useless entry.
written: 8:42 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 13, 2006

Edit:

(Right on top because this is important.)

Oh my god the SAT scores are out!

Critical Reading: 760 - National percentile 98%
Math: 620 (!!#$&#^%&#$^@*&#^~!!!!!!!!!) National percentile 79%
Writing: 720 - National percentile not yet available; essay 10 (out of 12)

I'm so pissed at the writing score. I honestly expected higher. And the essay - only a 10?! I was hoping for a 12, dammit.

But you know, shitty, incomplete essay, incoherent...blah blah blah. BUT STILL!

Math score: Well. At least it was better than my first attempt in 2003 which saw me scoring an embarrassing 500-something for the Math section. BUT STILL!

This adds up to a 2100 which isn't remotely high enough for Yale so I think I won't even bother sending in the financial aid form anymore. Screw it!

The only complaint I have about the CR score is that it's not a perfect score. But I don't really mean that, not really.

Um, haha. Or something. I have criminal law to attempt-read.

**

We got our mooting schedule and one look at it and I wanted to moot even less.

Nobody told me it's going to be at the Subordinate Court; all along I thought it was going to be in school. Imagine my shock when I found out.

Not that it matters, because either way, I'm totally screwed. Public speaking? Not my forte, not even remotely close, and it'd be the exact truth to say that I suck at it.

LAWR, please die. Thank you.

I typed two paragraphs about I Not Stupid Too/Two/Whatever on Sunday afternoon; then it was time for lunch, and I haven't been motivated to continue it since then. Oh well.

The only reason I paid to watch it was because Tingren asked me if I wanted to, and since I hadn't seen her in forever prior to that, I thought, What the hell, why not? The hanging out was cool (Tingren, Wenhui and Yuenmei) and so everything is fine and dandy.

OKAY I'm giving in to my anal retentive side that doesn't allow me to go somewhere else with this entry unless I write about the movie so here's the two paragraphs:

Watched I Not Stupid 2 yesterday (felt damn stupid when saying the grammatically-incorrect title out loud to the box office person) and it was okay. It didn't totally suck, I could see its social relevance, but the cliches that permeated through the whole movie were just annoying. For one, I find it quite hard to believe that there are parents in this country who are as extreme as the ones portrayed in the movie; for another, I didn't get the impression at all that the other kid - Tom I think? - was weak enough academically to earn him a place in the coveted Normal (Something) stream. Maybe I missed something though.

And what REALLY annoyed me was the Good, Informed Teacher cliche versus the Old-Fashioned but Well-Meaning Teacher cliche. The former was a lot more annoying. While I appreciated the Jay Chou shout-out, the idea of awarding a student that makes the most progress with a Jay Chou CD, followed almost immediately by a nauseating and badly-acted speech about finding the key to unlock the door to a student's interest in Chinese or whatever was just annoying.

Yes, it was annoying. Moving on. The theme song sounded too much like a Jay Chou song, and that was annoying too. I also did not get the point of featuring the gangsters in the music segment (during which the Jay Chou-esque song played and the two teenaged characters, along with their gangster friends, walked around looking morose and struck kungfu-ish poses at random places) that was supposed to evoke sympathy in the viewers for their plight and to give a voice to them and show that they're human beings as well, but ultimately the gangsters behaved like typical gangsters and ditched their "brothers" (the two teenaged characters) anyway when the shit hit the fan.

I realise that was an exceedingly long sentence. Basically, what I was trying to say was that the portrayal of the gangsters fit in exactly with the audience's preconceived notions of how they operate, and so the movie's preceding effort to humanise them and shoot down typical stereotypes viz. the music segment was sadly undermined.

I mean, our parents warn us against joining gangs by saying things like, "Oh they only pretend to be your friend; when you're in trouble they won't be there and they'll just abandon you." That was exactly what happened in the movie, after the evoke-sympathy shit Jack Neo tried to pull with the music segment.

Okay I'm still not making sense. Nevermind.

Amazingly, a tear did roll down my face during the scene in which the small kid reveals the reasons behind his sudden and desperate attempt to save money. That was extremely sad and pulled violently at my heartstrings, because it was real and true and honest. It is exactly what a kid would do, and the fact the kid is a kid makes it even more poignant. At first, that kid annoyed the shit out of me; I thought he was ugly (haha I'm so mean) and that his voiceover narration was flat and monotonous. As the movie progressed though, he started making all these crazy faces and it was so funny and after that scene which made me cry, I just felt bad for him and he won me over.

As for the humour. I laughed at about 50% of the things the audience was laughing at. I don't even remember what was funny, only that there were many things which were supposed to be funny but weren't to me. Like Jack Neo's character trying hard to impress his son by adopting his son's lingo (according to the movie, "so lame", "whatever", "cool man") at the restaurant, calling a "lamb chop" a "lame chop"...that was just...excruciatingly embarrassing and painful to me, and not funny at all.

In fact, the funny thing was, it was only until the grandmother told Jack Neo's character about his son's lingo that we actually heard teenaged characters in the movie using those terms. Now that is lame.

I would compare this to the previous one, except I don't really remember the previous one (save for its requisite nauseating happy ending) so yeah. Oh, and I hated how bloody long this one character took in the movie to die. That deathbed speech - OH MY GOD, CAN IT GET ANY MORE CLICHE AND TRITE?! AND Contrived?!

The young actors were pretty good though, in particular that kid with the single-parent family. His whole situation was just sad, and my heart broke for his dad when the kid totally did not acknowledge his (dad's) efforts at showing him his love or whatever. The ninja turtle bag was the last straw; it really was.

Still, it'd be a while before I watch another local, commercial movie.

Then again, it'd be a long while before another one is released, but whatever the case: I hated, absolutely hated, the local language employed in the movie. It just grates, especially the "[insert a question in Chinese] meh?" The spoken Mandarin was actually not as horrendous as the kind of shit you hear on local TV, but the "meh" and the spoken English...oh god. Seriously. Just...ew.

Speaking of "seriously", this word always reminds me of Grey's Anatomy and I just gotta say that Season 2 Episode 17 was the bomb. No pun intended, hahaha. I watched it when I came home from school today and I hardly breathed throughout the whole thing. It was just awesome.

This is why I didn't want to write about the movie; it takes too long and I barely have time to talk about other things.

Just as well actually. I don't have anything else to say.

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