the difference is you

if there was ever such a thing as an unfortunate chain of events, yesterday [Sunday] would have been one.

RetroSpect DayView for Sunday, September 26th, 2004:

1118 woke up for weekly visitation by First Uncle & Family

1130 got cleaned up, had breakfast

1145 greeted First Uncle and First Aunt-In-Law upon their arrival retreat to room

1205 poked my head out of room door in confusion at the staggered depature of my First Uncle and my First Aunt-In-Law. they left within a minute of each other, my First Aunt-In-Law staying to deliver a few parting words first

1215 we sit down to lunch, turned into an excess due to the departure of two expected guests, interrupted by a telephone call that began the fall-out from the argument that occured several minutes before 1205 [details on that scandal in another post, if at all, because this isn't the bit of the day that really hit me hard]

1230 telephone call from mom and dad, within spitting distance of each other only because my mom confiscated my dad's passport and won't let him leave until he "settles everything". mammoth task for a useless man. they wanted me to go back as some twisted sort of mediator. not only did i not want to go, but the logistics simply didn't work out [again, more another time, if at all, because the worst is yet to come]

1330 second aunt and rosemarie leave for second aunt's Buddhism class

1345 Priscilla [my third cousin under my first uncle] pops over, asking if my second aunt is in, then if rosemarie was in, after i told her my second aunt wasn't in. like, hello? how's my second aunt supposed to go anywhere without rosemarie?

1355 Priscilla leaves, leaving behind thirty dollars and a three-hundred dollar check from Joanne, my seventh [i think] cousin's wife. this is related to the 1205 argument earlier. it's a long, lengthy scandal and deserves its own post, if i ever write it

1410 rosemarie returns, after some quips about the scandal, she takes a nap and i go back to my PowerBook

1645 after getting my granddad out of bed [we put him to bed before rosemarie left at one-thirty], rosemarie heads off to get second aunt back from class

1700 rosemarie and second aunt return. i shower and leave for Raffles Place

1800 arrive at Raffles Place Interchange, half an hour in advance. poke around the concourse and deicide to go aboveground and scope the place out first

1815 call xuan to point out to him that the place we were going to is located inside an office building, and office buildings are not open on Sundays

1826 xuan texts back to say to get to City Hall ASAP

1827 i fail to text back the message "Don't asap someone who arrived half an hour in advance.", because my prepaid card's credit balance was below the minimun required to send texts

1830 i meet alvin chow and patrick at the Raffles Place Interchange Basement Three platform

1845 arrive at City Hall Interchange. dax and shiming are already there. xuan is nowhere to be seen

1930 after mildly telling xuan off, including the content of the message i couldn't send and a reminder that i was the one who went to find out in advance if the place was open, the dismal showing moves and arrives at Suntec City Movenpick Marché, where someone pulls out some FHM Top 100 Girls Next Door special and almost everyone starts ogling their goodies, making inane and asinine comments.

2030 at xuan's insistence, we move to Suntec City Cedele Depot for cake

2100 leave Suntec City for City Hall Interchange. patrick takes the bus, xuan's on a different line, dax, wayne, shiming, alvin and i are on the East-West Line

2120 train pulls into Kallang Station. i do not get off, intending to while the night away at the airport

2150 i get off with dax at Tampines Station, and trawl for a movie to watch

2230 i give up, and pile dax and i into a cab headed for Orchard Cineleisure

2245 ten dollars later, we arrive at Cineleisure. deciding not to risk trying to get into Saved! [an M18 film], i got tickets for Dodgeball instead

2350 after applying for Internet Banking, going to Cheers! to get weird ice-cream and drinks, and other attempts at wasting time, we are seated for the movie

epilogue: dax's mom's threatening texts to my phone [his Nokia conked out] was funnier than the movie. i didn't even really laugh. we got a cab ride back to Kallang and dax decided to wander until public transport resumed operations

Expense Report for Sunday, September 26th, 2004:

$43.30 - bill for dinner at Movenpick Marché, inclusive of the Rosti with Mushroom Ragout that xuan wanted to share
$11.50 bill for dessert at Cedele Depot, inclusive of the two dollars i had to top-up for xuan's Carrot Cake
$10.00 cab fare from Tampines Mall to Orchard Cineleisure
$17.50 tickets to Dodgeball
$05.00 drinks and weird ice-dream at Cheers!
$07.80 cab fare from Orchard Cineleisure to Kallang

$95.10 total for the day

well. at least i didn't spend $120 on CDs again.

actually, come to think about it, it's actually too bad i didn't take that money and buy CDs with it instead.

one day i will have spent enough on cabs [especially on cabs when the Midnight Surcharge is in effect] to have been able to buy an old Saab cabriolet with what was spent.

sparks

that night when i went to "Mamma Mia!" on opening night was the first time i've seen my mom in weeks. and she was nice to us. no unpleasantless that was directed right at us. i appreciated it.

but remember me saying that i came back from it emotionally drained?

she's betting on soccer again. big-time. studying teams, matches, and getting pissed-off at the people she's in it with, and at least one [i assume small-time] bookie. which can only mean that she sees this as her final salvation. the only thing short of a miracle [read: her husband managing to take care of the family, financially-speaking or otherwise] that will save everything as it is.

i, all of seventeen years old, spent a lot of time in the car [a friend's Nissan Sunny] conflicted about what was the best way to gently convince her this wasn't a solution. but unless i was prepared to damage my ability to function for the rest of the week more so than it already was, doing that was not a good idea. why destroy a perfectly nice evening?

why indeed. so i went with it. pretending it didn't notice anything. not that there was any chance in hell i wouldn't have noticed it. she wasn't even trying to hide it anyway. it was nice having a meal your mom provided for you. it's been ages since i last had that. kids everywhere have meals provided for by their parents all the time, directly or indirectly, whether their mom rushed home from work, took a quick shower and prepared food and fruits for you and your friend who came over to take a look at your PC, hired a maid to do it for them, took their kids out to a McDonald's as a treat, or drove them out to Lawry's for steak.

there are a number of parallels between my life and the ongoing plot in Gilmore Girls now. which is why it made me want to cry when i watched it all the way through to the new season premiere, and why i re-watch it over and over again.

my prepaid card ran out of credit on Friday. i spent it all trying to contact my sisters because i was supposed to meet them. in the end i got played out all the way from the airport to Sengkang to Bugis Junction. in the end i went back here and waited for them to come to me instead.

my Ericsson's now set to accept calls from no-one. to the caller it rings once then gets a busy tone, but i don't hear or notice anything more than (Busy Tone - Bernard Anybody) flashing on the screen.

Bernard Anybody [i use either Somebody or Anybody as filler for people whose surnames i do not know. obviously the usage of either will tell you how i feel about the person or what they mean to me. and for those who find this oddly familiar it's pinched off The Sims: Superstar, where they use Somebody and Anybody to differentiate between, respectively, celebrities and nobodies] is the group leader of my ComDI project group. they wanted to meet Saturday to work on the project. they notified me Friday. since i had no credit or desire to go, or in fact desire to respond, i left it at that. Bernard Anybody called seven times, and Zubair Anybody called thrice. they can all go to hell for all care. there's no way i can pass this module no matter how hard i slave over the project anyway, so they can go it alone, and present their unpresentable work, or lack thereof. i'll wait for the re-sub.

the whole accept-calls-from-no-one thing is a bit inconvenient, though. i'm not comfortable at all doing telephone voice conversations. phone calls are akward for me. oddly enough, more so when i actually know the person and he's not a faceless entity whose job description involves taking my call and speaking to me. so in order to arrange and find out about dinner with my friends later today, i had to call xuan up and ask.

had to do it thrice today. i think i'm getting better at it. though it still remains that i don't know how to act on the phone when i comes to some people [for either good or bad reasons, depending on the person in question].

i'm looking forward to dinner tomorrow. though how i will look backward on it afterwards remains to be seen.

Agenda View: Sunday, September 26th, 2004

1100 First Uncle & Family's visit [weekly recurring event]

1900 dinner at Fig & Olive Café <24 Raffles Place, #02-02 Clifford Centre> w/ friends

daddy lost everything

today i:

skipped Color class [to be honest i have no idea whether i really did, because i didn't get any response of any sort from the, um, module-mate i texted]

woke at twelve because i stayed up watching Gilmore Girls

left for the Botanic Gardens by cab

spent half an hour looking for benny [my P&FDr lecturer] and, after that, over an hour roaming the place, taking photos

left for home by cab

watched another two episodes of Gilmore Girls

downloaded two episodes of the new season of Everwood [which i'm not sure why i did, i never really watched Everwood to begin with]

talked to my aunt about my father and his passport being taken away

texted my mother about her taking my father's passport

talked to my aunt more about my father and his passport

talked to my aunt about "Mamma Mia!" [she saw it in Britain years ago]

made a mental note to text my mother tomorrow, to remind her that what she's done is crimminal [and i mean it literally, not just because it's robbing countless people of their sanity by keeping Albert Khoo in the country]

watched the break-hiatus episode of The O.C. on Singaporean televison, Season One, Episode Seventeen, "The Rivals"

marvelled at how our censors wouldn't even allow the scene of Danny mock-humping a classmate through [seriously. what is there to shield our young, impressionable teenagers from? let's hope that our kids don't go to secondary schools, because kids pull crap like that all the time in there]

watched the first episode of the third season [the new season] of Everwood, up to the opening credits, because i read that they'd changed and it was better than before

hated the new opening credits, liked the old ones much better

also hated Ephram's new hair, um, style [because it grew out into a center-part and haircut implies that it got shorter, which is exactly the opposite of what happened]

decided to reconsider starting to watch Everwood, though i probably will still compulsively download every new episode as it comes out, because i already have the first two in the season

which reminds me, i need to buy markers so that i can label the plethora of CDs i am going to burn. in additon to other things i need to buy, like a pair of compasses, and such.

here i go again

so, in order of appearance, What I Have Done Since I Blogged This Morning, "This Morning" Being The Morning Of September 22nd, 2004:

01 brought my grandfather [and, of course, my sort-of-aunt and rosemarie] to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for his physiotheraphy appointment

02 handled his transfer to Geriatric Physiotheraphy

03 texted my excuse to my ComDI group leader from Burger King Novena Square [my grandad likes french fries dipped in coffee]

04 came back and completed about a third of my long overdue Color portfolio

05 showered, dressed and left for "Mamma Mia!" [opening night!] at the Esplanade

06 arrived an hour in advance [as i think is only right] and waited forty-five minutes for my sisters [whose cab fare i had to pay] and mother

07 watched the first half of "Mamma Mia!", and loved it

08 pretended i was at a Newport Beach society event during intermission [it helped that my sisters were looking like Marissa Cooper and Summer Roberts tonight]

09 watched the second half of "Mamma Mia!", and loved it

10 had supper at this place in Geylang called [direct Mandarin-to-English translation] Ever Peace Eating House

11 got dropped off back here

12 watched the last twenty minutes of "The Amazing Race", Season Five, Two-Hour Finale Special

13 changed for bed

14 checked on my Gilmore Girls torrents and organized PowerBook's files

15 watched an episode of the Gilmore Girls that made me cry ["The Incredible Shrinking Lorelais", Episode Fourteen, Season Four]

16 watched an episode of the Gilmore Girls that made me smile, then feel sorry for Emily Gilmore ["Scene In A Mall", Episode Fifteen, Season Four]

17 felt so emotionally drained that i blogged mechanically just so i had a record of what went on, so that i can recap, once again, with emotion, at a later time

why am i emotionally drained? let's just say that "The Incredible Shrinking Lorelais" wasn't the first time i wanted to cry today. let's also say that that first time happened after "Mamma Mia!".

more, later, if i can summon the emotional capacity. it's all falling apart. but i have to mantain control.

Agenda View: Thursday, September 23rd, 2004

0900 Color lecture at Temasek Polytechnic DES Studio

1500 P&FDr lecture at the Singapore Botanical Gardens

i'm skipping my first class, if it's even on this week, and hopefully getting some more, if not all, of the Color portfolio done.

else, even better, i'll spend the morning wallowing in more Gilmore goodness. i need it.

london bridge is falling down

i was snoozing, and right outside my window [my aunt's place is a corridor unit] these contractors set up shop, knocking and banging things together, speaking with the verbal capacity of a bunch of teenage hooligans [read: colorful language peppered with obscenities in the Hokkien dialect].

then i went to clean up and get breakfast, and they start singing/whislting London Bridge Is Falling Down.

igonring for a moment that there is no London Bridge, how confidence-inspiring is it when the contractors working on the lift-lobby right next to your flat are singing a song of a collasping structure? what the hell kind of construction worker sings that while he works?

so after i'm done with breakfast and come back to my PowerBook to check on a few things, they start banging loudly against the wall i'm right next to, scaring the heck out of me [i let my guard down at home. at school someone can jump down a flight of stairs, seemingly appearing out of nowhere--the staircase is hidden, but its presence is known, hence one does not expect anyone to come leaping out of it and i don't even stop walking]. there are really old people living in this estate. lots of them, in fact. like my grandfather, ninety-four years old and has an appointment at the hospital at eleven AM, but no way through the mess they've made of the lift lobby in his wheelchair.

and now, a wonderful constant grinding sound. nice score.

mamma mia

Agenda View: Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004

0900 meeting with CreTh group for Project Two - Salomé at Temasek Polytechnic DES Studio

1100 grandfather's physiotheraphy appointment at Tan Tock Seng Hospital

1500 FoDev lecture at Temasek Polytechnic DES Studio

1800 meeting with ComDI group for Project Two - The Language Of Color at Temasek Polytechnic DES Studio

2000 opening night of "Mamma Mia!" at the Esplanade - Theaters On The Bay

in an ideal world, i should be able to voice-command either my Palm or my PowerBook to "cancel my first, third, and fourth appointments" and be done with it. but no such yet, so i will have to come up with an excuse.

life is unfair. kill yourself or get over it

i just got my first PowerBook scratch. fuck. and all this because i was going from the studio to the library because two of my ComDI group members took up roost opposite me.

up town top ranking

school wasn't much good today.

the noobsie covention wasn't much good on Sunday.

i have nothing much to report, but that's because i don't want to report anything.

my time online seems much more pleasant than my life offline. sigh. what to do.

right back where we started from

tomorrow: noobsies convention at The Bayshore, just because one of my cousins' sons has turned three.

these people are the same that have insulted basically everyone living here [my aunt's] on Friday, when Priscilla [my third cousin] mentioned something about her son [Nicholas, takes Multimedia & Infocomms Technology at Nanyang Polytechnic] needs only a hundred dollars a month as expenses, and how come first aunt is giving him two-hundred fifty?

this led to my second aunt defending me on the phone, leading to Priscilla activating the family gossip/slander network, leading to an entirely ugly incident. my aunt-of-sorts revealed to me that they're after my first aunt's favor, which by the looks of how much i've getting and the very fact that i'm living here, is supposedly in the palm of my hand according to their imaginations. amongst the things that they're after range from petty things like thousand-dollar stock dividends to being in her will for her CPF assets.

in a heated discussion of my cousins my aunt-of-sorts spat out this hilarious retort:

Next time, just tell her:

"Priscilla, congratulations on having such a great son like Nicky! Our Aaron is so useless, we give him two-hundred-fifty a month and see no change from it!

Nicky is so good, he can manage on a hundred a month! One day Lee Kuan Yew will make him his Finance Minister!"

i laughed my way to the floor with that one. i feel strangely bemused and enthralled by my status within the family now. it's like i'm ryan atwood, and these noobsies feel threatened by my moving right into their breathing space.

i'm tired, so i won't elaborate any further [even though i would love to. it's like living in a television drama, except it's not as fun to watch, because you're not watching it. you're living it. and not in a good way, like if i were to be living an O.C. life], but just to record my thoughts:

i downloaded the O.C. special, Obsess Completely, and i am loving it, fully intend to buy Mix 2 and MUST buy Mix 3 [a Chrismukkah compilation], and am stoked about the second season of The O.C. due to premiere on November 4th [so much so that i wish my birthday was then instead. it's like a huge birthday present, exactly one month early], BUT what on earth is the O.C. Insider thing.

it's like one of those Barbie/Archie/Kathy Keene [okay, so i read a lot of Archie, but never Kathy Keene, they were under the same publisher and cross-advertized. as for Barbie my sisters had a lot of Barbie stuff--but thankfully not a membership] clubs or something where you pay a subscription and get a newsletter and access to special stuff and what not. it sounds so lame and really cheapens my whole thing for The O.C. it is so blatantly a money-making endeavor that makes josh schwartz's self-deprecating comment about how they were always ready to make a quick buck on The O.C. no longer funny or endearing, but instead off-putting.

color me put-off. i'm going to pretend i never saw that/never see that when i re-watch Obsess Completely. i have a sneaking suspicion that they are going [in fact, i dare say they won't possibly pass the chance up] to plug O.C. Insider on the next, and last, O.C. special before the next season.

i can just imagine summer roberts going, "O.C. Insider? Eww."

cantelopps

i took a cab to school again. it could be argued that it was in the interest of being on time, since i awoke from my coma only at seven-forty, but i can't pull that again because every week i bust my arse trying to get to school on time on Friday only to have the nonsensical bunches of the group turn up at least an hour late.

no, i wanted to convert the forty-five minute nuisance that would be a train ride to Bedok and a bus out from there into a sedating, calming, zen-like fifteen-minute float into Tampines with my iPod in a Toyota Crown.

lecturer's here. eta later.

number one crush

"I would die for you
I would die for you
I've been dying just to feel you by my side
To know that you're mine

I will cry for you
I will cry for you
I will wash away your pain with all my tears
And drown your fear

I will pray for you
I will pray for you
I will sell my soul for something pure and true
Someone like you

See your face every place that I walk in
Hear your voice every time that I am talking
You will believe in me
And I will never be ignored

I will burn for you
Feel pain for you
I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart
And tear it apart

I will lie for you
Beg and steal for you
I will crawl on hands and knees until you see
You're just like me

Violate all the love that I'm missing
Throw away all the pain that I'm living
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored

I would die for you
I would kill for you
I will steal for you
I'd do time for you
I will wait for you
I'd make room for you
I'd sail ships for you
To be close to you
To be part of you
'Cause I believe in you
I believe in you
I would die for you"

- "#1 Crush", Garbage

british racing green

my FoDev lecture lasted a grand total of five minutes, from three-fifteen to three-twenty.

wow.

eta: my lecture was supposed to be from three to six.

the art of driving

i think it's only getting worse when i contemplate going to school in yesterday's white t-shirt and boardshorts, because i really can't be bothered to get changed.

it gets worse when i realize that at least half of the students there dress like that everyday, anyway.

where's my shirt?

we are not amused anymore

it's late, but i still can't sleep and am waiting for my hair to dry, so i might as well stop putting off the exposition of what happened last weekend.

FRIDAY

after the shit-fest that was CreTh lecture [i rushed a PowerPoint presentation DURING lecture for my group's presentation, PowerBook and CanoScan in tow--yes, the CanoScan is a scanner. an actual scanner. i brought my scanner to school with me--and fingers on my Apple Wireless Mouse, clicking like a dervish, only to have Eugene Chen and Alex, group members who have contributed nothing thus far, insist on presenting it. they took over my PowerBook while i was in the toilet. idiot Eugene was fumbling stupidly with the plugs and remotes and mouse and adaptor, and i shook my head at the door as i stepped in a fixed it all up. they massacred the presentation, not the audience or the lecturer. they had no idea what was coming up when, or even what was already on the screen, and just shat all over it. the lecturer gave us full marks for the presentation anyway, because he could see the effort put into the presentation--specifically the PowerPoint slides--as no other group went to the same lengths. however he thought an Ernest--an actual group member, but NOT the one that slogged for the presentation--did all that work, and i was positively foaming at the mouth by then], my father returns.

woah. that was one long expository set of parenthesis.

yes. so he comes back from Papua New Guinea, notices that his twelve-thousand-dollar television set is missing, along with the rest of his liquor [most of it, especially the really good, expensive stuff, had been moved out long ago]. he gets pissed, kicks down the bathroom door and confronts my mother. note that my mother was showering whilst he was kicking the door down. so he shouted at her, [i assume] slapped her about, then kicked her out of the house.

how do i know all this, when i don't live at home?

my brother called, scared shitless. after he was done, my sister took over. evidently my father had too little blood in his alcohol/nicotine system. and you wonder why i don't like people who smoke or drink?

so i did what i could to assure him that it's okay, same for my sister, and then hung up to warn my maid not to go home if she could help it, and called my mom. no answer. when she called back later she related the whole thing back to me, without saying anything about whether she was slapped about [my mother may be, for the most part, shameless, but you don't bring up your own husband slapping you about just to get sympathy], and said that she was going to stay at her sister's.

SATURDAY

i woke up, heard my cousin's voice, thought it was okay to step out and clean myself up, opened the door and saw rosemarie wildly, urgently and desperately gesticulating to me that my father was here, mouthing rather dramatically the words "YOUR FATHER!" and pointing towards the kitchen.

i closed to door as quietly as i could, locked it shut, and went back to bed to listen to Eels, Garbage and Cake on my iPod until they were gone. too long a time. it was way past two in the afternoon, that's all i can remember. wasted time.

SUNDAY

first uncle's weekly visit, with my first aunt-in-law, this time also with my adulteress first cousin [she's not married, her boyfriend is. no one but a small handful of people in my family know, though]. similarly wasted time. though he did give me twenty dollars in more guilt money, though, so i guess it wasn't entirely wasted.

taking stock:

we owe half a million dollars to United Overseas Bank, who is giving us three months, with monthly payments of ten thousand dollars, before they kick our sorry arses out our door;
we also owe enough in maintenance fees to our condominium's MCST for them to be threatening us with a ten-thousand-dollar penalty if we do not pay up soon;
the Singapore Power people just dropped by today to, in my sister's words, demand payment, but my dad wasn't at home, he was here, sucking up/stalking me.

life is unfair. kill yourself, or get over it.

when i wonder what could make the needle jump the groove

i've just gotten home.

staying til late in the studio is a nice alternative to mooching about in the city, for the purpose of avoiding my father.

i think i might do it again.

music stations always play the same song

what kind of airhead thing is that to say? to follow a traffic report of a stranded car on one of the many expressways here, Jamie Yeo says that it reminds her that it's time to service her car, and as a shout out to everyone who needs to have their cars serviced but haven't, she reminds them to get them serviced.

and this follows a reminder earlier to keep your traffic-light primping to three seconds or so, because the lights always catch her by suprise.

so explain to me why anyone listens to radio?

no one ever died from wanting too much

take your pick, Ally McBeal. would you rather:

A) be pleased that you were asked to help keep an eye on his stuff?

or

B) be upset that you weren't asked to join them for dinner?

tick-tock. your happiness is at stake.

child psychologists

i walked out of ModMa lecture. not in a dramatic, gather-my-things-pissily-and-stalk-off-whilst-lecturer-looks-at-me-quizzically way, more of a gather-things-in-advance-and-leave-whilst-lecturer-is-demonstrating-the-sanding-machine-and-not-looking-at-me-and-stalk-off-under-quizzical-looks-from-coursemates way.

i don't know what's wrong anymore. i am failing this semseter. there are at least seven jobs due in two weeks. and, failing to make it in two weeks or the re-sub twelve days after that, i will have to repeat the semester. which, right now, i would rather drop out than do.

life is unfair. kill yourself, or get over it

so, i'm really steeping in the guilt now.

and Sigur Rós has lots of stuff up for download. i've always known of them, but never bothered to really go check them out until i came across them in trevor's iPod [which, incidentally, is a first-generation model]. he listens to Muse and Black Box Recorder, amongst other acts i can no longer remember but can remember that were cool, and i thought, might as well, since Amazon had two tracks up for download. which is, in retrospect, laughable because the Sigur Rós site has loads more to get. but it's past midnight, i tire, and i have lectures tomorrow.

oh, and i also wanted to buy this great Canterbury shirt today whilst at The Heeren Shops. strange how i can stop myself from buying an eighty-dollar shirt but will spend a hundred and twelve on compact discs.

they even tried bribery. i could have anything i wanted, as long as i said it out loud

wowzee wowza.

i am at the Starbucks right next to California, where i spent five-sixty-five on a Lemon Passion Ice-Shaken Tea.

i came from HMV at The Heeren Shops, where i spent a hundred and twelve dollars on CDs.

i should stop going out alone.

i didn't want anything more to do with the outside world

i am calm. i am confident. i am serene [but not in the sense that i am Serene, my mother]. above all, i am Zen [and, again, not in the sense that i am a shoddily-done iPod imitation]. i am more Zen than Julien Janvier's father, who imagines that his wife was killed by his son, because his son was bewitched by Sophie Kowalski and her games.

i have just spoken to my ComDI lecturer about what happenes when i fail this module [notice i said "when", not "if"], and i have a second shot at passing in the re-sub, after the results come out. i didn't know i have results, considering that i don't have examintions. well now my aunt is going to know how i crashed and burned. in any case. i have the re-sub. i will kill myself trying to pass in the resub, even if i have to re-sub all seven modules.

i have given up on the group i have for ComDI. i have told them as much, and i don't really care if they get pissed off because i will no longer have to see them after this module ends. i am still in it because, actually, i don't why i'm still in it. i cannot pass, no longer how brilliant i make this presentation by dragging the other members onboard by their fingernails. so what am i in it for? to prove that i can do it? because the group will bomb without me and my PowerPoint/Word/language/presentation skills?

why? for gold, god, or glory?

am i on the wrong track?

and, yet again, i'm avoiding the details of the weekend. i do not know why. i want to record the many levels of disgust i had to go through reach today, but i'm either too tired or i feel i can live with the linen being as dirty as it is for now. next weekedn ought to be a hoot on around the same level as last week, though, so must prod me to update for the weekend before the weekend.

right now i'm seated in the PID studio. nothing new, except that i'm one half hour early for lecture, and have opted to come here instead of waiting for lecture outside the room, or at the library. and i'm exactly across the room from where i normally seat, because i am sick of pretending that i am a normal, unbalanced human being.

"Happy people scare me. They are chemically unbalanced."
- Shirley Manson

i am sick of being next to the staircase, next to the lecture area behind the lockers, next to way most people walk into the studio, forcing myself to greet everyone that comes though in a non-sardonic, positive manner, smiling and laughing occasionally, etcetera.

I AM SICK OF IT.

so i've moved to the table where people go to only to eat, or sit by themselves. occasionally the two other PowerBook users take up roost here, but as long as they don't bother me or force me to act like i'm on twenty levels of Prozac, i can not mind their presence.

somebody get me out of here, i'm tearing up myself

what i'm eating right now:

one piece of Quality Street Orange Crunch chocolate

one piece of Dove Milk Chocolate With Hazelnuts & Fruits [the fruit in this instance being orange]

one huge bowl of Post Honey Bunches Of Oats With Strawberries

[five minutes later]

what i'm eating right now:

one more piece of Quality Street Orange Crunch chocolate

one piece of Quality Street Orange Cream chocolate

two more pieces of Dove Milk Chocolate With Hazelnuts & Fruits [also orange]

two more bowls of Post Honey Bunches Of Oats With Strawberries [technically only one more, but this bowl is twice the size of the first]

it figured that the instant i wrap up my digital coversations [my brother, my sister, my maid, my mother, matt], close my PowerBook, set my iPod for charging whilst lulling me to sleep and switch off the lights, i get the most compelling hunger pangs in recent memory.

so right now Post, Dove, Quality Street and Apple are rocking my world. i am bingeing. i am upset. i am hungry. i am angry. i am angsty. i am brooding. i am pissed off. i am disheartened. i am tired. i am sick. i am sleepy. i am cranky.

but somewhere in this shaking/shivering [either from the hunger or from the sugar] mess is a very, very lonely seventeen-year-old.

i ain't happy, i'm feeling glad, i got sunshine, in a bag, i'm useless, but not for long, the future, is coming on

so, as i was getting my mobile out of my bag after lecture ended just now, i wondered to myself: "what the hell are you checking for text messages for? there aren't any, and you know it."

yeah, why do i?

bow down to me

so here i am, in the PID studio. the malays are in seated at a clump of six desks, the chinese are all over the place, the two PowerBook users are across the room from each other [there's me, slumped on a desk against the staircase--do not mistake this for Harry Potter-esque, i am NOT under the staircase--and there's He Whose Name I Think Is Joel. i do not like HWNITIJ. not in that explict if-you-talk-to-me-i-will-not-respond way, but in that i do not actively seek him out for conversation [in any case i don't actively seek anyone out for conversation]. he smokes. half the time when he's just entered a room i get this whiff of cigarettes off his backdraft. most people say they cannot detect it--to which i ask if they've lost all ability to smell--but i guess my nose is just hyper-sensitive. plus the way my father smokes i am surely fine-tuned to that smell if anything. he recently asked me for a copy of Microsoft Office Mac 2004 and Adobe Photoshop 7 for Mac. i hesitated to help him out, but my brain had already sent the command to say "sure". i used the excuse that i ran out of CD-Rs over the weekend, and today i forgot my FireWire cable for transferring the program off my iPod. to be honest i really forgot, the guy brought his PowerBook to school today [something he apparently doesn't do everyday, and why should i feel anything since i bring mine to school everyday] but i guess it was on purpose subconciously.

accidentally on purpose, i guess.

back to the first topic i brought up. yes. it's a block party here [and you know how i am at parties], and the racial divide is clearer than ever. i don't know why this matters at all [in fact, i don't know why this matters to me] but i thought i'd post it anyway, if only as a cover for my need to bitch about the PowerBooks, FireWire cable, iPod, HWNITIJ, Office & Photoshop, smoke and cigarettes.

until the sun comes up over santa monica boulevard

how i wish i had a gun:

U2 5-Pocket Classics dark gray pants: $34.50

2004/2005 Fall/Winter collection Springfield white-pinstripe maroon business shirt: $69

Giacoma Puccini matt-black metal-rimmed glasses: $195

Apple 15GB iPod: $198

Ericsson T68m: $288

Palm Tungsten T: $568

Apple 12" PowerBook G4: $2841

Knowing your day sucked and wanting to shoot yourself: Priceless

There are some things in life money can buy. For everything else, there's a fully-loaded Glock.

today just full-on, flat-out, fucking sucked.

death of a french whore

no, no, no, no, no.

i spent the last weekend chasing my ComDI group for work, even though i'm not their leader, because last week we did nothing for our presentation. this week there is another presentation.

last week one group blew everyone-but-i's socks off with their RELATIVELY well-designed and pulled-off presentation.

my socks should have been blown off, but i feel i could have easily done better, even if my group have NOTHING last week.

now, after chasing one person, another, and a malay girl [she's not in my group, class, or even course, and i do not know WHY THE HELL our group's only copy of the presentation is with her] who i didn't know until after i started chasing them, i have an eleven slide presentation meant to cover for last week's lack of a presentation, and this week's FINAL, VIDEO-TAPED presentation as well.

ELEVEN SLIDES. that one group's presentation last week was much longer than that. and needless to say, better and much more well-designed.

i have a whole fuck-ton to bitch about, but i have to get cracking on the makeover of the presentation now.

in order to quell my feverent desire to throw everything [PowerBook, iPod, Wireless Mouse, Tungsten T, T68m, bag, contents, possibly myself] out the window just to obtain that one second of absolut peace and calm and zen before the "oh shit" sets in, i am going to delude myself into worrying about superfical things, so that my mind is sutiably distracted whilst keeping its need for constant worry satisfied.

this Springfield shirt i bought on Saturday is one size too big, my hair is a Beatles-esque mess, i want to go to the Heeren Shops' Mambo store to look at shoes but have no one to go with, and i strangely don't dare to ask anyone at all, let alone anyone i actually want to go with, and shit shit shit my presentation and this semester's work is gone out the fucking window.

one more cup of coffee. won't hurt anyone.

you've got a great car

just a couple of days ago, i was lamenting about how i'm no longer in an educational institution that takes you to the airport for a class.

now, here i am at the airport's Starbucks, having finished my class here today, blogging on my PowerBook, which is connected to my Ericsson via Bluetooth, which is in turn connected to the Internet via GSM/GPRS. you would technically say that i wasn't taken here for the class, we were simply told to arrive at three at Terminal 2's The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, but i was late, waiting for an email, and the lecturer passed by my desk in the studio as i was packing.

five minutes later, i was in his Bertone X1/9, its engine growling behind me, seated about fifteen centimeters off the ground, headed for the airport.

so. damn. cool.

plus. he's a car guy. and five minutes into MX-5s and MR2s and Saab 900S Convertibles and getting parts of the Internet, i was sure that i didn't want to buy a new car as my first car. in fact, it's possible i don't ever want to buy a new car. nothing compares to something like an old Peugeot 306 Cabriolet or an Alfasud. or a Bertone X1/9.

new cars are, for the most bit, bland. few new models strike any chord with me at all.

maybe the next time Perpective & Freehand Drawing is being held off-campus i'll hang around my desk until it's too late to make it on time via public transport, but is the perfect time to leave and arrive on time by car.

that wouldn't be nice, though, would it.

the red and purple, blue and gray

so i'm sitting in color class, waiting for james [the lecturer] to tell me how much my test and previous assigment sucks, and iChat Rendezvous [Rendezvous is an Apple technology that allows you to chat with Macs on the same network as you are on, wireless or otherwise], and this guy called Macrus Lee signs onto Rendezvous.

his Mac is called "DeAtHG4".

for the love of god. this is clearly someone who uses a Mac only and only because it's cool. "DeAtHG4"? i feel ashamed to be using a Mac now, though logic dictates i shouldn't since only Mac uses will be able to see that his Mac is called "DeAtHG4". unless he's publicly sharing his files on the network. wait. let me check.

urgh. he is. but thankfully his share is listed as "MARCUS".

"DeAtHG4". really. unless he's using one of the school's PowerMacs, he must be using a PowerBook. hopefully not of the same series as mine. just two days ago i wished more people would sign onto [or, in some cases, even know about] Rendezvous, and now i wish less did.

and how long more is james going to take. i have only my assigment and my test. other people have entire portfolios and color journals to go through! i want to get this over with so i can plug in my PowerBook! i have only one hour and thirty-six minutes on my PowerBook's battery left!

counting numbered days

teachers' day is a terror.

a total of eight people turned up for Model Making class [class size: twenty-five] on Tuesday. wasted time.

in unrelated news, i've just discovered that i've been telling my grandfather's age wrong. he was born in 1910. that makes him ninety-four.

on a related note: why do people say "ripe" in reference to old age? it implies a fruit on a tree branch, ready to be picked or going to drop off onto the ground. hardly what most people want implied in old age.

but then again most people use "ripe" in reference to the age of someone who's already died. i think.