Vivien ♀ Twenty one (21) English Literature Major ✎ A Gleek ♬ I love you like a love song

I really wanted to go to White Sands for the air-con; I changed, and was packing my bag stuff, until I thought of going downstairs in the sultry heat and waiting for the bus to come and walking to the mall from the interchange in the hellish weather, which seemed like too much work for air-con. Plus, I've got to like, move and stuff. So I changed back into my at home hobo clothes (the Year 5 camp tee which has stretched beyond what was thought possible and FBTs) and now I'm going to train my team in White until the sun sets.

Don't mind the weird mistakes, I typed this on my iPod and you all know how spastic the autocorrect is sometimes.

I was planning to go on an unfriending spree on Facebook, because nobody really has 300+ friends and some of the things people post up there really bore me to hell (for example, anything which concerns Korean popstars). It's not like I post anything interesting, but I think it's really lame to have "friends" on Facebook you really don't care about at all.

Then I realised that would mean sifting through names and looking at their profiles to see if they posted anything of interest, which seems too much like hard work.

I was watching the short speeches given by the various GE nominees on TV for want of something better to do, and also because I was mildly interested. Basically people crowded around while PAP people shouted: "MAJULAH PAP! MAJULAH SINGAPURA!", while the opposition parties said things like: "WE WILL MAKE THEM ACCOUNT!" (my God I hate accounting! Remember Green Giraffe?). All the while the part of the crowd not supporting PAP booed and jeered whenever the PAP speakers came up. I'm no PAP supporter, but isn't that rather childish and makes the entire thing seem like a farce? If you want serious debate and you wish for your party to be taken seriously you shouldn't resort to such childish methods right?

Oh but I still think the shouting of "KATE SPADE! KATE SPADE! KATE SPADE!" when Tin Pei Ling came out was rather funny.

I think it's quite progressive that the opposition parties have gained so much support, so much so that almost all the constituencies are being contested this year. The only thing I remember from the last GE was finding the condom in my parent's toilet boil, a psychologically traumatising event which I have not quite recovered from, and probably never will. And fortune cookies.

Anyway the whole Kate Spade thing? And how she defended herself by saying that it was a gift from her nouveau-riche husband (just kidding, I don't know his status. He may be old money for all I know)? Honestly it's not a matter of whether you bought it or he gave it to you, it's the whole affair of publicly posting a picture of you posing with the bag, a symbol of affluence, luxury and detachment from the middle/lower-classes, and then contesting for the job of an MP. I'm not condemning owning luxury goods, because hey, I do dream of owning Gucci bags one day (actually, no, I don't give a fuck about branded bags), but you have to agree, the picture is in bad taste when you consider how she says she is concerned with the rights of poorer Singaporeans.

Junli and Peixin both posted this on Facebook:

30 April 2007

Is this the start of Singapore’s decline?
Article and open letter to our government by an ex-journalist

Yeo Toon Joo, Peter, 61
Ex-news editor Straits Times
Ex-assistant editor New Nation
Ex-secretary general Singapore National Union of Journalists
Ex-owner of a public relations company and broadcast PR firm
Hon. Fellow, Institute of Public Relations of Singapore


If the People’s Action Party were to call a general election now, chances are it would lose a good number of seats to the opposition, that is, if you could find able candidates to join the opposition.

If certain changes do not take place in the ruling party’s style of government, in time to come the PAP could lose power. That would be a shame, a tragedy for Singapore. But so strong has been the political backlash, and so great the people’s outrage, over the government’s widely unpopular decision and persistence to reward its cabinet ministers such handsome pay increases.

Dissenting and disapproving views over the latest round of ministerial pay hike have been eloquently articulated, often sneeringly so, but confined mainly to mass emailing and internet postings. The latest salary revision will by next year nearly double each minister’s current remuneration, and bring it on average to nearly three times that of US President George Bush’s, five times in the case of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s.

Minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew had introduced in 1994 his formula of pegging ministerial salaries to 80 per cent of that of the top earners in six professions and businesses in Singapore. It gives Singapore the unique status of having the world’s highest paid political leaders. Their individual salaries surpass by far those of leaders of the world’s largest and most successful economies.

MM Lee’s reasons were that unless he paid top dollar for the best brains he would not be able to attract good and talented people to serve as leaders of the country, retain their services, or keep them above corruption.

Problem is: he had been, for a long time now, looking for leaders in the wrong places, and following a policy that discourages emergence of potential ones. Some who entered the political fray had come a cropper. Not a few have served long terms of incarceration for their political beliefs or activities, others have had to flee the country to live (or die) in exile abroad.

Someone had not so many years back said that the best way to corrupt a person is to feed him so well you enslave him (did MM Lee say that?).

Ironically then, in his effort to ensure that his leaders remain above corruption, he might have bought their souls.

From the relatively brief and muted parliament debate over this burning issue, there seems to be some cracks within the ruling party’s own ranks. However mildly aired, there is, for sure, disquiet and differences of opinion among some PAP members of parliament. Still, what man of sound mind in Singapore would argue against being given a personal pay rise that first jacks up his annual salary to around $1 million and soon to nearly $2 million?

Feed them so well, they will never rebel.

I love my Singapore, and am thankful for the remarkable progress and prosperity it has achieved through the efforts of a stable and good government. I am immensely grateful, too, to the group of people who gave their all for the country in the pre-independence 1950s and our early days of nationhood.

I remain a loyal Singaporean who once had aspirations to serve our country, and did it initially (1960s and early 1970s) as a newspaper journalist, and through the Singapore National Union of Journalists and the National Trades Union Congress, of which SNUJ was affiliate.

I will carry to my grave, with great personal satisfaction, the memory of having been part of the team that pulled off the first successful workers’ strike against a penny-pinching, ill-managed, callous Straits Times Group of Newspapers.

That industrial action, over the Christmas period of 1971, resulted in a fairer deal for several thousands of its employees in Malaysia and Singapore. It was a time of baptism under fire for my SNUJ colleagues and me. Some of us could have lost our jobs with no prospect of working for another English language newspaper in Singapore as there was none other.

The late Mr C V Devan Nair, leader of the National Trades Union Congress and later President of Singapore, was one of my role models and idols then. He had encouraged me as a union leader by helping to open up and broaden my mind.

In one of our several intimate conversations he challenged me to join the PAP. Later, someone suggested I joined an opposition party. But partisan politics was not my cup of tea, more so as I was mindful of the dangerous waters I would be plunging into. I also had little desire for such public prominence.

Also, and alas, any zeal for committing further to community or national leadership was quickly doused by a series of factors: one was my loss of faith in the Straits Times Group as an honest news organization. Mr Lee Kuan Yew helped put paid to it by his public parading and glorification of people who were steeped in scholarship, and humiliation of those who were not.

MM Lee, in searching for a second and then third generation of leaders, started looking for them first in academia (we know how it failed) and then to those who were government scholars.

At the same time we saw the hasty and, perhaps, premature retirement of our earlier PAP political leaders who had fire in their bellies but no multiple mortar boards on their head.

The harsh treatment of those with dissenting views, and slapping down of those brazen enough to join battle with the PAP and MM Lee at the hustings, quickly scared off those who thought they had something to offer to the country, but not necessarily as part of the PAP political apparatus.

Those with divergent, though not necessarily subversive, views were unmercifully smacked down. Others, seduced by the comforts and affluence their talents and training earned them in a prospering society (feed them so well they will never rebel), soon lost their idealism and passion for political sacrifice. It made political engagement not only a perilous pursuit but a wanton risk of losing all they had amassed materially, plus their personal freedom.

A PAP apologist recently condemned me for criticizing the incredible pay hikes for our cabinet leaders that has no precedent or matching model anywhere in the world.

“You can only criticize, but what’s your solution?”

I believe I have something by way of solution, or at least an alternative view to what Mr Lee Kuan Yew insists is the only way to attract and nurture the right political leaders:

-Look for our future leaders not just among our scholastically successful Singaporeans; academic excellence does not equate with effective leadership. This quality might even disqualify a person from leadership.

-Look for people with a good and stout heart, undying love for Singapore and his/her fellowmen, and a burning desire to serve even at huge personal sacrifice – people with compassion, fire in their belly, grit in their gut, and steel in their back.

-Look for those who possess and exhibit the many other qualities of leadership. A yen for scholarship (at government’s expense) alone is a poor prerequisite of leadership. Encouraging scholarship of our bright students through the lure of career and financial success could produce either more scholarship bond breakers or those who will work only for lucre (for those are the values you promote).

-If you encourage our government scholars to cherish high income, in a society exhorted to worship financial success, you will have to pay big bucks to get them to join your PAP ministerial ranks – definitely not the people you need or want to lead our country and inspire our countrymen.

-Rethink government policy, enunciated by MM Lee Kuan Yew, of encouraging potential leaders to chart their paths through the Armed Forces (with an SAF scholarship), then a stint in the civil service, a short spell in the private sector, and then to the PAP cabinet. You produce less open minded people who might possess a one-dimensional perspective of the world, a common mind set. Such a policy deprives you the services and creativity swimming so abundantly in the vast reservoir of talents out there in the real world. The military promotes obedience, viz. “Charge of the Light Brigade”. You could end up with people paid well enough and sufficiently smart either to not charge with you – or charge blindly even when good sense tells them they should not.

-By all means encourage elitism but do not ridicule those who have interests and talents that are not skewed towards pursuit of a PhD. I cite one example of how MM Lee a few elections ago disparagingly compared the not as impressive academic achievements of our loyal opposition member, Mr Chiam See Tong, to those of his bright young submissive scholars.

-Do not intimidate or beat down all dissenters or those with alternative views, but judge them on their integrity, and do not swamp and swallow up those with potential for leadership into the PAP and high ministerial salaries. You end up with many ‘yes’ men.

-Open up the minds of Singaporeans by not controlling so rigidly the flow of information about their own country, whatever its flaws and foibles.

-Put in place committed, honest, mature and trained journalists over your mass media organizations, people with a feel for the ground and popular feeling, people trained in journalism (not just in academia) and bold enough to launch investigative journalistic enquiry that aid thinking and intelligent decision making by Singapore’s people. If you find them do not stifle them. NOTE: such control of the press deprives you of an essential source of accurate feedback, and surrounds you with sycophantic counsel akin to that of the king with no clothes. The current mass media situation has encouraged a flourishing of emailing and postings on cyber space; they contain useful information as well as misinformation and disinformation, including ranting by irresponsible people.

-Let MM Lee’s quest for self-renewal verily proceed. He should let the people he personally chose or vetted, take over fully. Let them err, let them rule (when is the appropriate time for this to happen?). MM Lee did not have a mentor to minister to him and his colleagues in the tumultuous days of pre- and early post-independence – and did not flounder.

I am no political scientist, nor your scholastic type. But I have not been disabled from seeing another view to tackling our problem: there is no lack of leaders, only a lack of desire. Perhaps, there is a hesitation prompted by what is called fear.

We, in our immensely successful Singapore, owe much to MM Lee and his colleagues. There are many Singaporeans who want to cherish his legacy.

If the current controversy fuels more of the dangerous and divergent views and anti-government sentiments (even hatred) that have surfaced among our Singapore population, our remarkable success as a country could prove ephemeral. Singapore, especially with the Government’s now liberal approach to matters of morality, could be another sad story of the decline and fall of a fledgling civilization. If that happens, we would, as the late Mr G G Thompson, director of the Singapore Political Study Centre once said, cause merely a small yawn in the world. We need not let that happen.

That was so well written. And really long, so I bet you didn't read it. Even though it was written in 2007 before the MPs' pay rise (really, 2 million a year? Wow), he still raises several good points about the system. It definitely takes more (uh, guts? I wouldn't say guts because it takes guts to join PAP too, only you get more money. Sacrifice? That depends, because you have to sacrifice to work in whatever party you join, I think), uh, something, to join the opposition, because you earn probably peanuts and you have to face MPs who claim the opposition wants to "destroy" everything the PAP has built up these years. Honestly, that was what a PAP person said in his short speech during the nomination speech-giving thing. Sure, its probably a heat of the moment rhetoric, and you can't say the oppositions don't use such rhetoric, but really, "destroy"? As an incredibly anal person (about the use of language) I find the use of that word extreme and completely uncalled for. Any opposition to the ruling party means destruction? Does that mean you won't even allow any voice of dissent, because any change would be destructive? Do you even want Singapore to develop into a country with real democracy and citizens capable of thinking for themselves?

Admittedly I still find the opposition supporters' booing and jeering incredibly juvenile and puerile, but maybe that's the only voice they have because of the stunted growth they have experienced so far. They really do have to shout to be heard, and sometimes people can mistake shouting loudly about nothing for sending meaningful messages.

Oh wow I really should stop reading the political commentary people post on Facebook.

In other news, I was so bored today that I watched Tangled online just now. It was pretty awesome. I'm a sucker for Disney movies actually.

By the way, the news about the man who was arrested for posting on a forum about how he wanted to set fire to his voting slips? He probably wasn't ever going to act on it, but according to the Penal Code, a person who:

(b) makes or communicates any electronic record,

containing any incitement to violence or counselling disobedience to the law or to any lawful order of a public servant or likely to lead to any breach of the peace shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 5 years, or with fine, or with both.

Yikes. I was googling whether the intent to take an illegal action is illegal in itself, and apparently, yes it is. This arrest isn't probably so much an exemplification of this code, but rather an act of deterrence to scare anyone who may have more than mere intent at disrupting the voting process. If you look at the definition of incite, which actually includes elements of persuasion/encouragement/stirring up, I don't think the code quite fits into what he did according to the article (posting about wanting to set fire to his voting slip, and, uh, also showing signs of wanting to hurt important people), but that's just me, y'know, being all anal. Apparently the crime was not the intent, but the encouragement of such acts of "violence", even though they never did quite explicitly explain how his postings stirred up/encouraged/incited any possibility of violence or breach of peace.

Besides, the code is so full of 'or's and lack clear levels that I can't quite decipher it. Why don't they use coding notation?

Anyone who:

(b) makes or communicates any electronic record,

{
if(containing
((any incitement to violence) || (counselling disobedience ((to the law) || (to any lawful order of a public servant))) || (likely to lead to any breach of the peace))
{
punished with((imprisonment for a term which may extend to 5 years) || (fine) || (imprisonment for a term which may extend to 5 years && fine))
}
return;
}

There, fixed.

I was listening to Yeah Yeah Yeah's Heads Will Roll (which, like any pop culture-fed person, I only knew from Glee. The song, not the band). There's something about dancing till you're dead that's very alluring, isn't there?

The (stereotypically) absent-minded literature prof hasn't got back to me about collecting the recommendation letter. He's nice and all, but really. >:\

Why am I blogging? I don't know. It's too early to sleep and I don't really have anything else to prepare for tomorrow's exam. That's one of the best things about literature modules, I guess. And the fact that many of the professors like the word "complicity", and "multiplicity". Really, when I was a freshie and taking the introduction literature module, I didn't quite get how to write an essay yet, so I got a C+ (WTF RIGHT) for a 35% essay. Luckily, something just struck me on the exam day and I managed to pull a B+ out of my ass.

The best sort of playlist for studying is one filled with mindless dance tracks. There's something stimulating about the synth beats and autotuned voices, I must say.

I wanted to finish Robinson Crusoe today. Instead, I was on the internets for three hours and then I went to sleep for another three hours.

Hopefully I won't be forced to do an essay on the text tomorrow. I mean I know the basics since I read half of it, and can confidently comment on the tone and the overall nothingness of the novel. I cannot, however, intelligently discuss anything which occurs after 8 years on the island. Apparently he goes on to have adventures with cannibals and swashbuckling pirates. He could have been abducted by intelligent aliens for all I know.

Wish I were driven. I mean I do get periods of motivation (usually in the guise of looming deadlines), which is when I come up with relatively good essays, but in the state of catatonic inertia I usually exist I'm simply not motivated to do anything. Maybe I should get a lobotomy or something.

Movies to watch after the exams:
First fifteen minutes of Coraline
I Love You, Man
Tangled
The Social Network
Dinner for Schmucks

Please don't judge me, I really haven't had much of a life this semester. Is it bad that I have an exam tomorrow and I have this urge to go shopping today?

I watched Coraline yesterday, minus the first fifteen minutes. I wonder if she would have stayed in the other world if she didn't have to sew buttons onto her face.

I swear, my sister is trying to kill me with her baking experiments. Yesterday, she brought home some chocolate truffles, a clafoutis-minus-the-mascarpone (which had a weird kueh texture), a chocolate lave cake without the lave (so basically a brownie). And you know how crazed amateur bakers force people to eat their baked items? Yeah. Okay so the truffles weren't bad, there's still some in the fridge, tell me if you want them.

Today, she brought home fried peanut butter and fried Nutella (and some fried batter for good measure), bread she and her friends baked, bread pudding, and this liquid lumpy mess she said was strawberry soufflé. I almost died eating the fried peanut butter, because peanut butter and bread is great, but balls of peanut butter in fried batter? O: And I haven't tried the "soufflé" because it's a pink liquid mash in a container. I put it in the fridge and promised her I'd try it some other day when it solidifies.

I mean I'm as encouraging as a sister gets, but I have my limits.

But at least I'm not eating this:



I just spent some time watching their epic meal videos. And this was already one of the better ones.

As you can see I'm not even attempting to study for the programming module already. I knows a lost cause when I sees'em. At least tomorrow will be the last time I ever burn my brains thinking about printf and scanf and strings and fucking functions. You gotta be thankful for these small mercies.

And I was just googling for the definition of Fascism, because I only have a fuzzy concept of what it really is. So point is, the second result which came up was a blog post on the Fascism in Singapore. Okay I realise it was a result from Google Singapore (which I almost never use, because I prefer global results). The post was written in 2006, but people are still commenting on it this year. I guess that's what you get for coming up no. 2 on Google.

I was trying to link that find with the upcoming General Elections, which I can't vote in by the way, since my birthday is in December. Well. I would usually be the last person to care about Singapore politics, because I'm too self-absorbed and obsessed with Pokémon (you know it!), but this year I've been reading the papers about all the opposition parties and their manifestos. Most of them are concerned about the foreign workers/housing costs/public transport being overcrowded, and some of them have these cute little ideas that they can bring about some change. I don't know, but I don't think I have that much faith in any party, opposition or otherwise.

I'm a sucker for being cynical, and from Tin Pei Ling to Nicole Seah (whom some have been raving about), I don't think there will be too radical a change in the way things are; we're still going to go on in our daily grind, living unchallenged, unfulfilling (apparently this isn't a real word) lives. Isn't it great to be living in a consumerist society?

Actually I don't agree with some extremist points of view the Fascist-Singapore dude makes. Sometimes he lists statistics and expects us to swallow it whole because it seems logical, for example how Singapore has Draconian laws for violent crime but we still somehow have a crime rate "far higher" than Japan's. The basic flaw here is comparing Japan to Singapore, because culturally we are worlds apart from them, and making these sort of biased comparisons isn't going to propel the argument very far (GP101). And what crimes are you comparing? Petty crime? Murders? Abuse? If you're going to make an argument, don't be all waffly about it, please.

And then he says, "Singapore’s per capita military spending is second only to Israel’s, even though Singapore is not at war nor will it ever be", which, ignoring the second part of the statement, would make a pretty strong statement to support a coherent argument. Too bad he had to spoil it with the "nor will it ever be" part, because you can't just make sweeping statements like that without an proof to back it up, it's just weak.

He then goes on to qualify how Singapore is a "backward fascist state": we are backward and fascist because our union(s) cannot strike, the poor don't share in economic growth, and we don't have social security system. I agree with his premise, but not his overall argument that we are backward and fascist. We do have basic things like education, access to the Internet (LOLcats!), chances to form our own opinions (despite what he thinks) and opportunities to air them (just not in the form of strikes, or anything racist, or anything which is anti-establishment, or, wait, what was my point again? Right, I agree, we are controlled firmly by the government and we lack overt channels of expression (I mean where we can speak to EVERYONE, not on some small forum in some corner of the internetz), there's censorship everywhere, the people are content with their lot and most are apathetic (as am I usually), and sometimes the excuses of stability and utility overrule concerns of the little people. I also agree with his points about the rising inequality and the opinion that the poor aren't really given much help (other than the some small monetary help, and the promise of egalitarianism).

But isn't there always a trade-off? Stability as opposed to constant strife, lack of social security versus disgruntled tax-payers who look upon the poor with disdain, freedom of speech and the encroachment upon other freedoms (racism/sexism/the -isms), Union power and productivity (I mean I'm the last person to speak up for productivity, since I'm such a slacker, but you really don't want to live in a county like France, where apparently the train stations and the aviation industry have to put up with frequent strikes and inconveniences, do you?). And who's to judge which side of the coin is better? And despite all these differences, aren't people all caught up in similar mundane struggles of live? Trying to make ends meet, trying not to die, trying to find something more in life? Who are you to label a system "fascist"?

Okay honestly I'm just offended by that term, because it suggests we are mindless sheep who do not even know we are thus controlled. I know I haven't seen much of the world around me, and I don't have the most sophisticated political arguments, but from what I see and hear we really do have a voice, and some really do have things to say. But other than that he does make some very good points about the state of Singapore, even though the post was written some 5 years ago or so.

In other news, my sister keeps telling me stuff about Bieber. I don't really fucking give a damn about him and his daily increase of 12500 new followers. I don't think she really adores him, but apparently she knows all of his songs (one song is one song too many for me). Ugh. You see what I mean? People are so caught up in the trivial! If you're not struggling to survive because you're the poorest of the poor, you're struggling to pay your bills, and in the meantime while you have some leisure time to focus on other things you get caught up in things like Justin Bieber, and Kim-famous-for-being-famous-Kardashian. I swear I despise her even more than Bieber, because at least he can hold a tune, while she's just famous for a sex-tape. The fuck is wrong with the world? I mean, sure, nothing's wrong with some entertainment, but when people get caught up with the media circus and all those meaningless things, I can't help but sink into the postmodern dump. Who cares about government and change? Just give me sufficient amounts of money to live and reality TV, and I'm content.

I think I'm so angsty because of the computing exam tomorrow. I'm so bad at it. I know I can S/U it, but it sucks to suck at something so badly. Eh, maybe I just need to get laid a life. Nothing takes away angst like good-'ol life, with all its funnies and semblance of having something to do. Takes your mind off of the meaninglessness of everything. What the hell is wrong with me? That was such a long post ranting about the state of the country. Since when did I give a damn?

Inappropriate things to write in a paper discussing a lesbian writer #1:
"David Lodge adeptly fingered a key element in... ..."

Don't, it's just wrong.

Still trying to find some inspiration for an essay topic. I was thinking of doing one on the fairy tale/mythical elements of Yeats' poetry and another text we did, but I can't think of anything good just yet. The thing about poems is that sometimes when you're in the mood it becomes really poignant and meaningful, but at other times they just seem pretentious and over-dramatic.

Anyway. Summer's almost here! You can feel it in the air, mostly due to the fact that the temperatures are slowly raising from "nice, cooling other-country-ish spring" to "I WILL FUCKING BURN YOU ALIVE summer". Swell. Lately I've been digging espadrilles! Must be all the summer heat turning my brain to mush. It's not that bad today, the sky is still quite downcast. Hopefully this translates into showers.

Why am I discussing weather? I should be doing something productive. I want to go shopping.

And in other news, I now have four flippin' Cascoon. The Wurmple I took the pains to hatch evolved into one. Looks like I'm doomed to never have a Beautifly. Woe is me.

I'll take it as a sign that I should start revising for the programming test; maybe I'll get a Silcoon after the finals.

I've finally accepted the SEP offer. Sadly, Monsieur Camembert hasn't replied me about the letter of recommendation >:|

Maybe I should write to my other literature prof, who thought my essay was a "pleasure to read". I don't know about you, but I like it when people enjoy reading things I write. It's probably a symptom of some underlying narcissism. However I'm a bit intimidated by her, because she's has this formidable air about her, and she's really sarcastic and sharp-tongued.

I think I should take a short nap, then print out the critical readings I downloaded to try to come up with a topic for the essay I'm supposed to be starting on. You can't think with a tired brain, people! Maybe I should just answer one of the questions the prof set instead of thinking of my own, but then again, where's the fun in that, huh?

I want to watch Glee.

As most of you know (because the readers of my blog consist only of the few of you) I've been offered to go on SEP. I haven't technically accepted the offer yet, because the past few days had me wavering and because the University is a douchebag, money-grubber of an organisation if we withdraw we have to pay three-flippin'-hundred dollars and I didn't want to make a snap decision based on my mood swings.

But in the end I've decided to take up the challenge of getting everything done by the 3rd of May (which, coincidentally, is the last day of my Exams), including the teacher's recommendation letters, the bank statements and stuff, all the while juggling the CS1010 death-row mugging, reading the texts I haven't finished (about 5 half-read texts) and finishing/starting on the essay for one of my literature modules. Luckily that's only 1500-1800 words.

So long story short, I was going to go onto OPAS (some cocked-up site which probably loves being run on IE5) to accept my offer, because the deadline is the 20th of April and despite my penchant for doing things at the last minute I really didn't want to screw this up. But guess what? Apparently I'm "not authorised" to log into it. Fuck that shit, I so am authorised. I emailed the SEP person about how OPAS was being a total ass, but she hasn't replied me yet.

I'm not freaking out yet, I still have like, 4 days. OH GOD. It's like the Universe is conspiring against me or something, but of course not, why would the Universe care about that? I mean, if the Universe even has sentience.

By the way, I apparently applied to McGill University in Montreal. And Choo, no matter what, living in Canada is cheaper than living in Europe. You can't deny that. And I've never been to America (the continent). Even though Canada is often the laughingstock of sitcoms ("Eh?") and I don't know anyone else who's going to the same University as I am (yet). I lost my point. Anyway I was a total geek, I checked University rankings when I applied for SEP (even though I'm a well-known slacker), and only applied to McGill because it was ranked 19 in the world. I really wanted to apply to Paris-Sorbonne, but they required applicants to speak good French and I'm afraid mine is totally abysmal.

Moving on, my lit prof is so nice! I emailed him only last night and he has already replied that he'll help me write the letter of recommendation. Now I just need to accept the bloody offer. But I can't. Because OPAS' an asshole.

On the other Monsieur Camembert, my French lecturer, hasn't replied me yet. I don't know if he understood the email because I've always had my doubts about his English standards (as does nettygal), even though he does seem to grasp Singlish quite well.

But enough about SEP and what troubles I have. What troubles do you have? Yeah I don't care. O: Kidding. If you're feeling really stressed out over term papers and exams (I'm not that stressed out yet. I still have a week), here's something freaking hilarious, in case you haven't seen it.

Right so now I've got to dig through my stuff to find my A-level certificate, because apparently they need us to hand it in. As if they don't already have it when we were applying to the University after the A-levels. Je suis très paresseuse. Je veux dormir tout le temps, tous les jours.

I want both a Beautifly and a Dustox, so I caught two Wurmples (which serendipitously turned out to be a male and a female one). I'm not sure what are the conditions to get Silcoon/Cascoon, but I assumed it was the gender.

It's not.

Then I thought maybe it was the time of the day.

It's not that too.

So now I have two Dustox(es?), three Cascoons, and no sign of a single freaking Silcoon. Something is horribly wrong. So I left two of the Cascoons of different genders at the daycare to try my luck with a Wurmple baby.

Why would anyone need two Dustox and three Cascoons? Ugh.

I realise I've been MIA for almost a month now, not counting the short post about my mucus-filled nose. There's a computing practical exam tomorrow but I'm not in the mood to rifle through the several pages of lectures which I missed (or skipped, what's the difference?) now. And of course, when you're looking for a source of procrastination, you either blog or go to sleep. So I'm blogging.

I just completed the Student Feedback on the lecturers and TAs, and I realise I give rather iffy comments, like "he is also somewhat humorous". I'm sure the TA wouldn't be too pleased to hear that he isn't definitely humorous, only "somewhat" so.

I can't wait for this semester to be over. I've been absolutely unenthusiastic about anything this semester, and I've skipped more than my fair share of lectures. I've tallied it all, and I've skipped at least 18 lectures this semester. Of course this includes Understanding the Universe, which I haven't gone for in weeks. I don't know, there's something about a bad English accent and the journey to Science which totally puts me off. I thought I would be really enthused about this module, but in the end the lecture's just kinda dry and unappetizing, like the economical rice from opposite my house. Come on, Jupiter has a red storm which has been raging for hundreds of years and it's two or three times the size of Earth! That's fucking super interesting. You don't make that sound like dry wheat on skimmed milk; you make it sound like, well, a hundred-year-old (at least) storm three times larger than Earth. Okay honestly she isn't that bad, I guess I'm just disappointed that the module wasn't taught by a lecturer who had as much enthusiasm as I had when I was young and reading books about planets. An überlecturer, if there's such a thing.


That's an Infra-red view of Jupiter from NASA. Doesn't it look like some crazy surrealist painting? Doesn't it make you wonder at the Universe and all its mysteries and realise how small and trivial you are compared to the expanding Universe? I want a lecturer who's passionate about what she's teaching, damn it.


And that's the Horsehead Nebula, which is probably the most beautiful thing ever. When I saw it in the kiddie science book about space (and dinosaurs, and everything awesome in this Universe of ours) I was totally enamoured of it, like this beautiful mysterious dark place where stars are born. Is anything more poignant and transcendent than that? Of course when I was young I didn't even know the words "poignant" and "transcendent", but you just have this feeling in your gut that it is far greater than anything we'll ever create or be.

I guess one of the reasons I'm so repelled by the lecture is that I don't want that sense of wonder I had in my childhood to be compromised by attending something so insignificant and mundane as a lecture. Some things are meant to be kept sacred and unspoiled in your heart, even if you turn into a cynical, spoiled (as opposed to unspoiled, not in the sense of being spoiled rotten by parents) and sarcastic person later on.

Or I'm just a lazy bum who's rationalising her actions, it can go either way.

And speaking of sacred childhood impressions, I shall make a not too subtle switch in topics to that of Disney movies. Before you learn about how Disney is merely a money-making, Western-imperialist corporation, and how Disney movies sometimes go along with sexist stereotypes (they don't burn their bras! And they end up married! The nerve!), Disney is something magical and happy, filled with talking animals and singing princesses. I guess somewhere in our psyche that still remains, because you want it to remain that way.

Anyway I'm talking about choir now, in case that primer did not explicitly state that. Before my case of the sniffles turned into a full-blown flu, I was spending a Sunday in school with the new choir committee (ugh, committees) because we were supposed to sing in accompaniment to the guitar ensemble. Basically we only had less than 10 bars in the whole 15-minute long piece, so we had a lot of time to kill in the waiting room. Then someone started playing Disney songs and before we knew it we were singing along for hours to Disney tunes. I guess somewhere deep inside every single person is a kid waiting to burst out, because nobody really likes growing up.

And, well, I guess hanging out with people you don't really know isn't that tragically bad after all. It's just marginally bad when you don't have the comfort of Disney songs, but they're really all right. I'm just a tad melodramatic (a tad? HAHA).

Oh there is one lesson I enjoy, and that's French. Probably because it's the only module where I don't really have to wrack my brains to understand (scoring in tests is another thing), and when we make mistakes and the sentences somehow end up silly and wrong it's really funny. And it's always fun to observe (Monsieur? Prof? Professeur?) Yannick and his interesting shirts.

Now that I'm majoring in literature the modules are just pretty much "eh", without the uncertainty and anticipation of whether I'd be switching majors or not. When you have things planned out you lose the feeling of adventure, I think. And of course, that feeling of adventure is very much alive in the computing module, or as I like to call it, the bane of my life.

Aside from not knowing how to even begin tackling the problems the Prof. sets, and the fact that I'm on the path of S/U for this module, it's actually very exciting, since you're always learning new things (and according to Xumei every time she looks through the lecture notes she learns something new. I don't know how that happens, but okay) and ways to code, and since I'm alien to the land of coding it's all uncertainty and anticipation dread.

It doesn't help that the class is filled with un-noob coders who know how to code. Usually Xumei and I will struggle in the tutorials while the others (not counting one who recently transferred from Engineering, and another girl who's just a noobish as we are) code like pros. This semester has been an eye-opener for me because I've never felt as if I'm the stupidest person in class before, and now I have. This is exacerbated by the fact that the TA is a U08XXXXXX (I don't know the numbers) student, which means he's either a year older, the same age as us, or younger (because he's not local, and somehow they're freaking smarter than us idiots at home, and thus enter U earlier). It's like being taught coding by a younger sibling and not understanding it.

Ugh. Stupid. And the thing is, after you understand, you've still got to be able to apply it to problems. O: The TA is usually very patient with us idiots (especially to Xumei, who claims that he has a crush on her. Maybe he does, he's very friendly towards her and stuff), but you still can't shake off the feeling of unease, like he really thinks you're inept. There was this one lesson where we were sitting in the front row (I don't normally sit in front during lessons because, y'know, I'm a slacker-back-row type) and there was this question about, um, something. So anyway somehow I must have affected a quizzical look on my face, because without any prompting he set out to explain the entire thing s-t-e-p-b-y-s-t-e-p again, effectively holding back the class for a good 5 minutes or so. Maybe I should train to keep a better poker face from now on, because apparently my current one looks like I'm actually deep in thought or unsure about something. I digress, as I was saying, he launched into a loooong, patient explanation about the solution and why it worked, and while explaining he kept staring at me as if in search of some sign of understanding (or consciousness, I don't know), and all the while I'm thinking, "Whoa, dude, I kinda somewhat get it, do I really look that puzzled? Darn it I need to have a better poker face", and I just kept nodding, because, y'know, I'm supposed to understand it.

Tl;dr it's very unnerving to be stared at and I think the TA thinks I'm woefully inept at coding, which I probably am.

And in the subsequent tutorials I kept trying to achieve my perfect poker face so as not to display a single sign of not understanding (even though I usually don't understand), and avert my eyes (Oh no he's looking in our direction! Pretend to look at your paper!) in case the TA thinks that I'm trying to telepathically convey my not understanding of the C programming language. I think the fault lies with the fact that I usually don't ask questions in class- because I coerce Xumei into asking them. I mean, he fancies her, right? Just being a good friend- so he thinks I really don't understand anything enough to even formulate questions.

Anyway, in case you skipped those chunks, it's pretty much about how bad I am at coding.

An adventure! Une aventure!

Ben...Je dois commencer à réviser pour le test.

But on the bright side, it's only 10%. Seulement dix pour cent.

Au revoir!

Right now I have two wads of toilet paper stuck up my nose, because my nose is running uncontrollably and I've run out of soft facial tissues.

I can't blog because the flu medicine I just took is making my really drowsy and groggy. Like. What's happening? Ugh.

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