hollaback_
Friday, July 29, 2005
it's been a few days since it happened, the shattering of a dream(s).
i don't know who to blame. it is easy to be extreme and lay all the blame on someone or another. but never both. then again, it's become a GP cliche, as well as any other humanities for that matter to take a balanced stand and view, or do the whole micro zooming out to macro thing. i find it ludicrous that all the time it takes a combination of factors to cause the downfall of anything, and that no one is immune. i used to believe in that "We are all at fault here" appeaser compromise that sometimes relied on blatant lying and sucking up so as to make everyone satisfied, even though at times it is obviously only a single party's fault. right now i believe in doing the very best in whatever that you do so that you will be blameless. that (cliche again,) your only flaw is your perfection. i'm sick of taking up the slack and the rap all the way through, even after all is said and done, for the wrapping up and post-mortem (why on earth do we use such morbid terms)
whatever the case is, that can't be said for this time. i accept blame for the way things transpired because ultimately how can you excuse someone for failing? let's say you're carrying a heavy bag of something. doesn't matter what it is. if you drop it and it spills all over, there's no one else to blame but yourself. but change the story a bit. assume for a second now, that at every step you took, people were pulling the rug from under your feet. others were tickling you. yet others add weights to your body at all parts that hinder movement and even others were lulling you into a false sense of security about your abilities when you aren't really that great. oh and don't forget the fact that you're in a glass room, the world is watching and secretly thinking really ugly thoughts as you carry your cross all the way to the finish line, but it's two steps forward and three back. considering all the barriers that stand in your way that it is virtually impossible to reach your goal, can you excuse failure now?
in this instance, maybe you can excuse the protagonist for being an absolute fool, in being idealistic and forgetting about the real world situations. that was his real and only failure that set the chain of events. HR allocations and oversight apart, there's really nothing else that he did wrong. he worked hard, he was always a motivator and really believed in (amongst other things) the success of it all. in theory, and on paper everything was fine and dandy, the planning was perfect but not everyone shared the same visions and goals. the original intent was betrayed and thwarted, even if i'd completed it all it would be for the sake of seeing something to the end and not really for what we started out as. people disappoint. people fall out along the way. and what can you do but pick up the pieces and continue trudging on? but when EVERYONE bails on a group project - doesn't really make sense to continue, does it? even if you are insistent on never giving up and never quitting, completing it alone (which almost became a reality, but was soon discarded after a few minutes of mulling over,) is pointless. it defeats the purpose. shit la, i sound like i'm trying to justify this.
you know - maybe this is the mitigation. i never really quit, actually. the gig was up. i played up till the very end until circumstances forced me to stop. it's like playing on a losing basketball team up till the final second. there was no more time left, both there and here. game over, resources were depleted and if you can't finish on time then too bad you lose. good. i don't feel that guilty anymore now. no one can fault me for walking out when the going got tough, because i didn't. i didn't go "hey please sub me out of the team with someone else". god, i was the freaking captain for crying out loud. of course i had to stay there. without the captain the team will fail. but more importantly, without the team the captain is nothing. and so even if i'm not a quitter i'm a failure. woohoo.
i guess it doesn't really matter. it's not as though it was a tradition of sorts. attempting to break the barrier was brave, but didn't occur this time around. no big loss there. it's not like there were expectations to live up to, besides those that i placed on myself. what i lost out on, really, was a much more personal dream. one of those things that seem to be the only remnants of a time long gone. the shreds and threads of a past that still linger in the present. for once, the possibility of getting it was so near and dear. and then i blew it. and now it looks like something i'll probably never ever achieve in my lifetime. although there's this hope in me, of course. i always retain that little bit of hope until it's absolutely certain it can never happen. and i haven't got that outright dashing of hope yet. even if the signs are all there, and even if a total overhaul looks set in a few months. i will not stop hoping till i am told "no".
mike just took up your time at
11:18 pm
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
i've got many things to say. just not now. my brother wants to play his stupid online games. *rolls eyes*
mike just took up your time at
9:59 pm
Sunday, July 24, 2005
i think i'm damn vain. or at least i have a very vain streak in me. if god had made me gorgeous, i'd probably annoy everyone to death and everyone would hate me. people would only get to know me for my superficial appearance. and that's all. i don't know if i should be celebrating though, it's not like i really got my inner beauty developed either. so in effect i'm the average joe slob that's not outstanding in any way whatsoever. hurrah.
anyway, i discovered the other day that my face appeared in
lianhe zaobao, in a fucking unglam pose. i should hound the photographer who sneakily snapped me whilst i was slumbering at my laptop, enamel-white ipod earphones in my ears and mouth gaping wide open, at the 24 hour scriptwriting competition. thank goodness people in school hardly read the papers, let alone the CHINESE newspapers.
i have finally gotten my phone, yes the 3230. and against the better judgment of most people, i decided to get the wine red version. you'll know what i mean if you scroll down a bit. i thought it was called rusty, but the m1 woman said it was wine so i took her word for it. anyway, am regretting my decision a bit (the instruction manual is 130pages long!). but as deb says, you can grow to love your phone! haha. but well, what's wrong with the red one! just because it looks more out of the ordinary than other phones. why would i want a run-of-the-mill black phone that could be mistaken as a sony ericcson one? overall, i think i'm satisfied enough with my purchase. but i still miss my nokia 3200 nevertheless.
watched
bring it on on channel 5 last night, it was pretty good comic relief for me, although i did find it somewhat disturbing that my mother was watching it together with me and getting amused at the spirit fingers too. when i first watched it when i was a sec1 boy, i thought the movie was fantastic and really cool. now that i'm older i see it for the fluff that it really is. that isn't to say that i don't feel anything after watching it. besides a bit of stirring in the loins and in the heart, perhaps cheerleading isn't half as bad as the bad rap it's been given. "cheerleaders are dancers (or was it gymnasts?) who have gone retarded", best quote of the show.
and i'm beginning to feel very bored with everything and everyone. it's that time of the month again, when i come to the conclusion that no one gives a damn about anyone else, and that i was an idiot for caring for others when they stopped caring about me and others long ago. of course, that kind of thought doesn't linger for long, but i always return to it somehow.
be aggressive. be, be aggresive.
mike just took up your time at
8:02 pm
Friday, July 22, 2005
today is a good day. because i am teh goodFACE. haha. those are my results for the second commontest. and surprise surprise! the F this time isn't maths! it's Fcons, whee! how queer, to get a spectrum of grades that's evenly distributed across the whole gamut. kinda like a normal distribution curve. eek.
so anyway, we looked for mr booth after school for our PC marks, but couldn't really engage him because he was in the middle of some sort of discussion with mrs leong and mr macconnell. hung around the staffroom for sometime and then decided to go to the canteen because ms tan was there and perhaps she would be able to enlighten us on our marks, since she said she knew them. maybe we shouldn't have been so anxious, since her cryptic remarks to brian and me that "we did well" really did portent good things. but you know, just to be sure we didn't want to get our hopes up too high. just as we were about to give up, we saw mrs leong walk into the canteen which would mean that mr booth was free. so we decided to go back up again, and i guess perseverance really is a virtue.
in any case, i am proud (or maybe not that proud, in the light of science/humanities students that read this too) to announce my first A in rjc! (ok quite sad, just when my time here is about to end, more than a year and a half after entering.) it's pretty ironic too, since i made Lit the sacrificial lamb this time around considering the little time i had left, opting instead to focus on the other 3 subjects. in fact, i only studied for Lit on the morning of the paper (thank goodness it was in the afternoon), and i was almost late, needing to take a taxi from bishan MRT, but everything turned out well i guess.
on the contrary, even though i devoted more time to econs and history, results weren't that satisfying. i Failed the Former, and only barely improved a grade for the latter. didn't work too much on math, but the improvement in 2 grades (and almost 3) was delicious enough for me, (then again, you couldn't really go anywhere but up) so i shan't complain. GP was quite the disappointment. even though i stuck to my "Bs or more for GP" policy, a 4 is horrible and nothing to shout about! especially since i got a 2 last term. essay was decent, as usual. it's the comprehension which kills me. i think i need to do more exercises on that, especially AQ.
all this gives me hope though, as i thought i was a goner on sunday night just before school reopened. these aren't fabulous results, i assure you that. and this had better not be the best i am capable of. i don't think it is, though the progress is much too slow. i genuinely did not spend a lot of time this round, therefore the slight improvements here and there niggle at me. i'm not sure whether to consider them as manifestations of industry (or at least, the delusions of it) or just plain dumb
tyco luck. cf my woman warrior script, which was originally marked as 17 and later mysteriously changed to 18. things like that bother me.
can't rest on my laurels (if you could even call them that). now that i've pushed the boundaries (i had to, i was trapped enough by rubbish standards), i've got to get higher than 70 for Lit the next time around. i need to get B for history. i need to get at least a C for math. and i don't want to fall on the wrong end of mrs tan's ABC econs treat. i don't want to have delusions about myself. i'd be thrilled to get ABBA or better for the prelims, but i doubt possible at this point in time. ABCC would suit me fine for now.
anyway, nasty says hi through my blog. heh.
mike just took up your time at
8:48 pm
Thursday, July 21, 2005
i feel mount everest becoming an actual reality, and that's good. but it's a quick mission, not much time to mess around. only one chance, go-in-come-out. it was delayed by imbeciles, but now that things are solid i can continue on my quest for conquest. and i will make my way into the heart of darkness, in more ways than one. your heart of darkness. i wish i could say "i could sing of your love forever" but that would be semi-blasphemous and besides it isn't true anyway. so-
i could stare at your face forever.------------------
i hate the fucking burden of secrecy, and i think i'm rather good at keeping secrets. just don't talk about people lor! so that you won't be tempted to blurt things out. but it is very hard to keep all that juicy stuff inside you when you're just wishing to let everything burst from inside. like maxine (hong-kingston), i want to tell all. the list of ten or twelve. "report a crime", "take revenge" and "tell five families". ok i'm not sure if i quoted correctly considering i suck at that text (the woman warrior), but yes. it is so hard not to speak! what fun is it of knowing a secret when you have to keep it all within you? if more people knew, then there would be discussion and speculation! (although some would plainly call it gossip)
never mind, even if i can't share with others, it's always fun to
diao the other person whose secret i know when i meet him/her in cryptic terms and seeing their face flash with the "omg oh no not now please don't talk about this" look. and then the fun stops when they bring out MY basket of dirty laundry.
------------------
i doubt many would have noticed, but the (cheap) "shaw foundation library" lettering (in black PAPER) outside the library in school just smacks of increased cultural importing from ri. first it was the tea sessions with the head honchos in school and now it's the gratuitous naming of a venue in school that's actually considered cool (well in more ways than one). after all, rafflesians are ultimately muggers and when you take their need for social fulfillment, the library's a pretty good place for fraternizing. but that isn't the point! "shaw foundation library" is so.. bleh. it's not like it's a one-of-a-kind thing, there's a "shaw" something in ri as well. now, "hullett memorial library", that's something else altogether. but i'm beginning to think good air-conditioning and mezzanine flooring pwns colonial-styled furniture and cloyingly repetitive muzak.
mike just took up your time at
10:28 pm
Monday, July 18, 2005
there's something very intimidating about the blank, empty and white box that appears everytime i want to create a new post. there's so much power within it, and yet it really is nothing at all, a willing vessel waiting for me to fill it with my world.
i feel fucking tired, i haven't done any of my homework and it's already so late. but at least for once it's not because i was lazy, and i can say for once in my life that "i had competition".
was at sph over the whole weekend, taking part in the
24-hour script writing competition organised by theatreworks. quite a novel experience, although i think i entered the toilet like 20 times during the whole duration, because of all the coffee i drank. i suspect most of the men there were sexually deviant. and it was so weird to enter a cubicle and discover that someone's wanking in the left one and someone's smoking in the right one. oh well. arty farty playwright people.
anyway, that's not the point. the company was quite interesting, there was wooch and his classmate michelle, this jennani-lookalike next to me, plenty of GGs who couldn't write for nuts and were yakking away nonstop instead of typing, this cute boy caleb who looks 17 but's actually 14, fat funny malay women, indian girls who wrote their scripts by hand, pang meiyu's doppelganger, this girl from bern's neighbouring class in hwach humans, and ah. ms ng e-ching's brother. the legendary yisheng! who was pretty pro in my opinion, he appeared to be writing a musical in rhyming verse or sth; he brought a rhyming dictionary along.
located in SPH, the goal was to create a play of 12-30 pages within the alloted time. the best thing about it was that the time allocation was totally up to oneself to decide. i think it was pretty fun, and i wouldn't mind doing it again really. the worst part was really the stimulus that was given to us at regular intervals. we were forced to incorporate them in that very order, either as part of a speech or as a prop or whatever as long as it contributed to the storyline-
1. top story
2. looking back
3. time is running out
4. rooftop
5. typewriter and a penknife
it was really quite wtf, especially the last 2. totally nonplussed after receiving them. haha and there were some people who totally restarted after the last one was given at 9am, 7 hours before the deadline. it was damn hard since we were restricted to setting the play within a 3-room HDB flat. so most people ended up talking about suicide, i think. there was this weird boy from HC i think who was smugly announcing that all the stimuli were falling into place neatly into his preconceived story of a suicide. (heh, reminds me of virgin suicides. talking of which raymond ong fucking stole my "virgin suicides" book when he was not supposed to take it to begin with and he has yet to return me bloody fucking hell. anyway.) especially the last one whereby the guy writes a suicide note on the typewriter and kills himself with the penknife. michelle innocently asked him how that could be possible since the guy already killed himself by jumping off the rooftop, cf stimulus4. and he replied "oh i can just kill another character". like WTF. ok nvm.
the way they pre-empted and presented the stimulus was not bad though. although slightly contrived. for stimulus 1, they made us watch a press conference amongst the chief editor and the head editors of the various other sections of the straits times. so we kinda knew sunday's headlines on saturday. and for the 2nd one we visited the library and archives of SPH where they had old newspapers and really cool reference books for journalistic purposes. the 3rd one saw us going to the printing press where they did imaging and stuff like that. then after that it got really retarded. the 4th stimulus was given to us after they brought us onto the rooftop garden where the place was crawling with bugs at 3am in the morning. i absolutely could not type then and neither could i after going back to the auditorium at 4. i felt itchy and disgusting for a whole hour after returning. the last one was just dumb when they brought this clunky antique typewriter in a box and used a penknife to open it.
ah well. i obviously hope i win something but i think my script ended up part
Sunday (as in,
Friday, Saturday and what comes next then? sorry only some ri/rj guys would get this) and part channel8 drama serial. i think i'd be happy to even win a merit award. or maybe third place. hrrm. oh and chua enlai was the emcee for the whole competition, he was pretty funny. am amazed to find out that he's a pretty prolific actor!
i cannot blog properly anymore.
mike just took up your time at
12:54 am
Friday, July 15, 2005
this week's been interesting, to say the least.
the breakdown of my calculator in the middle of an econs lecture test was part three in a running series of past few weeks called "ballistic: mike vs techno". coming after a rebellion from my ipod mini and the untimely death of my nokia 3200, this is too much to handle. brian suggests that my computer will die totally on me. zc brings that a notch higher, proposing that porn will start flashing all over making it impossible to do any work whatsoever. whatever the case is, i must have offended the technology gods for everything to be working against me all at once. even my spectacles had to join in the act, breaking for no good reason one fine morning. but at least i've got a nicer pair now, which eugene thinks makes me look "hipper" and brian thinks looks "retro". hrrm, whatever la. no one's said anything bad about it so far so.. i'll just be satisfied.
desperate housewives finale was pretty good. however, i think it deserved to be 2 hours long. i mean c'mon it's a freaking finale! then again if you go by the nature of the narrative which squeezes everything into witty little snippitysnippetshots of about 2min each per housewife per chunk between commercials + 2min for extras like the dysfunctional Young family (which is actually just an extension of boring ole susan's storyline) and edie britt (more miscellaneous riffraff to flesh out a charaacter in the comparatively normal housewife in susan, who is desperate yet anything but outstanding) you'd need to have like 634745 different things to happen, and marc cherry's not brilliant enough to do that. there's only so much you can tie up together. as steven culp, the actor who played rex van der kamp (bree's husband), said in an interview, his character was only supposed to die or at least get the fuck out of her life in season2, but things happened too quickly that it had to be pushed forward to the first season. i'm just afraid the show will be like a supernova and shine too brightly and quickly for its own good and be canned in the middle of the third season or something. that's pretty sad for an up-and-coming amazing show that tv hasn't seen in awhile. but who am i to judge? marcia cross (bree van der kamp)'s portrayal of tortured wife struggling to keep a positive calm exterior over the whole season was very well done and culminated well in the breakdown and wild abandon after her husband died. great! her character's the most interesting but really i rather meet a susan any day.. because i am like susan.
fantastic four was quite mediocre; disappointing climax finale finish. the final battle was hardly over a minute before it ended. and what a cliche way to end, hinting that he didn't really die. and even the characters themselves are boring. i mean there's nothing cool about any of their powers. invisible woman (hahaha see naked men!)'s silly self-explanatory power needed her to be saddled with some kind of jeangrey-esque psychic shit to make her more powerful. mr fantastic's pretty pathetic considering he's the leader. all you can do is stretch? besides getting A for sit-and-reach, it's not a really very powerful endowment is it? the thing is an ugly rehash of the hulk, perhaps with a tinge more humanity to compensate for that. i think the human torch is the best though. besides having an elemental attack, he can fly and none of the rest can. very, very important! you know, the fantastic four seem to be like a shuffled version of the incredibles. mr fantastic takes on elastigirl's powers. the thing has mr incredible's superhuman strength. the invisible woman has violet's invisibility power as well as psychic forcefield shit and the human torch is just like dash, with his quickness and hot-temper and jackjack with the fiery stuff. hell, even all their personalities seem transposed. but the incredibles wins because there's a greater creative liberty with animation pictures with no history to be bound to, whereas the fantastic four were already an established comic strip that couldn't have its story messed around too much with. and besides, the cartoon had a better storyline to boot. anyway, i think the x-men are generally cooler with more elemental attacks like nature(storm) and ice(iceman) as compared to the boring foursome, whose powers don't really work well together. highlight of the show was really chris evans as the human torch aka johnny storm, whose cocky yet insiduously slick and charming ways were such a joy to watch as the cheeky bastard comeback kid.
NS checkup was a novel experience. i over-estimated the volume of the tiny conical cup we were given to pee into and it almost overflowed.. soundcheck was quite funny with the repeated hand-raisings like an idiot. and ooh, i'm only 16.9% fat, i thought with my sedentary lifestyle and sinful eating habits that figure would be much higher, but thank goodness it ain't. pleasant surprise, that. what wasn't so pleasant was the ECG scan that felt like some S&M device with the nipple clamps and all which claimed that i had "abnormal right" something and at the end of the report was a most puzzling phrase - "probably old". by that, do they mean my heart? that it's older than it should be? quite freaky, that. nevertheless, i'm provisionally PES A, unless they find something screwed up within me through further tests. computer mental agility tests weren't that fun. especially the physics ones and the perspective ones. the pattern, math, logic and reaction sections were managable, though. they probably think now that i can't visualize for nuts because i didn't even understand the instructions and just did that section by guesswork. ugh. the most terrible part of the whole thing was the disgusting 19page survey on my attitudes towards life, myself, the saf and ns and yada yada yada. that was just horrible. oh well. maybe one day i'll be commando quil.indo (wah, rhyming assonance with same number of syllables sia!) or better still, commando Q!! get it at your nearest computer store.
mike just took up your time at
4:26 pm
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
i hate irresponsibility.
do not embark on things if you plan to drop them halfway. ie, ban4 tu2 er2 fei4. knowingly entering something with the intention of quitting down the road is idiocy that screws everyone.
and more importantly, as zc said to me after i had already paid for my spectacles because i was still checking out other frames, "you don't go around looking for affairs after you get married, you fucker." pretty good analogy, if you ask me.
too much has been invested for this to be dropped at the 11th hour. we must continue, we must carry on.
the show must go on.that's that and i am done for blogging tonight. i jumped 2 grades for math. could have been 3, but careless mistakes are the name of the game here. there is hope, yet.
mike just took up your time at
11:43 pm
Monday, July 11, 2005
wahlao, the disgusting behaviour that adults have is quite grostesque, especially when they think it entitles them to be rude fuckers to people younger than them.
as i was climbing up the stairs at the toa payoh mrt, i wasn't looking up at who was coming my direction because i was checking for something in my wallet. and then suddenly, i see feet right in front of me. IDIOT. some stupid man was rushing for a train and was headed straight for me, expecting me to step aside. what a dumbass. i mean normally i would but it's pretty clear that i couldn't see him and he should have just avoided me. but obviously some people think it's their right of way because of age and he "tsked" me quite loudly. i was happy he missed his train.
it was worse on the bus. i was sitting at an aisle seat leaving the window seat empty, because my stop was coming soon. and then here comes this stupid middle-aged to golden-years man who comes along right to my seat, and without saying a "please" or anything courteous, he just made his way in. i mean perhaps he thought i was an animal, or thought that if he was then everyone else should understand his guttural noises. the only thing he
saidsnorted was like "
uh" as though i was supposed to understand what that meant. that's like how fucking rude, he didn't say thank you either and squeezed past me with his huge andropausal ass. he then proceeded to plonk his ass down, leaving only a quarter of the whole seat for me.
ok whatever, adults are fucktards and i'm going to be one soon so i guess i'm an almost-fucktard. yay to me. and i improved in history. not a great leap, by any means. but it's a jump in grade, so i'm satisfied. goodnight.
mike just took up your time at
8:49 pm
Sunday, July 10, 2005
okay, the minah at the NOKIA store told me that it was quite hopeless, but knowing the sentimental idiot i am, i think i'll still blow 25bucks to see if they can salvage anything for me. then again, why does it really matter to me, whether the messages are there or not. it's not like i read them everyday. i don't know why. just knowing it's there, perhaps. that you know, everytime i feel like shit i can read something that'll make me smile and give me a little bit more hope to go on.
it wouldn't be that much a loss anyway. i guess i can still remember most of it and the gist of what was written. i think. well, i guess as always, i can interpret it as symbolic. if anyone was going to talk about chapters of our lives, then i must say that book 1 (arguably 2 or 3) of this collection is ending already. (this is so
return of the native.) most of the people i know aren't going to be in my life after this year. or maybe they'll just make sporadic appearances now and then. but i must be realistic - they will not last.
so then, why should these messages last? they serve to remind only of a person who used to be, but is no longer. our relationships with each other change, what was said in the past is just (for the most part) a painful reminder of how we have evolved in relation with each other. why do i need that. most of the messages from last year (which were really the bulk actually) were gone. i might have been too stubborn to let go, but divine providence took them away from me. it wasn't really up to me. a careless toss, and everything was gone. but really - without the middle, the beginning and the end don't really make any sense as a whole. maybe i should just delete the survivors and start totally anew. it's worse to have this missing, empty chunk and try to fill in the gaps unsuccessfully.
there were long stretches of messages from some people who got totally wiped out. it's a sign that i should be letting go of them, i guess. i don't know why i like attributing so much meaning to a simple accident. it's over-analysing a situation. then again, how often do people throw their phones out the window from over 10 stories? granted, it was a mistake but still. i guess there's something to learn here (besides the obvious and practical one of downloading and utilising PCSuite in the future, which minah at NOKIA centre pronounced as
pissysoot), about not sticking unhealthily to things.
i had messages that congratulated me on drama performances, that consoled me for not getting into council, that told me what a great person i was, that told me why we couldn't be together. i suppose i treated them as milestones of sorts, besides the previous blog which i kept. now that everything's been wiped clean, not entirely of my own volition, i really should move on. and oh, rebuild my phonebook.
and am thinking of getting the
Nokia 3230 - if there's any soul that still reads this, tell me if i should get the black or the rusty red.
mike just took up your time at
6:40 pm
Friday, July 08, 2005
I DROPPED MY PHONE 12 STORIES.
if all the data survives somehow, because the LCD screen is totally fucked at the moment, i'll treat anyone who tags on my board by saturday midnight. wah, 24hour window. but then again since no one reads this it isn't that bad a problem. and anyway i seriously doubt that everything is intact because some of the names/SMSes on the SIMcard itself are finished already. gone, disappeared. =T and they HAD to be the important, sentimental msgs. here comes a lesson, then.
i've now created a new trend.. kayhian-izing my phone.. because our screens are both screwed up in a similar fashion. but i trumped him by dumping my phone 12 stories! not intentionally, of course. i must be fucking mad to.
this is so stupid. do not do things when you are barely awake. bleary, i had just awoken and was at the sofa and decided to get up, so as i was throwing my phone back to the sofa i threw too hard and with a PING it hit the open windows and ricocheted out and 10 seconds later or thereabouts i heard a THUD. it went out of the window like OMFGWTFH and i was in my uniform then cos i fell asleep in it for my afternoon nap and so i just ran down and was no longer tired and sleep, ok took the lift and searched and searched and i was so frantic.
(at least it hit hard ground. if it hit the grass i wouldn't even know where to START looking.)
then i rang the doorbell of the house 12 stories below. thankfully, there were people in. some girl who looked like she was of Uni age opened the door and was having some viewing party of something on tv, not like i really cared what show it was then, with some of her other friends and incidentally she was the only girl and i'm amazed i noticed THAT. so anyway. her parents came back when she answered the door so that's weird and coincidental.
but yay luckily all the pieces fell in the courtyard and i'm hoping against hope that with the sturdy nature of NOKIA phones, the remaining SMSes and phone numbers that weren't on the SIM card are on the phone's database. hmmhmm. to the service centre, tomorrow!
mike just took up your time at
11:48 pm
during math lect, mindless copying is often interspersed with plenty of bored chatter, especially when you have someone who doesn't take math but just sits in for the fun of it and does other things, like pretending to be an errant student listening to his ipod, during the lecture. the conversation this time was on the subject of contact lenses, and what happens when you put them on for extended periods of time or fall asleep with them still on.
yonghui, "you mean your eyes drink water meh"and
eugene, "omg i fucked my eyes!"and so much for my determination. i feel like giving up now before i've even started. typical. i know i travelled all the way to the harbour and that i should be getting on the boat. but there's something in me that's pulling me back from getting on the journey. the boat could be leaving soon, forever never to return and here i am fretting about the boat getting into an accident cos i can't swim. go me.
-----
(taken from max's blog)
THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1. mike (with Q often suffixed to it on blog links)
2. Q nono (don't ask.)
3. michael (i think this comes mostly from my parents and the teachers)
THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
1. quixoticka
2. duntellme (i'll miss you!)
3. v3ng3anc3 (the horrible days when irc was still rampant)
THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. non-singing voice
2. my (now) straight teeth
3. shortsightedness that has miraculously stagnated at a low level despite the abuse I subject to my eyes
THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. eyes
2. hair
3. the inability to develop a tan
THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
(oh hohoho we all love this don't we)
1. chinese
2. the part that gave me my surname (sorry to disappoint ya!)
3. human
THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1. to be forgotten after death
2. growing old alone when everyone else is happily attached
3. and uhm, flunking my As
THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1. humour
2. monehs
3. a late-night snack
THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1. "i do all my own stunts" tee
2. RIPE shorts
3. you don't exactly accessorize before bed, do you
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS:
1. madonna
2. no doubt
3. robbie williams
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS:
1. bathwater, no doubt
2. living on a prayer, bon jovi
3. pretty much anything from madonna
THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:
1. reassurance
2. communion
3. security
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE (in no particular order):
1. i've gotten into physical fights with my parents where i cussed at them
2. i smoke secretly at home when no one's around
3. i've done
it already
THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE PREFERRED SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
1. a warm, cheerful smile that melts my heart
2. hairstyle
3. a pleasant voice
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
1. watching good tv shows
2. reading and writing
3. anything quirky
THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1. talk to certain people.
2. kill certain people.
3. shag certain people.
THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING/YOU'VE CONSIDERED:
1. financial lawyer
2. journalist
3. statue of liberty (I was a kid then)
THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1. spain
2. italy
3. australia
THREE
KID'S NAMES YOU LIKE:
1. bobby jon (hohoho)
2. danny
3. chloe
THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. skydive
2. prove that I can do an even better job than my parents
3. come up with a best-seller (book/film/song/anything)
THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A BOY:
1. I'm disorganised
2. I love checking people out
3. I prefer visual porn to erotica (that's for the girls)
THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A GIRL:
1. I'm a stickler for cleanliness
2. I can bitch about almost anything
3. I'm sensitive to things
THREE CELEB CRUSHES:
1. gwen stefani (:
2. mr and mrs smith as a collective entity
3. hmm. the namesake of a popular snack. hahaha.
THREE PEOPLE THAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE TAKE THIS QUIZ NOW:
1. anyone who'd actually
2. do this quiz dutifully
3. that includes people like my classmates who're reading now.
mike just took up your time at
12:51 am
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
nicole, in a classic case of random stupidity (in lai's words) :
"there are three states of water. solid, liquid, and ice."and i took 10 minutes to get that. my brain must be turning into slush laughing at ms lio's pronounciation of "cyclical".
talking about slush, i must say that sylvester sim's latest advertisement for 7-11's slurpee thing has a really apt slogan/title/whatever. BRAIN FREEZE. gee, the marketers must have been laughing their asses off as they passed him the script of one line, cos he probably thought he was
cool. whee.
anyway, just a musing i had in the morning in the car. you know how people always find loners and hermits weird. why's that so? is it because they have no friends? perhaps the lack of any friends suggest that there is something wrong with them. if not why would everyone be avoiding them? but i don't really think that's the case. it's more of the fear of an enigma. as the saying goes, "a man is judged by he company he keeps". if there is no visible comparison, it confuses people with the lack of a yardstick. we always like to categorize people and things. not being able to do that to someone is disorienting. but never fear, homo sapiens always find their way around obstacles! we just create a new compartment labelled "Freak", specially made for those whom we can observe no discernable companionship.
-----
metaphorically speaking, i'm facing mount everest, but i'm gonna climb that peak no matter what and plant my flag there in whatever way possible, by hook or by
crook. i will leave my indelible mark. even though the chances are that an avalanche will kill me, i will hope for the infinitesimal possibility of attaining nirvana. after all that time and effort spent preparing and getting ready for the journey, the climb, the ascent. it'd be a waste not to try, really. i hate that cliche, "it's now or never" but that's just the way things are right now. i guess after so long, the situation can't remain stagnant. it's either going to get better or just blow up in my face. obviously i'd like it to be the former but even if the latter unfortunately happens, at least i can say that i TRIED. whatever the case is, it will be a turning point as i move on to something better or new. and as i enter the army, my public life won't be the only one entering a new phase, so will my private one.
i don't think i've ever smiled so much and felt truly happy as i did then in recent times, and what i just said wasn't in reference to my academics.
mike just took up your time at
11:02 pm
Monday, July 04, 2005
in response to finding out that madonna's "are you fucking ready london" was 'censored' by channel 01 with a crudly inserted commercial,
"...commercial huh. singapore is a lame prudish motherfucking global hub wannabe. god, this is so immature," said by E.
couldn't have been said better. if they insist on adulterating entertainment in the media, they just might be seeing more and more quitters over the years.
---
and whilst we were gushing over mr and mrs smith, ***** said " i wouldn't mind brad pitt being my sugar daddy, i mean he's over 40 and he's old enough to be one. and you don't find someone over 40 who looks that hot all the time. and angelina jolie's almost 40! why do all these people look so good?"
ok i might have said some of that, like the last part, but i really can't remember. i have funny friends. (:
mike just took up your time at
8:31 pm
Sunday, July 03, 2005
i just watched
Live 8 on tv, and waited for about 4 hours for madonna to come on. her performance, as expected, was explosive, impactful and well worth the wait. a review of it will come later though. i must say that the inclusion of bigshot stars like brad pitt, angelina jolie, and will smith as well as famous people like nelson mandela, kofi annan and bill gates making speeches that pleaded for support was a pretty good idea. please do sign the petition at
Live 8 if you haven't already, it won't take more than 3 seconds.
before that, i must say that i'm rather disappointed by the lack of awareness and excitement generated by the singaporean media in support for Live 8 (barely a small article in the papers), which was sorely lacking. talk about wanting to be part of a global community, and the amount of apathy that emanates from this place. maybe that's why we're always this insignificant little fart, a small red dot that's close to being nothing. we are mocked abroad, we are mistaken for being a subsidiary province of china. little wonder then, because the real issues at hand don't affect anybody. all we care about is legalising casinos that boost our economy. and not that there are lots of children dying in africa. (omg this sounds so cliched i cringe somewhat) now i know that i'm one of the guilty who never really cared. i mean seriously, so what if they were dying. doesn't mean anything to me right? but i guess i'm a convert, and a cause has never drawn me so much, at the risk though of looking like i'm jumping on a bandwagon, seeing the hundreds and thousands of people cheering and clapping at those locations around the world. i guess after awhile if everything just revolved around yourself things'd lose their meaning. we do have our problems but that doesn't mean we can't give a simple regard for others too.
you know, this reminds me of a newspaper article i read sometime ago about numbers in singapore for protests amounting to a measly 2. if i'm not wrong, it was against the iraq war at the US embassy. in other countries, these numbers reached up to the thousands, and all we can muster up are 2. singapore's really too cloistered and sheltered, it's not even funny anymore.
perhaps there'll be screening of Live 8 on local channels like 3 months after the whole thing. (and showing it on channel01, the preview channel, from 9pm to 6am, on starhub's silver cable box doesn't count) which ultimately defeats the purpose, don't you think. an international concert at 8 locations raising awareness of african poverty, urging to petition against this travesty through the doubling of aid and removal of long-term debt. that petition will be going up to the G8 leaders at their scotland summit in a few days. and every three seconds, *snap* another child in africa *snap* dies. just like that. *snap* a simple snapping of fingers.*snap* 30,000 in a day.*snap*. 3 months is way too late *snap*, and all we care about *snap* is getting more than *snap* 3As for our A levels.
then again, we can't even handle poverty on our own hometurf. how many people actually donate money to the poor? granted, they should be trying to find some kind of work instead of peddling dubious wares on the street - but still. i feel like getting a white band now, and it's not for fashion purposes. (i'm hardly fashionable to begin with.) hrrm. felt like being lazy and just stealing a commentary and review of madonna's Live 8 performance online, but then i decided that none of them really give it justice. so here goes:
A Blow-by-Blow of the BEST performance at Live 8firstly, bob geldof, rocker-turned-activist and organiser of Live 8 introduced birhan woldu, an ethiopian woman whose visage of 20 years ago was frozen on a screen at the end of a touching video montage of african children ravaged by the dismaying effects of AIDS and poverty, bloated stomachs and all. birhan is now in a university for agricultural studies, all cleaned up and in the pink of health. and he emphatically said, to all cynics out there (yes that includes you (: eugene and matthew ) that "yes, these things do work, 20 years ago she was 10 minutes from death. however, the money raised from the first Live Aid performance saved her".
then he introduced madonna "the queen bee of rock", another strong woman. she came out and after embracing birhan, goaded the audience, "are you ready london? are you ready to start a revolution? are you read to change history?" the audience was wild, proclaiming their agreement. then the band started, and a full choir all clad in virginal white, just as she was, started the chilling backing vocals of "like a prayer". a spanish guitar started the riffs and chords. madonna insisted that birhan stay on stage, and as she held her hand she started singing. it was powerfully symbolic. really apt lyrics in light of the petition to G8 leaders,
i have no choicei hear your voicejust like a prayeryour voice can take me therein the midnight houri can feel your powerby the end of the first song, she had the whole of hyde park in london clapping along with her as she ended on her knees. birhan and the choir left. then she asked the audience again, "are you fucking ready, london?!" the crowd was mad by then. "ray of light", the second song, had everyone fired up too with really fitting lyrics, such as
waiting for the time when
earth shall be as one
as the song drew to a close, two hiphop backing dancers came out and did some breakdancing. "do you want some more?!" a backing beatbox vocoder recording started the familiar beat of "music" and madonna started a hot 'n heavy groovy dance-cum-song routine with her two dancers with some really nifty footwork and dancesteps. her supple and lithe movements proved that past 40 and after 2 babies, she's nowhere near going past her prime. as the song reached its end, the choir came running out and joined in a few dance moves as well, which was really amazing. then she repeated the most important line of the song, that summed up the whole purpose of the concert, and got the whole 15,000 present singing along that line with her for a good three minutes,
music makes the people come togethermusic makes the bourgeoisie and the rebeli guess there's nothing that can beat that, really. BBC gave her performance a good 10/10. i whole-heartedly agree with that and would rate it higher if possible. i'm willing to forgive some of her pitchy parts because it's really hard to sing live and dance energetically at the same time, yet sound decent. the performance really cemented her originally flagging status as the indisputable queen of pop, with its electrifying effect it had. she proved that that title was deserved, and i'm proud of her. hopefully the resonance of that concert will go further than just a day. as
BBC said,
Madonna: She's not the queen of pop for nothing. During Music, she got everyone clapping in unison the way Freddie Mercury did in 1985. This will be remembered as one of the Live 8 moments, with the crowd desperate to worship in her regal presence. hoho, pwns mariah who came out in a skimpy tight dress and requested for a sip of water and a mike stand in a diva-like way.
-------
annoyed at shoutbox's inefficiencies.
anyway, just felt like i had to mention this. random memory from thailand trip. the tour guide's advice that we couldn't watch the "Adult" cabaret performance because we "weren't adult yet, not 21". and i thought to myself,
i've seen much worse than that, trust me.
mike just took up your time at
3:21 am
Friday, July 01, 2005
okay. class people are at kayhian's house now. but i don't feel like leaving yet. partly cos i got up late. but soon i guess. think i'll be meeting eugene somewhere. kembangan mrt probably.
common tests were really horrific. oddly enough, the only thing that seemed to go well was math, which is traditionally my shittiest subject. it's also the only thing that i'm somewhat keen to know the results to, i'm not too thrilled to find out how i did for the rest. won't be surprised if i'm "encouraged" to drop something after this. won't be surprised at all. but i rather not dwell on this and risk looking like a hypocrite because there is the astronomical chance that i might do decently.
and it was so weird yesterday after i ended Lit S, cos there was nobody to go out with. i mean, isn't that what you normally do on your last day of papers? everyone was missing. i guess that could be because nobody wanted to wait until after Spaper which was a good 4 hours after math ended. oh well. i miss the days when everyone generally took the same subjects. but those days are over, and this is the path i've chosen, which is generally less-trodden. the road is ending, looking back is wrong cos you can't even see the start of the journey anymore.
mike just took up your time at
2:54 pm