Damnatio memoriae is the Latin phrase literally meaning "damnation of memory", in the sense of removed from the remembrance. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State.

Not much of a damnation, if you ask me. Here we go on forgetting about the good deeds and hard work our ancestors did. Our memory is clear when it comes to who fucked up what, unfortunately it is like a seive when remembering subtle acts of goodness, or the goodwill of others.

We all have a share in forgetting. No doubt you forgot about the best friend you had in preschool and the teddy bear you hugged to sleep at night.

The practice of damnatio memoriae was rarely, if ever, an official practice. Any truly effective damnatio memoriae would not be noticeable to later historians, since by definition, it would entail the complete and total erasure of the individual in question from the historical record.

There's no point in doing so if you ask me, after all, who can remember the succession of Greek kings who once ruled? Even those who aren't erased from historical records are unlikely to be recalled upon by the ordinary mortal.

...

Nevermind.

Does anyone notice how, whenever it's Christmas, disasters promptly start rolling around? Note: I will not list wars still ongoing. There's still the war of Chechenya, wherever that is. Imagie: We're happily opening our presents in lovely Singapore and worrying about classes next year when these poor people have to worry about waking up dead.

Here's a list:

1941- 25th December

Hong Kong fell to Japanese in WWII.

1943 - WWII in Europe: Soviets launch offensives on the Ukrainian front.

1947- Indo-Pakistani War of 1947

Lasted from October 21 1947 - December 31 1948.

Holy cow, that's one year plus of fighting.

2001-

Dec. 23–31, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil: Flooding and landslides caused by heavy rains killed 60–70 people, mainly in the mountain resort city of Petropolis near Rio de Janeiro on Christmas Eve. Downpours on New Year's Eve destroyed part of the historic town of Goias Velho, a United Nations World Heritage Site.
Dec. 29, Lima, Peru: Nearly 300 people died in a massive fire that started after someone set off a firecracker, apparently to test it, in a crowded downtown street. The firecracker set off other fireworks nearby, causing a series of explosions. The blaze covered a four-block area; many of the dead were small children.

2002-

Dec 26- 9 Palestinians killed

Dec.27
North Korea- North Korea decided to expel IAEA inspectors who have been monitoring its frozen nuclear facilities
Chechnya - 2 powerful explosions have rocked the Chechen capital, wrecking a major pro-Kremlin government building, 41 killed in Grozny blasts.

2003 - Earthquake in Iran

Tragedy hit Iran on 26 December 2003 when a major earthquake registering 6.5 on the Richter scale hit its south-eastern province of Kerman at 05:28 (local time). The area most affected was the ancient city of Bam where more than 43,000 people were killed, an estimated 30,000 injured and up to 75,000 left homeless, according to official estimates.

2004- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

Wikipedia: The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. It is known by the scientific community as the Great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake[3], and the following tsunami is known as the Asian Tsunami or the Boxing Day Tsunami.

2005 - Fourth Civil War of Chad

It's still ongoing. According to wikipedia anyway. Fatalities: about 1400.

2006 -
1) Conflict of brothers

In Palestine. Ended July 17 2007. 329 fatalities.

2) War in Somalia

Still ongoing. 14,007 fatalities.

3) Typhoon Durian

And no I'm not kidding. That's really the name of the typhoon, dunno why.

Wikipedia: Typhoon Durian (international designation: 0621, JTWC designation: 24W, designated Typhoon Reming by PAGASA and sometimes called Super Typhoon Durian) was an intense storm that wreaked havoc in the Philippines, causing massive loss of life when mudslides from the Mayon Volcano buried many villages. According to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Durian was the 24th tropical depression, 23rd tropical storm, 14th typhoon and 7th super typhoon of the 2006 Pacific typhoon season. It was also the 21st named storm and 14th typhoon of the season recognised by the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre for tropical cyclones in this region, the Japan Meteorological Agency. The name Durian was submitted to the naming list by Thailand, which refers to a fruit, Durio zibethinus.[3]

2007- Civil unrest

Location: Kenya. About 1500 casualties. Ended on February 28...this year.

Floods in Sri Lanka: The Dec 2007 emergency

Idonesia affected by floods and landslides.

Okay I don't think I want to dig deeper, because i know for sure the list will be neverending.

And I briefly remember something about the Japanese troops attacking / dropping bombs on Pearl Harbour on when troops were preparing for Christmas (7 December if I'm not wrong)...real lovely christmas that one would be, a funeral instead of carols.

While looking at data I unearthed, I feel very sad. Some of the wars starting as far back as 1990 (imagine! Just 4 years before we were born) are still ongoing. It makes me wonder if the people who initiated the war can remember what they are fighting for. Are they fighting for themselves or are they fighting for the sake of fighting, the seeds of chaos sewn by the predecessors?

Ok...correction. I think the longest one that's been going on till now is from April 1948. It's Kayin State Conflict/internal conflict in Burma, no thanks to the junta.

I dunno if Muse is whispering in my ear or whatever I am about to inscribe are merely tales of dawning insanity from the vertebrae of my brain, but nowadays I am more aware of things I've never questioned.

Such as bloodstreams.

It's common, and known as a word. Any preschooler will tell you that he or she knows the word, it's flowing within them.

But think - it's metaphorical and symbolic. Streams. Streams of blood, meandering through our body, the circulatory system carrying toxins and vitamins, easy to poison and easy to revitalise. Essential for our bodily functions, without it w would perish a terrible death. Can you hear it? The flapping of your heart valves as it contracts and relaxes, the pulse sending ripples and tidal waves along your blood, the drumbeat under your skin in the thin and succulent flesh of your neck, the blood surging like seas when ever you inhale, exhale, going double-time, triple time. All to keep you alive.

Can you see the platelets and red blood cells and white blood cells like minnows, swimming in the depths of crimson? Like sardines they will leap and squeeze through capillary walls to the injury site, healing you and preventing foreign particles from entering the sacred sanctity that is your body. Without these you would be a ravaged, emaciated castle - a human with flesh as flaps and wrapping-foil skin stretched to sheen your translucent bones...

Can you taste the rust and copper, inhale the metallic and mineral scent of blood? Feel its heaviness and pungent scent as it weighs like an iron vest? Feel the warmth within, the wet warmth slowly turn sticky and cold, ejected out like phlegm, gluing and binding you to the person whom you have murdered soliciously, a mark of your sin, the claim on your skin...

That's why murder doesn't fade away. Dead men do speak, you see, their blood speaks for them as they cling to the livery of the one that wronged them, an undeniable stain that cannot be washed off regardless of methods used.Your prayers can't wash it off. It's not physical either, blood, it would be a weakness and a blemish in your soul, a chink in your celestial armour slowly crinkling and melting in the incineration you've created, a personal spot in Hell.

Blood flowing in streams.

Can you feel the bloodlust?

I am a weird, strange person.

After all, how many teenagers you know is eager to learn new words and, upon spying one, tell what language it originated from?

No one?

Oh, I am one.

I saw the word 'impresario' in 1100 words, and thought, 'Ooh! This baby has gotta orginate from Italtian or vulgar latin!" and I was right.

1746, from It. impresario "operatic manager," lit. "undertaker (of a business)," from impresa "undertaking," fem. of impreso, pp. of imprendere "undertake," from V.L. imprendere, from L. in- "onto" + prehendere "to grasp" (see prehensile).

The above is from the ubiquitous dictionary.com. Boy I love that site, along with its comrade, thesaurus.com.

I finished One week's worth of work in fifteen minutes. I shall persist in my goal to complete the whole goddamned book by the end of this holiday!!! ROAR!

...Where is my flute teacher anyway?

Oh, and BTW, seeing as what I'm gonna say next pertains to this post, my favourite word now is 'evanesce'.

It probably originates from Latin, as I remember 'evanesco' used as a spell when Hermione cleaned Potter's cauldron at an inopportune time. And JK Rowling, being (quite) an unoriginal twit, used latin. Ah well. At least it's better than rhymes.

And my favourite foul word right now....

...

No, it's not the four letter F word used to describe having very passionate sex. Though I've come to terms in using it. It's (we're talking about 'fuck') really such a powerful word, and when you use it, it has very high emotive power (useful in pieces expressing petty anger). It's a fascinating word, really. I mean, so many uses! One to describe having ***, use it in form of petty anger, use it to express sorrow or disconsolation, use it in the dialogue of an uncultured man in the streets, use it to express the humanity and vulnerability of people (when they crack, you don't expect them to be nice and calm with flowery words do ya?) , and also as a crass-worthy insult!

I think I'm thinking too much into it. Into words, that is.

Oh, I do realise I've deviated a little, so I'll just cut the chase and tell you what my favourite foul word is.

It's none other than 'nigger', one which I found out accidentally whem trying to type 'snigger' into cbox and found that they censored everything but the 's' of the word.

My great discovery. Oh, and did you know that 'To Kill A Mockingbird' has 'nigger' mentioned at least 48 times? Some bum in the education department tried to ban it once because of the foul words little kid shouldn't see. Too bad they failed.

Now that I've corrupted every one of your young (maybe not so) innocent minds, I can go back to my 1100 words and start working on the Chinese holiday homework.

Evanesce! Evanesce!

I think I may be kooky.

Give me anger, hatred, but no pity. Just no pity. I don't need it, I don't need the yarn and wool of pity, I don't need the carelessly constarched and coarse feel of imitation goodwill, and I don't need indulgent pads and scabs of self-serving shreds attempting to feign as plasters to lacerations, as all it does it to lacquer a veneer of wellbeing and healing. In truth, the wound is festering down there; you wouldn't know because you're a sham doctor, a doctor dispensing cures through an authentic leather Louis Vuitton wallet.

Rant coming up.

You know our favourite pop star? Miley Cyrus, Hanna Montana, whatever alteregos she has?

Yeah, the pretentious one with silicone, fake nails, wigs, and everything, one which I'd imagine was literally dripped of fakeness. I don't know why the younger kids like her (heck, my younger spawn of a sister loves her) but her singing...sucks.

Anyway, there's a particularly annoying song of hers that keep popping up in fanfiction as a *gasp of horror* songfic. Yes, the harbringer of doom and angst! It's none other than....

7 things by Miley Cyrus.

The lyrics were okay, whiny, nonsensicaly and whimsy. Pretty normal for your typical bimbo singer with more looks/money than intelligence + language conigtive ability.

But I found that I wasn't the only one who abhorred Moiley. To my delight, I found a whole legion of people who are rather vicious in their attack of her song, which is then posted up as spoofs on the Greatest Sharing System Ever Created (other than the Internet) -- Youtube.

Now I know what to be thankful for in Thanksgiving.



I love love love this creation!!! <3

Died laughing when I watched this, and subsequently managed to drench my monitor in the process of spewing water out in hilarity. Thanks so much, person-with-too-much-humour.

Stupid hair is curling up AGAIN.

It is resuming my pervious, frizzy lion's mane. The bangs weren't bad, but the part that was shoulder-length and the subsequent layers curled up!

ROAR! I AM BEYOND PISSED! 'IRATE' DOESN'T CUT IT!

How how how?????

Stupid rebonding chemicals can't even tame my hair...ok it did for the three days I wasn't supposed to wash my hair, but everything went downhill after that.

Now I am stuck with the smell of chemicals in my hair, damaged, dry hair, AND hair that is neither straight not wavy. PISSED. It's not volume either. It's frizzies, but super-curled-up frizzies!

VERY VERY INCENSED AND LIVID! KNN!

ROAR! It can't even last one friggin' week! I damaged my hair for naught!

ARGH!

Ok...Chanel, calm down...thou shalt not kill the stylist. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not mentally torture stylist multiple times. Thou shalt not commit any acts of violence.

People who have rebonded their hair, please help....should I redo?

P.S. Currently contemplating shaving my hair bald, so I won't have to contend with it. D'you reckon the school allows wigs?

Labels: rebonding experience

I washed my hair. Irregardless of whether 72 hours was up (tahan for two days liao and at 3 p.m. today buay tahan so go and wash) I didn't give a damn, because my oily scalp wasn't helping matters and I looked like a slovenly beggar picked off the streets. I had a new pimple thanks to 3 days' worth of dirty hair =(

So happy. Thank god it didn't revert back to its original state upon washing, unlike the Internet horror stories I've read before. Phew. All I have to do is to improve my posture so that the hair won't curl up, and comb it straight. Voila! Nice and silky hair. I suppose I did go a little overboard with the care (One nice, generous scoop of conditioner and nearly two tablespoons of the hair mask, which nearly dried on my hair after I left it on for 20 minutes, with 10 minutes of heat under the hairdryer. A 5 minute rinse, towel dry, then put leave-in conditioner. )

Sigh... at this rate my expensive hair products will be gone by the end of this holiday. And yes, L'Oreal is expensive. I don't mean those you see in your regular hypermart...I mean the professional products. The conditioner is $14.50 for 150 ml. A typical regular-sized conditioner pint like Asience stores about 550ml, and it costs around $15. You work out the Math. For 450 ml, the L'Oreal conditioner would cost a grand total of $43.50.

Ah well. I guess you pay more for quality.

I have given up on my search for the elusive perfect shampoo. It makes no sense whatsoever to use professional products as they don't lather, and my fingers get tired easily.

Anyway, bloody hell, the smell of the stupid chemicals (referring to straightening chamicals) is DAMN STINKY. It smells like a fiasco in the Science Labaratory. An airtight, claustaphobia-inducing space, hot water, humidity....smells ain't easy to avoid. Especially when it's located on your head.

Even with the synthetic fragrances of the shampoo PLUS conditioner PLUS hair mask, the smell still prevails. Gag. My maid one level down insists that she can smell me.

I can't wait till the smell goes away. When can I wash it away?

Speaking of products, I didn't buy the serum or the olive oil. There is nowhere in Singapore where you can get pure olive oil, unless it is for cooking purposes. Most serums contain alcohol, even expensive ones used in the salon, and it is more drying if used long-term. So really, no point. You might as well not wash your hair for days to get rid of frizzies (a rather revolting method I discovered during my past few endurance-testing days). The sad downside is that you'll look like Severus Snape. But if you can find weird people who think it's sexy, then go forth and be happy.

This is very random, but I discovered to my consternation that I can't blow a bubble gum. I've tried all sorts of air pressures, but nothing seems to work! My flute embouche can't work, soft doesn't do it, hard will cause the whole thing to fly out of my mouth. So argh, I gave up.

Grrrr.

Chewing gum should come in more flavours. I wonder if there's sausage flavour? Or those gag joke ones like blood (oooh!) and vomit?

Labels: rebonding experience

Yes! Today's the last day!

And there's an idiot sittin behing me reading all the words I type.

Geez, get a clue, won't you?

没办法，只好用华语来写。在我后面的死丫头还仍然说着要吃东西。
“嘭”的一声，椅子跌了下来。几分钟前，他吃东西的时候，不知是搞什么鬼， 仿佛嘴里有个洞一样，食物从她的口里露出来。她到底是人还是野兽呢？动作和举止步入豺狼。气死我了！

Now that the perennial little spawn is gone, I can finally resume writing in English.

She can't even behave like a proper human being for 10 fucking seconds! First she somehow drops a chip while stuffing herself with potato chips on my desk, then she proceeds to read what I blog out loud (I want to kill her...slowly) and now she topples off the chair. Can't you even sit properly? Do you just have an inability to behave like a civilised person or are you just some heathen we picked off Africa?

Due to her inconspiciously thick skull, words nor actions can penetrate through her head into her brain. Her hints are about as obvious as the giggles of children playing hide-and-seek. It's always 'I wish...', 'I hope...', or if that thing happens to be food, she'll be hungry 15 minutes later despite consuming a 6-course meal with family. In short, she's your brainless goldfish, good to look at, unpleasant to be around.

She's brash, rude, bratty, and resorts to complaining to dear Mummy or Nanny with alarming alacrity when thigs do not go that way. Dear God, I hope I wasn't that bad when I was young.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN I WAS WORSE? WANNA DIE ISSSIT?! HAR???

Said offender backs off slowly so as not to atagonise me.

I will never have kids. One sister is enough for a lifetime. I hate kids anyway, and their wails and wants and their shroudings away from reality. I hate their coy manipulations and the adults who are susceptible. I hate biased parents and their spoilt children. I hate how it's like a ball and chain shaclking you to them, and having to drag them around like a 500-tonne weight at your ankle. I hate how restrained your life becomes after you have kids. I'd rather have a pet or a pet projects, or if I am under duress from evil in-laws, adopt someone from China or something (well, there's the language barrier...so darn). If said in-laws harass me, I'll shove the women's charter in their faces and give them the middle finger salute, and ask them to go make one themselves. Or inject some tranquilizer and bitch-slap them.

I wonder if torture is allowed.

------------

I can finally wash my hair, so I'm happy! Yay! It's 2 and a half days gone, so it should be safe. According to estimation, if you round off 2.5 to the nearest whole number, the answer is 3! So therefore I have a right to wash my hair.

I finished rebonding at 6.30ish on Monday.

Therefore,
Half: 6.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m.
One: 6.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.

One half: 6.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m.
Two: 6.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Two half: 6.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m.
Three: 6.30a.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Current time: 11.25 a.m. (approx. 11:30)
Percentage of day 3 : 70.8333% over.

So washing my hair is safe because it more than 2 and a half days over and my scalp is beginning to stink.

See? Your math teacher was right when he/she said that Math is crucial to life as you use it all the time.

Maybe I'll wait until 12. By then the percentage of overall time passed against recommended time should be a decent 91% and above.

If you don't understand what I'm saying, that because my intelligence is unparalleled, therefore you can't understand the figures above.

Labels: rebonding experience

Today I woke up at 7 a.m. because I just...well...woke up suddenly.

Labels: rebonding experience

...
Itchy.
Oily scalp.
Sibeh itchy.

I CANNOT STAND IT!!!! ARGGHHHH!

For the sake of beautiful hair and $98, I shall...persevere!

ROAR!!!!

Must at least endure until Day #2.

Zuo4 nv3 ren2 zhen1 tong4 ku4.

They should invent dry shampoo and conditioner to ameliorate my suffering... or some over-the-counter solution to itchy scalps which cannot be washed due to chemical treatments.

Hmm... Maybe I can use this idea for future developments.

Labels: rebonding experience

Habits to break out of

1) Stop tucking hair behind ears
2) Figure out how to stop getting hair caught on glasses
3) Stop crumpling up my hair whenever I sleep
4) Stop sleeping later
5) Stop stupid scalp from producing so much oil

Habits to gain
1) Be more hardworking
2) Condition every time I shampoo
3) Stop slouching

Stuff to do
1) Accursed torture known as Holiday homework
2) Buy olive oil (pure, virgin preferably)
3) buy serum/leave-in conditioner
4) Read both lit books : To Kill A Mockingbird and A Midsummer's Night Dream. Do customary research on both.
5) Perfect vocabulary
6) Complete 1100 words
7) Install a thesauraus in my head at the end of this holiday
8) Abstain from washing hair for today and two more days. TORTURE.
9) Read more chinese books (even romancesa that make absolutely no sense)
10) Buy a fine-toothed comb and wide-toothed comb.
11) Read all textbooks.

12) On a sidenote, bloody hell rebonded hair stinks (the smell that is, the effect, so far, is great.)

DAY #1 SINCE THE LIFE-CHANGING EVENT.

My God I don't think I can last beyond today or tomorrow.

Labels: rebonding experience

Before we commence this post...

WHAT IS XIAOYU DOING IN MY ACCOUNT?!

We used to share an account + blog, but then XY separated, so I changed the password.

Anyway, enough comments. What the almighty f*ck is this entry in my account? What is it doing there?! Devilry! Something bad is afoot! An omen, I tell you!

Did she hack into my account or sth? Or did blogger mess it up? WTF?!!

I WANT TO KNOW WHY!!!

*pants for breath pants*

Is this a hint?

Alright I know, I know. So please don't make your posts appear randomly in my account, so I won't xin zhang bing bao fa next time. I'll visit, okay? Speaking of visiting, WHY TODAY ONLY TWO PEOPLE VISIT MY BLOG????!!!

Nevermind. I know dear Harmonions are on a gathering (?) which I didn't go because I dunno until HT smsed and asked me whether I was going, and I kinda forgot to ask her for the details of the gathering.

Sorry 2 Harmony people =( Maybe another time? I was buying my school books and labelling them.

Anyway, I decided to take the plunge because I was absolutely sick and tired of my lion's mane. I am proud to announce that I used to have Hermione's hair. Come to think of it, it was oddly appropriate, as this is lion city, so therefore citizens of lion city should sport the signature lion's mane.

Geddit?

Nevermind. I'm assuming that you're too obtuse to.

After sitting my arse off (wasn't topo painful because I do that at home anyway) and nearly being bored out of my mind (I think the poor stylist was having a kong3 ju4 when he saw my thick hair), I am now very happy with my sleek and straight hair. Who cares if I can't wash it for three days and the chemical smell is killing me? With or without damage or dry ends, I figure it can't be as bad as my previous hair. If you want to see side-by-side comparison, I'll show you on my hand phone next time.

Just hope it won't be frizzing or curling up anytime soon. Maybe I'll apply egg hair mask + conditioner+ l'oreal hair mask when I do wash my hair. I'm thinking about getting serum to protect and maintain my hair.

$98 for the job, + $10 trim. Well worth it if you ask me. My layers are more prominent now, and I actually have nice, smooth hair those models have. I'm ecstatic!

I'll worry about it if the hair grows out. Maybe I'll worry after one year. Right now it's repair+maintain.

Bye bye frizzy and coarse curly-straight hair! Curse Singapore's humidity which brings the worst properties of my hair. I'll assume that you've all read the tirade/rant on my stubborn hair refusing to behave no matter how much conditioner/masks I put on it.

Happyhappy.

Thank God I did well for my finals and got into RP. Thank my maternal Grandfather for the $100 reward! I can now go back to school with behaving hair.

And what makes me most happy is:

No botak head, no burning sensation on scalp, no scary side effects web sites list, and no hair loss/frizz (yet for the latter). I am....exuberant!

And 'To Kill A Mockingbird' was puzzling to say the lsit. Why did the author go so in depth with the perspective from the daughter? Why not focus on the case? It's like the story is centered on the EFFECTS race/colour has on people, not how the law deals with it, or justice.

There's the theme of self-image, emotional strength of humans, the extent of compassion...and the fact that everyone has a story to tell.

I dunno if my interpretation is accurate because it's quite shallow. What I do know, however, is that To Kill A Mockingbird has a lot of swear words in it. Apparently someone tried to get the book banned bacause the word 'nigger' was mentioned 48 times in the book.

I'm still puzzled over the title though. Why a mockingbird? Is it because the mockingbird sings of freely and happily such that its joy starts to mock your emotions? Atticus tells us that it is a sin to kill one, the fact which is reiterated by someone else (can't remember), who elaborates that the joy it brings to the people from its song make it a sin to kill it. Is the author trying to bring irony to the mocking of education, the justice system, and her own society? Is she using irony to attest the fact that though Maycomb embraces racism, it still tries its darnest to be a gracious society?

Confused.

-----

Checked wikipedia. I was right.

Confused, Scout approaches her neighbor Miss Maudie, who explains that mockingbirds never harm other living creatures. She points out that mockingbirds simply provide pleasure with their songs, saying, "They don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us."

Wikipedia, I love you.

Ok, it's official, I love my readers!

There are so many diet plans nowadays. Particularly for us women because we are oh-so-conscious about our weight and that we couldn't fit into that beautiful dress/ whatever we've got our eyes on.

How much do I adore thee?

Of course, the subject isn't going to respond as it knows how besotted I am with it. So besotted I'm willing to suffer 9 subjects just to get my hands on it. So lovelorn I am, I would even go to 3 Grace just to study it. Hopelessly and irrevocably in love with it, I would stay up to unearthly hours to scribble observations or note down things Muse whispers in my ear.

I swear it's smiling smugly at me now. But we get to learn Midsummer's Night Dream next year!!!! YAY! I can't wait to read it!

Well, that's one subject I'm looking forward to studying. Other than English and Biology (difficult but interesting). Social Studies too. The rest?

Chinese can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. I bet I'll be the only strange ang moh singaporean in RP next year who can't form a coherent sentence in Chinese.

WHY IS NONE OF MY FRIENDS IN RESPECT?!!! ARRGHHH!

Going to the best class does have its disadvantage. I have the whole holidays to zuo4 xin1 li3 zhun3 bei4 and prepare to be the outcast next year.

Before you tell me that I'm being disparaging and hopelessly negative towards myself, I'll tell you that when alone, my mind shivers and mutters alliterations to my name. One good alliteration is 'cynical'. Cynical Chanel. It fits my personality and my insecurity like clingwrap.

Just call me a cynic. I'm a cynic of life, a cynic of people, propably paronoid, and I could have a personality disorder.

When I saw my name on the name list, I went, 'Oh My God'. Just surprise, then blankness. It's like I just went, oh, okay, I'm in RP. Big deal. No joy, no celebration, no scheming.

I'll begin my next year in a class full of strangers and smart people with good Chinese. I'll set the new record in that class for the person with the worst chinese. My command of English is proably average. The sciences? I hold no hope.

And then, when the predictable results slide starts its onset, I'll probably be at the bottom of the class. Heck, I'll be lucky if I can even be in the top 20. 22nd in class would be an acheivement. Maintaining my class position (from HM to RP) would be a godsend, and a bloody miracle.

Besides cursing the whole school with black magick and voodoo, there's nothing I can do except prepare early and study harder. Yes, I'll be in a more challenging environment, and I can improve myself greatly.

2 years never seemed so long.

Thank you, Harmony for giving me the best 2 years of my secondary school life. I'll miss you even more when I enter my new class. Thank you God for blessing me with nice people who are the antithesis to my cynical self and preventing me for sliding irreversibly into the darkness, and care for me. I love you guys.

What an emotional and melodramatic post. I hope I can fit into my new class next year.

Then what of my writings and prose? Will they cease into roadblocks and streetsigns, just there to be shown, and never much remarked about? Will they be tucked into the crevices of my smile and the bend of my fingers as I write an essay, never to be written and brought to life? What of my characters, who reside as still dolls, lifeless, prone, and still as a germinating seed? Will they be given a chance to grow, or will they be killed by me?

I don't want to think.

Now is really a troubled time for me. My family has run into some sort of difficulties due to the stupid financial market which slides down like ill-fitting trousers, and money that can be used to resolved the matter is rolling of said trousers due to its holey pockets. I just hope that by having paid advertisments on my blog, I can write (do what I love) and earn money. Hopefully I can get some CMC ads soon. Any ads, as long as they bring me some sort of income.

Except immoral ventues. I cannot risk tainting myself. Even if I don't really value my soul in exchange for pursuits and ambition, my loved ones do. And that's all that matters.

Being excessively bored, I decided to Google poisons found in household ingredients. To my delight, I discovered that Sodium Laureth Sulphate (it's in your shampoo as an ingredient, probably 2nd or 3rd on the list, if you don't believe me go check it out on the label. If it isn't there, look for sodium lauryl sulfate or ammonium lauryl sulphate) is actually a harsh cleansing agent used to clean garages.

So when we are washing out hair happily in the bathroom, we are actually using diluted versions of garage soap on our hair, corroding it. Wonderful. Now I know why my hair is so dry. *glares daggers at shampoo sitting in the bathroom*

To top it off, did you know that alcohol is toxic? Nope, not the alcohol you drink, alcohol like ethanol and isopropyl alcohol. Every conditioner contains it. Even my expensive L'Oreal hair mask, to my consternation, which lists it as the 7th ingredient. It's really comforting to know that the stuff used to disinfect tables during life science and cleaning your skin before injections is on my hair. I knew I shouldn't have bothered with the shampoo. Could've saved me some energy lathering up and washing the shampoo off.

And, out of curiosity, is washed hair supposed to feel like super-clean glass, where when you drag you fingertips across it you can hear the squealing sound? Because my wet hair felt like that -- like I just dumped a whole bucket of alcohol in my hair. The last thing I need right now is very dry hair, thank you very much.

I am very much tempted to go organic and apply banana hair masks and yoghurt and whatever recepies they have out there, but then again it would have been a waste of a perfectly good banana/yoghurt/said ingredient. Why apply it on hair when you can comfort your stomach? Besides, some of the recepies for hair masks are perfectly edible, like banana smoothies (minus the cream and sugar). I'm afraid that instead of applying it on my hair, it would go straight into the oesophagus of my idiotic, annoying sister.

Synthetic fragrances stink. I hate their strong smell. Especially fragrances that smell like almonds.

Oh look speak of the devil (my sister you dolt). Now she's trying to lift the 26" LCD screen TV in an attempt to demonstrate her strength. What a laudable quest.

P.S. Is it normal to suddenly 'slip' into a character you've created and think like him, experience things through his eyes and reflect as him? I mean, I've always wanted to know how guys think (trying to write prose. Attempt failed. Prose did not even emerge on Microsoft Word) but then this is kinda intrusive. Maybe I have great imagination skills or I am going insane. I wonder which mental disease has this symptom?

You know, sometimes if you dwell too much on something you start experiencing it. Is this what insanity is about? Having no sense of identity, no sense of reality, seperated from everyone with a mental cage, imprisoned in your mind?

It's kinda interesting to study.

Tag replies (Because. Just because.)

Kai Ting: Not my style? What is my style then? You didn't think I was a straight-laced person who doesn't care about appearances, did you (*stifles gasp of horror*)?

...Ok, so I don't. Not much.

I'm a perfectionist though, and I still continue to pursue my dream of frizz-free hair with no tangles or knots, doesn't require much maintenance because I am too lazy to style my hair. I'm the type which buys conditioner only to forget about it after a week. Wasteful, I know.

Zi Qin: Not scared. Neh neh neh neh neh. Hi fellow bloodsucker!

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I went to Parkway last week to buy my L'Oreal Absolut Repair conditioner (stupid product so friggin expensive. Use liao still cannot tame my curls! ROAR! I wonder if you can just rebond specific parts of your hair...I want to kiap down those curls sticking out). To my dismay, I heard an idiot giving a speech (those stupid assemblies where they discuss convoluted issues like global warming).

The drawbacks of idiots giving speeches, other than hazy points with insubstantial evidence and them contradicting themselves, along with a sense of undeserved self-worth, is that they cannot pronounce or articulate properly, thus giving you the impression that an asinine monkey is on stage quoting the entire works of William Shakespeare. The 'th's have been assassinated by the Flagitious, which lives an imprint of its initial on short tongues which cannot stretch itself to be tucked between two rows of teeth. The diphthongs went on a holiday to elite-land and never went back. Incoherency is a little girl with her skipping rope singing songs terribly out-of-tune on the speaker's tongue.

I almost expected him to pronounce 'f*ck' as fack.

What the fack, I know.

Hey, this is interesting and fun! Fack fack fack fack fack fack!

Oh, the joys of being lame. And I'm looking for a word that ends with 'ire'. It sounds something like 'dire', and means 'drawback'.

I recall the word 'parlance'. How wonderful. I've found a word I was looking for days ago.

Oh well. This calls for more time with 1100 words.

P.S.: Just to share a little tidbit I learned yesterday while doing a 'Are You Stupid? Quiz'. Did you know that the average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs?

I can only hope it's those small insects, not the big disgusting ones like flies or cockroaches being grinded with cocoa beans and cocoa butter. And that the '8 legs' are just 8, not 8 PAIRS.

Yuck. Although I'm a chocoholic, it makes me wonder what happened to the rest of the insects' body and eggs...we couldn't possibly just be eating the legs without a body right? And how does this...clandestine add-ons interfere with the taste and texture of chocolate? Are there any in high-end chocolate bars? 8 legs...maybe it's just one spider per bar of chocolate. Or 1 and a 1/3 fruit fly.

I think I'm thinking too much.

On a sidenote, having insecurity problems suck.

That's the understatement of the century. Sometimes I can't help wondering if the world is better off without humans.

Let's imagine the world is a math equation.

Some disrepancy occurs and Humans multiply. The balance is altered. Then the humans divide the resources (unequally, with rich, unscrupulous countries taking a bigger share and other timid continets e.g. Africa taking a smaller share) and start using them. Some species of plants or animals evolve and humans grow food, thus increasing the amount of useful living things. Others are subtracted from The Great Equation as we deem them useless. The world is now a huge balance, and it is tilted one way, to the point where you can imagine it slowly but surely sliding off its axis. The number of humans, like mutations, eventually outnumber the number of useful products and end up using each other for survival. In the end, we kill each other and the world dies.

That's my imagined scenario, with obvious inclusion of cannibalism. Why not? It can happen, at the rate we're doing deforestation and hunting and our selfish need to survive.

My arms are too tired to type. Shall return to this tomorrow.

So I chickened out. Again. I got scared and didn't rebond.

Sigh.

Wei Qi told me that touch-ups are required to make it nice and smooth and straight. And after the magic wears off, it's not like Cinderella's pumpkin coach which reverts back to its original state. The hair would be unnaturally curled.

And I didn't like the idea of hair curling outwards, or curling everywhere like Charred maggi mee.

So I decided to keep my hair as it is, and not cut any layers. Or I'll just buy a better hair mask (I have my eye on L'oreal Professionnel Absolut Repair Shampoo and hair mask. Hopefully they have a conditioner, Asience contains alcohol, which makes my fluffy hair at the ends of layers problem even worse. I've seen the ingredients of the said L'Oreal products (the shampoo and hair mask) and tried them before. No alcohol (from what I can remember) and there was a really smooth effect.

If I buy those I will never have to pay for another treatment done at the salon. $70 bucks for Moisture Treatment. My poor poor wallet.

And I wanna buy boots and stockings (those japanese gothic lolita type). But SG cannot find...all I can find are adult boots, which have Really Scary Heels. 6 inches and above, and I probably cannot walk in them.

Boots are good because:
1) Easy to walk in. Better than ballet flats. I find heels easier to walk in than ballet flats. Weird right?
2) If kena molest than take off boot and throw at them. Boots are damn heavy.
3) It looks nice and can go with nearly every outfit I have in my closet, except probably jeans. Scratch that. It CAN go with every outfit I have, unlike ballet flats. I find it weird to wear something classy and pair ballet flats with it.
4) Some of them have heels (like one inches of one and a half is acceptable) and it makes me taller. Taller equates happiness. I'm a short person, like 155 cm. Shut up, you infuriatingly tall person reading the blog, or I'll stangle you with my unruly hair.
5) They are classy (I think that, is it a shared sentiment?) and can give you an elegant look, if worn correctly (e.g. Don't pair it with some horribly bright colours/ skirts which are super short or will look like prostitute). A problem which I will not have, since I don't wear short skirts.
6) I like them. That's the most important right?
7) Raining? No worries (if you don't have white boots or furry ones). Can slosh in there happily, no need to worry about getting feet wet.
8) If I don't like someone can use the heel and stomp on the person's foot, and say innocently 'Oops, sorry, it's kinda hard to balance on heels'.

Bad:
1) SG too hot. Boots are generally winter wear, so it's gonna be stuffy. But I think its ok since I hang out at malls.
2) I might trip over myself and fall flat on the ground. I think the ground and me would be better acquainted more often.
3) Can't run in them.
4) Will kena sue? (Due to throwing a boot at a person)
5) Hard to wash/ maintain (not very sure). So better get real leather/not-so-cheap boots because cheap boots spoil easily.
6)Can't find in Singapore. If can find, it's usually at very expensive shops. I'm a overworked, underrewarded student with limited pocket money.

Finished New Moon. Kinda disappointed. I've calmed down from the buying frenzy and I decided not to buy Eclipse (because I remembered reading an excerpt and I wasn't too happy about the style).

Some of you (Wei Qi especially) may be wondering why I'm also reading Twilight when I claimed it was completely and utterly horrible at first. One word: Curiosity. It just bugged me to know what the fervor was about and I just had to see it for myself. Thankfully I'm not a fangirl. I figured that the world does not need more of those because it is these fangirls who have insanely bad writing and no command of grammar at all who write fan fiction en masse and bombard the world with really bad writing on Quizilla/ other modems/ the Internet. And other equally blind fangirls go rate it a 5/5. It's an insult to English and the dignity of the original characters, really (in reference to bad fanfiction). One more time I am going to see a poll on whether Edward or Jacob is hotter (Thank GOD none of my friends are that obsessed), I am going to SCREAM in frustration and fury. I will not be held accountable on murders committed Jack-The-Ripper-style to these overzealous fangirls.

I figured I am going to re-read Twilight like the Literature neophyte I am and try to characterise the characters (funny phrase this one is) and identify the themes and the mini plots.

So far, this is what I've observed of Stephenie's style:

1) Dreamy prose, a bit too descriptive at times, and sometimes...vanilla.

2) She relies on conversation to help keep her characters alive.

3) Subtlety is not her thing (in comparison to other fantasy books I've read, like the Black Magician trilogy. The Age Of Five was a little bit of a letdown).

4) I find that she is uncannily alike to be as a writer. Because my characters have entire monologues in my head, and lines start popping out until I feel compelled to write them down so they won't bug me for the rest of the night.

5) And yes, I agree that having people dress up as a character you've created is utterly euphoric. (Did I just admit that out loud).

6) In comparison to he outtakes in the book, I discovered that she does have a tendency to blather on unnecessarily. As in, continue a particular scene and prolonging it. But it's the fault of a one-person perspective kind of thing, so yeah.

7) She has the Sequel Sickness. Most beginning authors do, actually. It's the slow pacing of events and little build-up (or loads of build-up and little action) in these sequels. And yes, the Black Magician Trilogy also has this fault in The Novice. Frankly I'm not surprised, considering how she wrote Forever Dawn (the original manuscript) sequel to Twilight. She just veered off course. I understand completely, because stories have a weird way of coming alive when you change a tiny detail in the pacing. It always happens to me T.T

8) 3 words, really: Words With Atmosphere. I thought I had the meaning of the title covered until I read her website, in which she wrote that 'Twilight' was within the list of possible titles and she just picked it as it had...atmosphere. You get the doom-inducing, dramatic feel right?

9) At least she's good at foreshadowing. In her epitaphs, that is. I liked the Romeo and Juliet quote =D

10) I don't know if this is a sudden, unexpected epiphany, but I realised that her method of foreshadowing (epitaphs in the beginning of the book) is eerily close to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I mean, Romeo and Juliet started with a sonnet that had the tone of impending doom amidst the sweet love. Never mind. It's hard to explain.

11) I still can't figure out which story element is more controlling : the fantasy element or the romance element. I'm a confused, casual reader.

12) She is sometimes a little unclear in her explanations of events later in the story, and how it unravels. And her characters are really...extreme. I suppose in this context it would be fitting (One dominant, one passive) but it's a bit too extreme, yeah? Never in my whole life on vampire-loving have I seen such a Mary sue/Gary Stu (in this case of sex) vampire. It feels as if it came from Greek mythology, an Adonis or Zeus. A correct term would be 'Mary-sue'.

I took the Gary Stu litmus test for Edward, and it showed that Edward was 70% Gary-Stu.

No wonder I found him...unnerving. And this test has done nothing for me (except for a certain level of smugness) and I'm tempted to do one for Bella as well. But I don't think I should, because I was snickering my way through the test (I have a weird sense of humour, and one of them is murdering Mary-Sues).

Anyway, authors do create Mary Sues (but there's a limit to Mary-suing, yes?).

I see you staring at me in confusion, and Twilight fans coming to kill me.

AHEM. Okay, I'll go back to re-reading Twilight and dissecting it in terms of symbols and plot devices. Now that I know roughly how the story flows, I think I can spot foreshadowing more easily.

In conclusion, Twilight is a very light read. Suitable if you are lazy and don't want to move your brains much to figure out ahead of the author as it is kind of predictable. It's the typical supernatural romance between a Gary Stu and a poor, hapless human girl who has a very private mind, thus rendering the lead to be unable to read her thoughts and be interested in her.
I won't recommend buying it, though, you're unlikely to read it twice, because the first time you're gonna be reading it is just to get the story. After that, you ain't gonna re-read it, unless you are a weird person like me who over analyses every story. Do read from the beginning to the end -- Twilight, and its subsequent sequels, because Twilight is kind of the 'backbone' of the story, and without it, it's just nothing. For some reason the characters feel like cardboard pieces with lines to me. Maybe it'll be different for you.

After all, if the critics weren't agreeable with 'Breaking Dawn', it might not be that great of a book. But sometimes ordinary humans like us differ from the critics. In a way, I suppose it's better than some heavy reading like 'The Last Lecture' or 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' (I don't dare to touch those because I'm on lazy mode and lazy people have their own lazy methods which enable them to do things the lazy way.)

P.S. Le Petit Prince rocks. I want to learn French now, so that I can read the original version and appreciate it more =D