The Muse Clique

Ambitions

2011-06-16T07:27:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking today, what if I could really make it as a writer. Surpass all the Singaporean writers, whose books, I admit I don't really read a lot about because I find their book synopsis... a little mundane. People don't rave about them and people don't really get themselves on bestseller lists.

The paper kind of looks too new.
The stitching is too hard.
The covers are just photographs or illustrations you can't connect with.
Or perhaps we're just Asian, and the culture was never meant for us to think in this language.
Of English.
It's another man's language.
Isn't it.
You are just scribbles and pen-marks with no sense to them.
You weren't made to write like this.
Write. In. Your. Own. Words.
But all words are borrowed.
How do you string them up and choke the very life out of them
When they aren't even your own property?
You only do that to slaves.
Words can control you, manipulate you
Speeches can convince you, sway you, or down-right
Ignite a passionate fire
Essays can go to the trash bin
Who likes reading them?
News articles tell you the vogue but nothing more
Novels are decent; the most modest of the lot.
But most of them are channels of the cloaca
That is human thought.
Mostly for sewage.
Then some are crotchet-filled dumps.
Then some are just for people like me.
Lusting to live in some big old city that's not here
Sounding just like the latest pop star sensation

I'm going to change that if I can. If I don't dream BIG now, there will never be any dream that I'll fulfill next time.

At the Dentist

2011-03-16T01:40:00.000-07:00

With all the crisis going on lately in Japan and the rest of the world, I thought it might be nice to post something vaguely related to calamity but with at least validated humour in it. Don't blame me for this choice of a post, blame that Superfreakonomics book I'm reading now. It's very good.

AT THE DENTIST; notes for a short story

1) enduring the process, and the unfortunate thing of seeing a harried dentist in a blue shirt and black pants (he looked like an average property agent, only without the winning smile and extra layer of material which is a coat) beginning of the ardupus process plus the dreaded air sucker placed perpetually at the corner of your left lip which becomes numb when you realise it takes an effort to close and open them when rinsing your mouth out

2) thinking about literature Okonkwo's role and all and failing miserably, annoyed at Mama's voice from Raisin in the Sun, Dad is silent in the room

3) hoping like anything that I have no cavities

4) GLEE girls and the HAWT dentist, compared to my very old looking in comparison dentist who is my dad's age... ah long deprived teenage dreams

5) After the initial fear is gone; no immediate cavities; what if I made denatal appointments my spa treatments

6) taking the X-ray and feeling like a baby with a sucker in my mouth, fears of electromagnetic waves and all that stuff in the physics text

7) enjoying the whole scaling and polishing

8) x-ray results out and realising that i have a missing wisdom tooth and one that will most likely cause problems (calculating the risks involved and remembering my mother's extraction = not a very sound state of mind)

9) A lecture on the dangers of sweets on my dear back teeth and the possibility of braces (the stark reminder that the kind gentleman who spent the better part of forty minutes peering into my very unsightly mouth and all, just wants to make money out of a very costly aesthetic service which renders the eating of most gummies and sweets impossible, plus no eating of whole apples and difficulties talking as my friend has told me)

that about sums up my hour from two to three today. all the "free" time you get on a holiday week!

My Mom's "Funeral"

2010-12-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

I know in Asian cultures and possibly others as well, many exasperated parents will tell their kids "Do you want to see me dead?" whenever the rebellious little twit tries something naughty (and forfeits his Christmas presents). In my home, things are a little bit stranger.

My mom doesn't need to threaten me like that because I'm quite obedient. But she always talks about what she wants me to do for her funeral. Like: I don't want crysenthanums, they look so dead and they don't look nice. Or even more worrying for my future pocket, she wants champagne roses and actual champagne to be served for her funeral.

Sounds more like a wedding reception.

Today probably beats all of her other suggestions.

We were in the car when we passed a procession of people who walk behind the funeral car as a mark of respect (I believe its a Taoist ritual). Like any funeral procession, they were the usual grim faced and grieving category.

My mom had a brain wave.

"For my funeral, I want everyone to be in dancing shoes. They'll dance when following the funeral car."

I'm a filial daughter, and I imagine I'll be in tears at my mother's death, so naturally her tone made me not a little irritated.

"Isn't it kind of strange," I added, going cautiously, because she's quite capricious. "People are going to wonder how horrible the deceased person is, that everyone is ready to celebrate when they die."

Since she started laughing, I ventured on. Hoping that my words would convince her what a bad idea this was.

"And if it rains on that day, the yellow raincoats and yellow umbrellas will come out of nowhere." Thankfully my dad remembers stuff like this better than my mother, and said out loud, just to make sure she understood the joke. "Singing in the Rain"

Actually, it does sound like a good song.

"I'm singing in the rain

our best friend is dead

what a wonderful feeling

I'm happy again."

I think I'm going to make sure instructions for her funeral never make it to her will.

After being cremated, she wants me to bury the ashes in the National Botanic Gardens. I managed to talk her out of throwing the ashes into the sea. If the breeze happens to be blowing towards me, I'm going to be covered in my mother.

The Agony of Finding Information on Asian Artists

2010-07-20T02:11:00.000-07:00

Ibrahim Hussein, My Father and the Astronaut, 1970, acrylic.

Question 1a: Using what you know, why do YOU think that Ibrahim Hussein has juxtaposed the image of his father with an astronaut? What is the relationship between the two (also think about the title)?

I think it was used to juxtapose the different cultures and aspirations of different men in the world, more specifically, that of Asian and Western with this painting. The artist's father is most likely a man from a rural village (which comes from the words pisang (banana) and durian mentioned in the painting and his malay kudong worn without a shirt) and it shows the poorer background the artist came from. His father would represent the generation just before the one which is more exposed and accepting towards Western ideas and one which was primarily concerned about keeping the family held together and getting food on the table.

The astronaut conversely represents the Western ideas of gaining more, (the money the camera the film) and of a higher aspiration and knowledge than the father. The technology and modernism attached to the astronaut speaks of crossing new boundaries and things which are unexplored.

In the same way, Asian views are more conservative, searching more for sustainability than really making it big as the astronaut would in the year 1936 when it's still three decades from the first man on the moon.

It is possible that the astronaut represents the artist, as the date written on this piece of art was the artist's birth date. The idea that the astronaut's helmet reflects the rural countryside of Malaysia (most likely) probably was to show that this wasn't an entirely Western figure. Since it is most probably a depiction of the Malaysian countryside he grew up in and the title was "My Father and the Astronaut", the astronaut could have been the artist's persona.

It was the American dream of reaching the moon which the author may have adopted to represent his own differences with his father. The artist most probably faced strong opposition from his father when deciding to become an artist (generally seen as unprofitable at that time) and since he always had a "knack" for art, there would already be this destiny of achievement that could be his. Most people also thought that reaching outer space and the moon was impossible too back in the 1939 period till the Russian team managed to get a contraption into space. So it could have been an analogy to describe his relationship with his father.

Question 1b: Why do you think that the text that is placed between the figures relates to the artist's birth? Where does the relation lie between this and the rest of the work?

The text refers to the place where he was born in Malaysia and separates itself from the more lofty sayings on the right referring to the "magnificent desolation" and the idea about destiny. I guess it reflects two opposing views which similarly contrast the difference between the older era and the present which is changing (the artist growing up). The artist probably sees himself stuck between the two views of the text, one of the more practical scene of rice fields and where the artist is supposed to make his life and the other a bit more stretched in thinking.

Between the astronaut and his father, it's more of a relation between a comparison of two different viewpoints. One of a more tired, care-worn generation and one with new hope and ideas for tomorrow. The text to the left is more factual and fragmented, like it's not really thought through and symbolises a very simple way of life and language. The text to the right is more thought out and has a more sophisticated air to it. Then it explains the differences between the astronaut and the man.

Question 2: DESCRIBE the mixed-media artwork:

Answer these questions as a guide for ALL 2-D mixed media works (some questions do not apply to every painting):

What is the artwork an image OF? (What are the identifiable things IN the artwork?)
An astronaut with a lot of things hanging off his arms and a more aged man in the rural malay dressing.

Where are these things located IN the artwork?
Text and the images.
Where does the subject of the artwork take place? (in a room, at a festival, etc)
On a piece of maroon colored wall. In a museum explanation chart with a timeline type of background.
What COLORS are used & what do they look like? (bright, dull, earth tones, etc)
Earth tones which are duller and white.
What type of PERSPECTIVE is used in the artwork?
Flat, 2D, like a copy and paste of the images onto the background.
What materials are used? Is there a unique effect that these materials create?
Paint- a hazy impression and a blend into the background.

What texture (if any) does the artwork have?
Flat, wall paint.

The Half an Hour Assignment

2010-07-13T03:38:00.000-07:00

1. Mark Dion dulls the line between artist, scientist, and historian. In his artwork,Neukom Vivarium, he focuses on re-creating nature in a lab/classroom-like environment.

a. Recall some of the steps that were used to recreate the environment of a tree underneath the canopy.

1) The fallen tree was found in the forest

2) With the biologists, students, experts, advisors, Mr. Dion collected specimens from the ecosystem existing around the tree. Insects, soil, ferns, moss, leaves, rocks, photo-documentation (done throughout the process)

3)The cranes and transporting vehicles (the type used for trade containers) brought it to the exhibition site.

4)The tree was cut down to size and assembled within the concrete perimeter of the installation with the original soil and the environment inside the canopy remaking the original forest conditions, after which, the canopy with its light filters, sprinklers, water reserves was built around the exhibit. The place is built like a greenhouse around the tree which is preserved to allow the original inhabitants of it found in the forest to continue to exist in the stimulated environment. Drawers like those found in a laboratory and tiles with illustrations of the biodiversity in it were added in.

b. Dion stated that each time this artwork is visited, it would be a different experience. Why is this? (also recall where the work is located).

The artwork is created in an art exhibition space where sculptors and installation artists are exhibiting. The area is also near a more commercial district, so externally, the surroundings are ever changing.

Inside, the biodiversity is continuously growing and changing, because its a living ecosystem. As the tree/log decays, more bacteria, fungi and plants will grow on it. Each time one goes there, there will be a new addition to the artwork.

c. How does this artwork create a commentary on how we treat our environment? Make sure to use supporting elements from the artwork itself, artist intent, and process to justify your answer.

It creates a commentary on how difficult it is for us to recreate the conditions made for ecosystems to function. The thesis of Mark Dion is that despite all the money and technology that humanity has, when we destroy a natural system, it's virtually impossible to get it back. This is emphasized by the great extents of technology and materials that were used to recreate the set-up already made in the natural environment to sustain the standards which the tree used to be in. It's also in a way the idea that we can do something to sustain the environment artificially after we destroyed, however, it will require gargantuan effort to sustain just a small ecosystem as compared to the natural world.

Another aspect of this artwork is that the trees bring life through their death in a continuous cycle of life in the natural environment as the nutrients from the tree sustains all the seeds and smaller life forms now inhabiting it. It's location in the city is to bring something of the world far removed from our daily life closer to the cosmopolitan society to show how much we've lost of the natural world and as a contrast the environment we now have to live in. The exhibit serves then as an informative showroom of the natural habitat, a laboratory of the science involved in the ecosystem and a classroom where the artist hopes visitors will leave with more questions than they had before they experienced the artwork.

For his artwork Rats and Tar, please answer the following:

1. What is the historical background of this work?

Rats were not native to the one of the islands off the coast of Wales. When people visited the island and inhabited it, the rats came along and because of their behavior and the micro-organisms they transported, destroyed many natural species in the island.

The use of tar to coat the rats dates back to the Middle Ages where it was coated on corpses as a sort of retribution and a sign of intolerance. It was similarly done in America when settlers who executed criminals and pirates coated the corpses with tar to preserve them longer for public display, a deterrence to the public and to demean the person the body represents.

The idea of hanging the rats on the tree similarly comes from humanity's horrible history of tying the said criminals to trees as warnings.

2. Depending on who you are, you may find this work humorous or offensive. Dion's work is creating a commentary. What is the work a commentary about, and do you believe that he is successful in getting his point across? Why or why not?

The work was a commentary of how rats was a species which wiped out other species and are as such seen as criminals in natural history. However, a human practice has been used against the animals, which was a warning to people previously. The irony is that the humans were the ones who introduced the rats to the environment in the first place. This work is then a warning to people that we are criminals with regard to the way we treat the environment and that we are no better than the rats, and possibly even worse because the extent of our damage far outstrips the "crime" that the rats were coated and hung up for in the installation.

I think he was successful in provoking people because of his unconventional use of rats' cadavers, and as with the pickled animals, often stimulates a lot of debate among people. But its only as successful as the extent that the viewers are willing to research and know about the criminal execution methods linked with the tar which is a strong symbol about the not so pristine records of the human race. The artwork carries a lot of weight with it but if its taken in the literal sense without any explanation, it is not an easy piece to interpret.

Don't recall the video? Catch it again @ PBS.org. Search Mark Dion.

VISUAL CULTURE AEP

2010-07-06T01:19:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I'm back! Thank my art teacher, but I'm only going to be artsy for now on in case I rant in a blog post or something.

1. Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been made famous by their large wrapped installations. They are well known both in the art world, and by the general public. Is it ethical for AT&T to use a similar idea in their advertisement without the artist's endorsement? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QddkHo1X5qY

Please consider the following in your answer: how do you define ethical, how do we know that the artists do not endorse the product, supporting rationale. Also take into consideration Cristo and Jeanne-Claude's stand on having patrons for their own art, as well as the purpose of their art.

I define ethical as being of a right conduct. In the case of art, there are so many ideas and pieces of work which have been reproduced or tweaked to be used in other pieces of work or by marketing agencies. The whole idea of evolution of art was when people used certain ideas and changed it slightly to suit a different purpose and in doing so, advancing the art form, such as in the case of Pop Art where the media took ideas from Andy Warhol and used it till it became an icon. It is then ethical for AT&T to use a similar idea in the advertisement without the artist's endorsement.

In most cases, it is hardly ever possible to truly get endorsements from the artist himself, as in the case of the Singaporean mall which literally lifted Piet Mondrian's Compositions into their advertisements. More recently, the artist Richard Serra's painting of former President George Bush, which was a near copy of Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son. Most of the artists don't get recognition in many cases and they are acknowledged. In the case of AT&T using the idea of covering up buildings, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were mentioned, but in today's world, the idea of stopping a piece of art by not endorsing it because it contains certain elements of your own is almost unheard of.

If the artist has an objection to raise, then why not? But it shouldn't become a thing of ethics about whether it is right or wrong. In the artistic sense, plenty of our recent day singers and game producers would be campaigning against YouTube videos giving us parodies of top hits. I suppose the controversy comes because the firm was making money out of the idea by putting it into an advertisement, which is a perfectly valid point if someone took references from books and sources for a research paper, but with something as hard to pin-point as that idea, it's hardly possible. Besides, while the idea of wrapping a building was thought up by the duo, AT&T expanded it to include whole cities in America. By that logic that it would be unethical to use the ideas from another artist's work, even something as basic as a style from Vincent Van Gogh or the fashion sense of Lady Gaga.

In the above examples, the artists probably never intended for such uses for their art, but we can't exactly wake some them up in their graves to ask them. They just made the Mona Lisa talk, one of the most renowned paintings in the world, and it's going to be very vague to see whether it's really ethical to do that. It is relevant to talk of such works of art in this context because ethics is more than just law, the way a person would respect a dead man's body even if he wouldn't know or feel any mutilation one does to the body. If we would have a law requiring artists to endorse the product, there would be some logistical problems not just with the deceased, but also with how much a person needs to use from an idea to require the endorsement of the original artist.

AT&T while they used the idea of covering the building as Christo and Jeanne-Claude did, the technique was quite different from that of the original artists who painstakingly planned the drape of the fabric over whichever landscape or building they were going to create the artwork with. The cloth in this case was simply rolled off the edges of building and hung straight down.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude wanted to be self-sufficient in their artwork and they accept no sponsorship or commissions or public funds. Their stance to their work was that they wanted to just enjoy it with their friends and among themselves and if the public was interested, that was a bonus. In that sense, I think it's safe to say that they wouldn't have any qualms with AT&T using their idea of wrapping the building.

Therefore, I think that it was ethical for AT&T to use a similar idea as do many designers and artists when seeking inspiration for their own work. For the sake of allowing a more conducive environment for art and allowing the free market of ideas, it is a step backward to label the use of another person's idea as unethical. In someway or another, ideas will overlap, and if this principle were to be applied throughout the mainstream of art, it would be very difficult to change the trend of over-protectiveness.

eth-i-cal adjective

pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct.

being in accordance with the rules or standards for right conduct or practice, esp. the standards of a profession: It was not considered ethical for physicians to advertise.

Please tell me that the answer made some sense.

Cleaning Out the Dust Pod

2009-12-29T05:19:00.000-08:00

Really sorry about not blogging for the past few months, but I was taking a computer break, and its done wonders for my "boring zone" stamina and, surprisingly, horrors for my weighing scale and my computer stamina.

________________

Today I cleaned out some of my drawers and shelves, you'd be surprised how much junk I have that I'll probably never refer to in my life. I toke my mother's words nearly literally. "Don't hoard."

The moment I heard that I thought about that line in the Bible which says that you should store up treasures in heaven because earthly possessions will be eaten by moths.

Other than the junk, I was glad to collect a boxful of good memories with my friends. Letters, notes, drawings, gifts. Each of them had a bit of a bitter past attached to it. I made a lot of mistakes in my relationships with friends and I've always found it so difficult to socialise well in a big group, my attention always seemed diverted in such situations.

I've still got a lot more to clear out from my room and some new things to put in place once I make, not find, time to do what I want.

Ever since the church camp and all the rest of the spiritual walks, I feel as though I don't really spend enough time with God, and that my mind is just too focused on the unimportant. Max Lucado's book, God Came Near, is really an eye-opener, putting things that I knew and simply swallowed down into perspective.

Take my hair dressing appointment today. I nearly headed for the Teenage magazine as I normally do there to get my fashion and teenage quiz and how-to-do fixes. But I had brought along that book, which I'm still reading. I don't think i would have been able to face those words after having read the commercialised glossy pages. Any sin is as bad as the next, because it makes no difference in God's sight. It was what He carried to the cross.

My relatives from Melbourne (where we went for a wonderful holiday), gave me this book titled Bras and Broomsticks thinking it would be the sort of thing a fourteen going on fifteen girl would read. Well, it would be. only reading novels with steamy scenes and lusting for the cool lists and It-Girl positions seem to turn me off now, even though I have some sort of innate desire to read about them. Like the book said in the first chapter. "Is it wrong to?" At least I've put it down before advancing to the third chapter.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I want that sort of thing sometimes. To be considered popular and not a boring goody-two-shoes, which I am definitely not. I'm still only one of the few people in art class who can look at a nude painting without feeling like its anything t0 be ashamed of. Although it does seem like pornography. All these hazy gray areas!!! Begone!

What about being a witch? I would like to be able to cast spells and all, but the Bible firmly says no. I used to imagine I was in Harry Potter's world when I was younger and in desperate need for a bedside companion at night, having no siblings to chat with until sleep overcame me.

Or how about a heiress or a superstar who can fling money wherever whenever? Right.

When am I ever going to get it even remotely straight set for myself?

The Difficult Crossing

2009-10-06T20:05:00.001-07:00

Alright, the exams will start on Friday, two days away and today is Wednesday. Gosh, I am so worried about my comprehension for the English paper. And the essay, and oh, for every subject which comes my way until next next tuesday. Can't even remember the dates for my exam, much less History dates.

But beyond that, I think there's a terrible storm brewing right under everyone's royal noses. With exam pressure, relationship tensions are reaching near breaking point with some secrets let out and very candid gossip sessions during recess. Just escaped one, but I think that I participated too much yesterday. Its hard when you have a "cold war" with the said and mention person. I didn't initiate it, but seriously, you can't help but worry. I fear that my other friends might see me as an infiltrator and a liar. Ah well, what can I do. I just need to be less liberal on my blog.

Haven't blogged in ages, there is such a thrill in it.

Opps there goes the bell. I'll be writing more after the exams. I mean tests. I mean, distinguishing factors.

Help me with Chinese. Someone give me a potion or spell for it. A concoction which will work wonders would be just the thing.

Weird Dreams

2009-09-09T01:08:00.000-07:00

I woke up today with the strangest dream. And about all the people...

And I forgot about it until now, four-o-eight in the afternoon.

I dreamt I was trying to evacuate or somthing. Some evil dominating thing, perhaps George Orwel's 1984 has got into me, either that or Kim Possible cartoons. With my mom and dad, we were trying to pack things up into suitcases and I remember looking at some books.

So, we appear at a large courtyard of some sorts, like the middle of Times Square, only with buildings looking more Asian and toned down. I get this notion of helping out at Michael Jackson's performance. Only thing is: No crowd and no bodyguards or media personnel. Only children who are being fed spagetthi with meat balls.

I was holding onto my velveted journal and I wanted to get his autograph. I think I saw an elongated version of it in my dream. I may have seen Michael Jackson's face, but he didn't sing. There were definitely barricades and a white stage. One moment there were a lot of children and people and someone swinging on a swing, then the next, there would be a haunting quality to the scene.

Can dreams get much weirder? I think it was due to the "Heal the World" song they repeatedly played during breaks at a course I went for yesterday.

And no, Michael Jackson did not mean anything more to me than a good singer who supported humanitarian causes.

Journal Entry 04

2009-08-27T07:18:00.000-07:00

Shame. That's the word I picked from the book of psalms today. Quite appropriate, since our class was defeated in the literature drama competition. But that's okay with me. I was the mere costumes' designer.

There must be something wrong with me, otherwise the same problems can't keep hitting a person. Why do people seem to exclude me so much and make claims that I'm excluding them? Well, I don't write private notes or sit next to the person and make-believe an invisible wall and pretend to be a psychaitrist and ask my friend to humor me. Sorry, I've gotten over this, but its a very classic example.

Well, I don't hide things. I feel guilty when I do. People know what I think of them, but I don't see why friends won't come clean to me. I guess I'm not the confidant people want. Too something-something or lacking in something-something. Its even harder when talking to you, God. I know I'm special, that I'm really important to God, that I shouldn't judge or assume or bother about what other people whisper in my full knowledge (hey, i don't hire private investigators or have loyal people to glean such information out). Its impossible to find the equipoise for this relationship.

I can't wait for Sunday, where I'll be my family. The world is a hard place to live in and one just whishes that we could live protected and sheltered, nto subject to shame or ridicule. Like me, to a certian extent, when I was emcee for the play, only told of the role less than 12 hours before, and decided to wear the tent like skirt Portia was supposed to wear but dumped for a more tailored suit. Not that I can blame anyone. that's the thing about it. Are people afraid that they'll hurt me or blatantly disregarding my feelings. Screaming "MY EYES, THEY BURN!!!" while running out of the bathroom... yeah. But I'm quite over that too, I'm thankful that I had fun all the same.

Maybe I'm just too proud, as Mrs. Wong says our generation is. I just don't want to feel like a pigmy when in truth, classmates in school push you around anyhow. Lesson learnt then. I just have to let go. Disconnect but stay ready for any erson who needs a ear or a hand.

Amen

2009-08-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

I'm quite worried. There's a debate (practice) tomorrow with another school and yesterday's debate made me feel so inadequate. I wonder how much is enough. Of course one can always do better than the next person, but is that enough? What do people expect of me? I know that I can think on my feet better than some, but I get frustrated when I get a technical glitch with my computer or someone says something really out of point in a debate.

That's unimportant, the thing is that I sometimes dream really weird things. Last night I dreamt I was in my school P.E. shirt and shorts and started moving my legs around a lot on top a table in the teacher's staff room, while I was talking to the teacher. Someone later commented that I looked like a hooker or something to that extent. I only felt vaguely embarrassed and ashamed. Like I was Charlie Gordon in Flowers for Algernon. As I think back, I can't decide if I really saw my classmates and a teacher there. Or if its just my sub-conscious mind working, whatever theory that is. Dreams are peculiar. But I do hope they don't reflect real life. But I've never been comfortable in the P.E. attire.

I think Flowers of Algernon has really influenced me this week. I can't help wondering if I'm mentally or emotionally retarded. Or if I am an incompetent person doing something trivial which is of great importance to me. What about God's will? Oh, freedom of choice sometimes hampers your own decision. Oh Lord, why is it so difficult sometimes to get weird things like dreams and events sorted out.

Please help me. I need the safety that David talks about in the book of Psalms. I wish that I could curl up into a ball and ignore the Literature test, the friends, the exams, the expectations, the numerous events being thrown onto me. Bu that's life ain't it. Shall just live with it.

journal entry 03

2009-08-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

Deliverance. Sigh, if only it were so simple. I’m thankful that I went for L.T.’s talk. At least I won’t be tempted into thinking that I’m not following Your will any longer. But Lord, please give me signs and open and close doors to tell me. I’m glad that I don’t have to be worried about not hearing you per se in the verbal sense.

Thanks for brining me through this reasonably alright week. Friends have remained at tolerable levels. The tests should have gone well. Bless me for the Mother Tongue oral and the Merchant of Venice test and drama night. Oh, and please, please, please, the debate team really needs divine intervention. Okay, this is a bit too plead-y, but just help the juniors and me debate well, clearly and with structure.

I miss my friends. Those in primary school and in church, past and present. Melanie. Shannon. My whole discipleship group. I feel like I am living for Sundays sometimes. I feel so at home with them its odd. But that’s fellowship and accountability isn’t it?

I’ve been thinking back to that Christian self-help book. Every Young Woman’s Battle by Shannon Ethridge; guarding your mind in a sex saturated world. I’m going to keep the off week, which means no weird videos, no fiction books which I have read over and over again, no music with such and such implications. I’ve been battling it and I think it is helping. I don’t intentionally look for such-and-such books as my friends imply. Its just that sometimes you don’t know what you are getting yourself into. Ah well, play safe with the classics.

It’s getting a bit difficult. In tuition class the two students who sit next to me are the really trendy sort. Short shorts (not too short but still past the thigh’s mid point) and well, some people at church too. I mean, I can’t criticize it or anything but I still get irked out over such things. It shouldn’t be an overactive conscience right? Sometimes I just wish that I could still fit in a little more, but ah well, that only happens sometimes. So long as I am others-first at the same time I’m sure it’ll show through. Someway, somehow.

It sounds really superficial, what I’ve just written. But I feel like I can talk to you about anything and everything. And so openly that I don’t mind showing this on my blog. I still can’t think of you all the time and I’m still not so sure if I want to go for the WOW camp. Urgh. Sometimes it is just so tricky. I just feel like relaxing but with my home with such a close proximity to church I think I won’t have a clear conscience. That article on mind-your-body, people can only guess how different people process their thoughts and morals and ethics.

I liked Fantasia from Greensleeves. To imagine You allowed a folk song to be created around four centuries ago to be sustained till today in this epithet in the classical genre. And it becoming a beautiful Christmas carol.

Sometimes I feel like getting away from this life. But I’m sure I have some work here to do. Bless my mom, she seems so stressed with her work becoming a teacher. And my dad. Who knows what will happen tomorrow but you? And yet, we still have free will. It’s a beautiful thing, the right to choice.

Amen

journal entry 02

2009-08-15T07:40:00.000-07:00

Well, blogger isn't up to standard today.

I've been thinking a lot about family. And about my life.
Today I asked my parents a question: If you had to lose one of your senses, which would it be? My mother said taste, which was my answer too. My dad said touch, so that he wouldn't feel pain. I guess we're different, but I can't imagine not touching all the things God gave us. The rain, the cotton sheets, a friend's warm touch, a firm handshake, flower petals, the brush of a stranger,and the wind. Oh the wind. Perhaps it was Paulo Coelho's Alchemist that made me love the wind so much, but since I read On Angel Mountain by Brian John, I can't get the word "zephyr" out of my life.

I'm thankful for all those comments that have been appearing on my blog, even if some are anonymous. I won't go out of my way to find out who it is though. Some things like tests and problems with friends and Alessa, our debate trainer being mad at us. I have it easy compared to a lot of other girls, and compared to a lot of other people in the world. Sometimes though, I wish that I could understand the acceptance some people so gracefully allow in their lives.

I was thinking though, how much would I be willing to sacrifice for Christ. Alright, the time I'm using now or those precious Sunday mornings could be better used for something, but they are very rewarding. I feel energized by them. If someone chooses religion as the topic for discussion on the bus (Gwen), I like renewing my faith in the midst of Christians from other groups of Christians. Its confusing with the Catholics and the Protestants and the Anglicans and the Presbyterians and us Methodists, but I think I simplify things to a simple, "We're all Children of God". I'm kind of fearful that I take church as just a recharging point, I want my relationship with god to be much more intense and stronger than me getting a wake-up call which subsides by Monday morning. The quiet time has been helping.

I guess I've been dalliant with my time, but I think sometimes that I had rushed through childhood. One of my more vivid memories was when I was in kindergarten and we were all at the playground somewhere in Jurong. It was those old brown tile skeletal slide plus bridge type playgrounds located on a huge sand pit. Then a stranger, which was wearing black and honestly, now that I look back, looks like Michael Jackson. I was about four then? He was giving out those fruit flavoured heart candies after walking out of a taxi. The rest of the kids except me and a boy, with stubble hair on his head, went over jumping and skipping, clamouring for one. Both of us remembered the teacher's rules before they left for a while: Do not go near strangers. We faced each other and repeatedly shouted "STRANGER!" over and over and over. The teachers, two of them, one was a caucasion lady with cropped copper-gold hair, came forward and we rushed down the slide to expalin what happened.

Later, back in a class on the the second floor with blue carpeting, the students had to throw away the sweets into the waste-paper basket, saying "I will not accept sweets from strangers again". This is my most vivid memory of my childhood to date. That same boy had to go through the ritual even though he hadn't taken the sweets. I loved those candies and felt a little pang, but I was wondering and thinking up all sorts of poison that a person could put into a sealed sweet. And I remember that I wasn't called up to do it.

My parents say that I was always rather well-behaved and that friends would come and wonder how there could be so many breakable items on the shelves with such a little girl tottering around. In my grandparents' place last time, there was a whole shelving kept under lock full of small, exquisite bottles of purfume. I asked my dad why they were locked up. At my other grandparents' place, I would play dolls and the most long-term plot I had was the circus, where a guy would admire the girl balancing on the tightrope which was nothing but air.

The memories are coming back faster now. Miss Cecilia Lim, my primary school principal asking me to talk to her in the office about the school environment when I was Primary 1 or 2. At the church carnival where I bought the exact same doll that I had to throw away some time ago, just so that I could get those deep purple stockings and touch that golden hair that curled in a ponytail. And me wondering whether or not to buy the stuff toy cat they were selling which was from Barang Barang, that furniture shop. me saying my first testimony in front of the adult congregation when I was Primary Four, where I talked about the coma I had when i was four and how I thank God for letting me live. At the end, I said, out of something in the air or my mind or heart, "Praise the Lord", like so many other people said.

Me and Joni at the cabins looking at the stars in a packet we bought for a dollar, convincing ourselves that we could wish on them. And each of us wondering how many wishes we could make. Me puting them in an age old faded mickey mouse wallet of blue and pink with multiple compartments with mickey on one side and minnie on the other. My dad reading Enid Blyton and Pody (forgot the spelling) books to me at night where mom was working late. I loved the book on texture and I could hardly get through the story The Secret Door. It took us some nights. Me reading The pig with green spots when some irritating girl by the name of Nicole proclaimed it hers and me writing and crying on the pages, my name on every page, because my mother had got it for me. Me cutting myself with Joni's swiss knife when I was in Primary two and trying to make tribal markings on lollipop sticks. Mr Morrias, then a physical education teacher, suggesting elephant glue and then the principal calling my parents with me sheepishly saying that I wouldn't need stitches. Me scraping my knee on the road on the way home with my mother. Jan and Elly enrichment with Teacher Martin and receiving fruity gel squeezing things in tubes like those for glue and the Enormous Aligator by Roald Dahl. Me and Shannon eating and talking about art and hobbies at the staircases and little nooks in the school. Me sitting and blanking out after a good meal when Uncle Steven pronounced food as the thing to keep me quiet and my mother denying it this very night.

Eleven-twenty-two. There's a sad sort of chiming in the clock in the room and the bells of the steeple too, and up high in the nursery an absurd little bird, is popping out to say cuck-oo, we really hate to say it, but we really need to say it, to say good night, to you.

Thanks for the memories, God.
Amen

Reply

2009-08-09T17:21:00.000-07:00

I really don't know how to get this through people but please, leave a name. If you've taken the trouble to write an extra long comment, which I appreciate really, please leave a name.

Anyways, thanks for the comment. I just don't really think people ought to find or seek support. I mean, I've hit brick wall after brick wall trying that path so why shouldn't take a little less populated route? I mean, sure, no one's a COMPLETE loner in this world, but I think that having the few loyal friends is more important than trying to get the general school body to like you. There simply isn't time to worry about being liked or not. By the time it comes to that, it'll be your literature teacher worrying about giving you a pass or a fail grade.

I communicate and try to get along with people, but sometimes I feel that their attempts are a bit fake. They talk to you, give you presents etc... Like last year when I was one of the new kids, they tried. But other than birthdays they quite let it slide. I know that because I somehow keep getting left out with the same folks for groupwork. You can try but seriously, maneuvering from last table to the middle of the class is no mean feat. You're already in the "we-have-no-space-for-you-category".

Sometimes, especially when year-end-examinations are drawing near, you've got to cast aside all these sort of worries and let the Lord deal with everyone else's gossip. You can never tell who's talking about you and who's loyal in school,for sure at least. I can't help it if someone thinks I'm not doing my part for a group or the team. When someone wants to go over and above the requirements, I say, go ahead. But you can't expect everyone to follow you. With the bare requirements some people aren't helping, much less the extra.

Me

2009-08-06T22:38:00.000-07:00

Explanation

How do I say this? I know some people wouldn’t want to be caught dead with me for a day and some people abhor the way I do things. Some friends think that I’m going to be anorexic or some wrist-slashing girl. Or rather, they see me as the number one candidate for the post of sucking up to people.

Well, all I can say is that those speculations are way off.

Do any of you know me? In primary school I was the person who was the most into romance novels and love stories. I had a fling with classical music when I was in my sixth year. I think I was the only person who carried a novel to school then with a really good kissing scene.

I think I’m the way I am, namely, the girl who doesn’t hang out much or talk to her classmates about stars and Korean dramas or anime or does facebook or dances to good music or join the group in the same sentiments for or against someone, because I’m scared. I’ve been to a point where I could see myself abandoning my old self completely and becoming a cool, popular girl who was always looked up to.

Only I don’t want that. I don’t want to lose my love for literature or art or of God. I feared myself walking into a museum one day and finding myself bored. I’m drawn to the pop culture and all, I don’t mind talking when there’s assembly, its just that there’s always this sinking feeling like when I know that someone knows that I’ve read Sabbath’s Theatre by Philip Roth and regretted it.

Most of the adults find me mature and all that. Perhaps it’s just my upbringing. Imagine a single child with parents with her almost constantly. My parents went through the best times of my childhood with me. Those good times weren’t when I played with my friends in kindergarten because they called me a pig. Those good times weren’t during my early primary school days when people on my bus called me an ABC (American-backside-cleaner). I went to them when this happened and I learnt that if you told adults, they could get something fixed, and fixed rather well.

I’ve been to the precipice, where I could have gone on to read every single good teenage romance novel or high school drama. Believe it or not, my mother started me on Jodi Picoult. I could have become someone who could talk about whatever it is people like to talk about when they send notes around the class, but then I didn’t want to lose the other life I lead. If I started to be more like my age, wearing trends and buying magazines or watching weird videos on YouTube, I think I would have lost it.

If I followed that path, I would be playing Maple Story (which I was once addicted to), re-reading parts of stories where the love-chatter was at a high (which I sometimes do), becoming more insensitive to the world, joining a C0-Curricular activity that wasn’t as under populated as debate, and failing. I get drawn into some things very easily and I think I know myself well enough to stay the way I am because I know that I’ll be staying back for remedial because I flunked a test. I had horrible test grades in primary school when my friends broke off from me and I didn’t want that experience again, where people would see me as so utterly desperate for friends and fitting in.

When I was unbothered by the friend-political-cycle, I could write beautiful narratives. I remember two of them most clearly. One was about a raging fire in a high storey office building, of the pictorial sort. I ignored most of it and dived straight into a plot about an aged man who had his office at one of the higher floors. His business was failing and his granddaughter, who hugged a teddy bear, was with him. I can’t remember it all but it was the ashes from the ancestral niche that caught fire, which spurred a fire nothing could stop. The man regretted and tried to save the girl. In the end, there was only a glass bead from the teddy bear reflecting the devastation around it.

The second was about a car accident. A man was drunk and trying to commit suicide on the road. He didn’t feel remorse and simply drove the car into a boy who had just won the top prize for bicycle race. The boy lived, he didn’t. But still, I didn’t want my life to end like those two.

Since I’ve got to the stage where I am, I don’t want to reverse the cycle in order to fit in. People I actually hang out with don’t mind me being that way at all. It’s not like I’m going to be stuck in the netherworld of adolescence forever. I’ve got only this span of years and I can’t add a cubit to it.

But then maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I missed the whole point about growing up.

Liberation

2009-08-06T02:03:00.000-07:00

After all's been said and done, I needn't have worried all that much. I'm not a councillor, but I still get the jitters everytime I hear people talking. Anyways, I've got a few loyal friends and that's fine by me.

Fire

2009-08-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

If this is the only way I can get the message across, I'll use the last weapon in my arsenal, in terms of "passive" and "condusive" ways.

Right, laying it out.

I cannot take it when people PROMISE me something and not get it done.
I cannot condone sitting at my desktop waiting for an email to come from a friend who was in the same 6 meter radius as me for a good two hours and promised to tell me when she did.
I cannot tolerate it when people are told time and time again by me that I'm willing to help and that I'm just out the door helping the class with something and yet say, "You were there?"
I cannot stand it when people do all the above and I feel like the most miserable wretch and nervouse wreck in the class.

Alright, you've used your arsenal on my emotions and I'm certainly not taught about the various methods of revenge, neither do I have the support of any other person. But for goodness sake, sometimes the onus is on someone isn't it? I'm certainly not going to chase people like that. I am a peer,a student, a friend. Or am I wrong even on that account?

If I was sui generis, I'm sure I won't be what I am now. When I got back home I was fine, ready to face my homework and happy to be with my parents again. But even angels need some recognition and acceptance. I swear that I could possibly function in school without opening my mouth so speak and no one would be able to know the difference.

Okay, snap out of it, you've ranted. It is ten eighteen and you have English and Chinese left to do. And Geography revision for Thursday. I think I'll do devotions though. Can't let the devil take over me. Honestly, it feels like I'm Launcelot Gobbo sometimes. Run, don't run. Devil or Conscience. Self or selfless.

Its like King Lear, and I'm the fool with no money bags to make my friends kind. And I know just the person who is my pretty fool and who are my darrrrliinnnggg daughters.

Oh and I'm sorry, but this post isn't meant to target anyone in particular. Take it as artistic lisence. I'm on a bit of a "self-experimental mode".

Won't be blogging till after the exams if I can help it.

Thanks, Awfully

2009-08-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

hey there. thanks so much for the encouragement. I was just depressed these few days but never mind, there's church tomorrow and for the first time since Pierre Brosman for 007, I will be uploading photos of the surprise! Okay, people in my class, hushity hush on this, I'm just so excited about putting the things together.

Oh yeah, and today I used one of the thin cloth with about 5% spandex shirts that my aunt handed down to me. I made it into a bolero cum cape. Just slot your arms through the collar hole then slot them into the sleeves. Use a v-neck long sleeved shirt for this, it looks really nice. But don't expect to wear it as a v-neck ever again because the material will stretch too much.

ha ha. I don't have cash, I low on money, so the only thing left is to stay happy.

signing off today as Knitogether.

2009-07-30T01:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know my lot in life is a lot better than most. My parents may even be over-indulging me. But right now, I'm stuck and fed up with the whole system. Or maybe I'm just fed up with myself. the student council elections aren't going at all well. I doubt I'll get in, not at the rate things are going. I have this feeling that my friends are siding up against me, but it doesn't matter too much, we hardly have "time" to talk to each other in any case.

The main point.

There have been election posters pasted in every classroom. On the first day they were pinned up, my face was fine.
Two days ago, someone had used liquid paper on my left eye and added a dot of a blue pen on top of the dried correction. The pen confirmed that it was a deliberate act.

It isn't that bad, but its as if someone is putting you on par with Paris Hilton, Britney, Miley Cyrus and other folk whose photos are vandalised. Who cares, its just me putting myself in the center where everything else revolves around. its hard not to when the school environment from the time class starts till recess then again till after school resembles a workhouse.

This shows how much one's mood can change in a day. After Chinese tuition,which is now, I had a series of really bad mood swings. i better get some rest. God Bless me and all the other people.

Journal Entry for Church 01

2009-07-26T06:17:00.000-07:00

Sigh, I come online and find my blogger posting totally changed. No more adding pictures or changing font sizes on this page. Or maybe its just maintenance. Please let it be so.

As a discipleship group, we decided to take on a spiritual habit challenge, our series of talks being about spiritual habits and growing closer to God. So, from now until 31st December i have to make two journal entries per week, inclusive of thanksgiving and lessons learnt.

Okay, I'm thankful that my cramps aren't exactly crippling but I learnt (or rather confirmed) that my body has become immune to a rather strong pain-killer.

Alright, to the more serious things. Tomorrow I'll be performing a short segment in a production by me and a number of other girls about what we would do if we only had 18 minutes to live life all over again. I'll post the poem on this blog soon. The course was five days during the holidays, 9a.m to 4p.m, and conducted by a wonderful instructer Nirmala Seshadri.

Yesterday, I signed a policy which involves a vast amount of saving to a spender like me. I'm bonded to it for ten years. Imagine that. And my parents wanted me to take 25 years. God bless me, I hope I can fork out the required sum each year.

After tuition last night, we went for a desert-supper treat. While finding a place to seat, or rather hovering around a potential seat, I could only stand watching an aged cleaner wipe and take a way the remains of the last party's plates and drinks. He did it so slowly, it was really horrible to see it. My parents said to let them clear it up but I can't help but think that I wouldn't mind clearing my own plate but clearing another's is rather gross. It makes one feel like the scum of the Earth when you see yourself, well fed and well off, standing around while someone clears your table. I know these men and women are paid but it doesn't make me feel any better.

Then again today. My parents had bought packs of tissue from to a man with an amputated arm who was asking us to buy tissues from him. But he came back again asking them to buy some more. It is a common sight in Singapore but sometimes one feels inclined to give to these sort of causes. I feel fine giving to baskers and the occasional aged man in a wheelchair. But some of them have a lot of pluck, as though they have been so desentisied by their way of life. I pray to God that I won't find myself in that condition. When it comes to age and proverty, I think that if someone sped up my life in a twinkle and I found myself with arthritis, I would even consider ending my life by mercy killing or euthanasia.

My tolerance for pain and suffering is really very limited. Menstrual cramps have me doubled over and wanting to curl up and never step foot outside the house. Outward pain like a car running over my foot is still more tolerable to the walls of a woman's womb breaking down.

But, God, why did you have to make Eve's puishment the pain of childbirth? Isn't it enough for humans to suffer age, neglect, temptation, loss of love and the loss of hope? I suppose someone has to do it. But sometimes I wonder why it had to be this. Jesus, thankfully, wasn't on Earth as a woman. One thing most writers forget is the heroine having her time of the month. Surely most women aren't as lucky as that to keep on slaying villians and working at the factory every day, hard as that is from the labour involved, and yet not happen to suffer a tweak from the bleeding?

Only Catheine Lim, an author I don't exactly like, used it as a weapon against an idol.

Sorry, I was ranting.

We're doing the book of Jonah now for sermons. It's quite amazing how much background there is that isn't written in the bible. I guess the best imaginations can be tested in picturing the actual feelings of the men in those times.

Here's to human endeavour and the completion of this accountability test!

Classroom Blabber

2009-07-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

This is possibly the most inappropriate time to blog about this but some things simply can't be let down so easily. I have this feeling that everyone is talking about me behind my back. I know its a mind over matter kind of thing but what can a girl do? I mean, at home I becoming a bit of a stretsophenic or whatever they call those people who wash their hands repeatedly or arrange everything exactly. Only I check every five minutes that my alarm is on, that my key is on the door knob, that every air-conditioner is turned off and every window closed before I go out.

Well, to get it into actual written evidence, I think the teachers voted me in for student council but I have to pass the vote from the cohort. Basically, I couldn't care too much if it sways either way but it would mean I have my own blazer, something I have to beg from my senior everytime debate season rolls in. To me, the badge doesn't define anything.

Only thing is, I think many people see it as a popularity vote, not truly reflective of the person's credentials and abilities. I like to see it as a representation of what the class wants.

But now I know what I really resent. I resent the fact that you can't be yourself (i.e. show your distress over a dumb project) even within your own home. I can't trust my friends in school with my frustration and neither can I trust my parents with it. I don't have siblings. Who else am I left with? Myself and God. Perhaps if Singapore wasn't so vastly populated and we had the railway train passing by more often I could use the shouting outlet. But no, I'll be competing with the drilling of our neighbours upstairs.

English Journal Entry on Anorexia

2009-07-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

Thinspiration? With all that’s being blasted by the media and health talks I doubt anyone can stay in ignorance to these fads. But this is the first time I’ve heard the phrase. It’s quite horrible what some people do to themselves and when they get friends who are equally sedulous, the results are horrifying to the doctors and most of us.

I’ve listened to a mock debate about the ethics in force-feeding anorexia and one side proposed anorexia as a way of life which we should condone if not support. When you think of it, is it just because they are a minority with strong opposition that they can not explain themselves decently enough to the public? Personally, I’ve had problems with weight but it could be because of all the bad media on it that makes me think that dietary “abnormalities” are heinous destructions to the sanctity of life.

Okay, I’ve just found the supposed “Get Thin or Die Trying” facebook page but this one is made by American women in the aim of “ending discrimination against thin people”. Their introduction seems really enticing for women of size 0-4. I’m now reading their health-cum-dietary page. It seems like they care a lot about health and they are exceedingly knowledgeable when it comes to carb contents and daily activities. One post is nearly dictating a possible diet to one of the users, added with a long string of very healthy fruits and vegetables in the never-before-touched category in my records.

I looked in another category in this forum and the language used here is a bit more offensive. The users are angry with facebook for closing down their account. The members section is locked so I can’t read the posts about their personal accounts unless I become a member (which they won’t accept since I’m considered… fat)

I’ve found the Fauzi Rassull site. The language here is more noticeably pro anorexic. Skinny and healthy are used as reasons in the forums and walls. Quite a lot of oaths are being sprouted on the wall.

In today’s' fashion, we see that everyone is obsessed with losing weight/thinspirationing. Skinny is the new lean. Skinny is perfection. Skinny is beautiful. THINSPIRATION rules.

That was still okay as a catchphrase. I could do an equivalent for art anytime. But the newspapers failed to touch on the personalities of the blogger. At first I thought that he could be a rational man who likes fashion and poses but takes it as that’s-that. On his blog though, it’s a different matter. He boasts and proudly proclaims himself a “kween” of b-ing. Most of the members of the group hold fashion as the epitome of life. Some of the things are simply weird and outrageous to me.

It reminds me of the fable about the miser who had many servants and a huge mansion but refused to eat anything but rice and a small amount of soya-sauce. One day, a fly fell into his sauce and flew away. The man obstinately went around trying to catch the fly while all his servants offered to catch it or get some more soya sauce for him. Eventually, he caught it with his chopsticks and proceeded to eat the fly, as though he was savoring the soya-sauce he though the fly contained.

Okay: It started with the fashion world because of models wanting to stay in shape. Now, the world is strongly against it because models have fainted, collapsed and died on the walkways. Now there’s the want for acceptance in the “perfection/ideal” club. I guess everyone wants to have a reference point of a goal; it’s so hard to find it when people constantly say “don’t let your dreams restrain you”. People don’t want to feel average sometimes or mediocre.

Hundreds and thousands of people have this problem of understanding these disorders, so I ought to set my sights a little lower.

I checked my t-shirt. I’m a size 14. By GAP standards, it’s XXL. But I like the comfort of hand-me- downs. Men’s jeans are surprisingly comfy.

Mean GIRLS

2009-07-21T02:33:00.000-07:00

Erica Burns, Le Sportsac, Paria Jabenko (I'll use these for inspiration for my artwork.)

How mean is mean? Avoiding all those things about how bad can you go without losing your salvation, let's just go really wild. I feel mean, or maybe I'm simply snappish. The projects and all the undone homework on my side and my classmates.

I watched part of Mean Girls, the part when they were in the school gym getting lectured by their teachers. The girls are pretty, beautiful even, but they can all honestly say that they've been told on before and have told on other people's secrets. Some are totally full of themselves and all of them seem to be stylishly dressed and very into the boyfriend-girlfriend thing.

I want to feel beautiful and stylish in the clothes that I wear. I want to be able to walk into a store and see racks of clothing I can fit into instead of waiting and waiting for sales to find all the out-sized clothes. I wish I could have the money to splurge on clothes from good brands and not have to resort to flipping through bargain tank tops and skinny jeans to find a nice blouse. I wish I could eat all that I want to without gaining any weight. I want to be known as pretty and attractive by my peers and not just the women in my family or the ones which we sometimes meet.

How do some girls do it? Wear those unique clothes which you can never find and look amazing at any party or social event.

Nevermind, I've bimboed out enough for now. School starts in ten minutes.

King Lear(leer)

2009-07-20T02:29:00.000-07:00

Alright. Now to set my sights on completing some homework on Shakespeare. (Mainly so that I won't be staring blankly during lessons)

This Week's thing on King Lear is about the role of the Fool in the story. We've discussed a little about him in class but as with Shakespeare, no literature (or rather English) teacher will let us drop a character like that. I came up with some points but basically this was what we came up with. (Mostly our teacher firing questions at us and major stagnant pauses until someone responds)

I have to admit, online games will be my demise. And of all of them, it had to be neopets and Youda Sushi Chef on Miniclip.com.

The fool: used as a character to show the irony in the whole demise of King Lear.
The name of the Fool brings to mindan imbecile, a dimwit, a clown or even a court jester. Someone who is not of nobility or much education or learning. Yet, he contrasts with Lear because of his wisdom. In the fool's remarks and comments on Lear's situation, he seems to have a clearer view and stream of thought than the King himself, whom we would expect wisdom and experience from. The fool's insights then give the stark juxtaposition on different levels.

First, the status between the King and the Fool. How could a King be left with no loyal servant or companion but the Fool and Mad Tom in the wind and rain?

Second, the logic and reasoning that shows one's wisdom varies immensely between the two characters. While the King ought to be advising his subjects and himself, it seems like he is getting more reason out of the fool. This makes people listen to the fool when they realise he's not just a clown or jester to liven up the play but an important character which comes in at pertinent points to give focus to the audience.

This attention and focus it reaps from the audience allows Shakespeare to use him as a mouthpiece to make people think about the matters and themes brought out in the play. Some playwriters also adopt a similar style and in other plays, Shakespeare also uses insignificant characters to say the poignant points which need to be brought out into the drama.

That was what we discussed.

And Youda Sushi Chef was just a demo... sob. I only did one week of sushi cutting!!!

Here's a conversation involving me and a classmate Vivian. Its about the Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama and why in the world its used for English lessons. Yes. My blog is that empty.

I'm Knitogether.

Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
So Maths and English is due tomorrow, and school ends on time tomorrow?
Knitogether says:
erm 2:15 for you
what el is there really?
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
Write some stupid reflections on Obama
Knitogether says:
oh right
i just did points
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
I seriously do not understand the purpose of reading a boring politics book just because it was written by the president of USA
Knitogether says:
before he was elected
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
Fine, written by a famous Senator
Knitogether says:
well. what if she made us read some obscure name then?
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
Why do we, as young students, need to read a book about politics?
Knitogether says:
like i don't know, thoughts of abram lincoln
better now than never
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
Sorry just trying to spark a debate. I wanna know what it feels like
Still
Knitogether says:
which one of us is going to pick up a book like... that in our adult life unless its just to keep in our cupbards
and tell ppl oh yeha i've read parts of it
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
Exactly! Why do we even need to read it?
Knitogether says:
at least its only one book and it covers quite a number of issues
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
Why do we even need to cast a glance upon it in the first place?
Aww.
Come on you know you want to side with me
Knitogether says:
and it broadens our view on the problems with the world
in singapore we're sheltered from bad politics other than the near annihilation of political groups
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
But why do we even need to broaden our view with the problems across the world?
Knitogether says:
because we are the world
and we need to create awareness and just do something about it
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
We are not going to be included. Even if we did know of it, we wouldn't be able to do anything about it
But we can't do anything about it!
Knitogether says:
rather than sit around pretending exactly that
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
Ignorance is bliss
Knitogether says:
imagine, we could start a blog, or donate something which will eventually end up where its needed
we all would like to think so but what if out parents and government used that as an excuse
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
Or, people might think it is a waste of time, or it is a hoax, and never come and look at the blog again
Knitogether says:
do unto others what you would liek others to do unto you
like*
perhaps but its only some
even if its only the minority you touch, its still something
like if one person helps three others and each of those three helps another three and the cycle keeps on continuing itself, very soon a school, a town, a suburb, a country will be impacted
and vice versa if everyone ignores the fire next door or the old lady who dropped her groceries
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
Sorry I gtg. My relatives are going to use the table for dinner
Knitogether says:
it all adds up to something, whether positive or negative is up to ourselves
okay
Vivian - Time to make a box! says:
But great I like a private like this. Thanks!
private debate*

Okay see you folks!

Apogee - the highest point

2009-07-08T06:31:00.001-07:00

The TO-DO list

1) English reflections on the Michael Jackson song I chose, inferences and patterns that can be seen in his style of music and on his memorial.
2) Make Geography notes on Global warming and the depleting Ozone layer... by this weekend
3) Art Project, Vogue, make 6 sketches of models or that french word for them, croquis or something in different poses. 2 each on on a sheet of A3 drawing paper
4) Can a Knot Untangle Their lives reflection also for English
5) CHINESE TUITION TOMORROW
6)History Project due week 6
7) Greenwave Report. I've done my share

This House Believes that Fairytales are Bad for Children

2009-07-01T04:10:00.000-07:00

Debate aside, (that wasn't the motion I worked on for today's training, someone else took it) I feel that today deserves a good long rant in preparation for an even longer good long rant tomorrow. It's the time of term again, weight tests right after the holidays. Mine is tomorrow. For a generally heavy-boned person like me, with perhaps a few extra pounds of flab around my developed areas, that becomes a threatening situation, but at least THAT can be resolved with a doctor's letter.

We'll be having General Knowledge Quizzes once every week for English and they will come into the Continual Assesment results, which, in a way affect our total score. If it was an essay or comprehension or class work, that is understandable, but across such a large range of subjects and topics, even school debate members will be seeing GAME OVER flashing in their minds. For a generally undetailed person when it comes to remembering information, this is doom.

I understand the rational behind this decision of our English teacher, but isn't there a stnadard format of tests across the board. Surely a letter with our actual class performance could be generated. 20 minutes could generate a letter that can be sent to all the parents and a table with the grades in respective areas could be alongside it. It probably would mean more effort, but nine more week's worth of quizes is no easy feet in my point of view either. My dad thinks that the Singapore part of the quiz should be managable, I beg to differ.

For a well travelled woman like our teacher (she revealed her appointments to be in Nepal, India, Australia and New Zealand), experiencing the creams of the crops in a specific area or in world affairs, such a mindset can be hard to break. Or actually, impossible. She used words like "mediocre", "all of them are averaging Bs", "It's not just about how many As", "What you make of your lives", "You have so much more of your life to live, but death can take any one, at six or sixty" and oh, as much as any intellectual person can say in ten to fifteen minutes in front of a silent class. and in the middle, "I'm not scolding you".

She's a puzzlement, truely. She can be really engaging when she wants to, drawing topics like Michael Jackson's death and current events which sometimes are very much removed from our lives. One question was about Julie Andrews and which song she was most reknowned for. When it comes to this sort of thing, I can't say much, its an area I hardly read in depth into. But its sometimes just the area of interests you have. For people like the Nepal students she has who have an Ivy League University scholarship who know even minute facts about Singapore I forget, they are interested in such things. And not knowing such things doesn't make you any less interesting to talk to, or mediocre. I don't find myself boring and I'm sure people I talk to don't find me so either because I can't tell them about the dates or specific ideas. I can tell them about musicals and incidents in my life, of the places I've been where the person next to me may have crossed over the same places. If they cared to tlak of world events, I would beg an explanation of the situation then give my own opinions.

That isn't important anyway. For now, just read news articles like a good debater, something I have put off due to relaxation purposes. I can't see why someone can't live life knowing about things generally, instead of being some encyclopedia. If everyone at an institution did that, there would be hardly any interesting trivia anymore. News is depressing. We are just students, we can change some things, but before we try to change somethings and make something of ourselves that the world can see, I think we best sort out our own beliefs.

Three Words

2009-06-25T23:14:00.001-07:00

DEBATE COMPETITION POSTPONED

S.O.S.

2009-06-24T02:13:00.001-07:00

Okay, there's a debate on Saturday, 27th June. Only juniors can participate in it and so, the main debate team, by default has only one member to send. The rest are juniors or dormant members from my level. Because of all the competitions and exams, hardly any of them have had proper training. Furthermore, we have a new debate trainer because our previous one is continuing her studies on another continent.

We've got three themes, (its an impromptu debate, and THREE debates in one day. That's just preliminary round, the final round would mean a forth debate, mostly likely not meant for us) Medical Ethics, Law and Justice and India.

We had two motions today and a short Opposition side only debate. The first motion was This House Should allow voluntary Euthanasia. The second, This House would allow force feeding of Anorexics. Both of which I was first speaker for proposition. And the new trainer wants me as first, gulp. The third, where I was first Opposition, dang it, was This House would allow teenagers to be charged as adults for criminal offences.

And if you're wondering, yes, I did miserably because of all the time slipped by without a training. And yes, my tracking and handwriting was quite illegible, even to myself.

Okay, so my next few blog posts will discuss a motion or topic or something. I think I'll try doing an explanation of Law and Justice and about the whole concept of human rights and whats not.

Alternatively, my crochet hook is right in front of me.

......

Or there is Act 2,3,4 and 5 of King Lear which I have yet to do mindmaps for.
Ah well, at least I don't have to do mindmaps for Macbeth or Merchant of Venice. Thank all the teachers.

Literature Device Used - Emphasis

2009-06-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

Today's sermon did just that. As it was Father's Day Sunday, we started service about ten to fifteen minutes late. No segment of worship or the sermon was cut short to ensure that we ended on time. To make things -in a way- worse, the sermon was given by a man from another church, so he was pretty oblivious to the fact that he overshot his sermon by a way lot. In the end, we ended twenty minutes late. A disaster, as I was having really bad cramps, so bad every month that I think that I have a malfunction in my body. It seems as though my appendix is on my left side of the body instead of the right and I was having a very bad case of appendix.

We were dealing with Isaiah chapters 20 to 27. Only the preacher took it one step further to include Isaiah 13 to 27. There was this whole thing going on, saying that to cover such a range would require a sermon 3 hours longer. I think that once I finish the four gospels I'll try reading Isaiah, it has some really profound imagery. That's why the title of today's message was "Apocalyptic Literature", language failed Isaiah, forcing him to use metaphorical language.

There were four key points, a lot was based on the grace of God and the fall of the kingdoms and human work. The preacher made a good point about nations, that superpowers today keep rising and falling. A few decades ago it was Russia, then America, now Asia. Same as in Isaiah, when there were prophesies of Egypt, Cush, Babylon, Edom, Arabia, Jerusalem, Tyre and the Earth.

God is calling for our Trust
Live our Lives under His Grace
Real people have real problems
Set your eyes on what is to come, remembering the past

Enough of that. About religion of all sorts now. Whenever my mother sees a person who is learned and critical, she wonders how they can trust so completely in other deities and idols. But what determines man's trust in something. It's like our own religion, my Buddhist friend wonders how I believe so much in God and I her.

Now I'm listening to tracks from The Fiddler on the Roof, I need to rent the movie soon. The first time I did, my player couldn't read it. It is about a Jewish village of sorts, a poor man, asking God about his lot in life, about the lack of honour in a poor man's life, thus the song "If I Were a Rich Man". But the Jews have a very strong faith, observing the Sabbath and always looking to God, their life long dreams being to sit in a synagogue to discuss the Holy Books. Then there are the Arab Christians, who are caught among the Israelites and their Muslim Arabs. You wonder how little your faith is compared to them. And if a person who worshipped idols had stronger faith than yours. Their devotion in things created by man so much stronger.

Enough of this. Lets work on the art piece for Youth Sunday. It's going to be A3 for mine, a church leader has commissioned me now.

Roots

2009-06-18T03:19:00.000-07:00

I'm quite nervous and bent on taking the first bus that I can catch to the Botanic Gardens. I don't want to be here. Or else, in no less than 10 minutes, I will be forced out of the house, into the car and to the Chinese tuition centre, Busy Bees.

I've had a several year absence from this place. It was a good several years.

I see nothing to respect really in any effort to make me want to learn the language to get THE grade, which is basically why anyone forces you to learn a subject in this world. I don't feel inclined to learn the language so that I can read more novels or write my own. I don't feel obliged to know more than the set of conversational skills to talk to my relatives. I don't feel obliged to know it because there is pure Chinese blood in my veins.

Lets list the facts. China is a communist country, was once a monarchy, and has a religion that I don't believe in. I respect the culture, but beyond that, China is a sexist nation even in ancient times, women weren't thought more than playthings. And now people say Guanyin is a male.

What about that.

Okay, time to face my doom.

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

It wasn't too bad, other than the fact that the 5 months pregnant teacher is two kilograms lighter than me. We are about the same height, with her perhaps a few centimeters taller than me.

Also, the over-spoon-feeding Busy Bees still holds as their priority. And also the crazy score system and the hostile people which join the class. To other things I guess.

I'll try blogging about other things, or rather, get the heck on with my English holiday homework.

Eighteen Minutes

2009-06-17T05:46:00.000-07:00

I'm more than half way through the course now. Only problem is... how to start expressing my own piece.

Alright, there's a course for dance or expression organised by my English teacher and conducted by Nirmala, a professional Classical Indian Dancer.

The theme is: If you had 18 minutes to live your life in, what would you do?

I want to show the love of conversation, of being with people, of eating, of falling in love with the person you are talking with and having them fall in love with you as well.

The few times I really enjoyed someone's conversation is with someone who enjoys reading and a bit of history, travel, enjoying life or something along those lines. That is with a Jewish grandmother who doesn't look as old as she is, although she has been suffering from lack of sleep, aches, the like. Ellen Maserati, like the car brand.

We talk about all sorts, art, books, Latin, her book club, our lives, travelling in New Zealand and going into a transparent helicopter above mountains and chasms (her experience), her not being able to drink coffee, the taste of the chocolate cake over the issue about dieting (which she quite does). But we always do that with my mother with us. But it's great, three generations... nearly.

Words that'll come out would be:

Laughter, Horrible, Latin, Tea, Poverty, America, France, War, God, Religion, History, Airplanes, Blackberries, New York, Movies, Libraries, Plays, Theatre, Drama, Music, Companionship, Family, Mussels, French Fries, Chocolate.

If I'm going to speak in gibberish though... for a short period of time, or to say a poem...

Blacclick bokugoo silata zeara, piroco

2009-05-15T01:44:00.000-07:00

Don't worry I won't be going into hyperventilating stage yet but please, just tell me who you are. I've got enough calling the National, Art and Asian Civilisation Museums asking for a volunteer vacancy.

2009-05-14T04:47:00.000-07:00

There are hundreds of girls in our school. So which girl exactly are you and how did you get my blog address?
I am " " that close to writing a tirade about annonymous commentors. Just tell me before I barge into every classroom demanding who commented.

Project Private Walks Begins

2009-05-13T04:30:00.000-07:00

I can't take it anymore. This world around me is crazy. My mom sort of rebuked me for making a comment about a girl something like this: " Oh I was just waiting while my mom finished helping her" in hearing distance of the pupil who was being helped. Someone had asked me why I hadn't gone home from visiting my primary school, where my mother works in.

Don't worry unknown girl, just declare your name and I will not go on a tirade about lurkers and annonymous comments. No offecnce seriously. My mother just can't take my message since she doesn't know how at ease I am with my primary school and my aim at being slightly flippant about the matter instead of lying (I had finished most of my visiting before she started the tutoring, which was unplanned, of course) that I was just hanging around for hanging around's sake.

I don't think anyone my age could thoroughly blame me, I was just so irritated by the whole day. Let me recount.
My seniors asked me to stay back for a meeting for the next Model United Nations Conference in the year, only four of us showed up and one wasn't directly involved as a delegate. In the end all we managed to do was get me trying as much as possible through subtle hints to discuss the skit we had to do on Saturday. We went for lunch and right after they wanted to watch a movie, I declined, having no interest in the movies being screened and went to my primary school. I had fun there mostly, until I was quite overcome by boredom since no one was really around to talk to me, the teachers are really busy, it being the exam period and all. (I finished my last paper today, happy but nervous over the results, bad premonitions, but i did my best)

I know I can't blame anyone for that small rebuke but I think I am more affected than the student herself. I have a really weak emotional barrier built up around me. Kept low so that I won't be too blind. As long as I felt no malice before, during and after I said it I'm sure it is alright. I meant it as an explanation and perhaps just wanting my mother to tell me how long she expected to be there. About half an hour ago in the staffroom it was just a few more spelling books and suddenly I had a glutinous expanse of time.

I'm listening to The Pianist now, or half listening, since I'm blogging and watching it at the same time. Grounds me, these movies, leaves me aware of the worse forms of segregations, masacres, hardships that I'll ever know till the Last Day. I don't like stories sometimes because they do not really say it as it is. But some novelists really achieve the realism, even in a fantasy world, that's why like them. C.S. Lewis and J.R Tolkien can do that purely because of the angles they have in the story and because THEY SAY that its a story, not attempting to potray the story as something real.

Okay, the Pianist is about the German Holocaust, featuring Jewish Wladyslaw Szpilman. I hate these sort of horrific movies but sometimes, real life situations tell you the most. Pictures bypass the mind's interpretation of words. That's how comics come alive and movies become reality. Which is why I seek quite a bit of solace in books, more if I can afford the time, where I can choose how much to bypass my reasoning.

Oh and contrary to what the unknown girl thinks, I don't exactly like the idea of migration. I just need to find a friend, a serious male friend to listen to me and dispell my worries that I'm not attractive enough to a guy's eye or that I'm too boring for most people (which is the idea drilled into me by a majority of my friends).

Okay, Project Private Walks Begins. Don't expect me to blog much. I'll be writing.

The Girl Next Door has Lost Her Hope

2009-05-08T07:20:00.001-07:00

What can I say? If you want a hope, cling onto it fast. Unlike Taylor Swift and all the other helplessly romantic girls who actually have the looks enough to be noticed, us girls next door are never given more than a glance. Aliment for thought, guys who are four years older than you find themselves too far on to notice you. I doubt he never saw me more than in a glance when he put on his shoes.

Apparently he's gotten quite close to a girl I know distantly. Of course she's his age and all, classmates. But up till now there hasn't been anything about the two of them. Seems like he's been helping her a lot though. Ah well, I never had a picture of him, but he's possibly the only guy in our estate that I find alright, of all the eligible youths I've seen. He likes art, has a night-life (that I can't keep up with), socialises I'm sure. What's to do when you're two major exams behind a boy you want to just be friends with?

Well I'm sure I'll find my prince charming one day, I've told myself many times that I just need to find a good male friend whom I can talk with. Like about literature and art and history and ourselves. A Boy-Girl relationship adds too much triviality. You just want to advance to the next stage and all that, not really bothering to talk about controversial issues.

Enough romance (I'm now quite certian that I'm a romantic), thanks miss teo for following my blog. See you next term! Mother's Day is coming along. We watched a really touching Indian movie, Every Child is Special, (with English subtitles of ocurse!) that Dr. Maha showed us. I owe her a journal entry for that. There's going to be a book fair (rather book vendor) coming to school on the 23rd under her request.

What is life really about though? Is it an endless pursuit for something? And must that something always be intuned to your religion? I'm going to launch a self-initiated project to answer those questions with things I notice in June. I'm going to title it Private Walks or A Month. But I may not stick to a month.

Okay Geoography and Math next Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. Exams... Let it go, let it all go.

Poetry Night

2009-04-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

It was more of a talk by Professor Kirpal Singh, my literature teacher's (Dr. Maha), Professor. He is quite a well known guy or rather, mellow fellow, in literary circles and universities. It was a class about poetry and the more obvious traits of a good poem and the connoted meanings. Talking about mellow, today's dictionary.com word of the day is mellifluous - flowing sweetly or smoothly.

We were asked to write two poems in this 3 hour crash course (ten to fifteen minutes each, the rest of the course was spent talking about poems, exceedingly engaging and left me wondering if he, like other poets, wanted to trap us with his ideas) smack in the middle of the exam weeks. (thankfully its the last day of April, meaning tomorrow is Labour day and it'll be a nice, long, revision-filled weekend) One was based on the art installation the Professor had to notice while entering the school building. The art students' City of the Future Project. Miss Teo, if you are reading this, good job!

Of course, as seen by the previous posts, I was involved and I think my poem conveys what I feel about the whole project and my own interpretation, which was better left unmentioned in my preparatory sketches. It touches slightly on what I feel about some folks in the art class who, perhaps, don't understand me too well or just have a... to use the term, prejudiced view.

Untitled

I see a silver of the place,
Just the waves, you see, lapping and yapping at the shoreline.
the pristine, clear cut structure and mass
just plonked in the middle of a levitating island over a
crumpled. black, hole
over which mobiles with sharp edges cut the babe's hands
as she reaches out to touch it
stay way, the beckoning beacon says,
but she is only a child,
untried by life's trials.
she touches it, then prods it, a metallic glob forms,
and trickles and mingles through her netted wires
the whole city is being enveloped into tar
while i sit here with pen and parchment
when in the present my hands are marred and scarred
the hollering infidels just want to touch sharp razors.

And the second poem, an interpretation or a poem about a postcard which we picked at random.
I got the postcard of the typewriter, with the caption "We do the Write thing for you!", promoting paper and English related checking services. and I immediately thought of Roald Dahl's short story. It was meant to be a six liner but I didn't hear that part. But here's what I cropped of my original poem:

It's amazing, they do it all for you
send a mash of literary mush,
all american blabberish or ingrammatical kableesh
and you become a bestseller
not just any meyer who wins over the sellers
you get sick when they pull out their trick

This, I shared with Gina, who was a year older and me and chose me to discuss her poem with. She's a nice senior, also thought by Dr. Maha. The class was about 25 girls from two classes, only parts of our class showed up.

And the rest of what I wrote:

It's amazing, they do it all for you
send a mash of literary mush,
all american blabberish or ingrammatical kableesh
and you become a bestseller
not just any meyer who wins over the sellers
you get sick when they pull out their trick
just your name and face and novel idea
which no one ever liked
but, ah, yes, potential, we'll keep this and
publish it after a few tweaks, yes?
a few more similar calls with all your other entries
and you realise its a recorded voice
but, busy people have tight schedules, no?
it comes out a week later, fresh as a spring,
and every bit as jumpy
or perhaps a tot lumpy, like fermented milk in the fridge
they've got my catchphrase there...
yes... and the character does this... oh yes! the oscillations!
why though does it seem different? subtly different.
But who cares about changes, what's important
is the changing dough, if you get my drift.

My excuse for typing all that out? The Doctor wants it. Chinese exam was a flop. But I've still got humanities, Science and Math. So chin up dear girl!

Yes!

2009-04-22T23:49:00.001-07:00

This is quite a surprise. M just called me up to say that she read the previous post. At least we got things straightened out. Actually when I post I guess I'm in a way hoping that the people I talk about read my post and understand my feelings. How else can I tell them to the face "Hey this thing your doing to me bugs me like anything."

Once I get it off my chest in my blog it feels great.

But when I know someone who I mentioned read it, well that beats everything else. The point got in without me opening my mouth. Its like a cream puff pastry with sprinkles on top which you eat in the dark. You don't knwo what you're eating but when you taste it its marvellous.

But one thing egging me is that my PARENTS are reading my blog. I know their style of language and I can almost certainly vouch for that.

Ha! My viewers for this blog has upped to two more!

Exams are coming so with all the stress this blog turns into a rant but I'm at the emotional crisis age. It needs something to go right before everything else falls in place.

Sighs

2009-04-14T16:02:00.000-07:00

That's the name of a teacher in Philip Carey's school in Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage, but that isn't relevant.

Here's what happened this week.

I found out on Monday that we had a Literature Essay on a grammatically incorrect poem by Tuesday. I had spent the previous night trying to come up with something but I had hardly gone past the third paragraph when I had fallen asleep, twice. It was eleven thirty at night. I promptly went to bed in the hopes of getting an extension as no one in class was really sure whether or not we had to the essay in any case. I had left school earlier on Thursday, the day before Good Friday.

Looking back, I wouldn't have time to write the essay even if I had known. I've got three math papers to to a accomplish by Friday night and a whole mountain of revision to conquer.

So on behalf of all the other girls who had left early and had not done the essay, I pleaded successfully. We had till Thursday.

Then at the end of the lesson, that Literature teacher went on and on about the responsibility of a student to hand in homework early. I suppose that's partially my fault. But in the end some of my friends did benefit from it. I finished it during free period in any case and handed it in to her before school ended.

One thing about teachers and parents and, I don't know, everyone who has expectations of you, they always think you should prioritize. The problem is, they shrink all other aspects to fit a pin head and expect us to have equal weightage towards all our subjects or some such thing. Like parents, equal weightage between studies and health, which makes me subject to a homework curfew of 12 midnight. Impossible to achieve I must say but sometimes I do stay up beyond that. My literature teacher thinks that we should prioritize according to deadlines, making sure we submit something. But she doesn't understand that most of us had projects which were graded. Such as my Art building which I need to improve on soon. The rest look rather dishevelled but at least they garner the eye's interest.

Now I think I'm subject to the displeasure of quite a number of people. That teacher. Other folks because just a moment ago we saw our ranking for that Odyssey of Mind competition... eighth out of ten in our division.

Tuesday's events also had a few more disappointments. Namely the car trip back home with my friends, M and A. Normally I try to maintain a lively conversation as much as possible but mid-way I just felt exhausted. They kept talking to themselves in the backseat. Normally, yes I understand that as a woman in the front seat its hard for others to talk to you but, they didn't refer to me or ask me questions to include me in the conversations. Cough, cough, I'm the daughter of the parent who gives the ride back.

Well just call me temperamental. But do you know those convention or orating members? They always have anecdotes. And in my church or circles, the anecdote of the nice guy who calls you up or bumps into you and starts a long talk with you keeps coming up when they talk about patience. And there you are standing with a strained voice and smile trying to wish your way out of it. Well, A did that to me.

Okay now, Thursday. Chinese tuition was scary. It seems like I'll never pass my paper. But I think I'll cope till my national exam. I wish I could take French or some other language like Latin. I went hope with A because M said A wanted me to go home with her. The thing about going home with them is that it is so awkward. They hardly talk when I'm going out with one and I'm always trying to pick up the conversation, more like peppering A with questions really.

V was slightly frizzled off. I suppose its because of the vast amounts of homework our Literature and English Teacher gave.

We found out that our math teacher is going for a major operation next Monday at 9 a.m. To remove her reproductive system because of a cyst that developed there. Please pray for her. Hoping that its still alright. She's one of the senior teachers in the school and she must be quite nervous. She trusts in God, it'll be painful but who knew that she could hide it for two years! That's how it grew so huge. She says the operation will be of no "consequence" since her reproductive system is going to shrivel up inside her in any case. Kind of gross but that is true. Our body will degenerate as we age. Till we're breathing organisms. Our exams are in two weeks but she's finished the syllabus and thinks our class can handle. She'll only see us after summer break. At least this sort of thing grounds you to life.

One more thing. I think I've got it bad with Eurasian or Caucasian boys. It's scary. Their voices especially, killers.

2009-04-07T05:29:00.000-07:00

Here's what I noticed. When I get really steamed up and helpless about something, something else has to come along to remind me about the whole picture. Friday I was more than irate over some people. Then over the course of Saturday when I had no time to blog I got over it slightly. Then on Sunday we had a sermon about Temptation in the series Desert Journey in preparation for Easter Sunday. Monday was back into contact with those people again but well, once Saturday rolls around this whole project will be over.

And Tuesday, today, when I had to pierce my skin with that little wooden carving knife. Or rather wood carving tool, used to make wood block carvings. I started something on Monday, to hollow out a wood block to make a little recession big enough to stack notes on top. Partly out of anger and somehow, before school even started the blade slipped and blood came out.

Instant Reaction: Vampire instincts. Suck the blood.

It was partially sparked by the fact that our backdrop's wheels were spoilt. Possibly by my own doing. But I am the sort who doesn't like to admit it, because it would only make me feel more remorseful. Or rather more liable for others to blame. It doesn't matter too much, they've got some sort of solution.

Andy Williams has a very soothing voice. Its quite claiming to think about God and all those broader views of the world, knowing its all going to work out.

The thing about the cut was that the blood coming out was so thin and watery. At least I knew they didn't totally hate me when one of my friends told the teacher but she disappeared soon after to do other things.

Now its Thursday, just a few hours before Good Friday. Today I spent most of my time in agony. I don't have any friends now in the place where I spend most of my waking hours. Except my seniors in debate, I spend my extra curricular activities with them and that's a lot of time. I can just tell them things I would never dream of telling my class because they can't take a joke or let me tell them something really interesting. The moment you mention the opposite gender in two stories one after the other they think you're boy crazy and having over-active hormones.

Okay, to cut short I've got to:

1) Go for meeting from 8 to 9:15 for that project
2) Math homework (substantial, actually, very)
3) Chinese (very substantial)
4) Geography (few pages)
5) Science/Literature/Geography/History/Art notes and revision
6) Try writing an English Essay and one of the letters
7) English speech research on "Why should I stop eating fast food" and "How to save the Earth" (low priority)
8) Art sculpture on an A4 piece of mounting board. City of the future. 30% weightage for mid-years! (VERY HIGH PRIORITY DUE TUESDAY!)
9) Settling my emotions right, and getting my studies first. I wish I had a home-tutor so I wouldn't have to bother with people in a class.
Praying for a miracle to happen, they do happen now. But my time of the month wasn't the miracle I was hoping for.

2009-03-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.dowlingcentral.com/MrsD/area/literature/Terms/conflict.html

Study Guide At the end of this unit you will be able to:

define conflict
point out the difference between internal and external conflict
The plots of most stories centers around conflict. A conflict is a struggle between opposing forces.
There are two main kinds of conflict in stories: external and internal.

External Conflict.
A struggle between a character and an outside force is an external conflict. Characters may face several types of outside forces. The outside force may be another character. It may be the character and the community. The outside force may also be forces of nature. For example, a story might be the main character struggling against the arctic cold.
Man against man.
Man against nature.

Internal Conflict.A struggle that takes place in a character's mind is called internal conflict. For example, a character may have to decide between right and wrong or between two solutions to a problem. Sometimes, a character must deal with his or her own mixed feelings or emotions.
Man against himself.

The Importance of Conflict.Conflict is necessary to every story. In short stories, there is usually one major conflict. In longer stories, there could be several conflicts.
Conflict adds excitement and suspense to a story. The conflict usually becomes clear to the beginning of a story. As the plot unfolds, the reader starts to wonder what will happen next and how the characters will handle the situation. Many readers enjoy trying to predict the final outcome.

The excitement usually builds to a high point, or climax. The climax is the turning point of the story. Something has happened to resolve the conflict.

Reading for Conflict.As you read a story:
identify the main characters
decide what conflict they face
look for steps they take to settle that conflict
see if the steps cause other conflict
watch for clues and try to predict what the characters will do
enjoy the buildup of suspense
put yourself in the story
decide if you would have solved the conflict in the same way

And that's our homework. Write about conflict in the story Holes by Louis Sachar. Our English and Literature teacher set that. The above was conveniently copied from Mrs. D's website, possibly some kinder teacher on the other side of the world.

The City of the Future sketches are due today as well but I'm not to worried about that.

Just the essay, which is due tomorrow. And our teacher, who has threatened to walk out of class during English period later. Right now its my free period and the computer is conveniently located at the back of the classroom. I could start on the essay but I just feel like getting my thoughts straight.

I know the class has been strongly opposing her but I find her one of my favourite English teachers. I've only had two. One of them is Teacher Martin, who was my enrichment teacher a number of years ago. The rest are just random folks.

She asks for our opinion but doesn't give hers. That's for lesson time.

She gives her opinion but doesn't hear ours. That's when she complains about our class' response. Which is equivalent to 5% capacity usage. Of which me and and less than two others respond to mostly. Or not. Depending. It makes you look bad when you respond and no one else does.

That's no excuse.

She's done a lot for the class, trying to dress it up with bright coloured cloth and all. But we're not that receptive.

It's hard when the class presents a solid mental block.

God Bless her and let her come back for English later.

Hopefully we'll get an extension for the essay. I've got art till 6 today. I'll be home and done with dinner earliest 7:20, only if I bolt it down like I haven't seen food in a decade. By the time I gear up after rereading most parts of Holes it'll be 8. An essay takes about an hour to write. For me to write in larger font it'll take 20 odd minutes more. Which leaves me at 9:20. I'll need to put on my lenses (i wear hard lens, corrective at night). Leaving me say 9:35. I'll then need to cram Science revision and read the poem and read the other 3 stories to be tested at the Assessment. That will leave me close to eleven. Bible Study: Read the Resurrection of Christ. Set Alarm, brush my teeth. It'll be 11:20p.m by then. Which means I'll sleep for 6 hours odd. But that's only if I stick to the "schedule". I need my sleep. My parents force me to.

2009-03-25T04:45:00.000-07:00

Things to Do:

1) Finish Math
2) Add Ariaga's blog
3) Make Science notes for exam 29th April
4) Understand the physics chapter
5) Start sketches for "City of the Future" building of white cardboard and mounting board for Art Exam
6) Blog about teachers (context coincidence)
7) Work on the Debate Uniform, T-shirt, National Education T-shirt and Eco-Friendly bag designs due Monday
8) Sleep early after reading the last part of Jesus' prayer in the book of John

2009-03-19T03:34:00.001-07:00

i'm on the verge of yet again making a new blog.

Dinner and Dance

2009-03-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

Last night I went for my first dance party. My first official party with people in my age group at the end of the Model United Nations Conference. The three days spent in stifling school blazers and referring to yourself in third person.

I was the delegate of Sudan and was voted in the superlatives: Most Act-Big delegate.
But in a sense Sudan was the only country representing Africa in the UN Reform council so I was perfectly justified.

It was quite alright, lemonade, food, a piece of brownie, and the some quite cliched songs of the teenage world. Namely "Womanizer" and "Don't Cha" and a track or two from Rick Astley and Maroon 5, some random Bollywood remix and the type which reminds you a little of Black Eyed Peas but isn't Black Eyed Peas. People danced and as I was thinking about after the dinner and dance last night, I think the best song to describe the overall feelings I had was "Too Busy Being Fabulous"

If you notice the dance floor, and the whole conference span of three days, some people just want attention and they do get it by cracking up a few jokes and doing something. I have nothing against that, just a little envy that I don't know how to achieve that sort of attitude, especially around the guys. What with my school being an all girls school since the age of 7 and the only male acquaintances I have being people from church.

A balance between striking up a conversation and flirting is hard to find during this sort of social event. Conversations were way easy during the conference itself. But when the actual partying starts and I'm in a golden dress which has a drawstring (or draw-sash) neckline and reaches to below my knees... You find it hard to approach people when up on stage and tearing through the dance floor are girls who strut their stuff and look, in the easiest way to describe it, cool.

A delegate of Russia, (most schools have two teams and so my school had the countries Russia and Sudan), reportedly (she was not in my council), won the superlative for most flirty. And some other things. So it is rather hard for me to come to terms with my wants for, perhaps, a dance with someone for a hyped up song. It doesn't help matters when the guys start pretending to be gay couples.

I guess none of that matters. I've got God behind me in whatever I do, just that it is a little hard to hear him amidst loud disco music. Here are a few things I've learnt.

1) Never let yourself get to the stage where you fit the criteria of "Too Busy Being Fabulous"
2) Never wear high heels for dancing, or even normal life, you were dying and you weren't even in platforms or stilettos.
3) Never go partying on a school week. (This is holiday week but the 3 full-day United Nations simulation isn't moving my apparent stack of homework)
4)Always be seen as a person who doesn't mind love, but don't look like easy pucker-up either.

New Books

2009-03-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

To reward myself (and to spend the nice gift card from the school and the Borders Vouchers and my new Preferred Card)
I got these books over the weekend at Borders.

1) The Thousand and One Arabian Nights (complete translated version by Sir Richard Burton)
Beat that Erin!
2) The Memory Keeper's Daughter
3) The Kite Runner (I am a person who does not want to get caught up in fads but eventually buys the book because everyone says its good. This however does not apply to Jodi Picoult)
4) Brave New World

And from other stores
5) The Woman in White

And Secondhand
6) The Hobbits
7) The Two Towers J.R.R. Tolkien (I'm going to experiment with him, read only the Hobbits of all his works)
8) Private Myths (Psychological book borrowed from Art Teachers)

Don't Hang on to Something Too Much

2009-03-06T03:57:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought just something right was going my way, its been spirited away again by that insolent nuisance, debate.

This is what happened:

I was listening to the radio as my dad drove me to school, the car radio turned onto 90.5 fm, Classic hits radio station. The music was good, then came the DJ's daily trivia. It was on art.

For some background information I take Art History and have been to the Louvre, twice.

DG Maggie: What was Venus de Milo holding in her left hand?"

DG Hamish: A handbag. (He's rather thick skulled sometimes but essentially good humoured)

DG Maggie: No that is not correct, but if you do know the answer, text message to 72346, GB space, your name, space, and your answer. And you stand a chance to win a pair of Disney On Ice tickets featuring the Disney princesses.

Me: Apple. ( At that time I was thinking of the Birth of Venus, who was placed on my desktop for several weeks last year. She was in a pose with nothing in her left hand, which was placed over her bare bosom. But the symbolic representation of Venus would mean Apple, the forbidden fruit in the Bible or referred to as the apple Paris or Alexander in the Trojan war gave her, which represented her beauty. Or so says the novel I've read a couple times over and which I had flipped through again over the span of the past few weeks and days or even hours.)

Stagnant pause between which I was frantically pressing the small pad of numbers and letters into my dad's cell since I am *ahem* underage.

Sent.

A young girl who wishes like any other princess-to-be, to relive her childhood experience at Disney On Ice, which includes the Little Mermaid, One Hundred Years of Disney and Snow White and some other recollection which had the Beast falling flat on his back during the routine of him and Belle during the Hundred Years.

A teenager who knows how corrupted Disney has become and is dying to enter a Disney landscape devoid of High School Musical and Hannah Montannah.

Cheerful music which I bobbed my head to while clutching my black back-pack. My dad's car is sometimes pleasantly cold.

Ringing cellular.

I picked it up.

DJ Maggie: Hello, may I speak to the guy who instant messaged us? (I had put my dad's name. *cough* underage *cough*

Me: This is his daughter, I answered the question.

DJ Maggie: Oh! (sounds amused in a nice way) What's your name?

Me (thrilled! I love this radio station): Annabel
DJ Maggie: You got the answer correct, apple isn't it? Out of interest, how did you get the answer?

Me: I study Art in school.

DJ Maggie: How old are you?

Me: *Says underage numeral*

DJ Maggie: (stunned pause) Wow, and you listen to Gold 90 fm! So is this in your syllabus?

Me: Not really, I just had Venus as my desktop background for a few weeks last year. Personal interest.

DJ Maggie: Okay just hold on the line. *exchanges standard instructions*

After which I was put on air, realised my art piece confusion but told my dad after air time, said my answer and heard that someone else guessed that Venus had a Bible in her hand.

Someone in class saw me walk in and shouted, "You were on radio right?" Thereafter part of my circle knew about it and I was truly on Cloud 9. Thankfully there was still half-an-hour till school started.

Throughout the day I was thanking God but I had a sense of unease with the date of the concert. I was hoping it was going to be during the March holidays which is when this sort of production goes blasting "WE ARE LIVE IN SINGAPORE!" There was also the nagging apprehension of the Julia Gabriel's debate, we would get the motion that afternoon.

The motion turned out to be "This House Would Allow Community Service as an Alternative for National Service." We're Opposition and have precisely one week, now precisely less than a week at this time I'm recounting my episode, till Friday the thirteenth of March. Negative annotation and stress upon the numeral.

After a counter-productive session, (which ended early because our trainer was seriously not well. (Pray for her folks) She caught the bug from her sister.) I told my mom, who came to fetch me. (My parents pick me up when I end late)

I was simply delighted, I found my Disneyland Paris T-Shirt, I knew where my Mickey cap was, I was dreaming of that time in the Louvre when I did see Venus de Milo, I had a lovely dinner and my dad came home slightly late, now precisely about an hour ago. I asked him about the collection of the tickets to Disney on Ice.

Then he asked me innocently, "Do you have anything on next Friday?"

Next Friday was March the 13th.

I was stunned and started crying. Really tears and tears *stopped to glance at this month's National Geographic* and then looked-I'm sure- like an upset child who's lost her chance to see THE concert. To match my dad said I could have some ice-cream. As if I could bring myself to put on anymore weight. I feel really fat and I wasn't bothered at my eating habits (which are rather good, just that my lifestyle leaves no time for strenuous exercise during competition weeks, which have piled on me only this year) until the blow came.

The same girl who has consequently ignored her homework and debate planning to blog her woes now has to face reality again. Her dad has given her half an orange instead. The same girl who hasn't had a party or true celebration for her birthday, which was February 26th. All because of the debate competition, Julia Gabriel's naturally, was on Friday and Saturday had the Model United Nations Meeting and fellowship meeting at night for my parents. Sunday was no better, church, art, dinner, sleep. Then the weekday tumult.

Now to life and her obligations of me. Which is to stop crying like the six-year-old me, which has hidden all this while very visibly.

Never mind, thank God in all circumstances and the music sung by the church choir and the body of Christ shall outweigh whatever sung anywhere else in the world.

2009-03-04T05:21:00.000-08:00

referring to the last post: debate really makes you feel like you know nothing, and the only word that crossed my mind was imbecile.

adjective
3. mentally feeble.
4. showing mental feebleness or incapacity.
5. stupid; silly; absurd.
6. Archaic. weak or feeble.

Of the above I rate myself 4,5 and 6 Uncle Benny.
With regards to that post, I was conked out from Julia Gabriel's debate training and preparation as well as swamped with projects so that was REALLY a bad time to visit a teenage blog. But at least you found it!

My literature made us memorize Composed upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth and it is sort of stuck in my head. Never mind, back to schoolwork after that hike from school through MacRitchie and to the base of the Bukit Timah Hill.

2009-02-23T13:29:00.001-08:00

Debate makes you feel imbecilic and gives you no time for blogging.

2009-01-15T05:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/14/opinion/edkeillor.php

It self explains my hurry. God Bless International Herald Tribune.

2008-12-30T19:08:00.000-08:00

Damn. I can't really work it out for debate. I really give up sometimes.
I'm going to forget things and just enjoy my last few hours of peace.

2008-12-25T19:43:00.001-08:00

Rather than slave away at my holiday homework before school starts on 2nd Jan, I am blogging.
I've just watched that Emo video on Erin's blog again. I was that bored.

Okay not bored really but rather frustrated at the simple complexity of crochet.
And pondering over morality (due to Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage)
And wondering if I should ever finish reading 家教情人梦
About some little depressed girl who wants to have a boyfriend and has bad grades.

I'm watching The Painted Veil. I've read the book. By Somerset Maugham.
I guess I never really had the intensity of the things being said and done sometimes.
I felt for Walter in that book though. I'll say that much.

Crochetogether

2008-12-24T23:49:00.000-08:00

Crochet craze. Christmas craze.

Guess what I got for Christmas! I got a Knitting and Crochet Bible! It was given to me by a family friend.
One of the projects I am dying to try is the crochet heirloom blanket. It needs 225 motifs measuring 17cm by 17cm.

Yeah. One motif every day of the year and I should get there. Eventually.
I want to make a different pattern for every motif and save it for my coming-of-age. Or my confirmation.

For now it will be soaking up the last traces of festive cheer before new school term starts.
(where's that homework of mine?)

And finishing up the over-sized vest for my buddy and primary school friend, Shannon.
It's done in plain boring stockinette and is a pain in a neck of a time-waster.
At least the yarn I found was very reasonably priced.

Gotta go crochet!
Tell you more about my Knitogether and Crochetogether and Knotogether plans!

2008-12-18T03:17:00.000-08:00

CROCHET!
I have just picked it up like the last two weeks and it is way easier than knitting

Guys I Like

2008-12-11T22:51:00.000-08:00

Okay. So even if I AM a little relationship starved and don't go crazy over some guys I do have my weak spots. Namely this guy and Richard Gere. I'm not putting Richard Gere's photo because he is devilishly old. I officially was all for him when I saw the visa commercial and Shall We Dance?.

James Bond here, he's the new guy. I was watching the Monday night movies on channel 5 (yes, i don't have cable, therefore resorting to lamer channels) with him starring in them. Hearted the action scenes and "Tomorrow Never Dies" although I hated the close scenes. Why can't two people just stay friends? Even if one is remarkably handsome.
Third on the list is Richard Clayderman. A lesser known pianist by this era since he is also remarkably old. Try searching for Rhapsody in Blue. This guy's quite cool.
Then a minor string of my other swooning phases. Titanic's Jack Dawson, Barry Manilow for his singing, Kenny Rogers for the awesome looks and singing and lyrics of the songs he sang.

Okay. back to real life. I have to finish my Christmas presents for some people and the debate sessions are killing me. It is so difficult! Research and more research on Financial Incentives for Marriage and Parenthood. Next post will cover that.

Of Human Bondage

2008-12-02T03:18:00.000-08:00

By Somerset Maugham. You know, he might just become my favourite author. I mean, I enjoyed the Painted Veil and I rather enjoy this novel even as I'm at page 59.

Middlesex was the most awesome book I have read in ages. The whole story is like wow and logically believable.

I'm knitting a vest for a friend. After which I shall pamper myself with one.

I'm going to be at Liang Court this Saturday night! I've picked out my outfit. I know I sound as though I'm going for a first date but I'm not. I wish I was. Romance seems so wonderful. The holidays are bad for singles. Left right and center you see couples holding hands, making out, clutching and groping each other and wearing egotistic t-shirts.

Okay! I know I've been very jealous. And going to the art class at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts is not helping matters. On the way there you see so many guys and the western ideal man. Them and Asian girls dating. The worst part is that I've got Crush by David ringing in my head due to the guy in art class (thankfully it's a one week holiday class) playing it on his hand phone for the past two days before class began. Today's track pics included Avril's Skater boy which a another girl hated.

Right now I've got to think of ways to incorporate a theme into that gimongous (larger than A3) canvas we have to complete by Friday's lesson. We start practical work on Thursday. I'm thinking checkerboards. Chess boards. Vertical canvas. Looking up. Looking down- Bird's eyeview. A good sketch of someone. Just one really good sketch. A person whom I can connect with. Ah-Hah!

Flickr.

Okay, perhaps not. My national geographic. My printer ain't that good.

2008-11-27T03:02:00.000-08:00

My mother got the teaching job. From the Ministry of Education to teach in a primary school.

Is that good or bad or evil? I mean she wants it a whole lot and she was repeating the whole interview and opening the letterbox everyday (for the first time) to check for the confirmation letter.

And guess what? Our oh so productive and effective government sent her a simple sms.

Which will mean I have lost my car rides to and fro from school. But Dad's going to send me to school everyday! Whee!

I guess I need to organise my time and prioritise with homework and other stuff. I NEED A DAILY PLANNER.

But what if I go wild or something? Like neglect my studies or hang out or wreck the place or set the whole place on fire? Unlikely, yes, but still.

Just when I thought my life was too boring to write about things heat up a little.

Licking Fingers

2008-11-16T16:34:00.000-08:00

Topics I need to get out of my system:
1) Euthanasia
2) Contraceptives and Jabs and STD
3) BGRs
4) Tuition Homework

Today is a Monday, 17th of November, and Britain is wanting to promote jabs which causes their teenagers to become INFERTILE for three years.

Yesterday was Sunday and the invited preacher, an Elder of another church, was talking about Identity Beyond Sexuality. Which became more a topic on Sexuality and Homo-sexuality. and of course pornography and etc...

Following Saturday's Straits Times hollering about the euthanasia case in Italy where a dad who has kept his daughter on 16 years life-support because the church won't let him disconnect the feeding tube.

Which also included the sex-changed female who is now a male with a womb and is carrying their second baby.

Which is only half theirs since the male can't force his own into his vagina.

When there are hundreds of thousands of children who could be adopted in less waiting time than 9 months. Although putting those innocent minds into such fallen human corruption is no less than evil and torture to human beings. Other than making someone listen and watch the revised channel promoting HSM and Hannah and Camp-something. But how would I know? I don't even own cable.

So what is this world coming to? Just a final end and a heavenly banquet. I think we need a few more World Wars and total destruction of MTV and a NEW DICTATORSHIP in order for people like me to look up from our self-pity and actually go back to our roots back in the Garden of Eden.

Yes, fear my change the world plan.

Actually, fear my mental state more. I am listening to Loco Roco 2's advertisement with a sorrowful Waiting in the Weeds by the Eagles in the background. Erin, try it. You'll see where my mental degradation has led me.

On the brighter side, as Singapore wages war against the hourly rates of rooms on Joo Chiat Road to prevent sexual and sleazy activities although the smart alecs will head over to Geylang to finish their business transactions, CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

And I am playing Winter Wonderland by a bub called Merle Haggard (just clicking nice looking tracks) on YouTube.

But seriously! Admit it! The lighting and decorations on Orchard Road are designed by candy obsessed people who can't get the meaning of Christmas or good looking ornaments. I mean, at least presents rather than streets of candy hanging from trees and lamp posts pretending to be giant candy canes.

I have progressed to Silent Night. This guy's voice is quite nice and calming. When I'm supposed to be doing algebra.

Now I'm at Silver Bells.

There's no green and red feeling around or the feeling that there is Santa Claus and all his elves and Mrs. Claus. Although of course the whole meaning of Christmas is Jesus Christ being born even if not on the exact date of 25th December.

Perhaps Santa Claus is coming to town.

2008-11-16T16:10:00.000-08:00

I am so sad I feel like crying and wallowing in my bed and pillows. Unfortunately, it is getting quite boring. I slept in for an hour before going to church then slept two hours in the afternoon and was in bed asleep by eleven. But I suppose it doesn't count since I woke up at 3 in the morning due to nothing and padded around the house before falling asleep again.

The sermon was on Sexuality. Groan. That topic is hitting me all over for a week or more. First it was Every Young Woman's Battle and now it's this whole chunk of a sermon on a late Sunday morning.

I am bleeding pretty awfully, the wound hurts too.

I wonder if I'll ever become an author. For babies perhaps, considering my current literary standard.

Nothing matters as much as making some worth of myself I suppose.

My dad raided my wardrobe in attempt to bring some semblance of order into it.

Will I ever become an author at least two people will go raving about? A dream I've been holding close for nearly three years is just so vapour-ish if there is such a word.

My Apologies

2008-11-13T02:30:00.000-08:00

Sorry for that eminent weirdness in the previous two posts. Just to tell you that I am truly myself when I blog not just filtering my speech when I have live conversations with friends as great as you.

Blog Entry 03

2008-11-12T22:15:00.000-08:00

This time it would be accepted to title this post in a more interesting way but I decided against it in case I turn it into a rant or digress in mid-post.

Anyways I feel like a plump blob of blubber. I've been doing as much as I can, cutting back food intake, running for exercise and pondering about the subject. I don't know whether I should convince myself that I am anorexic (when I am not) and just starve myself till I get to the desired weight (like that's going to happen with my love for food).

It hasn't been working even though I've been at it for over 20 weeks! Excluding mostly the examination weeks when you can't possibly run when you are already shack with the revision.

On the bright side I have a whole evening to about ten plus if I'm lucky alone on a Saturday night on the 6th of December. By the riverside where the night life of this city thrives. It would be nice to spend it with someone. Someone to talk to me as a total stranger yet a deepest friend. Without me worrying about abduction or any low lying rot like that.

How sad, for that day I'll have somewhere to go but no one to go with.

I'm starting on a teenager series of trouble. Eventually a good story? Hopefully yet dolefully I wait for it to take seed.

Blog Entry 02

2008-11-12T16:14:00.000-08:00

Just to make myself feel better from my over-colliding hormonal sequence pattern partially due to PMS (just discharged egg), I am going to just type and blog anything and whatever that comes to mind as I am against doing my Chinese homework and my (is it lustful or masturbating?) thoughts.

People like cockroaches and tapeworms who are critical about my writing now, buzz off. I won't be bothering about my style for... weather check... the next three weeks or so until I finish the "Every Young Woman's Battle" self-help or God-helps book and "Middlesex" that irritatingly good writer's book.

As Paul said "Everything is Permissible but not everything is beneficial"

I finished the Chinese book I was supposed to read for tuition ages ago but it has seriously confirmed the vague ideas I had about Chinese writers. Let's list them.

1) Fake Suspense (Everyone couldn't care less about the stories there's no suspense)

2) No thinking space for the reader. (Apparently, the Chinese books and stories which I read, of which there are few, allow no room for the reader's opinion or the author's own true feelings because everything is so robotic-ly separated into right and wrong. what fun or enjoyment is there in reading a book which blatantly tells you right-from-wrong?)

3) Qin Shihuang and Mao have brainwashed them to thinking there is no freedom of speech. (Yeah, the books will be thrown into acid if they write about the scandals or the deteriorating quality of life.)

4) No respect is developed in the reader for the author. ( Perhaps it's just this little compilation of stories by the same author but she pokes her nose into every abyss of teenage misery she encounters without dragging the victims out by her hooked nose.)

Whatever. No one's going to read my blog so why should I bother with writing properly in what I believe is grammatical order. Nothing that comes out of me good enough unless it comes from God. Sigh. He better explain this whole cosmic plan to us one day about how He KNOWS everything but can also change HIS mind when we pray for mercy or forgiveness for fellow brethren.

I guess I would like to have someone to talk to heart-to-heart right now but unfortunately I have to worry about my Chinese tuition homework which I don't care much for. I can't see Melanie for if soonest the next fortnight. She's my friend, perhaps my best friend, and my longest friendship. Since before five years old. We were in the same church then and since I moved to another we see each other perhaps just twice a year. Thrice if lucky.

I miss childhood.

Every Young Woman's Battle

2008-11-11T23:36:00.000-08:00

I got that book from Tecman, a Christian bookstore with a whole lot more.
Located at Bras Basah Complex opposite the Raffles Hotel.
Today someone commented on me tagging with my mother even at this age.
Which I am perhaps a bit too old for, being a teenager.
Apparently the saleswoman was rather alright with my parasitic behaviour due to my shortage of allowance.

Apart from the apparent digressing...

This book has quite gotten my attention and I leeched on my mother and she bought it for me. Score one for going out with parents.
It's about "Guarding your Mind, Heart, Body In a Sex-Saturated World"
This is the fourth book in the Every-dash dash's battle. As far as I could tell from the dedications, foreword and introduction.
A team of people are involved in the production and writing of the books as well as teenagers contributing their painful stories and opinions.
Published by WaterBrook Press
2007 Edition
Copyrighted 2004

This one is written by Shannon Ethridge and Stephen Arterburn

It is supposed to cover topics like dating, sexuality, virginity (Shannon had lost her's before marriage), God and our spiritual relationship with him, the modern thinking of sex and sexual provocation. Or at least along those lines.

Seriously, I find that some of the relationship thoughts have been going into my head. Not that I read overly crazy and unrealistic teenage romance like Twilight. Actually, I quite shy away from that genre.

I find that the modern fiction writers for my age group promote some things in the reverse psychology way or demoting them in the reverse psychology way.

There I go lying again. I read them because I have that stupid running round the bush teenage plot with the near perfect boyfriend in it which I made up. Mentions and cheering to me for thinking him up.

........

No applause?

Okay so yes. I got that guy's physical attractiveness from a brown haired Ken doll and Joe from The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly.

So yes. In reading the book I hope to get all the falleness of my sexual nature out of my life and mental spaces and reconnect with God.

And to those non-commenting lurkers on my blog

"I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE GIRLS WHO GO AROUND DOING THAT KIND OF STUFF!"

To people like Erin and Megs and any of the apparently dismantling Muse Clique who actually bother to read this blog now you know what a boy-girl relationship obsessed person I actually am.

And how abysmally emotionally lacking of intelligence to keep my mental love life secret.

I think I am dying for a game of truth or dare. Let's play.

Okay whatever it is you dared me I am opting for a truth.

And I think up the question. Not you.

I have never had a boyfriend or a kiss or a date or a close male friend excluding my dad.
There. I said it.

Blog Entry 01

2008-11-11T01:51:00.000-08:00

The numbered (Blog Entry) series will occur when I have either no better name for a post or when I just want to recount a day or week or month of a year in the life in my world.

Yesterday:

I have found that I like cooking. Especially pasta for my own consumption.
Greedy little tummy.
The neck-warmer i was instructed to do by my mother or more like ordered to make for my aunt in New York has too broad a width by her analysis.

Today:

Destroyed the intended neck-warmer and started on a lion brand yarn pattern for a scarf.
took me ages to coil back 23 cm of purl stitch with width about 22 stitches.
I found the pattern for a Basic Sampler Scarf which I am now knitting in lieu of the somewhat easier and more conservative neck warmer.
Went out for lunch with my mom and her Korean friend.
We had a nice yummy lunch and went to a cafe for drinks and cake

So much for the grubbing.

Then I had to make myself burn it off with a 2.4 run in 16 min 25-ish seconds.
Then a short walk with my mother before washing her car.
I saw the slacking cleaners in my condo.
At least they may have some good in them since I saw the growing carnation seedlings in the pot.
Ignoring my Chinese book.
Knitting quite sadly and quietly.
Going for dinner now at the Dining Table.

Gluttony

2008-11-10T00:58:00.000-08:00

Chewing on a de-flavoured strip of Hubba Bubba Gum
Triple Berry
Smuggled from Europe to this country
This is not my Idea of fun.

I wish I was courting a man
With the intention of it carrying on. Not some fickle candle in the wind
Or at least a friendship, a deep one with a man

Today was all stern men
On the bus, in the shops
at least the ones which are in my age group or whomsoever I fancy

That does it. I can't think while attempting to rant.
All you need to know is that I have to finish a dull Chinese book
Dull only because of the language and the whole ideal right and wrong concept.
This by Thursday afternoon for the gallows of Chinese Tuition.

The Scarlet Letter

2008-11-07T05:17:00.000-08:00

A rather in depth book about sin and guilt by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I was inspired to read it by Taylor Swift. Her singing "and I was your Scarlet Letter" in her song Love Story.

I think I should be more honest in my blogging and just rant like all my other fellow teen bloggers do. Be honest with myself.

That will start in the next entry.

Bad Day

2008-11-06T04:05:00.001-08:00

A sad song turns around your day? I hope it does. I've listened to Daniel Powter's Bad Day at least five times in a row at this point. alright four from him and one chimpmunk version.

I'm sorry Kimisa. I know you know my blog now. I suppose you might never see this post. You're possibly watching your favourite "I Survived a Japanese Gameshow" right now. You'll never know what's in your plain sight. This was possibly the trigger.

You don't know. Why should I bother? Then I feel that this is my only way out.

It's like this. My mother does not really like me on such close terms with you. I don't get it, I mean I get her reasoning about the religion combats we will face but I just wish that God could carry me through those.

I have a few close friends at church and in this circle of my life. Then why do I want to be with you as a friend? You made me love you to much. The manga you drew, your own boldness.

I can't send this sort of point directly to you so I have to do it in the presence of the whole web and face the stupid bleeding risk of you seeing it at the same time.

Perhaps if life was a music video we could all cheorograph at our own pre-ordained style it might work out. You'll be the person who spray paints everyday after a bad day at school on the pavement along the road which my eyes see everyday. I'll be the person who writes next to it in chalk that the rain washes away. Then one day you'll see my initials before the rain comes.

Sorry if I've been emoing out because of that.

Hang it All

2008-11-06T02:21:00.000-08:00

Dash it all that little insignificant language mark.
I waste hours and money on the pitiful little language and I find no enjoyment in it.

Let me dash all hopes of becoming a English-French bilingual. Right now, the outrageous government just wants all of us citizens under their education scheme to learn our mother tongue regardless of the nowhere it's going to lead most of us. We'll bloomingly forget the lump of stuff we learn other than basic conversational Chinese.

Really. Other than the ability of speaking to 1.3 billion people in China and smatterings of other non-China people who know the language that's about it. You can't use it as a Morse code in Singapore. Even in France you can't use it as a Morse code because of all the other CHINESE people KNOW THE LANGUAGE.

While we're at that we can wilt away the time we could have otherwise spent on the things we treasure in the wide spectrum of academics.

I'm not against Chinese or anything but this sort of force-feeding has got to stop. The culture and heritage I hold in great esteem but it's the same as race isn't it? It holds you down when you want to delve into other areas and spaces.

It is important but to each his own. What is food to one is lethal poison to the other. My English grade has worsened (though perhaps not Chinese's fault) and that haranguing red mark from my Chinese makes me feel so insignificant I feel like chucking away my writing dreams and becoming the little toddler in the system. Toddling from high school to varsity. That's all they want from us. Just that. No high expectations. Nope.

HOW UNCONVINCING IS THAT?

Some people are forced into some types of work and there are hundreds and thousands out there striving for a living and daily bread and gruel. So why am I complaining?

Just say that I am a stubborn, ill-contented, selfish, self-absorbed, wishful thinking, spoiled, indecent brat of a teenager.

Obama Won!

2008-11-05T20:58:00.000-08:00

Thank you for noting that Erin. As a token of my esteem and respect towards you I shall now request the lurkers around this blog to buzz over to your blog where they can thrive as lurkers since your blog does not have a bleeding comment system or tagboard.

Obama WON! At least now we don't have to hide our faces and duck for cover should Mc Cain become president and attend some meeting in Singapore which our Prime Minister is cordially inviting the truly elected president to in his congratulatory letter to Mr Obama and his Vice-President.

I'll need to resort to ebay soon. There is no other way I can get my much needed yarn.

......

That was an exceedingly long movie break. I am just too stuck into the Disney movies. Motion pictures of course not the HSM nonsense that passes for a movie nowadays. Just watched The Black Cauldron, which was a disappointment. Not as many funny lines or anything as the usual stream.

ADMIT IT! Disney is the awesomest movie producer of this age other than it's crazy propaganda of teenage life.

Am I Lovesick?

2008-11-04T04:39:00.000-08:00

I seriously think I am. I have this continuous love-story with the same old characters with occasionally different settings running through my head since I was playing Barbie. Which is yes, ages ago. Now it has evolved to a near Beauty and the Beast setting with only modern people. Potential spark whenever I revisit my childhood favourites.

First it was the Malaysian trip to Port Dickson last weekend (I'll elaborate more this week). I spent a memorable ten minutes or so sitting across this lonesome Indian chap with the sea breeze in my face. It isn't exactly me checking him out or anything but it started me thinking about relationships and the possible advances he might make. Thankfully we were just two folks staring at nothing in particular and sipping water.

Of course I was knitting: that made him stare at my needles for awhile. Turns out I was a lot calmer after that. May have been the sea air or that singular human presence. I left after that for my shower. Later that night I believe he was one of the two chaps sleeping on the benches where we sat.

Second was the train ride. Just a few stops. I chanced to sit next to a blond guy. It was certainly uncalled for but I think it started my irritating brain cogs wondering who I might eventually end up with. If only all people wore wedding or engagement rings. No problems or worries that you are chatting up a married guy or girl. I quite "fall in love" with random people with no particular looks when in a line queuing for food or in the bus.

He was not handsome or dashing or wearing a crisp business suit (any of those would have been quite attractive). Just a plain man in t-shirt and shorts. Like what a friend told me, when you are single and guys don't notice, you feel awfully insignificant. I have never been in a real dating relationship or even boy-girl so my only experience is when I dream about it. a.k.a the weird characters scenario.

Third. The newspaper boy. It is so clique I want to scream. An average looking newspaper boy can really hit you hard when he comes for the payment when you are dressed in nothing but shorts and a P.J top. Like the Avenue Q song "I'm not wearing underwear today"

I believe he's about a few years older than me. Collecting the payment for a few years now but there's nothing more I do when I see him but pass him the money and get my change and receipt.

I hope this does not affect my mental reputation with my friends who know this blog. I'm just feeling a little lovelorn. And practically old when someone thought I was my mother's friend. Gross.

No Comment

2008-10-30T06:43:00.000-07:00

I am irate, pissed off, and certain muses always get the bulk of the burden. I just spent the past two and a half hours unravelling and coiling back two small ball's worth of pre-knitted yarn. Ribbing no less. Two knit two purl.

It was meant as a Christmas present and I finished 15cm of it and there is seriously not enough yarn to be knitting two strand at a time. It is also a discontinued type of yarn in possibly the only shop in my district selling it.

Now I've got to start again and finish it with using the horrendous exercise of using 98 stitches per row for about 32 inches or 81.5 cm.

If only the yarn was still available. Anyway, I'm in a foul mood and feel like snapping at the slightest thing. I suppose there are fouler moods than this to get through. Problem is for the past few days I've been having drastic highs and lows in a single span of 24 hours. This tops it.

I wish I had bought Dracula. I could use some blood and gore and murder to satisfy my hunger. Both physically and emotionally.

Spunky Grandmas

2008-10-30T02:22:00.000-07:00

Most wouldn't agree but that elderly lady selling malt candy at Holland Village outside the Crystal Jade Restaurant has spunk n' attitude.

Mother passed me two dollars for her and I had to give it because apparently, people get shy when they reach their mid-life crisis. The malt candy costs one dollar.

I gave her the money after greeting her "po-po" (grandma in chinese) and she just squatted down to get the malt candy from the old steel pot. The candy looks like burnt caramel. Really sticky, she just got some of it on a small stick about three inches with the help of a flat wooden spatula.

She handed it to me and just waved me impatiently away. Without the change of one dollar which was intended to be given to her. Mind reading or just acknowleging charity?

Contradiction and Unproductiveness

2008-10-29T04:19:00.000-07:00

Contrary to what I have mentioned in the previous post, the nails turned out horrible. Or more like the comments I received about them were. They looked alright and I managed to apply the french manicure look on four fingers but my mother came in and said that the quality was not good enough. Just because we were going on a stressful vacation in the midst of my dad's colleagues and my first meeting with his new boss. It's the boss who's new, not my dad.

It's the trip to Port Dickson in Malaysia. And the meeting of our relatives, just a friendly couple, which makes my mother a whole conservative 19th century woman. Not that I can blame her. I blame the exuberant manicure and pedicure prices about US$50 for both. Excluding the french nails.

What's to blame? The bad economy and the whole thing about people looking down on the others. Please, as long as the nail polish is not on my hair it is fine. I mean you see people walking and working with a streak of red nail polish on each nail. Who cares if I couldn't be bothered with the expense of a wanted "luxury"? Paying a bomb for paint and service is not pleasurable.

I'm in an exceedingly foul mood. I am expected to do so many things to be presentable. Such as eat properly and give intelligent answers and dress with style since it's to reflect on our lifestyle. I suppose it is the same as every other type of world there is but I'm quite sure most people say live and let live when they see teenagers.

All the nail polish is gone now and I have gastric.

The Artist who Can't Paint Nails

2008-10-29T00:45:00.000-07:00

My morale is at an all-time low. I have concluded that no matter how nice your drawing may look or how nicely done your mediocre watercolours may look, your nail painting skills will quite suck. Nevermind I shall keep them on and leave them as so.

For the Want of Company

2008-10-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderfully insightful chat with a friend of my mother who also considers me a friend. Despite our obvious age difference we hit on quite well on some topics. She's Ellen and lives in New York City, just dropping by into the humble streets of Singapore after 3 glorious weeks in New Zealand.

It's amazing how the three of us (Ellen, my mother and me), can talk for three hours straight in a little cafe with just three drinks and a slice of cake. That woman is seriously engaging and has no qualms talking to someone who could nearly pass of as her grandchild by a couple of years.

Oh I do envy some youngsters in America, how surrounded they are by engaging people. I haven't yet found a westerner boring. I suppose many would beg to differ.

Ellen has got such a splendidly horrific idea in my head. To spend about ten thousand on a trip to New Zealand and get into a nearly full transparent helicopter and view the snow-peaked mountains from a height of 8000 feet and a dangerously driving pilot. A pilot who has every intention of landing on a lake hanging off the solid rock of a mountain. Yet for a woman in her late fifties that was quite a daring act. Telling her children to get ready for an early inheritance no less and telling them to wait a couple more decades after surviving the ordeal.

Of course we women are strong hearted. Her husband, who was quite game and to whom she consented, didn't dare take photographs of the panoramic view which plunges you straight into the ravines of death in peaceful New Zealand.

It's strange how much I crave a proper conversation with people. I have few friends to talk to in great detail on moral issues like abortion or capital punishment. Or even listen to someone talking in an interesting tone about the current economic and social status of America, though briefly. These days, such things are rare and far between. It's hard to keep up with long distance contacts and hard to bear with the longing to meet up with them soon. I miss her already and she'll be leaving tomorrow for the plane flight back to New York presumably.

Here's to the Holidays. Holidays with the capital "H", it deserves the title.

Starting a Lucrative Business

2008-10-21T00:42:00.000-07:00

Hello bubs! I feel like I want to start a small side-line. During the holidays I'll write stories and sell them to people who want to have their plots written by me. Like that's going to happen. It's worth a shot. I am trying to start a good storyline but it is only average. Not that sort of killer book which has a plot you can't really resist not taking a glance at.

Holidays start in two days so I shall be experiencing the flush of being free from the boredom of school.

Tell me how to do something nonconstructive... please. Something nonconstructive but fun and engaging. Like playing a random word game. We played that today while suffering heat-stroke. You say a word and the next person says a completely random word in comparison to what you said. So a word like "jelly" can bring about "Paris Hilton" or say... great I forgot that really interesting scenario. My tree begetting a word like "Sarah Palin". So it's quite entertaining for about 15 minutes so long as no one is that boring in the group.

Signing off with no proper care of paragraphing.

Change of Tune

2008-10-16T02:23:00.000-07:00

I shall not lie to myself, the truth that I have received 63.5 upon 100 for my English papers is a fact. If any nuisance people dare post anything about their own marks or any in-between-the-line comments I shall hunt them down. The school campus is not large enough to hide someone on the verge of crying really.

Only I did not break down after those dismal marks. You can't really do that sort of thing when your other subjects are better than a friend who really puts her self down. Sometimes all of us have exceedingly low self-esteem especially when most of us depend on the way others view us to rank ourselves.

She views herself through her parent's expectations and perhaps her own want to prove herself better than me in a way. I presume the above since I had one small consolation; I had top marks for Geography, a tie with another girl. Then again she has such a better outlook in life despite some of her family conditions and the better English score between the both of us.

I suppose it would be a lie for me to say I did my best for the essay. It turned out horribly. A catastrophe. My language just does not turn itself to the right pitch for the exams. I have such whimsical ideas about life and what could happen. Next time I shall play the honest fool and lead myself by the noose to something seemingly more practical.

Milan Kundera's Laughable Loves is getting partially into my head. I wonder if I will ever accomplish such a literary achievement in my life. I quote," One doesn't live for oneself. One always lives for something." I bet I always lived on the hope of being a writer since 11. Such crumbling hopes.

One thing I forgot to add about the story (I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith), the story is written in three journals with increasing monetary value. One about sixpence, then a shilling, then two guineas. It is quite an amount in those simpler and poorer regions of England at that time I suppose.

I wonder if I should get a moleskin or a nice leather-bound notebook of reasonable size as my drafting book. I suppose I own quite an expensive model. This computer but it does get a bit monotone. No changes in font or writing style purely determined by mood. My other journals have no such significance to me. I think I may need a new pen to go along with it. a blue rather than a grieving black. I have been using that blasted colour for the entire examinations.

At least there is a short weekend stay by the beach along the Straits of Melaka at Port Dickson soon. Just a short weekend but nonetheless the waves and a book will soothe me. Just about two weeks from now on the first of November till the third.

I should like a good cry but since there are no tears to let out I might as well save myself the trouble. Tomorrow is Friday, I think I will head to town and sit at a hopefully quiet cafe. There will be hardly any with the crowd that patrons the few places possible to go to. I feel like a caged bird now. Four more papers to receive the verdict from tomorrow.

Ah, dear tomorrow.

Writer's Wager: I Capture the Castle

2008-10-14T03:43:00.000-07:00

Otiose wagers win no gold for me. For such a "satirical writer" I found Dodie Smith's book too much of a cliffhanger. I have had experiences with the best books I have read thus far, The Tea Rose and the sequel The Winter Rose. Seriously I hope and pray that Jennifer Donnelly will finish the last to wrap up the family.

I doubt I'll get a word out of Dodie Smith's clamped mouth. Hope I can find the chance to batter her with questions once both of us are admitted to heaven. Her vocabulary was quite extensive only it makes me feel quite inferior to that awfully mature 17 year-old Cassandra. I relate uncannily with her and it quite scares me. It is nearly the story of my feelings save the fact that the only romances I've waltzed into are those of those dear handsome men in books female writers think up.

So yes, the story ends with him possibly going back to America and her in her dear little village at the end page of her journal. Never to tell us again in that sort-of pact she made with herself not to write journals.

The wager was placed and lost. I was expecting something spectacular. I am way to fussy with the endings. The middles are the best. The thing I hate was that I could not half-guess the ending. I kept getting it mixed up. I can mostly feel content with some endings but some are just either too deflated or too filled with suspense.

Actually, I've only wanted to know the ending so much when I read this book. The only other time was when I read the Winter Rose.

Thank Heavens I've got some nice novels up my way. First up is Milan Kundela's Laughable Loves and I shall attempt to get a copy of the still unread The Unbearable Lightness of Being once some money shores up.

Then to the Classics again with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I heard it is quite a good novel. i am very taken by it's fine print. Finer but clear prints make me find books more profound. Not the squashed look of the Penguin Classics print (the cheap green paperback type) but something remotely elegant like Arial or Verdana in a small font. What am I doing now? Comparing fonts and styles when all I want to do is see the original manuscript which the writers worked on. That Jennifer Donnelly refuses to send a page to me.

All for now, please visit my fan fiction.

Going Insane

2008-10-13T02:15:00.000-07:00

Forgive me, I am feeling absolutely insane. I am mistaking people for my close friends left right and center. I just made someone think I was officially insane on the phone 20 minutes ago.

What I have done since Friday (End of Exams)
1) Finished 1 side of the fingerless gloves for my friend
2) Started reading a new novel, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
3) Started my mother's christmas knittted gift
4) Walked up to the summit of Bukit Timah hill which is a miserable 163 m
5) Getting off writing my church sermon entries (i am due to write 2)
6) Realising how awful I find myself sometimes
7) Met up with Tragedia, the new muse of the block
8) Found out that Butterscotch isn't doing too well
9) Ending a short post to explain my absence
10) Going to finish that chapter on my fiction press

Reminder my fictionpress webpage is http://www.fictionpress.com/~musemneme

I'll try posting awfully soon on some issues only I want to kick myself out of the writer's block!

Apology Letters and Tests

2008-10-06T03:51:00.000-07:00

Aw...I feel so touched. My friend sent me a sms to apologize and i felt quite bad about screaming at her on the windows live messenger scream and repetitively winking and nudging. childish huh?

I couldn't take it, she was playing her virtual online dancing game in the midst of our end-of-years. yeah, i do envy her carefree life. who wouldn't only she goes freak out during the exam like today during our general science paper.

i need to do a commentary on yesterday's sermon only i have no time

tell you bubs the rest soon (i understand i am not typing with capitals)

Ezekiel. raise me up Lord

2008-09-28T01:40:00.000-07:00

Crying. That's what I'll be doing for quite a while. I have 9 lives like a cat. I will lose 8 in the examinations and one on the results day. Yes, it is going that bad for me.

At least there's still the church to lean on every Sunday. Today's sermon was on Ezekiel Chapter 37:1-14. The valley of the very dry bones. Ezekiel was taken to a valley full of bones in a vision from the Lord. There, he saw many dry bones, a scene devoid of life.

"Son of man, can these bones live?" (trick question? the pastor brought it up)

"O Lord God, You know."

God told him to prophesy to the bones, saying that the Lord God would attach sinews and muscles and flesh and skin onto the bones. He would breathe into them the breath of life.

Imagine talking to bones when you know they are all good and dead. It's like the theory that plants grow better listening to music only bones are technically inanimate objects.I know stuff like inferi and sorcery games have those things rattling along with green smoke... but I think it was a bit more professional.

Most people take history right? What can you infer from unburied bones? They were unhonoured and for them to be very dry they must have been scavenged by vultures and wild beasts and decomposing bacteria. The bones were baked and bleached white in the scorching sun and have no resemblance to the men or even the cadavers they once were other than the main shape.

They represented the scattered people of Israel and Judah. They had lost their favour with God and had lost their blessing because they turned away from him to the gods and goddesses. So in exile the Israelites cried out, "We have become old dry bones." They felt God's presence lost. It's like a separated clique or a separated group of people, all of them feel out of place.

But God wanted to revive them, to send His Spirit and breath to them again because he loved them. So he sent Ezekiel to the vision where suddenly all those little jumbled up bones joined together and flesh came on like stem cell research. Then there's this mass of inanimate blood and flesh. When God said to Ezekiel to say to the bones (yes, it is a little weird, the bones, now corpses, would hear God if they could hear a little guy) that God would breathe into them the breath of life, they became alive.

The whole army of Israel, the living, breathing army in the valley where their dead bones once lay. Just because God loved them so much that he would bring them back again after they knew they were wrong.

When he was at it, pastor mentioned the cheesy advertisement which people paid big bucks to produce and will have the sequel next month. Here's the link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgdYU6iDyh8

Watch it or you won't know what I'm talking about.

See? People need to be told they are loved. Then they feel happy. God told Israel he loved them by by assuring them with this vision he gave to Ezekiel even when they doubted. God promised them so much in those verses, verse 12 and 14 of the passage. It was His glory and reputation at stake if he did not accomplish what he had promised and He did do it. He brought them back home.

But then people don't want to be like that cheesy commercial. We are individuals with our own dreams and aspirations. Our own boss and the person who decides our own lives. We won't drink that plum juice or religion down so easily even with all the facts of no preservatives and now broken promises. That's why the Israelites disobeyed the commandment and chose to believe in other gods instead. A "Because I love you." situation is not always enough to make us feel like it.

I'm basically writing the whole notes for today's sermon. I want to try doing this every week when possible. Not next week but the following. One of my friend's blog has the sermon summarized. It's really heartening. Thanks Tragedia, I'll try finishing the next chapter on fiction press soon. The moment my exams stop. I will be a free, liberated woman.

2008-09-22T23:43:00.000-07:00

Hi there again. New muse to our clique now, The Muse of the Indescribable, Tragedia. We rely mainly on a email cum Windows Live Messenger correspondence and have only met once. Going to meet up once the exams are over and discuss some issues since she's new to the clique and all.

Priority now : Exam Schedule

Thursday : English Essay and Paper (needing a good grade)

Friday : Chinese Essay and Paper (needing a miracle) Receiving Art Paper

Following Friday : History 1 hour 20 minutes I think ( help with the inference)

Monday: General Science (You get it... A year's worth work being revised in two weeks)

Tuesday: Geography (Same as Science)

Wednesday: Math (die try it i need a Good Grade)

Thursday: Literature (Seen and Unseen Prose and Unseen Poem)

Friday: Art Paper and Study of the Visual Arts History (I want to do well... It is the only confirmed paper I will pass)

Trust me, the Literature Subject in itself is like a great subject but TWO essays in 1 hour 45 minutes? The darling person wouldn't tell us which story our seen prose was coming from. There are three to study and one has a main character with big wide skirts and big wide pockets!

Gotta go! Computer access terminated.

Knitting and FictionPress

2008-09-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

Knitting like anything now, and I bought yarn and books which sums up to about say 30 plus pounds. My wallet hurts like anything after that. I'm not that much a shopaholic but my allowance does make my "spending" feel like over-spending.

Fictionpress is this quaint yet raunchy website community where you can register and post all the stories you've ever wanted to publish. Some of the authors are way good. There's quite a good search engine for stories and what ever by genre and long stories are divided into chapters. Plus, by some odd way of the person who started it, there is an online dictionary at the top of the page.

Here's my profile which is really empty. I have started a little of a story going but it looks horrible for the time being. http://www.fictionpress.com/~musemneme

Wish me luck for completing my homework and my upcoming exams!

2008-09-03T03:30:00.000-07:00

Oh, just to let you know I gave up on Kandera's Unbelievable Lightness of Being and settled to finish the English Patient which was good. Till after the exams I guess.

sorry for not posting

2008-08-30T02:04:00.001-07:00

BUSY!

Olympics

2008-08-17T00:54:00.001-07:00

World's fastest man and the most arrogant show-off I've seen in quite a few years. I'm betting that in ancient Greece even he couldn't run like that. Especially without funky sports wear and fan girls. I doubt any of the athletes would be sure enough of themselves to race stark naked. With the video camera shooting their every move. ahem.

I'm reading a novel I borrowed from a church friend. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. Born 1929 Czechoslovakia and it was translated from the Czech. She borrowed my Jane Eyre so I guess that counts as fair trade!

Oh and Lydia writes to invite me to go to London for the 2012 olympics. Well. I'll need at least say 300 pounds odd for a week or so of expenses excluding accomodation to visit the city. Going very cheap of course. Excluding air fare. Air fare is say about 737 pounds for a two way flight. I shall try a cheaper airline, with what-nots dealing with inflation knobs and crazy exchange rates. 1200 pounds I'd say. And those ridiculous prices will go up even higher during the Olympics. Sorry Lydia, 2012 is a good year only not during the Olympic heat!

That was some fun. I went to check budget airlines and I found Quantar going for 584 pounds. Roundtrip. Oh I envy those people with private jets or the substantial wallets to purchase a nice good cozy seat while still studying. I just like traveling to exclusive loctions too much. I mean, an average girl living on another continent doesn't go to London on this sort of whim and fancy alone right?

title is not relevant

2008-08-16T02:13:00.000-07:00

its something like i'll never know when i'm wrong yet i'll never want you to tell me
i used to hate this clan of people yet it seams i am their daughter
how could i have done this, drive this stake into you both

yes, i am such a hateful creep. its like i've done something to two best buddies. which possibly may or may not be the case but just in case i have a memory loss when they next emo out again i'll just leave this note cum mental reminder.

Classroom Side Effects

2008-08-13T01:07:00.000-07:00

I feel slightly odd today. Like everything was built up and then crumbling into a mound of tissues and mucus and tears. Which did happen. I suppose some people see more than a crow killing and guzzling a more defenceless bird's innards, a dissected preserved bunny all innards facing out, a 50 year old specimen of a still-born human fetus, bottled tapeworms and arachnids, and received an A grade for CHINESE and actually did get it until they bothered to check that the marks calculation and got a bleeding 9 marks lower. Oh, and in a space of 7:50 a.m to 2:15 p.m on August 13th and thankfully not a Friday.

Staying in a classroom for more than required is detrimental to mental stability. Looking out of the classroom windows and observing the next building and the roof is very dangerous. You suddenly see a black streak and a bunch of white feathers floating around like dandelion fluff (although I've never seen dandelion fluff). The thing was, it was free period and I could have easily chased away that crow if I ran outside fast enough. But did I? No. Perhaps it was mercy, let that crow have his lunch and the bird less panting and getting blood all over the grass. You could see it struggling and the wings flaying to stay back its attacker.

That is the first death I've witnessed. Not to mention the array of specimens of death in the Science lab about three periods later. Plants, frogs, tadpoles, king crab, jellyfish junior, tapeworm, dog tapeworm, leech, earthworms, beetles, praying mantis, arachnids, Mr. Bunny, baby John (as nicknamed by the school years ago), a coral, some other stuff I suppose but mostly that. And I was walking around like a dummy in the science lab wearing a jacket in the bleeding heated humidity of midday becuase of my sneezing nose which DID NOT sneeze at the specimens and my sore throat. Science test tomorrow on energy, photosynthesis and respiration.

Then the dreaded results. I was nearly jumping when I got 50/70 which would equate to 70/100 with my project added. The test was very difficult. Some of the words would only be taught at 2 to 3 years from now. Which is a lot of difference. You check the marks and you suddenly get 61. You tell the teacher. You are fuming at her because she is in fact a Chinese national from China no less (Olympics...) who apparently does not know how to add marks anand turns a 41 into a 50. So much for the rigorous training in maths they say Chinese students get. Then you walk back to your desk fuming at yourself for being so truthful and mathematically inclined for the past near 1000 years of receiving marks. And naturally the greatest casualties are from Chinese and Mathematics and Science papers. Nearly never English. Only once for English I believe. Funny right?

Slightly Musing

2008-08-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I just can't think of a better heading. We had Matthew chapter 14 today during sermon. It is Sunday and a school holiday tomorrow. I love days like today save the presentation I have to do by tuesday. No, now my friend says to do the report. Groan. Thank heavens its a copy and paste thing.

I went away for an hour or less to go for a run and when I took off my shoes, my feet were really hot. Emitting heat. It is always after a run that it is just nearly innocent desire for the water running down your back. Does not help matters with the swimming pool in front of the gym. I envy people with long hair. I only have a long fringe which is just utterly cooling with all the water running down it.

flipped through my book of penguin romantic poetry which i bought for forty bucks. (last year and still not even starting much, what a big hole in the pocket) and there was a nice poem about first love (poor guy) and a poem tittled the Partial Muse. From Charlotte Smith's Elegiac Sonnets. Here it is.

The partial Muse has from my earliest hours

Smiled on the rugged path I'm doomed to tread

And still, with supportive hand, has snatched wild flowers

To weave fantastic garlands for my head;

But far, far happier is the lot of those

Who never learned her dear delusive art,

Which, while it decks the head with many a rose,

Reserves the thorn to fester in the heart.

For she still she bids soft Pity's melting eye

Stream o'er the hills she knows not to remove-

Points every pang, and deepens every sigh

Of mourning friendship, or unhappy love

Ah, then how dear the Muse's favours cost

If those paint sorrows best, who feel it most!

A muse is never a pretty little thing.

Save Me

2008-08-06T04:20:00.000-07:00

Help: Reasons

1) Chinese test tomorrow
2) Defiant rule disobeyer towards the no consumption of food in the room
3) French is making no progress
4) Fictionpress is taking over my mind space
5) Hairspray song Lady's Choice is getting sick since we have to dance a lame mass dance
6) Found out that 1 out of 3 surveyed students from Sec 3 to JC, 15 to 18, are sexually active in some areas.
7) Okay more than some areas
8) Sexually Transmitted Infections will be tested this year-end
9) Writing sucks now and I still want to be a writer
10) Drama: We got third out of 8 groups
11) Art: a boring animation assignment again
12) I need more chocolate although my BMI as for today is 22.5 if I round off my height to closest cm.

2008-08-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

I have finally persuaded myself to borrow the Human Anatomy book from the library. Seriously, cadavers in this book look alive, the way they peer down at their disected selves during the Renaissance and those ages before photography. Gross huh? it was my mother who first showed me the book, and the back page showed a coloured disected skull. The subsequent pages I flipped to were unsurprisingly pictures of fetus remains in their mother's wombs. Thankfully all sketched.

Tests, tests, tests. History on Tuesday and Chinese on Thursday. Major test the Chinese. Ah well, life goes on. I should be studying now but I can't be bothered since I want to clear out all the stuff I need to complete for the extra boring subject other than the fact we watched part of Remember the Titans and will finish watching it the following week on Friday!

Things to do: Find out how to write about racial and religious conflict for that boring subject

study for History and Chinese

Finish the other side of the knitted arm warmers

Read about the Human Anatomy and finish the library novel.

Email back all my friends living in a lower humidity climate in this world. How I wish it was cooler!

2008-08-01T03:21:00.000-07:00

Oh my word, I am so out of touch. Massie darling, the web link does not work. Announcing the first muse to join the muse clique and one of my two betas! drumroll.... The Muse of Randomness, also Massie Block, alpha of the clique. The "same" Massie in the clique series of which I only have one book! Laugh out loud, my book reading is confined to rereading of fond old stories. The type I read when I was innocent 11 and 12.

What genre would suit me better now? Second or Third day moon phase nearly killed me today. GROAN. MOCHA!

2008-07-15T05:51:00.000-07:00

I got my charm bracelet on the 5th of July. It only has one charm, a small tag with the words:

Name:

Tel:

Birth:

Blood type:

Unfortunately I doubt I can engrave my name on it, which reminds me. I need to find a ring engraving jeweller. I suppose it fits my name a little. Misnomer. Muse of the Misnamed and can't be named. Love's on my mind a little too much, especially with the topic reproductive organs in science. I am so glad my science teacher was female. But its so unfair. Guys get to produce theirs all the time while women only get 10,000 eggs and most are lost by the phases of the moon. I don't want to know how many I've lost already.

The whole thing about the husband losing interest in his wife strikes home every time. With my mother watching Korean soap operas with adultery as the main theme... I find the whole marriage thing too fragile. It might work if you could only say "I Love You" once a month though. Or not. Quarantine from each other each consecutive year? Only works for those really crazy lovers.

What would it be like? That kind of longing. Too bad, my heart has fallen for the kind of lover you find in stylised fiction. The type who catches your breath no matter how many times you see him. The Jodi Picoult cum Jennifer Donnelly type hunk.

Better go. I have chinese homework and need to catch up with my favourite primary school junior!

Random Poem

2008-07-13T05:49:00.001-07:00

The Poetry Table

Hello, I received your letter last week
Only there was no time to read it until today’s twilight
I will meet you at the café where celestial stars and moons rays trickle through
The prison like bone cage of glass and modern metal
Must we meet there? It is hardly a café, more a bar where drunks drink away shillings
I shiver whenever one of them passes me, reeking of wasted pennies and his wife’s blood
They hit their wives and children

Can you bear that play of shame in front of your eyes? The bartender
He doles out the beer and gin which makes men violent, it is his living I know but
It is not ours to see the pun of slurring words meant to offend us

You mentioned in your letter that you are worried about our studies
It may worsen, that is sure, but we needn’t be swept up by its spurs and whips into captivity
We have found a gentle zephyr of freedom now have we not?
Do not fret over going to the easy life, it only restrains our thoughts
Moreover, where would that leave us in any case? Back where we started, again

I have found a hostel near the university and it is relatively comfortable
It is merely a single bedded room with a toilet, a bath and a small kitchen
The rent is a lot cheaper without room servicing although the manager checks every month
My slate and ink is stowed away in my wardrobe
Too many people stray from their rooms at night to search for outlets of lust
I have too often heard a secret woman’s secret vomiting
Through the bared thin walls of plaster and weak concrete
She lies in the room above me singing ballads in a rap voice unsuited unless in love

And you? How is your training for the veterinarian career?
Do the people at the hostel and your lodgings suit your taste?
Alternatively, are the plains stretched before your horizon as bleak as the Arctic scene?
Pray that it is more merry and gay rather than garish and crude.

Shall we go to Lourdes once we graduate? A breath of fresh air
Spiritual release and a holiday would do my haggard soul and body major renewal
Catholics take that place as a religious pilgrimage, where holy water floes
I would gladly take the chance to go to Mary’s meeting point
Where miracles, I hearsay, have been done
Much more the miracle of letting my pen freely flow once more
Perhaps a plot will be of you and me ending differently than now

Love, your dearest friend, Muse of the Misnamed, Misnomer

God bless you my sister.

Reply my poem soon, even a note will serve your purpose.

moon

2008-07-11T18:20:00.000-07:00

moon, rising high above... don't you know how many minstrels have died for you

can you see the lovers swearing their love with your rays upon their lips

leaving homes, the vagabonds look to you with their upturned eyes
crying softly when you hide away, treading surely when you hang, up high
you, hide all the stars when they stay close to you

the astronomers and navigators can no longer tread the star wanderer's voyage

moon, you are just an orb... shining mystically bright, waxing

werewolves answer your call, from sane men into the unthinking blood-thirsty

when you wane into darkness, Hecate's witches cackle in delight
robbers and burglars of life work with the blood reflecting a fraction of your light
you steal other's light to reflect it into our eyes. trust not the thief.

moon, mice follow your light, only to find they can never reach you
like so many have wished that they could walk on your surface to meet their lovers
you separate those who live on you from those who live on earth
and yet each night, we are forced to scan the skies to find you
our only comfort is in seeing something so serene and tranquil
still thriving despite everything else

Top 10 Things I want to do now

2008-07-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

1) write a fantastic plot for a novel (which I can't)
2) escape reality (inclusive of art lesson today and homework)
3) lose weight faster (those stated below will not help)
4) the chocolate bar in the fridge (yum...)
5) the macadamia ice-cream in the freezer (what?! study makes you hungry)
6) lie on the steps leading to the Metropolitan Museum (New York! i miss you)
7) learn french in 30 seconds (why bother in 30 days?)
8) finish reading Dante's Inferno (passed the wood of the suicides)
9) quit learning Chinese (you would if you had to learn it)
10) use youtube without fear of getting sued.

Climbing Trees

2008-07-09T03:02:00.000-07:00

Not that I can climb trees, of course. Just a little fantasy I had today after running 2.4 km, I believe exercise makes you hallucinate. I was thinking of Europe again and all the stories I've read. With people climbing trees and those fields and mountains and gallons of fresh milk. It would be a nice thing if your love could climb trees and help you to a secluded branch where you could see the view through the canopy of green leaves with sunlight streaming down in pinpricks of light.

And now I know the reason for my obsession with youtube. I need some one's voice in my head continuously or I get bored or another word for lonely. Mom doesn't really like it but I think I can't live in silence. My own thoughts are too loud for me and I just like the being-in-another-world-other-than-your-life feeling.

Lets get this girl's big fat head back into her study circle shall we?

a land without punctuation

2008-07-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

i saw this in a book by philip roth sabbaths theater and thought i would use this idea no matter how sick that book made me think of things without punctuation no paragraphs no pauses just chunks of information like some stupid factual report only this is without anything to tell you where one point ends and begins laugh out loud i will try typing like that but i keep typing full stops and stuff my bookshelf can probably take 10 medium thick books before it bursts becomes properly arranged full house i am munching on cornflakes and attempting to read the last 70 plus pages of the hobbit by j r r tolkien i will spare readers the agony of reading without punctuation now we will know how essential those dots and slashes are in reading and catching a breath while speaking

laughs

2008-07-02T02:57:00.001-07:00

Yes! My plan is working. Although the talk on eating disorders today was really creepy I'm still going to lose weight! My target's only 48kg so no need to worry. Since I'm short that's a very good weight to stick with. Happy Youth Day everyone! The celebrations were great but unfortunately it was also the institution's health day...

I'm still dreaming of hot cocoa and ice-cream. Butterscotch naturally. I'm starting to like Atonement by Ian McEwan. Briony's writing plight is so alike mine although I'll never convince myself that I can write a hundred and thirty pages with an early twentieth century typewriter in one week. Careful though, gruesome medical scenes described although I still hold Jennifer Donnelly as the most gruesome in terms of wounds and going into labour.

Let me try and see what I can come up with in the next three hours for a mural design. To potray Culture and Community in my institution. 10 symbols of relatively reasonable scale by tomorrow 1 p.m. Help! I've only done 10%....

laugh.

Loving the things (not) in life

2008-07-01T04:15:00.000-07:00

Raspberries, blackberries, a night's cape adorned with stars and a full moon and a snuggled up nest of blankets and tasseled pillows is my idea of perfectness for tonight. Only the night would be twice as long, allowing me to enjoy 8 hours more of thinking under the canopy of stars. Add in a conversation with C.S Lewis and that would make it completely wonderful. Not to mention hot chocolate. What a glutton I am, every world of happiness includes chocolate.

Alas, reality is math, listing the negative impacts of volcanoes and squeezing in time to blog for 20 minutes or so before I officially start. Tomorrow my running campaign for losing a pitiful 5kg will begin again. Then I can decide to plan my retreat into the decadent luxuries of comfort food and splurge on notebooks I'll probably never complete using. A girl can dream for the "teenage induced" years of her life.

Yay for me, I have drawn the x and y axis for my first graph. Read an email. Plotted the first dot. Instant messaged people. Drew the linear line. Finished first graph question. Second graph drawn, in the process of answering questions... Checked the work list to be done by Thursday. Finished graph two. Toilet break for being such a great person.

I'll write later, have to finish geography volcanoes. Groan.... so many negative impacts.

Butterscotch Ice-cream

2008-06-30T03:46:00.000-07:00

Quel Dommange, I gained back all the weight I lost in 5 days during the weekend. One of the causes, butterscotch ice-cream with raspberries and two Oreo cookies at some ice-creamery. They mash it all up and serve it to you. My word, I miss indulging with all those sweet desserts and mashed potatoes. I love eating and nearly live-to-eat on some days. Problem is the health regulations here don't accept my weight although I would be deemed entirely healthy in a Western country.

I think I better stop desserting my weight back on, but who can resist? Have you ever wanted to order the biggest ice-cream or dessert on the menu or eat whatever you want whenever and wherever? Those fantasies are overruling my common sense but thankfully there isn't even a can of coke in the fridge.

Better go, work pile for hostile and peaceful contacts between countries.

To the Lord, a letter

2008-06-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

Dear Lord,

Thanks for everything in my life. I pray that you'll help me now, I'm really confused. What is the divide between Methodists and the Catholics and all the rest? Why can't we embrace the same things like rosaries and pilgrimages? You know I'm a Methodist in a catholic school, am I allowed to use the rosary for my own meditation? I still have the pale pink rosary from primary school bought at age seven or eight and kept in my room since then.

59 pale pink beads with a middle section bearing the words Jubilaeum and A.D 2000 with symbols, then the crucifix. You knew I was going to buy it but why. My literature teacher sending me an sms to join mass on Friday morning. My history teacher sharing with us her experience at 12 years old at Lourdes in France. They keep turning unresolved in my head today, on Sunday during daylight hours. Now I think of myself in those cathedrals in France again. Within Notre Dame's stone walls with the religious Catholic culture all around. The lighting of the candles and the stall selling rosaries and religious items.

I was maintaining silence then, at 10 years old, trusting myself and you completely that I was in the right place. No contradicting beliefs or churches in my way down the inner dimmed light of Notre Dame. I bought a cross pendant, a plain metal one at the cathedral upon the hill on the other side of the river and watched as the metal peeled off the surface back in my homeland.

I saw Notre Dame again this June, only I was outside looking in. I spent only a few minutes savouring its frontal Gothic design and the next hours till four painting its back view with my art class. We did not enter the place said to hold your crown of thorns and a piece of the actual cross you carried. Now, on the second last day of June, I have no idea what is the difference.

Lord, can I speak or whisper a prayer to you and Mary with my pale pink rosary or must I pray with my hands clasped as I have done my whole life given to me by you. You gave me and are continuing to give me a blessed life. A stable environment, accountable friends and sisters in Christ. A rosary aged eight years old on my table. Family. Your son who died on the cross of pain. A guiding light following me and who inclined me out of no other reason than to glorify your name in praise. Yet I can't really consecrate my whole life to you, I don't know if I will know when I really allow you to take full control. i stand in the Catholic place of prayer and worship in my school and offer the sign of peace as a handshake while my friends embrace each other. I see the metal rosaries hanging in the corner and I don't know what they mean. The net can only tell me so much.

Today I saw a pendant with the crucifix. It was small and something I think I was looking for. I tried to buy it with the coins left over from today's offering, I only had ten cents more than required. The cashier wouldn't accept the 5 cent coins I had. My mom offered to pay and I just told her I decided against it. She did buy it but when she asked me what I was going to do with it I said it was for me. She said but are we supposed to wear it. I said that's why I said I decided against it. My mother is Methodist, my father is Methodist. All three of us not technically born into a family where both parents were Christians. At least in my case.

Tomorrow I will go for the morning prayer, as a Methodist, and bring my pale pink rosary. I'll ask my Catholic sister in Christ what is the meaning of the rosary. If possible I'll ask my literature teacher if Methodists can use the rosary. If it doesn't work tomorrow I'll try again the day after and the day after that. I'm scared to ask my Methodist church community. This is the first time the marks of my church and school have hurt. Was it stated that the better option was for me to go to the Methodist school instead. Then why am I here. I dare not tell anyone from my church except you, the head of Christianity in all its forms.

I'll pray tonight as my heart is praying now in this message. Only the web world won't have access to that prayer. Just me and you with you knowing everything yet wanting me to tell you everything and with me knowing you are there. My eyes feel a little wet again.

Praise the Lord God, Creator of Heaven and Earth.

Amen.