Astro.

Can you believe it? Ash is in Brunei.

I'm now hoping really, really hard to be able to meet her when I go back. Which is two days before she leaves. 

I went out last night, am going to go out in fifteen minutes, and will go out again when I get back. Before you start thinking I'm wasting my life away having fun and doing recreational/useless/pointless things with my life, stop. 

Last night, I went out because it was a Friday night and there was no way I was going to let it waste. So Wardah, Emily, Nicholas and I (my seniors, make them sound old here) took a bus to Vivo (Harbourfront, from where you get to Sentosa) to watch a movie, but realised it was too late and went to eat instead. 

Yum. Food Republic goood. 

Later, I've got another Bio assignment to do (yes, one more time I hear the words 'Bio' with 'assignment' and I'm going to murder someone) at the Jurong East Library. According to Rania and MJ, it would be much easier if we could just sleep there since we spend most of our weekends doing assignments. 

And after that, I've got to come back to go out again for a cluster outing. Yay. Dunno where we're going as some people *cough cough* won't tell me. They say they don't want to spoil the surprise but I'm fine with that 'cause I'll find out later at four. 

I be going now.

Adieu.

Mad and detached?

Last night Stella was telling me about this strangely "perfect, hot quantum physicist", Dr Basil Singer. 

It's probably no big deal to you, but this is extremely interesting because:

1. He doesn't look hot in the photographs displayed. Maybe he's just not photogenic. 

2. Stel says it's hard to find a guy who's both genius and cool.

3. He could be an egoistic maniac bent on taking over the world.

4. He's British.

5. What if he's gay?

6. Yeah, I'm out of valid reasons. 

One and a half days have passed since I last posted, and Da Vinci is still effective as a powerful sleeping pill, Physics class still confuses me, English is still wacky, Maths is still stuck on construction (which I find quite to my liking), and Malay with Cikgu Isa still makes us sleepy. 

Yeah, I did say Cikgu Isa. Our BM teacher was on MC today, to menjalani pemeriksaan doktor*, says Cikgu Isa. 

There were eight of us in class, half were falling asleep, one was actually sleeping, and the rest were daydreaming or trying not to. 

Test has been postponed to tomorrow. 

Stella (aka SAS' "cream of the crop" 8A1 girl) and Effie (si famous) are talking about watching American idol. I want to watch as well. I miss being at home, switching on television and changing the channel to Star World, lounging on the sofa under the air-conditioner and munching on junk food (yeah, I'm a couch potato. Sometimes I do some stretching and sit/push ups though, so I'm not that unhealthy). 

I feel so deprived.

You people who complain about not living overseas don't know how much we overseas people wish we were you. 

There are some things to appreciate while you have them at the moment. Don't wait until you can't bring it back to start telling everyone how much you wish you had spent more time with it. 

Like family.

Or friends.

...Or Astro.

I feel so deprived.

Probably I'll become a mad, detached person when I'm older because I will always feel that I miss out on everything that's happening back home and spend my time wondering what things would've been like if I had the chance to stay.

But don't worry, things are looking up. My homework load has decreased (though tests are coming in a few weeks). 

Oh, and I'm going home next month. 

Seriously, this isn't so bad after all.

Now let's all go and subscribe to Astro.

*get examined by a doctor.

Still lovin' MCR.

All right, I'm going all point form today (says the person too lazy to type in full sentences).

- The Music test was open-book for the MCQ section and the "elaborate blah blah baroque and renaissance periods blah" section. Listening section is going to be an epic fail. Songs ranged from freakishly obvious to bafflingly ambiguous. Sadly, the freakishly obvious songs were in the bonus section. Everyone started laughing when "Haaaaaaa...llelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" popped up.

- I like construction in Maths 'cause it involves no calculations whatsoever! How awesome is that?

- English was fun, as usual. Alvin Lin is great.

- Geography was dull and baffling but I managed to keep awake with my eyes wide open. 

- PE was great. Little droplets of water stopped us from using the track, so we did stuff at the concourse instead. 

- Chang Yoon got his new laptop today. Cool. 

- I really, really need to do homework.

- I still hate typos.

- Night.

Happy 25th National Day Brunei!

Mozart's songs are so peaceful (some of them, at least). I'm listening to the peacefully legato Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major (YES! I got the title right without looking)  now. 

At least I'm studying the right thing for tomorrow's Music test. I hope I can pass really well. Hope. Which is pretty impossible considering I had to attend a dinner just now, but still. 

About the dinner. 

The dinner.

Oh my gee the dinner. 

The dinner was freaking (pardon my language) awesome!!!

Wardah, Nicholas and I arrived at the Hyatt around past six. The Hyatt is a super cool place. The toilets have got loads of mirrors in 'em, and they look super cool. 

Enough about the toilets though. We met Syafiqah, Fatinn and Feyra (my seniors, they make me sound young. Har har) at the lobby and went up to the...place where the party-thing was held. We were greeted cordially (been waiting to use that word since I read The End by Lemony Snicket) by the people who greet guests and then I gave my invitation to one of them with the cancelled out "Awang".

The food was divine. Man, I hope Heaven is like that (without the long queues and if I go to Heaven, that is). 

Met some people, had loads of cake. Will definitely steal pictures from the others. (My phone is officially hopelessly broken. Even if I pay a hundred plus dollars to repair it, the new software might crash and my phone will be rendered useless, so it's not really worth it.)

I love cake. 

It's strange how back in Brunei, I thought I loved National Day. Now, even when I still have to go to school, I love National Day even more. It's something that keeps us ten Bruneians at NUS High together. Our country. 

Man, that was real corny. 

For BM today, we did one of the craziest, sickest things ever.

We were suppose to write out a dialogue for a picture in pairs. Aisyah and I got a picture of two boys standing on a beach, one carrying a bucket and the other completely naked. 

Our dialogue went something like this:

Budak A: Eh, mana seluar kamu?

Budak B: Entah. Mungkin hilang di laut semasa saya berenang.

Budak A: Oh, begitu. Tidak apalah. Saya boleh meminjamkan kamu baldi saya untuk menutup...

Budak B: Terima kasih, tetapi saya lebih suka telanjang.*

Man, even our teacher cracked up. So wack, man. 

*Translation:

Kid A: Hey, where are your pants?

Kid B: I dunno. Maybe I lost them while I was swimming.

Kid A: Oh. That's okay. I can lend you my bucket to cover up...

Kid B: Thanks, but I prefer being naked.

Hey, guess what? Beethoven was bad at Math too. My textbook says, "...but he was weak in elementary arithmetic."

Cool.

Igudesman and Joo.

A rainy day in Brunei smells like freshly watered plants and early morning crispness. 

A rainy day in Singapore smells like a chlorinated swimming pool. 

Which isn't that bad, actually.

Right now, I'm supposed to be reading up on Purcell and Corelli and Vivaldi and Monterverdi and Bach and Handel and Beethoven and Mozart and Hayden and suites and cantatas and arias and ritornellos and sonatas and basso ostinato and listening to songs such as Vivaldi's 'La Primavera' and Bach's surprisingly spookily enrapturing 'Little Fugue in G Minor'.

I still don't regret taking Music, no matter how much I complain about it. 

I finished the STD pamphlet before lunch. We decided not to include any pictures because they were all sick and disturbing and disgusting at the same time. 

I don't feel like doing any work now but I have to and must so I probably will. Sometime. Sooner. Or later. Preferably sooner. 

The Muslim Bruneians here have been invited to a Doa Selamat later. 

I honestly want to show up for tomorrow's dinner in a cara melayu, since they addressed me as an "Awang".

Maybe I should.

Cross-dominance.

They always say one thing leads to another. I was sitting here, listening to Bach's Brandenburg concerto 5, reading my music book when I decided to search for tremolo (because Vivaldi invented it). 

Tremolo on guitar is hard for me now because I cut my nails. Stupid short fingernails. 

Anyway, I searched tremolo and somehow ended up reading up on "hand dominance". Which translates into right-handedness, left-handedness, cross-dominance and ambidexterity. 

If you've got right-dominance, you usually use your right eye, ear, hand and leg the most, because the left side of your brain will pick up signals more dominantly (or something like that. Quote: I am not an accurate source). And vice versa for left-handers. 

"To determine Handedness: Assume for handedness that your handedness is the hand with which you would normally pick up a pencil and write. For ambidextrous people, use whichever hand you would first impulsively pick up a pen with... if that doesn't work, use the leg-crossing test. If when you cross your legs, your right leg goes over your left, then you are probably right handed.

To determine visual dominance: Several step process...

1) Choose an object a couple feet away.

2) Place your hand with the "thumbs up" sign, so that your thumb is covering or at least partially covering the object you chose. Your thumb should appear somewhat translucent, and should be covering the object.

3) Choose an eye. Close it.

Your thumb will do one of two things: 1) It will turn "solid" looking, and will remain covering the object. 2) It will turn "solid" looking, but will appear to move slightly to the right or left of the object.

If you close your eye and the thumb appears to stay in place, then the eye that is open is your dominant eye. If you close your eye and the thumb appears to move, then the eye that is closed is your dominant eye.

4) Repeat, closing the other eye.

Your thumb will do one of the two things above. The results will be the same. If neither eye appears dominant, then you may have uncorrected visual problems.

To determine ear dominance: Whichever ear you put the phone up to is most likely your dominant ear. That failing, whichever way you turn your head when listening to someone carefully. This is the least reliable one to test for...

To determine foot dominance: Whichever foot you normally put the most weight on when standing in a relaxed state. If you have been brought up in a military type setting, and stand with your weight equally balanced, then whichever foot you would normally kick a football (soccer ball for us Americans) with."

- http://www.addforums.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-11609.html

I tested myself, and found out I'm right-handed (I write with my right hand, though I can write with my left and cross my left leg over my right), right-legged (though I prefer to balance on my left when I do Taekwondo), can't have a dominant eye because I've got shortsightedness in one and longsightedness in the other and both have astigmatism, left-eared, and can't tell the difference between right and left of most things and myself. 

I fail.

Trailer be random.

My to-do list (before I completely forget):

- Find the source of that fishy smell that's stinking up my room.

- Study for Music test 2 (and pass with colourful aeroplanes. Last time I didn't do so well because I studied the wrong thing.).

- Finish off To Kill A Mockingbird (a surprisingly good book. It's not so boring after all, but I've got no time to read it). 

- Read Nat Geo.

- Go to the Jurong East library to do Bio pamphlet on gonorrhoea. 

- Play Wii.

- Watch How I Met Your Mother with Ivanka, Chang Yoon, Insan and Wardah again.

- Teach Wardah more chords and chord transition.

- Learn how to play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

- Study some things for school so I won't feel like I'm wasting my life away.

- Finish off all my homework before Monday (if possible). 

- Clear up the stack of books and paper that's been hogging my table for days.

- Finish the English "task" on elaborating emotions (or somethin' like 'at). New English teacher says he be "lanja"-ing the top few to Swensen's ice cream. I like Swensen's. It be gooood.

Since we had no Chemistry today, the rest of the class disappeared (apparently to the art room to do some work for Art. Finally, they do work), leaving me to read my book. Then Cyrus came and we started talking about LGBT*, leaving Zhen Jie slightly perplexed. Overall, good conversation.

Maths presentation wasn't very awesome, because some parts confused me and some parts amused me and some parts were just plain weird. I also learned that people from the Gavel club should not be allowed to do public speaking because their manner of speech is just too great for us people. 

All righty, I'm going off now. 

Adieu.

*Some things best left unknown. But if curiosity is bane of your life, like it is mine, you can Google it if you like.