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.