Eighteen is an odd number --the title for the anthology all lovely arvon peeps (inclusive or the great chocolate-swallowing moi) are going to be part of!

So...

If you want to improve your grades for English,
If you want to expand your vocabulary,
If you want to see examples of exemplary writing by youths in Singapore, offering new insights in this cosmopolitical City of a Million Stories,
If you want to see how I write (because the stuff I'm gonna submit is going to be better than my school compositions, I promise),

This is your chance.

Furthermore, we claim no profit! All proceeds go to paying the publishers and the Straits Times Pocket Money Fund, where needy children await. So, what more could you ask for? Not only do you get entertaining stories to read at your leisure, insightful poetry to savour under the soft ashen eyes of the moon, you can also do a good deed (Because karma is a bitch, so all Good Samaritans out there, it's worth it to help a poor, impoverished kid who sits hungry in the classroom during recess trying to silence his/her stomach by reciting the multiplication table backwards)!

No, I will not and cannot offer sneak peeks this time, so you'll have to buy it to check it out. Containing a variety of flavours, from eighteen different writers, poets, souls -- from romantic to the-stalker-down-the-bushes, enjoy a miasma of voices all with a single purpose, different souls coming together to express themselves.

It's not very expensive either -- Stella tells me it's going to sell at $10-$20 (Maybe less?). Hey! Publishing is an expensive process, you know, especially for young upstarts like us who are still depending on daddy and mommy's pocket money!

So, people-who-want-to-know-what's-so-great-about-my-command-of-english or people who want to get into CAP, this is a great chance to expand your horizons and see what people manage to get into CAP. You can roughly polish up your skills and to write that way.

So what are you waiting for? Get in touch with me : larmes-en-cristal@hotmail.com to place your order because it's being done to-order.

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[But goddamn, that means I actually have to start writing. Shitz. And just when I had a great idea for the theme floating around in my head]

I hate it when people hear me speak English/Chinese and assume I am from China.

The other day when I was asking directions to the motherfucking Arts House (goddamn it it was so difficult to find it virtually in the middle of nowhere and WHY THE HECK DO SINGAPOREANS NOT KNOW WHERE IT IS and when I tried reading the map I ended up in the completely opposite direction but that's not pertinent).

So, I went, "Excuse me, could you give me directions to the arts house or exit B? I'm kind of lost here..."

And the idiotic Chinese, donation-squeezing guy in polo shirt goes, "Are you local? From China ah?"

Me: (smile is strained) Yes, I am Singaporean, I am Chinese, but I'm not from China.

He: Orrrrh... You don't sound very local, that's why...

Me: (minni kaboom of temper going off in head, but somehow miraculously retaining polite but harassed smile) So can you point me the direction of the arts house?

----

This isn't the first time. The last time I went to the hairdressers', and tried to direct in Chinese the hairstyle I wanted, the lady goes,

"Oh, are you from China?" (In Chinese)
"Ah...no..."

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH

What the heck do I look very Chinese?! I am absolutely certain that I do not speak like someone from China (especially in Chinese...all Chinese emperors of the past and liguistic masters would have been turning in their graves), nor do I remotely sound like them when panicking (in english). Oh no! Does that mean I speak (gasp of horror) pidgin English/sound like an American?

*faints*

NUUUUUUUUU

I feel my position on hating Chinese is very precarious in my school, where the top pupil is a PRC. I can't even comment on their political system for fear of offending one of them and then ending up in a grisly murder as a victim of the ancient Chinese torture/getting into an argument in Chinese where I would be unable to understand or retort. Darn. It's one thing when you go around saying,"ARGGHH I HATE CHINESE LESSONS" and another when you go around exclaiming "SHIT The chinese government is still communist isn't it? That's pretty twisted....did you know that communism across Asia and Europe killed the more people than victims from WWI and WWII combined? (or was that the rape of nanjing?)"

Scary.

You get the shivers after reading 1984 and realising the full extent of communism (from socialism). I had shivers for days and couldn't read The Straits Times reports concerning PAP, because I kept thinking, "Big Brother is WATCHING you. He's gonna throw you in jail if you dissent." eeep.

The fucken asshole!

Okay wait

I shall not be angry at mentors/teachers/people in general.
I shall not be angry at mentors/teachers/people in general.
I shall not be angry at mentors/teachers/people in general.

Maybe if I say it enough times the mantra would prove true and I will be as calm as a bird on a tree branch with no cats in sight.

*fumes*

Not working.

I suppose the earlier Chinese tuition had exacerbated my foul mood from being woken up at the ungodly hour of 8 (after sleeping at around 3 - 3:30 am due to MOTHERFUCKING INSOMNIA). Roar! I hate, despise, absolutely loathe Chinese, and I've made no secrets about that.

In fact, my (rather morbid and wry) mind had carolled: "A car accident under my Christmas tree~" Stop backing away from me. Would it help if I insist on my innocence that it does not apply to any tutors?

Screw Chinese. Screw stupid descriptive passages in Chinese. Screw stupid after-reading questions that ask you to identify weird terms in Chinese, screw personification and metaphors in Chinese. Screw Chinese! I hate the stupid chengyu and ciyu and suyu and whatever metaphors they use to talk about some stupid mountainside house in the middle of nowhere. God, is the author some sort of social reject? Who in their right mind would want to live up in a mountain, view or no view? Kind of reminds me of Wuthering Heights, but even Wuthering Heights was more accessible.

And who the fuck cares how many times you describe the same stupid house with the same stupid tree in a variety of ways, in daylight and in darkness, from near and from far? Where is the literary merit in this over descriptive crap? Where are the characters? Where is the psychology, the moral lesson, the themes and other plot?

Without a plot, this so-called story is crap. Pure purple prose, over embellished with loads of glittery phrases like a (fake) ring of the resident taitai.

The author must have nothing better to do. But then again I cannot assume this because you cannot judge an entire anthology by a single story. Fine, the stupid passage in chinese is far beyond what I can ever hope to achieve with my weak grasp of Chinese, but I must maintain that it is boring. However, I'd rather it be this, than some self-serving, boot-licking essay on why we must respect our elders/be obedient or we'll burn in hell, or something to that effect.

What I hated more than the passage was reading the passage out loud. I don't speak Chinese frequently, in fact, never if I must. My mother tongue has grown strange and mouldy in my tongue. I really hate having to pronounce every syllable clearly (or attempt to, at this point I really pity my tutor because my pronunciation is just a level beyond Awful). But you know what's worse than this? Attempting to concentrate on reading the blardy passage when there is a running commentary in your head in English. That's right, my head is a football match, riddled with disparaging comments like, "Why the fuck am I doing this?" "Damned tongue, damned words!" and "This is a waste of my time, absolutely pointless! Man, I bet if I pulled out Frankenstein and started reading it my tutor will be gobsmacked because I sound like an idiot right now in Chinese," as well as the usual vein of "Screw Chinese. GAH China. Screw Chinese. GODDAMNIT THE TEXTBOOK IS MOCKING ME. IT'S SMIRKING AT ME!"

Yes, I do think like that in between pictographs of indiscernible characters (to me they all look the same).

In the first lesson there was something about neon lights (ni hong deng), and the tutor wanted me to construct a sentence with it. In my mind, English:

The neon lights of the brothel called out invitingly to passing men, willing to satiate their midnight ardour.

Sadly, I didn't know what 'brothel' was in Chinese, fortunately for my tutor (I suppose). At least my inefficiency in the language has stopped me from letting my mouth run loose. She'll be shocked by what a dirty mind I have (but cleaner than most in Arvon and CAP, I'd wager. Never in my entire school life have I written something on necrophilia for school compositions). You should hear the conversation us three mentees had that day, which nevertheless involved nipples ("He should lick the left and not the right first because the left has symbolism") and ("man, he should cut her oelvis, because it'll be awesome to see his tool poking out") and discussions on whether maggots provide the necessary stimuli needed to get a man off.

You don't need to know.

Yes, the quotes are excerpts. We aren't as innocent as you think. I bet QiYu, if she were there, would be shaking her head and going on about how inappropriate and 'not good' it is for our supposedly young, inoccent, naive minds.

---------

Christmas yesterday was swell though. I received an ipod! Very very happy. And $50 from a miscellanous aunt, which I am so going to use to buy Invitation to a Beheading! But no, I shall have self-restraint and finish Frankenstein before buying more.

Life is a journey. So is writing. I have neglected this little part of me, this part that started off like a beautiful accident, my pretty child conceived without contraceptives.

I realise I owe a lot of my success or writing maturity or this so-called talent to a lot of people.

Xinyi, I am staring at you.

To be honest I had never intended to start writing at all, until I met this plump girl in primary six. She looked angelic, very cherubic -- her eyes and long hair lent her a sort of childish innocence shoujo mangakas scrabble about in their too-romanticised minds and Neverland hearts to come up with. We ended up sitting together (again an unintended accident, people who I thought were my friends in primary five had grouped together and I knew no one and by chance there was a seat empty, right next to her).

I laugh now when I think about how naive, how foolish I was. As always in our formative years of puberty, the events of that year will always remain etched in my mind and has formed some part of who I am today. No, not just writing. My fear of betrayal. My misandry and reclusiveness. My inability to trust others wholly, and my hatred of Chinese.

Fine, the last one happened a long time ago, but I shall not reveal it here because I am embarrassed about leaving so much of my personal history on this crumb of the Internet. Call this my confession, my midnight comfort, my escape into the arms of a stranger, a parisian whore in silent films and cigarette incense. (Holy crap this is getting real angsty and arty-farty).

Back then, I had been plagued with the most insane case of acne ( it looked like the Chernobyl incident had somehow stretched across years to mutate my forehead into an arid wasteland riddled with pus. Yuck), a condition that has somehow abated (thank you, body wash...DON'T LISTEN TO WHAT MAGAZINES TELL YOU. SCREW FACIAL WASH).

Well that year was miserable and lonely indeed, and I had never anticipated exams more. I had admired my seatmate (in a purely platonic way), and thought her anime-style drawings and compositions and poetry impressive. I thought I would never surpass her in language, and had placed her on a pedestal in my young mind.

I had continued to worship her as a literary genius, and that impression continued for the majority of my secondary one year, where I tried to imitate her style as closely as possible.

But

I had discovered Shakespeare, and Nabokov, as well as CAP.

Somewhere along the line this friend -or acquaintance, as she insists on calling herself...till this day I have not managed to unravel her psyche in my fuzzy memories of her- had crowned Twilight as 'the greatest/marvellous work by Stephenie Meyer'.

Now, reading back, I wince. Then I shake my head and tut. But back then...ah, I think I would have believed her and been another mindless zombie to the legions of scary, obsessive, necrophilia-supporting sissy-vampire-crazy fangirls.

Except that necrophilia is much cooler and more disturbing. Can you imagine fucking a dead body, so cold and wet and slimy with decay hanging as your aprohsidiac(sp? Mr learn-to-spell can you check this one out? Thanks a lot!) and the maggots crawling and writhing around your penis? (No idea if it's possible for girls to have sex with a dead body because a dead man cannot sustain an erection hard enough fro penetration right? So says the Bio textbook.) YAY NECROPHILIA. Ahem. I seem to have gone off tangent. Now back to the topic...

So where was I? Ah yes, the infamous work, Twilight, bane of my life, curse of my bookshelf! Even if I am an atheist, I am thanking God that I didn't wholeheartedly believe her and fangirl over the book. I am thanking God I have this wonderful subject called English Literature. I am thanking God for letting me meet Mr Davamoni. It's true -- success is 10% talent, 30% hard work and 60% luck. Without meeting Mr Davamoni on that fateful day where he made us pen that introductory piece and me writing that god-awful angsty poem I would never have tried getting into CAP, would never have failed, would never have worked harder to defy the Gods and learnt more about the art I was increasingly falling in love with, would never have achieved A1 for lit and choose to take it as a subject for streaming. If not for Mr Davamoni's encouragement, or rather, "Please hand in your portfolio to me next year. I expect to see it.", I would never have grudgingly collated my work, never have submitted it, and never gotten into CAP, then mentorship, then Avron, or even got a chance to get my poem published in an anthology, which means a lot to me.

People always ask me how I got my English to be so 'powerful', to be so fluent in it. I smile and say that the words just come out. That I love the language. I may have been lying.

I was not always good at English. I think I hated it at one point, completely abhorred doing stupid compositions about boys who stupidly get stuck in the elevator or something. The same old boring thing. But, if not for meeting her, if not for admiring this person, if not for wanting to be her and imitating her poetry, I wouldn't have been where I am today.

I owe you a lot. Thank you.

Thank you for letting me read your poems on that rainy day, where the water was like agar-agar, rolling off the turrets of the roof in knotted ropes.

Thank you for giving me a glimpse into the artistic mind, pondering, searching for words, in the drawings and unfinished poems scribbled between lines of your composition pad, at the corner of your chinese textbook (because now I find myself doing the same thing).

Thank you for being so patient with me, for introducing me to so many new words, for letting me read your compositions.

Thank you for teaching me to see the world in other ways, that princes and princesses Disneyfied weren't always so perfect, that the world isn't perfect.

Thank you for making -no, forcing- my to see that the villain also has a story to tell. That everyone has stories in this metropolis of 5 million, maybe more, maybe less.

Thank you for letting me learn, for being my inspiration in the beginning, for letting me see the wonders of Art and the meaning in lines. For showing me that words aren't just a skill but also a long-suffering metaphor, a beauty, an emotion from the heart.

Thank you also, for being there for me when I was choosing poems for my first -but failed- portfolio.

Thank you for introducing me to dA.

I am truly grateful, even if I can't exactly call you 'friend', even if my jokes weren't funny then, but I thought you should know that I am your Judas, because I didn't really stand up for you when others call you 'scary' and 'weird'. I am a hypocrite, and yadda yadda. I'm a screwed up human with unresolved issues. So are you.

We weren't really close but I still admired you at some point, as the totem of my childhood, into the shaky adolescent years, with my insufferable pride and superiority. I love poetry and prose now, and would never part with it, even for the world. Call it youthful idealism, but I need a moment to pretend to be foolish, to do stupid things and still be able to get away with it. I'm not yet ready to escape my sanctuary, my utopia of words into the demanding world where success is so narrow, so defined by awards and achievements, and chances only come once.

Somewhere along my journey I have taken one shaky step past your position, and I don't know if you're proud of me, or jealous, because that one day we blocked each other on MSN - me out of pride, you out of disgust (when you found out I had been reading Shakespeare for fun instead of manga). Maybe you're still in your Neverland, and I had long grown too jaded with pretty words without meaning, and am searching for something new, something better. This isn't good, I know at this rate I will never be satisfied. Yet I cannot stop, because if I grow lenient others will surpass me. Success is indeed a double edged sword.

How are you today? Do you still write love stories about vampires and hide in the fractals of your imagination? We are the same, all writers are the same, we are megalomaniacs with low self-esteem, dodging and hiding from the world, pretending we know better and dispensing advice like sages past our time.

But somehow, though blood, sweat, tears, chocolate and insomnia, I had miraculously surpassed her...without realising it. I had moved on.
Earlier I said I might have been lying about loving the language. It's a white lie, I do love the language now and thus make it my life's mission to know everything about it like a lover does, but this all began with a need to prove and validate my self-esteem. My journey wasn't smooth, I faced a lot of obstacles from my parents, ("You'll never get into CAP. Do you think you're good enough? Don't waste your time." -- Father) and sweat (learning, memorising vocabulary, reading voraciously and struggling to comprehend Shakespeare, trying to understand why he was so great), as well as tears (defeat. Disappointment. I didn't get in. I'm worthless. Scribbled poems with bad rhyming schemes by the side of my lit paper when I first failed Clay Marble.). The courage to start over, to write more, to learn from mistakes and ask for concrit, to be better, to learn to laugh at my mistakes and accept even the most scathing criticism. To stop my brain from exploding when I tried to understand Shakespeare's metaphors, and struggle from falling asleep when I encountered Jane Austen (Today she still bugs me. I know why I am supposed to love her but I can't bring myself to like her characters. UGH.). It took me a lot of passion, a lot of hard work and belief. You can say that it took half of my life away.

So, don't look down on language. Don't think it's so easy to be so fluent. That's why I get pissed off when SOMEONE surpasses me in English in just 6 months. I may look like I put very little effort into English, btu bear in mind, my journey took years. It's not fair that my years of sweat, blood and tears become futile with some upstart stealing my glory in a few months of sweat. Fuck you.

I understand everyone at CAP also had similar journeys to mine. My friends, those I talked to at Avron told me that they found their getting into the programme unexpected as they had previously failed English. We put in hard work and effort to better ourselves. We fight struggles everyday, against reason. I will not accept defeat unless you too have been working extremely hard in your writing journey, and sincerely love English. I refuse to lose my first place in the language, or getting higher grades than me if they do it just for the grade, just for that A1 to pretty up their report cards. I don't care whether you're from America or Antarctica or China or Korea (or from some distal galaxy), if you don't love the subject and score better than me, fuck you. Life's fucking unfair.

I love English. I love writing. I love reading, and Kafka, and nearly all the literary geniuses, even if I don't really understand why they are so great now. I love my proofreaders, my friends, select teachers (because I will always be indebted to them). I love dA, and I will always remember my humble beginnings, my roots. However, I will still maintain my stand that I wrote better at sec one. (inside joke between Hari, Sheena and I). I don't recall making that many grammatical errors, even if about 90% of it was purple prose.

Edifice buildings...*snicker*

This is a letter to myself, to that person (who shall remain unnamed because if she ever finds my blog, damn, will it be awkward) and a reminder that somewhere in the month of December, year 2009, there is a little girl, maybe not-so-little girl, who wrote passionately and emotionally. Who penned her dreams and gratitude. In case some day I might be washed away in the tides of Success and Pursuit and Money, as well as Influence and Politics. I want the internet to remember this, even if someday I dismiss it as childish ramblings of a tween.

To childhood. To dreams. To 'Holy shit Twilight stinks! But it's an ego boost, especially when you feel your writing stinks!'

Holycrap this became a speech o.o But finally ahh that felt good. I think I finally got into the writing mode!

Finally a very big ILU to all my friends at Chungcheng! And long-lost tribes of associates from TNS! I may finally be able to face my demons, and proclaim a very loud 'fuck you' to backstabbers. Maybe curse them to having weird fetishes/bad complexions...because OH NO A PIMPLE ON MY NOSE ARGGGHHH IT'S THE ARMAGEDDON! NUUUUUU!

*cackles evilly* Because to a teenage girl, a clear complexion is everything. BWAHAHAHAHA

YAY WRITER CHANEL IS BACK TO KICK YOUR ASS. HAHA INCEST NECROPHILIA HOMOPHOBES DEATH THE STRANGE HERE I COME.

Oh noes! Foiled by my A Math TYS! ARGHHH HOW HOW HOW.

Sometimes I wonder if all children are really that naive.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - Tennessee investigators say a 4-year-old boy was found roaming his neighborhood in the night, drinking beer and wearing a little girl's dress taken from under a neighbor's Christmas tree.

The child's mother, 21-year-old April Wright, told WTVC-TV that the boy "wants to go to jail because that's where his daddy is."

Wright said she and the boy's father are going though a divorce.

I hate Chinese with a passion.

The deadline for online submission is on Thursday and I just can't bring myself to listen to News In Class and do the kou shi stuff. It's an ingrained reaction in me that whenever I see a block of chinese text, my brain is going on permanent hibernation mode and won't return unless I manage to sneak Jane Eyre under the table, or scribble inanely bad poetry on the margins.

Do you think writer's block is an excuse for laziness or a true inspirationblock?

If the apocalypse is coming I hope that the satellites can record every single moment. It might be a sort of history-making moment for future generations of humanoids whose creation is questionable. The view must be pretty nice up there, with cyclones, hurricanes and great floods (fires too) doing their jobs and extinguishing life. Then one by one on the other side of the Earth away from the sun streetlights would sweep close like a child's eyelids in anticipation of sleep. The world is sleeping. The world is dying.

Maybe in the new world abiogenesis might be the key word in Science textbooks.

Or perhaps there would be such great scientific advancements that scientists have found planets whose composition is very close to Earth's and everyone can board these huge, silver rockets and embark on a journey of lightyears to the New World. Then poor folk whose economies are still struggling, like Africa, will be unable to purchase that lifesaving seat on the rocket and hence will be left behind to deal with our shit while we have to start all over again on another planet like cavemen. Then industrialisation, government, and the whole process will repeat itself all over again until we've destroyed nearly the entire planet before we realise we're well and truly screwed.

If the apocalypse comes

Never mind. This train of thought is too depressing.

I have decided, since life is so short and precious, why bother living up to others' expectations? These people can go screw themselves, bitter, nitpicky people with no lives and no strength in themselves to pursue their own goals. Hence they set their expectations on others. Why shall I fulfill your dreams? Why shall I believe in religion if I don't / haven't experienced these miracles?(if you have, good for you since God has touched your life, be blessed and happy, if you haven't, why wait around? Just move on!) Why must I bend over myself to be whoever you want me to be? I'm not saying this as a teenager: I'm saying this because there are many people in the world who are continually being dissatisfied with themselves and comparing themselves to others. There are people who go, "Why aren't I skinny enough? Am I not good enough? I have to be better, I must be better and show ____!" It's entirely obvious and people say teenagers are angsty. I do not pretend I know everything in this world, but from what I already see and in my naive, immature eyes (for in immaturity lies a sort of innocence always praised in books), the world is pretty twisted and there's nothing we can do but try our best to survive.

Here is my new year resolution in advance: I will be who I want to be, and I will strive towards my own goals without being moved by the pressures of others. I will remember my humble beginnings and will not scoff at people with poor spelling/grammar, however tempted I am to insult them, laugh at them or even tell them things like "learn to spell!" because they are trying their best. Exceptions are made for those who are contented to make mistakes over and over, or when I am in a foul enough mood with a sharp weapon nearby (because insults in head is better than carving it in blood).

On the bright side, I did manage to fulfill one of my new year resolutions last year. I think it is be nice...or wait, that's not it. The iron rule is 'Be nice to everybody...except to people who do not deserve it." Or something along those lines.

Ooo next year is O levels year...I can't wait for the afters! Finally free from Chinese and A Math! My lighter is quivering in anticipation of devouring the textbooks and adding to global warming...well just a little won't hurt. I mean religions have been burning loads of paper money, candle wicks, incense (the spa kind and others), cigarettes and offerings, so how can a textbook hurt? Before someone attacks me on my religious insensitivity, or how this is not funny, I am simply recording down my observations and thoughts. Even if free speech does not belong in this country.

One more thing to note: I am very accomplished at identifying a specific noxious gas, none other than ammonia. That is the one useful educational aspect about rebonding. I can now identify it anywhere, after inhaling the fumes and feeling my eyes water and sting. So girls, if you want to go for hair rebonding and your parents say it's a waste of cash, tell them that you're going for real-life Chemistry practical on identifying gases. It's a very important chapter. *nods gravely*

Despite it being my third time I never fail to be amazed at the smoke/steam off my hair after the flat iron is place on it. It reminds me of bee hoon...dark bee hoon steaming in clear water. I bet I have chased away your appetite with an iron frying wok after all that talk about ammonia, bee hoon and hair. Can you imagine eating a plate of bee hoon, the heat grazing your face, then you smell a huge burst of ammonia making your eyes water and your lungs scream and the wonderful, appetizing meal becomes a mass of dark hair? If you weren't grossed out before, I think you are now, especially if you have a very hyperactive imagination.

Strawberry seeds taste like strawberry. Not exactly, maybe a more earthly flavour...can anyone imagine eating seedless straeberries? The skin would be smooth and red, but would a strawberry still be a strawberry without the seeds on the surface? How would it taste like?

I wonder how strawberry porridge will taste like. In France (I read this somewhere a long time a ago) it is customary for the wedded couple to eat porridge made of a deluge of things, including strawberry because it is the fruit of love, due to its heart like shape. Maybe the people then haven't eaten Korean strawberries before, because however I squint (my eyesight is deplorable), it looks phallic and tubular, not heart-shaped, to me. I had my doubts eating it at first but I never regretted my decision. American strawberries (and really, strawberries from New Zealand and Egypt, I won't say the world because I've only eaten strawberries form these coountries) all have heart-shaped strawberries though.

Maybe it will taste nothing like the fruit. My mum once made apple soup (clear soup and boiled apples, the kind you buy from Fairprice), and it tasted weird, all sweet and distinctly herbal. I'm not a fan of herbal soups, so I poked at it dubiously with my fork. Same thing with papaya soup and watermelon skin (yeah, the red watermelon you eat. The normal ones). I don't know where my mother gets these ideas for soups -- I probably sound ungrateful here, but it's true. I had the runs and suffered through it at the unearthly hour of 2 a.m. in the morning but she claims it's detoxifying. I doubt that, because if that were to cause such a powerful digestive reaction, it has to be toxic. I'm blaming the strange watermelon skin soup I had for dinner, and not the french fries at Macdonald's the week before.

So far, traditional medicine hasn't helpe me in any way. The insomnia soup my mum makes me drink (otherwise known as the papaya soup) only made it worse. I found that not doing anything to mess my body up was most effective. Actually, anything TCM that tries to deal with my insomia doesn't work. I don't dare to try malay or indian ones because I can't read the ingredients and at least if it's chinese I know what I am ingesting. It's all about control.

Tired now from non-stop blabbering...tomorrow I must force myself to watch the chinese news programme even if I die from boredom or I can't make out the words! Goddarnit why can't they print out News In Class like they did for English? It would make my learning Chiense easier!

I'm a 'higher' chiense student hating chiense and failing chinese. Bah. Goes to show how 'elite' we are. All this categorisation.

Stupid annoying blogger is taking forever to load and holy mother of all mothers I am pissed off.

WHOEVER WHO DIPS HER HAND IN THE SACRED, CONSECRATED CANDY STASH IS DOOMED TO ANGER.

I hate children. With a passion. Right now I really detest m sister because SHE ATE MY CANDY AND MY COOKIES without permission. And the stash of junk food I was saving up for a rainy day, esp. after A Math tests.

I think next time I shall booby trap all my snacks and fill them with decoys loaded full of arsenic and I shall watch her CHOKE. -steams-

It's a good thing she shut her door and I am upstairs in the soothing environment of MSN and the glow of my monitor screen, if not I might just jump down and squeeze that veined neck of hers oh-so-tightly, compressing it swiftly and watch her face turn blue.

A brilliant murder scene. Must add that to my list of quotes. NOT.

HOLY MOTHER OF ALL MOTHERS AM I PISSED.

I need to stop writing my stream of conciousness because there is someone looking over my shoulder and reading what I write, and YES I AM TALKING ABOUT YOU. IT IS RUDE.

Even my thumbdrive is against me today. Argh. #$%&!

I apologise for the mistake I made. The writing course I took part in was Arvon, and not Avron. Thanks for notifying me about the mistake. and reading. (:

P.S. To wtf: Are you still interested in being a proofreader? I need a critic who would point out my mixed metaphors and comment on whether the emotions are adequately expressed, as well as...well critique it like a lit. essay.

Must go to litup soon to check whether Mr Chris has any comments, even if I made very minor edits to the piece before. I wonder if CAP accepts the piece on incest? I liked that the most, but Jing Yi said that it wouldn't get in because a mentor who was a gay activist got fired (or something like that).

Well it doesn't really cross the OB markers. All they said was no sex, no racism and no politics, they didn't say anything about no homosexuality or incest/bro-sis relationship(s).

I found the 'brain drain' phenomenon pretty ironic. Singapore chases away local talent with its OB markers and censorship while they are trying to boot lick foreign talent into joining Singapore's community.

Now I have a poem composing itself in my head. A very bad poem. ARGHHHH GET IT OUTTTTTT NUUUUU

Heeled boots are killer when you're standing on a crowded MRT from Braddel to City Hall, then from City Hall to Paya Lebar. Oh, and taking a 2-hour tour around the neighbourhood, learning what the heck a CDC is, a mayor of the 5 districts and various politics, as well as the culture hidden under the familiar HDBs and the stories it hides. Very inspirational and tiring. At least lunch was one and a half hours, so I could afford to go elsewhere to eat with my friends, yet no matter how close our destination was (like today's Bishan and the day before's Toa Payoh hub) we were always late. Got distracted along the way by plushies while I happily examined a dagger in the comics connection shop. Ooh blood, murder and gore!

Cookies are evil, and together with walking in the rain and then going to an air-conditioned room, it proves to be a formidable force. I hope I can use this as an excuse not to do my homework. Urgh homework, I'd rather be out spending money or writing / reading.

Ooh my tagboard is alive!

Well seeing as I actually do have a life outside blogging and writing (it is a well-known fact that writers are all busy and devoted to writing, as my mentor says, a writer is someone who is willing to be lonely in order to contemplate and present the world through his or her eyes. Paraphrased because I don't have a parrot memory.)

Spent the last five days at the wonderful AVRON PROSE WRITING WORKSHOP (: I managed to write something half-decent after so many months of hiatus and letting my ability fester away in memorisation, so I am overjoyed!

I have just realised that you cannot exactly label my piece on incest incest, because incest would mean that the two characters are having a sexual relationship, but they are not (in my story). I can't figure out the appropriate term for it...ah well, let's stick with the wordy brother-sister relationship. Somehow throughout all this the words 'Oepidus complex' float in my mind like tissue suspended, but I don't think it's entirely related to the situation. Aside from this minor quibble, I did express the emotions and guilt of the character very well, and was praised by the AVRON tutor for having 'talent' because the piece was 'raw, and you can get away with this for a first draft.' Oh, it must be pretty good then, considering how earlier in the lesson he shared with us one quote: All first drafts are shit. Ernest Hemmingway!

I really must do some reading up and get better at my craft, I feel that I am lagging behind in terms of simplicity of expression. However, when I mentioned this to the tutor at the tutorial, he said it was fine because it's my style. Well, I suppose two authors and my mentor couldn't be wrong. I mean, if two are local talents (my mentor started Poetry Slam in Singapore, and is well-established throughout the literary world, and Su Chen is a published author, whose text, 'Fistful of Colours' was the A-Level Literature exam text.) Well, if both of them think it's okay, it should be fine, right?

I learnt today that Alfian Sa'at also went to the same Avron CW class 15 years ago! Hooly crap! That means I really do have the potential to be like him, if I bother to get off my lazy arse to write a 1000+ words a day like authors do ("Adopt writerly habits," Jeremy says. "Don't expect us to push you, and don't lose focus when you're young. You're all very talented, all 18 of you...")

I shall work hard from now on and try to write something everyday, even if it's bullshit.

Oh and purple prose,

I am very glad that the troll, 'Stephen King' commented on my humble blog. I must say I don't really like your books because they seem a bit...bald. Anyway, the defensive tone of 'Stephen King' is quite suspicious, considering that he is the one who pointed our that Stephenie uses purple prose, and even insulted her in an interview. (Yep I watched that).

I have been faithfully following your quote, and thanks a lot, genuine Stephen King, it has helped me during my growth as a writer, and is one of the oft-repeated rule in my head: the adjective and adverb are not your friends.

I wonder what Stephen will say if he reads Vildamir Nabokov's Lolita. It should be funny.

Anyway, purple prose is defined as "a term of literary criticism used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response."

Oh, speaking of which, this just popped up in my mind: Jane Austen was not a very popular writer in the Victorian period because her writing wasn't ornate/elaborate enough. The victorian period called for emotion to be expressed through lush imagery, and Jane Austen's style didn't fall into the preferences of the people then, so she wasn't very well-received. Compare her style to Shakespeare, and you'll understand. Okay on with the post.

So, let me quote a passage from Ernest Hemmingway (you must be a literary idiot to not have heard of this man, one of the literary greats):

"In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plains to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, adn the water was clear and swiftly moving in the blue channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves."

Now that's wonderful, evocative description. This nearly crosses the line of purple prose with repetition and image, and the whole load of sensory details, yet instead of turning the reader off, it is lovely isn't it? This is why Ernest is famous and celebrated throughout the world. If Ernest can get away with such descriptions throughout the novel, and we, as writers, learn through criticism and reading, then this should be perfectly acceptable.

Hence the term 'purple prose' is quite hard to define, unless there is
a) a use of metaphors where not necessary
b) too much adjectives (esp. in the description of Edward)
c) Too much adverbs and etc.

However in lit this becomes more debatable. Purple prose as an effect. Alfian Sa'at, one of our local poets, wrote in his poem, 'Singapore, you are not my country':
"Tell that to the battered housewife who thinks happiness
lies at the end of a Toto queue
Tell that to the tourist guide whose fillings are pewter
whose feelings are iron
whose courtesy is gold whose speech is silver whose
handshake is a lethal yank at the jackpot machine.
Tell that to my imam who thinks we are all going to hell.
That that to the chao ah beng who has seven stitches a
broken collarbone and three dead comrades but who
will not hesitate at thrusting his tiger ribcage into
another fight
because the lanterns of his lungs have caught their own
fire and there is no turning back"

Beautiful. The suddeness and the repetition of 'whose' and the detail make is so much more effective, almost as a maniac mantra, ranting and crying at the same time. Like a stream of conciousness where you're on the divide between wakefulness and sleep, and these words just flow out of your mind and you have to write them down.

This is the power of the 'stream of conciousness'. It is natural in its language pattern. You cannot say that the above is purple prose, can you?

Now, where on earth did I use purple prose in my blog? In my attempts at writing lit pieces after EOYs, yes, but in my blog my language is simpler to make it easier for my target audience ot comprehend what I am writing.

I would put a very teenager grunt here: DUH. DUUUUUUH.

Anyway, I am pretty sure the MOE won't pick someone with a persistent problem of purple prose (omg unintenti0nal alliteration!) to join this program and spend the entirety of the 50,000 budget on us, especially if all of us are so untalented. And let's not forget the Avron workshop which is considerably more expensive. Alfian went to this, and look where he is today. This is a testament to the quality of this workshop, it has the ability to nurture talents, and someday we will be Alfian, or even better him if we work hard and keep our writerly habits.

(I love all the 'ands' like linkages to a stream of continuous thought!)

Frankly I don't give a damn about my style now. This, my dear, is called prose-poetry, the contemporary style. I am sure that you know (addressing the troll now) every art period has its salient features. The debate about Form vs. Function will rage on, I suppose. As a young person (now this is said by my mentor), my challenge is language for the sake of itself or language as a function. There are so many possibilities with both.

Today in the workshop when I listened to the readings of my fellow classmates, I noticed that they used Singlish (deliberately, of course, considering the smatterings of Hokkien, I suppose RI students are capable of near-perfect English.) and simple imagery (due to the character being from the lower end of the social spectrum) to create a powerful effect. One example: The wind blow blow, my heart shivering. Powerful. It will be some time before I can write from the heart and not the mind,

All I need to worry about now is how to write a piece on the stupid theme, 'Word weavers, World bridgers'. Goddamnit I can't think of anything.

D'you reckon I should give the anon the link to my work? I need a proofreader NOW. The harsher the critic, the better, but this only works is the critic is able to pinpoint the various areas he finds fault with and suggest a change. It's all part of the editing process my mentor does, so don't worry, you aren't being shortchanged.

P.S. One quote that stood out for me during the Avron workshop, written by my friend Lim Min:
"I turned red, not fire red or even volcano lava red, but holy-mother-of-all-mothers, am-I-pissed red."

The character was Singapore. I laughed so hard my throat ached worse than it did in the morning without the salvation of lozenges.