Yesterday we watched The Reader after school before heading to Charmaine’s poolside 21 birthday party. It was very good.

chew wif biw

Zhilin mentioned The Noose over dinner last night at Baikohken. I’m watching past eps on youtube now and Michelle Chong & Chua En Lai’s impersonations of various personalities are really very amusing.

Exceptionally Michelle Chong. It’s not those fake british accent. It’s the maid who expained in depth what she had learnt in MS maid training school like how “to report if sir..or mdm touch me without permission.” LOL

& I also loved the mother who was extremely disgusted and horrified by the games played in university orientation camps. I swore i know friends’ mothers and aunties who talked like this.

The footage showing NUS students in campus standing at a crowded bus-stops, canteens and couples holding hands with the overlaying commentary talking about how these orientation games are promoting inappropriate proximity and sexual blah blah blah.

GO WATCH. Michelle Chong is worth it.

Detention

What we did at SM1B on Monday, 2pm to 3pm. I followed shy min to wash her water bottle.

Then, we were, with 22 more others, locked out of our classroom. I think to a certain extent we deserve it. (& I mean it as a collective whole. Personally, I was just suay. Not late for lesson. Speaking for myself only I’d say it was unfair.) I can understand how annoying it is to watch students stroll in with barely a sense for urgency. Punctuality is a delicate issue to some.

But point it, this is what indignity and for some, apathy & defiance reduced us to. & just so you know, I belonged to the former.

Out of boredom, I rallied everyone for a snapshot.

We filled time with community bonding in the form of eidelweiss.

Here is annabelle on her extended tea break. A photo like this might just mislead people into thinking we’re really queueing in line for the latest macdonald HELLO KITTY soft toy.

I did not mention the prof’s name. Partly because I’m cowered by the huge blank anonymity that shrouds webpage viewing. (In short, coward.) Mainly it’s because I do not think what he/she has done is wholly unreasonable. I’d have done similar.

We’re just sad lambs in a herd of playful ones.

rhubarbs

Mundane routine of alternating lectures & lab, interspersed with intermittent sleep and the occasional flossing of teeth makes the weeks fleet by in a flash. Without the daily shots of caffeine I might just missed out on this integral aspect of my life.

I feel so unhealthy sometimes I think it’s only a matter of time i sink my full weight on the sofa and the sheer mass of displacement never lift. It is a milestone on some sorts & i see the demise of size 2? waist size in the not too far future.

Then some of you friends reading this will think, “but u’re not very very fat now what.”

Well, I do have to be deprecating over something. Have you seen me happy? My writing stinks when I’m happy.

It is a few days to CNY and so, we went to this place recommended by eggy, who was recommended by another friend, to thread our eyebrows. Peninsula plaze is notorious for the questionable smell that pervades the low light dingy shopping centre that looked not a day different from its 1970s days.

Funnily, I had this strange allergy towards the indian lady who meticulously ripped off the wild strands of my eyebrows and shaped them to a specifically low-arch natural look. Each time she neared me my nose tingled. I told her I needed to sneeze & she’d oblige and give me room to release what aerosol of mucus & sorts & suddenly the urge to sneeze is gone. The she’d resume and the tingles returned.

It was excruciating trying to refrain from a good sneeze.

Crossing threshold

16th January 2009

Here to turning 21. Shahira & I had a joint birthday celebration at Costa Sands. Shahira’s birthday is actually on the 24th.

In the morning it was school til 1. Thank goodness the hurdle of median diastema is cleared. 4 to appease my distress the other day.

While working on oscar, Dr Lim noticed that I was sitting tip-toed. 

L: why are you sitting tip-toed?

Me: I think that’s the lowest the chair can go.

(signal me to stand up while he sits on the chair and lowered it somemore)

Me: …

Me: Just now when I tried it couldn’t go down

L:I think you’re too light that’s why

JJJ

We arrived at A07 came evening. I thought shahira was in the room & went Happy Birthday Shahira. Turned out, the people inside were everyone but her. I repeated the kuku stunt again the following day when I wished the wrong sister happy birthday.

Kickstarted the skewering & get the fire going.

Mariana, Xiaoyan & Zhilin turned up early. It is so like them to be nothing less than punctual, lol. Was happy to see them:) Zhilin is really good with the camera, despite me telling her so little.

 

This chocolate is from Liane! It’s from this chocolate shop at Vivo we somehow always patronise for gift ideas.

 Night came. The food from bbq wholesale was really all yum. Big credit also goes to all the friends who helped tend the fire & barbeque the meat.

 Birthday cakes from Awfully Chocolate. Thank you, Liane, Shy min & meihui (did i miss out anyone) for helping to order & collect the cakes. & also for the drinks:)

Dental class of 2011.

Extinguised in a  flash.

 Laying the knife onto the chocolate goodness. The cute green box housed the 2 lens snuggly.

We were attempting some corny shots but laughter escaped us.

喜

The morning after. We went to the beach to freshen up.

& this is it.

♥

Hamburglars

On saturday we had a small premature 21st birthday celebration in my honor with some peircean friends. At Macdonald’s we wore party hats, though I think I’m the only one truly enthusiastic to don one on my crown.

I hadn’t seen Xin ru & Jin fa for good ages already. We had many curly fries & McSpicys.

Darryl was the clown for the evening; his antics turning Xueqian & Melvin into spasms of laughter & uproar. We played some games. & Kevin decided to open up the stashed away chest of old loves.

Superman versus Xmen

With Xinru

& Melvin was killed. (I looked kuku.)

A series of misfortunate events

Wednesday

My day read like a page from Lemony Snicket’s. Blackout when I’m not ready to use the file. My access cavity turned out to be grossly wrong & it turned out we were just misguided. All poised and excited to have ramly burger & otah for lunch & both stalls just disappeared from the bazaar. A lousy day in clinics flipped my mood. Had tuition. Overslept on the train & missed my stop. Of all the days I had to overslept this has to happen when I’m not getting off at Punggol. Was 1 hour late for tuition. On my way back I took 62 but actually it was 82. What was intended to be a 20 minutes journey home turned to be an hour.

It’s all some heavenly collusion to drain my tear ducts.

public outcry

Tuesday

Someone should really lay down a statute against stupid people who have this silly misconception that their speaker phones are the license to broadcast their lousy choice of music at confined areas (read: trains & buses) so they might delude themselves that us commuters are all secretly enjoying this little private gig they’re having.

Dont mistake our reproachful stares at appreciative nods.

Today I took 3 home & there he was, a big man standing in front of me showcasing his library of chinese pop songs to the squashed passengers holding onto to the straps for their dear lives.

Wah lau. His handphone (same model as mine) hung precariously on his neck & it was covered with a wool pouch bearing cute characters even me a fairer sex would never carry it.

I was hoping my boring eyes towards his dong dong of a handphone would sear right through the strap & liberate the poor contraption from the kuku owner. I don’t know if I’m more angry at him & at my cowardice to keep silent when beneath the calm facade I was raging like mad.

& what use is 75% noise cancelling when i can discern the voices of SHE seeping into my songs.

C’mon, let’s have a shirt with a real LOUD statement to drive home the message.

People lurking at the back of double decker buses having your mini karaoke sessions, really, just stop it.

21st week

Monday:

We made our unceremonious entrance into clinics, bearing the load of our frasaco head Oscar (Now comes with a dense cranium!) and our instruments as we made the distance from storey 1 to 3.

I bought a pair of headphones on sunday night. The next day, I revisited Headphone Gallery at The Central to change a new pair. Regretted this move immediately. While this JVC big black headphones comes with noise cancelling I can still eavesdrop on conversation. Ok, really loud ones.

Both the former & the latter pairs came with a real icky design, meaning there is a fat triangle of space caused by the outer flaring of the headstrap to meet the headphones in continuity. One could stuff a dozen pencils into the space in case they panicked over the lack of use of their now occupied ears.

From afar they just give extra 10cm width across my head. The new pair, well, wires aren’t so phat. You could dye them yellow & cooked them with prawns and no one could tell.

We watched Red Cliff 2. Which was brilliant. 8 days reviews of asian movies are just so biased. We sat at row B, so my eyes had to dart across the screen from left to right then back to left.

stars

Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine I could watch Stars performed in Singapore. I always presume I was going to graduate, earn my own keeping & the pair of us, Xiaoyan & I, would follow them across continents, without missing an act. & this will probably take place a decade later?

So 2009 has already been so fortunate to me, even if its only the beginning. At 20 one my my dreams realised. It IS a big thing. We are the die-hard fans.

7th January 2009. Lovely Greenhorn Productions & their god-darned good choices.

The gig bang-started with The Night Starts Here; Amy Milan & Torquil Campbell’s vocals reducing me to a bawling mess. Forget your name, forget your fear. I couldn’t stop the tears.

Next up in line in the set was Take Me to The Riot. It was great. Torquil Campbell’s dramatic antics; his heart thumping, hopping around, dashing from one to the other, tossing petals & stalks up in the air (I had a stalk!) had us all enraptured & captivated. It was anything but a sedated, leg-crossed, polite-clapping performance.

Amy Milan, omg, what can I say. She sounded exactly as she did in the album. Those lovely vocals that completed the songs. They did a good mix from Set Yourself On Fire, Sad Robot & In Our Bedroom After The War. Sadly, no Heart, no On Peak Hill, no Better Be Heaven.

But nonetheless, we all cheered and paid rapt attention. Your Ex-Lover Is Dead, Soft Revolution, Calendar Girl, One More Night, What I’m trying to say, What The Snowman Learnt About Love, Reunion, Undertow, Elevator Love Letter, Midnight Coward were simply so mindblowing awesome. I kept crying, its such a shame.

Torquil Campbell walked into the crowd midway into the gig & at that moment I was cursing that I should have gotten central seats. It was the “I’m alive” part. Reminscent of Kevin Drew & the alive thing during their gig last March.

We are collapsed in the act of just being here ; Three blues, two greens & a beer

Evan Cranley (Above),Chris Seligman (below) Whenever I watched Evan Cranley I thinked about Cranley’s Gonna Make It.

Live through this and you won’t look back.

Post gig, we dashed out to queue for the autograph session. Made a few friends while waiting in line. Met Carisa, surprise surprise.

Alan Snoddy endorsing Tiger Beer.

Pat McGee

Had the back of my ipod adorned with all their signatures & it’s so precious now.><

Won’t be the last gig of theirs I’ve been, this is.

The revolution wasn’t bad
We hit the streets
With all we had

A tape recording of the sound
Of the Velvet Underground
A K-way jacket torn to shreds
And a dream inside our heads
And after changing everything
They couldn’t tell
We couldn’t sing
They couldn’t tell we couldn’t sing
And that changes everything