Halfway through.

3101 paper today was good.

Have come to the conclusion this sem that it's difficult to teach Engin students how to write essays.

And I've suddenly remembered that I have these pictures which I took with my phone last week.


Bamboo leaves with dewdrops. 


Sunset last Saturday, seen from the Central Library rooftop. 

Here you can see more of the lights from the port... 

And this is my favourite shot. Notice the bright orange fading into the bluish-grey mass of cloud on the right. 

A nicer shot where you don't have the USP block obscuring the port. Now if only we could move those condos out of the way. 

I am sick.

Sigh.

Had first paper today. Was okay. My illness is not so bad that it completely obscures all rational thought, but it does make my head feel like it's stuffed with cotton wool.

But that might be a normal feeling.

Just have this general blocked, stuffy kinda feeling around my nose and throat. And yes, I know, I will sleep more, I will drink more water; don't worry, k. :)

But on the bright side, I've finally started exams! (Er. That didn't sound right.) I mean, well, one paper down, three more to go. And I've just cleared the paper that I'm the most worried about. Was pretty okay actually.

Am so glad I decided not to be a Geog major. The amount of reading might kill me, and I could never sit through tutorials like I've had for this module; all we did was discuss readings!

And I can't believe it, but I'm actually looking forward to my SC3101 paper. This is insane. But hey, I've never felt so good about a module either. :)



Please be patient.

I know part of the reason why this whole thing has stagnated here is because of me. But I need you to be patient with me, please? I just don't want to start this all over again and then have to be forced to cut myself free when it doesn't work.

I had to do it the last time. You know this.

Be patient...

I can't make myself promise anything, and I don't want you to either; it's going to be a long time, and I don't want either of us to make promises that we can't keep and make the apologies which will come after and which will still hurt so much.

Patience, patience, patience.

It's a long way home for both of us. And if you'll wait for me, I'll walk with you.

Randomness at 3.15 am in school on a Saturday morning.

Staying overnight.

Hock at his table, Clement and me at the big table, Eugene in the white armchair, and Edward, asleep on the sofa.

Just went through a bout of random silliness. The kind that strikes me (randomly) at some points late at night or in the wee hours of the morning, and makes me laugh at absolutely nothing at all.

Must finish at least two more Geog readings by today before going home.

And I have another kor-kor coz he bought me a big peanut biscuit. Haha. (The other kor is Lionel since he's the tech head for Rag and Rachel and me are um.. two of his... immediate underlings. And we call each other "jie" and "mei" so we decided to call Lionel "kor". And by extension, Yuimin, "da-sao". XD)


Life is like a game of bridge.

You need partners. Unless you wanna call yourself as partner, which Chong Han did once. -_-

Study partners: Eugene, Edward, and maybe there'll be others to come.

Shooting buddies: Vincent, Weiquan, Nic. And Vincent's gonna be gone soon. Your poor fish. Don't worry, though. :)

Bridge "kakis": Edward, Eugene, Chong Han, and Anders, I think. Chong Han and Eugene are blardy "smokers", Edward likes to pull stunners on everyone, and since I'm quite useless, I've found that Eugene and Anders make very good partners. Coz at least one of the partners needs to know what they're doing. :P

Hush-time companions: pen, paper, music, and my odd little brain.

Hm... life.. partner. It seems this isn't meant for me. I think I'm a loner by nature. And experience has taught me that it's likely I'll be better off on my own. Only I am gonna understand and know how far all the little pieces of me are scattered, after all. No one else is going to be able to help find them.


Rayner's MSN nick: "Lord I lift your name on high... Will you lift my CAP on high?"


I want to write. No time. Should I consider compiling some stuff to send for publishing? It might help with getting more money. But my stuff is... mediocre, to say the least. Bleah.

I still need to finish what I started all those years ago, though. It's been on hiatus for two years now. Ever since I entered Uni. 38 chapters. It must be finished. I've put too much effort into it and by now it has such a life of its own that it doesn't deserve to be left hanging. Hold on just a while more. I will finish what I started.


So happy for 3101; got A- for term paper (considering I did the self-research topic!) and A+ for my response papers. Tutorial participation is bound to be damn high since I just don't shut up. Heehee.

Geog is looking somewhat hopeful. I'm glad I took SC2101 last sem before taking this module. Because everything is all too familiar. :)

Back to the books. Looking forward to breakfast in a few hours' time.

I can be productive.

Stayed over in school last night, and here's what got accomplished:

SC3101: From half the course pack left, I've whittled it down to a quarter. All that's left are the Jose Rizal readings. And those might not even really need to be done. Maybe I'll just skim through, and rely mostly on my lecture notes; I have excellent lecturers.

SC3219: 4 textbook readings done. Currently left with 5 more.

One week to my first paper: GE3206.

One week to complete the whole semester's worth of readings, cause I've had an all too convenient tendency forget about my Geog readings because they all have to be downloaded from IVLE (and they can only be downloaded once, due to copyright law, and I don't have a laptop, so it's not like I can print them anytime I like in school. And if I tried printing all these PDF files at home, my mum would have a fit).

It's always amazed me; why in the hell doesn't the Geography department give their students course packs like almost every other department does? Looking at the number of readings which the Geog majors I know have for their modules, why not??

Please don't tell me it's to save paper. That's a lame excuse and they'll end up getting printed anyway.


Eugene is a good study/bitching partner.

When the table got too noisy for studying due to a number of Year 3s doing what they really shouldn't be doing at this time of the year and this point of their academic life: "You wanna come over and study with me instead?"

While talking about our plans for world domination acing papers: "On; if you stay over, I'll stay."

Besides having similarly annoying body clocks (which means I don't have to wake people up this time; I've spent more time in my undergraduate life than is normal, I think, giving people wake-up calls), between the two of us, we can motivate each other to focus and take breaks together so there isn't a dull moment.

Speaking of breaks, with Chong Han's newfound obsession with Bridge, he's a bloody devil's advocate. Guan Jie as well. Somehow, Chong Han manages to turn a game of Bridge into Bluff, though. -_-

(I really do think I'm getting better with all this practice, though! :D)

Most important of all: the two of us irritate each other enough to keep both of us awake.

So the end result is that yesterday and today are *super* productive days. :D

Round two on Friday night! I'll bring some of my music so we don't have to be stuck with your slow songs, Eugene. Lol. :P

Why are we the way we are?

What makes you want to say the things that you do?

How can someone be so unafraid to make her opinion known so often, and yet keep quiet when it doesn't look like anything will change?

Does it have to change?

Does that have to be necessary for you to say what must be said?

Does it matter that you always feel like an outsider?

Why not say what must be said and let them see the other side of the coin?

Say something. You're not as invisible as they'd like to think you are. Someone's had to say something about this all along.

Remember the few people who know what you think?

They know what you're afraid of. They know why you haven't said anything for so long.

But now someone else has broken the silence. And it makes you think, doesn't it? Does there have to be someone who will listen before you can put your words out there?

It's true that sometimes, Arts students don't have give a damn what everyone else thinks. It's true that you can never shut us up, push us aside, hide us away and hope that we'll stay hidden.

Words, once they're out there, take on a life of their own.

I think it's time.

This is the last stretch now anyway; they can't do anything to you anymore. It's better that things change now rather than never. It's time to turn the whole power structure on its head.

Because social stability at the expense of social change is never a good thing.

Had this very "Formula 17" moment yesterday.

"Formula 17" is a film which is banned in Singapore, and for those reasons, I'll leave it up to you to find out exactly what it's about, if you feel so inclined. :)

But, anyway. Yesterday, I was on the Internal Shuttle Bus that crawls (no, really, it *does* crawl) around campus, on my way to Science for my Physics module test. It wasn't really crowded, but there were still quite a few people standing in the aisle, and I had a seat next to the aisle.

So there was this guy who got on, shuffled along towards the back of the bus like a good civil-minded citizen, and ended up standing right next to me. My first impression upon getting a glance at him was that he reminded me a lot of the guy who plays the cheeky bartender in "Formula 17"; I liked that guy-- he was like a flamboyant, exaggerated, instant-mood-swinging caricature of a Japanese anime character, and almost anything that he did in the film had me laughing.

So this guy was talking on his handphone, saying that he was just really tired of "quarrelling all the time". I assumed then that he was talking to a friend about relationship problems.

There were references made to "Dear", and from time to time, he'd lapse into Chinese. Now here's something that you should know, if you're not Chinese or if you just don't know: the Chinese forms of the words "he" and "she" both sound the same: "ta"; only their written forms are different.

So when he lapsed back into English and I heard this, I was kinda surprised...:

"Yah, but I don't understand why with him I always have to be the one to give in..."


Lol. ^_^ I started quietly laughing at myself after a while.

Was shooting yesterday. For the first time in a little over three weeks.

Got tired after just one end and now my back muscles are all achy, but it felt good.

There's a strange kind of high that comes from shooting; it's a sedate kind of high, as far as that may make sense to you.

When you step up to the shooting line, it's like you become hyper-aware and unaware of everything all at the same time. The feeling of the ground beneath your feet and the speed of the wind and the flags over the target boards flapping in the breeze; the sound of other people shooting, the sound of metal sliding-scraping on metal as arrows are drawn, and the sound of clickers and the twang of string as they release; and at the same time, the world narrows down to that of just you, your bow, and the target board.

Watch the target board as you lift your bow and take a breath--

See the tiny circle of yellow while you're barely aware that your brain is automatically running through a routine that is already familiar:

Arrow on the string, fingers grasping; palm resting on the handle of the riser, comforting weight--

Draw.

Back muscles clenching, joints locking in place, every little thing that you know is happening and every little thing that you can feel--

The sound of metal, slide-scraping through the clicker--

And it's quiet now because there's nothing else that matters.

Pull. Aim. Push. Extend.

And your brain knows it in that millisecond before you hear it:

Click.

Release: the string slips out, your hand snaps back, the arrow flies--

And in the split-second before it lands, you don't breathe--

The bow falling forward, stabilisers scribing an arc in charged air, don't move, don't breathe, till--

It hits.


I will never know this feeling anywhere else.


If it's true that Life isn't measured by the breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away, then I count myself lucky that I am one of the few who knows where and when those moments happen.

There's somewhat of a lull between all the deadlines right now, so before I forget yet again, here's something for everybody:


A poetry reading session. 

Click on the poster for the details; time, date, venue, etc.

It's in a quaint little shophouse bookstore; you'll love it. :)

6.35 pm, 4th April 2006.

That's the time and date which I watched my first ever R21 movie!

Yes, it was "Brokeback Mountain". And yes, it's kinda late, but I've been busy the last two weeks, all right?

It's nothing fancy, that's for sure; the most spectacular scenes in the whole movie are those shots of the slopes of the mountain for which the film is named, covered in grass, some snow, the sheep that the two protagonists-- Ennis and Jack-- are herding, and lovely little stream.

But sometimes its the things which show you the mundaneness of all our lives which make you think. And feel.

While I was watching, I hated Ennis at first. Well, maybe "hated" is a strong word, but he was really annoying. But the one thing that sticks with me after the whole movie is that scene where he tells Jack, "I ain't queer, you know." Not surprisingly, Jack replies back, "Neither am I." And this is despite the fact that they did the deed just the night before.

When I first saw that scene, my initial thought was, "Well, what the hell do the both of you think you were doing last night, then?"

But I saw that in a different light later, when I got home.

It's true that Ennis "ain't queer". Why should he label himself as queer? Or Jack, for that matter? Because he loves a man?

Why not look at it another way?

He loves. And if someone can love, how "queer" is that?


Pam and I stopped by Kinokuniya before heading home; I realise that I haven't been to Orchard in ages. All I've ever done in the last two months is go to school and come home! NUS has utterly consumed my life. Not that I had that much life to begin with anyway.

But I digress.

I ventured into the graphic novels section again to gaze upon that one shelf which stocked the whole "Sandman" series by Neil Gaiman. Turns out that there're ten books in all, collections of the original 75-issue comic series first published from 1988-1996. Each costs about $30. It's going to be a long time.

But, on the other hand, my 21st birthday is in July... hehe. *HINT* XD