Disclaimer
The reader accepts, on reading of this disclaimer, that the Internet is a vast wasteland of crap that spews out of human minds. This blog is no different. Any assumptions or conclusions that the reader draws from this blog are not the responsibility of the author, along with any physical or psychological harm that might result from the reading of this blog.

Author
The author is a paranoid, deranged and cynical misanthrope who records snippets of her life so that she will remember them when she grows old and withered. The identities of any names or initials on this blog are based on the assumptions of the reader unless otherwise specified, and the author claims no responsibility for them.

Reality
The author somehow got into medical school. Yes, you of the general public, shudder and fear the wrath of an inept doctor.

Loves
Reading, Maisy (my dog), tea, writing (albeit badly), piano, music, junk food.

Hates
Almost everything else besides the things mentioned above.

Friends

 Bao Cheng' Bernice' Chien Young' Chun Hing' Claire' Faustina' Felicia' Ferly' Gloria' Irene' Irene & Jiaying' Jac' Jiamin' Jiasin' Jiaying' Lutheng' Karene' Marissa' Melesa' Mingyi' My fictionpress' Pamelia' Pei Rong' Qiu Ting' Rachel' Satires Site' Stasia' Sylvia' The Clique' Vinette' Wenjia' Xin Rong' Xue Ying' Yanne & I' Yanne & Jamie' Zeena' 203'

Archives

 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008 06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008 07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009 03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009 04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009 05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009 12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010 08/01/2010 - 09/01/2010 12/01/2010 - 01/01/2011 06/01/2011 - 07/01/2011 04/01/2012 - 05/01/2012 08/01/2012 - 09/01/2012 09/01/2012 - 10/01/2012 10/01/2012 - 11/01/2012 11/01/2012 - 12/01/2012 12/01/2012 - 01/01/2013 01/01/2013 - 02/01/2013 02/01/2013 - 03/01/2013 03/01/2013 - 04/01/2013 04/01/2013 - 05/01/2013 05/01/2013 - 06/01/2013 06/01/2013 - 07/01/2013 07/01/2013 - 08/01/2013 11/01/2013 - 12/01/2013 12/01/2013 - 01/01/2014 02/01/2014 - 03/01/2014 03/01/2014 - 04/01/2014 05/01/2014 - 06/01/2014

Chat area


 Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Happy Halloween!

There were some kids running around in our neighbourhood trick-or-treating, and my mum gave them candy while Maisy barked at them. HAHA.

I wish I could go trick-or-treating :(. Except I'm too old, and that I already consume too much sugar. And that I have a whole deluge of tests to study for.

Bah. I'm so tired.

And I screwed up physics today, and hist yesterday. And, of course, piano on monday.

And there's geom and trig tmr, both a test and an ass(ignment) due, and the music festival. Which Gaby told me is just like an 'exam', except I'm playing just 1 piece. Which kind of sucks, because I'm so sick to death of tests/exams.

There's a chem test on Fri too. I'm just wondering how I'll get the time to study for that. *sigh*

Can't wait for the weekend. When I have to start exam revision. Oh joy.

8:25 PM

Monday, October 29, 2007

My piano exam, for those curious to know, was as good as a pile of bat shit.

Aka, crap (pun intended).

Well, not all of it. I thought the scales were ok-ish except for 1 of the '3rd aparts', where I overshot the notes at the top. The pieces, contrary to my belief earlier on in the day, were actually good in my opinion! The piano was way better than mine/the school's (it was a grand!).

Now comes the bad part. The sight-reading: notes were fine, rhythm was screwed beyond hope.

And... *thunder clouds start to form*

AURALS.

Were a total nightmare. Given a normal day condition, yes, I would have breezed through them. However, I totally blanked out.

I got an easy cadence: plagal. Guess what I said? PERFECT. Fine, they're pretty close, and I rectified my mistake when asked to identify the cadences. But for the identification, for the 1st chord, I said 'dominant'. For the 2nd, 'dominant'. Bah.

I don't know what happened. I got an easy, easy JAZZ piece for the last test. And when asked what the style was, I said I didn't have a clue. Asked the probable composer, I murmured 'Debussy'.

I felt like shooting myself immediately after the exam, much less wait for Gaby to do so because I certainly did not get FULL MARKS (HA, HA) for the aurals. I went into the 'holding room' and told her the minute I walked in that she was gonna kill me. Wait till you see my mangled, blasted skull tomorrow.

Anyway, that's over. Heck. I probably failed miserably, but there's a lot more going on this week than to fret over my piano results which I know are past the point of no return. And it turns out the 'old bag' wasn't all that old after all. She was only about 50 I think. And Gaby said she was nice, which both myself and a fellow schoolmate totally disagreed on.

Thanks to all the well-wishers too! Especially Irene, who smsed me half an hour before it started, and scared the crap out of Gaby because she thought it was my mum smsing me that she couldn't pick me (and the schoolmate) up. Thanks to Xinrong, Sars, Jiaying, Shiru and all the others who told me to stop freaking out too :).

Bah. Hist doc study test tmr, and the research essay (just a 100 word plan anyway: easy enough to churn out in the span of half an hour) due on Wed, along with the physics test (which deserves a huge BAH). And geom and trig test and assignment (which I've thankfully done. May I remind you it is a huge achievement because it was supposed to be a 3 hr exam) and the school's music fest (like I haven't had enough of piano 'tests') on Thurs. And chem on Friday. And the fact that my week is so sh*tty, I'm basically SCREWED with huge, capital letters.

So what am I still doing here when I should be hauling my a*s off to do my hw, I don't know. Probably still suffering from post-piano-exam-shock/trauma.

And...

The fact that I found out the evil dwarf used to be part of a 'rock band', and was the LEAD VOCALIST. Now how traumatising is that?! If laughter could kill, I think I'd be 186 times dead.

Oh, when I told my teachers I was going for my piano exam, NONE of them wished me good luck. What great teachers I have. Such highly supportive, amiable and kind teachers indeed.

And the exams are nigh, which just makes me want to sigh. Physics on the Mon, Lit on the Wed, Intro calculus on the Thurs, Chem on the Fri, Geom and trig on the following Tues, Hist on the Wed. So I start on the 12th of Nov and end on the 21st.

Yay.

And I get my papers back 1 day after my birthday.

Yay x 2.

What a great birthday present indeed.

8:48 PM

Saturday, October 27, 2007

I'm feeling kind of depressed now because I've just been researching the Holocaust for my history research essay.

It makes me wonder what the limits of the destructivity of humanity are, if there are any. And who has the rights to condemn people to life or death. And why God allowed such things to happen.

I don't think it's fair of me to pretend to understand what the Holocaust is about.

Anyway, we went on our history excursion to the Holocaust centre on Monday. Most of the trip wasn't that interesting (we did a lot in class already). It was only when the Holocaust survivor spoke to us (no one could catch his name because of his strong German accent) that I perked up.

He (I think his name was Kernard) was about my age when the Holocaust started. In 1942, he was sent to one of the labour camps to bury people who had died from exhaustion, and he was telling us about how these people were delivered by the truckloads in paperbags, undignified, nameless (except for the occassional one where their friends wrote their names on the insides of the paperbags).

Then when the Holocaust went into full effect, he was sent to a concentration camp (either Flossenberg or Gross-Rosen, I don't remember, but I think it's the former) to dig trenches to try to prevent the Russian tanks from crossing into Germany. And he was telling us about how they had to share a piece of bread and a ladle of soup with pieces of unidentified objects swimming in it between 5 people. So most people would eat half the bread and hide the rest away for another time, because they only got food once a day.

And he said that 98% of the people in the camps were generally sympathetic and helpful, but the remaining 2% would go around scrounging for those pieces of bread to ensure their survival, at the expense of someone else. So he said that one of the 2 greatest lessons he learnt from the Holocaust was to be a human being, not a human enemy. Which I thought really made sense.

The other lesson was given to him by his friend, who was a judge before the war and died shortly before the death march began (the Nazis were marching them towards central Germany because of the advancing Red Army), and was the one that made him decide to make a run for it. It was, if memory serves me right, to live by justice, not law. There was law in Nazi Germany, but no justice.

Bah. I do reckon he's one of the unluckiest people I've met though. He went back to Germany to study after the war, and he finally moved to Australia because of Stalin's regime. First Hitler, then Stalin. And now Howard. HAHA. How unlucky can he get.

Oh, he also said that out of the huge number of people in the school he was in before the war, he could count the number of survivors just by the fingers on his hands.

Oh well. I guess enduring a whole year of the evil dwarf for just that day's really worth it. And I'm probably dropping hist next yr for music, because I want to take piano lessons, and my mum would cut them off because I've finished my grade 8 (if I pass on Monday). Unless I take music as a school subject.

I'm off to do my lit assignment. Shall just leave this little passage from 'Night' by Elie Wiesel which I thought was really sad.

'Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.'

And if any of you are interested, this is a link to the Jewish Holocaust museum in Israel, Jerusalem that Gaby gave me. She went there last year, and she was telling me about how heartbroken she was after that :(.

Yad Vashem (Holocaust Museum)

12:08 PM

Monday, October 22, 2007

I positively hate my family. I know it's really mean of me to say that, so let me try and justify myself.

My dad was asking me when my piano exam was the other day. He doesn't give a crap about anything, really. He just asks, but doesn't bother remembering. And he asked about the recital yesterday. And he said that I should do better than my brother.

They always expect so much without giving me any damn help. It's almost like they believe that just because I'm the second child and I actually showed some promise as a young kid (emphasis on YOUNG), I have to surpass everything my brother did. Not that that's happened.

Which leads on to my mum, who practically worships my brother. She rushes off to these night jobs just so that she can give him an extra $500 pocket money, when I get NOTHING. I don't even eat lunch in school because it's so frigging expensive (it's about $4 for just a sandwich). And when she's off on those night jobs, I have to settle dinner, which she's pre-cooked and requires just a bit more cooking. Fine, I don't mind that. What really gets on my nerves is that she unloads all that extra stress on me. It's so unfair. I don't even stand to gain anything. Everything she does is for that assh*le who just sits around pretending he's so great just because he's a doctor-to-be.

And my mum picks on me. My brother and I are sitting on the couch watching television. I had just spent about 2 hours doing my Geom and Trig assignment/practice exam paper, and was basically drained and really tired. And my brother, who instead of doing his work, was having a 2 hour nap, is fully rejuvenated. Guess who has to help prepare dinner?

The assh*le then talks about me lazing around, and says I should get a job. For holy f*ck's sake (sorry... I really cannot find any other appropriate vocabulary to express my anger and exasperation. Not that the expletives really help), I already have a whole iceberg of homework and assignments and what-nots that have to be done. Just because it's supposedly not an 'important' year doesn't mean there isn't any homework. And my mum just has to join in and talk about how frigging lazy I apparently am, and how I should get a job. I am not the one who spends every day eating out at posh chinese restaurants like dear brother. I don't even EAT lunch, for God's sake.

And I think the assh*le's going to start floating soon. Due to his huge, helium-inflated head. He thinks he's oh-so-smart with such an oh-so-bright-future just because he's doing medicine. Big-fat-deal. I know so many inspiring and intelligent people (like Gaby) who would probably rather die than do medicine. And when I say that, he says that's because they're WEIRD. And my mum agreed.

I don't understand them. Just because someone's different doesn't mean they're weird. Just because I don't want to be a doctor/lawyer doesn't mean I won't succeed in life. Being a doctor/lawyer probably gives me a free life ticket on the highway to an economically-comfortable albeit unhappy life. And just because I don't want to be one despite my apparent 'ability' to be one doesn't brand me to be a social outcast (though I certainly am one) or 'weird', as they so eloquently put it.

The assh*le was also suggesting all sorts of medical tests for my parents. Some snoring cure for my dad, and a mamogram for my mum. The ancient Greeks and Romes, bless their centuries-dead souls, did not have such technologically advanced machinery. And they still thought more clearly and lived longer than us. And, I guess, they were 'weird'.

And yes, I know, I'm going to be a failure, if being a failure means I won't be a lawyer/doctor. The only thing I'm going to regret if I move out to go to a uni in 2 years time would be leaving Maisy behind. She's such a sweetie... She helps cheer me up when I'm really depressed, like now.

If my family owned a gun, I think I'd be dead by now. Suicide or murder, you decide. They would probably have disowned me because I was too 'weird'. You know, Darwinism and evolution? The weak get exterminated? And just throw in a few more medical terms and you get the gist of what the assh*le would say.

9:43 PM

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Piano 'recital' thingum today. It was quite horrible really.

The Mozart and the Chopin were fine. The Bach was bad. I totally screwed up the prelude, and was mentally whacking myself throughout the whole thing, thus resulting in even more mistakes. Bah. At least it was my last piece.

Mozart was 3rd down the programme. I think Gaby heeded my warning that I'll probably be late. Strangely enough, we were 5 minutes early. The Chopin, contrary to the fact that I wasn't too confident using the pedals on a new piano, was actually really good. The Mozart was fine.

Now the Bach: I just bashed my way through the prelude, getting probably nearly all the notes wrong and just carrying on. And yes, then whacking myself with a huge lollypop (ooh yum) through the fugue, and about 3/4 of the prelude. Gah, that was shitty.

My mum timed the Mozart piece. It took 5 minutes. No wonder half the kids were getting fidgety. And the wind blew the page of my prelude when I started, probably kicking off all the panicky energy in me. Gee.

At least I didn't have to wait all the way to the end to finish my pieces. I was done halfway down the programme. And I really really pity Gaby. I know I've said this a gazillion times, but I think she gets really bored teaching people like me, and some of her other students. Some didn't even turn up today, and some played pieces that even my mum could play (and she only took 1 yr of piano playing all my old preprimary pieces). And me, I'm just plain crap at the instrument. Lol.

As I predicted, my mum had to slide in some kind of 'snide' comment. Gaby was kind of shocked that she just dragged me off after the recital without staying for tea or even a drink. And Gaby was going on about how I played really well (while I was still whacking myself with the mental lollypop), and told me to go dead slow for the prelude (which I really should). And my mum was like 'oh, so she'll pass her exam?' and Gaby was really shocked. Thank God she said that I'll definitely pass, or my mum would have killed me there and then.

I gave Gaby 1 of those 'I told you she'd say this sort of thing' kind of look, and she laughed. Don't think my mum saw it. It's kind of an 'insider joke' between Gaby and I.

And I think Gaby knew I was mentally bashing myself up, because after the recital ended, she gave this little 'speech' about not being unhappy with your performance because she saw some people (aka me) who looked unhappy with their performances. I get the feeling that she can read my mind sometimes, which is quite freaky. And she was talking about how her uni professor (I told you she was hell good) insulted her after her performance. I didn't really get the story because I was still whacking myself. Haha.

Then came all the thank yous and blahblah. Then my mum dragged me off. She was going on about how that guy was quite good, or that girl's fingers were really flexible. I'm glad she didn't say anything about my performance. I guess it was too crappy for her comments.

We went to get our new glasses after the recital! Mine makes me look like Wonderwoman, in my opinion. It's pinkish-red (fine, I know it's different from the colour palette I always wear) with beige, and it actually looks quite cool. I don't really care whether it looks good or not. Just as long as I can actually see. My old glasses were getting a bit useless. Can't see the board from the back of the class. My eyes are really in a terrible shape now.

Anyway, Maisy had a haircut yesterday! She looks so tiny in comparison now, it's almost piteous. She still is really heavy though. Must be all that muscle in there. And she's so cute! She had this whole bag of hair cut off, and it looked like cotton wool/candy floss. I prefer her with long hair :(. Though she starts panting like mad.

I'm off now. Done more than half of my Plath essay (yes, finally) after I've been procrastinating for about 3 weeks. Done the intro, overview, the analysis of 'Daddy'. Got to do the analysis of 'The Applicant' and the conclusion, and I'M DONE. Woots.

Shall finish that tomorrow, and start on my history essay. Did I say we're going on an excursion to the holocaust centre tomorrow? Wonder how that will go... The prospect of sitting in a bus (aka being in an enclosed, small area) with the evil dwarf somehow seems quite daunting.

10:36 PM

Friday, October 19, 2007

The first week of term is finally over. It's been quite a screwy week.

Argh. Piano thingum on Sunday! I'm getting scared. As I've said for over a million times, my mum's going to be there. Boo.

And because of the deluge of homework and assignments I have to get through by tonight and tomorrow, I bid thee farewell.

9:08 PM

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

This post is probably going to mark the start of a long hiatus/irregular blogging. I simply am short of time.

Let's see why. Week 3's a hell of a week. On top of the stuff I mentioned yesterday, our geom and trig teacher flung a whole EXAM PAPER at us as an assignment. All 25 pages of it done by the same Thurs as the geom and trig test and the music fest. Just great.

And there's the lit essay which I was supposed to have done during the hols due next Thurs. Sigh.

Anyway, Maisy threw a huge tantrum today. I guess she was pretty lonely after my hols ended, and mum didn't take her to work today because Maisy was too tired. So when mum came back, she was really pissed off and refused to eat, drink, pee, respond to practically anything. Mum was really worried that she was sick. But when dad and I got home, she was perfectly fine. She was happily running around and chomping on her various towels, and was really hungry. Mum was pretty disgruntled because she was so worried for nothing. She even thought Maisy was going to die.

*snorts with derisive laughter*

Maisy is really cute. Albeit a little too chubby for long cuddles. She used to sleep on my lap, but she's gotten too heavy. We try to make her exercise, but she ends up making us carry her back home. Gee. She's just like me, a couch potato :).

She's having a haircut this Saturday. We're getting a new 'hairdresser' because she didn't really like the previous one. I hope she likes this one. Or she'd be really depressed for 3 days and eat really little etc. :(

And I'm worried about the recital on Sunday. My mum's going. *echoes of thunder and ominous clouds building up* Ah crap. I can assure you she'll have something to complain about, be it the nasty chair she was sitting in, or the many mosquitoes happily hanging off the ceiling, or, as usual, my horrible playing.

And I really should go off to my maths/chem/God-knows-what. Or even do some piano. I'm glad I don't have a to-do list or it'll be as long as Timmy the toilet roll (you guys remember OM? :) The good ol' times...). Considering how I only came on to email my 2 paragraphs of lit essay to the school email (because we're getting time to work on it in class), I've spent quite a while here. So I should go off.

9:42 PM

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Do you guys think I'm a lonesome genius?

...

Pardon me while I snigger myself into a dead faint.

Gaby apparently thinks I am. I was telling her about my mum throwing all sorts of careers at me, and she suggested software on a wild whim that it was what lonesome genii did. I thought it was rude to snigger myself into a dead faint and fall with a deafening crash on the piano, so I didn't.

Why the heck do people think I'm smart? Smart people are people like Laykuan, or NATAN, or just anyone but ME. Hell... Who got 39 for her Maths overall in sec 2? Gee. The world is full of crazy people.

Not saying that Gaby's crazy. She's just really nice, actually bothering to listen to my rants. Not that I actually give her a choice. She probably doesn't, but just does so to humour me. And I had an extra long lesson today because her next student didn't turn up. So that was nice. We talked quite a bit... About how she got a trip to New York because she won a bet with her husband about teenage boys and salad.

Apparently her son had friends staying over for the weekend, and she made this huge bowl of salad for lunch. So her husband was saying it was quite unnecessary since testosterone-charged teenage boys would never touch vegetables, and promised her ANYTHING if they did. And she wanted a trip to NY (haha...) to visit her great grandaunt who's 97.

Anyway, the first guy turned down the offer of vegetables, probably cringing like me. The second, however, actually took some. And she and her husband just cracked up, and the kids were like 'wth?! Why're your parents laughing that I took some salad?!'. Hee. I wish my parents were like that. I'll bring one of my rabbity friends home. I've got quite a few in school. They're intent on maintaining their 'sevelte' bodies.

She wanted to see that great grandaunt because apparently she survived the Holocaust by the skin of her neck. She got out every time just before the Germans arrived. And Gaby wants to record down the story etc... About how the aunt's husband escaped from Paris via the rooftops, complete with the Gestapo shooting at him. I'm tempted to get an interview for my oral history assignment :).

Talking about history, we're watching SCHINDLER'S LIST in class. Great. Just great. I've watched it already, and it's so close to the exams I'm starting to panic. And yet we're just wasting our precious lessons watching a MOVIE that's about 3 hours long. Gee. The evil dwarf's off on a school camp. Meaning we're doing NADA the whole week. Just great.

And week 3's gonna be a killer. Mon: Piano exam. Tues: Intro calc and lit oral (elaboration later). Wed: physics and hist test. Thurs: music fest and geom and trig. Fri: chem test.

*dies*

About the lit assignment. The old hag gave me probably the hardest topic on the list. Aka the poetic technique of 'conceit'. I have NEVER heard of such a technique before, meaning a huge load of research. And we didn't do it before. And half the class was sighing with relief while the other half was laughing at my misfortune when she gave me the fateful topic. She couldn't have given me something easier, like haikus, or sonnets, or allusions. No, of course not. Well, granted she did it 'randomly'. Bleah.

I haven't done any homework tonight. Boo. I spent about an hour after dinner watching this documentary 'why democracy?', this episode being on George Bush and the Iraq War. I was sitting there going 'WHAT THE HELL' the whole time. Do you know tha it's legal for them to crush the testicles of a person's son to make them confess? Or that the Bush Administration virtually cannot be charged with war crimes because of a piece of legislation they drew up? ATROCIOUS.

It reminds me of the Holocaust again. And they talk about crimes against humanity. Or online videos of Americans (probably innocent) being executed. For God's sakes, they do it too. An eye for an eye, Bush?

The atrocities... They tortured people by making them almost suffocate so that they could extract 'confessions', which they turned into factual reports. It's so 1984, it's frightening. They used people's worst fears (Room 101, anyone?) like dogs to torment them into saying things. I think Orwell is a fricking clairvoyant. Except that he thought it would be the Germans, while this time, it's the Allied superpower/savior. Irony at its fullest.

All I can say is that white isn't always the purest colour. And that European media is so biased, it's unjustifiable. It's always the 'nasty Iraqis', never the 'weasel Bush Admin'. The world is really sad.

I'm off to do my chem homework before I get killed by my teacher. She got really agitated by people not listening today because we're apparently running out of time. I'm glad she wasn't pissed off I was late due to piano. She's really nice to me because she probably knows I do my work anyway. And my grades are quite ok in relation to others. The pros of being a nerd, heh?

10:18 PM

Monday, October 15, 2007

SCHOOL STARTS TOMORROW! My descent to hell :(.

At least it's piano in the morning. FOLLOWED BY DOUBLE CHEM. *dies* 2 full hours of chem... *shrivels up and dies again*

This sucks. And my pic was in the school bulletin because of that Maths thingum. Gah. How embarrassing.

Anyway, I had an eye test today because I'm getting new glasses. Something about the insurance giving us free glasses and eye tests every year. My myopia apparently got worse, especially in my left eye. Blame it on too much studying. HAHA. (and computer games) And something about my eyelashes sloping down and causing an abrasion on my cornea. *shrugs*

My mum was evil. They had to 'shoot' a little puff of air at our eyes to test the pressure, and my mum went first. Then she came out and told me 'it kind of hurts. Beware of it' (something along those lines anyway). So I freaked out. The lady was like 'no, it doesn't hurt' and I was secretly going 'LIAR LIAR'. And they gave up trying to do it because I was blinking like crazy. HAHAHA.

New glasses. They're pinkish-red. I couldn't find a nicer pair ok?! The first pair the lady passed me made me look like Wonderwoman, and I was just sniggering away. It was red and black... Oh well.

I was watching 'Little Mermaid 2' over the weekend. Yes, call me childish. My brother borrowed a dvd from 'Video Ezy', and he borrowed 2 of the same title and it didn't work on our computer. So he got frustrated and told me to swap it for whatever I wanted. Being too lazy to search for the ones I really want to watch (eg: X-men 3 and Spidey 3), I just picked the nearest one, which incidentally was Disney movies. Ah well.

Strangely enough, I enjoyed it. Except when the video kept getting jammed at 5:28. And it's strange how Disney can pass off sexually-attractive (in my opinion) women in bikinis as 'children's stuff'. Ariel, for God's sakes, is displayed as a sexy, shell-shaped bikini wearer. And don't get me started on Prince Eric. And no one ever complains about that being inappropriate for little kids. Think about the standards they set at such a tender age... Poor kids.

Bleah. School tomorrow. Really not looking forward to it. Probably getting 2 tests back (history and intro calculus). I think I failed the intro calculus. Hope I passed the history.

I hope I come back in 1 piece. The library's shut for the term because of renovations. Gee.

9:49 PM

Friday, October 12, 2007

I had a haircut today :(.

Not that it really looks drastically different. Just about 3 inches shorter.

Anyway, for those eager to know what my mp3 player looks like, here it is.



Doesn't it look pretty? It's not that nice in reality. The back is a shiny, grey (typical) metal. And it's actual size is about that in the pic, which is quite tiny. It has a big head, aka screen. And I'm happy :).

And I need to do my lit essay now. So I shall blog when I've actually done at least the intro. I have to do this so I will actually START the essay.

7:19 PM

Thursday, October 11, 2007

I got my mp3 player today!

It's currently charging. Have to charge it for 5 frigging hours.

The family doesn't know about it yet. And I hope it stays that way. I doubt my parents would approve of the way I've decided to splurge $88 on, and my brother would be scorning at me (because I can't afford a better, more reputable player. Like his Creative Zen, which cost about $200+. He teaches tuition, I don't. Humph).

Maisy didn't really seem to like the mp3 player. She gave it a sniff, probably realised it was inedible and walked away. Oh well. She likes music (I think), but probably not mp3 players.

I couldn't get to sleep last night. So I stayed up and did the overview of my lit essay. Not much, but heck. I kept getting distracted, first by Maisy and my mum (Maisy had to poop and because she sleeps in my parents' room, my mum came out to find her), then got tempted to read 1984 by Orwell (which I'm currently re-reading).

After that, I tried in vain to get to sleep, but couldn't. Bah. Kept shuttling between dreamland and reality the whole night, and the morning too.

So I've got a bad headache now :(. This sucks.

And last night, with the insomnia, I guess the inspiration for a really weird idea hit me like an asteroid. I might try to get Gaby to sign me out of PE lessons (which are also on Tues) so that I can catch up on practice/school work. Considering the amount of work I've been talking about and the amount of piano practice I need to get done, and that I don't get home till about 7 every night, I need as much time as I can to get work done. And PE, being the biggest time waster in the world (we're doing SALSA DANCING. Someone tell me how that's related to sport), could become an hourly study/practice time. Hmm... Wonder if she'll be nice enough. I doubt she'll get into trouble because there's this girl who has her music lessons during PE too.

Strange. The parents aren't back yet. They're about half an hour later than usual... Hmm.

Shall go off (I won't say to do my lit essay because I probably won't).

6:06 PM

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Before I start: No, I have not started my lit essay.

Just had to get that off my conscience. It's starting to weigh like a 2 ton baby elephant.

I just said that Mozart is annoyingly cheerful. No idea why I did.

Today's been pretty dull. Went 'shopping' for about 3 hrs... Booked an eye-check appointment, claimed some medical insurance stuff (with a doctor-to-be in the house, the bills on medical stuff do tend to sky-rocket), hunted around for our specs shop which apparently closed down and bought a pair of shoes, some tea towels and 2 bottles of fruit juice. I bought the shoes. My mum bought the rest. I'm not that OLD.

Speaking about old, I might finally get an mp3 player! Yes, after nearly half a lightyear, I've decided to emerge from my ancient cubbyhole and immerse myself in the wonders of technology. I'm eyeing an A$88 Philips mp3 player which seems relatively good, except that Philips is quite an obscure brand in terms of mp3 players. That being said, Apple and Creative have been dominating the scene and the term mp3 player has almost been replaced by the famous Ipod.

However, considering the poor little weeny churchmouse I am (or rather, my bank account figures are), I really cannot afford to spend more than $100 on just an mp3 player. Which, translated into every day lang, means kissing goodbye to anything that's either Apple or Creative branded.

And yes, I'm not leeching off my parents and/or begging/wheedling money out of them to buy it. It's coming out of my pocket. Mostly from the $200 I won from that fluke of a maths competition.

The main reason I'm buying an mp3 player is because I need a companion during the lonely hours I spend after school in the library. After nearly 2 hours of studying, my eyelids start to feel like blue whales and my skull feels like it's filled with strawberry slushie (yum!). And because the library (like all others) has a no-eating policy, it includes the lack of caffeine/salty snacks. The occassional candy probably doesn't do much harm besides attracting a few tiny ants, but the librarian got real mad at me when I tried to smuggle a can of Sprite in once. I never tried it again for fear of my picture being tacked onto the school library walls with a 'banned for life' sign.

Considering how I'm usually one of the last people to leave the library (yes, even after the librarians), I think I actually deserve an mp3 player to help me stay awake. My dad usually only picks me up at 6pm. Which means I spend nearly 2 and a half hours in the library. Which SUCKS.

Argh. Talking to Keisha (friend from Perth) just reminded me about my piano exam, which is in 2 and a half weeks. As well as the recital, and the music festival, and the multitude of tests, and the exams, and... *asphyxiates after muttering a whole concatenation of things-to-do-next-term* And the bad thing is, school's starting next Tues (yes, after the 48572619th time).

AND MY LIT ESSAY'S NOT DONE YET. *wails*

I'm getting worried. Really worried. Which is turning my hair white as Gandalf's as I'm blogging. Bleah.

10:32 PM

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Lit essay, lit essay, lit essay.

As expected, I've been procrastinating. The golden rule of the Couch Potato Code of Conduct. My conscience is constantly reminding me of the promise I made to get it done before the start of school. Along with the history essay. I doubt that's going to happen though.

I just want a break. To sleep and sleep. But my mum, the evil person she is, has been waking me up at 9 every day. Yes, during the hols. Really annoying, since I'd been looking forward to sleeping in.

1 more week to the start of school :(. I'm going to have to make my mind up about the music vs history thing soon, since this term's only 7 weeks long. Probably going to have to talk to my history teacher about it (crap... The evil dwarf is scary), asking his opinion (not that it really makes a difference) and how he thinks I'll do if I take history next year. I obviously already have a general idea of what he's going to say, but heck. It shows that I value his opinion (SHOWS. Not that I really value it).

Anyway, as I was watching Australian Idol last night (over dinner: I don't usually watch it), being the impatient person, I was flicking between channels during the ads. I halted on this program about immigration quarrantine at airports. Since I used to be a relatively frequent traveller, it aroused my interest and I watched on for about 15 mins. It turned from interest to annoyance. The way it portrayed foreigners was really... Derogatory. It featured them (especially Asians) as unintelligent, unreasonable people who could not understand English very well. The immigration officers more often than not had to speak very slowly to them and would express their intense exasperation at them.

My annoyance was increasing notch by notch during the 15 minutes. Yes, it is just a television show, but the way they depict foreigners is really unjustified. It throws almost all foreigners into the same basket of illiterate, uncooperative law-breaking fools which really isn't true. I remember when I was returning to Sg 2 years ago, the immigration officer, during a random check, thought I was an illiterate Japanese. She had this whole board of translations of 'This is a random check' (I think) and kept jabbing at the Japanese one. When I declared that I could speak English, she still kept jabbing at the sign and speaking English really slowly. I'm guessing that they assume anyone who's Asian cannot speak English fluently, and it really is very unfair of them to think so.

And now they've decided to introduce the citizenship test, which took effect on the 1st of Oct 2007. The Government has been discussing this for quite some time now, and it's finally come into use. The first time I saw the ad on television, I had to tell myself that the television did not deserve to be smashed as it wasn't its fault.

Let me explain my feelings towards it. Firstly, I think it is a huge waste of taxpayer's money, as well as a useless bid to kill off more trees (poor trees). Perhaps, oh perhaps, instead of wasting money and resources on such legislation, they could improve the general state of education? Or perhaps solve more crimes (such as MURDER and even the common burglary?)? But no, testing the knowledge of foreigners on Australia is far more important than people getting killed and property being 'raped'.

Secondly, FOR GOD'S SAKE, I study history at a tertiary level. Meaning I probably know more about Australia than your usual Aussie. I doubt many of them know about the Eureka Stockade. Or Simpson and his donkey. It's unfair that foreigners have to know so much about this land (which, I agree, is quite an good place to live for most people, though not me), while the locals know close to nada about it. This girl who works at my dad's shop said that Canberra was a suburb in Perth. So much for Australian history/geography among the Australians.

Thirdly, the objective of the test, as they claimed, is 'to help migrants integrate and maximise the opportunities available to them in Australia, and enable their full participation in the Australian community as citizens. It provides a strong incentive for new arrivals to learn English and to understand the Australian way of life. From a broader perspective, it supports social cohesion and successful integration into the community.' I snort with derision.

Integrate (sounds like Maths, doesn't it?) and maximise (how about optimise?) the opportunities available to them... I reckon changing the colour of our eyes and the colour of our hair would help migrants more. Or acquiring an Australian accent, for one. And I just would love to know how doing a 20-question test on Australia will help people integrate.

A strong incentive to learn... What, do we get candy at the test centres? And seriously, I reckon my writing and reading skills far outstrip many locals. Don't give me that bullock about learning English. And it almost makes the test a benefit more than a detriment for foreigners. *goes off muttering words like 'nonsense' and 'bullsh*t'*

What the heck. I don't reckon I'll want to be an Aussie citizen now, if I'm going to be subject to such treatment. It's not integrating us. It's differentiating (HAHA. MATHS) us from the rest of the community. It's branding us 'outsiders' immediately. Oh, how it claims to integrate us. That holier-than-thou attitude really pisses me off. I'm not that desperate yet, thank you.

Well, what do you guys think? To think they're chasing away 'foreign talent', when nearly every other country in the world is clamouring for them. Stupidity at its peak, I'm saying.

Disclaimer: I don't mean to offend anyone, and I doubt anyone would bother coming to look at this anyway. These are just my humble opinions, and I just felt it was incumbent for me to voice out my disbelief at such fatuity. If it offends anyone, I'll be glad to take it off. And might I remind you, by reading this, you've agreed not to sue me. Haha.

Anyway, I'm off to do my lit essay. I probably won't even get started on it. Albeit I could try :).

12:10 PM

Monday, October 08, 2007

Because Fausty wanted to hear me play, I recorded myself using my digital cam.

Not only did my fingers look fugly, but my playing sucked. I'm getting really demoralised, and this isn't good. I bet anyone who hears me play will puke out their dinner 2 months before.

No idea why I'm setting such high expectations on myself. Probably because I'm a perfectionist, as usual? I probably am not that bad, but... Argh. Just getting pretty mopey and dopey.

1 more week still school reopens! And I have not even started on my assignments. I've done half a plan for lit... (meaning I've decided what I want to write about the poems and my intro). I just realised today that it's a research assignment, so that means I'll need to get some kinds of statistics/quotes. Probably be researching 1950s America and the feminist movements/gender roles.

I need to stop procrastinating and start working! Argh!

6:36 PM

Sunday, October 07, 2007

NEW LAYOUT!!!

I'm so proud of myself. Actually, if you remembered the old one, it has exactly the same layout except the picture and the colour scheme. I thought this picture was really pretty, so there!

And if you wouldn't mind, please tell me which one you reckon's better.

Anyway, I had my piano lesson on Friday. Thank God we didn't get lost. Mum was worried we would be late, but we ended up 15 mins early. So they both met. I was getting prepared for the volcano eruption, but fortunately that didn't happen.

However, being the clairvoyant I am, I predicted the question my mum was going to ask Gaby. I was standing there, counting down, and sure enough, she asked. I was trying really hard not to snigger. She asked if I was ready for the exam, and (thank goodness) Gaby said I was. I think Gaby was kind of shocked when my mum asked her that.

Oh, her daughter was sitting at the entrance playing with this whole spread of toys. I felt intensely jealous. When I was about her daughter's age, I was doing all sorts of assessment books and studying for spelling (both english and chinese), and going for all sorts of remedial/tuition classes because my chinese was really... Atrocious, shall we say? And remember streaming in primary 4? I remembered getting whacked for not getting a BAND 1 too. Those were the times...

And the mum of the student before me gave her daughter this 'magic beads' set that looked remotely fun, considering my age and my non-girlish interests. Had I been her daughter's age (about 7 I'm guessing), I would probably have loved it. Her daughter did. But she had trouble taking the plastic off it, and when I offered to help her, I think she got scared of me. Bah. I swear I scare off little kids. I told Gaby that, but she said it was because her daughter's independent. I doubt it. I'M SCARY. WAHAHAAHAHHA.

It's strange looking at small kids and then getting nostalgic and remembering that you're old. That the melanin in your hair's going to be gone one day and it's going just as you stand there being jealous of a little kid. That you're going to look like Gandalf one day and that little kid's going to point and laugh at you. Humph.

Oh yes, I managed to get off aurals :). Due to my flu... Which hasn't really gotten better. Bleah.

Her next student came punctually, but we were running late. The student got a new baby sibling (sister I think), and her mum brought her. She was so cute. By now, I was feeling really really old. Gee. That student and Gaby's daughter then ran off, and they found a slater in the garden. Her daughter wanted to keep it for her birthday, but Gaby was like 'it's going to be 7 times dead by November'. So her daughter ran off to build a home for the slater, and I was like 'I think my dog eats them'. Maisy hates bugs.

My mum came back late to pick me up. I'm guessing she got carried away exploring/shopping. So I got to listen to her next student play for a little while, and all the time, I was thinking of how pitiable Gaby was. She is so fricking good, and yet she has to teach those little kiddy pieces. I wonder how she has the patience to do it. It's really amazing. She practices the Chopin ballades and can teach people like me (who are horrible at piano and still have the guts to take the grade 8 exam). And then she switches to teaching those kind of pieces. Argh.

If you were wondering how I knew about the Chopin ballades thingum, I was helping her look for her Chopin nocturnes book (for me, because I obviously can't take the photocopy into the exam, and so she wanted me to play from the book as a practice), and I saw this Chopin book on the piano and she was like 'nah, it isn't that one, that's my practice stuff'. So, on closer inspection, I saw it was the ballades. Gah.

And she has a grand piano! Though I got a horrible shock when I first started using the pedal. My piano's really stiff, and hers is really 'soft' compared, especially the pedal.

Enough about piano. My mum and I then went to Ikea to have lunch and do some furniture shopping. I bought a table lamp and a bedside cabinet (because I keep stuffing the books I read before bedtime under my bed, and my mum was getting pissed off at the state of my room), while my mum bought 2 bedside cabinets (1 for each side of her bed) and a kitchen trolley thingum. We spent about 3 hours there. And, yes, just bought 4 items.

Maisy must have been really lonely at home because she was really excited when we got home. Poor her...

So I've been doing some springcleaning/repacking of my room, which my mum declared to be a pigsty. The amount of unhappy dustmites floating around must have been terribly angry and reaped their revenge by worsening my flu. But, at least, my room's finally NEAT. *does a victory dance* I might take a photo later.

I just finished fixing up the bedside tables. I did my own, and also 1 of my mum's. Probably the most work I've done the whole hols. Haha!

Thus, I think I've earned my right to go play some games. :)

5:13 PM

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Now that I've spent the past 2 days blowing 3/4 of my brain out of my nose, I'm finally recovering. Yay.

*flails arms around weakly like a derange octopus*

My arms are aching after carrying Maisy around for about 4 hours. We brought her to the shop (aka my parents' workplace), and around grocery shopping. Due to the fact that she kept attempting to escape from her little bed, I had to carry her almost the whole time she was at the shop. And also she wasn't allowed into the grocery store, so I had to carry her then too.

Imagine carrying a struggling 7kg furball for about 2 hours. My arms are starting to ache just thinking of it.

Got a piano lesson tomorrow. I'll hope I will survive through aurals, or ask Gaby to spare me this one time due to my untimely flu/sore throat. Considering that my breathing is so bad it looks like a giraffe on a large overdose of steroids, I think she'll be able to tell I'm not faking. Unless I actually recover completely by tomorrow (it seems quite possible now. The feelings of suffocation are leaving... Unless it means I'm DYING. Oh, the light, why won't someone turn it on?!), I probably will asked to be spared. And probably be slaughtered alive trying.

Anyway, I mentioned some time in one of my previous posts that we went to adventure world (aka an amusement park) for our physics excursion. It was the best physics 'lesson' ever. Considering that it wasn't even that great, I can assure you that physics lessons lull me gently to sleep (till my teacher starts glaring at me and firing questions. You see, I conveniently sit in the back row for physics).

The rides were so old, it was as though they were going to combust spontaneously and come apart at the joints. I'm pretty sure a tortoise could outstrip the supposed 'grand prix racing cars'. Granted that I got a particularly rickety one that was overtaken by everyone despite my excellent maneuvering, my ego was *slightly* stung.

And I guess the headache from the inhaling of the petrol fumes from both the cars and the 'bumper boats' (which were as useful as toad spawn floating around. They looked the part anyway) exacerbated the feelings of severe discontent. The one great decision I was very proud of was that despite considerable peer pressure, I did not succumb to the 'temptation' of taking this puke-inducing gargantuan beast that flipped people heads over heels and was painted a very eye-torturing candy blue and yellow. My friends came out looking like they'd been throwing up for a 100 years and were highly bitter at my not-so-silently displayed humour at their sickness (fortunately none of them actually puked).

Despite this successful defiance against peer pressure, the next attempts by my friends to make me throw up were more... Successful (I really should use another synonym, but heck, the other 3/4 of the brain have been either flushed down the toilet or sucked up by mounds of tissue paper). My mortal fright of such rides was quite apparent after the many excuses I gave to sit out of the more 'scary' rides. So when it came to the big pendulum-ship things, my friends deviously conjured images like 'it's just a giant swing', which actually made me (stupidly) confident enough to take it.

Result? I was the only moron screaming my head off on the ride. It wasn't very nice. That was an understatement. Everyone was staring and laughing at me, while I felt like my lungs were going into a seizure, and I was simultaneously having a cardiac arrest. And it wasn't like we were at the corners. My friends compromised and sat in the middle. And yet I was screaming my head off like a lunatic.

Manically enough, I went on again towards the end of our visit. Overcoming my initial fear, I told myself that I survived pretty well. And it was helping with the understanding of my physics oral assignment. Thus, the moron I am, I sat it again. And I shut my eyes throughout the whole thing. The good thing was that it wasn't as frightening. The bad thing was that it was after my lunch, and throughout the whole thing, the food was threatening to spew out of my mouth at any second. Fortunately, it didn't happen. And as it was, I was the only pathetic idiot screaming my butt off.

At the end of our visit, given that we had 10 mins before we had to report back to our meeting place, my friends and I decided to sit the 'sky lift' down, thinking it would give us some fresh air and also a nice view of the scenery. Given that I had suggested it, yes, it was a way of escaping the long walk back down. Bad decision. The walk up to the top was so steep, we nearly died of exhaustion.

And the ride took more than 10 mins to get down. They claimed it only took 6. Rubbish.

It was a kind of metal park bench haphazardly stuck onto a few cables, with only a safety bar between you and the open air. And it was terribly slow, a few bees (I swear this is true) outstripped us. We did see a few rather interesting things, like slippers on top of roofs (no doubt fallen off people's feet when on the sky lift), a BROOMSTICK on a roof (maybe a witch crashed into the skylift), and yes, a whole bunch of bees. My friend, being the impatient person she is (she's a cross-country runner), was swinging her legs when we first got on and was tersely told off to stop.

So, when we got down, we were one of the latest to get there. But as usual, given how teachers never trust us students with their time management, we were still early. And our physics teacher was nice enough to buy that student teacher (the same one for maths. Apparently he teaches physics too) a lollypop (one of those huge swirly colourful delectable looking ones). It cost $8. Cranky amount to pay for a lump of sugar (yeah, tell that to me, after I bought $25 worth of candy) and a stick. It was his last day! *hops around in ecstasy* There's hope for my end-of-year maths exam now.

Oh well. I guess it wasn't that bad a day (besides the occassional rain and the near heart failures and petrol fumes), considering what it would have been had it been a typical school day (maths and lit. *shudders*).

Piano lesson tomorrow. I feel guilty because I did no practice today (considering how I've been out nearly all day), and because I could have done some if I hadn't been typing this post out. And my neighbours would ambush me and skin me alive tomorrow if I did so at this ungodly hour. At least I cut my nails. The poor pieces of keratin... Sacrificed for a greater cause.

I should go to bed. Maisy's really tired too. She's curled up on the carpet next to me. Better take her to bed. Night! (wish me good luck tomorrow... Gaby's wrath is really quite frightening. She reminds me of Ng, except that Ng had this frightening aura about her anyway.)

10:16 PM

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The return of the flu bug.

*cue for Star Wars music*

I'm sick again! And what more, it's the hols. Argh... I can hardly breathe without looking like a goldfish gulping for oxygen on Mars. This sucks. But at least the sore throat's gone (after having to take a whole arsenal of icky lozenges and pills).

Why is my body so dumb that I always fall sick during the hols? I could have bargained for at least 3 days of absence from school with this.

Anyway, I was just looking up more Sylvia Plath poems for my lit essay on -surprise surprise- Plath's poetry, and lo and behold, the link our teacher gave us was dead. Page not found. I mean, I know that most lit teachers aren't very tech-savvy, but she could have given us more than 1 link. And I know I'm going to be bashed up by all the tech-savvy lit teachers now. *runs away*

Most of the questions (5 of them) are do-able. Except I didn't get the last question. It must be bad phrasing or my moronic misunderstanding, but tell me after you've seen the question. 'Explain how your reading of the work of a poet (aka Plath) has been shaped by particular reading practices'. Reading practices??? What, lying in bed with my legs in a yoga-meditation position will influence my reading of the poem? Or wearing 2-inch horn-rimmed glasses will affect the way I view (literally) the poem? Or or, perhaps, reading it with a funny Indian-accent (no racist remarks intended) will shape my understanding of it?

I know that sounds very superficial. But I really do not get what 'reading practices' means. And googling, for once, didn't help at all. I'm guessing she means how we view the techniques/imagery/metaphors/God-knows-what. However, considering she is a lit teacher with a whole barrage of bombastic, gargantuan polysyllabic words that she typically flings at us and assumes we understand them (and in full honesty, I understand them as well as a pineapple understands a pile of monkey poo), I can't see why she couldn't have selected a more accessibly phrased essay question.

Oh, I wonder how my posts happily venture into the land of the politically-incorrect.

Anyway, I'm sure I won't be attempting that question. 1 down, 4 to choose from.

I'm debating over whether to do question 1, 2 or 3. Knowing me, I'll probably end up doing all 3 of them and deleting them all the same. Or I'll procrastinate till a day before it's due, and rush it. Like the last time. I ended up getting 18/25, as usual (she always gives me the same mark).

Writing about Plath worries me because I might get too personal and assume that I understand her life when I don't. Ironically, it should make it easier for me to do the essay, but...

And I've got the history assignment to worry about too. 'Oral sources are the most reliable'. It's not that hard a question. The dwarf was talking about how difficult it was, and I was just snorting with derisive laughter in the background. He got annoyed at me when he discovered I was not researching oral history, but was looking at the Adventure World (amusement park we went to for our physics excursion) rides/attractions.

Well, oral history isn't the most reliable, but along with other accounts (eg: factual statistics, speeches/rallies, video), it can be made into a reliable account. Because oral hist is about the everyday experiences of people, it has its own personal bias and blahblah (goes into a full rant about people's unbalanced opinions). That's due some time in the same week as my piano exam. Along with an intro calculus, physics, chem and the school's music festival (at which Gaby wants me to play). Shall I just sum it up and say I'M SCREWED?!

So that means I have to get it done (somehow) during the hols. Which I know will never eventuate anyway. Unless by some miracle my flu bug turns into an obsessive-compulsive 'voice' and orders me to do my work like a maniac, I won't be doing any work.

And I've decided that I'm not going to make a decision of the history vs music thing till after the exams. If history comes out bottom of all my subjects again (which I think it will), I'll definitely switch to music. But I'm guessing that lit will probably be my worst sub, though I'm not dropping it. The dwarf doesn't give very high marks. Considering that the maths and sciences give me 90s at times, the 70s are just not good enough.

It's going to be one heck of a term next term. Exams and a whole deluge of tests and assignments. And it's going to be quite 'pianistic' too, considering the exam and the recital and the music festival (all in the span of 2 weeks). *tears hair out in clumps*

Shall go off to start my hist/lit. Knowing me, I probably won't even get a sentence down, and go off playing sudoku instead.

1:42 PM