oh and one other thing. i was viewing my blog, just to see if things turned out looking alright and yada-yada. and i realised that white font on a black background can do some SEEERIOUS damage to your eyes. my eyeballs started to protest after reading just several lines.

so i'd like to apologise for making my readers (where are my readers? anyone out there? yoohoo?) strain their eyes just to read my blog. but oh well, good things come with a price y'know. sacrifice your vision for some truly enlightening insight and perspectives! it's probably a good bargain.

by the way, i WON'T change my background colour, neither will i the font colour. so, TOO BAD.

oh man, i was digging around my cupboard for fun today. and i found my kindergarten report card. they have criteria such as Intellectual Development, Social-Emotional Development and Moral-Aesthetic Development &c, and there are 3 grades, Very Good, Good and Average.

so i looked through my K2 report. and i got Very Good for ALMOST everything (of course!), except for certain criteria la. guess what? i only got Good for "Hand and eye coordination", and for "Tolerance", as well as for "Ability to Concentrate". hahaha, i burst out laughing when i saw that.

ok that was just a side-track. sigh, today was a 2.99-rating. yeah, had a bad day. thanks to the big D i got for econs.
D for Dismal, Devastating, Disastrous, Don't-waste-your-time, Dieee, Dudley Dursley.

sigh. i really have to work miracles on my econs, the most detestable subject in the entire universe! i swear it is!

and i'm getting nervous about my maths grade, ah meng heard that not a lot of pple got A this time around. shucks, i really need an A in maths! really really really! i need it to neutralise the D in econs. oh well.

ANYWAYS, on to HAPPIER topics (oh wait, nothing beats economics in making ME happy). hmmm, what to say.... oh yeah! i had chocolate milk tea with pudding today! WOW, doesn't that fascinate you endlessly?

oh. just thought of something else. did you know the average racing horse weighs 450kg? and did you know (obviously you don't, that's why i'm telling you now) that a jockey must not weigh above 50kg? WOW. which is why many jockeys resort to starvation and diets, and many are bulimic and constantly worrying about their weight. that's worst than most teenage girls, they HAVE to starve for a living!

ok, that was about all i could rack my brains and come up with. hm. how about a list of spankingly fantastic animals facts? i could try rattling them off from the back of my head. (okaay, i'm cheating, i got them off several websites.)

here some extremely spellbinding trivia about my favourite (yeah for real!) race, Animals!

Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself. (that is ONE seriously laggy cat)

Bats always turn left when leaving a cave. (talk about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder!)

As a general rule in the animal kingdom, the more complex or relatively big the eye in relation to the body, then the smaller the rest of the brain. (hi, what beautiful BIG eyes you have!)

When possums are playing dead, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror. (HAHA!)

Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike. (why not?! that would be wasting a perfectly barbequed meal!)

A shrimp's heart is in their head. (imagine if one was dumped by his girlfriend and got heartbroken. he'd be having a migraine! that's sad.)

Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time. (so girl hamsters would always think boy hamsters were trying to hit on them! with all that coy winking!)

A duck's quack doesn't echo anywhere, and no one knows why. (have you ever tried before? i have! my duck, called Bill, really quacks without it echoing! it's terribly amazing! QUACK QUACK QUACK quack..)

The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car. (imagine if one was dumped by his girlfriend and got heartbroken. imagine damage, lots and lots of it. i mean, the glass of the windows on the car could shatter and the shards could damage the whale's internal organs! oh no! or the airbags could inflate and suffocate the poor guy!)

please note that the contents of the above Amazing Animal Trivia section are completely unsubstantiated and may not be trustworthy.

I have an extraordinary talent.

do you know daniel tammet? remember him? well anyways, he thinks of numbers in terms of colours, shapes, textures, landscapes, feelings even. which is why he can do stellar calculations just by sitting there and feeling his way through the images in his mind, fitting things together and finally arriving at the solution. well, my exceptional talent is like his. except that mine deals with words. to put it simply,

numbers : daniel tammet is like words : me

so, give me any word, ANY word at all, and i can think of it in terms of colours, shapes, textures, landscapes, feelings even.

take for example, the word potato. when i see this word, an image is conjured in my mind. i see something not large, perhaps fist-sized. brown. a bit muddy-looking. it's a bit oval in shape, and feels rough.

and say, the word, green. what i'm getting is this...this...all i see is a patch of something. you know what's it like when you mix blue and yellow together? yeah, i see a whole lotta THAT. just a huge bare patch of THAT.

how about, mirror? i see someone... a girl, good-looking and cute, her features are coming into focus... and... and she looks JUST LIKE ME. okaay, i made that one up. what i really see is this, silvery substance. it sort of repeats whatever is in front of it, copies it down and shows it again. it's rather cold, and definitely solid to the touch. somehow, it doesn't feel...i mean, it feels, a bit, insidious. a bit...untrustworthy. yet, somehow comforting.

the word, blank. i'm picturing this...this....sort of nothingness that's so empty, yet so solid at the same time. it's like an entity, yet an absence of something. it takes up a lot of space, and just...feels.....white and indistinct.

slap. when i look at this, several faces swim into view. is that....is it?....i see some people, and i feel this tremendous, urge, to connect my palm to their cheeks. to inflict pain and humiliation. and i hear, this sound, which is sort of like a clapping noise. a sharp noise. and i see the faces wince. then i get this new feeling of satisfaction, it feels good, mixed with a tingly sort of feeling on my palm.

fairy. what i see is... a ship, or a boat. oh wait, it disappeared. what i see now is this tiny figure, and i somehow think of the name....Tinkerbell. hmm, wonder what that means.

snorklecrackywhamhiggledypoof. erm.. this one's tough...it's taking a long time to materialise and take shape in my mind. well...what i'm picturing is a....sort of.....pig-looking creature, and it's chomping on a bowl of...crackers?....something that makes a lot of noise. and the creature then disappears! just like that, into thin air.

and you know how tammet thinks the number 6 is like, a very small, sort of number? very tiny and minute. i get the same thing. when i see the word itsybitsy, i feel just the same way tammet does.

and tammet also hates this number, 9. he says it's very tall, and imposing, a very boarding-school-master-from-hell type of number. when he went to new york city, surrounded by all the looming skyscrapers, he felt like he was surrounded by the number 9 on all sides. i have a similar feeling when i see the words, boarding-school-master-from-hell. it's amazing i tell you. it's one of the rare times where many words join to give me just one feeling, a feeling of dread and horror and disgust.

and i have my favourite words too, just like tammet loves pi. personally, i don't think pie is anything fantastic, i'd rather have a cake any day. but anyways, i like words like fame, fortune, money, status, power. okaay, i made those up too. those words seem so...shiny and glittery and attractive at first sight, but later, this creeping feeling sneaks up. i feel a bit.......sad, cautious maybe.

my real favourite words are, velvet, apothecary, kumquat, quidditch, spongebob, elf, scaramouche, widdershins, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, shakespeare, moot, roar, sashimi, snorgle, princess, dream, sky, sparkle, and many many more.

so, as you can see, i have a rare talent that is probably unique to this world. i hope that perhaps, scientists somewhere can understand my gifts fully, and research into this phenomenon.






note: Mr Tammet sir, honestly, i was just horsing around. don't send an army of numbers after me! i repent! i won't make fun of you anymore!

why is life so full of oxymorons? (or oxyidiots, oxyninnys, oxydimwits...)

funny people get depression. smart people can get quite dumb. popular people offend some others.

makes me confused sometimes.

and another thing. i was just thinking, imagine that you have a circle of friends, or acquaintances, who all know each other mutually. then you have another circle of, say, relatives, like your cousins. isn't it weird that both circles are sort of SHARING you? and they both see different sides of you. maybe your friends see you in school everyday, the person they're seeing is the student in you. and your relatives see you, perhaps, everytime there's a get-together, so they see the partying side of you. weird isn't it? and there are like tons of little circles that can form around you. and i still find it weird (even after typing several sentences), that they're SHARING you! ok, this was a thought that occurred a long time ago, so i've forgotten most of what i was thinking of. but if it hits me again, i shall return to chronicle it.

GROWL.

and that, was my stomach. i'm starving. bye.

heyyyyyy, i have several things to gush about today.

FIRST of all, my friend's dog who is cutely named "Der Kia" (ok la, i dunno how to spell it, but it's Hokkien for 'baby pig'). anyways, he's a boston terrier, 8 months old but already muscular and stocky. and he's sooooo terribly cute! he likes sitting on his butt and sticking his 2 front paws into the air, and when he does it he really looks like a little human kid. and his coat colour is quite cool! he looks like Batman! he's got like a black face mask thing going on, and his ears are cropped and sticking out. and he also breathes like Darth Vader! which is the best part! lol. he snorts noisily too when he breathes through his mouth. oh boy, so cute.

AAAAAAND, right, i forgot what i wanted to say. crap! shucks, never mind, when i remember then i'll come back.

in the meantime... i had a good day today! well, not exactly resoundingly fantastic la, but i'd give it a 3.89.

OH WAIT, i rmb what was the 2nd thing i wanted to gush about. Boys Like Girls' 'The Great Escape'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i haven't listened to it in a few weeks. and i played it today. hearing the drums at the start of the song gave me goosebumps! it was THAT good! and there's something about the song...listening to it....just does something to me and makes me go crrraaazzzy over it!! sigh. i MIGHT just label it my favourite song...for now.

back to the previous topic. a 3.89 today, because i received quite a lot of good news today. chem, phys, gp grades. psc test results. college awards. ... but it's only a 3.89 day because somehow i don't feel that delighted and brimming with joy. maybe i'm wary that good things are usually balanced out by bad news? so much good luck in a day must, most definitely, come out from your Luck Account in the Divine Bank, which leaves you in a Luck Deficit that will cause the Divine Bankers to hound you. next thing you know, you'll be living out a tomorrow in Luck poverty and declared a bankrupt, so you'll have to suffer things like, broken mirrors, spilt salt shakers, and whatever else that smacks of Luck poverty.

ok, i'm so full of nonsense.

but really, i keep thinking that my luck will run out! and that my other grades will suck to the high heavens. argh. why was i ever born paranoid? oh well.

and by the way, i have something else to say, or rather, type. why do people hate cats so much? ok, i generalise. but a lot of people dislike cats! they're way misunderstood! anyways, part of my sudden advocating of Cat's Rights and championing for their cause is because i've just ploughed through a Neil Gaiman book (Smoke and Mirrors). and there was this short story of how (this is where Gaiman fans who haven't read the book will close their eyes and scroll downwards. OR, if they were too slow in catching the hint and carried on reading, will start to curse and swear) a black cat turns up on the front porch of the character's house one day. the cat lives peacefully with his owners for several days, before he starts coming back each day with mysterious injuries and wounds, cuts, bruises, broken bones, pus-oozing gashes and the works. the owner presumed he was picking a fight with a gigantic raccoon, or some malicious rats, and so, locked him up in the basement to recover.

in the 4 days that the black cat was kept away, the owner and his family suffered tremendously bad luck. his career faced a major setback, his wife had a car accident, and their baby almost drowned in the bath &c. (ok, actually that was about it, but i JUST had to use those symbols "&c" cos they look so pro). so the owner decides to free the black cat, which was mewing copiously and pacing non-stop. and the owner also decides to stay up one night, to see what exactly was the black cat fighting. so he pulls a chair, hides upstairs with binoculars, and waits. much later, deep in the night, he sees it.

"it" being the Devil. (of course, what else were you expecting?) the owner also sees the black cat, which battles bravely with the Devil, keeping it away from the house. the cat leaps, and prances, and swipes, and scratches, and spits. finally, the Devil flees. but the Devil comes back often, not every night, but on many nights. and the black cat fights, he fights with his life. he fights to keep the Devil away from his owner's house. that's where all his injuries come from. the owner picks up the cat, who can barely stand. the black cat has lost an eye, a limb, and possibly suffered even worse internal damage. but the owner admits he is selfish. he lets the cat out every night. the black cat fights on, and looking at his wounds, he might probably only have a few weeks to live.

the end. that was one of the saddest stories i've ever read, maybe cos i don't read sad stories often. but of course, i haven't done it justice and you should go pick up a copy and read it youself. being the naive and innocent person i am, i could only think, how can that man possibly be so selfish that he sacrifices a brave life for his own safety?!?! what the ^@$%!&!!! how foolish of me. of course it's possible, it's human nature after all.

alrrrright, today was a fun day at orchard with the gluttons. a sweeeeet 3.87-rating day having lunch at the korean restaurant Su (i think) at far east, then walking over to wisma, then cine, and finally to swensens at... erm.... i have no idea what that building is. orchard seriously has some ulu buildings springing out from nowhere that noone really knows about. like the rolex tower, at least that's what me and my cousins call it, haha.

ANYWAYS, the korean food was good. me and melho reached early, and when we stepped in, i could tell right away it was a good restaurant! the menu looked pro, the prices not too cheap or too expensive, and the service, decor etc gave off good vibes. and so, the food came, and it WAS great. my bibimbap (they called it smt in a "stone cattle" in the menu... cattle?!?) was not too dry or too soggy, and nice and crunchy! heh, i'm getting hungry. and i just finished dinner a few hours ago!

eh siqian! your black-bottomed chocolate cheese thingys are nice la! how is it humanly possible to make muffins that are crumbly and not chewy?! and please dress a bit more decently next time, i'm not even 18 years old yet la!
and hongyi, thanks for spicing up our lunch with your cute korean waiter incident, lol! we must be sure to go to the boat quay outlet when he's there. then he can serve you all you want. you can ask him to refill your cup non-stop or even teach you korean words like DELICIOUS! HAHA!

aaaanyways, i had a great time today. it felt like how it was back in sec 4 options period. sighh, i really miss sec 4 now! i'm starting to feel ALL the convenience and fun of having orchard road a 5-minute walk away from school. unlike rj. sighhhhhhhhhh. i really really really miss sec 4. even our free time in sec 4 is more free than our free time now la! now whenever we go out, there's this underlying nagging thought that goes: "the 'A's are only one month away. the 'A's are only one month away. the 'A's are only one month away. the 'A's are only one month away. the 'A's are only one month away. the 'A's are only one month away. ( GC syntax: [above sentence]x10E99)

see! i told you!

sigh, i think as you grow older, things become less fun. a rare few adults can still goof around with their friends, and a rarer few can appreciate the ability to do so. i hate it that as you grow older, you have to lose all these little abilities and gifts, to see the simple beauty of things, to appreciate things for what they are, to not have to think about money and looks all the time, to show your feelings and thoughts to others and not have them misconstrued, to be able to burst out laughing or make a lotta noise in public without others giving you disapproving what-is-her-problem looks, and of course, the list can go on and on to eternity.

which, unfortunately, life can't. or is it fortunately? ah well, that is another question to ponder over next time.

and by the way, i still don't like taking neoprints. super waste money. for such teeny pictures somemore. walao. can't stand it. and lucky ah meng, hongyi and melho didn't manage to drag us into kbox. if not my rating of 3.87 would've dropped to 1.748 right away. and someone should probably start a ministry for recreation and leisure activities, cos i think singapore has a serious lack of things to do! or maybe we just dunno where to look. but for now, we'll just have fun hanging out in orchard or other major malls! hooray to the inventor of shopping malls!

okaay, you could probably take a random stab now and correctly guess that i am extremely bored and just trying to fill up the space here. ooh. if you press Enter continuously in this blogging text box thing, will it leave blanks all the way till... infinity?!?! i'm thinking it should stop before that, but the key is.. when? maybe like after a fwe thousand spaces?? hundred??

and i shall leave you to ponder over life's mysteries. bye. ...... the answer's 42!

alright, one day after the prelims and i'm starting to feel restless. I WANNA GO OUT!!! I WANNA GO WALK AROUND IN A CROWDED STREET WITH STRANGERS RUSHING OFF TO PLACES AROUND ME!!! I WANNA GO SOMEWHERE WITH BEAUTIFUL SCENERY, PEACE AND SERENITY!!! I WANNA GO SOMWEHERE I'VE NEVER GONE BEFORE!!! (note: i don't wanna go to Hell)

ok la, i'm being a typical ungrateful human. when there're papers to mug for, i complain about the lack of lerisure time. when the papers are done with, i complain about the lack of things to do during the abundance of leisure time.

shucks.

i shall think about something else then. like. gluttons' outing on monday. i was hoping that we could go pig out at a buffet place, like mel's suggested swissotel and raffles hotel buffet lunches. but we are trying out korean food at far east instead. i hope that place is good, cos lotsa korean-themed restaurants opened up here to take advantage of the korean wave and its legions of fans, so the food isn't exactly nice but people still keep going back. anyways, i'm looking forward to a day out on monday! and tuesday and wednesday! if anyone wants to go out, please call me along! can go eating, drinking, walking, sitting, shopping, spa-ing, stoning, loitering, window-shopping, movie-watching, arcade-playing, pool-playing, and whatever else singaporean youths like to do.

right. and i'm attempting to bake something tmr, so i'm going to bukit timah's fairprice FINEST to shop for ingredients tmr! i can't wait! i've been seeing a lot of ads for that outlet in the papers, how it has gourmet butchers and wine sections, chocolate counters, and a WHOLE lotta stuff that you rarely find in NTUC elsewhere.

hold a sec, lemme wipe off that bit o' drool here. there, that's better.

and i shall TRY to make something non-chocolatey, since siqian already is. maybe lemon-y, or fruit-y, or something nice-smelling..
ok, before i bore you with additional information that has no impact on you whatsoever, i had better change topics.

errrrrr.

i have nothing to say. i'm scooting off now, bye! have fun rotting and accumulating dust!

okaaay, i can't resist coming back here for one last post. i honestly can't get my hands off the computer after not doing so for like almost a quarter of a century.

and i shall post pics of Atlas again! meifen says Atlas looks cute with the blanket draped over him. haha thanks.

here he is, looking forlorn with the Elizabethan collar on. he looks like a lamp, and not a very bright one at that.

he likes using his paw as a cushion. and miscellaneous objects like his chew toys, a ledge and even someone's thigh, to rest his head against. he has this REALLY cute habit of squishing up against someone when he sits down, it's like he must make sure he's touching you so that he'll know if you get up and leave.

and he has absolutely NO sense of smell. either that or he's sleeping too deeply. ... either that or he's dreaming about something, maybe he's dreaming of a slice of pear in front of him, and he THINKS it's a dream, so he doesn't wake up to check if the aroma was real. either that or he has absolutely NO sense of smell.


he looks sad. right?
WRONG! how can anyone be sad with me around?!?!
haha, he's just moody cos i waked him up from his beauty sleep

YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH man!
i can't believe it's ALL over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

words are not enough to explain what i feel right now! but nonetheless i shall attempt to put down in words and preserve the inexplicable and tumultous emotions that are swirling around my mind.

WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!

yeah that pretty sums it all up.

haha, i kid. but really la, i don't know what to feel.
first, i'm overjoyed that the 2 torturous weeks of prelims are over.
second, i'm extremely tired from surviving 3 weeks on roughly 4 or 5 hours of sleep a day, and short irregular half-naps.
third, i'm sad that school's coming to an end.
fourth, i'm starting to feel worried over my prelims grades, projected grades and university applications.
fifth, .......... did i just say that i'm sad school's ending?!?!

anyways, the start of today, or more directly speaking, during the chem paper, was absolutely terrible. i'd give it a straight 1.5 rating. then things got better as the gluttons went out to orchard! then my day shot up to a 4! could've been a 4.2 if i weren't so exceedingly tired. had lotsa fun talking to ah meng, mf and mel about uni and career stuff later on too. i can't believe i might possibly be leaving everyone here for uni in about 5 months' time! it seems just yesterday that i was like a teeny primary school kid with absolutely no worries or cares about the future (except probably what i was gonna have for lunch the next day).

i don't even know what to type la. i feel so mixed up now! but i guess majority of what i'm feeling now are good vibes! i was walking back home just now, around 7pm. the sky was quite dark, but not exactly real night-time darkness yet, and the street lights were on. the way back was almost void of human life, except for a few random people reaching back home from work, coming out of their cars. so i was practically alone, walking along. and i felt so extraordinarily HAPPY and a gigantic idiotic grin just spread over my face.

MAN, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE FEELING THAT WAY!!

and i love walking around orchard with absolutely no aim and no sense of hurry, no appointment to rush off to, no notes to finish mugging by tonight. i love LIVING LIFE, if i'm making any sense. i love walking, and seeing, feeling, hearing, people walk past.

and by the way, Quietdrive's "Time After Time" totally ROCKS! it's addictive i swear!

and i shall heave myself back on track, to the topic about Post-Prelims Syndrome. YAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY!!

[END OF POST]

and another thing. just when i think the human race is absolutely doomed to stupidity and atrophy, with idiots running countries and morons causing their own destruction, i stumble across miracles that prove me wrong. these miracles can be simple daily acts of wonder that show me that the human spirit may not be so dead after all, or they can be extraordinary gifts bequeathed to us plebians and evoking feelings of tremendous awe and humility.

firstly, i dunno if i've mentioned this before, but there's this boy in my neighbourhood. sometimes when i'm walking atlas or jogging in the evening, i meet him along the way, walking his dog. he walks his tiny little Daschund, while his maid will be pushing his grandmother in her wheelchair. the way he walks (he bounces every step), that huge smile on his face and his happy tone when he talks to his dog, haha, it really catches me all the time. he has down's syndrome by the way. and everytime i see him, i just unconsciously break out into this huge silly grin and i think about the daily miracles that exist around us.

then, there are times where people of pure genius and brilliance pop up. like daniel tammet. go research on him to see the astounding things he does. then you, like me, will wonder WHAT ON EARTH brought a great mind like him here. then your next thought will be, what is the purpose then, of his appearance on earth. and after that, you might probably question, what is he like as a person? imagine what thoughts run through his mind, as he wakes up at 7am in the morning, brushes his teeth, walks to the nearby cafe for a coffee and steps into a pile of dog poop maybe. what about things like politics, love or magic, what does HE think about those? how does he react when he sees a 35-year-old stuck on a maths question?

and then you might probably come back to the thought about WHAT ON EARTH brought a great mind like him here. is he here to tell us about the limits of the human mind in interpreting various phenomena and warn us not to get cocky? after all, he's stumped quite a few 'experts'. maybe he's an anomaly in the world? some technical glitch occurs and, PLOP, a paragon of intelligence and brilliance surfaces in some hospital.

it amazes me to think that things like these occur in this world of materialism, violence, ignorance, indolence, delusion and stupidity. without them, we would be such a boring race.

woah, i just read beedict's blog, and there's so many points i agree with! lol great minds think alike.

anyway, point is, he talks about singapore culture, especially regarding qualities that EVERYONE chases after blindly. like leadership. EVERYONE wants a leadership position, EVERYONE thinks you should be a leader, EVERYONE lauds this way misunderstood quality and blindly worships it. you're lousy if you're not a leader. you suck if you follow in someone's footsteps.

i used to be very quiet see. okaay, i still am now. my primary and secondary school report cards ALWAYS said things along the lines of "sweet, smart, cheerful, but needs to participate more in class and speak up". all these 'mild' qualities my parents couldn't appreciate, they only saw the part about needing to speak up, and express youself, or take the lead and be bold. i ALWAYS got irritated about teachers asking me to speak up and my parents asking me to speak up. nowadays it seems like being quiet is absolutely WRONG and everyone should just blatantly express whatever thought comes to their mind. who cares if that just ends up creating this gigantic chaotic world of noise and half-formed ideas? like leadership, where there must be good followers, the world needs good listeners too. so some people who think their oh-so 'creative', 'bold' and 'daring' should just stop deluding themselves and start learning other important traits like listening and reflection as well.

i especially dislike locals who go abroad to study, then they come back with fake accents and say, "the system there is SO different. singaporeans are so meek, singaporeans should be more creative!"

firstly, ditch the fake accents.
secondly, there's nothing wrong with being a good follower.

of course, things must always be done in moderation la. just like a leader obssessed with power becomes a tyrant, a follower who simply blindly obeys becomes a doormat. there are skills involved in following too y'know.

my worst nightmare:


ok, that's just cause i'm studying for econs paper 1 on tuesday. nonetheless, i'd be pretty freaked if i opened my eyes one morning and all i see are words and words appearing (star wars style), talking about interest rates and monetary supply.

my brain just picked up a weird thought. let's say you're 18 years old, the oldest child in your family, out of 3 kids. then you meet the family of your classmate, who is obviously 18 years old too, but this time, he's the youngest out of, say, 5 children. so it's kinda like your friend's family is older than your family isn't it? like a more established family with roots going back farther in history. so it's weird that your friend, and that can be anyone, comes from a part of history. their family's been around longer than yours did!

?!?!?!?!?!?!?

ok whatever.

right, i just realised i've been contradicting myself on many accounts in my posts. sometimes i sympathise with troubled people, sometimes i don't. sometimes i believe in an afterlife, and sometimes i don't. sometimes i practise what i preach, and sometimes i'm just plain hypocritical. oh well, so i apologise. for being human.

in the meantime i shall continue to be a bundle of contradictions, oxymorons and conundrums.

but anyways, it's one week into the prelims! i dunno what the HECK i'm doing here on the com since there's still half the papers left! aww shucks, i deserve a leeetle break. heh. then i shall go back and immerse myself in the cosmically exciting and wondrous world of maths. oh joy.

soo, even as i'm prepping to type something so curiously incisive and extraordinarily brilliant, my genius fails me. AS USUAL. once again i run out of things to say. it's hard to talk sometimes y'know. have you tried sitting in one place with one person for hours and hours and racking your BRAINS to come up with something that doesn't make you sound dull or just plain weird? can't talk about the weather (cos you're indoors), can't talk about the scenery either. anything interesting happened recently? not really. dammit.

see. it's hard to talk sometimes. it used to be much harder, but i picked up skills and techniques along the way. Wow, that's a nice phone. What model is it? I've always wanted ..... but because.... so i got...... instead. Ya precisely! I think Nokia phones are better to use but Sony Ericsson and LG phones sometimes look soo much better.... Of course the iPhone's cool! But it's probably just the branding that's got everyone so worked up. Did you see the latest Sony ads on TV? Supposed to be some breakthrough in computer graphics effects, but it doesn't look anything miraculous!

so, i conclude. sometimes when you find it the hardest to speak, don't. don't rack your brains to come up with some funny anecdote or overused tale. just sit quietly till the urge to speak totally overwhelms you and a torrent of words flow out of your mouth like a person who hasn't shat in ten days but recently ingested massive amounts of prunes and bananas. then the person you've been sitting with will probably think you're boring or just plain weird. so the topic will probably change to the weather or scenery, or maybe how nice it is to be sitting here talking as though we were old chums.

for those of you living under rocks, or in deep caverns, or on towering mountain-tops, here's the news. the polar bears are going to die out! first, it was the penguins, now the polar bears. seriously, i think the world is reaching its end soon. and i'm thankful our lifetime is coming to an end before that happens, so that we won't witness the appalling and "tragic" fall of a "noble" race, as we humans like to think ourselves.

but how typical of us. to reach the culmination and the pinnacle with great bombast! the clatter of swords and the last stand! the kamikaze as flags fly high! the swan song! might as well take the entire population with us if we're gonna go! we're dying? take them all out then! polar bears, penguins, eagles, elephants, rhinos, tigers, whatever and whoever!

how typical of us selfish beings. we populate the world and encroach into the rightful land of age-old creatures that dominated years ago. then we kill them all off. in turn guaranteeing our own slow and inexorable path to destruction.

it's sad, but it's life. i'm just glad i won't live to see the embarrassing state the world would've sunken into in future. and i'm also glad that some people at least have the sense to try to rescue the situation, but i doubt it'll be of any use. renewable sources of energy, reduced carbon emissions, environmentally-friendly products? too bad, it's too late and too insignificant to help much.

but after all this business of dying and destruction, then what? whatever we do here on earth doesn't really matter does it? i dunno. sheesh, i'm floundering with this idea of the meaning of life and our purpose here again. what ON EARTH are we all supposed to work towards in life?? good grades, a good job, nice family? is that it? no more? what else? so we just come here to earth, get a frickin A in our maths paper, find a $3000 a month job to go to every day, go back to a nice cosy home, then die years later? then what would the purpose of all that hard work be? just to make our stay here enjoyable and fufilling?

i'm confused. but oh well, these are just temporary swattings of summer flies. they'll pass away, and i'll be getting a nice job, start a nice family in future, work hard. be human. then, like any other, i'll be (hopefully) leaving for another world. possibly full of expectations of enlightenment and true wisdom, only to discover i may have been reincarnated into a monkey. then i'll probably get poached by some hunter or have my home cut down to be made into a frickin storybook.

heh check this out. i was up in the study when i heard this roffling noise. so i went to the window to take a look, and lookee what i found!

a guilty-looking dog, sneaking a look at the back door. maybe to check if anyone's spying on his midday sunbath.

then i called out his name. and he looked quite confused, spinning around to see who on earth was calling him. finally slumped back down into a sit when he couldn't find me. HAHA. but he eventually looked up.

today we had mock chem prelims. which was an absolute disaster. never before have i felt so clueless during a paper (ok, actually i have!). i got a fair amount of wrong answers and a generous smattering of questions were unanswered too. this is terrible. horrible. unthinkable. pure DISASTER. dieeeeeeeee diiiiiieeeeeeeeeee.

oh well. at least it was just a mock prelim.

anyways, i met brendan (my brother, for the uninitiated) after the mock prelims. bought lunch from subway and ice-cream mooncakes from swensens! i was looking at the haagendazs brochure, thinking Hmmm, Looks Nice... until i saw the price.

$78 bucks for 4 mooncakes! rrrrrright. that's way over-priced. no surprise.
swensens' was only $21.90 for 4. and i got the sticky chewy chocolate. heh. yummm.

my randomness has brought me back to post these 2 cute photos.

a miniature cake, with kiwi slices and cream sandwiched between pastry and topped with a rasperry?, blurberries and whipped cream. of course i didn't make it la! not so bo liao. i found it on the net.


and a welsh corgi, in an unglam pose.

He was about to take a drink when he caught sight of the cameraman, then his narcissistic instincts kicked in and he absolutely HAD to strike a pose, forgetting all about his poor friend who was helpful enough to turn the tap on for him.

As of 5th Sept 2007, 9.30am, I am officially fasiculation-free! yeah man! my stress-relief methods worked after all. for those who need to relieve anxiety and stress, feel free to ask me and i will magnanimously divulge SOME of my secret methods.

and again, i have another confession to make.

I am deathly afraid......

Afraid of being made use of, then being thrown aside like some forgotten and unwanted piece of junk. i'm also afraid that people try to cosy up to me and act all chummy just for personal gains when they don't really mean it. even if they're truly well-intentioned, i just get this nagging feeling that perhaps they're after something else, like something i have and they don't. oh well, one of life's hard lessons i guess. that many humans aren't at all trustworthy and some are not even worth knowing.

but fortunately, life IS sometimes fair. you get rotten eggs? no matter! just use them to hurl at that pesky neighbour of yours! bottomline is, with fairweathered friends and treacherous pals, there comes a generous serving of well-meaning and kind folks out there too! like you gluttons i guess. and possibly more, some people i know, teammates, friends, classmates and definitely family and relatives.

oh well. maybe i'm just catching at dust particles or chasing mosquitoes, and being paranoid.

ok i realised that i'm quite an intolerant person sometimes, especially towards those that i can't seem to make sense of. so i shall TRY to be more tolerant and APPRECIATE the differences existing between humans.

ANYWAYS, i'm back here again to publicise BSB's latest song INCONSOLABLE !!!!!! their album is coming out in october! but i think Kevin has left the band, NoOOOOooOOoOo! sigh, good things always come to an end, which seems to occur at approximately ten times the speed bad things come to their end. oh weeell, that's life.

on friday, us gluttons finally had FULL attendance for our outing! haha, i realised a while ago.. except that 4 of us had to rush off to watch ratatouille. and by the way, i forgot to say this also. the sandwich i had was super nice! the cheese steak meltdown or something like that. right, meifen?

ok that's besides the point. the reason i'm here is that my cheek muscle has been twitching constantly for about 9 hours 28 mins since last night. i checked it up, to make sure it wasn't like some potentially fatal disease or something. (ok i'm paranoid, i know)

this is what the all-knowing Wikipedia said:
A fasciculation (or "muscle twitch") is a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction (twitching) visible under the skin arising from the spontaneous discharge of a bundle of skeletal muscle fibers.
Stimulants can cause fasciculations directly. These include caffeine, pseudoephedrine (Sudafed®), and the asthma bronchodilators albuterol/salbutamol (e.g. Proventil®, Combivent®, Ventolin®). Fasciculation also often occurs during a rest period after sustained stress, such as that brought on by unconsciously tense muscles. Reducing stress and anxiety is therefore another useful treatment.

this is living proof that i'm mugging TOO hard, and drinking TOO much coffee and tea. which is why i'm here now, trying to " reduce stress and anxiety" and drinking lots of water. in the meantime, my cheek muscle is still involuntarily twitching, and i shall post here again to inform you of the effectiveness of my stress-relief.

and i was just trawling through the wikipedia site one day when i discovered these. Epitaphs from the graves of famous people. here are some i like!

Nikos Kazantzakis (by himself)
"Then elpizo tipota. The fovamai tipota. Eimai eleftheros." ("Δεν ελπιζω τιποτα. Δε φοβαμαι τιποτα. Είμαι ελευθερος")
Translation: "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."

Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty I'm Free At Last."
Lyrics of an old Negro Spiritual he frequently quoted.

Osho
"Never born, Never died: visited the planet earth between December 11, 1931 and, January 19, 1990."

then of course, there are the funny ones.

from Fable
"Blimey it's darker than I thought in here."
"No man can hold his breath for ten minutes."
"What you lookin' at?"
"You're standing on my head."
"Rover was a true friend and pet, but ran in thunderstorms when wet."
"Not dead only sleeping, buried me anyway. Unlucky."
"I finished before you in the human race."
"Anyone want to swap places?"
"Thank you for reading this grave now bugger off!"
"Let me out!"

Peter Ustinov (suggested by himself) - 1921-2004
"Do not walk on the grass"

Harry Edsel Smith (unknown) - 1903-1942
"Looked up the elevator shaftTo seeIf the car was on the way down.It was."

Matthew Mudd (unknown) from Massachusetts:
"Here lies Matthew Mudd,Death did him no hurt;When alive he was only Mudd,But now he's only dirt."

Werner Heisenberg (unknown)
"He lies here, somewhere."

Ludwig Boltzmann (by himself) - 1844-1906
"S = k log W"