A Week of Sick and Pain

For the whole week, and still going strong, I've been sick (meaning 1a) and in a great deal of pain (meanings 1 and 2). In chronological order when I've been inflicted with it, I shall further describe in greater detail each of my sicknesses and pain, and unless I state otherwise, I'm still suffering from that horrible pain or sickness.

1. Rashes.
Last Tuesday I was at Sentosa. There is this part of the beach where there's a floating bridge across to a little islet, not the suspension bridge one. I was at that islet and decided to swim across over to the mainland. After I got across, I turned and tried to swim back to the islet to my friend, but I couldn't, I was swept off course towards the bridge by the current. Near the bridge, I felt something swept by my thigh and pricking it. Feeling some pain and the currents still going strong, I turned back to the mainland and walked via the bridge back to the islet. I am a good swimmer, but not a strong one, and I was swimming with contacts and didn't want to go underwater.

When I was back with my friend and could sit down and slowly admire the artwork created on my thigh, I spotted some cuts on my right knee and three pierce marks on my right thigh, they were bleeding. I also noticed some slight bruising on my right thigh, but it was slight and it didn't bleed so I didn't take much notice to it. That evening while I was having supper and lounging out with that said friend, I noticed a large patch of bruising my my right thigh, the part where previously I said there was some slight bruising. It itched a bit, but I still didn't take notice of it as I thought that that was just a bruise and since there was no external bleeding, it shouldn't be that serious.

After two days, I noticed that the bruises darkened and it seemed to be healing so I didn't medicate it. The cuts on my knee and the pierce marks on my thigh had dried and it was okay, so I thought it was only a matter of time for my bruises to heal. However, the next day I woke up to see the whole patch bright red, itching, and swelling, and there was two other marks on my left leg which I hadn't noticed before. Sensing that it was something other than a bruise, I went to see the doctor. The doctor suspected that it was either a sandfly bite (which I didn't think so) or I brushed past some weird plants (which sounded more like that case), gave me some medication and some cream.

The rashes are still on, it doesn't itch that much now, though it still itches a bit. This is how it looks like...


This is on my left leg. The inner side of my legs near the knee pits. Looks like little mosquite bites, but unlike mosquito bites, or sandfly bites, till today from Tuesday, it has already been 11 days. Yup... The Tuesday I meant previously was the Deepavali Tuesday hor...


This is on my right thigh. It might not look that bad, only because I'm using a lousy webcam camera and the brightness settings and image quality sucks. It takes up half my thigh and I've pretty long legs so that's quite a big patch of rash.

2. Sunburnt.
As per normal, after every trip to Sentosa, I'd be back with sunbruns and after a while the redness of raw skin would turn char black and then it would start peeling. But before, the redness would render my skin feeling tight and pain and itchy. And when it peels, my skin would also feel itch and dry and my whole skin would look a bit patchy from the peeling.


This is how it vaguely looks like on my shoulder. My burns are on my upper arms, both, and my shoulders and the upper back between my shoulders and below my neck and some more just above my bikini bottom line around my waist. That's why I was wearing either dresses or loose fitting bottoms over the past couple of days.

3. Sneezing.
Last weekend, on Saturday, I started sneezing very badly. At first I thought it was the after effects of sleeping in aircon wearing very little, I was sunbrunt mah... Or maybe the house was a bit dirty thanks to my mother slacking over the festive week, cos it ceased on Sunday, but it came back on Monday worse than before.

I had to go to see doctor on Monday. I wrote a little about it, among many other useless things in my previous post. I am not sneezing anymore now, but I still have a running nose.

4. Running nose.
Running nose comes after you sneeze. With every sneeze, mucus would ooze out of the nose, but sometimes, very often, one can also have mucus trickling down the nose even without sneezing. Even though my sneezing stopped sometime in midweek last week, my running nose continued. Until now, my nose is still running. I think it's somewhere in Siberia already. Maybe not too long later, it can run alongside the Trans-Siberian Railway and reach Moscow. And the worst thing about running noses is that the medications for it are all drowsy, so I can only eat them at night and let me sleep without having to worry about my nose, but I have to have my tissues ready by me the whole day, in school. sucks...

5. Headaches.
With all that sneezing, the blood just can't reach my head enough resulting in me having to endure splitting headaches. I once read somewhere that when you sneeze, you heart cease to beat. With my heart stop beating for that splitsecond, that also means that my heart stopped pumping blood around my body and with my other body parts, especially my head not having enough blood, wahaha... brain not working, head very pain lor...

Now my head still pain once in a while but not as bad as before. hai...

6. Fever/Flushes.
I don't have fever. Oh man... Fever is like a very stigmatised word in today's vocabulary especially after the SARS thingie and with the bird flu rampaging through the world, the word fever can cause fear in people. What I have can be considered as flushes. I always get them, especially when I am sick, or going through some sort of upheaval in my life. I would feel a sudden warmth in my head and would feel warm and stuffy and giddy.

Actually, one thing about me that most doctors don't factor in but I think it's quite an important medical condition is that my normal body temperature is slighter lower than most people. Some people, especially young children, have slightly higher body temperatures, some like me, I don't know for what reason, have lower ones. I realised this when I plotted my body temperature log as imposed on by the school during the SARS period. The average temperature is about 36.9, 37 degrees, but mine is about 36.2-36.5 degrees. So it it pretty difficult to determine when I have a fever cos a temperature of 37.4 might be fever for me but not the the doctor based on the average. But at least I don't have to bear the stigma of having a fever.

7. Sore throat.
The medical term for this is URTI or Upper Respiratory Tract Infection. I started off with feeling my throat very itchy, that was on Saturday. Then Sunday I was better. Lost my voice on Monday, Tuesday I rested. The throat was still sore, but got better by Thursday, then suddenly I lost my voice on Friday again cos I think Thurday was a very bad day for me. Today throat still cannot talk. hai...

8. Cough.
The cough came late on Monday, slight without phlegm. Then yesterday I started coughing with phlegm. Now still coughing with phlegm. The phlegm is still green in colour and thich and horrible so I guess I won't be recovering that soon. But with my spitting out every piece of phelgm I cough out, hopefully I can finish spitting out all the phlegm I have and stop coughing soon~

9. Cramps.
My period came late on Wednesday night and the whole of Thursday I was filled with pain in my lower tummy. Because I was on Paracetamol, no thanks to my headaches, I didn't dare to eat my trusted Panadol Menstrual.

As a result I was overcome by a series of almost overbearing pain. These are the times I'd feel being a girl really sucks. Even though I experience these acute cramps every month since I was 11, I never got use to them, at all.

10. Bruises, Blueblacks, Abrasions, Scrapes, and whatever you call them.
The most pathetic thing that can happen to a student would be to fall down in front of the whole lecture theatre. Luckily, it wasn't that bad for me. I was in the middle of the lecture theatre, during the break, when I fell, so half the class didn't see me. And cos it was a mess which I tripped over, and I wasn't that big a person, so I can say not many people noticed I fell over a couple of people's legs and bags onto the floor, flat. Only those people around me saw me fell. But I fell flat on the ground. wahaha~ And I was wearing skirt that day.

This resulted in...

One blueblack cum bruise cum scrape cum abrasion on my left knee...

These bleeding, now dried already, on top of a blueblack. This is the first time I've actually seen a blue black and bleeding over the same spot.

One bruise cum scrape cum abrasion on my right shin...

Yup... It's bleeding... And it looks much worse in real life.

One blueblack on my right knee...

It's that darkened spot there, it's not a shadow cast. And far down you can see another spot, that's the bruise on the shin.

One blueblack on the inner side of my right leg between my kneepit and and my knee...

It's not that clear, but it's the whole darkened patch there, not my kneepit one...
Remember I still have those horrendous cuts and rashes still on my legs, hai, I have such ugly legs now... And to think that my legs was my most beautiful asset and even my cousin said she wanted them.

One bruise cum scrape cum abrasion on my left forearm...

It is actually much redder than it looks.

At first after I fell, which I think was partly also cause my my headaches and flushes and me not seeing clearly and also a bit giddy, I didn't feel that much pain. I got up like I was fine, told my friends that I was fine and left the lecture theatre. I was okay until after I got back and sat down and continued the lecture. While Farrell played the film and I was watching it, I felt pain in my arm and legs. Since the LT was dark, I couldn't see my injuries until much much later. When I saw them, I was shocked beyond words. I hadn't noticed it was that serious. And they haven't healed yet. Bah...

In fact, it actually worsened on Friday and I totally couldn't walk and with me cannot even talk or breathe or do anything at all, I got out my tatami mat and lay down nice and cool and rested. It might be a placebo, or it might be true, but I believe in the healing powers of a tatami mat.

My trusty tatami mat~

11. Isn't ten a bit more than enough to handle liao le, do you really expect me to be that suay to have an 11th one?

I was chatting with a new friend last night. it's guy no.7 in this post. He commented a couple of thing about me. One was that he found it a bit funny that I was complaining to everybody about how pathetic I am. To put it a bit more negatively, I know some people might feel that I was trying to gain sympathy from them, just like by me devoting an entire blog entry to the subjects of my pains and illnesses, but I'm not really trying to gain sympathy. By pouring out my woes to people, is a form of release I take to ensure my sanity. If I keep everything bottled up in my mind, I'd burst. Some people don't like me. They think that I'm too straightforward, and maybe a bit overshare, that's because they are ashamed that they can't be as open about things as me, or that they are uncomfortable about hearing these overshare bits. I think that's pretty senseless. If one can not like me for that, i think that person's just a bit too shallow.

Why am I blogging about all my pains? Do I really want the whole world to know how pained am I? Do I derive pleasure from feeling these pains? The answer is I don't know, no, yes. Maybe this is a milestone in my life, being at the lowest point of my life, I need to note it down. The next time I feel low, I can read this post and remind myself that there were worse times than this and if I can pull through that, I can pull through anything else. I'm not the kind of person who gets bothered by what people think about me, so I don't really care if people care if I'm sick or dead. Maybe with the exceptions of prabably two people, whom I know are not regulars of my blog. Some little part in me wish that they might visit here some time or another to check me out and then realise that I was sick and horrid and regret that they've treated me like shit when I was already in shit. Last question, I'm sadistic, does that answer everything? To quote from a play I did this March, "Pain. Only pain can make you feel that you are living. Pain can mould you to be stronger and can let you grow up."

Another thing he noted about me was that I'm one fragile girl. It's interesting to hear what people who don't really know me that well say things about me. Am I really that fragile? Honestly, I don't know. Maybe I am not that fragile since I pulled myself through this week, but I know deep inside me is my most fragile heart, the heart that has been trampled on over and over again. And the pain...

The title goes sick (meaning 1a) and pain (meanings 1 and 2). I've included meaning number two for pain, so other than physical pain, I've also felt "suffering and distress". I pulled through my week, from the past entry, I stopped halfway. I managed to pull off that late essay by going through lots of pain and tears and rushing around the school to get an MC written for me and negotiations with my prof. I've completed the other two deadlines, with the mini-project I handed in on Friday and extremely fine piece of work, as a personal thought.

And the emotional distress. It was another hard week for me. Someone went through a period of mood swings, and when that person has mood swings I am invariably affected by it and I go through a period of distress. And with the mindfucking and all the shit, I was reduced to no more than a bag of tears. And the sicknesses didn't help at all. You know there are some friends you wish they can be there when you are happy, some when you are sad, some when you are both happy and sad, but they aren't there for you. That can of pain is worse than me falling down. And when your friend is there, but doesn't offer you any words of comfort, and instead tells you that it's time to sleep, or that there's a lot of work to do, and other things to make you feel that you are just one insignificant piece of shit, life just bleeds.

I can go through all sort of stress, in fact pressure makes me a more efficient worker. I am determined to do my work well, and I can do it. I can in fact do anything, like getting my hands on a piece of authentic MC, just to get through in life, but when face with emotions of the heart, I just one big mess of tears. I'm stupid, I'm silly, I'm ignorant, I'm foolish, I'm everything negative. I go great lengths just so that I will be upset and disappointed and get totally fucked up. Why? I don't know...

This is turning into one emo post and I don't wish for it to be so. If anyone's still reading till here, well, be thankful that your life is so much better. I've scheduled an appointment with the psychiatrist liao. Oh well...

The Fucking Leopard

I realised I've been using "fuck" quite a lot lately. This is no good, but at least I'm not starting on my whole hokkien vocabulary, if not then I'm really a goner. wahaha~ Why have I been in such a temper lately? Fucking project deadlines and essay deadlines and other whatnots. I've an essay deadline and I've got a grand total of 84 out of 2500 words done. I'm so fucking screwed.

This is a fucking tiny picture of the film I'm supposed to write about for that screwed essay.

It's fucking tiny cos the bloody IMDb website disallows me to download the nice big posters which feature the movie at that point in history, the fuckingly beautiful posters of the 1960s, all cannot download. What the heck sia...

(seems, like other than "fuck", I'm also cursing a lot. Damn...)

I watched the fucking DVD three times in the cooped little hole in our library. I watched the first time half heartedly, I watched the second time with pen in hand, remote in the other to pause and copy down lines from the film. I couldn't finish the fucking film in a sitting and had to go back the second time to finish watching it. There is now this big big loophole in our system. Apparently, a film 90min long can be loaned out for 4hours but a film 204min long can also be loaned our for 4hours. It doesn't make sense does it? blah... The fucking school is just so fucked up that even it's system is just as screwed as itself.

This the DVD that I watched.

Really, even the design of the DVD is just so screwed man. I mean who would plaster the pathetic title of the film over the pathetic face of the lead?

I realised I haven't even introduced this film proper and I'm on ranting about all the patheticities of life, yea... I feel so fucked up over nothing. It's pms! I can push all the blame to me having a serious bout of pms! Yea... In no time at all I'd literally be having a bloody cunt sia. Maybe if I get heavy, I'd even have a bloody asshole.

Okay, let me get back to the main topic and be less graphic. For all I know some lurkers out there might even be the ones grading my essays. Don't know about this particular essay though, but it's safer for me to tone down. To the other lurkers out there, Joan is basically a sweet little girl who doesn't swear that much when she's not having a pms. And with Joan, you can pretty much get away with rape and murder if she's not having pms. Yes, I'm that nice, usually... Okay, for the second time, let me get back to the main topic.

The Leopard
or in Italian, Il Gattopardo

This film is based on a novel of the same name. You can find the plot to the story of the film in the first link and the plot to the novel in the second one. The first is from IMDb and the second one is the all ever useful shitty webbie. The more I surf the two webbies the more I'm in love with the former and the more i despise the latter. Blah... I don't even feel like tagging the webbie of the latter on cos it just induces you lurkers to click on it. If I don't see it's usefulness why bother tagging it for you lurkers to go? I feel so cutting...

I once saw this postcard for this product...

It says some thing like "Oh you fucking asshole" then in small print "I don't mean it" on this teeshirt worn by this girl. Well, Panadol Menstrual is good for me by alleviating my cramps, but I'm now not bleeding yet so it's not use me taking that. And I'm fucking on Paracetamol now. Yes, I'm sick. Caught the bloody flu bug, so the temper is doubled. I don't even want to go into me waiting a freaking 50min just to see a doctor in school while my friend waited for only 20min before she went in before me to see a doctor. Like what the heck? I was the 20min before her okay... It's not fair! Then again, life never is fair. If it was, I'd be having a better temper and not be ranting the whole night here.

I had a bad day. Not exactly bad bad, but it's not good. I was supposed to be writing my essay the whole day today, but I procrastinated and because someone held me up and mindfucked me till I totally couldn't work. I hate being mindfucked. Usually it's me being the one who mindfuck people, so when the tables turn, life just sucks badly for me. The deadline of my essay is like soon, I'll have to stay up late tonight and piah the whole of tomorrow. damn...

And on top of all my worries, I'm having some infection on my thigh due to that day in Sentosa. I feel so sick.

To make myself feel better me shall be a photowhore and plaster some of my favourite pictures here. All these have some time or another been used as my MSN display pic and those who know me, seen me on MSN should know that I pride myself in putting up only me like photos as my MSN display pic. (Note: Now's it's Nicky on my MSN though...)

The reason I took these photos out again is cos I recently acquired Photoshop from a dear friend of mine and I've been trying to photoshop these pictures but sad to say, I've failed terribly.


I'm trying to colour this photo, but I can't seem to get the hang of it. It's takes a close eye and a steady hand and a keen eye for colour. If anyone can help me colour this photo, I'll fall in love with you. Love is the only thing I have lots of, don't know what more I can offer liao le.


This was taken in negative mode, I reversed the negative effect and got the colour photo but the colour version is not as nice as this version. I like this photo, very artistically done up. The colours just matched nicely and the venue of the photoshot was perfect. Anyone want to guess this venue? hehehe...


Another almost perfect picture. I have been trying to remove my stupid laoban from the picture, but can't seem to do so without making the whole photo seem so fake. Any ideas? Okay, I've nothing against my laoban just that in this so beautiful picture of me, he is so extra. wahaha~

Okay, I need to start on my fucking animal essay liao le... I need to sleep early tonight and hopefully faster recover and my stress marks on my face and hair and around the waist would disappear.

PS: Damn... I forgot to close one of my tags, and need to republish this thing again. bleahz...
PPS: The fucking deadline was yesterday as I've check, so I'm late in submitting this paper. Now this sucks. Honestly, this is a honest mistake! I've just emailed my prof, so help me cross fingers and hopefully I won't die.

emo night

after typing one whole long page of shit, I cleared it. self censorship? maybe... i hate myself. i feel just so helpless...

Typing whatever that comes into my mind...

Roller coaster of emotions, from the Himalays the the Marianas.

Monday.
Monday started of pretty badly, as with all Mondays, I've always have serious bouts of Monday blues and this Monday was not much better. On Monday, I was faced with a very difficult choice between two things. One was time consuming and physically tiring, the other was against my feelings, after weighing up the pros and cons and waited for a sign from heaven, I decided on the latter. A sign has always been what I use to decide on what choice I should made, but this time, this choice I made, on hindsight seemed not to be the correct one, although I must admit, it was the natural choice I can make at that point in time.

Tuesday.
The repurcussion of the choice I made the day before came back to haunt me. It wasn't serious, but it did made me feel pretty bad of myself. But other than that Tuesday was one of my happiest days in my life. I went to Sentosa and had great fun. It was more of the company than the place or the time, or anything else. LDRs are always bad, what's worse is a one-sided LDR. But since the day I got myself into such a position, I must not complain anything about it. Conscience came back to prick me with such thoughts... Damn...

Wednesday.
Wednesday was pretty good too. But not totally good. I was put on hold all over again. I hate waiting. I never liked waiting. I have an overactive imagination and everytime when I'm waiting, my overactive imagination would work and I'd think up all sorts of disappointments just to make myself totally upset and unhappy, this time was no better. I was supposed to be waiting for a call. The time while waiting, I started planning for the worse case circumstance, and indeed I was not disappointed, the call came and the point of the call was postponed and I needed to wait for another call. So the whole afternoon was waiting for calls.

And when the call finally came, and I made the appointment, and left my place, I received another message from another source. I came to another crossroad and faced another difficult choice. Should I stick with my original appointment or should I answer the call of the new appointment? On any other day, I would have gone on with the former, but this time is different. The person is different, the motive is different, and I too had my own agenda. I decided to try and juggle my time in such a way which I can fit everything in my palm. I felt so much like shit. I hate being put in such a kind of position. Luckily, things do pay off, I am happy with the ultimate outcome, I'm such a fucking selfish person.

Thursday.
I had project group meeting. I like my this project group. I like my these project group members. Never have I done project with that interesting group members before. For privacy matters, I shall not name them. I don't know if they's like me naming them, but anyway, I'll try my best to describe them without naming them.

1. A year 1 life science major. A very very cute girl who never fails to crack everyone up with her interesting yet innocent yet dumb questions asked in a very normal tone. Some samples of her questions, "I still don't know what is that online journal thing" (referring to Jstor), "How come you guys don't post on the forum ah?" (erm... Because we are busy?), "What is your CAP ah?" (guy no.7 told her, "Do you know it's very politically incorrect to ask people their CAP?"). And the funniest incident that happened to her on Thursday was...

Me was sitting beside her while she accessed her IVLE, naturally I kaypoh-ed and glanced over at her workspace. On her work space, I spotted a level 3000 module, Malays in Singapore.
me: Why are you doing a level 3000 module?
all: What, *her*, you are doing a level 3000 module?! Are you crazy?
her: Why? What's wrong? I think it sounds interesting.
me: But it's level 3000 and you are a year 1 life science major.
her: What is level 3000?
me: And I thought you were mad enough to take a level 2000 module.
someone: I don't even dare to take level 3000 modules lor.
another: It's supposed to get more difficult as the modules progress.
me: How are you coping with that module?
her: I wrote an essay but haven't get back yet.
me: baozhong.

2. Another year 1 life science major, but not that innocent, but still quite cute. She didn't know that we are graded for our comments in the IVLE.

3. Another life science major, but year 2, from Sri Lanka, but her skin colour not that dark. (No discriminations from me okay) Quiet ba, don't really know what to say about her, normal lor...

4. An engin year 3 girl from Vietnam. A very matured girl staying off campus. I told her I think that quite a lot of the foreign students seem to be much more matured than the locals, all the uprooting and living on their own and stuff like that. I really admire them. She was saying that she was initially offered a scholarship to Finland but her mother thought that Finland was too cold and too far away, so she decided on Singapore. Well, I thought that that sounded very interesting.

5. A year 4 Psych major whom nobody but me have met him before, okay, not nobody but almost nobody. I did project with him last semester for Singapore Military History and he's the kind of kind who looks very smart. I'm thinking he should also be a smart guy because he's in year 4 and he's doing Psych. wahaha~ Anyway, the thing about year 4s is that they are like freaking busy. Year 4 already mah...

6. This guy is almost as interesting as the first girl I described. He's a second year probably History major. I knew him back in JC. Everybody in my JC in my year and his year would definitely know him although he won't know everyone. The whole Thursday he shared the laughs with the first girl. I started out jibing him by saying, "All these military men all look damn shuai. What happened to you ah?" (He's an SAF scholar), "All these war leaders all look damn shuai, men with power all damn shuai one. Last time I thought you were pretty shuai, then what happened to you ah?" (He was the student council president, yup... Think you should know who he is without me saying anymore.)

The other joke about him was regarding his parentage and his name. I think I mentioned about him in a previous post, I shall not go on over here cos I'm trying to conceal all these people's identity. Anyway, yup, there are three parts to his name, say, XYZ, Z being the family name, so on the list, our family name comes first, his name becomes, ZXY, our dear lecturer, identity also to be concealled called him Y when his first name should be X. I asked him if he spoke Chinese. he said he scraped though AO Chinese with a C6, he doesn't speak Chinese at home because his father is a British-Kiwi (the second girl wondered what was Kiwi), his mother is a Filipino-Chinese. I asked if he had a Chinese name. he said his Chinese teacher once gave him one, ai-si wei-si, zui-hou-na-ge-zi-mu. Okay, in crux, his first and middle name was translated by sound while his family name was translated by meaning, so it sounded damn funny. Especially his family name. He says he doesn't use it anymore, I mean, really, who would sia?

7. A year 2 PS major who smokes. (i'm not discriminating smokers, it's just that he's the only smoker in our group) And he dissed me. WTF??? When I got so tickled and amused by girl no. 1, he commented that was it because "you finally found someone blurrer than you". I was like, wahaha~ Actually, I think what he said was pretty true though. wahaha~

8. A year 2 history major whose hall lounge we went to to do our project. A guy who I can say is quite gan cheong, kept pushing the group to do our work, but really, cannot complain, cos that's what we were supposed to do.

9. Last guy, a year 3 soci major whose CAP was asked by girl no.1. He introduced himself as a name not shown in the IVLE, so when I was scrolling through, I asked who so and so was and he answered, I was pretty shocked. hehehe~

In all, this is one project group I managed to bond a bit with, over the McDelivery we had and the hours sat in front of the computer scribbling and typing and coming up with the project.

Friday.
I ran back home. After an emotion consuming week, I decided to run back to my mummie daddie and seek solace from them. Daddie brought us all out for dim sum for lunch and I gorged myself with siewmai, hargau and xiaolongbao. Family is always there for us~ After lunch my daddie brought my down to Sim Lim to get a replacement adaptor. My fucking laptop adaptor dieded on me the night before. My dad says the adaptor's gone. Anyway, I'll have to take really good care of my new adaptor now.

In the morning I managed to catch a little chat with a friend I haven't chatted with for a very very long time. I was really really happy to hear from him again, but I got pretty screwed over our chat content. I know I've no right to feel anything as I'm not much better than him, but it's just that fucking feeling you know when you are fucking yourself. I'd still like to think of myself as happy.

Saturday.
Not with last Saturday, I hadn't got the chance to meet any saviour today. I went through everything I did as with last week, the same make up lecture, the same library to do research, made a couple of trips up and down up and down from CL shelves to photocopiers and vv. Got so freaking emo that I needed one big pizza to calm me down. I don't know why, Pizzahut Delivery naver fails to ease my emos. Not to forget the coke.

A whole week of emotions, really straining me. *hugs Nicky close to me* Lucky Nicky's there for me... I love you~

My Harrod's Bear, Nicolas

Every little child's dream is to be able to buy everything from Harrods, to be able to spend days roaming the whole store, especially during Christmas time. I am no different from any other child, although I must say I'm quite a bit the overaged. But still, after receiving the Takashimaya's catalogue for this Christmas, I became resolute to own one Harrod's bear for myself.

Finally I got this year's Harrod's bear as an extra early Christmas gift. Thank you~ I'm so happy~ Anyway, I'm so proud of my bear that this entry will be wholly on him. The name on the tag is Nicolas, but I'm calling my dear bear Nicky, sounds quite similiar mah... hahaha~ I love you, I really do.

Up next is a whole series of photolog on my precious baby...











I did the photo shots in my hostel room on my flowery bed. Nicky is now sleeping on my little pillow, the one I lug around to the library and lectures to sleep on, and hugging one of the little bolsters of the matching pillow and lying between my two big pillows and the other little bolster. Good life hor him? So slack while his little mistress slogging out swamped in work... wahaha~

Really feel like a little girl lost in Harrod's all over again. I been there before when I was a little girl living in UK, but I will want to return to visit the place once again. London, wahaha~ Almost becoming my favourite place with Harrod's, Thames, and Chelsea!

Noting Down A Today

A little something I really feel like noting down. I wanna say a big thank you to that friend I met in the library this afternoon.

Just when I was at my worst in state, lack of sleep, stucked deep in deadlines and tests, and dry on essay writing inspiration, this friend appeared in front of me. The usual casual chat progressed to me realising that he in fact had "been there done that, and done it very well some more", he had taken my that module which I was dying in and scored really fantastic scores. On seeing me half dead, he gave me quite a few pointers, very useful pointers. At least now I have a decent direction in which my essay is heading.

I would like to extend my most sincere gratitude.

I was still in a daze this afternoon, as I always am when you see me in school half dead and so sapped of energy, so I didn't really showed my gratitude to my friend. So now trying to make ammends. hehehe~

And thanks for the hugs too~ wahaha~

Now I just need to get myself back in shape and get things done. sucks... Why does everything have to come all at the same time and not be well spaced out? And a friend of mine is coming to town. A little tug of war within me. My friend doesn't know I'm that deep in a mess, and I don't intend to say it out. I know if my friend knows that i'm that much dying, he won't want to meet me, but it is me who do want to meet him. Or should I not? I think I should make that choice myself, and not let him make it for me, but it's a difficult choice for me to make.

I had a little conversation with a couple of my friends last night, I said I needed to meet that said friend. They told me to tell that friend not to come over this time. I said I can't. They I said this maxim. "There are two kinds of friends. One is those kind who cannot be disappointed, and another is those kind who you can negotiate with." I said my friend was the former. but really, it doesn't sound that true.

There are friends who you regard as more important as youself, there are friends who regard you as more important than themselves. Me and my friend belong to the first category. A sort of masochism, I guess.

There is no such thing as equivilent trade. This is a quote from Full Metal Alchemist. Ironic, cos the whole anime is about trading off, and yet the two boys found out in the end what they so believed in was not true. I knew this from a young age. Not everything I sow can I reap. I can treat a friend like gold and be treated as dust in return, but I still want to treat my friend as gold in the end. Masochism? Maybe...

Someone once asked me why had I fettish in bdsm, was it because something happened when I was young or something else. Nothing happened to be except being stuck in these sort of situations over and over again. Always being the giver and getting nothing back in return, and yet I still continue giving so much. I feel the pain, and the pain sort of becomes addictive, and I want to be pained even more. I can only seek solace through pain. Another quote, only through pain can I feel my existence.

A pretty gloomy day tonight. If not for this first friend and his essay tips and hugs, I think it might be an even gloomier night.

Ich bin nicht ok.

I had German oral test yesterday. Me and my partner have been practising for the oral for a couple of days leading to the test, and we decided to meet again yesterday morning to practise some more. I guess I got pretty freaked out due to stress and pressure. Throughout the whole of yesterday, the only German I could say was only:

"Ich bin ok.
Du bist ok.
Wir sind ok."

I was saying that untill every one of my German classmates wanted to hit me. That did not stop even went we went over to the refreshment point in the library to continue our practice. Between practice conversations, I went:

"Ich bin ok.
Du bist ok.
Wir sind ok."

Later more of my classmates came over to join us. At that time, the refreshment was also filling up with more people. I didn't really take much notice of this, but at the corner of my eye I did see two angmo guys coming over and sitting down on the floor right beside the table me and my classmates were at. We continued with out practising for the oral which was testing our nerves, and I continued testing my friends nerves with my:

"Ich bin ok.
Du bist ok.
Wir sind ok."

Then a classmate of mine added another three lines to that three lines, and I ended up chanting that six lines all the way until I took my oral test:

"Ich bin ok.
Du bist ok.
Wir sind ok.
Das ist ok.
Alles ist ok.
Alle sind ok."

Right before I went over to my test venue I stood behind an armchair and chanted those lines. I think I said it in a pretty frenzied state that my friend thought I sounded drunk. I wasn't standing straight, I wasn't walking straight and I had this spaced out look on my face. Still I noticed that the two earlier said angmos were staring at me with a look of disbelief. I think I was chanting a bit too loudly. I thought they thought that i was overstressed.

"Ich bin ok.
Du bist ok.
Wir sind ok.
Das ist ok.
Alles ist ok.
Alle sind ok."

After the oral test, the classmates who remained in the refreshment point told me that they overheard the two angmos speaking German. Fast, native-sounding German. And there we sat with our broken German talking about renting apartments and buying train tickets and me and my:

"Ich bin ok.
Du bist ok.
Wir sind ok.
Das ist ok.
Alles ist ok.
Alle sind ok."

No wonder the two angmos had that look of disbeliefment when they saw me in my half drunked state chanting that six lines. Well, at least I hope that they think that I'm overstressed or sounded drunk. I didn't mean to destroy the language I so admire. It's not my fault~

The oral went pretty okay. I didn't make things difficult for my partner like how I always do during our practices. We didn't go out of topic, we didn't crap too much, but we misread the question and talked about something else. Annika said it was okay, I hope it was okay cos I think we talked quite a bit for quite a long time and we were quite smooth, although there was a slight faux pas. My partner misquote a price and I ended up having to improvise, but it was still okay.

My personal topic question was to talk about what I did to keep healthy. This was a bit of a problem for me cos I'm not a healthy person. bah... But I think I talked enough to make me feel a bit healthier than I really am. hehehe~ Anyway, it's all over liao le. I can start preparing for my semester test and my bloody essays and my projects and my god knows simi wah go...

That quickly I have to get back on track liao... Cannot even rest for a few more days...
big punctuated sigh*

btw, people who say they are okay usually are not okay~

Ramblings

This will be a ramble, so if you lose track of my words, it's okay, I won't be talking coherently anyway.

I'm so busy. And I don't know what I'm busy with. I go out, I do work, I go for classes, I go for my extra activities, I meet friends, I go shopping. I feel so burnt out and totally feel no gain in my recent life. Immaterial losses made up by material gains, sometimes retail therapy is somewhat useful. Sometimes the feeling of money being spent, the pain of your material loss, the numbness inside you can be touched. By spending money can I feel that I exist.

I was reading someone's blog today. Let that person be A. A blogged about someone I know. Let that person be B. Me have B lacked fate, hence we remained merely as aquaintances. A was describing B. I tried to match A's B with the B I know. I thought of my first meeting with B, and the sleeting fate just floated away just like that. It wasn't regret I felt, it was more of a kind of resigned to the destiny of fate. If fate has it that we are to remain as aquaintances, then well, what more can I do? I see two faces of B, one the private side and one the public side. After the fiasco in trying to get to know him in private, I once came in to contact to his public side, and it didn't go well with me. I think this public him has affected our friendship too. So it seems like more that fate doesn't mean to have me get to know him better or know him deeper.

I met another guy that other day too. It seems like that person changed a lot. Let's call him C. C was once a dashing fine young man but something seems to be different about him when I met him recently. He lost that dashingness, he lost a bit of fineness and a bit of the youthful charm. This is what the university have done on our young people's lives. And also the loss of that power... hai... Power is aphrodisiac.

Suddenly this wave of feelings swamped me. I miss someone something somewhere sometime. If what you sow equals to what you should be rewarded then I'd be the most fucking rich person on earth. Damnit... Emo self taking over control of me.

I think I shall continue another day. Today isn't a good day... A sign for me to start all my work now... wahaha~

Module Planning

I haven't talked about school for quite some time. Maybe this is a good time to plan ahead for my future in this institutionalised education system by planning ahead what are the modules I want to take. This was partly sparked after speaking to the head of the history department.

Feeling so motivated, I drew up a plan of how my next (2) year and a half would be like...

First, I put up the modules I did.

Semester I:
EU1101E: The Making of Contemporary Europe
HY1101E: Asia and the Modern World
LAG1201: German I
PS1101E: Introduction to Political Science
SSA2207: Politics of Southeast Asia

Semester II:
EU2219: Why History? The 20th Century
HY2242: Singapore Military History
LAG2201: German II
SE1101E: Southeast Asia: A Changing Region
TS1101E: Introduction to Theatre Studies

Semester III (this semester):
EU2218: Western Political Thought
EU3207: Comparative European Nationalisms
HY2216: Total War
HY2243: Film and History
LAG3201: German III

Then I went to find out the requirements for graduation. I found for graduation with Honours in European Studies. But honestly, I don't know if I'd really stay on for honours. According to my year 4 senior, he is half the current bath of European Studies major. Yup, that brings the current number of honours year European Studies major to a grand total of 2. My senior and another girl. I know the other girl too. We did a presentation together just recently. So, can I say I know the whole European Studies honours cohort? diaoz...

To graduate, I'd need to fill up this list of modules:
level 1000
- EU1101E
- LAG1201

level 2000
- EU2218
- EU2219
- EU
- EU
- EU
- EU
- EU
- LAG2201

level 3000
- EU3207
- EU
- EU
- LAG3201
- LAG

level 4000
- EU
- EU
- EU
- EU
- EU
- LAG
- LAG

And up till now, I've only completed that little of my requirements. Pretty depressing... Then again, I'm still young, aren't I? I remember when I was in my first year, I often get mistaken for being in either my second year or third. I wrote about this before. I just thought of this little girl I met in one of my project groups. A cute little girl who asked a number of pretty erm erm questions. naturally, I asked her if she was in year 1, and indeed she was. Now thinking about her, I guess I never showed that sort of "cai niao-ness" to the people who did projects with me so I'm not a year 1 student then~ yay~

Now that I'm in year 2 I guess things are more normal for me, although I was pretty shocked that the above said prof asked me if I was in year 3. diaoz... But my year of study is not the main topic for today. Then again, I must really salute that cute year 1 girl who actually chose to do a Prof Farrell module in her first semester of study.

Back to my module planning. Up to date, I've done 3 unrestricted electives, and for my graduation, I'd need to do 7 of them, so that means I can only fill up 4 more UE slots, which is pretty little, I thought, before I actually examined the module listings and realised that I don't know what else to take. I seem to be filling up all my UE slots with history modules. Can I be considered as a history major? I think I definitely am doing much much more history modules than a shared history major and about the same number of mods as a single history major.

I was reading the module information booklet I bought when I was a freshie and checking out the EU department's webbie for the latest updates and it seems that some modules in the booklets are reflected in the webbie. From what I gathered, these are some modules that sounds decent for me to take.

level 2000
- EU2212: Upheaval in Europe: 1848-1918
This is a must take!!! It encompasses my most favourite time period in history, the wars of German Unification and the Great War.
- EU2217: Politics of Contemporary Europe
I wanted to take this last semester, but due to timetabling problems, haven't have the chance to do it. I can't do it next semester either since I'm away on exchange programme so I guess that leaves year 3 sem 2 to do it. And the lecturer is pretty good looking.
- EU2221: Empires, Colonies and Imperialism
I also want to take this module offered next semester but can't take it because of my exchange programme. And it's a Professor Murfett's module. I've heard so much about this guy but haven't have the chance to take any module by him, what a pity. And I think Prof Farrell's doing this module too. All the great military historians in the department.
- HY2210: State and Society in Early Modern Europe
This sounds only as interesting as I've nothing else to do. Then again, I like studying about moder European history, so I'm not complaining, really. Nothing against this module.

level 3000
- EU3212: Europe of the Dictators
I want to do this module! Period! Imagine studying about Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Stalin, what more can a girl ask for?! Power is aphrodisiac... wahaha~
- EU3215: European Economic History
Another module which I think I'll take only because there's nothing left for me to take. Honestly, I've no interest in economics. blah...
- EU3230: Cold War in Europe, 1945-1991
I wonder who's going to do this module. Interesting, but not really that much appealing. It sounds like A Level History Paper 3 all over again, and I didn't do that. But then, There'd be more Stalin, so sounds pretty cool out of the other weird modules.

level 4000
- EU4214: Special Paper in Modern European History
- EU4215: Imperial Legacies in Europe
- EU4216: Europe
- EU4224: War and Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe
- EU4225: European Intellectual History
- PS4213: Justice, Community and the State
The latter is an EU recognised module. Well, hopefully if my German can make it, I'll do German Studies 1 and 2 in place of the geography and PS module or maybe I shouldn't do the Intellectual History module. I'm doing Western Political Thought now and it's the most cmi module I've taken. Plato, Machiavelli and Nietzsche... wahaha~ The others are pretty much the kind of topics I like to study about.

As I drew out some modules printed in the booklet but not reflected in the webbie, I don't know they are still taught or not so I didn't include them in my list, but if they are still taught, me want to do these instead:
- EU2216/HY2238: European Politics and Society since 1945
Maybe not so much about this, but it does sound pretty interesting... Cold War...
- EU3213/HY3218: Modern European Intellectual History
What's the difference between this and European Intellectual History? Maybe modern would mean that there's not Plato or Machiavelli, just more Nietzsche and what nots? lol~
- EU3216/HY3235: Transition and Integration in Europe
I read the course outline, it talks a bit about German integration and how the people coped with the effects of both wars. Interesting...
- EU4219/HY4213: Early Colonial Expansion
I like imperialism! With imperialism there is nationalism and wars and blood and what nots. And imperialism always brings us back to right here in Singapore. I like~

Since I was checking out the European Studies modules and most of what I'm interested in are also history modules, I looked up the history modules and planned my UEs. I have did three UEs to date, and all of them delightful history modules, two under the master of the universe himself. I thought I'd better plan what I want to do this early so that I won't over do my UEs and end up having to extend semesters.

These are what I guess I'd be doing:
- HY2217: War and Society
A Farrell module about war, seems to be screaming out to me for me to take it.
- HY3226: Memory, Heritage and History
I started pondering over this issue as I was preparing for my Film and History essay. Interesting and useful in my study of history.
- HY3242: Europe and Asia: Exploration and Expansion
I guess this would be translated into imperialism ba. And half of the course is about Europe, my field of study, just wondering why it's not an EU recognised module. hmm...
- TS2237: Acting: Theory and Practice
This is probably to fulfil my own interest in drama. Although I did badly for my TS1101E, I still have that passion in drama and I feel that this is the chance for me to remind myself that I did badly for TS1101E is only because I didn't put in effort.

Another thing I must note, I haven't factored in my GEMs and Breadths and SEP. I've did my Singapore Studies module, a very enlightening module and interesting (to me, other found it damn dry, I mean, Politics in Southeast Asia...) module but I have yet touched on GEMs and Breadths. I'm hoping to complete my GEMs and Breadths during my exchange so that I can work on the interesting modules I've picked out here to do.

A Letter and Three Questions

This was an exercise we did during Chinese Drama practice tonight. It was one of the very few drama practices which I actually participated due to me being so totally shagged by Prof Farrell, after his Total War lecture, duh... But this was one interesting drama session, and I learnt a lot more about the people I thought I knew well.

A letter sent to a person whom you had a conflict with.

I pondered seriously and wondered which I wanted to share. I had three conflicts with three different people. The conflicts might not be that serious but it was serious enough to render me nights of tears. In the end I shared this... (in Chinese though, me giving a translation here)

I don't know what to say. I don't know if you noticed this, but I haven't been online for the past week. Not because I wasn't online, but it's because I've blocked you on MSN. I think over these couple of months I have grown to be very dependent on you, and this isn't doing either of us much good. I have to learn to dependent on myself. For myself and for you. I know I can do it, and I will do it. That's what you want me to become anyway right? I will be strong.

On hindsight, I should have added some other things...

I really appreciate all that you have helped during my bad times, and I hope I won't need to depend on you any more. Another reason why I want to cease my this dependency is also because I am scared. I am scared that you will end up as another wooden block. Maybe it's better if I continue to block you until I've grown strong. I don't know when will this be, but until then I guess I will be blocking you. And ignoring you. I don't know if you have noticed it, but I haven't looked straight into your eyes, neither have I even looked at you directly nor said anything to you. All these all for my good, I hope.

The other two letter I have sent them to their respective owners. Maybe I'll write about it another day, we'll see how.

Three Questions

1. Who/What do you love the most?
I love the feeling of love, to love someone and to be loved by someone. The romantic idea of love is what I love the most.

2. What is your biggest dream?
My biggest dream is to find somebody who really really loves me and me to really really love him and we get married and have kids and live happily ever after. And when I die, I want my funeral to be held in Serangoon Gardens. I feel like a little girl all over again harbouring such dreams. Most people reading this should have read once about my maxim, all men stray. With that maxim, I really think my dream can only remain a dream no matter what happens.

3. What is your deepest secret?
It isn't my deepest secret, but those people there, save for one person, don't know about this. I have a fettish for BDSM. I do have other secrets too, deeper ones maybe, but they seem rather private or subjected only to a small group of people and would not interest the drama people.

It was also indeed an enlightening experience listening to what everyone had to say. Some of them really touched me, especially the letters, very naked, very pure, very real the feelings. And the three questions almost similar to truth or dare really exposed some people's darkest secrets, things they might not be able to face it themselves. This might prove to them to be some sort of closure. Hope things will turn out all right for them.

With all love,
xxoos likes to give everyone reading this xxoos~

Feeling so emotive tonight. Not moody, just a positive emo~

云海玉弓缘

note: if you are seeing boxes or weird letterings it's because of the Chinese used by me. Just click on tools, encoding then change it to unicode. I don't usually use Chinese here cos I have non-Chinese speaking friends, but since this subject is Chinese, I have to use Chinese to get some points across.

云海玉弓缘 the TV drama serial and 云海玉弓缘 the wuxia novel



This has been occupying me for the past couple of days. I bought the book a couple of years ago when someone went to China. All along I have been a Liang Yusheng fan, but I never got about reading this book because there wasn't the motivation, so that book lay in my shelf until the day I saw the trailer for the drama serial. The drama serial is now running every weekends on Channel 8 7pm-9pm, the Channel 8 webbie for this show is here. By the way, the above link is the original TVB link.

There are a number of discrepancies between the novel and the drama serial. For the outline of the story I will use the novel's plot as a basis but will highlight the differences of the drama serial. The story of the drama serial begins with the main character 金世遗 Jin Shiyi leaving the Snake Island on the orders of his Sifu who died after he practiced his skills until he 走火入魔, english translation, walk into the fire and become a demon. He leaves the island and goes back to 中原, the Central Plains where he gets embroiled in the fraternities and strifes of the 武林, Pulgilistic World. However, in the novel, as this story is part of a larger constructed picture, being a components of other stories, the novel leaves out the beginnings of Jin Shiyi, because it was written in another novel.

Jin Shiyi meets two women who become the women of his life, 厉胜男 Li Shengnan and 谷之华 Gu Zhihua. Li Shengnan is a girl with a history of hatred and filled with family vengence after all 43 of her family members were massacred and a mission in life to accomplish, her burden is indeed very heavy. Gu Zhihua on the other hand grew up sheltered but her family background is very complicated with her birth father being the enemy of the pulgilistic world. As with all of the wuxia stories, the plot of revenge and misunderstandings and the 三角恋爱 and the fighting and everything. In the process of Li Shengnan wanting to avenge her family she and Jin Shiyi embarked on a travel which led to more fighting, more misunderstandings and the learning of higher order skills. After their return to civilisation, there was more fightings, more misunderstandings and more tangled up with Gu Zhihua. Then came Jin Shiyi's decision whether he wants to be with Li Shengnan or Gu Zhihua...

Character Map~
Jin Shiyi 金世遗

acted by Raymond Lam 林峰

I like Lin Feng. I like Lin Feng acting period dramas. Jin Shiyi is also an amazing character. He is one of the most highly skilled characters written cos he knows everything. In most wuxia novels, the protagonists are just highly skilled in their sect's skills, but Jin Shiyi picked up skills from everywhere and with his own learnings from his sifu and his learnings from the manuals he found together with Li Shengnan, he is almost invincible. He's suave and cool and very charming. One thing I don't like about the drama serial is that he sort of turned into one innocent bloke who's unsure of himself which is so not him as according to the book. In the book, he has been in the pulgilistic world for a couple of years after returning from the Snake Island, but in the drama serial, he just returned, so he seems to be very unworldly in the show whereas, he's experienced in the novel. Lin Feng is cute though.

Li Shengnan 厉胜男

acted by Michelle Yip 叶璇

She's cool headed, experienced in the workings of the pulgilistic world. Her family background is complicated, with her whole household of 43 people brutally murdered in one night leaving her all alone and having to fend for herself. She is pretty highly skilled, and after returning from finding the martial arts manual, she manages to defeat the most recognised senior in the central plains, albeit she paid a really high price for her victory. She's a very sympathy winning character, a bit like Zhao Min in 倚天屠龙记, the Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Slaying Sabre, but it's a pity she hasn't Zhao Min's fortunes. I like her. In fact I see a lot of myself in her. But I don't like Ye Xuan's image for Li Shengnan. If you watched a lot of TVB's drama serials, Ye Xuan usually acts as the innocent cutie pie sort of girl, which is so totally not Li Shengnan. And the clothes she wears seem to make her neck short and her hairstyle makes her face look very plain and flat which is so not Ye Xuan.

Gu Zhihua 谷之华

acted by Rain Lee 李彩桦

Gu Zhihua is your innocent cutie pie sort of girl whom all the guys like but all the girls hate. I admit that I didn't like her from watching the drama. Li Caihua's eyeshadow sucks! I can't stand sacherine sweet girls, and this Gu Zhihua is one of those kind. She was adopted as a baby, her birth father after disclosure was the enemy of her sect, and the story goes on somewhere there along those usual lines. Because when I read Liang Yusheng's novels, I came across Gu Zhihua this character even before this story, in fact, I actually read about her as an old woman and married to Jin Shiyi so I know how the story goes. I was tempted to actually try and like her when I started watching the drama and reading the novel, but I just couldn't bring myself to. She is just so not my type.

note: spoilers ahead

Okay, I just gave away a spoiler before the note, in that in the end it was Gu Zhihua who got together with Jin Shiyi, but that is not entirely true. Jin Shiyi once analysed his feelings, his conclusion was that he loved Gu Zhihua only because she was the "good" woman and would make a "good" wife. It was a pity that he only realised that he did deeply love Li Shengnan after her death. Yes, Li Shengnan sacrificed herself. She duelled with some great master and using some kind of unorthodox skills, she managed to increase her powers but only to push herself to death. Right before she died, she half coerced Jin Shiyi to marry her although the wedding was not consummated, and she said this to him, "只望你将来在鸳鸯枕畔，月下花前，能偶尔的想我一下，想起曾经有过一个非常爱你的人，那我就会感激你不尽了！"

I cried when I read that line.

I thought of putting myself in that position. I thought of saying that to somebody and imagining myself withering away. After my death, him and another her goes off hand in hand, sleeping in their matrimonial bed, gazing at flowers under the moon. hai... Wonder if I'd be missed. Maybe yes, then again, probably not.

We all go to great lengths to achieve what we want. Li Shengnan wanted revenge, wanted to be the best swordman, wanted Jin Shiyi, and everything she did was for her cause, she didn't mind doing whatever just to achieve her wants. And she almost did it. Some might say she is selfish to poison Gu Zhihua, but the fact remains that right from the start she knew that Gu Zhihua would never die and she never intended to take Gu Zhihua's life. 做人辛苦，做女人更辛苦 is so totally true. We all go to great lengths just to keep a pathetic guy by our side and when we know we can't keep him, we do stupid things to hurt ourselves. Men are masochistic creatures...

At least, after her death, Jin Shiyi did realise that he did once indeed loved her. Loved her not because that she was whatever, but it was just the feeling that he had. I think that this is true love. True love needing no reason at all.

Dark Vivid Dream

I just removed a draft entry of the above title.

I had a dark vivid dream on Tuesday night. It made me late for my 8am Wednesday morning lecture, but I did not regret waking up late. That was one well worthed it dream. I think it did to a very large extend portray my sub-conscious feelings towards a certain friend and it told me what I should do next. I just wonder what happened in the dream would it become reality.

A bit about this friend. A couple of days back, I had this strong sense of deja vu while MSN-ing with the said friend. What we talked about all seemed vaguely familiar that I thought we've had this conversation before, but my friend denied it. Could it be that the deja vu feeling came from a dream I had once? Possibly...

I've told three people about my dream. One of my friend commented that it was dark. In my draft entry I wrote about my dream, but now I think perhaps I should leave my dream with those three friends, I think it's too personal to overshare here. The other friend who heard about my dream commented that I was very scary. I don't think I am scary as in scary, but I think I have too many things which I am scared of, and one of it is losing my friends. However, the third person I told my dream to is the main character in my dream. The view of the dream was different.

I am not saying that I fully agree with what my friend said of that dream, but it provided me a different light of that dream, and I really think that this dream is one ominous sign. I shall follow what my dream tells me to. Maybe it's the right path.

Following that dream came more signs to me that made me no longer in control with myself. I made a promise with someone else, thereby giving that person the mandate to control my life. It might sound more cynical and dark than the dream, but well, it was a choice I made and I shall adhere to it. I once broke a similiar promise, and regretted it so I shall not make the same mistake twice. This time I shall hold firm. And the first thing I should do in adhering this promise is to do as what my dream dictated.

Then another major revelation came on Friday. With this revelation came more fear in my life, but with the consolation I received, I have faith that all will turn out fine. The little rag doll will be a little rag doll and always remain a little rag doll. 19 November 2004, 23 November 2004, two dates that will stick by me forever. And today's date, Friday... 14 October 2005. All marked out.

I'm digressing.

One more thing about the dream. I think some of it was inspired by a book/drama serial I'm watching currently. The English title as translated by the drama serial is Lofty Waters Verdant Bow, 云海玉弓缘, being the original Chinese title. I'm reading the book now and find myself in the shadow of a certain character. I'm using her last words as my MSN quote and this afternoon I gave that quote away, "只望你将来在鸳鸯枕畔，月下花前，能偶尔的想我一下，想起曾经有过一个非常爱你的人，那我就会感激你不尽了！" I didn't say that that quote was her last words so the impact wasn't there. Really, if a dying person was to say this to me, I'd definitely flip. The 死别 is usually of the most impact because, there is no 回头再来.

Maybe I should take a cue from the books.

Amazing Race 8

Amazing Race

I think by now most of my friends would know that I am an Amazing Race fan. Unlike other Amazing Race seasons, this season we see a competition between families rather than between pairs. With now four people in a team, it's double the cumbersome, double the strength for challenges and double the fun factor.

Also unlike previous seasons, this season sees only ten teams competing with each other, but that's enough to get me so hooked onto the new Amazing Race. Since the show will only be on tomorrow and two episodes have gone by, as of this entry being written, there are already two teams elimiated from the race. I think there is some protocol within the show about how teams are chosen. There's always at least one black team in the race. I'm not being racist when I say this, but I think that the producers are trying too hard to portray themselves as multi-racial that it seems very artificial. For this season especially, since the Black family was the first to be eliminated.

Over here I shall give a blow by blow account of all ten teams about how I feel towards and about them, now that I've watched two hours of them competing in the race. In alphabetical order...

The Aiellos

This family consists of four men, a patriarch and his three sons-in-law. You can read about them in the above hyperlink, so I'm not going to write about their description. How I feel about this group? First things first, I'm assuming that Aiello is only the family name of Tony, I don't suppose the boys are going to change their family names to Aiello. For a team that consists of men only, I'm supposing that they would be a strong team, but I've got the feeling that old Mr Aiello is going to be the black sheep of the team. He's old, has a beer belly and just don't feel like he is physically up to it. His boys are good looking though, so we'll see how the boys perform.

Another down pit about a team like this is that whatever happens, the boys are in no position to question old Mr Aiello. Whatever they do have repercussions on thier relationships with their wives, the girls of old Mr Aiello. And for a competition like this, there are bound to be disagreements, so it's only up to themselves to sort things out and hope their family remains just as happy as before.

The Blacks

I'm not making fun of their name, but isn't it ironic that a black family is named Black? I'm not laughing, but it sounds spot on. Austin is the youngest player in this race, but that's not the point, what I wanted to say was, all along I thought that he was a she due to his features. lol~

They are also the first team to be eliminated from the race, and as of any other competition, there's always a stigma on the first eliminated team. It's pretty obvious that the Blacks were not as well-travelled as the other teams and that was really not going to work for their cause. Bringing along two young kids were also not helping them either. The kids can't really help out in challenges and might even hinder the progress of the team. Can say that I had expected that they wouldn't be able to go far in the challenge.

The Bransens

A father and his three daughters. Or to put it more explicitly, an old father and his three young pretty daughters. As of the Aiellos, I think this father is going to hinder the progress of the team. Old Mr Bransen has already said that he was not able to keep up with his daughters. I mean, of course, his daughters are so young and bubbly and have so much energy between all of them and their father is old old old. Maybe he thought that being a male he was able to provide some strength into the team, but considering the challenges, I think he a bit the cmi liao le la.

And his daughters are so pretty. I think it would be a bit extra for him to me with his daughters. Like any pretty team, a team of girls would be eye-catching to other teams, especially among the men. With the father around, I don't think men can that easily pick up the girls. hahaha~

The Gaghans

A family. Father, mother, son and daughter. This sounds so picture perfect. And with the kids so young, this eliminates family squabbles between parents and children, and since both parents sound pretty cordial to each other, I don't think there would be occurances of squabbles in this family. And this is a very good thing! It helps too that I think Carissa looks very pretty~ I like girls like that~

The Gaghans is my current favourite team because I think Carissa and Billy are very cute, but I also think that the parents are athletic enough to win the race. In the first episode, they did really well. I remember the cute kids singing "She's Coming Round the Mountain" during the challenge and basically made the other teams so envious that kids weigh practically nothing. It was just a pity they fell a little behind in the second episode. Personally I think they should have asked around earlier, but well... (side note: my current favourite one liner, well got water anot? lol~)

The Godlewskis

A first I thought they looked like a team of four young blonde (read: stupid) sisters, but that was before I knew their ages, and after that I thought what one team said about them sounded pretty apt. One team called them "desperate housewives". They are desperate housewives in pink and are blonde. Okay, they aren't really that bad because they came in first in the first episode and they still look like they are going strong despite their ages.

The sister bond between them seems very strong and I think they can go pretty far although I think the bitchiness among them would hamper them from winning the race eventually. Another thing is their age, I don't think it would work for them. But as long as they are still in the race, that's all matters.

The Linzes

Three brothers and a sister sounds like pretty much male dominance. I always think that a female within a group of males, the female makes a very convenient scapegoat. In challenges if she's not fit enough, the brothers do have a very easy excuse to push the blame on her. And as we know brothers, they can gang up together and ostracise the girls as the guys have always done over the years.

Usually I like guys, but I don't really seem to like this team of guys cos they seem rather whiny, especially in their first challenge when they pulled the trishaw thingie. Usually I like strong women but I can't really seem to like the Linz sister, she seems too full of herself and she doesn't seem to be able to cooperate with her brothers, she like wants to prove to them something. I don't know... Will have to see this team in future to really access them.

The Paolos

This is my current most hated family. Yes, they do provide enough after dinner entertainment vaule with their constant squabbling, but is that what I really want in supporting a team? Of course not. It doesn't help that the mother is whiny and fat and more desperate than a desperate housewife, and the sons don't listen to the mother who's really a nag, and the father does nothing at all! I think that's amazing, he's the master of the family yet he doesn't do anything to alleviate the noise level.

They had came to elimination that close a couple of times already, okay, twice is a couple, and I think they will remain to stick at the bottom of the pack unless the mother drops out of the team. I really think she's damn fat... lol~ Hope they would get out of my sight tomorrow~

The Rogers

I hadn't notice this normal family in the first episode. I only noticed them last week when they made so many glaring mistakes. It's a pity they came in last cos I think they have yet reached their potential, but they did have to pay the price of their mistakes. And Brock is damn shuai. lol~

But at least there wasn't much squabbles between this family even though they were way way behind. Unlike the Paolos. It was the father's mistake tha brought the team to the last position and yet he blamed his son, his son accepted it though grudgingly but no squabbles. And when the father made the second mistake, still no squabbles. And when the mother couldn't do the challenge and had to do another one, the whole family agreed with much temper flaring. I like... Too bad they eliminated liao...

The Schroeders

I don't really know much about this team. Didn't really pay them much notice. I think it's because they are really really normal and they didn't do anything that was of much significance for me to recall.

One thing I do know is that the mother is actually a step mother. It does seem like the step mother gets along pretty well with the children. It's a good thing, I suppose, but whether it's only for the camera or that way I'm not sure la, of course. I'll have to watch out more of them before I write anything more about them.

The Weavers

A widow carrying three kids, a subject of sympathy. But that she is able to pull her family together, I really admire her strength. If this was a voting game I think she would really have garnered a lot of sympathy votes. One of her daughters does the driving, but the family coordinates pretty well. Rolly looks pretty cute too, though I had first thought he was a she too... lol~

They would use the money pretty well, but with a kid in tow, challenges might be slightly hampered. We'll see how things go.

One thing about this special edition of Amazing Race is that it seems to be held in only America. At least, they are still within the US and it's already the second episode and from the highlights, the third episodes is also within the country. I'm not saying it's not good, but there seems to not be much variety. Race is only by foot and by car, like got no other means of transportation, not very fun. I like to see teams take aeroplane~ lol~

Hopefully if it's a race within the country they get to go to say somewhere like Hawaii then can take aeroplane. hehe~

Well, good luck to all the racers... Seeya all on TV soon~

Chelsea

Yes... Chelsea... They are my

I've been following Chelsea for my fourth season already. But I only turned fanatical since last year. I used to support Chelsea only because I didn't like the rest, and when Chelsea was taken over by the Roman Abramovich, yes I used the article the on him, I started to feel this sense of pride of playing fantasy football, see really good players coming in, suddenly the spotlight's on the team. Thanks to the man~



Under his billions, Rainieri managed to construct a Chelsea team that could finally break the strengthold of the might of the traditional powerhouses. Manchester United and Arsenal were the ones to watch, Liverpool was on the decline, now, with the emergence of Chelsea, every other fotball club in comparison seem to be on the decline. wahaha~

But still, the frst with the arrival of the Abramovich billions did not do much damage in the premiereship. Chelsea came in a second, but that was only due to Arsenal's season long unbeaten run and the rapid decline of Manchester United in the matches running up to the end. In the Champion's League, Chelsea although sis persist further than any other English team, but it was still a season of the unexpected. Chelsea could only go as far as the semi-finals.

I did admire Rainieri. He was amiable, kind and nice. But that's all about him. he's too soft to coach a big team. Chelsea at that time was chocked full with big name stars, stars who used to play first team football in the usual clubs but was sold to Chelsea because of the big bucks. Of those poor (as in my symphaties going out to them), I really pity Scott Parker the most. He was from Charlton. A great young English player, I should say. I was really glad that he was going to Chelsea and Chelsea could really use someone like him, but now looking back, his worst mistake was going to Chelsea. He lost his chance of playing first team football, got sidelined until I'm not sure where he is now (Newcastle? The team of rejects...), but that's his fate.

But for Chelsea to really accomplish big, I think the club did the wisest decision in bringing in Mourinho. Mourinho is argubly the most worthed it signing using the Abramovich's billions. Yes, I did think that Rainieri did a good job, second in the premiereship and semis in the Champion's League are very good results, but he is the man.



He created the Chelsea of today. Almost single-handedly.

Mourinho brought in the formation of today's football which is so lethal that everyone else in the industry is absolutely jealous of him. He brought in the players who could play his style of football. And more importantly, he brought in the kind of management tactic which can not only control the players but also command their respect. Ferguson used to be able to do that to his fledgings, but after the selling of them one by one to other clubs and his mellowing, I'd say, he's no more liao. Today is the world of Mourinho. One thing I truly believe that the reason behind Mourinho's arrogance is that he wants to keep media focus off his players and shift it onto himself so that his players can perform better on the pitch. And this has been very effective. Under Rainieri, we are used to media reports on the Chelsea boys being big gamblers and reports like these really affected their on pitch potential, now there isn't any reports of these, but reports on the arrogance of Mourinho. It just has to be calculated.

To say that Chelsea is built upon the billions of the Abramovich, I'd think that it's abosolutely wrong. I'd like to think it as a legacy of Chelsea being bettered by Mourinho. The billions just came in very handy. Someone said before, he hated Chelsea and her billions, but if his team was to have billions being sponsored by someone else, then it's a different story, the billions would be welcomed by him. That's man for you, all so biased. And because Chelsea is my team, so I ain't complaining about the billions thrown about by the Abramovich though I think that some money was really wasted, especially those money that Rainieri spent. Wasted. Mourinho did a great job in doing cleaning up, to give us the team of today.



We have Cech and Cudicini in goal. I think Cudicini is great, but Cech is slightly greater. They are both top goalkeepers and it takes really a good team to have to solid keepers behind. With my heart, I'd like to say that goalkeeping duties should be rotated since both are great keepers, but then again, rotation will create disharmony. I like Mourinho's present arrangement in that Cech is the number one, but Cudicini helps out during heavy weeks. Chelsea is a team going on for all four trophies, so resting Cech is only something good. Another thing about Cudicini is that he is not an international, so during international weeks, Cudicini would be a very good relieve. But Cech does have his age for him. He's young and will stick around Chelsea for years to come. I was a bit glad that Mourinho bought Cech after the Euros cos previous season Rainieri did have a minor goalkeeping crisis, though Chelsea did came out of it unscathed, it's always better to keep a great space one at bay. The current decline of the top teams start from the back. Arsenal's Lehmann sucks... (okay, I'm biased, I'm a Kahn-supporter) Man Utd's Van der Sar is well, he's only here this season and his supposed to be the saviour which means that his predecessors sucked. Let's forget about Dudek, he's been replaced too.

Of the backline of Chelsea, we must remember that Terry is a product of the Chelsea youth system.



Yes, he is my favourite Chelsea player. He's the protector of Chelsea while not forgetting to help up with his headers and create important goals for his team. He leads by example. He is Chelsea. And I think that he should be a natural choice for England's centreback position. And he's young. I like young men cos they can tahan in the game for years to come and I like my loyalty to last long and into the future. Actually the present backline is created artificially by Mourinho. The players are brought in by him, mostly, except for the Terry. They are good, except for the erratic Johnson whom I think is too immature, but nevermind, the others are good can liao le.

Midfield.
I'm arguing that Chelsea plays a 4-3-3 position so I'm talking about a midfield of three players. My choice today would be Makelele, Lampard, Essien. I personally don't like Makelele because of his whinings way back from Madrid, but he is the greatest holding player in midfield and I seriously think that Mourinho totally transformed him into a strong silent player. I remember back in the Rainieri days, he played by acting and one critic called him a student from the London School of Theatre rather than a footballer, but Mourinho changed him. Now we don't see anymore goals from him, just great defensive work and lots of pushing the ball forward. And no complains from him, and no more play acting from him. now I truly admire him for his footballing prowress. That can only be done by a Mourinho.

I always thought that Essien is not worth his price tag. Tiago can play just as well. Anyway, both are Mourinho's bringing ins. I'm still watching him, so no comments about him. But then again, why are we complaining about Chelsea spending so much money on Essien when Man Utd too spent loads on a Red-carder Rooney?

Lampard.
Lampard is the second link of the backbone of Chelsea. He stands second to Terry. He is not a product of the Abramovich's billions.

he's now the penalty taker for England. that pretty much sums it all. He developed to become the greatest player in England. wahaha~ Another thing admirable about Lampard is his fitness. Injuries and fatigue just eludes him. He can go on an on for matches without resting, and in a team striving on for four trophies, he is just amazing. He's also so amazing that Ericsson just had to say goodbye to his faithful Butt on the national scale. Really, now comparing Butt and Lampard, what the heck is a Butt? Lampard's nearest competitor I'd think would be Gerrad, but seriously, that Stevie whom injuries plague can be compared to our Frankie? No way man...

Then so chracteristic of Chelsea is our infamous wingers. Chelsea brought back the whole ancient idea of having wingers to tear apart the opposition's defence and create holes for the striker and dominating the possession. The original wingers Duff and Robben started the 4-0s for Chelsea but a pity injuries plagued them. This season, with the training of Cole to take over the left wing and the purchasing of Wright-Phillips for the right, there is no more thing as a depleted wing. Cole is versatile so I'm not worried about him. Wright-Phillips I'm a little afraid is too expensive to put on the bench but that's his only place to be. I'm glad Chelsea has the spare cash, just that we shouldn't have bought him for that much. Anyway, all four of them are nice and young men, so more to be seen of them in the years to come I suppose.

The hitman. Drogba and Crespo, and I'd like to give some writing space to Gudjohnsen. In any other team, all are definite first choice hitmen, not to be placed on the bench, but Chelsea is different, we have a Golden bench. Alternating Drogba and Crespo is a good thing unlike alternating the goalies. Alternating the goalies create instability but the striker is different. A striker needs motivation and it is only through alternating them that can give them that extra push. Personally I perfer Crespo, he's more technical and reliable, but Drogba has proved his worth. The only pity I have is for Gudjohnson who lost his identity with the coming of the wingers. In a 4-4-2, Gudjohnsen plays great as the second striker, but now, he has a place with the reserves. Jiayou ba~

Now I can only like Chelsea even more, the direction of where Chelea is going is really amazing and I'm all for them.

Some detractors might say that Chelsea is boring by griding out 1-0 victories, but I'd also like to remind them that we are the team also flattening our rivals with 4-0 triumphants. We can score and defend. When we are unsure, 1-0 for the three points and that would be enough for us but when we have the game in our bag, what's up with flattering our scoreline to something like 4-0? Nothing! And we can do that!

I think defence is very important in a foodball match. I'm the kind who prefers a 1-0 victory to a 4-4 draw or a 0-0 draw to a 4-5 defeat. It's always about the points gained in footbal cos that's how the table works, and if you want to be on the top of the table, you have to respect how the table works. Football is a competition not an entertainment if I should remind the spectators. We want to watch our team win not to watch our team entertain us. If you want entertainment, go to Hollywood, not the football pitch. I think spectators have become too pampered. they think that football is all about them that they so selfishly want entertainment from it. That sucks. I totally look down on you selfish brats who only think about being entertained in football. You aren't worthy of supporting you team if you only want them to entertain you. That's not a competition at all.

With all these, I know where my heart lies exactly and onwards for Chelsea as it was, is, and will always be. I support Chelsea's tactics and will champion for them wholeheartedly. We are now on the top of the table, not just on top of the table, but also on top of the attacking table, so who dares to say that we can't shoot goals?

This season, we will be going all out for another 4 more trophies to add to our cupboard, I've got a good feeling in the premiereship. The Champion's League is not the main focus. Carling Cup and FA Cups our second team can gao dim it no problem. Our second team can beat any other person's first team flat, no problem. Yup~ jiayou~

After a Short Hiatus

I'm back. I didn't really go off for long, and it's ironic that I was just commenting to the barflies that I won't be back until I've sorted out something. Technically, that thing is not sorted out, but I've figured a way about somehow or another so will be trying out this method. Yup... That method is chronicled in my MSN Space. Other than that, yup, I'll still be blogging about my life as per normal.

I've got some photos with me here, from the Mid-Autumn Festival Celebration with the Chinese Drama people, but I haven't put them up on Flickr yet, so I'll only put them up after I've put them up on Flickr. But they are already up on my Yahoo Photos2, so you can pop by there if you want to see me. Photos compliments from Jinwei and Zhichun, my camera wasn't with me. Now to think of that, I haven't used my camera for a very long time already. I left it in my hostel room while I came home for the past two weeks. Yes, I've been at home for the past two weeks. It's really great to be at home, everything is so comfortable.

Do I have any other matters on hand? Not at the moment.

I just want to do whatever I feel like doing and not be tied down to anything at the moment. I've been doing things I always wanted to do but have procrastinated and it really feels like shit. I want to get out of that past. Last night, for the first time, I penned a Film and History short project before my saviour went offline. My saviour usually have the task of handing in my projects for me when I'm at home and not in school on Friday and usually I'm that pathetic that I end up sending my project to him in the middle of dawn, but I completed that project with an hour of work last night and that poor angel was still struggling with it. Sympathies, but well, a tingling sense of pride I felt. Finally, I was brightening up.

More issues another time ba. I think this period I'd be in a nice tributes kind of mood, so watch this space for my tribute to everybody and everything. wahaha~

hiatus

because of the previous post, joan will officially be on hiatus until her next post.
think maybe a week or two more of rest will be good, after that will be back with either back dated posts, or more stuff to share. dont worry for/about her.

joan will be well.
thanks for all your concerns (that is if you did show yours).