Ungraded.

I failed a class.

It's called -

"Dynamics of Mixing and Socialising Well With Fellow Homosapiens".

..

I'm this close to giving up trying to pass this class.

Surreal.

I miss the smell of LT5.

3206 people, you guys will understand, right?

The smell wafted in and it really brought back some very nostalgic memory of AJC. Outside LT2 where we hung around taking up so much space and making so much noise, canteen where the whole of 3206 would sit together and ramble on about everything under the sun, Econs class with Mdm Woon's resounding "righhttttttt?", Math class where everyone doesn't pay attention in (okay I did la hahaha), PE where we had to run 2 warmup laps plus 6 laps after and the unanimous groans, the people that made every day fun (I don't have to mention names la. You guys are BHB enough to self-admit), the ponning of GP lectures, the lit texts we had to read over and over again, Edward's sarcasm and cynicism, Tan Yi'en's tinkling laughter and the silly things she say, Lydia's hypermaniac-uncontrollable-nottomentionembarassingbutentertaining laughter, Christine's matter-of-factness that puts everyone down complete with The Look, Greg's "It depends on how you define _____", Guan's ability to rant on about things when noone's really paying attention, Cheryn's signature pose when sleeping in Econs lecture, MJ's act-serious-but-not-serious look, Joti the drama queen ever, Jason's dry humour that cracks everyone up without fail, Daphne's ability to switch between being the Normal among the Abnormals and the Abnormal with the Abnormals, Mr Loh's "Okay"s that come packaged with the unconscious head wobble, Saffie's quirky comments and ultimate blurness, Danial's mystifying obsession with "A Walk to Remember" and sensitivity of the opposite gender, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

All we had to worry in those days were if the canteen was crowded, did we have enough time to eat, what we were going to go during PE (6 rounds AGAIN?!), and of course A Levels. But I really had alot of fun during the last stretch when everyone (tried to) mugged (mug) together.

I really miss you guys.

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Had the most horrid interview today.

Teacher: How many hours do you study per day?
Me: Errr... 1 hour? (thinks to myself, I don't even study 15mins a day but I obviously can't say that. 15mins-roundup-1 hour)
Teacher: !!! (Laughs) 1 hour? How come? The others study 3-5 hours a day, why do you only study 1 hour a day? Studies are too easy for you so don't have to study?
Me: (omg, 1 hour is already rounded up and it's not a satisfactory answer??)Nono, not easy at all! Umm..
Teacher: Okay, so what do you do the rest of the time?
Me: Use the computer.... (This is not going well. At all)
Teacher: And what do you do?
Me: Err, chat?
Teacher: (Laughs) With your Singaporean friends?
Me: Yes...
Teacher: *writes it down on the paper*

Mortifying. I really hope he doesn't submit that to the school or have to recommend me for uni, or I know I won't make it.

I felt so bad after the interview that I came back and studied for 2 hours. It's a feeble stab at trying to make myself better but from now onwards, I really want to keep to this regime. I have to.

夏祭り

Went to a Summer Festival today. Boy, was it PACKED. Literally. We were like packed sardines, hardly any space to move, with people shoving you around and being small-sized, I was dying under the heat given out by people's breaths/body whatever. Rah. Times like this make me wish I was taller. Is the air any fresher up there?

Hardly any space in between people for moving.

Show you some interesting photos.

This is flashing ice! So pretty right!!! Glad I managed to get a shot when it turned green :D I tried so hard to get a shot when it was green and had me inside but failed miserably ): But I guess this works better. I'd probably have ruined the photo LOL.

Spot the funny.

Choco FLESH cream. Eww cream made out of flesh??

Hahaha but I found it amusing that the rest of the "fresh"-es were spelt correctly; only that flavour had "fresh" spelt as "flesh". Hmmm.

And there was this point of time when a whole surge of girls in yukatas almost bowled me over. Like honestly, a whole throng. I thought there was a bomb activated or something. Turns out that there was a celebrity. I didn't manage to see him!! If I had, I'd be able to say that I've seen a famous Japanese celebrity before on the streets in Japan ): Here's what I missed out.

He acted in Hana Kimi and a whole bunch of other dramas. I'm sure Jap-drama-lovers will know him. I guess I can understand why that whole throng of girls did what they did xD

Ah well. Not everyone gets to see a celebrity on the streets anyway.. not unless you're in tiny Singapore hahaha.

Another homestay tomorrow again, just that it's only 2 days 1 night and a lot more work. I have to introduce Singapore to some Japanese students and I've decided to showcase PCK with the SARS rap. I got pretty addicted to it myself after listening to it for about 5 times haha. I just hope they'll understand what I'm talking about. I hate public speaking! Praying that this homestay will be a good experience too.

I'm really tired.

Friend, thanks for your angsty message! :D Don't worry, I understand. Every day is not your day either! xD BTW, I'm afraid I won't do up the list because I'm completely hopeless at making lists heh.

Greys.

School-blues.

I wonder why are blues called blues. Why can't they be called greys or blacks or browns. Blue is not exactly a depressing colour, is it? It's the colour of the beautiful sky, clear crystal sea, Sapphire stone and one of the colours of the happy-coloured rainbow.

I feel a sudden urge to apologize. For being so emotional, for being so needy, for being so demanding of your time. I'm learning to let go, I really am.

But it's so hard.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Don't ask me what's this about, please.

Why have you gone away?

Baked muffins today! It was totally on a whim, felt that my ingredients were wasted just sitting around taking up space, so I decided to do something since I didn't have anything else better to do either. Handy Toaster really amazed me that she was able to produce muffins. Okay la, they aren't really muffins, per se, considering that they were rather crispy than soft and fluffy on the outside haha. But I'm not complaining. You just have to live with what you're given and i think Toaster has given me her best :D

Baking in process

1st Batch

2nd Batch

3rd Batch

They are rather burnt on the surface because Toaster is used to toasting bread to crispiness, but the burnt edges have decreased significantly since 1st Batch :D But the burnt edges give them texture.

"外脆内软" - Friend A who tried it.

Heh rather proud of it, since it's my virgin attempt. Even after halving the recipe, I think I made a tad too many. I ate like 20 and I still have 6 for breakfast tomorrow =\ Thank God they're bite-sized.

That's all for Toaster's Virgin Conquest for today. Stay tuned for more (;

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Here are the pictures I promised from my homestay.

Without Grandpa

Without Dad

My two girls, Rika & Riho (:

Oh, I have to explain this picture. They were trying to pretend that they were little people who has short legs and hands. Hahaha so adorable right ((:

*That's Yuto on the left. I'm tickled by his words, almost all the time (:

I love this! <3>

A picture that speaks a thousand words.

People drift apart because they don't make a

conscious effort to communicate and to spend enough time with each other. Don't let it happen to us, please.

Doh

Back from homestay! Homestay was.. great. Met the cutest kids, actually getting liked by them (I'm normally an idiot at interacting with kids because I'm used to being the youngest), realising what kind of mother I want to be next time, falling all over in love with kids' language. All the memories are in me and pictures. Pictures up soon when I'm not feeling so lazy.

I missed saying the pledge on 9th August 2009, 20:22.

Am watching NDP 2009 now. Cried while the national anthem was being sung. Thinks to myself how vulnerable and precious our political leaders looked singing the songs and waving the flags like some big-eyed, excited children waiting in anticipation for the opening up of presents. More than ever touched to see the Singaporean crowd actually singing the National Anthem, reciting the pledge, cheering and looking like they're really excited to be there. Lovely.

Was woken up by a shaking bed. Earthquake. First ever experienced in my whole life. A whole lot more to go, I'm sure, considering I'm in the land of The Active Volcano. And in every period of 80years, a serious earthquake will occur in Japan. The last one occurred in 1920-ish.

Not in the mood to blog.

Pride in Rome.

Not because National Day is coming soon, not because I like broken English, not because I'm particularly proud of our monotone-and-dull accentation of words, not because I'm out of my mind, but I really really am proud of Singlish.

Singlish - as you see from the make-up of the word - is made up of two syllabi: "Sing" and "glish". Put them together, it means Singaporean English. As a Singaporean for the last 20 years of my life, I've never felt proud of it before. I've always hated it when people can't pronounce words properly. Especially when they speak Chinese and pronounce "shi" as "si", omitting the "h" in oh-so-many-words. "wo si xin jia po len. wo xi huan ci ji fan. wo gen ni jiang hor, wo jin tian sen me dou mei you zuo, zi zai jia sui jiao leh. wo bu zi dao na ge len si sui." Yea, it gets on my nerves big time. Even now, it still makes my hair stand on edges when I hear people speaking like this.

My friend and I were brooding over the characteristic of Singlish one fine day during English lesson. We were required to mark out the stressed consonant in each word. Try it:

-guitar
-desperate
-enthusiastic
-balance
-acknowledge
-comfortable
-appropriate
-injure
-pathetic
-genuine

Be honest! Say it in the way that you'll say it in your everyday life.

Do you realise we don't stress on any parts of the words at all?! Hahahaha we had a really good time laughing about it. I've never realised that!

But being overseas and away from Singapore for too long, it makes you realise the beauty of Singlish. Americans think our English is not up to standard, China Chinese think our Chinese is not up to standard. So we're like jiapalang, somewhere in the middle. But think about it, when Americans speak English, we as Singaporeans do understand what they're saying perfectly, while China Chinese, if they are not speaking in their own dialects and are not too thick-accented, we still do understand them. I've heard people in my school telling me, " What was it that you guys were saying? I couldn't understand a word!" when in fact we were not speaking gibblish, but Singlish.

Hoho this always makes me smile in glee. So Singaporeans do have our own language we can call our own! The beauty of it is the delicate mix of dialect, English, Chinese and Malay in it that is unique only to us Singaporeans.

Did you know there's a Singlish dictionary called "Coxford"? I looked through it and I was surprised at the number of Singlish that I have never heard of in my life. Of course some are really far-fetched and not daily-conversational words, but oh boy, do we have much to learn!

Many of my international friends have been trying to incorporate Singlish into their sentences, much to my bemusement. It sounds far too unnatural. For example, "See you later, lah." or "Not funny, ah", (ah pronounced in the same tone as lah). The most common mistake is probably the usage of "lah". We are known for our lahs, lehs and lors and you know what? I'm so proud of them myself too! Wahahaha. It's so cool to know that we Singaporeans speak a language that we can call our own plus having other nationalities actually think it cool to want to learn it.

The Singaporean egotism :D

Not to mention, when you're overseas, the moment you hear a group of people with their lahs, lehs, lors, you know for a fact that they are from Singapore. Singlish has never sounded so sweet to my ears before. It immediately establishes a sense of comraderie between I and them (although we are perfect strangers), and you feel like you're home.

But Singaporeans! Please don't throw face and use Singlish and speak monotonously when you're talkin to people of other nationalities please. They don't understand you! Please know when and how to use Singlish properly. Only then is when you have truly mastered Singlish.

Hahaha.

Ah, I dunno lah. Maybe it's just me who feels this way.

When you realise how lengthy an exposition you've written about "Singlish", you know that's when you really miss home, the good and the bad.

(The government would probably want to exile me because my post is literally anti-AntiSinglish Campaign.)