[64]

It's lunchtime, I'm waiting for my Outreach duty slot and waaaaaaay bored out of my mind so I figure I might as well blog about week 2 of school. Heh.

Actually, ever since school started, life has just been one long string of sleeping at 0200h and waking up at 0530h. Even on so-called "free days". (I really should stop arranging driving lessons to be at 0800h on Wednesday. Can literally die, if I zone out while driving.) I don't mind sleeping late and waking up early, as long as I don't feel tired in between. Unfortunately that's quite impossible.

My classes have been great so far, especially the English ones. It's not that I regret doing a Life Sciences major; it's just that I don't understand why I'm doing this if something else inspires me more. (No wait. I do understand why. It's the same reason for willingly flying from end to end of the campus and trying to survive 8 consecutive hours of lectures on Tuesdays. Grr.)

The more committee stuff I take part in, the more I realize how difficult it is to deal with people. (And believe me, some people have an EQ so low that I feel like strangling them when I talk to them 'cause all they do is sound like they're accusing me of one thing or another. And there I am trying my best to be politically correct... Geez. Fine, some of them do try to clarify afterwards. But still.)

CCA-wise there's just a lot a lot A LOT of things to do on top of a lot a lot A LOT of confusion. So I'm not quite sure what's going on. (I hate messy handovers.) Thank goodness for an awesome vice-chairperson who helps to remember all the details of tasks hahahah. Think this is the most disorganized state I've ever been in.

The worst part of having messy handovers is that the duties are not very clear-cut, and we just have far too many people in power at the same time. And then stuff that's not my fault becomes mine. (This I really can't stand 'cause bloody hell, I'll gladly admit it if it's my fault, but if that's not the case, I'm not going to be anyone scapegoat.) Granted, I might have dealt with it in a better way. I suppose.

So shit happened on Monday and Tuesday 'cause of one bombshell or another. People really need to give me all the parts of the puzzle AT THE SAME TIME instead of doling 'em out in small doses. Otherwise it becomes my freaking fault when things get messed up. SHEESH. Okay that's beside the point. On Wednesday I decided that okay, I dug myself into a hole, so now I'll get myself out. No one is going to screw around with my life any more, and I will really kill whoever does so. With words or otherwise.

I know Stanley thinks that this isn't just a hole, it's a flaming fire pit, but never mind. The main point is that I will turn murderous if they attempt to kill me.

The whole suddenly-came-to-a-decision thing was a new experience though. It was like something in my brain just clicked and everything fell into place. Quite cool, hahah, but the clarity is a bit scary. (Ooh this reminds me of Scott Westerfeld's Specials.)

So now it's Thursday. I'm behind on my readings, already. CCAs do take up darn a lot of time when it comes to solving the people problems.

I'm looking forward to choir rehearsals though. Think I've missed far too many of those 'cause of SOW.

Okay. Um. I might as well admit it. I'm looking forward to singing but not to hanging out with the people. (I doubt any of them read this anyway. Should be quite safe.) The more time I spend apart from them, the less I want to spend time with them. And I suspect the kinda shocking piece of news Steph semi-threw at me has something to do with it. But aiyah. Whatever.

That said, Mark and I were very amused when Dr. Hiramoto showed a video of vocal cords during EL1101E. Everyone else was super grossed out (yeah girls were screaming away), but we just went like "Eh this looks familiar! Mrs. Tay showed this to us during rehearsal!" hahahahahah.

Oh look, I just killed 45 minutes of my lunchtime. Yay.
Can kind of tell that I'm just trying to hide behind my laptop the way other people hide behind shades right. Hurhur. I miss having the same classes with Fadz/Larry/JC. One common module is really not enough.

And PEARL! If Little Miss MIA shows up, make her post her schedule on the thread!

Hmm I should try to read a bit more of the textbook. Sigh.

[62]

Since the last post, I've been busy doing a lot of rubbish.

We planned and filmed the OG video, in which I skipped around a la Gabriella Montez/Vanessa Hudgens a lot. (Thankfully we were all skipping together, so it's not that bad. Hahah.) The unfortunate thing was that "We're All in This Together" was stuck in my head for at least four days after that.

Rehearsals have started again, yay. We're back to our usual singing-ending-taking an hour to decide where to eat routine.

Pearl, Germ, and I had a Transformers party. The board game was... interesting 'cause it was more funny than fun. Megatron kept falling down. The movie was fun to watch, though it was kinda draggy in the beginning, and the emo-music, slow-mo, drama-drama climax of the movie was a bit over-the-top. At least Optimus Prime and Josh Duhamel were hot.

After watching it, I realized that hot is hot no matter which role the guy is cast in. Not the lead? Never mind. You can still catch people's eyes by your face alone. (Yeah, don't even need the body.) Hahah.

We baked muffins and cookies during befriending. The muffins were okay, but some of the cookies tasted like a mixture of sweet, salty, and bitter. Very strange. (I think it had something to do with us forgetting to add in the brown sugar, and adding it only after the dough was more or less done.)

I... will not talk about the matriculation fair. It was CCA day all over again, and it reminded me of how we used to badger people to "just put your name down, no obligations!". Hahah.

This year's NDP is going to be totally awesome! Hahah yeah, I got to watch the preview. It's really different from other years' NDP. You'll just have to watch it for yourself to see how it is. All I can say is that it's so multimedia. So many things are going on at the same time that one doesn't know where to look.

It's a rehearsal, so there was quite a bit of "looking at other people to see what the next action is" among the performers, but I'm sure it'll be great by the time August 9 comes around.

Whee two days to SOW. Let's see how much tanner I can get. Hahahah.

[47]

I haven't blogged for... gosh, 5 weeks.
It's been a crazy month, but now I'll catch up on the blogging. Not that a lot of people actually read this, hahah.

The Game of Life party was pretty fun. It was just nice to sit there and play stupid games in a comfortable ambience. In other words, with people you know so well that it's okay to be dumb in front of them. It'd have been more fun if I was less woozy from tiredness.

GoL is interesting but it can get a tad boring, since it doesn't exactly require players to do much thinking. Spin the wheel, move your car, follow instructions on the cards. That's about it.
I'll never forget the "Dean's list" though. Double meaning hahahah. And yeah, not many people get it. I actually got people asking me "HUH you're really on the dean's list?!". Hilarious.

The altoes met up for dinner/catch-up... twice in a week. Amazing that most of us were there despite the insane schedules of tests/projects/presentations/work/whatever. Seven out of eight is pretty good, regardless of how annoyed Yan is that not all eight were present. Hahah.

Playing the Singaporean version of Taboo was really funny too. The photos and the quotes are somewhere on Facebook but I'm too lazy to copy-and-paste them here.

I had thrice the birthday celebrations this year, though I didn't celebrate it at home. (The benefits of having many CCAs, hurhur.) All in all I blew out 41 years' worth of candles.
Thank you altos, for the ice-cream cupcakes and especially the laughter during all our gatherings.
Thank you FOPCC, for the (not-very-good) attempt at doing a surprise birthday thing.
Thank you alumni choir, for the surprise birthday brownie.
And of course, my lovely OG mates (Sarah/Huiling/Johan/Weekeat/Stanley) for the food-presents.
Oh, and all the other friends who wished me a happy birthday.

Strangely enough, despite all the chocolate cakes, ice-cream, doughnuts, bubble tea, cookies, brownies, and more, I lost 3 kg. (I haven't gotten it back; can't decide whether to rejoice or not.)

I'm actually glad to turn 20. It's pretty much an in-between age: no longer a teenager, not yet an adult. Adulthood might not be fun, but I think I'll like it better than being a kid, 'cause people will listen you just because of your age.
So yeah, I'm not fazed by the big two-oh.

All the boring bits shall be skipped. On to the mid-sem break.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that my break was packed. Committee meeting-project meeting-rehearsal-project meeting-committee meeting-tuition-piano lesson-oh guess what, the break is over. Sigh.

I like my project groups, so that makes the project meetings easier. Plus, both of my project groups are really efficient. I LIKE. A LOT. We can finish meetings in one hour or less. Hahah.

Pearl, Germ, and I went to One Fullerton's Coffee Bean to sit-slack-study. It was super relaxing, so much so that I fell asleep while trying to finish start my readings.

Hooray for friends with at least 5 years' of history, for friends with whom you can do anything and not be judged, for friends who can read your mind, for friends with whom sitting-and-stoning is a worthwhile activity and not a complete waste of time.

I'm done with the past month.
The present ain't that pretty because...

It's been an unlucky weekend.
First I keep (accidentally) kicking my ankle with the really hard base of my sandals. Then I broke a plate last night and cut my foot. (The plate smashed and this shard bounced off the floor onto my foot. Ouch.) And today, my calculator conked out in the middle of my test even though it was fine yesterday.

Gosh, and it's not even Friday the 13th yet.

[45]

I hate waking up from a nightmare. I especially hate the crappy feeling I get when I'm halfway between dreaming and waking up because of the whole I'm-awake-but-freaked-out-by-the-freaky-things-in-the-nightmare thing.

And I've been having many ridiculous nightmares. Some scary, some weird, some exam-related, some school-related, all freaking-out-related. Think a pattern is emerging.

That said, I'm really happy that rehearsals are starting again. About one month of not singing/seeing the same people every week and I've forgotten how much of a joy it is to spend time with these people doing something we all love.

Busy busy busy once more!

[37]

What the alumni choir does after a very very filling barbecue dinner with a lot of meat. (You have to admit, it's a pretty picture.)


Altos '07: Reunion dinner on 02012009, sadly missing Andrea.

What a feast. Sid and Chorks joined us, so it was the usual altos+2basses thing.

The card games were fun, and so was the version of Murderer Mel tried to teach us. We're really not very good at making small talk and playing psychological games at the same time. Except for Yan. Yan's the sneaky one, hahah.

It's true that psychological games are tough to play with people you've known for ages, 'cause it gets a bit scary that people whom you trust might be the murderer/accomplice. Only a game, but mind games do stuff to your mind.

Worse still, playing with people you know really well means that it's hard to lie and convince each other that someone is/isn't the murderer.

Happy, happy, happy night.

[35]

This is a record month of barbecues. I've had two, skipped one, and there's one coming up really soon. At the rate I'm ingesting carcinogens... Bad news.

Barbecue #1: Germaine's.
Pearl and I hung out at her house the entire afternoon watching The Dark Knight. One single movie. Whatever happened to our movie marathon/Supernatural fest?! Next time we've got to be more efficient.
That said, it was rather relaxing. No stress, no hurry, nothing to do except laze on the couch. I really need more of this.
Come to think of it, we forgot to take a photo together.

Barbecue #2: Alumni barbecue.
It was quite fun, especially the Pictionary and sparklers part.
And this part is really short 'cause I don't know what to say. There were some nice sparklers pictures, so I'll share them when they appear on Facebook. Hahah.

Today was a day of miracles, because Donald replied my email and Ernest added me on Facebook. Amazing.

[34]

Batch of 2007's christmas gathering/dinner.


The compulsory group photo.

It was really nice to see people I haven't seen in ages and ages. Though only about half the batch was there, it was pretty successful. Goodness knows how much effort the planners (Jerome, Reuben, Bong, and Brendan, if I'm not wrong) have put in for this. Thank you all!

Everything's kind of different, but still the same. No doubt it's (ahem) wilder than christmas parties from college days. Amazingly we didn't sing... Okay, we tried to. The "Huh carols again?!" sentiment was far too strong so we gave up. Not that I was complaining, hahah.

All of us have changed, at least a little. Army and university lives do affect people somewhat. BUT. There're still lots of little things that I've been seeing since we were still in college that I appreciate a lot more after being to university and NOT seeing this kind of considerate acts there.

Easy camaraderie doesn't come by that often. That night, just sitting to the side, watching friends talk and camwhore and catch up on lives and simply enjoying each other's company was enough to make people feel content.