515pm:
so. three down, two more to go. yay?
but HISTORY. so the worst is not ever, and anyway the worst will be monday when the papers come back. my tummy's knotting up at the very thought.

and math was not good. it wasn't... horrible, i guess. but it wasn't good, and i really hope that i atleast get the stuff i did right. shit. math sucks.

aaaand tonight my mom's going for some pre-fashion week inaugural thingy at chokri. and i have to cram history.

930pm:
life is unfair. (kill yourself or get over it - so say black box recorder.)

suicide is looking like a pleasing option. am so very sleepy and barely half of russian rev is done. i just want to sleep. forever. and there is nothing i hate worse than cramming history on a tight deadline.

the people either next door or upstairs (mag's!) are doing a lot of jumping. i am typing with my eyes half-closed and that almost came out as humping. so very wrong. i would be disturbed if i heard humping neighbours. thank god this is singapore.

i had a snipey comment regarding the conversation on the tagboard about being charitable. i know it's a joke i'm just being pissy about, but it irritates me.

i am tired and snapping at people. somebody save me.

I AM BACK! my dad was efficient and went and got a new router today yayyyyyy.

and i find my tagboard being used to discuss scandalous things about me! for the record: i am not having an affair with -anyone-. sadly. i'd like a nice torrid affair right about now. life's getting too muggerific and boring. volunteers? (am i just jumping into another pool of scandal with that question?)

hee. anywayyyyyy. i hate common tests, didcha know? they. annoy. me. but i'm in a good mood anyway because miraculously, my mind is refusing to panic about econs although i don't remember close to enough for the essay. ah well. trivial things, trivial things.

and math! need to mug all sorts of nonsense. and i couldn't find mrs seah today to ask if it was going to be really tough! ugh. not that it really would've made a difference, but :(

ok so i've said hi to my internet again, i shall go off and sleep or something. i had a really good nap after getting home this morning, from 1130 to 130 and woke up just in time for lunch. i was in a fantastic mood after that. sleep is nice.

so, omg my saturday is completely gone.

this after panic kept me up about 2 hours last night/this morning. i was lying in bed wondering if i should go back to work because i was so panicky that i wouldn't be able to finish studying, or if i should squeeze my eyes shut and will myself to sleep. so finally i must've gone to sleep at about 4ish. and then you know how my morning went.

afternoon - well, tried to begin studying but one page of russian rev and the sleepiness hit me like a... heavy thing. so that was about two hours. and then up, and oh the strike of the guilt. so market failure accomplished.

and then useless tuition which was spent talking about homosexuality issue and pakistani workers to compensate for the ejection of indonesian illegal immigrants from malaysia, and f1 and travelling and bangkok flea markets. atleast it's fun.

and then another episode of buffy over dinner, and i told myself i'd sleep early tonight to sort of regulate sleeping patterns in order not to be up all hours during mondaytuesdaywednesday.

i'm tempted to go watch nonsense on discovery travel&living, though. NO. i shall switch off the computer and attempt lit. grr. in fact i should switch off the power behind my desk which is quite hard to access so i won't be tempted to switch it back on. except that it's also got the power for my desk lamp. damn computer. i should pull out the plug or something. extreme actions.

but i feel like talking to kelly! who is only online very briefly when i am. hello kelly! why aren't you online?

eeek still have econs to unmuddle self about, the major part of history left, LIT, and mugging of the math formulae. among other things. i'm thankful our tests only last three days. a week-and-a-half, hwach style, though it would presumably not have the two-a-day format of ours, would kill me.

and i'm also thankful our tests start in the morning or else i won't ever wake up.

speak of the devil! kel has arrived :)

EDIT: fuck. three sources tell me that math is going to be fucking tough. not good. not good at all.

ugh i really wish my parents had gone out of town during a weekend that wasn't right before common tests. because i'm fully tempted to do all the things i wouldn't do if my mom was here, like wake up really late and watch tv for hours instead of eating breakfast and then basically have lunch directly after - all the while watching tv or something - and then bathe after lunch, and sleep again in the afternoon and not do a spot of studying.

as it is, i blissfully ignored my 9am alarm and instead woke up at 1030 - much later than i'd intended and that too only because the maid woke me up. and then i lingered over breakfast and the life section for an hour, and then tv for another hour-ish. switching between discovery channel about some guys on a quest in morocco, to recreate a battle ram thingy that the romans used to break fortress walls, and something on discovery travel&living about amazing vacation homes in canada and vegas, which just totally reinforced the slacking instinct and the desire to take a vacation. yeah so it's 1245 now. took a shower, and now my maid's got lunch ready so i'm having lunch just over an hour after breakfast.

and i'm planning to watch an episode of buffy over lunch.

hurrah for me!

common tests are freaking annoying. i can't believe i'm doing the studying-less-than-a-week-before thing again. didn't work for the promos. gah!

and my stupid s paper depends on this. damnit.

did you know that the entente cordiale between britain and france was signed on my birthday? well, 83 years before my actual date of birth but the 8th of april nonetheless. pretty cool, huh?

and high-ranking historical french politicians have really weird un-french names, besides de gaulle which i suppose is as french as french can get. ferry sounds english, macmahon sounds scottish, gambetta sounds italian. of course, napoleon himself was from corsica.

see these are the kind of nonsense things i remember after studying history. which i still have more than half of left to study. and what i have studied, is just floating around in me brain in bits and pieces and i don't know if i remember anything coherently at all.

am fucking sleepy and and it's fucking 1030 and i have so fucking much left to study i am seriously fucked for promos. yay! look! vulgarity! haahhaaahhahaaa.

omg it looks like some alien is taking over and blogging on my blog. don't worry, it's really me.

argh i want to do well for these exams/tests/nonsense monster thingies. i want to do well very much.

goodnight.

ugh am actually kinda peeved. super furry animals isn't as great as it seemed. it's kind of annoying after a while, though i will always love 'hello sunshine'. i don't even particularly love 'northern lites'. anybody want to buy it off me for 15 bucks?

kings of convenience, however - very good. how much below 20 at sembawang?

ugh i need to stop doing this impulse cd-shopping thing. i always always always end up buying two cds in one go, one of which i love and the other which i don't love, don't hate, just feel is a wasted bit of expenditure. very rarely have two cds bought at the same time both been worth the money. even when i bought rufus wainwright's first album and 'reading writing and arithmetic' by the sundays -- the sundays are cloying after repeated listening. oh but the time i bought aqualung and kathryn williams together, that was pretty good. though i always forget to listen to kathryn williams. ah sheesh that still proves the point.

i really need a Rule for myself: never buy two cds at once, unless both are cds i've HEARD fully before. i think i'm too picky about my music to do the take-a-chance-on-a-cd thing. and not rich enough to keep buying cds i don't listen to more than once.

except for artists that i know are fantastic - like Want Two, which i've been waiting for since forever, and haven't yet even sampled on amazon, but i'm starting to think that at this rate, i should just download the album or something.

AND. the next ep of gilmore girls isn't going to show for another MONTH! more than a month. the next ep is on the 19th of april that is SO FRICKING FAR AWAY. what am i going to doooo without my gg fix.

oh so after all the serious hiv stuff, i have to proclaim that hmv rocks at times! i got two cds that would normally have been rather expensive, at normal-cd prices!

kings of convenience - riot on an empty street
super furry animals - songbook vol 1

19.95 each =) i am quite broke now, but very happy. extreme levels of marginal utility. ooh it's like the multiplier effect! a bit of brokeness for a lot of happiness. (i'm just trying to make myself feel better for not studying all day).

but there is still a disturbing lack of Rufus' Want Two!!! what is wrong with all these places. this time i didn't even bother to ask them when they thought it -would- be in stock. maybe i am doomed to just download the entire album. or order it off amazon or something. or wait for my dad to be visiting the US. suddenly he's so busy making the rounds of south east asia he's no longer going anywhere interesting/useful!

also,
'The desire to write a letter, to put down what you don't want anybody else to see but the person you are writing to, but which you do not want to be destroyed, but perhaps hope may be preserved for complete strangers read, is ineradicable. We want to confess ourselves in writing to a few friends, and we do not always want to feel that no one but those friends will ever read what we have written.'

-- from 'English Poets as Letter Writers', a lecture given by TS Eliot at Sprague Memorial Hall, Yale University, 23 November 1933. This fragment was recorded by his brother.

he spoke of letters, but somehow it works for the whole idea of blogs as well. doesn't it?

ok must.study.now. such a hypocritical mantra.

this is what i sent in an email to the humanz yahoogroups a minute ago - we're having a fascinating email debate about the entire hooha with HIV and the Nation parties and homosexuality and all that. might as well put it here, might elicit more varied responses.


i have to begin by saying that it makes my blood boil that the problem of
rising HIV infections (which is serious cause for concern) has degenerated
into a nationwide debate about the rights and wrongs of the gay lifestyle
(which in my opinion is not a cause for concern).

like ms linda kwek said right before contradicting herself in the same
breath, "Homosexuals, like anyone else, have a right to whatever lifestyle
they fancy." i understand what benuel was saying that her logic is 'I’m
prepared to accept your way of life, but you can’t pose significant
detriment to mine'. however, like i say below, most parties with young
people of any sexual orientation are raunchy and hormonal. also, i think the
unmarried men contracting aids outside singapore do pose a threat, in that
they might get married to women and spread the infection right down to their
children (and babies with aids is the worst part). and who's to say that
these men don't indulge in casual sex even in singapore?

i think it is highly plausible that the media is to blame for the
sensationalisation of the issue, but it merits discussion anyway.

my response to the entire issue of homosexuality/HIV/Nation parties in
singapore - basically what i said on the 13a blog, but edited for language
and coherence --


About this issue in general:
it was really in very bad taste for sadasivan to not only blame the gay
community, but pinpoint an event and degrade the whole issue to "seeding
infection" -- an obviously explosive comment, with no conclusive data
whatsoever. while it's true in many parts of the world that AIDs spreads
faster in the gay community, gays are still a minority in the AIDs victims
here. and the general Asian AIDs situation seems to be more with hets than
gays, because it's been more among the unaware than the promiscuous. (who
says all gays are promiscuous anyway. gross generalisation.)

granted, he himself says that it's only a hypothesis and all, but being a
public figure he should know that by quoting such a theory, he's validating
it to some extent. shouldn't politicians etc have a responsibility NOT to
give controversial opinions about very controversial issues if they don't
have strong evidence? As the Fridae chief says, “until research is done,
it's premature to forward any hypothesis, as it taints the public's
perception of HIV. His statements were very damaging.'

on fridae.com it says that an AfA booth handing out condoms etc at Nation.04
was closed down because the authorities felt it was promoting gay sex. this
is just despicable and irresponsible. if the point is to curb the AIDs
epidemic, then any group that is willing to acknowledge that gay sex WILL
happen and that any sex does bring with it the risk of AIDs and is willing
to try and promote SAFE sex is doing something good. I do believe it was
wrong of the authorities to mess that up.

they can't be deluding themselves that NOT handing out condoms will reduce
the number of sexual acts going on that night, can they? or do they think
that just because gay sex is illegal - which defies sense in itself - that
people should not try to make it safer? it makes absolutely zero sense to
me. in my opinion, anything that promotes safe sex among everyone - not just
gays - should be authorised. especially as fridae also says that blaming
gays for introducing AIDs may make people complacent about heterosexual sex.

like the website says, putting the spotlight on the gays is just
counterproductive because increased stigma will just lead to increased
reluctance to get tested etc, when the very root could have been that more
people are getting tested and therefore there's been an increase in
IDENTIFIED AIDs victims.

another article on fridae says:
"[balaji] said Singapore was fortunate that HIV had not entered the general
population in a big way, with the disease generally limited to two distinct
groups of men that needed attention: "MSM i.e. the gays, and heterosexual
men having casual sex in other countries."

He added, "Of the two, the gays are the bigger concern.""

1. people in singapore have casual sex. 2. since when is a rise of 23 cases
in a gay community of thousands big statistical evidence that they should be
a bigger problem? 3. perhaps it's just people are getting more comfortable
with coming out with their homosexuality and with getting tested, thus the
rise in gay AIDs cases. 4. gay AIDs victims are still only a third of all
cases, and yet they find any excuse to pintpoint the gay community for
causing the problem?

you know i don't think I’m completely denying that gays might very well be
the problem, or that gay men might be more promiscuous – though I think mr
sowden’s probably right that it’s the young in general who are fascinated by
sex and actively sexual, and how many of the young are gay anyway? it's just
that how can a minister go around making accusations with no concrete
evidence? because making baseless accusations just shows that they seem to
care less about countering an AIDs epidemic than about making evident their
distaste for homosexuality.

and conspiracy theory no. 2: maybe they're just trying to shut down the
Nation parties because they morally disapprove of public gay fraternisation.
if they can straightfacedly keep a law that puts restrictions on the very
private act of sex, then i can easily see the government secretly having
such an objective as well.

About the article in the Sunday Times 13/3/05:
the article really bothers me. anything that begins like some B-grade
trying-to-be-thriller, "they come to party, but many end up pairing up and
going off to hotel rooms" should be trashed. the entire article screams
melodrama. how is it even relevant to the issue (besides to juice up the
action) to describe what the men at the parties were wearing? just
perpetuates the images of homosexuals - "fairies and sailors" which is apt
indeed right?

"desensitises and normalises a behaviour which would be construed
intuitively as unnatural." first, her english needs work. secondly, what
does she mean by "a behaviour"? because if she's referring to the fact of
homosexuality she ought to realise by now how bigoted it is to try and
denounce it because while singapore obviously entertains the anti-gay
sentiment pretty well, i think society in general has sort of progressed
beyond calling gays unnatural and evil. i think. (or maybe Shoojee’s email
about the homophobic J2s proves me wrong). privately held views obviously
differ, but to make such comments in a newspaper is awful. Or rather, for
the newspaper to have published them is. if she's referring to a lifestyle
of casual sex: a) not all homosexuals indulge in a bacchanalian lifestyle of
drunkenness and sexsexsex. b) casual sex is a fact, even in the heterosexual
side of the world. even in singapore. and the very repressed nature that
causes you to believe in the purity and chastity of your straight (pun
intended) little world is half the reason there is a rather strong
subculture of casual sex even among heterosexual teenagers. face up, little
lady.

"couples, both same sex and otherwise, lock lips and grope each other
discreetly on the crowded dance floor". correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't
this the general eventage on any dance floor at any party? i mean, parties
with young people, not fancy Ferrari Club parties.

so sam and his hongkong guy? it could easily have been sally and her own
random hongkong guy whom she met one night in some crowded smokey club and
ended up in his room. they would've used a condom too, and her casual
behaviour, in some sense, would have just been as much cause for concern as
sam's. so why does the gay community have to be blamed? so the Nation
parties end in sex for a lot of people. but how about the thousands of other
parties at clubs etc, which also end in sex for a lot of people? i know that
homosexuals are more into the pleasure principle and all, and to some extent
casual sex doesn’t bother them, but I’m nonetheless disgusted at the
unabashed prejudice.

and, really "it undermines the basic family value of committed love, the
importance of marriage". you know if singapore were a little more accepting
of homosexuals there would actually be couples who wanted to be married
here? and i can't believe she's cheeky enough to insinuate that a 'gay
lifestyle' - and generalising the whole thing into a single Type of
lifestyle in itself is so wrong - is fundamentally opposed to committed
love. homosexuals here can't even have families, they can't adopt kids
together, they can't be a legal couple. so how does this even apply? if
young people are going to be homosexuals, underexposure to the fact that a
community exists in singapore is just going to make it worse - atleast based
on the assumption that you can't change your sexuality. and underexposure
leads to repression, which just strengthens an underground culture of
so-called depravity. a little openness would be good, you know?

why can't people accept that homosexuals are human? and realise that
removing a party from the social scene isn't going to do a whole lot to
remove either homosexuality or casual sex? IF at all homosexuality and
casual sex ought to be removed. in my opinon: homosexuality exists, it's as
good or bad as anything else about human behaviour. and because homosexuals
are human beings, they deserve human rights and human compassion just like
any other humans. casual sex: not so good, but it happens inevitably so the
only thing to do is to encourage safe sex, and NOT target one group of
society for apparently promoting casual sex, and maybe create a society
that's more open about sex so that sex doesn't become such a repressed
desire and doesn't breed rebellion.

and the page that that article was on was dominated by a large purple
advertisement for Marriage Convention 2005? All "family matters" and stuff.
How ironic. It just screams FAMILY VALUES doesn’t it?

mad linking spree so new links, updated links etc. discovered a lot of interesting j1 blogs upon being given samjo's blog address. oh and i've left jireh's link on though it's no longer his blog because if you figure out the password to it (which is quite easily done as i was shown by claudia) then you'll find it's a fairly amusing brand of angst-blog.

hm i just sort of left messages on people's blogs that i was linking them, and didn't even leave any message on some blogs because they didn't have tagboards etc, so i hope people don't get mad at me for publicising their lives. and anyway, internet = public domain therefore the assumption is that if a person doesn't make his/her blog private then he/she isn't writing things he/she doesn't want people to read. of course, the assumption fails when person in question doesn't know how to make a blog private. as has happened in the past, to tremendous consequence. but, well. i got to their blogs from links so i assume it's ok.

(i'm not really worrying myself as silly as i sound.)

either way, if your link's here and you don't want it to be here, let me know - leave a tag or something - and i'll remove it.

other than that, am consoling myself with the fact that i will have the house to myself friday, saturday, sunday. it would be perfect timing for a party if not for the fact that it's really bad timing. but i can unabashedly sit around and eat whatever crap i want and watch whatever crap i want and wake up whenever i want and not be bothered. yay! hopefully i'll get sufficient studying done too.

and my mom asking "are you ok with us being out until sunday midnight?" concernedly and i'm inwardly all "yay!" besides wishing that i could've gone. although shoojee's wet-blanketiness about f1 live dampened the spirit a little. yet, there's a thing on friday morning where there's a meet-the-drivers session. so it would've been much fun. plus inevitably my mother will shop lots in kl. ah my fabulous luck, no? i'm just superjealous of my brother for not having exams. and ri has effectively two weeks of hols because of i-learning.

ok so nasty and i had this strange semi-lesbianfied conversation (how appropriate, considering current hot topic on 13a blog) over sms earlier, and she’s dared me to put it up on my blog --- potential suitors be not scared away!

the absense of khushnam on this blog will, i trust, be made up for with this conversation of a very different kind =]

and this whole thing was typed in Word and transferred over, thus the weird symbol thingy intermittently that comes when Word smart-edits things. i fixed some of them, but there are still many remaining that i don't know how to fix. sorry!

*
(it started with her having been out with a strange mix of her family members today)

Nasty:
Lucas, Brandon, Jerica, my grandmomma and Jerica’s parents ahah some weird 3 generations excursion – scary. naturally wished it were my soulmate, but im not complaining since im not paying. haha

Aps:
Haha yeah the soulmate thing. The search continues. Have you ever found someone who remotely fit the bill?

Nasty:
aahahaha –The Search Continues- sounds like something CrimeWatch will spew good grief! I can't quite tell what’s remote honestly, probably one. but well can I not entertain questions? you?

Aps:
I'm not sure, really. Haha touchy subject huh?

Nasty:
ahah esp since I'm to be eternally devoted to you my Pondicherry, no? –grin a subject fit for sorry drunken stupors I swear

Aps:
Oh dear don’t scare me! Eek. Haha though I have told you before, haven't i? that if you were a guy I might be attracted to you.

Nasty:
Yes reiterated twice over by Kelly on your behalf I should think. now it makes me wonder what I'm missing out on –big grin.

Aps:
Hahaha Kelly my nonsensical little sidekick :) ah well. I'm straight, and still trying - perhaps too hard - to find a guy who fits the bill.

Nasty:
But no really you'd seriously want a male version of me? -what a topic- and yes you're straight that much I’m thankful for

Aps:
I think it's just a superficial thing - enjoyable company is part of the requirement. Intelligence, humour. Am I flattering you too much? But I don't think at the end of the day it would really work.

Nasty:
No I'm resisting the temptation to feel flattered –grin true, but you know possibilities abound, and it depends on who takes the initiative and the how. good vibes can noly take one that far hmm this calls for a Coffee Club

Aps:
Are you asking me out on a date?! Cheeky! Am more in a marche mood, somehow.

Nasty:
Can do –grin are you subtly reciprocating?

Aps:
Could be! Tuesday lunch? Gee tell me when this conversation's going places it shouldn’t go.

Nasty:
I'm game =) no worries I've got a good appetite, after all –grin

Aps:
Ok then Tuesday it is :) what else do you have an appetite for huh? Omg I can’t believe I just said that. Anyway, lunch no sex.

Nasty:
fantastic foreSight there. shall try my best to appreciate it. Appetite actually referred to our dubious nuances.

Aps:
Yup I know that's what you meant though it really is very underhand flirting!

Nasty:
and of cos someone's complaining eh! haha I’m quite enjoying this

Aps:
So am i! is this wrong or just fun?

Nasty:
Well. they needn't be mutually exclusive need they! I dare you to pitch this entire exchange on your blog my dear

Aps:
Agreed about non-mutual exclusivity! And I'll take up that dare, except that I deleted some of the earlier smses – send them again?

Nasty:
Owww- so I'm that inconsequential? –whimpers- shall unearth all that correspondence once I get online

Aps:
Nah I kept the most interesting messages! Inbox is clogged – much of it is messages from you, actually. You have a cute way with words.

Nasty:
That's sweet. hmm a cue for me to foot Tuesday’s lunch? ha.

Aps:
I wouldn't object :)

Nasty:
yet still Only Lunch? surely you can make time for some… well… I was thinking… Shopping too? –winks.

*

anyway that was that. -embarassed-. nasty is -excited-.

other things, before this unfortunate (but VERY fun) exercise in pretend-sexuality sees the light of the public domain:

my parents are taking my brother to sepang for f1 this weekend! while little ol' me languishes in singapore. ugh and because it's HP-sponsorship and actually my dad's going because of the clients, they have tickets to the Paddock Club or something which if they'd paid would’ve been in the realm of 8000 dollars per head. ugh. what unfortunate timing to be having common tests. my brother is likely to meet schumacher!!!!!!!! they'll be staying in the same HOTEL! freaking j2. i hate j2. hatehatehate. atleast perhaps this might convince (read: guilttrip) them into taking me somewhere after my birthday. 18th and all, deserves special treatment.
hopefully.

ok so without further ado, i hit the Publish button!

hilary duff is in her first year at harvard -- via distance learning. i am disgusted/mortified/amused. she has a BRAIN in there? or maybe harvard just appreciates the diversity. or something.

ok i think the condescension probably just comes out of my own anxiety about my future. cca seems to be going completely down the drain. gah. regrets, regrets, regrets.

am stuffed. lunched at shahi maharani, because we were stuck in really bad traffic on the way to rang mahal and my dad decided to just turn off into raffles city. food was good. restaurant was very dead. i guess it isn't really the sunday lunch kinda place.

am supersleepy now. too much food.

and this is a letter some chick from florida wrote to E!Online:
"Why is everyone in a big hurry for Jen & Brad to file for divorce? They are being tested right now, and I pray they will be strong. Jennifer is God's gift to Brad and vice versa. Marriage is like a dish, it requires all sorts of ingredients--and sometimes we don't like one of the seasonings. But we add it anyway, because it would not taste the same without it. It's the same thing in relationships. You must stay together and fight as man and wife. For what you two have is something a lot of people covets [sic]. Please love each other and stay strong. Hold each other and grow old together. Do not avoid the children you two will have someday because you want to take the easy way out. Don't do it, Brad. You are the man--Jen shall follow you. Lead her right. From the bottom of my heart, I pray to our Lord Jesus to keep you safe in each other's arms. Take care, and God bless you two."

damn. instead of a 1-hour nap i slept for 2.5 hours. and then the weather was perfect for a run, all cool and windy, but the rain came down. i feel stagnant.

and the tagboard's stagnated! somebody say something interesting.

today's been thoroughly uneventful. other than going to NUS this morning for the hinduism essay competition thing. which was pretty ok, considering i didn't study or anything. fortunately the essays were very broad and very gp-like so i got by without too much hindu stuff. although given the numerous western-society references that came from gp etc, i really hope they weren't expecting an answer solely based on hinduism.

oh and after that i ran into michael and hadri who were lost on their way to the nus openhouse. so i helped them find the right place (who says women can't read maps?) and then i ended up following them to the thing, where i saw numerous other people, and was very turned off by nus altogether. it's drab, and old in a non-charming way, and it was just depressing. the weather didn't help, and the crowd inside and the fact that i had a lot of unnecessary stuff in my pretty little fcuk bag making it rather heavy. haha i tried to foist it on michael for a bit but then he held it like it was contagious and told me he wasn't my boyfriend (therefore he couldn't carry my bag. how... chauvinist? conservative? silly? funny?) but then hadri did, yay. and then i felt bad and took it back. and then there was a half-hashed plan for them to cab with me to ulu pandan and get lunch somewhere, but michael was insistent on staying for the talks so poor hadri had to stay so i abandoned them and walked around for 20 minutes before finding a cab (which actually i think i stole from some people who were waiting first but by that time i couldn't be bothered to be courteous and the guilt only set in when i sat down inside and passed by them and they glared at me).

so i came home and bummed around, watched two very good season4 eps of buffy, and the beginning of buffy-riley is actually marginally cute, though a) it does not compare to buffy/angel in any way shape or form and b) riley is so SAD and c) riley's so un-hot compared to angel. but then comparing anyone to angel doesn't work. except for spike, who is hot but his relationship with buffy was just really screwed up. ugh kelly i really do talk about tv too much! i've gotten back into that frame of mind where i can relate everything to something tv-like. songs, events, places. like kwok was talking about belorussia and i was thinking "hey, sydney and vaughn went there in the first ep of season4 right after they had hot wild after-a-long-time spy!sex".

and i had a really weird weird dream concerning one boy, whom i cannot name because it would be too strange. not a boy i am directly concerned with in my life, in fact it was a boy and a girl. and another girl. sort of. it was a very busy dream, which also involved me buying magazines and make-up kits frantically for some sort of event which honoured my grandparents. and it all took place on a dingy english street with overcast clouds and a depressingly empty, bare restaurant next to a fancy ballroom and a happy well-lit WHSmith (i think i was buying makeup inside the WHSmith actually). the event to honour my grandparents was in the ballroom, and once inside the ballroom the outside of the ballroom was no longer the street but the exterior of a plush hotel or mansion or something. and i organised some sort of performance which had a lot of backstage hijinks including weird mafia men having to be included last-minute in the performance, and the set of the performance was a blown-up version of the make-up kits i had earlier been buying. and the boy was trying to get me to talk to him about some interesting things which it is conceivable he might talk to me about in real life, but i was busy at that point and then a girl turned up and he had to leave. intriguing.

i do believe have a case of the insanities.

annoyingly, i blogged some things last night and the post didn't get published.

it was quite interesting stuff that i found out while googling princess sarah of brunei because nasty said she was very pretty and stuff. i discovered that she's born on the 9th of april 1987, making her exactly a day younger than me.

and a couple of years ago the king of jordan was married on the 7th of september, which is my brother's birthday, and the wedding of prince naruhito of japan to masako was in 1999 on june 9 - my dad's birthday.

coincidences, coincidences.

i can't imagine being a princess. i mean, there's all the unimaginable wealth and little-girl "i want to be a princess" fantasies of a big palace and a literal prince charming and all, but reality is formal stuffy traditions and a life of responsibility and there are probably very few princes who actually are charming. or even good looking. and all the scandals and the pressure (think masako), hardly perfect or a fairytale. yesterday i was asking vaish if the princess wears normal clothes, and vivien said that i must be thinking if i were a princess, i could have all the clothes i wanted. and yeah i guess i was thinking that sort of, but more than that i was just wondering if a princess could wear whatever she liked. especially from a muslim country. she's 17 years old, she must like clothes and music and all that stuff, but she's married already and... i don't know, it's just scary. i can't even handle my own little life half the time, but she has to handle her own and her husband's and the responsibility of being a royal figure.

but there are lots of things i can't imagine.

i am overwhelmed with tiredness and yet cannot sleep now because relatives are coming for dinner and my parents have gone to get my brother's friend a birthday gift and then drop my brother at his friend's place, so if the relatives arrive before the parents come back, i have to entertain them. ugh.

and... i have immense regrets about quitting syf dance. other than that, a fairly interesting day. things done, sights seen. had a really good nap during pe while listening to coldplay on kelly's ipod. and then beatles during math remedial. and lit s was fascinating as usual. mcconnell is very very good.

i have to go get changed now. it's going to be a very long evening.

ugh i am depressed.

1. shutterfly and my computer are being evil again. i can't open slideshows although all my popup blockers have been disabled. i can't figure out what the fucking problem is.

2. about my abilities etc. and prospects. and stuff like that. incompetence. da-da-da.

3. the advent of common tests. 'nuff said.

4. weirdness in people. i can't quite explain it. i think i feel... insignificant. or something.

i hope it's just ennui. i hope it blows over. i hate being depressed. (well, duh.) i need to find a more refined way of saying duh. duh is so fifth grade.

gp tomorrow gahhhhhh. i had Big Plans to read stuff and all. the best-laid plans.
well atleast i've done rolly's document paper. most of it, anyway.

and i'm drowning rufus wainwright. who isn't really very good for depressed people. maybe i should switch to john mayer or bnl, more classic comfort music. but rufus has a gorgeously appropriate voice for my mood.

oh sheesh i need a pick-me-up. steve and ed will have to do.

maybe i just need sleep.

ahhhh bnl and i already feel better.


Ok so this is Rufus, Danny Boy:
"I was had at the doorstep
Played, like a two to a four-set
Had, like poor job in the bible by god

Day comes, i wake
I wake with a hard heartache
I go down to your place
We sit and chat about new york
And trips to the bayou
My smile, a trick
Tricking me and trying not to scare you
And a ship with eight sails could come round the bend
Or a heard of bulls charging stoplights red
I'd be blind"

and this is Barenaked Ladies, Light Up My Room:
"There are luxuries we can't afford
But in our house we never get bored
We can dance to the radio station
That plays in our teeth

If you question what I would do
To get over and be with you
Lift you up over everything
To light up my room

A Hydro-field cuts through my neighborhood
Somehow that always just made me feel good
I can put a spare bulb in my hand
And light up my yard"

see? one should not match one's music to one's mood unless one's mood is good.

Oh Rufus my love you're so very bad for me. BNL treats me good. I shall go to sleep with the Steve-lullabies yayyy.

argh i hate doing last-minute history essays.
extremely tiring day.
home at 430, food shower short nap tuition.
dinner, desperate housewives.

and now the remainder of the essay. i'm so sick of being up till minimum 1am every night! really my own fault because i need the requisite internet time, afternoonnap time, etc etc etc.

vicious cycle. my essay is logically leaping all over the place. i wish i could feel as flighty right now. maybe i need some of that ADD medication lynette was taking on Desperate. stay up 18 hours in a go. i could finish a stack of history readings!

tuition was quite fun. i think i'd like to be a banker. or a fashion designer. or an actress. or a businesswoman. it would be fun to set up my own restaurant or boutique or something. among my life fantasies.

tough choices.

i'm going to add a conclusion to the goddamned essay and get it over with. shitty days, shitty days.

i think i was going to blog something like: must buy fcuk jeans. but that sounds strangely stupid to blog now. strangely, strangely.

i have spent about three hours staring at the computer screen. i really should've gone for lunch with the parents instead. computer BAD.

this morning: final wakeupcall at 1030, four pages of history readings, more than 50 pages of internet, one episode of buffy called "beer bad" and i must say i totally agree, and i'm sleepy again. FOUR PAGES OF HISTORY READINGS. applaud me.

did you know audrey tatou's going to play sophie neveu in the movie version of the da vinci code? that actually makes me vaguely interested in the film. and her birthday is singapore's beloved august 9. and i figured out why tina lombardi in a very long engagement looked SO familiar - she was josephine in Big Fish. it's weird how these tiny parts stick in my head.

oh and the Wainwrights really love movies. Loudon Wainwright III (the guy purvis was talking about the other day) did a song for Big Fish, and for a bunch of other movies. he also went to the prep school that Dead Poet's Society was set in. Loudon and his kids Martha and Rufus (Rufus Wainwright, my love!) all were singing in the Coconut Grove scene in The Aviator. Rufus has sung for Moulin Rouge, I Am Sam and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (a song written by his mom Kate McGarrigle), Zoolander, and a few other less-known movies.

what a random post. so now i will just switch this off and try not to fall asleep.

plus some relatives from geneva are popping in for dinner. so studying tonight's a no-go.

and i'm still totally behind on the integration. why, JC2, WHY?!

today has been a Good Day. (read: this will be a long, happy post!)

well, yesterday too because purvis was nice to me again, and then i came home and found a surprise on my bed from my mummy: a box of four MAC lipglass tubes =) and then i slept for a couple of hours, had a slice of pizza and then more decent dinner, and then computered away four hours before getting to bed. finally.

this morning: 8am wake-upcall. i swear i'm getting so bad at listening to my phone alarm. i need a dozen alarm clocks like lorelai in season 3. it takes me atleast 25 minutes after the phone starts ringing, to stop hitting snooze. and sometimes i accidentally hit stop which just stops the ringing altogether. ugh and until now i was being pretty good at waking myself up so the rest of my family+maid etc stopped bothering to wake me up, so now i need them to make sure i wake up again.

anyway. made it in time for samjo to pick me and mag up, and then to school it was. cutting pieces of pretend-money and treasurehunt clues while the ice was breaking. funnily, i had to help it break with the ear-nibbling and the almost-spiderman kiss. but saved by the butler. though kelly and i concurred it would've been an interesting experience. kinky!!! rp is so sex-fied. on its way to a mass orgy or something. what a scary thought. in school, no less. with the huge windows and everything. but anyway it was extremely entertaining.

then the workshop so kelly and i escaped to A Very Long Engagement. (haha you know last night i accidentally said something like "kelly and i are on for a very long engagement!" to wiggy, and then i realised how very wrong it sounded.) anyway the film was really really really good. audrey tatou's fantastic. and i still haven't watched amelie. another one for the list of Films to Watch/Re-Watch After Commons, along with Eternal Sunshine, Closer, Million Dollar Baby and Spanglish.

after that i was sleepy and hungry and feeling guilty about impending common tests so i went home, ostensibly to study. but i ate and then the sleep overcame me and i slept for the inevitable atleast-two-hours, and then i woke and my mom was home and she wanted to go shopping. all the better that my stupid tutor (who was part of the reason i came home early, to do some work for tuition in the evening) postponed, but it worked out nicely for the shopping.

the shopping! Best Part of Today. my mother had insisted that the trip was for the sole purpose of buying me a new watch, but my mother is my mother. so instead of walking into swatch or city chain or something, she walks into Cortina and starts looking at Patek Philippe and Cartier watches. then it occurs to her that she's looking for a watch for ME and not her (well, sort of for her but she suddenly feels a need to fulfil the stated objective) so she asks the guy what they have in a lower price range (ie come down about 15,000 dollars.) so the guy offers this little dior watch, which is cute but 1. i don't like tiny watches and 2. i don't treat watches well enough to buy one for 800 bucks. he offers tissot, which comes down another 200 but rather ugly.

so we're off to cheaper watch places. except we simultaneously spot a SALE sign at Nine West and walk in there without a word. my mother ended up buying two bags at one go and feeling ridiculous about being such a bag whore especially in front of me whom she's always scolding for being a compulsive buyer of bags. but atleast we're even now because i bought those two bags from benetton and fcuk on one day a couple of weeks ago. except of course this is nine west so one bag alone costs as much as both my bags from that day combined.

finally, city chain and i got the black dkny watch i'd been eying for a while. or a version of it, i think the face on this one is different but it's really nice all the same. i'd originally wanted a white one i saw sometime back at OG or something with nasty, but it would get horribly dirty so it's a good thing this place didn't have the white one. though i did end up buying another white fossil watch. technically my mom bought it, but i'm obviously going to steal it whenever i'm bored of the black watch.

then i was yearning to look at polo jeans company and tommy hilfiger but my mother was feeling guilty about the expenditure by then (hahaha if only there was a circular flow of income on an individual level) so she refused to stop and risk seeing something we'd want to buy, except at aldo where there was another sale sign but nothing seemed to actually be on sale and anyway the shoes weren't fantastic. i should exercise such self-restraint and just refrain from walking into stores, in order that i might avoid the risk of sore temptation.

ok so now i'm supposed to be doing history. gah. the bad part of a good day is returning home and realising that the common tests aren't going to erase themselves from existence just because you're in a good mood.

yay, see? long post, as promised!

The Good Aps Kids Go For.

For a Hard-Earned Thirst, Aparna.

Aparna Keeps Going and Going.

That'll be the Aps.

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The Acronym Liar
HSA Head Side Aps
MAF Marine Aparna Fimmel

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Dr. Unheimlich's Disease Registry
* Let Your Name Outlive Your Illness *

Doctor Unheimlich has diagnosed me with Aparnaosis
Cause:	overwork
Symptoms:	screaming, gurgling, knee swelling
Cure:	paint a black cross on your front door and wait
Enter your name, for your own diagnosis:

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The Infinite Teen Slang Dictionary

aps
v. to intentionally attack a family member."Hey, buddy, wanna aps?"

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My Spammer Name is: Nocturne B. Chalice. (What's your spammer name?)

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I am Aparna Oyster-14 Aiyar
http://thesurrealist.co.uk/lonesome

aps
aps is a knife that checks your spelling! It flies like a rocket.

aparna
aparna is a greetings card that produces 240v of electricity, can be assembled from common household parts and is built and maintained by tiny nano-robots.
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gahhh tonight was SO disappointing. i do believe i have outgrown the UWC Rock Show. and it's only been a year since the last one. but, really, last year had Broadcast who are really good and HOT and non-NOISE. in fact it was in 2003, performed by Broadcast that i first heard "daytripper". weirdly enough. and the previous two years had TALENT and humour and one band with really funky costumes. 2004 actually was slightly disappointing compared to 2003 which was fantastic because there was the cute asian choirboy, there was broadcast, there was the sri lankan guitarist (isuru, i think that's how it's spelt) who is absolutely fantastic and did an amazing rendition of the sweet child o' mine riff. last year there was still broadcast and there was the funky costumed band and there was a female pair who were really nice and acoustic and had great voices.

tonight was pure, unadulterated NOISE. god. it was a... travesty of a rock concert. i guess i should've known, when the first band is called "sword bearing muscle kings of thunder, lightning and metal". i can handle talented rock noise, though i might not love it. i only went because of the promise of perhaps some entertaining acoustic stuff. but this year they didn't audition anyone and they didn't plan anything so it was one whole night of screaming and whanging guitars. only one truly gifted drummer, but the same band had a really bad vocalist so it ruined everything.

and the eye candy (or lack thereof). even more disappointing. it was a room full of hot girls and shitty guys. pathetic and depressing. ugh and i ran into this girl i've known since i was little, and she's turned into this really tall hot babe.

only good thing: sitting there, screaming into chit's ear and vice versa, mocking the whole set-up and making up wishes for where we could be instead, and dissing people left right and centre. good sadistic ear-destroying fun. atleast the ears have stopped ringing now. according to chit, the distortion was off or something therefore making the sound even worse than it already was.

until now i was wishing i oculd've gone on all three days of the show. now i'm glad i didn't buy a full pass. because it looks like 3 days of noise, and neither broadcast nor isuru's band is playing. the HotBoys from broadcast weren't even there tonight. maybe they decided that the show was going to suck as well. smart boys, those.

i will have to seriously consider if i will consider this tradition of going for the rockshow next year. it -will- be my last year here so maybe i will.

now for some sleep. (oh you know it was funny at one bit, because they do this thing with the lights where it's bright white and blinking really fast and they did it so often it made my eyes hurt so i shut them, and there i was with my eyes shut and the horrid noise all around me and it was truly the stuff of nightmares. i couldn't keep my eyes shut because it was too scary.)

i will go to sleep listening to something real nice and mellow. secret garden, perhaps. was listening on kelly's ipod during math lec and they're really really really good.

today's generally been a rather bad day.

DAMN i am fucking pissed off.

my evening plans have been completely ruined because people have such an annoying habit of arbitrarily saying yes to this or that event and then later deciding it's not worth their time and thereby leaving another person's plans ruined. some even doing the bailing less than two hours in advance. what if i'd already been on my way or something. sheesh.

ok this rant isn't directed at any specific individuals, although specific individuals did do the ruining of the plans in this case, but it's a general rant about the fact that this isn't the first time this has happened to me, neither will it be the last. people don't seem to be in the habit of honouring commitments. personally i'd feel like a dipshit for fucking up people's plans.

i could go alone, but 1. it's in waterloo which is shady at night and not a place i'd want to be wandering around in my myself especially since i have no idea where it's located etc 2. it's so sad to go for one of these things all alone. it's the sort of thing a sad-ass professor would do. i need people to talk to.

anyway i'm just incredibly pissed off. it's still 50 minutes before, i could still cab it there alone sheesh. what a sad thought.