Wednesday, September 27, 2006

This Is Our Ouran Festival

With this, we have hereby concluded the whole anime series of Ouran High School Host Club. Of course, this is not the end of Ouran High School Host Club, we still have the manga to look forward to. Still, it does mean that that will be the end of our Ouran boys in full colour, talking, moving and cosplaying.

group pic 7

Thank you Krys Yuy for all the Ouran joy~

Even though in the end I hadn't used any of her graphics, I thought all the effort she has put in maintaining this fansite is absolutely awesome. See my display pic by the side? I'm using it for my MSN too... It's actually a border from Ouran, I edited out some parts and put my big fat face in there. It's for the Ouran Festival~

Sort of feeling a bit of lost now. In about two weeks time xxxholic will end too, then I'd really feel lost. The studio brought back Tsubasa Chronicles, so I hope that they'd bring back xxxholic too. Can't wait for the next chapter of manga to be released though, it's getting more and more interesting as the parallel universes of TRC and xxxholic come to a merging point.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Pink or Blue...

... Identification Cards...

I hold a pink one, my parents were both Singaporeans, my grandparents were all Singaporeans, before that they were Malaysians and before that British subjects, so we all hold pink ones. I know of some friends who hold blue ones, and of some friends who hold none at all.

I know of a friend who was borned in Singapore, studied primary, secondary, JC, and university here in Singapore but holds a blue one because both her parents hold blue ones. I know of a friend who used to hold a blue one and has applied for a couple of times to get a pink one but unable to do so, that friend has since left Singapore, partly due to the inability to get the pink one. I know of a friend who holds a pink one because one parent is Singaporean, the other not. I know of a friend who used to hold the blue one but didn't want to serve NS and has since relinquished it. I know of many different circumstances.

To me, Singapore is my home and holding the pink one seems natural to me, I thought.

I know of a friend, while discussing our Singapore Film project, we brought up the of colour again. Okay, I brought up the topic of colour. I know my friend used to hold a blue one but wasn't very sure, so I asked him what colour was his.

The thing about getting the pink one as I heard from word of mouth that guys with the blue one after serving NS can get the pink one easily after a couple of applications. Apparently, it is said that it is a lot more difficult for girls to get the pink one. Okay, the person who told me that was the friend I'd mentioned earlier. She had the blue one and tried many times applying for the pink one but unable to successfully get it. She said that the criteria for single blue women to get the pink one is CPF, the more money one has in the the more successful, and since she's young and has a neligible CPF account, she was unsuccessful.

Otherwise, another faster way to get the pink one by laws of nature (almost) is to get married to someone with a pink one. But let's put that aside.

My friend whom I asked the colour of his answered that he has the blue one, but is applying for the pink one, and he needs the pink one by the end of the year. So that he can compete in the SEA Games.

My reply to that and the other girls in the project group affirmed, he will definitely get his pink one.

So, it seems like a similiarly quick way to get the pink one is to excel in some sort of sports and compete for the country. Ronald Susilo, Li Jiawei, Jing Junhong, Li Li... There are many more and I can go on.

Then I thought about my friend. Would he be categorised as a foreign talent just like those above sports people since he wasn't borned with the right to get that pink one.

My friend, borned in Singapore to both blue parents, studied in Singapore all his life, has a whole lot of friends here all of whom he knew since way back, and served his due in NS. Is he Singaporean? Or is he foreign talent? Even his sports, he was groomed in Singapore under Singaporean schools using Singapore money, participated and won in Nationals. He took PSLE, O Levels, A Levels, speaks English and Chinese, does this make him stand out from Ronald Susilo who came over here to study in secondary school but unable to make it to JC and ended up playing badminton for the country? And how different is he from Li Jiawei who, actually I don't know much about her, but I think you guys should know anyway.

When Jing Junhong and Li Jiawei played in the Olympics, did you feel for them?

To me, home is where the memories were. (Before I typed "were", I wrote "live", but thought that it wasn't appropriate, then I typed "are", then I thought the tense is wrong, you can live in say US now but home is still in Singapore, where you had all your memories, happy and sad, met all your friends and enemies, home is where the memories "were", your "residence" is where you are creating new experiences.) Of course, you can clean forget the past and live in a deluded memory of some other place, and of course, you can call that "home" to. Whatever you like...

I think my friend will definitely get that pink one, and thus good luck to him in his competitions~

Actually, I've a couple of friends with blue ones from the same country as that mentioned friend, that all hold very disdainful remarks about that country. I thought I was already very discriminatory, it's surprising that they're worse, I always thought I'm the worst already. Okay, not only the ones who hold the blue ones, but also those who are living there, born and brought up there.

To each his own, I guess.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Should I Stay

Someone sent me this song some time ago, when I just returned from Germany and was experiencing rough patch 2.0. Should I Stay by Dreamz FM.

I did play the song on repeat mode a couple of times then, but never took much notice of the song even though my friend included the lyrics in the email for me. To me then, the song was just another song which lyrics didn't make an impact on me.

Then as I took the bus home today, I saw the repeat telecast of Singapore Idol on TV Mobile. After that I came home and played the song over again. Curious, I went to look up my old emails and dug out the lyrics of this song. It was then that I realised why my friend sent me this song. To that dear friend, please accept my belated gratitude. I know you are facing a problem too, let just cross our fingers, grit our teeth and hope that something will come out of something.

Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 17:46:40 +0800
From: "censored" View Contact Details
Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by gmail.com. Learn more
To: "Joan Ang"
Subject: Should I Stay

had a drive driven by your love
but when you messed around i lost the drive i found

thought you needed, needed someone true
but you changed your mind or had i failed you?

wish you'd been careful with my heart
but you tore it apart and broke an angel's heart

the kiss was true, has to end somehow
but i am livin' proof of what love is about

it's hard holding you, loving you, losing you
it's sad to be true and be fooled by you
i don't know, i gotta know
should i stay or should i go?

you played me on, played me like a clown
but i feel for you, even though i'm down

my heart is heavy, heavy like a rock
but i am so amused, you're still in my thoughts

it's hard holding you, loving you, losing you
it's sad to be true and be fooled by you
i don't know, i gotta know
should i stay or should i go?

should i stay?
should i go?

it's hard holding you, loving you, losing you
it's sad to be true and be fooled by you
i don't know, i gotta know
should i stay or should i go?

this time its done, it'll never feel the same
but we had some good times, guess it's sad just the same

i guess the truth, doesn't matter somehow
but you were livin' proof of what love is about

--

I battled this question for half a year, or more than that. I thought I was supposed to go, but the last date changed it all, in the end I stayed. Actually the last date did had some problems, a day before it we met again, then on the last date I was put aeroplane, so technically I can't really call it a last date since I've now decided to stay.

The big question is should I meet him before Italy for one last time, or let Italy do us part and we'll see how things go from after that. I am prepared for all the consequences should I stay, that I'm very resolute. If time has come for it, I'll do whatever I should do and accept whatever blame.

No regrets.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Anticipation

I asked a friend to help me download a whole lot of stuff. Hearing my friend's reports to me, I felt really excited. Bubbling with anticipation. hehehe~

It's the feeling you get when you make an online purchase then have to wait for that package to arrive in you mail. You check the mailbox every day and everytime you open the mailbox your heart would skip a bit. You think about that package day in day out. And sometimes you would break out into a wide smile for no rhyme or reason. This is the feeling of anticipation.

With a life less than colourful as mine, I think this seems to be the only thing that keeps me going. Some say it's a form of escapism, but I think it's at the very least better than me thinking about all the depressing thought like when's his flight and what he's going to do there and all the stuff about them. sie... definitely not a very happy thought.

But then, the thing about anticipation is that when suddenly things doesn't go as planned, there would be disappointments. The higher you hope the more disappointed you'd be.

When my friend told me he was downloading some other stuff (but also my requests) first and not the one I wanted more badly, there was this disappointment, although not really that intense a disappointment. Sometimes I don't dare to ask my friend about the progress of the downloading because I'm afraid of being very irritating. My friend is doing all this for me out of goodwill, so I must respect my friend and not bug my friend. I think I'm quite a considerate person.

The thing I was disappointed with was the highly anticipated mahjong session my friends arranged. We've finally found four people who had time but suddenly one person backed out. That's the most sickening thing about mahjong, the need for four people, not one less. Ya, ya, you can say we can play three people mahjong, but it's not mahjong as in MAHJONG. bah~

Now the only other thing I'm anticipating is a KTV session and a visit to Botak Jones with a friend. That person better not fly me an aeroplane if not I think I'll just crumble into bits. I'm not really a person who can take in disappointments.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

I'm in Deep Shit

I have to blog this because I'm in a very bad shape. So far I've managed to complete my first essay ahead of schedule, one down two more to go. I'm half way into my second short essay, but the problem is that I'm only one quarter through the paper.

See, the paper is a 1000 word paper, and I've now 400 words written. Sounds good right? 2/5 done. But but but, I've only my introduction and one out of four points done, that means that I still have three points and my conclusion to write up. And there's no way I can do it in 600 words. Realise how deep the shit I'm in now. I guess I might need to consolidate my points and breifly explain stuff and leave out examples and quotes. Wish me luck~

But then hor, I think that my introduction is not badly written. How does this sound?

"The Korean War was never going to escalate to a wider war, Stalin’s attitude made sure of that." Is that convincing? Why or Why not?

Throughout the Korean War, although Stalin allowed for Kim Il Sung to start a conflict with the South Koreans, Stalin never wanted the war to escalate into a wider war, especially a war against America. Hence this was the foundations for which the above statement that Stalin made sure that the Korean War was never going to escalate to be made. However, even though Stalin never wanted the Korean War to escalate, like with every conflict, it requires two to clap, as such, to attribute the Korean War as a limited war to only Stalin's attitude is not going to explain for the whole nature of the war. It was also important for Mao and Truman's attitudes to contain the war within the frontiers of Korea that the war did not escalate. Also, the context of Korea in the larger Cold War being fought was important in determining the deciding moves of all parties participating in the war. As the Joint Chiefs of Staff put it, it was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time". With these other factors in mind, it is not convincing an argument that the nature of the Korean War lay in the attitude of Stalin alone.

I better go back to my paper. Cross your fingers and wish me luck~

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Why the comments about my looks?

I'm really amused by all the comments about my looks. Yes, I know I'm fat and ugly, you might think that I look like some people, whatever, but making such a big fuss about it? It's really funny...

There was this one period of time when I was really into taking pictures and tinkering them with photoshop and stuff, but as with all phases in life, it was but a fleeting moment. The poses I had were quite juvenile, I admit, but it sure was fun thinking up all those poses. The "xxoos" one actually originated from O-Week when I started signing all the letters for a "cheer" cheer, then some freshies came up with a "joan" cheer for me. Too bad I old liao le... Besides I'm now too fat to take pictures of myself anymore. hmm... I think the current me look more like Chen Liping.

Okay, since I've opened up this window, I think I'll answer all the comments in the box, that is other than the comments about my looks because I've no idea what I can say about them.

quirk: That's my point all over again, all men stray.

Actually, with regard to my term "man", I mean all mankind, and not the "man" referring to the male species of human. Women are able to stray too but maybe not to as great length as men since I think there's also something to do with the biological functions and perhaps to a little extent the emotional functions. Not so sure about it though.

little fish: I don't know if Geylang's dangerous for me, maybe some weird guy likes fat ugly girls, so perhaps?

fortycalibernap: I agree. sigh...

Chuang Shyue Chou: Yay! Chelsea!!! I hate all of Chelsea's competitors btw, not just Man Utd. In fact, actually, my most most most hated team in the entire universe is Arsenal. I don't know why I just hate them to the core. lol~

jessica tan: You don't have to take me seriously. In fact, if you read the Postscript, I don't take myself that seriously either, okay, maybe I was serious for all that one day, but well. It sure was very surprising to find out that some people did take me very seriously.

And that anonymous in the other post, actually before I posted that entry, I ran a babelfish on it. I made quite a bit of spelling mistakes which babelfish won't point out, and the grammar in babelfish is all wrong, and many words have different meanings and babelfish would only churn out one of them. So, how much of that text have you understood? It's really funny to read stuff like "I white" this and "I white" that. Everytime I run a babelfish on any text with "weiß", I get "white", and it makes the text just so funny.

Okay, need to get back to my work proper. Slap me if I come back to the blog anytime before Saturday unless I somehow managed to complete all my work before schedule.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Vermisse Dich

Heute war ein sehr schlechtes Tag. Heute war mir den ganze Tag sehr schlecht. Viele Glauben war in meine Gedanken. Ich denke, ich glaube, ich weiß, dass ich dich brauche. Seit letze Mittwoch habe ich dich nicht gehört, das für mich sehr ecklich.

Jedenmal vermisse ich dich, werde ich denken dass du und sie nach Italien gehen. Vielleicht, bin ich nicht wichtig, vielleicht, war ich nie wichtig, vielleicht, war ich nie hier. Ich brauche dich, zu viel zu viel... Wenn du allein bist, kannst du mich ein bischen errineren? Nur ein bischen, für mich ein bischen ist genug. Vielleicht, wenn du am Fluß oder Canal in Venedig, oder wenn du und sie in Mailand einkaufen, oder wenn du noch was, kaufst ein kleines dinge für mich? Das wird genug... Ich will nicht viel, nur ein bischen deine Vermissen... Nur ein bischen...

Ich weiß, dass das nicht richtig ist. Aber, viele dinge sind nicht in unsere hände. Du hast viel mal ich gesagt, dass ich dich nicht lieben kann, aber bis zum jetzt, ich kann nicht das machen. Ich will, dass ich dich vergessen kann. Ich habe das versucht, aber als Mittwoch war, war das sehr Klar, du bist mein alles.

Was andere Leute sagen kann, ist das nicht mehr wichtig.
Was ich gefällen kann, ist das nicht mehr wichtig.
Was ist unsere Zukunft, oder haben wir eine Zukunft, ist das nicht mehr wichtig.

Was wichtig ist, nichts.

Mein kopf tut weh... weil du...

Heute habe ich ein film gesehen. Ich habe dich gedacht. Warum magst du sie wenn du kannst mich haben? Liebst du sie? Vielleicht... Das ist nicht mein Problem, aber weil du bist, hässe ich alle so. Letzte Mittwoch fragst du mich, warum hässe ich das so, ich kann nicht dich richtig antworten weil ich nicht die richtiges antworten könnte. Weil sie...

Ein Song:
Ich kann nichts dagegen tun

Ich kann nichts dagegen tun
Für mich dreht sich immer nur alles um dich
Du bleibst hier, du wirst niemals geh'n,
lässt mich nie im Regen steh'n

Oh glaub mir, ich kann nichts dagegen tun!
Ich weiß meine Welt mit dir ist grenzenlos
Deine Hand hält mich so sicher fest
Du bist hier, ich hoffe du lässt niemals los!

Es bleibt geheimnisvoll
Doch ich bin dem Rätsel auf der Spur
Wenn sich die Gedanken drehen,
dann flüstern sie uns beiden nur die Wahrheit zu

Und ich wünsche mir einen Blick von dir,
der mir alles sagt und von der großen Liebe spricht
Schau mir ins Gesicht
dann siehst du mich in 'nem anderen Licht

Ich kann nichts dagegen
Du wirst für mich immer das wichtigste sein
In meinen Gedanken bist du immer bei mir
und das ändert sich auch nie

Oh glaub mir, ich kann nichts dagegen tun
dass ich an dich denke jeden Tag, jede Nacht
Egal wo ich bin, ich bin nie allein
und ich weiß, das wird für uns die Zukunft sein
(fertig)

Ahh well... Wir haben keine Zukunft, ich habe das vergessen...

This is getting so crap. Instead of self censorship, I've now to sink into typing out everything in a third language so that people can don't understand me. What am I trying to prove? Who am I trying to prove to?

Third Year Anniversary

I didn't realise this would be a sad post. Many thing have changed over the past three years. Indeed, I'm no longer the bubbly girl I once was. My writings, my thoughts, my looks have changed over the past three years. Maybe I should make more changes as time wear on.

I don't think this warrents a celebration. I just want to waste my life away in front of my eyes... My castles are falling down piece by piece, any castle built without foundation will fall, mine's no exception.

I think I'll rehaul the blog when I've cleared my term papers.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Back to the Pool

I bought a set of bikini from Esprit yesterday. My sister called me up to inform me that they were on 70% discount, so I went down to take a look. I would have bought all if all the designs had my size, but in the end, I only bought one set. With a new bikini set, I needed to well, basically make use of it, don't I? Couple with the adidas goggles I bought from the factory outlet store in Herzogenaurach, I needed to use all those stuff I bought right?

And well, the growing tummy and fats around my arms and thighs were all signalling me to head for the pool like soon.

Finally I got my fat ass of the marble chair (I'm using the dining table as my workdesk recently), and went for a swim. My target before heading down was to hit 2km, which after some very difficult calculations, I figured that that would have to be 80 laps in my 25m pool. It took me like 20mins to figure out how many laps I was to swim because I think my brain stopped knowing how to process mental mathematical calculations.

I swim with my contact lenses. I always find this an amazing little nugget of mine. I'd wear my contacts under my goggles to swim. Actually, if I don't wear goggles, I can still swim with my eyes opened in the water, just that I won't wear my contacts, but I'd still be able to see stuff just very blurred images. I like to open my eyes in the water. Actually, my eyes are also able to take it if I swim in sea water with my eyes opened. I think that's a reason why I never have any problems with my contacts since my eyes were trained since young to be very hardy. hahaha~

I like to be able to see where I'm heading to and what's in the water, but sadly, my pool is damn dirty, all I saw was dirt and grime in the water. ah well... And more sadly, there aren't any good looking guys in the pool. My pool is only used by two kinds of people, kids under 6, and retirees over 60. It's so crap lor.

I guess those between 6-60 if want a swim would head to their clubs to swim. I think probably all those who swim regularly would have a membership with the Singapore Swimming Club or the Chinese Swimming Club.

Thinking about these made me think about some past events when I was still a kid. I remember since young, I always went swimming in our pool alone. My mum can't swim, so she doesn't bother going down to the pool with me. I know she does look on me from the window often, but well... Nevermind. It's also very comical that my mum grew up in a family of swimmers but she doesn't know how to swim. All her other family swims well, think two or three of my aunts used to work as lifeguards when they were younger.

I also first started swimming because of my aunt. She brought me to learn how to swim. Then I started training in my pool under a private coach. But after a while, after getting all those bronze, silver, gold, gold star thingies, I stopped swimming.

I started swimming again in primary 5 when I was talent spotted by the teachers in charge for my school's swim team during the annual swimming meet. At that time, the school's swim team had two kinds of swimmers, school swimmers and club swimmers. School swimmers meant that the swimmers trained with the school's coach, club swimmers were swimmers who trained privately under their own coach, they're called club swimmers because they usually train in SSC or CSC. Because I stopped training with my private coach, and also because I think my school didn't recognise him because I don't train in a club, so I ended up being a school swimmer. Another thing about the school swimmer is that we swim only 2 times a week, being a club swimmer you need to swim at least 3 times a week.

Because of this disparity, and also because club swimmers train in smaller groups, club swimmers are better swimmers than school swimmers, and hence the club swimmers were sort of in this upper class from the school swimmers. In our annual swimming meets, the club swimmers are also the ones who fare better, and in the annual nationals, the club swimmers are also the ones who bring glory to the school. (hmm... I realised that I'm writing in present tense... Maybe subconsciously I think this is still prevailling in the swim team.)

The time I had with the swim team was a very fond memory of mine. Everyweek twice, I'd have big baggages with me in school. And being part of the sports people community, I can wear the PE kit instead of the horrible pinafore even though I can pack my pinafore, I never did, and because I can use "I had training" as an excuse to get away with it. lol~ And it was great meeting all those people. But a pity was that most of the guys were club swimmers so we don't really get to meet much, but boy were they hot! The swimmer's built is like the most sought after in the field lor. Just think of those ACS swimmers... Actually, my school's boys team were quite good on national scale, but the girls team was quite bad. We always paled in comparison to the boys, but well, it was glory to the school, so to us, we had fun and that was it.

I remember those perks we had, swimming suits from TYR, caps, goggles, t-shirts, all those goodies. It's really great being in a sports team which did well in nationals and can have greater subsidies and funding from the school. And it did help that my school was a pretty rich school, although not on par with like ACS or the likes. But unlike ACS, or MGS (the schools which had good swimming traditions), my school was co-ed, so it meant that we could bring 4 teams into the competition instead of only the two divisions.

With the swim team and the trainings, I managed to come in 14th in my division for my event. It wasn't that good a position, but to me, that was the result of all the hard work I've put in in the past year, and it wasn't really that bad since there were many more participants (I think usually there's about 6-7 heats).

It's a pity I stopped after I went to secondary school, or should I say it's a pity I went to a secondary school without a proper swimming team.

Anyway, back to present, I managed to swim 2.5km just now. Which makes it a grand total of 100 laps on my 25m pool. (I did the math correctly, I hope) I shall up my target the next time I swim. Wait, I think I should set a target when would be the next time I take the pool. bahaha~

You know, I really like swimming. I feel like I'm flying~ Flying in the water.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Postscript

With regard to my previous post on Sexual Bribery, I received an email from A/P Ian Gordon.

Imagine, you came back from the musical Forbidden City, and you're damn tired. You still open your mailbox to clear the mail. You turn on your MSN and three people immediately drop you messages. (Please, at least wait two min before a person after aperson first comes online to message him/her can? Let them settle in first... lol~) And when you check your mailbox, you see a mail from "Ian Lewis Gordon". Damn scary lor...

He brought up some doubts about some of my viewpoints which I thought I should share, not so much of his thoughts, but more of my replies to him. If he needed an explanation, I thought the general population would be needing much in depht explanation about some stuff.

My reply:
hello... wow...
this email looks very scary when i opened my mailbox.

as i've pointed out in the entry, everyone is suspicious unless there's evidence indicating otherwise. all women are suspicious creatures and always think the worse, but more often than not, it's merely our overactive imagination. i'd say this is a general fear, as what i've mentioned, anyone with a tool to commit crime has the potential to commit crimes. of course, i'd like to think that all the teachers and lecturers i know are all nice nice people, the world is a nice nice place, but i don't know to what extent i can hold this hope.

as of now, all those i've heard are from anonymous accounts, so i've no clear proof of stuff. and as a sensible person, i also understand that not all stuff on the net is true, there might be people falsifying stuff just to attract attention and stuff, and for all i know those accounts i read are all made up by some overactive imaginative attention seekers.

anyway, the whole entry was about my thoughts about stuff, and i've put them all clearly in the disclaimer, so i hope it's still okay. and i hope by posting an entry about this matter can make some people holding positions of respectability to think twice before they act. lol~ (a far fetched hope though)

erm... so am i to take down the entry or amend it or do something about it? i heard that nus is a microcosm of singapore...

joan

More explanations:
Okay, there's no way I'd take down anything in my blog, at the most I'd visually censor them and turn the fonts to black, so one would need to highlight the empty space to read the hidden words. hehehe~ I've done this before, quite a number of times.

I think Joan is the kind of overimaginative person. I imagine a lot of things, and always imagine the worst. SO, I HAVE NO EVIDENCE OF SUCH THINGS OCCURRING. I don't know anybody who've accepted sexual briberies in school or in prison or anywhere.

It was just on Wednesday when I had a lot of things in mind, coupled with my own personal problems that I was thinking too much into the junk I'm reading online, so my thoughts just ran wild. I've sorted out some of my problems, but I still have a new problem. It turned out that they weren't going to emigrate just that they are going for a holiday. But I've found solace in my friends. Thanks to them, I think I'm feeling better. And when I'm feeling better I won't think too much, and when I don't think too much, yea... Things I read online don't bother me that much. Okay, granted I should stop reading crap, but some crap are really stupid and funny and it's fun to read them.

Oh, and the Champions League matches other than Chelsea's victories were all crap. How the kanasai Barca won by so many goals? KANASAI. The worst, Arsenal and Man Utd both won, lagi kanasai. On a better note, Liverpool drew. Sad to see Werder Bremen losing though, I hope they can beat Barca flat when they meet, then when Chelsea beat Barca, Werder Bremen can still have the chance of advancing~

And, with regard to Ballack taking penalties, I agree with Mourinho, Lampard's drought is caused by those bloody British press.

See? I've more pressing problems ahead, those professors can have sex with whoever they want to if they want to. I need to settle these more immediate problems first. Liverpool vs Chelsea. Prof Farrell wanted to dare me to show up in my Chelsea garb at a Liverpool pub but I'm not so stupid to get myself involved with angry Liverpool supporters after they lose the match. I shall frolick with the Chelsea supporters and we will celebrate together~

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Sexual Bribery

Disclaimer: This is quite a risque topic for me to touch on, but I think it's important for me to voice out a couple of opinions after reading some stories about it. ALL THESE ARE JUST MY THOUGHTS. My own thoughts. If you happen to be a professor, there are two ways you can react, 1. Feel guilty about it because you are one of those. If you are guilty, feel guilty. Guilty as charged, you have no right to make any comments about my comments. 2. Counter my arguments, plead for your innocence, make a case for yourself, because you are innocent. Only if you are innocent.

Okay, I'll start proper, what would you think of when one mentions sexual bribery to you? My first impression was about policemen, from a neighbouring, I shall let it remain anonymous, country receiving sexual briberies from women from another let's shall not name it country and allowing those women to ply their trade of sexual activities in the country. Singapore is a state that emphasises a lot against bribery of any sort, and can even be considered as a police state, so such cases are rare here. In fact, I hope that one day I can say that there are no streetwalkers from that unnamed country in Singapore. I only hope.

I've been to Geylang in the middle of the night for supper before. I usually go with groups of friends, so it's quite safe. But I've seen streetwalkers before. In this entry, I'll use the term streetwalkers because I don't want to be too crude on them. They are humans too, they have mothers and fathers and some have children. I've seen them standing along the streets. The thing about them is that if there's no demand, there won't be supply. So, where does the demand come from? The demand is now my main point of focus.

If you know me personally, I'm sure you'd know my now famous maxim, "All men stray". I'd like to think that the only man who doesn't stray is my father. That I shall leave it open today because there are other pressing problems.

I was talking to a friend of mine, I think he'd prefer if he weren't named. He is a virgin. But he said too that there's also a possibility of men straying because of the primate need to release. That's what wives are for, I always thought, or girlfriends, so why streetwalkers? One possible argument is that because those men don't have a partner. But I know that's a crap reason. I know. Personally because I know bastards.

The thing about these bastards is that they are absolutely normal men. They might be beside you, behind you, taking the table next to you, in the toilet cubicle beside yours, or the urinal beside yours, or that they are people you know only that you don't know about their personal lives. For all I know, my dear professors in school might be visiting them as what the unnamed friend suggested. When men are lonely, when their partners are away, when they don't even have a partner, and need an outlet to release their passions, a paid worker is convenient.

Into the night life in Singapore, well, a lonely person don't even need to pay for these streetwalkers if they want sex. It's also convenient to check into a bar, or club, pick up a nice looking girl, how nice depending on how much alcohol he's just consumed. Okay, I admit now I'm overgeneralising that people who needs sex has to be men, I know there might be some other women who needs it too, but I think women are less likely to pay for sex, although one night stands might be a convenient choice for them. As what the unnamed friend said, what the professors do in their personal time is their personal business and as long as they don't let it affect their teachings, there's nothing I can do about it.

Maybe I'm living my own sheltered (it's an excuse, I guess) life, I'd want people I respect to be nice, clean, scandalous free people. Although I firmly believe that all men stray, I think of exceptions, people I respect are always expections. I'd like to think of my professors, teachers, and the likes of them are untainted people with little or no sexual desire. I know it's impossible.

Basically, anything I don't know won't harm me. But recently, I read this confession in an anonymous site. I shall let it remain anonymous. The gist of it is that this girl confessed that there was some sexual bribery going on between her and her professor. This is not the first time I heard it, I heard of another anonymous confession of a JC teacher letting a student bribe him with sexual favours. Of course, those are the only two I've heard which seemed to be local, okay, the one with the JC teacher has got to be local. I'd like to think that the first one isn't, but I think it most probably is. Other than local stories, I hear a lot more of those stories happening in the States. I don't know how prevalent it is in Japan, but quite a bit of the mangas I read involve a teacher-student relationship, although that relationship is based on true love instead of pure lust, or bribery. I know of at least two namable but I shall leave them anonymous Chinese teachers back from my Secondary School who married their students, but I guess love and marriage is still different from sex and bribery even though marriage does involve sex. Anyway, they are two teachers whom I do not like. One of them was in fact pure hateful, but that's another matter.

Put it into context, the more I think about it the more afraid I am. I am very afraid that the JC teacher might be one teacher whom I respect. I am very afraid that the professor might one one professor whom I respect. I am very afraid. Although a teacher/professor's private life has nothing to do with his teaching, much less with my life, but I've placed my respects in them. It's like living in a perfect made up world, and if one day cracks are to be formed, my whole world will collaspe. I say all men stray, except people whom I respect, so if one day I realise that people I respect stray too, I'd really think that all men are bastards. There is no more hope left in me.

I won't say I'm a saint, because I'm not. But I'd like to think that there are people whom I can look up to, people who are really good. People who are able to give me hope.

I shall not give any names here, but there are many people whom I respect in school. If one day I hear stories that these are the same people who accept briberies, I think I think... Actually I really don't know what I'd do.

You see, teachers and professors are different people from say footballers or rock stars. I will definitely be disappointed if one day I were to hear stories of my favourite rock star bedding some streetwalker, or some other girl even though he is already married, but I won't make a big fuss over it. It always seems like the entertainment industry is dark and sex-filled. I know some people might argue that myself would even like to bed my favourite rock star since I'm a self-proclaimed groupie and I make declarations of loves and openly say that I want to marry him, but truth is that, to me, he is god, or someone close to god. And sex with god is like taboo. Okay, I'm don't want to hear rumours or stories about that's the reason why priests like to have sex with kids, those paedophile them who shall not be named religion whom it seems like a stereotypical rumours, tales, and stuff.

Footballers are different too. John Terry can have all the sex in the world since he is in a power position of which he can attract lots of women. I love him, but still sex with him is like having sex with god, so unattainable. I've read stories of groupies telling of stories of having sex with celebrities and the whole surreal feel about it, but my point is that those are celebrities. Inacademic people. It's placing a different expectation on different groups of people. It's like a teacher walking into RGS and expecting the whole class to score A1 for Maths, but the same teacher expecting the whole class to merely pass if he/she's at a neighbourhood secondary school. It's placing a higher bar on them.

Teachers and professors to me are educated beings who can control themselves. They are different, to me. Of course, I know all men are the same, blah blah blah and stuff, but to me they really are people from a different planet. I won't say they are god, but to me they seem pretty much close to god, like a deity like that, also cannot have sex one. I don't know why. Okay, granted, I know men need to have sex unless you're castrated or something, maybe impotent, whatever, but still, to have sex with just any girl any where is a bit low to me.

And the worst thing of all. Streetwalkers, fine. One night stands, fine. Sexual bribery from students, that's pushing my moral limits a bit too far. No way I can accept that. If it's a forbidden love blossoming between a teacher and student, by all means, LOVE. Love is all forgiving. But sex for the sake of sexual needs and desires, it's sucks. No pun intended. One professor once told me that NUS is a microcosm of Singapore. I'd think that Singapore's tight anti-corruption laws would be similiar to that of anti-corruption policies enforced by NUS, but this does not stop my overactive imagination. All professors have their own little rooms in which anything can happen inside. If both parties don't say anything out, there's no way anyone would know about it. Right?

I seem to be saying that all professors are guilty with accepting sexual briberies. In the eyes of the law, it's "innocent until proven guilty", but to Joan, it's "suspect until proven innocent". Note, I used the term "suspect", not "guilty". There's an old Chinese folk tale. Once, the government clamped down on alcohol brewing in ancient China, the authorities captured all wine brewers under the charge that they own distilling eqiupment which they might use to distill wine. One sage asked the authorities to capture all men since all men possess a weapon that could be used to rape. The authorites relented. Yes, those men are not rapists, but they are all suspectible to rape. They are all equipped with the tools to rape, so unless they don't rape, they are all potential rapists.

This is my ideology. All men have the potential to stray. If they don't, good for them, they will be proven innocent. If they do, bad for them, they will be proven guilty. If they don't know what to do, they still have the potential and I think they should be monitors, and until further evidence is found, they are still suspects.

I wouldn't go so far to suspect all my professors and teachers from past present and future to have accepted briberies, since we all know Singapore is very tight about it, but underground, anything might have happened just that we don't know about it only.

As I was telling my unnamed friend, the same one I mentioned throughout this entry, there are lots of temptations around. A female ex-teacher of mine once told me not to wear too skimpy clothes to school in the university because "the professors are still mortal men". She's a teacher. She's been through university. She advised me that. What can I make out of it?

Granted, I'm fat and ugly and I've bad complexion and above all that I'm public enemy number one (with me being an ardent Chelsea fan, I'm hated by all men already), I won't have the chance of tempting anyone with my fats, but being in Arts, I do see loads of skimpily dressed, thin and pretty girls who are hardworking enough to paint their faces every day (I'm a fat lazy ass, or rather, I've a fat lazy ass. lol~), I stand nowhere near them. Sometimes I can't resist not oogling at them, so where do the professors stand? They have loads of pretty young girls swarming around them every day, how can they not be tempted?

And if they are tempted, how would I react about it? Not saying tempted to me la, but to those girls, and how I'd feel about them, those girls and those professors...

I don't know. I once did a role playing game about teacher-student seduction, but that was playing to the other party, not really playing to the role. Truth is, if I happen to know any account of something risque happening to somebody I know, I'd flip. It's too scary to think of it.

The opposite of love is hate. But the line between love and hate is very thin. If something I once held so dearly upon turns out to be farce, I think I'd lose all my senses. Feeling nothing is something that's worse than hate. Voidness.

Take the 9pm drama on channel 8 for example. Shuyang has gorwn up thinking that her mentor is the best dad in the world, is the best lawyer in the world, is the nicest person in the world. If she knows that he has an illegitimate son, we can't expect her feelings for him would be the same, would it? She already hasn't go any feelings left for her own biological dad who left her.

(If there's any professors out there reading this entry, until proven guilty, although suspect, I still respect you.)

(And another thing to note. Albeit a little scarier. I think there are lots of temptations in the polytechnics in Singapore too. My dad is a lecturer.)

Thank You

The previous post I highlighted a couple of problems I was facing. Talked through everything with a friend. Really feeling better now. Thank you so much.

Happy~

PS: If Barca loses tonight, despite whatever result between Chelsea and Werder Bremen, I'd still be a very happy girl~ Tonight, will be the battle of my favourites, who will emerge victorious? argh... This shall now be my biggest problem to worry about. Other problems shall be frivolous compared to this.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

What Happened Today...

I'm feeling really frustrated now, just after watching this drama serial which made me feel more of my case. And my reading of a particular anonymous site is not helping me feel more at ease with myself. I'm hoping by blogging I can sooth a bit of my thoughts.

Chronologically.

The girl from the bus last night was still affecting me this morning when I set off for school.

I saw this very small and young KC Primary girl on the bus. She looked no more than primary one, and she went to school herself. Skipping past the road to her school's back gate.

I passed by another school, a secondary school. I saw this guy standing by the bus stop in his school uniform. He was eating some snacks and listening to music over his headphones. I thought the way he stood was very shuai. Then I stopped short. Here I am, oogling at this secondar three or four boy and thinking that he looked shuai. It felt rather paedophillic.

I passed by yet another school, a primary school. A bunch of maids were congregating outside, I didn't realise it was a school and felt quite disgusting by the overwhelming number of maids. When I realised it was a school, the maids being there suddenly seemed very clear.

I went by the national stadium, the carpark there has turned into a police carpark. I guess it's the nearest disguised area where the police can park their cars yet reach Suntec City fast enough instead of clogging up the whole city area.

I passed by Suntec City. It looked very red and pink from all those transplanted flowers and trees. I felt so disgusted by our hypocrisy.

Nearing Harbourfront MRT station, I realised that the bus was empty save for another guy behind me. Suddenly I felt this sense of loneliness.

I know I've a hyperactive imagination. And I always think the worst out of everything. I once shared one piece of my imagination to a friend and he said that I was really imagining things, but somehow, I can't stop myself. I suddenly thought, maybe he was going to emigrate, and never to come back to Singapore again. What would I do then? Then I thought, what if I met him on the streets, on the bus, on somewhere, what would I react? One of my favourite scenes of Winter Sonata was when the girl met the guy after he has forgotten his past, she started tearing. The tears just streamed down so naturally. I think I might do that. Another scene is from the current 9 o'clock show (that's how I always name my shows), when Thomas Ong first met Chen Shucheng face to face, his reaction was indescribable, almost hatred, but all sense of disappointment, a bit of resigned, a bit of jealousy. I think if I ever meet her, that would be my face, all covered up with a fake smile across.

During my tutorial today, I thought of a confession I read in that anonymous website. I wondered if there was this sort of thing happening in my school, in my class, with someone I know, on someone I know. It felt really disgusting to think of something like that. Then I thought, but this is human nature. As what I always tell everybody I know, my take on mankind is that all men stray. I've all kinds of experience with this, first hand, second hand, third hand. I read all sort of weird blogs, I meet all sort of weird people, and I encountered all sort of weird things, and I'm now still all strung up over something like that, so why is it not possible that something is going on around me despite what I'd like to think.

One example would be Ivy Lee's character in the 9 o'clock show. She's the product of a divorce. She's a divorce lawyer. She knows that all marriages will end up so broken. Yet, she still yearns for a happy marriage. It's so ironic. She looks up to her mentor of an example of the perfect marriage. But what she doesn't know, and yet I know from spoilers is that her own mentor is an asshole himself.

The asshole once rationalised things with me. He agrees too that all men are bastards, he know he's one too. I thought he might have taken it too far when he proposed that the people whom I respect too might all be bastards, assholes, jerks, whatever unpleasant words might come out from my mouth. Here I am, still trying to delude myself that the people I respect are saintly people, and there, I hear stories. It's scary. Assholes know assholes the best. Asshole and I once played this role playing game to probe how I might feel when the person I respects is an asshole too, at that time it was just a game. Really, if it were true I don't know how I'd react.

I think I was pretty subdued during class, still trying to make out something from the confession and trying to give excuses to myself.

I saw this girl in class. She seems to be a regualr, but I've never noticed her before. I don't know why I've never seen her before since I was so intrigued with her this afternoon. I don't know what I felt about her, something like a mix of envious, jealousy, disgust, cynic and anger.

Quote of the day, from a video played in one of my classes. "We are not retreating. We are still advancing, just in the other direction."

I wore my Chelsea jersey to school today. I'm setting to make a point to wear it once every week since I can only wear this jersey for a year, so I must make the most out of it. Yes, I'm not those who'd wear a previous season jersey. This friend of mine pulled me close, I thought he was about to tell me something serious, but out came the words "Chelsea sucks!", my immediate reply, "Fuck you." bah~ That was not the only comment I got today, but it was the worst.

I can't stop thinking. I don't know why he went MIA on Friday, and I don't know why he still isn't replying me. Over the weekend I was so paranoid that I thought he might have met with an accident or something, but when I saw him online I thought he might be fine, but when he didn't reply my, I got all worried all over again. I think I'm really losing it.

I hate self consorship too. I'm not writing all I want to write because I'm afraid. I think somewhere out there somebody I know, somebody I've mentioned, somebody I don't want to read my blog would see all this. I'm also afraid what others might judge me with.

I remember once I constructed a whole world of my own and lived in it and thought about it day in day out. It's a form of escapism, of course. I've outgrown it, but somehow, I really want to recreate another world of my own and live in it so that I won't have to be affected by everything around me.

Why some people can treat it as though nothing's happened? I think I've still not enough mindpower. hai...

Monday, September 11, 2006

2 Flims

I watched a film in the library while waiting for the film screening for my Singapore Films module, hence I managed to catch two films in a day. It's a bit taxing since the library isn't the most comfortable place. I really don't understand, any other chair/bench/stool in the library is more comfortable than the ones in the multimedia viewing gallery. The ones at the study area/computer cluster, the ones in the refreshment area, even the coloured stoods at level 4 there are all more comfortable. However, viewing a film in a LT is really great, has the feel of a cinema. hehehe~

Sophie Scholl
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I checked it out of the library counter.
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I was an English copy version, as in not an international copy or a German copy or a Singapore copy. It looks a bit dodgy, especially that it was not yet officially released in Singapore when our library got that DVD. I remember it was first released in a film fest, then a couple of months later our school bought this DVD then the film officially opened in cinemas in Singapore.

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Before I go into the film proper, let me do the usual fangirl stuff. That actor who acted as Sophie's brother, Hans, is damn shuai. He's Fabian Hinrichs~
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Okay, back to introducing the film proper. Contary to my thoughts, Sophie Scholl was not the name of a scroll, but it's her name, her family name's Scholl, like the shoe you know... And contary to what I thought, Sophie Scholl was not Jew at all. She was a typical German girl with ideals and compassion for her own folks. Previously, whatever I knew about the White Rose society was limited to anime and manga references, but watching this film made really really reflect about history and thought about war.

The whole film chronicled only five days, the last five days of Sophie's life. I don't think I need to give spoiler warnings since this is a fact that I think everybody should have already know, it's not called The Last Days for nothing. The film opened with Sophie still a very free and easy girl making plans with her girlfriend and stuff, then we see her heading for the White Rose meetings with her brother, Hans Scholl. Their plan was to distribute pamplets in the school while trying to prevent being caught. Sophie and Hans volunteered.

Then they were caught, and everything heads for a downward spiral with lies, accusations, betrayal, and even the interogater wanting to save Sophie but she declined because she wanted to stay true to her ideals. Then we learn more about Sophie as a person. On the outside she looked so firm and indignant and very much the strong headed girl, but as time went by and she knew her time's near, she thought about her parents and her fiance and her brother, we see her not as strong as when we were first introduced to her. She is after all only a 21 year old girl, or as the film calls her, a Fraulein.

The film is almost documentary style because it portrays merely facts and events from Sophie's eyes, more like a motion biography. The words chosen to use in this film is really very thought provoking. I tried my best not to look at the subtitles to immerse myself fully into the film. yea... My previous mention about the film being English is because of this, the subtitles CANNOT be turned off. What a turn off. I wanted to watch it without the subtitles. The dislogue was simple and clear, easy for understanding, so it wasn't a problem for me if there weren't subtitles, but it being there distracted me quite a bit and I was sort of forced to look at them.

The acting was superb. All the actors were great. Especially the girl acting as Sophie, she did it with much conviction. Also to mention, the actors of Hans and Christoph Probst were great too. And the person acting as Mohr. I thought the person acting as Lohner looked a bit like Hitler. lol~

10/10 for the story and the acting and the whole execution.

Forever Fever

While watching Sophie Scholl in the library, the person behind me was watching this, and I caught a couple of snippets of it before going for the screening. I think I prefer screenings to squatting in the library in such an uncomfortable position.

Before I watched it all I knew was that it was a take on John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever. It turned out to be pretty delightful, funny and witty and nostalgic. The whole film looked pretty 70s to me and Adrian Pang was wonderful and fitting in his character Hock. His gang of brothers were also very funny and entertaining. The gem was still Hock's brother, Leslie. I thought his redition of Leslie was so cute. hehehe~ And all the different dressing ups of Kumar, it tickled and left the LT in giggles.

Other than the fun parts, most of the film dealt with the normal poor boy kena bullied by rich boy but poor boy still wins in the end kind of show, so in a way it was very predictable.

The one thing that impressed me a great deal is the use of English in the film. As we all know Singapore films tend to be very chap pa lang in the language used which I really dislike and I personally think that if we want to market our films to a larger global audience, we have to just stick to one language, and maybe snippets of dialects is fine, but not a full rojak language film. Forever Fever did this well. The Singaporean accent was still there and everything so it was natural as a local film.

Another thing which I'm still pondering over, is it just me or do I think that Pierre Png's head looks really big? Or is it just his hair style? hmm... And he looks damn skinny too.

Another thing I like about this film is that it doesn't show a seedy side of Singapore which seems to be prevalent in the other Singapore films. For once, Singapore is not portrayed as a poor country with poor people who're upset over everything. And also there's not sex and prostitutes which make Singapore looks seedy and well, not the kind of urbanised image that I have of Singapore. Even though the film was portraying the 70s, the people were still smart and happy and well fed and able to indulge in their interests even though they didn't have excess cash.

So what is my notion of Singapore Film? I guess I still have to ponder about it slowly~

Apple Orange Decision

I was plagued by a problem for the longest time. Thanks to this girl on the bus telling me off for something else, I realised one thing. The answer to the problematic decision I had for the longest time.

I need more magnimity. And I need to stop my double standards on everything.

Yes, I know, I'll be a better person. I'll SMS you as soon as possible, after six months of holding out, after six months of deliberation, heck everything else. Everything's in the mind, if my mind's strong enough, nothing will sway me. I need to cultivate this strength.

For everything else, I'm sorry.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

4 Weeks of School

The 4th week of school has now reached an end. I've attended every lecture and tutorial at least once, and some even up to four times. I think it's now the right time for me to comment about school now that I've seen everything I need to see for this whole semester.

However, before I can go into my this semester's classes, I need to say that I still have two papers to complete and send over to Germany before I can officially say that my exchange programme, my fourth semester in NUS, I'm a third year student. One of the paper is a short paper, so I needn't have to worry so much about it, but the long paper is sort of scaring me out now, since I'm coupled with the other papers my modules this semester expects of me. Wish me luck with them. I think I'll talk about workhouses or the second industrial revolution in the short paper and about the British Empire in the long paper.

Okay, to start on my this semester of modules proper.

CS1105 Computing and Society
My breadth.

I think the whole notion of breadths sucks, but oh well, since I've to take it, this sounds pretty much an easy thing to cope with, I thought. But it turned out that this is a project heavy module and very CA slanted. Other than the group project and normal attendence and discussion assessments, there's a case study thingie and a blog. yea... I've to blog on this online portal thingie. I'll carry over the blog entries from there over here and weave them inside my blog on a later date, but I'll put up the links for easy access, but I think I'll do that at the end of the semester.

Until now, I don't really have much problems with the lecture, although there's this supplementary lecture that's supposed to help us understand what is the internet which I don't understand, but since it's not graded, it doesn't really matter if I understand or not. One of my personal pet peeve regarding the lecture is that the lecturer is trying to speak English as well as he could. yea... The problem here is that his English isn't that good. Take "gotton" for example, omg... That's like primary school mistake. Okay, I'm the one who had foreign lecturers for most if not all of my previous four semesters, apparently, according to some people in the far side of the School of Computing says that this is already pretty good English.

The thing I don't really understand of SOC is that the people there, people as in Singaporeans there, speak predominantly Chinese. It's really weird to hang around the corridor and hear people speaking in Chinese. I mean, I do speak Chinese sometimes to my close friends in Arts, but usually the atmosphere in Arts is English speaking. And another thing, there are heaps of PRCs and Indians, heaps of them previously not seen in Arts Faculty, for the most obvious reason of language barrier, but since SOC has such a low standard of English, thos folks over there are just infiltrating and taking over the whole SOC. wahaha~

My tutor for Computing and Society is also a PRC, but she's pretty. Oh man... She's really pretty, a cute face with strong facial bone structure, long permed hair, and she's thin. But she doesn't really teach that well, most of the time she loses control of the class because we get too fast with her with our English, and couple with a couple of Arts students in the class, during arguments, I think she just can't keep up. This is one thing which I think looks pays a very important factor. If she weren't good looking, people would despise her, but since she's good looking, people tend to be softer on her, not just her, but people in general usually favour the good looking people unless the good looking people are proud and invite jealousy, but that's a different story.

My project group for this module is a very interesting group. Since I joined this module alone, I decided to just ask the people sitting closest to me during the tutorial if they wanted to do project with me. It turned out to be some sort of a mistake because we later realised that the three of us were, one thing, all girls, another all bad with computers, and most importantly all arts students. hehehe~ This is my personal stereotyping of arts girls, we're all pretty bad with computers and technology and very cannot make it. Luckily for us, the two guys behind us needed to split into different groups and very luckily, we've got the computing major guy. wahaha~ cool right? I think the project will go well.

I think I'll blog in that portal thingie tonight after I've completed with this entry, rested enough, and done some work for my two papers for my German lecturer.

GEK2005 Introduction to Urban Planning
My GEM.

This is a Building and Real Estate module, but considered as an Arts GEM, but since it's outside faculty, can SU it. I don't know if it was a mistake to take it, but until now it seems like a module that's easy to cope with. There's a short essay and a group project and some what nots but the lectures are easy to understand, sort of like secondary school human geography like that. The tutorials aren't that bad either since it's a big class and a lot of people talk and I can just weave my way in the class. And since I will SU it, I don't really need to put in that much effort. I mean I'd be damn pissed if I SUed something which I could have got like anything more than a B+, so my target is to score as low a pass mark as possible. hahaha~

The lecturer for this module is a PRC. I think he looks like a construction worker, maybe not a construction worker, but maybe the overseer for construction project, whatever you call those people, those wear white hats ones. I think it's the clothes he wear and his rugged looks. I don't know how most BRE or Archi or SDE people look like, but I don't really think it's that bad a comment to say that they look like they work in a construction site since after all they will be working at construction sites, but definitely not as construction workers, that why we still need our Banglas.

There's one thing I need to complain about though, the classrooms we use for tutorials for this module is in a horrible godforsaken room. The room has not windows, only four walls and two door, so the air as you can imagine, is very very bad. Then the worst thing is that the air conditioning is very strong and every tutorial sees us being frozen by the air conditioning. So this is how the school is wasting our money, on needless temperatures of the air conditioning. Really, I can imagine just how much the school can save if they turn up the air conditioning by just one mere degree celsius lor. kauz...

HY2217 War and Society
A UE. But I did it not because I need UEs, I did it only because it's a Farrell module. lol~ nah... All along I knew this was one module I wanted to do.

Like all Farrell modules, there will be two write ups and one group project on top of the usual forum discussions and stuff. I've thought of a great topic I could do for my research topic, but I need the green light from the master first before I can start on it, but with last night's draw with Boro, not so sure if the master's in a good mood to grant green lights. lol~ I think Farrell's the only person who can periodically diss Chelsea and support Arsenal and still receive my continued praises. Most other people would have a red handprint on their faces already. wahaha~

I don't really know what to say about this module other than it's a very typical Farrell module, so if you've taken Farrell before, you'd understand what I'm talking about, but if you've not, then you should try doing one next semester. But of course, do not attempt to do a Farrell module when you are in your first year first semester. I don't understand how can freshies do Farrell's module and not get traumatised by him. lol~

The other day, Prof Farrell had this inspection, and I guess the only person bigger than Prof Farrell (who's the deputy head of department) was the head of department, Prof Ian Gordon. I think it's the inspection period because Frau Niemann also had an inspection, it was conducted by Prof Turner, my European Studies conveynor. Prof Turner is British, but he speaks German because he was there for a couple of year teaching. The funny thing was that after the inspection, Frau Niemann was talking about the dividing of the African states and that their borders all look so straight and distinct, she was like, "If you see a border which is straight in Africa, you'd know that somehow the British were involved with it." When we pointed to the empty seat where Prof Turner previous was, she was like "He's gone already." She's so cute.

And speaking of Farrell and Turner, I was talking to Siwei about the modules I was taking, while talking about Prof Farrell, he asked if he was Will Farrell. erm... "You watching to many movies already ah?" I asked. Well, at least he didn't ask if he was Colin Farrell. Then when mentioned that Prof Turner was sitting in today's class, he asked if he was Will Turner. OMG... I was like, "Siwei, You're watching like too many films already lor." hmm... I didn't realise that they shared the same family name until Siwei mentioned it. lol~ And by the way, the actor Will Ferrell is spelt like this (I think).

I think I've once again successfully went so off course that I don't know where I am now. Okay...

TS2238 Singapore Film: Performance of Identity
Another UE which I was cheated of taking. Those people said we could do together, so that we could do project together, later pang seh me because my timetable didn't allow us to do the same tutorial. sucks... Feel so damn cheated of this.

I usually don't take modules with me, but I thought this would be an exception. Really, if I knew that I'd end up being alone for this module, I'd have probably done it next semester or something with some other people or not do it at all since I heard that it's a module difficult to score and I don't need that to harm my cap. The worst thing that not only am I stranded to do the project myself, all those people are starting to skip lectures leaving me not only stranded in tutorials but lectures too. I think it's best if I had just planned my own timetable right from the beginning.

Granted, Singapore Film is a very interesting module that makes me reflect on my writings. The whole notion of giving films the tag "Singapore" and with regard to the idea of "Singaporean" is not just in films but can also be put to other aspects, like my writings for one. Also, if I can put my writings to film, what would I tag them as, Singapore? Singaporean? hmm... Okay, in a sense, my writings are definitely not Singaporean since I'm not very good with Singaporean issues since they don't bother me. Rise in prices is prevalent in every society not just Singapore, rise in COE prices don't affect me, in fact COE prices are dropping because ERP is rising, and ERP doesn't affect me. My writings is about people unhappy with their relationships, not about socio-economic issues. My writings is about love and relationships which can take place not just in Singapore, but anywhere else in the world. But what makes it a piece of Singapore writing? I'd say me. bah~ I wrote it, so I've all the right to call it whatever I want. I can remove the setting to some lonely street in Taipei and I shall still call it a piece of Singapore writing. My protagonist can me an American and I can still call it a piece of Singapore writing.

Actually, I do have a story about an American, but only the plot and outline and a poem relating to the story. I forgot all about this piece of writing after leaving it in the back of a dusty cupboard until during on lecture when we started the whole notion of foreigners and stuff, then I went, hey, I've written something like that before what. It's titled "Gina", it's about the story of a young American professional coming to Singapore (Or anywhere in the Far East, Singapore is convenient because I didn't want my protagonist to have any communication barriers, and it seemed like Singapore was the only place he could fit in. Malaysia is possible too, but because of the second protagonist have to be a migrant worker, hence the second protagonist has to be Malaysian and hence the story has to take place in Singapore.), it's still a Singapore writing because I wrote it. Oh well...

It's really great to talk about such stuff so I know about myself better. Tutorials until now is not that bad, just that the bulk of the class are quite stereotypical students doing TS. The way they talk and dress, is so different from the usual bunch of Farrell groupies. For one, most of Farrell's groupies are guys. lol~ Anyway, my project group is well, I hope I'll do well with them, but the fact that none of them is TS major, might well be a tad disappointing. Really, no thanks to the people who all pang seh me. yea... I guess I'm bitter, but can you blame me?

Oh, and another thing, Dr Edna Lim is very pretty and very small. I think she's about half my size, I feel so giant and so fat beside her. lol~ But her Singapore accent is quite strong. I think she can speak well, but that she's doing Singapore Film, the accent comes in quite useful. the difference about her and the other Singaporean lecturer I have is that unlike him, she isn't trying to conceal her accent, and it turns out easier to understand and comprehend and very much more natural. And she doesn't make the elementary mistakes the other lecturer made. lol~

LAG4201 German 5
I'm putting as my major module.

People don't understand me when I say that I can use these European Language modules as my major modules to fulfill my major requirements. But it's fine with me as long as I know that I can graduate. Actually I hadn't wanted to do this but I didn't have other choices of EU modules, so I ended up doing it. It's great to see all the same faces and a couple of new faces~

It's also great that German 5 doesn't seem that difficult or taxing as compared to German for Academic Purposes. Perhaps it's because that I've just came back from Germany too, so I'm more confident in my speech although my grammar still sucks. I hope I can really improve my German, continue speaking German and one day make full use of my this ability.

Actually there's nothing to talk about already, after so many modules of German, what else new can i think about the module and talk about it? hmm...

So I guess that's about the end of my modules this semester. ECAs wise, I think I'll only be doing one ECA since I've my duty slots all slated, though I think confirmation from my secretary for a swap. I think this semester hopefull be a more relaxing one for me.

Oh, and before I leave, I'm very touched that Prof Ian Gordon remembered my name. hehehe~ A friend (a quite mugger student) was saying that it's nothing worth mentioning because all his profs remember his name, but well, my argument is that I'm not a chao mugger, I'm just a mediocre student, so it's quite amazing (to me) that he remembers me. hehehe~

Thursday, September 07, 2006

I am Fat, and Yet Still Eating

Yesterday I was feeling quite down, actually, I've been feeling down for the longest time alreay, compounded with so many other reasons and stuff. I decided to head out loitering again after school yesterday, I could go down Kinokuniya and pick up my reserved books. Then I could get Jasmine's birthday present too. I gave my friend a call to see if he wanted to join me. He did. And thankfully, the night turned out for the better. As what I've always said, food makes one feel good~

Buffet at Sakura, with pictures.

But this is not a blow by blow description of a food review. Basically unless it's really good or really terrible, all the food went down me because I needed my comfort food. And this is not a picture blog in that I'll show you tons of my pictures. I didn't even take any picture of me yesterday, and since a very long time already. Just look at the amount of food and guage if I've eaten more than I've paid.

The dinner buffet was from 6-10pm with the food being displayed till 9.30pm. I was there from 6.11pm and stayed till 9.30pm, time wise, we've occupied the space for a maximum period of time. But of course, since it was a weekday, it wasn't full house, and there were still a couple of empty tables here and there at the peak period.

The trick to eating buffet, is to aim for the expensive stuff and only eat the good stuff. Going to a buffet to eat rice and pasta is a BIG BIG waste of money and stomach space. I didn't even bother touching the sushi pieces even though they had my favourite piece.

Okay, I better start with the blog proper. We sat at table 14. It was damn stupid, because the restaurant was empty at that time and table 14 is far away from the food, but it was a window seat, but the window view was sucky, a dirty canal and a car park. Disgusting.
060920061707

We were talking about eating the expensive stuff first, so naturally we headed for the sashimi. I don't know why the sashimi, but it looked pretty expensive, and it was on the table closest to us.

060920061690
Sashimi.

After the sashimi, I headed for the prawns while my friend too lazy to peel prawns and didn't want to eat those I peeled, ate something else. I think I wasted a lot of time peeling prawns. If this was a buffet with time constraints, I think eating prawns is not worthwhile. I counted the number of prawns I peeled, 17 altogether. It's so ironic, I never peeled my prawns when I eat with the family or the extended family, never, but I'm still the girl who'd peel prawns for my man, that is if I've one... bah~

060920061691
Cold prawns. They almost froze my fingers when I peeled them.

Then I went to order the cooked food. After eating all those cold stuff, it's time to eat some hot food. But since the order takes time to arrive, I scooped up a bowl of sharks' fin soup first. The soup was cold. The fins were those thick kind, might be fake I don't know, but it's definitely not those normal kind I'd eat in a restaurant, the finer ones which come in a cluster. But I think it's something to do with the way I scooped, I ended up with quite a lot of fins in my soup.

060920061694
Sharks' fin soup.

While having the soup, my cooked food arrived. Previously I saw my friend having the salmon and beef, but I don't take beef, so I picked salmon and chicken. My salmon came first, and it looked good.

060920061695
Salmon.

060920061696
Chicken. It's disgusting. Totally.

I don't understand about the beans thingie. NO ONE eats them anyway, so why do they bother placing the beans on the plate? I think they're wasting like so much money on the beans and the service of the poor folk who nicely arranged the beans on each plate, waste of labour. bah~

Then my friend had this dory, and he said it was good, wanting to get rid of the disgusting chicken taste from my mouth, I went to place an order for the dory. In the meantime, I settled for some abalone~ My friend said it didn't taste good, but whatever, it was expensive and hence I will eat it. It turned out to be quite okay except that it was chilled. But it did fill up my $26 I've paid.

060920061697
Abalone.

060920061699
Dory.

The dory was so good that it was the only thing I got second helpings. Actually, I'd have got a second helping for salmon if I wasn't that stuffed. I've love fish as long as they don't have bones. I used to hate fish because of the bones, but as long as there are no bones, I love them~ It's said that fish is supposed to be good for brains, but how come even after eating so much fish I still can't remember people's faces? hai... Maybe the problems lies with me ba...

060920061701
Fried food.

I wanted to skip the fried food one. Fried food very fattening, but I couldn't give prawns a pass since they were the so called expensive stuff in a buffet, I just had to eat them up. And later I realised that that little bowl I used to contain my mayo sauce was supposed to be the bowl for the ice cream. It was so small I just assumed that it was for the sauces. lol~

060920061702
Dory again.

By this time I was so stuffed that the dory turned out to be my final meal item. But I think I've eaten enough, right? Please tell me I did eat my worth of food, if not I'd just feel very terrible. lol~ As what my daddie says, buffets is not good, you eat too little you feel it's not worth it, you eat too much you get fat. hai...

A little show case on the stuff I drank. Drinks was of course, also free flow. But I made a mistake, I shouldn't have drank too much. Drinks are cheap and they fill you up real real quickly.

060920061693
Iced lemon tea.

I never drink any ice lemon tea other than those from Delifrance or Coffee Club Express. I never drink those dispensers one nor canned or packeted ones. But after being in Germany and the choice of drinks being limited, yea... I'm starting to like ice lemon tea a lot. But my preferred choice of drink is still Coke, but I thought since it's free flow I'd get Coke later, so ice lemon tea first.

060920061698
Coke.

060920061706
Coke again.

But I didn't finish this glass of Coke. Too stuffed already, and too bloated. Think next time in buffet, I must limit myself to only one glass of drink.

Then let's head on to the desserts. I don't usually like sweet stuff, but since it was a buffet inclusive of desserts, I had to have some don't I? lol~ The range was a tad too sweet for me, so I aimed only the usual stuff and some chocolate items. No ice cream for me.

060920061703
Mango pudding.

060920061704
Gui lin gao, with honey.

060920061705
Three chocolate stuff, too sweet for me already though.

With that, it completes my entire dinner at Sakura. I'm stuffed filled with all those stuff man.

I took some other pictures don't mind sharing with you guys.

Remember the prawns?
060920061691060920061692
This is the amount of shell I've generated. Cool right? Onw whole plate of shell~

Then while I was taking the picture of the plate of dory, I turned the plate 180°. My friend saw that and asked me why I did that, so I showed him the difference...
060920061699and060920061700
The size of the dory looks VERY different right? lol~

Anyway, thanks to the friend who went down with me. Now, I just need to look forward to Jasmine's birthday and Lihui's birthday before I'll self destruct my life~

I've gained so much weight since I returned from Germany. People are telling me that I'm bound to lose weight once I get back to Singapore, but looking at the amount of food I'm eating in Singapore, I'm eating so much more than I was in Germany. How to lose weight??? To those guys who try to convince me that I still look cute, or that the extra weight is good for me, I think you can save all that once you see the big bluging tummy and the big butt. I'm now using my clothes to conceal all those from you guys lor.

I've got a lot of clothes I can't seem to fit in already, so I KNOW that I'm growing fat, so I think you can save those so called comforting words of what I'm only thinking that I'm fat. Those clothes are empirical evidence, irrefutable proof. I AM FAT. Okay, there are still fatter people, so I AM GAINING SO MUCH WEIGHT. I must start a proper diet plan and stick to it. hai...

Wish me luck~

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Along the Arts Corridor

Okay, I didn't really meet them along any corridors, one was in Coffee Club Express the other was in the library, but I thought the title sounded more poetic. hehehe~

This is a follow up to
- Hello, Do You Know Me?
- More Blushes, And My Inadequacies
And pretty soon, I can start a column of Joan's Social Boohoos.

Last Friday I was hanging around the school doing something I can't remember what it was when I heard someone call me name. erm... Truth to be told, I seldom respond well to people calling my name because I've this paranoia that people aren't actually calling me but someone with a similar sounding name. yea... I guess I've low self esteem. I turned back and saw a familar face among a group of people. I assumed that I knew the familar face, and since the rest weren't that familiar I didn't bother looking at them and assumed that I didn't know them. Convenient, I guess.

As I was talking, the person who called me asked me why didn't I give that "Do I know you face". Then I took a step back and realised that one of the girls among the four people in front of me was seemingly familiar but I've absolutely no recollection of her. I thought it's best that when I've spotted a familiar face, my sight would be straightly directed to that face, other faces don't usually bother me much since I don't bother looking at them. But now that I've seen all the faces and one of them was familar, there was an awkward pause. I hate awkward pauses. Makes me feel so uncomfortable, like I'm going to antagonise some people with some wrong comments.

Then this guy said I didn't remember him. Truth to be told, I thought I knew for sure that I didn't know him. I assumed that he was trying to jeesiao me, you know like how all irritating guys like to do. So I asked aloud, "I don't know you, right?" Big mistake. I did know him. I knew him together with the girl whom I thought was familiar. Granted, I think he looked different, he probably got darker and changed his spectacles or something. And after reflecting on the events after I left. And digging up my past memory, I remembered his name! Amazing~ But I still can't remember the girl's name. I think the girl has a Chinese name. I'm bad at Chinese names. I remembered the guy's name because, long story.

Once upon a time I knew this friend who was thinking of an English name for himself. The name he chose was "Eric" (I hope that's the name, if not, my memory's really terrible, forgive me.). I thought, since he liked the football player Roy Keane, why didn't he just call himself Roy? I'm a suckler for single syllabus names. He didn't tell me the reason of why he was unwilling to take on that name until he introduced me to this guy named Roy. I guess it's because he's a friend of that name. ahh well...

Okay, back to the topic. On Monday, I met that guy again~ And I was able to confidently wave to him and did some stupid small talk.
roy: You just came to school, is it?
joan: No, I'm just leaving about to leave school.
roy: I've class.
Then the oligatory byebyes.
I guess it was because I was wearing the sunglasses, so it's either I just came from outside or I'm going to outside. It weird why some people can still recognise other people with sunglasses. I cannot do so leh... If there's someone with sunglasses, I will definitely not acknowledge him.

Then that night, I was MSN-ing with the friend and I mentioned that I met Roy. I was expecting something like "Who's Roy?" hai... I guess this is another example of my low self esteem, and lack of confidence of my pathetic memory. But since he didn't ask, I guess I remembered the name correctly~ yay~

Then today, I had another encounter with the loitering people in Arts faculty.

I was at the library when suddenly I heard someone calling my name. I always cringe when I hear my name. lol~ I turned around after like 5 seconds of pause, but I didn't see anyone turning in my direction or looked like they called me. I thought it was just my paranoia again, then I saw a head twisted in a awkward position. "You didn't see me, or you've forgotten me?" erm... Truth to be told, how was I to recognise I face so awkwardly twisted? After walking forward and seeing him in a more normal position, ahh... yea... I recognised the face. Mitch.

Okay, the name didn't exactly appear straight to me when I saw him, but in retrospect, Mitch is the amazing self confident person that can make people remember him after he starts talking about himself. yea... So the name did have to pop up in my head after some small talk. Another thing about making small talk with these sort of über confident person is that they can make small talk into a conversation. Anf they are wonderful people to talk to, makes one feel so comfortable and the words just come out naturally.

Talking to Mitch brought back some memories of the past. I have really aged. I met Mitch way back in year 1, so 2 years have passed just like that in front of our eyes. Old already... wahaha~

Another little encounter at the end of the day today. Just before leaving school, I went to the toilet. At the toilet, this girl turned to me and asked "You're Joan right?" erm... I stunned dio lor. Toilet leh... Never expect someone with this question to ask me in the toilet. "You're in my SS group." erm... What SS??? Then I remembered, my TS module's also an SS module, so yea... I just met her this morning and I can't remember by the afternoon. Okay, it was only 4 hours since we've last met and I couldn't recognise her face. I'm so cannot make it.

Maybe I should do something regarding this brain of mine. hai...

Monday, September 04, 2006

3 Movies and an Anime

Updated: Pictures added~

I watched three DVDs last weekend. Okay, and I watched loads of anime and read loads of manga online too on Thursday (my free day) and Saturday (before the concert) and Sunday. Here are them in a capsule...

Let me just get this off my chest first. Remember just last weekend I was swooning over 38 year old Wubai and exclaiming that I want to marry him and, no not marry since he's already married, but you get the idea. I was so in love with him. Anyway, just after watching all those anime and reading all those manga, I've a new fancy. Natsume from Gakuen Alice. And he's only 10 years old. I've gone from coffin snatcher to cradle snatcher in like 2 minutes flat. kauz...

Okay, back to the three DVDs I rented. Each featuring loves of mine. Think I've the heart of the flowing water and water flowers... (If you don't get the Chinese saying, nevermind...)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Capsule: 9/10
Jonny Depp is damn shuai~
The one point off is because of the divergence from the original book.

Wedding Crashers
Capsule: 8/10
Owen Wilson is damn shuai~
The two points off is because it's the typical Hollywood romantic comedy, together with those cliches and predictable plot.

House of Flying Daggers
Capsule: 5/10
Takeshi Kaneshiro is damn shuai~
The five points off is that Andy Lau is not as shuai as I thought, maybe because he was beside Takeshi Kaneshiro, stand alone, he won't be that bad looking. NOT! The plot sucked. The twists were so terrible that everytime something happened I went "crap!" and Zhang Ziyi sucked, she had this mosquito bite thingie on the face along the jaw bone. The pace of the movie was so slow that even the blood and the fighting scenes, stuff I really dig, did not interest me. Maybe it's due to the sad watching at home experience, but I really didn't think it deserved that high grade the IMDb people gave it. Probably those people are just acting arty farty.

I love shuaiges~ Be it Wubai, Natsume, Jonny Depp, Owen Wilson, or Takeshi Kaneshiro, all of them have their different appeal that I go gaga over, like totally~

I'm going back to read Gakuen Alice now~ This is a really juicy part.
***spoilers***
Before the Christmas dance party, Luca kissed Mikan on her cheek to thank her, of course it's obvious that he likes her la, but that's not the point. The main point is that during the dance party, Luca called Natsume to dance with Mikan since Luca had danced with Mikan during the festival dance party while Natsume didn't. So Natsume and Mikan danced. Then someone pushed them and Mikan fell on top of Natsume, accidentally brushing her lips over his. But Mikan insisted that they did not kiss, just the teeth knocking on him.

THIS IS NOT THE END OF STORY!!!

Then later Mikan met Natsume again. Natsume complained that Mikan's a bad kisser. Mikan still insisted that they did not kiss. And guess what that guy did in response? He kissed her again, right smack on the lips. Wet kiss. And since it was a couple of pages (pages! not frames.) long, it's probably a very long kiss. awww~ Natsume~ shuai~

Updated: the picture of a page (out of a few others) of the kissing scene.
026

Okay, I'm going back to see what's Mikan's reaction to that kiss. It's definitely a kiss, she can't deny that. And I want to see Luca's reaction if he knows. aww... Wonder what will happen to Luca and Natsume's relationship now... wahaha~

Updated: I'm into a couple of pages more. It's awkwardness~
(This is when they were forced to do clean up together and there's a blackout. Both reached for Mikan's hands not knowing the other did the same. awww...)
omg

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Wubai's Concert

It's quite misleading to title this as Wubai's concert since there were extras like Zhang Zhenyue and MC Hotdog, but anyway, I was there for one sole purpose, WUBAI.

I went with Peiyi. We met at Parkway for lunch instead of eating at Expo, and it turned out to be a very good decision because Expo was packed filled with lots and lots of people. There was the Comex thingie, some stupid computer fair and of course that stupid church holding its services there. I really don't understand why after so many computer fairs, people are still flocking to more computer fairs. And I don't understand the mentality of devout Christians too. All of those people just filled up the whole place making us concert goers having to squeeze with them. Kanasai...

We had many options to get to Expo from parkway, but we finally decided that the easiest way to get in is to take MRT, hence we took 31 to Tanah Merah MRT station. Taking a bus to Bedok would only increase our MRT fare and because we're on bus pass so we need to take less MRT as possible.

The concert hall itself was not very big, but still, from a distance you can't really see the face of the singer, unless you look att he big screens. I was sitting at the very front 4th row, so I manged to see close up, big big, my idol's face. I was so close to him that I could feel him looking so shuai just like that. Oh my God... I'm so in bliss. I'll rant on later, I'll start with the beginning of the concert.

Like all other concerts, it started late. I also have yet mentioned, this was supposed to be a joint concert, joint with Zhang Zhenyue. Zhange Zhenyue came out quite suddenly and took the stage. He didn't talk much, he jusr sang, sang his godknowswhat songs. And I was bored. To me, Zhang Zhenyue was only a stage warmer. bah~ There was this group of fans who stood up the entire period Zhang Zhenyue sang, but they were the only ones who stood.

When MC Hotdog took the stage, more people stood up. Later when Wubai came on, about 70% of the audience were standing up. I guess we know who the bulk og the concert-goers were there for. hohohohohoho~

Anyway, I was bored.

The thing I didn't really understand about Zhang Zhenyue was that he never introduced his band to the audience. Maybe I'm used to Wubai's style, he always introduces his band members individually. Zhang Zhenyue didn't even introduce his band as a whole. At the end of the concert, the encore, when everyone took the stage and sang a group song, Wubai was the one who credited Free 9. Well, I think the band plays a very important part, crediting them is natural, so I don't really understand why Zhang Zhenyue did not take the time to introduce his band members.

The whole MC Hotdog thingie was also quite incomprehensible. First, I don't even know who he is. Second he claimed that some song everyone should know how to sing and sing it together when I never even heard of the song before. I think I have a very big and serious generation gap from the youngsters nowadays. wahaha~

The main highlight, the only highlight, the whole idea of the concert, the whole point of me getting the 4th row seats in the middle bloc, is W U B A I. period.

After Zhang Zhenyue left the stage, the chants for Wubai started. wahahaha~ Then Damao (Big Cat) came out. He was dressed in an all black ensemble, and with his trademark sunglasses. I don't think I ever remember seeing Damao's eyes before. hehehe~ Damao came out with a laptop, a bit weird. Then he started playing the keyboards. AND THEN AND THEN WUBAI HIMSELF APPEARED!!! He was wearing all black too~ But with some silver crystals decorated. His hair looked no nicely blown. It's a bit longer than the last time I got to see him, maybe it's the fringe that was longer, but anyway, he's so damn shuai.

After the first song, the rest of the band came out, they were all in black, Hsiaochu (Ken), the bassist, had sunglasses too~ I wonder if they can actually see anything in those sunglasses, but I think the stage lighting is strong enough. hehehe~ Dino, the drummer, was right at the back and the cymbals blocked his face from my view, quite a pity.

I stood throughout the entire time Wubai sang. And sang along to almost every song. The only songs which I could sing were 《背叛》, the only Chinese song, and a smattering other Hokkien songs. The only Hokkien song I could sing along was 《世界第一等》. The repitore was quite standard, the usual songs that you expect to hear from him you've heard it, so I was quite satisfied. Still, it would be loads better if it was a solo concert and with those irritants that warmed the stage.

During the concert, Wubai said that the songs he didn't expect people to like became classics, the songs that he wanted to become classics, were forgotten by people. He pointed out 《浪人情歌》 and 《白鸽》. Personally, I think it's because people prefer to remember sad songs to encouraging ones. But 《白鸽》is a personal favourite of mine. It's because of it that made me fall in love with Wubai. I like Wubai since all his sad songs like 《浪人情歌》, but I wasn't in love with him. I wasn't a rabid fangirl, groupie of his. But after 《白鸽》, I was evangelised. I first saw the MTV, and I was drawn to the tune of it, also the lyrics was very well written, very encouraging, very nice picture of the future painted, but sung in a very weathered tone.

Remember this picture?
1348

I used it when I wrote this entry, and I often use it as my MSN picture. It's the promotional picture for 《白鸽》, that thing in his hands if you can see clearly, is a white dove. hehehe~

《白鸽》
曲:伍佰
词:伍佰

前方啊没有方向
身上啊没有了衣裳
鲜血啊渗出了翅膀
我的眼泪湿透了胸膛

飞翔着强忍着伤
逃离了猎人的枪
我的双脚没有了知觉
我的心情下冰冷的雪

亲爱的母亲挚爱的朋友
我会坚定好好的活
沉默的大地沉默的天空
红色的血继续的流

纵然带着永远的伤口
至少我还拥有自由

飞翔吧飞在天空
用力吹吧无情的风
我不会害怕也无须懦弱
流浪的路我自己走

那是种骄傲阳光的洒脱
白云从我脚下掠过
干枯的身影憔悴的面容
挥着翅膀不再回头

纵然带着永远的伤口
至少我还拥有自由

呜...

In all, it was really a very satisfying night even though I stood throughout and held my placard throughout. I think I was the only one who brought a placard~ While making the placard, I realised that my art is terrible. Terrible, like in REALLY VERY BAD. In the end, Peiyi drew out the letterings for me. I cut out the pieces, but Peiyi was disdainful of my cuttings. I hope Wubai saw my placard, and I hope he appreciated it~

*sigh* I so want to marry him~