a very, very long update.
written: 4:04 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 08, 2006

But before I do that, I'm going to ramble about the past couple of days.

Friday:

Apparently, I had a Company test. I say 'apparently' for a couple of reasons.

First, I went to school and realised that I forgot my Companies Act. Like, oh my god, there's absolutely nothing worse that can happen than that; it's like going for Lit Paper 4 and forgetting to bring the three core texts. I was in the lift and KW was also in the lift and I was looking around and saw that he was carrying a bound copy of something quite thick, and I was thinking to myself, What's that? I don't remember having lecture notes that thick.

A few seconds later the horror dawned upon me: The Companies Act.

Shit.

I joined the queue (there was an actual queue outside the MPA. I've never had to queue to take a test before) and called Mag 'cause I was supposed to meet her, and when she arrived the first thing I said was, "I forgot to bring my Companies Act!"

KW, who was in front of me, heard and to my surprise, turned to me and told me that he had an extra copy in his locker; did I want it? I was all, Oh my god yes! and he went downstairs and got it for me, hence saving my ass.

That was probably the second time I've ever talked to him, and he's in all of my tutorial groups. How amazing, isn't it? Anyway, I was very grateful.

But it turned out that he didn't have to lend me his extra copy after all because I didn't use it at all. The essay question seemed straight-forward but I didn't really know what the heck it wanted me to explore (besides the obvious) and so I wrote a couple of pages of nothing, one page of nothing trying to be something, and another page of pure crap. The absolute worst part? My English sucked major ass. It reminded me way too much of the kind of unsophisticated, coarse English I used for Econs essays. Seriously. It was THAT bad. I don't know what bothers me more: the fact that my essay had zero substance (I used a grand total of ONE case), or that it had even less style.

Then again, I attributed the part about my English sucking to 'the absolute worst part' so I guess the latter bothers me more.

It'd probably be in my best interest to get an F for that test so that I'd get slapped in the face real hard and start studying for that dreadful module. I seriously think that I'm the laziest person in school; I started reading my book and notes on Thursday, for crying out loud. And even then I'd get distracted by random things every 15 minutes. And it's come to a point where I think using the excuse of 'but the subject is damn boring lah!' has got really old, really quick because that's, like, so juvenile, and I think it's time I do something about it.

But - you guessed it - I'm so lazy and unmotivated and all I wanna do is read real books and start writing again. Sigh. How I wish ignorance of the law were a defence.

Anyway.

Ruishan and I went out after the test. We took Kelvin's car to Plaza Singapura where we took the MRT to City Hall and proceeded to Marina Square from there. We wanted to shop, which implied that we wanted to buy things, which also meant that going for trial advocacy (which was at 6 in the evening) empty-handed would be the saddest thing ever.

And that was exactly what happened.

We bought nothing.

Absolutely NOTHING.

If I ever needed an excuse to sink into depression, that'd totally be it.

I wanted to buy a top but Rui said it was too pricey for the kind of material it was made out of and the shop was at the third level or something and we were on the first or second level and in the end I was too lazy to go back and buy it and so I didn't.

Since when did shopping become so difficult?

We left City Hall at like 5.35 p.m. or something and still managed to be early for our trial advocacy tutorial, which was at our tutor's law firm, which is at Raffles Place.

The law firm has many floors. It was very cold. We went to the 17th floor and there was this cool recreational thingy, with a pool table, a foosball (is that what it's called?) table and all that jazz. It smelled slightly funny though, but it didn't stink as badly as the crappy canteen.

The tutorial was on cross-examination. I didn't listen during the lecture, as usual, and so all the questions I came up with were open-ended questions. When the tutor was saying that it's better to ask questions that can only have a 'yes' or 'no' answer, I was like, SHIT MY QUESTIONS ARE ALL 'HOW' AND 'WHY' QUESTIONS!!!!, and I quickly rephrased some of them but I got sick of it halfway through and decided, screw it.

I prefer imagining the cross-examination process in my head and seeing it play out like a scene from a movie than actually doing it.

The first thing I saw when I got out of the building was the haze. Everything was shrouded in this blanket of mist, except it wasn't pretty like mist is, and it stunk - a lot. It was actually a bit painful to breathe, my eyes hurt, and my nose was even more irritated than usual. It was absolutely HORRENDOUS.

That night, taking the MRT home was also the weirdest, most annoying experience ever. There was this group of four Chinese guys standing near the door and they had 3G phones. How did I know they had 3G phones? They were freaking playing songs at top volume (top volume for the phone, that is), bobbing their heads to the songs, and after a while, singing to the songs.

OH. MY. GOD.

When I took the Metro in Taipei, I was amazed by how quiet it was. No matter how packed the carriages got, the most noise I could get pissed off by was just the usual chatterings of passengers (the murmurings got louder as more high school students boarded, however). Did I ever hear a handphone go off? No. Did I ever hear music blasting from some random person's earphones? No. Did I ever hear people playing songs on their handphones at top volume instead of using earphones like considerate people would? Absolutely not.

I was SO ANNOYED, and they were playing Jay Chou songs. I just couldn't believe that there existed people who are that inconsiderate, that thick-skinned, and that pig-headed.

But I haven't got to the freaky/appalling part yet. After I was done getting all pissed off by those four idiots, I noticed this short Malay girl/woman who looked like she was talking to someone behind me. But when she continued talking even when she was facing the door, I realised immediately that something wasn't quite right. From the moment I noticed her to the moment I got off the train, she never stopped talking. And the music from the four guys' handphones must have attracted her attention or something, because a while later she walked over to them, stood behind them, and resumed her talking there.

I had no idea what she was talking about because it was all Malay. I was observing her from the reflection off the opposite set of doors. She was...I can't think of a more grammatically-correct way to put it, but well, she was very drama. Okay, I got the word: She was very animated. She'd talk like she was lecturing school children like school teachers do, then she'd start prancing around (I'm serious), and she also held her hand up to her right ear, as if talking into a cellphone. She was all, Blah blah blah sayang, blah blah blah sayang, I love you!

It was quite sad. But the appalling part? The four idiots sitting on the floor apparently had even less shame than I'd thought. It wasn't enough that they had to disturb EVERYONE with their loud music; they had to go on to demonstrate how absolutely INSENSITIVE and RETARDED they were by laughing at the girl/woman (honestly I couldn't tell). Laughing, as if they even had a right to! It was so disgusting and I was hoping really hard that they'd forget that their side of the doors open at Dover and that they'd fall out or something. THAT would've been truly something at which to laugh one's ass off.

I'm sure those four dudes weren't bad people; they were just insensitive and inconsiderate and lacking totally in civic consciousness. They epitomised the ugly Singaporean, and the horrible thing is, I think there are more of them than, well, than nice Singaporeans. Like...ugh. Where do these people even COME from?!

Another thing I was wondering about? Why that girl/woman was alone. What if she got into trouble? Why wasn't anyone taking care of her? When the train stopped at Dover and the doors were taking longer than usual to close, she ran out of the carriage, danced around the platform, and when the doors were about to close she hurriedly dashed back in, thinking it was all a game. It'd probably be fun and all but it wasn't exactly the safest thing to do. (And of course, those four guys started laughing at her when she did that.)

I don't know. I found the whole thing quite sad. I'm ashamed to say that a small part of me is wary of mentally not-there people, but that night it was more poignant than anything else. But I suppose to her everything was all fun and games, and she seemed oblivious to the four morons who were laughing at her (WHO DOES THAT OMG), so it's kind of all right. I don't know. People like that really need help, and sometimes I don't know if they're getting any. Help, that is.

Well, anyway.

Remember the part about the doors taking longer than usual to close? Well, when they finally closed, half the lights went off a few seconds later. Like, what the fuck is going on?! My imagination went into overdrive and I was all, Shit, am I going to be bombed to pieces? ALONG WITH THOSE FOUR IDIOTS? What kind of fucked up death is this?!

It turned out that it wasn't terrorists. There was a fault in the railway tracks and the train would be delayed. Which would be all awesome and stuff, except the announcer neglected to say how long it'd take.

So what does a smart and impatient person do? Get off the train and call home for a ride.

Hahaha.

Downside? I waited at the bus stop and the haze almost killed me. Oh, and when I hung up after getting my mom to say that she'd come pick me up (actually I wanted to take a cab but I was alone and she didn't think it was safe) the train I got off took off. WTF. I had half a mind to go to the control station and tell the people off for not providing sufficient information but I was already out of the station and so I didn't bother.

So yeah, Friday was Mid-Autumn Festival and I went home after trial advocacy for mooncakes with the family. If it weren't for that, I would've gone for supper/dinner with my trial advocacy mates. Family ranks first though; hence.

I must reiterate: Raffles Hotel's chocolate mooncake is divine. I could survive purely on that for the rest of my life.

**

Saturday:

Mag and I watched Scoop at Cineleisure and I was totally charmed by Hugh Jackman. He's sooooo absolutely dashing and yummy! Oh what I'd give to go out with someone as dashing and charming as him.

'Twas great hanging out with Mag, as usual. We took Neoprints and it was DAMN FUN! I really like the set we took; both of us look very nice in them. Haha. If I ever get round to scanning them I may just post 'em here, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

The movie was really good too. I liked it a lot. I already knew from the outset who the killer was and so the ending came as no surprise to me. I think watching Veronica Mars like ten million times over and over again has taught me more than a thing or two about how murder stories in movies etc work.

Scoop was a nice old school murder mystery type of story and the humour was very well done. I wasn't very interested in it at first when I found out it was another Woody Allen set-in-London film, because the previous one of his (Matchpoint) wasn't very good. But when I found out Hugh Jackman's in it, I was ALL IN. And I'm glad we watched it because it was a nice break from school and it was good entertainment and I finally understood all the hooha over Scarlett Johansson and now I think she's hot (because her figure is awesome) so all is good.

But for some reason seeing Woody Allen being all funny and neurotic and all was slightly disturbing. I found it hard to separate his messy personal life from the character he was playing and so while I found him funny, I didn't love him (the character) the way I would if someone else had played him.

Oh well.

Had dinner at grandma's because it was her birthday. That was nice, too.

**

Now for the pictures.

A. Gathering at Ruishan's

Clockwise from left to right:
Mag receiving our (Rui, Jean and I) gift from Rui; me putting the necklace on for Mag and Mag in the midst of eating some bbqed mushrooms (Rui took two others but I looked super super bad in both of them. Boo!); Mag and her Princess necklace; the messy food table; me, Jean and my messy-ass hair; Rui's dog, Snowie, who tried to hump Winston's leg; Rui's boyfriend, Kelvin, pouring charcoal into that BBQ thingy, whachamacallit; Mag, Me, Snowie and Mag's mushrooms; and finally, Kelvin.

B. Bitch Club Day

(I was too lazy to make a collage)

Baoyue's masterpiece.

Wah Baoyue is so artistic!11!1!11``!

Angela, me, Simon at Spinelli.

The Bitches in all our glorious...glory!

The female 3/4 of the Club. (Simon is kind of one of the girls. I guess that makes him a de facto girl.)

Our pretty drinks at the TCC.

C. Random:

Okay, this is crap so you can stop reading now and close my diary. Thanks. I mean it. You REALLY do not want to see this. Take it from me. Would I lie to you? Of course not. I'm such a nice person. So, leave now. Thank you.

Me and my chocolate mooncake! <3

I told you it wasn't worth it.

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