wakeupandescape

I'd been waiting for the movie to come out since I saw the trailer and then bookmarked the trailer on youtube just so I could watch it EVERYDAY until the movie screened on Friday. It's about a girl, and education, duh. Simply put it was life vs university in a very literal sense and that doesn't do the movie justice, but that's how I was relating to it anyway. Every so often I get really conflicted and confused, wondering if this is really where I should? want? ought to be. Warwick is the correct decision for me, but was it what I wanted? I made a new friend on Friday, a Singaporean doing postgrad English and he made me feel so, inadequate. He LOVES literature and loves English and he wants to go on to do more degrees so he can finally have 2 masters' degrees in English and Theological Studies. He has so much passion for what he's reading it makes me jealous. I wish I were interested and passionate about something so I wouldn't be stuck at a point. It's not even a rut, it's a POINT. Like a blimp on a discontinuous function HAHA.

So yeah that's the gist of why I'd been looking forward to An Education - I was hoping it'd give me an answer, and it did. It wasn't what I was expecting..no, I really didn't expect much. I tried not to think of it much after watching the trailer because I just wanted to be handed the answer on a silver plate, so when the answer finally came I was like, alright. Okay. I intended to watch the movie alone - I even bought the ticket alone - because if I were in Singapore I'd watch it with Alan or Hong Chen but obv they aren't here, and I don't know anybody whom I would really want to watch this movie with, that I had such high expectations for. In the end my hallmate watched the trailer and she went and decided to buy a ticket and she's nice and not like I minded but I was actually really looking forward to watching a movie alone for the first time ^^" I wish I were sitting alone in the cinema when the movie ended and the credits were rolling so I could just SOAK IN the ultimatum of the movie and ponder over it while everyone left me behind, but no, I left once the movie ended, quickly and abruptly like other movie-goers, and DID NOT GET TO SOAK AND PONDER. So I had to do it in my room last night. Not that I resent my hallmate's company, honestly but I just needed time to think. Movies are important to me hehe.


So, SPOILER ALERT. The girl is about to take her As and honestly has a chance of going to Oxford and everyone thinks she's definitely going to get it, then along comes this interesting, mysterious and charming man who sweeps her off her feet to PARIS so she finds love and fun in life and thinks, what's the point of going to Oxford?

For me it's, I kind of liked my life, I found love. I could use more fun in life, more passion for life and more interests and exciting things to do, but what is the point of university? Why do I need that degree just to move on further? I honestly didn't think it was important; I forgot the reasons why I'd signed a contract and flown thousands of miles halfway round the world to come to this strange place to study something I don't even love. I wanted an answer and there was nobody I could really ask. Along came the movie.



She quit school before the As.

I felt hopeful. If she quit school and still got a happy ending with love and passion for life, I was SO OUT OF HERE. I wouldn't care if I had one million people to answer to, to pay money back to, I would work with my own hands, I would save up, I would walk if I had to, to see the rest of the world. Come on, they didn't have planes til the 20th Century and people STILL GOT TO TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD BEFORE THAT. So yes. I would WALK if I had to, I am not leaving this world without seeing Africa and South America and Mt Everest and more.



She was going to marry him. Life was going to be perfect.

Simplistic and naive as that sounds - sometimes that's all people want right, just to be HAPPY? We all have different expectations. I know for some people they NEED a first class honours degree they NEED a high-paying job they NEED high social standing they NEED the cars the house the husband everything to know how much they're worth, or to show the world how much they're worth. I'm sorry but I don't subscribe to that, maybe because I'm scared of competition, maybe because I just got sick of competition but I don't want to ever compete and compare again. I just want to find love, more love, and know more people, know more things, see more places, do more things.

We're all looking for something. ---sorry i happened to be listening to me, you & my medication by blg HAHA NOT MY PLAYLIST OKAY.



He betrayed her, abandoned her. She was left with nothing. No more love, no more passion for life, no fun, no university degree and nowhere to go, nothing to do.

AMAZING WHAT THESE FILMS DO. Possibly commissioned by some Higher Education Propagandist huh! So yeah, that was the answer the movie gave me. That, if ever I lost everything (what little I have), even if I didn't love what I was studying (girl in movie DID really want to read English at Oxford), a university degree was going to let me do more things.

I still don't know how to interpret that really and I still don't fully grasp the concept of it, but all I got was that, I am stuck at this point in my life. I don't have an aim, or a goal, I don't have a purpose or a mission yet (hmm I probably ought to go back and read my scholarship essays about my future and shit to get a reminder) but even more importantly, I don't have a real interest. I don't know what I would do if I didn't come here and be force-fed economic theories and equations and then made to regurgitate them in assignments and essays. It's not what I love, but I'll make do. I don't mind economics.

Maybe that was what my mom meant when she didn't let me take a gap year. She knew all this beforehand - that if I took a gap year to 'find myself' I would just get even more lost. I'm not saying that's gonna be the way for everyone, but I think that would have happened to me. DAMN, MOM DOES ALWAYS KNOW BEST. Good thing she doesn't know I'm writing this.



At the end of the day, at the end of the movie, the girl went on to Oxford. She went and joined hundreds of other bespectacled, pimply ugly school kids who had never experienced life before, and blended in perfectly. Nobody knew her background, nobody knew what she had been through, the love she had and the life she loved.



This may sound obnoxious and arrogant, but I feel like I can identify with that. HONG CHEN YOU'RE GOING TO GAG READING THIS but I think I've found pretty awesome love. It's crazy, the things we've done and been through, it's ridiculous how self-destructive I can get when we fight because it just burns straight down to my core when we don't get along and I just don't know how I'd get along with anybody else who doesn't have the history like we do. We were crazily stupid and we're still kind of crazy in some ways but at least we're grown up now. I feel like I've come to this, not boring, but just this big huge SCHOOL and I feel like I've done so much more and gone through so much more than some people that I deserve to SKIP UNIVERSITY and just move forward in life. I warned you that I was gonna sound arrogant.



The end of the movie was like, her new boyfriend asked her to go to Paris with him!, and she said, 'I'd love to!', as if she had never been.

I think it's so cool that we went to Paris together already, and even though it was with my mom and aunt as well, at least we walked UP Champs-Elysees ourselves and climbed the L'arc de Triomphe together. And even though we were fighting half the way up the Eiffel Tower because YOU WOULDN'T SLOW DOWN FOR ME, WTF OKAY DO YOU REMEMBER HOW HIGH IT WAS / HOW MANY BLOODY FLIGHTS OF STAIRS THERE WERE, at least we finished together. I think no matter how this ends, it was all in all a good run.

Oh and of course I don't think that I'M the only one who's gone through things and really known love, I'm sure almost everybody feels the same way too, that they don't deserve to be here, they ought to be elsewhere, climbing mountains and touching the sky, and that's what makes the world so strange. I think if thoughts were free, think perfect knowledge, but everybody could read and hear and know everybody else's thoughts, the world would be a lot simpler. In the sense that we'd think of ourselves less. There wasn't a point to this. Just saying!


OKAY THIS WAS, AS USUAL, FRAGMENTED AND DISJOINTED, HAPHAZARD TO THE MAXXXX. Just gonna say bye right here.

GOODNIGHT!

no, I did not take that picture. It's from perkowitz.net a site I still remember and love after so many years.


This weekend I went down to Southampton aka soton to visit my darling Renee and it was just so exciting. Like waking up at 8 and walking down campus by myself, before too many people are awake, when the air is cold and crisp in a refreshing wake-you-up sort of way, and walking very purposefully to a place I vaguely know in my mind, en-route to an even further place I have no clue of whatsoever. When I finally boarded the right coach and settled in, I said hi to the guy next to me and asked him where he was heading to, Winchester. He finished a master's in neurological science and was waiting for a job to start in one month, that had nothing to do with his degree. He was a really cool guy to talk to because he's been around Southeast Asia, to so many more places than I've ever been - Vietnam, Thailand, random places in Malaysia where he unknowingly ended up in the capital of brothels and prostitution, and finally ended his journey in Singapore, which he found to be a very strange place. He said his friend, who was doing a term/year in NUS, told him there was absolutely no 'youth culture' in Singapore. He asked me, 'how come students don't protest in Singapore?' and I was like 'Well, there isn't much to protest about I guess. And noone really cares. We just. don't. protest...' He found this really really weird, because he's quite politically active and he even held a one-man protest against some war thing in school before, and has been in several demonstrations throughout his university life. We talked a lot about education in UK and in Singapore, and how different life was.

I told him that lots of kids in Singapore are just itching to get out, to go to the UK, the US, Australia, etc. And he was like, yeah, I don't understand that, and I don't believe in the internationalization of higher education in the UK. (He thinks schools are purposely marketing themselves as being 'international institutions' and then lowering their entry qualifications to cater to a more general audience, then charging international students ridiculously high fees, for a lousier quality education. Makes sense to quite a large extent actually, and he actually knows of evidence of agencies and schools conning kids of money, stuff like that, and did a press release in his school paper and all. ISN'T HE COOL.)

He said he didn't understand what the hype about a UK degree was and why so many international kids were coming here, because he's heard international kids tell him about how their family pools money together and barely makes ends meet just to send them to this country to study, when he's been here his whole life and he's like, whatever. It's not that great. He thinks that this notion of West > East for education is continuing to fuel the system and schools in Asia will just never catch up because people keep sending their kids OUT of their home countries to get an overseas degree, many of which don't even return. It was really interesting talking to him (even though I planned to sleep 3 hours on the coach to make up for lack of night-before's-sleep) and it just opened up my mind to so many more thoughts and ideas and possibilities.

His name was Adam, I found out just as we reached Winchester. He said he'll try to look me up on fb but I think he may not have caught my email add. I SHOULD CARRY PAPER IN MY BAG NEXT TIME SO I CAN SCRIBBLE IT DOWN FOR PEOPLE. He's actually from Coventry and I thought it'd be so cool to have him as a friend, in Coventry, while I'm studying here. Too bad I didn't get his email or else I could look him up. Oh well.

Either ways, the journey to soton was THAT great, and soton was even greater, cos I got to see Renee!! And we hung out, and went clubbing in kids' halloween costumes (and in flats, awesome.) and watched the imaginarium of dr parnassus, which I totally did not understand but made me sad all the same, and did some shopping for hong chen, and did the quickest sightseeing tour of my life. Picture this: 10 minutes left to get to the megabus stop to catch the coach, we are on the wrong road, walking in a circle, not sure if it's even the right bus stop we're looking for, and Renee goes, 'OH there's the dock!! and OH there's the titanic museum!!!' and I'm walking uber fast with my trolley bag and I whip around and I'm like 'OH. COOL. OH WOW.' Okay keep walking at superfast speed. But yeah it was fun and funny.

Haha I lovelovelove Renee and I love this travelling business.

It's just like an adventure and if I keep doing it, it basically adds up to one bigass adventure that spans the entire of my university life. I like being the girl you see in movies, who's packed her things randomly into a bag and just hops on to a bus going somewhere, anywhere. I get to meet cool people on the road, and I see places I'd never known existed.

It's such a fulfilling feeling - yet empty at the same time when I wish hong chen were there to share the experience with me (DAMN those jay chou songs) - sitting on a coach full of strangers who came from different places and going to different destinations, and outside it's all dark and I can only see the full moon over fields and more fields, the landscape barely changing throughout the whole journey. And I know that there are more places out there waiting for me to discover.

On Adam's recommendation, I shall go visit Brighton soon (I have a hallmate from Brighton and Hove, we're not close but maybe if we become better friends I can follow him back one day hahaha) and Portsmouth! I have a super nice hallmate from Portsmouth maybe I can ride down with him (Renee heard it's really nice there) And I'll be going to Oxford soon! And possibly Nottingham for the ....singsocnottinghamgames-.- and eventually I will head to Ireland, Scotland and hopefully, Wales as well with my awesome roomie. Oh and I mustmustmust go see KK at Durham, and visit Manchester. And I might go to Essex soon with Guhan one of my favouritest hallmates in Bene.

Going to southampton made me realise I do like Warwick, because the campus lifestyle and ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I live in the most awesome hall, makes me feel like this is already home. When I came back, it's like going back home to people who are so nice and friendly and we hang out together and people eat together and do homework together and watch movies together and like when I was on the way to my room I saw my roomie in the kitchen and she jumped up and ran out to hug me and it really does feel, like they are my family here. It's not a real family but we can count on each other, I think. haha. Southampton is great too because they have alot more things like shops!! and ALL SAINTS and it's so cool being the place where the Titanic set off from, BY THE WAY, and it feels a lot more independent when you're there, cos it's the city duh, but. I'm being independent enough in Warwick, doing laundry and shit like that. It's tough but this is like, HOME BASE. I will keep travelling, and seeing places, and this is where I just come back to study randomly haha.

6 more weeks til I go back to Singapore, can't wait!!

But until then, I want to visit about 3 more places. Should be exciting. Maybe I should get a camera to chronicle my adventures in the UK. I feel so small here, literally too, and foreign, cos I'm Chinese duh but, that makes it so much more exciting. And when I'm alone, I just of all the people back home whom I can't wait to see, and I know at least some of them are waiting for me :)

I love all my friends and family and ESPECIALLY RENEE AND HONG CHEN TONIGHT.
 

I am so so blessed. AND INDEPENDENT!! HEHE.


perkowitz again. It's a much nicer, try one gazillion times nicer, version of pictures I was trying to take on the coach back to Coventry just now. The roads never seem to end. And I like it that way...^_________________^

I MISS YOU ALAN TANG I HOPE YOU READ THIS. I hope everyone who hasn't got the chance to travel yet realise that the world is really so so so big, and we're running out of time to see it all!!

Love you all!!
Goodnight :)

 i finished
 finito!
 how's class
☠ says:
 sorry doing project work with group mates
 can't talk much
 they're looking at the com
-/ girl with the    hot   rod  heart says:
 okay i'm going to shower anyway
☠ says:
 finito wtf
-/ girl with the    hot   rod  heart says:
 HONEYYYYYYYYY
☠ says:
 isn't that french
 FUCK YOU
 don't lie
 you are a boy
-/ girl with the    hot   rod  heart says:
 BABYYYYYYYYYYYYY
☠ says:
 you must be gaty
 gay
 all 3 are girls
 again
 my group mates
-/ girl with the    hot   rod  heart says:
 BE A GOOD BOY AND STUDY HARD OKAY
 i wuv u
 wuv wuv wuv
 HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
-/ girl with the    hot   rod  heart said (1:31 AM):
 oi.

So I've been pretty homesick the past few days, not really homesick but I just miss MY FRIENDS AND MY SIBLINGS. I miss waking up in bed at home and lying there until I had something to do with my siblings or with friends, or just lazing there texting someone, anyone.

Today I woke up in bed and my roommate had already gone downstairs so I was there on my bed, lying there, not sleepy anymore but I just couldn't get up. The curtains were closed so it was dim with an orange glow, and it would usually be a nice warm fuzzy feeling orange glow like how I associate my growing-up-and-sleeping-in days with, but maybe it's just the mood, instead it felt like,
a sickly, suffocating, hazy orange glow.

It was getting warm and my legs were sticky, but I wanted to stay under my blanket. Instinctively, I reached for my phone, and instead of calling hong chen or texting my friends, I dialed *#1345#. 3 pounds 6 pence left on my prepaid credit -.- So I couldn't call hong chen in germany, or message renee since I'm trying to SAVE CREDITS til I get my fucking debit card to set up a contract. So I basically lay there, staring at my 3 pound credit and just did not know what to do.

There was just nothing to wake up to, nothing to wake up for. Usually my siblings would be watching tv, marcus probably watching cartoon network or some FOOD CHANNEL or one of those national geographic/discovery channel sorta things and then I would sit up, stone, watch a bit while finding my voice to say CHANGE THE CHANNEL and wrestle control over the remote.

wake up, open the door, and escape to the sea

literally, it's so ironic. because right now there is absolutely no escape when I wake up. On one hand, I don't really like being in lectures and having to do homework stuff (not yet, but starting soon) and taking exams on retarded modules I didn't choose like COMPUTING AND DATA ANALYSIS wtf but on the other hand, I hope I get so busy with school I forget that I'm missing all of you. I miss all my friends, I miss hong chen, I miss my siblings and cousin, I miss TV TV TV OH MY GOD THERE IS NO TV HERE, I miss not having to do fucking laundry and walking back and forth in the fucking cold, I miss not having to prepare my own (shitty) meals just for the sake of staying alive and I miss sinapore, basically. I miss the fact that when I woke up with nothing to do last time, I could just go straight to town and walk around and window shop or buy something and I'd feel happy and satisifed and fulfilled HAHAHA. There is no such thing like that here.

I am such a baby it's ridiculously funny and totally unexpected. I thought I'd be handling this all pretty well, and the past week - with lectures and sleeping early or having a few beers over the weekend and making new friends - I'd been feeling better everytime I went to bed. But morning comes and it's like I start from scratch again. It's tiring. It really is.

I love all my friends all over the world, and today I REALLY REALLY LOVE NICK. I consider nick to be one of my good friends honestly and it's strange because we've never had a heart to heart or really hung out much after school, but he's just such an angel and I really do love him. I love all my friends for all sorts of reasons, basically just for being themselves. My friends AND SIBLINGS are the best gifts God has given me, ever, and I really must have been a saint in my past life to have them now. And hong chen too haha for all the loving things he says

-/ girl with the    hot   rod  heart said:
:(
i'm about to cry again
☠:
fuck you


ON A MUCH BRIGHTER NOTE TO QUELL YOUR WORRIES AND TO SAVE ME FROM REPLYING CONCERNED MESSAGES WITH WHAT LITTLE CREDIT I HAVE LEFT,

I am actually alright here. ^^ I'm starting to make friends and they're really nice people. There are just so many of us around so you don't really get to talk properly but just have, short, peripheral conversations sorta thing, but I think we're all off to a start and the people do seem very nice. I'll hopefully settle down all my things soon, indulge in some retail therapy when my debit card arrives, and go visit renee in southampton one weekend.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

byebye

oh my gosh it was so depressing.

as in sure, the dancing and songs and all that was GREAT but is my sister seriously growing up watching this kinda shit? everyone is so HAPPY and WHOLESOME and PERFECT and god it's such a bad depiction of..life? teenage years? i don't know. it's just so MOVIE-LIKE. but i'm thinking, what happened to all those awesome flicks i watched when I WAS GROWING UP. Couldn't remember all the titles so I tried googling best teen movies of the 90s and still can't really find the right titles? but right now I'm coming across all these movies which were huge blockbusters that i didn't catch, so i'm gonna make a list of movies to really sit down and watch soon.

- se7en
- the shawshank redemption
- few good men
- the wedding singer: looks cute!! adam sandler AND drew barrymore the happiest actors ever i think and i didn't even know they were in this movie. they were SO CUTE in 50 first dates, one of my favouritestt movies ever so i have high hopes for this one yay
- PHILADELPHIA: just because juang is going there hahaha
- the truman show: actually looks sad :( and depressing but very intriguing.
- class act: doesn't look spectacular but looks like a teen flick i'd like to catch
- reality bites: something about being in gen x.

Question- Are we considered to be gen x?? or are we like. gen Y already or something
anyway Reality Bites has ethan hawke and winona ryder and ben stiller quite interesting combo and it's supposed to be a comedy. sooo yay i shall try to watch this.


AND BACK TO THE PURPOSE OF THIS: TEEN MOVIES.
1. SHE'S ALL THAT!!!!! i lovelovelovelovelovelove rachael leigh cook heheheh
2. josie and the pussycats!! just for the songs. i still listen to them hahaha
3. 10 things i hate about you
4. drive me crazy!! (okay i don't even remember much of 10 things or drive me crazy but i'm so going to watch them again anywayyy)
5. superstar (i think i caught a bit of this on hbo once and it looked HILARIOUS so i want to watch the full thing)
6. never been kissed (not really a TEEN movie but it was still soooo sweet)
7. STRIKE!!! / ALL I WANNA DO - THE MOVIE THAT I ALWAYS TRIED TO FIND BUT DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS CALLED! This was seriously some awesome movie about protecting your school grounds and stuff like that. It was Very Inspiring and Motivating. though i vaguely recall sex and drugs and stuff like that too but oh well
8. My first wedding (haven't caught this but rachael leigh cook again so must give this a shot)
9. welcome to the dollhouse (heather matarazzo??? apparently a good teenflick but really? the irritating girl from princess diaries? looks like i have to give this a shot)
10. can't hardly wait
11. sixteen candles + pretty in pink + all the other john hughes milestone movies i missed..
12. now and then
13. crazy/beautiful
14. virgin suicides (but not very high on my list cos i recall it was v depressing)
15. jawbreaker (looks retarded but oh well i'll watch it just cos it has paige from charmed and i liked charmed!!)
16. sugar and spice looks spastic like jawbreaker, about cheerleaders trying to rob a bank i think but i have nothing better to dooooo
17. disturbing behaviour with katie holmes and james marsden (i thought katie holmes was so cool in this movie, in fact i think it was the only movie i watched with her in it before batman, so i was really like WHAT?? when she married tom cruise)
18. Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger! Can I take your order? hahaha
19. cruel intentions sounds awfully sinister and scary but interestingg

Other shows to catch:
- 11:14: vocals coach recommended this before, he said it's just like CRASH so it should be good cos i really liked crash
- fairy tale police (just cos it's rlc again)
- saved! (cos i can't remember much of it but i remember people saying it was good)
- 54
- the descent? about a girl who got raped and gets all vindictive and semi schizo. sounds heavy and depressing but i hope there's a good ending?
- sorority boys (looks retarded but funny)

Okay one by one i hope to strike off these titles and watch them all before i ship my ass off to the middle of nowhere :(

if anyone's reading this and you have some awesome teen flicks to recommend PLEASE TELL MEEEE

WITH A YOGURT COATING.


Meaning I have to suck through the yogurt to get to my fruit flakes.

It's just like life, SUCH. A. BITCH. Always have to jump through hoops just to get what you want. :(


Wanted to go watch ndp rehearsal tmr but I'm SICK SICK SICK so sniffle. Hopefully I'll get to go watch ndp someday with hong chen! Might suddenly get knocked out due to cold meds so GOODNIGHT!! :D

Loving everybody tonight :)

Okay I'm just going to pretend I was kidnapped by aliens and the last few posts were written by a clone or something.


Aside from all the issues revolving around me, it's really strange because I still feel like there're a lot of things I have to do before I leave! and I feel pressured inside, yet on the outside I'm still living like a slug with nothing purposeful to do at all. And in the last few days I realised what it was that I felt like I had to do.

Turns out, I've just been so hung up on so many things over the years that something inside is just SCREAMING that it's TIME TO LET GO. Or time to fix and set things right. I'm 19. It's my last year of being a teenager and one of the things I just cannot get over is growing up. I feel the need to do reckless and stupid things for what feels like the last time in my life even though I stopped doing retarded things years ago, just because come 20, I'm going to have to be an adult. It's a really silly thing but honestly it was something I can't get over, even though I've actually moved on already. It's just something that I have to acknowledge and let it sink in I guess -.-

On to more worthy things.

I'm leaving in September and the next 3, 4 years I will hardly be home, and will hardly get to see my younger siblings and cousin grow up, or to see my grandmother grow old, or to even see my older sister who will be studying halfway across the world at all. And because I've only got...a week with my sister, and 2 months with my family before I return at the end of this next phase a full-fledged grown up with a job and other exciting shit like that, I feel like these are the last 2 months I've got or I'll never have the chance again. When I come back, my sis and I will be busy working and living our own lives, my siblings will not be bothered to hang out with us and nobody will care about the things that are happening now. It's stupid, but it's like there's a thought in my head that just says point blank, only the kids care. And when I become an adult, even I won't care anymore.

So we're on our way to setting things right with the family, kinda/hopefully/maybe. At the end of the day they're all I've got and I don't want to KNOW that I could have done so much more.

Friends.

I have never made a real effort to keep friendships and for that I know I'm quite an awful person. For the few rare and precious ones who are STILL so close to my heart even though we don't see or talk to each other in months, years - if there's something I'm supposed to thank God for it would be those people, honestly. Of course I also thank God for giving me the friends in my present life and I really know I ought to be putting in more effort in the next few months too before I leave and they forget about me too.

Then there are then hang-up's again. From PRIMARY SCHOOL if you would believe it. About my 2 superduper best friends from primary school. I think after the few initial years of changing schools (a few times) and trying really hard to keep in touch, and then failing, I then gravitated to the other extreme end of the spectrum and tried to distance myself from them as much as possible. Weird, but come on - OKAY I TRIED REALLY HARD BUT I HAVE NO EXCUSE. I/It was just weird. Either ways, the main point of this was that in a letter I wrote them in primary school, I talked about how we prob wouldn't even remember each other by the time we got to JC since we were no longer Best Friends.

But lo and behold!!!, one became my CLASSMATE in jc and the other I talked to because of uni apps and almost became uni schoolmates with. It's just so weird you can't help but believe in fate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's this song, such great heights by the postal service. And tonight it really reminded me of my FRIENDS actually.

It's like we could all go our own separate ways for now, criss crossing all over the world and maybe bumping into each other here and there or maybe not seeing each other for decades to come, but eventually, like the miraculous situation cited above (I know singapore is small but still you have to believe it was fate right???) I think we'll all end up at the same place and the same time again (SURE HOPE IT'S NOT HEAVEN/HELL)

it's like

they will see us waving from such great heights.






Cannot be bothered to tie this up, so. goodnight! ^^

HOW much more emo can I get SERIOUSLY I am playing ANTHEM OF OUR DYING DAY


I ought to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and checked into an asylum or just placed under house arrest and not be allowed to do anything. No, I don't even know if I have some psycho split personality or just NO personality at all, which is highly possible since I can't ever make up my mind.

So I signed it and took their school. Why? Because I told myself it's time to grow up and be realistic and that face it, we're all going to grow up into the people we never wanted to become anyway no matter how strongly we believe we're special and there's a chance WE'LL MAKE A DIFFERENCE, WE'LL BREAK OUT OF THIS CYCLE, WE'LL BE SOMEBODY THAT THE WORLD REMEMBERS. It's obviously not going to happen in this lifetime or ever.

Hong chen also brainwashed me into thinking I am truly FORTUNATE and LUCKY to even have the chance to go overseas when there are children dying in the world every minute with no food to eat no clean water and education is just a distant dream and it was impeccable timing esp after famine camp. So I was like, yes! he's right, I'm lucky and I should take it because beggars cannot be choosers

Reason 3 I am beginning to discover over this weekend - that maybe I am going with the full intention of being unhappy over there and then having all the right in the world to blame my parent(s?) for just another thing I didn't have the guts to tell to their faces.

Reason 4 scares me slightly during daytime when I'm fully conscious and rational but at night with emo music playing and the thought of going to OBS tomorrow with strangers and having to delete all my hopes and dreams one by one that I bookmarked under favourites, tells me that it's just life and if I really hate it so much I can always end it whenever I want to. -.- just to break the angst.


Nobody knows the answer so nobody can tell me but is 340,000 dollars worth it?


I prided myself in daring to take risks, or at least I thought I dared to take risks. So I thought even going to sydney to some unheard of school to study hotel management would be an adventure in its own right but FUN because I know for a fact that I wouldn't mind living there, but in the last few hours before the signing I started to try and persuade myself that maybe, the gamble to take right now was what looked like the safety option - warwick/mindef. Too bad those few hours are gone and those emotions have totally subsided because it's not like I'm regretting it totally, it's just that I'm still not sure. No matter how many times I re-decide that this is the best choice for me, I can't help but despise myself for not doing what I truly wanted.

maria kang you sell out

it's ironic how jianyang doesn't know me that well, that we hardly speak and that he hasn't a clue what's going on, but he was spot on when he said that. I am such a sell out it's embarrassing and I can't bring myself to piece it together in a sentence to tell people where I'm going and how because I don't want to believe it's true. I inform those I believe ought to know, but really it's not like I'm going to throw a huge party over this. I told pravween I am so going to have a hugeass party before I leave, but seriously it's not really a celebratory kind but more of a drown my sorrows let's die of alcohol poisoning and not have to face tomorrow kind of party. We'll see how that goes I guess, but if it really does happen COME COME COME







I have way too much going on in my head.

So today I pretty much decided on the direction I'm gonna take my life in, and it also became a lot clearer on how much farther I'm leaving the past/present behind.

These have been the fastest 6 months of my life not doing anything, and it was seriously total bliss, but now as all the fog clears up and the road ahead is pretty darn visible and CLOSE, it's obvious that I'm going to have to snap out of my whirlwind/limbo state and start moving forward.

I like taking long night drives with hong chen.

1.57am

2.27am

3.40am

We just keep driving round and round - I don't even know where we go sometimes. Sometimes we explore our neighbourhood, checking out random houses with one million security cameras installed or with police guardposts or just psycho dogs in general, sometimes we go down the big bridge that links to Costa Rhu and I imagine I can see my parents sleeping inside.

We sing Drops of Jupiter, Island in the Sun, Leaving Town, Viva La Vida, all at the top of our lungs in our private mobile karaoke room and it feels like time doesn't exist at all - I wouldn't say time stopped, because everytime I glance at the clock, it's been half an hour, an hour, two, without even feeling like ten minutes have passed.

It feels like I'm sleeping, dreaming, but we're both awake and in it together, and nothing matters at all.

'I could die now and I'd be okay.'

I just wish time would freeze and we'd be
19 forever,
still living the days like when we were 16 and dared to gamble with our lives.

you know things are pretty fucked up in your mind when you start telling yourself-
i wish i got really shitty grades for ib
or i wish i didn't get mindef
or KILL ME NOWWWWWWW

things would have been so to-ta-lly peachy if i'd just taken up usyd right from the start in january and flown there in march as opposed to sitting around doing nothing much with my life and actually kinda liking it AND THEN having to make a huge lifechanging drastic decision. people who know me well know, that i. cannot. make. decisions.

so what is permanent, other than tattoos and things that don't decompose etc etc?

I lovelovelove sr-71 especially the first mellow song I heard from them, Hello Hello - it was playing during the rolling credits of some kind of toned-down epic movie and the song was just so beautiful to listen to in the dark. When I say 'toned down epic', you know, it's that sort of movie that's probably about everyday life or ordinary people but when they magnify the amazing little things they do or go through, it makes you swell up inside with just warmfuzzyfeelings. Or maybe it was hope. It just feels like there's hope for the rest of all of us who might have to resign ourselves to the one thing we all told ourselves we would never succumb to - mediocrity.

We all told ourselves in some point in time that we would be different, that we would be remembered, but how many of us actually succeed? It's not like we're not trying - sometimes shit just happens.

But just as I begin to think of these warmfuzzy movies and tell myself, maybe mediocrity isn't such a bad thing since beautiful things happen to ordinary people too, I think of......

SUPERMAN. Okay not really, more of the song Kryptonite and then from there, Superman. And then it really just ties back in with those warmfuzzy movies.! It's not like people know who Superman really is. He's totally ordinary and forgettable on the outside like when we brush shoulders with random strangers and acquaintainces everyday, but underneath it all he's actually saving the world.

So maybe it's not as simple as being average or being spectacular. It's like how we're all individually gifted (not THAT kind of gifted, but,) in the blessed sense. We were all given different forms of gifts - some from the inside like a really generous heart or a really wise mind, or some that can be seen from the outside like a beautiful family or wonderful friends and companions, and it's really these gifts that make us un-ordinary. OKAY there's a real word for it duh - extra-ordinary haha. Like working within our human limits but leading lives that are beyond these constraints.

Maybe it was never about achievement? Not about how much you earn or how good your grades were or how many cip hours you clock. But basically how we led our lives. Right now as I type this it suddenly feels so DUH again like going one whole round to come back to what people always say, it's not what we do but how we do what we do (what a mouthful).

I just wish everybody understood this / that people understand me. It's bad enough I expect myself to achieve more, do more, be more. But even I can't fully assimilate the thought that I should be content with what's been handed to me and aim to be extra-ordinary, instead of something I may never have been cut out to be.

* * * * * *

That said, I wish life were like the warmfuzzy movies where I could just be content living that extra-ordinary life. Maybe we don't get gifts that we can see or that we can use, but love truly looks like an awesome gift to get in the movies haha. The only thing that really SUCKS about movies is that they're what, max 2 hours?

Hello hello - 'love is only temporary' - and isn't it true? It's almost like pain, it almost never lasts forever, but when you do find one that's permanent, you were either SUPERDUPER LUCKY or superduper unlucky. You know, depending on which one you got. But it's like striking the lottery or something, it totally doesn't last a lifetime. So it sucks when in movies people find true love and then it feels like a 'happily ever after' when in reality you know that's not how it plays out.

I guess at the end of the day they're just selling hope, that we all just keep buying because we want it so much.! Even when we all know, mostly, that what happens in the movies are never going to happen to us, but we keep watching the films just to cling to that 0.0000001% chance that they come true, and keep waiting for that day to come.

Tonight the moon looked like someone took a pair of scissors and just snipped half of it off, did anyone notice? :(

Walking back from cy's house with hongchen today was particularly -fine- because obviously I hate walking and I ALWAYS have to walk short distances in the wrong direction of traffic. Like it's 2 bus stops to hongchen's house but in the OTHER WAY so I can't hop on a bus and go, and my house is 1 bus stop down from cy's house IN THE OTHER WAY AGAIN so we still had to walk baaaack and I'm digressing.

I love singing. (It was really funny in my mindef thing when they ask what are my hobbies and all I could put was 'singing'. The guy kept prompting like 'how about sports :D' or 'do you like READING?', and obviously it was 'no, no, no.')

Today was chuting and salima's acapella concert and although I didn't watch the actual show I heard bits here and there during the tech run - we did their makeup and obviously running late etc etc but luckily we finished everybody just in time for them to get on live stage - and =/ I guess I just miss being a part of something. I guess I could look forward to school starting (no idea where) and joining some kind of singing group thingy again but I don't even know if that's what I really want. I was taking vocal lessons for awhile but I got kinda busy so I haven't scheduled that back in (as well as one million supposed meet-ups with evelyn, renee, juang, TRANG HAHAHAH VIETNAMESE BOY ON HIS WAAAAY and just other people i've left out of my life in general, oh and not forgetting christina of course before she goeees)

and obviously I sing on my own in the showerrr, when I walk along the road and noone can hear me, but singing alone is just so, lonely. Maybe it's because I only hear my own voice, or maybe it's because nobody hears me. I don't know! hahaha

but anyway, so when hongchen and I were walking back tonight, it was really quite nice because he was playing island in the sun on his phone and we were both just singing along to it and then I'd harmonize it and so we totally sing over the phone and in the end all we can hear is just each other and our two layers of voices, and that felt enough already ^^ It's just so amazing to hear two/more voices in total harmony and like some of you who read one of my uni essays, it seriously feels like everything just falls into place so perfectly like magical jigsaw puzzle pieces that you DON'T even have to WILL to fall into their right places.

so it feels like I don't even have to join a choir to get that kind of satisfaction I feel is totally lacking in my life right now. I seriously wish :(:(:( I could be like a part of a band, no just some retarded singing group HINTHINT like hongchen could sing too - he can actually pitch pretty well - and I could do aaaanything like I'll go LEARN to play something okay. haha it's like I just don't feel like I'm meant to stand on my own by myself. I have to be a part of something (greater than just me).

I'm afraid that in a few months' time, each and every person going away is just going to fall into limbo wherever he/she is alone and forget about the rest of all of us. trying to refrain from saying everybody because, we're not meant to be one collective group of indistinguishable parts. We're all supposed to be in this together no matter where we are, right.

IN GREYISHBLUE, last pair and totally my size. I am so happy with my awesome purchase it was practically a steal. Looks like I used up quite a chunk of my declared-$200-a-month-spending for May. If nat's reading this - I AM VERY TEMPTED TO GO BACK AND TRY THE BOOTS ALTHOUGH THEY ARE A 38. WHO KNOWS? MAYBE CUTTING'S SMALL.


how cool are these right. www.unitednude.com
so my pumps and these boots are of the MOBIUS range cos if you go look at their basic sandals it really is like a mobius strip, pretty interesting stuff but yeah i just like the pumps and boots.

their names are also pretty....strange. This one's called PORN.


Pretty sci-fi, quite interesting but a bit too much for me to WEAR already. Nice to look at I guess.........But I don't get why it's called PORN.

Then again, the next one really shows how they don't put much thought into naming their shoes.


These are called..................

STEALTH.

So I thought it would be a lot more satisfying when I finally get it, but I guess I've just always built it up to be so amazing in my mind that when it comes in reality it's, not really a disappointment, NEVER, but just not ALL THAT GREAT.

Maybe I'm honestly not as materialistic as I think I am! ^^ Like I'll whine and pine and sulk until I get my handbag or whatever, then when it finally comes I'm like, oh okay. Nice, but, okay =/

And it's not that I don't love it. I DO. It's a gorgeous blue and so amazing like the right size and everything but, maybe it's not that supersoft calfskin, or maybe because I haven't stared at it in awe long enough or maybe I just haven't spent much time with it to get to know it better heh but in my heart I'm like, *sweet sigh*, but outwardly I'm like hmm.

MAYBE, it's because I already have it, and you know you only want what you can't have.

Now I just feel accomplished, but not like I'm immensely happy and over the moon. Accomplished like, HAHA I FINALLY GOT WHAT I WANT AS ALWAYS. And then I begin to wonder, hmmmmmm what next? :)

OR, as mentioned before, I'm just not that materialistic!!!! And all these fancy awesome things don't matter that much to me (anymore). OOOH MAYBE I'M GROWING UP AND I'M LIKE DOWN-TO-EARTH AND PRACTICAL.

Yeah, okay, I just read that sentence and it totally did not make sense. A thought flashed across my mind, actually, an image: the gorgeous Tiffany's little blue box. AHHHH OH BUT WAIT I ALREADY HAD MY FIRST. Okay what else. Okay fine the epochal 2.55 ohhhmygosh that one really makes my heart FLUTTER. Okay this was really a stupid moment like thinking that I was ALREADY past all this when I'm only 19. Let's just give it more time =/

me: okay you must be very experienced right so it should be okay???
old man: yes don't worry just look away okay just look at that picture *points to picture of boy taking a blood test*
M: okay ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod the needle is so thick and big!!!!!
OM: standard size.
M: ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod *closes eyes*
Needle goes in right arm
OM: you have a very good vein don't worry but hmm.... (Comment: A GOOD VEIN? wtf does that mean)
M: *eyes still closed* but what?? ohmygodohmygod what's wrong
Can feel weird sucking feeling in arm, can feel needle prodding around under my skin.
OM: don't move, it's okay you have a good vein! wait ah wait hmmmmm
M: what the fuck is going on????? *eyes still closed*
OM: okay nevermind
M: HUH?!!
Opens eyes.
M: WHAT THE FUCK IT'S EMPTY?! *jaw drop at bloody (no not really) empty syringe ;ASLDFJA;SLDKFJA;FLJ*
      why the fuck is it empty?!
OM: Okay my colleague will take your blood. *slaps on disgusting plaster with low-grade adhesive still on my skin*
I get up and walk away in total disbelief, moves to other seat.

Other Colleague: Okay don't worry let's just take your blood
M: No dude what the fuck okay he didn't even draw a single drop of my blood
OC: Don't worry I will definitely take your blood
M: WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE TO TAKE MY BLOOD??? I DON'T HAVE ANY BLOOD DISEASES I SWEAR
OC: Yes okay but it's not for testing that. Many companies need people to take blood tests nowadays too. (And the relevance is....?)
M: CAN'T YOU JUST CUT ME AND SQUEEZE THE BLOOD OUT
OC: Then it would leave a scar in irritating singsong voice
M: I don't care, as long as there're no needles!
OC: Wow. Didn't think someone would sacrifice so much continues in irritating singsong voice
M: CAN'T YOU DRAW IT FROM THIS PART *points to usual place where you get injections higher on the arm*
OC: Yes but it would hurt more
M: THEN CAN'T YOU JUST TAKE IT FROM MY BUTT
OC: You really want to show me your butt?
M: I DON'T CARE
Straps on elastic thing to cut off my circulation. I refuse to give him my left arm so I sit and whimper and wait until I've lost all feeling in my arm before I let him hold it

M: T_________________________________________T
OC: Would you feel better if I scream? (<--- i heard this part wrongly but seriously what kind of sentence is that)
M: If I scream??
OC: No, if I scream.
M: Can I scream??
OC:....uh okay I guess
M: -SCREEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMS- as needle goes in.
     OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYHOLYEFFINGGODDDDDDDDDDD
Random other colleagues from outside: Whoa dude the guys outside are getting stressed!
I continue to wail and cry.

When it was over I just walked from station to station sulking and whimpering on the inside. Most traumatic day I've lived through for the past few years.

1) Uni results and all I got was boston college so not much choice there I guess

2) It's down to BC or USyd

3) I woke up at 730 and cabbed down to MINDEF and the effing incompetent taxi driver just reminded me of the good old days when i HATED ALL STUPID TAXI DRIVERS WHO SENT ME TO SCHOOL THE LONG WAY

4) I spent 9 dollars and 15 minutes going ONE ROUND AROUND BLOODY CLEMENTI WHEN HE CHANGES HIS MIND AND SAYS WE SHOULD GO BY ULU PANDAN INSTEAD WHEN WHAT THE FUCK THAT IS JUST 5 MINUTES AND A DOLLAR OR SOMETHING AWAY FROM MY HOUSE A;SLDFKJA;SFLKJAWE;FLJAS;DLFJ

5) I had to remind him his hazard lights were on while he was driving

6) When we were turning right, his left signal lights were on

7) He is just so fucking STUPID i wanted to stab him and take the wheel and speed there myself

8) Like I said DROP ME OUTSIDE and he has to drop me LIKE TEN METRES AWAY FROM THE ENTRANCE

9) I WAS FOUR MINUTES LATE. okay well 34 minutes late and partially my own fault but HAD HE NOT WASTED ALL MY TIME I WOULD'VE MADE IT THERE BY NINE AND IT WOULD'VE BEEN OKAY

10) so i reached at 9.04am and so i missed my medical screening

11) I FASTED FROM 10PM ONWARDS LAST NIGHT

12) GASTRIC PAINS

13) all that asshole's fault i was 4 minutes late

14) oh did i mention cab fare was 19 DOLLARS?

15) no reimbursement since parents are MIA

16) when i got to harbourfront mrt, i had to watch the doors close and the mrt pull away, then wait for another 6 minutes.

17) why does it seem like NOTHING goes my way


So I got to the conclusion that-

These 19 years I've been pretty much leading a charmed life, I've always gotten what I want and never had to take 'no' for an answer on anything serious. Whatever I wanted, I got, mostly. Well if I didn't, I don't remember so it probably wasn't that big a deal. But it's like asdflja;dlsfkja;sdlfjk all the bad luck and bad opportunities that missed me all this while is just coming CRASHING DOWN ON ME now like the full blow of 19 years of missingbadluck. It's all here now. I got into every good school all my life and now this is like the most important school I would ever go to, and I just don't make the cut.! It really gets to me that all this while I've been going down a really smooth road and suddenly, nooo it's not a little bump, nooo it's not a pothole, IT'S A FUCKING HUGE WALL CREATING A DEAD END THAT MY CAR IS GOING TO CRASH HEAD-ON TO.

Well *if* I had a car, you know. It'd be a mini cooper btw. It's just so cute.

Then I wouldn't have to be:
trapped in a vehicle with some fucking moron or
wait in the damn train station with some WEIRD DUDE STARING AT ME FROM 10 CM AWAY or
walk behind this IRRITATING FAT GIRL WHO KEEPS COUGHING WITHOUT COVERING HER MOUTH OKAY WHAT IF SHE HAD TUBERCULOSIS - it's on the rise you know - like how irresponsible is that JUST COUGHING ALL OVER THE PLACE and shaking her irritating fat ass while doing that ;LJKFA;LSDKA;SLKFJAS;DLFJ

okay I'm sorry I'm obviously in hyper bitch mode right now but i can't HELP IT what is wrong with meeeeee!

I just want to dieeeeeee sigh

Like right now after all this BAD LUCK and obstacles in my way, for example, missing my medical screening and having to postpone it meaning I don't think I can make it to LA and Boston and if we can't make it on the original date then hongchen can't make it then I'm so not going ALONE so FORGET IT.

I don't think it was even about the school, really. It was just to go overseas and the exciting thought of watching the lakers/celtics live. BUT THAT'S ALL GONE NOW. Forget the damn trip a;dlfja;sdlfkja;fd. Maybe just FORGET ABOUT SCHOOL I could go waitress all my life and be an aspiring singer and/or write a book that never gets published - you know, all the things I was supposed to do in New York, I'd just do them here. HAHA. My life is over.

Okay quick poll if anybody even got this far in reading this:

BOSTON COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY??
Ignore costs and length of study. What do you think?


:(

today i watched confessions of a shopaholic with yiyi fong to and hongchen in town.

been busy working so haven't really gone out much recently, haven't even got the chance to wear new clothes that are just collecting dust in paperbags! so anyway, we were at cine, and i've always associated cine with basically TEENAGERS/all youths in singapore. it's like you could be conducting a social experiment on youths and you'd find every possible specimen you needed in that one biome. there's like

1. the usual people smoking and hanging around/loitering outside cheers or on the other side by the road
- it's like, WHERE ARE THEY FROM?
- are they always the SAME PEOPLE?
- do they ever MOVE?
- WHAT ARE THEY WAITING FOR??

2. the skater boys with their boards or the bmx/rollerblade kids

3. the really skanky 'ah lians' (i don't know, that's what my aunt calls them) with way too much make up and COME ON it's a saturday afternoon in town, not midnight at the clubs man

4. okay there's basically MANY GENRES i can't remember them all but the bottom line was basically that,

I kind of identify them by the way the talk, dress, walk, act, etc and okay fine i'm being really judgmental and stuff i know but i just can't help wonderiiiing, where have i been?

i know i told trang i felt kind of, lucky, in a way, that i wasn't still caught in a limbo phase and mindlessly going out everyday but had real stuff to finish or accomplish everyday, but today when i finally stepped back into town i just missed it SO MUCH IT'S SO FUNNY.

okay i don't really go to cine much but i was just curious, if i weren't working, what kind of teenager would i be classified as? 'boring jeans and tees', 'the others', 'etc.'?

in a way it almost feels like i'm out of touch with the world, which is really strange considering it's a world of stranger kids with no purpose in life yet either

weiird.

Won't you think I'm pretty
When I'm standing top the bright lit city
And I'll take your hand and pick you up
And keep you there so you can see it
As long as you're alive and care
I promise I will take you there
We'll drink and dance the night away



I GOT REJECTED BY UCLA
what a bummer.

things like these are making me reconsider vocal lessons ._.


shakuhachi denim dress, $257
I'm sorry but I just cannot ever kick my denim addiction! You can throw out half my jeans but I'll just buy more denim in other shapes and sizes


shakuhachi roll neck in black/white, $206
mainly loving the slightly assymmetrical tulip skirt


shakuhachi cut out dress, $206


shakuhachi shredded dress, $185
DEFINITELY loving this one since it's something I can actually wear and the price is mighty friendly


shakuhachi cut out long sleeve, $247
not that into long sleeved dresses but the cut out neckline + loose sleeves looks niiice. Can imagine blair waldorf in this but with perhaps some embellishments cos i don't see her doing the totally black look


maurie & eve, $163
I WANT THIS I WANT THIS I WANT THIS


alice mccall june beetle, $338
PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE IT'S THE ONLY BUG I'D EVER LIKE. okay yeah but I don't see myself pulling this off but I just want to see it hanging in my closet.


alice mccall cleopatra butterfly, $FIVEFIVEFIVE HOLYCRAP
Yes but isn't it GORGEOUS. Not something I'd be wearing at this age cos the silhouette+blackandwhite is just too mature for me but I would so get this in my twenties (not too far off) for those random dinner parties and stuff.


bec & bridge camelot skirt, $165
I REALLY LOVE LOVE LOVE okay I know the whole military detailing has been done over and over too many times but cute is just cute. There is no denying. Plus, nice price tag too :D


last but not least
sass & bide
the almost noon rtw dress w/ adjustable skirt
$463
Totally should have been juang's prom dress since she was really into the long black flowing gowns but HER PROM DRESS WAS EVEN MORE AWESOME ANYWAY

:( somebody help me!

vocal lessons


clothes


vocal lessons


clothes

vocal lessons

clothes

vocal lessons
clothes
vocal lessons clothes
vocal lessons clothes vocal lessons clothes
vocallessonsclothesvocallessonsclothesvocallessonsclothesHOWHOWHOW

PS SORRY FOR LOUSY QUALITY PICS I DON'T KNOW HOW TO WORK THISSSSSSS