Hermitage.

So, the...horror(?) begins...

2008-09-28T19:25:00.002+08:00

After a long trip down to London to meet Muz yesterday I thought it was nice to finally find my way back to my room and get some rest...

when, upon logging into the uni e-learning portal, I discovered: reading lists and guess what, instructions for:

COMPULSORY WORK PLACEMENT.

*faints*

Lol, all this before the start of lessons. Or even Induction. Ah well, at least this "school re-opening shock" will come to me gradually and not at one go...

No wonder they say one would be swamped by 2nd year stuff. I can't imagine how 3rd year would be... >_>

---

Later on during the night I could hear a ton of noise coming out from the courtyard and the road leading towards the halls...must be the next batch of people moving in, lol.

But the horror was people blowing party horns, shouting and banging on everyone's doors (really loudly, mind you!) sometime later. I was pretty much annoyed by all the noise (I have a low noise tolerance level, I prefer some peace and quiet) - I didn't answer the door instead and stopped whatever that I was doing for a while, just to act as if there was no one in the room.

Tomorrow is start of term. And me being a transfer student, I really dunno how my peers will look at me tomorrow.

Arg. Pwned by culture shock. `_`

WHEEEEEE

2008-09-24T19:07:00.002+08:00

WHEEEEEE

Yesssss I'm in the UK xD

HAHAHA

*lol i'm so hyper now. wait till next week comes...

EDIT: OH NO I don't even have to wait. My TON of reading material is already online on the e-learning thingy. ARGH what short-lived bliss.

3 weeks...

2008-09-01T13:14:00.001+08:00

...isn't a long way to go.

Yeah, I've made my most-rushed ever big decision to go for further studies in the UK in the span of a few days. And now I'm due to fly off...September 21st? Thinking of it still makes my head spin @_@

Gotta go off and rush for preparations now...lol.

lolUpdate.

2008-08-18T23:26:00.002+08:00

How time flies....

I can't believe I'm already churning out uni applications one by one by one. I can't believe it...it's like I'm going to step into a whole new phase of life...something even more different than my last 5 year stint spent overseas studying...

*Sidenote: People who might seem "scary" to one might actually be perfectly normal or even down-to-earth if you keep in touch with 'em. Hey who knows...maybe L squared M could have also been such a person...just that her "scary" reputation overshadowed her true personality...

Pangea Day

2008-04-07T11:28:00.001+08:00

I think it's cool.

Malaysia - Singapore, anyone?

Poisson d'Avril!

2008-04-01T09:40:00.002+08:00

Hahahahahahaha!

Happy April Fools!

It is the practice in French culture to stick a picture of a fish on one's back during this time, I guess...

So here's one from the FISHball Hermit to you!

Poisson d'Avril!

Nightmares of nightmares...

2008-03-14T22:41:00.002+08:00

Well, this morning I woke up as usual..and everything was fine till I was on my way to college....

I just realised that last night, I had the nightmare of all nightmares--

I dreamt that I was holding a dagger and attempting to kill someone I vaguely recognise, but could not identify who was the poor fellow. And I don't remember me having any reason to kill - I just went and stabbed him/her right in the chest.

I remember clearly, the wound wasn't deep - I did not drive the blade to the hilt. But there was bleeding, and I remember my dream-self being extremely psychologically disturbed after the act.

...scary right? X___X

Reading scientific journals makes my head spin @_@

2008-02-27T23:25:00.003+08:00

As usual, I've been putting myself into huge piles of merde lately. Considering my, er, usual habits, it's not surprising.

In order to clear myself out of the biggest pile of merde that I'm in now, I am hereby slaving myself out in front of the web browser, staring at scientific journals, of which I am 99% unable to make head or toe out of. I'm already in a pile of deep merde and now I'm drowning in it. And no, I can't picture myself reaching my goal of completing this task...I'm sorry Mr. Haw, I don't see ay Cheese out there...

>_< I can't imagine the day I have to write one of these jargon-laced, mostly incomprehensible papers for my final thesis...

End. Back to work.

Peon of Warcraft III fame: "Work, work..."

Why...

2008-02-23T18:38:00.002+08:00

- does my computer mouse's left button double click when it's supposed to click, and does not respond whenever I want it to?
- does my school wireless connection ban MapleStory? Or even Hotmail, for that matter... (O_O)
- is TmNut Green Snailyx so sloooowwww
- do I not dare to drive on my own despite wanting to get out there so badly?
- am I such a failure in socialising?
- am I so demotivated to do anything despite studying Human Motivation this term?
- am I crapping so much here when I have tons of projects to do...
- am I...

Oh well i realised this was total merde.

*scurries away searching for "New Cheese"*

A little music...

2008-01-30T00:23:00.000+08:00

After the long hiatus from blogging, I figured that I should do something to revitalise things up a bit XD

During the recent trips on the plane to and fro the USA, I became re-acquainted with a certain piece of simple yet inspiring piece of light music. It is a piece that most might know by tune but not by its name...

I was first hooked to the flowing, soothing melody of Kevin Kern's "Sundial Dreams" when it was played during various school occasions such as graduation and prize presentation ceremonies during my course of study in RV. Of course, by then I could only enjoy the tune during such rare events. Personally, this song has paired itself with events of great importance. Despite its slow tempo and soft, smooth melody, to me listening to this song motivates myself instead. I guess I have been classically conditioned to associate this song with times of glory and pride o_O

Whatever the case, as soon as I heard this song playing through the in-flight radio channels during my flight from Korea to the States, I was pleasantly surprised. And so, not only have I recognised this beautiful song by name, it has also opened up to me a new doorway, a new path towards appreciating the world of contemporary light music.

To those who have yet to identify the wonderful piece of music playing in the background, it is called "Sundial Dreams" by pianist and composer Kevin Kern.

So here, enjoy the new background music (while it lasts =X)...

Jetlagged, tired, and basically burned out...

2008-01-02T11:55:00.001+08:00

>_< I'm tired after travelling for 19 hours on a plane from LAX to KLIA...

More to come of my US trip...hopefully.

Bored. Or rather, nothing better to do...

2007-11-24T12:32:00.001+08:00

Right now i'm blogging during Psych Colloquium presentations. Well not that i'm bored (I CHOSE to attend 4 sessions because I was interested in these topics. Others attended the minimum no. of sessions possible for the amount of Psych subjects they took.). Just that being able to connect to lvl 4 wireless connection from a lvl 2 classroom is something rare....

Been in the same classroom for almost 3 hours already. I wonder whether the student usher did not find me to be a bit out of my mind, attending so many sessions (which are, by the way, totally unrelated to the psych subject I'm taking this semester: Human Personality.)

Sat through Bosnia-Kosovo, China-Taiwan, Sri Lanka-Tamil Tigers, India-Pakistan already. Next up: Sudan-Darfur...

Back to listening...

(this post is sorta lame ain't it?)

Pre-Parents' Day

2007-11-02T17:32:00.000+08:00

Oh la la...

Tomorrow's 3rd November. Also, Parents' Day.

Knowing well what I have done throughout this semester so far, I can imagine what sort of corpse would I turn out to be at the end of tomorrow. No, perhaps even tomorrow afternoon.

It's really pretty unnecessary, holding Parents' Days at times when we are almost stepping into young adulthood and leaving our late teens. I mean, we do have to learn to really take responsibility of our own progress (and thus not rely on others), right? However, I guess it's inevitable: parents still wanna know what's going on at school, and how's their precious little investment doing out there. Yes, investment; after all it does cost money, non? Thus, if I were to hide that notification letter to my parents about this event, eventually they'll just suspect something's not right...and well, being prime target of such suspicion will lead me to somewhere worse than Hell. I don't like to lie, but I don't like to suffer either.

So, I skived off all of today's lessons in a desperate bid to finish up my already-overdue-by-1-whole-week Personality assignment paper...and yet in the end I couldn't accomplish my task. Never mind that it's already half done. Sometimes I really wonder what the hell am I doing or thinking, procrastinating while my deathday is tomorrow.

Yeah, so undoubtedly I would be subject to some intense atomic-bomb-grade blasting tomorrow. And yes, definitely, much more restrictions, rules, and N number of important "tenets" I should keep in my head infinite percent of the time. (Oh, man, I really do HATE the very last part.)

They (hint: folks) say by being concerned of my studies, I would be a much better student. But well, at this age, you can't expect me to be the same cute, little, obedient child that I was during Primary school? Erikson says people of my age are undergoing an Identity Crisis, and as far as I can see, mine is definitely unresolved. Let me search for my personality, my identity alone. Gimme some private space; don't always go nosing around what I am doing. Really, sometimes I think you all go waaaayyy too much. Overprotective, overconcerned. I need to learn, and not be saved by your so-called concern every single time i am about to stumble. (I haven't stumbled, even.) I'm not the sort of person who can tolerate insane amounts of times being bossed around. When I tell you I'm fine, you leave everything up to me. But once I do something that you don't accept, you boss about my life like no tomorrow. C'est très ennuyeux...

Whatever the case, the reality is this: Tomorrow's Parents' Day.

J'espère que je vais survivre.

Bonne chance a moi...

Rotten, rotten, rotten...

2007-08-24T09:49:00.000+08:00

..explains the state of this blog. I mean, it's already Sem 3 and I haven't written a single piece since Sem 2...? That's 3 months O____O

*tries to pull self away from online gaming*

Anyway. New interests, new school term updates, yadda yadda yadda.

First...I'm going on a language frenzy now. Taking up novice level French and Italian at the same time!!! LOL, seeing as these both belong to the same language family, I'm worried I might confuse them both...

Took up French during the semester break. I was slacking around the house so Mom forced me to pick up a language. Looking back, I DO NOT REGRET her decision at all. A first for me. French teacher's absolutely charming. And crazy. I don't know how exactly to say this, but the class definitely loves her.

French is really a fresh experience for me, for everything, from the pronunciation system to their culture, seems really fascinating for me. I've learnt a lot, but well, it's newbie level French after all, and thus explains my inability to type this out in French. Desolee... (and sorry once more for my inability to type out accented characters. I don't know how to do so.)

So I went on a language frenzy when I knew my school offered Italian as one of the subjects this new term...and thus I find myself taking up 2 European languages at the same time. >___< Teacher's a Malaysian Chinese, whom I believe knows many many more languages than the average Malaysian. She really did study in an Italian university, and speaks the language with passion, just as the Italians do.(And thus insists that we speak the language con passionato!)

And well...2 Romance languages. I would have to take care not to speak/write French in Italian class, or vice-versa. LOL...they are really quite similar in writing...at least for now, that's my opinion.

Now, to school stuff. Sigh. Why am I always blogging about school stuff... (Is it because I have no life...?)

Exam grades have well, been...um. Cut the crap. C- and B+. And I thought I would have failed my EN102. Good grief...at least I don't have to retake it. I could have done better in Dev. Psych. though...too late.

New subjects this term, other than Italian, would be MALAYSIAN STUDIES (well, the teacher's funny though), STATISTICS (once again, I really suck at all things Maths), Human Personality and Anthropology (subject interesting, teacher boring =.=).

Oh, I will survive....

I hope. Life at home sucks more. I'll not say much. Trichotillomania has taken over again. Getting worse. Dad going really mad. Suicidal thoughts. Oh...

One month leave...and perhaps more.

2007-06-14T09:08:00.000+08:00

Sigh. This place has been collecting dust for 1 month already. ZZZZZZ

Things have become WAY more hectic since the beginning of Sem 2, which is 2 months long, and I have 2 times (i think this is an understatement) worth of A Level-standard PW to complete within this timeframe. THE STRESSSSSSSS~~~~~~

I'm taking Developmental Psychology and English 102 this semester, and well, to your surprise, I find English wayyyyy harder. LOL. Make me feel as if I got F9 for O Level English; in other words, demoralising.

Project Work standards here are so high that I find it uber difficult to cope with it. Especially English. Can't seem to do a good job whatsoever; brain not functioning, etc...but mostly the sense of achievement is no longer there. Well, at least there's Dev. Psych. to bring things up a bit...

LOL I don't wanna lose my interest in writing just because of such a lame thing =.=

Nah, dunno what I'm writing already. And English Project 1st draft due in half an hour. ZZZZZZ

Cya~~

Be warned, this is something unlike any you have ever seen before.

2007-05-07T11:29:00.000+08:00

Well, I suppose you all know about that story likening teenagers to a bar of soap.

Grip it too tight, it slips away with force. Grip it just nice, it stays in your hands. Grip it too loose, it slowly falls away.

Well, if I were a bar of soap yesterday, I probably broke into a billion pieces.

And as I have feared, my parents have no intention of returning me my freedom. In fact, during a heated conversation yesterday night, when I was severely reprimanded for using my laptop to go online at 12 midnight in my bedroom, this happened:

They asked me to never use my laptop in my bedroom since now my house is WIFI-ified (what the...?? makes no sense at all). They mentioned that the Turkeysis is having a major exam soon and doesn't want me using the computer in the same place where she has to study, and suggested that I bring my laptop downstairs to the dining room to go online.

So I questioned, in the most calm manner I could manage at that time, I could do so in my room, away from my sister's eyes in the study area upstairs. Why not let me do so in my room?

And there came the reply:

"So that, we can...control what you're doing."

Well, If I had blogged about this incident right after it last night (which I couldn't due to the stupid "no-com-in-room" ban), you would probably see a post laced with profanity.

My parents don't trust me. I don't trust them, either. And I only give my best to those whom I trust.

My world has turned dark, ever since...

What that once filled my world - song, music, expressions of creativity - was no longer, ever since I returned to the "protection" of my "dear" parents. My voice, once audible on the many stages and public places I have dwelled in, or visited, could never be heard once more in this place I should be calling "home". I still listen to pop songs and music that I like, but gone are the days when I sang to myself, or shared whatever I was listening: I preferred to keep music unpolluted and sacred, not associated with whatever that was happening around me: for me I could sense none but a little light of hope from somewhere far away from where I was. And that light is dimming...

The house is quiet. For fear of unleashing their wrath by saying something wrong, that triggers the monster within them. After seeing M's rather innocent intention of correcting P's pronunciation of a certain famous company turn into an anger-filled quarrel several days ago in the car, it has only become more certain. And perhaps, conditioning has already took its place: those who speak against will be punished dearly. Reward and punishment; that's how things go.

There's a Chinese saying that goes: Ugly things in the household shall be kept within the four walls of the house, never to be spread. I have tried to keep to this; but now the pain in my heart is so strong, after the incident last night that let my thoughts race about once more. I have missed many chances to express myself; however, memory decays as time goes by, and I did not manage to do so in time.

And so concludes this really long post of the Fishball Hermit, who yearns for freedom and acceptance, and most of all - respect. And she hopes to find a real somewhere, to hide...

Singapore Youth Festivals 2007 - Central Judging

2007-04-17T21:42:00.000+08:00

Oh. My. God. How. I. Miss. Those. Times.

Singing, kena scolding, pep talks, Physical Training (PT), wacky games......

our dear Ms. Jennifer Tham's guidance...

argh.

But well, RVChoristers, past and present, all rejoice...for it is the day where we relive the legend once more -

Gold With Honours!!!

Yes, RVChorale got GWH for SYF 2007... =) =) =)

Congratulations to all who have made this possible - Ms Tham, RVChorale Teachers-in-Charge, RVChoristers, RVChorale Seniors, and all RVChorale supporters... =)

And also further congrats to RVCO who also got GWH, and RVCB who got Gold...I heard the bands' judging was so strict this time that only 2 schs out of 150 got GWH...

More RV SYF updates will appear on this post once I get hold of the results ^^

Updatessss

2007-03-16T12:49:00.000+08:00

I'm supposed to rush my take-home quiz now...but well...

So far all things have been bright and goody for me..at least for now. If you don't count the usual periodic quarrels, conflicts...yadda yadda. Still struggling with my life from a relationship sort of aspect, but I guess it's normal...after all relationships take time to be well established. Otherwise, if you talk of academics...well, I can't complain anything about that, that's all I can say ;P

CNY is finally over...mid-terms have finally been over... (XP)...and I continue to slug off the rest of the semester...well more of slacking off actually. I dunno why...maybe SG's education system is really that stressful to the extent that I don't feel the humongous amount of stress that used to pile up on me every time I face examinations/tests/assignments/whatever. Or maybe the additional experience has helped...esp. in Chemistry and English. [heh heh heh]

Whatever the case, I still do hate doing 4 times PW in 3 months. ARRRRGH.

And yes, good news for me...and for many others as well, albeit slightly disappointing...

I'M RETURNING TO SINGAPORE!!

...well...but like, for only...at most...1 day..??

Think you all must be going O_O.

All thanks to the Phantom of the Opera, and some slight help from the Prophet Muhammad. (I'm not Muslim, by the way...-__-|||)

The 31st of March will be the Prophet's birthday (and also a public holiday in Malaysia), and well, Phantom is on a "strictly limited season" in Singapore...and me, being quite obsessed with all things Phantom, would never want to miss a chance to the the thing LIVE on stage. As the musical only runs till May 13th (season being already extended; it was supposed to end in April), I don't have school holidays until April (nor does it coincide with government school holidays in Singapore and Malaysia), and most importantly, the Turkeysister will be going mad if she does not get to watch it live as well...there comes the Prophet to the rescue.

And so, me and my sister will be somewhere in the Esplanade Theatre at 2pm on the 31st of March.

MWAHAHAHAHA....etc.

Can't believe I'm gonna watch a Broadway musical...LIVE. And the Phantom of the Opera, for that.

But it's quite sad that I can't stay longer due to school and soon-to-arrive final exam season, which is a season not to be jolly indeed...

Let's hope I'll be able to make it back during my April term break...maybe I can even share the agony of getting PW results with you guys...haha.

Blog Opens...finally. mwahahahaha

2007-02-26T12:41:00.000+08:00

hmm. Many have been pushing me to open this thingy...and so it is now open.

Bwahahamwahahahaha....

It is 9 days since the 1st day of Chinese New Year..and I have been busy documenting my CNY, as far as I can...(of course, there are obstacles during my course of expressing my creativity, in the form of parental pressure)

Pics and videos will come up soon, kay? My Internet time is precious, considering that I om on 56K dialup at home and have limited free time in school...

ARRRRRRRGH

anyway...happy CNY to all...belated wishes from ze Fishball Hermit here from Malaysia =)