most hilarious exam experience ever.
written: 9:21 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 02, 2005

Or rather, my performance in today's Contract test was the most hilarious one I've ever put up ("put up" because 1) I'm, like, so clever; and 2) we all know it's just a show). If I even gave the slightest sliver of something that remotely resembles "a damn" I suppose I'd be pretty embarrassed, but as it stands I still don't care so I'm contented just laughing about it.

I foresee - for real this time, but when are my predictions ever not real? - an F for this test. It was so funny. The two hours positively dragged and I kept looking at the clock, hoping it was 11.05 a.m already (time when paper ended), but whenever I glanced at it only three second had passed. It was torture, it was hell, it was further exacerbated by the fact that I only glanced through my notes and that I didn't even glance through stuff on Mistake and Frustration and also I don't remember any cases and so I had zero cases but you know what, I messed up my bed and I'm too lazy to tidy it up and so I will just lie in it and fall asleep and dream of pretty things. I was writing like a primary school kid and writing for the sake of writing I had no idea what the hell the issues were I just came up with some random one that seemed to make sense and hey I got them alllll wrong so yeah my first F in uni goes to Contract, congratulations to you!

Anyway, my stupid fan is spoiled and it's 9.34 p.m. and there's no breeze and I'm sweating and annoyed.

I thought I would be glad when the paper ended and I was but not as glad as I thought I'd be.

Oh well, in any case, I came home and watched the extended pilot of Veronica Mars, which I heard was darker than the one that aired, and so I was expecting something major and mind-blowing...but the only thing different about it was the first two minutes of the episode, before they cut to the opening credits. The rest of the episode is exactly the same.

AND NO IT'S NOT DARKER. V is at the Camelot motel, spying on a client's spouse, and the camera lingered on a couple having sex rather explicitly (though you can only see their shadows) for a grand total of two seconds. Also, V's voiceover told us that she doesn't want to get married (dude, we're total soulmates, you and me; see what I meant about a girl that takes after my own heart?) and also something about how marriage always ends up at the seedy Camelot motel, yadayada, and that was it. I thought there would be a more explicit detailing of the day when Lilly Kane's dead body was found or something. I was even expecting the Duncan-asking-Veronica-to-run-away-with-him scene which I read about in an interview with Teddy Dunn.

The deleted scenes were also nothing to crow over, and this is not merely because Logan was in none of them. They were too short, and while some added more meat to the already substantial plot, others were really just quite pointless - especially the ones from Hot Dogs. Man, I totally see why those scenes were deleted; talk about a waste of air time if they weren't.

But still, because this is VM and because I love VM more than most other things in the world, I still love my beautiful DVD set anyway. It was so different watching VM on my television instead of my laptop; everything looked smaller (in particular? The cast's names during the opening credits) and brighter and clearer and I've officially watched the Pilot 5 times and Episode 2, featuring Paris "Skank" Hilton, 5 times.

Thankfully for me, Paris "Skank" Hilton only marred one otherwise-perfect VM episode.

Anyway, I so need a DVD burner and a new fan, and a new layout. I love Logan but hate the current layout; it's freaking fugly, that's why. My Grey's Anatomy download has completed (yay!), as have other movie downloads so I'm happy.

I was reading A Picture of Dorian Gray on the MRT today and it was two stops from Clementi to Bukit Batok and usually those two stops seem to take forever and ever especially because I have to transfer to another MRT at Jurong East but today armed with a book which yes I am taking ten trillion light years to finish the scenery whizzed by the crowd ceased to exist it was me and fucked up, beautiful Dorian Gray, I think I got to the climax where Dorian brings Basil up to his secret room where his corrupted painting is kept under lock and key but my train has reached Bukit Batok and I was still reading while standing up and moving out of the train and I almost knocked into someone and so I had to stop.

This is the first Victorian novel that I'm willingly reading. No surprise, there; it's Oscar Wilde. I'm probably reading too much into it and seeing inferences in places where they don't exist, but some of the descriptions of Dorian Gray remind me of Oscar Wilde - or at least, the little I know about him. An example would be the way Dorian is condemned by polite (read: hypocritical) society and this little vague detail that involves something about Dorian corrupting a young man.

Then again, when I first started reading it I thought Oscar Wilde based Lord Henry (whom I LURRRRVE to death because he is so deliciously cynical, damn) loosely on himself, so there you go. Everything has to be a bit autobiographical to me. I'm such a dweeb. Next thing I know, if I didn't know better I'd think that Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot was loosely based either on his own Flaubertian Trail Adventure or his non-existing crumbling marriage (his marriage is rock-solid, thank you), or both.

In self-defense, I'd just like to point out that Dorian Gray is Wilde's only novel, and that most authors' first novels are semi-autobiographical. That applied to James Joyce and his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man...then again, I'm not sure if it was his first novel, but I know it came before Ulysseus which, incidentally, I can neither pronounce nor spell and so yes. Even Julian Barnes's first novel, Metroland, was semi-autobiographical.

I think a writer will tend to move away from writing about himself as he matures with age. What my dad said about how a literary artist only hits his stride when he's in his 50's and 60's is also true; except, he said it with spite, to dash my "I wanna be a writer" semi-hope, and so I don't really like to admit how right he is.

I have three Julian Barnes novels to read (okay, technically, one of them is a collection of short stories), one Chuck Palahniuk novel to read, Musashi to read, Dorian Gray to complete, one Joyce Carol Oates novel to read and I sure hope it's not as disturbing as Man Crazy, one Margaret Atwood novel to read, and...that's it.

Time for me to hit Kinokuniya.

Oh, and a Ben Elton novel. I also downloaded Season 1 of Black Adder. Elton isn't literary but he's freaking funny as a satirist and I dig British humour so it's all good. He's about the only popular fiction writer I'd admit to reading. Ha, ha, ha.

I'm such a snob. Somebody please kill me. But yeah, Elton's Dead Famous was HILARIOUS, as was High Society, which was hilarious and poignant (though not to the extend of Barnes's Martha Cochrane in England, England - but how do you compare the two? It can't be done). They're quite offensive though, I suppose; some graphic details of sex and...other stuff. Drug usage. All the fun things in life which I'm missing out on because I wear my straight-edged badge like one of honour and pride.

I need to stop typing rubbish and shower.

OH MY GOD A NEW VERONICA MARS EPISODE TO WATCH TONIGHT!

I'm not too pleased about the alternate ending thing though. I mean, it downloaded in about five minutes for me and yes I know the show is in a dire need of viewers, but still. Having a different ending feels like I'm being cheated out of a holistic emotional experience with the characters I've grown to love and adore and care for, as cheesy as it sounds. I really hope they won't change the already-aired ending to the one that gets more votes if that one isn't the already-aired ending.

Having said all that, I'm still gonna watch the alternate ending anyway, because it's Veronica Mars and I'm a marshmallow for it.

Right, that was an awful VM reference but yeah you get my point.

I need to shower. The lack of a fan is driving me mad.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010