It never fails to astound me how distinctively clueless I am. Just finished going over the latest SEA history essay I had to keep chasing after a very-busy-and-on-the-verge-of-departure Mrs. Chia to explain. Clearly, I'd screwed it up again - there's something I just don't GET about this subject. Just something my reasoning system cannot process. My right-brain is likely on so much overload that my left-brain has retreated into permanent hibernation.
I'll probably only have to see my orthodontist one more time officially, and I'm not sorry. Take today. "A lot of new pimples!" she observes while poking metal objects painfully at my teeth. Curse her light. And there were two weird cleaners at the carpark area who were engaged in a sort-of-fight with mops and Caution: Wet Floor signboards. I couldn't really tell though. The guy kept slamming that Wet Floor sign really forcefully against the girl's legs while she tried to snatch the mop out of his hands. ABUSE. I could have slammed it over his head. Don't they have anything better to do?
T-Day concert at RJ was pretty good although I can't remember much other than Mr. Eric Lee's funky purple acoustic. I WANT ONE! (Emphasizing the want, not need). Okay maybe I should learn how to play first. And Mona Chew's yellow sari, Mr. Reeves as Simon Cowell. Mr. Loh was very tickled by our "10 reasons why 1c has a free period" T-shirt - he is so incredibly sporting and one-of-us-ish. Don't even want to think about the state of our class administration when he leaves. We'll give his replacement hell without even intending it.
SC was still in mid-celebration even though it was almost noon by the time I got back. I found my friends and stood watching the remainder of the performances with my mouth hanging open. How could I forget how enthusastically talented SC students are? I apologise for looking condescendingly upon our juniors. And how loud the cheers were - almost took the roof off the amphi-theatre. Unscrupulously talented and confident without the up-there looks package is the beauty of the SC spirit. They had prepared such a lovely T-Day lunch at the Spice Rooms with candles and lighting and all. Huixin would not stop disappearing into them even though they were out-of-bounds to students to talk to her beloved teachers. I had to drag her out by the collar practically, and in the process gave Ms. Audrey Tan (anagrammatically A Ready Nut) an opportunity to shoot venomeous glances at my green skirt and yell "Out, Out!"
Later went to Black Canyon Coffee with Huixin, Liming, Cons and Han for lunch. It felt so good to be with the friends you knew in less complicated times. Spicy tuna pasta and pineapple freeze *rubs hands together in greedy glee*. Then we switched over to Mac's where I ate shaker fries and a sundae. Everyone appalled with my appetite. I guess you get influenced after 8 months of eating with boys. It was so funny walking home and standing at the juncture where Liming and Constance had to cross the road to take the bus exchanging a last few anecdotes. I miss them, I miss the simple congruent nature of SC life, but I wouldn't want to go back. No I wouldn't. "Wouldn't change a thing..."

Try

Book: Tuck Everlasting
Song: Wish You Were Here (the Wyclef Jean version)
Venue: Harbor Front MRT station

NB: Gattaca-wise, like, Jude Law. Duh. What's with Ethan Hawke, anyway? Is he all teachers think we watch movies like foresaid and Dead Poets' Society for?

Saving crowds from the roar from the cutting room floor
Played it at night in his dreams
Woke up was cold and his manager had sold him
It’s louder than love but don’t think I know what it means

Nobody’s talking and who tells you when to go home
Guess I wore out my welcome, it’s better than being alone
And it’s Gullible’s Travels and nothing unravels this way
Just another lost journey where everything’s turning away
- Soul Asylum, Gullible's Travels

Yah another pessimistic the-whole-world-can-just-land-on-their-noses-tomorrow-and-I-wouldn't-give-a-flying-banana-but-laugh-instead lyric. The pun on the title tickled me greatly though. Humour in the wrong way. Yes I am getting too lazy to even write my own poetry.
Was it just yesterday when I visited Moral Welfare Services on a CIP Mission with the guitar peeps and had a learning albeit cliched experience? And resolved to make a little more of my extremely privileged life? I felt like such a skank. I mean, come on. Determination to have fun, plastered smile, pseudo-caring-and-charming interaction with individuals you'd be embarrassed to be seen with if you didn't get your hours in return.
If only I could just learn to give a little more. But a lot of times I wonder who would even want it?

Fulfilment is fiction.
It has to come out somewhere.

I was on the MRT on the way home from the S-cube seminar when a double pram was shoved unwelcomingly through the throngs next to me, where a wheel rolled painfully over my foot. A toddler in a Pokemon bib stared up at my looming face. I attempted to smile (because the wiggling fingers thing is way below my dignity, although my aversion to kids aged five and below has been greatly reduced by the celebratory attitude most philosophers take to them). He (I guess it was a he) just stared and stared, then burst into tears and would not be pacified.
I really have a way with children.
Anyway, lazy today so I'll take the road most travelled and go lyrical - literally.

Daylight fading
Come and waste another year
All the the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear
Moonlight creeping around the corners of our lawn
When we see the early signs that daylight's fading
We leave just before it's gone
-- Counting Crows, Daylight Fading

Watching ghosts of the first three months, both Han's and mine, drift through and it's just so funny to see and imagine... now that it's all over.

Someeeewhere over the rainbow... STRUM '03

Oohit'soverandwedidn'tsucktoomuchandImissedsomuchsoschoolandhadsomuchfun!!
I'd be lying if I said I didn't like being in the spotlight as much as everyone else. Just not too much. Once in a while is fine. Who am I kidding? It's SURREAL. (Good sense, of course.)
I love my guitar so much I've named it. It's now goes by Wren. Okay don't check me into Woodbridge, pleaseee... the HIGH thing will have reached a decent level by tomorrow. It's so beautiful. Camera time (figuratively). Prepare those mug shots: I will see
Running all over the school with Ben and Mel sticking up haphazard arrows and no-entry signs leading to LT1... as if people need a map to get there man. Weiting suggested having an arrow-way all the way from the MRT. I told her she had a screw loose. Anyhow we had a whale of a time retracing our steps and pretending to be stray audience-members to ensure there were enough signs.
Tuning and tuning and tuning.
Painfully yellow programme sheets.
Trying to possess the least gaudy scarf (At least I didn't get Shulin's handkerchief- sized one).
Jamming the incongruous Joy to the World on Yu-Hsin's electric keyboard.
The smiley-face of smiley-face stickers on the back of the conductor's stand to remind us to - well, smile.
Zhi En offering coffee to our hyperventilating conductor. (Of all things. He almost collapsed with hysteria when we rehearsed that corny Auld Lange Syne bit.)
Jia Han's (cauli)flower. Innovative!
Mr. Lai: "So my whole car's going to smell of chicken rice. Thanks a lot."
Us: "Um, duck rice, actually."
Mr. Lai: "I'm SO relieved."
My REAL flowers (haha) and dog balloon. My friends are gifts enough... you guys rock. Thank you X 9031 to the power of 2.5.
And armfuls of stands, my screwed-up Romance (not as tragic as it sounds, albeit CW's opinion), our ever-dependable MCs (though strum and pluck are not Italian terms or whatnot, they are ENGLISH), music I am glad I sacrificed time for. Not just music, but the whole package, and choices you know were right in the end...
Guitar Ensemble, we shine, even if our tremolos are "messy" and glisses "inaudible". I feel we have made something possible that the J2s could but didn't try to get... no offense.
Another roll of film for the memory album...

DrOwNiNg
Save me someone
I've forgotten to give a damn
and somebody
Might think otherwise I'd go
Back on my word to
Save the world
Maybe I want too much
But you've got to get somewhere
and this is
where to start though no-one
Mentioned the unromantic part
STRESS and never saying nor doing
or trying

Dragged myself home, limply floating... the result of 3am bed-times... I grow more insomniac and time-wasting with every hour of responsibility. The higher the pile of to-do things grows, the more inexact it becomes in terms of height. It blurs until you find it easy to ignore.
A half-day today - everyone let off at 12.30 and of COURSE I had extra guitar practice. WHAT else. I'm likely the whiniest ex-co member due to set ideas about what is good for my psychological well-being. Being coerced into the "artsy stuff" because I'm a girl is one thing. Having to play the same songs (six short ones) over and over for 5 hours in a freezing cold LT is another. None of them make my list. I would almost rather join the sweaty hordes in the alien world of REAL Training.
Right.
Gotta add that I love the music and the people. Guitar Soc is not a concentration camp, as much as my descriptions may seem apt in that direction.
I took a nice long shower today and man, it works. My latently apathetic mood lifted considerably to reasonable levels. Unfortunately, the virtuous phase lasted all of 45 minutes, tops. Isn't that why I'm here? My willpower is pitiful.
I am way behind academically and socially. Not even the dutiful tutorials see fit to be completed, and four letters lie unanswered. S-A. You suck.
I sold all my Strum tickets. BWAHAHA. [Bulletin: Amogh and Jireh are MCing! The Hotties are performing! Seats are still available! Get 'em now!] Happy birthday S'pore. My delightfully imaginative classmates plan to celebrate it gambolling around the Esplanade/airport/beach (or in less polite terms, bumming). Interesting idea. I'd like to see the explosion if discovered. As if I'd try.

Another A.M.

immobile digital physical typical couldn't turn it off
And it's another day, another day, another A.M.
everything and nothing happenedd tel mi tel mi
Dreamed of something new really here see - can't be
It's a joke when you thought you could have told them
eighteen wheeler little pictures smilies beef straganoff

it's imp(ortan)t later will tell you in e sms
Tell it to my face, have I been replaced, are you happy
i thank u dear n i mean every word i said
Rebel with a purpose else you may as well be dead:
i confide and it means eva so much 2 mi
Lies and truth and bubble walls to where confess

grammar police cum after u with a night-stick
(then u noe) stinging smithereens sadistic smile
We clear the pieces, though I didn't break the glass
Snowball or slippery slope, it's going much too fast
Come to me and I'll tell you in a little while, just a little while
wat's ur problem issit so u get ur ass kicked

s.h.u.t. d.o.w.n.

DoInG It RigHt

"Calm down. Caaaalm down. You are a IMPENETRABLE WALL!" - Arts
"This. Is. All. A. Game." - Med
"Skittles?" - Engine
"Who the hell do you think you are?" - CPS

I'm freaked out by that Med Fac play. (Although that guy who won Best Actor is totally charming in an eerie Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall kind of way.) Okayyyy, so I'll study now, dig? Like, consistently? If I didn't know better I'd think it was some sneaky teacher-driven propaganda.
In all seriousness, it was awesome.
Not a single deep thought present in the Arts play, yet I laughed with the full release everyone needs. ARTS FAC! (Is it just me, or isn't TOTALLY wrong for Carissa not to be nominated, when she should have friggin' won Best Actress?) AND Manda and Steph did SC proud today with their dramatic skills (Manda's was phenomenonal in her pirate captain role last year, and surpasses herself yet again). Now I see how high standards get you far!
Drama Feste aside, wow what a day. Ate Haagen Dazs' mango ice-cream in the middle of a maths lecture (and got away with it), played tennis badminton style and in the squash court, tried the legendary Ghim Moh duck rice at last (It's succulent), and sang, worked, worried, lived the moment. Makes me feel like a wuss for complaining, ever. It's what you make it.
Hear that?
It's the early hours of the morn once again, and Han's holding a post-band concert party in our house right about now. There are band members, flowers, and backpacks leaking out of the ceiling. 40-over people! I'm surprised they don't suffocate. They peer at me through the glass-paned study-room door - "Zhen de hen xiang!" - I've become an exhibit. I'm going to bed now before it becomes too riotous.