khai said it best.
written: 12:53 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 19, 2007

**

Random wireless network and leeching and there's a technical term for this. Wait, it's coming back to me...um, virtual trespassing? Something along those lines.

Ruishan's 21st birthday yesterday. I love that girl, I really do; I don't know what I'd do without her. Kel K threw her a surprise birthday party at McDonalds' West Coast. Rui's honestly the only person I know who'd have her 21st birthday party at McDonalds'. That's exactly what makes her special.

People like that are hard to come by. When their paths intersect with yours, you make sure you fight like hell to keep them around.

I had a good time exchanging sarcasm and sexual innuendos with Tris and Kyle. It was very interesting, it was. I can't believe Tris' perception of me changed completely in, like, eight minutes, was it? Like, seriously? I totally thought everyone totally knew that I totally enjoy taking jabs at the bimbo-ish thing by speaking in this totally bimbotic manner. It's, like, totally hilarious.

I can't imagine what his perception of me used to be, on second thoughts. 'Totally' has been one of my new favourite things to say since...I don't know, a long time ago. Just ask anyone, you know? I want to answer the question he posed on his blog but the brain ain't working at its maximum efficiency level right now and questions like that need some serious thinking so another time, if I ever get round to it. If I don't, please remind me that there's something I've forgotten to do.

American Idol is SO FUCKING FUNNY, OH MY GOD. If one ever needs a cure for depression, just watch American Idol. Missed Wednesday's episode 'cause didn't know it started (OMG when's Lost coming back!?!?!?!?!?), got my bro to tape Thursday's, and OMG OMG OMG IT'S THE MOST HILARIOUS SHIT EVER. Like, EVER. Generally, while watching the audition rounds, you'd find your jaw dropping further and further towards the ground as you contemplate, in utter amazement and wonder, just how it is that such people could actually exist. Specifically, that weirdo 27-year-old chick with the thick black-framed glasses, weird-looking wig-like blond hair, too-bright lipstick, very bad teeth, and...get this...boobs so fucking saggy that I swear they were hanging down past her bloody ribcage. And bloody hell, I highly doubt she was wearing a bra. Like...SERIOUSLY. The extent of her delusion? Completely shocking. I felt my mind being blown, then put back again when I thought I was over the initial shock of finding out that such people exist, then blown again when her MOTHER showed up and she looked EXACTLY LIKE HER DAUGHTER. Except, the mother had black wig-like hair and her boobs weren't as saggy as her daughter's.

Oh, my god. So damn freaking funny. And that weirdo dude whom Simon commented looked like a monkey who sang 'NSYNC's Tearing Up My Heart? I couldn't stop laughing.

God Bless America Indeed. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Simon Cowell is so incredibly sexy. I think he put on some weight but in any case, he's soooo hot. That British accent, his dry, curt sarcasm, everything about him screams HOT. Everytime American Idol starts again I'd write an entry or two, or more, gushing about how hot Simon is. And it's been a couple of years or so and things haven't changed much. Not that I'm surprised; I've always adored the mainstream/commercial/Simon Cowell British accent, and sarcasm has always been a major turn-on.

Sarcasm is my best defence. It comes to mind when nothing else does, and it's bad when you end up hurting people with your caustic remarks when you really, honestly, did not mean to. Self-improvement, here I come.

Miss a few people, miss a few stolen moments, still miss the good ol' days. Jurong Junior and Mel and Pei and study benches and skipping out on Maths lectures and crashing in the ACC room. Lawrence, Weili, Haojun, Basketball Dude On Whom I Had A Crush, Some ACC Senior Who Seemed To Have A Thing For Me But Didn't Do Anything About It (we had this CCA camp and I kept catching him looking at me. 'Twas weird. He played super awesome basketball though, and at that time basketball was a huge turn-on), Makoto, Hong Chuan or something similar (always thought he was quite cute), Eugene Ryan (always thought he was hot), Random Guys That Harassed Me At The Least Opportune Moments, Really Funny Stuff. This guy named Lance who, according to Liying, was flirting with me during Orientation, but of course I was too dense to notice anything. Looking back now, hell yeah it was pretty obvious. First Three Months people, our Dramafest thingy, that Raul-lookalike with a twin brother, the Samuel (short Samuel, not the one in 03A2) and Tong combo plus this other guy whom Mel and I somehow nicknamed Andy Lau. I can't remember his real name. All their retarded comments made during Maths AO. Why the hell did I take Maths AO? Very good question. Sometimes such side-splitting moments were the only reasons I bothered showing up for class. And this Chinese High guy, too. I miss First Three Months; it was when I had the most fun in JC. I mean, that kinda figures, but seriously, the kinda people I met? Absolutely fantastic. Unpretentious and real, uncomplicated, they come as they are.

And there was Mel. We started out with the same pair of Nike shoes - dark blue, simple design. Funny to think how that pair of Nike shoes brought us together. She spotted those on me, pointed to them, and went, "Same shoes!" I remember very vividly that she wore a fluffy white scrunchie in her hair during some assembly thingy in the hall. She sat to my right, a few bodies in front of me. She won't be caught dead using that white scrunchie today. I don't know if she remembers this; probably not.

And that one time when we swapped uniforms, how my SN pinafore was wearing her, how short her AISS skirt was on me. So bloody fun, it was. And how I gave her one of my nametags and we pasted 'genius' and 'prodigy' over a couple of nametags and wore them like honour badges. And how we went to her house and hung out and had many moments where hearts and souls were bared, wrists peforated, minds blown. Amazing.

And this one time when we took the cab to Bukit Panjang Plaza with Tong. I found Tong intriguing because he stood out. It was largely due to his blatantly gravity-defying hair, but it was also because of that attitude of his. I remember thinking, "We're sharing a cab with Tong? Interesting." And so, being the rich bastard he's been since forever, he paid for the cab, we got out of the cab at BP Plaza, and he promptly went off to do his own stuff. How nice of him.

God, the history between us. How can it possibly compare to anything else attempted to be forged with me by new people who happened to stumble into my life by chance? I don't really know what I'm talking about, so I guess Nostalgia is the watchword nowadays.

I miss the good ol' days, moments long since passed, realities that only exist in my mind. Things I remember only because I wrote them down in my diary. I wouldn't remember Short Samuel and Tong and Andy Lau if I hadn't written about them, Lim Chee Guan (Lim Chee Bong according to Tong) and his relaxation exercise thingy he conducted during Econs lecture that made me laugh my ass off, then promptly slept blatantly in front of him with the hood of my Slam Dunk jacket over my head, which invited some 'eh, Jay Chou' comments from the Science students. LCG calling me 'Snowman', like, 'Why's the Snowman sleeping?' Boring teacher, mild and nice person. I always felt bad about skipping his classes, but hey.

Jurong's Science students. On second thoughts, I shan't comment, except to say that they provided a constant source of amusement for my friends and I.

Mel and Pei and the study benches. Year 2. Our hang-out place during that brief thirty-minute break some called 'recess' at 9.25 a.m. Pei's fashion magazines, my desperate annotation of the Bulldog's Prac Crit notes, Mel chewing on her breakfast or playing with the Jurong cat. Reading random graffiti left on the table, laughing at the bad English, leaving marks of our own. There was one that said 'Save the Arts', but this is another super embarrassing story for another day.

Pei and I and Sally C.'s GP classes, the way we were twenty minutes late, the way we didn't give a damn. Until she sat us down for a 'talk' when she discovered that we didn't really go to the toilet when we took one of our many, many breaks during GP. Oh, seriously, in retrospect I think we all know the 'talk' was pointless, that I could've just skipped every GP class and it wouldn't have made an ounce of a difference. Top student and all, you know? Don't mean to brag, but 'tis the truth. And this one time when she and I and a bunch of guys from her class were chased out of the classroom for 1) not paying attention; 2) talking amongst ourselves; or 3) all of the above. We dragged tables outside, faced them to the wall, and were supposed to do some inconsequential and stupid comprehension shit. Did we? Hell no. Ended up talking the period away. Good fun. Funny how Sally C. ended up one of the teachers I respect most in that school, to whom I'm grateful for everything she's done for me, her belief in me, her encouragement. Everything. Notwithstanding even my unfortunate...fling thingy or other with her son. Oh well, whatever, nevermind.

And KCT. Our notorious, demented European History teacher. Damn fucking funny lah, is all I can say. The way I blatantly cut her tutorials, didn't bother doing her work, plagiarised the essays I was supposed to do but couldn't be arsed to do. Got caught for plagiarising once but what could she have done to me? And in retrospect, again, what did anything matter? Top student and everything. And she hated me the most out of everyone in my class (meaning 03A1). She made some irrelevant comment once about how '[Yelen] is sitting there as if she knows everything'. She singled me out for no reason, when I was really being a good girl and keeping quiet while off in my own fantasy world. I think she's always known that I was smarter than her methods and I wasn't exactly abashed in showing that I didn't care for her at all (to put it politely), and that I really wasn't like the other people in my class. They did work, I did nothing. They showed up for class, I skipped when I didn't feel like going. She caught me skipping and sent me to detention, I didn't give a damn. Just give up, really.

The way we judged people by the extent of their literary knowledge. Ah, our idealistic naivete. How I miss it.

And Tubby, Mr. Anand, Tim Dore. The only subject I didn't blow off was Literature. The be all end all, you know? The thing that's always mattered, that's always come through for me when all else fails. People don't get this thing called 'passion', especially people without a passion. It's a passion because you rely on it, because it makes sense when nothing else does, because it rescues you from darkness and despair. The shining beacon amidst a pitch-black horizon. That's what it was to me. That's what it still is to me - which is why law continues being a pain in the ass. But let's not go there, not tonight. I still remember what Tim Dore said in class once. Perhaps it was in jest, I don't know, but in any case, he was talking about the quality of our exam answers and whatever, about how I was 'good', and then he went, "In the future she might even be better than me."

Seriously. Coming from Tim Dore, that was the highest form of affirmation anyone could ever dream of having. He may be a perpetual drunkard, but the man is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. It's not just the Brit humour or whatever; it's the extent and depth of his knowledge, both GP-wise and Lit-wise, how he made everything so plain and obvious. Why does a dog lick its balls? Because it can. Truer words have not been said. And those words have stuck with me over these past years.

Anand always thought I should major in Lit. He left after our first year and he still owes Mel and I our books. He gushed over Julian Barnes' "Flaubert's Parrot" once, talked about the exam paper in the novel, admired his writing. It was partly because of that that I went out and bought the book; the other reason was that I was becoming a Julian Barnes fangirl. I am now a Julian Barnes fangirl. And the very, very first Lit lecture I had ever in Jurong - I still remember how inspired I was by his passion for the subject. It was one of those things that you sit through and subsequently become a part of, that special moment during which you feel completely alive, all due to someone else's enthusiasm for the subject. I can't even begin to describe it; it was absolutely amazing. He saved Othello for me.

Tubby - where do I even begin? His brilliance remains unsurpassed in my opinion, even after a year and a half of law school. The self-deprecating humour, the quick, witty comebacks, the emails I exchanged with him that still make me laugh my head off whenever I read them. God, the wit, the wit! Why the hell is he still single? At least he was single the last I checked. I showed him one of my poems once, one that I was the most proud of (not anymore - thankfully, 'cause I wrote that when I was 16 and I think I should move forward and stuff), and the only negative thing he had to say about it was the over-dramatic...ness of the title. Isn't he such an awfully nice guy? I think so too. When he was dissing us for our crappy exam answers, the only bad thing he had to say about mine was my handwriting. Like, he just had to pick a bone with everyone, you know? He told me to use a ruler. I just laughed it off. Some disgruntled dude from another class referred to Mel, Pei and I as Tubby's "pets". HAHA. The mere idea? So damn hilarious. But yeah, there was some truth to it, I think.

And of course, the College Day thing a year later. The valedictorian thing. Doesn't mean jack in the long run, but in that moment it was quite exhilaratingly victorious. Of course, I was going through my angsty, I Hate Law School period (well, not really a period since I'm kinda back there) and so I felt like a fraud, but I was the only person receiving money for topping, like, three subjects (I bloody might've got Econs, too, if I hadn't failed my MCQ for the prelims. I was like, 97th percentile or something. Gosh, the extra money I could've got), scoring three A's, and delivering some crap speech in front of everyone. Funny thing? The speech was crap, and the speech was sincere. Fuck, right? The only thing I regret was not including Arthur Kok in my list of thank-you's. I was too embarrassed because, I don't know, the pertinent people knew about my huge crush on him or so I believed, and so, well, that was a bad move on my part. Oh, and I regret what I wore, too. I regret it VERY much.

This entry is getting way too long. It's 2.05 a.m., I'm experiencing the beginnings of a cold, I'm super tired, and so I'm going to bed.

I needed this walk down memory lane. I really, really did.

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