Solitary.not?

2003-12-12T20:16:00.000+08:00

You are Legolas!
Detached from the real world, you prefer to be alone and tackle life your way.

--What Lord of the Rings character are you?--
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Hi people. I'm asking all my friends to remove my link from their blogs. So pls remove my link if you have ever linked me. I have also quit Friendster, so don't expect to find me there. I originally intended to end this blog as well but I think I'll settle for moving. From now on, this site is dead; if you want my new address please e-mail me.

Watched The Two Towers today amongst other less pleasant things. I'm in love, and his name is Legolas.

Let's believe in the make-believe people, because make-believe don't hurt me.

2003-12-12T19:53:00.000+08:00

Honestly Ok
Dido

I just want to feel safe in my own skin,
I just want to be happy again
I just want to feel deep in my own world
But I'm so lonely

I don't even want to be with myself anymore
On a different day,
if I was safe in my own skin,
then I wouldn't feel lost and so frightened

But this is today and I'm lost in my own skin
And I'm so lonely
I don't even want to be with myself anymore
I just want to feel safe in my own skin,
I just want to be happy again.

2003-12-10T13:22:00.000+08:00

Hmm. Prom was pretty good actually.

If I have to recount every single thing that happened to me between 2.30pm yesterday afternoon and 9.35am this morning (which was when I woke up) I'll probably be blogging until Doomsday, so I guess I'll do it numbered:

1. Heels. Are. The most incredibly torturous things to walk/ wobble in. I cheated a little and got low heels, but although I expected the usual shoe problems, I never realized that I had to DOUBLE my expected travelling time. At least I had the time to amuse myself, wondering about the possible "murder by designer" scenarios that could happen (e.g. being in danger of getting run over by a car and unable to run in heels). I had an online friend who once said that Man has always been most inventive when it comes to torturing his own kind. ...Well when he came up with theory that he was actually viewing the torture instruments used in the Spanish Inquistition, but I think high heels come pretty close to that description.

2. Hair. Did my hair at Reds with Mi'er and the lady did something to me that I was awfully horrified with. However, since no one gave me any strange looks I suppose it was fine after all (now why do I always value the opinions of others so much more than my own??). And it was quite interesting there, they actually serve you tea and biscuits while you're getting your hair done. The lady did something to the back end of my hair with a temporary straightener, and she was practically ironing me right in front of my eyes -- a whole lot of smoke was rising from my hair. I suddenly developed an acute compassion for all things fried.

3. Makeup. Got it done at Anna Sui. Not too bad, except the mascara, which really STUCK to my face and later clumped my lashes together. One useful thing you people might like to know: It's definitely waterproof. How do I know this? Well I washed my face -- TWICE -- last night with soap and water, and the darn mascara just REFUSED TO COME OFF.

All that being said, Prom made me feel sincerely happy to be a woman, despite torture instruments and eyelash-curlers and foundation powder that choked up every inch and every pore of my skin. It's the fact that we are even able to do these things. The girls came with different hairstyles and all sorts of designs and colours of dresses, and even temporary body/ nail tattoos... but it was hard, to be honest, to tell one guy from another. They all looked too much alike. It was nice when Prom King was announced... my ex-classmate has become very different from the time I knew him last.

Then I went to Mi'er's house and we watched movies until 6 am. ^_^ "8 Women" was a really good film but when it ended and we started discussing it, we found an awful lot of loopholes in the plot. Then we had another French-related movie, and Bjork's "Dancer in the Dark". It creeped me out right from the start so we only watched the beginning and then the end (where Bjork gets hanged). I went out into the living room while Mi'er watched the part that leads up to the murder. (I hadn't the nerves for it.) The atmosphere reminds me strongly of "The Blair Witch Project" and they used the same technique too... hand-held cameras. It was the most disturbing film I've ever watched, and I hadn't even watched it whole.

Alright... I'm surviving on 3 hours of sleep right now, so I'd better get back to bed...

2003-12-09T12:58:00.000+08:00

Full "Long Night" Moon at 4h. 38min. morning

G# minor - You are not totally happy, and you know it. At least you are trying to do something about it. You like to think and create to try and sort out your problems. Keep going the way you are, and you will soon be on speaking terms with your demons.

what key signature are you?
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(On speaking terms with my demons?? O__O; No thanks... I think people usually exorcise those)

Just finished painting my nails and held them up for Miaka to sniff. He gave me a very cute wrinkle of the nose and a disdainful look ^_^

It's weird but now that all the fuss about prom is over and the night is finally here, I'm not even sure if I want to go at all. As I wrote in Qinying's tagboard, I have an inner conviction that it's gonna be awful... that I'm going to look awful... or I'll catch sight of someone (I nearly typed "something". Hmm) that I don't want to meet... or I'll just be bored to death the entire evening and no one will even want me to take photos with them...

I mean the whole hustle and bustle of shopping and planning and discussing things with friends -- being allowed to be a bimbo for a while and even getting a budget for it -- was really fun and even exciting but I'm not sure if I'd get much more pleasure than staying home to watch "A Streetcar Named Desire" on TV. (Which, timing of all disastrously bad timings, just has to show on the night of my prom. And it happens to star Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh.)

Alright. Time for lunch, then out for hairdo and makeover.

2003-12-07T10:36:00.000+08:00

Breathe
Pink Floyd, "The Dark Side of the Moon"

For long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be

2003-12-07T10:20:00.000+08:00

Death's Echo
W. H. Auden (1907 - 1973)
[Click here to view full poem]

A friend is the old old tale of Narcissus
Not to be born is the best for man
An active partner in something disgraceful
Change your partner, dance while you can.

The greater the love, the more false to its object
Not to be born is the best for man
After the kiss comes the impulse to throttle
Break the embraces, dance while you can.

The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews
Not to be born is the best for man
The second-best is a formal order
The dance's pattern; dance while you can.

Dance, dance, for the figure is easy
The tune is catching and will not stop
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters
Dance, dance, dance till you drop.

2003-12-07T10:01:00.000+08:00

This is very amusing. My counter stats reveal that someone hit on my blog after searching, in Google, for the key words "Playing naked" and "sand".

Prom in two days' time. I wonder why I'm dreading it but I am.

Feel very cynical today.

2003-12-04T19:16:00.000+08:00

Read part of Bridget Jones' Diary II at Borders today ^_^ which was pretty funny, though it just repeated a lot of stuff in Diary I (Smug marrieds, Mark Darcy, calorie count obsessions, etc). What really surprised me was the Jude & Vile Richard wedding... (oops, spoiler?), though I didn't see what led up to that. I only read about a third of the book off the front and a few pages off the back, so as to make head and tail of it (har har).

Been thinking seriously about chopping my hair off lately. More specifically, I want to (a) Change my parting (b) Get it layered (c) Lop off 10cm of it. AT LEAST. Wondering whether or not to get it highlighted, as I think red might be nice. And seeing that my hair grows at about the same rate of Father Christmas' beard (i.e. never, because, dear boys and girls, Father Christmas' beard is FAKE. Shhh), the colouring shouldn't grow out for a long time. But it mightn't be wise to cut my hair just as the weather is getting colder.

Am buying the "Art of the Fellowship of the Ring" from Borders. Yay ^_^

2003-12-04T13:11:00.000+08:00

Are you NASTY or NICE?

Quiz made by Angela

Mmm I like the picture... ^^

2003-12-03T18:17:00.000+08:00

Solitaire
Suzanne Vega

Black on the red and the red on the black.
It's a tic of a tired mind.
Come and sit down, won't you try your luck.
See if you unwind.

Never use your threes and twos.
Follow superstition.
Otherwise you are going to lose.
Compulsion makes you listen.

Take what's wrong, and make it go right.
Weave it like a prayer.
Wonder if you you'll spend the night?
Playing solitaire?

Do it again, when you find you're all done.
Like an idiot savant.
Shuffle up your luck. You see, you almost won.
Now wrestle down what you want.

Jack on the Queen, and the ten on the Jack.
It's a happy repetition.
You and your fate in a kind of check-mate.
And you are your only competition.

Take what's wrong, and make it go right.
Weave it like a prayer.
Wonder if you you'll spend the night?
Playing solitaire?

2003-12-03T09:51:00.000+08:00

What's your sexual appeal?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Kindly repeat that part about getting whoever I want...?)

And then I took the test a second time and got this:

What's your sexual appeal?
brought to you by Quizilla

Virginal look eh? ^_- I know which one of you will be laughing...

2003-12-02T10:24:00.000+08:00

Was sitting up late before the TV last night waiting for the Arts Central Christmas Special (some medley with lots of different musical instruments...) and since I was fifteen minutes early I tuned in to "Are You Hot??" ... Let me first defend myself by saying that the only other alternatives were Charlotte Church and the News. That being said, I have to admit that I didn't much mind watching "Are You Hot" anyway. I don't watch it for the men, mind. But I think the women were pretty and it was vaguely interesting to see them putting themselves up for disgrace. And insult. You know, some of them actually look like the awfully-clean decent type, the kind you'd pass by on the street and not look twice (except at the face.) One of them is even a nanny.

(For those who don't know it already, I'm pretty sensitive to the News. I can't bear to watch it. I don't like politics. I don't like history. I don't like economics. I don't like anything that smacks of rigid facts and doom and wars and blood, blood, blood. I hate it all especially when my mom tells me about this or that person who was run over by a railway train or some cat who was tortured to death and I can picture it all so graphically it's really quite unbearable...

As for Charlotte Church, I couldn't stand listening to her since a year ago, when I was doing CIP at the Bird Park with Serene, Mary and Clive. I did ten hours CIP per day. And they played the same Charlotte Church CD over and over again, on loop, for at least two full days while I was there. Now try listening to Charlotte Church for twenty hours and see if you can still abide listening to her.)

Yeah. So it was "Are You Hot" instead.

Didn't take me more than five minutes of viewing to realise a certain pattern emerging: they all want the women to be as stick-thin and curvy as possible, while the men were marching out like great chunks of meat. And not even hunks either. Chunks. There is something very strange (visually) about having one tottering thin female after another coming out, followed by a man with arm muscles twice the size of her legs. Now it's been said that we are attracted to the... ah, shapes... of the opposite sex mostly due to our biological functions. Be fruitful and multiply, as you'd recall. But I can't imagine anyone wanting to be fruitful and multiplying with men who looked like they'd golf balls under their skin. The abdominal muscles, fine. But the thick neck and bulging arms?

And you know what was the weirdest thing? They showed a short video clip of each contestant before he or she came out. And they were showed at home and dressed in normal clothes. And they all looked so ordinary, especially the men, who were mostly dressed in turtlenecks. The contrast was freaking obvious. Men look so much better with their clothes on; a naked man looks more like a joke.

Anyway, I'm mightly pleased with Arts Central this hols. They have plenty of stuff lined up... there's even "A Streetcar Named Desire"! And "Never Been Kissed"! I'll be spoilt for choice...

2003-12-01T19:28:00.000+08:00

Which Sylvia Plath Poem Am I?

by echoing

So excuse me while I go makan men like air...

2003-12-01T11:22:00.000+08:00

One of those quiz things...
Don't usually like quizzes, but it sure beats getting back to Shakespeare...

Name : Ling...
Time started: Like, time of typing quiz or time of conception? (With this question slotted between "name" and "birthdate" the possibilities are... ambiguous)
Birthdate: 16/02/85
Righty or lefty: righty

~~~~~Your Looks~~~~~
Hair Colour: Black...
Eye Colour: One green eye and one blue
Do you wear contacts or glasses?: Why do you wanna know?
Do you have any piercings: Don't believe in paying people to poke holes in my body
Do you wear any rings: If I get married I will
What shoes do you wear: Comfortable ones

~~~~~Just Lately~~~~~
How are you today: Alive
What pants are you wearing: ooh... you really wanna know?
What shirt are you wearing: My shirt
What does your hair look like at the moment: Wet
What song are you listening to right now: the one in my head
What was the last thing you ate: breakfast?
How is the weather right now: COLD.
The last person you talked to on the phone: This is getting awfully boring

~~~~~More About You~~~~~
What are the last four digits of your phone?: Call me and find out
If you were a crayon what color would you be? Multicoloured pastel with an inner core of purplish black. No, I don't think they make crayons like that
Have you ever almost died: Not yet
Best advice anyone's given to you: "Never listen to your own advice". Nah... I made that up
What sport do you hate the most: Soccer, for a good reason
How many phones do you have in your house: Three
Do you have your own phone line: handphone
Animals: Do the fleas on my cat count?
Place for a dream house: Anywhere but here
Who would you tell your dreams to: A friend probably. But they're always changing
Who is the loudest friend: Kindly define "friend"
Who is the quietest friend: Ditto above

~~~~~You and Love~~~~~
Do you believe in love: On a good day
Do you believe in love at first sight?: Oh yeah... when I watch a movie
Do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend: Yes, you. / "All good men are either taken or gay"
Did you send this to your crush: No crush available (looks hopefully around)
What song do you want played at ur funeral: Just bury me and be done with it
Lights on/off: Depends on... when *suggestively*
Do you like snow, sun, rain: Sun. I cannot abide the cold
white or chocolate milk: Chocolate. Did you know that when I was young I thought chocolate milk came from brown cows? Blame it on the packaging
Mud or Jell-O wrestling: Jell-o...
Skiing or boarding: Skiing, thanks
Day or night: Depends on my mood
Cake or pie: Specify what cake and what pie
Diamond or pearl: Whatever goes with my outfit
Sunset or sunrise: I kinda regret doing this quiz. Is anyone even going to bother?

~~~~~~Have You Ever~~~~~
Loved someone so much it made you cry: I don't live in a soap.
Smoked: My ass... I've better things to do
Weed: I get high on chocolate alone
Time finished: 11.20 am

2003-11-29T13:45:00.000+08:00

You are naturally born with a gift, whether it be poetry, writing or song. You love beauty and creativity, and usually are highly intelligent. Others view you as mysterious and dreamy, yet also bold since you hold firm in your beliefs.

What Type of Soul Do You Have ?
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Found this on Nidhi's Friendster bulletin board. Hmm. Would love to start something like that ^_^

Continue the story...

Message: Hey guys think u are all familar with the "Continue the story" game. Let's try a new way: ani one can try add your line, your name beside it & repost the bulletin... but this time, the catch is only 3 words at a time (not one sentence). let our creativity flows and see wat kind of story we will end up with!!

here goes:
There once was - andy
a naked woman - stephy
so dangerously hairy - sharon
around her belly - Jesper
and her armpit - stella
and smelt like - Jeff
jit bu sai - Jessica
Wah Lan Eh !!! - Daniel
Along came someone - Afiq
A Naked man - Adam
who is muscular - GQ
but really brainless - GwenO
has body odour - EunicE
and a high forehead - jiawei
with tiny eyes - daniel
then they met - pauline
in a restaurant - anny
that is super crowded - siti
and tremendously stinky - huimin
A cocky waiter - Pet
with a mole - yvon
came up to them - Shirley
"What you want!!??" - Charlyn
N they Said.... - Cong
"A big Bowl - Shawn
of tom yam - Lynn
and apple juice - gloria
Now run along. - Michelle
"moooley moooley moooley!" - amritoz
cried the waiter - roshni
aka Austin Powers - Geraldine
minus the teeth - **GEE**
When the food came, - Eryan
they started crying - aishah
they cried because - akash
they found Nemo - Girish
in the soup - Aston
vigorously commiting suicide - Ramani
by eating his - Lavan
little smurf dick. - Vignesh
which he couldn't - Syahirah
really lick down - Pallavi
the right way - Nidhi

2003-11-28T12:51:00.000+08:00

Your soul is bound to the Yellow Rose: The Gentle.

"I've travelled through the land of surrender and seen it all. I throw my heart out and keep my head up, and now I travel through the land of peace."

The Yellow Rose is associated with friendship, intuition, and fun. It is governed by the goddess Hestia and its sign is The Intertwined Rings, or True Friendship.

As a Yellow Rose, you always look out for your friends. You would much rather have strong ties with friends than a single tie with a lover and your devotion to your friends is clear. You may have great intuition and be able to read emotions clearly, but sometimes you can seem distant yourself.

What Rose Is Your Soul Bound To?
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2003-11-27T19:41:00.000+08:00

Conclusion: shopping requires an awful lot of skill--

(The shawl must match the shoes or shoes match the jewelry and yet not look too contrived... the necklace must dangle if low neckline... the earrings must not take attention away from the necklace... and should they dangle or should they not and what colour should the bag be should there even be a bag? and can a grey shawl go with a red dress or a pink shawl with a cream dress etc etc etc............
and we haven't even covered the bargain hunting)

-- And needs huge amounts of probably the only kind of stamina that women in general have more than men.

2003-11-24T21:03:00.000+08:00

Heard a quote from an actor that if you say you want to do something, forget it. If you say you're going to do it, then you will. Alright--

This time round I am going to:

1. Thrash that -beep- Lit paper (or what's left of it) upside down. Have become rather depressed over Lit 1 and 3. In fact, so nervous about the upcoming PC paper that I'm dating Qinying on Wednesday to do essays on the spot.

2. Lose some weight for prom. No, obviously I am not being serious. Never could keep a diet for more than two weeks... I tend to hallucinate Oreos and dancing chicken wings. The last time I announced that I was on a diet was over a plate of char kway teow (with fried fish, I might add?)... and in my yearbook a friend wrote, "Do inform me when your diet really starts."

I haven't called her yet.

3. Develop my determination (ha ha).

4. Ride the biggest roller-coaster ever seen a few million gazillion times until I have to be helped home on wobbly legs. (*looks around* anyone coming? Bring taxi fare)

5. Make a few more resolutions that I am going to sound absolutely serious about and announce them to all the people who read my blog, then forget I ever said them.

6. Ditto above.

7. Do something crazy.
Did anyone read a book review in Life! recently...? it was on "This Diary Will Change Your Life" by Benrik. The crazy authors give you something crazy to do every single day of the year. My favourite:
(a) Count the number of vans you see on the way to work. (Or school, or prom, or whatever.)
(b) Multiply this number by three and divide by two.
(c) Buy the same number of chocolate bars.
(d) Give them out to people on the street.
(e) Note down exactly what they say to you.
(f) Write these remarks on individual pieces of paper and send them to random addresses in the phone book.
(g) Wait and see.

I think I might actually do that one ^_^

2003-11-21T10:45:00.000+08:00

(Please read right til the end)

"The emperor Tetrahedron lived in a palace made absolutely from elastic bands. To the right, cunning fountains shot elastic jets, subtle as silk; to the left, ten minstrels played day and night on elastic lutes.

The emperor was beloved by all.

At night, when the thin dogs slept, and the music lulled all but the most watchful to sleep, the mighty palace lay closed and barred against the foul Isoceles, sworn enemy to the graceful Tetrahedron.

But in the day, the guards pulled back the great doors, flooding the plain with light, so that gifts could be brought to the emperor.

Many brought gifts; stretches of material so fine that a change of the temperature would dissolve it; stretches of material so strong that whole cities could be built from it.

And stories of love and folly.

One day, a lovely woman brought the emperor a revolving circus operated by midgets. The midgets acted all of the tragedies and many of the comedies. They acted them all at once, and it was fortunate that Tetrahedron had so many faces, otherwise he might have died of fatigue.

They acted them all at once, and the emperor, walking round his theatre, could see them all at once, if he wished.

Round and round he walked, and so learned a very valuable thing:

that no emotion is the final one."

~taken from Oranges are not the only fruit by Jeanette Winterson; a story within a story

2003-11-21T09:44:00.001+08:00

Ling was
a Liberal Actor
in a past life.

Discover your past lives @ Quiz Me

That's kinda funny. Was just reading a book on Acting last night. Improbable as it may seem, I actually do have an interest in acting... not as a career or anything, but just a one-off onstage. That would be fun. I'd like to design the set too of course...

Li Ying was
an Educated Damsel In Distress
in a past life.

Discover your past lives @ Quiz Me

Har har. (sourly) So I try my other name, and this is what happens.

Btw guys... I joined Friendster today. Add me.

2003-11-19T11:31:00.000+08:00

Ok... an honest assessment of Lit 3.

Lit 3. Huh.

I had three papers, Plath, Pinter and Forster (which I did in that order). Pinter sucked. I wrote four pages three lines of absolutely nothing, which was a good practice in surrealism. I did the context, where Davies is going on and on about absolutely nothing (besides the clock)... and so I wrote absolutely nothing about that, and ooh, the time really flew. Talk about the clock.

Plath was fine; but I hardly did any paragraphing and kept referring to poems all over the place, which got me a little irritated. Nothing seemed to click tight, the way it has to when you do an essay right. Then I did Forster, and by this time I'd finally gotten over my nerves and was writing something really brilliant but as I got to the bottom of the fourth page, time ran out... though I'd said practically all what I wanted to say anyway.

Was it much better than the Lit 1? You know, I'm really not sure. By how much will Forster outweight Pinter? What if I end up with a "B"? Dear God, PLEASE DON'T LET ME GET A "B". An "A" would be really nice, thanks. But if I don't get there, if I don't deserve to get there, (but I really really really really studied........) PLEASE DON'T GIVE ME SOMETHING AS AMBIGUOUS AS A "B"; give me a "C" or something. Like, tell me I'm a loser and tell it to me straight. Don't smash me with a "IF I HAD DONE PINTER A LITTLE BETTER..."

Alright... and now I'll go on to thrash the Unseen paper, which I can't study for. And these dodos have actually scheduled it for next Thursday.

HOLIDAYS ARE OFFICIALLY HERE.
(Not that I want to rub it in for the rest of you... but hey, I do.)

2003-11-18T18:24:00.000+08:00

2003-11-15T17:57:00.000+08:00

Your magical style is Faery.

What type of Magic do you work?. Take the Magical Style Quiz by Paradox

2003-11-14T20:09:00.000+08:00

Oh my god. I can so totally connect to this.

MOM FINDS OUT ABOUT BLOG

MINNEAPOLIS, MN—In a turn of events the 30-year-old characterized as "horrifying," Kevin Widmar announced Tuesday that his mother Lillian has discovered his weblog.

Widmar, whose blog was recently discovered by his mother Lillian (inset).
"Apparently, Mom typed [Widmar's employer] Dean Healthcare into Google along with my name and, lo and behold, PlanetKevin popped up," Widmar said. "I'm so fucked."

In an e-mail sent to Widmar Monday, Lillian reported in large purple letters that she was "VERY EXCITED :)!!!" to find his "computer diary," but was perplexed that he hadn't mentioned it to her.

Upon receipt of the e-mail, Widmar mentally raced through the contents of his blog. He immediately thought of several dozen posts in which he mentioned drinking, drug use, casual sex, and other behavior likely to alarm his mother.

"I don't have one of those sites that's a big tell-all about one-night stands and wild parties," Widmar said. "I mostly write about the animation I like or little things that happen to me and my friends. But there are definitely things in there that I wouldn't, well, write home to Mom about."

Fortunately for Widmar, Lillian's comments about the site indicate that she has not delved deeply into its contents.

"Mom's main comment was that I look tired in the photos from my birthday party, so I'm guessing that she didn't get past the first page yet," Widmar said. "She will, though. She will."

Widmar said he expects his site to provide Lillian with ample cause for worry.

"Even on that benign front page, she found something to freak out about," Widmar said. "She read the entry for Monday, where I mentioned how much I hate my job, and e-mailed to say that she hoped I wasn't thinking of quitting in this economy."

"Mom had a fit when she found out that I put my television on my credit card," Widmar added. "If she reads about how I was with my friend Jayson when he got pulled over for drunk driving, I'll never hear the end of it."

"Oh God," Widmar said with a gasp. "Three days ago, I wrote something about buying pot!"

Widmar said that the idea of his mother immersing herself in the boring details of his life is just as frightening as the idea of her discovering his misconduct.

"Really, the blog is just a record of what I think about the world and how I spend my free time," Widmar said. "In other words, exactly the sort of information that no 30-year-old wants his mom to have access to."

Widmar said he imagines his inbox filling up with e-mails containing elaborate questions about an off-hand comment on Kill Bill—or, should he appear to have too much free time, requests for him to come and visit her.

"I know enough not to tell Mom that I'm seeing a girl until it's serious," Widmar said. "Now, she's going to know exactly who I hang out with, where I go, and what I spend my time doing on a daily basis. I am so in hell right now."

"God, my links alone contain unlimited fodder for Mom's neuroses," Widmar said. "She'll have access to not only my life, but the lives of all my friends who have web sites. She'll have the names of all the places in Minneapolis where we hang out, which she can—and will—look up. With the raw materials in my blog, she could actually construct an accurate picture of who I am. This is fucking serious."

"To think that I was happy that Mom was e-mailing instead of calling ever since [Widmar's sister] Karen got her online last year," he added. "I didn't see the danger."

According to Widmar, there's "no fucking chance" that Lillian will simply give the site a cursory look and never return.

"Mom loves hearing every boring detail of her kids' lives," he said. "She'd want to know what I'm eating for dinner every night, if she could. This blog is like porn for her."

"Come to think of it, why do I sometimes write about what I ate for dinner?" Widmar asked.

Seeing his blog through his mother's eyes, Widmar said he knows there's no way the site can remain unchanged.

"I know Mom will instantly become the site's most avid reader and most vocal fan," Widmar said. "As I write it, I'll think, 'How would Mom feel about this?' Even worse, I'm sure she'll give the address to all our relatives."

All of the tactics Widmar has considered to divert his mother seem unworkable.

"I could take it down for a few weeks, but I know she wouldn't just forget about it," Widmar said. "I could edit the site and send my other readers through a back door, to another blog just for them. But, I mean, that's just ridiculous."

If Widmar starts a blog at a new address, without his full name this time, he said he risks losing "close to 100" regular readers.

As of press time, Widmar had not decided whether to shut PlanetKevin down.

"The clock is ticking," Widmar said. "I've gotta act fast. At this very minute, she might be reading about the time I did Ecstasy last summer. If Mom finds that entry, I can pretty much count on our conversations for the next year being centered on the dangers of drug use."

2003-11-14T19:16:00.000+08:00

Personality Disorder Test Results

Paranoid	\|\|\|\|\|\|	26%
Schizoid	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	42%
Schizotypal	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Antisocial	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Borderline	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	38%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	74%
Narcissistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	62%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	62%
Dependent	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Obsessive-Compulsive	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%

Take Free Personality Disorder Test

Histrionic Personality Disorder - individual often displays excessive emotionality and attention seeking in various contexts. They tend to overreact to other people, and are often perceived as shallow and self-centered.

Avoidant Personality Disorder - individual is socially inhibited, feels inadequate, and is oversensitive to criticism

Dependent Personality Disorder - individual shows an extreme need to be taken care of that leads to fears of separation, and passive and clinging behavior.

Ah. So I have about three personality disorders???

... Lit 1 was over today. The questions were relatively easy, esp. if you consider that last year's A level Rossetti question was "How far would you agree that Rossetti's poetry is morbidly emotional?" or something to that effect. Therefore there was completely no reason for me to do what I did, i.e. freak out and waste HALF AN HOUR crossing stuff out and re-writing them.

This, owing to the fact that I chose to begin the Rossetti question first, as I normally score better for it than for Shakespeare. So I did the context question, but the problem was they asked how it was characteristic of her other works, whereupon I started off with a very essay-like intro. Shortly afterward I started feeling extremely disoriented as "This is an essay-essay type intro" + "This is a CONTEXT question" = "I must've done something WRONGGGG!!!!" threw me into a total panic. So I freaked, and I freaked, and my paper just about went out of the window next to which I was sitting.

It got so bad that I quit the Rossetti (after half an hour!!!) and started on Much Ado instead. And I was so jumpy about the time by then (we have one hour for each essay) that I didn't even plan... just read the question, highlighted parts of it, and hurled myself headlong. Thank goodness it went well... I didn't get to write much (four pages, in EXTREMELY LARGE handwriting) but managed to throw in some comparisons on Shakespeare's source stories, so with that bit of value-added I should do alright. I did the context for Othello as well... properly this time, thank goodness, and then wrote four pages for Rossetti in half an hour. I don't care that much for Shakespeare, as I usually pass it by about two marks. But then again I usually get an "A" on Rossetti to even it up. Now I will have to bank completely on Lit 3 and 8, and I'm not even sure if the same thing will happen again.

Lit 3 will be better Lit 3 will be better Lit 3 will be better.

(It can't get much worse.)

2003-11-07T18:27:00.000+08:00

You are too innocent and sweet for your own good.

Which Ultimate Beautiful Woman are You?
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Hmm I like the picture, even if I disagree with the words. There are people who can bear witness to the reality of my inner nature... if they still have their heads on that is.

... And I SWEAR that clocks were sadistic inventions created especially to torture students, who "absolutely have got to read this stack of notes by today", and then they look up at the clock and scream.

Exams on Monday. Tick-tock.

2003-11-04T18:23:00.000+08:00

I read your blog... which is the place I got these lyrics.

I wish I could help you feel better, that there was some instant magical pill or word or touch or at least a fail-proof lie detector. I wish that people could be what we believed them to be. I feel like crying for you right now, and I mean it, because you are the last person on earth to deserve all this...

I revise what I said, because I know you don't believe in just screaming and thrashing it all out (and look what you did to your wardrobe... got a sore toe). But after reading your blog I took a look at our e-mails too (I saved them as well) and I want you to know that YOU DID EVERYTHING RIGHT... you stuck to what you wanted and managed to overcome that fear at least for all this while -- now isn't that a triumph on your part? -- and you tried, you really really did try, despite all those emotional hurdles and everything, and IF THERE IS ONE PERSON IN THIS WORLD WHO OUGHT TO BE SHOT, IT SHOULD BE THAT CHEATING, LYING, LOW-LIFE TWO-TIMING SCUMBAG.

I hope that you will continue to believe in love, and hope, and trust, all those fast fading things. DON'T LET THAT BE SOMETHING ANYONE CAN EVER TAKE AWAY FROM YOU. LEAST OF ALL THAT EMOTIONAL FUCKWIT.

2 + 2 = 5
Radiohead

Are you such a dreamer
To put the world to rights
I'll stay home forever
Where two and two always makes a five

I'll lay down the tracks
Sandbag and hide
January has April showers
And two and two always makes a five

2003-11-03T12:30:00.000+08:00

My feelings toward the upcoming "A" level exams can basically be summed up by the chorus of REM's "End of the World":

It's the end of the world as we know it!
It's the end of the world as we know it!
It's the end of the world as we know it!
And I feel fine...

The only things I can ever get worked up and passionate and very, very perfectionistic about are things that really matter to me... and there are very few of them. (Though I feel very guilty about all the money my mom shells out for my education.) Granted, I like Math, and if you get me really drunk I might even say I like Econs... but Literature beats them all hands down.

(Speaking of Literature... the Lit dept in Hwa Chong has got to be the most laid back ever. This is by no means a criticism, because they have my full unadulterated approval. Ms Heng, who is by far the most disciplined one of them all, recently returned my Lit S prelim script marked entirely in pencil. The Lit dept has got the most life in them.)

And then there are my Lit S exams... which I don't have high expectations for. My sister was the star of her Creative Arts Program, she takes Literature in University and is among the best of her cohort, getting on the Dean's List three times... and she got an Ungraded for Lit S while she was in JC. Erika, my senior, was described fervently by Ms Lim as "amazing... she could eat, breathe, sleep and dream Lit" and yet she only got a Merit. I don't know about Ailin and Min, but Mi'er, Sijia and I discussed this once, and we all agreed that we didn't expect a Distinction in the slightest way. Then I said, "Don't you all think it's kind of sad? That we don't even expect that much from ourselves?" and Mi'er pointed out, very rightly (I've always remembered this...) that "I think it would be sadder if we did it for the sake of the Distinction."

Therefore Lit is the one and only thing that I study for the sake of enjoyment and not for the grade... which is a rare thing, nowadays. I fought so hard to take S Lit, and now that our class discussions are over, I've had all the fun I wanted. I even sort of enjoy writing the Lit S script itself; I like it all the better because I don't have to care whether I will score or not. If the examiners don't like what I say, they can kiss my fanny.

Alright... got to go feed the cat. Incidentally what I'm going to feed him is my lunch, because he has learned how to beg (reaching up to tap-tap my elbow while I'm eating)... in addition to opening cupboard doors and sleeping in the oven (by crawling through the ventilator).

2003-11-01T12:56:00.000+08:00

Update on my life:

Chocolate intake: sky-high
Food intake: down

Therefore by the principles of mathematical addition and subtraction,

Weight: Constant (assuming constant Marginal Propensity to Convert food into energy and also constant Marginal Propensity to Shit, and that chocolate and food are substitutable i.e. cross-elasticity more than 0)

Also, assuming 2-sector economy, I am helping the country raise its aggregate expenditure by consuming increasing output of chocolate. By ensuring that output does not exceed money supply, i.e. MV=PY, I am critical in preventing instability of economy.

Ah yes. Worthy member of society am I. I have found my purpose in life, and that is to consume chocolate.

2003-10-29T19:58:00.000+08:00

So this is two days early, but Happy Samhain, everybody. ^_^

(Halloween Flashers!!!)

... And now I had better stick to my vow and get back to studying.

2003-10-27T13:16:00.000+08:00

Bwahahahahaha... click here.

This was taken from Sillygirl.com:

I Want to be Six Again

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult, in order to accept the responsibilities of a 6 year old.

The tax base is lower. I want to be six again. I want to go to McDonald's and think it's the best place in the world to eat.

I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make waves with rocks. I want to think M&Ms are better than money, because you can eat them. I want to play kickball during recess and stay up on Christmas Eve waiting to hear Santa and Rudolph on the roof.

I long for the days when life was simple. When all you knew were your colors, the addition tables and simple nursery rhymes, but it didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care. I want to go to school and have snack time, recess, gym and field trips.

I want to be happy, because I don't know what should make me upset. I want to think the world is fair and everyone in it is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible.

Sometime, while I was maturing, I learned too much. I learned of nuclear weapons, prejudice, starving and abused kids, lies, unhappy marriages, illness, pain and mortality.

I want to be six again. I want to think that everyone, including myself, will live forever, because I don't know the concept of death. I want to be oblivious to the complexity of life and be overly excited by the little things again.

I want television to be something I watch for fun, not something used for escape from the things I should be doing. I want to live knowing the little things that I find exciting will always make me as happy as when I first learned them. I want to be six again.

I remember not seeing the world as a whole, but rather being aware of only the things that directly concerned me. I want to be naive enough to think that if I'm happy, so is everyone else. I want to walk down the beach and think only of the sand beneath my feet and the possibility of finding that blue piece of sea glass I'm looking for.

I want to spend my afternoons climbing trees and riding my bike, letting the grownups worry about time, the dentist and how to find the money to fix the old car.

I want to wonder what I'll do when I grow up and what I'll be, who I'll be and not worry about what I'll do if this doesn't work out. I want that time back.

I want to use it now as an escape, so that when my computer crashes, or I have a mountain of paperwork, or two depressed friends, or a fight with my spouse, or bittersweet memories of times gone by, or second thoughts about so many things, I can travel back and build a snowman, without thinking about anything except whether the snow sticks together and what I can possibly use for the snowman's mouth.

I want to be six again. This just happens to be one of those weeks that I would really, really like to be 6.

2003-10-26T20:30:00.000+08:00

I know that in this blog I have not always been happy. Or perhaps, to be precise, I have always wanted to wallow in that essence of a black mood because it helped me recover myself and go back to living elsewhere. What you see is not what you get. You know that.

But this time I cannot seem to fathom what I have done wrong. Nor can I understand why I get so upset over what some people would take as an ordinary part of life. So there was a misunderstanding between me and someone else. So she's the second person in a month who has entirely stopped talking to me without even giving a reason why. So what?

I cannot understand -- I cannot begin to understand -- why I can get so agitated over just one simple person ignoring me -- as though the world has turned from azure-blue to grey and suddenly started falling all about my ears. And why do I have to see myself standing by the wreckage -- and standing, and standing, and staring -- and not knowing what to do, not knowing what to say, I have hardly ever been so upset in my life and believe me that is saying something.

And that I feel as though the world has suddenly gone crazily out of my control -- I am over-sensitive, you say? Neurotic? Kicking too much of a fuss over nothing? -- But listen to this, wise guy: All my life I have based my actions, my feelings, my very existence on the fact that I am nice and kind to people and so they will always be my friends. Which is a flawed statement at best but this is what has formed my subconscious from an early age. I am terrified -- and I mean mortally terrified -- of any form of unkindness, of cruelty, of injustice. And somehow I feel -- and I realise that I have always felt -- that FORMING WORKABLE RELATIONSHIPS WITH PEOPLE IS ABOUT AS SAFE AS SWIMMING IN A SEA OF JELLYFISH. The minute I start feeling comfortable with a person -- just when I am happy and confident and my own person -- something always happens: minefields, booby traps, thumbtacks scattered underfoot. Do you blame me for hating people? Do you still blame me for hiding behind a computer screen and refusing action? Because the fact of life is this: people are always judging me, whether behind their smiles or their kindly words or whispering together in groups. Either that, or they love me and then leave me and I cannot tolerate loss any more than I can take change.

It is at times like this, really at times, that I start to see why people choose to shut themselves up in their own fantasies and dreamscapes, even going lunatic as a defense mechanism from the world. You may wonder why I am writing in such a style, full of analogy and metaphor and long, long sentences, separated carefully into paragraphs and punctuation marks. It is because right now my fingers are cold and I am shaking and somehow the two people I called will not take my calls and if I do not restrain myself through making my fingers and my mind dwell on each and every single word formed like this I am very very afraid that I WILL GO MAD I REALLY WILL GO MAD AND.

That one day I really will go mad.

2003-10-24T20:34:00.000+08:00

You are Form 6, Elfin: The Wyld.

"And The Elfin saw the evil and misjudgement in the world and shot her arrow at the sky. Bolts of lightning struck the earth and gave the world balance and growth."

Some examples of the Elfin Form are Demeter (Greek) and Khepry (Egyptian). The Elfin is associated with the concept of growth and balance, the number 6, and the element of water. Her sign is the half moon.

As a member of Form 6, you are a very balanced individual. You can easily adapt to most situations and you may be a good social chameleon. You aren't afraid of changes in your life, but sometimes you evolve too rapidly, leaving others to think that you are leaving them behind. Elfin are the best friends to have because they are open minded.

Which Mythological Form Are You?
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Oh ho. Balanced? Adaptable? Social chameleon?? Granted, sometimes I can be a rather balanced sort (read: impassive, apathetic) but I really have to challenge all that stuff about "adaptable" and "change". I do not take well to change. At all. Nor do I change very often... though I must note that everyone has facets of themselves that they don't always show. (To prove my point, just go read some people's blogs. I have been surprised more than once.)

Some interesting stuff: I got a free astrology report online a few years back, which told me what sign of the zodiac each planet was in when I was born (had to enter in the exact minute I was born, my location and so forth). Then, as taught, I matched each sign of the planet to its corresponding element. E.g. Taurus is under the rulership of Earth, Gemini, Aquarius and Libra are under Air, Pisces is under Water, Aries under Fire, and so on.

Turns out that I have 3 parts Water, 3 parts Air, 3 parts Earth -- A pretty balanced individual wouldn't you say -- and then AH-HA! Here comes the hitch: FOUR PARTS FIRE. I thought that was plain bull at the time, as I was 'neither very active nor passionate', but I've come to realise it was true all long. Or maybe it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Nevertheless, I'm rather impressed. You can get a report too at Astrology.net, if they still offer the service. It was quite some years ago.

2003-10-23T13:09:00.000+08:00

My subconscious mind has been acting up again, and this time it has been telling me to do something fun and positive that starts with the letter C. Hmm.

Why it should begin with a C is totally beyond me. At first I thought it was because C is a round and lively-looking letter, and besides it is three-quarters of the letter O which is the round, Zen-ish positive number of all positive numbers, the Zero. But then why didn’t my mind fix on O instead? Why C? And besides, there are a limited amount of activities that start with C. Card-collecting? Car-crashing? Cat-cuddling?

...Cooking Crispy Cow?...

What I’ve ended up doing so far, however, is econs Case-studying on the Closed economy (which is nowhere near fun and positive).

Words are funny. You ever really noticed them? These days I’ve gone to feeling that they are useful tools of expression, but sadly inadequate. (Thank you, Harold Pinter.) Still, they are quite fun to examine closely. From time to time I have little blank-out moments when I start to look at a word, really start to look at it, and I feel as though I’ve never seen it before. Words, for me, are emotion-laden. Most of the time, anyway. The word “cry”, for example, somehow looks upset because of the shape of the “r” right next to the “y”, and the “c” like a sad eye on a contorted face. “Sharp” looks just like itself because of the jutting-out ends on the “h” and the “p”, and somehow the rounder, softer “S” and “a” do nothing to smoothen it. “Smooth” is nice and pleasant because of the comforting and somehow maternal “oo” (read it aloud), and the word as a whole is rounded and positive-looking. But there are words which totally do not look like themselves: Take “sky”, for example. Too sharp and short and somehow rigid, even with its dragged-out “ky” sound.

Also, I was reading the introduction to my copy of "Jane Eyre" recently when I started wondering, not for the first time, about creating my own fantasy land(s) and epic stories like the Bronte siblings did when they were younger. Charlotte and Branwell, Emily and Anne created the worlds of Angria and Gondal respectively, complete with characters and complex stories from their own imaginations. I would like that. It is a lot less painless to live inside than outside, and a great deal less risky. Maybe I could come up with a totally insane, Alice-In-Wonderland-ish story about characters who did nothing but stuff beginning with C.

Yes, being shut up at home is driving me nuts.

I could start examining words which have two or three different meanings at the same time (think “mad”) to see what they look like, but I should be getting back to work. Haven’t done anything all day.

[Edit] ...Just realised the name "Clive" starts with a C. Suddenly the letter feels a lot less positive.

2003-10-20T14:33:00.000+08:00

The Moon: The moon signifies the subconscious, the dream world, imagination, fluctuation, intuition, occult power, hallucination, hidden forces, deception, and creativity. It denotes the subconscious, dreams, illusion, mystery, storms weathered, uncertainty, deception, a loved one's misfortune, or an emotional crisis.

Which Tarot Card Are You?
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Have to break my promise not to blog. We had literature class today... Ms Heng ended the session by letting us listen to a CD poetry reading of two poems by Pablo Neruda. This was one of them (the parts I love are in italics). Listening to it, I began to understand what they mean when they speak of poetry as a form of music...

POETRY
by Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

2003-10-13T23:51:00.000+08:00

Decided it was time for a change, hence new template. Not quite cheerful but I suppose I could always change it again later. "Solitary pair", huh? Didn't really like the word "solitary", thinking of it as ominous... and the only way I'm going to be a "pair" is if I turn full-blown schizophrenic... but well.

Getting more familiar with html, but had problems loading pic on the left. Many thanks to Ailin for her help. Apart from working on my template, I'm now going to "do a Qinying" i.e. you won't see me blog again until my A levels are over.

[Edit] Replaced "solitary pair" with a song Blanche was singing in Tennessee William's play, "A Streetcar Named Desire"; also made layout more cheerful-looking.

"Say, it's only a paper moon
Sailing over a cardboard sea--
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me

It's a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be--
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me..."

2003-10-11T11:43:00.000+08:00

Take the World of Darkness Quiz
by David J Rust

2003-10-08T16:04:00.000+08:00

Betty Friedan (author of “The Feminine Mystique”), Mi’er’s tagboard and Ailin’s blog have started me thinking on the issue of identity. I haven’t been able to write the passages composed in my head (on the bus) into coherence, so here are isolated fragments:

1. Suffice to say, if I were to ask “Who are you?” you would probably identify yourself as a role, a relation, or a function in society (so-and-so’s wife, a career woman, a carer and giver, etc). So what happens when these convenient handles break down, leaving you unlabelled? What happens to the “carer and giver” once she decides she needs, for her own sake, to be selfish? What is she then? For such “identifications” are very different from “identity”, and it is to break away from the former to search for the latter that we talk of “finding ourselves”…

2. In Pinter’s play “The Caretaker” we are never, as the audience, allowed to know the names of two out of the only three characters, effectively obscuring identity. Imagine the audience as they come out of the theatre. When they discuss, how would they discuss it? “Oh I was quite impressed by that guy… you know, the-one-with-the-statue-of-Buddha?” “Oh, you mean the-one-who-never-says-anything?” “Oh no, that was the-one-who-owns-the-Buddha, I’m referring to the-one-who-breaks-the-Buddha, you know, the fierce-one-with-the-electrolux?”

…what a mess (muddle?) life would be, without these identifications. Even if you’re nameless, you’re either labeled through your actions and possessions, or you’re branded by your lack of it. The central character in the movie “Hero” was known as “Nameless”. In this instance, the lack of identification becomes the identification.

3. I have always thought that identity was a lot more internal than external; involving a sense of self. But this sense of self is not a constant feeling; especially not when the self has been cultivated and shaped to exist and get along with society. Every day you redefine yourself when you react to something or someone you thought you would react to in some other way. Every day there are new pressures, new demands. The external becomes the internal, and hence, identity is a nebulous and shifting presence that cannot quite be pinned down.

4. I like myself for the way that I am, insecurities and all; even if I do think too much sometimes, and it depresses me. But: I am well aware that if I wasn’t able to think the way I do, I would no longer be me. It makes me wonder about Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. Is my sense of identity the way I can think about, feel about, and hence perceive the rest of life? Perhaps so; but is that everything identity is? Perhaps not. Perhaps identity simply is… and it is not anything we can define or identify. Perhaps identity is simply “I AM THAT I AM” (God), though that would be far too inconvenient as an external label.

2003-10-05T12:59:00.000+08:00

Taken from Bizarro.com:

The Bunny of Exuberance

In all of us resides a little child with an overwhelming sense of wonder and exuberance for life. As we grow older, our hearts, minds and souls harden and become brittle. Some even mildew. ...The bunny, peeking its cute little furry head up from some unexpected place, is that child within you. The child that you used to be: frightened, loving, innocent, immature, hyperactive, unable to control your bladder, unafraid to throw a screaming temper tantrum in public. We must all stay in touch with the bunny inside us at all costs.

Activity to improve Bizarro awareness:

Print out dozens of copies of the bunny and hide him in unlikely places throughout the day. Whenever someone comes across the bunny and asks about it, encourage them to abandon self-consciousness and act childishly along with you. A good place to begin is by playing naked in a public fountain.

2003-10-04T13:15:00.000+08:00

... Something very interesting: The "lengthy conversations in [my] imagination" (see below) mostly involve some me screaming or smashing or otherwise cutting and destroying things (including myself - I seem to favour large knives and guns). Now where did all my anger come from? Upon further reflection it seems that I am constantly angry... but at who? Or what?

Mi'er introduced an idea to me yesterday which I find extremely appealing: destruction for the sake of art. E.g. smashing a mirror or photo frame and sketching it... what I really like about this is you get to destroy something in order to create it in another form. I wonder if it works for the soul, like a kind of psychic burning or purging. (I wonder if you know what I'm talking about, but I think Sylvia Plath probably would understand.)

I would really like to destroy something right now, anything, just smash or hurl or rip and let fly... without having to apologise or pay for it afterwards.

Personal Growth Recommendations for Enneagram Type Fours

(Putting this down so as to remember it permanently)

Avoid putting off things until you are "in the right mood." Commit yourself to productive, meaningful work that will contribute to your good and that of others, no matter how small the contribution may be. Working consistently in the real world will create a context in which you can discover yourself and your talents. (Actually, you are happiest when you are working—that is, activating your potentials and realizing yourself. You will not "find yourself" in a vacuum or while waiting for inspiration to strike, so connect—and stay connected—with the real world.

Self-esteem and self-confidence will develop only from having positive experiences, whether or not you believe that you are ready to have them. Therefore, put yourself in the way of good. You may never feel that you are ready to take on a challenge of some sort, that you always need more time. (Fours typically never feel that they are sufficiently "together," but they must nevertheless have the courage to stop putting off their lives.) Even if you start small, commit yourself to doing something that will bring out the best in you.

Avoid lengthy conversations in your imagination (AACK!!! How did they find out?)particularly if they are negative, resentful, or even excessively romantic. These conversations are essentially unreal and at best only rehearsals for action—although, as you know, you almost never say or do what you imagine you will. Instead of spending time imagining your life and relationships, begin to live them.

2003-10-01T09:21:00.000+08:00

Am going to do a drawing of Delirium. And I'm going to be my own model, with the help of a mirror. A model of Delirium. Does that mean anything to you?

"i wish that my fortune was told a long time ago by a set of poker cards, set into sequence by the joker and revealed to me in a sticky bun book."

Ailin, how I wish so too. Sometimes I feel that life is just a meaningless banal round of nothing where I am on a dream island, alone, playing Solitaire. And the people around me, or the relationships I once valued, are just wisps... of my imagination, of nothing...

and then finally I die and I can see that there is nothing left, that there was never anything in the first place.

2003-10-01T09:06:00.000+08:00

Word of the Day for Wednesday October 1, 2003

atrabilious \at-ruh-BIL-yuhs\, adjective:
1. Melancholic; gloomy.
2. Irritable; ill-natured; peevish.

... Huh.

This has been a detestably awful day, signalling the start of a detestably awful week, which I suppose is a natural consequence of having a detestably awful life.

And happy Children's Day to my inner child, which I feel like hacking with a million sharp knives into a thousand tiny little pieces and weighing them down with a large rock before throwing the whole lot into the sea as fish food.

2003-09-28T19:42:00.000+08:00

FEVER 103

Sick today. Absolutely sick. Feel awful. According to aunt, who just came to drop by tub of chocolate ice-cream which I'm forbidden to eat, look awful too. Been lying in bed reading Bridget Jones' Diary. Complete Works of William Shakepeare lying on chair by bedside taunting me. Oh God. Lit S exam tomorrow. Oh God. With all the humanities people who are sure to score more than an ungraded. Oh God Oh God Oh God. Not that I mind being ungraded. In fact it's expected. I just don't like the vision I have of my lit teachers poring over my script and shaking their heads saying "We should never have let this girl take Lit S. What will the Cambridge Examiners think?" Oh God. What will my examiners think? Screwed up normal Lit paper one last week all except for Rossetti question. Do not like Shakespeare. Do not like Shakespeare. Do not like Shakespeare. Shakespeare is brilliant. Why do we have to ruin that fine opinion by studying him??!! Getting back GP prelim right before Lit S. Just what I need. Forty minutes in between both for me to freak out, recover, and freak out. Screwed up GP and I mean really really badly. Cat has been drinking defiantly from tabletop fountain. Won't be stopped. Must change water. Maybe water bowl has algae. Must scrub algae. Want chocolate ice cream. Want chocolate. Waistline has been expanding to previously unconceived proportions, inversely related to size of brain. Can't think properly any more. Arrgh.

2003-09-23T19:47:00.000+08:00

Just read a passage in the foreword to "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams:

In fact, I can't expose a human weakness on the stage unless I know it through having it myself. I have exposed a good many human weaknesses and brutalities and consequently I have them.

...If there exists any area in which a man can rise above his moral condition, imposed upon him at birth, and long before birth, by the nature of his breed, then I think it is only a willingness to know it, to face its existence in him, and I think that, at least below the conscious level, we all face it.

Talked to Mi'er for a really long time today and part of it was about all the things I'm scared of, particularly other people. Now I wonder if... instead of training to be thick-skinned or always trying to improve myself and trying to measure up in the eyes of other people... perhaps the answer lies simply in the word ACCEPT.

There has to be a certain improvement of things, in every matter... but sometimes, I think, there is a time to be content with the mere "willingness to know [one's own flaws], to face its existence". More importantly, it is due to flaws that I can try for something much more important to me: UNDERSTANDING. It lends me to something that I prize equally highly: my ability to write and do literature, to connect with people and emotions.

If this is the exchange needed, then I am, in retrospect, perfectly happy with all these flaws already in existence. All what I would require would be an awareness of them.

2003-09-21T19:13:00.000+08:00

what warning label are you?

(Cool... I like that)

Walked into a Kodak shop today to laminate a photo of Miaka ^_^ which I'm keeping in my purse. Yes, the cat-obsessed me. Anyway, I caught sight of a really enthusiastic-sounding ad for photo frames:

"Be nice and frame everybody. Someday they might frame you too!"

That would look really good hanging from some lawyer's office wall...

Yes... and while I was being served there was another girl behind me who kept sighing, tapping her feet, and otherwise fidgeting. I considered telling her off for a while, but managed to keep my tongue in check. Then, just as the photo emerged from the laminating machine, she stared at it and went "Wow. That's a beautiful cat. Are his eyes really gold?"

... And I decided that I quite liked her after all. =p

2003-09-21T01:23:00.000+08:00

1.10 am, and surviving on coffee and Rossetti in preparation for the Lit paper 1 exam. Rant warning: reading through my Rossetti file has not put me in a good mood. No one should EVER go through too much Rossetti at one go; I used to like her before this. Now I think her poetry is so darn optimistic, I can hardly breathe.

I mean I have nothing against Rossetti as a poet. As a poet, if I sidestep for a moment all her more religious poetry, she actually does fine—I have quite a few favourites in “A Pause of Thought”, “Mirage”, “The Heart Knoweth Its Own Bitterness” etc. What I really dislike (in a mild sense) is the woman herself, the person, who seems to me not to be aware that she is a person. Renounce, renounce, renounce… I think Rossetti is one darn heck of a repressed woman, and having to plough my way through pages and pages of renunciation and restrained emotions is making me feel seriously repressed myself. Everything is God this and God that which I (excuse me here) absolutely cannot connect to and, even if I am in no position to criticize, her own brother and critic commented that she ceased to be able to think for herself… nothing was “wrong” or “right” in her own terms, all was left to whether or not it conformed to Anglican beliefs. I absolutely cannot see why she is so well admired, and yet for the convenience of getting a good grade I have to grit my teeth and lie through them, and do it terribly well into the bargain.

Has she ever thought that if the sole purpose of life was to long and pray for the day she could “renunciate” everything and be reunited with her precious God again… then what was she given life in the first place for?

...Though I suppose I should have better things to do with my time, than get irritated with people who died like, oh, just a couple of centuries ago.

2003-09-19T20:34:00.000+08:00

Been feeling utterly restless all day; curbed it for the time being by buying a colourful Happyhouse pin for my bag. Buying things when I’m in a state of bad spirits has been a habit since I was young. It doesn’t solve anything, but looking at pretty things make me happy. And it’s a whole lot better than binge eating, which I’m starting to do again. I must watch it.

My sister left for Leeds University, UK on an exchange program just days ago. I don’t miss her – this may be blunt, but at least it’s honest – I mean it would be nice if she’s here, but I never talk to her much anyway. Still, I suspect it’s the reason for this restlessness – this awful itch that won’t go away – settling like a deep sand into my bones. My mom has become increasingly busy with her work these days, and this being the eighth month (an auspicious number) she’s out about two or three times every week for wedding dinners. She’s worried how I’m taking it. What can I say? I’m not a stranger to eating by myself – but eating dinner at home, alone, with only the television and the hi-fi blasting away at the same time – it simply smacks too much of that time before.

I’ve been left behind, somehow. Overlooked.

Of course this isn’t the reality of things. Of course my mom feels guilty too; she’s my mother. My sister probably isn’t feeling too good herself in a new country full of strangers. But that’s a reality ascribed by the intellect, and if there’s something I’ve learned in life, it’s that what I feel is what I feel… no amount of reason can affect it. I can’t help feeling left out. I can’t help feeling all over again that there’s something jarringly wrong that I either can’t or simply won’t do anything about. When I’m say I’m ok, do you think I’m really ok? Think again.

Yet what else would I say?

I could say I minded. My mom’d cancel dinner arrangements if I just said the word. And then what then? And then I’d lock myself up in my room reading or studying – I’ve exhausted my entire supply of books, I should start on my Shakespeare soon – and my mom would stay downstairs watching VCDs and singing to herself, popping in from time to time to ask if I need a drink or a cookie or something. Nice and kind, but ineffectual. Does it make a difference?

Nothing seems to work any longer.

This is not a home, and school doesn’t give much reason for one to feel optimistic either. I’m starting to have that feeling again – that pining, hopeless, intense wanting for something that I can’t even name. And all I can do now is buy things that look pretty.

2003-09-18T19:20:00.000+08:00

Somehow I've a feeling Mi'er will like this... *grin*

You Don't Love Me Anymore
By Weird Al Yankovic

We've been together for so very long
But now things are changing, oh I wonder what's wrong
Seems you don't want me around
The passion is gone and the flame's died down

I guess I lost a little bit of self-esteem
That time that you made it with the whole hockey team
You used to think I was nice
Now you tell all your friends that I'm the Antichrist

Oh, why did you disconnect the breaks in my car?
That kind of thing is hard to ignore
Got a funny feeling you don't love me anymore

I knew that we were having problems when
You put those piranhas in my bathtub again
You're still the light of my life
Oh darling, I'm beggin', won't you put down that knife?

You know, I even think it's kinda cute the way
You poison my coffee just a little each day
I still remember the way that you laughed
When you pushed me down that elevator shaft

Oh, if you don't mind me asking, what's this poisonous cobra
Doing in my underwear drawer?
Sometime I get to thinking you don't love me any more

You slammed my face down on the barbecue grill
Now my scars are all healing, but my heart never will
You set my house on fire
You pulled out my chest hairs with an old pair of pliers

Oh, you think that I'm ugly and you say that I'm cheap
You shaved off my eyebrows while I was asleep
You drilled a hole in my head
Then you dumped me in a drainage ditch and left me for dead

Oh, you know this really isn't like you at all
You never acted this way before
Honey, something tells me you don't love me any more, oh no no
Got a funny feeling you don't love me anymore

2003-09-17T18:47:00.000+08:00

Did this poem in the Prac Crit exam today - loved it! ^_^

Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town
by E. E. Cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed (but only a few)
and down they forgot as up they grew
(autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then) they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

2003-09-17T09:38:00.000+08:00

free enneagram test

Profile Summary for the Enneagram Type Four

Healthy: Self-aware, introspective, on the "search for self," aware of feelings and inner impulses. Sensitive and intuitive both to self and others: gentle, tactful, compassionate. / Highly personal, individualistic, "true to self." Self-revealing, emotionally honest, humane. Ironic view of self and life: can be serious and funny, vulnerable and emotionally strong. At Their Best: Profoundly creative, expressing the personal and the universal, possibly in a work of art. Inspired, self-renewing and regenerating: able to transform all their experiences into something valuable: self-creative.

Average: Take an artistic, romantic orientation to life, creating a beautiful, aesthetic environment to cultivate and prolong personal feelings. Heighten reality through fantasy, passionate feelings, and the imagination. / To stay in touch with feelings, they interiorize everything, taking everything personally, but become self-absorbed and introverted, moody and hypersensitive, shy and self-conscious, unable to be spontaneous or to "get out of themselves." Stay withdrawn to protect their self-image and to buy time to sort out feelings. / Gradually think that they are different from others, and feel that they are exempt from living as everyone else does. They become melancholy dreamers, disdainful, decadent, and sensual, living in a fantasy world. Self-pity and envy of others leads to self-indulgence, and to becoming increasingly impractical, unproductive, effete, and precious.

Unhealthy: When dreams fail, become self-inhibiting and angry at self, depressed and alienated from self and others, blocked and emotionally paralyzed. Ashamed of self, fatigued and unable to function. / Tormented by delusional self-contempt, self-reproaches, self-hatred, and morbid thoughts: everything is a source of torment. Blaming others, they drive away anyone who tries to help them. / Despairing, feel hopeless and become self-destructive, possibly abusing alcohol or drugs to escape. In the extreme: emotional breakdown or suicide is likely. Generally corresponds to the Avoidant, Depressive, and Narcissistic personality disorders.

Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a "rescuer".

Examples: Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morrisette, Joseph Fiennes, Bob Dylan, Johnny Depp, Anne Rice, J.D. Salinger, Anaîs Nin, Marcel Proust, Tennessee Williams, Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf, Judy Garland, "Blanche DuBois" (Streetcar Named Desire).

Addictions: Over-indulgence in rich foods, sweets, alcohol to alter mood, to socialize, and for emotional consolation. Lack of physical activity. Bulimia. Depressants. Tobacco, prescription drugs, or heroin for social anxiety. Cosmetic surgery to erase rejected features.

My next closest type: Type 2 (The Helper)
Addictions: Abusing food and over-the-counter medications. Bingeing, especially on sweets and carbohydrates. Over-eating from feeling "love-starved." Hypochondria to look for sympathy.

2003-09-15T17:36:00.000+08:00

Just came back from five hours fifteen minutes of pushing a pen across the paper, trying to see what divine inspiration might guide me to reveal... it's not automatic writing, it's called the Prelim Exams.

Maths and Econs paper 3 on the same day... wanted to begin the exams with a Big Bang, did we?? The timetable planners are either Really Sadistic, or they happen to think people don't actually need to study for Math. Well, sorry folks. Thank you for the touching amount of faith in me. I happen to have a reason to be in "Maths Special Class", and it's not S paper, yes? At least I hear from Shu that the RJ timetable is not much better... in fact, they seem to be almost identical.

Listening to Jay Chou now... what is best translated as "Clear Day" is a really good song. Really good. Quite surprising, coming from the King of Mumblers *ducks from Jay-Chou fan assaults* Well, at least I have a break tomorrow before the Lit papers start, which is a relief really. And I actually look forward to Lit, which is at least something that I can actually have expectations about, from myself. Still as I told Hanjie, after the Math paper this morning, I've reached a state of "enlightened detachment" ^_^; which I doubt was what the Buddhists were talking about, but well.

Good luck, good luck all those who are having exams... and if you are... *WHACK* *WHACK* What are you doing surfing blogs?? Get back to studying!

2003-09-09T18:08:00.000+08:00

Word of the Day for Monday September 8, 2003

defenestrate \dee-FEN-uh-strayt\, transitive verb:
To throw out of a window.

Alright, so this "of the day" is one day late, but then I've never had much of a notion of time (just like my sense of direction... wait a minute WHAT sense of direction... hmm)

Some of his apparent chums . . . would still happily defenestrate him if they caught him near a window.
--Andrew Marr, "No option bar the radical one," [1]Independent, July 5, 1994

I defenestrated a clock to see if time flies!
--Lane Smith, quoted in "Who's News," [2]Time for Kids, September 25, 1998

Ling would, owing to a day of hopeless non-directional studying punctuated by fretful fits of Oreo cookies, dearly love to defenestrate all her Econs and Math books out of the nearest window.
--Ling, quoted in blog "*~Constellation v 3.0~*," [3] September 9, 2003

I've been spending my happy time reading people's blogs instead of studying, owing to a persistent inability to concentrate, owing to my cat's disappearance over the last 24 hours and 47 minutes. Somehow I can't shake the feeling that this is a punishment I deserve for being too attached to something, and then my "intellect, re-awakening" points out the futility and wrongness of this statement, and then I mope around the house and eat cookies on the stairs thinking of how my cat used to sleep there in the afternoons, and then over and over again, on my "sterile round".

Qinying's blog has been quite interesting - yeah I think "My Papa's Waltz" is talking about child abuse and let me guess, the person "C" was Chee Keong right? I was pretty amused over your

...nearly chose "Can a weblog ever replace a personal diary" question for essay, but passed it over cause I know I'll be rambling about intruding of privacy by sneaky surfers who type in your name and BONKERS! Found it your private and public diary, or you might encounter the frightful possibilities of having your life story being made into a movie.

Heh. Hey I wouldn't mind that happening... if that was the worst that could happen. =p You and Mi'er have the disadvantage of being found easily through your nicknames... but type "Ling" into any search engine and a million and one irrelevant searches spring up (I haven't found myself yet, Ailin how did you manage?) including someone known as "Samantha Ling the Merciless" who is an artist... not bad eh? ^_^

Alright. Guess I better get back to Lit (which I chose to study today, seeing it's the only subject I can still absorb with interest in a semi-conscious state).

2003-09-08T12:56:00.000+08:00

Mad Hatter Day

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

~ Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Today is officially Mad Hatter Day. For me, that is. I got that term from (surprise!) Alice In Wonderland, where Alice visits the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. (And then there's the Dormouse, of course, but seeing that he's hardly conscious...) These guys are sitting around a table full of tea-things, and every few minutes they pop up like a couple of cuckoos to change chairs. That's what I'm doing today.

I'm sitting at my dining room table, which is round with six seats. At one chair I have: a huge file of Econs notes and a scroll of brown paper to draw graphs on... next chair I have E.M. Forster's A Passage To India... turn around and you see a bright Pink Econs tys... next chair there's my Maths tys... and rounding up, taking two seats, there's my stack of Math prelim papers, of which I have only done one. (And very badly too.)

And right in the middle of this temple of study is-! *drumroll* A packet of Oreo cookies, which acts as a stimulant. Why only one? Because right before I'd even started... I devoured two out of sheer panic at the sight of so much paper.

Yes. I think I better get back to it now. Just looking at my table is enough to drive me into a frenzy (and it's not the Oreo cookies, unfortunately).

"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

2003-09-04T20:33:00.000+08:00

Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.

~ William Congreve, "The Mourning Bride"

Ah, yes. The whole Clive business. I came to school feeling all bright and chirpy and, as Wanyu and Joyce told me, positively radiant. I gathered Hanjie and Kah Yin - Joanna and Mi'er were late for school - and filled my file with GP notes to make my file twice as heavy. Then I set off towards the S7 class bench.

It was really, really funny cos' I was behind him at first. (There was only one friend beside him, pity there weren't more, but I hated to be kept waiting) So I thought, as I towered over him like a malevolent spirit, that "perhaps I shouldn't attack him from behind" - not a very gentlemanly, whoops, gentlewomanly thing to do. (Not that anything I intended to do was going to be very gentle, but then.) So out loud I said, rather prosaically,

"You had better turn around now."

He turned.

WHAM!

Lovely lovely effect it had... Hanjie and Kah Yin, who were both watching from a safe few metres behind, told me there was an echo. AN ECHO!!! ^_- (I didn't hit him on the head after all because Mi'er and my aunt convinced me I might get into trouble for assault... instead I settled for somewhere between his back and his arm.) Furthermore they both said they'd never seen me move so fast, or hit anything so hard. I don't even give it my all like that when playing tennis! Then I told him everything I'd prepared myself to say, namely, that he was a fucked up miserable piece of shit and if he dared tell any more people who I was, I would make the rest of his life look as ugly as his face.

Mmm. I feel good. I feel really really good!

The state of euphoria wore off somewhat during the course of the day. Sure it was fun, but calming down, I had to acknowledge that I created this whole mess. I began it in childishness - I ended it in childishness ("Let's-Play-Payback-Time"). Sure, he did do something wrong... but if I hadn't started it in the first place, I wouldn't have done all this to myself. By the time I knew what he was doing - telling every idiot friend of his how to recognize me - I couldn't possibly have taken it lying down.

Yeah. So that's the end of the story for you. Next time, please God, I will NEVER. EVER. LIKE ANYONE AGAIN. Maybe I should turn lesbian *looks around* Any takers?

The End

2003-09-03T18:51:00.000+08:00

Happy Prelims, everybody.

My General Paper starts tomorrow. Still, I'm rather anticipating the day, looking forward to the moment I can MARCH UP AND WHACK CLIVE ON HIS (hairless, unprotected) HEAD. Half of me is hoping I'll ruin his GP for the day, but the other half of me (namely, the little fluttering thing on my right shoulder called Conscience) hopes that it won't affect him... too badly.

If you're wondering about the sudden outburst - I was walking to the LT on Thursday afternoon when I passed by a group of guys and one of them exclaimed so loudly, "HEY ISN'T THAT THE GIRL WHO LIKES CLIVE"... sure, I'm the one who started all this nonsense and sure, I did know all this was going on before, but THIS IS THE LAST STRAW.

I am going to slam my file on his head and issue him a warning, right in front of all his friends. So there.

2003-08-28T23:48:00.000+08:00

I used to want to avoid anger. Now I think I actually enjoy it.

At any rate, it makes me feel a lot less helpless... and it tells me I'm still alive. Which isn't often. Anger is a far better alternative than say, depression. ("False grief", I read, aka depression, is actually a smokescreen for anger especially for women, who aren't encouraged to show their anger in public.) I'll take the anger, anytime.

A friend told me this morning that two other classmates had been gossiping about me... people that I'd confided in cos' I thought they were friendly and, well, harmless. Apparently not. They know about an eighth of what happened to me and now they're assuming I cried the entire day for that reason. Excuse me? So now they're saying I'm pathetic, but bloody shit, they haven't even begun to scrape the surface of what I was upset about. My friend warned me not to be too trusting, about some things.

It got me wondering.

I've spent years and years of my life, really, in what can be termed no more than a sweet-little-girl act. Which basically consists of shutting up good, saying "yes" to everything, sitting down, behaving, and being ingratiatingly polite. So I thought I'd turn into a sweet-little-lady, like my mom, then a sweet-little-old-lady; always nice, always negligible, always in the background - cos' by God, at least that's somewhere safe. You don't get into the line of fire by camouflaging yourself. That's what I always thought.

It's not been working very well.
(Understatement.)

After some time I've started to see that NO MATTER WHAT I DO... there will always be something about me that rubs people the wrong way, something that they can tease me about, something I will never be able to get right no matter how hard I try. There will always be people who, unimpressed with the way I stay out of everyone else's line of vision, condemn me privately behind my back. I honestly, honestly thought that people would treat me the way I treated them. I never bitch behind anyone's back, because I don't like the way it feels. Yet that doesn't stop anyone from doing it to me.

So I've done all that to restrict and contain myself, I've tried to blend in and fit in... to what avail? At what price?

... There are going to have to be some big changes around here.

2003-08-26T18:09:00.000+08:00

The Law of Karma
What goes around comes around. That includes everything good, bad, and awfully, awfully freaky.

I found Ailin's bloggy on Google.com today, which is a search engine that works Rather Too Well. Then I sms-ed Ailin telling her Hey! I've found her blog! And then guess what! Ailin knows this blog too... through Google. Karma's a bit too efficient for my taste.

Alright, I'm honestly fine with the thought of Ailin knowing my blog address; I would've given it to her myself anyway. The only thing is: This spawns *gasp!* a whole host of *gasp!* fearful thoughts of *gasp!* PEOPLE WHO WALK AROUND ME *gasp!* KNOWING EXACTLY WHAT IS *you get the idea...(!)* GOING ON INSIDE MY HEAD, KNOWING THAT I DON'T KNOW THAT THEY KNOW. This is terribly, terribly, GETTING TO ME. Due to too much caffeine, lack of sleep, and intense, gnawing paranoia, this is what I'm going to ask you to do:

This is a list of people I personally KNOW whom I explicitly gave my blog address to. (Minus Ailin, of course.) - Mi'er, Qinying, Shu Han, Serene, Grace, Yanxiang, the whole of T3, Tee Kian, Yihua, Janise, Joanne, Yahui, Junhui, Wanyu. If I missed anyone out, PLEASE don't hate me. And if you're not -! HANDS UP! DROP ALL PRETENSES AND TURN TO FACE THE WALL! THEN SIGN YOUR NAME IN UNDER "Comments"!

2003-08-26T15:58:00.000+08:00

Your name of Li Ying creates a desire to be of service to others, but its practicality and attention to detail restrict spontaneity. This name creates much frustration, nervous tension, and personal unhappiness because you are not able to realize your ambitions and ideals. You desire your life to be orderly and systematized and you keep your surroundings neat and tidy, but others often see you as fussy over little things. You are a patient person and you will work hard one step at a time to accomplish your endeavours. You tend to be thorough in building a solid foundation of fact and logic, but are not inclined to pursue inspirational or creative expression as in music or the arts. (Ling: Man, that is SO wrong.) As you have modest ambitions, you are content to live from day to day and to save for your future. You budget carefully and do not believe in frivolous spending. You appreciate a settled home environment that permits you to show your love for friends and family through what you do for them rather than having to express your feelings in words.(WRONG NUMBER... yoo-hoo...) Friction in association could result if you are critical of those who do not live up to your regard for system and detail. Your health could be affected by disorders affecting the intestinal tract.

Your name of Ling contains many fine qualities: musical and artistic ability, good business judgment, and a sense of responsibility for the welfare of others. This makes you warm-hearted and understanding in your response to the needs and interests of those around you. You are always ready to help those in less fortunate circumstances. Your insistence on becoming involved in the affairs of others can cause them to regard you as interfering, even though you are only trying to help. A weakness lies in the fact that you are deeply affected through your feeling for others and could suffer through worry and disturbed thoughts over matters that you can do nothing about. While you have an appreciation for the finer things of life and could be successful along inspirational as well as business or professional lines of endeavour, there is a tendency to become involved in the needs and interests of others to the detriment of your own progress. Home and family are important to you and you desire to establish a settled home environment where you can enjoy the congenial companionship of friends and family. Mental tension could result through worrying too much over your problems or the problems of others, with an adverse effect on your nervous system.

...Yes. That was much better. See why I need a nickname?

Now let me just try the other name...

2003-08-26T08:38:00.000+08:00

I HATE SPAM.

The next time I get any more e-mails labelled "Being massive inside her is good" or "Enlarge your member now" (to use the correct spelling, which, obviously, they don't) ...I AM GONNA FLIP.

Anything they suggest doing to me would, also quite obviously, take a HELLUVA LOT OF WORK cos', you assholes. I am a GIRL. And no, I do not need to "make HER happy all night". I am quite hopelessly heterosexual. [Edit] No... make that VERY hopelessly heterosexual.

ARRGH.

2003-08-23T23:57:00.000+08:00

Angel of Protection.

What kind of Angel are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

... Does that mean I'm supposed to be that statue over there, the one that looks like half his head is split off?

Talk about an ugly dude...

2003-08-21T14:38:00.000+08:00

I don't...

...Need to hear one more time that I should give up what I feel. I don't need to hear that my plans to be in any art school at ALL are fundamentally flawed. I don't need to hear any more iterations about scholarships and portfolios and questions about what I'm going to do after I graduate. I don't need to hear about the immense workload that comes with juggling both a LaSalle part-time diploma and a NUS Literature degree at the same time. I especially do not need to know that I've never been any good at juggling, or that (out of the mouth of my CT) I've never seemed an especially motivated worker. I don't want to hear about the economy downturn in Singapore and how Singaporeans have no interest in art in the first place. I don't need to know about the distance between NUS and LaSalle and the amount of time I will wear myself out travelling. I don't need to hear that I am hopelessly idealistic, terribly naive, and worse of all, IMPRACTICAL. I don't need to know that not only are my family members not behind me, even my friends suggest that I stop banging my head against the wall and major in, oh, econs or business management or something.

I don't need to know all this, because believe it or not, I HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT IT, AND I CAN DO IT.

All what I want is for someone to believe in me.

2003-08-19T18:57:00.000+08:00

"Oranges and lemons," say the bells of St Clement's,
"You owe me three farthings," say the bells of St Martin's,
"When will you pay me?" say the bells of Old Bailey,
"When I grow rich," say the bells of Shoreditch.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

This is such a beautifully sinister rhyme, not when you read it for the first time in this way, but when you see it in Orwell's 1984. We just finished that for S Lit yesterday, together with Animal Farm, and by next week we have to read a heck of a lot of Orwell's essays including Coming Up for Air.

Talk about irony, there.

2003-08-17T19:17:00.000+08:00

Just for the fun of it:

2003-08-15T22:54:00.000+08:00

Blew up at my mom this morning; went to school crying all the way from 6 to 10am. I have never cried so long in my life and the amazing thing is, I don't think I'm even done yet. It must be some kind of personal record.

What cheered me up was Lit S, as usual. We were going through last year's S paper exam for Practical Criticism and had to compare and contrast two "Crow" poems. Ms Lim asked me what I thought of the phrase "a blown bird" (in the WIND), expecting something on the theme of power... and feeling rather reckless I said, "Well, actually I was thinking of something really dirty." Suddenly none of us at the table could speak any longer... we were laughing too hard. ^_^

I love our 5-person-and-a-teacher Lit S class. We all have our little personalities... with Ms Lim, we've labelled each other: I'm the prose-phobic, Ailin's the poetry-phobic. With Ms Heng, I'm the idealist, Sijia's the resident cynic, Ms Heng calls herself the romantic. I like us all very much, together. And I seldom feel such connection to people; they may not know very much of me, but I like the way we just get together and have fun, we can talk about so many things that I wouldn't be able to discuss with other people! Try talking to just anyone about Shakespeare or Atwood. They'd say I was showing off; they don't understand that I really do enjoy it. Best of all, they're not subject to any kind of 'obligation' that I tend to 'expect' my usual class friends to do: I don't expect them to comfort me when I'm down, or listen to me grouch about anything (besides S Lit), or go to Prom with me. Friendship without strings - I like it much better this way. In RGS Art Club that connection was the same way.

It's not a connection that I can have with, say, Joanna or Hanjie; we are friends in class, but we belong to different worlds.

Sometimes I think we're just together for the sake of being together.

2003-08-08T12:39:00.000+08:00

To: God [address unknown]
From: Ling [azure_dreaming@hotmail.com]
Subject: UK university studies/ Scholarships

PLEASE GIVE ME THE STRENGTH TO SUCCEED.

XOXOXXXO,
Ling

2003-08-04T15:23:00.000+08:00

Went to the NTUC today to get mint-and-chocolate cookies ^_^ as a result of one of my Weird Cravings (TM). My cravings always seem to pop up at really inconvenient times, like Old Chang Kee curry puffs when I'm running late home... or hor fun at 11pm... or ba kwa when it's not Chinese New Year... or nata de coco in the middle of the Discipline Mistress's Economics lecture.

Is Very Deadly, that last one.

Anyway, I saw some really really nice CHOPSTICKS!!! in the NTUC... very Japanese/Chinese looking, with maple leaves on them! The reason why I take such an interest in (of all things) chopsticks is purely aesthetic. Camilla bunned her hair up recently with a single chopstick during Racial Harmony Day, to go with her full kimono outfit. Quite a fashion statement: odd, but very pretty. My fingers itched to pull it out, especially cos' she was sitting right in front of me.

Today Minyu turned up in school with her hair similarly done up, only she did hers with... a pencil. Yeah, the wooden carpenter-looking kind... (I got quite a shock when I stood behind her at morning assembly, but I must say it looks pretty good). ^^; Well, not that I'm going to do my hair up the same way (not after a bit of thought that is) but what surprised me was that I was seriously considering it. Is it the school culture? I recall that when I first came to HCJC, I was pretty much overwhelmed with disgust when I heard one classmate squeal to the other, "Pin, your (red and very glittery) hairband doesn't match your (some other colour and also very glittery) rubber band!" And now I'm actually thinking of twirling my hair up with a chopstick. Hmm.

But back to the subject of food, I was reminded of the last time I wanted butter cookies after school; Mi'er was walking out with me then. I said something along the lines of, "Hmm, I really want some butter cookies right now," and she gave a "*BIG GASP* You sinful girl! Do you know how fattening those things are?" And then, "Don't you know what that means?" ... I was expecting something along the lines of You'll have to work out forever and a day just to get the flab off you etc etc... when she said, "It means you'll have to share them with me!!"

*collapses*

Yeah. So I'm off to enjoy my cookies now... in case anyone's interested, they're Pepperidge Farm cookies (I swear by this brand), $4.64 at an NTUC Near You. Please go and fatten up on them. It might make me feel less guilty *evil grin*.

2003-08-03T09:45:00.000+08:00

The Treatment of Death in Shakespearean Tragedies
Or, “What happens when Ling gets wired on caffeine”
Also known as “Never read Shakespeare when you can’t sleep”

Characters in Shakespeare’s plays have never died easy, not unless you count in Ophelia, Cordelia and Lady Macbeth, who all died nicely offstage and without much fuss. (Come to think of it – all three were rather central characters, but all three were also women – gender discrimination on Shakespeare’s part?) Otherwise, Shakespeare’s figments of imagination mostly tend to have an irritating tendency to talk too much, especially after they have been killed. Consider the classic “Oh, I am slain” after the person is question has been slain – like "DUH"... a very lame thing to say, to say the least. What are the rest of them onstage supposed to do in reply? Rush around cooing with sympathy and maternal affection, “Oh you are slain, oh pity pity”? Why can’t they just turn pale, roll their eyes back and die?

First prize definitely has to go to Edmund in King Lear, who took three – I kid you not – THREE whole pages to die, with a whole philosophy on the nature of life and death and the Wheel of Fortune thrown in: making one wonder if Edgar should sue the manufacturer of his sword, since it was obviously not of very good quality. And then there was Banquo in Macbeth, who in his death throes still managed a speech spoken in iambic pentameter; rather a literary feat considered the circumstances. This is second only to Emilia in Othello, who, after being killed by her husband, gave a short speech and sang a song. A SONG. I suppose she couldn’t have died by having her throat cut, or the song might have turned out a little gurgly. People should really learn to die more quickly and effectively, like Juliet, “Oh happy dagger!” *stab* *die*. Instead, they prefer to take after Mercutio, with his “Zounds” “I am sped”, and several enlightening remarks involving wells, churchdoors, and a few miscellaneous animals.

Hamlet contained some of the best deaths in Shakespeare, notable not for their speeches or even their methods (poison, shriek, stabstab, die) but for the fact that all four major characters died in the space of one and a half pages. (I measured it with my fingers, I was so amused.) I am of the personal opinion that Shakespeare got tired of writing, so he thought, “Let’s wrap this thing up for once and for all,” hence the speedy deliverance. Which ended up giving a comic effect, really, especially if you read the play rather than see it performed. Maybe that’s what they mean by a comic interlude, just that the notion of time has screwed itself up and the interlude comes simultaneously with the tragedy, if you get my drift. Whatever it is, I think I preferred Tom Stoppard’s take on Hamlet with his version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. “Now you see me, now you-”

(CURTAIN)

2003-08-02T22:27:00.000+08:00

Bwahahahaha... Minying just sent us another link. Here's part of Shakespeare's "Macbeth", or someone's rendition of it... really funny, whether or not you know the story...

"Meanwhile Macbeth and Banquo meet three witches, who are evil, twisted, manipulative ... ow! Stop hitting me! Er. I mean they're lovely people, who just fell into bad company at an early age. They give Macbeth three predictions, by saying "Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis/Cawdor/King." Now this is in fact only two predictions, as he was already Thane of Glamis, so Macbeth should get a refund, but no-one complains. He then starts thinking about being King, and how could he achieve that? Now let's think, boys and girls ....

Macbeth writes to his wife (imaginatively titled "Lady Macbeth"), telling her about the witches. When she hears about the predictions she gets all sorts of ideas, generally involving blood, death, blood, blood, death, and blood. A messenger tells her that Duncan is coming to stay with them, and this puts her into a very strange mood indeed, calling upon spirits to "unsex her here." This is something which should only really be attempted with lots of very sharp knives, a very clean room, lots of people in white coats, and a machine or two going "ping!" at irregular intervals. However, she seems happy to leave it to "spirits that tend on mortal thoughts," and who are we to argue? The rest of her speech gets very odd indeed - she seems basically to be on far too many drugs for her own good."

Oh yes. And my sister bought me a Swatch today ^_^ So apart from the scholarship and study thing, I'm actually feeling very happy.

2003-08-02T22:22:00.000+08:00

Attended a scholarship talk today, despite my mother and sister telling me that if a 3-subject student manages to get a scholarship, well let's bring out the champagne, cos' that's gonna be some sort of national record. And I don't have enough money to study art in the UK, which is what I really want to do - why UK? For the most ridiculous and unexplainable of reasons... because it just feels "right" - so I should get a basic degree in NUS first, like in what? The only thing remotely related to art in NUS is Architecture, which, while it sounds far better than say Toenail Studies, which doesn't exist but might as well for all the interest those other courses stir in me, still falls short of what I really want to do.

Alright. I know I sound rather grouchy now, but truth is I did enjoy the talk... it's just that reality hits hard, that's all. I saw quite a few people I used to know, whether in Secondary school or my first 3 months in RJC. I genuinely enjoyed meeting some of them again - Tee Kian, for example, and I think Lawrence has a girlfriend ^_^ - but other than that the prospect of seeing people I used to know unnerved me to say the least, and in a very irrational way. I was glad when tea-break was over.

... I am sure of what I want to do, what I want to be, what will make me happiest. I know what I want to spend the rest of my life doing, and even if I can't match up to any other people, I am sure love for the subject will spur me on to improve, and I know people who are behind me all the way. All this, come hell or high water or parental un-consent. I know I sound really naive and idealistic, but I tend to see these as strengths rather than personal failings. Fuck practicalism; I've lived on it for far long enough, and it hasn't got me anywhere I want to be.

There must be a way.

2003-08-02T10:07:00.000+08:00

I read this in my GP tutor's blog (he's the link on the left, "A Teacher's Angst").

"how many times have looked at what goes on in my head and fear the worst. It cannot be the worst - for nothing is nothing and the worst cannot be called the worst. If the consciousness were a tool with which we shaped our thoughts, carefully, not these thrown out scraps of interstatial fiddlings, what would the worst be? And now I am become the worst not I but become because I perceive the worst dripping and sloshing all around me."

I had a dream last night. I was walking by this stream with what looked like a lot of fat red carp in it… what surprised me was that I was there with my mom. I like watching running water, have been strangely attracted to water since I was very young. I used to sit by the edge of the reservoir just looking at the water, my family would be behind me jogging or flying kites, sometimes my father would join me but I didn't like him near me. My mom thought I was weird. "What's so interesting about the water? There's no fish in it."

Humans have a very strange capacity for wishing for exactly what they can't have. What we know is that these people can't be here, aren't what we wish them to be, wouldn't make a scat of difference if they were here anyway; they might conceivably make things worse. And yet we keep right on wishing. Because if we didn't have something to wish for, we don't have anything solid to pin our wishes on. If there wasn't anything that would make us happy, perhaps nothing in the world can ever make us happy; we are left with a hollow unappeased yearning for something we can't even name.

And so we keep right on wishing.

2003-08-02T09:39:00.000+08:00

You are a muse.

What legend are you?. Take the Legendary Being Quiz by Paradox

2003-08-01T16:10:00.000+08:00

I hate... small talk.

Was walking out of school today to have lunch at Coronation Plaza, when I ran into someone I know. She was a well-meaning friend who happened to be walking there too, to buy a packet of rice for her mom. So we set off together. The conversation went something like this:

"You're going there to eat lunch? By yourself?"
"... I'm quite used to eating by myself..."
"Oh..."
*pause*
"Liddat very fun meh?"
"...Since when was lunch supposed to be fun?"

... So we walked on with me utterly paralysed for something to say. Temporary dysfunction of the mouth muscles seems to happen just when I need it the least: ALWAYS when I'm around people I don't know well. Fortunately, Singapore weather is seldom neutral, giving rise to a piece of well-known advice:

When in doubt, Talk about the Weather.

Luckily, the sun was shining REAAALLY brightly today, so I prepared a line in my head: Wow, it's really hot today huh? Just as I prepared my tongue to articulate the words...

"Sucks. The weather is so hot."

I was dumbfounded. She had stolen my line! What was there left for me to say? "Err... yeah"? "It's been like this for the past one week"? "Yes, that sucks, doesn't it?"
...

To be fair, I'm actually making it sound worse than it really was. Though I'm sure the conversation was about as exciting to both of us as water is to a dead squid. Crash course in small talk? I think I need it.

One good thing happened today that made me very happy. I was daydreaming away on the bus when a picture started forming in my head; something I think I'll do in charcoal and coloured pencil. It's not yet complete though. Then as I alighted and started walking home, another picture came. Due to the memories that inspired them, the first picture will be called "Found"; the second, "Lost". Lost and Found. ^^

2003-08-01T12:37:00.000+08:00

This is from Colorgenics.com:

It's pretty amazing really, all what they gave me was eight colours to range in order of preference, and they somehow managed to derive a really accurate assessment on me based on it. ^_^

"You are constantly hoping that your good fellowship and attitude and your 'love for your fellow man (or women)' will give you peace of mind. You need people - people around you to care for you and to show you that they care. It is this hope that keeps you going, the hope that makes you the type of person that indeed you are. Your own need for approval seemingly makes you always ready to help others and in exchange you seek love, warmth and understanding. You will always listen to others and you are open to new ideas which hopefully will prove fruitful and interesting.

You are looking for excitement and stimulation and you are ready to try anything - but be careful not to take too many risks.

The way things are, you feel that you are stuck in a rut and there is not much you can do about it. You feel frustrated and inhibited but if you can find a way to let yourself go, you may find that things aren't quite so bad as perhaps you thought they were. One consolation is that since you are an extremely emotional individual, with the right person you may be able to release some of that frustration and tension with some mutual tender loving care.

You are being unduly influenced by the situation that is all around you. You do not like the feeling of loneliness and whatever it is that seems to separate you from others. You know that life can be wonderful and you are anxious to experience life in all its aspects, to live it to the full. You therefore resent any restriction or limitations that are being imposed on you and you insist on going it alone.

You are anxious about all the limitations to which you are subjected to at this time. You feel that you are not valued for what or who you are. You need OUT. So why procrastinate any longer - MOVE!"

2003-07-29T14:57:00.000+08:00

I read this in Literature class today; this is part of "The Necessary Enemy" by Katherine Anne Porter. It disturbed me rather, but I like the writing, and also the fact that it disurbed me. I took out another book to read during class because I did not want to hear the discussion... still, I couldn't help drifting back to it, again and again.

"She is dismayed, horrified, full of guilt and forebodings because she is finding out little by little that she is capable of hating her husband, whom she loves faithfully. She can hate him at times as fiercely and mysteriously, indeed in terribly much the same way, as often she hated her parents, her brothers and sisters, whom she loves, when she was a child. Even then it had seemed to her a kind of black treacherousness in her, her private wickedness that, just the same, gave her her only private life. That was one thing her parents never knew about her, never seemed to suspect. For it was never given a name.
…
None of this really frightened her: the real fright came when she discovered that at times her father and mother hated each other; this was like standing on the doorsill of a familiar room and seeing in a lightning flash that the floor was gone, you were on the edge of a bottomless pit. … She thought she had outgrown all this, but here it was again, an element in her own nature she could not control, or feared she could not. She would have to hide from her husband, if she could, the same spot in her feelings she had hidden from her parents, and for the same no doubt disreputable, selfish reason: she wants to keep his love.
…
Love. We are early taught to say it. I love you. We are trained to the thought of it as if there were nothing else, or nothing else worth having without it, or nothing worth having which it could not bring with it. Love is taught, always by precept, sometimes by example. Then hate, which no one meant to teach us, comes of itself. It is true that if we say I love you, it may be received with doubt, for there are times when it is hard to believe. Say I hate you, and the one spoken to believes it instantly, once for all.
…
The refusal to acknowledge the evils in ourselves which therefore are implicit in any human situation is as extreme and unworkable a proposition as the doctrine of total depravity; but somewhere between them, or maybe beyond them, there does exist a possibility for reconciliation between our desires for impossible satisfactions and the simple unalterable fact that we also desire to be unhappy and that we create our own sufferings; and out of these sufferings we salvage our fragments of happiness."

2003-07-28T14:07:00.000+08:00

All right. I am either this:

You represent... naivete.
So innocent and trusting... you can be very shy at times, but it's only because you're not sure how to act. You give off that "I need to be protected vibe." Remember that not all people are good. Being too trusting will get you easily hurt.

What feeling do you represent?
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Or this:

You represent... apathy.
You don't really show any emotion. You can be considered cruel and cold, but you just don't really care about anything. This is just the way you are... you're quite a challenge to get close to, and others may perceive you as boring.

What feeling do you represent?
brought to you by Quizilla

I don't quite agree with "Apathy" though.

Today's Miaka's birthday ^_______^. Say hi to Mia *waves*

2003-07-26T19:02:00.000+08:00

I'm sitting at my computer right now, typing. Evening is arriving; I can feel it come without having to look at it. I have a CD on in the hi-fi behind me, and Miaka is sleeping on a rug at my feet, so that all what I see when I look down is a warm ginger-brown circle of cat. He seems to know intuitively when I most want company.

There's no good way for me persuade people I know out of suicide because I've been there myself, and I came back still looking for the answers. Been there, done that, wore the T-shirt, bought the CD, and sadly came back none the wiser. If only there was a solution - if only there was a magic formula - something I could say to touch people and make them feel better. If only I could stop the abrupt sense of disconnection that likes to spring on me, or on anyone else, just as I'm least expecting it. But there isn't.

Life has dealt with me fairly; I do admit that. No one can do anything to me that I cannot recover from - I know that too. I firmly believe that life is a series of lessons and we are here to learn; deal with it, or it comes back! All these I know, and all of you know, but we know on an intellectual level and that is the problem. None of these count when emotions are concerned. None of these count even when we know that there are people who care for us, people who would be hurt by us, let's just be selfish for a while and get out. Now.

...I don't know what the answer is.

I've been reading blogs. Lots and lots and lots of blogs. It's like we're all paying tribute to her memory in our own special way. There are so many people out there mourning her... so many memories of her, regardless of whether they'd known her personally or, like me, had only seen her once or twice. Its sounds stupid to post an observation here that people are all so very interlinked, but it's only now that I've felt this truth on such a large scale. There are ripples... spreading out everywhere.

2003-07-26T08:48:00.000+08:00

Word of the Day for Friday July 25, 2003
surcease \SUR-sees; sur-SEES\, noun:
Cessation; stop; end.

A girl committed suicide the day before... I got to know about it yesterday. She wasn't anyone close to me but she was a friend's friend. I'd seen her in corridors, I'd waved to her before. The newspapers aren't reporting it just like they're covering up the suicide of another VJC girl who died just recently... but students have ways of knowing these things. I know we've talked about suicide a lot. Some of us have seriously contemplated it. But knowing someone who actually went ahead and did it...

I never spoke to her for more than ten minutes in my life but still. She was one of the cheerfullest-looking people I'd ever seen.

I hope she's happy where she is, but that is an awfully lame conclusion.

Death isn't any form of conclusion in itself.

2003-07-25T15:15:00.000+08:00

Water Goddess. You like peace and serenity and are
usually content with life.

What element would you rein over? (For Girls)
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-07-25T11:49:00.000+08:00

I've revamped my blog! *cheers* All thanks Blogskins.com. What I love is the dominantly white background, quiet and pristine, and the little coloured stars with swirls in them. It's cheery enough without getting in your face, which thus runs a lower risk of aggravating me when I'm in a especially foul mood. Honestly, it's hard to think of anything angsty or depressing to say with such a happy-looking blog staring back at you.

Of course, if this skin had been especially gaudy looking and determined to please, it would just have rubbed me entirely the wrong way. I would even have blogged more frequently with some sort of angry vengeance to contrast what I say with what it looks like. Appearance vs. Reality? I've been getting that a lot recently, and not just as a recurring Literature theme. But this background makes me feel good. It really suits me right now--I feel happy again for no reason at all, with lots of energy inside me (swirling stars! ^^) but at the same time I am equally determined to keep away from people. (White: the quiet side.) I can't quite explain why. I just know that leaving this white solitude would ruin everything.

I wish you could be happy too.

2003-07-24T19:46:00.000+08:00

Symptom Recital
by Dorothy Parker

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the simplest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondom dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirits sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men...
I'm due to fall in love again.

Everything except the last bit. I do not know what any of this has got to do with men.

2003-07-20T09:50:00.000+08:00

I found this on Facade.com; quite interesting, I think. The character Charis in Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride did this very frequently. My reading was pretty accurate (the first passage, at least... I couldn't make sense of the rest) but you guys know better than to take online readings too seriously.

2003-07-19T19:27:00.000+08:00

One of these days, I swear, I'm going to rip the telephone out of the wall and hurl the entire contraption out of the window.

I tend to get particularly irritated with the world and myself around 2 o'clock every Saturday afternoon. Maybe I should dig a cellar one of these days that I can lock myself in until the weekend is over. Not that weekends are especially upsetting or weekdays are particularly happy, but well, I don't really know what I'm griping about.

I was thinking about names yesterday while going home.

I have a name when I write and draw; a name when I'm at school (Ling); maybe I should get a name that suits my face, since quite a lot of people say I sure don't behave the way I look. So I thought I might as well get a name that corresponds to the times when I turn into a sweet, docile, inert-looking vegetable. It was then that I thought of the name Elizabeth. I like it sufficiently; it sounds sweet enough without going overboard; it doesn't sound too bad together with my surname; and it sure doesn't feel like me. Since my face doesn't either, I might as well be Elizabeth.

Weird huh.

I've been turning into Elizabeth more and more frequently, but only around certain individuals. I know they've noticed it. It takes too much effort, sometimes, to be Ling... I feel like I'm being an imitation of something I don't even know what it is. I don't want to think of funny things to say, or try hard to sound witty, or make fun of teachers or moan about lessons, which is pretty much of a routine that I find myself doing. I want to lie at the bottom like a limp seashell and let everything wash over me.

Frankly, I think I hate that name already.

2003-07-16T16:17:00.000+08:00

Minying sent me some very amusing links today, one of which is called Tomato Nation. Check this out:

"I have also seen data to suggest that many office supplies suffer from depression. My Cross pen sets, for example. The average Cross pen set has dangerously low self-esteem, because it knows that it is kind of a lame gift and that it is the rare recent graduate indeed who will actually find use for a mechanical pencil. It is shiny and comes with a leather case, and yet it languishes unused, hating itself, and when its big moment finally arrives -- when I decide that, as a grown woman, the time has come to wean myself from pens with heads on them -- it won't write at all. Its ink has dried up. It has lost the ability to love.

Other pens deal with their depression via passive-aggressive behavior. The fountain pen is a perfect example. It pretends that the cartridges I bought will fit, and then they don't. I exchange the cartridges for the correct size, and then the fountain pen refuses to let me unscrew it. Then the cartridge breaks and stains my shirt, I get upset, the fountain pen starts crying…it's just not a constructive way to deal with problems, and yet I try to work it out with the fountain pen periodically, because I bought the damn thing, and I bought the cartridges (…twice), and I bought the clever little chamois blotting rag, and dammit, a fountain pen is sophisticated, right? Well, sophisticated, yes. Mature? In touch with its anger in a positive way? No."

Heh.

2003-07-12T19:18:00.000+08:00

Perfect Day

from the "Legally Blonde" soundtrack

Perfect day,
Nothing's standing in my way

On this perfect day,
Nothing can go wrong

It's the perfect day,
Tomorrow's gonna come too soon
I could stay, forever as I am
On this perfect day

2003-07-07T10:08:00.000+08:00

I was in the shower this morning when an idea popped into my head. To be precise, it was something my aunt had said with regards to BGR, something which made me think of guys as a "market" where you can pick 'em and choose 'em for yourself. This was reinforced by something my sec. sch Principal had said that had amused me terribly at the time: that when we get to University, there will be a larger "catchment area" for us. Suddenly the idea of guys took on the form of not just vegetables but fish.

So I thought, if guys were to be considered as a market, what kind of market structure would that be? (I'm sorry, I've been taking Econs tution classes, and that's what we discussed recently) I turned it around in my head before finally deciding on Monopolistic Competition. The guys are differentiated products, that's what we're going after; there's definitely non-price competition; there are many players in the market; and in the long run we make normal profit, which are the gains necessary to keep us from turning to our next best alternative.

I know this sounds a little... ... but it amuses me very much anyway. ^_^ I know, blame it all on the common tests.

2003-07-05T15:08:00.000+08:00

In tragic life, God wot,
No villain need be! Passions spin the plot:
We are betray'd by what is false within.

~George Meredith, "Love's Grave"

I got that off a Margaret Atwood interview where she quoted it herself, in relation to her latest book "Oryx and Crake" I believe. That quote in relation to "Othello" (which is what it reminds me of) would make for rather interesting discussion, I think.

"If you love something, set it free. If it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it."
~Something Tabby read in a book, "Kissing Frogs"

Am working hard now on my Margaret Atwood presentation even though I have no idea what it's supposed be like - a bad way to start - but I'm thankful that whatever I have to do, this is at least the subject I know best and love best, so Zettai Daijoubu Daiyo, as Sakura likes to say. Everything will be all right. I like her themes - they always start out with the protagonist, most frequently a woman, losing control of her life and identity and unaware of it, then going through a period of growth and discovery... emerging at the end as someone much wiser and independent, though not necessarily happier. The journey to self-discovery, you might say.

There's lots of gender relationships stuff in there too. It makes me seriously frightened of marriage. It's a bit like a trap you fall into without knowing it, being subjected to becoming a package. Something neat, and tidy, for someone else to handle... like in The Edible Woman. An "us" instead of "I"; the process of being assimilated, like food. And I don't even want to think about having children. They'll hate me, and I expect it, and I expect to be afraid of them too.

I used to find it perfectly natural that I'd just grow up, get married and have some kids - happiness not being an issue here - but now with Sylvia Plath and Margaret Atwood, I'm reconsidering. The function of women, I think. What is our function now, please? Things were a lot more clear-cut before women's lib. and stuff, though it doesn't make sense to talk of people as having functions as though they were biological machines. (The function of men: Creating more women. That was an idea in The Handmaid's Tale that I read with considerable glee.)

Of course, I know I still will probably get married and (although I think, "Heaven forbid") have children. I know I will do these things, an attempt at normality, with a sort of detached scientific interest coolly observing everything from the back of my head. And whatever goes wrong, I'll be giving "that invisible nod, like something [I've] always suspected has come true after all" (Cat's Eye).

I wonder what I will do when things go wrong. It must feel like being caught up in a whirlwind.

I wonder what the rage will feel like; what I will do to him with it.

2003-07-04T22:36:00.000+08:00

I'm looking through my poetry book right now and feeling pretty amused. I must've been in a really morbid mood, as I recall.

I wrote this one as a sort of prediction of something that was happening. While I was writing I thought it childish; until I got to the last three lines, which scared me. Well, more the feeling than the words, that is.

Steel Strings

The young Queen
Sits in a darkened room and weaves,
Steel strings that bind, steel strings of mine.
She knows what she can and will achieve,
Steel strings that wind, steel strings that fly.
As they shoot through the air to capture Her prey,
Steel strings that twine, steel strings that find
And the bloods go so well with her red-and-black mind,
Steel strings of mine, steel strings that bind.

Steel strings that fly, steel strings that wind
Steel strings that find steel strings that twine

And the Strings turn upon their queen and strike from behind
Steel strings that lie, steel strings that blind
And they close around her head like so many vines
Steel strings that know no sense of time
And the Strings have triumphed, they are not to be kind
(The queen that quivers and the queen that cries)
As they stab through her heart and tangle up
Making a blood-soaked cocoon, dripping, dripping
Make a black blood-soaked cocoon so strong and fine.

(c) Ling 2002 (at the time)

2003-07-03T13:43:00.000+08:00

Just finished downloading Gackt's "Illness Illusion" and am playing it on repeat mode. Boy, Tabby was so /not/ kidding when she said it might sound awful first time. But I have to admit, it grows on you... it's Gothic, or so she said. This is the fourth Gackt song she's recommended me, and I was all on with "Vanilla" and blasting it away until she told me "Go check out the translation" and like a fool I did...

Let's just say "Vanilla" is a pretty descriptive song.

And it's about sex.

"Daijoubu" (by Maeda Aki) from the "Boys Be" soundtrack is great too... they were playing it on TV mobile in the morning, so I kinda got hooked. Right now I'm also checking out artwork by Keibun Ota. I liked him since I was a kid, when I saw his pictures on bookmarks, all looking ever-so-sweet and a little watery. He uses colour pencil and watercolour, I think.

Just finished my bout of common tests. *Grin* Bought myself chocolate chip cookies to celebrate. And then I'll head off to Prelims-mugging.

^_^'

2003-07-03T13:16:00.000+08:00

This song is from the Card Captor Sakura soundtrack... one of my favourite songs. It pulled me through a rough time in the past (not that there were many), I used to sing it to myself and it would give me strength. It's a Japanese song, actually, but I checked up the translation back then so that I knew what I was singing.

Now I'd like to share this with you.

Tooi Kono Machi de
(In This Distant Town)
Naomi Kaiya

I loved that song, on this old tape
small scratches and a faded title.
Dawn comes and the day begins, bringing the summer breeze with it.
I can’t get used to this sudden loneliness I feel in my usual life.
Even wherever I go on my bike,
I never forget how fast the wind goes by.

La la la la - Let’s look up to the sky and sing
La la la la - It’s my life I’ll keep walking it
With my own strength, I make my way in this endless town.

Even though I always get lost at countless intersections
I’m living in the present, but the moving crowd gets ahead of me sometimes.
Things that I bump into, things that I recognize,
I never forget them even when I’ve become an adult.

La la la la - Let’s look up to the sky and sing
La la la la - It’s my life I’ll keep walking it
Because it belongs to me alone, I should be confident.

I’ve had this dream in my hometown
I think of it when I’m discouraged.
Just like what the song told me, what I can do now
is to take just a small step forward.

La la la la - Let’s look up to the sky and sing!
La la la la - It’s my life I’ll keep walking it
La la la la - Let’s look up to the sky and sing!
La la la la - It’s my life I’ll keep walking it

With my own strength...
I make my way in this endless town.

2003-06-28T10:29:00.000+08:00

I was just reading a forum on Atwood's "Cat's Eye" (which is my favourite favouritest book out of all the books I've read so far) and they were saying things like,

"The relationship she had with her three childhood friends - Grace, Carol and Cordelia - would have been a lot healthier if she had just told them how she felt. I think that Elaine is a coward. She is afraid of these three manipulative, dominating girls and, as a result, she is constantly picked on and left behind. "

NOoooo..... I'm sorry, but you really have to get dumped into a situation like that in order to know what it's like. It. Does. Not. Feel. Good. To put it mildly.

The reason why I like "Cat's Eye" so much is that it brings out so extremely clearly what one wants to express and never knows how, you don't even know how to begin, you've been brainwashed so much that you can't find exactly what fault those people did to you. Things are accumulative. So is bullying.

"I think that Atwood overexaggerates the relationships that women have, and tries to make them realistic. I realize that there are things about your childhood that you might not understand until you are older. However, you can not blame everything bad in your life on someone who you were friends with when you were a child."

I don't know why people find it hard to believe that relationships that happen in childhood aren't that significant. I've always been a very firm believer that people are most cruel when they're about six to eleven years old. It's only after that age that society takes its hold over you, that you learn not to tease others about their defects, that there are polite ways to go about being unpleasant, what socially acceptable behaviour is, etc etc etc. But then again it's because we can't outright express disgust with someone, that lots of behind-the-back stuff takes place. It makes people even more scary. People are scary.

I held a grudge for eleven years against a girl I met when I was six years old. There was a lot I blamed on her - lack of confidence, insecurity, etc etc etc. There was a second girl I was afraid of when I was eleven, because she reminded me of the first. And then another girl, when I was seventeen. And when I next met that first girl again, she didn't even remember me... which was hardly surprising.

I find the relationships between women in "Cat's Eye" extremely realistic, in short. The world of women is like that. People are like that. This is what I've felt... that is what I know. You can make friends with someone and talk about absolutely anything and rush to each other's rescue when they're hurt... and about half a year later you meet in a corridor and don't even say hi. You can have a group of friends you call your best friends in the world, but the truth is you're bound to them simply because you fear being cut adrift, being an outcast when all around you people are gathering in cliques. And this fear gives them absolute power over you. You'd do anything for them. You'd do anything for them not to abandon you, and that includes letting them hurt you in any way they can.

You'll willingly get hurt and years later all you remember is the hurt and you can't even remember why.

That is power.

2003-06-27T11:13:00.000+08:00

ICE is your chinese symbol!

What Chinese Symbol Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

That's... very interesting.
I'm not very sure I agree...

2003-06-25T22:52:00.000+08:00

This weird piece (which, however, rings somewhat true) is courtesy of Emode

Ling, your romantic pattern is Romantic Rescue!

Love is all-powerful in the Romantic Rescue pattern. It is the catalyst for change within yourself as well as the means through which you discover if your partner is who you want and need them to be.

But, here's the recurring pattern you may see in your relationships: A desire to save your partner from his own self-destruction, or the desire to be saved by someone for the same reason.

Some people adopt the hero role in this pattern — nursing an ailing partner back to health, saving them from a string of previously destructive relationships, maybe even saving them from a physical danger. Others cast themselves as those in need of rescue — relying on their partners to swoop in and save them from whatever ill-fate's been visited upon them, either real or imagined.

Find it all in your personalized, 12-page Romantic Pattern Report. It's ready right now!

... Question mark, question mark, exclamation mark.

Ditto for the one that says "Ling, your emotions are triggered by your underlying belief in Dignity", which I cannot quite make sense of. ^_^

[Edit] ...On second thoughts, this test seems pretty much true... my attitude towards the previous previous guy I like shifted the day I saw him crying (hey, we were about 11 at the time), and the first day I saw the guy I most recently liked, his face was covered with blood (cos' of football). Hmm.

I'd rather be the rescuee though. I think I grew up fed with too many TV melodramas.

2003-06-23T22:15:00.000+08:00

Sick today... got hit by a viral fever, aches all over, tooth infection and some minor food poisoning... all at the same time. Talk about timing. It amuses me horribly that I've to take charcoal pills, charcoal being what I'm drawing pictures with. Maybe I should try sketching stuff with medicine.

I suspect I messed up my body's reaction to Panadol that last time... all what I took (yesterday and today) were two pills, the normal dosage, and my eyes started swelling. I look horrible.

2003-06-22T09:44:00.000+08:00

ok... this Coleridge poem is a little out-of-character for me considering what I have been angsting about for some time... but I found it really interesting ^_^. I particularly like the last line.

I'm reading Edgar Allan Poe at the same time too, while waiting for Kazaa to download my songs. I found a very nice quote from Poe's "A Dream within a Dream" :

"All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream"

The Suicide's Argument
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Ere the birth of my life, if I wished it or no
No question was asked me--it could not be so!
If the life was the question, a thing sent to try
And to live on be YES; what can NO be? to die.

NATURE'S ANSWER
Is't returned, as 'twas sent? Is't no worse for the wear?
Think first, what you ARE! Call to mind what you WERE!
I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,
Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope,
Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair?
Make out the invent'ry; inspect, compare!
Then die - if die you dare !

2003-06-20T12:56:00.000+08:00

I was just thinking of doing another art piece. Something in hot, bright crayon, and flowing colours all around. Something where the person looking at the picture is the person in the picture; and the person in the picture is looking over her own shoulder. I’m not quite sure how to bring that about.

You know when you’re young sometimes your parents take you on rides… they have lots and lots of stuff now, ferris wheels and roller-coasters and something I got on called the Inverter once (which is a marvelous way to lose your lunch)… but my favourite used to be the carousel. Well I didn’t know what a carousel was at that age, to me it was the merry-go-round. (Pretty significant name too, if you think of life as a carousel.) Anyway, I would ride on the carousel with lots of flashing lights and tinny music and mirrors in front of me, and then, getting a little dizzy, I would look over my shoulder to find my parents. There would be lots of noise all round, and blurry images cos’ I’d been spinning about, but then everything would clear. And then I would see my mom, smiling at me with a special fondness, and feel reassured.

I want to convey that feeling… the feeling of all that clamorous noise and haze clearing away… and in that one moment of extreme clarity you look over your shoulder to see the person that you most want to see.

Who will you see?

2003-06-19T09:32:00.000+08:00

I got a new bag yesterday. Umm... in a manner of speaking, that is. It was originally a huge black rather "obiang" looking thing my mom got me from Hong Kong on her last business trip. Last night I was looking high and low for my "Much Ado About Nothing" (turns out it really was much ado about nothing, cos' I later remembered it was in my locker) and I dug out this bag on the way. And I was really frustrated with things, so I took my silver glitter fabric paint, sat down and started drawing. I'm rather proud of it actually.

The design isn't original. It was derived from something I vaguely remembered seeing on a T-shirt in Far East. Well I don't think they can charge me for it... I'm quite sure I didn't remember it very accurately. The problem is bringing it to school. On one hand, I think it's nice, and on the other hand, I think it's ugly. The only way to find out for sure is to bring it to school and watch the eyes of people who see it. Not what they say... what people say is never important. If you want an honest reaction you watch their faces. That's what I think anyway.

New pencil case, new haircut, new bag. New hairstyle, if and when I feel like it (I pin my hair a different way now). New determination to buckle down and study.

I like new things. It feels like you're beginning something over, even if you're not. I don't get new things very often... that takes the feeling away a little bit. My cat, on the other hand, likes only the old and the familiar. He's lying next to me now, playing with his favourite ball. I think he'd make an outstanding soccer player =)

2003-06-18T09:13:00.000+08:00

It's so hard to find good sheet music on the Net, but when you get one that's really worth playing, you can get hooked on it for hours. I've been playing "Inochi no namae" (The Name of Life) on my piano almost every day. It's from the "Spirited Away" soundtrack, and Tabby's "Schindler's List" theme sounds way good too but way too impossible to play, if you ask me. Well, I'm working hard.

(I don't think my neighbours like it very much though. =p)

I got a haircut yesterday. I got a bit of hair cut. It feels way good... to be able to feel my hair again. The way you can walk with it loose and it just flaps against your shoulders, which it can't do if it's too long cos' it just hangs down your back and weighs you down. Now I know why people like to cut their hair when they're undergoing some major emotional changes. It's the thing that really transforms the physical You, and it's pretty cheap too. Just $10 and all you do is sit still.

Growing your hair long (I reflect) isn't that much of a change. Sure, you get to look different, but it feels more like growing into a role, instead of belly-flopping yourself into it (which is what a major haircut does to you). You leave your hair alone and it grows. Big deal. Chopping off your hair, on the other hand, has a get-things-over-with, something we call in chinese "shuang3 kuai4"-ness that feels powerful, almost like a high.

Ok. Guess I'm making too much out of a haircut. I can't wait for the day I can get my hair chopped off, though it better be for a good reason. I'm still growing it long for Prom, cos' I've never done my hair up before, and I wanna see what that feels like first.

2003-06-16T22:15:00.000+08:00

I attempted putting up the lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Mr Tambourine Man" here but failed, thanks to that infernal son-of-aDO YA HEAR THAT BLOGGER???!!! machine but you should all try finding it anyway, it's a great end-of-the-day song. Well, it was Gary Lim who said so, but I'm stealing words out of his mouth, since I agree. "Let me forget about today until tomorrow." Delicious.

I had a good day today. I bought myself a new pencil case. And ice cream. And I've downloaded two more songs by Gackt, whom Tabby got me hooked on, though he's bisexual. "All good men are either taken or gay."

2003-06-16T22:05:00.000+08:00

Had a Lit S session today which has got me wondering with one half of my brain about Delirium, who has multiplied into a hundred tiny multi-coloured fish in Volume IX, and with the other half about fish with three second memories, that was from "Finding Nemo" I think. And then suddenly about bright purple Volkswagen Beetles. And then a pink one zooms mentally by.

I wouldn't mind being part of Del's realm, really. Fun place.

Quote Dream, who was speaking to his raven Matthew:

"Delirium will drive. You will advise her.
I am sure you will find the experience one of great interest and variety."

2003-06-15T21:58:00.000+08:00

People talk way too much.

I wish I was autistic, or something. Then no one would bother to talk to me.

Everything is way too irritating today, particularly people who strangely INSIST on talking to me just as I'm in a lousy don't-touch-me mood. Even the internet messages I get are annoyingly burbly and cheerful, like one of those salespeople who like to tail you around with smiles plastered on their faces. Which part of I WANT TO BE ALONE do people NOT understand??!

(And I've been struggling to answer politely to questions all bloody day, I really have, but people are structured in such an odd way that the less I respond the more they ask, and I have to vent everything on a computer which at least doesn't talk back, thank god, and can you imagine if I told my mom I just didn't FEEL like talking??? I'd never hear the last of it and she'll think there's some awful reason and start imagining all sorts of things)

...DAMMIT.