I am a writer. I am a storyteller, a crafter of words and expressions, weaving tales from distal lands you've never heard of.

I've been focusing too much on pretty images and purple prose, neglecting my characters as well as my plot. I realise now I have been killing my story with the huge amount of purple prose I libreally SMACK it with. Now, reading the work I have submitted, I realise that the most recent things I've submitted are CRAP. Completely terrible!

At least Wonderland was saved by the dialogue bit in the middle, but the purple patches in front is definitely unsalvagable.

Oh God I can't believe I had the temerity to submit such crap up! Yuck yuck yuck...it tastes like am overdone ice creasm, crammed full of all sorts of flavours around the world. However, you can't taste a single thign or even learn to appreciate it because everything is very overpowering. The pleasant ingredients have turned into something pungent with that muddled combination. Oh gross.

Maybe I should delete it. Or I can rewrite the bit in front so the dream sequence won't be entirely too overpowering.

Now finished editing 'Wonderland, and I think I went a little too delete-happy. Quite satisfied with this version now, unfortunately the lack of bad writing in the beginning just made my suckiness in dialogue a little more obvious. The doctors is like some deux ex machina for expository writing, and the mum is a bit too flat (too typical-I-shall-cry-my-eyes-out-like-a-weakling), the only interesting character was the main character, and even that was major suckage. The doctor was fine, and that was because he is a deux ex machina and a professional.

Blah. I think my characters are too blah. The only intersting character I created was Caroline, who betrayed her best friend (for reasons unknown to the reader) and was murdered in a church by said friend's brother, who then commited suicide after finishing her off. Hang on! That was plot, not character, Caroline was a flat, undeveloped character!

Well, the unnamed character in The Other End of Mirrors, who I can easily identify with because of my eczema condition. I think that is the only good character I created who I really explored themes and issues through.

I wrote about that vile, disgusting yogurt the other day, I believe. Considering the two options of this yogurt in order to cure m yeast infection are:
1) Squirt it up there. YES, UP THERE, AND I DON'T MEAN THE MOUTH.
2) Eat it.

Well, however gullible I am (I still recell the memories of the notorious egg shampoo - a wonderously bad idea), even I know that inserting foreign objects in your thing is not a wise thing to do. I mean, if I eat it and it's poisonous, I can get rid of it and eject it from my system via the anus or kidneys, but once I squirt it up there...well, if it doesn't work, how am I gonna get it out?

Happily, at least one suggestion on the Internet proved true.

Coat an apple with Disgusting yogurt and top it up with cinnamon. Note: Apple must be very sweet for this to work.

It actually tasted...nice. Or maybe it was the cinnamon. I love cinnamon and apples.

I admit that the potpourri didn't look might appealing at first, it looked like... an innocent apple slice bludgered by bird crap. Eww.

But it tasted okay. I am still surprised at that fact.

Unfortunately, the downside is that evcen though I managed to down some great teaspoons of it (an achivement, considering how I oculd barely stand the taste of plain yogurt), there is still HALF remaining.

I hope it can tay in the fridge till tomorrow. I'll eat it until it's gone (and hope for more sweet apples).

I've somehow developed a yeast infection - and again, after extensive research, Google told me to go get yogurt with the acidolphus (or sth like that) culture in it. Unfortunately, said yogurt must have no additives or fruit. It'll help, it said, and eager to get rid of my embarassing condition, I rushed out enthusiastically to buy some.

Now I am a yogurt lover. By 'yogurt lover' I mean I love those sugary, high-glucose commercial yogurt, and I love chomping on it pretending I have made a healthier choice when I am consuming approximately the same amount of sugar. Throughout m whole pamopered, junk-food life I have never tasted natural yogurt, but I hoped to all gods that might be it would taste passable. Passble meaning I don't feel the need to puke after ingesting 1cm^3 of that substance.

I stared dubiously at the exceedingly plain container and the label. Cautiously, I peeled back the horrible tin foil, ducked a metal teaspoon in the surprisingly firm thing (kinda like tofu) and stuffed it in my mouth.

Hm. Weird. It's solid.

Stupidly, I chewed it, and I suppose my facial expression then would be a great representative of YUK!

Gagworthy. I swallowed the vile substane down and peered at the container...only to discover I had only eaten a very, very tiny bit. Oh shit, how am I gonna eat everything?

Just tried mixing a small spoonful of it with about a tablespoonbful of honey. It was okay at first, but then there was this horrible, horrible herbal taste to it, on top of being sour. Wonderful -- it tasted considerably WORSE than my mother's repetorie of herbal soups. YUK YUK YUK.

So right now I hate yogurt and honey.I definitely won't be eating any anytime soon.

I suppose I can always try mixing it with jam or bananas to create some sort of wonky smoothie. After all, I am a master at choking vile liquids down my throat-- a skill derived from many years living under an over enthusiastic mum who works at Eu Yan Sang. But I couldn't stand the thought of hating bananas forever. Bananas rock, especially as a great breakfast when I'm in a rush and on a diet.

A website jsut recommended that I spread some on apples, but I can't hate apples forever! It will ruin my LIFE! Spreading them on biscuits is also a terrible terrible idea because it's my favourite snack food! Mixing it with chocolate...yuck, sour chocolate?

Yes, Wei Qi, you and I can wince in unison.

Conclusion: Natural yogurt is sibeh gross. Anything natural is gross. Like Kota Tinggi's decrepit bathrooms and the beloved fly carpet, and cockroaches scuttling about in a kampong, and natural bananas, pre-GM. (Did you know that wild banas are not yellow and must be cooked before being eaten? Did you know that it's most often not sweet? Did you know it has hugeass seeds in it?)

Unnatural stuff is nice, like air conditioners, laptops, spectacles, contact lens, CHOCOLATE, COFFEE, pocky, etc, etc. Fuck natural yogurt, I want my calorie-laden, sugar filled, preserves loaded yogurt that is fake yogurt and even if I die from diabetes or high blood pressure or artiosclerosis, I don't care!

Sugar is nice. Om nom nom.

P.S. I jsut discovered that that henious container of yogurt has 100 more calories than a box of chocolate pocky! Hence, pocky is healthier than yogurt and therefore thou shalt eat more pocky! YAY!

At last she’s happy, reigning with her creams,
rubbing his scalp’s roof until it gleams.
As the squamous-cell carcinomas sprout,
the local dermatologist cuts them out

or frosts the lunar surface with liquid nitrogen.
The creams come from West Fourteenth Street, Manhattan,
FedExed from their adopted son’s boyfriend’s home,
a relationship that remains, to them, unknown.

Their Oriental rugs are steeped in piss
from the bulldog barking like an activist.
Bickering over misplaced books, the tchotchkes
lost, and how she re-remembers her stories,

they wait with an unfinished, finished look,
and note how honeysuckle crowns Old Saybrook
and thistles overrun their last garden.

The dash between their dates is nearly done.

Heard Colours of the Wind (sung in Pocahontas) in class yesterday and I kind of fell in love with it. Somehow the refrain about the blue corn moon stick in my head. Hence the mad printing and the horribly off-key notes as I attempted to play the higher version rapidly.

I preferred the higher pitched version compared to the lower one I got off the net, but then again as I eyed the sheet for the higher version I realised that I couldn't play a select SHN (Super High Notes). I wasn't taught by my flute teacher to play those (or even if she DID teach me, I forgot.)

So right now I am happily embracing my flute (taking care not to flip the keys or damage any delicate parts) and crooning to it about how much I missed it. It felt like coming home (weak pun on CAP theme intended).

Anyway, the mentorship thing still kinda bugs me, and I'm not too sure I will get in because I am convinced my writing is absolute, overembellished crap that no one will enjoy reading. But then again, most people my age don't really like Shakespeare. Hmm...so maybe there is hope, but I;m not counting on it, see, I learnt the hard way not to expect or hope for anything because ultimately you'll get disappointed.

Anyway. On a sidenote:

A MATH SUCKS! ROAR! I HATE IT MORE THAN I HATE THAT PHYSICS CHAPTER ON KINEMATICS! I HATE IT MORE THAN I HATE CHINESE!

(which is a lot, considering how within 15 minutes of meeting me one will leave with the knowledge that I am irrevocably and unconditionally in hatred with Chinese.

And yes, the overuse of adverbs above has been lifted from -SURPRISE!- Twilight so as to 1) mock the book 2)get some lulz from it. I love mocking stupid people. (How you interpret this statement is up to you. I will not claim any responsibility for abject stupidity.)

Which brings me to the next point about how much I hate stupid people.

Fortunately, I haven't bumped into any this week, and thank god the Twilight craze seems to be dying out and I can mock it in a jocose manner. On a sidenote, I now loathe the word 'dazzling', 'chocolatey depths' (used to describe eyes), and...er...I think there was something about heroin in there right?

Which is a pity, since I had been using the phrase 'black depths of his eyes' ever since with ridiculously fervid vigour (ahhahaha adjective and adverb overload!) but now I have to avoid it like H1N1. (Plague is getting a wee bit backward and boring as a cliche).

Well, I suppose 'depths' is better than 'orbs'. Despite using it with a fangirl's obsessiveness in my younger writing days *winces coughcoughse1coughcough* I really can't stand that stupid word.

Anyway, if I could rewrite Harry Potter, in the Chamber of Secrets I would make that horcrux diary Twilight. Imagine Voldermort trying to rule the world through Twilight! *snorts*

Then I will rewind the part where Harry plunges the basilisk's tooth into the dazzling sissy and shame of all vampires, Edwar- I mean, Twilight- again...and again...and again...Ooh, the thrill! Then, I will proceed to collapse in a heap of hyperactive, shrill giggles, then reach over to Harry, snatch that Basilisk's tooth and kill him. (I never liked Harry much anyway.)

Then I will march to Voldermort and smack him with my A Math textbook. That snaky bastard would be too busy planning the demise of the magical world to understand the complexities of trigonometry and logarithms. His snaky mind will be so full of confusion, he would die from information overload.

Then I will rule the world in his stead! Mwahahahaha!

I'm deeeelusiiiiionaaaaaaaallllll YAY

Forgetfulness-Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

-

I think Xinyi (yes dear BFF and proofreader, love you lots, and it's not just for the proofreading you do, that's an add-on bonus), you would like this as well because of the style of this poem, as well as the overall atmosphere. I liked these things, as well as how the poet addresses the reader, and his diction, as well as his prose-poetry style which is 10000000000000000 times better than my overembellished one. I would very much like to embody this kind of emotion in my works, ( and so far have been largely unsuccessful), but anyway, I think you'll enjoy this. Cheers to literature.

P.S. Stupid Alexis is annoying the bejesus out of me. I am very much tempted to slam my very heavy english file on her delicate skull and pry open her hollow cranium, but then again I suppose the Biology textbook would be more appropriate. Am a very good girl. Will not succumb to temptation.