Filed under: memories, random, reflective | Tags: life, nanyang, memories
as of now, there’s supposed to be a 203′05 class gathering but i’m stuck at home, doing sat prep (or kind of, anyway). :( well that spurred me on to do some reminiscing of my own, and i went to read my super old blog on livejournal (not the dollified one). it seems to me that i’ve changed a blog at least once or twice a year, every year since my first blog.
reading my old blogs kinda give me the creeps; although i wrote them myself, i just can’t seem to shake the feeling that it’s someone else who has been authoring them. it’s as if a stranger has been describing the past few years of my life, yet it’s as if i have no recollection of what i have done back in the day. okay, maybe i do remember, but they seem so distant and fuzzy that i find it hard to believe that it’s me and not my doppelganger.
back then (3 years ago), i used to be into all these crazy jrock bands and artistes, and i was super anti-mainstream. i guess i was really rebellious then, so much so as to listen to music that i had to babelfish to understand, and hate pop music just for the sake of being against the system. i used to be really into this japanese visual-kei band called dir en grey, which has now progressed to being a semi-metal/screamo/rock band. don’t get me wrong, i don’t hate them now, but it’s just that it’s difficult to believe that a innocent fourteen year old girl would list a metal band as her favourite music. i guess i must have been pretty out of it. just now i youtubed dir en grey, and watched the music video of my then favourite song. it was called kodou and it included distorted guitars, a brother murdering a sister and emo-looking men with long, dyed fringes. my goodness, i wonder what happened to me!
back then i was also more humourous (as compared to now, which is more of a lame than funny), more quirky (ok i know that’s hard to imagine) and more honest. now it’s as though i have something to hide that i have to have another semi-private blog to put what’s really bothering me. and i don’t know why, seeing that not many people visit this wp anyway!
sigh, gosh time really flies. people who you were really close with now lead completely different lives and people who you didn’t really know now are your closest buddies. life is really unpredictable.
p.s. hope you guys have fun at the gathering!
p.p.s. yesterday we had a smashing good time at the beach celebrating pam’s seventeenth! check out her xanga for more photos/details cos i can’t find my handphone wire so no photos from me. :(
because when you’re faced with a laggy hotmail in your face, and then you’re stuck.
seriously though, i am really thinking of whether or not is should switch to gmail. 2 out of 3 times when i try to check hotmail, it either lags like a snail when i click on the mail, or just freezes completely. >:( i know the hotmail people recently changed the format for the email inbox, so maybe that’s why it isn’t as compatible with my computer now, but still! it’s like i know who sent me mail and what the title of the mail is but i can’t freaking open it!! it’s sooooo frustrating. GRRRR
sigh. i’m going out now. hope hotmail works when i return. and i hope this works too!
p.s. dude, you should stop avoiding us and answer our calls. you know who you are.
argh my sats are in a week and i haven’t started studying properly! like i know you’re going “sats need studying meh, you kiasu pig”, but then on the mock test i really got a damn low score. if i wanna study abroad then i really need to buck up! not to mention my dad just called me from shanghai yesterday, and he was in this place that sold electronic devices and he asked me if i wanted a touchscreen phone. and i excitedly went “YES PLEASE”. but he was like “i’m only giving it to you if you score 2000 and above on the sat test or i’ll just use it for myself :P” SHEESH, i knew there must’ve been a catch somewhere since my dad is like the ultimate stingy person, humph.
speaking of which, dad went to shanghai for some 50 year faculty anniversary of his university for 2 weeks. so to save aircon money i’ve moved into the master bedroom with my mom at night. then this morning i woke up to her poking the fats under my arm, and she admonished me in my half-conscious state: ”oh my golly goodness, look at your flabby arms! you’re arms are even more flabby than mine” or something to that effect. i felt quite insulted, so to nurse my wounded ego i went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until 2 hours later (1pm).
anyway this whole week has been fruitless in terms of acedemic progress. the only happening thing that happened was steamboat at BL’s place on monday. then i spent 3 whole days on the tok essay and STILL have not finished it. it’s been stuck at the 1000 word mark for a few hours already. and then i’ve also gotten addicted to the psp, so much so that i’m pretty much glued to the silly game in the evening (it’s an rpg thingy called disgaea)
wait, i just realised that the week has only been in effect for 2 days, so i guess it’s not so bad after all! haha. after finishing the essay i think i shall reward myself with a movie. i have many movies on the computer but i haven’t had the time to watch them. recently i’ve been really into satoshi kon’s work; i like the way he distorts reality and fantasy in his movies, and not to mention it’s a breath of fresh air from all-is-fine-and-dandy-miyazaki’s things.
p.s. i wanna cut my hair too, it’s gotten irritatingly hot with such a long mane.
p.p.s. i miss the kids in china, but it’s just too bad that i didn’t catch that girl’s name and address, if not i’d write to her. :(
shan’t bother you guys with all the nitty-bitty details of my trip! so i shall just sum up the trip with a few pictures.
DAY 1
the first picture i took there, from the bus ride from baoshan to fugong. the scenery is insanely beautiful and the mountains, rivers and forests look untouched save for a few small farms and patches of agriculture.
the first dinner at the hotel, with shoban and pam bickering as per usual, and celestyn looking on disapprovingly (lol).
DAY 2
we had to cross a bridge and trek for an hour to get to the first school
the first batch of kids! sang songs and stuff. they looked like they really liked our visit (or at least i hope so)
DAY 3
hiking up the mountain!
i almost cried when we reached the school at the top of the mountain because i was so touched. the kids there were waiting for us in two rows and waved and said hi. and on the way we saw many people wearing slippers hiking up the same mountain, but with things like a whole box of pepsi or firewood on their backs.
DAY 4-5
we played team bonding games, like the fit-ten-people-on-a-piece-of-newspaper. my team of kids finished their task really fast!
we taught them origami!
hehe so cute
on the last day with the kids
i made a friend there! her name is Lee Yanfang (i think) and she’s 12 in 3rd grade. she lives up a mountain so she lives in the boarding school and goes back once a week to see her family. she’s real pretty and nice. i kinda miss her. :(
there was this funny episode in the school where a “demon kid” (read: 3 year old) tried to stab ngteckseng with a piece of glass because he tried to take the ball away from him? the same kid also spat and hit guang.
this trip really reminded me of things i used to take for granted. might sound cliche, i know, but when you really feel like that you’d understand. the poorest people there can’t even tell when their next meal is going to be, and here we are with internet and all the things we say we can’t live without but actually can? we complain about the food at the hotel, and the lack of hot water and toilets, when the people at fugong don’t even have food, nor a proper toilets and showers.
sometimes we seem to think that life is so unfair and you’re not getting what you should deserve, but then there are always those who have it even harder than us but can’t do anything to break out of that.
more pictures here
