philos
liberté
princeps
memoria

and i hope you find your freedom,
for eternity.


We've had our angst week, and this week it's the can't-keep-my-eyes-open week, though unofficial. I had my first canteen coffee bing, and my first breadtalk coffee cupcake (: Terrific.

Apart from that, I am feeling pretty lousy actually. Blame it on the sun. It kills my good cells and replaces them with cancerous energy within. Woe is me. I hate angsting, but somehow the angst seems to manifest itself into this little update, and I am left feeling a greater sense of hopelessness than before. I thought writing was meant to be therapeutic by nature.

close your eyes so you don't see them.
they don't need to see you cry.

To the good friends reading this, I hope you have a great day tomorrow. And to those who let me angst and squeal today, and squealed unhappily with me as well, we'll pull through guys. We'll pull through.

But they tell me I'm doing fine..

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It is horribly late now, and my eyes can't seem to stay open. Yet I am reading my buddies' blogs, and I came across this really cool memory tree that everyone should really consider doing. You record whatever comes to you at the certain age, and when you think back at what you've achieved in your life, or what you have yet to achieve, you begin to grow up.

And seriously, we all need that someday, in someway.

The memory tree

when i was four,
I stepped in jurong calvary kindergarten,
and it changed my life forever.
I sang my first solo song in front of my class.
"one door and only one, and yet it has sides of 2"
I made fantastic new kiddy friends,
3 of whom I still keep in contact with,
1 who remains my best friend

when i was six,
I gave the farewell speech for my kindergarten.
I was clueless,
And maybe I still am..

when i was seven,
jurong primary school!
My teacher made me monitress,
and I thought I ruled the world.
I sang Chinese opera, and did chinese dance.


when i was eight,
I had the coolest form teacher ever.
He taught me a lot about life, even at that age.
Chase your dreams, he said.
I'm still chasing them now.


when i was nine,
I was third in class, and monitress again.
I didn't know to be the first was the best.
I thought third was good enough.
And to be absolutely frank,
I still do.

when i was ten,
I wanted to quit piano. I couldn't handle Handel.
I had a huge crush on this boy.
I wanted to migrate to Australia.
My good friend left for America.
Forever, without a goodbye.

when i was eleven,
I continued the crush.
I was monitress again,
but this time I didn't think it was a big deal.
I went for my first radio gig.
I won the English compo event, I wrote about aliens.
I still couldn't speak good Chinese.
My Chinese teacher hated me.


when i was twelve,
psle didn't kill me.
I sprinted for my house
We set the record (and it hasn't been broken yet)
I gave the Sport's pledge,
And the graduation speech.
I was unafraid.
(but not anymore)

when i was thirteen,
I thought I was all grown up.
life in ny was highly stressful
I was still terrible at Chinese,
and it was killing me.


when i was fourteen,
I danced for teachers day.
I still remember Jolin Tsai's 72 thing.
Me and jc were monitresses
i cried when mum asked me to leave ny.
It was so tough. ny rg nj.

when i was fifteen,
raffles girls school :)
my class made me treasurer
from the goodness of their hearts (:
I made great fantastic friends
And created choir bonds that will last a lifetime
I faced one of the most difficult times of my life
And I trusted God, all the way.
And He delivered me.

when i was sixteen,
it was sweet. I thought life was looking up
and the sky wasn't just black
it was in shades of grey.
I had a great class
A great outlook
New responsibilities
My heart broke.
And with torrents of new emotion coursing through me
I thought I would explode from it all.

Now I'm seventeen
I'm quite different.
I've grown out of my orange phase,
and into my green and purple.
I have a new crush(es) (:
I have new dreams, and new heights to conquer.
Life is no longer grey, but this kaleidoscope of colour
A riot.
I have my rachmaninov, my poulenc
My woolf and auden
My barrier against the cold dark places in my heart.


Aside from that, during dance today we had to move from the hall to the studio, and thank goodness for that, if not I would have missed the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. It was rightly a sunset, but you could see the SILVER LINING of the white magnolia clouds, and then just peeking through were two diagonal beams of pure white sunlight, like what you see on hollywood films when they put on the spotlights. It was so so beautiful, and it was a sign.

But anyway, I have to sleep now. Don't want to die halfway through geog tomorrow.


It really isn't difficult to live a great and happy life. It really isn't that hard to smile sometimes.

Life's looking up, for all of us.

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Went to Wheelock Place's Sun with Moon Japanese Dining for my sis's birthday celebration! (: Gorged myself on delectable pieces of sushi, and grilled cod, sashimi, green tea ice cream, and peach punch!







Unfortunately I didn't know the harmless looking peach punch had a little alcohol content lol. I misread it under the Mocktail section, so I ended up feeling pretty terrible by the end of the night, and today my brain just hurts. (It's running hurdles up there in my skull. No actually it's more like raging a war with my nerve endings.)


oooh sushiii


monster brother eating monster ex sushi


aha this is my grilled cod.. it was so pretty I didn't feel like eating it.


some weird terriyaki chicken structure..


gramps with the beef rice. It tasted nothing like what I love to eat in school during lunch.. By nothing I mean a very very positive nothing.





ok this was like a "birthday cake" for my sis. $88 sashimi. (the white substances are ice shavings) What you see is what you get. It was good.


red bean ice cream (:




gramps and gran! loves-

Shots with the birthday girl ;)







mastering the art of mirror shots.



happy birthday to youuu..

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Bought my new uniform, and I sadly had to endure certain negative vibes as well. I don't understand how a simple uniform can incur so much wrath. I was aimlessly harmlessly looking through sizes, and suddenly I have weird girls and a weird guy from a certain established institution giving me weird vibes with their weird glances and whispers. And their whispers were not whispers.

But I will not let this affect me, because I do not understand weird people, nor do I want to. I have enough weirdness of my own to last me a lifetime thanks.

Away from all this negativity, I have decided that my blog template does nothing to elevate anyone's mood. In fact, it is down right depressing. But the problem is I am too lazy to change it back to my simple nice balloon one, and I really like the girl with the zebra tights holding the pink umbrella. It's as if she needs some sort of protection against the storms of life. And that brings me to W.H. Auden's There Will Be No Peace, which everyone should have a look at. It is a good piece of writing.

I think some people in my class have a very wrong idea about my beliefs in life, especially with regard to feminism. Aiyoh, just because I appreciate Charlotte Bronte and Virginia Woolf and highly respect their writing, it doesn't mean I live and breathe for the coming of victory of Woman over the men. I mean, who isn't upset when we have high female birth mortality rates, subjugation of women, and abuse? I don't use cute phrases like womyn or fishers, do I?

I just feel that if it were all different, ceteris paribus, the world might actually be a better place to live in, don't you think? As it is, the world is now seriously irking most people, and we have boycotts, burning of flags, prison abuses, shootings in gasp horror Singapore, and everything else..

Oh no I realised that is yet another rant on the failure of this world. I should just stop bothering about all of this and lead my happy little life away from all the misery. And I should seriously think about changing my template.

I have a sakae sushi party to go to! Yeah man, I just love parties (:
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(( i'm not crazy i'm just a little unwell ))

i got OWNED, DESTROYED, MAULED. GG! (guy phrases lol)

5 funky cool things I've realised about A13A:

1) We can gather about in our little circle anytime, and not feel the slightest bit awkward or irritated at all. How cool is that.

2) We love doing little things as a class, like giving Mr. S a soccer ball, or having really cool discussions out of the blue about abortion and pro-choice.

3) We can walk about in public in guy-girl pairs, with the guy holding the umbrella [aww..], and not find it the slightest bit weird. (or at least I didn't feel any awkward vibes..) That is major coolness plus infinity.

4) We periodically acknowledge and declare how much we love our class, actually on a daily basis..

5) Our secret yahoo groups is extremely active, and we pursue intellectual discoveries together. Globalisation in India, anyone?

Hooray! I've just typed that down for no particular reason, other than it just stuck me how truly blessed I am to be in A13A. God never moves without purpose or plan, and I believe that with all my heart.

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Higher chinese CMI man.. But never mind that. It hasn't mattered, doesn't matter, and will not matter. Mum is the most anti-mandarin person I've ever met. Once she knew I had passed HCL, she was so happy that I could go burn my books already (which I didn't for fear of an E8), but I have decided that book-burning is against my principles, so if anyone has the urge to shred chinese words, be my guest.

That being over and done with, I have officially washed my hands off that beautiful but crazy language. My chinese standard is so low presently that I cannot even speak a coherent sentence in chinese without having to lapse into english or even gasp shudder oh the horror hokkien. Wo3 zhen1 de4 hen3 shi1 bai4.

My sis bi_ched about me to her teacher in a school essay in 2004 can you believe that. My own flesh and blood, betraying me in such a horrendous fashion. It is unthinkable. It is unspeakable. She wrote "my sister whacked me for jumping on her bed. I never will again. She whacked me so hard it still stings now." I stand amazed at the intellectual tone of her essay. There is a lot I have to learn.

I think sarcasm really is the tearing of the flesh, especially when not used in a humorous context. That said, I do not believe I have ever had the pleasure or the pain of sarcasm in a quarrel. Thank goodness, or I shall have to be reduced to a puddle of painful tears.




I think that I should just forget about eating raisins. Yes I think I should. It involves too much emotion that is better channelled elsewhere, and the pieces of my heart that break off every time something goes wrong (and they usually do) is too frequent, too much. I will forget the pain if I am too used to it. But what will I become..

________________________________

I have just eaten 6 custard cream cookies, after my huge seafood dinner. They are very very good. And the almond biscuits from marks&spencers are fantastic. I cannot stop.

But anyway, deviating from my normal randomness, I was looking at all my photos from the year oh-so-long ago 2005. And boy have we grown.

The thing about rj is the people are so different. They just change and all grow up, and this said in a good way. We are more aware about the things we say, the way we say them, and why we say them. Or maybe it's just me, and the after-effects of KI..

Time is the only luxury we don't have.





is that youthful innocence i see, or just another way of living..











O LEVEL HCL RESULTS tomorrow. But before I go into that alternate reality, here's our poonsy. The last lesson before Os.




and now?

gone are the days..
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Service yesterday was awesome. It was purely devotion time, purely praise, purely adoration. And yes, a form of acknowledgement that He is with me, all through my days.

After that, rushed over to ann tay's sexy seventeen party at suntec (: I went over to somerset to find her present first, and then I was caught up in the huge crowd of people waiting for the chingay thing to begin.

This is what is so cool about hanging out with them. Firstly (we're not supposed to separate paragraphs in econs essays like that, but this is hardly an essay, much less an econs essay), we can sit around for a very long time laughing like crazy at new developments in the guy department aka crushes. And then zai clara will guess correctly most of the time, and this is succeeded by excessive amounts of squealing and giggling. It was a massive girl talk session. (:

And then! We had our surprise for ann tay! We sneakily left her in the toilet while we ran like the wind across suntec to find this little shop H2O with her clue, and she was supposed to go "back to the beginning" (near the fountain of wealth) for her surprise. It was quite insane actually, running here and there, hoping she didn't walk too quickly. While the others were setting up the surprise, ann dee and me did a little royal sporting house / nike/ adidas shopping. There are no new additions to the bag section in case you were wondering. ): But I digress.

We got a laser dedication for ann on the fountain! The "deejay" read out our dedication, and played Vit C's cliched but very appropriate song, and we stood around reminiscing..

anndeechaycherclarasabbyxyjingx

Swinging Singles Party coming up! (:

I cannot cannot cannot wait for A13A's V Day gift exchange! ZOh my goodness it will most definitely be a blast! A guy to a girl, a girl to a guy, a week long of serious getting-to-know-yous.. I cannot ask for a better class. THIS ONE ROCKS TOO MUCH. :D

I've read Philip Larkin's This Be The Verse, and I am unimpressed. I was complaining to William about that horrid poem, and he half-agreed. I'm not saying I'm the world's greatest poet, or that I can even write good poetry, but some things just don't constitute art. Art should be respected for one. But there's no denying, Larkin nips it in the bud. He's got the world of words wrapped around his finger, and with it he just spins spins spins away..

But unlike this certain fellow in my class, I much prefer Emily Bronte's simplicity. There is this calm desperation in her voice that one can understand, because maybe I'm a girl, and to be a girl could actually be the link to the little idiosyncrasies most girls have, and then we feel as one, and think as one, and know as one.

Actually, it sounds like a cult to me. Women's Cult Group. The Woman's Cultish Voice. That'll be the day.
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Cry - Mandy Moore

I'll always remember
It was late afternoon
It lasted forever
And ended too soon

You were all by yourself
Staring up at a dark gray sky
I was changed

In places no one would find
All your feelings so deep inside

It was then that I realized
That forever was in your eyes
The moment I saw you cry

It was late in september
And I've seen you before
You were always the cold one
But i was never that sure

You were all by yourself
Staring at a dark gray sky
I was changed

I wanted to hold you
i wanted to make it go away
I wanted to know you
I wanted to make your everything

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