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The irony of this was just too good to pass up.


And this one is for all the people who're for some reason or the other bogged down in work and staying in school till late. From a time too far gone. I showed this to my sis and she immediately said
"not fairrrr!! I want O levels too!"
But well, i mean, what horrible suffering we went thru, we only had one recess break in a week! =)
if i recall, too, i think we often got the teacher to move the periods up so we didn't have a break. Hardworking chaps, my class. Really. =)


more junk accumulated. I actually finished this a couple of days back, but was too lazy to post it. Still haven't taken a pic of my table..... now that i can actually tell the colour of its surface. but well, imagination. I think the pics on this topic are overdone anyway. If you look carefully, you'll note how there're 3 multi-compartment files (read: fat bloated paper holders) in there. yes, 3. I suspect i've only gone thru three in my whole academic life, but i can't really be too sure. Need pics from primary school.

Garcon! Un cafe sil vous plait!

Wake up at 6:30. fall asleep. Wake up again at 6:35. Bumble bumble. Brush teeth. Change and pop into sister's room, since she's awake.

"What're you doing awake so early? *pause* Are you going to RUN?"
*nods*
"You're nuts. If i were you i'd sleep in."
"Running's good for you."
"ya, but you don't have to run so EARLY."
"zz."

so i ran. and then after running i saw the most strange thing in my playground. There was this black cat in a tree, and it mewed at me when i walked past, which was when i saw it in the first place. The silly thing had climbed all the way up the tree (well okay it was a short tree) and then got stuck on a branch and couldn't get down. So it scrabbled around (+50 points!) and tried to climb down backwards, and forwards, and while draped over a branch a bit to move its CG.... and it turned round and round.... and fell.

I suppose it decided that this was the time to use up one of its (seven of) nine, or something. But it landed feet first, a bit alarmingly loudly, mewed, and then went to hide its embarrassed mug under a bench. So i just sat there watching while it cleaned itself... and then i mewed at it. and it meowred back. and i mewed. and it meeeeewed back, and took a step towards me. And then dashed off, pinned down the offending bee flying by, and ate it.

Which was when i decided it was time to go home.

Lemon treeee, veeeery prettyyy, and the lemon flo'er is sweeeeet
but the fruuuit of the poor lemon, is impooosssible to eat.

The Rose

Last sunday my pastor gave this really moving sermon, which i thought was very well done, in delivery and in content. And while those of you who know me know i don't generally evangelise, i figure this message is general enough to apply to most (if not all) people out there. Much is actually lost because i can't remember the contextual jokes or the exact wording of his phrases, but it affected me so much that i thought i'd try to put it in writing. So here, to the best of my memory, (which sucks) is what he said which touched my soul.

He started out by saying how last saturday was a special day for SOME people, and about how these SOME people would purchase a lot of these *whips out two stalks of roses* (that's you, allan) for exorbitant prices, when a week ago they'd be selling for a dollar apiece or so. So what is it that drives people to do such things? Is it an attempt to prove to that special someone (and to themselves) that their love is worth that much? Are they calculating the value of that someone's love? So much of love nowadays seems to be love hoping for love in return, or otherwise love in search of some form of benefits. Do parents, when they treat their kids well, not think in the back of their minds how they might possibly be influencing the people who will look after them in their old age and sickness? How much is actually pure, selfless love? And, on a bigger scale, how many of us are so caught up in our daily lives that we have no time for our family, no time for our kids/parents, no time to express our love for the people who really matter?

And he goes on to tell a story of how he was studying for the next day's philosophy exam one night, in his room in the seminary, when a classmate came in, unbidden, uninvited, and generally not very welcome. He sits on his bed, uninvited, and begins to talk, uninvited.
"So how come we have to study philosophy anyway? It's not like we can use this cheem stuff to talk to people, they won't get it."
"mm." *looks at watch*
"It's so difficult and hard to study! I just don't get all the arguments sometimes."
"ahh." *glances at notes*
"And why does it need so much memory work? I really don't see the point of it."
"mhmm......." *stares at speck of dust on wall*

After a while he just gave up the struggle, closed his books, and began to talk to the fellow human being suffering next to him. Chatting late into the night, they finally decide to go to sleep, and of course, give up all hope of studying. They prayed for the best, but expected the worst.

At this point he says he has a song he'd like to share, and he has the CD right here *whips it out* but since he doesn't know how to operate the audio system (AV!) we just have to bear with his singing voice, although he's not trying to get into American Idol. ^^

And so he sings, slowly and with purpose, with a deep heartfelt sincerity and a voice which isn't half bad, Bette Midler's "The Rose":


Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed.


At this point the guy on the keyboard catches on and starts to play the melody and harmonises, very beautifully, for the rest of the song:


Some say love, it is a hunger,
An endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
And you it's only seed.

It's the heart, afraid of breaking,
That never learns to dance.
It's the dream, afraid of waking,
That never takes a chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,
Who cannot seem to give.
And the soul, afraid of dyin',
That never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely,
And the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love,
In the spring becomes the rose.


And as the meaning and the truth of the words sunk in, the visions of many blurred, and not due to intoxication on anything other than raw emotion, either. (yes i know that was bad, so sue me.) For those of you who don't feel anything, suppress the urge to skip large chunks of quoted text and read it again. The relevant Catholic message, of course, was this:

That you should never be too afraid of giving, or taking, or loving. That it is only when you see death as just a pathway to eternal life, that you can really cast away the fear of death and start to live. And the way to happiness is not thru short-term pleasures, as many are wont to seek, but through the sharing of love, and especially His love, which is eternal.

And his test? well they both scraped by it, which was how he got there and was able to deliver the sermon in the first place.

Personality Paradigm Parallels

SO in the exorcism of my study which produced THIS:



i found another interesting gem from the dregs of my files: It's a personality test with my answers still on it!

It's the Thmoas-Kilmann conflict mode instrument!

Which is just basically an expensive, complicated test to see what style you use to deal with conflicts, and after giving the moneygrubbers a fistful of dollars, you get to see if you're a turtle, teddy, shark, fox, or owl! So after investing some time in trying to do the thing, i figured i've changed rather a bit from when i was in sec 3.... and have become more of a fox and less turtlish. The actual significance of course is a shift towards a more assertive and collaborative form. As to whether i believe the test or not....that's another issue. Cool to find blasts from the past, though.

oh and in other news, sandman's proving quite a good read. I'm not hopelessly enamoured with it yet, but the plots are pretty interesting and (some) of the artwork is pretty intricate and cool. It tastes really profound and multi-level, more so than the in-your-face style of transmetropolitian... and both have their merits, though i'm still trying to decide which i prefer.

The Great Excavation

So I started to clean up my study room the other day, with the goal of finishing by the end of the week. Which is a daunting task...... observe:



and no i haven't quite touched the thing since i finished my A levels, whooped, dumped my trusty fat multi-file on the desk (there'tis, the grey one), and gone off to serve my country. I was actually halfway thru the cleanup before it dawned on me that a before and after picture might be cute. And anyway, i'm pretty fond of my messy study, because messy as it is, it's really rather efficient at storing information, but the situation is starting to become rather desperate, which reminds me of something i read on dys's blog.

And in the process of uncovering my ancient history, i've discovered, among other things, that:
1. my teachers were actually pretty good, especially my english ones
2. I've forgotten all my history and geog, and lit, and most of my sciences too, heck, everything.
3. It's still painful to look at such large concentrated amounts of chinese text
4. I DO have my remainder/factor theorem notes after all. heh.
5. I also have a rather irritating dust skin allergy, in addition to the respiratory one.

no pun intended on 5. Those of you allergic to wheaty jokes, what's wrong with you?! But you can stop reading now.


And then i discovered all those enrichment thingies that my teachers chose to foist upon us, like this little gem of a worksheet:

5. When i'm stoned i get a little bolder
6. "You're always telling lice ant you mite bee found out." he ticked her off
11. Atrophy is a reward for long political service.
12. I've put my money into a new girlie magazine so i can take accrued interest.


and then it goes on into a story:


Jester Story

A pun my soul, it can be a dangerous business, this punning. Witness the true story of the medieval court jester who was an inveterate punster and punned knight and day until his master, the moarch -- an ace of a king and quite a card by all accounts -- was driven beyond reason and ordered the fool to be carried away to the gallows, there to be strung up. No sooner had the jester been dragged from the yoral presence than the king began to reflect on the problems of acquiring a replacement, and it didn't take long to have him sending a pardon after the condemned jester.

The messenger carrying the pardon reached the gallows just in time to save the victim, who was already standing with the rope around his neck. The pardon proclaimed the jester's freedom on the condition that he never cracked another pun in his life. But old habits die hard, and without thinking the jester promptly said: "no noose is good news."

And they hanged him.

I miss school.

Dreams

are my reality, now that i've bought my very first Sandman graphic novel, to which credit must be given to rie for finally converting me after she said sandman changed her life. But well, i guess i've been wanting to see what it's all about for ages and ages now, but just never got round to buying one? hm. Details ensuing after i actually start reading it properly, which was supposed to be tonight, but..... *looks at clock*

well let's see how sleepy i am after i crawl into bed. *poofs*

More inside jokes.

latest installation in ongoing saga.

I cannot believe i'm losing sleep over milo.



The photos on (practically unviewable) display are of vday's dinner at whampoa mkt. Bonne Saint Valentin, everyone!

In other news i have decided that there IS a spoon, but it's tricky and still under development on the left, even if the final product in the milo won't have very much more than a cameo role.

Miloooo

In a classic sign that i may be too free, i'm starting to draw again.

But yea here's an early version of my current obsession:


only i can't quite seem to get the steam right. must go observe more cups of milo soon. And for those of you who think i'm slacking, i'm actually pondering very serious life questions, such as "so is there really a ring of froth around the edge of the cup, anyway?" and "is there a spoon?". Also, after some conversations today, "was the milo spiked with irish creme?"

Comments?

The balls floating around are pics from an east coast roller blading expedition, but you can't see them too clearly, which is the point. The one on the right is of a pretty girl drinking 100 plus, though. *grins* Who, hopefully, is asleep now coz she has school tmw.

ow.

Jabberwocky flabberknocky fliim flam sham
trippin' on the grippin' of the ding dang tram
flowin' all the crowin' on the bleedin' biff bam
ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch wham.

no, don't even try to discern any meaning of any sort from those words, they just sound nice.

On a slightly more intelligent note,
i think that the singapore censorship board really should get a life. Either that or the distributors of goodbye lenin were rather purist in not wanting any cuts from their movie at all..... because i didn't see any reason why the thing should be rated R, except for maybe a completely irrelevant 1 or 2 second shot of where this nude guy dropped a curtain pole on his leg. It was really rather pointless...he should've just put on some clothes after he came out of wherever he was so that larger audiences could appreciate the other finer points of the movie......like YANN TIERSEN! Who did the soundtrack, and a pretty good one at that, but then i just like his music. There was a track which came right out from amelie, as far as i could tell it was exactly the same, which was really cool, except that i was so busy enjoying the music and getting excited over the melody that i got distracted from the storyline.

There isn't really anything else in the movie that merited that rating, unless pro-socialist content counts. Goot movie. Goot.

Happy 21st

SO yesterday was eugene's 21st, and kai's too. And what's so special about turning 21? nothing much, apparently. But then again i felt that way too for each and every one of my birthdays.....

One thing about the past few days, though, is that i've met a number of ancient friends from years long past. One from each of my primary schools. And maybe i'm overly sentimental or something, but i realise people change so much that my last mental image of them is hopelessly outdated, and the emotional shock of reconciling the present facts with the past image is just..... shocking. Maybe toffler was right?

But eugene's party also reminded me of something....



For those of you out there to whom this picture makes sense, this is for you. =)


And for those of you who don't get it, fear not, here's another picture:


Taken from Nevada, picture rights to Huixuan. Which i suppose proves that greyhound DOES go just about everywhere. =)

My Humble House

too lazy to write a proper post, so i'll just put up some pics.


This pic for some reason reminds me of a movie poster... WHICH MOVIE???? i can't remember. I suspect it was some local production.


This is just a nice chio car. And it's a folks vagon too.


Numerical fun-filled activites in a red light area. But it's nice lighting anyway, don't ya think?