| *know about me* Interests? Watch me gush over Resolutions? Worships
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Sunday, April 21, 2002 09:33 p.m. A mail about an old bit of my writing made me go back to Ff.net, (which I almost never visit nowadays unless someone points me to some fic there). And, wow, there's a section for Initial D now.
Please, nobody laugh when I say I choked and hit the back button at the mention of "predicted peaks right on the dot". Sunday, April 21, 2002 09:00 p.m. Studied and tidied my room today, so I feel productive and justified in blogging now.
Tired. The past few days have been really draining, though extremely fun. Friday's my heaviest day, so I had lessons right until past five, ending with double period PE where I we ran rounds, did conditioning, weights training- ow. Had to meet Kit-Reinselft-Masako-Lin-tachi after that, though, so I bathed in school. Generally I try to stay out of the school toilets, because they -frankly- stink, but I felt much better after the shower, until I accidentally leaned on the shower button /after/ bathing and changing.
My uniform shirt really /is/ waterproof. Pity the skirt wasn't. *cough* Anyway. Had lots of fun at KFC later.. especially spreading the F/S story and listening to Genki!Sei-chan.. *coughs some more*
Then Saturday I had club again (elections week, I had almost forgotten how much I hate public speaking), and after that, library duty! My arms really hurt. I had to tidy up the reference section, and there were plenty of heavy books to cart around, particularly the SAT ones. Oh well.
Later I went to Bugis with Jane to get CDs and meet up with Kit-Reins-Masako-Lin-tachi again; we sat around in Mos for a while, then went to my house to watch anime. I finally watched the Saiyuki movie (previously I hadn't got past the first five minutes because the opening animation was so bad) which turned out to be surprisingly good. Shan't say anything about it over that. S'good. Shoo. Watch.
All in all.. a pretty packed two days. Wednesday, April 17, 2002 08:19 p.m. Quick blog; I got home late today, will get home late the next few days, and there are piles and piles of homework plus the tests coming up. I like school, but will it please stop eating me? And actually I'm hardly one to complain; I have classmates falling asleep in lectures because training lasted until nine/ten or thereabouts last night and they got home at unholy hours.
Probably when I graduate and have to get a job I'll look back and think "Was I crazy? Work's much tougher, let me back to school!", but, well. Cripes.
I did a very stupid thing yesterday. See, my mother suddenly up and told me that she wanted to get me something for my o level results (when I got them, what, a month ago?). After a moment of thinking, I decided that I'd get a few cds online, since they're not available in Singapore and I probably wouldn't be able to afford them with all the ones I'm already saving up for, even if they were. So I hied myself down to the cdjapan site, and got my dad to sign up. Then when I tried to sign in again, to place the order, the dratted password was wrong. Grrrr.
I think my brain is turning into cheese. Hopefully, when the cdjapan staff get back to my dad in four working days, I'll be able to place the order- but boy, I feel stupid. And repressed, but that's another story.
Otherwise, Game Tokyo (Or Pretty in Tokyo, as it's really called), will stop selling anime and game cds very soon- some problem with supply, or such. So. Um. Sunday, April 14, 2002 05:22 p.m. Someone hit my blog looking for this: star ocean xine
Game? Cool. Reasonably so, given that I wasn't the one who was playing.
...sorry. Just had to say. Sunday, April 14, 2002 04:42 p.m. It's Qingming this month, so I went with my extended family today to pay respects to our ancestors' graves. Only, well, there aren't any graves due to lack of land, money, etc, so we visited a couple of temples where the urns with their ashes were kept, instead. Several floors, all crammed full of urns and ashes (not all of them my ancestors', but.) And smoke! Smoke from incense, which has a kind of ash-sweet fragrance that I used to like, smoke from the burning of ghost money, which seems like plain old smoke to me, and cigarette smoke.
It's raining now, but it was darned hot this morning. Almost couldn't breath or see in front of me due to all that smoke. There were also lots of ashes from all the ghost money burning, and those got everywhere. I think some got into my mouth, even, and I didn't open that except to say yes or no when the occasional grand-aunt or great-uncle asked me questions.
Some respects I paid anyway. Most of my relatives were late; so my family ended up waiting about an hour for them in the temple courtyard; with me reading Angel Sanc. There is probably something very, very wrong about reading pseudo-Gnostic/Jewish/Christian (I'm not an expert in which one of them Angel Sanctuary was based on) mind-wankery in a Buddhist/Taoist temple, but I was bored and I needed something to do so that the relatives wouldn't try to ask me obvious and irritating questions.
A roughly one hour wait, at least twenty minutes spent squeezing up the crowded staircases and waiting our turn to pray, then I walked in front of the table with a stick of incense, and bowed. Which took all of what, two seconds? Next floor: repeat. Next temple: repeat.
What kept me amused during the whole thing was my young cousin fretting about being late for Sunday school, or something. Grah. Thursday, April 11, 2002 08:43 p.m. And for some reason, my computer is loading really old blog entries. She-changed-that-layout-years-ago! entries. Blah. Thursday, April 11, 2002 08:30 p.m. Tired. And, reading Star Ocean Six, I can only say that I find myself extremely disturbed by the few Dias/Leon ideas that popped up to join the sleeping Bowman/Leon ideas in my head.
Mind? Go to sleep. I have homework to do. Wednesday, April 10, 2002 06:53 p.m. Today, via SMS, on campaign speeches for Council:
Meia: Why do so many people want to speak from their heart? Is it a mark of esteem to communicate with an oversized cardiac muscle?
Heh. Which goes to say.. something. Tuesday, April 9, 2002 02:34 p.m. Sankyuu. But hey, your layout is tons prettier than mine. I love that picture of Kamui and Fuuma.. it used to be a recurring picture in Asuka, I think, for a zennin ad or something, and each time I.. ahem. ^^;;;; Sunday, April 7, 2002 08:29 p.m. Some of the searchengine hits I'd got when I checked:
saber marrionette j how to draw I know, I know! *raises hand* first, you take a bottle of beer or brandy or whichever liquor is your alcohol saturated drink of choice, then you pour. When you've finished enough to see the little genki elephants dancing on the edges of your vision, bite down on that pocky. Hard. (SMJ's on crack!)
discovering subaru computer codes Are you some obscure fan of Subaru/Satsuki, or are you trying to hack into the Subaru Company's files?
Koyasu Seki yaoi fanfic One of them (reportedly) says "ecchi shiyou" to every girl he meets that he likes, and the other's married(damn!) with two kids (aww..)? Although they do seem very, very close, and with all the roles they do.. *coughcough* and their behavior during seiyuu specials and that song "Bossanova, Cassanova"? Sunday, April 7, 2002 02:08 p.m. Heh. Amusingly, Kyou was the last in the result. Sunday, April 7, 2002 01:33 p.m. *The following might have a few spoilers for TB OAVs and manga, although with only two pretty much stand alone eps, there isn't much of a plot for the OAVs.*
So I just watched the TB OAVs that Alex lent me, and after a while cooing over how cutely polite Subaru was (bowing to a person while you're talking to him over the phone!) and, of course, Seishirou's voice (you know me, you know who he's voiced by), I decided that since I still had a little time before lunch, I'd watch a little bit of the English dub.
Shoo-Bah-Roooooooooo... Let me make us a breakfast of your favorite fried squid! And D'oh-fooh!
Sorry. Weird enough to hear Subaru sounding like a teenaged American with a touch of attitude; but weirder still to hear Seishirou sounding like Subaru and Hokuto's favorite uncle- the type you never, ever want to think about in the same line as sex. The type an ignorant such as I expects to go "howdy!" any time.
Oh well. They left the "brought together by fate" line in, at least, although they switched the "prey" line. Destiny you promised? That makes you an "Occult powerhouse of Evil", Sei-chan! (Or something like that. I can't really remember the line on Chuangyi's English translation of X.) The subtitles were changed -edited- as well, to leave out the cute parts like Sei-chan and Hokuto teasing Subaru about destiny and lurve. It was a commercial sub, so I guess that was to be expected. But am I ever glad I know enough about TB and understand enough Japanese to be able to focus on the acting at certain parts instead of the subs. Life just wouldn't be gay otherwise. Saturday, April 6, 2002 10:40 p.m. Changed layout. Looks okay on my computer, hope it does elsewhere too. My very first layout! It's not very pretty, but then I don't really plan to leave it up for very long. Long enough for the next layout, maybe, which might just feature.. my handwriting! Because white and black are the easiest to match. Easier by far than the picture I was fiddling with for the longest time, at least, where I have the choice of screaming red or puke-colored tan.
The current image is from one of Gaiman's Death comics, and the lady on the top there is, very naturally, the representation of death. Specifically, Death from the sex education comic at the back of the story- where John looks away and she eats a banana. *cough*
Anyway. I'm too tired to blog now, and anyway my parents will be back from their concert anytime now, so I really should log off. Will blog tomorrow if I have time.. Tuesday, April 2, 2002 10:20 p.m. On another note, I finally laid hands on Naruto 11 today!
Yes, it is one of those manga where a single fight can last volumes. Yes, I do believe that the current arc of the last 6? 7? volumes would have been dealt with in two volumes of a shoujo manga. Yes, it most irritatingly cuts off when it's starting to get interesting. And yes, it took about ten volumes for the good part of the plot to begin, darnit!
It's good, though, so I'm still reading it. While I don't quite agree with how some of the standard shounen philosophy is phrased -"Protect your comrades at any cost!"- for example, and what seems like a chauvinistic portrayal of the girls in the series.. there are themes which make me sit up and think. The fact that hard work doesn't always gurantee success, for example. And the way the mangaka makes you like all the characters, even the ones who made a negative impact at first.
Of course, I think the instant I start liking a character I didn't even /respect/ before, something bad inevitably happens to him, or her. In that respect, the mangaka can be almost as bad as Fujisaki-sensei, who seemed to like playing rigged Russian Roulette with his characters in Houshin Engi.
So those are my current thoughts on Naruto in general. On volume 11, though... Oh gawd, the frog! And the porn writer!
..nevermind. Tuesday, April 2, 2002 09:34 p.m. So it was the campaign speeches for council elections today, and I was unable to skip off because they made us take assembly in the hall, the sadists. It's probably anti-social/unsporting/just generically bad of me to skip this, as with other non-academic school functions, but I really don't care. I hate listening to these type of speeches, especially as I always seem to end up feeling that none of them at all are sincere. Maybe they really are. Maybe they're not. It's just a feeling I get.
And how on earth do you expect me to make character judgements based on a ninety second speech anyway?
I think I've got the cadence of the speeches down pat, though. First, ascend the stage. Pause for whatever attention-catching gimmick candidate may have planned. Smile. Introduce self. Announce the candidate's class. Pause for applause from said class (or whatever organisation which was mentioned and shamed into applauding). Smile! Launch into speech. I really want to serve.. if only you would give me a chance.. I'll do my best.. I'll give my all.. let me serve YOU! ..Promises, cajoling, and related psychobabble.
Then, egobabble! I've done this and this and that. I will definitely be able to implement this and this and that.. or alternatively, I haven't done this and this and that.. but if you would just give me the chance to do something for the school..
Also, mentioning the school motto and name to associate themselves with the much vaunted school spirit. (Although I think the guy who went up and talked without any proper explanation on the "apathy" of students from affiliated schools was just /dumb/. Considering those students make up more than half of the cohort.)
And beyond that all, will always be the drone of "vote for me"! Some of the candidates probably thought that if they threw that at the audience for long enough, they'd be able to sublimally condition us or something, because there were songs set to this. Erggh.
What matters in the end? Nothing, really. Nothing much. I guess this would be an example of democracy at work- practice and preparation for after graduation, perhaps? Though it seems to me that Singaporean politics favor meritocracy over democracy, competency over popularity. Which I personally think is best in the long run for the mojority. Unfortunate that things more often than not don't work out that way.
And looking through what I've just typed, I sound bitter and overly cynical. Especially the "nobody's sincere about all of this" part, which in hindsight is probably not completely true. Just that most of the campaigners so far, I think, do not believe, understand, and mean to do what they have promised.
Thinking more deeply, who am I to say who's sincere in wanting to serve the school anyway? Grah. Monday, April 1, 2002 09:06 p.m. Surfing through Japanese Initial D fanart sites almost always makes me scared, then awed, then scared again.
Take This. Takeshi and Shingo, and the most /wrong/ part isn't even their expressions!
Love Japanese Fanartists. Monday, April 1, 2002 08:37 p.m. Meimi-san, (Re: new layout) Gwahahah! The expression on Sakano's face! The expression on Touma's face. The figure on top of the figure! And the axe! Monday, April 1, 2002 05:30 p.m. I'm stuck in school because it's raining and thanks to PE my legs are like jelly. Curdled jelly. And the school computer's screen is shivering like a spineless blog- oops, blob of gelatinous membranous organism, and basically I'm really hungry because it's now five and I haven't eaten since five.
Hungry. *puppy eyes* And tired. *gazes longingly out of the window*
Anyway. Happy April Fools'. Sunday, March 31, 2002 09:50 p.m. Teehee. Not quite who I thought I would get, though.
 Which Gravitation Bishounen Are You? Take the quiz Here. Created by  SakuraPinku Saturday, March 30, 2002 05:55 p.m. After not having touched the computer for a few days, I recall the reason why I hate being on class mls- the number of junk emails. Also, the huge emails with attachments of this photo and that. Grr.
Would have blogged from computer club today, but we had work assigned to us today, apart from the usual lessons and playing around with Director and Flash. Were the teachers on crack, or on pocky? I know that my college is one of the most highly ranked in Singapore, but I don't think it's humanly possible to achieve the goals they talked about. Making the government listen to us, yay. Saving the world, yay. Achieving world peace, yay.
I'm not exaggerating. Much.
What I want to do after graduating is maybe, hopefully, get a scholarship overseas and study psychology. Or psychiatry. Only those aren't the most promising and flexible career paths to pick, I know. But I don't really want to become an engineer, like my dad (who's still working with the company he took a scholarship bond with, despite what he says about taking engineering because you can do so many things with it), or a doctor.
All else failing, I could go into teaching! Had a form teacher who skipped her final A level math exams, and as a result couldn't go to university like most of her friends did. So she became a teacher. Went overseas much later and all, but from what she told us she had a lot of fun, because she was older and more relaxed, and well, stuff. Wonder what my parents'd say, though. Teaching not being a very rewarding position in the monetary sense. Gwah. Wednesday, March 27, 2002 08:58 p.m. I have this huge urge to go to sleep and never wake up again. Only I know, I won't, because I'm a light sleeper and I don't fall asleep that easily anyway.
If I go to sleep though, and the world ends while I dream, will I know that the world is over?
Nevermind. I've been somewhat grumpy these few days, although I can't figure out why. And the following.. essay? rant? was written whilst I was rather stoned from school, so it might not make any sense. The tone might sound a little pissy, but the thing itself isn't meant to be.
Anyway. With much thanks and love to Meia for helping me look it through.
There is no such thing as "good grammar", "proper English", or any of the hundred such words and phrases that can be used to describe the above.
For one thing, "good" and "bad" don't really exist, at least in the case of language in general. Can anyone ever define clearly and concisely, and with all the accepted exclusions, how the English language should or should not be used? Does an exact standard for gauging the proficiency of a person in the medium of communication "English" exist?
Of course, to argue that something cannot be measured and judged just because there are no universal scales is foolish. Everybody looks at the world through their own eyes, judging whatever they come into contact with, by their own set of yardsticks. "Good", in that sense, could probably be defined as the closest superimposition of the majority's standards on each other. In other words, what most people see to be right is taken to be right, even if there are some who see it as left.
But how to define the majority? The majority of people taken in a universal context, or the majority of people in a specific community? If one thinks that the language one speaks is "correct", and certain ways that differ wildly from one's own are "wrong", how does one justify that one is the majority?
Language is primarily a means of communication, and to communicate with another person you need common ground. (You can say a word and mean "green", for example, but if the other person thinks that you're referring to "blue", it won't help you any.) Communities- by which I mean people brought together by shared interests, shared activities, shared space, etc, usually have a special- shall we say, dialect, of their own, derived from English and fundamentally similar, but different in many aspects. So many dialects. Which one, then, is "real" English?
Words in a particular dialect take on connotations that were never attached to them originally; pronunciations and spellings change as people mispronounce or mispell words that are then taken to be correct. American English, for example, has several words (like "color", as opposed to "colour") that differ from the older Queen's English, which is what I was taught in school. I would be willing to bet, though, that most people don't view either version of the word as wrong or right, merely as alternative spellings of the same word. (Granted, colour/color is a universal way of classifying the visible spectrum of electromagnetic waves, and isn't likely to deviate from the original meaning of the word with time, distance, or other influences.)
Another way in which language can change with time is when people coin new words from sounds, or from existing words. Take the word, "squick", a word which I've heard a hundred times over on the internet to describe something disgusting, but never in real life from people I don't know online as well. (The supposed origins of the word can be found here. They are.. squicky.) Or the word, "gotten", over which I was scolded several times in school for using, because the "correct" form is "got", no matter the context.
One last example: "old" English and "modern" English. From Romeo and Juliet (which I quote because I've studied the text before) "Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" How many people can honestly say that on their first reading of that line, without external assistance, that they took it to be Juliet asking why Romeo was Romeo, and not where Romeo was?
Language changes with time, geography, and people. It's never static or still. Therefore there can never truly be any one proper way to use it. Tuesday, March 26, 2002 07:49 p.m. Not much to say about today, really. Went to school for what I see as essentially a waste of time- a talk on the major project which we're required to do. Inter-disciplinary Project Work, IPW. Which seems to be much like any other major school project I've had to do so far, except that documenting the process by which we work on the project has become more important.
Bleargh. I hate large projects. I especially hate large /group/ projects. There are always problems in finding times to meet to work on the project, and then people don't know what they're supposed to be doing, or just don't do what they're supposed to be doing, and in the end a project with six months to complete gets rushed in the last few weeks or so. Largely by the efforts of a small portion of the group.
Hopefully this time will be different, but I'm not holding my breath. Or maybe I'm just cynical? I don't know.
Skipped the second orientation, because I hate such things and large crowds hellbent on having a good time through wreaking havoc tend to give me a serious case of headache and a chip on my shoulder. Crowds. Noise. Sheep! Baah.
Other than that.. I used to think that Koyapi as Hannagata was scary. Forgive me. I hadn't heard him as Chou Koumei from Houshin Engi yet. Monday, March 25, 2002 09:37 p.m. If you really want to know, the title of the manga is (roughly translated) "An Extra Spicy Love Salad (the story about fantasy and beauty!)" ^^;;;;; It's by Takumi Kitagawa, a mangaka who apparently likes apple milk and mocha coffee.
*pause* It did have pretty boys on the cover.. Monday, March 25, 2002 08:07 p.m. Was out for practically the entire weekend. Saturday because, well, I was out for club anyway and there was Sunday to spend productively. Sunday, because there was a last minute class outing as a sort of farewell to the classmates who were posted out of college.
First time I meet my classmates to go out in something other than the school uniform. Their response? "Wah, so mature!" "Your hair is really.. feminine!"
Which I wouldn't mention normally, but for a person used to her friends either having messier hair than her or always ragging her about her messy hair, quite a new experience. And I didn't try to specially dress up, either, whereas I do try to keep myself as neat as possible for school. I guess that goes to say that my hair hates me. Oh well.
(On a completely unrelated note, anyone who happens to be in Bugis and visiting the Kinokuniya branch there, should hie down to the manga section and take a look at the picture of Iori neatly framed and put up in the extreme left hand corner, opposite from the counter, right at the top. I don't know if it was done by the official artist or not, but ye gods. Girly peaches-and-cream joy-to-the-world Iori!) Saturday, March 23, 2002 10:10 a.m. At club now. Learning Flash and Director- although I'm still not by any standards good at them, I think I should be able to manage, with a little practice and some of the notes- but you know the best part? They're teaching spotlight with a picture of Kamui.
And most of us are still playing with, and at balls.
Lalala.. I need a good Wakka picture, if I'm to do that flash movie I was thinking of doing.
Friday, March 22, 2002 08:26 p.m. So posting results were out today, and until someone- I forget who, talked to so many people about it today- told me something which made me get all nervous and jittery, I was fine. Really. By which I mean that the past few weeks I had been pretty complacent about which college I would be posted to. Because the exams were over and there was nothing I could do anyway, was there?
The world likes to pick the worst moments to pull a fast one on you, sometimes. Got so distracted that I couldn't concentrate on my Chinese test- looking at pictures and writing down the Chinese idioms they remind you of! Which wasn't as easy as it sounded to me, owing to my unfortunate disability in intepreting said pictures (Laoshi, that was a mouse? I thought it was a cat! Okay, I /think/ I know now..) Anyway. I got my first choice, so I'm not exactly sad, but so many people around me were posted elsewhere and worrying about it that I didn't feel happy either.
I had wanted to skip the rest of the day after posting results were out, along with a couple of friends, but in the end we didn't. Too fearful of retribution, or too cowardly, I guess. Not that it served any purpose, since I didn't pay much attention to lectures today- and during tutorials all the teachers take attendance so it's hard to skip without being noticed. Mother told me, though, that if I wanted to skip school- she was surprised at there not being a day off- she'd let me, but no way would she write a letter to cover up for me. Mom.
Meia came to my school today though, and sat through econs- economics lecture with me and JM. We managed to carry on a semi-conversation in haiku- or at least, haiku in the very shallow sense of five-seven-five syllable dribble. Including hentai ones which I blame on my habit of writing down whatever I hear, and not always what I think. Chew on that, if you're going to go on about me writing hentai poetry. =P I mentioned the "Let me in!" one to my classmates, and they were amused... *coughs* oh well.
I think I'll leave the random ffx rambling and social blogging to another entry. |
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