I'm getting quite engulfed in all the work piling up and hectic schedules, but somehow it isn't really getting to me yet, so I'm just waiting for the tide to hit anytime now.
EA dry run is coming up next week, so I'll have to decide on how I'm going to balance between the EA meetings and track trainings. This sucks cos this week's trainings made me feel like I'm starting to pick up momentum and barrel a little faster forward to where I want to get in track. But right when I'm optimistic and ready to take on the next few trainings, EA's hiong period starts and now I'm unsure how I'm going to keep to my promise of trying to miss as few trainings as possible while simultaneously honoring my commitment to EA. I wouldn't mind self training if the track in school weren't all ripped up, but there you go, I have to think up other alternatives. I'll get back to you when I do.
Then take 5's first rough proposal is due coming wed! I'll have to go through all the old emails to jog my memory about what being in carnival comm entails besides fun stuff i.e inflatables and such.
Sian then there's the catching up for chem and math cos I am seriously falling behind and it's not as if I could push all that catching up to the hols, cos I'd be as busy then anyway.
I've a feeling because there're such a hell lot of things to switch between:

• envisioning EA (I always have trouble seeing the big picture)
• thinking how my part of take5! fits into the whole plan which none of us is completely clear about
• hurdling and the technicalities I detest because they only serve to confuse me and freak me out besides helping me to clear more efficiently (like counting steps and focusing on not shuffling and hugging the curve)
• immersing myself in chem and math

I might just give in to all that sloth inside me and not get a single thing done.
Crap I want to spend today lazing away and reading Coraline, but that's not possible cos we're not supposed to have lives.
Bet you wouldn't believe the whole point of posting here was to explain why this week was worth noting (at first haha). I should really start. If this were an essay I'd have digressed my way to a fail by now haha. Hm I'll start with training.

There were 3 trainings instead of 4 this week, which makes a notable difference in manageability. All 3 were fun, Monday we did gym training, Wednesday was best: we did medicine ball and sledge runs, then Friday was hurdles at Bishan stadium with spikes! The worse transfer was one 300m run after hurdles on friday (thank god), instead of the usual 3x200m or 2x300m. And the best part is you can't say it was slack cos it's not as if we're not building up anything or not even aching from it. So I'm happy with this aspect.

We're watching Pan's Labyrinth during lit lectures.

EA's starting to get more bonded I think, and I got to know and talk to people I usually didn't talk to during yday's S&D/ War Games/ Station Games dry run. It takes quite a lot for me to warm up to people, so I hadn't gone for the dry run expecting to look forward to the next. Also, I now have three less things to worry about haha-- dance partner, ogl pairings and that J and R wouldn't fit in well with the HH ogls. But I'm glad everything's nice and settled, kinda turning out in the best possible scenarios all rolled up together which I never expected, cos I'd always thought that if something turned out well, there'd always be a hitch to it. Like the whole idea of not ever having your cake and eating it. Who knew I'd be so lucky. This is like the don't know how many-th time I'm grateful for my class but oh well I could go on and on, but for the sake of so many things I won't. Hope everyone's adapting smoothly too. (:

You Are a Butterscotch Scone

The early part of your day is filled with unpredictability and fun. You are never sure when you are going to wake up. Your schedule varies as much as your life does. You may have a hard time getting up in the morning, but you usually make it out of bed on the first try. You often have something new and exciting to look forward to. You're the type most likely to make your scones from a mix and add in all sorts of funky stuff. Butterscotch chips are just one example of how inspired you can be.

You Should Not Date a Vampire

You just don't understand what all the vampire fuss is about. You certainly do not find the ideas of vampires sexy. What's hot about someone who wants to bite through your skin? Yuck! Plus, you're pretty sure vampires have bad breath. And you're definitely not drawn to that sickly, pale look. Or all that moodiness - no thanks! You think that regular old humans are plenty attractive. You can't imagine why anyone would pick a broody beast over a healthy, alive person.

The questions were quite dumb lol.

You Are Cinnamon Flavored Toothpaste

You are passionate about most things in life, and you really put your all into anything you undertake. You believe life should be lived fully and well. You probably even get really into brushing your teeth. You have strong preferences. You tend to either deeply love something or hate it fully. And when you do love something, you tend to overdo it a bit. Moderation is not really a word in your vocabulary.

Sounds so Heathcliff-esque haha. The thing is, people who've mastered the art of moderation tend to live longer. ><

You Are Ballet

You are quite introverted. You enjoy keeping to yourself and cultivating your talents. You are dedicated and focused. If practice makes perfect, you're willing to keep practicing. While some people may dismiss you as boring, you can be quite edgy and interesting. You can fit in almost anywhere... and your style ranges from conservative to funky.

I definitely don't strike anyone as a ballet sort of person, but I did try to pursuade my mum to let me learn in sec2. ): It didn't work cos she thought I was biting off more than I could chew.

You Are a Green Pumpkin

You are easy going, thoughtful, and content with who you are. People may not recognize your uniqueness, but you know how special you are. You believe that life's too short to care about what others think. You just try your best to be yourself, and you figure that is good enough. You are a bit of an introvert. You are the most interesting companion you know, so it's hard for you to want to be all that social. You enjoy the company of others, but you don't like small talk or gossip. You rather discuss ideas or dreams than superficial topics.

haha I'm not easy going and I kinda like to gossip sometimes actually.

You Are Sudoku

You are simple, modern and elegant. You're not that difficult to figure out, but very few people truly get you. You approach the world with a pure logic that most people will never grasp.

His hair improved :D

My parents felt that we had to celebrate my dad's birthday a second time with my grandma present so here we are at another japanese restaurant at Raffles Place! I'm not complaining. (:









My dad's dinner


Mum's dinner


Pretty!


My dinner :D This is so turning out to become a food blog.


Some fish cake thingy.


Ice cream wrapped in mochi skin with adzuki bean paste! :D

ah okayy. I should really type smth so my attention span doesn't get any shorter. Today during bio lecture Charlotte suddenly got quite worked up over my spending habits (or rather the fact that I don't have a fixed allowance) though she'd already known about that for quite some time. Sometimes I don't understand her haha. So Joshua happened to be next to her and was quite appalled by the fact I don't save a portion of my allowance, because I don't have a fixed allowance. It's more of a finish up money then ask for more kinda thing. Sigh. I'm too lazy to highlight the discussion (which kinda makes this post quite pointless cos I haven't typed anything worth understanding), basically I'M GONNA HAVE A FIXED ALLOWANCE FROM THIS WEEK ONWARDS.

I stone all the time ._.

I was reading sunday lifestyle's book reviews, which featured 'The Bride's Farewell' by Meg Rosoff. I recalled reading a Meg Rosoff book before and could vaguely remember enjoying it very much, though for the life of me I couldn't get the title. So I went to google Meg Rosoff, coming up with 'How I Live Now' and 'Just in Case'.

Came across this passage while looking through quotes

"I'm sorry I started all this by trying to fly and I'd take it back if I could but I can't, so please think of it from my point of view: if you die I will have a dead brother and it will be me instead of you who suffers.
Justin thought of his brother on that warm summer day, standing up on the windowsill holding both their futures, light and changeable as air, in his outstretched arms.
Of course, Justin thought, I'm part of his fate just as he's part of mine. I hadn't considered it from his point of view. Or from the point of view of the universe, either. It's just a playing field crammed full of cause and effect, billions of dominoes, each knocking over billions more, setting off trillions of actions every second. A butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and my brother in Luton thinks he can fly.
The child nodded. A piano might fall on your head, he said, but it also might not. And in the meantime you never know. Something nice might happen."
-- 'Just in Case' by Meg Rosoff

I can feel myself withdrawing deeper and deeper, and it feels like every time before I talk to people, I stop to think: is there a point in talking to you? Will I be happier after talking to you, or am I just talking to you so all the dynamics in between are maintained, so our friendship won't just disintegrate because that'd subsequently impact other friendships that are more important. So I have started restraining myself quite abit. Very soon I'll only say very inane things, then, nothing.

I hate forcing conversations and facing all sorts of facades, they're such depressing things. ):

Damn I sound like some terribly needy person. I am not. All I need is more time to myself. There can never be enough of that.

You Are "VRROOOOM"

If you were a superhero, you'd totally be in it for the toys. And you're thinking big - like a fast car, rocket, maybe hoverjet... You'd like fighting crime as much as the next comic book hero, but the real thrill would be getting out of there quickly when the bad guys had been beat. You have a need for speed, and you love the adrenaline rush of speeding down the highway. Even better would be going faster than the speed of light. Besides, you think it would be cool to have dinner in Tokyo and dessert in Paris. And heck, maybe even appetizers on the moon. It's all possible if you can go fast enough.

Today was speed endurance training, omg I was going to zonk out from the beginning of training already, think I laughed too hard at the start of the day, then the EA meeting was quite sian, so by the time training started, my energy level was near rock bottom.
Today was terribly dumb.
1. During lit I sat next to Derwin and automatically landed myself into pm's bad books because whenever you sit next to either Abel or Derwin during lit that always happens. But there's a tradeoff la you get to listen to all their funny crap throughout the lesson.

2. Charlotte and pm can never really communicate on the same plane. Sorry I'm not quoting at all, just typing out stuff so you get the gist of how it went.
Pm: so how do you describe cleopatra here?
class: (throws out adjectives) exotic, unattainable, beautiful
Pm: no. More like goddess. (and to illustrate her point that you don't need the adjective goddess to be in the passage before you use it to describe cleopatra) Does cleopatra have a nose? Goddesses don't have noses right! *sarcastic manic laughter* (okay I'm exagerating haha :D)
Charlotte: huh goddesses don't have noses? I didn't know!
hahahaha.

3. I LOST A BET I WAS 90% SURE I'D WIN. D: hmpf.

ugh okay my mum's nagging for me to switch the comp off so I can't elaborate maybe i'll go on tmr :/

I'm always worrying over trivial things, even when I feel like I'm not taking the things I treasure for granted. Because it's always the case when you are grateful for all the little things in life, you stop worrying about small matters right, or so they say, but ugh I still do.
I know it's definitely wiser to be glad for what I have, like everything that allows me something to look forward to at the start of each day, like my class and all. But still.
Crazy load of tutorials + I & R to spend the weekend on, and my parents are coming back tomorrow. Omg to think that 2 weeks have passed and I haven't really let myself go. I just let that chance of freedom pass me by. But that can't be helped, it just happened that IHC season had to take up these 2 weeks. No matter.

Reasons why I'm glad:
1. IHC sports is over and we got second if you don't count the disadvantage from IHC aesthetics!! :D Everybody fought hard for HH and it's very heartening to watch that.
2. Had dinner before 10 for the first time in the entire week
3. Dinner was at ding tai fung then swensens
4. My sister prefers sweet tau sar piah while I prefer salty, and she accidentally bought 4 salty tau sar piah thinking they were the sweet ones from the novena place, so now I get to eat 3 out of the 4 tau sar piah :DD




The day I rushed back to school from toa payoh stadium's hurdles training on Saturday, when we did all that crazy calling.


Volleyball


shooting

okay the rest haven't been uploaded, don't know where the bball one is so I'll leave it here. omg it's overr.



It’s like forgetting the words to your favorite song
You can’t believe it
You were always singing along
--- Eet by Regina Spektor

My stomach is feeling weird cos I ate dinner at 10+, and dinner came from a bakery open 24/7 at j8. Gawd. Irregular eating times are baaddd. Left school at 10+ (the guard chased us out of the council room), walked around j8 in search of dinner, got home, bathed and did the laundry and now it's 12+. I've been wearing the contacts for more than 12 hours a day la not good. And to think I'd been feeling sleepy since chem lecture. =.=
By the time it was the 1.5 hour gp block, I'd started burying my face in my jacket every time E turned around to write something on the board, and resorting to overly prolonged blinking when he was facing us.
I wasn't looking forward to bball at all, cos all I wanted to do was to go home and crashhh in my bed, but okay that isn't the most plausible thing to do. omgomg and I've spent $40 within these 2 days crap la. like I know I spent $16 on Oranges are not the only fruit, and $6 for the pe shirt I bought today because I didn't bring an extra shirt for ihc, thinking wx would kope a hh shirt for me. Where did the remaining ~$20 go to, crap. Like of course I'd to buy food etc, but not that much right??? I should really start keeping an expenditure log from now on. :/
aiya too lazy to talk more about bball, just that it was quite fun, I got to know grace and she's damn cool haha.
shall blog about it tmr when I'm not feeling so insanely tired and when I don't have lit first thing in the morning with dear pm.
agh i shall ask for extension to do math tutorial.

Today I forgot to bring my ipod to school, so I didn't have anything to listen to on my way to school and back. For some time I was thinking of how I'd have to walk drag myself home, tired and famished all alone in the dark (for 25 whole minutes lol), but guess what I got someone to walk with me to J8! :D
Okay not really. I didn't get the person to walk with me, the person asked.
Haha but rest assured my walking companion isn't some mysterious guy, she's a woman around her late fifties who's quite interesting to chat with. Sorry I'm too lazy to build up more suspense to make this as anti climactic as possible. Anyway her taxi broke down in the middle of marymount and bishan station, so I offered to walk with her to bishan station, and we just talked about how teenagers have not much of a life outside school nowadays, how she thinks junction 8 reminds her of bukit panjang plaza and all sorts of things. It's funny how circumstances arranged in the right way can allow two strangers to meet and talk about converging points in their seemingly vastly different lives huh.
Wish I'd a relative whom I could talk like that to though, srsly how sad can it be that you feel you could potentially be closer to a random chatty stranger you meet than a relative whom you've known for most of your life. I don't even bother trying to engage with superficial niceties with my relatives anymore. As a teenager I should just take advantage of the whole rebellious stage excuse and be as unbothered about these sort of things that always bog life down when I can. I like being self centred when it comes to these rather unnecessary things.

Oh and I thought of a reason why I can never be a guy. Cos I lack the spirit of competitiveness, the need to have to show everyone that you're better. If I were ever a guy, in NS I'd opt to be a clerk, no doubt about it. I'd rather be sedentary and comfortable than undergo physical duress for my pride. There really isn't much motivation for me to win for myself, except for the fear of losing. I just like staying in the middle. Unremarkable and terribly conventional, but safe.

Think I pissed J and L off today during I'm the boss because of the whole couldn't care less attitude, cos first of all I got annoyed that we were playing in a way in which you can't really do much for yourself if you've got a shitty deck of cards, because we didn't know the rules well enough. Then when they tried to be accomodating and modify how we played abit, I just lost interest and didn't care about trying to successfully wangle deals and get as much money as possible. I think I probably came off as a sore loser, like stoning when I know I was gonna lose, but midway through the game it was quite clear that noone was positively sure how each card could be used to overcome the different situations presented (esp me) and I just lost patience in it. It was quite evident I wasn't too enthusiastic with the game, and secretly I wanted to stop playing but it'd spoil the whole atmosphere. But then again I'm sure they were also trying to get me interested and I wasn't being fair to them by not trying to care more, and so I can't blame them for feeling all wth at me (though they tried not to show it). So to avoid this I'm never gonna play that again. Being a passive onlooker is definitely more my cup of tea.

Gym training: Cheryl and I partnered to do bench presses, and while I was staring at the ceiling and doing the bench presses, Mr.Tan came over and said something mocking like eh damn heavy hor. But since I was staring at the ceiling and was preoccupied with counting and other thoughts, first person that came to mind was yunli cos it's quite possibly something he would say. So instinctively I just went GO AWAYYYYYY and suddenly everybody fell silent and I realised it was Mr.Tan. -.- Thank goodness he's so good natured, he understands how screwed my sense of auditory recognition is. (:

When I read my blog posts I realise how narcissistic I am, like everything is centred around me and my small opinions of things that happen each day.
But the whole point of my having a blog is for self indulgence, for me to keep going through each day and document random things that may or may not matter, so I might look back and judge myself as I am now next time.
Anyway omg results back in a few hours' time. I really don't want to know. I don't want to compare myself and see how I stand, I don't want to know how much I've gotten right and what I've gotten wrong. Can't say I'm really interested in all I've been learning for the entire year. Shingzx manz.
I hate the thought of competition. Don't know how I got myself into an IHC seriously I bet even IHCs will give me a case of bad nerves, interschool level or not.
And I haven't done a single tutorial! Diee I just finished editing my OP script and slides! Wish I could pon one day of school every week.

There's nothing to do.
Or to put it more precisely, there's nothing I want to do that I can do.
Like sure, there's always PW, and there's the bio tutorial and maybe all the revision of post promos stuff, and tidying up my room. Lots of things I can be doing.
But after getting smothered with PW, training, IHC prep and general house things like banners and what not from Monday to Saturday, I've gotten quite irritable. Yesterday I thought I'd be able to have at least Saturday evening to myself, but in the end we left school around 7.30, so when I reached home it was 8 and there was a hell load of laundry to do, which I split up between yesterday and today, so now I'm just feeling quite accomplished, with the laundry basket nice and empty though of course it won't stay that way come tomorrow. Now I have the comp all to myself and I have no idea what to do with it. A year ago, I probably would've gone on a drama rampage. Now I can't even sit down to watch a drama or even read a book, I just keep feeling there's something left undone and in my head there's still something left unresolved but I can't place it!
Omg yday was optional hurdles training at toa payoh stadium. I don't really like toa payoh stadium, the track is damn flat and dead and the curve feels a little longer than the usual. Maybe it's just me. I really need to keep practicing the lead leg trail leg drills, to the point where I get bloody tired and I still have to maintain the whole posture, cos I still have trouble translating theory to action when I do the real 40m distance between each hurdle. Because drills are much shorter, I'm starting to get the hang of pulling my trail leg to my chest so I get a reasonable stridelength when I cross the hurdle and the trail leg hits the ground. But once we progressed on to the 3 hurdles on the curve, I lost it again and ugh everything went haywire. Mr Tan says to run faster so I can make use of the momentum to take off further from the hurdle so I'll move forward more. But it's so ____ tiring, how do you make yourself run faster if you're only going to get more tired and nervous that you're going to do worse despite the additional advice for the next run. The only way to forget you're tired is to really focus and preoccupy yourself with how much you want to get better at this.
Yunli has joined 400mh haha crap he did my hurdle height yday and perfected the whole takeoff estimation within a few tries omg do I suck or do I suck. Or maybe he's damn pro la haha and I was giving him advice and feedback on how to improve on the retarded trail leg and how his run was and all like a while ago. Should really go ask him to be my shifu right haha.

Stayed back after school to help paint banners yesterday and today, and omg Pearl is damn pro look at what she helped us with!!



Hands Held High Hadley Hullett! Our 12m looonnng banner.


First horse banner! Damn nice, siying and I went to the library to go print pictures for inspiration, and we printed one of xubeihong's horses, then coincidentally pearl said she'd drawn them before, that's why they look kinda similar don't you think?

This is win, she just sat down and chalked this in, then painted it, and wrote In darkness we shine below, all singlehandedly. It glows! :O

Though I know full well that the moment my parents step into the house about 11 days from now, the peace will be gone for a very long time like it usually is, I find myself missing them at random times of the day. Like when I was walking home from J8 around 7+ after training, for some reason I decided not to listen to music like I always do to make the 10 min walk seem shorter, and instead distracted myself trying to see if my parents were walking back together along that long stretch after the junction which separates j8, bishan stadium and catholic high. Cos sometimes I'd meet them on the way home when we're all heading home around 7+. So I was just incredibly tired and dragging myself home while looking for the fat guy and short woman who're currently in beijing. And thinking thank god I didn't receive the worst combinations of BOTH of their genes. At least I'm not short. x)
Then I get home and am terribly tempted to just give in to my impulses which tell me to just go sleep till tomorrow (and prob pon school to go get a life haha), but noooo after coming back from training I have to go wash all my dirty stuff before I go bathe. My sister cooked today, and ah what can I say there's always a give and take in almost all situations. Like here are my choices with regard to dinner these days. 1. Let her cook so we can eat immediately and I don't have to worry about falling asleep and maybe accidentally gassing myself. 2. Cook dinner and actually give myself a decent dinner.
Seriously. I cook wayyy better than her. But I'll just go with option 1 for now, cos I'm gonna be home late for the next few days-- I told my parents in my last email that they needn't worry I'd be spending too much money creating havoc and god forbidden hours because I won't have the time to do that. I'll just take option 2 when time permits.
Hurdles training: ahh I do not have very stable hips. ): 2 reasons, maybe cos I'd twisted my hip previously, and also more practically because I'm afraid my trail leg will hit the hurdle so I tilt myself abit when I'm over the hurdle. Mr S says I should do more bounding to prevent that, I guess cos it improves the explosive action which doesn't give you time to think about hitting the hurdle, much less to think about ways to avoid that from happening. So from now on I'll have to work harder at bounding than everyone else.
Oh and omg today's training was at toa payoh stadium, but I didn't read the sms carefully and assumed it'd be the same as last week's hurdles training which was at bishan stadium. So this is how I eventually traveled to toa payoh stadium.
Take 156 to bishan stadium-->freaked out and reached bishan stadium at 2.35 when hurdles training was supposed to start at 2.30-->smsed natalie to say I'M HERE! and then received her sms to say I've reached 5 min later--> realise the stadium's still empty--> heart sinks--> checks sms inbox to find that I'm in the wrong stadium--> take 88 to toapayoh stadium, meet danetta coincidentally and reach tp stadium at 3.30, which is the starting time for sprinters' training. -.-
What I should've done: Take 157 to toa payoh stadium.
Imma champion.
But best thing was, K went to bishan stadium too hahaha but he wasn't an hour late for his training. :d I was so late I actually stopped freaking out cos I got resigned in the end haha ah well.
aaand we're kinda halfway through with filming pw group item hurrah hopefully we'll be done by tmr, cos IHC is gonna suck all my time away afterwards.

I like a few of the pics taken at sentosa! (:




 See group pictures are nice while pictures taken up close by someone sitting right next to you at superdog are not! So there.
Too lazy to upload the rest of the nice pictures, basically you start to notice that I can only grin the same way at the camera/put on a constipated look when I try to blow a kiss, while on the other hand ning is super cute cos she has loads of facial expressions haha.