Superman: Goody two-shoes idiot loser?

I think Spiderman is gay. Like Superman (what did Frank Iero say about him again? "Come on, he's such a goody two-shoes idiot..*thinks for a while*..loser."), and Batman. I think Batman sometimes disguises himself as Batwoman and goes on dates with Robin.
Isn't that awesome?

You should check out what How It Should Have Ended did to LOTR. 

Speaking of gay people, Danny Noriega cried during the elimination. And so did David Archuletta. Aaww.

I managed to get the chords right for Vertical Horizon's Everything You Want.

What I don't like is that you have to tune half-step down. It's awfully troublesome. At least it sounds good. XD

And now my fingers hurt. I have so much to practice. Argh. 

I'm doing a short post today. Need to wake up extra early tomorrow so I can be out there waiting for that bus in the dark. At six in the morning. Still dark. At six. In the morning. When it's dark out. Dark. Still. At six. A.m.

Pakcik, come back!

*wedding bells chime in distance*

Ahem.

*Starts awful rendition of.....what's the name for the song that goes "Here comes the bride, all dressed in white"?*

Anyway, here's the bride being carried by the groom all dressed in red.

I bet he's hiding all that strain under a mask on his face. Personally, I liked Lillian's wedding better.

At least a limo came. I do not want to know what they did in there.

Oh, and those are tree trunks in the background, in case you're wondering.

BM was fun. Cikgu Ramlah gave us these coupons for redeeming dictionaries for a much cheaper price, and I think Khallaq made some comment about not needing one, which prompted her to make constant references to the use of dictionaries. He got embarrassed. We laughed.

Short sentences have bigger impact.

We officially have all our marks back today. Our History teacher just had to go and "explain to us about" the First World War before giving our papers back. And she miscounted my marks, too. Let's just say I'm happy with 'em.

Then we just had to go and compare averages. My sucky BM marks. *pouts momentarily* 

The school National Day celebration. Was it really necessary?

There was an impressive speech, emo sajak-ing and another terrible (in my opinion) audio visual presentation. They should stop showing those.

I still have the lyrics for those patriotic songs we were made to sing. It was awfully amusing. So was the aerobic/hidden-joget session. I guess it wasn't that bad after all.

Just when we were enjoying ourselves, the worse came. Our bus driver, dear old pakcik, told us this morning to look out for a new bus; he had been transferred to Sayyidina Hasan.

So we searched for a KG4932 in the parking lot. And...we saw it. It was crappy. And hot inside.

I'm not racist or anything, but that guy up in front next to the driver was annoying. A completely, utterly, absolutely infuriating man.

Maybe it was a bad first impression, but I don't think I'll like this new bus. The guy told us to be up and waiting for the bus at six in the morning. Which is, the time I usually put on my uniform with eyes that keep wanting to close and when it's still dark out.

It doesn't take an hour to get to school from our houses, you know.

URGH.

Get some ice...then??

My big speakers are down. Cables are all not connecting well. Must get it to a doctor, or suffer Maroon 5's awesome bass without my subwoofer going "boom boom...boom".

Or was it because my brother brilliantly hid a Payday dice in there so long ago?

Either way, this sucks. I was really hoping to rattle the windows downstairs with my "boom boom"s like I always do when I feel like gettin' the whole house into da beat.

I finally handed in my PE notebook today. I thought Neko and I were in for it, you know. I brought it to school yesterday but forgot to give it to our teacher, the one who told us on Monday, "Kalau inda, fail ah kamu."

My Science marks were....GAY. I got into a big mess 'cause I had scribbled assorted 'comments' like "this is gay. paedophilic, homosexual, and transexual. As gay as James Brooke and as paedophilic as Barney," on one particular question and then found out we had to give it back. 

Maths was boring, as usual.

Geo, we went to the library, and did stuff, such as learn Chinese, look at naked people in art books, copy the world map from the Geo textbook for no reason, play Bingo, read books on "Kewafatan Nabi Musa a.s. dan Nabi Harun a.s.", draw funny pictures, then photocopy them, and all that stuff you do in a school library.

English, we watched a new movie, "Duma". Duma was adorable as a cub. And I learnt that Ms Anne has this awful habit of pausing at extremely something-big's-gonna-happen-and-we-know-it moments and telling us the time's up, leaving us on tenterhooks.

She'd do good writing a horror movie. All that suspense and those cliffhangers.

Someone twisted her knee during training just now. It was...panicky. Then sa bum nim gave us this twenty minute lecture on what to do if you find yourself injured in some way.

Step 1 - Relax. Don't make your injury worse.

Step 2 - Lie down motionless for the first five minutes.

Step 3 - Get some ice, make yourself a cocktail and enjoy.

Step 4 - Get more ice, place it in a bag, and compress the ice pack onto your injury.

Step 5 - Wait for a while until numb. Then test out your damaged joint.

Step 6 - If still painful after three days, see a doctor.

Step 7 - Unless really painful, see a doctor immediately.

See? I remembered that. Except I think I'd replace the cocktail with some orange juice instead.

Cikgu Haiseh gets kidnapped by ET?

Today we gave Chinese lessons during IRK. Well, not we. My Mandarin is terrible. 

Syaz and Qilah were asking Stephanie how to write numbers in Chinese and say them. So she wrote one to ten in Chinese on a piece of paper, and they copied it. Aimma came along, grabbed a chair, glanced at our scribbled-on paper with Chinese words on it, and said, "Tambah jawi eh." 

And she did. Then they started debating on how to write jawi numerals while Stephanie and I told them how to write Chinese. Our IRK teacher didn't even mind when we were making such a racket. Then Bil mentioned "noise pollution." Haha. 

I like IRK now.

Before I forget, congrats to Sheng. He passed his IRK for the first time, ever. I wonder if it was 'cause Syahirah and I told him we'd give him a dollar if he didn't fail... XD Bribery.

You see this lady over 'ere? Her name's Trista or something, and my Lexy-boy likes her.

She's moved in with a high salary and good job, but I feel like she isn't good enough for him, appearance-wise. 

So...I got her to a mirror.

You see how I spoil my sims? 

This is evidence you can use to prove I am indeed a sad, sad person.

                                                     

...At least I approve of wedding pictures taken with this look. All I need now are better clothes...

 

Oh, and remember my quest to buy doughnuts from Fun Donut? I went this evening. And I met a queue. A long one. 

During a twenty minute plus wait, my brother was continuously molested by little girls and I met Nazirul, whose sister also couldn't resist touching my brother.

The wait was kinda worth it. 

I will not advertise. Will not. But they are nice and soft. 

Man, the more I type, the more I have to say. Before I bore you to death, I want to ask...

Why does everyone find David Archuleta's voice and smile irresistible?

Nacho-flavoured purple slime.

I'm envious.

My cousin went to Singapore to get a Macbook. There was a promotion, and he got a free RAM upgrade to 2GB, a $100 voucher and tax back. So kalok! And as if it wasn't enough, he got himself a new phone. XD

I rugi.

The Science test sucked. I hantam-ed almost everything and I hope I end up as lucky as my cousin.

Still, TT1 is over for 3R. I think the only time we'd celebrate the end of an exam this year would be the end of PMB. 

Cikgu Haiseh gave us a really short lecture today on...something....can't remember. Hold on, need time to think. I wasn't really listening until she mentioned laptops and guitars. So, she can't ban them after all. Yes!

"Notebook dan laptop boleh dibawa, sama dengan gitar ah. *skipped out here. Something on noise disturbing other people?* Tapi, tapi(repeated for emphasis) kalau hilang, jangan complain arah cikgu ah."

I see she's taken up our new principal's habit of speaking in MIB. Melayu Inggeris Bercampur. I think it's pretty neat. Oh, wait. She took up speaking Malay with itty bits of English in it ages ago. Never mind then.

On the topic of noise pollution, there was this teacher who walked into class 'cause 'cher Yati wasn't here to teach us Maths (she came later, much to my chagrin) and told us we could do whatever we wanted, on one condition: we had to be quiet as mice. Or quieter. Like...a television on mute?

Anyway, he went into some animated lecture on noise pollution and how it stressed people (or him) up and couldn't relax and et cetera et cetera with dramatic hand gestures and funny sounds coming out of his mouth to highlight his opinion. I raised my eyebrows so high, they went through our holey ceiling. What made it worse was his Indian accent. I get your point, dude, but please. Just...please.

Then during break time, when I thought I could get away from all that blabber on orders of symmetry, the guys had to go and rewrite songs to include my name in them. It was so wrong.

Also, I had to help Fazrul choose a topic for his Science thing. My not-so-accurate recollection..?

Fazrul: Yawen, help me. I need to choose a topic for this Science thing...! *hands me teeny piece of paper with Science topics concerning light energy*

Me: Fazrul, dude, come on. Just pick one. How hard can it be? You're the monkey boy, monitor, emperor. *pats him on back*

Neko: 'Bang, she's right. *pats him on back as well*

Fazrul: Come on, help me!

Neko: Hey, how come you listen to her ah?

Me: I'm his regent.

Fazrul: Yeah, she's my regent. Seriously, I've got a meeting in five minutes! *consults his watch*

Me: Good for you. *takes on serious business tone* You should do this, or this, no, this is easier. How about that? That looks fun.

Fazrul: Okay, I'll do that.

Neko: What? So fast? 

Ps. Today, I told some MPs, "Look, I HAVE socks, all right??"

Vitreous Humour.

Oh man oh man oh man oh man! Three weeks till March the sixteenth! Hahaha.

I hope it kicks off just like last year, with Kimi winning.

It's just not fair, yo. Some people are already celebrating the end of TT1. And I've still got one more paper to go. My classmates are kinda blaming me for choosing tomorrow for our paper, but I know they'll find it in their hearts (I hope) to forgive me. Long story short, I did not want to have the tests like this: IRK on Tuesday, Science on Wednesday, History on Thursday. Hence I moved it to Monday. I need those three days to study.

Science ain't that hard, except for the bits where you gotta memorise certain laws and words. I'm completely into Vitreous Humour. Why? 'Cause it's funny. Humour, get it? Humour? *sorry for being so lame*

Now I remember what I wanted to write about yesterday. I was going to cast various aspersions upon the BB (that's the Borneo Bulletin), but I forgot. 

My uncle came back from Temburong yesterday and told us his school wasn't flooded. The BB said it did. 

Not only does its news lag a lot, there are lots of mistakes in them in addition to those concerning grammar and typos. Like, "four babies wereb born yesterday". That's not exactly professional, is it? And in today's paper, they said, "ok". 

What's wrong with "ok", you might be wondering? Never write it for English class. It's either OK or okay. But not "ok". They should know stuff like this.

So why do I read it in the first place? It's the least suckish. I should start subscribing to the Media Permata to improve my BM though.

*sudden change of topic due to my lack of attention span*

I'm a TS2 addict. Custom content rocks. I still wonder how I could have lived before it. I can't download onto this computer though. Haven't installed my game yet. It's a decision that's pending at the moment. The graphics on my eMac are choppy, but I don't want to spam this computer with all the stuff I download. 

Due to certain inconvenience's today, I was dragged to the Jungle Gym 'cause my brother wanted to play there. It's a terrible place. Like some torture dungeon, with children screaming and yelling at each other, throwing balls around, falling and crying. 

I only wish the place was bigger and nobody was there. I miss being seven.

By the way, I tried a hand at Fun Doughnuts this morning. A twenty-metre queue put me off straight away. Will persevere and keep you updated on my quest to taste aforementioned doughnuts.

Brunei's 24th National Day.

Fratini's half price offer isn't good for my stomach, that's for sure.

I'm stuffed.

I managed to catch a few bits of our N'day celebration this morning. The dancing was good, but I seem to remember last year's being more...eventful. More "corak"s. Or maybe I missed out? Hmm.

I was about to click on that little "The Sims 2 Pets" icon when my mum burst in, reminding me to study. "Yes mum," I replied obediently. I turned to my Science book.

My Science studying... I ended up scribbling all sorts of nonsense onto a piece of paper, such as "I am a lunatic. Rambo is a fat lunatic! *insert stick picture of fat Rambo and a regular stick man me with the caption 'How a camera works: taking pictures of me killing overweight Rambo'*".

After realising I wasn't going anywhere with labeling the Vitreous Humour I drew with lots of "Hahahahahahaha"s, I simmed. It wasn't very productive, but I kinda went crazy and bought Keith a drum set, bass and guitar, then spent majority of the household's simoleons on building a crappy stage complete with neon lights. After that I moved Lex out and spent more simoleons on a lot. The family's back to being poor. Sigh.

I could open up the cheat box and type in motherlode, but it isn't worth it.

I'm listening to Nickelback right now. I like Chad Kroeger's voice. My dad has dubbed him "simple chord man". They do use kinda easy chords sometimes... And their songs sound alike. But a quote from Mike Kroeger, "When you have a distinct style, you run the risk of sounding similar."

By the way,

Happy 24th National Day to Brunei and all Bruneians out there. 

Tunas Bangsa.

Still no time for sims...

After being called a "pig" by my cousin over the phone for still being in bed by half-past nine in the morning, I finally hauled my butt off my extremely comfortable mattress. 

The Mall at ten thirty? Finding a parking space was a complete breeze. The only time I can remember being there earlier was when Neko and I had broken in through an unlocked window on the third floor due to the complete lack of security. No, just kidding. It was when the school had so brilliantly convinced us to do our thing there for Mother's Day. Pfft. I still cannot forgive that lousy sound system. 

Grocery shopping... Pretty much took up the rest of the morning due to the pace women shop at: very slowly.

The first fifteen minutes were okay. Until I had to accompany my aunt to the meat section. I faced the other way while she placed bag of chicken into a trolley I was pushing for her. 

I shook my head in mere disgust. The audible "thud-hack-thud-dragknifeacross" rhythm of cleavers hitting chopping boards mingled with that of the elevator music that played quietly from unseen speakers. I heard the sound of plastic bags crumpling as the butchers shoved chunks of cow and chicken into them. I smelt the pungent odour of severed fish wafting from the aisle behind me. I concentrated harder on the Fuji apples I was staring at. Still, I feel appalled. 

Maybe it is that I do not have the stomach to handle it. I feel like a complete sissy next to those ordinary people who can stand there and stare at dead animals get sliced into their desired forms.

Don't get me wrong. Meat is good to eat. Cooked, that is. One thing's for sure, I don't eat sushi.

We then made our way to Swensen's, where I stuffed my face with fish and chips. Their new menu? Looks better and less worn and torn. I think it was an improvement overall, but I hadn't been there in ages, ever since I heard that kid say "IloveSwensen'sIloveSwensen'sIloveSwensen'sIloveSwensen's..." over and over again into a microphone last year. Kids parties? Just don't throw 'em.

Kwang jam nim's stick returned a week after she did. And it grew at least three times in diameter, making it a heavy weapon, nonetheless, scary.

Oh, and I got my commands right today. There was a brown belt kid who insulted me though. 

"Majal eh, one two one two saja. Mana tree nya?"

He couldn't say three right. A lot of people don't say the "th" in three. Anyway, I refrained from pushing both him and Hadi out of a window. I took great pleasure in proving Hadi wrong in his pattern 7. 

Though it was pretty embarrassing when *this girl of whom I don't know her name, but we were assigned to teach pattern 7* and I forgot our steps. Kwang jam nim exiled us and we went upstairs, with the threat, "Kalau twenty minutes masih inda bagus, *insert gesture with stick here on my ass*". 

It passed the half-hour mark and nobody was sent up to call us back down.

Since nobody really listened to what I was saying and my partner wasn't helping, I gave up. The six of us who got sent up to the Aikido area spent the rest of the afternoon lazing about and taking advantage of the Aikido mats by doing cartwheels and various self-injuring stunts.

The lucky lot are going for a sparring competition next week. On the 29th of February and 2nd of March. I'm not "fifteen and above", so yeah. 

I don't have to buy all the equipment and a mouth guard ("unless you want to share," said sa bum nim on Wednesday. "And don't buy those with fangs, k?").

I'd like a pair of fangs. 

Chap Goh Meh.

It's official. Faiza and I are addicted to ping-pong.

I'm trying to decide whether to type about yesterday first, or today. Oh well, we all know yesterday happened first. Chronological order, people.

I had a major "argument" with Neko yesterday. As Maz was telling the rest of the gang this morning. I have this feeling everyone in the canteen heard us yell at each other. I won't go into too much detail, but it concerned the competition choir and stuff. She met Mr Meer today and told him she wasn't joining due to several reasons I cannot disclose in here blog post. And guess what? He was okay with it. See? He can be reasonable sometimes.

Stress, man. Stress. Also, I broke my previous record. Surviving 19 hours on a cup of milo, water and a few sunflower seeds. My mum will so kill me if she knew. Note: I am not anorexic.

Then last night, Sarah joined our training. Kwang jang nim's four-year old. CUTE! All the little boys were surrounding her and pinching her cheeks. Haha. Yes boys, we know she's pretty. Half-Korean half-Malay.

After training (where everyone was distracted by Izzah's niece aka Sarah, even sa bum nim), I crammed the remaining pages of History into my head. I crammed in the bus too. Last-minute studying isn't healthy, you know. 

So the test? It was...meh. 

One more to go. Science. 

We got our cross-country circulars today. I still don't know what house I'm in, Hulubalang or Laksamana. Syaz got back in Pahlawan (her name was on the list) but Neko's in Panglima this year. Severe confusion I am experiencing.

Now back to ping-pong. Like cat burglars in training, we climbed in through the window as somebody had lost the keys to the doors. Into where? Some place in the Asrama Puteri, with a mysterious white stain on its greenish carpet and where we noticed a monitor lizard outside in the grass. It was awesome. 

Wani was depressed during break. Seems like this other Wani in her class is getting better marks than she is (class reshuffle, remember?) and she can't cope with losing. That's life. You don't try, you don't get. If you still don't get, try harder. 

Ten ways to improve your grades. (since people keep asking me)

1. Don't think you can study everything and remember everything a day before the exam. (like I do)

2. Don't insult your teachers behind their backs (like I sometimes do). It'll come back to you.

3. Don't fall asleep in class (like I do). It'll help to remember a few things your teacher conveniently mentioned when you're facing one of those questions whose answers aren't in the books.

4. Do finish your homework on time. It's extremely annoying when you want to last-minute study and make use of all the time you have left, and then realise you have a pile of Geo homework to do.

5. Suck up to your teacher. (This is an extremely disgusting and sad thing to do. On second thoughts, don't do it. Some people do, though).

6. Bribe your teacher. (Now this is more like me, but I got no money to spare and there's no way I'm wasting my cash on them.)

7. Drug your teacher, steal the test papers and "correct" your mistakes. (You know I'm joking, right?)

8. Kidnap the teacher who's setting the paper.

9. "Accidentally" recycle your papers by mistake. (It's for a good cause, right?)

10. Set your teacher's desk on fire. (Whoops, dropped the match. Sorry 'cher. I didn't know the Labo Gas I was trying to light was in the Lab, and not in the staffroom.)

Small print: This may not work. Should you,under any circumstance, feel the need to obtain high marks, the traditional way of advanced studying is always most recommended. Should you, under any circumstance, feel the need to sue me for my ridiculous ramblings, please, call my lawyer at 2226111. Should you, under any circumstance, realise that I just gave you Pizza Hut's number, please, don't sue me. 

Good luck.

Somehow.

Stepping forward to the teacher's table to claim a half-mark she had left out on my test paper took me a whole lotta guts.

"Urm, cher?"

"Hold on," she says. "Where's my red pen?" She rummages her pencil case and looks under our Spongebob decorated class register. Successfully finding her pen, she turns to look at who had been addressing her.

"Where's my teh tarik? I was waiting for you."

"Urh...."I faltered. So I went back and couldn't find her. Maybe I was blind. Who knows? At least I didn't dump her teh tarik all over her table. XD

Then came our IRK test. It was...okay? I think I had my answers right...but I could be very wrong. This leaves us with two more tests: History and Science. My History essays don't fare that well. I'm not looking forward to it, considering I haven't studied yet, and the test is on Thursday. 

After our IRK, came an hour of English before we could go home and goof off. More turtles. It was hard to resist writing, "the turtles migrated 3000 km to have ***". Well, it's Science, isn't it? Neko told me in the bus just now that she had just realised what 'mating' meant.

Nazirul was all emo when we got to the bus. Apparently his composition had scored a 12/20. The composition where his mum "cutely put him to sleep". I seriously don't see how one's mum can be cute that way. *shudders*

He should stop watching all that anime. Also, he told us his English teacher had banned the words 'happy' and 'sad', like my English teacher had banned "nice". Nice.

Maz and I made up a new geo formula:

            Pass rate-fail rate=natural disaster

            Fail rate-pass rate=alien invasion

Somehow.

Somethin's fishy...

I have spent the last four hours cramming IRK. The bad news is, I can't remember a thing right now.

You didn't just catch me slacking. I'm...uh....taking a break. Yeah. Taking a break. Studying too much can have dire consequences, you know. Like...urh...um...your eyes getting strained? Brain overload? Hm...

I sounded like this this morning when I was asking for notes from my BM teacher. (P.s. My marks sucked like hell. Total total crap.) It's a known fact that my Malay sucks. Seriously. 

My language use (I wish I could pie chart this, but I have had enough of Maths for today):

   English - 50%

   Hokkien - 49%

   BM - 0.5%

   Mandarin and miscellaneous - 0.49%

   Weird alien sign language unknown to yourself (and probably me too) - 0.01%

Sometime during break, Myra asked me a question.

"Yawen, is the Maths test hard?"

"Well," I say. "I got ***."

"You what?" She gives me a disbelieving look. "I hate you."

"So...It's not that hard, I guess."

Must escape the wrath of Myra. And the wrath of my Geography teacher. You see, there's this teh tarik incident that happened last Thursday... Well, let's just say she won't be too happy the next time she sees me. And it's not only going to be me who's dreading her visit to our class. We predict our Geo test results will be out by then, so...we're all dead meat.

One person who I can guarantee is satisfied with their Maths marks is Neko. 80%. She has never passed an official Maths test before, for the record. I'm so proud. 

Let's see... What other interesting thing happened today (as not to bore you and for the prevention of people falling asleep while reading this)?

Extra Commerce class. We moved next door to 3U 'cause they got da aircon, yo. But it wasn't switched on when we migrated, so the guys had to kick up a huge fuss over who had to go and poke the air conditioner with a broomstick like we used to do in Form One and got lectured for it.

Then 'cher Sofy walked in with the remote. "Beep!" it went. Ah...bliss.

During lunch, Faiza got tricked by a Koi. 

"Hey, guys, ikan tu mati kah?" pointing to an eerily motionless fish.

Then after worrying for a few minutes, she turned to walk away.

"Uh...Faiza? The fish just moved."

"Ah? I just got tricked by a fish."

One last thing, the girls from 3T have serious issues. And I'm not kidding you.

Sapphire.

The gang came over just now for CNY. 

What can I say? They were late (except Faiza and Neko who lives next door). Then the phone calls came. 

"Yawen, mana rumah mu ani kan?"

"What does your house look like?"

"Sasat ku eyh!"

So yeah. Pretty much everyone was late. The only person who didn't get lost was Wani. The

 reason why she was late: "I can't decide what shirt to wear."

Now it's my turn to say, "sasat ku tadi ah!!"

The guys managed to "menceroboh rumah si Neko". We watched Alvin and the Chipmunks. CUTE! Kawaii! Dave acts like he can't act, but man, the singing chipmunks were cute.

I am utterly devastated. My Sapphire died today. 

Sapphire

2002-17/2/2008

I want to copyright this picture. So you saw it here first, k? 

Another day, another post.

Yesterday... All my troubles seemed so far away...

XD

No, I was just trying to think of a sentence that concerned "yesterday". Went to some CNY party, and spent almost an hour refusing to go to some badminton outing Jan invited me to. No! I need time for myself, you know. If I went, I'd reach home around this time, exhausted and with Purchases and Sales Journals waiting for me. 

Enough about yesterday. Excuses saja... I was busy, so couldn't blog. Was woken up my mum, wanted to sleep more so I told her I was going to stay at home to do my turtle poster. Leaving one of my turtles uncoloured, I left for training. When I came back fully exhausted and bored (I'm serious here, too many people), then went to said CNY party. Came back after ten post meridien (p.m. to you folks out there) and realised I hadn't completed my poster yet. 

I then grabbed my box of colour pens and started scribbling whatever nonsense that came into my head. It came out as "Turtle eggs... Don't freaking eat them. Don't be stupid."

No wait, that wasn't right, was it? I was glad I had written it on a different piece of paper.

By some miracle I managed to finish it and pass it up this morning.

Highlights of the day:

- 'Cher Sofy announced that somehow, we have another mix-up and we have to go back to the houses we accidentally got put in for this year only then return to our original houses the following year as the name lists had already been made official and she (along with the other careless teachers) wanted to avoid conflict and so on. Confused yet? I definitely was. I want to be in Hulu and that's final.

- Then she gave out our Commerce papers. Somehow five of us managed to score full marks. I haven't the slightest idea of how that happened. The lucky people? Sil Suan, Stephanie, Fazrul, Razi (how?) and yours truly. Baoxin got a 99.5%.

- My English marks were total crap and my summary was gay.

- Wani almost killed me by jumping on me and attempting to hug (a struggling) me 'cause she got 99.5 for her Commerce too. I told Maz that if she didn't get a hundred, she could "kill Fazrul brabis-abisnya". Okay, tampar only. She got a 99.5 too.

- We watched Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' during Science. I found it very inspirational. 

I arrived early at the lab, being the punctual student I am (no, I was just lazy to go up to class again, so I left my things at the lab first) to find our teacher playing with the speed of the documentary. Al Gore in chipmunk version? Cute. An Inconvenient Cuteness. I've noticed that if people think you're cute, they never take you seriously.

Global warming is a serious issue here. I just wanna make Earth last a bit longer. So that one day if I have children, and if my children have children, they'd get to see how beautiful the Earth can really be. Like it is right now and won't be in the future.

Like right now, we're experiencing climate change, one of the effects of global warming. 

If this were to get colder (it's ten degrees colder than average right now), we'd all freeze to death. Hence, my email address. Oops, went off topic there. I keep doing this, when people are talking to me. Then I go, "Sorry, I wasn't listening. What did you say?"

I can't believe I'm saying this, but go onto YouTube and watch 30 Seconds To Mars new video, A Beautiful Lie. It's all about the Arctic melting and disappearing. 

Shut up, Stel. I still back MCR here.

- Syahirah and I met Cikgu Ramlah during break.

"Cikgu, aku pass kah? Brapa ku dapat, cikgu?"

"Syahirah, kau pass... 52."

"Banar kah, cikgu?" She turns to me. "My dad is going to kill me!!"

"Cikgu, si Yawen dapat apa?"

"Pass kali." *Here I did some little celebration. I passed!!! Woo yeah!*

"MIB?"

"MIB? Banyak fail tu. Yang paling tinggi, si Yawen. Paling randah... 2/100."

Syahirah then proceeded to yell at me for actually bothering to read my MIB for once. Heh. Peace, all!

Three more tests to go...

I'm afraid... Very afraid.... of failing my BM.

On with the brighter aspects of life. I think it was worth it skipping American Idol last night to do some last minute Math. About the test, let's just say I'm not afraid of facing 'cher Yati's stern "kalau kamu fail, awas ah" threat. 'Cause I think I won't.

I wish I had pictures of today's school CNY celebration. But since I didn't bring my camera, I'd have to let you guys in on it the old-fashioned way. Unless, of course, you were there yourself, but not from my perspective.......I think.

"To all students, please do not sit on the second and third floors. Only the first floor is allowed."

Maz and I made jokes on how we could all sit on the roof or stand on the second and third floors (not sit, right?) as we made our way down to the canteen area with the gang, which was already half-full. Well, we were late, so I wasn't blaming anyone. We chose to sit on the driest bench available, with a side view of the stage and behind lots and lots of other people. It wasn't an advantage that our roof leaked whenever it rained. 

Maz passed me a bag containing burgers. I politely declined. Wani, on the other hand, was munching away enthusiastically on hers. A sudden screeching of a microphone told us the show had started.

Our MCs started off by greeting the audience, as usual. Too bad we couldn't hear a thing. To me, it sounded like, "Goodddd... m-----nggggggggg......--ttttte-cccchhhrssssss.......n-allllllll..........st----nts....." 

Too much echo. Terrible sound quality. I couldn't decide what the problem was, so I settled for "problematic microphones and overall sound system".

A traditional Chinese dance was the first performance (typical one with fans and ribbons). I had a feeling all my classmates recognised this song; it was the song we heard from outside the lab while we hung little bags of soil wrapped in muslin (which looked an awful lot like tea bags...) in test tubes of carbon indicator yesterday. I turned to Maz (most convenient; she was sitting right next to me) and gave her a "okay, what was that about?" look when the music burst out loudly and then faded away like the final breath of a dying person. The dancers had to start again, and got through it this time. We clapped.

"Whale exhibition on the roof," Maz told me when the speakers started emitting sounds similar to those of whales. "Karang cikgu Haiseh atu ke rooftop bah. 'Camana tu?"

After the poor singer whose voice I could hear but couldn't make out what she was singing left the stage, it was the teachers' turn to sing.

It was....entertaining. I saw Nadia's mum, the only Chinese teacher in tudung. Maz recgonised her teacher in the crowd. She threw her burger at him, yelling, "''Cher! You rock!!!" He then span around wildly, trying to spot who threw a half-eaten piece of junk food at him. But to no avail. Maz was too good for him. He then proceeded to wipe tomato sauce stains off his shirt and sing a CNY song at the same time.

All right, so I lied. She wanted to, but she'd already eaten her burger, and it wouldn't have been a good idea anyway. So...yeah.

It was fun to see teachers sing and do stuff like that. It reminds me that teachers are humans too, and get embarrassed of the same things we do. Like being forced to sing on stage. XD

Then the rest of the time was filled up with a traditional musical instrument performance by Melissa and Olivia (I just happen to know their names) and a lion dance. 'Twas cool.

The lion dance. The screaming of schoolgirls broke me from my concentration. Concentration of resisting the temptation to throw stuff at the guys behind me on the first floor and tell them to shut the hell up.

Even Cikgu Haiseh touched the lion (no, not that way, if that's what you're thinking here) and smiled.

After the four lions made an exit, the teachers were treated to lunch. I exhaled deeply. We students have stomachs too, you know. Actually, I was just kidding. It would take an awful lot of money to feed us all. And besides, the organisers (the Chinese teachers) had done a good job in putting together an hour-long performance in the span of two weeks and paying for the lion dance already.

Since they knew chaos would ensue if we were left alone without teacher supervision, the teachers assigned the MCs to quiz us on Chinese New Year and give out angpaus to the right-answerers.

The rest of us got sweets. 

Thanks for all the effort put in for us to celebrate CNY at school. Even if it wasn't as good (lion dance was siuk though).

Thanks.

We're all wack.

Remember I said I was gonna post pics?

This blue fella' here is the definition of the evil eye. Well, if you don't count my mum's diabolical stare...

This was when my cousin and I had nothing do but watch his brother play chess with our other cousin, Cindy.

Her poor chess pieces got locked up. See? This is what happens to beaten chess pieces. Bet'cha didn't know that.

Then we made up this stupid scene. The white had killed a blue knight piece. They're all sakai-ing over it in this picture.

Then the blue knight at the back kills a pawn. Violence then ensues, causing an epic battle that may never be seen on the face of earth ever again.

Cindy lost. This is what "pwned" really means. Haha.

Soo....

The Geo test, it didn't happen. 

The MIB test, was a-okay.

The Commerce test, it was pretty simple.

The English test, it was urgh-y.

But yeah, I think I did okay overall today... I think. It doesn't hurt to have low expectations, you know. At least it was ten times better than yesterday.

Geo is tomorrow, and so is the Maths pretest. Failures get to stand in front of the class and be laughed at. Isn't that great?

'Cher Sofy said "What the hell" in class today. Apparently, she was scolding someone, was frustrated and said it to emphasize her anger.

Syahirah heard it, and so did Syaz. But I didn't. Must get my hearing checked. How could I have missed out on this historical moment? I almost always get to hear teachers swear. Like when our ex-science teacher said "crap" twice, and when a certain English teacher said the F word and assorted other expletives. 

But she did say it. Oh man, that's so cool. I think I'm beginning to like her. 

I want to sim, but I can't. I have to go and study information on the Aborigines and farming that's at least ten years old and completely outdated. 

Certain songs make me think of certain things. When I listen to Rockstar by Nickelback, I think of brooms. (This is because Neko and I were going to perform this song sometime last year. I was on duty, holding a broom and sweeping the floor when she started singing the words, "I'm through with standing in line...")

When I listen to U2's Electrical Storm, I think of mermaids. 

Quick, before my head explodes!

After what seemed like an eternity and a half, I have finally finished reading my Geo textbook, chapters 1 and 2 only and those few pages of MIB. I suck at MIB. I don't even know why I care anymore. Anyway, on with my story of eternal (and a half) suffering and hell. 

Spending all my Commerce revision time to study for a test that has a slight chance of happening just annoys me. I mean, we already have three tests confirmed tomorrow, and our Geo teacher had to go and say she'd surprise us. ARGH.

My BM test was one hour of pure hell. I'm going to fail it, because one, I didn't have half a clue what I was doing, two, my vocab sucked, three, I had too many words, four, my BM is terrible. 

And if that wasn't enough, both my knees hurt, and so does my right elbow, which I have bandaged up at the moment so I'm finding it a bit hard to type right now. I'm sorta immobilised, and I limp in a funny way. I hope this all clears up by tomorrow. If not, I'm in deep deep trouble. As deep as that trench in the Pacific Ocean of which I had forgotten its name, but I know it's close to the Philippines and Japan. 

I think people are stalking me. Hm. People like Tira, and Effie. *looks around in suspicion* Big big HMM....

J/K.

Oh and by the way, I'm going to fail my MIB, BM, Geo and etc. 

Also, I'm probably going through some mid-life crisis. 

List of things I want:

- More sleep.

- More time to study.

- To watch television.

- To play The Sims 2.

- To listen to Knockin' On Heaven's Door by Guns N' Roses over and over again.

- My Geo teacher to retire.

- To pass my BM.

- To relax.

- To not worry.

- To not be emo. Ever.

- The Geo test not to happen. And MIB, and IRK, and all the subjects I'm awful at.

I have to go now, to embark on an attempt to memorise the names you have to call the Sultan, the Royal family and all those important pee-pols when addressing them.

May post pictures some other time. When I'm less stressed. Now I bid you all, adieu.

Terrifying Tuesday..?

Today, Ms Anne walked into class, pulled out a marker pen and added "ENG" to our list of tests on the whiteboard.

You wanna know why her actions made us groan and then laugh at our ill fate? It was the third test on that very Tuesday. What made it worse was that our Geo teacher said she'd surprise us with her test. And we have Geo on Tuesdays. Thank God IRK is the following week, otherwise we'd all collapse of a full day of tests. 

Since I don't have the time to sit and type all sorts of things that come into my head today, here's a nice little story for you readers.

HOW THE CHINESE STAYED PUT IN ITALY

About a century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the Chinese had to leave Italy. Naturally there was a big uproar from the Chinese community. So the Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Chinese community. If the Chinese win, they could stay. If the Pope wins, the Chinese would leave.

The Chinese realized that they had no other choice. So they picked a middle-aged man named Ah Pek to represent them.

Ah Pek asked for one condition to be added to the debate. "To make it more interesting", he said, "neither side would be allowed to talk".

The Pope agreed. The day of the great debate came. Ah Pek and the Pope sat opposite each other for a full minute.

Then the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Ah Pek looked back at him and raised one finger. The Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head. Ah Pek pointed to the ground at where he sat. The Pope pulled out a loaf and a glass of wine. Ah Pek pull out an apple.

The Pope stood up and said: "I give up. This man is too good. The Chinese can stay."

An hour later, the cardinals were all around The Pope asking him, "What happened?"

The Pope said, "First I held up three fingers to represent the holy trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still one God common to both our religions."

"Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all around us." He responded by pointing to the ground and showing that God was also right here with us."

"I pulled out the wine and loaf to show that God absolves all sin. He showed me an apple to remind us of the original sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?"

Meanwhile, the Chinese community had crowded around Ah Pek. "What happened?" they asked.

"Well," said Ah Pek, "First he indicated to me that all Chinese had 3 days to get out of here. I replied to him f*@k off and not one of us was leaving."

"Then he pointed that this whole city would be cleared of Chinese. I showed him that we were staying right here."

"Yes, and then???" asked the crowd.

"I don't know," said Ah Pek, "He took out his lunch, and I took out mine!!!"

Awesome. Don't the Chinese rock? 

I love Wonderwall...

I'm sending photos via bluetooth right now. Or gigi biru. Whichever. My Mac won't detect my phone's thoughtfully supplied USB, so I have to go through this terribly tedious procedure every single time I want to transfer stuff.

Now, while I wait for my images to be "uploaded to Blogger", let me fill you in with my CNY '08 so far. It followed, of course, the eat get angpau eat get angpau pattern. I went to bed last night completely exhausted, but $770 richer. Heh. Man, it felt good.

This uploading is so lagging (Hah! Overused phrase here...). Maybe 'cause there are so many pics and the file's so big. (what can I say? Good quality bah...)

Let me talk some more. I managed to finish my Geo, apart from the (b)s on page 27... Which one are we supposed to skip? Both were awful questions anyway, so I skipped both. XD Screw the urgh-ish teacher. Oops sorry. I didn't mean to offend you, if you somehow get to read this. Oh well. The damage is done already. Let's be frank. You SUCK! 

People came to "pai nian" non-stop. Especially my neighbours. Apparently the whole neighbourhood thought it fit to come drop by the very same evening. I'm glad I had Nadhirah keep me company. Otherwise I think I would've gone crazy, what with all those kids (including my cousins) with itchy hands rummaging through my drawers, messing up the Rubik's Cubes my uncle so brilliantly solved, playing with my ping-pong stuff, pulling out my books from the shelves. Cute. No, seriously, cute.

I started the first day of CNY with a balancing fete. How much cereal was needed to balance a spoon on the edge of a bowl? I don't know. I didn't count.

My brother and cousin were forcibly dressed by their mothers to look adorable for the new year. Guess what? It worked. They were adorable, albeit slightly uncomfortable... That's Nathan on the left, my dad, and my brother. Nate's dad is in the background. 

Then Nate had to go and conveniently toss my red (with a yellow star. Vietnamese, yo) cap into the pond. It was worth it though. I had never heard him laugh so loudly before. It was so CUTE!

Then today, I went to my uncle's house for lunch. Since I don't eat pig (pork, whatever you call it), I had nothing to eat. Haha. But I managed to survive.

My cousins and I went crazy. While I watched, they (along with our niece [eldest cousin's daughter]) abused each other with handbags, pillows and fists. Chun Wee and his bros didn't go though. I wonder where he was. 

After I got home (leaving the rest of the family to gamble away their cash), my dad's friends and their families came by. I took their kids and we played outside. Biking, skateboarding, basketball, frisbee-ing, yeah. It was exercise. My stomach's inflating again. I want a six-pack. My flat flat stomach? It's gone. I miss it. 

Forget the pics. It's either Blogger or my espeed. Brunei internet. Tsk tsk tsk.

"Gong xi fa cai, ang pau gia lai..."

I'm sure every Chinese in Brunei knows that tonight's the dinner night. 

The CNY agenda almost never changes. Always the same all the time. On the first day, it's like, wake up, get dressed (try to look decent for the angpau givers), have breakfast, greet guests, eat, get angpaus, eat again, talk, have lunch, greet more visitors, get more angpaus, eat some more, etc etc.

Yeah, a lot of eating. This is so Chinese. Everyday eat a lot, grow fat, complain then eat again. We're such greedy people. Then for gambling, pattern is similar. Gamble a lot, lose money, complain then gamble again. Mm.

So this Geo teacher of mine had to go and give us ten pages of our beloved Geo workbooks to do as homework. Where had the caring-ness of teachers gone? I thought they were supposed to be considerate people? Chinese New Year, man! I need a life! 

Then the MIB peta minda (mind map!). Agh. You know, Cikgu Ramlah said if she didn't have twenty-four MIB books on her table on Tuesday, no test. So, I thought, why not just NOT do it? Saves time and energy. My MIB sucks anyway. 

Oh crap. My mum stuck her head through the study door and said, "Study ah..."

Mummy, please don't kill me. I'm blogging bah, improving my English bah. Cannot kan?

I need to go shower (and maybe try to do my homework?) before the dinner bell sounds. I don't want to turn up for the CNY dinner in my school baju kurong. No way. Though I am wearing a purple shirt tomorrow...

So... A BIG happy Chinese New Year~!

Ai... Similarity sign again.

Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Yo, I'll tell you what I want. What I really really want. 

I want more time to finish filling in those blanks in my Geo notes, that's what. 

Half hour and ten minutes later.....I'm back with a finished set of Geography notes. I wonder, what happens if you fill in the blanks with the wrong answers, nobody tells you they're wrong and then cram your wrong answers for your test? Hmm. It's a dangerous thing, these lines. For example:

Hawke's Bay is often called the ____________ of New Zealand.

I could completely ignore the textbook fill it in like this...

Hawke's Bay if often called the body of water that belongs to a species bird of New Zealand.

But that obviously wouldn't fit in the blank, so I have no choice but to write Fruit Bowl, as expected. 

So yeah. I wonder, can anyone actually read this? Hmm.... What a thought. I mean, what's the purpose of this anyway? I don't get it... Must be some hidden meaning. By the way, can anyone translate this? If you can, please call me at 2226111. Thank you.

What is this Webdings font anyway? It's kinda interesting.

TT1 in less than a week! CNY eve is tomorrow! Stephanie's birthday is today! Things are moving so fast. Wasn't time passing by quickly and unnoticed one of the signs of the coming of the end of the world? Now that's more interesting.

Two hours of Science class tomorrow. It's gotten a bit boring, ever since we left the topic of light (and playing around with those ray boxes and various lenses). 

Now imagine if they gave you this for your PMB English Oral:

The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick. 

I can't say it. My tongue gets all tied up (which is exactly the purpose of these tongue-twisters). There's a much simpler one though.

Moses supposes his toeses are roses,
but Moses supposes erroneously;
for nobody's toeses are poses of roses,
as Moses supposes his toeses to be.

Squeeeek!

I had my first taste of CNY today. Cookies. Mmm...

Uncontrollable eating, here I come! All those days of careful dietary habits are coming to an end. Man, I love CNY. 

It's the year of the rat. Then what's Mickey Mouse doing? It's rat, hello?? R-A-T rat. Rat and mouse are obviously, not the same. So there. But what's stopping the people from mistaking the adorable mus as it's less cute cousin, rattus?

I don't know, but I'm going all Latin here.

I spent all afternoon trying to get my "Jemputan Perkahwinan" done. No, I'm not getting married (bet I disappointed ya there), I was merely finishing my BM homework. After poking fun at the list of names on our genuine wedding invitations, Neko and I made up the funniest names for her fictional couple. 

Dengan hormat dan takzim persilakan....blah blah....majlis perkahwinan

Dayang Nur Hanafiah Binti Ahad

dengan

Awang Noor Hanafi Jumat Bin Sabtu

So many days... Haha. While I was at Neko's house, Maz messaged me to ask whether she could bring firecrackers to my house for CNY. 

"Why?" I asked." You want to burn down my house?"

Then Neko pulled out her phone and sent a message to Maz at exactly the same time as I did. She typed, "You want to burn down bro's house!?"

Maz's reply, "Hey, is Neko with you now?"

Then I turned to Neko. "Hey, 'dhirah, tell Maz you're not with me right now. Tell her you hacked into my phone or something."

And guess what? Maz took it all in. "Kasian jua si yawen," she said. Hahah. We're planning on telling her the truth tomorrow though. 

I got caught today during English class for saying the word "nice". I've made it a habit to say that word ever since Ms Anne banned it. It's kind of fun to piss her off. Nice.

Too many rules. It's a bit of a drastic change, from Mr Perry to Ms Anne. The days of free speech and not handing in homework on time have vanished. 

MB3T have got Ms Zaza this year. She's cool, but strict. Well, nobody's perfect. *sigh*

We did fartlek training in PE class today. Not surprisingly, everyone giggled. Fart. Haha. Those Swedes. Why did you have to invent this training system? Why? Translated,  fart means "speed" and lek means "play". So literally, it's to "play with speed". Cool, huh? 

My dictionary's back on, that's why I'm sounding all nerdy again. 

Since we had our electricity back less than a week ago (this calls for a small celebration *throws imaginary confetti around*), the fan behind where we (that's Syaz, Qilah, Stephanie and I) sit has started squeaking.

It sounds awfully dangerous. Like a slightly loose tooth swinging around in its socket. Except that this loose tooth can kill you if you so happen to be under it when it falls. 

It's not just the small squeak squeak, it's a big squeak-a chikka squueeaaka chikka. Though it does had this fun rhythm I can concentrate on when class gets too boring.

The Viking Trilogy.

One day somebody will figure out a way to simultaneously trim their fingernails, change the batteries of an electronic dictionary and type meaningless sentences on a computer.

I don't want to get caught with this little "masalah disiplin" during a spot check or anything, and I want to get this stuff finished so I have time to study later. I doubt it though.

It's the night I know as the "night-leaving-less-than-four-days-till-CNY-and-I-don't-know-what-to-wear" night. At least I've picked out something I can wear. I think. I hope.

*ten minutes later*

Well, the battery-changing's done. That sure took a while. Man, I'm so hopeless at these things. 

I visited The 11th Asian Cartoon exhibition this morning at the Brunei Museum. It was absolutely brilliant. I'm awfully proud of Brunei's Rahim/Rhyme (the guy who does the Borneo Bullseyes and Cuboi, in case ya didn't know). To me, just to be drawing cartoons as well as the top guys in Asia is simply amazing. I can't draw for peanuts, so yeah. 

My next favourite was Indonesia's cartoonist. I can't remember his name though. Nonetheless, his drawings sure were funny. 

I suggest you go visit before it closes on the fifth of February. It's a showcase of not only artistic talent, but also the ability to take current happenings and convey them into a single picture with both a message to spread to the people, and a sense of humour. I loves eet.

I believe all things happen for a reason; there is no such thing as an accident, even if it wasn't done on purpose. Sometimes you just have to accept it, and be optimistic about it. 

Though when being optimistic, I advise you not to be as "look-at-the-bright-side" as Phil of (not the future) A Series Of Unfortunate Events. On second thoughts...maybe it could come in handy once in a while. 

Some other people, on the other hand, tend to dislike optimists. These people are called pessimists and are completely jealous of the optimist's ability to hope for a brighter future. I like to drown out my pessimist side with lots and lots of water, even when I don't know how that helps.

Oh, and one other announcement before I go. I've finished reading my Viking book after weeks of toiling (not exactly, just didn't have free time). It was...the most well planned book ever. Kudos, Tim Severin. Long live the story of Thorgils Leifsson and the Elder Ways. 

I like BM, but I suck at it.

I'd like to be a dolphin. 'Cause they're smart, cute and have an EQ higher than mine.

A strange thing happened to me last night. I just didn't know what songs to listen to. I tried what I thought was everything, but I couldn't get it. I shuffled. MCR played. Then, I remembered how much I loved them.

I'm back to being a My Chem fan. Yes! I'm happy.

I've got English homework to do, but as usual, I'm slacking. When Ms Anne asked us what plants lived in the sea, I went, "Seaweed~~!!!" like someone on stimulants or sugar high. If people were to describe me in one word, they'd say: crazy.

Extra class on CNY eve... At least there's air conditioning in the lab. And it's not a terribly horrible subject. *cough geo cough* I hold the Horrible Science/History/Geo books in high esteem though. I love them. This is the kind of stuff that makes me go, "I wannnnnnnttt~!!!!"

I don't get why people use the similarity sign (~) for stretched out words. I use it anyway. But just to avoid confusion, I want to clear things up. "wannnnnnntt" is not similar to "!!!!". Thank you.

Maz told us during break that it was apparently one of  her birthdays today. But we all knew her only birthday was on the thirtieth of October, so "What's up with that?" I asked.

She then commenced to explain there are four of her. 

"Quads?" I inquired, trying to get what she was implying with "macam twins bah".

This made Faizah laugh. "Mama-nya pun lagging lahirkan ah."

I'm still confused. Zakie and I kept exchanging bewildered looks while shrugging. I made it even worse by coming up with a theory that she had been abducted by aliens and was cloned several times. 

One of the things that make me feel small and vulnerable is the existence of aliens. What if they're really out there? What if they come and blind people with their terrible "shocking pink-ness"? (Sorry, another of my stupid theories.) What if they conquer Earth? What if they can't decide whether to clone us, use us as guinea pigs, make peace with us, torture us, suck our brains out or just kill us? What if I stop asking questions? What if...???

"Love is the red the rose on your coffin door," -MCR

I woke up this morning and realised it's February already. 

Time flies. Faster than my alarm clock will drop if I throw it out of my window. I dislike it when it does that, but it does help ease the pain. Just felt like saying that. No pain here. I think.

Being the first of February (or should I say Ferb-ruary) means a lot of things have taken a few steps closer. Like F1, for instance, or PMB. Even closer, Topical Test 1... Even even closer, though, is Chinese New Year! Ka-ching ka-ching, people.

You want to know how my dad motivates me to study?

He looks at me and says, "You, on the other hand, will completely fail your exams, get kicked out of school, hang around, leech off your parents and end up picking up rubbish in fast food restaurants for the rest of your days while you watch everyone else thrive in life. And all your cousins will look at you and say, "Yawen? Is that you? What are you doing here?" And you'll be too embarrassed to admit you're a failure."

I'm not one to care a lot about achieving. I'm just...afraid not achieving what everyone else expects me to. It sucks to be me sometimes. I wish I had a less complicated life.

You know, a life where I don't have to depend on drugs, a life where I don't have to be plagued with strange ailments, a life where I can sleep through the night without waking up, a life without constantly making typos. That would be nice, for a change.

But I guess it would be boring if it were that simple. Maybe it's okay just the way it is now, huh?

I want to study. Yeah, so there, yeah, I said it. I want to study, but I can't. I can't concentrate. 

I want to practice my fourteen pages of musical notes, but it takes more than ten minutes to do a single round. 

My New Year's resolutions aren't going so well. 

I need more sleep.