a very tight bond with my sister.

Ah well. Today must be my 'thank my blessings day':)

Been delving into the world of fiction and cheerfully ignoring all that I need to do. I read DOuglas Adams yesterday; he's quite funny, but I think I shall always prefer Terry Pratchett because his stories lead somewhere. For Douglas Adams' books I can't really concieve a plot most of the time, just a series of events strung together, described in an amusing way.

I seem to especially like Night Watch, for some reason. It's somehow heartwarming for me, though why this is so I have no idea.

hey xuwen, i have changed the background, kind of temporarily. if you like it, you can keep it. if not, just tell me. AND STOP GIVING OUT YOUR PASSWORD!

jud

I had this nightmare the night before that may have showed that I was thinking too much about fish. I dreamt that we started having different fish in the fish tank (a few diff species) and they started killing each other. I remember the scene when I was going to feed them, of some missing fish, a few fish bones in one corner and predatory fish swimming about. The image then was truly stark...it was all grey, and the green that was supposed to be at the background had faded to that colour. And I thought to myself then: apocalypse. It was very chilling, and there was a world of difference between that and the happy, domesticated fish we have in our tank trying to improve their lives. If the end of human civilisation would ever come about, it may be like this.

I've been thinking especially much about God these days, when I look at my fish (excuse my speculations if you have prior beliefs). In the perspective of my fish, I could be God--I provide them with the space to live in, food to eat,in fact everything in the environment--the gravel, the log, the flower, has been given by me. They see my face sometimes, and they swim against their tank in wonder.

Yet, as much as I want to, beyond that, I can't control their lives. If they fight among each other, the most I could do is remove one party (it happened for quite some time before there was 'peace'), not intervene. When two big fish bully one smaller one (that happened too, for a while until the small one died of heart attack) and prevent it from eating, I can't do much either.

I can't dictate what they are building in the tank. In fact, I have no idea what they are doing...At first, I thought that the cleared space at the left side of the log (the empty circle surrounded by larger pebbles) was for them to sleep, but last night I discovered them to be sleeping on the other side, in what appeared to be the 'garden'. So what's it's purpose? Or is it still 'under construction'? I truly have no idea. I tried to help them in the past by shifting the log, and my mum removed some gravel when the slope was piling up too high. Now though, I've kind of given up because I can only guess at their thoughts. For all I know, they could be developing complex theories about stones.

I have the best intentions for them, and I would do everything in my power to prevent the apocalypse as mentioned above; yet what I can do is limited, not by choice but by circumstance. If there is indeed a God (that's still a question I'm pondering), perhaps He's not this omnipotent, omniprescent character that can control our lives, because our fate, to a large extent continues to be self-dictated.

To people who complain that I'm obsessed about my fish, this is one of the reasons for my continued fascination. There are so many parallels to be drawn to the human world in this perspective.

For example, nothing could show better than this the power of cooperation. When the two fish were fighting, both sides lived in general fear, gobbled their food and went to opposite sides of the tank. After they became good friends, the tank went through a major revamp, which I shall not elaborate cos I've described too much already. Living standards have improved now that resources are not being wasted in fighting.

Though I must say, the thought of a big alien in the sky is quite a frightening one.

What do you think?

I wish something can be done about my blog. It's a bit screwed, but I didn't do anything to it so I don't know how to right it.

Yesterday I watched this show 'the odd couple'--a Hwa Chong EL production. To think that I refused most of the concerts in my school because I was too lazy to get off my bum and was in the end, dragged up by a rather determined Judith. It was not bad lah, quite funny, though I thought the ending somehow unsatisfactory.

I saw Woon Teng watching the show too! I guess it just didn't occur to both of us to tell each other. She's looking better--slimmer, I think, better taste in clothes and nicely brushed long hair:) Pretty. But anyway, I didn't stay to talk to her because I was being dragged off (literally) by yet again, Judith, the publicity head or whatever, to pay $1.50 for a programme booklet because it had her name in it. In the end I paid $2 for a programme booklet and a 'free' drink.

TALKING ABOUT PROGRAMME BOOKLETS, NOW I'M STUCK WITH ONE THAT I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH BECAUSE I PAID $1.50 FOR IT AND IT HAS NO USE TO ME WHATSOEVER. JUST LIKE I TOLD YOU. SO THERE. Haha, maybe I'll cut out your name and paste it in my diary, just to be perverse. And thanks for the 'letter', my father passed it to me when I got home, though I was wondering originally why it came in so many pieces:)

My father bought this budget calling card so that I could call my sis. I called her three times this week--by the way they cheat your money cos I'm supposed to have a talk time of one hour, but it worked out to be only 35 min, though it's still cheaper than IDD rates. I have two more cards to call with.