seriously dressed up

today's supposed to be halloween. i know wen hui was talking about dressing up, but i don't think any of us did. well, just now, after my maths (it's so interesting i just have to blog about it), there was this girl standing out side the room. she was wearing this long black coat. and she painted her face and exposed arm skin white. and she had bloodstains thingy on her arms. and her face was painted like those wayang demons.

aiyo. how brave of her to do that by herself.

p.s. need some help about the skin layout. the text in one column isn't lining up with that of the other column for some reason. :p


added on after my linear algebra lecture:
i've changed my mind. that girl is from the science club. just now in lecture, there was she and another 2 people dressed up like darth maul. it's some publicity thing i think cos they were giving out some sweets and paper saying happy halloween from the science club. cool! wonder if arts did anything like this.

just blog a while lah. so lazy to work. don't know what's wrong with me lately. so not in the mood for studying. my linear algebra, i just couldn't make myself sit down and figure out the problem. sigh. i'm going to fail my exam. sigh.

anyway, i finally figured out why i seem to be cantoring so badly recently. yes it is bad by my standards. i know that i can do much better. the reason is...the mic. i figured that i seem to have this psychological complex thingy that when the mic is there, i tend to put in less effort in my singing than if the mic isn't there. seriously. when i'm practicing without the mic, it's as good as i can make it. but when i'm up there. sigh. you'd think that after 5 years of cantoring i'd be ok with it by now. haiz.

well, nus choir is finally giving us a break to study. or to try to study. the only thing that i've really been studying for is genes. i'll fail linear algebra and i'll fail english lang. there's no way anyone can fail lit if they can somehow backup the crap they write. and i doubt it's possible to fail cultural either cos it's all analysis like lit. but...2 more weeks till exam. our december practices will be at siglap. yay!!

today, i've been slacking like mad. like now, i'm blogging. i know that i've got other things to do. like figure out my maths tutorial. haiz. get a grip gal.

i wish i could turn back time.

p.s. yes another skin change. the dragon rose one was pretty but not quite my style lah. so going back to basics. still playing around with it.

oh well...

bit lazy to blog. but, anyway, here goes.

now i'm officially 19. haha. not that much feeling about it. one year older. hmm...presents! yes yes. i got that white bag that i described already from mummy. sumi, jasmine, duan hui they all gave me a belt (yay! i finally got a decent belt that's mine and not daddy's), a bracelet, and bangles! poh lin gave me this cute handphone pouch. andrew gave me vcd, "march of the penguins!" haha!!! daddy got me this weird game. "sandoku" something like that. some logic game. looks fun. but as if i got the time to go figure it out. :D

anyway, went out to jurong point for lunch today. wen hui's birthday today so they celebrated for the 2 of us together. here's a photolog. (excuse the sizes. still can't figure out the golden ratio for this)

first, had english in the morning. which duan hui didn't attend cos she was rushing out her essay. so me and her take a pic before going off. (haha! me and all my pimples)


and then, 5 hyper girls, me, sumi, wen hui, jasmine, su hui made our way to boon lay. in the mrt...






on arrival at boon lay, a certain field next to the station caught our attention, and that of our budding photog wen hui. a bunch of dustbins and beer bottles in the middle of the freaking field. god knows why they were there in the first place. it had a bermuda-triangle-sque feel to it.

were exchanging stories about mysterious disappearances in the world. then got a shock when wen hui disappeared from sight.

but we found her again. supposed to meet poh lin but that gal was still at her hall. so we decided to go to jurong point first and wait for her there. and there, the rest of them were having fun reliving their childhood. first run to the toy shop where there was electric organs for sale. (at a very good price i must add) hang around there having a mini concert. then headed to toys r us. and had a ball of a time. haha! as if we had a deprived childhood. playing with the soft toys (seeing barney all over the place). cookie monster and ernie doing the hokie-pokie. gosh. poh lin must have been surprised to find us there. they were so engrossed in the toys, they seemed to have forgotten that they were hungry. and that they had to go back for lecture by 2.

anyway, went to fish and co for lunch. joking about their halloween special: ghost fish. saying that the fish will be invisible since it's a ghost. haha! anyway, we shared seafood platter. wasn't too bad. sang birthday song for me and wen hui. bit weird. the rest of the patrons were staring i'm sure. then later on the waiter came over to ask who's birthday it was. geez. *shy* chit chatted a bit. ok, a lot. i'm sure su hui and poh lin are going to become best friends. heehee!

food!

(kinda dark. wrong lighting. still can't figure out my cam well enough)




anyway, the grand total of our lunch is...(cue drum roll) $104.80

haha! did we really eat that much??

so anyway, after lunch. had to rush back to sch for lecture. pity. wanted to visit poh lin's hostel. never mind next time.
more monkeying around in 96 back to school.





and then, hung around with duan hui, who was skipping lecture again. then headed for genes and soc. saw feli yong at the bus stop. almost didn't recognise her. genes and soc, dr ge was going thru the mid term paper. and that woman, expects us to bring binoculars or something. she was using ms word and she persisted in using the micro mini font. sigh. poor me forced to sit at the back so i can use the power outlet for my laptop had to squint and force my poor eyes to make out what she was trying to do, since she wasn't going to release the paper on ivle. (something about people cheating other students by selling past year papers)

was chatting with a friend during lecture. (i just gave up on trying to figure out what dr ge was doing) and that friend of mine. gave me a big shock by tellin me that she had decided to quit school. and start work. it just came out of the blue, what i least expected from her. i think she shouldn't give up on studies just yet. but then, it's her own choice. sigh. life's so weird.

cruel, crazy, beautiful world.

supposed to be doing my maths tutorial. but i think i'll give up on that one. i couldn't even do the first question. sigh. never mind.

really happy that i've finished my lit essay. must be a record seriously. 1500 word essay done in about 5 hours. woah. but of course, it's possible that the thing is total crap, so... got so much to write about the donne one. so used to using old english for donne that suddenly using modern english seems weird. (btw, i did the "elegy xx: mistress going to bed" for donne) as i was writing it, suddenly there was so much in that poem to talk about. but sadly, had to limit myself to what i have. i think i could actually do a 1500 word on that poem alone. haha! the other poem was crap. i did alvin pang's "public display of affection". didn't have much to write about that one. crapped up some stuff that what's his name, irving(?), taught long time ago about surveillance and panopticonism. that idea is so cool. wish i could do some paper on that.

anyway, mummy got me a new sweater and bag. the sweater is not that bad. it's peach colour with red colour, similar style to my gray one, but not so thick, so it's easier to bring around. i think cos i was always complaining that my gray sweater is too thick that's why they bought me another one. can fit everything into my new bag. gonna try it out tomorrow. the bad thing about the bag is that it's white. but other than that, it's so nice!

other stuff. i found out what that old priest said in "Dawn of the dead". remember i was saying i've got this gut feeling that the priest plays a significant role in the movie?

Old Priest: Many have died, last week, on these streets. In the basement of this building, you will find them. I have given them the last rites, now, you do what you will. You are stronger than us... But soon, I think they be stronger than you. When the dead walk, señores, we must stop the killing... or lose the war.

yup. although i didn't bother analysing it yet (too busy with my lit). notice how the priest used the word "us"? why did he do that? he wasn't a zombie at that point of the movie. maybe the priest is a...greek chorus? he's underlining the main crux of the story. don't know. :D

moving on. watched "the wedding planner" yesterday. oh my! it's such a romantic movie. cliched though it may be. i mean, picture this, mary and steve (the 2 main characters) dancing in the park during the outdoor movie, almost kissing and it starts to rain. or better still, steve just walked out of his wedding and wants to stop mary from getting married cos he loves her, and he gets caught in a traffic jam. i mean, how stock situation can that be? j lo wasn't too bad in this one. bit like "shall we dance". yup. really enjoyed it. hope i didn't laugh too loud at some points. geez. i'm such a sucker for romantic movies like this.

saw toh ying at parkway just now. still the same girl. still reading those fantasy stories. haha! she's at MDIS now. don't know doing what. she was complaining about how busy she is with all her assignments, practicals, reports etc. haha! now she's back in the system like the rest of us. seriously miss that girl.

another long day tomorrow. sian.

When We Two Parted

When we two parted

In silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted

To sever for years,

Pale grew thy cheek and cold,

Colder thy kiss;

Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning

Sunk chill on my brow -

It felt like the warning

Of what i feel now.

Thy vows are all broken,

And light is thy fame;

I hear thy name spoken,

And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,

A knell to mine ear;

A shudder comes o'er me -

Why wert thou so dear?

They know not I knew thee,

Who knew thee too well -

Long, long shall I rue thee,

Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met -

In silence I grieve,

That thy heart could forget,

Thy spirit deceive.

If I should meet thee

After long years,

How should I greet thee? -

With silence and tears.

-Byron, 1816-

yesterday was kinda an interesting day.

firstly, prof philips wasn't around so he sent ryan bishops to come and screen "dawn of the dead". sumi, jas and su hui crashed to watch the movie. well, it was a good movie but very very very gory and gross. especially the parts where the zombies were eating the people. the way the flesh came off so easily. the blood and gore. gosh. it was supposed to be a horror film but for some reason, the 3 of them were laughing hysterically for a lot of parts. something about the short guy forcefully reminding them of howard.(btw, he seems to be popping up in random conversation quite a bit these days. why?! am i never to be free from him?) jean was asking me, "why your friends laughing so much?" ok, some parts were funny, but not all the parts what. anyway, to me, the movie was scary. me and jean scared ourselves when we had to climb that quiet, deserted stairway to go to the toilet. kinda thought that a zombie would jump us. guess that's the way you get too caught up in the movie. anyway, i only got real terrified at night, when i was alone in my room, trying to go to sleep. my mind started over-reacting. sigh. but i think the dreamcatcher worked cos there were no zombies invading my dreams. that ryan bishops also, at the end, telling us, "i think you've got a lot to chew on now." and saying that the moral of the story is "you need to be able to run fast."

to me, what was scary about the movie was not cos there were zombies popping up all over the place but that, the zombies were actually common people. for some reason, these people just couldn't stay dead. and it's scary cos they're out to eat human flesh. quite sad the part when we saw the 2 children that changed into zombies and the guy was forced to shoot them. it's like, (what's the word?) gothic? the one where things are not quite right about a familiar situation. the people don't have a choice whether to become zombies or not. they are just forced to come back and wreck havoc.

that movie kinda didn't have a definite resolution. in the end the 2 of them just flew off in the helicopter. don't know what happened to the zombies. the movie kinda reminded me of a lot of my lit stuff. especially rhinocerositism. the zombifications of people was like that. you could somehow predict which ones were going to become zombies. and at the end, when the black guy said that he's going to stay, and was going to shoot himself but later changed his mind and ran off with the woman. reminded me of berenger initially wanting to turn into a rhino too, but later changing his mind and deciding to fight it. and the part in the front where the woman insisted that the zombie was her husband and was insisting on going to him. reminds me of mrs boeuf and her rhino husband. and the thing about the zombies' memory and instinct, making them come to the shopping mall, reminds me of the theme of hiroshima mon amour, about the woman's memories. and i wonder, what was the function of the priest that appeared near the beginning. it's definitely a significant moment. but i had no idea why. wow! so much stuff can be drawn from a lit analysis of this movie. it's cool. but what's the cultural stuff in it, i don't know. haha!

moving on. the second big thing that happened to me. i lost my genes and society essay. not exactly lost lah. i accidently deleted it. what i think happened was, i was working on it on tuesday night. very tired liao. i was going to delete the essay outline cos it was totally useless anyway. the two files were side by side. i think, in my tired state, i clicked my essay instead of the outline, and i didn't notice my mistake when i emptied the recycle bin after my session. so the next day when i wanted to take a look at my essay, i realised that it was gone. sigh. tried to retrieve it. duan hui taught me this interesting thing about system restore. pity it didn't work though. i guess it doesn't work for deleted files. ian says that the only way of retrieving it now is to use some sort of special police technology. which i don't think i'm desperate enough to use. but i was so distracted that i couldn't pay attention to lit lecture. i was msning ian for help. lucky i recorded lit lecture. have to sit down this weekend and listen through to it. anyway, very very sad about that cos i was almost done with it when it was accidently deleted. but lucky i discovered it was gone. i have to hand it in on friday. imagine if i didn't realise it was gone and tonight i turn on my comp at 11pm to print it and couldn't find it. *shock shock horror horror*

anyway, i rewrote it last night. i think it was a record. me writing that essay in approx 3hrs. given that it was a short essay. think i'm not going to get a good grade for it. i wrote too generally. not enough space lah. i mean, how can i present the arguments for and against transgenic animals in 2 pages (2 sides of 1 piece of paper)? there's just so much information that is so interesting to talk about. anyway, it's done. now just left the final editting and print and hand in tomorrow.

i guess my preoccupation with the essay totally drove the zombies out of my mind during the day, so at least i was able to function normally. but at night is when my mind overreacts and starts thinking morbid thoughts about death and dying. kinda hard to explain exactly what goes through my mind at those times. i understand what that girl in "veronika decides to die" means when she's describing her panic attacks. yup. whenever i think about what it would feel like to die - i mean, it's got to be a real big thing that causes your soul to forcefully leave the body. gives me the heeby-jeebies thinking about it. thinking about it in the daytime is ok but when i'm trying to fall asleep... dear god, when i die, let me go blissfully unaware in my sleep, not forceful and dramatically like those zombie thingys.

other nicer stuff. i'm reading "the templar revelation". gosh! it's so cool!! haven't finished reading it yet but here's some stuff that struck me as interesting. apparently, (and i wanna check up on this) the shroud of turin is a fake made by da vinci. the image there is the first photograph prototype. apparently the head is an image of da vinci himself. but the body is a genuinely crucified guy. apparently, there is the image that the head is seperated from the body, suggesting a beheading (john the baptist). there is also this suggestion by another artist's work that jesus wasn't crucified. it was a surrogate that was on the cross. that one is the most earth-shaking claim i think. i have no idea whether or not these claims they make are true or not, but
it's really interesting just reading their arguments and evidence.

choir moves back to CFA

yup, the nus choir has finally moved back to it's own home after such a long time of being at pgp. cfa isn't too bad. still got a bit of constructions going on. the room is so dusty. and they made us take off our shoes. anyway, supposed to meet felicia and mei si to go there, cos mei si rooms at raffles hall, just next door. but me and felicia decided to go ahead and explore a bit. so we went. came to one set of glass doors. push and pull. can't open. sigh. so go looking for another entrance. hey look! more glass doors! again, can't open. but we can hear music which means that somehow, there's a way in. so, we went round. finally found a set of glass doors that leads to a lighted 'foyer' area. haha! opens it and goes in. wei wei the welcoming party is sitting there. directs us to voice class in the dance studio downstairs. so we thought, still early, but go and have a look lah. 2 sets of glass doors leading to the outside staircase. again, push and pull, didn't open. sigh. the other one did.

the outside staircase was actually supposed to be emergency exit (according to a computer printed sign hanging over it). anyway, the dance studio was nice. got mirrors round 3 walls, nice and echo-y. (but that's not too good for singing cos it makes you sound much better than you really are) ruben was so glad we were in the dance studio cos of the mirrors. we all know it's been his long cherished wish to have us look at ourselves while we sing. anyway. the other choir rooms are so cool too. the sop room has those special padding on the walls and (check this out) a baby grand piano. how cool is that? the rest of the rooms (i think. cos i didn't see the guys' rooms) has only upright piano. so we had a mini concert at the piano before practice started. reminds me of the old days. btw, yan ting is so li hai when it comes to singing. she was doing "beauty and the beast" before choir started. omg! beautiful. then later on when she was demo-ing for the sops, she was so powderful! gosh!! she should join some talent competition or something. surely can go far.

kinda scary during combined sectionals cos we were directly under another dance studio where they were doing indian dance. could hear all the stamp stamp of their feet. we kinda expected the (rather low) ceiling to collapse any moment. bizarre. oh ya, we split up into small groups to sing too. that is nerve-wrecking. lucky i got jenica and li yi with me. and lucky we're only doing "sweet honey sucking bees" for now. once they start with lily, it'll all go to pieces. but if wei wei is to be trusted, none of the other groups are doing much better. haha!

yup. brain dead liao. so tired. ciao folks!

p.s. time soon for another background music change. so keep your ears tuned!