Thoughts Unlimited

This was the sunrise today on my way to school. It's beautiful, isn't it? And why did so many people ask me if it was taken in Singapore?! Well, for the record, it was.

I somehow reached school on time, and upon entering the classroom, I was greeted by the sight of people doing the usual last-minute thing, this time with teachers' day presents.


















Then unfortunately it was time to go down to the field and do the ACES day thing.

(Note to people who haven't actually seen the thing itself, it's just this one particular movement which can be likened to exercises to erm, improve certain assets.)

I seriously fail to see the point, for a start, boob enhancement services can be found at any plastic surgery clinic, and it's less torturous for the eye and results are more obvious.

Oh, and I think I perspired more before ACES then during ACES.

















Hah, fellow photo-taker, Karimah.
















Sheena tried to block me from taking her photo, but she failed, because her hands were too small.






















Oh, halfway through the thing, we noticed people at the condo blocks overlooking our school looking at us from their balcony. Yeah, we know, it's your annual free show.






















I have no idea what yx is trying to do here, but well, do take note that no one else is doing it. Except her.
















Yx and Zhao behaving crazy. Actually it was quite, no, make that very amusing to watch.
















Oh, then it was concert time.

CA, my other fellow photo-taker, seated on my right.

..and the phototaking gang is not complete without Juliet, the photog member.

One item: SL dance. I didn't even know there were that many SLs. Well, now I know. I think I should refrain from comment on the dance, except that I think some older members of the staff might think that the Black Eyed Peas' don't phunk with my heart song was don't fuck with my heart. Well, it certainly did sound that way.

Ah, this one. This was the best. Mr Joseph Toh totally rocked the school. The 2 female teachers.. well, we'll just see about that shall we?

Seated on my left is Cheng Ying Xi, showing off her leg hair.

Anna behaving crazy.

Nivi and Cynthia feeling hyper.

Well, so after that I didn't stay around to watch the annual crowding of the staffroom. And I didn't go back to my primary school either. So oh well.

(the space below is not intentional, stupid formatting.)

So, I took yet another bus ride home, and although I haven't gotten enough sleep for the past 5 days straight, I somehow managed to stay awake in an attempt not to miss my stop.

I enlisted the help of my mp3 player and TV Mobile.

When I mention TV Mobile, it really means that I was desperate.

Oh, and the guy who was sitting in front of me, he had hair which was until the middle of his back. Which is longer than most girls' hair. And that is kinda scary in itself. But in this case, what made it even scarier, is that this guy went and had it done into dreadlocks.

If you don't know what dreadlocks are, well, according to me, they look dreadful. Basically its hair twisted together into strands about 5mm - 1cm thick, and then these dreads of twisted hair have wax (yes you heard me right) put on them so that they keep in place, because any idiot will let you know that hair isn't naturally twisty. If you don't believe me, twist some of your own hair and see if it stays twisted. If it does, then either you cheated, or you're just seriously weird.

Anyway the guy's entire head had these black snake like things snaking everywhere, and I thought they just looked bad. And not to mention, I was also wondering, what was he going to do when hair started growing out again, then the roots won't be twisty but the rest will be, and that's going to look seriously out-of-place and even weirder than it already is.

But I guess they guy did try to do something about it, from the result on his hair that I saw. He put more wax. But I would say that whoever put the wax, be it him, his mother, his sister, his girlfriend, or his hairstylist (in which case everyone out there take note: bad hairstylist.) did a particularly botched job.

The amount of wax there was probably enough to keep a candle burning for a long long time. And, not to mention, the texture was uneven, because you have this long twisted length of hair, and then this big bulky bit of wax at the roots. It made it look even worse.

Also, I wondered how the guy ever washed his hair properly. Imagine, you go for PE and then you get all sweaty. You take a bath, but then since your hair's like all twisted up, the sweat which has somehow managed to find its way into the twisted hair can't be washed out. How the sweat found its way there is not for me to answer. But trust me. Sneaky things like sweat droplets know their way around.

Generally, I'm trying to say that his hair is probably dirtier than the average toilet bowl.

And, I was wondering how he would ever be able to comb his hair. His comb must have teeth at least 1.5 cm apart in order for him to finish combing his hair and leave his scalp intact. Or maybe he just doesn't comb his hair in the first place (like Louise).

How does he sleep? With all that wax in his hair, he can't possibly sleep normaly. I mean, you lie down and you get these waxy things poking at your head, how to sleep properly? Oh, he looked like he was suffering from chronic lack of sleep. Maybe that's why.

Then I wondered what he would have to do if he wanted to change his hairstyle. He can't very well undo the dreadlocks, I mean, they're quite permanent. So I figured that the only way out was to shave his head botak. What a drastic change. From hair length middle of the back to bald. And I can't imagine that he spent all that time waiting for his hair to grow long just to dreadlock it and then shave it off. Or perhaps he did hair extensions, in which case, I'd say he has a lot of money, patience, and a relatively high tolerence for pain.

Finally I wondered why he would even do such a thing in the first place. Sure, it attracts attention, in fact, a whole lot of it. Example: No one wanted to sit next to him probably because they thought that sitting next to this weird guy would cause them to catch the weird disease and then have hair like that too. But seriously, it's just simply impractical. Especially in Singapore.

Okay, I've written a whole lot about one single person's hairstyle, mostly because I spent my entire bus journey staring at his head and figuring those things out. You get really bored on buses. But you also get to observe some wonderfully interesting personalities (and hairstyles). See YX, taking buses is relatively fun, and sometimes even beats taking a car. But well, just don't take a bus at rush hour.

Oh, today during maths, which was the first block, Mrs Chew gave us a quiz. I couldn't do the second question at all, and for the first question, I got the answer 1:3999. The real answer is supposed to be 1:49. My answer is way off. Oh well. As for the second question, it was on kinematics. I really didn't know how to do it, so I spent the time I was supposed to spend on the question writing a poem about my dislike of kinematics instead. Here it is for your reading pleasure (or displeasure, whichever it is). That is, if you weren't one of those who read the poem on-the-spot.

Kinematics by me.

I don't like kinematics.
I just don't see why,
Acceleration, t and velocity,
Hey, I'd rather die.

I really don't know
Why whatever equals zero,
And if you could explain it to me,
Then you'd be my hero.

How fast, how long,
Does it really matter?
As long as I get there in the end,
I'd rather take the latter.

So, Kinematics,
Why do you exist?
You bring misery to my life,
Shrouding it in mist.

Why am I even writing this?
I'm just wasting my time,
And you know what else?
This was not even supposed to rhyme.

Yes, lame, whatever.

Earlier today when I was walking to the bus stop from The Adelphi after my dental appointment (which hurts, both monetarily and physically), I met this group of blonde (yx! read this!) German people who asked me, "To youz now ware Funan centere ish?"

Okay, I'm not here to criticise their English, because my German probably isn't any better.

But anyway what amused me was what they were doing before one of them came up and asked me. They were huddled around the street light, staring collectively at a map which one of them were holding, and basically doing the typical tourist pose.

I am aware that tourists all around the world have this favourite pose which consists of one or a group of people, usually wearing hats/caps if the temperature is anything above 15 degrees Celsius, huddled together around a map.

This typical tourist pose is rather amusing to observe from a distance. The distance bit is very important.

Anyway, this is why it is very important, when you are in another country, you should do all your map reading away from prying eyes. The minute you do that, you're practically shouting to all the locals: TOURIST! And that isn't always a good idea. Of course, if you can't even find a map in the first place, then.. I guess that doesn't apply.

I continued my walk to the bus stop, and when I reached there I noticed a large proportion of Japanese. The ratio of Japanese to Singaporean was something like 15: 1, the one being me. I have never felt so out of place in Singapore!

The bus finally came, and when I climbed to the top deck, I was greeted by students sprawled all over every single seat. By saying that, I mean that it was one student per seat which is meant for two people. And they were sprawled because the sleep-deprived Singaporean youngsters find it most convinient to sleep on the bus on the way to wherever.

I saw that the one place left for me to sit was right at the last row, so I kind of gingerly made my way there.

Sat down, and was faced with a big mop of curly brown hair. The person on the seat in front of my was an ang moh, and at first because the hair was so long and so curly, I thought it was a girl. But it wasn't. It was a boy, about my age. He was sprawled, asleep, with his hair all over the back of the seat.

I decided to amuse myself via sms and mp3 player, and got home.

Then right now I just thought of something, involving people's pronounciation. But I'm not here to poke fun at foreigners. This time it's Singaporeans.

I was at Parkway foodcourt some time ago, (yes, I know I'm always at that place), and I was in the queue for a particularly popular stall. Behind me were an ang moh couple, who were obviously not residents of Singapore or its surroundings. They ordered their food, and then the auntie at the cashier said, "Ate lollars plis," and the two ang mohs went, "huh?"

I don't blame them.

In the light of the Singaporean government having campagins to speak Chinese and the likes, why not have one to speak English properly? It'll make a lot more sense, and possibly help all the hapless and clueless ang mohs have some amount of clue.

Just now I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and surprisingly enough, I've got more to say about the audience than the movie.

Basically I took advantage of the offer the school presented us, and I got 3 tickets. I watched it at Tampines Mall, and boy, was it swarming with people. Anyway, I think most of us here has read the book at some point or another of our (be it sad or not) lives, and therefore we pretty much know what's going to happen. It tends to be like that with movie adaptations of books. (Oh no, RS is back to haunt me.)

And speaking of movies which are adapted from books, another thing is that the movie kinda destroys your little dream fantasy world which you imagined after reading the book. I know for one that my imaginary chocolate factory world was way cooler than that presented in the movie.

And Willy Wonka so did not look the way he did in the movie. That haircut! The sunglasses! Argh!

Okay, fine, I know that in my little dream world things don't cost money and anything's possible, but I really think that with a movie budget of millions and millions of (American) dollars, they could have at least done slightly better with the set.

Oh yeah, I still haven't gotten over Johnny Depp not looking like Johnny Depp. Seriously, I wouldn't have guessed it was him unless I knew in advance. And anyway when I did know in advance, I had to stare at the picture for a long time and slowly convince myself that it was indeed Johnny Depp.

Basically I think the show goes beyond just its surface of a lucky boy, a slightly eccentric chocolate genius and a chocolate factory. It's about childhood innocence which is lost, and I guess that doesn't really qualify it as a kids movie. Kids are kids. They aren't old enough to understand lost innocence. Because they are most probably innocent themselves. Sheesh, here I go again feeling old.

Okay, now to the point about the audience.

Firstly, if I ever have children of my own, I am not going to bring them to a movie theatre until they are old enough to learn that a movie is meant to be watched in peace without irritating questions and running commentaries.

Why I say this is because today in the theatre it was something like this. on the left there is a young couple out on a date. On the right there is my bro and my mum. On the row above me is a dad, and a couple of kids. Seated on the row below me is another family with another bunch of (slightly older, maybe 9 or 10) kids. In general, the kids spell disaster.

The girl sitting behind me was probably about 6 or 7. She spent the whole movie asking questions like:

Why is that man so sad?
How come she cannot eat that?
What did he say? Charlie what?
I don't understand (insert anything).

I think I can still forgive her. She's like 7.

But the kid in front, cannot be forgiven. That boy was at least 10. And, he probably thought that he was smarter than Mike Teevee. That smart-aleck had Mike's attitude. Yes, I know you read the book when you were 7, I know you know every last detail....

In a nutshell, the boy in front gave a running commentary on the movie. And, he would say things like oh, there's no golden ticket. Oh, this and this is going to happen. I know that because I read the book blah blah blah.

I mean, okay, you read the book. Guess what? At least half the cinema has read the book too! Wow! Even if you have read the book and you are a self-proclaimed expert on it, you don't have to let the whole cinema know by telling everyone what's going to happen next. It so totally spoils the movie. It's not fun anymore.

As the movie was an adaptation, not a straight direct copy of the book, there were minor changes here and there. Those were some sort of saving grace. Mr Smart Aleck would shoot off that blah blah blah is going to happen, and then, blah blah blah wouldn't happen! Because it's a movie, for goodness sake. You can't follow the book word for word. If you did, you'd be in the cinema until Wednesday.

When Mr Smart Aleck's prediction turned out wrong you could almost hear people go "see you idiot, you aren't that smart after all". But then Mr Smart Aleck would then go on into a monologue in defence, and it was just bad.

I think if I wasn't with my family I would have seriously told the boy to shut up.

After the movie, I went to eat ice cream. While waiting, there were these two girls, whose favourite words were evidently OH MY GOD!

Their conversation while pasing the ice cream stall went something like:

Girl 1: Oh my god! Look at the ice cream!
Girl 2: Oh my god! The amount of cream!
Girl 1: Yeah, oh my god, the scoop is like, so big!
Girl 2: Hey, look at this flavour. Oh my god! It's strawberry cheescake yoghurt! That's like......
Girl 1: Yeah! Oh my god, I can't believe people want to eat this.
Girl 2: Look at the price! Oh my god!

They seemed unable to puncuate their sentences with normal puncuation marks like full stop and commas. Instead, they used exclamation marks and OH MY GOD!

Oh my god, were they irritating. And, as a sidenote, they weren't exactly the most petite people I've seen around.

I think I should elaborate more on National Day celebrations in school now.

So, there were celebrations in school, which were held in the hall because it rained! Thankfully also, because otherwise we would have been soaked (in the merciless rays of the sun).

But there was one small trade off. The lack of air. The hall officially has no ventilation.

And if the National Day committee wants to do anything to change National Day besides changing the hall (which is next to impossible, I know), they could also possibly look at not letting the Sec 1s do any more skits. In fact, if they didn't do any at Racial Harmony Day and the likes, we might just enjoy it better.

I'm Sec 4 already, and I'll be leaving the school soon. Just imagining that we're leaving the school in the hands of such people like the Sec 1s, sends shudders down to our socks, no matter how low they may be. The school is going to fall into disarray and become a sad, sad place.

Then again, maybe they're Sec 1s, so we should give them a bit of chance and room to move. But too much room isn't good either, is it?

Oh, right now looking at the title, it reminds me that zup's father-in-law has a chocolate factory! How cool is that?

I've been down with fever and I'm sniffing and my throat feels swollen. Bleh.

I didn't go to school today, and I left early yesterday.

Anyway, tagboard was finally back up after being down for I-don't-know-how-long.

And judging from Joo's comments, she has yet to realise that we went to France and England and made it back alive. And all that happened like 2 months ago.

Oh no, 2 months? It's been a real long time but it doesn't feel like it.

I think a lot of us are still suffering withdrawal symptoms. Including me.

I want to go back to France now. England also, just that it's a trifle impossible to go there after the bombings. I'll see what I can do to get myself there again in December.

Oh, and if you were feeling rather bored, you could check out this site: http://rh.gfoto.com. I uploaded a few new picts. But only a few.

My headache's back. So I'm going.