colourblind.

just tried the colorgenics thing after seeing it on georgia’s blog (it annoyingly doesn’t work on firefox, blah) and it’s almost eerily accurate.

i’m horribly prone to afternoon naps now. which means my history essay is still largely untouched, save for the page i crapped out yesterday. whee.

i had a most delicious dinner though – homemade laksa. for some odd reason i can take spicy food like curry and laksa but not chili. i just hate the way it bites my tongue.

it feels like my slightly sprained foot has become a bit more than slightly sprained. i should have rested it but i just couldn’t resist the netball and basketball. and it’s not like it really hurts when i walk. it only hurts (quite badly) at weird times… i don’t fully understand the extent of the sprain, actually. but the ‘rents are not going to be happy if i have to go for expensive trips to the chinese sinseh again. and since i can mostly walk normally (save for the occasional yelp of pain) i guess i’ll wait the sprain out… it’ll probably just heal on its on, anyway. so what’s the point of blogging about this? i guess i just felt like complaining about my foot.

tomorrow’s the moment of truth… of how badly i do for econs and history. sigh. must work on the darn essay so i can receive my miserable results tomorrow. i want it, but i don’t, either.

feeling blue, while i’m trying to forget the feeling that i miss you
feeling green, when the jealousy swells and it won’t go away in dreams
feeling yellow, i’m confused inside
a little hazy, but mellow
when i feel your eyes on me

feeling fine, sublime
when that smile of yours creeps into my mind

nobody told me you’d feel so good
nobody told me you’ll be so beautiful
nobody warned me about your smile
you’re the light, you’re the light
when i close my eyes
i’m colourblind
[darius: colourblind]

a somewhat corny, but nice song (:

could it be worse?

highlight of the day has got to be the netball game during pe today. mark and gideon joined us cos we were severely short of girls (yy and georgia were out, while gayle and vanessa were absent) and we had a most enjoyable game against 32. gotta admire their great passing but aiping and gideon were really effacious at intercepting their passes too. set up a pretty good strike partnership with maryam, though my shooting percentage for netball is really horrible now, as compared to a couple of weeks ago. i guess playing too much basketball sorta destroyed what little skill i had. ha.

come to think of it, today actually zoomed by pretty quickly. history lecture was going through yet another prelim essay (ms ng spared me the agony of going through the horrible arab-israeli one, thankfully) and maths also zipped by since we were going through stats. i missed about one third of the gp lesson by going out and changing for a good ten minutes or so, i think. maths lecture felt really short because i was actually sort of enjoying myself by doing the 2002 paper, which has so far (that’s 2 questions) appeared to be rather manageable.

hopped on 72 with my bus-buddy aiping, and i dropped off at hougang point to get myself a quarterpounder. except that for some weird reason, they didn’t have the quarterpounder. just like the macs in the neighbourhood. weird. at least they still had double cheeseburgers.

and oh yes, yesterday. first half of the day was spent in the cafe, finishing up the remainder of my tuition mcqs and trying desperately (but woefully failing) to start on the history essays. lunch was at the compasspoint banquet with aiping, maryam and yy. we walked around after that, before aiping and yy left and me and maryam headed to the library, where i borrowed chromosome 6. i need to read robin cook books again. haven’t read them in ages, and have completely forgotten what most of them are about, although i can roughly remember which ones are good – toxin, chromosome 6 and abduction, at least. yet another after a’s activity for me. heh.

more harry potter pictures! from the 2006 calendar this time. and of course it’s only mentioned because loads of them are harry/hermione. who cares about not having canon when we have such squee-worthy material from the movies???

one history essay, a maths paper and the need to study for tomorrow’s timed practice… and all i want to do now is take a shower and a nice long nap.

i’m trying so hard that it hurts.

burned.

gah. gotta remember the sunblock the next time i play basketball. my nose’s horribly red and burnt now. sigh. am annoyed because my watch sorta broke. again. have to squeeze some time to visit the swatch outlet at j8 before or after tuition tomorrow. boo.

got maths paper 1 back today. 21.5 out of 100. while it’s an improvement over my promos (14), it’s still a horribly pathetic mark. have to somehow scrape a pass for the a’s… by mugging like mad for maths, i guess.

am utterly exhausted. 40 mcqs, two history essays and one maths timed practice to study for. what a life.

guess i was smiling for the wrong reasons.

on a tuesday in december,
when you walked out, i remember.
you were smiling as you turned around,
in the hallway, you lingered in the doorway
and still the words you said to me
they make me think of how we used to be

hand to my heart
i want to be the one who always learned
she said, you’re just like the sun
i get so burned when you are close to me

in the back room of a mansion,
you are planning your deception
always calling, never phoning
i’m a victim of another’s war
and still the words you said to me,
come ringing in your silent symphony

hand to my heart
i want to be the one who always learned
she says, you’re just like the sun
i get so burned when you are close to me

and still it hurts so bad
(i thought i’d get one over on you)
and i hope you’re sad
(you deserve it more than anyone)

i could give you one good reason
you could be my winning season
all the things we could have been, just fell away

hand to my heart
i want to be the one who always learned
she says, you’re just like the sun.
i get so burned when you are close to me
i get so burned when you are close to me
[better than ezra: burned]

the outcome feels the same.

damn. today was an okay day, though it’s leaning towards a bad day, too.

the first period was history lecture, where we went through the un source-based (don’t think i did too well) followed by a brief break, and more history where we went through the origins of cold war essay (probably didn’t do well either).

then we got our econs essays back. it was at first nerve-wracking, then it became downright upsetting, disappointing and demoralising. somehow i had only gotten 28 out of 75. which is about 37% and nowhere near a pass, when i had expected and wanted to do decently for econs. 10, 12, 6. the marks i got for each essay. i have absolutely no idea if i just wasn’t up to managing my time properly and being mentally prepared for three essays, or if the teachers had just marked too strictly. it feels like the latter, because how can it be possible that i had written other essays in exam conditions with less knowledge, but had scored higher? i hardly even remember scoring so miserably for those timed practices during tutorials where i went in with half-baked knowledge.

gp was thankfully less heart-breaking, because i did better than i had expected. i didn’t expect to do well for my essay, but i did manage to scrape a 31, probably due to the fact that ms. subariah marked it. she’s quite lenient and i guess having her mark my “good” essay before gave her a good impression, maybe? but the real surprise was paper 2, which i had expected to flub because my brain didn’t feel like it functioned normally during the paper. but i did okay for the short questions, vocabulary and very surprisingly, the summary, where i had been netting 2’s and 3’s for the past few papers. in contrast, i barely passed my AQ, which was usually my saving grace… weird. in total i had quite thankfully managed to scrape my first A2 for gp, which is probably the only target i’ll manage to meet for my prelims. oh well. better one than none at all.

econs mcq was an okay 23 out of 30, which thankfully puts me back on track for a minimum pass for econs. but the annoying thing is that i could have gotten five marks more, if not for two careless mistakes and three answers that i shouldn’t have changed. argh. it’s pretty exasperating, actually. according to winnie tan the case study doesn’t look good (and i know i’ll do badly for it too, argh!) but i really hope i’ll be able to at least pass econs, which really is arguably my best subject aside from gp.

and today wasn’t that bad, after all. (:

now to do as many of the 120 econs mcqs i have to complete, before winnie tan piles on 30-40 more on us…

i wish.

isn’t it funny how time seems to slow to a trickle when you don’t have to mug like mad for the prelims? a week ago, an hour seemed more like a minute or two. falling asleep while studying would eat up an hour or so, but now it’s like… i wake up at 12pm, do lots of things (like finally play fahrenheit) and wait a minute… it’s not even three yet? amazing, isn’t it?

finally got out of my weird, depressive mood when i woke up this morning. i’m still a bit down, but loads better than yesterday, when my self-esteem inexplicably took a dive and i was insanely temperamental.

after not eating for nearly a whole day, i finally felt like eating so i got the maid to go out and buy me a quarterpounder meal. but the stupid macs didn’t have that. or a double cheeseburger. and somehow i just snapped. i couldn’t quell the feeling of anger mixed with streaks of disappointment, regret and sadness that had just suddenly burst forth, threatening to overwhelm me. maybe all the stress and feelings that had accumulated in me during the prelims period had just finally given way.

i remember very nearly hitting breaking point during the history cold war paper, because i realised too late that i didn’t know enough about the arab-israeli conflict. i was so precariously close to snapping, and i had to inwardly sort of marvel at how everyone manages to just keep such thoughts in check and focus on the exam instead. sometimes we get so close to breaking down we don’t even realise that we’re right on the line that separates sanity from insanity.

i wish i knew the right words to say and the right things to do.
sometimes i wish i wasn’t me.

maybe i’m the one to blame

what is it about feeling down/depressed that makes you want to blog endlessly about it, and yet not blog anything at all?

maybe i’m the problem
maybe i’m the one to blame
but even when i turn it off and blame myself
the outcome feels the same

it isn’t just one thing, it’s everything.

daylight.

hmmm. no crystal jade adventure yesterday, though i did eat la-mian and xiaolongbao at lao beijing with maria, who very kindly responded to my call for lunch. thanks (:

the movie was… not bad? it didn’t fit my normal definition of good, but it definitely wasn’t bad, either. it’s actually quite good, if you think about it. but if you asked me why it’s good, i wouldn’t be able to answer. i just can’t quite put my finger on it.

did a bit of impulse shopping when i stopped over at heartland mall to see if the watson’s there had my got2b range of shampoo (they didn’t, bah!) and i peeked into sportslink. most of the basketballs were on offer, and i settled for one that cost 35 bucks. which really is cheaper than buying two cds, actually. and so i have my own basketball again. yay for impulse shopping.

i reached school this morning just slightly before 10, half-expecting the people from history remedial to already be playing, but apparently that wasn’t the case, because they were still trying to churn out their 4 page essay for ms ng. which left me with no real choice but to wait for them in the pccg room, where we got a surprise visitor in the form of eric.

and we finally got down to playing basketball, but somehow basketball didn’t have its usual de-stressing effect on me, because after playing i felt weird. in the i-think-i’m-depressed kinda weird. which doesn’t make sense because i should be like… exhilarated that the prelims are over. but i’m just not. and i have zero idea why. post-prelim blues or something? argh.

the strangest thing is my lack of appetite. i didn’t eat anything apart from two sticks of satay for dinner, didn’t do breakfast because i didn’t feel like it and now i don’t feel like lunch either. even the thoughts of quarterpounders and mushroom swiss doubles have failed to stimulate my usually highly excitable and beef-loving appetite. the only thing i remotely feel like putting into my mouth are liquids. especially fruit juices. weird. oh well. good way to lose the weight i gained from indiscriminate snacking on the pretext of “it’s the prelims so i need to snack to study”.

can’t seem to derive fun out of anything now. not even basketball. i can’t waste my post-prelims break like this :( what’s wrong with me???

you’re a long walk in a rain storm
you’re a cut that refuses to heal
you’re a dull ache that I can’t shake
you’re a cold that’s clogging up my head
or a broke watch keeping time still
till you pull me in pull me in
and i can’t fight

if the night is cold
and you’re feeling old
and the morning cuts you
like a knife
and you’re wearing thin
feel you’re giving in
in the darkest hour of the night
you find daylight

you’re a stalled car in the desert
you’re a song i can’t get off my mind
and in a dire strait
with no hope at all in sight
you come rushing in rushing in
with a lifeline

if the night is cold
and you’re feeling old
and the morning cuts you
like a knife
and you’re wearing thin
feel you’re giving in
in the darkest hour of the night
you find daylight

pull me closer to your breast
i need you finally i confess
i’m drifting i’m drifting
i love you but i hate you too
god only knows what i could do
i’m drifting i’m drifting

come on give me one reason
come on find me in daylight
come on give me one reason
come on find me in daylight

if the night is cold
and you’re feeling old
and the morning cuts you
like a knife
and you’re wearing thin
feel you’re giving in
in the darkest hour of the night
you find daylight
you’ll find daylight
[better than ezra: daylight]

so where’s my daylight? sigh.

maybe i’ve been the problem

it’s over! the six-day ordeal known as the prelims, that is.

like maryam, i think that this prelims was definitely one of the most draining and tiring examinations i’ve ever sat for, despite me miraculously not falling asleep during any paper. i studied so hard (or crammed so much last minute work) i started to get mysterious aches everywhere. something that i don’t recall happening before, not even during the o’s. but it’s over, so who cares?

the sea paper was surprisingly quite okay. i got lucky with the source-based, considering that it just happened to be the topic my group was in charge of when we were doing the whole source-based thing. for some odd reason it always happens to be the topic i did. the same thing happened during promos last year – the un source-based was about the world bank or imf or something, which i was practically specialising in. lucky me. if there were any major school exams left, i’d say the moral of the story is to be in the same group as me. haha.

and for some reason i managed to write more than usual – at least three full pages with the 0.5 pen, as opposed to about two and a half pages with the 0.7 pen for the cold war paper. and in less time, too. somehow i was just quite clear-headed during the paper, as opposed to the nervousness shrouding me for the cold war paper. well i don’t think i’ll do all that well for this paper either, but i actually enjoyed doing this paper. it didn’t feel very stressful, although i did worry a bit over my lack of rigour. but this paper was pretty fun.

and it was basketball after the paper (: but my goodness. not playing for three weeks or so totally degenerated my stamina to like zero. after like five or ten minutes into the game i had to rest because my chest or lungs or goodness knows what was constricting in a most painful manner. as i’m blogging about it i’m craving for more basketball, even with a few stiff fingers from the ball impacting on them in my failed attempts to grab rebounds. but it was really quite satisfying, after not playing for so long. and i did manage to net a couple of jump shots, although i really need to work on things like my timing and utter lack of composure the moment someone’s blocking me.

must get my own basketball soon, so i can play during one of our numerous breaks, since we’re resuming our reduced timetable… with timed practices lasting till about 5 almost everyday. argh. how am i supposed to go for econs tuition like that? there goes my going for all the prelim prep lessons, and i had wanted to just let the econs tuition be like 90% of my econs revision. sigh.

lunch was at the cine burger king with the remaining basketball buddies, namely denise, mark, jasper, dwayne and youjun, who popped by for a visit. talked about quite a lot of stuff, i can’t really remember what though, owing to the fact that a weird headache-like thing visited me midway through my mushroom swiss meal. and we saw tay ping hui there! haha. it’s silly how we are like oh wow whenever we see local celebrities. but he’s quite good-looking in real life. and really tall. though i must say that at first glance he didn’t look all that good. hmmm.

we popped by hmv after our chitchat (and agreeing to meet at the same place at the same time five years down the road… just to see who’ll remember to turn up) where we spent lots of time there. i went around hunting for possible albums to buy (e.g. butch walker, marvelous3, the new switchfoot album) but apparently hmv’s lousier than borders. and annoyingly most of the cds that i remotely wanted to buy were in the price range of 30 to 40+ bucks. like blessid union of souls‘ new album perception, which i really want to get my hands on. but the 42-dollar price tag means that i have to wait… about ten minutes more ;)

me and denise got a bit bored so we looked over at the new adidas shop there, where we meet hweiyun shopping for birthday presents or something. saw a blue/silver shoe that i rather liked, which is quite a surprise considering that i am seldom attracted to adidas shoes. maybe my first pair of adidas shoes will come soon. 139 bucks. hmmm. and now i also need to get a new shoebag for dumping my post-basketball pe stuff in, cos my maid just managed to spoil the fila one… don’t ask me how.

haven’t posted a wishlist for sometime, have i?

i want:
- nokia n90 (not possible unless i get a thousand-dollar-windfall sometime soon)
- black ipod nano (want, not need. sigh.)
- 160gb hard disk drive
- 1gigabyte worth of ram
- my own basketball, possibly with an accompanying ball pump
- that pair of adidas shoes
- lotsa cds (butch walker, switchfoot, our lady peace, daniel powter, james blunt, better than ezra, m3, etc etc)

which is quite a short list, really.

i can’t wait for tomorrow (:

maybe i’ve been the problem
maybe i’m the one to blame
but even when i turn it off and blame myself
the outcome feels the same

i’ve been thinking maybe i’ve been partly cloudy
maybe i’m the chance of rain
and maybe i’m overcast
and maybe all my luck’s washed down the drain

somehow switchfoot sorta inspired me this morning. i really like this song (:

i wanna be there.

won’t you let me catch your fall
won’t you let me lend a hand
those lonely eyes have seen it all
but love’s too blind to understand

cos you don’t know what you have
till your everything is gone
you need someone to show you how to live again

i wanna be there when you’re feeling high
i wanna be there when you wanna die
i’m gonna light your fire
i’m gonna feel your flame
i wanna be there when you go insane
i wanna be there when you’re feeling’ down
and i’ll be there when your head is spinnin’ round
gonna be your lover
gonna be your friend
i wanna be there till the end

you wouldn’t know that i was there
cos i have been there all the time
and if i had my way i’d hold you in my arms
and leave this madness all behind

cos you got so much to give
but you throw it all away
and all you got to show for who you are is pain

and i’ve got so much to give
if you’d only let me in
i’m gonna take the time to show you i’m a friend
you’ll believe in love again

i wanna be there in the pouring rain
i wanna be there when you call my name
i’m gonna light your fire
i’m gonna feel your flame
i wanna be there when you go insane
i wanna be there when i’m outta town
and when your whole damn world is crashing down
i’m gonna be your lover
gonna be your friend
i wanna be there till the end
cos you don’t know what you have
till your everything is gone
you need someone to show you how to live again

and i’ve got so much to give
if you’d only let me in
i’m gonna take the time to show you i’m a friend
you’ll believe again

i wanna be there when your baby cries
i wanna be there when they tell you lies
i’m gonna light your fire
i’m gonna feel your flame
i wanna be there when you go insane
i wanna be there when your nights are long
and when you’re feeling like you don’t belong
gonna be your lover
gonna be your friend
gonna be there til the end

i’m gonna be there in the morning
i’m gonna be there in the night
(i’m gonna be there to make you strong when you’re tired
i’m gonne be there when you want me
i wanna be there when you don’t)
gonna be your lover
gonna be your friend
gonna be there till the end
[blessid union of souls: i wanna be there]

am currently experiencing a blessid union of souls renaissance. and guess what? they have a new album! must get my hands on it somehow.

and funnily enough did anyone accidentally send a message to my home phone asking what i’m doing after the prelims? i didn’t pick up the phone and when i got to the phone the automatic system was like… press 3 for dunno-what. so i pressed 1 since it’s usually the “repeat message” option but it ended up being the “end call” option. blah. so i have no idea as to the exact contents of the message (my sister told me the message) and who sent it. apparently it’s the singtel system? gah. confusing.
for one i have no idea who actually has my house number considering that no one has called me via that number for ages, and for another the class people know what i’m doing after prelims (basketball). and i’ve ruled out the usual suspects who might be remotely interested in finding out about my post-prelim activities. so who messaged me? i hate teetering on the edge of suspense like that…

and back to cramming history. the migraine’s almost gone, thankfully. must focus and stop thinking about post-prelims. basketball! and the prospect of watching cinderella man. can’t wait.

f.

sigh. F for the big fat fail i’m going to get for maths. i was counting on the stats paper to at least marginally bring my grades up, but it was a horrible paper. not to mention how i was also clueless about the pure maths section.

and F for the fucking migraine i have that refuses to go away, even after 2 and a half teaspoons of napan and a three hour plus nap.

it’s not like i can squash history info into my head when half my head is already occupied by the sensation of pain. argh.

haven’t fallen asleep for any of the papers so far, but then again this is the first time i’ve gotten a migraine in the middle of exams. i usually manage to survive without the plague of migraines, but i guess i’m not so lucky this time.

how how how.

i want to study history but i can’t :(