Like Aretha

Listening to: Aretha Aretha Aretha

She puts me in such a good mood even when its midnight and I have 10 pages of a journal article to dissect for a tutorial and a practical session tomorrow and I’m feeling tired and sleepy and bloated and in a generally engh mood. But I am passionate about Aretha. And then I had this discussion with a friend whom I won’t name here because Kiki may not like it when I discredit her online annoymously or otherwise.   f

ifi: Aretha rocks! says: Aretha is AWESOME - I cant get over it!

unnamed says: ahahahahahah , hmm never heard of her – not that i can remember…

fifi: Aretha rocks! says:  R U SERIOUS?   R-E-S-P-E-C-T? Chain of FOOLS? 

fifi: Aretha rocks! says: ARETHA IS LIKE QUEEN OF SOUL

unnamed says: …yes i am serious 

fifi: Aretha rocks! says: !!!

unnamed says: aretha franklin right .. or something… I might have la – I just may not know it’s her!

fifi: Aretha rocks! says: YESSSSS , NOT SOMETHING – IT IS ARETHA FRANKLIN

unnamed says: OK MAN – just let me listen tomorrow lah!  -_-

See? She’s lucky I love that babe so much that I can overlook this sacrilege!! They don’t make them like Aretha no more. I can’t believe I didn’t get to see her in concert before she retired!!! She’s gonna be on repeat for awhile now

 

God bless Aretha. Really.

Back from the Outback

These pictures were courtesy of Tim who just got back from the outback. So these are the sunrises and sunsets we miss when we live our modern city lives with our modern horizons and our modern sunrises and sunsets.                                               

                                                                       

 Click to enlarge for your viewing pleasure. And I sincerely urge you to…these are too good to miss. And since I couldn’t work the stupid zoom in pixels, cuz I’m a retard like that, you really should click on them.

Pedestal

Listening to: For You I Will (Accoustic) – Teddy Geiger

Currently Reading: The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets - Eva Rice

Weather Update: Rain and more rain to come (yay) 

You’re too nice, she told me. You’re too nice, she keeps telling me.

Where is the line between cynicism and hope? When will I stop putting all my eggs into one basket and learn to just accept things and people for the way they are instead of placing them on a pedestal and then feeling like utter shit when I find out that they’re human?

Tag, huh?

Tagged by one Melissa – note, all responses are directed to the tag itself and not to her hehe… I got a bit carried away. 

April 1, 1997

1) How old were you? 11.5 years old

2) Where did you go to school? SKTSG – if you didn’t go there you needn’t know its full name  :D

3) Where did you work? I worked in a factory abusing child labour sewing fake jewels in the lining of mink coats… I was almost twelve for crying out loud! Couch potato and bum were my choice professions.  :D

4) Where did you live? TSG heheh, same rule applies.

5) Where did you hang out? Erm, at home a lot. And sometimes at a friend’s place…hiking (tsk tsk).. As you can tell I was uber cool. 

6) Did you wear glasses? Yeah. WHY?

7) Who was your best friend? I had a lot of them. A regular free for all  

8 ) How many tattoos did you have? Zero. Again, I was preteen… Why just assume I had tats? Cannot ask first whether I did or not?

9) How many piercings did you have? 22 minus 20. Anything to make this a non-monosyllabic interaction.

10) What car did you drive? My imaginary one. Like Kelvin’s Veyron kekeke

11) Had you been to a real party? Define real. The kind with drugs and drink or one that isn’t imaginary… OF course I had, I was twelve, not dead. 

12) Had your heart broken? Yeah, when Nick Carter expressed some sort of interest in Christina Ricci.

April 1, 2002

1) How old were you? 16.5 years.

2) Where did you go to school? SMKHC. Okay, okay – Hillcrest.

3) Where did you work? Overtime for the debate society     Enjoyed it too – plus it was TOTALLY volunteer and unbelievably enjoyable. Oh, and I retained my couch potato and bum status from 5 years before.
4) Where did you live? Same as above

5) Where did you hang out? Wherever my friends did. Mostly at McD’s I think…

7) Who was your best friend? Again, it was a laissez faire practice.   :)

Who was your regular person crush? I didn’t have one at the time  ;) Haha, I like that you used the word regular…as in opposed to the other irregular people I have crushes on  

9) How many tattoos did you have? 53.  :evil:   None la.

10) How many piercing(s) did you have? Two. How come you’re not asking where?

11) What car did you drive? Car?? I took the stupid Putra everywhere!

12) Had you had your heart broken? Erm…in what sense? Romantically?

April 1, 2007

1) How old are you? 21.5 years old.

2) Where do you work? In my head.

3) Where do you live? My current place of residence is where I study – Australia.

4) Do you wear glasses? Yes but I wear contacts too  :D   .. though not at the same time of course…

5) Where do you hang out? Wherever.

6) Who is your best friend? Wow, I have so many I can’t really name one. This is a really narrrroowww survey.   

9) How many piercing(s) do you have? Three.

10) How many tattoos? Zip zilch zero. Nada nil none. Do you want the Mandarin version?

11) What kind of car do you drive? Ha.Ha. Here instead of Putra it’s the MetroAdelaide   

12) Has your heart been broken? Yeahh.

This was fun    Thanks Mel.

I tag — SD, Mimi, Kelvin and Carolyn.  Oh and Bridget. 

The TellTale Heart

The guilty heart beats louder and harder than anything you have ever heard.

I think that deserves its own entry.

Spartan Heart

Listening to: Beyonce Knowles (yes, yes)   -_-

Currently Reading: The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets – Eva Rice

Okay so pardon moi for the pissy mood I’ve been in these past few days. They have been partly due to the fact that I have not had a proper hot shower in two days because the stupid boiler went on the blink and I have been having brief but very unromantic flings with my shower and that’s has left me in a very black mood because there is nothing worse than not being able to shower on a cold wintry morning. The only thing worse is probably not having a bathrobe to cuddle in while you wait for the water to heat up, which when you eventually find out it won’t, is too late because you’re left huddling, shuddering and drowsy. Not a good start.

But all that is hopefully in the past. I almost had a breakdown on the phone with Barath last night when I told him that I was so tired and I couldn’t even take a blinking hot shower – the one thing I look forward to in my paltry student life. True, that was stretching it a bit, and I was just looking for some pity manjas, but that’s the way I felt at the moment. Two days without a proper shower was just too much.

So that beautiful boy indugled me my manjas and then told me he’ll wait for me to go check the water and to do what it took to make sure I had a hot shower i.e. even if I had to do it old style and like boil water in a kettle! At that point, that idea was sounding very good albeit at the expense of a bit of physical labour.

It was 2 am.

I tell you it was suspenseful. I turned on the water cautiously and waited. At the first signs of steam my eyes almost popped out of its sockets ; I forced myself to wait another minute but my foot started tapping anxiously at the thought of finally being able to have a hot shower.

When my shower screen started fogging up, I swear, I was a blur. Lightning had nothing  on me. Needless to say, I had the best shower in days. And the best sleep. So ladies and gents, you don’t miss the hot water till the boiler runs dry.

On other less important news -

I watched 300 yesterday – makes me wanna marry a Spartan. Truly, every one of those men had such chiselled 8 packs- it was so defined you could actually count where each ab began and ended. On a more serious note, I loved the cinematography. I’ve realised of late, that I love watching moves that show a great interplay in symbolism; where the directors play with light and shade, or use particular themes or the absence of music to stress important scenes or concepts.

Genius. And yes, some of the scenes were pretty raw  :)  And since it was based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, the grainy images were superb! Yes, I’d rate it an 8/10. Then again, I got so many conflicting views on it, I wouldn’t be surprised if not everyone agreed with this.

Chatted with Carolyn, an olddd friend from primary. We both have many hiking/backpacking activities and listening interests in common  ;) 

In fact, we found out that we were both introduced to Sasha (a mutual friend) and BSB at the same occasion – on her twelfth birthday party. Yes, this was someone who goes so far back, she remembers the embarassing school concert in which we all perfomed in together for Teacher’s Day in primary 6.

How embarassing, you ask? We performed some very cool numbers from BSB and 911 and got our applause until the discipline teacher told me in private we were great but that my jeans were too tight.

Way to spoil a rockstar’s confidence. And she had yet to experience the sex and drugs part of rock and roll hehe.

On a side note I also got into quite a riveting debate with someone about which phrase would be more effective – horseshit or bullshit. And I guess it comes down to which animal, erm, defecates more. In which case my friend said, elephants.

She’s probably right. But really, horses or bulls? ‘Cause I don’t really see elephantshit soaring of right now.

Anyway – am gonna take another hot shower and update my genetics lab book because that is so in right now 

Take care my babies and I wish you all the hot showers and Spartan men your little heart desires.

p.s. Yes, babe – any guy who indulges me as much as you do might as well be from Sparta

Stupid

Listening to: Babydoll – Mariah Carey

Stupid MSN that won’t sign in

Stupid slow internet server.

Stupid heating system that had to break down in the winter denying me of the one thing that is an incentive for me to wake up for nine am starts.

Stupid chocolate addiction that is apparently reserved only for Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate that resigns me to dark chocolate only.

Stupid distaste for dark chocolate.

Stupid dark chocolate with peppermint that currently sits on my table. Opened.

Stupid stupid stupid.

Did I mention, stupid?

Stupid.

RAR

I just wrote a nice long post and the server went down just as I clicked publish.

 

RAR.

Gonna go watch Heroes instead.

The internet can be so finnicky.

Double RAR.

Supermen

Listening to: Liar – The Cranberries

It’s Saturday night and I wish I could light a candle and sit by my window sill and watch the rain beating on my window.

I’ve always believed that people seldom give us, uni/college students, the credit we deserve for doing what we do everyday. We’re almost always disregarded because our age is commonly associated with immaturity and/or irresponsibility. And I don’t deny that sometimes, this association may be true but not with all young people. However, most of us were picked up out of school and dumped in a fend for yourself environment and we learnt almost effortlessly, that it’s a dog eat dog world.

We face the shock of dealing with impending adulthood when all the while, nobody warned us that we were no longer children. We are often caught in that terrible adult-teenage transition and emotionally, we have yet to pull our shit together before being faced with the confusion of what our parents and society demands of us; it barely leaves us conscious enough to figure out what we are meant for and where our place in the world is.

The social end of things just make even less sense. We never know where we fit in or how to, until we find a niche where things seem just right and even getting there can seem like an eternity. Budding as we are, we struggle to make sense of this new world and it is then that our self-esteem is tested and then either built or broken. It is almost impossible to combat against everything the media protrays as right and beautiful and real ; peer pressure is almost synonymous with growing up.

I think the best way to express the way I feel a lot of time, is like a child, learning how to walk – it takes unsteady steps at first, falls, gets up. Holds on to a chair and pulls itself up again. It’s more of an education about yourself that builds up gradually, then it is an art or a natural gift. Sure some people find their way easier then others, but it is still a struggle to make it past that awkward age to a point where you feel you’ve finally figured it out…most of it anyway. Wasn’t there supposed to be a manual that comes with all of this?

And yet despite all of this, we pull ourselves together and drag ourselves out of bed at the crack of dawn and sit through lecture after lecture knowing that there is not enough coffee in the world to prepare us for that. We mug and swear, live at Starbucks and sleep three hours a day, run out of highlighter ink and often break expensive laboratory equipment

It is in college that we discover who we are and exactly what we’re made of – if what we have lived on is enough foundation to last us for the rest of our lives. We make new friends and social connections, are nurtured emotionally and culturally educated and sometimes experience, the occasional, one too many; whatever that may be 

The thing about it is, we are an extremely resilient population of people and that lies in our age. Youth affords us (albeit, an illusion of) invincibility and makes us supermen of our time – so throw at us what you will; while there is no fear of death (or arthritis or impending retirement and other such issues associated with geriatrics),  we still manage to rise up like phoenixes, from under the rubble of assignments and lectures and nearly flunked exams, to party one more time.  

College, I have to say, is probably one of the best times of my life. It’s shit, but at the end of the day, it all comes full circle. I’ve learned so much of myself these past two years and in this, my last year, I am still learning. I will probably never stop learning about who and what I am; my limits and capabilities. What my survival mechanisms are and how I deal with rejection and failure and betrayal.

It’s a tough war because it’s hard to fight when you don’t even know what you’re equipped with – I think the war itself is about figuring out yourself enough so that when you get that settled, you can quite stably face the rest of your shit. I’m not done figuring it out yet but I will never regret the journey.

When I read about the Virginia Tech massacre and about the young people that lost their lives, I feel a tremendous ache because I could easily have been one of them. They weren’t done figuring it out and they deserved to live long enough to do so and reap the benefits. They weren’t done being supermen.

There aren’t enough sunsets or sunrises but it’s one less when you’re gunned down in the prime of your life.

God rest all their souls in peace and God grant their families His light as they journey through this valley of darkness and struggle with their loss.

We live in grievous times; that is no fiction, fable or fairy tale. But maybe we can help weave a story of our own that will change the endings in our own lives – we need more positivity and love in this world. There’s too many screwed up things happening and this population of, allegedly lazy and confused college students, need to step up to the plate and make a change and be supermen.

I don’t mean to campaign; I just want to able to figure out my life one day at a time and they deserved the same deal.

We all do.

Mumble Grumble Ramble Rant

Listening to: Aaron Neville

The world becomes a funny place when you’re on a deadline. It sucks you in and only spits you out when it’s done with you. Your whole life becomes about Meeting The Deadline. You eat junk food, stop brushing your hair and walk around in pajamas. You become eccentric and think briefly of biting all the mosquitoes that won’t quit biting you. Let’s give them malaria for a change! (what, I’m the only one who thinks that?? Stupendous Dude?? Anyone???)

Anyway we have a big thing due Thursday (YES, THURSDAY!) and I am barely there. Last night, I was slaving over this one piece that wouldn’t fit and I got so fed up that I wanted to immerse myself in a tub filled with chocolate and marshmallows. But there was

NOTHING.

TO .

EAT.

I rummaged further and found some cold rolls by housemate had given me the day before. Thank God for Ven’s cold rolls. Today I forced myself to shower and dress in fresh clothes, grabbed my keys and shopping bags, walked into a store and bought 30 dollars worth of chips, chocolate, juice, chicken and instant noodles. Not the most healthiest things in the world but when you’re a college student you understand the importance of Staying Alive while you’re On A Deadline. And that’s when time seems to stop for everything else except for your assignment. That, ironically, seems to loom nearer and nearer everytime you put your head down to catch a snooze.

Best part of my assignment is it’s a lab book that has to be hand-written. An entire book’s worth of a hand-written assignment , whoever heard of such backdated things? Apparently they exist. Apparently all scientists don’t believe in keeping important notes on computer so that patenting ownership rights can be decided easily. And has anybody ever heard of Carpel-Tunnel syndrome?? Oh, wait, is that what you get when you type too much?? Well the hand-writing equivalent…

Do I sound mad to you? Well I’m not. To be fair, I’m actually better now.

The chicken is kicking in.

I was supposed to be writing a draft of one of my reports this afternoon and I alternately wrote lines from songs that I happened to hear on my iTunes shuffle that seemed vaguely interesting at the bottom of my draft page.

• “I wish somebody would build a bridge so that I can get over myself.”
• “When you’re in emotional limbo, everything you say and do is filtered through that.”
• “A normal person wouldn’t put up with this but for some stupid reason I don’t want to move on.”
• “With her hair flowing down in blue cascades; love lapping at her feet, life dancing in a masquerade.”
• “Show me your toothful smile.”
• “I would buy whatever you would sell to me.”
• “You might be from Venus but I’m definitely not from Mars.”
• “And we can clean the cobwebs from each other’s minds.”

So yeah, ramblings. So far today I’ve had both coffee and tea.

Now, where’s that chocolate?