Since I'm still in a very archery-oriented mood after yesterday, here's something that I gleaned off the Fédération Internationale de Tir à l'Arc's (FITA) website. (FITA is just the International Archery Federation, if you were wondering.) :)
REQUIREMENTS FOR HIGH LEVEL ARCHERY
* Self-control
* Stress resistance
* Concentration
* Regularity associated with accuracy
* Willpower
* Physical and mental balance
* Rigour, exactitude
* Team spirit: even though Archery is an individual sport above anything else, team competitions become more and more widespread and a good group dynamics leads to even more impressive results.
* Adaptability (to the environment, to inclemency)
* Preparation of the material (always fixed and maintained)
Woohoo... training, training, training... :)
I'm starting to sound like Ben. :P
Sunday, January 30, 2005
NTU Institutional Shoot yesterday... quite a good day for NUS in general, except for a few glitches here and there.
The first thing that *almost* went wrong was that my name was NOT on the list for the Individual Standard Class event, although I was registered for the Standard Class Team event. So that doesn't really make sense, coz you have to take part in the individual event to be able to take part in the team event.
Anyway, everything ended up all right, coz Grace had withdrawn (sorta), so I could take her place.
My lane detail was 12D; each lane had six archers, A to F, and they'd shoot in two details: A, B and C would shoot first, take their score and retrieve their arrows, and then D, E and F would shoot and do the same. It was widely agreed that it was SO much more organised than the AAS Shoot, which was not only disorganised with a lot of last minute changes, but also very crammed. That's saying something, considering that this shoot was organised by a school, while AAS is a national organisation. For shame. -_-||
Anyway, it turned out that in my detail, Vincent was 12F. This was a good thing. Coz I asked Vince which angle he shot best from (left, centre or right) and he said the left, so I told him, "Okay, so when you step up to the shooting line later, can you step up to the left so that the centre and right are open for me? Coz I can't shoot from the left!"
He agreed, so all was well, haha. :D
During the sighting round, I think we scared the poor SP guy who was shooting in the same detail as us. :P Vince's and my arrows all landed within the red (except for one of mine which landed in the blue :P), while a good number of the SP guy's were in the black. :P
But Vince and I were quite happy, anyway; it was a pretty good start. :)
And training with the 80 cm target seemed to have really paid off: I scored a personal best of 298 out of 360 with the 122 cm target, a VERY significant improvement from the last time that I shot with a 122 cm target, which was during the NUS internal competition, and I had a score of 257 then.
It turned out that after that first half of the competition, I was ranked fifth out of all the girls, and first among the NUS Standard Class girls.
But then came the 80 cm target.
Backtrack a little; lemme explain this.
First, the basics: in archery, shooting one "set" of arrows is called an "end". That settled, the Standard Class Shoot involves shooting from the 30 m line; first, 6 ends of 6 arrows at a 122 cm target, and then, 6 ends of 6 arrows at a 80 cm target.
Now you understand why I've been training with a 80 cm target all this time? Yep; because it makes sense that if you can do well with a smaller target, you should be all right with a larger one.
That's what most of us did, anyway; but what we hadn't counted on was the possible psychological factor of seeing our target visibly reduced from a 122 cm diameter one to an 80 cm one.
I mean, in school, we'd just train with the 80, no biggie. And my personal best during training with the 80 was 275. But during the competition, seeing your target being replaced by a much smaller one-- after you've been shooting with the bigger one for the better part of the morning-- does something to you psychologically, I tell you. It makes it very different from if you'd been shooting with the 80 all the while.
So, my score on the 80 dropped to 243. However, that was still enough to give me a total score of 541 out of 720, and I still maintained my fifth place ranking.
But here's what I noticed on the ranking sheet: the top three girls all had scores in excess of 560. The fourth-placed girl had a score of 548, and I had my 541. See the huge difference between third and fourth place?? And after me, the sixth-placed girl's score was only about 520. Another big difference.
Anyway, it was some time before I realised that really, 560-plus out of 720 isn't really that great of a score either. There's still about 160 missing points, after all.
Which means, that if I can train till I manage to hit 50 and above for every end, that'll result in a total score of at least 600, which will definitely put me at the top of the table; for that matter of fact, it'll put anyone who manages it at the top of the table for sure.
*Thinks*
*Glances at calendar*
NUS Outdoor Open is on the 13th of March. Plenty of time. *Greedy little gleeful grin* :P
Ambition shall be thy downfall. :P But it never hurt to try, so heck, why not?! :D
My beloved bow and arrows have not let me down... :D Which reminds me; maybe I should change my darling bow's name. It's not really hitting me all that much anymore after I've corrected my form, so "Bloodsucker" isn't really an appropriate name for it. :P
Suggestions for a good and um... auspicious (not sure if that should be the word, but that's the closest I can come to what I'm thinking of) name for my darling bow? :D Please use the tagboard to your left.. :D
The first thing that *almost* went wrong was that my name was NOT on the list for the Individual Standard Class event, although I was registered for the Standard Class Team event. So that doesn't really make sense, coz you have to take part in the individual event to be able to take part in the team event.
Anyway, everything ended up all right, coz Grace had withdrawn (sorta), so I could take her place.
My lane detail was 12D; each lane had six archers, A to F, and they'd shoot in two details: A, B and C would shoot first, take their score and retrieve their arrows, and then D, E and F would shoot and do the same. It was widely agreed that it was SO much more organised than the AAS Shoot, which was not only disorganised with a lot of last minute changes, but also very crammed. That's saying something, considering that this shoot was organised by a school, while AAS is a national organisation. For shame. -_-||
Anyway, it turned out that in my detail, Vincent was 12F. This was a good thing. Coz I asked Vince which angle he shot best from (left, centre or right) and he said the left, so I told him, "Okay, so when you step up to the shooting line later, can you step up to the left so that the centre and right are open for me? Coz I can't shoot from the left!"
He agreed, so all was well, haha. :D
During the sighting round, I think we scared the poor SP guy who was shooting in the same detail as us. :P Vince's and my arrows all landed within the red (except for one of mine which landed in the blue :P), while a good number of the SP guy's were in the black. :P
But Vince and I were quite happy, anyway; it was a pretty good start. :)
And training with the 80 cm target seemed to have really paid off: I scored a personal best of 298 out of 360 with the 122 cm target, a VERY significant improvement from the last time that I shot with a 122 cm target, which was during the NUS internal competition, and I had a score of 257 then.
It turned out that after that first half of the competition, I was ranked fifth out of all the girls, and first among the NUS Standard Class girls.
But then came the 80 cm target.
Backtrack a little; lemme explain this.
First, the basics: in archery, shooting one "set" of arrows is called an "end". That settled, the Standard Class Shoot involves shooting from the 30 m line; first, 6 ends of 6 arrows at a 122 cm target, and then, 6 ends of 6 arrows at a 80 cm target.
Now you understand why I've been training with a 80 cm target all this time? Yep; because it makes sense that if you can do well with a smaller target, you should be all right with a larger one.
That's what most of us did, anyway; but what we hadn't counted on was the possible psychological factor of seeing our target visibly reduced from a 122 cm diameter one to an 80 cm one.
I mean, in school, we'd just train with the 80, no biggie. And my personal best during training with the 80 was 275. But during the competition, seeing your target being replaced by a much smaller one-- after you've been shooting with the bigger one for the better part of the morning-- does something to you psychologically, I tell you. It makes it very different from if you'd been shooting with the 80 all the while.
So, my score on the 80 dropped to 243. However, that was still enough to give me a total score of 541 out of 720, and I still maintained my fifth place ranking.
But here's what I noticed on the ranking sheet: the top three girls all had scores in excess of 560. The fourth-placed girl had a score of 548, and I had my 541. See the huge difference between third and fourth place?? And after me, the sixth-placed girl's score was only about 520. Another big difference.
Anyway, it was some time before I realised that really, 560-plus out of 720 isn't really that great of a score either. There's still about 160 missing points, after all.
Which means, that if I can train till I manage to hit 50 and above for every end, that'll result in a total score of at least 600, which will definitely put me at the top of the table; for that matter of fact, it'll put anyone who manages it at the top of the table for sure.
*Thinks*
*Glances at calendar*
NUS Outdoor Open is on the 13th of March. Plenty of time. *Greedy little gleeful grin* :P
Ambition shall be thy downfall. :P But it never hurt to try, so heck, why not?! :D
My beloved bow and arrows have not let me down... :D Which reminds me; maybe I should change my darling bow's name. It's not really hitting me all that much anymore after I've corrected my form, so "Bloodsucker" isn't really an appropriate name for it. :P
Suggestions for a good and um... auspicious (not sure if that should be the word, but that's the closest I can come to what I'm thinking of) name for my darling bow? :D Please use the tagboard to your left.. :D
Friday, January 28, 2005
Doing a short post before I pop over to SRC to shoot for a while; then I'll fletch my last three arrows, just in case I need extra for tomorrow. I've already set aside the six best ones that I usually shoot with already, anyway.
Good news is that score is still improving: yesterday it was 275 out of 360 for 6 ends of 6, from a distance of 30m with an 80 cm target. I hope it doesn't turn out to be a fluke sorta thing and it'll drop drastically or something during the NTU Shoot tomorrow.
Speaking of which... it starts at 8 am tomorrow. CRAP. And NTU is pretty much out of the way of ANYWHERE. *Double* CRAP.
I'm gonna have to wake up at bleeding 5 am again. Argh... o_O
Oh yeah. Ivan's post just reminded me... we've found yet another thing to amuse ourselves with. :P
Remember the clubroom now has a PS2? Well, (year 1) Clement brought a few of his own PS2 games one day, one of which is Dynasty Warriors; I assure you, that game is a hell of a lot of fun. Running around and "just whack(ing)" (as Ivan and I like to put it) provides a lot of release of tension and gratuituous violence, as I'm sure many people will probably have noticed when they play such as these.
One thing that is very laughable however, in this game, is that it's set in the time period of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in Imperial China, but the voice actors ALL have American accents.
The funny thing here isn't just that you have Chinese people speaking flawless, American English; it's more the fact that at the time period during which the game is set, America wasn't even discovered yet. :D
Ivan and I have started and played one new game on our own, and according to Steven (who's finished the game by now and who knows the whole story about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms), the two of us have played quite far pretty fast. :D
Don't have much more to say about it, but Ivan might. I know that he's drafting a disgustingly SUPER-LONG post at the moment about the whole lot of people in Arts Club who've gotten fascinated with this game, which is just hunkering down in his lappie, waiting for him to copy and paste and spring it onto his blog and inflict his madness on the world. :P
All right. Guess that's it for now.
Shall make my way down to SRC. Maybe I'll fletchmy arrows first before shooting, considering how terribly bright the sun's shining at the moment... I'll be baked alive. O_O
Good news is that score is still improving: yesterday it was 275 out of 360 for 6 ends of 6, from a distance of 30m with an 80 cm target. I hope it doesn't turn out to be a fluke sorta thing and it'll drop drastically or something during the NTU Shoot tomorrow.
Speaking of which... it starts at 8 am tomorrow. CRAP. And NTU is pretty much out of the way of ANYWHERE. *Double* CRAP.
I'm gonna have to wake up at bleeding 5 am again. Argh... o_O
Oh yeah. Ivan's post just reminded me... we've found yet another thing to amuse ourselves with. :P
Remember the clubroom now has a PS2? Well, (year 1) Clement brought a few of his own PS2 games one day, one of which is Dynasty Warriors; I assure you, that game is a hell of a lot of fun. Running around and "just whack(ing)" (as Ivan and I like to put it) provides a lot of release of tension and gratuituous violence, as I'm sure many people will probably have noticed when they play such as these.
One thing that is very laughable however, in this game, is that it's set in the time period of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in Imperial China, but the voice actors ALL have American accents.
The funny thing here isn't just that you have Chinese people speaking flawless, American English; it's more the fact that at the time period during which the game is set, America wasn't even discovered yet. :D
Ivan and I have started and played one new game on our own, and according to Steven (who's finished the game by now and who knows the whole story about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms), the two of us have played quite far pretty fast. :D
Don't have much more to say about it, but Ivan might. I know that he's drafting a disgustingly SUPER-LONG post at the moment about the whole lot of people in Arts Club who've gotten fascinated with this game, which is just hunkering down in his lappie, waiting for him to copy and paste and spring it onto his blog and inflict his madness on the world. :P
All right. Guess that's it for now.
Shall make my way down to SRC. Maybe I'll fletchmy arrows first before shooting, considering how terribly bright the sun's shining at the moment... I'll be baked alive. O_O
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
I came to a sudden realisation of something sometime last week, and it came back to me again last night, while I was lying in bed in the dark, wandering somewhere between falling asleep and thinking about actually falling asleep.
Does anyone besides me realise how much people seem to avoid touching each other?
See if you've ever noticed this: even on an extremely crowded bus or train, people would still be hell-bent on keeping away from the person nearest to them; I've seen it happen when people shuffle still further in to make space for boarding passengers and their foot bumps against someone else's and they immediately apologise and move their foot away.
People do this when it's just a foot. Can you imagine if it were anything more?
I myself realised last week that I can go a whole day with absolutely no physical contact with another human being and not feel that anything is wrong. To some extent, I'd even go so far as to say that physical contact sometimes scares me.
Like yesterday, after Philo lecture, when we were walking back to AS6 and Jie suddenly took hold of my arm; I almost got startled out of my wits, but managed to keep it under control. And earlier today, when I was walking to the canteen for lunch with Ivan and Yuimin just "blundered" into me (in her usual "careless" style of walking) and sort of hugged me around the waist; I got frightened (yes, you're reading that right) and quickly took a couple of steps back-- with her still semi-wrapped around my waist. And she then laughingly asked me, "Why you so scared??"
I just replied that "I'm like that" and threw in a half-hearted laugh for good measure, but in truth, the first answer to that question that came to mind was: "I don't know. I'm waiting for someone to explain that to me."
Yesterday in SC2218 lecture, Anthropology and the Human Condition, we were discussing human evolution. Our lecturer was expounding on the interesting topic as to what "evolution" really meant. Does "evolution" really refer to the "betterment" of a species? Or does it simply mean a change in which the resulting form is just essentially very different from the previous one?
Have human beings really become "better" than their prehistoric ancestors?
Are we really that much "better" off if we can't even touch each other without feeling awkward about it?
Of course, I don't mean touching complete strangers, but still, even among a group of close friends, how often do you see people carelessly draped over each other and not caring one whit about it?
Even animals interact with each other and have more physical contact with each other than most of us do.
I know, some people might say then that it's because animals are animals after all; they're not sentient beings. Is the evolution and development of sentience then a trade-off for physical closeness? Or are we somehow seeking to distance ourselves from our "lower" origins by giving ourselves so many of these "boundaries"?
Last night, prior to that long epiphany that I had which you've just read, I also realised something else. I haven't hugged a person ever since, perhaps last year, when I might've met Pamela for the first time in ages and then hugged her. And following in that literal progression of "hugs and kisses", I realised that I haven't kissed anyone since the time I was small and used to kiss my parents goodnight.
I'd forgotten how reassuring it can be to just be held by someone; in fact, I'm not sure if I've ever really known the comforting effect that it has. I'm thankful that you thought it was necessary; I'm thankful that you don't think me too much of an emotional burden (yet?) and that you were there for me, but at the same time, I found it mildly... strange.
There was something in me that wished the bus ride would never end, that we would never have to move from that tiny corner of the world, that I could just sit there and bask in the comfort that you were providing for as long as I could stand-- and I don't think I could have ever tired of it.
This feeling is a common one whenever I'm around you, I find, and it never ceases to confuse me. In everything that we do, I have always felt that one last thing is missing. But I'm not sure that any kind of progression from what we are is really the way to go. I'm not even sure if it's what we both want or think we want.
You wonder if this is love? You wonder if this is the kind of love that the very very best of friends share or the kind of love that you might find with the kind of person whom you might have unwittingly been searching for all your life?
I wonder myself. And it confuses me.
And while I'm afraid of the sudden touches of everyone else, I wish that I could touch you without being afraid of giving you the wrong impression and driving you away.
I've told you before what I thought of you in the beginning, when we'd just started to get to know each other. I've told you that this had happened many times before in the past with me and that every time, it turned out that those other persons and I made better friends that anything else.
But with you, I'm never sure if that's true.
You're not the only one who wonders why the strong companionship that we have feels both so right and so wrong at the same time. I wonder why it always feels so comfortable, yet something in me tells me that it could also be something more.
You wonder if this is love?
I wonder if we'll ever figure it out.
A hundred days had made me older
Since the last time that I saw your pretty face
A thousand lights had made me colder
And I don’t think I can look at this the same
But all the miles that separate
They disappear now when I’m dreaming of your face
I’m here without you baby,
But your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby
And I dream about you all the time
I’m here without you baby
But you're still with me in my dreams
And tonight it’s only you and me
Does anyone besides me realise how much people seem to avoid touching each other?
See if you've ever noticed this: even on an extremely crowded bus or train, people would still be hell-bent on keeping away from the person nearest to them; I've seen it happen when people shuffle still further in to make space for boarding passengers and their foot bumps against someone else's and they immediately apologise and move their foot away.
People do this when it's just a foot. Can you imagine if it were anything more?
I myself realised last week that I can go a whole day with absolutely no physical contact with another human being and not feel that anything is wrong. To some extent, I'd even go so far as to say that physical contact sometimes scares me.
Like yesterday, after Philo lecture, when we were walking back to AS6 and Jie suddenly took hold of my arm; I almost got startled out of my wits, but managed to keep it under control. And earlier today, when I was walking to the canteen for lunch with Ivan and Yuimin just "blundered" into me (in her usual "careless" style of walking) and sort of hugged me around the waist; I got frightened (yes, you're reading that right) and quickly took a couple of steps back-- with her still semi-wrapped around my waist. And she then laughingly asked me, "Why you so scared??"
I just replied that "I'm like that" and threw in a half-hearted laugh for good measure, but in truth, the first answer to that question that came to mind was: "I don't know. I'm waiting for someone to explain that to me."
Yesterday in SC2218 lecture, Anthropology and the Human Condition, we were discussing human evolution. Our lecturer was expounding on the interesting topic as to what "evolution" really meant. Does "evolution" really refer to the "betterment" of a species? Or does it simply mean a change in which the resulting form is just essentially very different from the previous one?
Have human beings really become "better" than their prehistoric ancestors?
Are we really that much "better" off if we can't even touch each other without feeling awkward about it?
Of course, I don't mean touching complete strangers, but still, even among a group of close friends, how often do you see people carelessly draped over each other and not caring one whit about it?
Even animals interact with each other and have more physical contact with each other than most of us do.
I know, some people might say then that it's because animals are animals after all; they're not sentient beings. Is the evolution and development of sentience then a trade-off for physical closeness? Or are we somehow seeking to distance ourselves from our "lower" origins by giving ourselves so many of these "boundaries"?
Last night, prior to that long epiphany that I had which you've just read, I also realised something else. I haven't hugged a person ever since, perhaps last year, when I might've met Pamela for the first time in ages and then hugged her. And following in that literal progression of "hugs and kisses", I realised that I haven't kissed anyone since the time I was small and used to kiss my parents goodnight.
I'd forgotten how reassuring it can be to just be held by someone; in fact, I'm not sure if I've ever really known the comforting effect that it has. I'm thankful that you thought it was necessary; I'm thankful that you don't think me too much of an emotional burden (yet?) and that you were there for me, but at the same time, I found it mildly... strange.
There was something in me that wished the bus ride would never end, that we would never have to move from that tiny corner of the world, that I could just sit there and bask in the comfort that you were providing for as long as I could stand-- and I don't think I could have ever tired of it.
This feeling is a common one whenever I'm around you, I find, and it never ceases to confuse me. In everything that we do, I have always felt that one last thing is missing. But I'm not sure that any kind of progression from what we are is really the way to go. I'm not even sure if it's what we both want or think we want.
You wonder if this is love? You wonder if this is the kind of love that the very very best of friends share or the kind of love that you might find with the kind of person whom you might have unwittingly been searching for all your life?
I wonder myself. And it confuses me.
And while I'm afraid of the sudden touches of everyone else, I wish that I could touch you without being afraid of giving you the wrong impression and driving you away.
I've told you before what I thought of you in the beginning, when we'd just started to get to know each other. I've told you that this had happened many times before in the past with me and that every time, it turned out that those other persons and I made better friends that anything else.
But with you, I'm never sure if that's true.
You're not the only one who wonders why the strong companionship that we have feels both so right and so wrong at the same time. I wonder why it always feels so comfortable, yet something in me tells me that it could also be something more.
You wonder if this is love?
I wonder if we'll ever figure it out.
A hundred days had made me older
Since the last time that I saw your pretty face
A thousand lights had made me colder
And I don’t think I can look at this the same
But all the miles that separate
They disappear now when I’m dreaming of your face
I’m here without you baby,
But your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby
And I dream about you all the time
I’m here without you baby
But you're still with me in my dreams
And tonight it’s only you and me
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Well, two posts in a day. It's been a long time since I last did that. Although, if you look at it another way, the 4 am entry for today could really be counted as yesterday's entry. Well, anyway.
For some reason, I've managed to work myself into a rather morose mood again.
Earlier this morning, I decided that there was no way I was going to be awake or alert enough for archery training at 10 am, so I just ended up staying online with Ivan till 6 am. Didn't do much talking though; very much like what usually happens with Pam and I. We might type a few lines to each other and the conversation may just stop there, but I'll usually just leave the window open and just enjoy the quiet company of her "online" presence. :)
I woke up at 12 pm today; went to school for an Arts Club Ordinary Meeting, during which everyone discovered that we were all really tired and that Yuimin was possibly the only person who enjoyed the drum and bass last night. Don't ask me how that's possible.
Then, just before the meeting started, Steven mentioned that as we were leaving last night, he'd seen some of the Rouge patrons popping pills.
Well, that explains how they could actually dance to such boring, repetitive crap for hours.
Listening to Dishwalla's "Candleburn" right now; I haven't listened to that for a long time, along with other stuff like Tori Amos' "Silent All These Years". It suited my morose mood, so "Candleburn" is on repeat right now.
And it reminded me of the question that used to jump out at me everytime I played "Candleburn" when I first got it: "Who am I waiting for?"
On Vineland past the candle shrine
That burns on every night
For someone
She lets herself go
Like an angel in the snow
She lays down on her back
Down on her back - she goes
Take me over when I'm gone
Take me over make me strong
Take me over when I'm gone
Will they burn for me
For some reason, I've managed to work myself into a rather morose mood again.
Earlier this morning, I decided that there was no way I was going to be awake or alert enough for archery training at 10 am, so I just ended up staying online with Ivan till 6 am. Didn't do much talking though; very much like what usually happens with Pam and I. We might type a few lines to each other and the conversation may just stop there, but I'll usually just leave the window open and just enjoy the quiet company of her "online" presence. :)
I woke up at 12 pm today; went to school for an Arts Club Ordinary Meeting, during which everyone discovered that we were all really tired and that Yuimin was possibly the only person who enjoyed the drum and bass last night. Don't ask me how that's possible.
Then, just before the meeting started, Steven mentioned that as we were leaving last night, he'd seen some of the Rouge patrons popping pills.
Well, that explains how they could actually dance to such boring, repetitive crap for hours.
Listening to Dishwalla's "Candleburn" right now; I haven't listened to that for a long time, along with other stuff like Tori Amos' "Silent All These Years". It suited my morose mood, so "Candleburn" is on repeat right now.
And it reminded me of the question that used to jump out at me everytime I played "Candleburn" when I first got it: "Who am I waiting for?"
On Vineland past the candle shrine
That burns on every night
For someone
She lets herself go
Like an angel in the snow
She lays down on her back
Down on her back - she goes
Take me over when I'm gone
Take me over make me strong
Take me over when I'm gone
Will they burn for me
Bashes are like the ideal set-up for a demonstration of Murphy's Law.
For those of you who don't already know yet, Murphy's Law is a law which states that anything that can possibly go wrong, will go wrong. Which is also why the "Law" has never really seemed like a scientific "law" to me; more like a jinxing curse.
But anyway, my reasons for thinking the above about bashes: firstly, we don't own the place, so we're pretty much at the mercy of the people who do. Secondly, we can't control the music, which is probably the one most important thing which any bash needs to make it work and be a success.
So, this leads us to what happened at Arts Bash 1: it was drum and bass from about 11 pm onwards, which absolutely SUCKED. In Ivan's words (from about a month ago): "Imagine a constant drum beat going on and on for about a few hours; it'll drive you NUTS." I assure you, it did more than that for me; it pissed me off. And the management of Rouge are stupid, arrogant, knocked-up asses who cheated us.
In the beginning, it seemed like the Bash was going to be a fun one; everyone was enjoying the programmes and the music (which was R&B in the beginning), but after the programmes had ended, only about 5 more songs of R&B were played before they started into their STUPID drum and bass; it took a while for most of us to realise that it was what they were going to be playing for the rest of the night.
The last R&B track that they played was a remix of Usher's "Yeah"; which brings me to yet another thing. :) Before the song started, I was sitting next to Ivan in the booth that was "reserved" for the Arts Club MC and Affiliates; he was drinking a bourbon coke, and when the song started, I'd barely even registered that a new song had started before he'd downed the rest of his drink and had scrambled off his seat and onto the podium. That was scary, I tell you.
And good Lord, Ivan can really dance like it's no one's business.
For someone like me who's never seen him as anything but more or less rather calm and in control of himself, it was a bit of a minor shock to see him in such a state of... well, abandon, I'd say, and so uncaring of the rest of the world around him. Not that he really cares all that much for the opinions of the rest of the world the rest of the time, but well. You know what I mean.
So when we'd finally got really sick of the drum and bass, Ivan proposed that we do what he'd originally suggested at least a month ago: cross the road and go to Music Underground instead.
Ivan: If-- and this is a very big 'if'-- If I go recce Music Underground, check out their music and ticket prices, and I pay for you, do you wanna go over to MU instead?
So we went over to check it out, and found that sadly, it'd be $25 for Ivan-- $25 for guys and $12 for ladies; till now, I still can't understand why on earth ladies are charged less or given free entry when they enter a club while guys aren't.
Looks like the world at large isn't all that encouraging of equality of the sexes after all, huh? ;)
So we were pretty much stuck at Rouge, although sometime around 1 am, Ivan remarked that the $25 entry fee was "starting to look less and less like an obstacle". :P Sigh. Was probably partially my fault anyway; I'd forgotten to ask my dad for some cash before I left the house earlier in the day, so I had zero cash with me at the time, and I'd kinda drained my bank account buying textbooks and stuff. So if Ivan hadn't had to pay for me, he'd probably have been more able to pay his $25 entry fee.
We also almost got kicked out of the room that the Arts Club had booked due to some of the management's screwed up ideas that technically, our function was over, and just when I thought that things couldn't get worse, they did.
Alex got himself piss, sodding drunk.
I'd heard that it happened during Rag when they went out to Mambo one night, so I wasn't as freaked as Ivan was when one of Alex's dragonboating friends suddenly dragged him into the room; since I'd heard of it happening to Alex before, I was slightly less surprised-- although, I'll admit, it was slightly worse than I thought it'd be.
Ivan and Clement were sitting on either side of him on the couch, and they were trying to hold him down, since half the time, he'd try to get up after sitting docilely for a few minutes and go somewhere-- I have no idea where.
When the whole lot of us Arts Club people finally left at about 3 am, Ivan and I agreed that we were both going to go home and blast our techno. So, following in that vein, here's what's coming out of my speakers at the moment; not at the volume that I'd like since it's the wee hours of the morning, but it's techno, so hell, it'll do!
Fragma-- Toca's Miracle (Club Mix)
Dave McCullen-- Rave Heaven
Hard & Tango-- This Is My DJ
Catch-- Walk On Water (Baby You Can)(Wazari Club Mix)
Soda Club ft. Andrea Anatola-- Keep Love Together (Divine Inspiration Edit)
Spring Break-- Big Bad Love (Cascada Radio Edit)
Cascada-- Endless Summer (Extended Mix)
Darkness-- In My Dreams
Rimini Project-- No More Goodbye (Extended Mix)
Marc Korn-- Summer of Love (Mysterio Radio Mix)
Brandy-- Aphrodisiac (Speedbreaker Remix)
For those of you who don't already know yet, Murphy's Law is a law which states that anything that can possibly go wrong, will go wrong. Which is also why the "Law" has never really seemed like a scientific "law" to me; more like a jinxing curse.
But anyway, my reasons for thinking the above about bashes: firstly, we don't own the place, so we're pretty much at the mercy of the people who do. Secondly, we can't control the music, which is probably the one most important thing which any bash needs to make it work and be a success.
So, this leads us to what happened at Arts Bash 1: it was drum and bass from about 11 pm onwards, which absolutely SUCKED. In Ivan's words (from about a month ago): "Imagine a constant drum beat going on and on for about a few hours; it'll drive you NUTS." I assure you, it did more than that for me; it pissed me off. And the management of Rouge are stupid, arrogant, knocked-up asses who cheated us.
In the beginning, it seemed like the Bash was going to be a fun one; everyone was enjoying the programmes and the music (which was R&B in the beginning), but after the programmes had ended, only about 5 more songs of R&B were played before they started into their STUPID drum and bass; it took a while for most of us to realise that it was what they were going to be playing for the rest of the night.
The last R&B track that they played was a remix of Usher's "Yeah"; which brings me to yet another thing. :) Before the song started, I was sitting next to Ivan in the booth that was "reserved" for the Arts Club MC and Affiliates; he was drinking a bourbon coke, and when the song started, I'd barely even registered that a new song had started before he'd downed the rest of his drink and had scrambled off his seat and onto the podium. That was scary, I tell you.
And good Lord, Ivan can really dance like it's no one's business.
For someone like me who's never seen him as anything but more or less rather calm and in control of himself, it was a bit of a minor shock to see him in such a state of... well, abandon, I'd say, and so uncaring of the rest of the world around him. Not that he really cares all that much for the opinions of the rest of the world the rest of the time, but well. You know what I mean.
So when we'd finally got really sick of the drum and bass, Ivan proposed that we do what he'd originally suggested at least a month ago: cross the road and go to Music Underground instead.
Ivan: If-- and this is a very big 'if'-- If I go recce Music Underground, check out their music and ticket prices, and I pay for you, do you wanna go over to MU instead?
So we went over to check it out, and found that sadly, it'd be $25 for Ivan-- $25 for guys and $12 for ladies; till now, I still can't understand why on earth ladies are charged less or given free entry when they enter a club while guys aren't.
Looks like the world at large isn't all that encouraging of equality of the sexes after all, huh? ;)
So we were pretty much stuck at Rouge, although sometime around 1 am, Ivan remarked that the $25 entry fee was "starting to look less and less like an obstacle". :P Sigh. Was probably partially my fault anyway; I'd forgotten to ask my dad for some cash before I left the house earlier in the day, so I had zero cash with me at the time, and I'd kinda drained my bank account buying textbooks and stuff. So if Ivan hadn't had to pay for me, he'd probably have been more able to pay his $25 entry fee.
We also almost got kicked out of the room that the Arts Club had booked due to some of the management's screwed up ideas that technically, our function was over, and just when I thought that things couldn't get worse, they did.
Alex got himself piss, sodding drunk.
I'd heard that it happened during Rag when they went out to Mambo one night, so I wasn't as freaked as Ivan was when one of Alex's dragonboating friends suddenly dragged him into the room; since I'd heard of it happening to Alex before, I was slightly less surprised-- although, I'll admit, it was slightly worse than I thought it'd be.
Ivan and Clement were sitting on either side of him on the couch, and they were trying to hold him down, since half the time, he'd try to get up after sitting docilely for a few minutes and go somewhere-- I have no idea where.
When the whole lot of us Arts Club people finally left at about 3 am, Ivan and I agreed that we were both going to go home and blast our techno. So, following in that vein, here's what's coming out of my speakers at the moment; not at the volume that I'd like since it's the wee hours of the morning, but it's techno, so hell, it'll do!
Fragma-- Toca's Miracle (Club Mix)
Dave McCullen-- Rave Heaven
Hard & Tango-- This Is My DJ
Catch-- Walk On Water (Baby You Can)(Wazari Club Mix)
Soda Club ft. Andrea Anatola-- Keep Love Together (Divine Inspiration Edit)
Spring Break-- Big Bad Love (Cascada Radio Edit)
Cascada-- Endless Summer (Extended Mix)
Darkness-- In My Dreams
Rimini Project-- No More Goodbye (Extended Mix)
Marc Korn-- Summer of Love (Mysterio Radio Mix)
Brandy-- Aphrodisiac (Speedbreaker Remix)
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Bear with me. I feel an irrepressible need to type an "I am thankful" post. I have no idea why. Or maybe I do. We'll see.
Kor, I'm so sorry for ranting off at you over MSN last night, especially since you had more pressing matters at hand; I know I apologised over MSN later and to you in person, and you said it was okay, but I still feel really bad, so I'm really, really sorry. I wish there was something else I could say/write/type to explain what I said, but there isn't; what happened that set the whole thing in motion was pretty much out of my control, and it has repercussions that I have... problems dealing with myself, so.. sorry, please bear with me. I'm sorry that you had to get saddled with a headcase like me, but thank you for putting up with me all this while... well, ever since you've known me, anyway.
I'm thankful for Pam and her baking skills (and following in that vein, her cookies) and for everything else that makes Pamela, Pamela, and for the SC2212 module whose lecture we're taking together; at least I'll get to see her at least once every week even if we aren't able to get the same tutorial group. Which is looking quite likely now, since she just managed to get the Thursday slot that we planned for and I didn't. Sigh. Why didn't I rank the SSA tutorial slot lower since it was almost certain that I'd get it, it being 8 am and all...
I'm thankful that I got to be silly and crappy with her yesterday while we were planning a tutorial slot for SC2212; we haven't had a good, proper, "silly time" for ages, and although we kinda freaked Ivan out, it was still fun. :P Actually, on hindsight, it was probably more so because we freaked him out. :P :D
I'm thankful for Jie and Kenny for trusting me enough to think me responsible enough to want to pick me to be Kenny's PA. Apparently, as Jie told me over the phone last Saturday night, I fulfill all three criteria for being Kenny's PA; ie: 1. I'm female, 2. I'm responsible, 3. I like books. That you think I'm a responsible person is really something that I myself am not that sure of, but I hope I'll be able to live up to your standards. And I'm thankful for William as well; just for being a new friend whom I can talk and joke around with. :) And together, Jie, William, Kenny and I form the "Stripey-Organiser Family". Maybe I'll buy kor one and he can join too. Wouldn't be complete without him, haha.
I'm thankful for Thomas and Yanling and the OG lunch that we had today; seems like all of us are just as "afflicted" with.. well. A certain kind of unavoidable and heart-rending problem. Helped a lot for me to talk about it and get it off my chest a bit; Thomas gave some advice which logically, made sense, but of course, as always is with these things, another part of me would disagree violently. I still hope that things work out in the end, though. I have no idea if I'm being naive or stupid or desperate for doing this, but this really is wearing me quite thin. I'm quite tired of it, but at the same time, refuse to let go of it. I guess we'll see. I've done all I can, I think... so if it wears me down first, then I suppose I'll just be headed to the loony bin a lot sooner than I expected.
I'm thankful that I took up archery as a sport. I know, kor, I know I said that sharp objects were bad things to have around me at a time like this, but don't worry; I wouldn't do anything that would harm my arrows. They cost me almost a hundred bucks after all. :P Hopefully, now that I have archery, it'll help me control myself more during this period of time, since it gives me an avenue to vent my frustrations.
So while I will never be thankful for the mess-up that is my life, I will always be thankful for these select few people in it.
Kor, I'm so sorry for ranting off at you over MSN last night, especially since you had more pressing matters at hand; I know I apologised over MSN later and to you in person, and you said it was okay, but I still feel really bad, so I'm really, really sorry. I wish there was something else I could say/write/type to explain what I said, but there isn't; what happened that set the whole thing in motion was pretty much out of my control, and it has repercussions that I have... problems dealing with myself, so.. sorry, please bear with me. I'm sorry that you had to get saddled with a headcase like me, but thank you for putting up with me all this while... well, ever since you've known me, anyway.
I'm thankful for Pam and her baking skills (and following in that vein, her cookies) and for everything else that makes Pamela, Pamela, and for the SC2212 module whose lecture we're taking together; at least I'll get to see her at least once every week even if we aren't able to get the same tutorial group. Which is looking quite likely now, since she just managed to get the Thursday slot that we planned for and I didn't. Sigh. Why didn't I rank the SSA tutorial slot lower since it was almost certain that I'd get it, it being 8 am and all...
I'm thankful that I got to be silly and crappy with her yesterday while we were planning a tutorial slot for SC2212; we haven't had a good, proper, "silly time" for ages, and although we kinda freaked Ivan out, it was still fun. :P Actually, on hindsight, it was probably more so because we freaked him out. :P :D
I'm thankful for Jie and Kenny for trusting me enough to think me responsible enough to want to pick me to be Kenny's PA. Apparently, as Jie told me over the phone last Saturday night, I fulfill all three criteria for being Kenny's PA; ie: 1. I'm female, 2. I'm responsible, 3. I like books. That you think I'm a responsible person is really something that I myself am not that sure of, but I hope I'll be able to live up to your standards. And I'm thankful for William as well; just for being a new friend whom I can talk and joke around with. :) And together, Jie, William, Kenny and I form the "Stripey-Organiser Family". Maybe I'll buy kor one and he can join too. Wouldn't be complete without him, haha.
I'm thankful for Thomas and Yanling and the OG lunch that we had today; seems like all of us are just as "afflicted" with.. well. A certain kind of unavoidable and heart-rending problem. Helped a lot for me to talk about it and get it off my chest a bit; Thomas gave some advice which logically, made sense, but of course, as always is with these things, another part of me would disagree violently. I still hope that things work out in the end, though. I have no idea if I'm being naive or stupid or desperate for doing this, but this really is wearing me quite thin. I'm quite tired of it, but at the same time, refuse to let go of it. I guess we'll see. I've done all I can, I think... so if it wears me down first, then I suppose I'll just be headed to the loony bin a lot sooner than I expected.
I'm thankful that I took up archery as a sport. I know, kor, I know I said that sharp objects were bad things to have around me at a time like this, but don't worry; I wouldn't do anything that would harm my arrows. They cost me almost a hundred bucks after all. :P Hopefully, now that I have archery, it'll help me control myself more during this period of time, since it gives me an avenue to vent my frustrations.
So while I will never be thankful for the mess-up that is my life, I will always be thankful for these select few people in it.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Well, to liven up a somewhat dull day, I went to read my Philo professor's blog and found these two interesting quizzes that he recommended from The Philosophy Magazine's website.
The first quiz that I took was this one: The Philosophical Health Check; basically what this quiz does is that it checks if any of your beliefs are "in tension" (ie: in conflict) with one another. My tension quotient was 33%, quite low.
And then there was this one which made me feel really proud of myself: Battlefield God. This one is similar to the one above; it tests your beliefs, but this time, it specifically tests the beliefs which you have concerning God (if you believe that he/she/it exists, that is).
Apparently, my "beliefs about God are internally consistent and very well thought out", because my answers didn't conflict at all, so I got this nifty graphic thing (see below) from the site for that; for being one of the 7.51% who have also managed to achieve this non-conflicting-beliefs-about God status. :D
Congratulations!
You have been awarded the TPM medal of honour! This is our highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.
The fact that you progressed through this activity neither being hit nor biting a bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and very well thought out.
A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. You would have bitten bullets had you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, you avoided both these fates - and in doing so qualify for our highest award. A fine achievement!
The first quiz that I took was this one: The Philosophical Health Check; basically what this quiz does is that it checks if any of your beliefs are "in tension" (ie: in conflict) with one another. My tension quotient was 33%, quite low.
And then there was this one which made me feel really proud of myself: Battlefield God. This one is similar to the one above; it tests your beliefs, but this time, it specifically tests the beliefs which you have concerning God (if you believe that he/she/it exists, that is).
Apparently, my "beliefs about God are internally consistent and very well thought out", because my answers didn't conflict at all, so I got this nifty graphic thing (see below) from the site for that; for being one of the 7.51% who have also managed to achieve this non-conflicting-beliefs-about God status. :D
Congratulations!
You have been awarded the TPM medal of honour! This is our highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.
The fact that you progressed through this activity neither being hit nor biting a bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and very well thought out.
A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. You would have bitten bullets had you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, you avoided both these fates - and in doing so qualify for our highest award. A fine achievement!
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Training this morning... VERY hot. The sun was damn glaring; I think I've gotten darker already and Ivan agrees.
Was shooting with an 80 cm target; my goal was supposed to be a score of at least 250, but I got 235. :( Oh well. It's a personal best improvement, though. :D The last time I was shooting an 80 cm target, my total score was 227 for 6 ends of 6. :D
Then.. went for lunch with my lovely NUS Archery people, and since generally, we tend to get slacky after lunch, I went back to the Arts Club Room (coz there was air-conditioning there) and found Steven, Xuzi, Tim, Xinyan and Ivan there. Steven, Xuzi and Tim were quite occupied with the Club Room's newest fixed asset: A PlayStation 2. Playing some football game. Not surprised.
Slacked around for a while and found out that kor was going to go shopping for chocolates later, and he wanted to buy Godiva chocolates, so me being me, I definitely wanted to tag along.
Firstly, it's chocolate. Secondly, it's Godiva chocolate; every time I happen to be in CityLink Mall, around the Godiva chocolate shop, my pace just slows as I approach and I stare reverently at all the chocolate, but I never step inside. I treat it like a shrine, in other words. :P So, since he was going there for a purpose, I decided to tag along just so I could have an excuse to go in and ogle the chocolate. :P
The shop is designed in such a way that, when you step into the shop, the facing wall is a shelf upon which all the chocolate is displayed; the minute I stepped in there, I went to one end and just stared at all the chocolate, and from there, slowly started moving towards the other end, ogling the chocolate and all its lovely shiny wrappings as I went.
But Ivan was standing right in the middle, so when I reached the middle, I stopped there for a while, and then he whispered to me: "I think my wallet just curled up and died in fright."
And then I looked down and saw the nearest price tag: "$239".
And I giggled.
Then I looked around the shop and found that HALF of the things on sale had three-digit price tags.
And I giggled some more.
In fact, I giggled for the rest of the time that we were in the shop, because just thinking about kor's first comment was just cracking me up every time I thought of it!! Hahaha....
The woman at the counter probably thought I was slightly nuts, haha.
Was talking to jie on the phone just now; she um.. kinda enlightened me as to what exactly it is that people seem to "see" when they look at Ivan and me. I can't say that I understand, but that's okay. I'm easily confused at this time of night after all, so if I don't understand something, you should probably ignore me and tell me again another day. :P
Should go to sleep now. Have church tomorrow morning. Will hope and pray really really hard that Wai Lun and his friends can book out this coming Friday so that I can sell SIX tickets for Arts Bash! Oh, and must help kor pray that his reservist gets cancelled too. Coz he wants to go for Arts Camp. Haha. And er... hope and pray that I'll train harder and I can win something at NTU institutional shoot on the 29th of January! :D
Was shooting with an 80 cm target; my goal was supposed to be a score of at least 250, but I got 235. :( Oh well. It's a personal best improvement, though. :D The last time I was shooting an 80 cm target, my total score was 227 for 6 ends of 6. :D
Then.. went for lunch with my lovely NUS Archery people, and since generally, we tend to get slacky after lunch, I went back to the Arts Club Room (coz there was air-conditioning there) and found Steven, Xuzi, Tim, Xinyan and Ivan there. Steven, Xuzi and Tim were quite occupied with the Club Room's newest fixed asset: A PlayStation 2. Playing some football game. Not surprised.
Slacked around for a while and found out that kor was going to go shopping for chocolates later, and he wanted to buy Godiva chocolates, so me being me, I definitely wanted to tag along.
Firstly, it's chocolate. Secondly, it's Godiva chocolate; every time I happen to be in CityLink Mall, around the Godiva chocolate shop, my pace just slows as I approach and I stare reverently at all the chocolate, but I never step inside. I treat it like a shrine, in other words. :P So, since he was going there for a purpose, I decided to tag along just so I could have an excuse to go in and ogle the chocolate. :P
The shop is designed in such a way that, when you step into the shop, the facing wall is a shelf upon which all the chocolate is displayed; the minute I stepped in there, I went to one end and just stared at all the chocolate, and from there, slowly started moving towards the other end, ogling the chocolate and all its lovely shiny wrappings as I went.
But Ivan was standing right in the middle, so when I reached the middle, I stopped there for a while, and then he whispered to me: "I think my wallet just curled up and died in fright."
And then I looked down and saw the nearest price tag: "$239".
And I giggled.
Then I looked around the shop and found that HALF of the things on sale had three-digit price tags.
And I giggled some more.
In fact, I giggled for the rest of the time that we were in the shop, because just thinking about kor's first comment was just cracking me up every time I thought of it!! Hahaha....
The woman at the counter probably thought I was slightly nuts, haha.
Was talking to jie on the phone just now; she um.. kinda enlightened me as to what exactly it is that people seem to "see" when they look at Ivan and me. I can't say that I understand, but that's okay. I'm easily confused at this time of night after all, so if I don't understand something, you should probably ignore me and tell me again another day. :P
Should go to sleep now. Have church tomorrow morning. Will hope and pray really really hard that Wai Lun and his friends can book out this coming Friday so that I can sell SIX tickets for Arts Bash! Oh, and must help kor pray that his reservist gets cancelled too. Coz he wants to go for Arts Camp. Haha. And er... hope and pray that I'll train harder and I can win something at NTU institutional shoot on the 29th of January! :D
Friday, January 14, 2005
Lalala. Blogging now coz I've been too lazy to do it for the last three days and because I don't have class today, and hopefully I'll be able to get all the tutorial slots that I want next week and I'll be able to continue to keep Friday free and so when the mid-sem break comes around, because I have Friday free, I won't be as confused as I was last sem with the new "week" system!
Sorry. Babbled. Haha. But yes, I have everything planned out, you see. Am a genius. :P Am slightly high anyway, because I have Cascada's "Endless Summer" on loop. But that's because I just got it and I'm testing it out and am just too lazy to switch the track. Starting to see a trend here, aren't we. Am a lazy slob. Ha.
Anyway, yesterday Kenny gave me another book!!! *squeals* A selection of Sylvia Plath's poems, and it's hardback too.
I love Kenny!!! Haha... not in that way, of course; you know what I mean. :D
I know, you're probably appalled at how few (compared to people like Kenny and Rachel-Jie) books a bookworm like me has, but well, let's just say that when I was younger, most of the classics and great twentieth-century authors' works that I read were all borrowed from the library. Back when the library still had a good selection of books, that is. I mean, now if you searched for the Iliad on NLB's catalogue, they'd tell you that it's in the Used Book Repository!! What kind of ultimate SACRILEGE is that?!?
*calms down*
Maybe I should change the song, haha. It's just working me up, lol.
Oh, and I went out with Pam on Wednesday evening; bought each other our long-overdue Christmas presents, haha. Went to The Body Shop (read: Heaven filled with pretty, colourful, fragrant things that you just can't keep your fingers away from), and she bought me a sponge! Haha... I finally have one of those exfoliating sponge thingies! There's something therapeutic about owning a sponge, I tell you. The way you squish it and it bounces back, all springy and sproingy and..- well, you get the idea, I suppose. :D
And after much deliberation, because Pam couldn't make up her mind as to what kind of bracelet she wanted, she finally decided on one and I bought it for her, haha. After which, we bought pretzels (lovely things, by the way; everyone start patronising Auntie Anne's! :D) and then went up to the library, which both of us haven't visited in ages!
Probably coz the only library we've really been concerned with lately is the NUS Central Library, haha.
And this semester keeps getting better and better. I have the most wonderful lecturers; my Soci of Deviance and Military History of Singapore lecturers are both rather humorous folks as well, and so maybe Military History won't be as boring and painful as I thought it'd be.
Quotes:
SC2212- Sociology of Deviance: Narayanan Ganapathy :
(On how the deviance of an act depends very much on the context in which the act takes place)
Take for example, masturbation. *Loud snickers all around* If you do it in the privacy of your own room, it has a rather cathartic effect, doesn't it? *Very loud laughter all over the LT, especially from the guys* But if you did it in public, that'd be deviance. And if you did it at the 4th level of NUH, it would be a public service.
(The 4th level of NUH is where the sperm bank is located.)
SSA2208/HY2242- Military History of Singapore: Brian Farrell:
"...the 3 "F's" that all great civilisations must do to expand; Feeding, Fighting, and I think you can figure the last one out for yourself."
Sorry. Babbled. Haha. But yes, I have everything planned out, you see. Am a genius. :P Am slightly high anyway, because I have Cascada's "Endless Summer" on loop. But that's because I just got it and I'm testing it out and am just too lazy to switch the track. Starting to see a trend here, aren't we. Am a lazy slob. Ha.
Anyway, yesterday Kenny gave me another book!!! *squeals* A selection of Sylvia Plath's poems, and it's hardback too.
I love Kenny!!! Haha... not in that way, of course; you know what I mean. :D
I know, you're probably appalled at how few (compared to people like Kenny and Rachel-Jie) books a bookworm like me has, but well, let's just say that when I was younger, most of the classics and great twentieth-century authors' works that I read were all borrowed from the library. Back when the library still had a good selection of books, that is. I mean, now if you searched for the Iliad on NLB's catalogue, they'd tell you that it's in the Used Book Repository!! What kind of ultimate SACRILEGE is that?!?
*calms down*
Maybe I should change the song, haha. It's just working me up, lol.
Oh, and I went out with Pam on Wednesday evening; bought each other our long-overdue Christmas presents, haha. Went to The Body Shop (read: Heaven filled with pretty, colourful, fragrant things that you just can't keep your fingers away from), and she bought me a sponge! Haha... I finally have one of those exfoliating sponge thingies! There's something therapeutic about owning a sponge, I tell you. The way you squish it and it bounces back, all springy and sproingy and..- well, you get the idea, I suppose. :D
And after much deliberation, because Pam couldn't make up her mind as to what kind of bracelet she wanted, she finally decided on one and I bought it for her, haha. After which, we bought pretzels (lovely things, by the way; everyone start patronising Auntie Anne's! :D) and then went up to the library, which both of us haven't visited in ages!
Probably coz the only library we've really been concerned with lately is the NUS Central Library, haha.
And this semester keeps getting better and better. I have the most wonderful lecturers; my Soci of Deviance and Military History of Singapore lecturers are both rather humorous folks as well, and so maybe Military History won't be as boring and painful as I thought it'd be.
Quotes:
SC2212- Sociology of Deviance: Narayanan Ganapathy :
(On how the deviance of an act depends very much on the context in which the act takes place)
Take for example, masturbation. *Loud snickers all around* If you do it in the privacy of your own room, it has a rather cathartic effect, doesn't it? *Very loud laughter all over the LT, especially from the guys* But if you did it in public, that'd be deviance. And if you did it at the 4th level of NUH, it would be a public service.
(The 4th level of NUH is where the sperm bank is located.)
SSA2208/HY2242- Military History of Singapore: Brian Farrell:
"...the 3 "F's" that all great civilisations must do to expand; Feeding, Fighting, and I think you can figure the last one out for yourself."
Monday, January 10, 2005
First day of the new semester!!
Yeah, well, woke up at 6 am this morning (something that I haven't done for a long time; probably not since I had to wake up at 5 am to make it to Jurong for the AAS Shoot) for my first lecture of the semester: an 8 am lecture for SC2218, Anthropology and the Human Condition.
When my alarm went off, the first thing I thought was, "Tell me again why I wanted to take SC2218?!?"
But, well, it's quite a good consolation that my lecturer (and the TAs) seem all right; quite friendly and humorous and they seem to know their stuff. And the whoe first hour of the lecture was spent watching this DVD that our lecturer (Dr. Eric Thompson) had brought in, called "Baraka"; was a lovely thing which consisted of various scenes of various rituals and routines and cultural practices of different countries around the world; like a story of a day in the life of the world, you could say. And no, there wasn't anyone narrating or anything; the whole film was just filled with soft, ambient music in the background, with the real sound from the footage coming through at times. And sometimes, they changed the music to suit the mood; like how in a shot which showed hundreds of people scrounging around in a garbage dump, the music was this heart-wrenching wailing-- not unlike the wailing in the "Troy" soundtrack, really, come to think of it. :P
And the best thing of all? Dr. Thompson says that we'll start every lecture this way. With a film for the first half of the lesson, that is. Sounds like a pretty good way to start a week to me. :)
So, after SC2218 lecture, I strolled back to clubroom after buying my lovely new course pack, feeling slightly more awake and quite happy after seeing that beautiful film; found Steven and Ivan in the clubroom, sitting around the computer looking at photos of our club's events for the last semester.
Ivan was wearing the shirts that Denise and I had given him! Yay!! Hahaha... :D Although the overshirt did look a size too big for him... so sad; Denise and I thought we would be safe with an M size for him. Even he thought that M would've been all right. Oh well, I think the best thing he could do would be to alter it and make the shoulders of the shirt less broad; it'd look more fitting that way, coz right now, the sleeves of the shirt start somewhere just after the drop of his shoulders. Me was wearing a new shirt too, lol. One of those tops that Wan-Tsin managed to convince me to buy after OG dinner that night. It did look pretty nice. :D
And Ivan passed Jie's and Kenny's Christmas present to me; T.S Eliot's Collected Poems, 1909-1962! Even my mum is jealous, haha. Okay, maybe not jealous, but she likes my present. But it's MY present, so nyah. Wahahahaha...
Oh, but the funny thing was when Ivan and I decided to go for lunch with William; they were standing around the bench just outside the clubroom and talking to another friend of theirs, so I just hopped up onto the nearest bench-tabletop and perched there, waiting for them to finish their conversation.
And then this guy walked past, wearing the same T-shirt as the one that I'd bought Ivan.
I saw him glance at Ivan, then do a double-take and look over at him again before walking on at a slightly faster pace, haha. I was giggling to myself by then. I'd noticed the guy too, but I hadn't really noticed the shirt till I realised, "Hey. That shirt looks familiar."
So I told Ivan about it, and he looked quite stunned, haha.
Anyway. Lunch. During which William decided to get something "light". When he'd gone off to look for said "light" refreshment, I told Ivan, "The only thing 'light' here is him, and if he weighed a little less, he'd float away when someone exhaled."
Heehee. Yes, William is skinny. To prove my point, the only person whom I know of who's skinnier than him is Wei Jian. So Wei Jian still holds the record, in my book. :D Anyone skinnier than Wei Jian would definitely be anorexic. :D
Sigh. I know I planned my timetable such that I'd have a four-hour break before a four-hour stretch of lectures; I'd originally planned to sleep for the four hours, but not surprisingly enough, I didn't. Spent most of the time hanging around with Ivan, William, Denise and other people who happened to be around the clubroom. Went downstairs to check out the Sports Bazaar and help out a bit at the Archery booth as well.
And then Ben came up to write down a friend's name for recre archery, and he was wearing a new shirt. The same T-shirt that Ivan was wearing.
I almost died laughing right there!!
Okay, see, when I went out with Ben on the last day of our exams last year on 1st Dec, we decided to do some Christmas shopping, and Ben helped me pick out that shirt for Ivan. However, he liked it as well, so he got one a size bigger for himself.
And as luck would have it, he decided to wear it on the same day as Ivan did. :D :D :D
Which means that on the first day of school, there were at least THREE people in Arts wearing the exact same T-shirt, hahaha!!!
EL1101E lecture.. during which I spent the first half of the lecture nodding off. I forgot to buy Lemon Tea from the vending machine outside before going in for the lecture. Damn.
After spending just one semester at NUS, I've learned very quickly just what things will keep me awake. Caffeine in the form of mocha will only kick in about a couple of hours later. Caffeine in the form of Coke will send me on a sugar high almost immediately, which is not so good for studying coz I won't be able to concentrate, but it's good for irritating the hell out of people. Caffeine in the form of Lemon Tea, however, has just the right effect. It's an almost immediate effect, yet I still remain sane after drinking it. That's provided it isn't already nighttime and that I wasn't already high before drinking it. :P
Anyway. EL1101E lecture ended 15 minutes early. Moved up to a better seat for Philo later, and later found my Philo lecturer thoroughly amusing. :D
I'm so glad that I spent far too much time when I was younger reading A LOT of Greek and Roman mythology (Norse as well, actually); the names and time periods and events mentioned in the lecture made a lot more sense to me than many others in the lecture, I'd say.
And just after the break, he was giving us a background history of the dialogue in Plato's Euthyphro; he used a map of ancient Greece on one slide, yes, Thessaly and Phythia and Corinth and Sparta and Argos and Thebes and Athens and all that.
You know, on maps, they mark places with little black dots and then write the names of those places next to their corresponding dots? Well, at the top right corner of the map of ancient Greece, I could see a little dot just at the edge of a coastal area; like a peninsula, I'd say.
And knowing my ancient Greek maps fairly well, I knew that that small dot was Troy. And I had the feeling that if my lecturer were to show a more "zoomed-out" version of the same map, such that you could actually see Asia Minor and Thracia and the whole landmass around the Aegean, then Troy would definitely become visible, and some people (I specifically had the girls in the lecture in mind), would definitely make some noise. Excited, squealing noises of recognition, to be exact. Something along the lines of: "Oh, look, Troy! Finally, something which I'm familiar with! I know all about Troy and that Orlando Bloom was really hot and-- oh, my bad, it was supposed to be Paris, wasn't it?"
Okay, maybe not the later two sentences. :P
But guess what the next slide was.
You've got it: the map of the entire Aegean area. And there it was, Troy, with Troas behind it in slightly larger print; Phrygia and the Propontis, and with Ionia and Sardis and Lycia further down. Although on this map, Lycia was indicated as "Lydia". No idea why; I've never seen another name for Lycia before, unlike how Phythia is sometimes spelt as Phthia.
And after 3 seconds, the girl on my right squealed softly, "Eh, that's Troy..."
*Rolls eyes, grins subtly and sniggers silently*
Philo is going to be fun. :)
And it looks like on the whole, my new semester is off to a pretty good start, despite the fact that it still really feels like I'm stuck in last semester and it doesn't feel like a new semester!
Yeah, well, woke up at 6 am this morning (something that I haven't done for a long time; probably not since I had to wake up at 5 am to make it to Jurong for the AAS Shoot) for my first lecture of the semester: an 8 am lecture for SC2218, Anthropology and the Human Condition.
When my alarm went off, the first thing I thought was, "Tell me again why I wanted to take SC2218?!?"
But, well, it's quite a good consolation that my lecturer (and the TAs) seem all right; quite friendly and humorous and they seem to know their stuff. And the whoe first hour of the lecture was spent watching this DVD that our lecturer (Dr. Eric Thompson) had brought in, called "Baraka"; was a lovely thing which consisted of various scenes of various rituals and routines and cultural practices of different countries around the world; like a story of a day in the life of the world, you could say. And no, there wasn't anyone narrating or anything; the whole film was just filled with soft, ambient music in the background, with the real sound from the footage coming through at times. And sometimes, they changed the music to suit the mood; like how in a shot which showed hundreds of people scrounging around in a garbage dump, the music was this heart-wrenching wailing-- not unlike the wailing in the "Troy" soundtrack, really, come to think of it. :P
And the best thing of all? Dr. Thompson says that we'll start every lecture this way. With a film for the first half of the lesson, that is. Sounds like a pretty good way to start a week to me. :)
So, after SC2218 lecture, I strolled back to clubroom after buying my lovely new course pack, feeling slightly more awake and quite happy after seeing that beautiful film; found Steven and Ivan in the clubroom, sitting around the computer looking at photos of our club's events for the last semester.
Ivan was wearing the shirts that Denise and I had given him! Yay!! Hahaha... :D Although the overshirt did look a size too big for him... so sad; Denise and I thought we would be safe with an M size for him. Even he thought that M would've been all right. Oh well, I think the best thing he could do would be to alter it and make the shoulders of the shirt less broad; it'd look more fitting that way, coz right now, the sleeves of the shirt start somewhere just after the drop of his shoulders. Me was wearing a new shirt too, lol. One of those tops that Wan-Tsin managed to convince me to buy after OG dinner that night. It did look pretty nice. :D
And Ivan passed Jie's and Kenny's Christmas present to me; T.S Eliot's Collected Poems, 1909-1962! Even my mum is jealous, haha. Okay, maybe not jealous, but she likes my present. But it's MY present, so nyah. Wahahahaha...
Oh, but the funny thing was when Ivan and I decided to go for lunch with William; they were standing around the bench just outside the clubroom and talking to another friend of theirs, so I just hopped up onto the nearest bench-tabletop and perched there, waiting for them to finish their conversation.
And then this guy walked past, wearing the same T-shirt as the one that I'd bought Ivan.
I saw him glance at Ivan, then do a double-take and look over at him again before walking on at a slightly faster pace, haha. I was giggling to myself by then. I'd noticed the guy too, but I hadn't really noticed the shirt till I realised, "Hey. That shirt looks familiar."
So I told Ivan about it, and he looked quite stunned, haha.
Anyway. Lunch. During which William decided to get something "light". When he'd gone off to look for said "light" refreshment, I told Ivan, "The only thing 'light' here is him, and if he weighed a little less, he'd float away when someone exhaled."
Heehee. Yes, William is skinny. To prove my point, the only person whom I know of who's skinnier than him is Wei Jian. So Wei Jian still holds the record, in my book. :D Anyone skinnier than Wei Jian would definitely be anorexic. :D
Sigh. I know I planned my timetable such that I'd have a four-hour break before a four-hour stretch of lectures; I'd originally planned to sleep for the four hours, but not surprisingly enough, I didn't. Spent most of the time hanging around with Ivan, William, Denise and other people who happened to be around the clubroom. Went downstairs to check out the Sports Bazaar and help out a bit at the Archery booth as well.
And then Ben came up to write down a friend's name for recre archery, and he was wearing a new shirt. The same T-shirt that Ivan was wearing.
I almost died laughing right there!!
Okay, see, when I went out with Ben on the last day of our exams last year on 1st Dec, we decided to do some Christmas shopping, and Ben helped me pick out that shirt for Ivan. However, he liked it as well, so he got one a size bigger for himself.
And as luck would have it, he decided to wear it on the same day as Ivan did. :D :D :D
Which means that on the first day of school, there were at least THREE people in Arts wearing the exact same T-shirt, hahaha!!!
EL1101E lecture.. during which I spent the first half of the lecture nodding off. I forgot to buy Lemon Tea from the vending machine outside before going in for the lecture. Damn.
After spending just one semester at NUS, I've learned very quickly just what things will keep me awake. Caffeine in the form of mocha will only kick in about a couple of hours later. Caffeine in the form of Coke will send me on a sugar high almost immediately, which is not so good for studying coz I won't be able to concentrate, but it's good for irritating the hell out of people. Caffeine in the form of Lemon Tea, however, has just the right effect. It's an almost immediate effect, yet I still remain sane after drinking it. That's provided it isn't already nighttime and that I wasn't already high before drinking it. :P
Anyway. EL1101E lecture ended 15 minutes early. Moved up to a better seat for Philo later, and later found my Philo lecturer thoroughly amusing. :D
I'm so glad that I spent far too much time when I was younger reading A LOT of Greek and Roman mythology (Norse as well, actually); the names and time periods and events mentioned in the lecture made a lot more sense to me than many others in the lecture, I'd say.
And just after the break, he was giving us a background history of the dialogue in Plato's Euthyphro; he used a map of ancient Greece on one slide, yes, Thessaly and Phythia and Corinth and Sparta and Argos and Thebes and Athens and all that.
You know, on maps, they mark places with little black dots and then write the names of those places next to their corresponding dots? Well, at the top right corner of the map of ancient Greece, I could see a little dot just at the edge of a coastal area; like a peninsula, I'd say.
And knowing my ancient Greek maps fairly well, I knew that that small dot was Troy. And I had the feeling that if my lecturer were to show a more "zoomed-out" version of the same map, such that you could actually see Asia Minor and Thracia and the whole landmass around the Aegean, then Troy would definitely become visible, and some people (I specifically had the girls in the lecture in mind), would definitely make some noise. Excited, squealing noises of recognition, to be exact. Something along the lines of: "Oh, look, Troy! Finally, something which I'm familiar with! I know all about Troy and that Orlando Bloom was really hot and-- oh, my bad, it was supposed to be Paris, wasn't it?"
Okay, maybe not the later two sentences. :P
But guess what the next slide was.
You've got it: the map of the entire Aegean area. And there it was, Troy, with Troas behind it in slightly larger print; Phrygia and the Propontis, and with Ionia and Sardis and Lycia further down. Although on this map, Lycia was indicated as "Lydia". No idea why; I've never seen another name for Lycia before, unlike how Phythia is sometimes spelt as Phthia.
And after 3 seconds, the girl on my right squealed softly, "Eh, that's Troy..."
*Rolls eyes, grins subtly and sniggers silently*
Philo is going to be fun. :)
And it looks like on the whole, my new semester is off to a pretty good start, despite the fact that it still really feels like I'm stuck in last semester and it doesn't feel like a new semester!
Saturday, January 08, 2005
NUS Archery internal competition and ranking today. Surprisingly, I'm ranked second among the girls.
And the best 8 guys and best 8 girls are supposed to be picked out to form the IVP team, so YAY!!! NUS IVP jacket!! Yippee!! :D *calms down* :P
But it's actually kinda unfair for the guys, haha. Coz among the juniors, there're only 9 girls, but there're... 11 or 12 guys, I think. :P
But, anyway.. was really quite fun today. (Hey, that rhymed! :D) And I now have my EL1101E and SC2218 texts, which I borrowed from the library. Started reading that first chapter of the EL1101E text for Monday's lecture and damn near fell asleep. Not a good sign. Or maybe it was because the whole first two pages were about making allusions and analogies about how great language is and all that crap; never actually said anything about why it's so wonderful and blah, blah, blah. Hope the remaining.. er. 28 pages of the chapter aren't all the same stuff.
Wonder if I should buy the text instead of just photocopying the thing; does look like I'll be minoring in English Studies, after all.
Shoulder is still sore; something tells me that I've made it worse by still carrying on with shooting despite that. Funny thing is, after a while, I don't really feel the pain anymore...
And the best 8 guys and best 8 girls are supposed to be picked out to form the IVP team, so YAY!!! NUS IVP jacket!! Yippee!! :D *calms down* :P
But it's actually kinda unfair for the guys, haha. Coz among the juniors, there're only 9 girls, but there're... 11 or 12 guys, I think. :P
But, anyway.. was really quite fun today. (Hey, that rhymed! :D) And I now have my EL1101E and SC2218 texts, which I borrowed from the library. Started reading that first chapter of the EL1101E text for Monday's lecture and damn near fell asleep. Not a good sign. Or maybe it was because the whole first two pages were about making allusions and analogies about how great language is and all that crap; never actually said anything about why it's so wonderful and blah, blah, blah. Hope the remaining.. er. 28 pages of the chapter aren't all the same stuff.
Wonder if I should buy the text instead of just photocopying the thing; does look like I'll be minoring in English Studies, after all.
Shoulder is still sore; something tells me that I've made it worse by still carrying on with shooting despite that. Funny thing is, after a while, I don't really feel the pain anymore...
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Was helping to sell tickets for Arts Bash 1, at SMU yesterday. Sort of.
Helped them set up the booth and everything, but other that that, I just sat there and helped them watch the stuff at the booth and their bags against the wall behind us. :P And Ivan brought his lappie, so we were listening to techno for the better part of two hours, while the rest who'd come along to help were giving out pamphlets and stuff to promote the Bash.
I find that SMU's atmosphere is really nice and homely, very un-school-like; but that's probably because the place doesn't really even look like a school. Most of the Bash Comm people who'd been selling tickets at NTU before also noted that the place (SMU, that is) is really homely, unlike NTU, where they were apparently quite rude. The difference was quite obvious when they started to set up the booth; we arrived at the bench that was allotted to us, and found that a piece of paper had been stuck to it, saying that the bench was reserved for us; from "9 am - 5 pm, for NUS Arts Club, for the selling of Arts Bash tickets", undersigned by SMU's SA (Student Association). Xuzi and Diana gushed about how they were so nice for quite a while. :)
People there are also quite different from NUS people, especially the guys. I mean, in NUS, most of the guys are often dressed semi-sloppily in very casual wear; in SMU, the guys actually dress well. To make a point, Chong Han looked really out of place there in his singlet and berms and slippers; in NUS however, that'd be quite common. Ivan pointed out that it might be because there's no on-campus accomodation in SMU, which might be a significant contributing factor. Might also be because, given the nature of their studies, and if they're anything like the Business School in NUS, they probably have to make lots of presentations and stuff, so I guess they have to dress well.
Saw quite a few people from my secondary school there as well, though I doubt they'd recognise me. :) Jeannette Tay and Christie from my Sec 2 class are just two of those people; wonder if Christie's still as fervent a Manchester United fan as she was in Sec 2, and if Jeannette is still as full of lame and dirty jokes as she was then.
We packed up the booth and everything at about 3 pm and moved the stuff into the SA's room for safekeeping; noticed that their clubroom was only about half the size of ours, but they still managed to keep it much neater. Speaks volumes about us, doesn't it. But then again, I guess SMU's SA doesn't have anyone besides the SA people coming into their room all the time; we have affiliates who literally make the Arts Club Room their second home.
Ivan and me went off to Orchard to buy Jie's (rather long overdue) birthday present, and we stopped over at Kinokuniya after that, during which we saw bits of the extended version of the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King! They were playing it in the store, next to a display of all the Lord of the Rings books and CDs and DVDs that were on sale; finally got to see the scene where Saruman dies (a rather gruesome death), despite the fact that he wasn't supposed to have died at Orthanc, and the drinking game scene!! Hahaha.... the expression on Legolas/Orlando Bloom's face is absolutely *adorable* in that scene; Elf tasting mead for the first time, hahaha...!
Wandered over to the poetry section then, not surprisingly; I kinda gravitate towards that section whenever I'm in Kinokuniya. :P Saw a lot of books that I want (which explains the sudden increase in the number of items in my book list, which is just over to your left in the sidebar; take your time to peruse it and if you like, make a generous "donation" to the "Feed Gerri's Brain and Diminishing Vocabulary Fund"), and as usual, I can't afford them. Although that collection of Robert Frost's poetry was just screaming out to me; it was only $36 for that thick book, and all his works were in it!! I was hugging it and grinning madly for about ten minutes, during which Ivan just stared disinterestedly at me and remarked that I looked like a kid in Toys 'R Us, holding onto a toy that my parents wouldn't buy for me. And I just grinned even more and giggled.
And then, this strange old man decided to show up. (We realised after this that everytime the two of us are together on our own, something unexpected always happens.)
This old Japanese man just came up behind us and said "How are you?" I didn't turn around at first because I thought it was someone talking to someone else behind us, but when the question was repeated again, we turned around and the old man asked us if we were students at NUS, to which we replied in the affirmative. And then he asked what we were studying; I said that I was majoring in Sociology, and when he found out that Ivan was majoring in Geography, he got started on the tsunamis and stuff and went on for a bit about how "stupid" he felt the Indonesian and Sri Lankan and Thai people were.
Ivan and I had to remind him that these people were not "stupid"; with the possible exception of Thailand, they're probably just too poor for the government to be able to set up a decent network for information and knowledge transfer, resulting in the lack of warning. And he kept going on about how stupid they were, going out to collect crabs when the surf retreated all the way out just before the wave hit; well, HELLO, they wouldn't know now, would they?? When's the last time this region was hit by a tidal wave of this magnitude?? And how're they supposed to know what to expect in the event of a tidal wave if the majority of them aren't even educated?
And then he started talking about how if they wanted to be educated, all they really had to do was strive for what they wanted, and he used the example for Abraham Lincoln, but I kindly pointed out to him that Lincoln lived in America, and America has social strata with varying amounts of wealth; Lincoln may have been poor and the part of the country that he grew up in may have been poor, but other parts weren't, and he knew how to get there. Indonesia doesn't have a lot of "better opportunities" within their own country, and plus, the country's a helluva lot bigger than America; it's a lot harder to govern that way, not to mention with all the added corruption and such. Although the corruption might be less if the country were more well-off, and most of the people were living comfortably, but.. well.
Point here is that, he was completely glossing over the fact that sometimes the material constraints of the world around you can pretty much shackle in your dreams, no matter how badly you want them.
And then he went on talking about how he was a poet who'd run into financial problems while in Singapore, so he'd been sleeping at the airport for the last three weeks, and he showed us some of the stuff he wrote; at which I got rather apprehensive, because written in pencil in the upper right corner of the "book" (just sheets of paper stapled together in the form of a book, really) was "$20.00". I knew then that he was going to try to sell it to us, which I suppose was really the reason why he wanted to talk to us in the first place.
And then he asked if we were Christian, because he claimed that he could "smell it". Just for the kick of it, I wanted to tell him, "No, not Christian", but although I'm not a very good Christian, I do know that denying one's faith is just completely wrong, so well, there wasn't anything for it. And I swear, I just saw it coming; he started going on about how God is love and how if everyone loved one another, the world would be better off and about how Christianity was like, wow, the best religion that the world had to offer, and a lot of other evangelical-like nonsense.
That got him started on Muslim extremism and about how he felt that Muslims were a violent lot and that they were stupid because all they read was their Quran.
When he started on that, at first, I thought that he was being a wee bit too "passionate" about being against Muslim extremism, but then he started on how going against America was wrong because if America went down, then the rest of the world would go down with it. I agreed with that, but only partly. It is quite possible after all, that with the introduction of the Euro, the European countries might become a force to be reckoned with in the future.
And then, he said that America was "the best nation in the world".
And that irked me to no end.
His reasons for that were that America was a "Christian country; 61% of its people are Christians; even their constitution mentions God", unlike places like England where they "worshipped people" by saying things like "God Save the Queen", and so as a result, places like England had racism and a lot of other shit.
My reaction: Oh really. And you mean that Americans are all exceptionally tolerant of people of other races? You mean that the Ku Klux Klan never existed and does not still exist today? You mean that even when the USA professed to be a God-fearing country, it didn't still condone the slavery and persecution of millions of black people simply because of their skin colour? You mean there aren't white people there who call the American-Chinese people among them "Chinks"? And for goodness' sake, get your facts right; the Constitution of the United States of America never mentioned God initially; that was only added in years later. I told him so, but he completely ignored that obviously. And "God Save the Queen" isn't worshipping the Queen or King or whoever's ruling at the time. It's asking God to protect the leaders of their nation, isn't it? And what's more, the phrase is just a leftover from the time when the English believed that their rulers were given the divine right to rule by God. So no, I don't see any of the disrespect for religion which he claims the English are guilty of.
And when he said again that the Muslims were "stupid" and "violent", I started to see it differently; it's just a lesser kind of extremism-- he just isn't out there with guns blazing yet. But since he's 60 years old (so he says), I'd guess it's pretty safe to say that he won't ever be doing that, although I dread knowing how many people he's managed to pass his opinions on to.
So, it turns out that he's a Japanese poet who writes in English, named Hideo Asano, and apparently two of his books have been rated as the two best books in the world on Amazon.com at one period in time; critics have also apparently written wonderful reviews about him, although Ivan and I don't see all that much to rave about. He said that he was going to the Japanese Embassy the next day (today, that is) to see what he could do about getting some money to fly home to Japan or whatever; I asked for his contact information, coz hey, if it turns out that he is who he says he is, I could use the connection to get my own work out there. ;)
But well, whoever you really are, I hope you do some thinking when you get home; America isn't everything that you make it out to be, and the rest of the world sure as hell isn't "stupid" in comparison.
But, on to happier stuff. :) Had an OG dinner on Tuesday night!
My O week OG, I mean.. Kryda, that is. :) It's good to know that while almost all the other O week OGs have fallen apart, the OGs from Teltan are still very much alive, no small amount of thanks to Clement, who keeps planning activities and outings and simple get-togethers for the whole house and such. And even my OG has been meeting for lunch quite often whenever a few of them are free during the last semester; never got to join them though, because every time they asked if I'd like to have lunch with them the next day or something, I'd be having a lecture at the time that they wanted to meet! And they'd also want to lunch at the more expensive places on campus, like Genki Sushi and Munchie Monkey and stuff... I'm naught but a poor uni student. :P
We went shopping after dinner because Rayner wanted to buy new shirts for school, and being the only guy in attendance (Thomas decided to go home after dinner since he was a bit under the weather), he had all the girls to um... "assist" with his choices; namely Wan-Tsin and Cindy, though. Haha. :P Then we passed by Hang Ten and Wan-Tsin managed to talk me into buying two tops; they do look quite nice. :)
And now we're all busy exchanging timetables on the YahooGroup; I'll be taking modules with at least four people; Philo with Rayner, Wan-Tsin and Emelyne, and Military History of Singapore with Thomas-- add one more person to my list of contacts for SSA2208, haha... :D
I love my OG... :) And my house! Haha... the T House is always the best, haha! :D
Helped them set up the booth and everything, but other that that, I just sat there and helped them watch the stuff at the booth and their bags against the wall behind us. :P And Ivan brought his lappie, so we were listening to techno for the better part of two hours, while the rest who'd come along to help were giving out pamphlets and stuff to promote the Bash.
I find that SMU's atmosphere is really nice and homely, very un-school-like; but that's probably because the place doesn't really even look like a school. Most of the Bash Comm people who'd been selling tickets at NTU before also noted that the place (SMU, that is) is really homely, unlike NTU, where they were apparently quite rude. The difference was quite obvious when they started to set up the booth; we arrived at the bench that was allotted to us, and found that a piece of paper had been stuck to it, saying that the bench was reserved for us; from "9 am - 5 pm, for NUS Arts Club, for the selling of Arts Bash tickets", undersigned by SMU's SA (Student Association). Xuzi and Diana gushed about how they were so nice for quite a while. :)
People there are also quite different from NUS people, especially the guys. I mean, in NUS, most of the guys are often dressed semi-sloppily in very casual wear; in SMU, the guys actually dress well. To make a point, Chong Han looked really out of place there in his singlet and berms and slippers; in NUS however, that'd be quite common. Ivan pointed out that it might be because there's no on-campus accomodation in SMU, which might be a significant contributing factor. Might also be because, given the nature of their studies, and if they're anything like the Business School in NUS, they probably have to make lots of presentations and stuff, so I guess they have to dress well.
Saw quite a few people from my secondary school there as well, though I doubt they'd recognise me. :) Jeannette Tay and Christie from my Sec 2 class are just two of those people; wonder if Christie's still as fervent a Manchester United fan as she was in Sec 2, and if Jeannette is still as full of lame and dirty jokes as she was then.
We packed up the booth and everything at about 3 pm and moved the stuff into the SA's room for safekeeping; noticed that their clubroom was only about half the size of ours, but they still managed to keep it much neater. Speaks volumes about us, doesn't it. But then again, I guess SMU's SA doesn't have anyone besides the SA people coming into their room all the time; we have affiliates who literally make the Arts Club Room their second home.
Ivan and me went off to Orchard to buy Jie's (rather long overdue) birthday present, and we stopped over at Kinokuniya after that, during which we saw bits of the extended version of the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King! They were playing it in the store, next to a display of all the Lord of the Rings books and CDs and DVDs that were on sale; finally got to see the scene where Saruman dies (a rather gruesome death), despite the fact that he wasn't supposed to have died at Orthanc, and the drinking game scene!! Hahaha.... the expression on Legolas/Orlando Bloom's face is absolutely *adorable* in that scene; Elf tasting mead for the first time, hahaha...!
Wandered over to the poetry section then, not surprisingly; I kinda gravitate towards that section whenever I'm in Kinokuniya. :P Saw a lot of books that I want (which explains the sudden increase in the number of items in my book list, which is just over to your left in the sidebar; take your time to peruse it and if you like, make a generous "donation" to the "Feed Gerri's Brain and Diminishing Vocabulary Fund"), and as usual, I can't afford them. Although that collection of Robert Frost's poetry was just screaming out to me; it was only $36 for that thick book, and all his works were in it!! I was hugging it and grinning madly for about ten minutes, during which Ivan just stared disinterestedly at me and remarked that I looked like a kid in Toys 'R Us, holding onto a toy that my parents wouldn't buy for me. And I just grinned even more and giggled.
And then, this strange old man decided to show up. (We realised after this that everytime the two of us are together on our own, something unexpected always happens.)
This old Japanese man just came up behind us and said "How are you?" I didn't turn around at first because I thought it was someone talking to someone else behind us, but when the question was repeated again, we turned around and the old man asked us if we were students at NUS, to which we replied in the affirmative. And then he asked what we were studying; I said that I was majoring in Sociology, and when he found out that Ivan was majoring in Geography, he got started on the tsunamis and stuff and went on for a bit about how "stupid" he felt the Indonesian and Sri Lankan and Thai people were.
Ivan and I had to remind him that these people were not "stupid"; with the possible exception of Thailand, they're probably just too poor for the government to be able to set up a decent network for information and knowledge transfer, resulting in the lack of warning. And he kept going on about how stupid they were, going out to collect crabs when the surf retreated all the way out just before the wave hit; well, HELLO, they wouldn't know now, would they?? When's the last time this region was hit by a tidal wave of this magnitude?? And how're they supposed to know what to expect in the event of a tidal wave if the majority of them aren't even educated?
And then he started talking about how if they wanted to be educated, all they really had to do was strive for what they wanted, and he used the example for Abraham Lincoln, but I kindly pointed out to him that Lincoln lived in America, and America has social strata with varying amounts of wealth; Lincoln may have been poor and the part of the country that he grew up in may have been poor, but other parts weren't, and he knew how to get there. Indonesia doesn't have a lot of "better opportunities" within their own country, and plus, the country's a helluva lot bigger than America; it's a lot harder to govern that way, not to mention with all the added corruption and such. Although the corruption might be less if the country were more well-off, and most of the people were living comfortably, but.. well.
Point here is that, he was completely glossing over the fact that sometimes the material constraints of the world around you can pretty much shackle in your dreams, no matter how badly you want them.
And then he went on talking about how he was a poet who'd run into financial problems while in Singapore, so he'd been sleeping at the airport for the last three weeks, and he showed us some of the stuff he wrote; at which I got rather apprehensive, because written in pencil in the upper right corner of the "book" (just sheets of paper stapled together in the form of a book, really) was "$20.00". I knew then that he was going to try to sell it to us, which I suppose was really the reason why he wanted to talk to us in the first place.
And then he asked if we were Christian, because he claimed that he could "smell it". Just for the kick of it, I wanted to tell him, "No, not Christian", but although I'm not a very good Christian, I do know that denying one's faith is just completely wrong, so well, there wasn't anything for it. And I swear, I just saw it coming; he started going on about how God is love and how if everyone loved one another, the world would be better off and about how Christianity was like, wow, the best religion that the world had to offer, and a lot of other evangelical-like nonsense.
That got him started on Muslim extremism and about how he felt that Muslims were a violent lot and that they were stupid because all they read was their Quran.
When he started on that, at first, I thought that he was being a wee bit too "passionate" about being against Muslim extremism, but then he started on how going against America was wrong because if America went down, then the rest of the world would go down with it. I agreed with that, but only partly. It is quite possible after all, that with the introduction of the Euro, the European countries might become a force to be reckoned with in the future.
And then, he said that America was "the best nation in the world".
And that irked me to no end.
His reasons for that were that America was a "Christian country; 61% of its people are Christians; even their constitution mentions God", unlike places like England where they "worshipped people" by saying things like "God Save the Queen", and so as a result, places like England had racism and a lot of other shit.
My reaction: Oh really. And you mean that Americans are all exceptionally tolerant of people of other races? You mean that the Ku Klux Klan never existed and does not still exist today? You mean that even when the USA professed to be a God-fearing country, it didn't still condone the slavery and persecution of millions of black people simply because of their skin colour? You mean there aren't white people there who call the American-Chinese people among them "Chinks"? And for goodness' sake, get your facts right; the Constitution of the United States of America never mentioned God initially; that was only added in years later. I told him so, but he completely ignored that obviously. And "God Save the Queen" isn't worshipping the Queen or King or whoever's ruling at the time. It's asking God to protect the leaders of their nation, isn't it? And what's more, the phrase is just a leftover from the time when the English believed that their rulers were given the divine right to rule by God. So no, I don't see any of the disrespect for religion which he claims the English are guilty of.
And when he said again that the Muslims were "stupid" and "violent", I started to see it differently; it's just a lesser kind of extremism-- he just isn't out there with guns blazing yet. But since he's 60 years old (so he says), I'd guess it's pretty safe to say that he won't ever be doing that, although I dread knowing how many people he's managed to pass his opinions on to.
So, it turns out that he's a Japanese poet who writes in English, named Hideo Asano, and apparently two of his books have been rated as the two best books in the world on Amazon.com at one period in time; critics have also apparently written wonderful reviews about him, although Ivan and I don't see all that much to rave about. He said that he was going to the Japanese Embassy the next day (today, that is) to see what he could do about getting some money to fly home to Japan or whatever; I asked for his contact information, coz hey, if it turns out that he is who he says he is, I could use the connection to get my own work out there. ;)
But well, whoever you really are, I hope you do some thinking when you get home; America isn't everything that you make it out to be, and the rest of the world sure as hell isn't "stupid" in comparison.
But, on to happier stuff. :) Had an OG dinner on Tuesday night!
My O week OG, I mean.. Kryda, that is. :) It's good to know that while almost all the other O week OGs have fallen apart, the OGs from Teltan are still very much alive, no small amount of thanks to Clement, who keeps planning activities and outings and simple get-togethers for the whole house and such. And even my OG has been meeting for lunch quite often whenever a few of them are free during the last semester; never got to join them though, because every time they asked if I'd like to have lunch with them the next day or something, I'd be having a lecture at the time that they wanted to meet! And they'd also want to lunch at the more expensive places on campus, like Genki Sushi and Munchie Monkey and stuff... I'm naught but a poor uni student. :P
We went shopping after dinner because Rayner wanted to buy new shirts for school, and being the only guy in attendance (Thomas decided to go home after dinner since he was a bit under the weather), he had all the girls to um... "assist" with his choices; namely Wan-Tsin and Cindy, though. Haha. :P Then we passed by Hang Ten and Wan-Tsin managed to talk me into buying two tops; they do look quite nice. :)
And now we're all busy exchanging timetables on the YahooGroup; I'll be taking modules with at least four people; Philo with Rayner, Wan-Tsin and Emelyne, and Military History of Singapore with Thomas-- add one more person to my list of contacts for SSA2208, haha... :D
I love my OG... :) And my house! Haha... the T House is always the best, haha! :D
Monday, January 03, 2005
Hm.... sisters started school while I slacked around at home. Well, not really.
Gen has gone to CJ, and I think she's gonna stay there after the first three months, if her aggregate allows it. CJ does have a pretty balanced environment, after all, and no matter what everyone else might say, I loved CJ; still do, really. :)
Anyway, went for archery training, and found that my bow arm is still not steady. Damn it. Arrows land all over the bloody target when I shoot from the 30m line. And no, I did not literally mean that the target is bloody. It's a figure of speech. I know there are people out there who read this who'll be snickering about that. :P
And my right arm is very sore. It hurts.
Also, Ivan and I have found something else to amuse ourselves with: Solitaire Showdown, which is a two-player card game that MSN Messenger provides.
The two of us were up till 5.30 am this morning playing the silly thing; we played 16 games, which came to a draw in the end; I won 8 games and he won 8, because there was a silly pattern that established itself right from the beginning: he'd win one game, I'd win the next, then he'd win the one after that, and I'd win after that... and so on.
We played Hexic for a short while (during which I dozed off :P), then he finally suggested a tie-breaker for Solitaire (which he won, and I'm not surprised.. I was half-asleep.); after which we finally decided to give it up and go to sleep.
Was almost 6 am by then, and good grief, the sky was already getting light. Stupid thing to do, but heck; I'm quite happy-- I now have a Solitaire buddy! :D :P
Gen has gone to CJ, and I think she's gonna stay there after the first three months, if her aggregate allows it. CJ does have a pretty balanced environment, after all, and no matter what everyone else might say, I loved CJ; still do, really. :)
Anyway, went for archery training, and found that my bow arm is still not steady. Damn it. Arrows land all over the bloody target when I shoot from the 30m line. And no, I did not literally mean that the target is bloody. It's a figure of speech. I know there are people out there who read this who'll be snickering about that. :P
And my right arm is very sore. It hurts.
Also, Ivan and I have found something else to amuse ourselves with: Solitaire Showdown, which is a two-player card game that MSN Messenger provides.
The two of us were up till 5.30 am this morning playing the silly thing; we played 16 games, which came to a draw in the end; I won 8 games and he won 8, because there was a silly pattern that established itself right from the beginning: he'd win one game, I'd win the next, then he'd win the one after that, and I'd win after that... and so on.
We played Hexic for a short while (during which I dozed off :P), then he finally suggested a tie-breaker for Solitaire (which he won, and I'm not surprised.. I was half-asleep.); after which we finally decided to give it up and go to sleep.
Was almost 6 am by then, and good grief, the sky was already getting light. Stupid thing to do, but heck; I'm quite happy-- I now have a Solitaire buddy! :D :P
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Random thoughts which came into my head while spring-cleaning:
-Never knew my room was this dusty.
-Dust bunnies may be alive. Seriously. The guy who coined the phrase may have been thinking of that when he did so; "bunny", see?
-Dust bunnies *are* alive. Sometimes. Like when they have tiny little bugs stuck in the middle of them when said tiny bugs try to scurry away but get snaggled in a dust bunny and end up dragging the dust bunny along with them. There's something really cute about that, though, so I just picked up the dust bunny and flung it out the window; dirt and dust and tiny bug and all. *thinks maybe the dust bunny acted like a parachute* :D
-Was cleaning my study table when I looked up and saw the bookshelf. Ohhh boy. Am not looking forward to having to clean out my bookshelf. Lots of books are not a good thing at a time like this.
-Emptied out some of the drawers in my study table. Found a few photos of my Guides patrol from back in secondary school, and I FINALLY did what I couldn't bear to do for YEARS: I threw them out with all the junk paper that was accumulating in one pile in the center of my room. I never felt anything for those photos anyway, and I disliked most of my patrol, so there. The only reason why I was keeping them was only because I could never bear to throw photos away. Must've been the chat that I had with Ivan on MSN last night that changed a few things; we unloaded quite a lot of um.. "emotional baggage", in our words. :P
-Cleared out the old textbooks that my sisters won't be needing; things like my old ten-year series, sub-science textbooks and math textbooks and my Principles of Accounts textbook. Was so glad to see that go; PoA is friggin' EVIL. I don't care how many people tell me that PoA is really simple; I admit that it is simple, but hey, it's just not my cup of tea. So hey, you can call me stupid and an idiot and whatever else you like for not getting PoA, but I'd probably just give you a blank stare and not care and quietly say in my mind: "Up yours, you freak of nature". *cackles gleefully as she throws out her Accounts textbook*
-Sister probably thinks something is wrong with me (as usual); she just looked around the doorframe when I cackled just now.
-I seem to have a lot of CDs lying around. Never knew I had this many CDs. Most of them are self-compilations, but still, I never knew I had this many of them! And my Nathalie Fisher CD is still missing.
-Cleaning bookshelf. And the books and all other assorted things in it. Will buy a wonderful dehumidifier when I have enough money. Will save me a lot of time and will spare my poor books the harshness of our horrendously humid tropical environment. Speaking of which, it's started raining again.
-Found silica gel! Suppose that'll do for now.
-Accidentally knocked over the small capful of silica gel that I just put in the bookshelf. I now hate silica gel. It rolls everywhere. *thinks of getting one of those cheap dehumidifiers that you can buy from your neighbourhood minimart instead*
-Interesting. Have not found a single lizard or a creche of spiders or anything.
-Have large pile of junk paper and old textbooks to sell off to the rag-and-bone man. Woot. Just looking at the amount of paper that's going to be recycled is making me very, very happy. What can I say; I've been a freak for recycling paper ever since I found out what happens to all the old newspapers that the rag-and-bone man carts off at the end of every month.
-Room is now very clean and very lovely. Going out for dinner, and then, shall come back and sleep, for perhaps a good 9 hours or something. Toodles. :D
-Never knew my room was this dusty.
-Dust bunnies may be alive. Seriously. The guy who coined the phrase may have been thinking of that when he did so; "bunny", see?
-Dust bunnies *are* alive. Sometimes. Like when they have tiny little bugs stuck in the middle of them when said tiny bugs try to scurry away but get snaggled in a dust bunny and end up dragging the dust bunny along with them. There's something really cute about that, though, so I just picked up the dust bunny and flung it out the window; dirt and dust and tiny bug and all. *thinks maybe the dust bunny acted like a parachute* :D
-Was cleaning my study table when I looked up and saw the bookshelf. Ohhh boy. Am not looking forward to having to clean out my bookshelf. Lots of books are not a good thing at a time like this.
-Emptied out some of the drawers in my study table. Found a few photos of my Guides patrol from back in secondary school, and I FINALLY did what I couldn't bear to do for YEARS: I threw them out with all the junk paper that was accumulating in one pile in the center of my room. I never felt anything for those photos anyway, and I disliked most of my patrol, so there. The only reason why I was keeping them was only because I could never bear to throw photos away. Must've been the chat that I had with Ivan on MSN last night that changed a few things; we unloaded quite a lot of um.. "emotional baggage", in our words. :P
-Cleared out the old textbooks that my sisters won't be needing; things like my old ten-year series, sub-science textbooks and math textbooks and my Principles of Accounts textbook. Was so glad to see that go; PoA is friggin' EVIL. I don't care how many people tell me that PoA is really simple; I admit that it is simple, but hey, it's just not my cup of tea. So hey, you can call me stupid and an idiot and whatever else you like for not getting PoA, but I'd probably just give you a blank stare and not care and quietly say in my mind: "Up yours, you freak of nature". *cackles gleefully as she throws out her Accounts textbook*
-Sister probably thinks something is wrong with me (as usual); she just looked around the doorframe when I cackled just now.
-I seem to have a lot of CDs lying around. Never knew I had this many CDs. Most of them are self-compilations, but still, I never knew I had this many of them! And my Nathalie Fisher CD is still missing.
-Cleaning bookshelf. And the books and all other assorted things in it. Will buy a wonderful dehumidifier when I have enough money. Will save me a lot of time and will spare my poor books the harshness of our horrendously humid tropical environment. Speaking of which, it's started raining again.
-Found silica gel! Suppose that'll do for now.
-Accidentally knocked over the small capful of silica gel that I just put in the bookshelf. I now hate silica gel. It rolls everywhere. *thinks of getting one of those cheap dehumidifiers that you can buy from your neighbourhood minimart instead*
-Interesting. Have not found a single lizard or a creche of spiders or anything.
-Have large pile of junk paper and old textbooks to sell off to the rag-and-bone man. Woot. Just looking at the amount of paper that's going to be recycled is making me very, very happy. What can I say; I've been a freak for recycling paper ever since I found out what happens to all the old newspapers that the rag-and-bone man carts off at the end of every month.
-Room is now very clean and very lovely. Going out for dinner, and then, shall come back and sleep, for perhaps a good 9 hours or something. Toodles. :D