this morning i woke up at 630 in the morning. a rather unearthly hour, an hour it should be illegal to have to wake up on a saturday (thank god for the impending 5-day-workweek?) god knows why the president's challenge had to start at 7-freaking-30, all the way at the zoo. school doesn't even start that early. but then i guess next year i'll have to wake up at 630 every day, to get to bishan.

speaking of bishan and the 5-day-workweek... ms ho's gp lesson yesterday was terribly depressing. and i don't know about anyone else, but i wasn't reacting for the sake of reacting. and i know that i have no real reason to be angry at the school; it's largely an emotional response but i see nothing wrong with that. i'm unhappy that some of the things that make me happy at rjc might be taken away. i know purvis isn't a perfect person and i can see where people are coming from when they say that he's using us and in fact i agree that it does feel that way, but i respect him a lot and i know he's a good teacher and i would be extremely upset if he were to be replaced in my a level year. i would feel wronged, and it's a valid response isn't it?

i'm a little bit confused here anyway, about what i feel and what i should be feeling and all that. last year, i was having a hard time choosing between hwa chong and rj humanz. at that time, the tutors seemed to be an equal bunch, but there was more the issue of hwa chong being such a special little group within the college, and the fact that their openhouse had a proper introduction to humanz, whereas in rj humanz and arts aren't really that seperated, and that some of the teachers are the same, and there was no proper humanz department introduction at the openhouse so it was a bit irritating. but i chose rj, and i have had absolutely no reason so far to say i've made the wrong choice, because i'm absolutely happy here. so mr reeves left, and econs is pretty bad at rj, and kwok's rather annoying whereas i hear only good things about miles at hwach, but i'm happy. my class is absolutely amazing in every way, generally friends are all great, rp is fantastic fun, somehow the environment is good for me. whereas what i hear of hwach doesn't really seem my cuppa tea. so in that sense, if given a choice i really wouldn't want to go back and choose hwachong instead. but then in terms of tutors, hwachong almost definitely is better. and i'm very unhappy with the current situation at rj, because actually besides kwok and the econs department in general, i like all the tutors. but purvis is saying he's leaving, rathi ho whom i've grown to like quite a bit is undecided, and who knows about everyone else. and mrs perry is all excited about her production next year, but who knows if she'll even be around to direct it? i hope the fact that she's all enthusiastic and buying the rights to the play already means that she's fairly certain of her position. but uncertainty's not a good thing, and the tutors that i have -are- one among the things in rj that make me happy. i realised yesterday, also, that a new campus doesn't actually particularly excite me. it's been barely eight months at rj, but i've grown very fond of mt sinai. not just because of the proximity to home, but just the quirks of it. as i said a few posts ago, it's the same way i love singapore. the only thing i could do with is a proper auditorium, but then even in the new campus it isn't yet confirmed that the drama centre will be ready next year. which is really shitty. and no-aircon, on a site that will still be under construction in some areas. really quite the pits. atleast they should get everything ready fully before doing the move, from mt sinai to bishan, government to independent and so on. i would never consider transferring, because i have too much at rj to make me want to give it all up, but the potential changes make me very very uneasy and i don't really know what to do about it. the worst part is that it will be the teachers' own decision to leave, and you know that you're not their kids, they have their lives and everything and haven't really got a huge obligation to stay here for us, but if they make the decision to leave us next year, all we can do is feel abandoned. betrayed, even, however unjustifiedly. i guess it is purvis-disillusionment that's making me this upset about the whole thing, but i can't think how else to react to something that's this important to my life.

ok enough of the unhappiness. good news: 218 dollars refund for the lit trip goes into my bank account and my parents are letting me keep it :) i'm working on making them let me withdraw 700 bucks to buy myself an ipod. my dad says hp's doing some joint thing with apple, so that there'll be an hp ipod or something. it'll be the same apple ipod, but hp'll be marketing or something. so if i'm in luck, my dad can get me a discount! oh and hp's got some new gadget: a watch that's an mp3 player and a thumb drive and all sorts of other things. if you ask me that's straight out of alias or james bond or spy kids. actually, spy kids. the boy had some fantastic watch in that.

i think i veered off on a tangent that has totally nothing to do with the title. the zoo: glenn ong and rod monteiro mcing. they're amusing mostly, but quite annoying with that whole 'brudder brudder' nonsense. a bit over the top, that. my family and i were sitting right behind the president, so we might be on tv/newspaper. which is really eekifying - i had to worry that my eyebags were huge from such a late night/early morning and that the zit mark on my left cheek was so obviously on display because the cameras were all facing my left cheek, damnit, and make sure i didn't dig my nose or anything embarrassing like that. -guffaws- and the president's grandson is so cute! but the orangutans and sealions are even cuter. the orangutan's a coconut-husking champ. and the sealion!!! oh my god it's such a typical cheeky attention-loving californian! it refused to leave the stage-thingy. the keeper would lead it off stage, and right at the end it would turn around, look at the audience and waddle back and slide into the pool. so adorable! it did that about 5 times before finally some fierce guy went and chased it back off properly. anyway some of the most important men in the singapore IT industry were dressed up as tribal chiefs in these really cheesy costumes, so it was really funny seeing my dad's boss who's this tall balding man whom i always see in chinos and a formal shirt, dressed in this.. dress. and husking coconuts, competing with the singapore heads of m1, siemens, ericsson, starhub etc. oh and there were employees from each company to take part in two other competitions: finding little tokens inside a tank full of madasgar cockroaches (ewwww!!!!!) in the shortest time- just a notch short of fear factor, that was. and then grabbing a watch from the bottom of the pool and coming up in the shortest time. ericsson won. but hp did a good job! the representative for the cockroach thing from hp was a woman: i'd have assumed that she'd be really traumatised, but she was so cool! she just coolly dipped her hand in among the cockroaches and searched for the token. but she lost cos there were millions of dummy tokens inside. how annoying. the coolest was some other guy who was so comfortable with the cockroaches that he didn't even do anything when they started crawling up his arm. but still. ew. after the show, went for the vip breakfast which was quite good although they should consider heating up their hashbrowns once in a while. after that walked around the zoo because my brother and his friend wanted to. parents and i watched the orangutan & monkey show, which was cute, while brother&friend visited the reptile kingdom. boys have such a disgusting obsession with snakes and komodo dragons. anyway i surprisingly had quite a good time. but i was really really tired towards the end. fell asleep in the car, then came home and fell asleep on my bed until lunch. barely had the energy to take out my contacts.

yesterday: was good catching up with chit, although we didn't end up catching 13 going on 30 because couldn't get tickets for the 730 show at cine, and then i had to get to womad at a decent time. had a salad and a beer at pastamania. chit commented that it was such a weirdly european meal to buy. but i bought the beer just for kicks, cos chit wanted. i really don't like beer anyway, i just had a little bit. she was in uniform so i bought it for her, and they sold it to me, no questions asked. if only they sold vodka so casually. bought a really pretty pair of earrings. which i didn't eventually, because of terribly crowded orchard road and the veryvery long taxi queue at takashimaya. spent a lot of money at kino, and then got to fort canning at 930. 27 on ticket and program. and $15 on an orange womad tshirt. i am flat broke and in debt. thank god it's the weekend, meanign money on monday, and my parents owe me some money. i have to figure out how much. and maybe when i deposit my cheque, i'll draw some money. i should just get myself an atm card. i never draw money anyway. but getting a card might be extremely dangerous, given my tendencies. anyway because i got to womad so late, only saw temple of sound & natacha atlas, and talvin singh & sultan khan. good stuff, but natacha atlas was basically awful arabian-style howling. which, as i told wiggy, i have a profound dislike for. temple of sound, however, was very good. talvinsingh&sultankhan - laidback, not particularly get-up-and-dance. but was nice to just sit on the grass and chillout. as i've said before, the fort canning hill at night is one of my favourite places around. the last number by them was really really good though, because talvin singh used his mac to play club beats and technoish music to accompany the tabla and sarangi. he's amazing. it's very easy to have crushes on tabla players, for some reason. but i think given the amount i paid, i didn't really feel fully satisfied. i should've come earlier. sigh. combining too many things on one night. got home about 1130ish, parents picked me up on their way back from dinner somewhere so thankfully i didn't have to spend on a cab. although shoojee's dad would have probably given me a lift anyway. got home and idled until 1am despite having a 630 morning today. haven't touched history yet.

ok! terribly long post. i need to go sleep, so i can go pick up stuff at ruth's before hadri and claud arrive to make pasta. what a combination.