*grin*

*grins and shows all my teeth* To anyone out there who is free enough to tag me, do tell me in some way, e.g. email...? or a comment will do. Otherwise, I'll never see that I'm tagged. Which is good in a way... *grins in the same way again* Hee!

Btw... the unseasonably warm(or some would say hot) weather(due to global warming) has caused me to come out of hibernation! Lol!

Oh man, that really reminds me of my favorite comic 'Calvin and Hobbes'(not to be confused with my brothers, they are 'Kelvin and Stanley'(HAHA!)) Basically, Calvin was having the hiccups, and he told Hobbes to scare him, and Hobbes started to say something like, 'Global warming is accelerating beyond our control, our oceans are filling up with garbage...' etc etc. Of course, that didn't cure Calvin's hiccups... the story is continued in the next comic. And it's really funny. To date, I haven't found a person that doesn't laugh at the end of that particular story yet. Heehee! There are two 'Calvin and Hobbes' books in my new school's library!! Yay!!

I am obliged to put up this post

Alright, so I have been asked to put up a post. Here it is. Now let me go into hibernation again for another six months.

Some good experiences and bad experiences

Today I went to another school(other than my school of course) to try out the piano that we would be using for our 'O' level music practical exams. As this school is a Music Elective Programme(MEP) school, it is the exam centre for a few other non-MEP schools, so my new music teacher(the previous one went to NZ for further studies) requested for us to try out the exam piano. I must say that I was extremely surprised that the music teacher in the school agreed. Competition among schools is often extremely fierce, and the music teacher of that school was really nice to let us try out the exam venue. When we left, she was also very nice, telling us patiently which bus to take.

I cannot say the same of one pupil though. I admit that I am from Cedar Girls' Secondary School(so who's going to throw eggs at me?), and the pupils from my school and the pupils from the other school are not exactly on very good terms. I used to wonder why this was so. I once asked my senior, how come we hate that school so much, so much that at international competitions, we would rather support the teams that are not from Singapore than support that school? She replied that since they didn't like us, so we didn't like them too. Which I found a very unconvincing reason.

However, I finally realised why there was such an 'enemity' between the two schools. I was waiting at the front porch/foyer/whatever-you-call-it of the school to be cleared by the security guard so that we could enter. That's when I saw a girl sitting down, with a green cast on her left foot. The cast was scribbled all over with words and I found myself thinking why people often like to write things on casts. That's when I heard her say, very clearly, to her friend: "Oh, Cedar?? Aiyah, all the students are all stupid lah!!" If someone said that about your school, what would you think??

Most importantly, no one in Cedar says, "Oh, school X?? All the students are all stupid!" At least we have a lot more manners.

My star sign is VIRGO????!!

I don't know how Blogger managed to get this, but my star sign is most definitely NOT Virgo. It's Libra. Very weird. I apologise if I'm sounding funny, cos I'm having a blocked nose (who's going to say: "Whatever..." :P). Flu is making the rounds...

Poof! It seems so long since I've last made a post, and well, it IS long... hahahaha. What with prelims and all...(that's not to say that I've been studying the whole time...), but at the same time I've been picking up a new language. Perhaps I'll be able to type it quite fluently soon...? (quite wishful thinking, it'll probably take a long time...(I HATE grammar))

To be honest, I don't have much more to say. I'll be updating my F1 blog(http://thunder-nemesis-of-the-south.blogspot.com/) later though. I think Alonso is a bad loser.

We apologise for the inconvienience caused...

ok I would have liked to talk in detail all that happened today, but now I'm so tired that I can hardly move and at the same time I'm having a headache. I think I have to go to sleep early, I'll just talk about everything tomorrow. I think.

Norweigian Tribute

On display in my home is a small, flat box with a circular hole at one side to show the contents of the box. The name reads 'Norweigian Trivet', and in it there is a reindeer holding in its mouth a Norweigian flag while having a scarf with the national colours of Norway. I suppose that it's a trivet, but honestly I do not know what a trivet is. Oh nevermind. Today, I pay tribute to the country of Norway, which celebrates its 192nd birthday today, having gained independence on 17 May 1814.

For my English exam, I wanted to write about the country I would like to visit most, but then I chickened out and chose a safer topic. It's an exam after all, better safe than sorry. So I shall write the composition that I wanted to write, but have never written until now. I personally don't think it will be a very good one, so don't expect much.

Anyway, I think it might be better if I write it sometime in the future, or else I shall never get this post done.

The good thing about typing out compositions is that you are able to add in text easily and also edit what you have written quite easily. It is also much neater(if you have bad handwriting, like me). Of course, I am also cheating, cos now I have a large data base from which to check up on info compared to those writing for such a topic in the exam. Heehee...

Ouch!

Exam today was bad... Chem paper was one of the worst I've ever done. I really think I could have done better though. Geog elective was pretty bad too. I think I was practically writing nonsense all the way.

After that, I 'kiap'ed my finger (in other words my finger got caught) in the car window. The window was coming up and at the same time, my finger was there... ouch....! It's a good thing that I still can type properly, it won't be a problem in tomorrow's exam. Surprisingly though, after the pain in the 'kiap'ed finger subsided, now it's the neighbouring finger that's hurting. There must be something really weird about it.

I'm really looking forward to the end of tomorrow's exams. After that, exam is as good as finished cos I only have one more paper left, which is music, next thursday. Music is no sweat. I've always done very well in it. In fact, I do think that it is my best subject. So far, the practical has gone quite well, I think. Listening, melody writing and harmony & analysis is fine too. I only have a slight problem with world music. Over the course of 5 days, though, that can easily be resolved. For now, though, there's still E maths and Bio to go... T.T

Practicality & Egoism

Some people ask me why I don't put all sorts of wallpaper and stuff like that on my blog to decorate it. Simple. A blog is a place where you express your feelings. It's not an art gallery. Besides, when I read the blogs of others which have such wallpapers, it's sometimes becomes really hard to scroll down and this makes it rather irritating to read. Anyway, the reason why I put the background black colour is so that it is less painful on the eyes to read. I find this is the problem when reading blogs with white backgrounds. Alright, I know most people don't have this problem but I happen to be problematic so I'm always very grateful when I find one with a black background.

I suppose I apply the same principle to my looks. No one ever says that I'm ugly or anything, but they always say that, "You know, Karen, you are actually very pretty, if you..." and here they always go off into tangents on how I might look better. Either that, or it's "Karen! Do...(this this this) and you'll look very nice." Personally, I think, what use do I have for looking nice at this stage in my life? I am a student after all, am I not? Students don't have to dress up. In fact, I only make any attempts at looking nice when going to perform on stage. Performers are supposed to look nice. After the event, everyone comes up to me and says, "Wah, Karen, how come I didn't know that you're so pretty?" hahaha, now I sound as if I'm advertising myself. Truthfully though, I don't really want to look nice. Less trouble if you're inconspicuous. Actually, everyone is good-looking so long they bother to make themselves look nice.

To do so, the most common method is make-up. Clothes as well, I suppose. Let me tell you a story. A friend of mine went out to Orchard Road to go shopping and she put on mascara. After some time, she felt that her eyes were very itchy so she rubbed them. Although she didn't know it at the time, her mascara was badly smudged and she looked as though she had panda eyes. She didn't even go to the toilet, so she didn't know why people were staring at her. It was only when she reached home did her mother say to her, "Why are your eyes like that?" so she looked into the mirror and found out the problem. Now, what a huge problem make-up is. Not only do you have to buy the things to apply it, you also have to buy the things to remove it afterwards. So terribly troublesome.

Equally troublesome is the trouble parents take to name their offspring. In Chinese tradition, the surname is first, and the last is your given name(otherwise known as your first name). So, of course, when I am asked for my first name, because my full name is 'Koh Joo Huang Karen', of course I put down my first name as 'Koh' and my last name as 'Karen'! Therefore, in one of my certificates, my name is 'Koh Karen'. Hello, my name is Koh, and I hail from Karen tribe. *extreme sarcasm* (no offense meant)This is like my friend Joyce Wong. Since in many parts of the world, 'Wong' as a surname isn't all that common, many people hence think that her surname is 'Joyce' and her name is 'Wong'. So, she gets plenty of people telling her: Wong, can you do this? Wong, can you do that? Poor Joyce.

The strange thing about me is that i often change characters from day to day. I might be saying something today, but the next day I might say something different. So one shouldn't take my words far too seriously: I also have too many things on my mind at the same time.

General Election is coming...

Had English mid-yr today. It was ok(that is what my siblings and I always tell my parents, and they always complain that we are always saying that our papers are 'ok').

After the paper, my friend(Joyce) and I were walking out of school(which is located in a quiet area far from the main road, so good for studying but a little hard on the foot) when we saw a pick-up. It was driving along and there was a loudhailer announcing something about what the PAP will do for the Potong Pasir constituency if they won in the coming elections. Or something like that. It was speaking in Hokkien, and even though I am Teochew and Teochew is quite similar to Hokkien, I couldn't hear it clearly anyway.

When we saw it, the first reaction we both had the same reaction: we both said, "Oh my God!" at exactly the same time. I am usually against saying the words 'Oh my God' because the person either does not believe in God, or that he/she is taking the name of God in vain. Perhaps we said that due to the shock of seeing such a vehicle for the very first time.

Of course, we have seen something similar in our history textbooks, but for me it was the first time seeing it with my own eyes. Or possibly I might have seen it before but I forgot. Or maybe I saw it in a picture and it got stuck in my memory, leading me to think I've ssen it before.

I couldn't hear really too properly, but I heard the name 'Sitoh Yih Pin' being said, and before I heard that, silly me was still thinking, which party's truck is this? Then I realised that all the PAP flags were all over the pick-up. Sorry, I am just hopeless. Knowing this, when the vehicle drove past, I was looking for Mr. Sitoh in the cab of the vehicle cos that was what was shown in the history books. However, I only saw a middle to old-aged man sitting there by himself. That was when I realised that it must be a tape or CD of some sort and the driver's job is just to drive past houses and more houses while the taope/CD played of it's own accord.

Now that I think about it, it's really silly to think so. In the past, when the pictures in the history books were taken, things such as tapes and CDs weren't invented yet, so of course the real person had to sit in the back of the pick-up and speaking into a loudhailer. Now, with much improved technology, these tapes/CDs can be loaded onto a pick-up with an appropriate player, then you can just hire a guy to drive the pick-up wherever you want to recommend yourself to the people. This method also cover more ground in a given time, especially in the limited time before the big day, which by the way is on May 6th.

I originally thought that the constituency I was living in was uncontested, but it seems like it is. So this evening at about 6.45, we too heard another PAP pick-up driving past, but this time asking the people to vote for Mr. George Yeo. Or maybe it was Mrs. Lim Hwee Hwa. Actually, it is rather shameful to know the political situation better in the area my school is in than the situation in the area I live in.

My school plays an active part in the voting process. hahahaha. Okay, actually, my school's hall is the voting centre for Potong Pasir constituency and it is at the same time a counting centre for another constituency. A pity I can't vote... not that I really want to vote, but I want to see the people voting. That's what I'm interested in. So, the school has to surrender it's grounds on May 5th so that specialised personnel can check the school throughly for bombs and such.

Originally, when my school received this news, it decided to move the mid-yr exams which were on Friday, May 5th to the following Monday. However, now they(and following that we) were told that the school authorities only have to hand over the school grounds at 2 p.m. on Friday. So we are having the exams on Friday as usual... T.T.... and now I have to go study, already used up too much time writing this.

Languages

haha, had Mother Tongue exam today. My mother tongue is Chinese, of course. It's a lovely language and I can hardly believe it when people say that they hate learning Chinese. It's amazing how beautiful languages are. A mix of sounds, symbols or even gestures in the right order, and you get a perfectly usable language.

I particularly think it's nice to be a linguist. It is always good to know more languages so that you know what people are talking about and whether or not they are scolding you. You are also able to compare the differences between languages and then you are more aware about the meanings behind them and why they were formed in this way. .For example, have you ever stared at a certain word or letter and wondered how come it was formed in that particular way, like why the letter 'a' looks like 'a'? In this aspect, I like Chinese because there is always an explanation as to why the word was formed in this particular way because Chinese script is pictorial, just like the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Of course, it is not really that pictorial now because Chinese words have been changed many times over the millenia when the Chinese civilisation is in existence.

Maybe I shall be a linguist, but where will I learn languages then? At a language laboratory? hahaha. There isn't any that I know of. Unless you learn from somebody then. Actually, I learn Japanese.

An encyclopedia I once read wrote that Japanese is apparently unrelated to any other language. I disagree. Yes, it may be that spoken Japanese words are quite unrelated to other languages, but the written script is very similar, the traditional Japanese script that is. Chinese can read some Japanese words because they are written in Chinese-invented script, just that it is pronounced in a different way in both languages. In fact, when the Japanese invaded Singapore in 1942, the soldiers could communicate with the Chinese locals by writing down what they wanted. If they wanted to talk to Malays or Indians, they would just ask the Chinese to tell them what they wanted.

This has a historical origin. During the rule of the Chinese emperor Qin Shihuang, people were ordered to look for a herb or any type of medicine that would enable someone to live forever. Since everyone wanted to get rich, many people tried to make the 'Elixir of Life' but ended up inventing gunpowder instead. I am sidetracking, if you didn't notice. Okay. So people either wanted to get into the emperor's good books(and just see what happened to the people who tried to do that) or get as far away from the Chinese empire as possible.

A certain old man went to the emperor and told him that he would be able to find the herb guaranteeing immortality, but the conditions were that he would have to sail to a far island to brew this concoction, and at the same time, he needed 50 virgin boys and 50 virgin girls. So the old man and the 50 boys and 50 girls(the ship must have had been very crowded. I wonder if they got seasick?) sailed for a long way east. At last, they reached a land which is today known as Japan. As Japanese originally descended from Chinese, it is hardly surprising that some of the olden script used in China at the time is present in the Japanese written language. To be fair though, they have been different from the Chinese for 2000 years now and the invention of their language is just as remarkable as any other.

haiyah. Look how far I went just talking about languages. Oh well, going to prepare for English mid-yr tomorrow!

Complaints, complaints and more complaints

Sorry about the previous fury-filled post. I think I'm going to complain again today... hahaha, so if you don't want to read, then don't.

While I am writing this, my friend is taking the New South Wales competition. This is not because she signed up of her own will, but because all triple science classes in the school have to participate. This is completely unreasonable. Why not allow those who would like to compete sign up and those who don't, don't? It certainly isn't that triple science classes are those who are the best classes in the entire school! Why, I was once the highest scorer in school, and another time, I arrived 20 minutes late, but I still managed to get into the national top 2%! Now, simply because I am NOT in a triple science class, I have to sit down here waiting for others to finish!

In fact, some pupils in the triple science class are not all that intelligent as we think. The reason they do well is because they are extremely hardworking. I do respect them for that, but doing things in the way mentioned in the above paragraph is really a bad case of generalisation.

Anyway, there is generally a great stress on the Secondary 4 students because the mid-year examinations start two days from now for most of them. For the music students(including me), we start our exam tomorrow! What a nightmare! My parents are just pressurising me by saying that I better do well in my mid-year. The usually bad point about having siblings is that there is always someone better for you to compare to, unless you are really the 'pride' of the family, one who gets all the scholarships, prizes etc. etc.

In MY case, I am in big trouble because our family intelligence is so that the younger we are in the family, the dumber we get. I am not talking about standard wise, but in result wise. My father was always the top-scorers of exams and such, my mother was a headgirl who was top 10 in her O-levels. Then it comes to me and my brothers. My brother just got back his A-level results not too long ago and he had 3As and 1B... I gotta be crazy if I can match that. In his O-levels, he had 7 points. I also gotta be crazy if I can match that. I suppose that is one of the reasons why I choose to go into music. There, at least, I won't be compared to my siblings!

I suppose in many cases, the prospect of being able to enjoy the good life with ample money and without needing to work is very appealing. So some people want to become a rich tai-tai(woman who marries a husband with lots of $$$). Now, isn't this being completely dependent on someone else? It amazes me sometimes at how some people can really compromise their pride just for the money.

In any case, I find those aspiring tai-tais have nothing that is so fantastic about them. I wonder how are they going to be a rich tai-tai like that. It gets me rather angry at times when they start saying everything about what they're going to do when they become a rich tai-tai. It's like counting your eggs before they're hatched. Now, if I were to become a rich tai-tai... no. I'm NOT going to be a rich tai-tai. Even if I do marry someone who's rich, I refuse to be dependent! I do suppose that I am rather proud in that way... but that's the way I'm made.

For the record, I am neither cute nor fidgety. Fidget is my dog, and it is cute. Don't quite understand why people think I'm cute, or I'm fidgety, or worse, I'm cute when I'm fidgety!!! Pretty ridiculous... This is a result of separating my F1 blog and my personal life one, because I realised that I shouldn't just lump the two together. In any case, if you'd like to see the F1 blog, it's at http://thunder-nemesis-of-the-south.blogspot.com/. My previous posts are there, together with my F1 posts. For now though, I think I'll just sign off.