mike
ex-raffles
7mar87

histerialane follows the desperation of a fledgling soldier in an offbeat style similar to Desperate Housewives.




prom photos, up almost 2 months after the event - but up nevertheless. enjoy the hot babes and hunks and feel free to edit me out!

hollaback_

Wednesday, August 31, 2005
today got progressively worse. while nicky's teacher's day experience was heartwarming, mine was far from it. unfortunately, mine didn't mirror his as i regressed in reverse chronological order, as the hours went by,to my former schools.

morning in rj wasn't too bad. mr evans' assertion that the harlequin in Heart of Darkness was homosexual was rather amusing. and the teachers loved our little gifts for them.

mr wong (coming back a minute after receiving a bottle of hoegardden from us) : which reminds me, your assignments..
lynette : oh after drinking that, you'll forget all about it!

brian (immediately after thrusting the sparkling grape juice bottle to mrs tan the moment she came out from the staffroom) : m'am it's fake one!
mrs tan : you didn't put something inside that goes "give me A give me A give me A" right

yonghui's tagline for mr lim's (history teacher) 'special brew' : you make the dead look good.

anyway, the concert in the hall was pretty boring. the split-level design of the hall makes it even worse, cos it kind of detaches those on the upper floor from what's really going on. the emcees probably should have broken up into 2 different locations, it would've made the event much livelier. ugh it also gives the national day parade feel though. too many musical items, including a failed budding magician who dropped his freaking wand! but props to his valiant attempts and slickness even in stumbling. guess i should have just gone to the library instead, since apparently they'd stepped down the uptightness about ponning, after national day. BUT luckily i didn't, because i saw something that made me very higggggggghhhhhhhh whee! (:

------

after i was done in rj, it was already 1130. i decided to pop by ri to see the remnants of people still lingering around. only saw ms E quah, mr P lim and mrs Tan mh, who asked me why i was the only one from my class who came to see her, and i couldn't come up with anything really adequate in reply. i guess it was worse seeing the whole of 4H there in full force at the tables next to her favourite table outside SR2. strike 1.

after spending about 10 minutes in ri, i got really bored especially since rosie smith was hustling the teachers off for staff lunch at god-knows-where. which meant that there wouldn't be anyone left to talk to. sweesen who was still there suggested that we go back to our primary school, even though when i came to school in the morning i had absolutely no intention of doing so, cos i hadn't been there in years and it wasn't like i was dying to go anyway. on a whim, i accepted his suggestion.

------

i think i could have saved my time, actually. but i guess after this year, i'll be moving into something different so this is the last chance i'll ever get to go there. well it's not like i can't, just that if even as a student i'm too busy to make time or really care, what makes anyone think it'd be any easier when i'm an adult? it's quite weird though, i think i stopped going to my primary school in either sec2 or 3, probably the former.

so anyway, there we were - the cream building with the concourse whitewashed and repainted an ugly pukegreen shade. the field all restructured such that only a fraction of a patch remained, everything else a concrete slab of basketball court cake. the stage in the hall ostentatiously remodelled such that the steps were no longer at the sides, but the whole length of the stage, giving that wide, superficial hollywood feel as though one were going up to receive an award at the oscars. insistence on the general office for us to get a visitor's pass, the visitor's logbook next to the teachers' one full of unfamiliar and strange names. malay names, a whole stretch of them. i am not racist, but this in an SAP school? there's something wrong there.

we saw mrs G, talking to a mrleonglookalike (whom we later found out was 28 years old, an ex-student) and seeing that she was one of the last few remaining teachers who we could still recognise as part of our primary education, we decided to go over, and that was when it all came crashing down.

she didn't recognise us.

and it was so awkward, so so awkward i don't think i've ever felt that embarrassed in such a long time. the terrible silence that washed over us after she admitted that she couldn't recall who we were (but knew a man who graduated 10 years before us) was so overpowering. we just stood there dumbly, looking at the ground lost in our own private admissions of inadequacies - her, her memory and us our arrogance that we would be remembered no matter what.

what could we have hoped? that people whose only memories of us as cute bubbly kids would continue ruminating over us after we'd left their lives, especially since they wouldn't even know if they'd ever see us again? mrs G herself said that normally the ex-students disappear after sec2. the exception to the rule was 28yearoldman who'd returned every year. of course they'd remember him. not us - those who came and went as we liked, confident that our status as luminaries during our time would keep us forever etched in the minds of our teachers. we are but, as quoted from conrad, merely "jewels flashing in the night of time".

none of the teachers i'd wished to see were there. mr T, mdm L, mr G and mr L had already left the school so nothing doing there. mdm T wasn't at her table and ms S had been on medical leave for a few months. the only two teachers who meant the absolute most to me when i was still a young impressionable boy, and were still teaching there. they'd probably be the only two that could remember me. or maybe they've forgotten too since i got lazy and haven't seen them in ages. out of sight, out of mind. sigh, what a janet/wings relationship a la colin cheong's The Stolen Child. i don't know. at least they weren't there for me to find out the truth about their memories.. just in case it'd be negative. we left notes with our contacts behind. hopefully they'll reply.

and it wasn't just the sense of change that had overrun the school that was oppresive. the feeling of being aged was heavy, when all around us were little sec1 kids yabbering and jabbering away, in their assortment of neighbourhood school uniforms. i felt old, i really did. it's like a whole different generation. i don't think i saw a single rafflesian, or top tier student either. maybe a NY girl here, or a chinese high boy there. tells you a lot about the standard of the school in recent years huh. i guess it was bound to come anyway with the new principal instituting changes and relaxing the firm grip on being bilingual with SAP, diluting the strong chinese culture etc etc. that's what you get when you meddle around with something that's unbroken. i see a similar future for RI with bob koh (changing the physical will soon change the intangible), but that's another story for another day.

mr H saw us as we were leaving, and he evidently didn't want to talk to us, because he too couldn't recall who the hell we were. he smartly turned it around when mrs G started showing off her 28yearold ex-student, by promptly telling us after that that "that should be the way!", after all we've only left for 6 compared to 16 years. also, his primary school was torn down already and that's the only valid reason not to visit your primary school, so we should continue coming.

i was all smiles, but cursing deep within. what's the point of returning, when you can't even remember us. it's so pretentious. but at the rate the school is going down the drain, won't be long before we'll be justified and blameless for not returning. i was very annoyed by his comments. you're not even interested in talking to us, we don't even know anyone else here, it's just for the veneer and sake of keeping up appearances and boosting your ego that your teaching career has spanned so many years and you're tao2 li2 man3 tian1 xia4 so much so that your students are uncountable right. why bother, when i'm just a nameless face with a new pair of specs, and you pretending to recognise me when you really don't.

i felt sorrier for mrs G though, who seemed really genuine as she urged us to come back again. i highly doubt i'll be doing so, but i couldn't bear to tell her that. i didn't want to be rude to mr H either, even though i was very tempted to. he who jokingly (in very bad taste if i might add) proclaimd "ah the boy from the Really Idiotic school!" the moment he saw me when i returned in sec1. i can't warp that impression. even though we've all moved on our separate ways and forgotten each other, with only vague memories and impressions, the image of us as good obedient children will always remain. and an obedient child is never rude to his seniors and elders.

i guess this is really the end. sometime ago i was revisiting all the elements of my past - or rather they came up to me through some incident or another. and then of late, everything's being stripped away. handphone, email, sweet memories of childhood. i feel afraid, like maxine hong-kingston, i'll need to redefine myself totally on my own since lineage is not applicable. "they don't connect" and there's nothing left in the past anymore, besides pristine nostalgia that shouldn't be marred by the jarring truth of altered reality. which is the reason why i got very apprehensive of moving back to bishan at the end of last year. the past and present cannot coincide together, one has to give way to the other.

guess it's appropriate to end off with something nick said -

i miss 6/9 '99 says:
somehow ri didn't hold as much for me.
for some weird reason.
maybe cos i didn't excel enough for the teachers to really remember me.

and to that i say, it doesn't matter how well you do, but how well you bother to make yourself remembered. you're just another student, no matter how stellar you were during your heyday.
mike just took up your time at 7:34 pm

Monday, August 29, 2005
now i know what my weird dream meant. the dream that i had a couple of days back, that had half the GP paper covered in questions that went "with reference to -obscure singaporean trivia(l) historical tidbit that my brain probably conjured whilst REM was underway-, discuss yada yada pseudo important local hotspot issue yada yada". but that was fine, really. what took the cake was question 11/12, i don't know which but it was at the bottom of the paper. it looked curious, because it was divided into 2 parts, part A worth [10] and part B worth [15], which went something like "discuss the problems of statistics and something". and i attempted it. of course the details of what i actually wrote don't register in my subconscious, since i woke up soon after wondering (i) since when did GP essays come in 2 parts (ii) with half the total marks of a normal GP essay, no less and (iii) FREAKING HELL ECONS HAS INFILTRATED GP EEEK!!

that was all in the dream of course. lo and behold, today i get a stupid question on "blogging and podcasting have little use beyond allowing the individual to indulge in narcissistic exhibitionism" or something along those lines. clever me decides that even though i have no idea WTF podcasting is, since i know a hell lot of empirical evidence on blogs, i might as well do the question, promptly generalising the whole affair as "online journaling". ok actually i don't exactly see much significance there besides me effectively doing only half a question and hence i should get at least my 15/25 just like in the dream. ok whatever. that doesn't make sense but oh gosh. what's more, i should be shot for not knowing what podcasting (what an idiotic sounding term) is since i own an ipod. matin said that i obviously haven't been updating my itunes (which is right) since if i had there would be a fucking podcast option under the library button and oh well-

so there's any hope of distinction down the drain.

and pc was infinitely worse, dozing off for half the time and feeling absolutely unconfident about drama, randomly throwing in phrases and words like "black comedy", "abusive" and "antagonistic" - or maybe i didn't, and merely imagined that i had in that semi-dream state between lucidity and lunacy. then again, not like the poetry comparison was any better, i merely identified the first as literal and the second as allegorical.. and then got stuck.

note to self : the best way to prepare for exams isn't to cram, or take tonics. it all boils down to having a good night's sleep. i fully intend to follow this for all subsequent papers.

-----

anyway, i am thisclose to going over the edge. it's insane, the chunks of exams that we have to go through. 3hr3hr3hrHEY! they should have prepared us for this much earlier, only history and math came close to emulating the shiong nature of our papers. and now suddenly everything has exploded in duration. after just 2 papers (or 6 hours) i feel totally burnt out. i don't know if i can survive the prelims, let alone the As. maybe i'm just not cut out for this, and that i'm deluding myself. it's not too late to drop out, or like drop a subject or something. hopefully today was just a bad day. in any case - need to work on stamina.

it doesn't help either having endless mountains of loose sheets of paper all over the house. OMFG i swear if you wanted to make me cry all you'd need to do would be to lock me up in a freaking filing cabinet room and then accidentally tip open all the drawers. i was all ready to add to the foul gases that the seventh month believers and columbarium produce with a huge bonfire just now. this is why my new best friend is Mr Giant Stapler! CHARR. CHARR. CHARR. and all those annoying sheaves automatically combine to become one big l'il neat pile. i love that! who cares if a page of frost moves on to one on othello. as long as there is ORDER. i cannot believe in that order in chaos bullshit anymore; there is only order in.. orderly multi-coloured transparent management files and humongous folders.

this morning, i had this sudden wish that i was taking bio/chem/math/lit instead of what i'm taking now. which is the next best thing to bio/econs/math/lit (that i considered as an alternative to a full-blown arts combination) which eva hor told me didn't exist because bio had to be done with chem or something, way back in sec4 when the rj peeps dropped by for their recruitment spiel. come to think of it, chem vs econs sounds much tastier too. at least i'd have a better chance at getting an A, according to the statistics. i miss bio, i really do.

oh well - tomorrow will be better, as i always try deceiving myself.
mike just took up your time at 11:19 pm

Wednesday, August 24, 2005
don't you just hate insects? in particular, beetles. mind you, they're ranked even lower than cockroaches in my book. because for all their grossness, at least cockroaches are hardy and they're smart. now there's something we can all learn, gleaning lessons from the natural world and all, which robert frost would so love.

beetles, on the other hand, are just plain stupid. there's nothing that redeems them whatsoever. they blindly fly towards the light, knocking themselves against walls and the ceiling as they bump around tuctuctuc. as they slam their pathetic bodies against these hard surfaces, you can't help but wonder why they don't just fly slower and look where they're going. it not only sounds disgusting (i get really irked by beetlecrashing noises, especially since their wings and body pulsate in an icky bulbuously squishy fashion as they breathe so obviously.) it's also just plain senseless. but i guess since they have such a solid body and exoskeleton it doesn't really matter. you could probably call beetles the dumb jocks of the insect universe. they should just wallow in their brainlessness somewhere else, and not disturb me at night as i try to study but can't since i feel all ughed-out and unable to because of them. at least moths have the sense to be quiet about it.

and so it really pleases me everytime they get caught in the overhead lamp in my room, able to fly in through the tiny gap (at which i give a little cheer when they start zooming about between the lamp's plastic dome of death and the fluorescent halo tube, as if they were heading towards the holy grail) but unable to fly out due to their inability to calculate escape routes, frying their popcornkernel-shaped bodies into charred bits.

---

in other news, i think i should stop my hero-worshipping and work towards my ideal so that i can become my own idol. at least one gets some form of reciprocation and acknowledgement that way.

and why some people trifle with me in situations that they obviously can't win totally eludes me.
mike just took up your time at 7:12 pm

Sunday, August 21, 2005
someday, i will understand
in God's whole plan
and what he's done to me
oh but maybe someday
i will breathe
and i'll finally see
i'll see it all in my baby

it's really sad - because such beautiful lyrics and melody are wasted on a mediocre voice. i must commend her on her efforts at trying though.

woochiao makes me happy with what he tells me. i can't wait to see the light! (that would shine over a large area, i presume. oh well, as long as it brightens my day i don't mind. no, no - not sunshine.)

[ETA: omg i love bluetooth! pwns infrared any day.]
mike just took up your time at 2:10 am

Saturday, August 20, 2005
it annoys me that i only started getting REALLY serious with my work at such a late time, because got not enough time la! damnit. and it's harder to do divide and conquer here, unlike O levels. hmm, must plan smarter in the future.

don't ever buy set lunches from cartel, it's not worth it at all. what you really get hardly looks like the display outside, which already looks unappetizing to begin with. rather, you should shell out a few more dollars to get their main courses which are worth so much more, your satisfaction would shoot through the roof. still lamenting the fact that there's no nydc or fish N co at J8 though.

a random surfing onto CBS official website has gotten me somewhat excited - what with survivor and the amazing race coming back! although frankly i'm a bit tired. it's getting hard to keep up with so many generations worth of contestants. the amazing race seems more interesting this time with the family edition, and more mayhem whilst survivor seems to have stagnated a little bit. just a LITTLE bit. well, at least with bobby jon and stephenie's (as yet unannounced) participation in a second consecutive season it should be quite exciting still.

anyway i was prepared to forgive and forget.. or rather i'd like to pretend that i was all prepared to, until i was alerted to new developments and information that illuminated the situations and personalities revolving around a certain character. i don't think i've made a wrong decision, and shan't look back on it henceforth. now if only i can make more intelligent choices from now on.
mike just took up your time at 3:48 pm

Tuesday, August 16, 2005
random thoughts of late :

1. people with big asses should really try avoiding VUL(gar) situations. ie, Visible Underwear Lines. such sights are only ideal with nice butts. like.. HB's. then again HB doesn't have that kind of problem to begin with.. kinky!

2. i think i'll probably end up with someone younger than me in the future.

3. i'm either utterly suicidal or very confident of my abilities and/or latent mental faculties to conjure up a miracle.

4. i wish i could screen you out a 100%.

5. why doesn't stupid vcd thingum that woochiao lent me work on the comp! or on any of the black/silver boxes in the living room!! *pouts in anticipation*

6. it doesn't pay to be different, no matter who you are.

7. i'm too reserved, and i'm too open as well. how i haven't gone crazy living in such a paradox, i don't know. or maybe i already am crazy, living in delusion.

8. i think i might just be another boring person out there after all, with the exception of my (fortuitous) surname which i used to find annoying but now embrace as a mark of individuality.

9. i still have confidence in my taste, despite what everyone says. taste is a personal thing anyway, so it doesn't really matter what everyone else thinks. (=

10. i was bored.
council's bureaucracy is amazing. one station to sign up and register queue number, another station for them to make sure all the details are in tip-top absolute shape and no one tried sneaking in an unauthorized ID. yet another to key in everything into the database (where camy became cindy LOL), and another one for.. omg seriously. but the receipt's kinda cute. and the ticket designs aren't too bad. now if only they'd fought for a better theme title..
mike just took up your time at 10:56 pm

Sunday, August 14, 2005
somebody slap me please, my musical taste is going down the drain.

first it was this indulgence in the decadence of blingbling crunk and nigger hiphop. (heehee i just accidentally typed that as hiphip) and now it's this wallowing around in anti-establishment noisy anthems.

PUNK ROCK! *gives a horrified look*

the ONE thing that i prided myself on not descending into, i am now wilfully mucking around in. i hope that this is merely a phase and that i will soon climb out of the dire quagmire that i have purposely lowered myself into.

don't wanna be a Singaporean idiot.
mike just took up your time at 11:11 pm


so on friday, i gave away 88 dollars.

deceptively little money, but if you include the hidden costs of glam and after-activities, 88 is just a fraction of it. so why then, am i going for something which bao en, and to a lesser extent tim ng, have slammed to no end - especially the former? in fact, i was originally one of the proponents for skipping prom. i didn't see the point, i hated school anyway. (well hate is a strong word. indifferent might be a better alternative.) the quicker i got away from it, the better. it's amazing that i suddenly changed my mind.

since my econs is in a deplorable state at the moment, i can't offer up any impressive arguments about utility or whatnot. and even if i get A* grades for econs for that matter, i wouldn't bore you out with jargon that the more sensible populace in rj decided not to even try tackling.

mel said that she's only going because she happened to have a dress that she might as well use. just shows you how much we all feel about this. it is quite ridiculous to pay almost a hundred dollars for the opportunity to use some articles of clothing or to look glam and take a few photos.

i accept most of the points put forward, so i'm pretty surprised at myself. it's just that i realised that someone is going (ok i didn't even know then when i agreed to join the table, i was just going on a hunch), and the possibility of having a photo taken together is rather alluring. there's nothing logical about that, it's a purely emotional reason and if said person wasn't going, i probably wouldn't be giving a shit about prom (ok besides the fact that most of my close friends will be there too, which is another counterpoint that firms up baoen's case since hers would be mostly with her somewhere else).

but oh. consumers are assumed to be rational decision makers, so i guess economic theory doesn't even apply to me. thank god i didn't make a fool of myself attempting to use it.
mike just took up your time at 6:19 pm

Thursday, August 11, 2005
a big. fat. YAY.

and again! one more time!!

amidst the dreary books and notes - it's little pleasures like this that make life worth going on. just that little bit more.

(oh god michael you're fucking sad.)
mike just took up your time at 11:55 pm

Tuesday, August 09, 2005
today was national day. and like every other national day, i'm at home. i've never gone for a parade before, and even though tampines heartlands spinoff was the closest i could come to it, i still decided not to. and no, preview for all p5 kids doesn't count either.

so, i watched the parade on tv whilst semi-studying. the strong feelings of patriotism i used to have - eagerly wanting to hang out the flag once august rolled along; standing at attention whenever the national anthem started its familiar register; singing heartily to national day songs - waned over the years as i grew up. something seems to have been lost. maybe it's the fact that i no longer live in a HDB flat but a condo, and hence we are no longer obliged to hang up the flag. or perhaps it's because my voice has broken and i no longer sound good when i try to sing.

maybe i'm just excusing my own misbehaviour. there's no real excuse to be reading a book whilst tens of thousands (and more) of singaporeans are singing their hearts out to majulah singapura. with the tv on and blaring, no less. getting up only when fireworks lit up the sky at 2 distinct locations from the unobstructed view of the windows.

it's tempting to dislike singapore. to be cynical, to be jaded of it. that's especially so when many of my consorts hate it with a vengeance, for whatever reason. be it the education system, the not-exactly-inclusiveness of society (as much as it's claimed to be open), the dreaded NS or even the lack of prospects. the bombardment everyday that "singapore sucks" and how much better it would be to go overseas. i am surrounded by people who hope to get a PES low enough so that their NS experience would be easier yet high enough such that their prospects would not be ruined. i don't know what to make of this, really.

because like it or not, this is our home. you're probably not going to like me sounding like a social studies textbook, but it's true. i do acknowledge that it's rather ridiculous to be so intensely proud of just merely 40 years of nationhood, but consider for a moment the quality and not the quantity of these 4 decades. we've accomplished much more than many countries can even hope to achieve, and that many others could only attain in a much longer period of time. it is, grudingly, something to be proud of. where else can you walk the streets without fear of being bombed (this assertion must always be in KeepInView status though.) or being a victim of a racist mob? maybe some people dislike this safety. there's such a thing as being too safe. but it's something i think we should be grateful for. contrary to what people think, i think this is a great place to raise children.

on an aside, i think things like scholarships are useful to keep the bright ones at bay and prevent them from flying the coop, and when they come back and return to work for governmental organisations they'll inevitably be hooked (my dad remarked that it was strange that only those, and not private corporations were featured for scholarship day). the rest have no choice but to stay here. what a smart way to retain everyone. ingenious, though others would call it crafty.

i rarely feel this much for the country. which is why national day parades are important, to remind the populace of what the country's done to benefit them. with a (hopefully) more mature perspective at 18 than perhaps 15, i must say that being a young singaporean these days is a tricky situation. it's even thornier when you are in a liberal faculty in a top college (whose students are arguably more enlightened, which is also a euphemism for being more prone to subversion, since they think so much) and to be patriotic is to draw suspicion; to be nonchalant or even opposing is the norm, sometimes just for the sake of it.

it angers me when i see people jump on the bandwagon mindlessly, then. it's fine to see things differently, but do be prepared to back them up with proper empirical evidence. if not, it's better to just be thankful of what the government has given and stop fantasizing that it'd be any better overseas being an immigrant or a second-class citizen. i think running away after almost 2 decades of provision smacks of ungratefulness. i guess that's what being a quitter means. reparation candy, anyone?

i think there are some really silly things that the government is persisting with, but that cannot negate the wealth of good that they've established, and their track record over the years. we wouldn't be where we are today without it, definitely. and just because they might be slower to respond to global paradigm shifts for example, doesn't mean they wouldn't further down the road. i might just be idealistic here, but i guess if this is where you're born in, nowhere else could be just as good (or not as bad if you prefer to view things negatively). there are things that might make one unhappy here, but to just attempt to run away and be escapist doesn't make things any better. stay and fight then, for what you believe in - if you're not getting what you want here.

that said, i do wish to go abroad for a couple of years and then come home. *prays that some ministry scholarship board blogsurfs and grants me an honorary scholarship or study grant*

-----

i told my parents a condensed version of what i just said a few days ago, and my father remarked that i was PAP-material. i just laughed, but it'd be interesting if those were prophetic words. how ironic that i was in my virginal white school uniform then.

happy birthday, singapore.
mike just took up your time at 10:49 pm

Monday, August 08, 2005
US university talks weren't too bad, quite useful at certain parts. and ms ng can be quite humorous, although her sense of humour is rather offbeat and occasionally dubious, characterised by an obssession with marriage and the like. i think i'll be one of those people who'll not apply before NS, in the hope that i might be able to redeem myself there and make my extra-curricular CV look slightly better.

---

more reason to hate hotmail and microsoft hegemony, along with technology in general. ever since i shifted to gmail, i neglected my hotmail account. today, out of boredom i decided to log on to access some nice emails. to my horror - i realised that because i hadn't logged on in 30 days everything was deleted. gone, finished. does yahoo do that to you? does gmail do that to you? no! they have no silly little policies of spring cleaning after a month of stagnation. and spring cleaning WHAT, when it's just 2 measly MB of space. yahoo and gmail giants on the other hand, can handle GIGAbytes worth of space. MEGA is so yesterday, and i'm glad i jumped ship from hotmail.

the loss of all the emails saddens me though. with the same kind of dull ache that i got when i realised that my sms-es were all no longer retrievable after i accidentally sent my phone on a one-way trip to oblivion. it is not acute, because it isn't the kind of thing that i require everyday in my life. rather, it is a silent nagging ache that there is now one less thing to revisit in the future, when i need something to base my life against. for what meaning is there when no standard remains relative by which to judge things by?
mike just took up your time at 4:37 pm

Sunday, August 07, 2005
hmm. just got off the phone not too long ago with eman's econs tutor. i never would have expected myself to take tuition for subjects besides math, but desperate times call for desperate measures. can't afford to muck this up.

anyway- pagoda street was not bad a showing, thumbs up to rosalind pho as kat the conniving bitch. also accolades to ling tiankai as ah k the brash but loving/lovable ahbeng as well as his assistant, who was a lovable buffoon. not so good was hadri who was obviously breaking out of character at the first part when he was smiling at the audience. hoho. and the script which made him stomp out the double doors at least 10 times over the course of 2 hours. wasn't very well developed either. good music, but story was rather lacking in depth and substance. characterisation and development wasn't done extensively, resulting in quite a number of cardboard characters, such as sangee and karthik. programme was nice and classy, but plenty of typos and mistakes in printing. set and lighting was delightful though, and so was the choreography. overall not that satisfying an evening, but since the money's going to charity then i shan't gripe that much.

a flash, a flippant comment, and then something unpleasant.

saturday was a pretty happy day even though i didn't do any work at all. scholarship day saw me like a little kid, grabbing a brightsparks bag the moment i entered the hall, and making a round at all the booths, collecting each and every single brochure and freebie. i almost took the white SAF brochure as well, which was actually for girls, but thankfully the kind woman informed me it was so. and unfortunately i skipped the DSTA and A*STAR booths, because DSTA's giveaway was the most practical of all - a file. sucks to not be in science. if i were, i wouldn't have bypassed it. tried the divide and conquer tactic with my parents by separating into different LTs so that we could cover 9 talks for just 3 sessions. hurrah. pretty successful. and oh! i have the exact same specs as ronald! ok not that similar, the colour's different but the design's the same, including the black stripes on the plastic at the side. and i refuse to admit that his is better than mine! haha.

then i went out for lunch with my parents at fishNco and went for a shopping spree where i got some nice clothes. i should go out with them more often, especially if i want formalwear because they're too expensive to get on my own. at least if it's casualwear i can still get them on my own first - and then get reimbursed. i love my parents. and no it's not just because of the $. when it comes down to it, family's the one that'll stick by you. most of the time, anyway. maybe not siblings, unless you're a certain pair of twins *ahem*. the bond between parent and child is much stronger, and i think you'd have to do something really heinous for that link to be broken, on either side.

I understand your point of view letting me go
But I thought you had more faith
Everything I've done for you
You made the mistakes and now you throw this in my face
And I have worked so hard for you all of this time and you cast me aside
I understand your point of view

after whiling away enough time, i made my way to marina bay mrt and met weixian who came soon after. we tried for awhile to avoid CT but then he spotted us haha. in dribs and drabs the rest arrived and we made our way to the today in history book launch which was at some weird field in the middle of nowhere. plenty of makeshift bleachers and huge canvas sheets draping the muddied ground, with occasional leaks and tears that spurted small plumes and splashes of mud whenever one stepped near the unfortunate hole. it was quite unnerving to step on the undulating stretches and feel the squish of soft earth underneath, fearing that the sheet would suddenly break. and the smell - but i'm used to it already so it's ok.

the mini-parade started off with 18 skydivers from the sky carrying the usual banners, total defence, singapore flag etc etc. at first they looked like they were all going to land on us but you know, fish eye view and all, perspective always comes out wrong. so everything was fine and they landed on the field in front of us. then there was this ironically lousy conglomerate of NCC soldiers from 4 schools, of which i can only remember one of them being hwa chong institute (makes a face at what is arguably the stupidest school name in singapore), even as the announcer was praising their accuracy and PRECISION, of all things. oh please, the fourth guy that was supposed to march out was dreaming and hence had to run after the 3 guys in front of him, which meant that the rest of them had to run to and EVERYONE was out of sync, swinging their arms in anything but unison. it was such an embarrassment as they were supposed to be the best of the best. but i digress - they were doing weird fanciful motions with their fake rifles (haha! unlike me who got to shoot a real rifle, albeit with blanks at syf 3 years ago!) and the band was playing "gay themes" in CT's own words hoho, such as mamma mia, YMCA and i will survive. honestly, the whole thing didn't make any sense to me. especially since it was hardly precise. it's also bad to see drills from the spectator end after doing so much on your own before. you feel like all those who made mistakes are imbeciles, and wonder how they ever got to represent and form this contingent. they're hard to do, but what i saw yesterday was far from an acceptable standard.

oh, then these taichi association people or whatever it was came out to do some demonstration. there was the aggro-woman who broke her fan because she was too forceful! there was even a caucasian and a malay woman replete with tudung. but the most interesting of all was this frail woman who looked so much like HT, the face and hair. we were really amused by that. but i supposed to highlight would be this civil and military defence display that was pretty impressive, simulating a terrorist attack and a military skirmich respectively and how (propaganda alert) they are effectively equipped to handle whatever that's thrown their way, yada yada. the simulation featured them exploding a hollow shell of a car, and releasing some (presumably) harmless fumes coloured sulphur yellow. quite tickled to see some "Soccer players" suddenly fall to the ground, writhing away in pain, spasming like dying fishes. the HAZMAT (or hazardous material for long) suits made those who were wearing it look like gigantic swollen humanoid sausages. but i guess the military defence segment was even better, what with low-flying aircraft dropping "bombs" and chinooks carrying light assault vehicles and real tanks and artillery coming out. what spoilt it was the fact that they were shooting blanks (although they obviously couln't be shooting anything else) and the line-up that made the singapore military look stupid, sending a whole battalion of vehicles against a small guerilla encampment with one tent and a few bunkers. but i guess they wanted to make it representative or something. still - it makes me slightly more excited to join the army. being a good ole-fashioned boy, i still like my violence every now and then. i want to blow up some baddies with a huge bomb. BOOM.

it all ended with the president doing the official launch of the book which featured 366 students from 366 local schools doing a feature on a significant singaporean historical event on the same day as their birthday. i pity the boy/girl who was born on the 29th february. not to mention less data to choose from.

You couldn't pick a better time to give me the news
Why don't you kick me when I'm down?
I'd always believed in you
Defended your name but you have not been true
I gave you so much of my life I've compromised and you tell me goodbye
You couldn't pick a better time

hmm. watching melanie c's video for better alone and the symbolic opening of the windows so that sunlight floods the dimmed room reminds me of hedda gabler in the eponymous play by henrik ibsen. ok, i haven't read the play yet but i know just that scene from lit class. i imagine hedda to be as fugly as melC, but that's not really a factor when it comes to voice quality. as always, i'm drawn by the lyrics as well.

But I can't seem to get my head around
All the things that I feel good about always seem to disappear
And every time I think I've got this all worked out
Something chews me up and spits me out
But there's nothing left to fear
I'm better alone my dear
mike just took up your time at 7:03 pm

Friday, August 05, 2005
rargh. am grateful that there's no Lit S today, which means an early dismissal at noon so that i won't have to rush home and freshen up before hadri's pagoda street performance at esplanade. lunch at crystal jade with some of the girls was not bad, although i wish i had more money left over on friday, sucks to be stuck with slightly more than 10 bucks and have to control your finances when you actually want to eat more.

i qualify my earlier assertion that i blogsurf as many blogs as i claim to everyday - because i realise that that's more of an exaggeration than anything. i don't. it was true in the past, but i'm restricting myself to those whom i think will update more often. because there's no more luxury of spending an hour or so reading everyday. anyway, from the statcounter numbers it's obvious that less people are reading these days because everyone's heads are in the books. so there's no point returning to an unupdated site.

i don't want to go for the compulsory book launch thing with CT tomorrow. blardee. should've just gone for college day.

and oh. have finally increased the font size at the behest of almost all my viewers, since they don't seem to be blessed with eyesight that doesn't seem to deteriorate, like mine. it doesn't look that bad either. hmm. ok i'm off.
mike just took up your time at 3:44 pm

Thursday, August 04, 2005
in a really bad mood.

it should have been a portent, starting the day getting a big fat bitching from HT. "you've been copying the outlines since last year, michael. has it worked? still getting Os and Fs right" ok i guess i had it coming, but STILL. and i'm surprised to find out that she actually knows that i never really did my homework. (no QNLY jokes here, please) and even then that's not really true, i was much more diligent for econs last year i think. just because i copied the answers doesn't mean i didn't actually do my work [although that logical leap of faith(.. or is it leap of logical faith or.. whatever.) is true this year], how silly. then again she was stricter last year too. i think she's just given up, or something. although i really don't see why she can tell us "i haven't marked your essays class, but don't worry i'm looking at them everyday". i don't think she should have said that. it just frustrates things more. it didn't help that i couldn't really do the history test either. and it wasn't even a hard question.

but school wasn't really the bulk of it. rather, it was those annoying singaporeans that i had to face. firstly, there was this botox-ed 50+ bitch in semi-glam clothing who cut my queue at the dentist's. now before you call me petty - read on. now normally, i'm late for my appointments, which means that i'm moved to a later slot in a sense. this time, instead of arriving at 5 i arrived at 5.15. okay fair enough, i sat down and proceeded to engross myself in copies of Newman, which is like a toned down version of FHM. but after awhile i got annoyed, even up till 6 i wasn't called in. and this girl who'd come in later than me, clearly, had gone in first. at this point i was edgy. there was something wrong about this, but i kept my cool still. apparently they'd forgotten about me. shifting me to later, but not actually giving me a real slot.

so then in swooshes this botox bitch halfway while girl-who-came-later-than-me was inside. and the moment she stepped in, all cruella de vil like, she announced that her appointment was at that time (6 whatever it was, thirty or something) with a voice that expected to be served ASAP. she then continued to complain loudly and rather obnoxiously that the previous time she'd come, other people who'd come later got to go in earlier than her. i could sense something brewing and promptly stood up and informed the receptionist that when could i go in because i'd been waiting for more than an hour and could i go in please? they told me to wait. so okay.

then when said girl came out from the dentist's room, one of the receptionists was busy with collecting consultation fees as well as booking of a next appointment, whilst the other one was busy with something else. whatever the case was, fucking bitch woman immediately took it as a sign that she could go in (because you know, no one's inside the room what! so can go in lor. i booked my appointment at this time so i have to go in then lorh!), took the opportunity when everything was all in a mess, and swiftly walked in with that pseudo-friendly-charming hi-how-you-doing platitudes for the dentist. you know, even if she WAS meant to go in before me (and she wasn't! because she came in after me AND had an appointment later than me) you aren't supposed to enter without the receptionist telling you that you can go in! but i think she was aware that i wanted to go before her and so using her fucked-up logic that "oh because someone cut my queue in the past now i am bloody entitled to do the same to others", she was alert. but really, what a fucking hypocrite. i think the clinic should invest in a proper queue number system instead of manual service to call in people. inefficient. people like these just walk all over it and abuse the system with a loud, empty, threatening voice. especially since they're adults. doesn't help that i still look like a 14 year old.

in any case, when the bitch came out and they told me that i could go in, i griped loudly that i had waited for a very long time, especially since people were cutting my queue. she obviously heard that, but didn't retaliate cos she KNEW she was going ahead of me and in the wrong. or at least i hope so, maybe she didn't even hear it at all, which is worse. but whatever. come to think of it, zc was right. i should have just marched in immediately after she invited herself in and dragged her out. or at least created a big ruckus. (at the time, i was wary that i might have gotten into legal trouble. fray and all, my npcc knowledge in ri came in useful. so i didn't, even though i did consider doing it.) oh well maybe if i will hard enough, my latent psychic powers will come to life and her teeth will all drop out.

ugh. after i finally left the dentist's almost 2 hours after being stuck in their tiny little waiting room alternating between Newman and Heart of Darkness and catching a few annoyed snoozes, i walked out to the main road to catch a cab home. there happened to be one just turning out. i was gonna walk towards it (i was about 5m away), when i see this guy about a 100m away from the opposite side of the cab running towards me. now i don't know why i didn't enter the cab, but anyway- the driver's head was turned to face the side which said guy had came from just when he rounded the back of the cab. and he had the audacity to cut in front of me, even whilst i was walking, to run and dash into the cab, stare at me with a FUCKING BLURBLUR DEER-CAUGHT-IN-THE-HEADLIGHTS-LOOK when he knew clear well he was stealing my bloody cab. and it was so freaking blatant. to add insult to injury, he had to go all the way to my side of the cab before entering, and not on the opposite side he'd come from. and i couldn't drag him out cos 1. i'm smaller and 2. the driver hadn't seen either of us before that guy'd entered, so i had no basis, so to speak. ugh. what on earth!! i hope the cab got caught in a jam, wherever he was going to.

i think outside people bully me because my frame and body is small. if i were big and tall and muscular like say, joellouis for example - i wouldn't be blogging all this now. now that's a reason good enough to gym.

and to top it all off, my parents zoomed in into my underlined econs grade the moment they saw my results slip, without any regard at all for the other 3 subjects which had all seen improvements. including the A. first A and they say nothing. wow. parents. they ALWAYS love doing that. fastidious nitpicking but when you actually do something right for once, it never gets noticed.
mike just took up your time at 11:24 pm


ugh. last night i was reading the lit book that i borrowed via brian (hinthint, bernasty!) from the school library and i decided to close my eyes to rest for a few minutes. i suddenly awoke about 20 minutes ago. what the hell. which means i haven't fully studied for the history test, and neither have i done the essay for Heart of Darkness. so much for wanting to be more diligent for lit. am doing it in ALL the wrong ways.

with 30+ days left, i'm in a lot of trouble.

especially since i'm still obsessively blog-surfing. it's like an addiction. i check out about half the blogs on my links everyday (2 of them i convinced to start blogging myself, with much success! - brian's and bernard's)
, and more. so i probably read about 30-40 blogs at least once everyday. that's cos people sometimes update after i check. this obsession has GOT to stop. i don't get it actually. what's the point of reading so much. it's not like being kaypoh about others' lives really affects me much. i just satisfy my nosy nature and hunger for humorous writing. or just good writing in general. and then - it just feels so empty. filling yourself up with gossip-worthy material. and besides, keeping up with the joneses and all their scandalous online alter egos is getting too much for me. there's just too much to follow.

you know - i suddenly realised there's only one blog i really want to read.

but it doesn't exist.

maybe i should do something about that.
mike just took up your time at 5:34 am

Tuesday, August 02, 2005
/rant

if marlow from joseph conrad's heart of darkness ever visited rjc, i think he'd be apalled by the "flabby devil" that plagues us all over.

INEFFICIENCY is the buzzword around school these days, in all faculties. the fruits stall woman didn't have change when i passed her a fifty dollar note for a cup of soya bean , and she promptly told me she had no change and urged me to buy something else in the canteen so that i could pay her in exact amounts. at that time, i had already taken 2 sips as i was very thirsty. i could have just walked away with the cup and never walked back. what's this man. it reminds me of the time i took a cab last year and the driver didn't have change and drove me off to some other place so that i could change my money into smaller denominations. and i was in a HURRY then. what's with this, really? why are the consumers paying the price for the inefficiencies of the producers of these goods and services? fuck, that really sounded like something from sloman. too much econs. but yeah, i think it's their duty to always carry ample change around, what more if you're in a stationary shop. ugh.

more inefficiencies because of my unlocked locker even after so many days (ok it's been only 2 working days but STILL). i finally overcame my procrastination and decided to put a padlock on my locker to indicate that i wanted it unlocked. but i highly doubt the maintainence estate people make tours of the thousand over lockers in school every day. so i filed in a request at the office last friday, and yet nothing has been done about it yet! what do they do anyway, besides take stock of dusty unused chairs?

oh and the most idiotic award definitely goes to the PE department, for threatening us with witholding of our CCA records, yada yada if we as NAPFA failures don't turn up for pe lessons as per normal whilst those who got silver or gold, and all the girls except huimin mug their asses off while we try to tone our own asses in a vain attempt twice every week. ok, so we did do so yesterday and it seemed vaguely helpful. i mean, the teacher himself said that it has to be a long-term effort, doing it once or twice a week won't help. HE FREAKING ADMITTED THAT IT'S POINTLESS so why are we pursuing this waste of time when we could have 2 more hours to study? but that's not the point. we changed into our kits today and specially made the effort (unlike some people *cough*eugene*cough who just ponned) and what do we find out?! none of the pe teachers are in the staffroom, MIA. only mr ortega was milling around pointlessly too, doing goodness-knows-what, carrying a clipboard and looking dazed and lost. we made our way to the indoor gym and lo and behold, the previous class was playing floorball amongst THEMSELVES, with no teacher supervision. and it was only a handful too. pe teachers really shouldn't lay down such threats if they can't stand by to enforce them. where on earth were they? having a deparment meeting at secret recipe? maybe they all went home figuring that there were no more lessons and the NAPFA failures would just pon anyway. well they were WRONG (mostly, anyway.) if they did and that's bloody annoying!

/end rant

/hysteria

FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS (and more.) OF INSANITY!

/(pseudo) end hysteria
mike just took up your time at 8:52 pm

Monday, August 01, 2005
yesterday, the song "i try" by macy gray suddenly popped into my mind. and today i heard it TWICE on the radio, in the shortspan of maybe about 2 hours. once during GP, and once on the way home. maybe it's a premonition way in advance (which is quite pathetic considering the unimportance of such a clairvoyant encounter) or this is supposed to be some kind of sign. i checked out the lyrics, and they do seem rather apt. not totally, but somewhat-

i believe that fate has brought us here
and we should be together babe
but we're not
i play it off, but i'm dreaming of you
i'll keep my cool , but i'm feignin'
i try to say goodbye and i choke
try to walk away and i stumble
and i may seem all right and smile when you leave
but my smiles are just a front
here is my confession
may i be your possession
boy, i need your touch
your love , kisses and such
with all my might i try
but this i can't deny

ugh how disgustingly mushy.

ok anyway- i think the prevalent and widespread mugging is really scaring me. this isn't baby stuff like in ri. people are bloody hardcore here now. and it really is everyone this time. the weaker links got weeded out through natural selection when they couldn't make it into rjc. everyone here is dead serious, it's so stifling and scary. the mood in school is so oppressive and heavy, i'm not sure if it's that good a place to study anymore. which begs the question, why do only 1 in 2 students get 4As then? if everyone puts in so much effort, surely you'd expect more than a meagre 50% making a perfect base score. i can only attribute it to two things - carelessness and/or non-affinity, slipping through the cracks when the net closed for entry.

i think i may need to re-evaluate my career options again. for awhile i was really interested in becoming a lawyer because admittedly, it just looks like a cool profession. you can make pretty good money (checked out the exact statistics) too. of course i'm not disputing the fact that i've become more analytical and logical over the years (even though nicole would say otherwise despite only knowing me for a year and a half, haha) which i obviously would consider as an added benefit, like hey i'm made for this man.

but what's up with all these science students?! nothing against them, it's just that it's spoiling the market la. just stick to your bioengineering or architecture or something, you know. it's hard enough for arts graduates to strike it out with the limited choice, it doesn't help to have science students encroaching on the so-called boundaries, where they can take us on for non-science degrees but not vice versa. it's unfair, i know and i should have expected this when i made the choice about 2 years ago. but still i can't help but feel indignant that this is going to be one helluva uphill struggle.
mike just took up your time at 8:54 pm

it's such a shame for us to part_

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