Today marks the start of the preliminary examinations. Paper 1 was really screwed and half the time, I didn't know what I was writing about for the essay. It was until after the papers, that Deborah reminded me that I could have easily written about Mid-Autumn Festival. I was like, OHMYGOD, IT'S SO OBVIOUS, AND I HADN'T THOUGHT OF IT?! Aiyah, I rather not think about it.
Paper 2 was much more manageable than most of us had expected, but my summary was really really short. After the English papers, Deborah, Elaine, Mong Yi and I went to have lunch at Taka before going off to study for E-Math & SS. Oh my gosh, Mong Yi and Elaine practically stole all of our tartar sauce for the fish.

Before heading back to school, Mong Yi and I shared to pay for 100g of mixed berries, only to find out that the dried blueberries contained alcohol. What the hell. At first, I was doubtful and made Mong try. She said it tasted like there was but she couldn't be sure. So we got CK to try it and she was like, "Oh my god, are you two trying to get drunk on berries?!" Lolwtf, no way.

Farah and I got sick of studying a bit and went to run 2km at the track. After that, we each tried shooting hoops with the basketballs lying around at the court. It was so hilarious because we had this mini-competition of the first to get ten hoops. After that, it was discussing about some Chemistry stuff. Haha oh my god, seriously.

Back at study camp, I switched from studying Social Studies to E-Maths. Serene came in halfway and started talking to us about some stuff. She was going on about some stuff at church and I'd asked if she was a staunch Christian. She said she had been for a year and then gave up. Mong Yi was looking through the O Levels timetable and went, "OH MY GOD. BIO'S OUR LAST PAPER?! SO LATE! WHAT THE.."
"Fuck?" Serene completed her sentence. So I told Serene, "I thought you said you'll be prosecuted for the things you say? Tsk Serene, does that mean you want to get fucked?" Suddenly, the room that was meant for absolute silent study turned into an uproar of laughter and Serene couldn't stop laughing.

By the way, after walking around in Parkway with Zi Wei yesterday, I realised how many things I want to get from there. Let's just hope that they're still there when I'm back again.

And yuck, my hair still smells of chlorine from yesterday's swim.

Deborah was rather excited today because she was seriously up really early. Hahaha, for the first time in her life, she got to meet Kyle after seeing so many pictures of him and listening to him rant. HAHA.

Piano lesson was quite good. Debo was on the way to Marine Parade so I didn't go home but went straight to the bus-stop which I'd told her to meet up at with Kyle. On the way, I couldn't resist but to buy sweets. My stomach wasn't really happy with the fact that I'd forgotten to have breakfast. Well anyways, I reached the bus-stop much earlier than she had and the library wasn't open. I ended up on the swing at the playground behind the bus-stop and studying To Kill A Mockingbird while sitting on the swing. To think that in the past, everyone fought for a chance on the swing. At that moment, no one was around except for my TKAM notes.

Well, Kyle started texting and Debo called to say that she's reached. Let's say it was rather timely. Debo and I sat at the bus-stop right opposite Kyle's home and waited for him to come. Debo was like, "Let's play Spot-the-Kyle!" I absent-mindedly said, "Haha okay." And the next thing I knew, was that this mop of black hair caught my glimpse right across the road and I went, "OMG DEBO. I SPOT THE KYLE. I SPOT THE KYLE!" And she was like, "WHERE WHERE WHERE!" It was so funny.

The bus trip to VS was entertaining. People stared at the three of us, mainly Kyle, I suppose, and Kyle was telling us about that guy I'd seen him with the other time when Serena and I were studying at Lido. Real funny shit, seriously.

I guess the security guard at VS got rather uhm.. suspicious. HAHA.

Well the whole photoshoot thing went surprisingly well. Kyle was like Deborah's ultimate fitting model for the jacket. He was so surprisingly co-operative. And thank you Li Zhi, Debo was really impressed with the pictures(:
After lunch, Debo and I were planning to study. But after studying a bit after the intriguing session at the photo studio and lunch, we were too distracted to continue with studying. We ended up taking a bus to the museums in Orchard and going through the veins of the district. I never knew that the place was an art district. Gallery after gallery, artwork after artwork. An absolute eye-opener and ultimate stress-reliever. There was also a plus to all that walking. Towhuay :D

The entire day was filled with heavy scents and various sights. It's giving me a bit of a headache but it's a good one.

Old loves die hard; old lies die harder.

The moment I got home, I plopped myself onto the couch and somehow fell asleep. Suddenly, my mom was kicking me going, "OI. GO BATHE AND HAVE YOUR DINNER LA."

Mong Yi, Farhanna and I spent an hour of study camp discussing about the school's socio-politics (if you know what I mean) because none of us felt like studying after the extremely effective Literature lecture.

The lecture had shattered Serene's impression of Atticus' altruism. Serene looked so heartbroken and muttered, "Oh my god, so you mean that he's prejudiced too?!"

What Ms Goh had explained of Atticus was that even though Atticus was portrayed as an upright and impartial man, fact is that he is infallibly human and is not free from the clutches of prejudice. He's unconsciously prejudiced against the Ewells and the entire Maycomb county has lost hope in that family and its subsequent generations. She'd also went on about how Atticus took on Tom Robinson's case rather reluctantly.

At the end of the lecture, despite being enriched and possibly englightened, Serene was in such a state of despair, it was really funny.

But it made me like Atticus better. I liked him better because he finally felt like a human to me. He was finally made human. All the time, I've always felt that he was a bit too perfect and I didn't like how that felt. It wasn't fair and it wasn't human-ly correct. All humans have flaws. Imperfection is the perfect combination humanity. And of course, none of us are perfectly pure and untouched by prejudice. That makes us all hypocrites.

& that's the way we roll.

The extended weekends were spent studying. It was a good attempt but not wholly productive. Saturday and Sunday were spent in the library. Yesterday's studying session was spent freezing in Marina Square thanks to the rain. It was an odd session because Deborah and I arranged to turn up dressed fully in black. I've never realised how long my fringe has grown. Haha. And I need sixty bucks to buy two volumes of the collection of Beethoven's Sonatas. And maybe even more money because Kinokuniya stocked up on the books that have to do with Finnish. Yes, my Finnish faith has not died yet.

It felt like a really cold day today even though it hadn't rained at all nor had the sun been hiding behind the clouds. Yet the winds blew harder than it does usually. This was a really what-the-heck comment but Kee Jia said she felt really cold sitting next to me when 21 of us got thrown out of A-Math class today because we hadn't done the Linear Law questions.

Biology lesson ate into our ten-minute break. Didn't really matter since I wasn't even planning to get out of class for the ten minutes anyways. However, I was hoping to have time to retreat to my red diary but time never allowed it. Chemistry was better than I'd expected and the Geography lecture was rather amusing. We have rather entertaining Geography teachers after all.

During recess, there was this extremely angsty and small-sized secondary three student queueing up behind Henny and I and she was fervently bitching about someone to her friends. "I HATE THAT BITCH I HATE THAT BITCH I HATE THAT BITCH!" Henny and I couldn't help but to be highly amused by her.

For SS, I'd thought that Mrs Wang's shirt, Marissa's waterbottle and Shafwaty's foolscap had created a line of lime green objects. I don't know, the weirdest things amused me today. E-Maths was omgwtf. Written in red ink at the corner of one of my quizzes was a short note that said that my results for that paper were disappointing. Well, that's what you get when you don't know how to use your calculator.

I felt so drained after E-Math. But no, there was still another two hours of English. So we trodded on. Painfully trodded on.

By the time of study camp and successfully reviewing all the stupid photosynthesis experiments, my head felt like it was being attacked from all sides. Yuck, I hate headaches. I couldn't help but to slip into a short period of sleep on the table.

When I was leaving the school, I realised that there were a lot of girls with their hair tied up in buns, in tights and their primary school uniforms. It took me a while to realise that it was the dance DSA tryouts today.

Regrets, oh regrets. Had I taken better care of my ankle, I would have gone ahead to complete Adv Found. I don't know what the hell I was thinking of at that time anyways.

And it's annoying how some people are being so horribly competitive. There's nothing wrong with a little dose of competitiveness but you're seriously overdoing it. I'm starting to become a bit like you but with much more discretion.

We all are. Don't tell me that you're above all these, you liar.

Anyways, I was thinking..
If I somehow screw up my life to the point of no return, I will watch the Exorcist repeatedly and then kill myself. It's an idea inspired unintentionally by Yi Chieh when she was telling Debo and I about the movie.

I have the maturity in thinking of a ten-year-old.
When all else fails, escape and evade.

Studying is actually quite fun. Fun when you are distracting yourself from everything else. Fun when there isn't someone behind you with their eyes watching your every move. It's when you peel your eyes away from the text and when reminders of an upcoming major examination floods you when you start to feel terrible, inevitably worried and slightly apprehensive.

Organic chemistry is so weird but so fun.

School hasn't been the greatest lately. Apart from the constant reminders that the preliminary examinations are near, competition is rising and you're often torn between throwing your fist into someone's face or to be completely diplomatic and repress your anger. Stress grips you like a vice and chokes you painfully.

Home's been nothing but a shelter over the head and a bedroom to lend. It's been as cold as the weather and all I can shed to this pathetic household is a shiver and chill from disgust and dislike. I can't say too much. But what's left of familiarity has been demolished to only blood relations. There's nothing to talk about at home. All I hear now are about Os, dropping out of school and failing. Yes father, I should just quit school and go kill myself, shouldn't I? Doesn't really mean much to you sometimes. It doesn't matter what I can do or what I want to do. It doesn't matter to you too. I don't care if you'd said it out of spite or the pique of anger but if that's what you really want me to do, or challenge me to do, I can do that. If you want to watch me fall, I'll fall in your name. If you want to watch me to fail, I'll fail in your name.

Fine, I'm angry. I'm violently angry.
I've sinned once, twice, countless times.

Sorry, Taufik Batisah.
Sorry Hady Mirza.
Or even, sorry Paul Twohill.

None of you will ever beat this guy.

All hail Ari Koivunen!

http://www.edin08.com/VideoPopup.aspx
That advert amused me. Finnish education > American education? Wow. What about Singapore, then?

Okay, school's been rather tiring lately and everything's been going past in a blurry whirl. Ms Chua returned our essays from the mock English prelims. I guess for the situational composition, I'd done much better than I'd expected. It was about a four-five marks difference as compared to when I was under Mrs Neo. And for the essay itself.. It came as a surprise.

The past few days had been an overload of chocolates as well. For those who don't already know, my mp3 player had committed suicide on Sunday and I'm not thinking of getting it repaired. Maybe it's time for me to get rid of the habit of plugging in the earphones. Besides, it should do my ears good.

Yesterday's listening comprehension test was bullshit. It's the most depressing, most difficult, most confusing listening comprehension test that I've ever sat for and I got so upset with it. Yuck.

This sounds completely stupid but I'd added Mrs Fern to my Facebook contacts recently. Haha, I miss having her as an English teacher and 1SY seemed not too long ago. Can't believe this is the final year at SC. Racial Harmony celebration was not very eventful today. But thank you Mong Yi, for loaning me the matriarch-looking kebaya and please, you looked good in the sari, don't worry(: Recess was spent in a sea of colours, mostly from the array of gold-printed saris. Saw some Japanese kimonos and other costumes. Rather intriguing. Never knew that people would take the day and the costumes so far.

I'd sort of killed something, someone a few days back. Redemption is impossible and I am probably going to decay in disgust and denial for now. Maybe I myself have done the very thing that had made me fear you. Rid, rid, rid. However, I do feel free. I like knowing that the other monster's gone and I feel unbounded. Yet, lethargy overwhelms me and it takes me over.

Perhaps I just need sleep.
But there isn't time.
There isn't enough time.

I didn't have a lot of sleep last night. I don't quite know why. The only sleep I could get was a three-hour Panadol-induced slumber. Got to the library, supposed to meet Li Zhi. But being the skilled person he is, he woke up late despite having the morning call from yours truly. And left quite soon after because he'd forgotten all about Chinese tuition. You're a really horrible person, you know.

Anyways, picture post. Just because I haven't posted the pictures that I'd wanted to and that I'd scanned in some pictures from the film cameras (finally).

This was taken at the RMUN ECOSOC1 meet-up in Sentosa quite a few weeks back. Never got to scanning the photo in until today.

The second-last shot from my first roll of film.

Zi Wei's first try with the camera. I look like I don't have a neck.

My feet and Ruici's. This was taken on Youth Day. Hahaha.

Once again, I don't look like I have a neck. Maybe jumping with the jacket wasn't a good idea. Elizabeth, Kristabelle and Henny look damn cool :D

Jumpshot failure.
This is what happens when you try to get eleven people to jump at the same time.

Patty, Azid, Trish, Henny, KJ, FJ. I look sunburnt for some apparent reason.

Zi Han wrote that during study camp. Yes, I am Yi Ting, not Yiting. Please get that right.

Post-gig camwhoring session on Friday.

With courtesy of Debo's camera. I can't believe how gross Elaine and I look.

After trying forever to fit the four of us into the picture, this is the one and only decent looking picture that we've got.

And this is what happens when my sister and I share a camera. There was this picture of her friend on the camera. Some of us were so inspired by the picture, we tried imitating the pose. Here goes nothing:Tada! LOL.

Actually, I've got a lot more other unglam pictures but they aren't really appropriate for the public eye. HAHA. Well, there goes :D

Yesterday wasn't the best day ever but it was certainly much better than most.

Lessons in school were the usual. However, I'd discovered that I don't quite detest A-Math as much as I thought I do. It's just Kinematics. Now I see so clearly why I hadn't chosen to do Physics. Well, not my point really. It's just that the A-Math teacher was going through Logarithms for revision today and I realised that I was listening. Whereas for Kinematics, I get so lost and annoyed, the lesson goes past pretty much in a blur of fury.

After school was SS lecture and E-Math cohort remedial. Okay, Elaine, Debo and I skipped the SS lecture to study for the quiz that was coming up for the E-Math remedial. However, we got so distracted, we never really did get to study, and thus screwed up the quiz because it was largely on Set Language & Notations, which most of us can't remember a thing about. Hahahaha.

As soon as we were done with E-Math, the prom committee went down to the hotel to look at logistics and bombard the lady with quite a lot of questions. I was actually quite impressed at how flexible the hotel was. You could say that we were expecting a rather lot more red tape.

Elaine, May and I went to meet Deborah for the Salad Days gig after that. There wasn't really anything we could eat at Raffles City, but I bought another roll of 35mm film because the one prior to the new one was finished at PE yesterday. This crazy store lady wasted like two shots of the new roll of film. She looked so intrigued by the camera and I'm like, "Uhm, excuse me? Camera please?" Annoying.

Well, we had a fast dinner at Cine before going over to *scape. It was quite amusing for us to go for the gig because all of us except Deb were in school uniform. Deb was the only lucky and non-busy one who got to go home and change. So we weaved through a small crowd in *scape to get to the other side with our school bags and I suddenly felt someone prodding me from behind. I turned around and saw this really tall person. "Oh, hi Visa!"

Being recognised is one thing, being stared at by a few other people was another. Anyways, the first band we saw (despite the fact that we were a wee bit late) had a rather cool drummer. The crowd was rather large and so the four of us threw our bags onto the floor and sat down with the few other people sitting at the front. Lol, yes, it's a gig and we sat down.. with our school bags.

Well, after that set, we moved to the front and realised that it was Armchair Critic's turn. I was going to put down some stuff when Visa went on the microphone, "No Yi Ting! YOU STAND UP. DON'T SIT." I was like, alamak, wtf. So everyone was standing up for their set and there was this photographer who kept taking pictures of us four. It was weird because we knew that the photographer was doing it as we were in our school uniform. Dammit.

After their set, was this band called Lunar Node. It was quite funny during their setting-up of equipment. It turned out that one of the guitarist was Deb's church friend and they said hi while we continued standing at the front because the band was really good. It's an instumental band that created a really amazing soundscape. Most of us were pretty much wow-ed by it, especially so because it's their first gig. Wowzors.

The band after them was taking forever to come and all of us were tired, so we left to continue our picture-taking at Heeren hahaha. Deb led us to this corner in the mall and we were just spamming the cameras with stupid shots. Maybe I'll put them up another time, after May sends the pictures over. Anyways, we saw this tranny while getting up the escalator. Nothing much I could say about that. But when I was on the bus, travelling past the traffic junction, I saw that same tranny dancing to the music played from the iPod promotion outside Heeren and stripping off his/her jacket. God, I am scarred. I text messaged the rest and apparently, they'd seen him/her too. Hahaha, goodness.

Well yes, it wasn't too bad a day. It was just an event to destress from daily revision and packed schedule of school. And all the photographs should be left unseen to the public eye, maybe except for some. I'll edit this post again another time.

Sometimes, it just really isn't worth it.

I had a weird question forming in my head during Chinese today. I don't know where it really came from, but I started wondering where inspiration is derived. Inspiration to write, inspiration to draw, inspiration to create.

Perhaps it's because I got rather intrigued by the sudden influx of exposures to art and some weird unconscious revelation that I've got that this unimportant curiosity hitting me of the blue.

Jie Qi said that her art teacher once said that the greatest artists had gotten their inspiration from various large-impacting events and issues from their life. None of which are very happy actually.

Sorry if the rest of the post gets incoherent; I'm not exactly very awake at the moment.

Anyways, I was thinking, maybe this is why Singapore has such an unreverberant arts scene.

We all know how the government is desperately trying to develop the arts in Singapore. But from your point of view, how successful will the attempts be?

We have the Singapore Arts Festival, Baybeats, greater exposure and acceptance to local music and many burgeoning young writers. Singapore's giving more chance and opportunities for these people to develop themselves and to nurture their talent, but how many of these talents are actually truthfully undermined and go unnoticed? Quite many, I have to tell you. The education system doesn't tell you about which few people have great depths of their minds and imagination. And of all of these events that have to do with the local arts/music scene, how many will actually remember them? Even, how many actually even KNOW about them?

Maybe it's just me but I've never felt like the local poems had much of a ring to it. Singaporean art does not wow you often enough. How many a time at gigs do you actually sit down and try not to fall asleep? How much of Singaporean literature, theatre, music, fine arts and dance do you actually know about?

Think about it, Singapore doesn't exactly have the most conducive environment to nurture artistry in any form. Kudos to the government for trying. Kudos for constructing and developing the School of the Arts and etc. But you don't realise that Singaporeans have a misconception of their artistic students. Some associate the NAFA students with awkward and outlandish ways of expressing themselves. SOTA hasn't been around long enough to establish its own stigmatic stereotypes, but soon enough, they'll surface. All those involved with the local music scene are often seen as disturbed kids with piercings in all the weird places and all those involved in other art forms are thought to be either depressingly talented (think blood, think gore, think local film industry) or depressingly overrated (though I must agree that some really are).

As a student receiving education from Singapore, I'm not trying to say that I've seen or felt it all enough to pass this judgement, but Singapore's education is so structured and rigid, there's barely any room for creativity or decent ebullition. However, I must say that there is potential nonetheless among the mundane crowd, but who's going to recognise it and nurture it?

Art in Singapore suffers as a result of the way the society is being moulded into. We grow up in a structured and sheltered environment. We are like sheltered poppies, cultivated venus flytraps and rotten apples. There are different kinds of people, nevertheless. We exist because the government allows it and they make policies to encourage it. I'm not saying that the government is bad or anything close to it. On the contrary, I support most of the government policies, just not all, but most. The government does protect us citizens and permanent residents alike, but it's rigidity in education kills our creative expression. The art/music scene, which is a human development indicator via the quality of life, will never advance out of its structure, system and anal retentiveness.

This was probably one of the reasons why the government had wanted to develop the arts in Singapore to begin with. To raise the HDI via the quality of life and to show off to the rest of the world that Singapore is capable of more than its hardcore memorisation from textbooks and farsighted leaders.

Life in Singapore is rather mundane, actually. There's not much of a culture, not much of a history. Everything that we are able to call our own are mostly ripped off from everywhere else and pieced together in a new combination. Check out the Merlion, for instance. And obviously, without all these, there is hardly any inspiration for anything. We all know that in essay writing examinations, the Chinese scholars have the best plot-lines because they have the best things happening to them in their lives.

I mean, what we have of the arts mostly are so.. Politically selective. It's like, they go through political screening for anti-political messages and stuff. And any of which having content that hits their radar are immediately obliterated.

Maybe we could do better in the arts if we learnt how to get out of the norm a bit. Maybe shouldn't structure our lifestyles. Structures should be left as some sort of scaffolding of foundation, not your lifestyle. Think out of the box, people. Do the peculiar, but with decency, I must say. Break the mould. Get my drift?

How much of your right brain is in the government's hands?

Today's Youth Day, like any other sane and unwilling-to-study adolescent, I'd spent most of the day out of the house. I'd gone to sleep at one in the morning and went through a phase of rather turbulent sleep and gave up at four-fifty when I realised that I was pretty much wide awake. I tossed and turned and tried to force myself back into slumber but it was to no avail, apparently. I'd ended up text-messaging Serena from five-forty-five onwards about when to reach the airport so that I could see her off.

You see, what happened last night, was that I was joking to Li Zhi about that he should come and see Serena off too just for the fun of it. I didn't know he'd take it seriously. So at six-thirty, I was pretty much acting like a morning call service. All I remember hearing from this receiving end, was, "I'm going to look like a zombieeeeeeeee."

Serena left her house quite late and I'd reached the airport much earlier than she had. So I'd waited for the both of them at the viewing mall of Terminal 3. Actually, I was doing a wee bit of my mathematics homework there. Oh my god, I was actually doing work.

Anyways, those two arrived at about the same time. It was rather awkward meeting Serena because her mother and Li Tao was there. HAHA. Li Zhi went to sit at the bench as I approached Serena. It was quite funny, come to think of it.

The three of us settled at the Coffee Bean anyhow. We got rather pissed off at the lady at the counter because it was quite obvious that she was giving priorities to the caucasians. She passed the delay off with an excuse of being short-handed. Wtf.

I pitied Li Zhi and bought him a cookie along with my muffin while Serena took her shot of coffee and whipped cream. You could say that the cookie was bribery in exchange for proper acceptance of Serena. They had rather weird conversations, I must say. The moment the talked about cameras, I got lost and focused on finishing the muffin.

Well, after Serena left for the departure hall, Li Zhi and I went to the bus-stop, each planning to take different buses. He was going to be an hour late for tuition. As the bus I took went from Terminal 3, to 1, to 2, I'd received a call from him telling me to get off the bus and wait for him because he'd decided to go to school to finish up stuff instead of turning up for tuition by rescheduling it.

I thought of staying in the bus because I knew it'd dock there for a bit before leaving, but no, someone told me to get off): So I got off and waited. Oh my god, the bus was STILL THERE when he arrived at the bus-stop. Wasted forty-five cents for a bus trip. Oh my god, Li Zhi, you suck.

Well, after getting home, I'd waited for Ruici at the bus-stop because we had arranged to go to the beach today :D

Not bad, she actually could remember where to get off. LOL. Quite naturally so actually, not much of a big surprise, since she DID spend at least twelve years of her life in this area. The sun had shone quite brightly this morning when we got there. Slathered on some disgusting sun block and sat on the breakwater for a number of hours. I was trying to get up the breakwater and the entire embarrassment was witnessed by this group of girls who were chatting on the breakwater. A few of them were eyeing me inquisitively. As I tried and failed countlessly, one of the girls quipped, "Hey, were you from RMUN?!" I was quite surprised, I guess, and was like, "Yeah, you too ,eh?" Apparently they're from Myanmar and the one that I was talking to was in Jun Yan's council. Even more coincidentally so, they were having a GA1 council meet-up today too.

Well, I managed to get up on the breakwater in the end and played around with the Fujiflim Instax camera, the quadcam and the household digital camera.




Behold, Ruici the homeless.

& here, Ruici the spastic.


Literally wind in the hair.

The sky threatened to rain and we headed back to my house to bathe and stuff before meeting Li Zhi and his school. On the way out of the park, we'd seen this bunch of RJC students. Saw an SC senior and the girl that I'd taken my intermediate ballet exam with back in 2006. Gosh. They were looking at Ruici too because she was in her school shirt. Well, at VS we got to see rooms in the school that we'd never bother to see. Went to Parkway for lunch that consisted of horribly salty and horribly unhealthy food. I felt like throwing up actually, not because of the food, but that I was honestly feeling quite horrible.

Halfway through lunch, I saw Jeannette walking outside and went to say hi. Haha. After lunch, was aimless wandering in Parkway before heading off to Li Zhi's house, which ended up to be a series of camwhoring and watching Ruici and Li Zhi playing Wii because I was prepared to doze off already.

Yes, your shirt totally matches the green field.

Oh my gosh. I'd just realised that it's exactly a year after Live Earth last year, where I remember Lailing and myself staying up throughout to night just to watch Fall Out Boy and AFI respectively for each of us performing live on the internet. And it had been my first Deafcon experience :D On top of that, I had green contact lenses then and wore them because we were supposed to wear green that day. Come to think of it, all three of us had been in green at least once today. Li Zhi in his green shirt matching the field, Ruici and I in our respective green school shirts.

Wow. One year.

To be honest, I haven't really been feeling like blogging properly. What's my definition of "properly", you wonder. Actually, "properly" is just to my satisfaction. I've been very cautious of things that I'm typing and the kinds of hidden messages that I somehow unintentionally send out.

And to tell you the truth, it's really tiring. Restraint is tiring and it's crippling. It's unhealthy. But yet, I need to learn how to control the flow of things coming out of my head. Like I've said before, it's tiring.

I've been feeling rather odd lately. Violent impulses to destroy, kill, hit, hurt, etc. and a lot of self-loathing. I know everyone complains about schoolwork and how they think they're not coping. But yesterday, when I was going through the A-Math specimen paper with Elaine, I'd never felt so scared and angry at a subject as much as I do to A-Math. At times, I could feel tears threatening to spill out of my eye socket but you can't really do math with tears in your eyes, right? I guess some people will go, "What are you complaining, I bet I have it worse." Well bitches, I ain't comparing with you so get off my back. I don't care how you're doing, I care about how I'm doing because ultimately, I'm the one at loss.

Oh wow, egocentricity.
The big "I".

But really, take a step back and wonder, why are you studying so hard? Is it for your parents? Is it for the school's reputation? Is it for your teachers? Is it for comparison? Or is it for yourself? And of course it's only when you internalise that it's for yourself comes the motivation to want to do better. I wonder what's stopping me.

I've been a huge asshole lately, sorry. I've probably allowed myself to be pulled away by a wave of anger and frustration. Then again, I'm not the nicest person that you'll ever meet alive so what the heck anyways.

Actually right now, I feel like screaming at all of you who have been pissing me off. I don't hate you or anything, it's just that sometimes, the things people do really annoy me and I can't stand not having any outlet. I'm oh-so-disgusting but what can you do?

Number one.
Self-pity. I don't really care if you've missed out an entire truckload of opportunities in your life. If you're so upset about it, why not seize whatever chances you have left than to sit around and complain that we're the reason as to why you've missed your chances? Please don't see it the wrong way, I don't despise you or anything, it's just that, if you see it logically, isn't it better to grasp your final few grains of sand than to let it simply slip out of your hand and then blame everyone else but yourself for losing that chance? I don't really mind if you rant about it and realise that you're the one who'd allowed for it to happen, but if all you're going to do is to finger-point, go away.

Number two.
Yes, I'm not exactly the most serious and concentrated person on earth. But I'd seriously appreciate if you could be serious when we're getting down to work. You're so disorganised and so not-tightly-held-together. I honestly don't want bits and pieces of you lying around everywhere nor any remnants of you on me. I mean, that is if you get what I mean. You can tell the world that you're still spending most of your time out of your house for leisurely activities and then you complain about having not enough time for schoolwork. Utter bullshit. Completely illogical, once again.

Number three.
People seem to have gotten a misconception of my entire nonconformist attitude. Just because I'm a nonconformist, it doesn't mean that I deliberately go against the human flow. Gosh, that's simply stupid and what difference is that to mindless conformity? Just because I didn't say I'm a non-mindless nonconformist, does not mean you can take it otherwise. It's just like me telling you that I'm a girl and you automatically that I'm a mindless girl because I hadn't pointed out that I am not. Do I make sense to you till this point? It's just that, people should be less presumptuous of labels and the string of stereotypical traits that follow it. Be discerning, people, be discerning!

And for the final time, no, I'm not going for Festival For A Future.

Now, this is satisfactory.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUIMEI SIMPKINS.
You disgusting, now-legal, horny girl! Tsk. Hahaha :D

Okay, this made me widen my eyes in amusement, surprise and a teensy bit of shock.

Monday was a happy and really lucky day. Happy Biology test results, happy VJC tryouts, happy absolution, happy day. However, I realised that VJC is only taking 2 candidates and I wouldn't really mind if I didn't get it (though I really want to get in) because I know my school grades were horribly disgusting and it wasn't the best. My grades sort of picked up after CA1. Screwwww):

Yesterday was an amusing day. Trish gave me a Krispy Kreme (Dubai) doughnut and Patricia gave me a Krispy Kreme (Australia) doughnut. Foreign doughnuts! LOL. Hahaha, awwww, what sweet friends. Lol. Yes, the doughnuts tasted really good and I swore I could have gotten diabetes from all the sugar. After study camp, I dropped by HMV to buy the Ultimate Secret Garden and then went home to cram-study A-Maths which proved to be inefficient and completely useless anyways.

I was supposed to take the A-Math mock along with everyone else today, but ended up missing it because Amanda asked if I could help her to do the piano accompaniment for her french horn examination down at Balmoral. It was kind of sad because my sight-reading skills are comparable to that of my A-Math grades. Even in two hours worth of practice, the pieces were rather screwed, haha. But I've got to say that the examiner did seem to be quite a nice one.

Well, so that delayed my mathematical doom a bit. Now I'll be taking the A-Math mock with the English mock Paper 1. Double whammy, eh?