Joan's Takes

Joining the Blogfest thingie led to more publicity for the blogs involved, and thankfully, this humble blog happened to also be involved in this. Hopefully the publicity drive can help improve the profile of the Blogfest thingie and make the voting a fairer one. Right now, it's like most votes come from they friends of those people taking part.
http://nusartsclub.org/blogfest/
You can go to this website here, and vote for me if you think my blog deserves your vote, or if you just want to support me. Thank you very much!
(Note: I think there's something wrong with that website, I don't know if it's just my problem, I can't seem to be able to access it.)

Okay, one of the publicity is an article by Funkygrad. I don't know how many people actually read that, I must admit I don't, at least, I didn't until they included my blog in their review of the Blogfest thingie. There's some kind of pride that I feel when I saw my blog among the featured blog. It's like wah~

Check out their article here.

And I shall put up the whole review of my blog, like what any narcissist would do.

Funkygrad Blog Meter: B-

Castle in the Clouds


By: Joan Ang


Nominated for: Best NUS Blog

What caught our eye: Photos of the German-speaking Singaporean chick


Chip off the blog: Then I started thinking, if my mum were to die, what regrets would I have? *touch wood* I know this sounds pretty morbid, but it's pretty true. I often think of such of myself too, if I were to die tomorrow morning in a car accident, what regrets would I have? We all have some kind of regrets, some small, some big, some we can make it back, some gone forever.

My little regrets are often regarding money, overspending, buying that piece of dress that looks horrible on me, and me never wearing it, or sometimes, not buying that piece of clothing, and when I turned back to get it, its last piece was sold. I remember that there was this red windbreaker from adidas which I liked but didn't have the chance to buy it before it was recalled, also a regret. But these regrets can be atoned. I was given another piece of red windbreaker, also from adidas for my birthday. I gave away that horrible dress so I won't be seeing it ever again, unless it's on someone else.

Going into bigger regrets, I have some which I lost time over, rather than money. I lost time, and precious youth over some stuff which I never liked mentioning to anybody. If you happen to know what is it, then fine, if you don't don't ask me anything about it. I have absolutely no wish to face with that any more, I want it out of my life, and hopefully I can forget about it all.

Most of my regrets are about friends, and friendships. I have lost friends because of misunderstandings, and to me every of that is a regret. I have also lost friends because losing contact, and me procrastinating trying to get back into contact with them, a regret that I have only myself to blame. I remember from my kindergarden, there was this Eurasian girl I was pretty close with, but I have no clue to where she is now. In fact, I never properly graduated from my kindergarden. Every student before leaving would have a picture taken by that school but I never had one, because my leaving was pretty sudden.

They picked out my entry on Regrets to feature, I thought it was just about okay. If I were to catergorise my entries, I'd put them as "hyper", "emo", "insights" and "short stories". My "hyper" posts tends to end up looking photo laden, bad English, and merely chronicles of my hyper day. The "emo" ones are as the name suggests damn emo, written to let out steam, no pictures in them, and written in a disorganised manner but using proper English. The "insights" are my proper blog entries, entries which I actually do research, provide links and proper pictures (ie, not pictures of me) regarding a particular topic or a review, of course, they are usually in my best English. "Short stories" are as the name suggests, are my writings, either the first drafts or excerpts.

Some typical "hyper" posts would include: (these are recent posts, me too lazy to dig up the old posts)
A Day with the Chinese Drama People
Body Shopping
Paulaner

The "emo" posts would be stuff like these: (I need to dig up a bit further back since I've been trying not to be that emo recently)
Backup-ing
The Fragilities of Human Relationships
Losing Steam

"Insights" are mostly my reviews and point of views of certain topics: (like the one featured above)
Unleashed aka Danny the Dog
Brokeback Mountain
My Dream Football Team
(The title of this entry is a bit misleading, as in the original title, this title I'm using now sounds more apt.)

"Short stories" are something new. I didn't wanted to post my short stories up online for fear of other people infringing my rights, but then I thought, ah... nevermind.
The Revenge
(Actually, this is a half "insight" half "short story" post, the first half was my insight on suicides, the second half my short story)
Can We Return to the Old Times Again?
Yesterday and Today
(This was a piece I wrote in conjunction of Valentine's Day)

Of course I wrote about other stuff too. In my blog, I write for mostly myself, so I don't care if there is any other readers, if there is, I'm happy, but if there isn't, there's also nothing much I can do about it, can I? I'm a person of extremes, I either write too much, or I post too many pictures, and it seems a bit weird like that. If I write too much people would be put off from reading all the serious stuff I'm writing about. If I put too many pictures up (especially those of myself), people will say I'm vain. But really, I think that this is my blog, I can't possibly please everyone, so at the very least, I do want to please myself. Maybe deep deep in the world wide web, there is just that one person who enjoys reading all the words I've wrote? Or a one person who likes my pictures (or think I'm pretty)?

What I not want to put in my blog is things that other people are talking about. Many talked about topics are overly talked about, I don't want my blog to be seen as one which hops on the bandwagon, neither do I want my blog to attract readers because I have keywords of topics they are looking for. I'd never talk about the NUS fee hikes because everyone else is talking about it. I've kept silent during the Tammy girl incident even though I own all four video clips of her and a whole slew of other photos that was in her handphone when it was stolen (sounds very interesting, right?), and my father works in NYP (bombshell). I'm only saying this now that the furore seems to have dieded, at least we don't see her name on Technorati search anymore. What for do I want to join in the hundreds and thousand when I'm unique? Because of this reason, I'm not going to do a review for V for Vendetta. I don't know why but everyone who owns a blog, and who have watched V for Vendetta, all blogged about it. I felt very compelled to blog about it and to link the ideas of the story with one of my fields of obsession (Nazis), but well, after reading everyone talk about it, I sian half liao.

What I like about my blog is that it's mine. That's why I named it "Castle in the Clouds". The name comes of Les Miserables, to me it means that whatever I put in my blog are figments of my hyperactive imagination. I'd call it my thoughts. I thought it sounds quite apt especially that I've so much ideas that I always put it in my blog, the grand dreams, the illusion of happiness, the emotions, all duly represented in this blog.

Although I say I usually write everything I think about in my blog, I've also been starting to exercise some sort of self censorship. If you look in my fields of obsession, you can tell I'm a person of extremities. I have big ideas on what I think about race and nationalities, and of discrimintation, but I've stopped writing that in my blog anymore. If you dig through the archives, you might be able to convict me, but well, it's because of all the convictions that I've stopped. I've also been advised by Prof Ian Gordon to not use the word "hate" in my side columns on people of some other races and nationalities. Another thing from the fields of obsession that I've never wrote about in my blog is about BDSM, okay, there might be about like one or two posts hidden somewhere in the archives, but that's about it. I must think about those damn lurkers reading my blog.

Back to that review on me. I'm pretty surprised that I was named Joan Ang, erm... Yea, I am named Joan Ang, but in my blog, I go by my nick xxoos. I know I've put my name down, but well, I think the name Joan Ang sounds rather harsh. Maybe it's the two single syllabus words that makes it so, you know, like Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Fann Wong... hoohoo...

I'm saving the best for the last, the thing I like most is "What caught our eye: Photos of the German-speaking Singaporean chick".
First, I'm called a chick! wahaha~ Feminist would probably hate it, but I'm the ditzy headed valley girl kind of person, so I love that title.
Second, I'm being labelled as German-speaking! wahaha~ Like that damn pressure sia... I don't write much in German, in fact I don't like writing in German because I feel quite inferior with my German Language knowledge. Yes, I've been learning for two years, I'm I'm flying over there soon, but fact is that, I'm only an average student. Verlleicht sollte ich mehr Deutsch in mein blog schreiben? Aber wer können mein blog verstehen? Ich denke, nur Cindy, erm... weiß nicht lesen mich Xinli und die andere Deutsch Studenten und Studentinnen.
Third, the mention of my photos. If my photos caught people's eyes, does that mean I'm pretty? Or maybe at least I look somewhat decent, maybe only in the photos? hehehe... Vainpot...

That day, the somebody from the Funkygrad thingie asked me about my opinions and encounters in school. hmm... Considering that I go to school only three nights a week, I think my encounters and my issues faced in school will be very much different from other people.

1. I spend more time on the road than in school each time I go to school. I wait for 5 minutes for my bus to arrive and spend 70 min to get to school, on good days maybe 60 min. And double that for me to go home after school. And I only spend two hours, or 120 min in class. The proportions just doesn't seem to be right.

2. My most immediate concern in school is the availability of food at 8pm. I end classes at 8pm and often I find myself starving, but all canteens are closed at that hour. I have been alternating between the sandwich machine in the library and Coffee Club Express. I know I can always pop by Fong Seng which I do sometimes, but well, at that hour, I'm usually alone and it does seem weird for a girl to eat alone at Fong Seng when everyone else there are in big groups. I know other places I used to visit when I was staying on campus, McDonald's, Munchie Monkey, but now they are out of the way for me. I know in YIH, there's now Cheers and Old Chang Kee, also Genki Sushi which the latter two closes at about 8.30 to 9pm as with Coffee Club Express, but too bad I don't stay on campus anymore, so my food now needs to be along my way to Kent Ridge Terminal.

I think that actually, I don't really need that many eateries to be opened in school till very late. To solve the problem, actually, in my humble opinion, in my great likings, we just need more Sandwich machines. They are like the best answer to problems. They are 24hours automated. You don't need a person to open a store, so you can get food at anytime of the night. Right now I know there are two machines in Arts, not so sure about the other faculties, one is in the forum the other in the library which is good I think. Anyone can visit the forum at anytime of the night. Pity the one in the library have to follow the opening times of the library. I think we should have more sandwich machines around the school, so nobody can go hungry in the middle of the night.

3. Another issue that I face in school I think is rather unique to me is that I'm claustrophobic. I'm allergic to crowds. Right now with my timetable, I can afford to be happy in school since that 6-8pm there isn't a crowd in school. BUT BUT BUT there was a time when I went to school early, at noon to meet Cindy regarding our Referat, there was a freaking amount of people in school. I felt like puking (the symptom that I'd feel when I'm faced with crowds). There was just like everyone everywhere. I think we need a bigger campus. We need more space to house all the students. There are just too many of them running about in such a small area.

4. This problem is not that bad to me of late when I'm only in the little classrooms where I can fiddle with the controller, but when I enter the library, the full force of the problem hits me all over again. Singapore is the only place in the whole world I think that requires students to carry a jacket to school and wear it indoors. Okay, not only students, office workers too. Maybe just people in general. People carry jackets and shawls and other warmth providing garment to wear indoors, and remove them to a tank top and short whatever bottom gender specific when outdoors. In most other parts of the world, the people wear the warmth providing garments outdoors and remove them when indoors. I know the whole air con policy is a legacy of Lee Kuan Yew, but I don't think he meant to want the air cons to be of that low a temperature.

Okay, there is a personal agenda regarding this problem. Truth is that I want to wear nice nice clothes to school. And most of my nice clothes aren't made of that much cloth, so I can't really wear them to the north pole like school. I've Like a dozen short skirts and another dozen short dresses which I like a lot, not to mention my shorts, and I can't wear them without having a shawl with me. I can't even wear a jacket as it can't cover my legs. Luckily I've four shawls in different colours.

5. I have a problem with the admin people of NUS. I think the problem lies with mutual hate. The students hate the staff, the staff hate the students. Once I sent out an email to an admin person not to be named. After that I sent out a request slip to the admin staff of Kinokuniya. The next day I received a prompt reply from Kino and I never got a reply from NUS. I told my father, he said it's because I was buying a book from Kino, but then aren't paying that exorbident amount to NUS? My book from Kino costs about $20 only. Anyway, I've given up all hope in them. I remember blogging about it somewhere sometimes back. Wait I go find it...
http://jal4eva.blogspot.com/2006/02/man-ap-brian-p-farrell.html
There. QED.

6. Hmm... I can't think of any at the moment, my stomach is growling again. SO I guess this would be it for now. Please remember to vote for me okie? Thanks~