the most perfect pooch in the whole world :)
(I know not to many of you, but to me so.. say hellooo cutie! )

finally managed to scrabble for a picture of smokey because he's such an active bugger he won't stay still, hence a severe shortage of photos of my QTPIEEE!
and flash doesn't flatter him that well because, pfft, flash doesn't flatter anybody!

anyway my productiveness seems to occur in spurts.
i'll be very productive in one day, and very unproductive the next.
resulting in immense guilt leading to productiveness in one day, and then I run out of steam and the whole cycle repeats itself.

and I was trying terribly hard to express what I wanted to say to jin today but for some reason nothing I said came out right, or at least not in the way I wanted it to come out.
everything I feel inside seems to go through some sort of distortion process while I'm trying to churn out the words, so it comes out as asdflhasduugkkk!!!!!!!!!!!
anyway jin, I hope you kinda got whatever I was trying to say today.

and the most relaxing books to read while taking a break from studying are SweetValley books.
non-thinking but so darn interesting anyway.
so yesterday, during my numerous study breaks, I read Amy Moves In, The Bully and Malibu Summer.
I think SweetValley is an essential part of every girl's growing up years.
next time I'm going to make my daughter read at least one SweetValley book because how can a girl not read SweetValley.
even though it's rubbish and trashy, I still think it's that sweet, nostalgic part of your adolescence and until now, whenever I need a relaxing read, I turn to SweetValley.
hurhur.

okay, I think I'm out.

I weighed myself today after having been in great denial and..

pfft!!

okay let's not talk about it.
it spoilt my day.

the strain of Alevels and everything else might possibly be setting in.
I've reached a point where I don't know what to do anymore and I'm just taking each day as it comes.
paradoxically hoping that the days will pass quicker but yet hoping the hours will stretch longer so I can do more.
ohwell.

in ripe with things to say

the words rot and fall away

OKAY, I THINK IT IS VERY LIBERATING TO TYPE IN CAPS SO I WILL.

I WAS LOOKING AT THE UNI POSTERS ON MY WAY OUT OF SCHOOL TODAY AND IN A COUPLE OF MONTHS ALL THIS ALEVEL MUGGING AND JC COMFORT AND CAMARADERIE WILL BE OVER.
AND EVERYONE WILL BE HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE AND WHERE WILL I BE?

SOMETIMES I JUST WANT TO STAY RIGHT HERE WHERE I AM, WITH MY ASS PLANTED FIRMLY IN SUNNY SINGAPORE, SURROUNDED BY FAMILY, FRIENDS, ORCHARD ROAD, HAWKER CENTRES, BED, EASY TRANSPORT.

BUT THEN SOMETIMES I WANT TO GO FARAWAY.
THE FURTHER, THE BETTER. (ie _____________)

AND SOMEHOW, I JUST DON'T WANT TO BE STUCK IN BETWEEN
(ie. ____________) SIMPLY BECAUSE, WELL, BECAUSE.

ANYWAY TO QUELL SOMEBITS OF MY DESIRE AND NEED TO GO SHOPPING, I WENT ONLINE TO BROWSE AND SUDDENLY EVERYTHING GOT UGLY.
WHERE DID ALL THE PRETTY DRESSES, COOL TOPS AND LOVELY SWEATERS GO?
ALL THAT'S LEFT ARE HIDEOUS PRINTS, DRAB DESIGNS AND LINES CUT TO MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A SWELLING BALLOON!

MY MOMMY'S VERY SWEET.
I TOLD HER I'D BEEN CRAVING SOMETHING SWEET THE LAST FEW DAYS AND TODAY SHE BOUGHT ME 27 BARS OF CHOCOLATE AND 2 PACKETS OF KINDER BUENO.
I SEE MY EXAM COMFORT FAT GETTING FATTER.

OKAY, GOODBYE, FARE THEE WELL.

(and this is for my dear friends mich, sue and rage: I checked my blog archives to see what we did on the last day of school in 2004 and I didn't blog about it! CHECK YOURS!!!)

do you know, I was still happily feeling fine until michelle told me that
NEXT WEEK IS THE LAST WEEK BEFORE ALEVELS

omg, panic attack.
ie, queasy stomach, lump in throat, tingling tear ducts and the ability to not think straight.

help, my stats is still in dire need an immediate rescue.

on a neutral-nothing-to-do-with-panic-attacks note, I found a new book I wanna read!
must go book hunting after Alevels.

you know, I'm still feeling the symptoms of a panic attack.

I feel sick.
after having only eaten six biscuits and a chocolate donut all morning and afternoon, I was so ravenous I ate a bowl of instant noodles, some of jin's food, chicken nuggets, fries, half a filletofish and an apple pie.
and now I feel sick.

and there's something wrong with my fingers.
in just that sentence alone, I spelt so many words wrong.
I typed instant nootles, chicken nuggest and applie pie

and I noticed I've been eating way too much maccers lately.
it's terribly unhealthy.
and I don't like cold, chilly, rainy weather when I'm not in bed.

and just a sidenote:
(not very interesting but something I want to record)
today, I saw a j1 nigel lookalike!
I was going to the lifts and I saw this boy.
he had the same bag, same hair, same build and same posture as nigel!
and from the side, the glasses were the same, just in another colour.
I could have sworn it was nigel but it wasn't!

and another sidenote:
last night's dream was just .. I have no words but let's just say if it really happened I will.. well, I have no words for that either.
I dreamt we were all collecting our Alevel results and they came in slips of paper slotted into plastic files and everyone had to sift through the stacks to find their results.
so someone passed me mine and when I saw my results my heart almost dropped.
I swear, B C O !
omg.
then upon closer inspection I realised it wasn't mine!
so I was breathing sighs of relief and scuttling around trying to find mine.
and when I found mine,
OMG.
E E O.

okay, that was a REAL nightmare, I'd say.

cheers for productive days!
like today.
i completed 5 out of the 7 things in my checklist!

aone DRQ
aone econs essay
aone math paper (ok, actually I was supposed to do one math paper but then I ended up doing half of paper2 and half of paper1 so I'll just combine both)
atwo lit essays (ok, this is cheating because I went for the lit mock. but it took up 3hours of my study time so I'll say it's well spent!)
aA&C Act 1
x quotes and characterization for A&C
x econs case study

plus, I had a real breakfast: egg mcmuffin (second time in a row! I had one yesterday), hashbrowns, coffee.
the works.
after reading jin's blog on breakfast, it makes you muse about what's your favourite thing to eat in the morning.
and I agree wholeheartedly that there are food food and breakfast food.
I think what you eat in the morning could possibly map out your disposition and perspective for the day.
and to me, my ultimate breakfast cravings that would make my day fantabulous:

- maccers
- fried bee hoon with a side of sausage and long beans and soybean milk
- and what I crave for most of all: the real chinese breakfast of plain porridge all smooth and velvety with stirfried beans and ham, beancurd squares with taugay and little bits of yummy sauteed pork.

I Y FOOD.

on a more sombre note,
a good cry always flushes out the dead and decaying remnants in you.
perhaps sometimes I'm not even aware that I'm purging out the rotting gutteral thoughts and frustrations in me (because when I was very VERY frustrated and upset today I was so pissed I didn't feel any inkling of peace)
but after a long weepy cry, you realise you weren't crying so much because of that one incident but you're crying out all that pent up emotion!

and so after weeping like a bloody mourner (I was practically wailing), coupled with spates of feeling intensely stupid (both emotionally and academically) I felt much better.
I felt much better knowing that sometimes maybe I'm not as smart as I think myself to be .
which is not a bad thing, I'd reckon, because when you do well, you'll actually be pleasantly surprised.
and it's a healthy kind of downgrade, knowing you're not as smart as you thought yourself to be, but still believing in your capablities.
except this time your belief is coupled with hard work to make up for what you're lacking in.
all this after looking at my exam track record and having endless wailing quarrels with my dad and discussing half-empty and half-full cups.
and no, I don't mean the pessimism/optimism test but the humility/arrogance one.

hopefully tomorrow will be more productive.
and I didn't get to see Smokey today cos I was in school all day.

he's the only one who makes my day :)

Smokey has undeniably turned the living room into his stomping ground.
he brings his towel, mattress, bones, slipperS (not even his, everyone else's), treats, GRASS, PEBBLES, SOIL all into our once clean and comfortable living room.
honestly, sometimes I wish Smokey was a wee bit cleaner and wouldn't put everything in his mouth.
I mean I knew dogs were like that, but he even eats grass and sand and tissue and puts everything into his mouth.
even beetles.

anyway I was looking through the november issue of the SCV guide and I got so excited just looking at all the new shows coming in!
my new TV hitlist
- Things I Hate About You (even though I don't approve of the ethics of reality TV, I love it)
- all the new Disney and Nickelodeon teenybopper rubbish which i love
- Love Story in Harvard (i'm so glad they're showing it! I'm a total korean drama sucker especially when it comes with english subtitles)
I know there were more but they have slipped my mind so..

thinking about all those TV shows, I started thinking of all the things I wanted to do/watch after Alevels.
I realised how much I missed watching senseless TV five hours straight until I knew the TV schedules by heart.
and reading without the guilt borne from the 12 other literature books I should be rereading.
and shopping with my two shopping buddies fiona and laura.
and going bumming online for hours on end.
and eating, watching movies and talking with the girls.
and catching up with everyone.
and knowing if I'm doing anything intellectual it's for the sake of enjoyment and not scoring for an exam.

ok back to the books.

I don't know if it's just the Alevels of whatever, but everything seems dimmer and I've been disillusioned.
somehow there are cracks and loose ends everywhere accumulated over the last two years.
I wish I could clean up all the damages but yet I don't have the energy to do so or sustain it.

I find myself not being able to say alot of things anymore.
I find myself not being able to believe in alot of things anymore.
and I find myself not being able to tie the before and after together.
somehow, when you're in the process of change, estrangement takes place and you can't reconcile the old you and the new you.
you haven't lost the old you but yet you have a new you.

and that's the trouble with most things,
you can't reconcile the past and the present.
and what more, the future.

what a whirlwind these last two years have been.

sometimes I don't even think I recognise my life two years ago.

I was reading Newsweek the other day and there are a whole bunch of books I wanna read!
you know how in e4 we have WW1 stories and WW2 stories and Vietnam war stories, etc.
well I think the Iraq war is going to spin a new wave, a new generation of war stories.
so this is my new warbooks list!
1. Catch 22 (I know its not about the Iraq war but since its hanging about in my room and I read the first chapter I'll finish it after A's)
2. The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell by John Crawford.
3. My War by Colby Buzzell
4. Just Another Soldier by Christopher Hartley.

plus, I need to get my hands on the other volumes of Enders Game! I totally forgot about it until I saw the book the other day.
and I wonder when the movie will come out.

fragmented and vibrant dreams have a way of occuring during my most stressed.
and I must say, some of my dreams are quite creative!
like honestly, I'd never have thought of some of them if I was awake and conscious.
when I was younger and my dream was to be a writer (actually it still is..), I told myself I'd have to note down every strange dream I had and craft them into a story when I was older and had the time.
and none of that has ever materialised.
but I think in due time I will, because some of those vivid dreams I had when I was younger, I've never forgotten.

so another dream update.

i dreamt that eric came to my house in a UFO and at first I could only see his head.
then when he stepped down I got the shock of my life because he lost so much weight.
it's one of those freaky shock/chill-inducing weight losses where the person's head looks far too large for the stick-like body and in my dream eric was reduced to that!
and because his head was too large for his now too thin body he couldn't walk properly and I was freaking out in my dream.
then I woke up.

and when I went back to sleep, that's when my action-packed dream came.
I dreamt I was reading a book/game (I know it's a game but for some reason it was in a book form) and everytime I read it I'd be sucked into the game.
and the game was in a 3d animation environment.
so my first game was in a forest of hell fires and I had to brave through the flaming trees to save little animals.
then when I was out of the game I was back in reality and on my way to go to school with jae (?! strange I know).

then I opened the book and was sucked back in and this time the game was under the sea.
and I had these torpedo-like capabilities and could zoom through the water.
anyway my task was to save a wrecked ship full of fishes from the sharks.
I was failing and so I swam up to this huge floating man (I assume its the god of sea) and after I begged him for help he blew these waves through the ocean and the sharks caught fire.

and all of a sudden I was back in my house, packing my clothes because I was going to move to a dorm.
strangely, I started to find all these new clothes in my closet and I was so happy.

that is totally bathos I know.
but that was the way my dream ended.

was thinking about all the loose ends that need to be tied up when school is over.
it is so right that Alevels brings out the worst in people.
and somehow you know its not going to go away when Alevels are over because the damage has already been inflicted.
or maybe all that is just in my mind.

whatever it is, I can't wait for Alevels to be over.

today I went to check out the prospectus for universities and I'm so upset and confused because I realised I'm stuck in limbo.
I don't make the cut for my first choice (just by a wee bit!) and there's a huge trade off between my second and second (they tie for that spot) so I don't know what to do.
if I made the cut for my first choice I wouldn't even be in this dilemma because I'd be happy with my first choice without any trade offs.

ugh.

today my mother was very funny!
mother: (staring intently at smokey's tail) you know, smokey's tail is actually very firm
me: oh yes I know
mother: (still staring at smokey's tail) you know what I really feel like doing?
me: what?
mother: (STILL STARING at his tail) I feel like cutting it off and making soup.
me: WHAT?! did you just say what I thought you said?!
mother: (looking up) yes. you know oxtail soup? imagine what smokey's tail would be like, dogtail soup.. (stares back at smokey's tail)
me: ...?!
it was funny plus scary plus unnerving plus completely unlike her.

have you ever had one of those freaky dreams that make you wake up in the middle of the night feeling lost, frightened and disoriented?
I had one last night.

I dreamt there were these two boys I'd never seen in my life and we were in MGS and they wouldn't stop making fun of me.
and suddenly a huge sword materialised in my hand and in my utter desperation I stabbed one of them.
then the other.
and once I started, I couldn't stop stabbing them!
it was like stab stab stab stab!
then when I'd finished chopping them into messes, I felt this huge sense of guilt and I hid the sword and ran home!
then I cried and told my mom and I decided to confess to the police.
then it progressed with me sitting with a lawyer and he was telling me my chances of winning and not going to jail was very high.

I woke up at 3am thinking to myself shit shit did I really kill somebody?!
and I was really so so scared I thought what happened was real!
aaack.

anyway today was quite good.
or at least not bad.
could have done more in terms of econs.
I had math tuition at 830!!
went out with my mom played with smokey then did an e4 essay.
read vintage book of war stories, had dinner, played with smokey, watched tv, filed my notes and did half a set of econs notes.
what a drab day.

hopefully tomorrow goes better with my FOUR consultations!
anyway, I keep forgetting to post about my days with AC!
I think I'll do that when I get the pictures up as well.
visual and literary culture..

:)

I forgot to add that I am getting increasingly worried that I won't get into my first choice.

you know, this is what I call a real anticlimax.
like, getting your hopes up.
and them coming down.
and up again.
for now, it's down.

and when you're down, the only way is up right?
right?

right.

gp mock today was a little more fun than I'd expected and whoopeedoo, I'm actually enjoying GP!
econs mcq is at an all time low.
predicted grades not as good as I wanted them to be.
not studying as hard as I should.

ok, this is what I call a genuine update.

like, in point form.

good points of my day

• I did work: one set of econs notes, AP GP, two e4 outlines and Return of the Native lesson
• I had maccers, mushroom olive rice, lasagna, potatoes, vegetable curry and rice today.
• AND I FOUND MY SQUASH CAPTAIN BADGE!! (candice are you reading this?) I was sleeping in the car and I saw something wedged between the seats and it was my beloved badge that I lost aeons ago. my lovely keepsake.

bad points of my day

• I clocked only two hours of sleep the night before (sleep deprivation is a horrendous thing in the midst of three-weeks-to-Alevels fever)
• I feel sick from all the food I poured down my throat
• I'm breaking out
• and lastly, a huge point which could take up TWENTY bad day bullet points, plus throw in confusion, apprehension, distrust, wariness, ARGHS and URGHS and WHYs and OHDEARs, I'd like to say that I've reached a point where I don't really know who to trust anymore.

okay, so today wasn't very peachy at all feeling like a choked up drain half the time.
you know what I really want and really need right now?
haaah, don't tell you.

today was the last day of school.
the two years were so brief but yet I think I really did have one of the best times of my life.

pictures and emo galore but due to time constraints (study calls!) I'll do that maybe.. tomorrow? or another day.
where I can squeeze my two years into little squares of photographs because they say,
a picture speaks a thousand words.

and I'll really miss AC.

Y

emotional rollercoasters for no good reason is a mighty strange thing.
that sudden swell in your tear ducts and lump in your throat in the middle of class; no good i say!
my eyes welled up with tears for a moment and with a blink it was all gone.
strr-aaange.

for one of the questions for econs mock today, I had no idea what the price mechanism is.
so I made my own definition, had an inkling that it was associated with the demand and supply forces, drew a diagram that took up more than 1/3 of the page and my essay was only a page long.

ohdear.

how on earth do I pass? :/

ooo de-stressing time after dinner today!
(btw, dinner was simply divine today: chicken rice (with chilli! black sauce! and ginger!), pasta, lasagna and FRUITS! ok actually fruit is more accurate)
so today, it was a trip down memory lane because we played,

PEPSI COLA!
(all cheaterbuggers, had so many rules :/ no wonder I kept losing..)

and we spun 20 times and raced across the track.
then, we spun 30 times and before I even finished my 30 spins, I laughed so hard I FELL!
aack, talk about embarrassment.
a memory of my falling incident a week ago.

maybe I should blog about it.
a week ago, it was raining buckets and I was making my down the NL staircase.
and then jamie tripped and fell, kicking me in the process so down I went, in the most unglamorous way possible.
bum going bumpbumpbump on those dreadful metal stairs.
complete with bruise on bum and abrasion on elbow.

:/
:(
>:O

what an unpicturesque way to end my school days.
to top it off, I've got a new zit on my cheek and a mosquito bite on my chin.

aaaargh.
can't wait for school to end.

I feel like I'm hanging in limbo

4 weeks and time to get going.

it's a little like the racing analogy my dad gave me; reinforced by Initial D.
in racing, your car's gotta rev about 100 000 times before the turbo kicks in and your car accelerates like a torpedo.
so, similarly, I gotta rev my 100 000 times before my turbo kicks in.

I'm actually looking forward to it.
4 more weeks, press on my friends!

muggerbuggers, we will be.

SATs was way tiring today.
sitting at a table poring through grammer, vocab, passages and math (which I know is relatively easy but I'm so super damn careless) for four hours is no joke.
after a while, the words melded into a never ending scribble and I had to start whispering sentences out loud to see if they were grammatically right or not.
and someone in the room really smelt.
I have no idea who it is but it came in sour waves and was very, very distracting.

my mind's been really numb lately.
usually I'd sit back and ponder about myself, my life and the things around me.
but nowadays, when I sit down, my mind's completely blank.
it feels as though my mind's been crammed full of information that my personal thoughts don't seem to flow through.

(like today during my SATs essay, I was waiting for my opinions and examples to come out and somehow all my examples came from my war lit books and the opinions I'd formed around it while studying. I miss my brain.)

and I CAN'T SEEM TO VERBALLY EXPRESS MYSELF!
REPRESSION!
today I was discussing Othello with laura and I kept tripping over my words and I just could not articulate myself.
I wanted to say that Iago is an indicator of the black/white polarities in Othello but it came out as you know, Iago, he's like.. evil.. but then he.. you know.. kind of challenges the idea that if you're white you're an angel inside? err you know what I mean? like he's fair but he's actually like the devil so he sort of.. erm how to say?
I WAS SO PISSED WITH MYSELF I WANTED TO SLAP MY MOUTH AND SAY PFFFFTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pfft pffft
pfffffftttttttttttt.

not a good day.
I'm sleepy and I can't articulate myself.

dreeeeary.

this is for TANYONGXI, the love of my life <3

becoming an increasingly lazy blogger and I've settled into a paradoxical abyss of feeling like I'm working hard but yet not working very hard.
if you get what I mean.

arg, SATs tomorrow and the paper is getting longer and harder (in my opinion).
and it doesn't help that with the old SAT my math is lower than an average singaporean!
then after the dreadful A's in november I'll meet up with SATs II in december.

I finally did my ACJC portfolio yesterday and I realised my squash experience in ACJC was a lot more interesting that I'd thought it was.
made me reminisce about the MG squash days.
and especially with the reviewing of my leadership experience.

even though I faced, perhaps, a lot less trials in MGS as a leader, I certainly felt more respected, more involved and more effective.
somehow, I felt like I was in the midst of things doing all I could and reaping results.
even if they weren't material ones, I'd felt that inner satisfaction.
but somehow, in ACJC, it was a constant battle between myself, the situation and my waning desire and optimism.
it never felt right.
sometimes, it felt like the worst part of my JC experience.

but then after doing my ACJC portfolio, I realised all the trials and tribulations made my experience as a leader, one heck of an experience.
even though I didn't gain the satisfaction and enjoyment I thought I'd derive from striving to do my best.

okay, perhaps I'm trying to find a bright point in my portfolio because after reviewing my uni apps, I'm feeling woefully inadequate.

anyway, moving on,
I realised I always blog about the same old things.
so I decided yesterday during econs lect with the love of my life yongxi, I'd blog about my old pet: Hammy the hamster who was basically the most unbelievable pet in the whole wide world.
and I don't mean that in a complimentary manner.

so, let's begin.
Hammy lived with Zammy in a two storey cage. Hammy was fat and Zammy was thin. Hammy was what I labelled a stupid, lazy, cute hamster while Zammy was the clever, active, not-so-cute hamster.
so every night, Hammy would follow Zammy on the exercise wheel and attempt to keep up with Zammy's pace but then because he's so fat and slow, he always gets kicked off.

one night, I very stupidly left the cage open and Zammy, being the adventurous one, fled into a stormy night.
while I found Hammy shivering outside my house door.
being the only hamster left, Hammy would occasionally ride the exercise wheel and regularly bring food up into his sleeping house.
however as time went by, his exercise regime dwindled into nothing and his days were spent hoarding food in his sleeping area.

sounds lazy?
well, it gets worse.
Hammy soon stopped hoarding food into his sleeping area but decided to comfortably make his life easier by SLEEPING IN HIS FOOD POT!
so this fat cute lazy hamster would sleep in his food pot, wake up, eat and sleep, eat and sleep, eat and sleep, pee poo in the food pot, eat and sleep, eat and sleep..
and live the life of the laziest hamster ever.

ok, the end.

by the way, smokey bit me today and IT HURTS.

yea so I've been rehashing dreams and practicalities and oookay, whatever.
somehow I know where I wanna be is not where I should be
and where I don't mind being is maybe where I should be.

whatever it is,
I guess it'll be okay in the end.
hopefully.
somehow.

I don't wanna end up feeling miserable and pumped full of regret.

I have no life.
like, seriously.
:(
and lately all I want to do is sleep, sleep and sleep some more.

gonna get my projected grades and soon I gotta get my uni apps ready.
been feeling a little worried that I might not get my first choice.

sometimes I really hate the feeling of not being able to articulate myself, which is what I've been feeling of late.
I know there's plenty I want to say, but my brain's too numb to craft those jumbled thoughts into words.

confidence is abit on the low side.
been misintepreting questions and doing them all wrong and failing when it's
5
weeks
to
the
Alevels.
math is somewhat a comfort now.
and it's the only thing I do all day.

anyway, I was wondering what it feels like knowing that you've changed someone's life.
and I figured it feels wonderful but a heavy responsibility all at the same time.
I wonder why.
and looking back, I wonder who's lives I've changed..

and this is really random but I seriously hate the way I write, speak, SPEEELL now.
I can't even spell.

aaaack.