Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Recovering My Past #12: November 24- December 8 2004
Wish me luck.
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SHE'S BACK The girl's back from Mauritius. 7 days in some island off the coast of South Africa, 7 hours by plane away from Singapore. She's missed the virgin post-exam Zouk party, the Zouk Out party, the Marathon, and a host of other wild events... She's also come back with severe weight gain from all the gastronomic delights and 7 days of eating and sleeping, sinful $100-buffets for breakfast and dinner every single day of the week; rope burn from repeated attempts to pull up the sail after not windsurfing for 6 months; muscle aches in the legs from hiking out the laser having not sailed it before; a whole lot of salt water ingestion from failed attempts at water-skiiing and losing her skis halfway through, therefore plunging head-first into the salty Indian Ocean; punctures from accidentally brushing/touching/falling on corals while windsurfing/scuba diving off the lagoon of her hotel, aching biceps from kayaking against the current woefully, and severe sun burn from the sun, resulting in dry, peeling skin, and a painful face, back, shoulders, thighs and calves. Oh, but she's seen a sea so clear and blue she'll never want to see Sentosa again. And she's got a tan so dark the locals say she could pass off for one of them. And OMG but the African men are hot Hot HOT. No wonder they say that black guys are so sexy. :) Updates coming later. For now, sleep off the jet lag. Don't think I want to Zouk tonight. My trip was a lot more mind-blowing than Phuture music. | |
| I'M DAMN BORED CAN? Day after my exams, and after the extravagant "night before", I wake up totally out of time, therefore missing my a) 15km jog; b) gym sessions and c) swim session. Instead, I wake up to rush my CV and personal statement (therefore missing 2nd gym session), and then now I have to wait for my mom to fetch me at 5.30pm, I can't go for a run coz it just started fucking raining as I put on my running gear, I have to discuss soccer training stuff for the month in 10 min, and my downloaded "Edge of Reason" was really a really bad recording of "Wimbledon", and I'd rather *kill myself* than watch some crap Kirsten Dunst tennis show like tt. So I'm playing Sky Captain in the background as I blog, but it looks like the most visually boring thing this side of Planet Earth. The upside: I'm flying off to Mauritius tomorrow morning at 9am. So this time tomorrow I will either be a) on the plane or b) in sunny Maritius with the bitches... I mean beaches and all. So oh yes: I'll be gone from 1st Dec to 8th or 9th Dec (my *parents* don't even know when we'll be back either. Beat tt.). All outings and bookings can be made after tt. Jo & Dee: Xmas shopping and swimming await. Oh, and I don't mind a Nike top tt I saw for Xmas *hint hint*. It's more affordable than adidas shades or an iPod mini anyway. Mark: German food, beer and ice-cream? Don't mind trying out Paulaner's Brahaus. But I'll let you decide. Erm... I got asked by a whole bunch of other people too. So yep, just let me know. IHG trainings aside I am *damn free can?* after 9th Dec. Yawnz. Bored. P.S. This sounds totally contradictory coz of all my food cravings, but I NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT. Argh... I can feel all the flab gather at my waistline from the lack of exercise and waaaay too much comfort food. And I think I seriously want to run off the Incredible Hulk arms. Oh well. Just a thought. | |
| PARTY TILL I DROP My exams ended today. That's right, after enduring the herd of NUS students who had ended on Wed/Thurs/Sat etc, today, Monday, 29 Nov 2004, was *my* turn for freedom. So it all started with me waking up at 7am. Or a little after 7am, being woken up by a kind phonecall from Wenya. I hope she didn't wake up especially just to call me, coz I'd feel so bad!!! GY called me while I was in the shower, and Adrian and Cheeling messaged me while I was on my way to SRC. So I got to MPSH 2 on time... which we shared with 600 other SNAILs. Ooh, and it was the same MPSH as Boon Chin. Imagine tt, I just did my paper with all sorts of NUS students. And the most irritating thing - law students ended our papers the latest at 2 hours 30 mins. So we had to endure 2 other announcements at 2 hours and 2 hours 15 mins respectively. Or rather 4 announcements if you count the repetitive "You have 15min before the end of your paper blah blah blah". Damn sian arh! Wah lau... At 2 hours and 2 hours and 15 min some guy will tell you to "Put your pants... (pens) down blah blah blah confiscate blah blah blah fail blah blah blah zero etc" in non-perfect super-grating English. Damn bloody distracting. I wish we could have our own private exam hall, or at least with people who end the same time. Fucking ridiculous. Ironically, if I had nothing to write for Prop, I had too fucking much to write for this paper. Too much to write, too little time. The usual exam syndrome. Hey, at least I did the 50 mark question before the 25 mark question, so that even though I was left with 15 min for the last question, I didn't die as much as I would have had I done the paper in the normal order. Anyway my eye was still red from yesterday. Don't know what the fuck is wrong with my eye. You'll see how red it is in a later picture. But nonetheless, first thing I did - rush out of the exam hall (with as much dignity as possible), throw all my company law notes in the SRC Conference Room, and head down to Orchard (with Vanessa, another law student). There, I pierced my ear (bringing earhole count to 10. YAY. Nice round even double-digit number means I can stop now), met Adrian and GY for lunch at my beloved Swensen's, where I had salmon baked rice, frosted chocolate malt (yes Yes YES!!!) and earthquake!!! Oh... and absolutely bad service. Oh, but first, want to see how red-eyed I look over my frosted chocolate malt?  Stunned look is not intentional. Here I am happily enjoying my delicious ice-cream and maltesers and stupid Adrian tells me to look up and before I know it - bam! In full red-eyed glory I get captured in a moment of fame. Fantab. Absolutely fantab. The only thing funnier than tt is Adrian proclaiming that he is a good kisser just because he can tie 1 miserable cherry knot... and GY pretending to tie another too (but cheating by using his fingers)! Adrian Wong: because you asked for it I shall put it on my blog. You *think* that you are a good kisser. Anyway besides the great ice-cream and food, we also get ridiculously bad service. For some reason all the waiters seem to ignore Adrian. Thing is du-lan face or not, we're still paying customers and we still have a right to be served! What the hell man? For our 10% service charge we're not getting any service at all... Haha... Adrian was so mad, and we so don't blame him. After Swensen's it was off walking around all the way to Far East. I'd originally wanted to go shopping, but shopping with 2 guys is just too damn weird. For all of us. What the hell? I feel pressured to rush, they don't have anything to do. Strange strange strange. Fortunately I bump into Miss Lee Wanyi and Miss Jane Lee Zhen Zhen, who now sports short hair and looks even hotter than ever. Wahaha... The shop owner at Cheeks actually hit on her, telling her a bag had her name on it ("Gorgeous") and offering it to her at $4 off the usual price! Ah, but beauty has its benefits, no? Anyway the three of us walk back from Far East to Cine for dinner at Subway, then off to PS where I buy this pretty black tube dress and wahaha... 2 penguin fans that are just SO cute!!!  Spent quite a fair bit of moo-lah today. But am satisfied. It's called retail therapy. Wanyi and I got back to hall a little after 10.30pm, just in time for me to catch 45 min of America's Next Top Model. Dammit, I missed tt segment where Shandi cheated on her bf (GRR!!!) but I caught the rest of the show, like when she was "wailing uncontrollably" (according to Charmaine). Ooh, I love reality tv. More dirt, more power!! :) And then oh yes... the drinking. Well, essentially the agreement was since I was ending on a Monday (what a fucking loser day to end), such tt I couldn't go Phuture, I couldn't go anywhere clubbing, and since my going to Mauritius would entail me missing out on a whole bunch of Phuture/ZoukOut/Singapore Marathon type events, Adrian, GY and I decided to hold our own post-exam celebration with wine and chips. Oh wait... who is Adrian you ask? Well.  That is Adrian. Abs and all. Seriously, he should just take this picture and send it in to the Straits Times. Look at the abs. You can crop off the neck and it'll look pretty good. *evil grin* Let me introduce him to you. He's a bit of a cockster.  He sucks at Red Alert. And when he plays Red Alert, he gets so engrossed in it tt he fails to notice other... intruders.  Anyway tonight Adrian was feeling stressed.  He was feeling so stressed from all that STUDYING that we did...  ...that he decided to call GY and me over for a drink. Who is GY you ask? [edit (10.48 am, Nov 30 2004): this photo has been removed at the request of the person in the photo. He does not want to be seen by the public as looking retarded with a penguin fan on his head. As such I am doing him this favour of removing this highly embarassing photo of him. Nonetheless, GY is the one wearing the NUS T-shirt. Yes. Well. Now you know.] ...Yeah. That, is GY. Anyway we were STUDYING, and we got so STRESSED that we decided to have a drink or two. Anyway we ended up finishing the whole bottle of Adrian's Homewood Winery Riesling, such that we all ended up pretty damn wasted.  ... Arhahaha. Who the fuck am I kidding?!?! Our exams are OVER!!! To all the poor sad creatures whose exams aren't over yet, you have our sympathy. Coz ours are all OVER!!! We weren't studying, we were just fooling around. Why were we fooling around? You ask. Because we WERE high. Because we DID finish the entire bottle of Adrian's Riesling.  See? Look at how *red* I am before I played Messenger Girl again. It's a sure sign of wastedness. Like whoa... And you can tell my friend's not much better either. Wahaha.  ...And another one. If you're wondering why I'm so much redder than GY, it's coz I drank more than he did! But he was nice. Sobre and all, he bought us supper, and I got cheese and egg prata. Yum yum yum. And chips. The problem after the whole drinking thing: besides being unable to finish the South African Merlot... I got a massive hangover-type headache. One thing worse than getting a hangover the day after is getting the damn hangover the night itself. KNN. Oh well. Gonna go sleep now. I think Adrian's concussed and GY's laughing at us stupid drunk hostelites. [edit (10:49 am 30 Nov 2004): Bruddas. Just because I was red and high doesn't mean I was drunk. If I can *walk back to my room* unassisted and completely straight, I am not drunk. If I can post an entire blog entry coherent in the same night, I am not drunk. If I can post *2* - including one with *image editting* where I added a 'circle' and a red 'question mark' for emphasis to each and every image, I am not drunk. So you see, I'm not as far gone as you think I am.] | |
| "?" For he who shall not be named, for fear that "all of NUS will know who he is". This one's for *you*. Even though I know that you're going to *kill* me after this.          ... Things that make you go "?". Fuck. Bloody throbbing hangover. Times like these I wonder why the fuck I drink so much. Dammit. | |
| Just a minor gripe. Whenever I spoon hall food into my mouth, I feel sick. Like, the food isn't digesting and I swear it's going to come up the wrong way all over again. And this feeling's here every single time, for the past 1.5 years of hall life. And the best part: I have no choice but to eat hall food, since I pay $357 for it every single semester. P.S. I HATE THE NIGHT BEFORE EXAMS. I have so much fucking stuff to read and study tt I don't even know where to begin, and because of tt I have no fucking motivation. ARGH. TMD. This sucks. P.P.S. I hate having a room next to the pantry. The fucking ants are killing me. They crawl in from under my door or through the window coz the pantry has leftover food and God-knows-what else littlered on the fucking floor to attract ants, roaches and all other unwanted insects, and guess where these creatures like to come to for some post-meal indulgence? KNN. | |
"IT'S A BLOODY SATURDAY DAMMIT!!!" It's Saturday, and I'm studying in school. No, you don't understand. Studying in school on Saturday doesn't make sense to me at all. I'm not a mugger, a nerd or a study freak. Saturday afternoons what I see are never rows upon rows of words. I don't look at thick stacks of paper. I don't see books. I see the sun. I see the water. I'm rowing in the Kallang basin with salt water in my eyes. I'm seeing the Benjamin Sheares Bridge through a thin film of sweat as I'm running with my girls after getting off the boat. I'm seeing the chin-up bar, the tarred uneven gravel. I'm even seeing tanned hot bods. Whatever I'm seeing, it's def a lot more palatable than Debentures, Charges and Debt Financing. Hell, this doesn't even sound like Law. It seems more like I'm in NUS Bizad and I'm taking Advanced Management courses, WTF man WTF. So you see it starts off with me walking into the SRC Conference Room after lunch. I put down my stuff, start up my laptop... And happily check my download of "The Edge of Reason" - after which Geok requests tt I download part 1 of the show for her too. And then Yirang tells us she needs to sing a song with either 'angels' or 'snow' inside for a christmas party, and I recommend choices from Robie William's Angels to Sarah McLachlan's Angel to SHAGGY's Angel. And we even go on Letssingit.com and check out song titles and there is actually a song titled Angels In The Snow. But all the songs so far don't seem suitable coz they are either a) too high-pitched for her voice (or mine, for tt matter) or b) the angels in question are chicks. She doesn't want to sing about chicks. Anyway I just said as long as you don't sing 'Angels Brought Me Here' anything is fine. As far as I'm concerned, I don't know what 'angels' brought Guy Sebastian to Planet Isobel but I think they can damn well afford to take him back. Then Yirang wants to watch tt Russell Peters stand-up comedy show, and though I've already seen it, we all watch it again. And laugh at it all over again, all throught the 45 min gags video. That guy's hilarious. From his segment on African names and "!Xobile" - pronounced "*click* Bee-leh" -. which really makes things interesting in the throes of passion (Guy: "Oh baby! Say my name, baby! Say my name!" Girl: *pause* "*click*Bee-leh!"). The hell man, the hell. Or Indian men bargaining with Chinese men in Chinatown... Or the handiness of the Indian accent in cutting tension... Watch the damn video it's fucking hilarious. "Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad.' I was damn near rolling on the floor with laughter. Besides tt, there were 2 comps playing "The House of Flying Daggers" in succession, and for some reason there was this anticipatory feelin towards the sex scene between Takeshi Kaneshiro and Zhang Ziyi, which was such a let-down. *Yawn* Boring. I'd have more fun watching hamsters hump each other. And the formal language was hilarious to mock. And Zhang Ziyi taking 3 tries to die... tt was a classic. This movie was almost as funny as Russell Peters. And then, after having wasted almost 2 hours fooling around, I put on my headphones, pulled up the hood of my IVP jacket (I shuffle around the conference room with the hood up sometimes; machiam like my home like tt), turned on Deathcab, put my feet up on a chair and settled down to Crystallisation of a Floating Charge... and happily drifted off to Lalaland (no relation with Wanyi). Only woke up when Boon Chin came back from her wedding (the one she attended you morons. Not her own.) and woke me up. After which it was a few more hours of snacking on Calbee Pizza chips, Apollo chocolate wafers, Autoland Animal Crackers (of which Grace dominates Helicopter crackers, I get the Patrol Car crackers, and Zhenyi gets laughed at when she asks for Animal crackers); discussing stupid things like the ideal exam question (see entry below), names for our laptops (FYI mine is nicknamed "Bitch" in lieu of its longer name), the competition between Grace Wendz and Zhenyi to see who can complete studying for General Bio faster, and questions like what triglycerides are and whether enzymes are a form of protein. So this generally continues till dinner arrives at 8 - courtesy of our slave Wenya (aka Maria - pronounced the Philippino way), whereby I ask for the extra chili (but don't really feel it), whereas a couple of my teammates find *normal chili* unbearable... What can I say, when it comes to spice chili's my vice! Whoohoo I am good. Oh, and at 9.30pm I finally came across "Redeemable Preference Shares", which Clarissa had asked me about at 3pm and to which I had no ans coz I hadn't even come across the damn topic and was in so much of a quagmire coz I didn't rem it at all and thought I was being screwed up the ass! *phew* Anyway my left eye started getting red, sticky and infected. So I gave up, gave in and went home. Where my parents made yummy soup for me. I am such a lucky blessed girl! Wahaha. :) Oh, and Melissa Pei sucks. She of the light-reflecting variety is not helping my decision. I don't like weights, I don't like running, I hate sprinting more, and sprinting upslope is about the worst kind of activity ever invented by Man... And somehow she started bringing all the stuff about the dinners and the nua-ing and the slackign and the singing and the gatherings and she's like "You'll never be able to do them again" and now I'm like KNN... I don't WANT to be the chunky monkey... but ARGH... Hard decision. But hey, there's always Gee and Hee. What if I decide to stay coz of Hee? Whacha gonna do girl? Whatcha gonna do? Wahaha. Give me 1 month to decide. Love my girls. Gonna sleep soon. | |
| The ideal exam question (set by Boon Chin): You see an old lady abt to cross a busy road. You: a) help her cross the road. b) snatch her purse. c) stab her with knives d) all of the above Me and Geokz: "Wah. Such an easy answer. Obviously all of the above lah." Studyin on a Sat afternoon is DAMN SIAN CAN?!?!?!?!?!?!?! | |
FUCK COMPANY Nah, I'm not being anti-social. I love company - the right company I mean. Like my girls. I love my girls. They are good company. What is *not* good company would be irritating people, self-absorbed morons, super extra OTT 'don't know when enough is enough' type idiots... and company law. Don't get me wrong. I think I should have an interest in what I study. And to an extent in spite of the sheer smallness of my brain such that topics like Corporate Governance and Agency and trying to understand why the directors of a company should give a flying fuck about the members of the company (and frankly, whoever wrote the Companies Act, or whatever other statute book in use in Singapore should be sent back to grammar school or have his eyes fucking glued to Robert K Neumann so that he will know the meaning of *CONCISE* ENGLISH) is highly taxing... At least the above topics are readable. Understandable. Digestable (albeit with great difficulty). Today I started on Shares and Debentures, and within the space of 2 hours, fell asleep/took long long naps at least 4 times. Why? Because it's FUCKING BORING. Who the fuck cares about when you can vary your rights and when you can't? Why must you take forever to explain to me how important a prospectus is? I *understand* ok? And my god, the Companies Act. What the fuck man, what the fuck. I can't even read the damn thing coz the fucking drafter can't speak English. Instead I'm just blindly dumbly stupidly highlighting coz my mind has switched off. GRR. It's not fair. It's not fair. When you study with your teammates and they tell you about slacker modules like General Bio where you can get an A easily and your assignments include a nature trail around the NUS 3.2km route or a trip to the museum. Or when they do History and Globalisation is confined to the walkman and fucking Sony. It's not fair. And what the fuck must I do? Table A Art 4 provides for... etc. You must provide for a prospectus with a full disclosure of the material information otherwise you will be criminally liable (jail and fine), civilly liable (for damages in contract and tort under misrepresentation and negligence etc etc etc) under both the common law AND statute... And all this time as my head gravitates towards the table I wonder to myself... The FUCK do I care. ARGH. I'm pissed. So SUE ME. Bah. If anyone ever wonders why Law students are fucked up, look at our textbooks. Please. Anyway on a completely unrelated note, I cannot eat supper. Unless I intend to sleep at 5am. Coz it seems to be a recurring pattern. Oh, and usually for the first 3 hours after supper I probably won't be studying either. KNN. On another unrelated note, for all my non-Law readers, do you know tt if you invade Law library you are a SNAIL. What tt means, for the people who have casually asked about the whispered "snail! snail!" behind your backs, it means you are a Student Not Actually In Law. It's a name passed down from generation of Law student to generation of Law student. We the arrogant elite of NUS (we're one-half of the arrogant elite. The other half is Medicine, but we don't consider them competition coz we think we've got the hotter babes) feel that each and every SNAIL tt invades Law faculty, and our beautiful carpeted wood-filled posh prestigeous library and spoil the classy elegant atmosphere with your Engin and Chem and whatever-else textbooks ("oh! the absolute horror! my eyes, how they burrrrn!")... is well, exactly tt. Invader! Unwanted! We deride despise detest disdain condemn (etc etc etc) your lower species. Your... Kind. Essentially, tt's it. Personally, I don't give a flying fuck. I've neevr liked Law lib or Law fac. As far as I'm concerned it can be overriden and infested with SNAILs. Hell, you could go forth and multiply and cover Law lib wall-to-wall and I wouldn't bat an eyelid. Why? Because I would be at SRC Conference Room. A nice, cosy, comfortable place where I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, with a lot of space and with the right... company. WAHAHA. I love being a dragonboater. For the people who have been wondering, why the exclusivity? Why do I get to study in the SRC Conference Room? Well, let's say it's the charm of my beloved captain, who requested from the person-in-charge of us a room so we could study for our exams in peace without having to rush with all the Yusof Ishak study freaks, esp since we were doing the school a favour in racing for them in the midst of our papers. So we got the room. Technically speaking, it's not ours per se. It says "For all sportsmen and women" on the outside. Of course, the other outsiders who use it tend to be guys/girls who are def *not* sportspeople (trust me they are made-up and damn original), but intrusion is a rarity. Studying with us when you're not one of us is highly discomforting trust me. Oh, and that only happens if you make it through the door (i.e. it's too early in the morning for us to notice you come in). Generally a *look* from one of us is enough to deter the bravest made-up original girls from invading *our* territory. Anyway speaking of which, Wenya's the only one in the team who's finished her exams early. In fact she finished her exams yesterday. So now she's officially the slave of the team. She comes back to take orders and buy us food - willingly. Be it Coffee Bean cheesecake, Old Chang Kee curry puffs or potato chips or chocolate bars. She helps us mop the floor when we spill water or Milo on it (which has already happened twice in 1 bloody day!!!), and when I left she was helping Boon Chin pirate movies/songs. I think she's too nice. Coz we're *really* bullying her. Anyway I left early coz Grace spilt Milo on my bag. And the table. And the floor near my chair. And I just couldn't sit down there next to a Milo-filled table with a drying floor waiting for my Milo-stained bag to start attracting ants, and study. Fuck. I'm still missing my Swensen's Frosted Chocolate Malt. DAMMIT I WANT TO EAT MY FROSTED CHOCOLATE MALT. ARGH. KNN. Can't wait for Monday. Then I can *really* fuck Company and fly off to sunny Mauritius. It's strange, but I SWEAR everyone else is more excited about Mauritius then I am. I'll be like: "I'm flying off the Mauritius on 1st Dec." (usually in some dead-pan reply to some question about whether I'm free after the exams.) And then the reply: "MAURITIUS?! YOU'RE GOING TO MAURITIUS?!" Then "So lucky!" or "You lucky bitch!" or "OMG!" Or something to tt extent. And me, I just looked stoned. Like, what's all the fuss about? I'm missing *2* fucking weeks of Phuture! Hello? I'm not going to be able to take my traditional 2 flaming lambos. I'm not going to be able to push my drinking luck. I won't be able to dress up, make up and shake down the dance floor! FOR *TWO* WHOLE FUCKING WEEKS!!! ARGH. KNN. (And I'm missing S'pore Idol Finals too, so I'll have to hope Taufik wins from half a world away). Bleah. Okay okay. Last point: Boon Chin's friend's getting *married* tomorrow. The poor girl, who has 3 papers to study for next week and is so damn stressed tt no one dares to bug her... has to make time to attend a church wedding and a wedding dinner. We advised her to bring her notes. After all, between the bride walking in and the bride walking out, the rest of it's just normal wedding stuff, 'ya know? And at least she's *physically* present. Good grief. Never ever get married during the exam period. You unnecessarily stress your studying friends. Speaking of which, I can't imagine myself getting married. I think people who marry young (like now) are seriously either very dead-set on their relationship, or really require a brain transplant. Maybe it's because personally I don't have a face or a person I can imagine opposite me on that fateful day when the priest happily joins our hands together and I think to myself "OMG. No more freedom. No more life. After this I'm going to become some boring wife person who has to rush home from work everyday to cook and clean for her husband and smile gratefully when he dominates the remote and watches Man U thrash Portsmouth and think it's like the greatest thing on God's green earth.". But anyway if I do get married... which will probably either be (a) never; or (b) at least 10 years from now (or 20, depending. Maybe I'll marry when I'm 70 and lonely and damn sure the alternative is dying alone in a house full of cats), I'd like to have the ceremony in an interesting place. I'd SMSed Mona. I'd said: "Imagine this. Maybe I'll have my ceremony at SDBA and have Uncle Sadu (or the equivalent) solemnise the wedding. And we wouldn't even need a car coz we could fucking row there and back! Whoohoo." (Not that I would mind if my future husband happened to be TSK) But anyway... Okay, maybe I'm studying too hard. For now, I love tt new Destiny's Child song, 'Lose Your Breath'. I play it and think "Phuture Phuture Phuture". Hell, half my playlist makes me go "Phuture Phuture Phuture". I miss ZoukOut too. Shaddup. The other half of my playlist? Deathcab, Deathcab and more Deathcab. I love 'Styrofoam Plates'. "A bastard in life and a bastard in death." Whoo. STYROFOAM PLATES There's a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes | |
| SUMMER CAMP Studying in the SRC Conference Room is almost like Summer Camp. From the outside you don't see anything, but walk through tt door and it's like a silent movie party. The whole group of us have our laptops and notes sprawled across the expensive wood conference table, and our bags take happy places on the otherwise empty seats. Food is everywhere. We can never go hungry; there's coco pops, chocolate pillows, Synders chedder cheese crackers, ovaltine biscuits, cornflakes, all sorts of hard and chewy sweets, jelly beans and chocolate. The board is littered with a timeline of all the things we want to do. From who ends exams when and when we want to hold our celebration dinners and team outing trips. Meiping and Cheeling stay over for 2 days at a time. So does Yunshan, sometimes. I tried staying overnight once... To study for company. It failed badly, probably because by 1am I'd fallen asleep at the table; 3am I'd dragged myself over to the sofa to hibernate, and happily woke up at 10am after 3 failed attempts to get me off the couch. It's like Summer Camp. It's some happy holiday chalet. We have lunch together, dinner together, we have periods of joking and laughing. It's strange. And yet, it's not Summer Camp. There's a pall that hangs over everyone as we push through our SS modules or our psychology modules or mech engin or chemistry, even me as I pore through my company trying to understand what goes where and why. Sometimes I'm plugged in to my beloved Deathcab; sometimes I'm listening to nothing but the quietness of the place. It's quiet, yes, but it's a wonderful place to study, because there's comfort in the room. You know and are familiar with everyone; you can do pretty much what you like as long as you don't hinder anyone else's studies, and somehow you know you are as well taken care of. Teddy bears of different sizes are hugged by different studying individuals. I use a towel as a blanket, so I can walk around the entire day in T-shirts, shorts and slippers. If 22 degrees is too cold for air-conditioning, we can bring it up to 25 degrees. Someone's always filling water, or buying food for you (or everyone else). And there's always this hope, when the exams end. All the plans that keep us alive and hopeful. Anyway for some reason I miss ice-cream. I want my Swensen's Frosted Chocolate Malt more than anything right now... Haha... I took a crazy break yesterday because I can't really study in hall when no one else is around. I watched 2 of the movies I downloaded: Shall We Dance and Garden State. Shall We Dance is a so-so show. But Garden State, is brilliant. A bit of background on it: it's named after the state of New Jersey, which has been christened America's Garden State. It's also the hometown of Zach Braff (the guy who played JD in 'Scrubs'), who's the lead actor and director of Garden State. Other famous names in there include Natalie Portman, Ian Holm, Peter Saarsgard and Danny DeVito is an executive producer. From Zach Braff's blog, I got the international release dates for the movie, and it seems Singapore isn't on the list. I don't know if it'll ever come out here considering it's pretty indie, and even if it does it's probably going to take forever. So I decided to jump the gun and watch the movie I've been dying to catch ever since Eternal Sunshine. Another Eternal Sunshine this is not. While they're both concerned with the mind, Eternal Sunshine is stylistically different from Garden State. In a way I would say tt there is a sophistry or high-browed elitism that makes Eternal Sunshine a lot more appealing to a niche audience than Garden State. But that's not to say that Garden State is not enjoyable. Because I loved it. It's a more down-to-earth movie, of course with *a lot* of quirky moments, which you'll get to see from the trailer for the movie. When it starts you're not sure what to expect; it starts off in whimsical snippets and scenes which make you wonder if they're really happening or whether they're just occuring in the character's mind. It's about disjointedness. Essentially without trying to spoil most of the movie, it's about feeling. Or the lack thereof. When too many chemicals have been pumped into your body for some childhood mistake that you made, and you become emotionally numb. You experience, you comprehend, but you don't *feel*. You're not "in it", as Natalie Portman's character would say. And then it's about rediscovering feeling for yourself. Finding what it is to really laugh, to really cry. To fall in love. To realise that sometimes politically-correct and sane and "the right thing" isn't always what you should do. I loved Garden State. I loved the visual effects and the funny quirky bits, even if they were disjointed. I loved the crazy way the actors behaved and the message they sent (or did not). I loved the lines in the movie, esp when Andrew Largeman told his father: "And you know what, I'm not gonna take those drugs anymore, because they just left me feeling numb. I have felt SO FUCKING NUMB to everything in my entire life. And for that... I'm here to forgive YOU." And I loved the soundtrack. I loved Coldplay's 'Don't Panic', I loved The Shins' 'Caring Is Creepy', and more than that I loved Frou Frou's 'Let Go', the song tt began and ended it all. LET GO - Frou Frou Drink up baby doll. | |
| RIVER REGATTA 2004: OF WATER, FRIENDSHIP AND SWAN SONGS My long-overdue photolog recap. Day 2. We gathered at Raffles Place at 10am again. This time to avoid a run-in with the SAFSA people we colonised our corner straight out and da-baoed breakfast from Mac's. And I made sure I got all the photos I said I would take on Sat night. My photo with Melissa.  My photo with Geox.  With Boon Chin.  Yirang.  And Cheeling and Meiping.   Ooh ooh. Now... guess whose legs are whose? :P  I even took a picture with my partner Jul. Want to see the WITH HEAD version?  Or the WITHOUT HEAD version?  We took serious pics. Okay. Supposed to be 'kiam pah' but don't know what happened pics.  Insanely happy pics. Or at least, I'm looking insane and happy because I'm with my fave people in the team - Geox, Mona, and Wendz, my former other half of the welfare duo.  And again (this time not so insane).  Doggy-dogg pics. Woof.  That crazy Egyptian pic tt we all love. Wahaha.  Uh yes. The enthusiastic one right in the middle is our lovely vice-cap Vic. Anyway yes, back to the story. Our first event was at 1.40pm. Enough time for us to fool around, joke and laugh the way we always do, get serious for warm-up, put on our life jackets etcs. Women's Open Semi-finals. As usual, we suffered from our usual syndrone. The best and strongest starts, but not so strong last burst. Guess David will have to change his Regatta strategy. Esp since any other team charging 50m before the usual 100m before the finishing line can easily maintain tt charge, catch up to the half to one boat-length lead, and win tt set. Nonetheless, we got into the Plate Finals. Not as prestigeous as the grand finals, but well. Good enough I guess. Mixed was at 2.20pm. I was rowing for tt race. I don't know what happened. I shouldn't be saying this publicly abt the guy's team on my blog, but I can't keep quiet on this. No wonder there is no unity between the seniors' and juniors' team. The seniors come to race with their books and study. No doubt, we have exams now. No doubt, some of us have exams the next fucking day. But this is a race. It's not a nerds' outing. And I don't know what kind of support you're showing your captain when he's walking around trying to get everything organised, and you're either a) reading through your Physics/Chemistry/Mech Engin notes, or b) cuddling with your gf on the steps in front of everyone. Okay, so in some cases the quality of gf material is better this time round, but still? If I had a bf (or if more of us had bfs) we'd showcase our bfs as well just to show those egotistic idiots how ridiculous the whole situation is. SHEESH. But anyway back to what I was originally talking abt. The thing is, when the juniors were rowing, none of the seniors came to support them. Only their captain did the warm-up with them. Apparently they were told that Mixed is some chapalang category for the sub-standard rowers. How nice to demoralise your team before they row. For me, whether Mixed is supposedly a chapalang category or not, the important thing is to give it my best. The juniors weren't sufficiently prepared. They weren't told the meaning of 'focus'. How before the race and during the race you do not look elsewhere except at your pacer. You don't care what's happening to the boat or anything else. Even if you're being coxed right into a fucking wall you keep rowing. And worse than tt, they weren't being told tt the race is considered finished only when the dragon TAIL crosses the finishing line, not the head. What happened during the race is that firstly, David who was our coswain had problems controlling the boat. Secondly, for all his whistle blows for us to up and for one of the guys to translate tt whistle blow to words, no one yelled for the ups. It seems only us girls were the ones pushing hard 5s and 10s during the course of the race. Even for our last charge, I heard no call, and I got so frustrated I had to scream "Last charge! All you have!" just so tt the pacers would at least know. And then, the most sacrilegeous thing I'd seen in my 1.5 years of racing - once the dragon head crossed the finishing line... the pacers stopped rowing. The guys all started rowing half-heartedly. I was so mad I was like "don't you FUCKING STOP until the fucking coxswain tells you to stop!!!" Okay. That wasn't a good set. I don't blame the juniors tho. I think if the whole team doesn't get their act together, no one's going to want to stay in the team at this rate. After tt was our IVP. We led half a boat length for our starts. But then TP did a June-Race-NUS thing and charged early... So we ended up 3rd for it. David wasn't happy. In fact he gave us a very sad closing debrief. Incidentally, he chose to give us our debrief near the Ngee Ann camp, and the entire time we were there I could feel the hostility of their gazes burning into the side and back of my head. Eep. Like I said, proud to be a member of NUS. Coz we don't fear anyone, and we don't care about anyone either. :) Anyway during our debrief, we realise tt David doesn't know tt we still have 1 more event - the Plate finals for the Women's Open. He'd thought we were done. You should have seen his face light up. One moment it was downcast. Down down down. The next hope was splashed across his face. (And after the Plate Finals it was completely lit up. We were actually thinking of asking for a second debrief just to contrast it to the first. Wahaha). Plate Finals. I was back-pack for this one... Kept telling myself it would be my last race. Funny how Wenya was telling me tt this was our last race, and after this we could eat ice-cream. And how I was agreeing with her mentally, but saying tt if I ended this well I could hang up my paddle (metaphorically speaking) for good with a peace of mind. Boon Chin was our coxswain. She's also our best coxswain. I guess she's probably the only qualified one we have, but considering she led us to our Gold in June, she's the best. Not just the best we have, but the best, period. As usual, the announcers were zhua-ing us again, "NUS, do you want to race or not?" "NUS, are you here?" Etc etc etc etc, as we were drifting to the starting line. She gave this booming "HERE!" from under the bridge. Haha. I thought tt was cute. The event started even before our boat really came to a drifitng stop. I was rowing furiously, telling myself tt this would be the last time I would ever touch race water again. Boon Chin was hysterical. She kept pushing us to up, and she kept screaming "Leading! Leading" Weiling our drummer screamed tt too, in excitement. And when I heard the drummer in the boat next to us tell her boat "You're leading!" too, my first thought was "No you're fucking not!" and press my paddle in even harder. It was an early charge. It's amazing how much harder you can push yourself when you tell yourself it's the last 100m, last 50m ,last 10m you will EVER row. Apparently our boat surged up within the last few metres. I know I had gone absolutely crazy. Whenever I start losing energy to row, I motivate myself by screaming. It helps me pull my paddle back when I feel like my arm muscles are so tired that they're numb or I can't breathe anymore. And I rem for tt race I'd gone nuts. I was screaming and roaring and just rowing rowing rowing like nothing else in the world mattered and seriously the whole world could have gone to hell and I wouldn't have given a flying fuck. All tt mattered was tt checkered buoy coming towards me. I knew we'd won. We were screaming and hugging each other in the boat, causing it to tip precariously (yet again). Some of us were crying as we came up. I was wiping tears from my eyes. The girls who hadn't rowed were so happy for us too. I think some of them were also tearing. It was just an amazing moment. Okay, maybe not as intense as June, but for the juniors it was definitely a moment. The mood just changed. Completely. Just as David's face was completely changed. The sobre mood had become celebratory. So what if it wasn't a grand finals win? If we hadn't reclaimed our IVP gold? If we'd buanged our Mixed? We were happy. I knew the guys were damn unhappy with what they got, but it didn't matter to me. We were happy. I'd ended my race on a good note.  Above is the plate we'd won. Complete with manufactering details on the back. Wahaha. The picture below is of getting presented with the IVP Bronze medal.  David has a habit of giving me little eulogies. He gave me a tear-inducing one in June, and I got another one in Dec. Ah, the perks of being the team's best (and only) reserve. Wahaha. Below is us seniors. The girls I rowed with for 1.5 years. Zhenyi and Boon Chin are also leavng - both for SEP. Both their presence will be missed, esp Boon Chin's, who has been rowing for a year longer than the rest of us. The (proclaimed by David) best rower, and (proclaimed by us) best coxswain we have. As well as a solid teammate, friend and person.  And this is me, getting carried by the captain. Wahaha... Ridiculous picture... Also testament to how strong she is. Heh.  And so that pretty much summed up race day. Photolog isn't too extensive because I haven't got Yunshan's pics yet. When I get them trust me you'll get to see the whole thing, including all those amazing pics tt you never thought we'd take (or me either). Ironically it's all those pics where all the memories come from. In June it was the seated-in-a-row back view pics, or the ones where we were just sitting around laughing, giving stupid massages, wearing the NUS cap and jacket just to see how orrbit we could look etc. This Regatta, I hope we have equally interesting pictures. For now, this is our team. Nice view huh? GY, how do you think we got this taken? All of us just started floating upwards with happiness? :P  So after tt it was a small celebratory dinner (small because most of us were rushing home to study for our exams), and yes... after a surreal weekend out of time and space, it's back to the real world. Oh man. I'll miss my girls.  Sometimes it seems like the memories will be all I have left. For anyone who asks, I've never regretted joining dragonboat. It's the best thing tt's ever happened to my life in NUS. And it seems like it'll remain tt way. I wrote a letter to Melissa explaining everything to her. My best friend and the team captain. And she knows how much I really love you guys. It's not even the sport. I've already said tt I hate the trainings. I like rowing, but the thing tt made me stay was the people. The girls. It's been something tt just transcends training 3 times a week; 3 hours of PT and 4 hours of rowing and running. It's been so much more than tt, the ride. And I'll miss all of that.  DEATHCAB FOR CUTIE - We Laugh Indoors When we laugh indoors the blissful tones bounce off the walls, and fall to the ground
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