|
| LET'S TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER..
John Ruskin once said, "There's no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather". Wise words indeed; I completely agree with the man. The sun might be shining a bit too brightly, as the San Andreas Fault cracks in my lips, and my expanding waist line due to too many ice creams being consumed show, but in no way can the weather nowadays be called bad. Downright ridiculous would be more appropriate. Obviously old Ruskin had never been to Singapore, or he'd have said something along the lines of there being no such thing as bad weather unless you were in Singapore.
I realise I'm complaining all the time, about school, about my hair, about stupid referees. This is despite knowing the bible's commands not to grumble, afterall, wasn't that the reason why the Israelites had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years? But I believe the situation nowadays merits an exception to the rule - the weather is hotter than Brad Pitt without a shirt on! Why, just the other day I bought a chocolate ice-blended and five minutes later I was left with hot chocolate. And I'm almost certain I got a tan by watching the weather report on TV the other night. The only time I'm not pespiring is during Physical; I'm sweating then.
I've tried not to complain, really, I have. But it's hard when all the odds seem to be stacked against you. An example would be the seven fans in my classroom, and -revision time!- state the P(one fan not working). Doesn't take a genius to guess where this is leading, just look for the desk under the fan that rotates at the same speed as the earth, that's where I sit. I'm always planning to bring a table fan but I doubt the teacher would appreciate the large bulky object on my table. She'd be wishing it was on hers! It's gotten so bad I'm actually looking forward to mid-years. Well, okay that might be a bit of a hyperbole but at least the exam hall's air-conditioned.
There isn't much that can be done to improve the situation, so I'm doing what I can to survive. Carrying an umbrella around like Mary friggin Poppins, for example, really helps. If only that would make the East Wind, or any kind of wind really, blow around here. Spending all your time in air-conditioned malls is a good way to keep cool too. This is sometimes a problem though, as people tend to get annoyed when your lounge chair blocks half the entrance. All that said, the best and probably only way to beat the heat? Take a holiday to the Arctic. | | |
| WITH LOVING HEARTS AND JOYOUS SONG WE SING TO MGS
I'm not sure what makes MG different from any other school except for the exorbitant school fees, but I'm sure that when I leave there'll be a thousand comparisons to make, each sentence going, "omg I miss that about MG.." Something about absence making the heart grow fonder. Afterall, it's been my second home for almost ten years. However much I love my school though, I can hardly say it's perfect; way too many idiosyncrasies to be called that. So, becuz I am nothing if not a never-satisfied, closed-minded Singaporean, here's a list of decisions/situations in my school that make me wonder about the sanity of the school's administration:
Disclaimer: the following is written tongue-in-cheek and should be taken with a pinch of salt, especially if you're someone with enough authority to send me to detention, since I remember doing a school rules quiz on the possibility of getting booked for blogging about anything that undermines the school. Almost feel like I'm living in George Orwell's 1984 trying to avoid the Thought Police. Not that I mentioned anything as radical as "F- MG!!", but better to be safe then sorry.
#1 Rule on bras
Okay, I don't mind that the school dictates the socks we have to wear, or even the 3:2 proportion of our blouse to skirt, but when they start deciding the colour of my undergarments (single coloured in white, beige, navy blue, grey or black), I say that might be taking it a bit too far. Not that I'm planning to wear a leopard skin patterned one studded with diamonds or whatever, but what right do they have to mess with my underwear!! What next, a granny-panties-only rule?
#2 Security guards
Not trying to be mean, but take a look at the security guards that patrol our school and you'll see why I question the school's choice of hiring them. I won't go into too much detail lest I, despite stating nothing but facts, be called a witch or something disconcertingly similar, but let's just say that if Mas Selamat ever came into our school and took anyone hostage, I'm betting it'd be a security guard over a student.
#3 MGS slippers
That they're the ugliest footwear invented has something do with my problem with them (faded blue and putrid yellow!) but when a school starts selling things like cheap-looking MGS-themed slippers, it gives me nightmares to think of what might come up next. MGS sunglasses? Yellow and blue wristbands? Oh wait, we already have those. Ugh.
#4 Vice-principals
Our school has at least 4 of them, no joke. I'm sure they're all put to good use, but it gets a bit worrying when a vice-principal pronounced 'fruits and vegetables' as 'fruitee and vegee-terbles' during devotion one morning. Not being elitist, but.. okay I'm being totally elitist. Just wondering what criteria has to be fulfilled to take up that post. Look out for vice-principal number 5: the stall vendor!
#5 Prefects
The nightmare I mentioned in point number 3 is nothing more than a figure of speech, but when it comes to prefects? I get honest-to-goodness nightmares about them. If ever I'm approached by a prefect, regardless of whether she's my friend, I can't help feeling extremely self-conscious. It's not that I don't like the person, I just hate their extremely annoying habit of booking people. Two more demerit points and I'll break my perfect record of never having been to detention!
#6 Canteen utensils
Always dripping wet and covered with a layer of grease, it wouldn't be hard to nab the culprit should a bout of food poisoning ever break out among the students (or if we're lucky enough, the teachers!) I'm not trying to be difficult, and I know the amount of washing-up the stall vendors have to do is hardly negligible, but I'm sure even Paris Hilton could've done a better job. Almost makes me want to go the Muslim route and bring disposable cutlery.
#7 GEL activities
GEL, which stands for Godliness Excellence and Love, is nothing but a fancy name for compulsory moral education lessons. I'm not complaining that they make us attend time-wasting Clean and Clear talks or watch videos poorly acted by teenagers on boy-girl-relationships, but when they expect us to make multimedia presentations about what we've learnt during those periods, maybe it's time for them to wake up and realise that: WE HAVEN'T. | | |
| STUDY, STUDIER, STUDIEST
Hate to mention the obvious, but mid-years are looming and it's time to get down to some serious studying. Well, believe it or not, I've actually started revising. Yes, you read that right, the same person who waited two days before last year's finals to start has actually made a friggin study plan and is following it. Okay, to be honest, I doubt a baboon would have much trouble following the plan becuz the only subject I've factored in is math.. but you have to count the fact that my power of concentration isn't much better than a three-year-old at a talk about, say, cordblood and stemcell research. A talk I attended a while back, I might add, although I spent the majority of the time playing Bingo on the evaluation form. Basically I get distracted easi.. hey I wonder what's on Disney Channel?
This leaves me with only one time in the day to study: the wee hours of the morning when everyone else is dead to the world (and based on the results from tests of what I 'studied', perhaps I was too). Before that? I get distracted by the TV, the sisters playing Bridge, the folks discussing renovation plans, even the ant crawling across the kitchen table; anything to keep me from studying, really. I haven't gone to bed before two the past two weeks, my latest being 4.30, which sucks becuz, being required to be in school by 7.20, I'm normally left in only two states: half-dead or half-alive. Kinda the same thing, depending on whether you're more a glass half-empty/half-full kind of person. Point is, I'm left completely knackered.
This is quite a problem, as you shall see. My dad's proud to see that I'm studying so hard, but afraid I'll experience a burn-out. All I can say is, how can anyone experience a burnout if they haven't even gone near the fire? That I stay up so late might seem that I'm studying hard, but the fact that I never start before eleven, sometimes even past one, is conveniently overlooked. So I'm thinking the chances of me experiencing a burnout is less than certain people taking responsibility for the escape of a certain terrorist two months ago, instead of just feeding the public bull, excuses I mean. No the problem I'm facing is far greater, far more serious and with far graver consequences: if this carries on, imagine the eyebags!! | | |
| LIFE'S WHAT YOU MAKE IT
One of my biggest dreams, other than to work in MUTV or become a journalist or florist when I grow up, is to be a Disney Channel kid. Imagine, attending school at East High, returning home to the Tipton Hotel, spending weekends at Miley Cyrus' beach house and going to Lava Springs for summer vacations. Can't imagine a life I'd rather lead, other than being a WAG of course. Troy Bolton would be the #1 boyfriend, Hannah Montana and London Tipton the bestfriends, Zac and Cody the trouble-making but still adorable younger brothers, and Gabriella Montez the maid. Perfect.
But I suppose the thing I really crave is the freedom they seem to enjoy. Have you ever seen Sharpay Evans buried in a textbook? Or Cory Baxter trying to memorise chemical equations? All they ever seem to be doing is having fun, sometimes getting into trouble/fights but always living Happily Ever After at the end of every episode, and they always discover that ultimately friends and family are all that matter. Cliched and unrealistic but it plays into our fantasies of a world where problems miraculously solve themselves and people really live by Jesus' seventy times seven forgiveness rule.
Of course, I'm not deluded enough to believe that life would or could ever turn out like that, no matter how much I want it to. I wouldn't even call that reaching for the stars, hallucinogenic drugs would be more appropriate. What I do instead, is treasure the things I have around me, realise - even if I still have to take the O levels at the end of the year - realise that it is indeed friends and family that are going to be the ones that will stand behind me all the way. Why should I doubt it when that's the case now; stressed but sustained by God, family and friends, knowing it'll be the same in five months time.
In the meantime, excuse me - Hannah Montana's on TV! | | |
| REALLY MISS YOUR HAIR IN MY FACE
I got my hair cut today. Again. I'm telling you, at this rate I'm totally going to end up looking like Mr Weatherbee of Archie comics fame. Which, even breaking away from stereotypes about how girls should look, isn't very attractive, as Britters proved to us when she went psycho and shaved off all her hair. But before you click the X on the top right corner of your screen, thinking, "Not another story about her hair, she's probably the only person who hasn't figured out that a pair of scissors plus her hair equals unmitigated disaster.." I've got an entirely different tale to tell today!
When I normally get my hair cut, it'll be at my family hairdressers, where I've gotten it cut since I was a baby. Apparently she used to work at a fancy hotel but decided to set up her own salon. Well, you know how the saying goes, familiarity breeds comtempt, and after ten years or so I'd quite had it with her service. Or lack of it, rather. Also, having read dozens of magazines saying a hair cut is supposed to be more an experience than a do-I-have-to? event, what with glorious head-massages and gossip with hairdressers, I looked back on my past hair-raising encounters with said hairdresser and was left with only one choice.
So today Qingling, Amanda and I made our way down to Monsoon to get our hair cut. Not exactly high-end, but at least I'd get a decent hair wash, cut and blow-dry, as opposed to normally getting kicked out of the salon with my hair still dripping like blood from an IV drip. Okay, not really, but close. Anyway, into the salon we went and a half-hour later, a star was born - uncover the new face of L'Oreal haircare! I jest of course, becuz, while I wouldn't say my hair looks bad, it's hardly as glamorous. It's just.. short. Well, compared to my Posh pre-bob length, as short as five inches below the shoulder can be.
Edit: can't believe I forgot to mention the progress of the growth of my fringe, given that this is a post about hair and I obsess about it's length only about, oh, ALL THE TIME. And okay, not so much progress or growth actually, becuz since that fateful day when I looked into the mirror and saw Bai Ling, it still looks as short as Michael Owen beside Peter Crouch.
 | | |
|
