Sucky day but the evening’s been alright so far. Let’s go chronologically. First, had to wake up early for 9am exam. First day of the exams for me. Some people have already finished theirs. :p So, me was tired. Then, my contacts refused to stay put. I had to insert them like 5 times at least before they finally stayed. So that was annoying. Left the house at 7. As usual, got to Macpherson road to wait for 151. It came but I didn’t like the first bus. It was crowded, one of those new buses and I hate the driver (he drives freaking slow). So I waited for the next bus and was all yay! cos it was a double decker bus. It was ok until around Bukit Timah area when someone got on and fell asleep next to me and began to encroach on my space and these kind of people always do. So was annoyed. Thank goodness, he got off at the poly. THEN! After the police training centre area, there was this huge jolt and crash. Turns out, the bus crashed with a car. Nothing major. Just a very dented bumper for the car and a cracked windshield for the bus. But we all had to get out and walk to the next stop and wait for the next bus. Which took damn long to arrive. Mean time, the sky was getting darker. The next bus arrived. It was a single deck bus. So all had to squeeze in. And then it started to rain. Like those really annoying heavy rains and all. After the UCC stop, going up the hill, suddenly, this taxi tried to cut in to get to the other side of the road and almost caused yet another accident! The  bus driver was horning at him long after he drove off. Can you imagine? 1.5 accidents in the span of an hour. What a horrible day so far. So, walked over to MPSH through YIH. At least it was covered and dry. I left the house 2 hours before the exam. Usually I can reach in an hour, maybe 1.5 hours. This time, I made it with only 15 minutes to spare. Then, went up to the venue to check my seat number. There was a board for MPSH2A and MPSH2B. I was supposed to be in 2B. Went there and THERE WAS NO LIST! Not for my module at least. Feeling a bit panicky in case I screwed up the date or something and missed the exam. Then I checked over at 2A and there it was. Freaking lecturer.

The exam was alright. I didn’t know what the heck was semiotic reconstruction so I crapped it up. Damn him to have to ask about ELF AGAIN! I had no idea what whatshisname Philipson (?) was supposed to be talking about either. Did we even read him? You know that when you start wondering that in an exam you’re kind of in trouble. So all I did was critique the quotation he gave and pray that’s enough. I got the feeling it wouldn’t go too well. Huishan was saying later that she felt happy that the lecturer didn’t let her down and set really hard questions.*rolls eyes* Had lunch with Vanessa, Siang Yu, Chih Lin and Michelle at Munchy Monkey’s (Monkies?). Yeah. It was not bad. The food was alright. Loved the dessert though. Company was very enjoyable. Gonna miss them. After lunch, went over to the EL room and ‘nua-ed’ for the rest of the afternoon. Ok, I was supposed to be revising Mie’s stuff but I didn’t. Not much anyway. I brought the little teddy bear home. If anyone violently objects, let me know and I’ll bring him back. I think I’ll call him Albert. Cos he’s the EL Bear. Yeah, whatever. He needs washing. Wonder how long he’s been sitting in the EL room. Anyway, was my last time in the EL room. Was nostalgic. We had some good times there.

Anyway, then, walked over to Kent Ridge Hall for the exam and almost got knocked over at least twice on the way. First time, two workers were doing something to the pavement and so I had to walk on the road and yeah well, roads have traffic. Then, I was trying to cross the junction at Heng Mui Keng there. I didn’t know it was a mini-roundabout thing. Almost got knocked down again. Damn. But I made it to KR hall in one piece. Mie’s exam was quite alright. I think I did ok. Hope it’s not graded on a bell curve though. That would suck. Finished in half an hour and spent the next half hour checking through things then decided to leave. One hour early. Took A1 back to the terminal and got on 151e. Traffic jam from school all the way to Jalan Toa Payoh. Even by express bus, it took almost 2 hours to get there and that was only 3/4 of the journey. Waited at Jln TPY for 154 but none appeared. Finally, the next 151 came along and I took that. Went up to Macpherson road and changed to 61. Stopped inside the estate. Now I’m really tired from a long day and so I thought I might wait for the bus instead of walking home. So I waited and waited and waited. The next 61 came along and I couldn’t stand it so I began to walk. Just I crossed the road and was too far to go back, the stupid bus came that I could have taken. I was pissed. But I continued to walk back. And almost got run over yet again by another stupid car. My timing for crossing the road was really sucky today. It was like every road I crossed I almost got knocked over. Dammit.

Was thinking as I walked (not as I was crossing the road) about the Universe module. Now I did really badly for it – not counting the essay portion yet. I’m really worried I’m going to fail it. I need at least a C but this is a 1000 level module, therefore very heavily based on the bell curve. I’m really worried I can’t get a C. If I’m lucky, I could get a D. Now my problem is this: if I get a D, I can S/U it but I’ll get a U which means I failed the module and probably I can’t graduate cos I’m one module short. On the other hand, if I don’t S/U it, my CAP might drop to the point that I can’t graduate with honours. It’s too late to say ‘I told you so’ so don’t. I’m just wondering what I should do if I really find myself in this scenario.

So anyway, got home and checked my emails. Talib sent me the best news I had of the day. I GOT 90% FOR NARRATIVE STRUCTURES ESSAY!!!!!! I was freaking worried about it before but he said he liked how I approached the thing. Phew. That’s one worry off. I’m really going to cram for his module. I really really REALLY want an A for it. I think I can. I hope. *fingers crossed*

Ok, so I guess that’s all for my day. Going to watch “Time Bandits” on youtube. Finished Torchwood already. Sigh. It was an interesting series. I kind of liked the finale. It was sad and touching and nice. Maybe I should try out the other show my online friend was watching. Assuming I can find it. Haha! Me and my watching shows. Bah. I should be studying for narrative and syntax.

Something funny:

A bit annoyed at the moment cos the “Add New Post” page is not appearing properly. I can still see a lot of errors in the layout. But for some inexplicable reason, that’s the best it can do at the moment. Even switched over to Safari but the same problem popped up. :p

Been a while since I blogged something of use. Last Friday was the last day of school in NUS. Woah. So fast!!!! It seems like such a short time ago that I just started my first day. I think it was Monday, but I can’t be sure, but I’m sure that it was a Linear Algebra class. That was my first university class and lecture ever. And now my last one is Narrative Structures. How time flies. The EL-ers had a little gathering thing Friday night in the EL room. Theme was: Childhood Ambition. I wanted to be a vet. Even brought poor little Watson and bandaged him up. Hope the bro doesn’t find out. Hehe! Leonard was the surgeon. He was probably the most dressed up. Sorry Su, flashy as that gold top was, still not as flashy as blue scrubs and shower caps.

A picture says a thousand words so here’s some pics. Mostly taken off the others on FB. English Language class of 2009. Gonna miss these crazy people. Good times.

Moving on. I’m really really REALLY crossing my fingers that I can at least scrape through Universe. Because the results were put up on IVLE and I FAILED!!! by one point. Cos I never went for tutorials. But I can’t accept that I got 5 out of 8 for my latest test. That would mean only 62% and I KNOW I did better than that! *pout* Banking on my essay now for a pass so I can get an S and can graduate.

Mum’s still trying to matchmake some guy with me. I put my foot down. I don’t think we can click AND he’s shorter than me. So, no. Not interested. Turning a deaf ear whenever mum goes on about it.

Finished watching Doctor Who. Oh man, it’s been brilliant! See, I realise that I’ve picked up that word from the Doctor. Or rather, David Tennant’s Doctor. Chris’ Doctor said ‘Fantastic’. Haha! The finale episode(s) were damn wonderful! Loved it at the end when everyone gathered back together and there was crossovers between Doctor Who, Torchwood and Sarah Jane Chronicles all into one HUGE finale. Only thing I didn’t like was the need to create another ‘Doctor’ out of the severed hand. I thought that was a bit much. Even though it seemed to be a necessary plot device. Song of Freedom at the end was brilliant too. I think that’s the best piece of music in Doctor Who. Because I love it, I’m gonna put it here. The context, the Davros had just ’stolen’ the earth and the Doctor has to bring it back to the right place in space. So he’s using the Cardiff Rift to loop around the Tardis and tow the earth back. This one here is the original clip. But to see a nicer clip, the music imposed on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5_4SiiICew

Speaking of Doctor Who, I discovered this concert thing called “Doctor Who at the Proms”. The Proms is some kind of British music festival. Got hold of a recording of the programme and… omg. Brilliant. Absolutely BRILLIANT! I wish it was longer and not just one hour. It felt like only a few minutes. It was showcasing the music from Doctor Who. They even had Cyberman stomping around, the Ood, Sontarans, a Dalek and the Davros. And the Doctor made a VERY special appearance. Loved the ending song (well, the penultimate ending) – Song of Freedom. It was ‘uplifting to the soul’. Seriously. I felt enlightened. Wish they could’ve brought out the Ood for that song though. Oh, I loved the Dalek sequence too. When the Dalek held the conductor ‘hostage’. LoL!!! The whole thing reminded me of that Play event we did a few years back. I’m glad I had the opportunity to do something like that.

Now, since I was procrastinating, I’ve been watching Torchwood also. It’s a spin off from Doctor Who and features Captain Jack Harkness as one of the characters in an ensemble cast. I finally found out what an ensemble cast is. It’s a cast where there’s no obvious main character and each character gets the opportunity for screen time in the limelight. Anyway, Torchwood. It’s definitely different from Doctor Who. Less fantasy adventure like and more gritty and real. And adult. Seriously. If it were ever to be shown here, it would be very very VERY heavily censored. Which makes me wonder if there is sense for me to go looking for the DVD, given that lots of scenes might be cut. For example, there was an episode where an alien came from space and needs to get energy from orgasms. So it took a female body and went around having sex with men, then they turn into little piles of dust. They showed it on screen. Captain Jack cracks a joke: “He came, and he went.” SG censors would probably go blind watching. Haha!! Anyway, enjoying Torchwood. Enjoying oogling at John Barrowman who plays Jack Harkness. Pity he’s gay. Why are the good looking ones either taken or gay??

I should be studying. Went through EWL stuff yesterday and day before. Should be doing Pidgins today but I feel so freaking lazy. Very very tempted to take the day off and spend tomorrow and Friday on Pidgins instead. Shall I? I think I might. Hehe!

Oh, forgot to add. I was blogsurfing and I saw this friend of mine who’s supposedly getting engaged. Or already is. I can’t really gather the distinction in her blog posts. Well… I’m happy for her, even though we’re not close. Lucky girl. The rest of us are still hanging around looking for someone. :p Bit jealous but it’s fine. I’m a bit surprised at the engaged thing but I suppose it’s natural, at our age. I guess. Haiz. Getting old. :p

Was given a set of Baroque music scores the other day. I think they’re for piano. Been trying to play them through. It’s quite simple except for those stylistic variations that I’m not sure what to do about cos I don’t understand the symbols. Bleah. Wish there were no exams. Or that exams didn’t matter so much. Then I can play my piano, write, sew, stone… whatever.

I’m also a bit… I don’t know the right word for it. Annoyed? At my mum. As usual. But this time it’s about my mum and my grandmother. The two of them cannot be in the same house together without there being absolute silence or absolute chaos between them. Now mum’s all like, you should be nicer to Ah Ma cos she’s getting old and all that stuff. But then she turns around and starts a shouting match right in the same breath. And she goes out and does charity work and all that but the minute she comes home it’s like Cold War 2. I can’t stand it! I just have to rant. :p At least, even if I’m not particularly sociable, I don’t pick fights and arguments. You think I like self imposed exile in my room cos I can’t stand being in the rest of the house with either of them?!??! I feel like yelling sometimes. Tell my mum, “You’re a bloody hypocrite you know! Keep telling me charity begins at home and all that shit. Here’s you going out and helping other people whilst at home you got your own mother who wants your company just as much as those other people. You’ve got no right to stand on moral high ground and lecture me about it when you’re doing the same thing.” And to my grandmother, I’d really like to say, “Stop bloody complaining about aches and pains and no strength and all that nonsense. If you did what the doctor told you one year ago and did all the physiotherapy and treatment like you were supposed to, maybe this wouldn’t be a problem now!” I know it’s evil and cruel but that’s the way I feel. I don’t know. I just feel that the past 3 years has been a major turning point in my life and I’m not sure if it turned in a good direction or a bad one.

Ok, so it’s Wednesday! Midweek! So freaking fast!!!!!

Monday was the choir post VV gathering and presidential elections. It was fun. Norma was cam whoring a lot. Khairul and Joel Yeo are the new P and VP. It was cute that the Pookas were giving Nad and Harris ‘retirement’ boxes with toys and stuff in it. Very funny.

Some guy from NTU stabbed his prof on Monday then jumped to his death. I suppose we should be somber about it but there are a few jokes going round about sadistic profs making their students snap. Mie started her class by telling us that she’s always available for us to talk to in case we need help, be it academic or personal matters. Somehow, it seems pretty sweet, coming from her. She’s so much like a student. DJ was saying we should go to her and start threatening to jump out her 5th floor window until she cuts out the weekly quizzes. I heard someone else say they’ve got a penknife in their pencil case. Lol! The guy was a final year student too. Such a waste. Not doing well for FYP isn’t the end of the world I think.

Universe test on Tues was not too good. Prof went through the answers today. I got at least 14 wrong. :p Oh well. I didn’t study that hard anyway. Well prepared to do badly for it.

Today’s Syntax test went better than I had imagined. At least I could do the questions. Of course, in the first five seconds I blanked and stared at the paper, panicking that I can’t finish it in time. Then I blanked again half way through cos I forgot what were complementizers and what were adjuncts. But overall, I think (hope) I’ll pass. *fingers crossed* I can’t S/U it the way I can for Universe.

Tomorrow I’ve got the day off cos Lionel’s going to be away so tonight I’m going to break for a while. Going to go watch Return of the King. Tomorrow I plan to work on Narrative Structures – the essay and the IVLE stuff. Haven’t touched that for weeks and my library book’s going to expire soon.

Anyway, I’ve been looking at handphones again. Still ambivalent about the iPhone. I mean, it’s nice and pretty and it’s got cool applications but it can’t do everything. I’ve been looking at the Samsung Omnia. It looks pretty good. It’s got a 5MP camera (instead of iPhone’s 2MP) and a radio AND Microsoft Office Mobile. But, I heard it’s not too good with a Mac and it’s Samsung. My previous experience with a Samsung phone was… not as good as with my Nokia or Motorola. Not to say that I condemned Samsung. It’s just not the same. There’s been good and bad reviews. Mostly good, but then I’m biased so maybe I didn’t notice too much on the bad ones. What do you think? Which phone should I aim to get? The price seems almost the same, if I’m not wrong.

TV Mobile has been irritating me with their latest self praising ads. They said, that X number of people are watching TV Mobile, making it the fastest growing outdoor media in Singapore. I’m standing there rolling my eyes because TV Mobile is somewhat of an inevitable thing. It’s on the buses, which means that anyone who’s in the bus, whether he wants to or not, is exposed to TV Mobile. It’s not necessarily the fastest growing because consumers are not making the choice to watch it. The only reason why more people may be ‘watching’ it is because more people are taking buses and I highly doubt people who could otherwise drive would take the bus just because of TV Mobile. So it’s a flawed claim.

Talking about other suspicious claims, today in the universe lecture, the prof was talking about the cores of the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn etc). She said the cores are made of water ice and metals or something like that. And here’s me thinking, ok, so how did they know what’s in the cores?? No spacecraft has ever landed on these planets. Did the astronomers suddenly develop x-ray vision? I can accept her contracting cloud theory about the formation of the solar system and the formation of the planets by the gathering together of the planetisimals but I cannot figure out how they know what’s the composition of the cores. Maybe I’ll go do some reading up if I feel like it.

Oh, and funny thing today. Wonder if all the astronomy department talk funny like our prof. Cos today, a member of the astronomy society came to promote their star gazing get away thing. And she meant to say that we could see Saturn. But the way she pronounced it was “Satan”. So she was happily saying saying stuff like oh, we can see Sagitarius and Virgo and Jupiter and Satan. The LT stunned for a second then burst into laughter! I doubt a lot of people will be going if they are going to see Satan. Omg!

Can’t believe I’ms haring this but I had a nice dream last night. One of those random stuff with me and some celebrity crush of mine. It happens at times but this is the first time in a long time that it’s happened. It was with Josh Groban, surprisingly. He was like my boyfriend or something. Like I said, a nice dream. The Tower of London featured quite a bit too, giving a bit of a scary touch. Anyway, it was surprisingly cos this is probably the first time I’ve dreamt of him and I’ve dreamt of funny random people before, like Eminem and the Tiger from the breakfast cereal. Haha! Wonder why.

Ok, I guess that’s it.

So it’s always the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Whatever that means. Today on the bus back home I felt like I’ve reached this point where I usually need to have a nice long rant on my blog about how much life sucks.

I guess it all started with this morning in EWL class. Well, maybe not quite started, but let’s say the cracks began forming then. We were talking about language ownership and whether anyone can really claim to have ownership of English in the context of English being such a global language and all that. So the article we were supposed to read dealt with Eurasians in Singapore and how they want English to be their Mother Tongue but the government refuses. Anyway, the class started out fine. Me and the year 4s were joking around till Wee came along and started class and that was fine too. He was in a pretty good mood, cracking jokes and all. Had the class laughing. Had nice long discussions about the topics. Then we were began the actual topic of language ownership and the year 3s were giving examples and stuff. It was ok for a while then it started to get very very repetitive and slightly irrelevant at times. Then this year 4 guy that’s notorious for this kind of stuff started talking. I’ve heard that he’s got this ‘talent’ for doing things like that but I never really noticed it till now. First, he made this long comment and gave his own example which ultimately was just a rephrasing of someone else’s earlier example. Then when Wee called him out on that – told him that that’s exactly what they were trying to illustrate – this guy changed tactics and in the end, rephrased the original question. Omg. At least Wee didn’t pander to him like Lazar did sometimes. Then the class went on to discuss the topic of the article and about the Eurasians and the bilingual policy in Singapore. Then there was this girl who suddenly (I don’t really remember what led up to it) made this comment about how she thinks that the whole issue of ethnicity is problematic anyway and starts questioning what it is to be an Eurasian and asking whether people of other mixed parentage can be considered Eurasians also. What pissed me off I suppose was that her tone was exactly “This is what I think and I don’t care what anyone else thinks”. And what definitely definitely pissed me off was that she got into this whole pointless debate over the definition of an Eurasian and ethnicy and race. What the hell! It’s supposed to be a linguistics class, not sociology. Go debate ethnicity there!

Yeah, the year 3s annoy the hell out of me. I don’t know why. They just do.

Anyway, meanwhile, went to the honors room where there was thankfully some of the year 4s goofing around in there. I suppose I wasn’t in the best of temperaments. Last night I attended a meeting in church where I (as a representative of my organisation) got quite vehemently scolded by another member of the meeting. Sure, he was totally justified in ranting and clearing his system of his anger at us. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t irritate the hell out of me, especially when I’m not one of the guilty parties. At least, to the best of my knowledge, I’m not. I’m not responsible for what other people in my organisation (or associated with my organisation) do. But as the representative there, I just kept quiet and took the damn scolding already. Experience tells me that if I just shut up and let him rant on, it’ll be over much more quickly than if I try to contradict him. I don’t know how come I end up taking the blame for a lot of stuff around here. Like the upset over carolling, or whenever the slides screw up. How come I’m like a magnet for people to complain to? I’m getting really tired of trying to play hero everytime people want one. It’s tiring and it’s not like I’m particularly religious or whatever. I’m getting really really sick of all this.

Talking about not being in the best of temperaments, I’m still a bit put off by the other day’s 3211 presentation. I really hate it that I couldn’t have done better. It really wasn’t my best and I feel that me and my group mate was so unprepared. I guess, after Lazar’s one hour presentation last year, I’ve grown kind of used to doing it on my own but with material that I know well enough. It was a tough class this time. I don’t know the people. Don’t know what makes them talk or not. And being the third group of the day to present was not good. People get bored, especially since we had a quiz about the readings and basically, they know everything they already need to know. It was just a waste of time.

And I wanted to stargaze but I couldn’t cos it wasn’t quite safe where it was dark enough to see stars and it wasn’t dark enough, nor enough sky space where it was safe to stare at the sky. Irritated cos I really wanted to try and see the constellations we’ve been learning about in Astronomy.

Then choir. Today was exhausting. On one hand, I wish I could’ve skipped it. Gone out with the EL-ers and drink. On the other, I couldn’t have skipped cos I’m really so far behind. They had auditions during the sectionals. I had to sing a section of Requiem and Little Birds. Little Birds went ok but Requiem… I’m really disappointed with myself. It didn’t help that that part I was asked to sing was just the bit that was a little out of my range. So my voice started warbling and shaking and… like I said, I was very ashamed of myself. I’m supposed to be the most senior of them all and I don’t understand why, after all these years, I still can’t rely on my voice to stay good when I need it to be. Nelson came down and did combined for the first half songs. It was ok. Still don’t know how the hell I’m going to memorise it all by next week. After Nelson left, we all got scolding from Nad about discipline and what have you. And we had to stay till 10 to finish the auditions, regardless if you’d already been auditioned or not. After that, they had us all go outside and sing birthday song for someone. I’m not in a reasonable mood at the moment. Choir was supposed to officially end at 9.30pm. That’s what I signed up for. I allow that when we’re in a fix like we are now, it’s ok to extend until 10pm. But like just now, it went all the way till 10.30pm with no sign of stopping – I just walked away, the rest of them were still playing and hanging around – that’s just too much. For the record, this is my blog and I’ll be as unreasonable and selfish as I like on it. Just because you may live in and around the school doesn’t mean everyone else does. Just because you can afford to take a cab or drive doesn’t mean everyone else can. Just because you don’t have class the next day doesn’t mean other people don’t have too. Just because you can get by with 3 hours of sleep per night doesn’t mean everyone else can. I know the choir folks are trying to be nice but there has to be a limit. Some people have to worry about catching the last bus home, worry about an early morning class, worry about not having eaten dinner. I don’t mind staying back to perfect the singing. But there was nothing of the sort. The singing finished at 9.40pm and the rest of the time was wasted waiting for the auditions to finish and then for this asinine thing. I’m sorry SH, it’s not your fault, and Happy Birthday (if you’re reading this).

So I rushed off and caught the 10.30pm bus back. The last time I caught that late bus was 2 years ago when I was still in the choir committee and having to stay back for meetings and all. At least the bus was empty so I had a seat to myself. Which was good cos I was balancing my heavy bag (yet another cause of annoyance. There’s really nothing in it that explains why it’s so heavy), my file and my laptop. There wasn’t much to complain about the 151 really. It was really fast and I reached Macpherson a while before 11pm. It was the bus back into the estate that pissed me royally. From a distance, I thought it was full cos it looked like there were people all squished up front and I resigned myself to having to do acrobatics to keep my balance and keep my laptop from crashing to the floor. But as the bus pulled up the bus stop, I was royally pissed to see that the congestion in the bus was in the first quarter of the bus. The remaining 3/4 of the bus was fucking empty! Omg. I wish I was the type that doesn’t feel shy about showing her feelings. I was so tempted to yell “Move the hell in!!!!” Not that it would have made a difference I think. It was some Indian foreign worker and some China looking girl with a huge suitcase blocking the aisle. Anyway, I managed to push my way in but the other guy who had boarded the bus with me was left standing on the steps. Omg. Can’t the bus driver do something? He’s the one with the legitimate authority to order people to move in. And it was OBVIOUS that people really needed to move in. I know he knew about it. I saw him surveying the situation. What kind of thing is this? Even if it’s late and he wants to get moving soon, it’s still his job isn’t it? Even if it’s not explicitly stated in his job description, doesn’t he think it’s only right to ask people to move in, especially when there’s plenty of room and means that someone standing on the steps might have some place solid to hang on to when the bus moves? Don’t know what the bus company does with the money we pay them. Service gets worse and worse each day.

And I’ve been feeling rather left out the last few weeks. Not that I didn’t have a hand in it myself. But for when someone agrees to something then behind my back does something else and I find out, and it excluded me when they orignally agreed to include me… I’d say never mind but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to think about it. To be excluded because I’m not one of the ‘in’ crowd. I don’t dress in fashion, I’m not top honours student, I’m not witty or clever, I don’t drink or hang out in clubs. It’s upsetting to know that maybe because I always turn down the invitations, they don’t bother to include me anymore. I mean, you know, I may say no, but it’s always nice to just ask. Makes me feel less unwanted in a way.

I’m stressed out and it’s not even the time of the semester when stress starts kicking in yet. Now if you’d excuse me, I’m off to go cry myself to sleep and count the hours till I have to make myself wake up and put on a happy face for the rest of the world.

Now if there's a smile on my face
It's only there trying to fool the public
But when it comes down to fooling you
Now honey that's quite a different subject
But don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression
Really I'm sad, oh I'm sadder than sad
You're gone and I'm hurtin' so bad
Like a clown I pretend to be glad

Now there's some sad things known to man
But ain't too much sadder than
The tears of a clown, when there's no one around
Uh hum, oh yeah baby

Now if I appear to be carefree
It's only to camouflage my sadness
And honey to shield my pride I try
To cover this hurt with a show of gladness
But don't let my show convince you
That I've been happy since you
Decided to go, oh I need you so
I'm hurt and I want you to know
But for others I put on a show, ooh yeah

Just like Pagliacci did
I try to keep my surface hid
Smiling in the public eye
But in my lonely room I cry
The tears of a clown
When there's no one around, oh yeah, baby baby
Now if there's a smile on my face
Don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression
Don't let this smile I wear
Make you think that I don't care
When really I'm sad…I’m hurting so bad…

Finally it’s the weekend again after such a long week back at school. I swear, I’ve lost whatever stamina I used to have back in JC and secondary days. It’s not as if my schedule is so horribly long or whatever. Anyway, to get on with my week.

Monday started with Lexicology. Vincent Ooi was fine. I like him as a lecturer. He’s very interesting to watch and listen to in a weird sort of way. And of course, who wouldn’t like any lecturer who gives us chocolates? Unfortunately, I decided to drop the class cos I don’t think I’ll do well in the subject matter. It’s a bit cheem for me. My 2 group mates are going to kill me for leaving them at the mercy of the other girl who never showed up for class and who has a reputation for not showing up in class. I’m sorry!!

Tuesday had Language in Contact. Was pretty apprehensive about this class cos the lecturer’s new and it’s a new module and it’s a 3000 level, which means most of my group wouldn’t be doing it. Well, Mie’s not too bad so far. She’s got this very Japanese accent and her class rules are kind of childish. She blamed Sunita for those rules but what the heck. Lots of year 2s and 3s in the class. I barely know anyone in there. Scary. Heavy workload class too. But at least, this kind of class can smoke my way through kind. Haha! I can’t believe I’m admitting this but I’m kind of grateful for Pakir and her EL in SEA class cos I think that class prepares me for this contact linguistics module a lot. And, like someone said, after living through Pakir, we can live through any lecturer.

Wednesday was Syntax. Another apprehensive class cos it’s technically a demanding module and there’s only like 10 students in the class. Kim’s pretty cute. I miss his class, since he didn’t take my 3000 level syntax class. I guess I should’ve written down the X-bar rules in my notebook cos the first activity he made us do was draw the tree for a sentence and we were all like, “what’s the rules?? I forgot the rules!!” Haha! Kim’s a much better teacher than the other one I had.

Also had Understanding the Universe on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was… alright. Not sure what I’m supposed to be learning in it. It’s supposed to be a physics module. But anyway, I can S/U it if I need to. I’m kind of regretting that I didn’t make my decision about S/U-ing last sem until it was too late. My CAP might have gone to 3.3 if I did. Maybe. At least I’m not alone in Universe. Got Xing Jian and Alvin to day dream with in class. Haha!

Thursday, English as a World Language. Again, another long ago lecturer. Wee was alright. Very ‘uncle’-ish. He had the same problem as Kim did with the projector screen. Ended up tying it to the chair, like Kim, to prevent it from rolling up again. Lots of year 3s in the class. Guess none of them had undergone Pakir, else they’d have been scared off. Wee seems better than her though. We’ll wait and see.

Friday had Narrative Structures with Talib. The one that I bidded for in Round 3B to replace Lexi. Picked this cos I did quite ok in the previous Talib’s module I did so I think it’d be to my best interest to do this one. It’s a shared module with Lit so there’s a lot of lit students. As with all classes, there’s the know-it-all in this one too. It’s kind of scary that Talib remembers me to the point that he remembers exactly what I asked him a year ago. I didn’t think I made that kind of impression, except when I screwed up the presentation.

Anyway, not going to say too much about academics here cos I suspect some of my profs visit my blog. So HI!!! to whoever’s reading. My own problem for putting my blog link up on the IVLE. Anyway, I don’t care. I’ll just have to be a bit more careful when I write.

Saw Joseph on Thursday along AS1. That was very nice. Haven’t seen him in forever. Hello!! to you to Joseph!

Choir’s started already. Omg. It’s freaking draining and tiring. I’ve seriously lost stamina over the hols. We’re rushing for the concert so it’s… yeah, rushed. I miss Alicia! Sectionals seems quieter now without her. Alison’s back though. It’s nice to see her sweet face again. Chalala is still in choir with me so I’m glad I’m not the oldest around. Don’t know how we’re ever gonna be ready for concert but I’ve got my fingers crossed. Oh well. Best concert ever! My last concert with NUS choir. Feels strange to be counting down to when I’ll graduate and really have a HUGE change in my life.

I’d probably like to do a shout out here to all the people in the EL department. Life would be so different without characters like ‘Leona’, Angela, Wanni, Su Hui, Hannah, Alvin… The profs probably think we’re all mad and a nuisance, disturbing their peace as we burst into insane laughter and bitch along the AS5 corridor and in our room as though we think no one can hear us. I think we’re the most enthu group in the ELL department. We’ve put up CNY decorations in our room. Gosh! I’ll really miss this bunch of peeps after graduation.

Oh well, I think I’ll end off with this song I finally got from Sheena. It’s “Choral Reflections on Amazing Grace”. It’s really pretty and I got the score. Would like to adapt it for the church but we’ll see. It’s kind of cheem for our standard. Jubilate people who read this, give me your opinion of the song!

Today I got my exam results out. Now, being a year 4, I’m super amused by all these enthu freshies who go to the extent of hacking the computer systems just to know their CAP. I’m like, ‘as if knowing your CAP early is gonna change things’. Jaded year 4 speaking. Anyway, I got my results. *drumroll*

Lookit! lookit! My best results ever! 2 As! Well, A minuses, but it’s still A. And my CAP jumped a grand total of 0.12. How happy am I?

Bit disappointed with Cybercrime, although I expected it since I didn’t pay any attention whatsoever after the mid sem break. I got my A (well A-) in Systemics (4880), so that’s good. Unexpected is my A- in ID. PT must like me or something. Had hoped for an A for LIP but I guess the final pulled me down? :p

Overall, I’m happy. Now I’m officially an Honours student. No longer a wannabe. Buahaha! No hope I think for me going into 2nd class honours unless a miracle happens and I get all A+ at the next exam (impossible!).

Wonder how my CAP will do if I S/U Cybercrime. Anyone know can please tell me?

Well well. First week back in school. It was alright I guess. I’m still kind of alive. Haha!

Monday had Discourse of Argumentation. Prof A is really really cute. Like Su Hui said, “A cross between Fantasia and Anita Sarawak.” So not what I expected of her with her sari clad official photo. Haha! The class was alright I guess. Not as small as I imagined so I suppose I’ll be ok here. The subject matter is quite interesting too.

Tuesday, Systemic Functional Grammar. Dr Wignell. Well, I don’t really know how to describe it. There’s a girl from China, from Chinese Linguistics coming to join the class and man, oh man, we thought she was going to blow her top when the lecturer made a tease about her name being similar to his wife’s name and she didn’t get it. Seriously, I don’t know why she’s here. Anyway, this class is in the comp labs and well, memories of Dr Ooi’s class comes floating back in. Haha! Super boring class. I don’t know what he’s talking about half the time. The material so far has all flown over my head. At least I’m lucky I seated myself at the comps facing away from his view so I can do ________ in class and hopefully he doesn’t see. He talks like he’s gonna drop dead at any minute. Strange way of talking. Like half wheezing sometimes. Oh, but he’s cool too. He’s got a big gold ear ring. Haha!

Went for Huai Zhi’s thing in the evening at SGH. I suppose it went ok. Can’t wait for the whole thing to be over and done with though. Haha!

Wednesday, my busy day (from a certain point of view). Interactional Discourse with Peter Tan. He’s cute. He was wearing this bright pink tie with little khaki rabbits on it. The class seems alright too. Don’t think it’ll be a problem.

After ID is Intro to Cybercrime. I think this is going to be my favourite lecture of the set. Still haven’t figured out why it’s in the maths department instead of the comp science department. But anyway, nice and safe lecture. Just sit and listen and then answer 2 tests and that’s it. And the lecturer was sort of interesting. He kept laughing at his own jokes which, after an hour of lame jokes, weren’t really funny anymore, but he still laughed at himself anyway. Haha.

Thursday day off but have to come in for Choir. The welcome tea was…as usual. Not so many people this time. Heard that it’s because there was very poor publicity this year as compared to last year. There was like only half of last year’s crowd. We sang Luk Luk. Badly. Haha! Went off key I think. Michelle showed them the Russia video of Luk Luk and some propaganda video Nick made. So that went kind of well. Mingled a little and that’s that.

Friday, Language, Ideology and Power. This module I’m seriously thinking of dropping because I don’t think I can cope with the assessment. Seriously. 20% for participation and a ONE HOUR long INDIVIDUAL presentation. I cannot do that. Every year I know my participation is zero and I am already struggling with 10 minute long group presentations that do nothing but regurgitate the reading. Sigh. This is an interesting module. I just don’t like the assessment. And I shouldn’t do stuff that will hurt the assessment because I can’t afford to let my CAP slip. So what do I do?!? I can drop the module and concentrate on my remaining four and then do six next semester. Or I can struggle through five and hope that somehow I find something to do with that one hour. SOMEONE ADVISE ME!!!!!

Then went to Toa Payoh to meet Mum for lunch. Macdonalds. Sadly, they stopped selling those Olympic glasses, which was the reason why I wanted to eat at Mac in the first place. Sigh. See!!! When I said I want to get one, I mean it. When you postpone, it goes. The McSpicy was super spicy. Quite shiok. Haha! But I think they could do well to tone it down just a little.

Then followed Mum up to Choa Chu Kang to meet the bro. I will not comment on that because it’ll be all bitching.

Then church for Assumption mass. Paul and Val’s choir singing. They sang “Hail Holy Queen”. Not quite the Sister Act version. Just the slow bits. Val sings real nice as usual. Oh and their son Paul Jr is cute!! No comment on mass either.

Mum spent the evening complaining about the maid as usual. I say just get rid of the damn maid already! Causing nothing but high blood pressure. By the way, what right does the maid have to comment on how much I eat? I know I’m fat. Does that give her the right to say things like that??! HUH!??! I hate my home life. I hate having people around all the time spying on me and judging me even in my own room. *pouts*

Anyway, I finally got round to watching ‘The Crucible’ that I got on my ipod. Watched it in what? 3 installments? On the way to and from school. Brings back memories that one does. Fond memories of SAC. Can’t believe it’s been so long since I was able to quote almost the entire book. Favourite line: “Mr Parris, you are a brainless man.” Very sad the final scene. I almost cried. Had to really struggle to hold back, being in a crowded bus and all. Beautifully made. I really wanted to slap Abigail Williams and the rest of those horrible girls. Looking for the clip so I can put it here. I remember I used to have the VCD until ______ borrowed it and lost it. I can’t find that in stores nowadays. It’s a really good movie. Go watch it if you can.

Got the NUSSU diary too. It’s so pretty this year. It’s hard cover. Hehe! I ‘improved’ it a little by sticking my own pictures in at the divider spots, instead of what they printed (which wasn’t very nice imo). So, yeah, I’m using my NUSSU diary now and my poor colourful pretty diary has been relegated to the cupboard. Sorry. I miss it though.

Anyway so, I don’t know if it’s been a good week. It’s been ok. Round about mid week I started feeling pretty woozy. There were times when the place felt like it’s spinning. Don’t know why. I associate that kind of feeling with exhaustion. (remember how I almost passed out at Mich’s aunt’s place when I was showering.) Yeah. I’ve been feeling pretty tired for some strange reason. Haven’t been doing anything seriously strenuous lately. Maybe it’s just cos it’s been a busy past few weeks and I haven’t had time to catch up before school began. (Now, dropping a module sounds very tempting indeed.) But the thing is, I do sleep. And lately I’ve been trying to sleep in the same day I woke up in so it’s not that I’m being night owl-ish. Hate my life.

So, I’m tired but I don’t feel like going to sleep just yet. Don’t know why. I just don’t wanna go to bed and sleep and end the day. Brings to mind this line I heard in “Finding Neverland”: You should never send children to bed. They always wake up a day older. Guess it’s something like that. It’s one of those times when you just want time to stop and to stand still. Getting old sucks.

Anyway, woke up at 6am today. Earliest I’ve gotten up in months. Was forced to wear my glasses cos when I put on my contacts, my left eye turned red and started to swell. Mum thought it was conjunctivitis. Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an infection. I really gotta stick to my resolution to take better care of my contacts. Of course, it’s much better than someone I heard who didn’t remove his lenses for a week. Geez. Probably fused to his eyeball by then. I always wondered what would happen if that happened. Would the person get perfect eyesight? Anyway, last day of school and I had to wear glasses. Strangely reminiscent of the first day of school when I had to wear glasses also. Btw, I hate wearing my glasses. Especially when it’s hot and I start to perspire. It’s annoying.

So, today had Psycholinguistics. Final exam of the semester. I guess it went well. My brain hadn’t completely woke up yet. I’m embarrassed to say that I fell asleep in the bus but luckily the phone rang and woke me before I started drooling. And I was really on the verge of that. *blush* Well, like I said, I think the exam went alright. Kind of a waste of time cos it was really just regurgitating the concepts and mostly paraphrasing the notes (open book exam). But…no high hopes for this one. I have no idea what I was writing. I’m sure Dr Oh’ll get a kick out of analysing the effects of language reproduction in a sleepy brain.

Hung out with Sumi in the evening. Was alright. Been a while since we really hung out and talked instead of having something to do. Ok, well, I kinda had something to do. The rumour was that Clay Aiken’s new CD would be released in SG today. So, I was down at HMV. Supposed to meet some of the CAS folks but…haha! I kinda chickened out. But I DID meet them later on. Anyway, nope the CD wasn’t released today although all signs pointed to tonight being the night. Probably tomorrow then I guess. Oh well, I can wait one more day. Anyway, the official release was supposed to be May 6 (US time I assume).

I’m not entirely sure what to do with myself now that the hols are here. Sure, I’ve got 6 choir pieces to learn and memorise and perfect by June 16. Sianz. I’d like to spend some time doing nothing at all. Not that that’s an alien concept to me. I’ve been doing that for a while now. But now I can spend some guilt free time. When the results come out, and I see if I do honours, then I’ll probably go pull out the Syntax textbook and read up on that.

Well, nothing new except the usual wish that my imaginary boyfriend would appear for real and give me a hug and some loving. Sucks being single and romantic. Haha!

Well, I’m almost done with the exams. Only one more to go. Grammaticalisation was this close to being a nightmare. Omg. I think I did ok with definitions and I crapped up the 2 short essays. But I think I’d lose a lot of marks when it comes to having to respond to the data. Cos there was quite a few times when I looked at it and either I can’t put it into words or I just have no idea what the freak it’s supposed to be illustrating. Yeah. So, I don’t have too high hopes for this subject. Hopefully I can scrape a pass. Haha!

Cinematic discourse went quite well I think. It was strange though. He started the multiple choice half hour into the start of the exam, cos he wanted to make sure that everyone had arrived before doing it (cos it had some multimedia that had to be viewed in order to answer the questions). Yeah, so we spent the first half hour doing the essays part (I was planning and almost started writing) and then he suddenly told us all to come forward and collect our handsets for the multiple choice. Strange thing to do in an exam. And then after that section, he told us all to come forward and return the handsets too. You’d have thought that they’d distribute the sets before the start of the exam and then collect it at the end, so as to minimise movement during. But nope. It was quite fun actually. I think I’d do ok in this module.

Then there was JS. 50MCQs. I think it went quite well. Sure, there were questions that I couldn’t answer, such as, who was the two greatest Japanese writers in the modern era. Am I supposed to know that? Isn’t that kind of a judgment question? Anyway, I put down the two that the lecturer seemed to talk about most and whose names I know. Lol! Finished that one early and left an hour into the exam.

Ok. I’d like to talk some more but I don’t know what else to talk about. Gotta go and revise for Psycholinguistics today. But I’m not too worried about that. Haha! Kk. Bye.

Well, just got back from my first ever Jazz concert. Eng Kwang’s Jazz band was performing tonight at the UCC Theatre. It was fun! Haha! Not quite the kind of jazz I was expecting (loungey mellow sleepy music). Nope. Apparently jazz covers a lot of other genres of music such as the big band, swing, bossa nova, samba and even a bit of the motown genre. Geez, there was this part where this vocalist girl came out and did an Arethra Franklin medley. OMG!!!!! Wonderful pipes this girl has. Oh and the male MC came out and sang Jailhouse Rock. Yup Elvis! That was cool! He was dancing all over the stage. Love what they did with the theatre ambience too. Smoky with lots of cool lighting. They really played with the lighting.

On the whole, yup. Quite a fun evening.

And apparently Eng Kwang is the president of the Jazz Band. Lol! He failed to mention that when I asked if he was in the committee. Haha!

Don’t know what else to say. Hehe! Oh yeah, Eng Kwang got me real good seat. L1, practically the middle row of the theatre but in the corner, but that suited me fine cos I was by myself. And, jazz band was kinda smart to book the theatre instead of the hall cos the theatre was like 90% full and made the audience turn-out look good.

Yup. That’s all.