thank you for the poetry kelly, it was good and nice. (use of simple words, monosyllabic) (sentence structure places emphasis on thank you)

evidently i am getting into the pract crit mood already.

yes hmv was fruitful, thank you for asking. wiggy was saved from an untimely death in the heeren by pj harvey, who is quite hard to describe since i can't claim to listen to many female singers. best i can come up with is a bitchier tori amos, with guitar instead of piano, a heavier rock feel. tori amos still rules songwriting tho.

got london calling by the clash, and a grand don't come free by the streets. the latter prods posterior! brit yobs yammering away in annoyingly anglo accents- the alliteration and assonance conveys and emphasises the author's sentiment that this is a damn good album! it's filthy lewd fun. very vulgar. i haven't cracked open the clash but it's another happily poseur album. you will find me pottering after the doors next. grin.

anyhow i so did not study for chinese. i had two hours worth of chinese tuition but a good half hour was spent falling asleep over a cloze passage. which i got 2/10 for. i dread the compre. ugh. but strangely (masochistically?) i enjoy the summary.

she's seventeen.
she's 1.8m tall.
she has a pretty face.
she played on centre court last night and knocked out ai sugiyama (who happens to be my favourite player on the women's tour).
she gets to skip sociology exams.

what more could she ask for??
gah. some people just have it good.


and yeah i'm still here. claudia didn't do anything to me. she just did some major damage to her pile of dough for the week.

cryonics, i think.

anyway!!

my french teacher has cancelled class on friday! =D
(he says that nobody went on monday, so...)

haha i want to go book shopping! i shall scout around for fleur adcock poetry!
first loves haha. (happy) and i shall get my sister a bday present.

that is, if math isn't too depressing...

*

anyway here is adcock poetry because (some) poetry makes (some) people happy.


Things

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse
and worse.


Happy Ending

After they had not made love
she pulled the sheet up over her eyes
until he was unbottoning his shirt:
not shyness for their bodies-those
they had willingly displayed-but a frail
endeavour to apologise.

Later, though, drawn together by
a distaste for such 'untidy ends'
they agreed to meet again; whereupon
they giggled, reminisced, held hands
as though what they had made was love-
and not that happier outcome, friends.


Revision

It has to be learned afresh
every new start or every season,
revised like the languages that faltered
after I left school or when I stopped
going every year to Italy. Or
like how to float on my back, swimming,
not swimming, ears full of sea-water;
like the taste of the wine at first communion
(because each communion is the first);
like dancing and how to ride a horse -
can I still? Do I still want to?

The sun is on the leaves again;
birds are making rather special noises;
and I can see for miles and miles
even with my eyes closed.

So yes: teach it to me again.

my wrath is still not appeased by the rant on my blog! i blame physiological imbalances, but regardless, a bad album is something i would not wish upon my deadliest enemy. well actually, not true, i did lend Derrick my Room On Fire after all. [/sarcasm] anyhow, i shall go out and get either postal service or clash on saturday, whenever i'm free. nurgh. the bad-album funk is getting to me, evidently.

you mean they didn't return your phone?
because i got a call from your phone on, like, friday or saturday or something asking whose number the caller-id was showing. actually it was probably saturday... when did cap end?
ok whatever.
useless questions because i'm feeling useless. back to germany it is.

He knelt beside her pillow, in the dead watch of the night,
And he heard her gentle breathing, but her face was still and white,
And on her poor, wan cheek a tear told how the heart can weep,
And he said, "My love was weary--God bless her! she's asleep."

He knelt beside her gravestone in the shuddering autumn night,
And he heard the dry grass rustle, and his face was thin and white,
And through his heart the tremor ran of grief that cannot weep,
And he said, "My love was weary--God bless her! she's asleep."

-- in memoriam.

i am eating white chocolate with ground coffee in, from italy. 3 things i need to tell the class.

1) at east coast today, i passed a Wiggy restaurant and grill. my dad drove past it twice (once avoiding a jam and second going home) imagine my bout of laughter and my family's ensuing perplexity.

2) the cap closing was a wonderful wonderful way to spend a sat morning.. kelly and yvonne's film, insomnia; which very aptly had shots of kelly attempting to fall asleep by counting sheep, then deciding she couldn't take it anymore and bouncing up to mug. =D shoojee's puppetry, which was (i'm sorry dearie) inane, but when i heard the sheep bleating.. nyahaha unmistakable! daniel's performance in kabuki as a samurai had the audience yelling at one point, "but daniel's so hot!". HAHAHAHA. ask him about it.

3) RMUN!!! here is our a13a updated personnel list.
myself- asst secretary-general
kitson- opening ceremony emcee
aparna- courier, sc
ruth- courier, sc
vivien- aide, sc (you don't come v often, but your name is on the list...)
randy- tech officer, sc (who said yes really fast when i asked! =D need more av people!)
tsz san- tech officer, ga
derrick- press secretary, press corps
kelly- asst press secretary, press corps (who also agreed despite sounding rather stoned! or maybe coz she was...)
vaish- moderator, ecosoc
soph- aide, usher i/c
that's 11 count em 11 people who will be excused early on wed! come on, the other 9? grace, yiting, responsible darlings? =D hey 1a-ers, 1b-ers and in fact rj-ers! if you see this and are interested in helping out please contact some hissoc person and ask them to put you in touch with me! we have most of the manpower we need tho, and if you're photog or av you'll be especially welcome.

a little change to the formatting, so it's clearer who's posting and about what. you can title your posts now. =)

maybe we should get 1a a brown template too, then we'll all have matching class blog templates, haha.

anyhow, i must commemorate this moment, or rather last night! shoojee+kelly at cap dinner- shoojee was his normal self i.e. male refusal to don a tie, but kelly! in a pretty pink tube dress...! laughs. i've never seen you in such girly attire and it -was- very girly, it had white floral outlines and a flary skirt. [applauds kelly] ian and i, rejected sods we are, were adopted into the rj cappers photo. thanks darlings! =D

shoujie and daniel were somehow inducted into the fruit and vegetable cult. seriously ridiculous songs. the oxymoron intended. grin. anyhow shoojee's a violin pro! they shd have put you in front of the one mike. =P the performance was great, and hilarious. the best of the evening!

ahh. who wants to help out for RMUN?
just a quick rundown of people in our class and their duties:
myself- director, security council
kitson- moderator, sc
aparna- courier, sc
ruth- technical officer, sc (don't worry, it just means you run and go find help if needed)
vivien- aide, sc (you don't come v often, but your name is on the list...)
tsz san- media officer, secretariat
derrick- press secretary, press corps
vaish- moderator, ecosoc
soph- welfare officer (i.e. deal with food) or aide, depends

see! so many people in our class are helping out. why?
the conference starts at 1 on wed, so you'll probably get to miss econs lect and maybe more! also, you get 1 e point for helping out. irresistable offer! msg me if you want to help.

rearranged all the pix onto shutterfly - viv was right; it's more user-friendly.
plus i added pix taken in england before and after the lit trip.
with captions (for some of them).
cheers.

part 1
part 2
part 3
other photos

hey. i just realised that you can't view the fullsize photos on clubphotos unless you have paid membership.
so those who, for some reason, want the 1024x768 photos pls tell me. for the moment i'll probably just send it to you over msn or something, but come start of term i'll try to get someone to help me burn copies of the cd. cheers.

OMFG! derrick, some of the photos are WHOAHH!!! when i told you stock.xchng earlier, i was kidding, but some of the stuff there is really sxc standard. i want to use them for templates! [runs around gawking at the photos] oh my god. i'm serious about the template btw.

yayyy i have just scored a glass of white wine- canadian icewine to be exact. canadian alcohol is not half bad after all! grin.

VIVIEN!!! missed you toooo darling! family doctor and pet cow, haha. and where is choon?? i still haven't seen her around! mark posted on his blog. (must invite him to this, yes.) and ruth too! gahhh.

derrick- if you've lost your faith in love and music then the end won't be long. welcome to the libertines. grin.

YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!
:)
we MISS U MUCHIE MUCHIESSSS


well at least I did :)
anws must ANNOUNCE!
my family has been EXTENDED!!!
:) :) :) :) :)

shooj : my husbandddddd!
ruthie: my mother in law
choon: my TWINNIE!!!!
aps: my JIEJIE :)
BerNice: my MEIMEI, sheep, cow. whatever. also potential future wife for kitson????? :)
Derrick, Thong, Shooj: Family friends on the surface...
BerNasty: Family Doctor
Kitson: Family Pet Cow!

oh and theres complication with Choon who is also shooj's MEIMEI!
because me n choon n aps were orphaned at a young age
sobs
and ruth only adopted CHOON
thereby tragically seperating us!
which makes choon's position highly complicated
hahahahhahahahaha :)

CHEERS people! MUACKS!

hello everyone! feels good to be back to be reassimilated into the endless flow that is the mundane life of a singaporean student. ah well.


gah depression is setting in.

anyway i'm uploading the photos i took in england onto the net.
url: here.

if you want the cd with all the images then tell me, i'll probably pass it to you for you to burn or something.

happy viewing. comments welcome.

"hm. hm. 1b is a Private class, thasswhy. the seductive veil of mystery and all, y'know. oh, well. " hahahahah i like! i like! haha... oh dat was by bao en~ in case u guys dun read the 1b blog.

Something else stolen form 1b in case sum if u havent been there.
Note: west of sarawak means NOT in sarawak. heh.
------------------------------------------------------------
(written for Zai Kuning at the performance art event, 'Duet Dua', at the Substation)


There is a place in the west of Sarawak which is called Nonok.


I looked it up on the Internet. I couldn't find much information on it except its annual rainfall, longitude and latitude.


I think Nonok is a very nice word. I'd like you to say the word aloud with me. No-nok. I know some of you don't know how to handle the 'k'. Some of you will say no-knock. That is wrong. Nonok is a very delicate word. The 'k' is not so aggressive. It's very subtle. The 'k' is almost not there. But it's there. Gentle. Like a bubble of spit bursting. Like a sigh.


Because otherwise it will be called Nono. Let me touch your Nono. What do you think the girl will reply? Can I put my finger in your Nono? You've given her an answer before she has a chance to consider your offer.


But Nonok. I can't help it, I really like the word. So you will hear me saying it quite often. The 'k' you almost can't hear. So sly. So shy.


I want to tell you a story. When Sang Nila first stepped on the island of Temasek, the first thing he saw was a woman. She had just finished bathing in the river, and was lying on the bank. She was totally naked. Furthermore, she was spreading her legs, because it was a custom for young women to expose their nonok to the sun. In the experience of the people of Temasek, things exposed to the sun tend to last longer. Experiments had been done with fish, prawns and shrimp. So why not the nonok too, especially since it did not smell very different from many things that came from the sea?


Our good friend Sang Nila was a virgin. He had never seen a naked woman in his life. He knew how to use a bow and arrow, how to tie the 12 pleats to fasten his royal sarong, how to navigate the royal ship. But he had led a protected palace life, and probably could not tell the difference between a nonok and a porcupine. So when he saw the woman's nonok winking in the sun, the lips parted slightly, moist with both the river water and its own secret secretions, he pointed at it and asked, "Bendaharam, tell me, what is that thing? I have never seen anything like it in my entire life."


"Which one, your Majesty?" asked the Bendaharam.


"That thing there, with the red body and the black mane."


"Your Majesty, that thing you are pointing at, is a nonok."


If you read accounts of Sang Nila's landing on Temasek, the records always say that he saw an animal with a red body and black mane. Now, I ask you, does that sound like a lion to you? A lion has a yellow body and an orange mane. Even primary school kids will use those colours when they are drawing lions. The only red thing I know with a black mane surrounding it is the beautiful nonok. I can only come to the conclusion that someone censored our real history, and that Sang Nila actually saw a nonok when he set foot here.


I think we would be a very different people if we lived in a country called Nonok. Imagine that. "Uniquely Nonok". That is something really unique. Doesn't the 'nique' go with the 'nok'? In fact, that's how the 'nok' should be pronounced: as 'noque'. Nonoque. Sounds French, doesn't it? I always knew the word had a touch of class.


We will have such exciting tourist destinations like the Nonok Science Centre, the Nonok History Museum and the Nonok Discovery Centre. Tourists will queue up to take a flight on our world-famous Nonok Airlines, to be served first class champagne and caviar by the charming Nonok Girl. I cannot even start to imagine how a Nonok Girl opens the champagne bottle, right in front of you.


Every year, we will send our Miss Nonok to the Miss Universe competition. She will not have a national costume. In fact, she will not wear any costume at all. For variation, maybe one year she will appear shaved, and the next year extra bushy.


We will have a Repubic of Nonok Navy and a Nonok Air Force to protect our beloved Nonok from our neighbours. Malaysian and Indonesian forces are to be feared, and newspapers will always print stories about their desire to rape us. We will keep their hard, angry, jealous cocks away from our borders. But we do welcome other cocks from other places, like the US, Europe and Japan. For these, we will willingly spread. Please Uncle Sam, please Hello Kitty, come and press my little red dot. Tickle it, rub it, nibble it, lick it, bite it. Oh my Nonok!


Instead of one National Day, we will have a Nonok Day, one for each month. 12 Nonok Days. Same time each month. Employers will get grumpy and some politicians will lose their temper because of work hours that are lost. But these are some of the inevitable symptoms of celebrating Nonok Day. On that special day, we will sing songs like 'We Are Nonok' and 'Stand Up For Nonok'.


If only this country we are standing on right now is called Nonok, instead of Singapore. I don't think it's impossible. I mean, there's already a Nonok in Sarawak. Maybe we can call that Nonok Kecik, and we can call our country Nonok Besar. For once, we'll be considered big. And I will definitely become more patriotic. Because I don't think I will die for a country, but if you ask me if I will die for Nonok, I will say without any shame, Oh Yesyes!

Alfian Saat

i was going to stay resolutely offline today, but the return of the lit trippers and their subsequent blogging has proved too grrrreat a temptation! anyhow I MISSED YOU ALL SOO MUCH!! ahh uk sounds great. =D we made too many jokes about chairs and captains frolicking in uk, i think. grin. i hope you lot got something for me! i probably have souvenirs of singlehood life. like, hmm... receipts from supermarkets and such. =P you might not want the leftover food tho. grin.

shoojee- the blueblack lump going off for cap on monday. honestly, i don't know what to feel more sorry for, the blueblackness or the going-for-cap-without-studying-and-jetlagged bit. =P you lucky twit.

why is weeghee only coming back later?!?!?! he needs to be the press secretary for rmun! no one else knows what the hell press corps is like! other than a black hole that sucks yoru extra delegate in, after which you never see them for the duration of the conference. paH! not to mention. PW!!

WELCOME BACK EVERYONE! Tho I bet you'd rather not be back. LoL

HELLO WE ARE BACK!!!
Except for wiggy who is coming later, I do not know when, and whom I did not say bye to because I was in the shower. Damn! And he holds my Guy Ritchie collection. Damn! I -am- an idiot.

HI HO HI HO! MAKE WAY FOR COMPLIMENTS.

From Dan's blog:

"...Heh...the Texprog group is an eclectic mix, though not as interesting a mix as the Pre U Sem group. Within RJ, the deviations between people aren't very great, relatively speaking...the diversity that made Pre U Sem work so well can't be reproduced in RJ, though 13A can claim to come quite close..."

heeheehee... go round fishing for compliments... me so shameless. LoL and Kitson if you DARE say it's becoz we're all ugly.... RAGHRAGHASHKFLMJG"RCKOJFSNMKL!!!!!!!!! :)

well, soph, you did say the last template made you rather edgy- so i made a nice placid one this time round, instead of the trashy red thing we used to have.

and was that remark about a hist-lit section serious? i don't really feel up to a round of coding -that- complex. gah. i like the lily on this template. google image search. oh bao kill me for giving in to the inline scroll temptation.

one of my favouritest persons in that class (besides ben and all those I actually know) is shirin coz of a reason I cannot mention. *grin* no no, really, ntg that is clandestine but.. haha, better not to say. (NO REALLY I'm okay). And that bernice with long hair coz she's pretty and lemme see, mark tan talked to me once and din bite but din talk to me after that but i think he cld be okay coz he din bite. oh wait! I forgot (HOW CLD I!!) I like Bao En coz she's a very good chicken. haha and coz she seems to be our dear kel sabuuun's goooood friend. why am i doing a commentary on their class? :\ well I'm supposed to be doing history u see..... :\ and as u can imagine.. LoL..

oh dis is very funny.

"anyway.. citizens of 1a01b i beseech you to make a concerted effort to breach the gender divide. now don't you dare start shaking your heads. you do... " hahahha... so kewt. LoL.. dat picture of viv running round whacking shoojee with a file just flashed cross me mind.

talking to benuel now... about kitson leaving and he says "u better get used to it. you lose people all the time. you think you have them but they're gone emotionally. so treasure what you have." okay, this is no way implies that we should treasure kitson but yess... sigh. I hope u guys always remain as refreshing and excited about life as u sometimes seem now!

Anyway, this has beena very silly and long post. have wasted 1 1/2 hours online so I shall go start history now. c ya~

HAPPY ANNOUNCEMENT. BEN-UEL says the ib blog isn't a national secret after all. So go invade their privary. oooohhh... I'm being so insensitive. anyway, they linked us. I dun think they'll mind us linking them. b-sides, maybe they're not as hostile n foreign as they look. oooohhhh.... another provocative post. heh.

http://fitfully.blogspot.com

i'm quite puzzled. the 1b blog has been in existence for a goodly two months, and is active- so why do we not know of its existence? gleefully left an overtly long tag in a rabid 3am display of extra-ness.

i haven't linked it. presumably, a couple of months of seeming-bloglessness must be for a reason. ask a 1ber for the address.

derrick, i really haven't made a good template since i made yours. mel's was simple and generic. ian's was better, but ah not quite.

i need to fix my strokes template on mozilla. and aiyah. i'm damned stoned. why am i up? oh yeah listening to amazon music samples and pseudo shopping. then i went to read xiaxue at 3am. so now i sound like xiaxue also! who wants photoshopping.

i started typing a tag in response to vaish's post but i realised what i wanted to say wouldn't have fit in just a tag... grin.

factory outlets!! like in malaysia, only, indian factory outlets. think about it. made in malaysia, vs made in india. there must be. so. many. more. in. india. gah!!! i wanna go to india now!

speaking of factories and such like, a friend got me a purple-ly gold skirt from thailand. and he called me twice on my hp while doing it to check colour, so my parents might not be too pleased when they see the next bill. uh, along with the send-a-coke charges too. anyhow, apparantly, shopping in chiangmai's like shopping in holland v- only a quarter of the price. simply because the stuff you get in holland v is the end of one long long supply chain that has its roots in none other than thailand. so all those wraparound skirts, all those cute shorts and tops? a quarter the price in chiangmai. grin. pashminas are about 1000 baht, or $60 thereabouts. how cool is that.

so like i said we should have a regional trip after the A levels too. kind of like a cheapskate version of the european one la. oh we girls can go on it, whiel the boys go for ns, how's that. =P

kelly! *hugg* gosh spain sounds fantastic. oppositional forces! oh -that's- what the guide said at one of the temples, only he said it in tamil. (shhh.) like any of you would know if someone said oppositional forces in mandarin. :S im speaking a LOT more tamil here than im used to - and i've picked up fragments of hindi! and not just extensive revision of my badwords vocabulary, but proper hindi. and i can understand almost all conversations in hindi now. yayyy =) im high because i just got out of confinement. dont ask. walked around the whole house touching everything and screaming with delight when noone said a thing.

i have pictures! saw the gateway of india yesterday, its quite gorgeous, but even more so is taj intercontinental, the oh-so-glitzy hotel. i had a gooodddd time :D i cant believe im leaving on wednesday, i have so much shopping left undone! get this: we're driving back yesterday, and i see fila, nike, reebok and adidas in a row, having sales of SIXTY PERCENT off!!! factory outlets!!! one week i've been on this island and noone told me there were factory outlets here *grumble* and what does my mum say? "you've done enough shopping". im quite worried for her, how can shopping ever be over?! and i sooo wanted to watch this lesbian movie that's come out, girlfriend - fat chance of them releasing it in singapore. but there's noone to go with cos my mum wouldnt be caught dead watching it and my cousins still dont know what the word means. so there you have it =S

i think im rambling. yes. most definitely rambling.

ah kels you're back! [hugs kelly] missed you darling!

hello me duckies i am back! =D

and i have a picture of octavius caesar!

and spain was full of old architecture and that kind of thing.
the buildings were fantastic. huge and ancient roman aqueducts held up by oppositional forces.
(okay i made up the oppositional forces bit. but they didn't use cement/ any gluing kind of thing. physics.)
and in every city and major town they've got these royal palaces and magnificent churches, which are now museums or similar.
and the flowers were amazing--we saw fields and fields of poppies
and then by the roadside there were all these purple/ yellow/ white/ blue weedy things,
and the buildings had balconies that were spilling over with flowers.

-_- now i have the back-from-holiday-blues.
hope y'all will hurry and come back. wish we schooled in madrid.

V Festival

derrick, one day we must go for this. i saw the lineup and cried.

6 more days till you all get back...

and static prevails.
(no not an intentional jimmy eats world ref. just an apt phrase.)

anyhow those not in uk are now in pre u sem and as a result, i haven't had much of a life apart from entertaining myself with the leadership challenge model, the dandy warhols and the strokes. her life was saved by rock and roll nurghfpoot.

aye... wonderinng what you all are up to in uk. ogling fit brit boys? laughs. ahh how lucky you all are.

melancholy.

yeahhhhh sunday morning, velvet underground.

velvet undergrrrrrrround. purrs.

haha julian casablancas is not lou reed.

eh everybody get souvineers for everybody else! then we'll have souvineers fro italy, spain, uk, india and everywhere else! yay!

i type this in bombay and have just returned from a bangle ceremony. being married (pregnant in particular) involves a LOT of rituals. i sort-of miss you guys, in that i dont wish i was there, but that you were here =) it's been quite great so far, i hope it keeps up. OH and i got this gorgeous pink top i must show a fellow pinkie, it's so pretty!!! *time for guys to tune out* grin. hope you uk-trippers are having a great time too, buy souvenirs! i've already bought all of mine, though i dont know if i'll have the heart to part with them when it comes down to the crunch. so pretty! and as for the rest of the globe-trotters, same goes =) class party when everyone gets back!

oh, and i just realised how screwed i am for cts. somehow im having a hard time caring =P though really, i should right.

Evil Shoojee! How can you not aid your dear friend in his holiday mugging???

Anyway, my darlings, my phone number has changed!
In case some of you didn't get the message, my new number is 98009902. Much easier to remember than the old one, if a little hotline-ish sounding.

this blog felt lonelyyy- so i've toddled down to post. at this inane hour. bah i'm going to miss you all when you trot off to uk. [looks sad] the single's life awaits tho- family going to malaysia for a week odd and i'm probably not going, unless a desperate urge grabs me by the hair to go shopping or illegal-products-ing.

heh i am a strokes fangirl. [swans around fangirling] please bring back a rock star from uk for me, girls. surely you can stow him away in the luggage? or derrick you should kidnap one, just to go with the collection of cds. although it just struck me- got vinyl? oh no but derrick's there already. awww.