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.

Random Thoughts

I have been eating continuously today. Chips in the morning, and MORE chips in the afternoon. Chocolate, though by my standards I didn't have all that much of it. I also opened a can of salmon spread and had a packet of milo powder, because I felt like something sweet and savoury at the same time.

My sister very kindly offered to cook me corn in the evening, so I told her to microwave it for 7 minutes with a little water for steaming. Due to her natural kiasu tendencies she filled half the big bowl with water and heated it longer than seven minutes, so I got corn soup as well. Unfortunately my mother stole half my corn so I had to cook another one to share with my father.

Let me complain more about my mum. In the middle of my physics practice paper she told me to help her glue this crystal necklace together, because the metal bit dropped out and i was suppposed to have steadier hands. After that she coerced me to glue this elephant, the broken cap of a teapot and another broken cap of this container, her main argument being that "we shouldn't waste superglue". After I finished there was still quite some left so I asked her what to do with it, and her prompt reply--"throw it away, it's only ten cents." So much for conservation.

I think a new batch of mosquitoes just hatched near my house, because we've suddenly been inundated with them. As a result we've been busy lighting mosquito coils all around the place. The good thing about it is, after a while you will get naturally mosquito repelling tendecies as well due to you smelling like a big mosquito coil.

I just realised that the "archives" link in the white box does not quite lead to the archives, probably because I haven't done proper html-ing or whatever. In fact it goes to a blogger "Not Found" page. How? Any comments anyone? Who knows how to do? I think that my blog is quite interesting, so I should archive it.

I had this really weird dream a few nights ago. It started with ordinary life, then somehow I accompanied Lin Zi to the hospital for a check up, where we discovered she had three types of cancer. My brain even came up with charts and realistic looking diagrams which was showed to us then. It was more scary than the typical monster dream (which I had later, as I shall describe) because it was just so ordinary. I shall call her tonight, I think, just to see how she is.

Then I was walking in a school compound in the middle of the night. It was pitch dark and there were dogs, dogs and more dogs all over the place, staring at me and the group of friends I was with as we walked past. I don't really know what the hell we were doing there, actually, since it was so freaky. I made a face at a dog (that was quite unintentional, I think I was trying to stretch my jaw muscles) and suddenly it was coming towards me, this rabid looking, drooling, glowing eyed creature. I was panicking but as it leapt, I suddenly felt calm as I remembered that all my friends were werewolves, so I probably had nothing to fear from dogs. But none of them stepped forward, and I was wondering why and backing away when I suddenly remembered that I too, was a werewolf. Claws came out (not unlike wolverine in X-men) and the dog died a sorry death. My friends were looking at me like I was dumb, after I turned back to them.

Well.

Anyway Yiling coindentally had a weird dream too, about me, Mr. Ng and her swimming through icy seas to a ship, where we climbed onto a deck which transported us to a mushroom field. At least, that's the compressed version.

I think I'm sinking into a bout of depression. Isolating myself at home is insufficient--I'm quite tempted to hide under the blankets all day. Unfortunately that means I wouldn't be able to STUDY, which is ostensibly why I skipped school in the first place. This is really a bad time for this to happen.

My feelings toward my sister's return is oscillating between joy and pure irritation. Things slipped back into easy familiarity in the space of the few minutes (MSN is really not the same) but the nagging thought of so many things to do, my study schedule etc etc etc rather prevents our usual long chats. And she's leaving in ten days too, for another four months. Her choice, her life, her future, and the entire family is involved. Including me, the wimp, who is irritated but proud of her at the same time. Irritating. Self-centred bummer. I'm in a shit mood today. I HATE SCHOOL. I HATE THIS SHITTIFIED SYSTEM.

Everything's getting me down. My parents are ageing. Not that I didn't know that before, but stark reality was presented today when they complained about the words on a book I borrowed on Japan (for my sister's exchange program) being too small and unreadable, and blur. A youthful person like me finds the words normal. And some day I grow old too, and my senses will fade.

The birds have to fly from their nests, but sometimes young birds feel sadder than old birds. But it's inevitiable.

This world sucks. The world around me sucks. I suck. Life sucks.

I went for the econs talk today at Nanyang Polytechnic, which resulted in me getting a lot of unneccessary exercise. I dropped off at Ang Mo Kio (because the street directory showed it to be the nearest MRT station) and walked for fifteen minutes to reach NYP, after asking around for directions. Then I had to circle the perimeter of the compound to find the gate, only to go across it again to get to the auditorium. Later after the event, when I was coming out with Hui Fen, I wondered why everybody was taking the escalator downwards in what seemed like the wrong direction--ONLY TO DISCOVER THAT IT LED TO A NICE, COVERED PATH ALL THE WAY TO YIO CHU KANG MRT STATION. (Gods, to think I was mystified when Hui Fen tried to give me directions over sms--she was probably wondering why I couldn't find the auditorium when it's supposed to be the first thing we see). Can you imagine? I dropped off at the WRONG MRT STATION, got in at the WRONG GATE, and almost went the WRONG WAY to the auditorium. I'm quite impressed with my own stupidity.

In light of this, I have just urged my mother to buy a new street directory.

Anyway, we heard three speakers--the first one was not bad, the second really awful and the third pretty impressive. He was this marketing director or something from SIA, to talk about competition in the airline industry, and it was quite humorous and enlightening. The pride he had for the company really came through; I guess in a way he had a big role in building up SIA.

I am actually quite optimistic about Singapore's future. I started out the opposite--Singapore was too small to make any impact, we could never compete in terms of land, talent pool, market size and resources; and we had already reached a plateau of growth, it seems. As I learned more about other economies and did further research, however, I slowly realised that every country has its own set of problems and limitations; ours, in light, are not as major as made out to be. Nor are they inevitable constants. If you're not convinced by this you should read up--really read up on huge emerging economies like China, and already established ones like Switzerland, instead of just mutely accepting the rosy picture of growth painted for us to worry about. They have their own worries too. In fact, when we come down to a recession, we have much higher chances of lasting it out, because all the contingency planning throughout the years of our growth--substantial reserves, good financial, social and basic infrastructure will give us greater manuveuring room in a crisis, allowing us to develop other sectors if necessary. Many great economies sink and stay there because they don't have this back-up, going into a cycle where they retain sunset industries yet lack the resources to become competitive in sunrise industries. If there's one thing I'm impressed about our government, it's this.

I went out with Judith just now, in my determination not to isolate myself for two and a half months before As (or three and a half till the end of As). Unfortunately my dinner was interrupted unceremoniously by many messages regarding a certain final report (which, by the way, I sacrificed one entire day of studying for, waiting for the email and all) and many phone calls that I had to make. By the way, sister dear, next time can you not send so many sms-es regarding the same thing? I got three just to say that you blogged, and usually in your desire to communicate your urgency to everyone else you send messages by phone too, which can be irritating if you're in front of the computer, checking your sms-es and email and having to pick up ringing phones all at once.

Back to Judith. It's quite ironical that the very friend I found "zi1 ji3" in sec 2 has all along been, and now more so than ever, so different from me. Contrary to what I had believed in earlier, our friendship seems to have been based on these very differences rather than our similarities; and looking back, many of our conversations were so interesting precisely because we disagreed--but we had similar enough interests to disagree in the same topic. Oh yar, I forgot to tell you, Olio Dome has now become "Olio" and "Dome", which I discovered thanks to Yiling, so now the one above Borders is "Olio". Weird.

I was frankly quite surprised today to find my ambitions being called "scary". Well, unusual, yes, but really I've never thought of it quite in this way before. I am past the earlier stages of deliberation--wondering about the meaning of nations among civilisations that rise and fall in this huge tapestry of life; thinking if I deserve to seek such a huge responsibility, based on both ability and moral character (and whether I will do more good than harm); deciding if it is indeed what I seek for in my life path. All that is left now is a crystallised, single minded obsession, driven by a vague vision I had years ago. A vision that contained more emotion than detail, causing me to seek fruitlessly and continuously for an answer; one that caught me more by the strange uplifting of my heart at that blurred image than my comprehension of exactly what it signified. A dream that I have dedicated myself to, but will probably never see come to fruit in my lifetime.

Scary? Come to think of it, perhaps. It frightens me a little, how far I've come due to this dream. For those who see my faults now have never truly known me before and after many of my transitions--all that I have fought for and what I have achieved. Everything that I feel I have done wrong, or could have done better, makes a mark on my mind, cumulating into a kind of conscious regret for what I am now and what I could be. For all that others may think of me, the lack of self-knowledge should not be an issue--big and small faults: something I've said wrongly, an attitude I should have had right from the start but is too late to change now, little nuances of my behaviour that is either offensive or just plain weird to others are clearer to me than to anyone else. I am determined to eliminate each one to the utmost of my ability, even those considered facets of personality that cannot be changed. Every success is a personal victory.

One of the few major breakthroughs, I feel, for me is admitting to myself what I want and my own inadequacies in not achieving it. For almost all my secondary school years I have used a lack of desire as an excuse not to try, or for my own under-performance, when in fact it was a deep set fear of failure. I know that I want good grades, and I haven't achieved them not because they were never that important to me, or because of my commitment to other activities, but due to plain laziness, a lack of will and sometimes pure stupidity (nicely described as a lack of academic inclination). While in the past I found others' efforts to find excuses for me comforting, I now find them patronising, though I know intentions are kind. I find nagging more irritating than ever, because it's going to make scant difference.

I comfort myself with the knowledge that even great leaders were not born perfect, but had to learn to be who they become. I have accepted, though, that there are certain limits to determination, from the constant frustration of seeking something that I just cannot do, do not have. Like words that come to the edge of my mind when I wish to express myself clearly. Most of all, I have learned not to judge others too quickly, because I can see in my mind's eye how people see me.

And by the time I go to sleep, wake up fresh, go for the Econs talk tomorrow, come back and read this entry, I will probably wonder if I was dumb to type all this and how I could have said it better. Just that, like for so many other things, I wouldn't know quite how to change it.

I'm afraid my entries are going to be incredibly dull from now on, because recently I'm having many dull thoughts. Any conversation I have nowadays center around three main topics: studying, further studies (plus grand plans for after As), and PM Goh's handover. I lead a dull life.

I'm happy to say, though, that I seem to have gotten my ball rolling, albeit slowly. It took five days of holiday (with the first three days wasted in unproductive activity) and one day of self-imposed self-study break. Unfortunately it is unlikely that I will catch up with the more consistent workers before prelims, though I hope to do decently well.

I realised that my blog is considerably light-hearted compared to many I have surfed. This is not a reflection of my true nature, because I am actually full of Angst. I just lack the emotive power to and language to type so much about it.

I realise that I can't keep two blogs at the same time. When I'm actively communicating with my sister in my other one I stop updating this.

I watched NDP yesterday with Hannah (actually she was surfing the net in my house) and felt very patriotic. I guess it made up a little for OVERSLEEPING LAST FRIDAY WHEN IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE NATIONAL DAY CELEBRATIONS IN MY SCHOOL. Argh, I'm still angry at myself--I meant to go watch the National Day celebrations and go for Econs S after, but days of sleep deprivation (plus going to Mabel cum Sin Yee's party the night before) had cumulated into a state of general unconsciousness where alarm clocks fail to make any impact, resulting in me waking up at at 12.30 pm. ARGH.

On Saturday, I went for the IE Singapore talk in the morning, then to VJ for the universities exhibition, where I joined Hannah, Grace and someone called Zhi Qiang. We went to West Mall and had sushi because all of us lived in that area. I realise how much I miss having people to go home with, actually, though it's really a minor thing.

After that I went for debate gathering, which was fun. I discovered that Amos is really very gossipy (one more nosey debate guy to join the many nosey debate guys). I suspected it at the start, but I didn't know the exact extent of gossipiness until then.

My sister's coming back this Sunday, 15/8.