Dry Handmade Noodles November 8, 2009

Bet you’ve never heard of that!!!

(Ok, not really. You’ve probably heard of it before but never tried it.)

 

I have been on a food-photo rampage these few days, taking photos of whatever I feel looks good. In my case, it’s usually food. A few days ago during one of our PW OP meetings, we had lunch at the food court in Roxy Square, which is near school. Since the handamde noodle stall is reknowned, and we’d all tried the handmade noodle in SOUP before, we decided to get the dry version this time.

 

[ Don't judge me when i describe food and so-called, 'critique' it. I do it because I actually enjoying writing about it, not because I think that I am competent enough to really critique food. What I write is solely what is true FOR ME, how I felt and thought about it. Besides, I've got the ability to enjoy food that sucks, unless it's really Really REALLY bad, so whatever I write may not be that accurate anyways. Now that we've got the disclaimer aside, let's begin. ]

 

Dry U-mian

It is, basically, your normal noodles in thick, brown-black sauce with about 4 dumplings buried inside and the normal condiments that you usually get with handmade noodles.

The sauce has got a taste that’s hard for me to describe. It’s simple yet complex, like there are so many different flavours in it but all have fused to become one entity. And it compliments the slight sourness of handmade noodles so well! Another thing about it, is that while most starchy sauces tend to lose their thickness and stickiness really quickly after you’ve started eating, this one’s remained. Also, it didn’t splatter on my school blouse, so that’s something else that I liked.

I don’t think that I’ve to tell you if it’s good or bad. I was expecting it to be good, it WAS good, and that was no surprise since we’re eating from a reknowned stall here. My classmate told me it was a franchise.

 

 

Dumplings

This is the pan-fried version that we ordered, although it looks deep fried to me. The skin is crispier and harder, and after you bite into it, you can actually see the different flaky layers within it. The filling tastes different from the dumplings that I normally have too, though in what way I don’t know. One GREAT thing, is that it’s a little larger than your normal Chinese potstickers, but I guess that’s because it’s also quite expensive compared to the rest of the food they sell. Seriously, I think it’s more worth it to buy the noodles with the dumplings inside.

 

 

On the day after our OP ended, we went for lunch at Pastamania and after I finished my pasta, I did this with the leftover sauce.

 

Is that pretty or what! Oh yes, I love playing with food too.

(I especially love the sound of ebikkos bursting together when you crush them, but that’s another story, and only Rae and Pris will get what I mean )

Photolog 2009 (III) November 5, 2009

|Music| ‘Lisztomania’ – Phoenix

 

I recently re installed the ‘Motorola Phone Tools’ into my computer, which is the software that lets me upload photos from my phone to the computer. After installing it, I discovered numerous photos that I’d taken awhile back, along with photos in my computer that I’d forgotten I’d even taken. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a use for the photos if I don’t post them here, which is why I took them in the first place, I think. So this post is just random photos here and there, from as far back as a year ago.

 

        

Bible Copying

This was done sometime a week ago the release of the O Level results this year. I remember I had to copy a few chapters from Judges, but I can’t remember which chapters exactly, it was about Samson. These are the ones that were sent to Israel to be compounded in a museum, so if you ever go to that museum and find the Chinese version, you know I had some part in it. I’ll go there one day, just don’t know when.

 

 

 

         

Rabbit in a pet store window

I remember spotting these rabbits at a pet store in Bugis after a late-night PW session to finalize our WR. We were deciding whether or not to take a cab, and if so, whether or not to wait in the cab queue or to flag down a cab on another street instead. We queued in the end.

 

 

Hand Doodles

I was bored one night while trying to study for Geography and I felt like drawing on my hand. I took the nearest marker next to me, a purple on, and drew all over my left palm. On the bottom left hand corner, there is the word ‘Migration’, which was what I was studying in Geography. On the top of the doodles, there is the word ‘Deutschland’, because I was thinking about Germany, and German, in general.

 

 

Scary looking fruit/plant/vegetable

Can somebody PLEASE tell me what this black, two-horned fruit is? It looks like the head of a very angry bull charging towards a piece of red cloth. Seriously, WHAT IS IT? I saw it while walking with Xinlin in the Supermarket at J8. For some reason, the close-up fruit is blurry but the background of corn and melons are clearer. Hmm.

 

 

    

Drawings on my mother’s office desk

The one on the left is mine, and the one on the right is my brother’s. I can’t remember when he drew the pig, it must’ve been ages ago. I probably drew mine a year or so ago while waiting for my mum to end work. I was feeling in a dreamy mood and ended up using my fingers to rub the pencil lead all over the background. I was trying to make it look like it was dusk, and and create a magical atmosphere, as if sprinkled with pixie dust. I don’t actually know if I succeeded, but the pencil lead on my finger was so hard to wash out!

 

 

Collage of the world on fire

I didn’t take this photo. I found this picture on the website asking you to vote for Earth, for the upcoming Copenhagen climate talk/forum thing. I loved the colours, because I love anything with lots of colours. And yet this also appealed to me because it was so simple, yet breathtaking at the same time.

Why PW sucks and everyone hates it November 3, 2009

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned PW in any of my posts(Have I? Can’t remember), so I figured that I’d better get a PW post up before my OP(this Friday) and moan and whine about it like all the other JC1 students.

 

You know, I was actually looking forward to PW before it started. I thought it would be a fantastic learning experience to work with others and learn about something I was truly interested in. You will never imagine the disappointment after such high hopes, when I realised that PW was more of learning to tweak one’s way around loopholes and convince others’ about the feasbility of one’s plans rather than learning about facinating things that one never knew existed. The harsh reality is that you go through tons of information that you already know and have read many times before just to find phrases that will substantiate your points, since anything we say is not credible but anyone who has had a book published is. It’s tedious, boring and hardly fascinating. 

 

If you’re doing a project on something subjective, like art, there will always be 2 sides to the argument and you will never have a sure-win method to prove your own side because that’s just the way it is. What makes it worse is that people seem to believe statistics more than the actual debate of ideas(which I feel holds more weight), and the fact that we have almost no statistics makes for dangerous lack of substantiation. Because all our evidence is using one idea to debunk another, the flexible nature of ideas itself is already a large loophole for anal examiners to pick their way through. The presence of statistics, whether accurate or not, seems like the only way where one’s credibility on the subject of matter can be affirmed without any doubt. And this is already added on to the fact that our project, although interesting(though now not since we’ve already worked on it for so long), is such an obscure topic that there are no statistics supporting our argument on the internet, and almost all of our findings came from a few books tucked away in the National Library.

 

While I do somewhat agree that evidence in proving that something is true is necesary, what I absolutely do not understand is that in the GoI component(Generation of Ideas, where we think of our own ideas to counter the problem that we researched on), we STILL need substantiation on how we propose to counter the problem when we’re supposed to be judged on our own originality and creativity. Does anyone else see the irony here?! You want us to be creative and original, but you say that we still need to state our sources to confirm that what we came up with will succeed. Yet for us to have a source to refer to, the concept and idea would have been carried out before and thus, it cannot possibly be creative or new! THis is something that I’ve never been able to understand throughout the entire journey of PW.

 

While different groups probably face different difficulties, due to maybe their group members or PW topic itself, my group didn’t face any conflict among members. Our main problem was having no information and statistics, and also thinking too much into the subject matter that we ourselves were left confused about what we based our arguments upon. In some ways, it taught us to be resourceful, to persevere. But it also taught me that while others wax lyrical about the wonders of Google and the vast amount of information available at hand on the internet, the library is still a better palce to look for information, and proving more efficient too, including travel time. I can’t even count the number of hours we spent futilely looking for things that did not exist online, yet managed to find almost immediately when we went to the library.

 

If there was anything PW really taught me, it was all that.

(It didn’t teach me about teamwork and cooperation not because my group sucked, but because we didn’t face any problems cooperating in the first place, so there was really no difficulty in teamwork to learn from)

Crystal Jade Hong Kong Cafe October 31, 2009

I love Hong Kong Cafes. I love the food, I love the relatively lower prices(for most restaurants) and I LOVE the HK milk teas. They are usually pretty run-of-the-mill, but there’s still a difference between a crappy one and a good one with quality food, even if the dish itself isn’t original. So when I went to Orchard Central recently, I went for lunch at Crystal Jade Hong Kong Cafe. Yup, you heard that right. It’s CRYSTAL JADE and HONG KONG CAFE. Together. And although its prices are slightly higher than that of a normal Hong Kong Cafe, it was worth every single cent.

 

Slight digressions about my thoughts on Orchard Central:

So if you don’t know, which is quite unlikely, Orchard Central is the other new shopping mall on Orchard Road, build right opposite Centrepoint. It’s quite empty, with many shops still unopened, and its a mix of popular brands and obscure ones. The layout is a lot simpler than ION, but it’s still confusing since there doesn’t seem to be a directory where you usually see one. (THERE SHOULD BE ONE ON EVERY LEVEL) I didn’t have much time to explore the place, but any mall that allows me to walk freely without banging into people or navigating through crowds is immediately not that bad a place to be in.  I think it’s not because of its wide passageways but more because of Orchard Central lying in ION’s shadow. Which is probably quite true since everyone’s flocking to ION now. Hate the crowd at ION, hate not being able to afford anything there, not even the food at the food court which is exorbitantly high. (Not that I’d even GO to the food court since it’s so crowded that I don’t see how anyone can even find seats)

 

 

I HAD to have the Hong Kong Milk Tea, of course, which came like this.

           

HK Milk Tea

On the left is when the jug was still full, and on the right is when the jug is almost empty. (you can see how the jug is made more clearly then)

The jug is like a vase with a beaked top, and a hole blown into the glass. The hole is filled with dry ice, so that the milk tea will be cold but not diluted by the residual water(incorrect chemical terms but I’m an Arts student so I don’t care ). It comes with 2 small glasses(as tall as your HP, maybe) and it’s designed to tilt elegantly, while also making drinking from it easier. I want to own this set, it’s so cool.

Now I’m not an expert on milk teas, but this one appealed to me because the taste of milk tea remained strong yet not overly sweet, with a hint of bitterness that one would expect from tea. It also wasn’t diluted, by what would normally be ice, since this was chilled through a separate outlet in the jug and the water and drink don’t mix.

 

 

Mango Slushie/Smoothie Drink

This was what my brother had and I only had a sip of it so I can’t really comment.

 

 

Sandwiches with Chips and Salad

So ok, that might not be proper salad or coleslaw, but anything with mayo tastes great, or so I think.

The sandwiches were not bad. They’re not the type to make you swoon, but it’s great in the sense that it works really well as an appetizer to start you off for what’s to come. (OK, so in the menu it’s not an appetizer, but we shared so it seemed like one since it was also the first to arrive)

 

 

Sausage, Steak, Chicken, Fish, Vegetables and Mashed Potatoes in Black Pepper Sauce

Now at first I didn’t expect much of it. I thought they’d try to cover up for quality by adding quantity since restaurants are usually quite stingy but that’s really not the case here. I’m not talking about quality cuisine here, I’m talking quality food. And as far as I know, quality food is for the individual to judge so feel free to say that the sauce drenches the meat and makes the crispy skin soggy etc. I frankly don’t mind the sogginess.

Anyway, back to the dish. The fish was soft and succulent, with the meat coming off easily at the gentle probe of a fork. THe sausage was a surprise, since it contained warm cheese in the centre. I didn’t eat much of the steak and I can’t remember anything about the chicken, but I don’t remember anything particularly bad about them either. Besides, everything tasted better with the sauce. And DUH I didn’t eat this on my own. It was shared.

 

 

Lychee Snow Ice with Vanilla Ice Cream

Their signature dessert, apparently. Though signature dishes are always the most expensive of the lot. The other desserts included green tea snow ice, chocolate snow ice… You get the idea.

At this point I was so stuffed that I didn’t have much of this, so I don’t know if it influenced by opinion of it as well. THe snow ice was OK, but I still prefer the milk snow ice I had with HM at a small shop near my school. The vanilla ice cream was pretty average, since they’re probably selling the combination of the snow ice and the ice cream rather than both on its own. It’s not the most original concept I’ve seen, but since I like simplicity with small unique touches, it works for me.

Only thing is, if you don’t have a sweet tooth(like me), share this with someone else or it’ll start to get too sickeningly sweet after awhile. I wouldn’t say it has to do with the sweetness of the dessert, but rather, the large amount itself that people without a sweet tooth just can’t seem to stomach. I have a limit as to how much sweetness I can take(even if its not that sweet).

 

 

So overall, the experience was wonderful. The food probably isn’t the best that you’ll ever have in your life, but it’s definitely above average. I also left the place with that rare satisfied feeling that I don’t often experience. Plus, I’m totally going back so that I can try their other dishes! Especially the chocolate snow ice!

 

***I’m raelly please with how the photos turned out this time! They were taken with my 2 Megapixel Motorola Phone camera, and I didn’t actually expect it to be so clear. Phone camera FTW!

Inconsistency October 27, 2009

I have a lot of trouble concentrating on things that don’t require thinking or reflecting. When forced o do things like that, my mind just wanders from the task at hand.

 

So I was practising the piano an hour or so ago, and I realised 2 things that seriously hinder my progress to perfect the piece, that is, to practise till I make no errors or slips.

 

Number one, I cannot pay attention for more than one page of the score. After the first page, my fingers continue moving, but I’m thinking or dreaming about something else entirely unrelated to music. And this makes room for errors to be made, since I’m not really aware of what I’m doing with my fingers. Throughout the hour while I was practising, I had to keep reminding myself to pay attention, which led to me analysing reasons for why I have so much trouble paying attention, which led to this post. See what I mean?

 

Number two, I am not a perfectionist. I do strive for perfection in some things, but in most cases, I don’t bother because my ideals are too perfect to be realised, something I learnt from childhood. I’m the sort to do something with enthusiasm for a short SHORT while, then cease doing it because I’m bored of it already and do not wish to subject myself to the torture of completing something I’m sick of doing.  This inconsistency is a really bad habit, but one that has grown over the years, instead of me actually dealing with it. And its not only inconsistency in doing things, but inconsistency in the pusuit of perfection as well. Because like I said, I can be a perfectionist if I really really want to, during whcih I shock people with my dissatisfaction of many things, but I can also jsut give up easily and leave things hanging uncompleted because I don’t want to do it.

 

And yes, I was thinking all these thoughts while practising the piano, which shows how easily my thoughts can distact me. I still cannot play a perfect piece, no matter how hard I try. It seems like the more I practise the more slips I make, although I don’t really know why. My fingers become mroe and more clumsy and I can’t seem to control them as well as when I started practising. I need to find a way to stop my mind from wandering, but thinking up solutions to this problem only makes my mind wander even mroe about the different possibilities. It’s a never ending cycle.

 

*** I can’t even type accurately even though I’ve been using the computer for so many years. What makes you think I can do any better on the piano!!!

I want 3 years October 16, 2009

I kind of wish we had 3 years of JC.

I feel that I’d enjoy myself a lot more if we did. I wouldn’t enjoy the CCA bit or more exams, but I’d have greater fun with the learning. The JC curriculum seems to be designed to just cram as much information as it can into our brains and hurrily mould our O Level mindsets into A Level ones. With all this, the magic of learning is just slowly fading away, because all I’m concerned about now is just to scrape through the exams.

The way we’re supposed to absorb new concepts AND understand them at the speed they’re being taught makes me detest learning, because before I can even begin to comprehend the basics(which requires TIME), they’re already almost done with the entire chapter. Because of this, my foundations are extremely shaky and I’m just grasping whatever I can blindly, as long as I can grasp SOMETHING. I don’t get the essence of the subject, because I don’t have time to truly appreciate it. And when I cannot appreciate it, I loathe it and don’t have any motivation to do well in it, which reflects in my exam grades.

And with only 2 short years, we’re expected to memorise at least 3 times as much information as we did in the O Levels, which is crazy. It’s not that it cannot be done, but to do it, most of our time would have to be spent mugging and mugging. People often talk about school-life balance, which are usually complaints on spending too much time on your own life than for school, but there are hardly any complaints on spending too much time for school than on your own life. For me, school should be PART of my life, NOT my life. I want it to be a part of  the bittersweet memories of my youth, but not the only thing I ever remember.

With 3 years, I’ll have more time to spread out my studying, enjoy the subjects and slowly fall into the A Level style of answering questions. I don’t want to hate school because of exams. I want to be able to savour the experience of learning, but the time span of 2 years just doesn’t allow for it.

Also, I have somehow fallen into the habit of separating my learning. The line of distinction isn’t very clear, because in my mind, information isn’t organised, it’s just all THERE together, allowing me to pull whichever one out as I please. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but I am quite certain that I separate my learning for school, and my learning for my own interest. Each part just pops up as and when I need it, and I don’t actually make a concious effort to separate them, it just happens. I don’t picture my brain being split into two parts, because it doesn’t work that way. It’s just like 2 forms of thinking that I have, that education has moulded me to have.

The ‘learning for school’ bit of my mind is a bit like a computer, because i have to classify and compartmentalize and memorise information for exams, along with answering techniques and key words. I only use that part of my mind when in school because it don’t really like it, it’s not my natural way of thinking. All the concepts and information in ‘learning for school’ goes into ‘learning for my own interest’, apart from the exam techniques, definitions and classifications of themes. In ‘learning for my own interest’, there are a lot more concepts and information, because some of it comes from school, but a lot more of it comes from conversations with friends, newspapers, things I watched on TV or read.

It’s a more flexible outlet for me to truly think, and I take great care to not let it intertwine with my ‘learning for school’, pulling information out from it for school only when necessary, because I am certain that if they DO intertwine, the ‘learning for school’ component of my mind will easily corrupt my ‘learning for my own interest’. And I DO NOT want that, since the ‘learning for my own interest’ bit is the one that truly injects some meaning into my life. ‘Learning for school’ is just a means of survival in society.

Like Mark Twain said,

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

(Thanks Mavis for this quote!)

What is truly sad is that some people still don’t see the difference, and I wish that more people would, or else we’re just going to sink deeper and deeper into the trap of studying for exams and not for personal fulfilment. The prospect of such a future is honestly, very terrifying, but I’m comforted with the fact that there will probably always be students who can tell the difference, no matter how hard society wishes for us to conform.

**********

I was going to have a whole post on my favourite Anne Frank quotes, because she’s been such an inspiration to me, but I haven’t gotten round to doing it yet.

Prawn Noodles and Sugarcane juice at Kovan October 8, 2009

Normally I’d go for the stall with a queue, because it usually means that it’s good, right?

Yet for lunch yesterday I patroned the stall with no one in line, in the middle of stalls with big flashy signs proclaiming their ‘60 years of history’ and a queue so long it cut across the hawker centre. I’m not very sure why I went to that prawn noodle shop. I saw someone slurping noodles from her bowl with dark prawn soup and prawns and suddenly, I was just won over.

 

 ***I was inititally trying to find a beef noodle place I vaguely remember from childhood but I gave up because nothing looked remotely familiar to me. Also, the laksa stall was closed, so the prawn noodles, if you want to be that specific, was my third choice.

  

 

SM’s prawn noodle soup

In IT’S defense, it doesn’t look quite as nice as the dry one because SM had already started eating it before I took this photo and we all know that even the yummiest dish can look horribly mutilated after the diner digs into it.

  

 

 

My dry prawn noodles

I like dry noodles more, because then the noodles are mixed in sauce and chilli that coats over each strand much better than soupy broth does. I just feel that you get more flavour in each bite, but I guess it’s also more sodium. The dish overall was not bad, I suppose. I should’ve asked for lesser chilli, because it was a little too spicy for my liking but the sauce and soup in general were pretty good. It still can’t beat the prawn noodles near my old secondary school, but I’ve heard that that stall uses MSG so it might not be a fair comparison.

 

 

 

  

My attempt to take a close up glistening-with-goodness photo like those Taiwanese food programmes

Was it successful? You tell me. I was a lot harder than I thought. The noodles kept dropping and I could never make it look as perfect as those I saw on TV. But I reckon it was a good try all the same.

 

 

  

Sugarcane Juice

This is where the chinese word, gan1 tian2, comes in. (I don’t know how to type chinese on my computer!) Usually when I hear that word, it sounds revolting to me, because gan means dry, yet tian means sweet, so I have the image of a dry, stale, over-sugared cake that dries out your entire mouth and gets stuck in your throat. Sugarcane juice is very sweet yes, but the sweetness isn’t sickly. It’s pleasant, because it compliments the taste of sugarcane so well. It tastes natural, not like someone added sugar into your drink.

 

***And I know photos are pretty much self explanatory, but I feel the need to type something everytime I blog or else it doesn’t seem right!  

The post-exam outing October 5, 2009

So I was bored after my exams, and I asked SM to go out with me for no real reason, apart from the want to roam about outside. We went to ION Orchard since it’s new and everything’s there, but we couldn’t actually afford much of anything there. Plus, the clothes were quite disappointing. Jeans were mostly skinny jeans and too long(yeah thanks for discriminating the short), tops weren’t that great, shoes were either boring or had too high heels(or alternatively, they were boots). Even the acessories didn’t catch my attention much.

 

I think it’s really hard to find clothes that you like! The nice stuff are usually impractical or too expensive. ANd it’s weird when all the things look great together in a shop,  but when you single them out, you realise that it’s not that nice after all.

 

Still, it beats staying at home and staying on the couch, I suppose. And we DID have a good dinner, which I very much enjoyed.

 

Me and SM at Uniqlo

A bit of a disappointment for me, I must say. They do have a lot of tops and stuff, but a lot of it is just simple and basic and not really very unique. Uniqlo, IMHO, is just over rated. HOWEVER, I must say they have wonderful jackets, or parkas, in nice colours. The material is so soft and comfortable. I liked the pink one, SM liked the orange one.

And yes, we’re wearing slippers at Orchard. Who cares. Theyre comfortable and good for your feet(hey crocs and birks are good brands) and much better for your feet than those ridiculously high 6 inch stilettos that we keep seeing more of. I’m not saying heels suck. But 6 inches is really too much for me. And why shouldn’t we be allowed to wear what we want? The Straits Times should just stop commenting on slippers in Orchard when they only dish out crap advice anyway.

 

         

SM and I in NYDC for dinner

She had some sort of pasta baked with prawns and cheese. I had pasta with sauteed prawns and cream sauce, and also my chocolate soda with double chocolate chip ice cream(far right of my photo, awesome stuff).

The food didn’t disappoint, for me anyway. The prawns were amazing. They were big(not huge, but big enough), succulent and everytime you bite into one, you can feel all the tendons and strings of flesh snapping under your teeth, producing a most satisfying sound. It sounds disgusting, but trust me, it’s good.

 

I know, only 3 photos. More to come I hope.  I need to go explore more places, go to newer places to eat and post a true blue foodie post. But still then, I’ll make do with these.

The joy of anticipating… after October 4, 2009

|Music| ‘Dieses Leben’ – Juli

(LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS GERMAN BAND)

 

Creative title much?

Anyway, exams are over, the excitement of the-end-of-exans has worn off and I’m left bored and alone.

(I DO have things to do, like practising the piano and packing my room but I’m putting them off)

So I figured I’d do the ‘mandantory’ post where I review how I did for each paper and how I felt about each one. I can sense it! Boring post ahead. Oh, help me. I’ll try to skim through every one as fast as I can.

 

*Feel free to ignore*

 

GP-

Essay was both good and bad. Good because I had points and it was an issue I’ve been thinking about for ages. Bad because I don’t know if my poitns are valid, OR if I went off point. Again, BAD also because I chose a hard topic. Religion VS Science. I’ev never done it before, and some would say it’s dangerous to do something that you’re not prepared for or you’ve not practised before. But thing is, everytime I get a GP Essay choice, I always pick a completely new topic to write on! I hate doing essays on topics that I’ve already done before, how boring is that? And we all know I cannot stand routine.

Comprehension was tough Tough TOUGH. Why do they always give texts about the influence and impact of some aspect of globalisation? The questions required lots of thinking and I almost didn’t get to complete my AQ. But I’ve never really done well for AQ all this time so I’m not exactly banking on it.

 

CSE-

I really really studied for this one. I DID. I only jsut skimmed through my notes during MYEs, but I honestly sat down, read and re read my notes until my eyes hurt, highlighted all the parts I thought were important and even wrote them down and re wrote them! I think part of my motivation to want to do well for CSE is because I’ve got a great teacher who’s been really inspiring so far, even if she DOES take awhile to mark our work, heh. The other reason why I’m motivated is because I really love the subject, even if I hate the exams.

I decided to study everything else except the PRC’s relations with Taiwan, since I know nuts about it and didn’t want to waste brain power absorbing new information when I could be revising stuff I already knew. Besides, I didn’t really think an entire question would be set on Taiwan alone. I had my knowledge from Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet so I figured it would be enough. HUGE MISTAKE. Seems like it IS possible for an entire 25 marks question to be set on Taiwan and Taiwan alone. Thankfully, the other essay option was on women in China, so I did that instead.

 

German-

COmprehension was terrible. I didn’t recognise at least 80% of the words in the first text. And even though the theme of the text was provided, I didn’t know what that meant as well. The topic was ‘Werbung’, or ‘advertising’. I spent half an hour re reading and analysing both texts trying to pick up clues until I finally realised that it was about the impacts and tactics of advertising. FAIL.

The essay I did was about whether consumers should have the choice, whether or not we want to eat GM food. I initially prepared for the essay on environment, but I changed my mind when I saw the essay questions. So typical of my to do something on food, huh.

Listening comprehension was some past year A level paper. The beginning was OK, the last part was hard. They suddenly went from taking moderately fast to FAST, from using difficult but recognisable words to words that I didn’t know at all! I jsut hope I can get marks from the from part.

 

Math-

I actually studied for math, for once in my life.

And it made no freaking difference. If anything, it was harder than the MYE paper which I didn’t study for. Why do they choose to insert trigonometric functions into everything! Most of the time I could start questions but I couldn’t finish them. And when I couldn’t start on a question, it was either because it was a topic I’d given up on, or one that merged topics. Sigh, JC Math is really tough.

 

Geography-

Bad luck AGAIN. I borrowed Yiwei’s notes for the topic of Hydrology, since 50% of our marks were for Hydrology, and I honestly tried my best to cram as much as I could, though with little success I should say. I knew how the processes worked, I know what’s going on, but I can’t express it in the very technical, rigid language of Geography. 70% of the time I study I study for Geography it’s so I know how to express myself like how they want me to.

So I decided to ignore the part on ‘drainage density’ for some inconceiveable reason, not even bothering to find otu what it meant or its significance, and guess what guess what. An ENTIRE question was set on it. 1 mark for its definition and 7(SEVEN!!!) marks for the factors influencing it. It was SUCH a giveaway had I studied it properly BUT I DIDN’T. I didn’t even bother trying to smoke my way through, I left it blank and concentrated on my other questions. It’s not even like I have an inkling of what it means but didn’t know how to express it. I really had NO IDEA what it was, at all. I just knew it had something to do with rivers.

 

So that’s it. My long post on my exams.

I’m so pleased because I went out with Shen Moo yesterday and we had a yummy dinner with pasta for both of us and chocolate soda for me. That means I can post with photos soon! Yay!

The joy of anticipating… before October 1, 2009

|Music| ‘Spring Street’ – Vanessa Carlton

(amazing song, go listen)

I don’t know why, but before I start on something important, I feel this need to blog about it, as if it’ll formalize the occasion, ha. I’ll end up spewing several paragraphs worth of my own expectations, predicted mood and problems-to-be-faced and wishing myself “All the best!”.

Don’t people usually blog about an event AFTER its over? Hmm. I don’t quite like it that way, because anticipation has got to be the best form of hope ever. It keeps you happy, gives you soemthing to look forward to, and inspiration of all sorts of things just whizz into your mind, filling it with possibilities and IMpossibilities, landing you in a dreamy state where you just want to work towards that, PROBABLY, never-can-be-achieved goal.

After an event, I’m first in a state of mild denial because it’s over. There’s nothing to look forward to now, no form of real motivation to propel me forward. And the comes the nostalgia. I keep reminiscing about it. If there are photos, I look at them endlessly, smile and chuckle to myself like some mad looney. Think about it when I’m taking the bus or waiting for it, try not to let a wry smile escape, but it usually does. Yes, I’m that weird person you see at the bus stops with a glazed look over my eyes, seemingly staring at the air in front of me yet not quite concentrating, then suddenly tilting my head down so that I can hide a tiny giggle.

And of course, I don’t blog about the event AFTER it as soon as it ends because firstly, blogging seems to be formalising any beginnings or endings, since I’m making it ‘public’(well I don’t get a lot of readers but still). By blogging about something, I’m formalising it’s end, and thing is, I DON’T WANT IT TO END! Self denial, there you go. Secondly, I like to know that I can have a back-up post when I get a mental block and don’t know what to write about. And lastly, I’m just a natural born procrastinator. I wouldn’t go this close to say that it’s in my blood, because it isn’t. I don’t know about my father, but my mother is SO efficient it’s amazing I didn’t soak up any of her must-get-things-done-immediately ways. In fact, its amazing that BOTH my brother and I are major procrastinators.

And guess what, I realised that after 3, no, 4 paragraphs, I still haven’t told you what event I’m anticipating. TOMORROW. HA. It’s just the end of my exams. The very thought of 6 hours of examinations tomorrow sends chills down my spine. SIX HOURS. 3 hours each! What. A. Nightmare.

(And I thought I should clear the air, since the top few paragraphs appear contradictory to how I want the exams to end. When I said I don’t want it to end, it refers to the ENDING of the exams. I call it ENDING and not END, because to me the realisation that the exams have ended take a while to dawn on me. It isn’t just a split second moment, it’s a PROCESS. But then again, it could be just me being anal.)

I feel like complaining buckets right now, about how I LOATHE fixed definitions, how I HATE memorizing phrases of information that I already know just so it’ll be in the type of technical language they like, how I absolutely DETEST analysing graphs. Why are physical concepts so much harder to study than social and political concepts? Sigh. But I haven’t the time, I need to go and work for a miracle for tomorrow. What am I thinking, thinking of miracles. I’d be glad with just HALF a miracle, or a quarter. Anything!

*** I hope to have a photo post up soon, with OR without people in it. I’m getting bored facing a huge wall of text everytime I go to my blog and scroll down. But we all know that I’m not very big on photography, and how I don’t like to post photos with people in them, so I’ll see how things go!

****** Hortonian Overland Flow and Saturation Overland Flow here I come!

Horton is such an UGLY name. Everything I read ‘Hortonian Overland Flow’ it just completely puts me off the topic altogether. I think I should just call it HOF. Like hoffffffffffffff. Ok nevermind, I’m going insane. Can’t you tell from the top few paragraphs?

‘cuz I’m under the weather… September 24, 2009

Feeling a little under the weather.

Things not going to plan(but then again, when does it ever?), tons of work left to absorb, time not on my side…

 

Today is the day before my Promotional Exams start. From tomorrow onwards, I’ll begin the week-long journey of late nights, intensive cramming and (hopefully not) stress symptoms. How nice. What isn’t nice is that I keep taking naps after school, and I can never seem to wake up to study before dinner. I don’t even want to count the number of hours wasted, I feel so guilty. I think of the people who don’t have an education, who aren’t even literate, and I feel SO BAD that I’m not taking my education seriously enough.

 

I also received quite a discouraging comment today. I won’t go into specifics. I get affected by how others perceive me a great deal, even if it doesn’t seem like so on the surface. Comments MATTER to me. A compliment can really make my day, and a passing not-so-good comment can leave me brooding over it for days. What’s ironic is that what I was told was just contradictory to past comments  by others and what I believed, for my entire life, was true. It’s a personality thing. I guess I’ll just have to prove them wrong, but I’d rather not have to live up to anyone’s expectations except my own.

 

And because this was meant to be a short update, I’ll log off now to continue studying. I’m dealing with CSE at the moment, because although it’s time consuming, it’s so fulfilling to study. The concepts of how problems occur due to systemic flaws in the political systems and influencing social factors never fail to leave me awed about the complexity of society.

 

By tonight, I hope to complete:

1. Central-Regional Relations (Xinjiang)

2. Central-Regional Relations (Tibet)

3. Central-Regional Relations (Inner Mongolia)

4. Cross-Straits Relations (Taiwan)

5. Governance Crisis or Reinvigoration?

 

That’s 5 sets of notes to do up, the Taiwan one alone is over 10 pages, I believe. And then I’ll be done with all of ‘Authority and Governance’ except for the Peoples’ Liberation Army, which leaves me time to study ‘Culture and Society’ and some of ‘Development and Challenges’.

 

Wish me luck :/

Pre-exams Subject Rants September 18, 2009

This must not be healthy.

Half an hour after revising Geography my hands are still trembling, my heart is still racing and I STILL feel like I will faint if I so much as brisk walk. Whatever happened to good stress?

 

Enough is enough though. Kindly allow me to rant about my various subjects.

 

Studying with Xinlin’s notes is far more productive than the many futile hours I spent scouring the Internet for information the last time. At least I HAVE something to study now. I KNOW where to start. That’s already a vast improvement. People who have been talking to me should know how I feel towards Geography ever since JC started. Geography used to be my life and soul. The subject I did best in, the only one I could ever finish studying and the issues of which I was truly interested in. After taking H2 Geography, my interest in the subject just faded till it was pure irritation. Not kidding. I still dread Geography lectures and tutorials, I don’t enjoy them. I think it’s the teaching method. It just doesn’t suit me. I like the concepts we learn in Geography, but the way we learn them just doesn’t deepen my interest in it, it has the opposite effect instead.

 

China Studies is understandable, but the level of analysis expected is pretty deep. I don’t exactly have the intellectual capability of an A student, as interesting as the subject is. Chinese politics is so confusing, but at least it isn’t dry. I’m just grateful for notes and wonderful(although strict) teacher. Just found out the other day, though, that the H2 China Studies Independent Study(IS) component requires the same amount of depth as a H3, just that we need to write 1000 words less than the H3 papers. Oh help! It’s worse than the WR, only this time we have to do it solo, with only ONE consultation.

 

Mathematics is actually getting bearable. How astonishing. Read through some of the notes I didn’t understand, and realised that many of the concepts are pretty easy to grasp, just that they require familiarisation and more practice. And also, sleeping early DOES help you to understand math better in lectures, although I still feel that they DO teach too quickly. It’s hard to understand even if you pay full attention, but the satisfaction of being able to comprehend a mathematical concept and make use of it is worth every single bit of effort.

 

German is, well, weird. German class is fun and I really love my classmates. But about the subject… I had my oral exam about 2 weeks ago and I didn’t think I did well at all. Grammatical errors, sentence structure and lack of vocabulary. My 3 main problems. I felt that I kept having to make up excuses for things that I could not answer. But at least my examiner was nice, my teacher from last year, ha! At this stage we’re just starting to go into our Coursework so we’ll see.

 

I won’t bother to talk much about GP, because I still don’t quite know where I stand. I did exceptionally well for one essay, but my previous ones were rather crappy. I think all I need to do now is to find a topic that I have examples for and can never talk enough about. However, I STILL don’t understand how organizing your essay reflects your flow of ideas. The structure obstructs my flow of ideas instead. My mind doesn’t work like that. I don’t think of things in categories or sections or in lists. Bits of inspiration just pop up as and when they want to and I just write them down.

 

******************

I have nice shorter straight hair again! Awesome. I hope it lasts. I still prefer myself with long hair, although this shorter haircut is so much easier to take care of, and so much more practical in this heat.

The soft shade of purple doesn’t seem to soothe my frustration September 12, 2009

I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again.

 

I HATE THE WEATHER.

 

It’s not so much of the heat I’m annoyed at. It’s the humidity. With 30 degrees Celcius, we’re still way behind many of the countries experiencing 40-50 degrees heat waves, but what makes it unbearable is the 99% or so humidity we have in our tropical climate.

 

I’m sweating constantly, my clothes are sticking to my back and legs and arms and it’s just so uncomfortable. Wiping away perspiration only serves to make way for new droplets of sweat that seem to be oozing out of my pores every single milisecond. Above all, I have no way of relieving my frustation except through blogging because the only other way I can do it is through talking or playng the piano, both of which would not work. Talking would be deemed as complaining as I have been accused of so many times, and the latter would require a more serene state of mind, something that I cannot conjure in my current state.

 

Honestly though, all I want to say is, “THE WEATHER IS SO HOT. I WANT TO KILL THE WEATHER.” Why is talking like that deemed as complaining? What, do you not ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that its 30 degrees out with 99% humidity? Do you DENY that the constant perspiration is irritating you as much as it is irritating me? Do you not want to cry out in sheer frustration that you cannot do anything to ease your discomfort?

 

If others are allowed to vent their anger or stress by means of sport or art or writing or music or anything else, what is wrong with talking? Isn’t talking also carthartic? Don’t you feel better about something after talking about it? I’m not expecting the situation to change, but I just want to get some release from this stress I feel from the unbearable weather. I’m not asking for anyone to act on my complaints(as you call it). I just need to talk. Some people play football, some people talk.

 

Why is it that others can vent their frustration by means of sport and I can’t? Well, why do some people like beef and some people don’t? Please stop asking me stupid things like that. ACCEPT DIFFERENCES PLEASE. I cannot believe that at my age, some people still cannot seem to accept the fact that the world is FULL of differences and that it is not a problem, but rather, something to be celebrated. And even if it IS a problem, the solution is not to force others to conform, but to learn to accept and embrace. Get a life, would you.

 

At this point, I am alternating between typing at a crazy speed and fanning myself with my fan(because it works better). I just had my THIRD shower today, whcih was with HOT WATER, since I heard somewhere that hot water makes your body trigger the ‘cool down’ response(though if its already been triggered I don’t feel it), while cold water makes your body think that you’er already cooled down so there’s no need to lose more heat.

 

And yes this post is irrational. Singapore’s weather makes me irrational. I don’t actually know what I’ve been typing, but it felt good all the same. Everybody, get a fan, it really helps.

 

*Oho! Guess what I’m doing! I’m doing something very unglam. I’m lifting up my shirt(not completely) and fanning my abdomen which is wet with sweat. AT HOME.* 

 

Screw global warming.

My New Chinese-inspired Tourist Fan September 9, 2009

Guess what my mum got me! Guess!

She got me a Chinese-inspired tourist fan!

From Chinatown!

(Ok, I requested for it)

 

The first time I saw it was a few months ago, when the German exchange students always seemed to whip out their own fans when the weather got hot. I never knew they existed, but apparently, they’re everywhere. Everywhere in the tourist spots, I presume.

 

It only costs SGD $1, is incredibly light, and is made of some sort of plastic cloth, so it won’t tear as easily as paper. I find it quite handy, especially in the sweltering hot climate of our tiny tropical island. It produces more wind than a measly piece of paper that I always use, and is much less bulky and awkward to hold as well.

 

The only downside is that people stare at you when you use it in public. Especially if you don’t look like a tourist(which I don’t). But that’s not always a bad thing, right? It’s not like the design of the fan is ugly, it actually looks quite pretty. Anyway, good things should be SHARED. All the better if the people who see me fanning myself with it go and get one for themselves too. These fans DESERVE to be used by more people.

 

****************************************************

***SMALL UPDATE***

 

Haircut and straightening booked on Friday. I don’t know what I’m in for. I just want to get rid of these quick-growing locks. And no, I am not exaggerating. My hair grows too freaking fast, and it grows THICK too. Whatever happened to asian hair, I don’t know. People who have not seen my hair frizzy have no right to judge me for straightening it. I don’t straighten for the straight look. I straighten to get rid of the frizz. On the contrary, I like natural waves which I DO possess, but I can never carry off because of the frizz.

 

Bringing a nice hat in case it turns out really weird. I always have this phobia that my hair is never going to turn out right. I especially HATE it when hairstylists put hairgel to complete the look. The idea of going for a haircut is so that I can get a hairstyle that I will look OK in without any other additional chemicals. When they put hairgel, I get the impression that their attempt to cut my hair nciely has failed and the gel is to cover up for what they couldn’t achieve.

Well… I tried. August 28, 2009

I will never take afternoon naps again.

While the prospect of sleep is so alluring(can’t seem to find a better word here), I always seem to wake up from dreams that reflect my deepest fears. They aren’t nightmares, but they upset me so much, because they fill me with a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. And after that I just want to curl up in a corner and cry. There’s a sort of emptiness and loneliness that I can’t really identify, but it leaves this void within me. And this void makes me feel so incomplete, it takes away all my confidence and self-assurance and sense of security.

 

It’s not as easy to be independent as it looks. I don’t know why some people say I am. True, I may mostly be alone and like it, but that speaks nothing of independence. I do hang out with people from time to time, I call it recharging my mental and emotional stability, since being with people I love fills that void that I mentioned earlier. Yet when I’m on my own with no one I can really rely on, my inner strength that seems so dominant when I’m around people I can trust seems to just crumble at the slightest shake.

 

I wouldn’t be blogging about issues this depressing, but I don’t exactly have another outlet where I can release my frustrations. I don’t exactly have anyone to talk to, I wish I did, but it’s not their fault that my best friends are all busy in different schools. I don’t just talk about my own feelings with anyone I meet, I think it actually scares them because I look so simple on the surface. Sometimes when I try to, I know they’re just patronizing me, they don’t really know what to say. True, I just want a listening ear, but I want someone who actually, truly understands me, and finding a friend like that is already hard enough.

 

It’s really not easy to block out negative thoughts. Believe me, I tried to be cold and hard and unfeeling, but it took so much effort and left me so drained, and in the end all those thoughts just came back with full force. I don’t exactly know what my problem is, but whatever it is, I haven’t been successful at solving it. I’ve just made myself feel worse. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m doing. No, MOST times I don’t know that I’m doing. My state of mind at the moment is just a huge, tangled, confused mess.

 

You don’t need to know what it is I’m talking about. I’m pretty much the same for almost anything that I fear. I try to make this huge breakthrough to overcome whatever it is I’m afraid of, and perhaps I used the wrong method or I expected too much, but the end results are never very pretty. I just screw my own state of mind over and over again till I don’t even know where to start looking for the problem.

 

Thing is, if I didn’t think so much, I wouldn’t have so many problems.

Late night ramblings August 20, 2009

I’m tired, it’s 1am and I just finished my EoM.

 

I don’t want to think about things I know there’s no use thinking about. I want to just forget it all, start anew, pretend it never happened, experience it all over again. I want to have the ability to ignore. Ignore my own mind, ignore what I don’t want to think about. Enjoy what I have on hand, not what I don’t have, not miss what I used to have. Live life for each day, never thinking about the past, or the future, simply living in the present. But that’s so hard, why?

 

When you stop worrying for something, or worry less for something, what does that mean?

 

Does it mean that you’re not as bothered about the issue you’re worried about? That you’re confident that you can get through whatever you’re worried about? That you no longer care about the outcome and will accept it no matter what?

Or does it mean that you’ve just forgotten how to worry? You’ve worried so much about greater things that such things now seem trivial. Things that were once major events in the past now seeming insignificant.

 

I want that answer. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m not worrying about something and that’s precisely why I’m worried. See, I’m worried that I’m not worried. I’m worried that I may have underestimated my own abilities and that may be why I’m not worrying. On the other hand, there’s the more optimistic view that I’ve grown old enough to deal with this instead of avoiding it. How much truth is there in that process of growing older? Sure you get more mature, but do events that seemed significant in the past seem trivial now? Is that it? Or is it simply because you’ve forgotten. Forgotten the naivety of a child, looking at the world with a a more realistic view?

 

Most times I choose to take the idealistic perspective. Wishing, dreaming, desiring outcomes too fantastic to be achieved. Yet sometimes I force myself to be realistic, how else can I survive in this world? My sense of reality is a little skewed. I don’t quite know what is going on sometimes, my friends say that I’m hiding under a rock, and I couldn’t agree more. You can say that I use my mind to distract myself from what I don’t want to experience in the real world. That’s quite true. I’m not good at dealing with things, most times I run away or avoid it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve done that.

 

Yet as Eleanor Roosevelt said,

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Angela in Singapore (2009) August 14, 2009

“Finally a post with photos!” I hear you exclaim.

Haha, YES, finally.

 

Angela was back in Singapore for about 6 days, and I went out with her from Friday all the way to Tuesday, staying out as late as possible each time. How people can love partying I don’t know. It was great fun, I suppose, but I was so TIRED and plagued with fatigue that I couldn’t function for a few days after.

I took a lot of photos because Angela probably won’t be back for another year at least, and I have to make the most of the time I have with my best friends don’t I? These photos are already up on FB, but I’ll post some here for memories’ sake. Plus, a photo post is overdue.

 

Day 1 group photo.

(Left to right-

Prisia, me, Angela, Josephine, Thach) 

 

Day 2 group photo(at, FYI, close to 12 midnight)

(Left to right-

Anju, Angela, Thach, Sharmini, me)

 

Day 3 incomplete group photo(because this one looked cooler)

(Left to right-

Prisia, Angela, Cherise, Anju, me)

 

And the ‘best friends’ photo, as I call it!

It looks half posed, half candid, like we were laughing or something, I can’t remember. The blurriness seems to make it look nicer.

 

Having your best friends around really DOES make a lot of difference. I forgot how easily my emotions are affected by people I love being around. I miss that happiness, that 5 days of catching up, laughing, arguing. I miss my best friends. Why do others get to meet theirs so regularly? Or even if they don’t, how do they make close friends so easily? I can’t do that, that’s for sure.

I fear Commitment August 8, 2009

To add on to my infinite list of fears, I seriously think I fear commitment. Any type. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a relationship, it can be something simplier like a leadership role that DEMANDS my commitment to that group, or any type of long-term, unchangeable obligation that I have to fulfil no matter what.

 

Does anyone else feel the same, I wonder?

 

I’m afriad that when I make a decision now because it ‘feels right’, I’ll regret it a year later. I’m afraid that I didn’t think through the consequences properly before making that choice, or that the outcome will be vastly different from what I imagined it to be. And then I’ll have no choice but to stick it through since I cannot pull out halfway. I don’t mind helping out or participating in any activity, but I want to know that I have the choice to not-participate if I want to. I need choices, yet at the same I hate making decisions because I’m so afraid of making the wrong one. All I want is to keep my options open, but that’s so hard in the world that demands efficiency and immediate results and decisions.

 

I can’t say that I’ve had much experience in commitment relationships-wise(friendships included). My best friends and I are ALWAYS separated by different schools(and recently, in different CONTINENTS) that commitment would seem important to keep our friendship alive. Yet this is how I know when I truly click with someone. When commitment doesn’t feel like commitment at all. I don’t feel obliged to keep that friendship, because I know it’ll stay right where it is and I don’t have to do anything to sustain it.

 

And this is where the point comes in about me having only family as my source of emotional support. It probably would be different for those people who meet their close friends on a weekly or even daily basis, but me? I don’t have that luxury. I’d be lucky to meet any of them once a year. And you wonder why it’s so hard for me to establish any form of emotional support out of home? That’s why. And it’s not like I can just pick any other people I’m with more often to form a new group of close friends. I’m selective that way. I don’t work with what I have to make the best of my situation in that circumstance. I wait for the best to come, because I believe in quality over quantity, and also because I cannot bring myself to be part of a friendship that needs forced effort to sustain.

 

Then it leads me to think about some of my friend who are in relationships now(you know what I mean, I don’t want to call it BGRs because I thnk that’s quite a dumb abbreviation for something that needs to be treated with more respect). Do they get into one with the thinking that they’re going to be together for life? Or are they just down for whatever life gives them? And if they’re just down for the ride, aren’t they afraid at all of a possible heartbreak, that even if one party ends the relationship, the other will never be able to completely pull away?

 

I don’t disapprove of it, if that’s what you want to know. But every time I think about that sort of relationships, and then try to imagine myself in one, I feel so CONFINED. Like I’m trapped by the commitment that it requries and I can never truly live my life the way I want it because of it. It feels a little terrifying and overwhelming to me. I don’t exactly think that that’s a good feeling to have. Do they feel that way too? Or maybe they’re less anal about freedom and confinement than I am.

 

I jsut think this is also regarding respect about personal space. And when I say personal space, I mean both physical and mental/emotional(whatever, you know what I mean). I think everyone knows that I’m big on personal space because I need mine a lot.

 

Physical personal space is easy to describe. It just means that I cannot stand anyone touching me. Once I make skin contact with anyone who isn’t my family or my trusted friends, alarm bells go off in my head. Like an invasion of privacy. I have no problem with touchy-feely people, just don’t exert your touchy-feeliness on ME. I HATE it when I’m in a crowded bus and everyone squishes past me to get out. I feel like screaming at them. I don’t know how I got to this. That’s the same reason why I’m not big on hugs either.

 

Mental/Emotional personal space is more different. It doesn’t mean respecting my opinions. It usually means respecting the fact that I like to keep my thoughts private(save for my trusted few) and not forcing opinions, friendship or any form of conformity on me. It also means not being clingy. I cannot abide by clingy-ness. If I need my own time alone, I need my own time alone and you better well accept it. I don’t get it. Is it so hard to accept that certain people need alone time? I’ve already given most of my time to education, surely I deserve some for myself? I understand that I need to interact with my peers too, but I hate forced bonding, you know that. If we don’t click, we don’t click and there’s no point forcing blood of out the stone.

 

And I realised how lengthy this psot is. From my fear of commitment to personal space. All are inter-linked, really. If you want it to be more general, it just speaks of my need and desire for freedom and hate for confinement.

 

******

I realised now that I should’ve defined commitment properly earlier. Damn this is starting to feel like a GP essay. And I don’t care if my meaning of commitment and any other word has drifted from its proper dictionary meaning. Every word means something different to everybody. That’s the thought I advocate and that’s how I roll.

Giessen Exchange and MYEs August 4, 2009

It’s high time I posted something!

 
I was so caught up in the Giessen Exchange Programme for the last 2 weeks. Having to bring my buddy around, arrange for us to meet in groups to go shopping(that I’m not over my SMS limit) and make sure that her needs are met. It was tiring and troublesome, but I really enjoyed it! (irony, irony) I made so many new friends from Germany, and I think it brought our german class closer together too.

 
At this point, I must say I really LOVE being with my german class. Don’t get me wrong, I love my class in school too, but somehow I still feel more at ease with my classmates from H2 German. Maybe it’s because I already knew some of them in Secondary School, or maybe because the atmosphere during lessons are not as serious and structured as those in school. Or maybe it’s just because the people are really nice! Which I have to say, they are.

 

I was too lazy to bring a camera around so I’ll have to get them from others and if there’s a nice group photo I’ll put it up here! Like I said, I’m not really a photo person, so most of the time I don’t usually care if we take photos or not.

 

I’ve also been trying to catch up on some sleep. Hosting is SO tiring and draining, not to mention the fatigue from regular school. I take every opportunity I have on bus rides to sleep(never missing a stop, of course!) and I’ve been falling asleep in lessons more often as well.

 

Speaking of lessons, I already got back all my results for my MYEs, except for Geography(which I might get back tomorrow) and I can’t say I’m satisfied with my grades, nor can I say that I’m dissatisfied. I got DDES for GP, CSE, German and Math(go figure out which is which). Some say it’s not bad for first JC exams(especially since OUR school had no tests at all to prepare us before that), but when I compare my grades with my friends from other schools, they seem to be scoring ‘A’s to ‘C’s. And over here I heard a ‘D’ was good! I don’t know who to believe or what to base my judgement of my grades on. Oh wells.

Why I dress differently around different people July 10, 2009

I must confess.

I dress differently around different people. Not drastically different, but still different. It’s not that I have different clothes for meeting different people. Rather, I have friends who I feel comfortable wearing anything from my wardrobe around(from nice to shoddy). And there are people who I don’t feel comfortable around and I feel don’t fully accept me, so around them, I usually dress from only the shoddy part of my wardrobe. It’s a weird habit, and I don’t know how I got into it. My logic here is flawed and I know it’s a mass of contradictions, but it works for me.

 

I DO think of dressing as a form of self expression.

And that’s why I dress shoddy around people I don’t feel fully accept me, or who I’m not close enough to. I don’t want them to know how I like to dress to express myself, because I feel like my inner thoughts are being read. I know it’s weird since there’s nothing much to see anyway.

It’s ironic, since when I dress any way I want around close friends and, strangers in the area can still see me so there doesn’t seem to be any point. But I feel vulnerable being around people who KNOW me enough to match my dressing to my personality, yet who I’m not really close to. I feel judged. Around strangers, I could be anyone, ANYONE.

 

I also dress according to mood.

It’s comfort over style. It doesn’t matter who I’m with. If I’m having a really bad day and my self esteem is at an all time low, chances are I’ll go out wearing shorts and a T shirt. And this IS self expression too, isn’t it? It doesn’t express my love for colours or the desire to be different, but it tells others that “I’m feeling lazy today and I don’t want to dress up so you can just shove all the criticisms back up your *ss.”

Because my mood is always largely determined by the weather, and the weather here pretty much sucks all year round, I always don’t feel like putting in the effort to wear anything nice(ok, mostly because the weather doesn’t permit me to wear stuff I’d like to). And then it leads others to think that I don’t care about clothes or the way I dress. BUT OH I DO! Have you any idea how much I LOVE winterwear? Just because I don’t like summer clothes doesn’t mean I don’t care about clothes at all. I just have preferences.

 

AND, people need to know that I’m not a tomboy, but I’m not a girly girl either. I fall in that nice in-between that people often misunderstand.

 

The assumption is that I don’t wear skirts out of school. And this only my aunts have questioned because i always feel others think it’s rude to voice it out so they don’t.

Anyway, that assumption is wrong. I don’t wear them a lot because it’s hard to move around in them, but it doesn’t mean I NEVER wear them. Besides, like I said, there are some people who I don’t feel comfortable wearing certain things around because I feel judged, so if you’ve never seen me in one although you see me a lot, then chances are I don’t feel close enough to you to dress as I want to. Plus I’m not that confident to always wear what I feel like when I want to. There are a whole lot of other factors that will take too long to discuss.

 

And also, I am never going to wear frills, laces or ruffles. I hate them. They itch and I feel that I look like a little girl playing dress up if I ever DO have to wear them. Other 17 year olds might look more elegant and mature with frills or laces, but seriously, it doesn’t work for me. I already look little-girly enough, so why emphasize that?

 

Plus, I was once told that I don’t look like someone who doesn’t like the colour pink. Just because I’m not girly does not mean it’s weird for me to like the colour pink. Pink’s a really pretty colour and it deserves to be loved, not to be known as a bimbotic colour. I’ve got tons of pink shirts because I always wear pink when I don’t know what to wear. I don’t like black or dark blue or gray. The closest dark colours I’ll like are earth tones. PINK SHOULD BE THE NEW BLACK! There should be more products in pink. Yes, this is so Xiaxue, and I don’t agree with everything she says, but THIS IS ONE OF HER CAUSES THAT I WILL STRONGLY SUPPORT.

 

I realise that I’m making myself sound so exclusive and snobby. But it’s just about guarding my privacy. Same reason why I don’t like to play the piano in front of others or write an essay when someone’s looking. I feel like my inner thoughts are being read, and I can’t stand that.