Guess what. I hate OAC. I hate it more than ever. I hate it for having controlled my mind and manipulated my feelings and influenced my every decision for the past 2 years. OAc doesn’t make one more independent, nor does it make one more disciplined, and it certainly does NOT teach you to cope with homesickness.

For the record, I wasn’t homesick at all. I missed home a bit, but that was NOTHING compared to the utter hell I experienced in camp. I haven’t learnt to cope with homesickness better, but I’ve learnt to overcome my fear of overnight trips. I also realised that such trips are more effective in making one independent, since you actually have the freedom of choice, so you learn to decide for yourself what is better, what you should do. Screw camp, I still hate it as much, my hate for it has not been quelled by the overcoming of my fear, it has instead fuelled it.

I now understand why people think I’m making a big deal out of homesickness. On the first day, I missed home a bit, so I went to the toilet, cried for 5 minutes since crying is cathartic, and then went out to distract myself. It worked. In fact, the longing for home was so little I wouldn’t even call it homesickness. If that’s what others call homesickness, then of course, what I described about camp would definitely sound over rated. But I am telling the truth, and what I experienced in OAC was truly THAT BAD, it’s not that I can cope with it so much better.

I could go on and on but this is my buddy’s computer and it’s a bit mean to hog it so, so I’ll begin writing about my first 3 days here. I’ll blog more about my thoughts here and document what I do, and when I’m back I’ll post photos.

Intro

The exchange programme is with a school in Gießen, which is a town near Frankfurt. My buddy lives in a village about 7km away from Gießen, called Wißmar.

Day 1

The flight was pure torture. The food was OK, service pretty good. But the entire flight lasted 13 hours, and in the economy class, it is SO cramped, even for ME. My legs ACHED the entire flight, because I couldn’t rest it properly since there wasn’t a foot rest and my foot is a bit too short to rest on the floor comfortablly. Height discrimination!!!

When we finally reached Frankfurt airport, the customs guy(the person who stamps your passport) asked SO MANY questions. Seriously. Are you travelling with her(points to my friend)? How many of you are there? It awas asked as if I was suspected of something and my guai-little-girl smile didn’t work either, so I just gave the answers and I was let off. Everyone experienced the same.

On the first day, I didn’t really do much. We went to Macs for breakfast, then back to her home, and in the evening, we visited her best friend and watched DVDs. Was still trying to get used to all the green meadows, forests, big houses and farms. I knew from previous travel experience that the first day always lasts the longest so I was just looking forward to the end of it.

Day 2

Day 2 was fun! We woke up late, had breakfast, and here I must say they have great cheese and Leberwurst(Liver sausage) in Germany. For lunch, we had SChnityel. A sort of deep fried pork dish. It was served with potatoes and salad. My goodness, they really know how to make a salad here in Germany. The dressing was nothing I’ve ever had in Singapore, it was SO GOOD. I have pictures.

After lunch, we walked to the Weihnachtsmarkt(Christmas Market) in the neighbouring city, Krofdorf, and then drove back(My buddy can drive, she’s 18). The Weihnachtsmarkt was a lot smaller than the one I experienced ages ago, but the festive mood was still there. Must remember to buy Christmas cookies.

We walked there wiht a close family friend of theirs who live nearby, and so they invited us for a dinner of waffles. They eat waffles with chocolate, blueberry, coffee sauce, cream, homemade cherry jam/sauce. It was great. The people were so nice and when I didn’t understand anything(which was very often), they translated it for me. Also, the daughter of that family has a pig as a pet, called Amy Schweinhouse. ’schwein’ in german means ‘pig’. How cute is that? I went to see the pig, and it was quite huge, with a pink snout and could even do tricks like sitting down and turning around. IT was SO cute. It even sleeps in their daughters room!

Day 3

Today we began the city tour of Giesßen. It would have been great, except our tour guide keep going onand on and on and once he was done, he’d just walk off to the next destination and he NEVER gave us time for photos. How mean can you get? When we hung back to snap photos we got rushed by our teachers.

(Bought a multi coloured polka dotted hairband during shopping. I LOVE IT. It looks childish and garish and girly but I think it’s very typical of me, so.)

We had lunch at a restaurant ‘Alt Gießen’, which was a buffet. I went crazy. I LOVE BUFFETS. The pasta was amazing, cooked in cheese and cream and spinach. The chocolate mousse was TO DIE FOR. The only thing I didn’t like was the pea soup.

After lunch we went to Liebig Museum, the original laboratory of a famous Chemist, Liebig. We watched demonstrations of some chemical experiemnts, none of which I understood, but they weren’t boring. They involved reactions that  glowed with a brilliant light, created metre-high flames and concoctions of chemicals of all the colours of the rainbow. I would have taken more photos but my camera died. Typical. I’ll get them from my friend.

So that’s my first 3 days. I enjoyed it. I don’t have that travel mood in me still, but the situation here’s different anyway. I don’t feel as detatched from my real life as much as I do when I usually go on vacation. Maybe it’s because I’m with my classmates so I’m being constantly reminded of my real life back in Singapore. I’l continue to reflect because this is such a great place to do so, but I should sotp now because I’ve been on too long already.

Bis später!

So, this is it.

Tonight, I fly to Germany, and everything that I’m about to experience there, I will experience on my own. (Well, with my friends too, but you get what I mean)

It’s not that I don’t want to go there. But my excitement and anticipation for this trip is also mixed with feelings of fear and a bit of anxiety. Yes I still fear homesickness, I still fear that I can’t cope with it. Above all, I fear that I may have overestimated my own abilities to deal with it properly, even at this age.

I know, I know. “Still pulling this i-hate-camp lark again?”, you ask me. Maybe yes, maybe no. Some elements of it feel the same, the worry of it and the trying to pre empt it but failure to properly do so because of paranoia. But the intesity of worry is different this time. It’s not taking over my mind as much as it used to, I manage to push the thought away more successfully than I did in the past. And this time, to counter the paranoia, I teach myself to be realistic and not think of extremes, which is what most people would call optimism. It’s not that I wasn’t optimistic last time, but optimism for me used to mean anticipating things that were too good to be true, in other words, thinking to the other extreme. And of course, what do you get when you keep your hopes too high? You’re met with crushing disappointment after.

I cannot help comparing this trip to previous experiences that I shall not name, but you guys probably know what anyway. I know most people liked it, but truth was, it was utter hell for me. Try crying through the first day because you’re homesick and yet cannot do anything to distract yourself from the feeling. Homesickness worsens when you’re bored. And I WAS bored. We had activities, but not the type that would distract me. As I’ve mentioned before, I need things to be mentally stimulating, not physically strenuous. Everything there was just boring and meaningless for me and I had no desire to remain in that place either. In fact, I would say that stoning and daydreaming definitely makes the time pass faster than any of those stupid cheering “team bonding” activities they made us participate in.

I don’t actually know how to justify myself further, that that experience was so traumatising it’s still affecting my decisions now, because so much of it was due to feelings evoked by the experience that I couldn’t control or cope with. And since feelings are so irrational, whatever I say now will not make any sense to you anyway. Whatever became of coming out of a difficult situation a stronger person? I felt more of a coward and a weakling, and all the courage I had before immediately ceased to exist, or so I thought. That’s why I’m giving it one last final shot. I’m putting one of my greatest fears with something I truly love to see if it turns out any better. And because I’m such a sucker, I’m still holding on to every last strand of hope that I have. 

I’ve been doing everything I could to prepare myself for homesickness. And along the way, I’ve found out that people get homesick yes, but they still enjoy what they do, so maybe it really REALLY depends on the context and circumstance, and also the people you’re with. I certainly hope it’s true.

Thanks Xinlin:

“The truth is that this trip’s really going to be loads different from oac!”

                    — Xinlin (During an MSN conversation)

Oh, IS.

How could I have ever thought that you’d be more fun than PW? You cheated my feelings when you gave me the assumption than we could do anything under the sun about china, then proceeded to unravel everything I ever did by telling me you had to be in the syllabus. The way IS, Independent Study, is phrased so nicely, put together to make it sound like you can write about your ideas and self-discovered and self-thought-of concepts and present it as YOUR work, yet you still depend so much on the work of others. Sighs, independent study, I guess you’re not so independent after all.

Syllabus. The stupid syllabus.

How I hate your contraints. Your trapping of my free imagination and wild ideas. The way you constantly have to put me down every time I think of something new that is so mind blowing even I’m bowled over. The way I forget you exist, and continue to enthusiastically research on something I’m so interested in, only to be faced with a cold slap in the face that because you don’t approve of it, I can’t do it. Why do you need to trap me so? I never asked for compelte freedom, I learnt what you asked me to. I studied the 4 themes, didn’t I? I thought the point of an Independent Study was to choose something compeltely diffferent that we never learnt about before. But I guess people value details more than broad-based learning, so too bad for me.

Research.

It’s no secret. I loathe you, and I bet you loathe me too. Is that why you never let me find you, not even a part of you? And yet when others ask to see you, you willingly let them in your door, maybe even invite them in for a chat and a cup of tea. I don’t understand why others marvel at the ease of finding you n the internet. Why do you hide from me so? Why do you give me the many different faces of yourself that I don’t want to see? You know what part of you I want, you just refuse to show it to me. Why do you keep referring me to buy products and visit China when all I want is some good solid information? I had to go to the library to find you, and even then, you resisted being found. You tucked yourself away in the many different corners of the bookshelves on different floors and had such weird book titles that even searching on the library search computer made it hard to pinpoint your exact location. There should be a PI company just to look for you, oh dear research. Many intellectuals would pay millions to find you. Not even all of you, just a teeny tiny bit and they’d be satisfied.

Well I guess it’s back to finding an IS topic since ‘Women Trafficking and Prostitution in China’ isn’t viable.

Not to mention I’ve still got Kursarbeit(Coursework) for German, and I’m doing the East German church and how it helped to bring donw the Berlin Wall. At least that one got accepted.

Alles Gute, Kerryn!

|Music| ‘New York’ - Paloma Faith

I hate not knowing why I feel a certain way, because I’m usually able to identify why I’m feeling like this and why. Even if I can’t pinpoint it exactly, I have a vague idea as to what caused a certain feeling or mood. Right now, I don’t even know where to start searching. I’m stuck in an odd position now where when I’m alone, I crave company and comfort. But when in the company of others, I decide that I want solitude instead. So I can’t really do much of anything to ease that weird, uncomfortable feeling but to alternate between being with people and spending time alone, both not really giving me the peace of mind that I want.

Another way I tried to tackle that feeling was to block it out, but it’s so hard! As I was growing up, I somehow trained myself to think and reflect and ponder and daydream any time I can, so my mind is constantly at work. If I’m not thinking about anything, there’s always a song running through my mind. Other than that, it’s torturous not being able to have anything in my mind, because I have to conciously push it away every second or so, telling myself, “NO, don’t think about it. GO away.” That’s the internal struggle I often experience, when I get so tired I don’t want to think, but my mind just doesn’t seem to want to stop. Like an INFP said in an mbti personality disussion forum, I rarely experience mental silence.

Yet what I find frustrating is not so much the feeling, but that I can’t seem to figure out what’s causing it. It seems that everytime I introspect I find out yet something else about myself that I knew about before, adding on to the many layers that I HOPE I’ve already uncovered. It’s like a never ending cycle, because once I discover something, it seems to spark off questions that makes me discover yet something else, maybe even conflicting with that I thought was true before.

And this is why I hate it when people act like they know me better than I do myself. When they do, most usually take me at face value, they don’t dig deeper, they think that everything I do has a rational or practical reason behind it, or they assume that certain traits can be applied to all the humans in the world. Then they proceed to tell me stuff aobut myself that they think I dont know, but in fact, that I’ve already thought about many times before. If I’m not even revealing my true self to them, what right do they have to tell me who I am when they’re merely scraping the surface? I don’t even know that much about myself, and I already spend so much time pondering about my own character and personality. So how can they act like they know me inside out, when even I don’t? And I doubt anyone else spends more time thinking about my actions, thoughts and character than myself.

Another thing I cannot tolerate is when people, who don’t know me all that well(and most of them are males), actually gain some insight into my plans and ideals, those of which I guard fiercely, and then remind me how unrealistic, ludicrous, impossible etc my opinions and dreams are. They speak as if I have not considered the reason or logical side of things, and then continue to ’share’ their knowledge about actual circumstances that they feel I have no knowledge about, and hence, have made the ‘mistake’ of having such airy-fairy goals. Please, back off. Just because my goals and dreams are idealistic doesn’t mean that I’ve never considered what they suggested, which is the mroe realistic or pragmatic viewpoint. For the record, I have, so don’t go thinking that I’m ignorant just because I’m lost in my own world half the time. I just prefer my opinions(which I constantly refine and rethink), whcih is why they’re MY opinions in the first place. It’s not that I feel they’re more possible or probable, but it’s just the perspective of things that I feel most in harmony with.

I’m not saying I hate all advice. Most of the time, I know people are trying to help me and shed light on things I don’t know. ANd again, I’m not saying that I already know everything that everyone has advised me on. But there’s a difference between wanting to help me, and just trying to force your opinions on me. The first I welcome with gratitude, the second is an insult to my intelligence and ideals.

Still too unrealistic, you say? Well, guess what, I have met people, ADULTS, who share my views, who actually bother considering my opinions seriously and take time to listen to me, and who actually accept my idealism. And these are people who are well liked, deeply respected and considered successful in our results driven society. I have been motivated to keep many of my views because of them, because they have proven that even those who are idealistic have a place in this world. I don’t want to conform senselessly, because I want everything I do to be meaningful.

And this leads me to think about changing or adapting yourself so that you can succeed in current circumstances. To me, there’s a difference between changing yourself, and just adjusting. The first is more permenant, the second is temporary. Many people seem to think that it’s necessary to change yourself to what others think you should be, but for me, mere adjusting is fine. Why can’t I just adjust myself when the circumstances require me to do so, and revert back to my old self when there’s no need to conform? It’s tough being someone you’re not, and most times you don’t even know which is right. Is conforming right? Or are you conforming because you truly believe that the action you’re conforming to is right? But in that case, that isn’t just conforming, that’s changing for the better, isn’t it?

A lot of times when people tell me I’m wrong, and I don’t seem to want to change, it’s not because I don’t want to admit my mistakes. I reflect over my own actions and consider the character trait that people want me to change, and I think about what they feel is right for me, and most times I don’t see any meaning behind it. They just want me to conform. You can’t tell me to do something just because it’s right. You have to tell me WHY it’s right, and give me time to think about whether your version of ‘right’ is truly justified and if it FEELS ‘right’ to me.

This has been with me throughout my childhood, and I think it was the reason why people said I was stubborn. But whenever I questioned their version of ‘right’, and asked for explanation as to why it was right, they merely told me to stop questioning and accept things as they are. And that is just something that I cannot do, because if we stop looking for the meaning behind things, our system of values are going to become more and more corrupted as people conform senselessly and fall deeper into blind submission to others, believing them almost immediately when they sound intelligent, not really considering what they have said, just taking things at the superficial level.

Gahh, what a long post. I feel a little more liberated though, now that I’ve got my thoughts out. Back to researching for my CSE IS.

***** I realised that I’m a true romantic at heart(and I mean ‘romanticism’ romantic). When we were doing this poem in german class, and apparently it’s not very romantic because the poet used unemotive words and tangible things to describe intangible feelings, but somehow everything in the poem seemed romantic to me!!! The fact that he doesn’t identify the feeling directly makes it mysterious and leaves room for imagination, so it can be anything you want it to be, any feeling you want to associate the unromantic objects with. Although, I have to say, flowers are not romantic, pelase. They’re beautiful, but they’re too overused and too cliched.

|Music| ‘Time is all around’ – Regina Spektor

I seem to have an odd fetish for taking photos of food, and I didn’t realise how many of such photos I had taken until I uploaded all of them onto my computer and compiled them in a folder. So while this is still a photolog, it will consist mostly of food, since that’s what I like to take photos of.

Strawberry and Mango Snow Ice

HM and I shared this dessert at a small stall near my school. The shaved ice is actually frozen milk, and is cold and sweet, the sort of sweetness that you don’t get tired of easily. The mangos and strawberries paled in comparison to the snow ice is was put together with. And this was weird, sicne the condiments or toppings are usually what one would rather eat than the ice itself.

HM’s LG Ice Cream Phone

This is what INFPs resort to to instill some self discipline. Doesn’t work.

Phad Thai from Thai Express

It didn’t come like this. All the vegetables were mixed with the noodles, and because I don’t like it when my food is all mixed together, especially when there’s as many vegetables as the noodles, I pluck them out one by one and separate them. I’m not this anal about organising anything else though. The chili was fab, and I LOVED the phad thai noodles.

Ayam Penyet

Meluki brought me to this Indonesian restaurant in Lucky Plaza during the period of the exchagne programme. Ayam Penyet is, apparently, squashed chicken or something like that. It came deep fried, with other deep fried things like tofu and some sort of fermented beans, along with kangkong. Oh, and it was topped with crunchy stuff that is deep fried batter, I think. Don’t underestimate the power of the chili.

Wang’s Cafe

On this day, we were supposed to get a flu vaccination at TTS Hospital, and we even CALLED them beforehand to ask them if they were open. Guess what, when we went ALL THJE WAY THERE, we were greeted with a closed vaccination clinic and 2 staff who apologetically told us that all the clinic staff had gone for a retreat that day. Like, why couldn’t they tell us WHEN WE CALLED THEM TO CHECK IF THEY WOULD BE OPEN?!?!

( I ended up going there on a Monday that was pouring with rain, getting off at the wrong entrance of the hospital, walking 5 minutes in the rain and wind in a futile search for the other entrance, only to enter the hospital again and ask for directions after walking through wards and looking at signssaying scary things like ‘Neurology’ and ‘Mortuary’. )

So, we went to Wang’s Cafe for breakfast.

Kaya Toast with Coffee

 How Singaporean is that?! Yes, I know I’m missing th half boiled eggs. We ordered that too, but by the tim I took a photo my brother had already attacked the eggs with dark sauce and pepper and was stirring it vigorously, so the photo looked disgusting.

Mee Rebus

Yummy. Haven’t had that in ages.

Cajun Chicken

From the Western Food Stall at the J8 Food Court. The sauce was good, it was tangy and slightly spicy. I liked it with the chicken and the rice. What sucked though, was that they BURNT MY CHICKEN. Can you see the black marks on the exposed chicken? I spent time scraping it out, although the inside was still good.

Kimberly’s attempt to create that ‘Illuminati’ effect on my name

It’s definitely more successful than my own attempt ages ago. She says the trick is to separate all the strokes within the letters.

I’ve been wanting to get this post down for ages, but I was bogged down with things like PW and school and the excitement of actually having PHOTOS to post with that I just left it hanging. Now that I’ve got some time, I can truly start on my compilation of Anne Frank quotes that I liked. These are sentences or prargraphs that I picked out from her diary MYSELF, things she said or expressed in such a manner that struck me deeply, things that I felt I could relate to, or things that were insightful.

In many ways, while reading Anne’s diary, I also felt like I was reading my own thoughts, only better articulated. The beginning was just like any other diary, filled with accounts of school life, friends and family. After she went into hiding and grew older, her entries consisted not only of the fear of being discovered and life in hiding, but also of her deep, complex thoughts that I not only understand, but also have experienced(most of them). I never knew such feelings were universal, but perhaps humans from different cultures are more alike than we think.

I tried to make the quotes as short as possible, but sometimes I had to put the whole, few paragraphs down. If not, you will never be able to understand the complexity of her thoughts and the beauty of her language, and will never be able to grasp the essence of her character and personality. The last thing I want is for someone to read these and misunderstand her. Because while I don’t relate to ALL of her thoughts and ideals, I can pre empt that to many who have not experienced feelings similar to what she has described, it will seem absurd and irrational.

(I’ve colour coded the quotes, double checked, and there’s no typo there. SOme prargraphs are only one line, some sentences I took from the last line of the paragraph and went on to the next one.)

——————————————————————————————————–

Now that I’m rereading my diary after a year and a half, I’m surprised at my childish innocence. Deep down I know I could never be that innocent again, however much I’d like to be.

We’re so fortunate here, away from the turmoil. We wouldn’t have to give a moment’s thought to all this suffering if it weren’t for the fact that we’re so worried about those we hold dear, whom we can no longer help. I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while somewhere out there my dearest friends are dropping from exhaustion or being knocked to the ground.

I get frightened myself when I think of clsoe frinds who are now at the mercy of the cruellest monsters ever to stalk the earth.

And because they’re all Jews.

In bed at night, as I ponder my many sins and exaggerated shortcomings, I get so confused by the sheer amount of things I have to consider that I either laugh or cry, depending on my mood. Then I fall asleep with the strange feeling of wanting to be different from what I am or being different from what I want to be, or perhaps of behaving differently from what I am or want to be.

Everyone thinks I’m showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I’m silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I’m tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should, cowardly, calculating etc., etc. All day long I hear nothing but what an exasperating child I am, and although I laugh it off and pretend not to mind, I do mind.

I’m stuck with the character I was born with, yet I’m sure I’m not a bad person. I do my best to please everyone, more than they’d ever suspect in a million years. When I’m upstairs, I try to laugh it off because I don’t want them to see my troubles.

Everyone expects me to apologize, but this is not something I can apologize for, because I told the truth, and sooner or later Mother was bound to find out anyway.

I don’t think my opinions are stupid but other people do, so it’s better to keep them to myself.

Who else but me can I turn to for comfort? I’m frequently in need of consolation, I often feel weak, and more often than not, I fail to meet expectations. I know this, and every day I resolve to do better.

I’m no longer the baby and spoiled little darling whose every deed can be laughed at. I have my own ideas, plans and ideals, but am unable to articulate them yet.

Can you tell me why people go to such lengths to hide their real selves? Or why I always behave differently when I’m in the company of others? Why do people have so little trust in one another? I know there must be a reason, but sometimes I think it’s horrible that you can’t ever confide in anyone, not even those closest to you.

We aren’t allowed to have an opinion! My, my, aren’t they progressive! Not have an opinion! People can tell you to shut up, but they can’t keep you from having an opinion. You can’t forbid someone to have an opinion, no matter how young they are!

At such moments, I don’t think about all the misery, but about all the beauty that still remans. This is where Mother and I differ greatly. Her advice in the fate of melancholy is: ‘Think about all the suffering int he world and be thankful you’re not part of it.’ My advice is: ‘Go outside, to the country, enjoy the sun and all nature has to offer. Go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and everything around you and be happy’.

I don’t think Mother’s advice can be right, because what are you supposed to do if you become part of the suffering? You’d be completely lost. On the contrary, beauty remains, even in misfortune. If you look for it, you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance. A person who’s happy will make others happy; a person who has couragte and faith will never die in misery!

Ordinary people, ordinary girls, teenagers like myself, would think all this self-pity is a little crazy. But that’s just it. I pour my heart out to you, and the rest of the time I’m as impudent, cheerful, self-confident as possible to avoid questions and from getting on my own nerves.

It’s because we’re always together. I don’t want the person I confide in to be around me all the time.

Above all, I have to maintain my air of confidence. No one must know that my heart and mind are constantly at war with each other. Up till now reason has always won the battle, but will my emotions get the upper hand? Sometimes I fear they will, but more often than not I actually hope they do!

The nicest part is able to write down all my thoughts and feelings; otherwise, I’d absolutely suffocate.

I’m my best and harshest critic. I know what’s good and what isn’t. Unless you write yourself, you can’t know how wonderful it is; I always used to bemoan the fact that I couldn’t draw, but now I’m overjoyed with the fact that I can write. And if I don’t have the talent to write books or newspaper articles, I can always write for myself. 

I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living, even after my death! 

When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived! But, and that’s a big question, will I ver be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a write?

I hope so, oh, I hope so very much, because writing allows me to record everything, all my thoughts, ideals and fantasies.

If God lets me live, I’ll achieve more than Mother ever did, I’ll make my voice haerd, I’ll go out into the world and work for mankind!

I now know that courage and happiness are needed first!

 As you can no doubt imagine, we often say in despair, ‘What’s the point of the war? Why, oh, why can’t people live together peacefully? Why all this destruction?’

The question is understandable, but so far no one has come up with a satisfactory answer. Why is England manufacturing bigger and better aeroplanes and bombs and at the same time churning out new houses for reconstruction? Why are millions spent on the war each day, while not a penny is availabe for medical science, artists or the poor? Why do people have to starve when mountains of food are rotting away in other parts of the world? Oh, why are peple so crazy?

I don’t believe the war is simply the work of politicians and capitalists. Oh no, the common man is every bit as guilty; otherwise, people and nations would have rebelled long ago! Thre’s a destructive urge in people, the urge to rage, murder and kill. And until all of humanity, without exception, undergoes a metamorphosis, wars will continue to be waged, and everything that has been carefully built up, cultivated and grown will be cut down and destroyed, only to start all over again!

To be honest, I can’t understand how the Dutch, a nation of good, honest and jupright people, can sit in judgement on us the way they do. On us –  the most oppressed, unfortunate and pitiable people in all the world.

Sometimes I’m so deeply buried under self-reproaches that I long for a word of comort to help me dig myself out again. If only I had someone who took my feelings seriously. Alas, I haven’;t yet found that person, so the search must go on.

It’s not just my imagination — looking at the sky, the clouds, the moon and the stars really does make me feel calm and hopeful. It’s so much better medicine than valerian or bromide. Nature makes me feel humble  and ready to face every blow with courage!

In the book Men against Death I was greatly struck by the fact that in childbirth alone, women commonly suffer more pain, illness and misery than any war hero ever does. What’s her reward for enduring all that pain? She gets pushed aside when she’s disfigured by birth, her children soon leave, her beauty is gone. Women, who struggle and suffer pain to ensure the continuation of the human race, make much tougher and more courageus soldiers than all those big-mouthed freedom-fighting heroes put together!

I don’t mean to imply that women should stop having children; on the contrary, nature intended them to, and that’s the way it should be. What I condemn are our system of values and the men who don’t acknowledge how great, difficult, but ultimately beautiful women’s share in society is.

I have one outstanding character trait that must be obvious to anyone who’s known me for any length of time: I have a great deal of self-knowledge. In everything I do, I can watch myself as if I were a stranger. I can stand across from the everyday Anne and, without being biased or makign excuses, watch what she’s dong, both and good and the bad. This self-awareness never leaves me, and every time I open my mouth, I thnk, ‘You should have said that differntly’ or ‘That’s fine the way it is.’ I condemn myself in so many ways that I’m beginning to realise the truth of Father’s adage: ‘Every child has to raise itself.’ Parents can only advise their children or point them in the right direction. Ultimatly, people shape their own characteristics.

I didn’t want to hear about ‘typical adolescent problems’, or ‘other girls’, or ‘you’ll grow out of it’. I didn’t want to be treated the same as all-the-other-girls, but as Anne-in-her-own-right, and Pim didn’t understand that.

I’ve let myself be guided entirely by my feelings. It was egoistical, but I’ve done what was best for my own peace of mind. I would lose that, plus the self-confidence I’ve worked so hard to achieve, if I were to be subjected to criticism halways through the job.

‘Deep down, the young are lonlier than the old.’ I read this in a book somewhere and it’s stuck in my mind. As far as I can tell, it’s true.

So if you’re wondering whether it’s harder for the adults here than for the children, the answer is no, it’s certainly not. Older people have an opinion about everything and are sure of themselves and their actions. It’s twice as hard for us young people to hold on to our opinions at a time when ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when the worst side of human nature predominates, when everyone has come to doubt truth, justice and God.

Anyone who claims that the old people have a more difficult time in the Annexe doesn’t realize that the problems have a far greater impact on us. We’re much too young to deal with these problems, but they keep thrusting themselves on us until, finally, we’re forced to think up a solution, though most of the time our solutions crumble when faced with the facts. It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherised hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem to absurd and impractical, yet I cling to them because I believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly tansformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the sufering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everyuthing will change for the better, that this cruelty will too end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I’ll be able to realize them!

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life, and above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with fliratations, a kiss, an embrace, a saucy joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other side, which is much purer, deeper and finer.

My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne – to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why.

I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, thnk I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriuosly, but only the ‘lighthearted’ Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the ‘deeper’ Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, she’s disappeard.

A voice within me is sobbing, ‘You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.’ Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be ill, stuff me with aspirins and sedatrives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movement and berate me for beign in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up any more, because when everybody starst hovering over it, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if… if only there were no other people in the world.

 ——————————————————————————————————–

** She sounds like an NF. But maybe that’s jsut me.

**** She also wrote a lot more about her family members, life in hiding and the fear of being discovered than her personal reflections and views. However, I’ve quoted more of her writing about her opinions and character rather than her writing on the happenings in the annexe, since I am focusing on Anne as a person who is extremely brilliant in thought and also with language. I am not saying that the suffering she experienced was over rated, but that is just not my focus, because what I admire about her is more of her having hope and ideals and being able to articulate her feelings so clearly, rather than her surviving in hiding as  Jew in those times. Hope you get what I mean.

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 )

|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.

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)

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!

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 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.

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

 ***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

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

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!  

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

Pata with sauteed prawns in cream sauce

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.

Chocolate soda with double chocolate chip ice cream

Amazing stuff. That’s all I can say. The real name of the drink is e=mc2

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.

|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!

|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?

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 :/

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.

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.

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.