a very long entry that is entirely un-emo and therefore a MUST READ.
written: 7:56 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 24, 2007

I've been feeling moody and I think it's the stress from school. Two years of law school and this is the first time that I feel real pressure to and from work, and yet, in the face of such pressure, I choose to switch off anyway. Watched two episodes of Damages (guess what it's about - yes, it's a legal drama), went for a swim, and read three measley pages of my Rational Social Choice notes. I'm still extremely unhappy with my Emergencies short essay and I'm sure that half my citations are wrong because I have no idea how to cite a quotation from a judgment and I'm too lazy to dig around for my Carswell citation guide, but...but.

Sigh. Well, on a brighter note, yesterday marked the end of my social life until October 1, also known as for the entire mid-semester break, and it was a fun, fitting end to a very vital part of my life. It's rather bleak if you think about it - doing nothing but fucking Rational Social Choice for one week, wanting to pull out my hair strand by strand when I look at my rubbish piece of shit Emergencies essay, and leaving the house only to go to school to study. Entirely shitty, right? What an understatement.

Therefore, I'm glad Kenneth was nice enough to entertain me with his company yesterday because he's very funny and entertaining. He pegged our friendship right when he said that I spend most of my time with him sitting across the table from him, laughing at him. Because I do. Because he's hilarious. And I laugh at him and not with him because he's hilarious per se. It's always good to have friends whom you can laugh at, you know.

Okay, in all fairness, I do a fair amount of laughing with him too, but 'laughing at him' sounds funnier. And more accurate. Because I do a lot of that.

I've decided that I'm sick of writing emo shit entries so to counter the onslaught of emo shit entries that I've seem to have taken to writing over the past few weeks, I shall write an un-emo entry about what I've been up to over the past few days, as far as memory serves.

Yesterday was fun and for the first time since we met, Kenneth got an opportunity to laugh at me. And he laughed pretty hard. But I'm fucking embarrassed so I shall not divulge the context in which he did the laughing.

Actually, he had more than one opportunity to laugh at me yesterday. First I told him that thing which he laughed heartily at which I am not divulging, then we went to One Rochester for dinner and the drink that he owed me, and we got a table under some trees and, obviously, in the open air. So, all was good, food was good, etc, then all of a sudden I felt something drop into my shoe. I was in the middle of attempting to read the drinks menu in the darkness - that included trying to make out the words and trying to figure out what the fuck those words meant when I'd finally made them out - and when I felt that something drop into my shoe, I froze, wondering if I had cause to freak out, and shoved the menu to Kenneth.

I said, "Fuck, there's something in my shoe."

And then I felt that something move.

I said, "IT'S ALIVE!"

Apparently that was really funny, and I say 'apparently' because I didn't find it that funny and yet Kenneth decided to be helpful by laughing at me. How utterly helpful.

(Unrelated side note: I don't know why it is that I can write half an entry here on John Locke's prerogative and make it sound halfway academic and vaguely well-written, but not do the same for my rubbish short essay which is twenty freaking percent. Maybe I should write an entry here about the Liversidge v. Anderson decision, what it means to restrict judicial review in cases involving national security and therefore confer unlimited power on the executive to handle such cases. Maybe then I would have something that I feel is halfway worth submitting. Because that piece of shit I wrote? I would give myself a D for it. Utter crap.)

And then there was that extremely alcohol-soaked lychee which we both had in our drinks. I ate mine first (I ordered this thing called a Zack's Killer - can't remember if it had an apostrophe s - because it had lychee and mango. You can't go wrong with lychee and mango. And I had no idea what to order. And I thought I should order the cheaper drinks on the menu since I wasn't paying) and exclaimed that it was bloody alcoholic, coughed a bit, he made some funny comments about collapsing from eating one lychee. Then he ate his - and reacted in a similar fashion.

I've never eaten such a potently alcoholic lychee before in my entire life, not even that lychee in my lychee martini I had with someone I'd much rather forget ever existed at Pump Room. Kenneth's lychee martini was also blue. That was infinitely interesting.

I also discovered last night that I really do not like the way alcohol makes me feel. Because we had that drink each at One Rochester and there was a birthday party at One Rochester, held by some middle-aged ang moh person, and there was a live band and they were playing shitty music - sentimental sappy love songs, songs you hear in moralistic movies from the days of old in scenes where the perfect, happy, no-pre-marital-sex-ever couple slow dances together. Bor-ring. Ergo, we adjoured to Wala at Holland V where I bought Kenneth a drink to pay him back for dinner, and Wala was the place of choice because it has good live music.

And indeed it had. I don't know who the two-person duo was, but they played songs I knew! Toad the Wet Sprocket's All I Want, The Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, REM's Losing My Religion which I haven't heard for a while, just to name a few. When we went up they were just playing the last two lines of Oasis' Wonderwall which of course everyone knows I adore. They did ruin it a bit when they played Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars, which is one of most irritating songs ever because it's SO completely overplayed, and it also has a title that doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean, what the fuck does 'chasing cars' even mean? Kenneth provided an interesting idea which I might have accepted but I'm not really certain because I was rather intoxicated.

Which brings me back to my original point that I was going to make before I started talking about music. Alcohol and the way it makes me feel. It's so awful. I didn't know what to order at Wala so I did that thing where I order the drink with the dirtiest-sounding name on the menu, which happened to be the Harvey Wallbanger over there, and after I drank that I had a serious migraine. Woozy and very sleepy and it got really cold after a while, and we were sitting at the counter top thingy facing the window, and I was staring out at the opposite buildings and the people below us, and I could've fallen asleep right there and then. In the midst of my sleepy state I also laughed very hard and probably very obnoxiously, talked a lot of nonsense, and wanted to blurt out a few more private details of my life on a few occasions but thankfully was still sober enough not to.

Because alcohol makes a person emo and that's not fun. Not only does it make a person emo, it gives that person a splitting headache. Kenneth offered to walk me home which was really nice of him and such niceness one cannot exploit because one was still capable of going home by oneself in one piece, so I said thanks but I'm not going to make you go all the way to my house and take a taxi back to yours when your bus stop is before mine. And I got home, lazed on my parents' bed amidst their complaints that I stank of alcohol (I really hate that you know - the complaints and the stinking. But I can never smell my own stinking, obviously, so I can't really say definitely that I don't like the stinking bit. I guess I just don't like the idea of me stinking of alcohol. Ew) and stared at Constantine, then I took out my eyes, then I remembered that I hadn't replied Chloe's text and I thought that I should reply before I completely fell asleep, so I laid on my bed and replied, then I closed my eyes for a bit and I fell asleep for ten minutes.

That was before washing my face and showering and all that stuff.

Ever since I got drunk on tequila shots and other random mixers and whatever on the first Wednesday of August, I hadn't felt much like drinking. Before last night, the only alcoholic things I had since that drunken Wednesday (technically Thursday morning) was a little white wine at Mag's birthday party, a glass of white wine at Wine Company during Chloe's birthday dinner, and two sips of red wine and one sip of white wine at my grandma's house on her birthday lunch. The irony in all of this is that I don't like wine, red AND white, because it's too potent for me. My relative absence from alcohol must have done something to my tolerance of it, i.e. weakened it, because I really felt physically horrendous last night after those two cocktails.

And of course, my body was all red and blotchy. Rashes-like. I still remember how, when I had a cocktail with the ex-boyfriend the night before I flew to Bangkok last year, I had rashes all over my arms the next morning. Unfortunately I don't remember what I drank. I remember what I ordered - a Manhattan - but I ended up drinking what he ordered because I didn't like my drink. And I can't remember what he ordered.

Oh, and who could forget the fact that my legs hurt, too? Dear Alcohol, How I Have Missed You, Not.

That aside, yesterday was still fun. Kenneth asked if I was allergic to alcohol (I told him about the rashes incident) and, you know, I don't actually know, but I think if I were really allergic I would have more violent reactions, or simply violent reactions, period, but all I get are rashes that don't itch or don't feel like anything which usually go away after a few hours (save for that super potent cocktail, whatever it was, I had the night before Bangkok) and inexplicable muscles ache which have kept me from sleeping in the past but those go away after a while too. So, yeah, I don't think I'm allergic. And I hope I'm not 'cause that would be utterly inconvenient. I mean, I'm more reluctant to drink now than, say, a few months ago, but it doesn't mean I wouldn't drink ever, so being allergic wouldn't be very nice at all. I still want to go out drinking with my friends, AND have the option of attempting to get picked up in not-so-sleazy bars.

I'm obviously joking about the getting picked up part.

Wala - the upstairs with the band and the air-conditioning and away from the stench and the humidity and the cigarettes downstairs - is really quite nice when it's not jam-packed with the entire Holland Village population. I wasn't really too into the idea of going there at first; the first and only time prior to last night I was at the upstairs area, it was a Friday or Saturday night and it was PACKED. I was there with this guy whom I went out with a few times and we had to queue to go upstairs, and it was an interesting experience. I can't remember if I wrote in that entry that me and the guy were squashed against the bar and I had people knocking into me every few minutes. Not fun at all.

But on a Sunday night where there are - gasp - empty tables and chairs around, it's actually really nice. And there were a few cute guys there too, a fact that I was sober enough to notice.

Well, anyway.

Oh I must talk about my weird peeing experience at the upstairs toilet. For some strange, inexplicable reason, the people responsible for coming up with a functional toilet in an alcoholic establishment decided to use frosted glass to partition the cubicles. So there I was, happily peeing, when I noticed that the girl to my left had just stood up and was buttoning up her pants. And how did I know that? The frosted glass was translucent enough that the light cast a shadow on the glass - which means I could see the shadow, and accordingly, the movements of the person whose shadow I could see.

EW. It was so strange and I was a bit shy to, you know, do what girls do when they're done peeing but it didn't make any sense to sit there all night so I gathered up my balls and thickened my skin and got out of there before the clock struck 12.

Shit, it's 10.35 p.m. already and I'm still writing this entry. I really need to read my notes.

Anyway, so that was yesterday.

Saturday night I went to watch Chinese opera with my mom. Yue opera. Not Beijing opera. No elaborate costumes, scary face make-up, just weirdly-accented Mandarin and some amazing singing. It was the story of Liang Shan Bo and Ju Ying Tai and because I am a shameless banana, I didn't really know the story. I've heard of it but I thought it was a Chinese Romeo and Juliet but it turned out less dramatic than R & J, and more realistic, and for some strange reason I felt really moved by the end of it. This is ME, post-traumatic break-up cynic extraordinaire, feeling MOVED by some love story in which the star-crossed lovers died of heartbreak (ok the guy died of heartbreak and the girl killed herself after he died of heartbreak) and turned into butterflies.

But it was so touching. I can't even remember how the songs went, but when I listening to them sing I felt so incredibly moved. This perhaps goes to show that I'm really a romantic at heart but I don't feel like going too much into this right now.

Actually, then again, why not? I've already wasted my entire Monday doing nothing anyway. I was thinking about this briefly while swimming earlier on. Kenneth and I had a short discussion over drinks last night about marriage and what would constitute reasonable cause to file for divorce (okay, it wasn't the main topic of discussion but it came up anyway) and I realised that I don't view the substance of a marriage any differently from that of an ordinary relationship. A marriage, to me, is a legally-recognised version of a normal relationship. And I was wondering about what the appropriate course of action would be if the married couple completely fell out of love with each other, because in a non-marriage they would just break-up. But I realised that for me, if I fell completely out of love with the person I'm married to, I would find it a reasonable cause to file for divorce (absent fact of kids and whatever shit), because it's the rest of my life we're talking about, because at some level I still vaguely believe in the concept of The One, I think, and therefore the true romantic in me doesn't or refuses to believe that she's resigned to spending the rest of her life with someone whom she neither loves nor is in love with.

And...there was another point I was going to link that to but I can't remember what it was. But I'm sure you get my general idea. But I'm not really disposed to the idea of thinking about love lately so I'll conclude this train of thought with a flippant 'fuck it' and leave it at that.

I had dinner with my mom at Thai Express before the opera (which was fantastic, have I mentioned that already? The opening/closing song was soooo nice) and the fried glass noodles thing I ordered tasted vaguely like Indian mee goreng. Interesting. We bought kaya toast from Glutton's Bay after dinner and it was YUMMY! Gah, I love crispily-toasted kaya toast.

I can't remember what I did on Friday. Oh yes, Law IV musical which I mentioned already.

I can't remember what I did on Thursday. Oh yes, I went to the dentist. How exciting.

I totally remember what I did on Wednesday. I met Rui in school where we attempted to study before heading down to the national library to watch The Campaign to Confer a Public Service Star on JBJ - which was fucking fantastic. Pam Oei was amazing and totally reminded me of Mel, and Rodney Oliveiro was SO CUTE! Oh I so have a soft spot for cute guys with dimples (I was going to say 'guys with dimples' but I never had a soft spot for guys who are not good-looking and never will) who speak such impeccable English and are tall and older to boot. So in love with Rodney!

Because Rui drove, she played Postal Service's Such Great Heights in her car and I found out that the version I have isn't the version she has. I wonder how many versions of Such Great Heights there are floating around out there. We didn't really know how to get to the library from school, so we kind of but not really randomly took some expressway, made some right turn, and ended up in the right area! So totally impressive. We were both muchly pleased with ourselves. We wanted to eat at Miss Clarity's but there was a queue and it was already past 7 (the play was at 8) so we, along with Jolie, went to eat at some Thai place instead. My phad thai was quite nice; not as sweet as the one I had in Bangkok in this by-the-river seafood restaurant. I just can't get used to eating sweet fried noodles.

The play was really very good, such that I kind of want to watch it again but I have no money and no time so forget it. Rodney is so cute. Okay nevermind, totally irrelevant. But yeah, the lines were superbly written. I'm so jealous of Rui and Mag who had Eleanor W. as their LAWR tutor!

I would also like to make fleeting mention of the extremely weird dream I had which was extremely weird. Nowadays my dreams come back to me in bits and pieces when I'm awake. They're still quite vivid, but unlike before when I wake up remembering them and then forget them as the day went on, lately I find that I forget the dream, forget the fact that I had a dream, and then, as the day went on, have random bits and pieces of the dream come back to me. Usually the bits and pieces don't come back enough to form a coherent whole, so all I remember of last night's extremely weird dream was making out in a super hot fashion that's hotter than anything I've never experienced in real life (okay, that's an outright lie but some things I kind of want to stop remembering so just allow me that privilege) with some random person whom I don't know in my non-dream state, and being in SNGS and...well, that's it. And something about queuing up in SNGS at the chicken rice stall for sliced fish vermicelli - how odd and random. I think I also ignored someone but I don't know who it was or why I ignored that person.

Actually, it wasn't really that weird. I dream of making out with people that don't exist in my real life as I know it...not really all the time, obviously, but on a few occasions. I even dream of making out with people that I actually know, which is horrendously mortifying to say the least, and I don't know why I'm talking about this at all.

Okay, I can't believe I just spent three hours writing this entry. I need to do my work. I NEED TO DO MY WORK.

Since I said that this entry was going to be un-emo, I shall not talk about what I suddenly kind of vaguely feel like talking about. I think I should study. No, wait: I NEED TO DO MY WORK.

Lastly, I would like to declare my once-every-mid-autumn-festival love for Raffles Hotel: Raffles Hotel, YOUR SNOWSKIN TRUFFLE MOONCAKES ARE THE BEST THING SINCE...hmm, I can't think of any other cliche besides sliced bread but I don't eat sliced bread so the cliche doesn't mean anything to me. Nevermind, can't think, so will go with SLICED BREAD. Such soft, delicate, snowskin! Oh, be still, my heart.

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