Cyst --> Pustule --> Protuberence --> Excrescence

I had a little cyst, a little cyst had I.

The little cyst it was, a-growing on my eye.

It pressed against my eyeball, and made me hopping mad.

It wiggled and it wriggled, and prospered and grew fat.

I tried to paint my little cyst in colours bright and gay;

I drew on it with liner in't dawn of early May.

Since then my friends have been aloof and they've been rather mean.

They seem to think that I have changed into a weird drag queen.

Signs of Fatness

It's true. I am getting fat. And these are the official signs:

1. I seem to be wearing safety floats around my waist.

2. My cheeks look mump-y.

3. My first pair of jeans tore at the butt, and my second pair of jeans broke at the zip.

4. And the last official sign: The toilet seat seems to me to be a bit too narrow.

I went to watch "50 First Dates" today, which starred Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. It was very, very funny, a sort of Groundhog Day meets You've Got Mail kind of film. I went in thinking it was going to be corny, but I think the film stayed very true and very, very sweet. Everyone came out with "Aww" looks on their faces.

The bad thing about watching romantic comedies though (the last one I watched was Love Actually), is that you keep wishing you had someone to watch them with and to live them out with rather than having to watch them with groups of three to four people! Tonight's company was good, but two guys and a girl just aren't the same as one (uno, satu, ergudgoo, mogmog) sensitive, humourous, stunningly handsome, caring and er slightly goofy guy. I wish.

Though, my friends are all awesome people and I must be a doofus brain for thinking a hunk of meat could ever equal them. With the rate I'm expanding, though, a chunk of meat would be more appropriate, to match the size that I'd be

And if you would like to know my weight secret: Merba's apple pie cookies are good. Buy them. Try them. Love them.

O Simple Thing, Where Have You Gone?

I had the nicest philosophy tutorial group last semester, with a very good tutor and proctor who actually took their work seriously, and a wonderful group who actually did their work and offered comments in class and were friendly and encouraging. But this semester I've been stuck with an awful group and I feel immensely annoyed after the lousy proctorial we had today.

The proctor had obviously not prepared for his lesson (he didn't even bring the book or the notes) and couldn't give intelligent comments on anything we'd said at all or inspire us to further discussion. He didn't bother about whether we'd done our work or not. Only four people had turned up and one of them came with a set of answers that were his friend's, and the proctor didn't seem like he cared. Whenever a point was seriously raised, the proctor didn't even allow us to discuss it in its entirety before moving on to the next point and brushing over any comments without giving feedback on them.

Long rant there but I hate it when people don't take their work seriously or don't put in their best in preparing for things especially if their work affects someone else and someone else is trying to learn. I know that there's a time for play and recreation, but I do expect other people to give their best in work or studies as well, and it makes me upset to see people skiving off their duties (especially if they are teachers!). Grr.

I guess that's why I keep having these recurring nightmares about teaching and not preparing properly for my lessons and my students getting all irritated and rebellious. I hope that I'll always come to class prepared; I'll try, to the best of my ability. I believe that if students aren't enthusiastic in your classes and if they don't do their work, a large part of the reason could be you. So prepare, prepare, prepare!

Another reason why I'm kinda slightly in a bad mood (again) is that I was in the library earlier and I saw Mr Asian Fetish with (no prizes for guessing) an Asian girl. Maybe I should have gone up and said hi, but I let my hair fall over one side of my face (the side he was sitting on) and studied away with my head tilted in that position until I got a crick in my neck, whereupon I dared to look up and to my immense relief he was gone.

I'm not a racist nor do I have anything against my own race. That would be silly. But I do get annoyed whenever I see him with an Asian girl. He deludes himself with the idea that all Asian girls are mysterious, submissive, gentle, well mannered and willing to pander to his every need. I quote: "When I came back from Nepal I just couldn't date British girls anymore, because I found them fat and uninteresting. Since then I've always gone for Asian girls".

That's really annoying because it shows such racism and stereotypicalism and horribilism. There are different races in the world and they do have their differences of culture, true. But there will always be different kinds of women within different races so the stereotype that you can only date Asian women because they're all of a particular kind is wrong. Because it's terribly prejudiced to typecast women according to their race, whether you typecast them favourably or not.

(Disclaimer: am not against mixed race couples in the least. I truly find it nice to see mixed race couples around. Am just against people having the set idea that they only want to date this and that race. Cos when you see this same guy around with different women who are all of the same race, it gets really annoying.)

This was a long, boring kind of nerdy entry, written in very bad grammar, and typed in haste and fury. Promise you will still continue reading this webpage though.... *grovels*..... and I promise never to write anything like that again. : )

I'm getting old and I need something to rely on...

Nice Weather For Ducks - Not

It's been a Jonah Day.

We went to see Kill Bill: Volume 2 yesterday, and the cheesiness in that film could have obesified a mouse. That squishy eyeball on the floor didn't help matters either.

So after coming back I left my window wide open as I slept, and this morning when I crawled out of the duvet my room was freezing and my nose was running like an athlete. Skipped a lecture and went for the rest, and sniffled my way through a horrible practical that took up three hours. In between, I tried to get rid of my cold by eating warm food: - two slices of peanut butter and jelly toast
- leftover noodles from yesterday's dinner
- leftover curry from yesterday's dinner
- four pancakes with honey

That was just breakfast and lunch, but now I look like Santa Claus.

I've become much fatter after coming to the UK. I hope that when I fly back I don't get arrested for attempting to smuggle drugs into the country through my shirt.

Am listening to Pink Floyd: "Wish you were here". If I'm in a bad mood I might as well luxuriate in it : )

Of Burps and Aquatic Plants

It's very troublesome staying with housemates. I can't do the things I usually do at home like burp loudly and say "AHHHhhhh HHMMMMMMmm" after a sneeze. It's even worse staying with three guys because you feel as though you're the sole representative of the girl kingdom and have to behave carefully in order to uphold the reputation of girls all over the world.

Being up early as usual today I thought I was all alone and sneezed, yelling loudly as I do after it, before I remembered the three sleeping bodies in close proximity to my room. Ah well...

I went swimming yesterday at the International pool again for the second time in two weeks. I'm lousy at swimming (I swim one lap and stop, swim another and stop) but managed to swim 20 laps which for me is a big feat. After that we went to little Tokyo, and I ordered Herbal Coke.

Never, ever, order Herbal Coke in some weird Asian-esque restaurant. The Coke is nothing but some weak sugar water with an aquatic plant, yes I repeat an aquatic plant in it. I finished my Coke to the last dregs and then made Andrew try the aquatic plant which actually had spores, yes I repeat spores on its furry little leaves. Andrew the little devil pretended it was very nice so I had a bite myself.

It was furry and mossy and tasted exactly as though the owners of Little Tokyo had pulled up some weed from their decorative ponds and put it into my drink. But it still had a slight Herbal Coke taste so that was good : )

So after that we went to the library to study and sat on the wide grass patch outside the library where the daffodils were nodding gaily. I think I slept more than studied, my "Physiology of Plants" serving as a pillow to rest my head on. Liting had brought her Philosophy texts, which resulted in some confusion:

Liting: "I'm going to bring my Philo"

Me: "Your pillow? I think I shall bring mine as well"

Liting: "My philo doofus head"

Well, she didn't exactly say that, but an author a struggling blogger is allowed some literary embellishment.

And sitting on the grass patch caused me to sit on some uncomfortably prickly plants which looked exactly like the one in my Herbal Coke and which plant-y splinters got into my finger causing it to bleed. So you see studying on the grass in the springtime may be a nice idea in theory, but isn't as lovely as it's all cut out to be. Even daffodils don't make up for Herbal Coke disappointments and bleeding fingers, Mr Whitman.

No don't believe that, it was a lovely day.

A Little Nothing

Today was a pretty good day.

I went to uni at 11 to meet up with my group for our project, and we managed to find the solution to a graph that had been bugging us for ages, so that was good.

After that I had a cancelled lecture so I went to the Union with Gemma and sat at the little place above the refectory that serves Starbucks coffee. It was really nice just sitting there chatting and trying to convert our weights and heights into kilograms and centimetres from stones and feet, just for the fun of it, and laughing at nothing in particular.

Went out with Katie tonight for dinner, and after dinner she came over to mine and we had a really really nice talk. I'm thankful for having met someone like her, and it's really strange (but nice) that we have so many thoughts and ideals in common. Thank u for being such a nice friend. : )

Have nothing much to say really but just wanted to write out the memory of a beautiful day.

And Before I Forget...

The birthday of a certain mysterious someone (I don't know who though) is apparently coming up on the sixteenth of June. The mysterious someone (who is not known) would like to give the general public a few hints as to what that mysterious someone (whose identity remains mysterious) would like for the mysterious someone's (the unknown someone's) birthday.

1. The mysterious someone (who is obscurely located) would like, for consumption:
a) Chocolates from Thorntons, Mint Crisps if possible.
b) Freshly Baked Peanut Butter Cookies, soft and chewy if possible.
c) Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, Phish food or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough if possible. Or both.
d) A Giant-sized packet of Maltesers, if possible.

2. The mysterious someone (who remains faceless) would like, for raiment:
a) A new white cardigan from H&M.
b) A new pair of cords from anywhere.
c) A new three-quarter sleeved maroon top from Zara.

3. The mysterious someone (the anonymous someone) would like, for entertainment:
a) Monty Python's "The Holy Grail".
b) Monty Python's "And now for Something Completely Different".
c) Monty Python's "The Meaning Of Life".
d) Any Peter Kay video.
e) Any Eddie Izzard video.
f) The first album of Big Daddy Weave.
g) All the videos one can compile of that lovely American Idol finalist, the red-haired, Frank Sinatra-esque guy who sang the theme song from Casablanca (the mysterious someone melts) and "She's always a woman to me" (the mysterious someone tears).
h) Any book of Yeat's poems.
i) A "Life is Beautiful" DVD.
j) A "Groundhog Day" DVD.

The mysterious someone trusts that the loyal readers of this blog will rish and rosh and rush to bookstores to obtain Monty Python DVDs and Eddie Izzard DVDs at the first available opportunity. If not, then, well, a birthday card will do...

This is one of those anonymous blogs you read about in scary stories, where the green ghost hacker monster possesses computers and makes the keys of the keyboard type random words in random orders.

I Wanna Grow Old with You?

Was looking around at all the married people today during the sermon (drifting off, like I always do ) and thinking about how strange it was that these perfectly ordinary people were married. How could they live with such a momentous responsibility everyday, and who could have loved them enough to have wanted to propose to them, have kids with them, and watch them grow old and saggy for the rest of their lives?

Marraige seems like something that happens only to the very lucky or the very foolish, certainly not the ordinary, nondescript people I see around me every day, and definitely not the lecturer with a pot-belly whose eyebrows need trimming or the lady in the supermarket with huge glasses and a croaky voice.

I would love to be married and have kids one day, but somehow I don't see myself as extraordinary enough. The mind boggles at the thought of someone out there actually weird enough to want to quarrel and make up with me for an endless lifetime and to join in the long wait for my bits to sag.

In other news, I've been trying to get some work done over the past few days, and have been waking up at 530-ish every morning due to jet lag. Thanks to jet lag, I've been able to catch every single episode of Looney Tunes from 530 to 600 on Boomerang, after which I stagger upstairs on a toast high and attempt to shower, then hit the books for all of half an hour before I lie on my bed for an hour, doing absolutely nothing but staring into space (and I am not exaggerating), after which I hit the books for fifteen minutes, and then prostrate myself on the duvet for a further hour and a half, when I look at the clock and realise that it's almost 10, and give up and start chatting on MSN.

My ex-housemate (who's now gone back to Seychelles) gave me a mug for my birthday (besides a very pink cake from Morrisons) which says "Lazy Git". It's sitting on my table now. I think I prefer the cake.

Better get back to lying on the bed studying.

The Proliferation of the Unclothed

I went down to the International Pool today and now I feel like slee-ee-ping...

Ok, will have another shot. I went down to the International Pool today and swam more than fifteen laps (I think)... and in between I sat at the end of the pool and watched the diving competitions and the synchronised swimming lessons and Liting darting in and out of the water like a fish.

After that we both went to shower and again I was appalled at the abundance of naked women and the nonexistence of any dividing curtains whatsoever. Even though I'm not a perv (I hope), I could barely keep from staring because it was all - such a novelty (yes yes, excuses, I hear you say).

I collected my jeans from the dear old lady today and she told me "ah hoooong them in mah bahck door and gave them a good airin' " and that they must be dry by now. She loves taking the piss, bless her. Hope to see her again... though I wouldn't rip any of my clothes for that.

I should get down to studying, but I can barely prop my eyelids open. Bed is the order of the day.

Of Noses and Jeans

So Audrey and I were in the check-in queue, and I noticed this guy continually eyeing us and whispered to Audrey about his being dodgy. Wouldn't it be a coincidence if we ended up sitting next to him? we wondered.

Imagine our surprise and my consternation (haha) when we did indeed end up next to him on the plane.

He had a strange, lopsided nose and marbly grey eyes and balding straw-coloured hair.

I nodded and tried to make intelligent comments whenever we were talking, but all I could think of was the Nose...

Was half-listening and half-nodding away, but was pretty glad when he mentioned that he was married with two kids. :oP

In other news I brought my ripped jeans down for mending, but decided to wash them first. I was too impatient to wait for the machine to dry them, so I stopped the machine halfway and brought my jeans up and gave them a good ironing whilst I dressed and got ready(multitasker = me). Result being they were still a little damp and the lady behind the counter looked astonished!

"Ooooooh, love, they're still damp!"

"I know...I've only just washed them!"

Gales of laughter from the old lady and her assistent.

"Ooooooooohhh... love at least you bothered to wash them" still choking with laughter.

"Yeah I tried ironing them though it wasn't of any use."

"Oh I should think it wasn't" and she went off into fits of laughter again. I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was laughing at me instead of laughing with me, but ahhh well... I know I "brought joy into her (perhaps) humdrum life". Sooo everything's alright, and I'm going to collect my jeans on Saturday!

Caution: Full Speed Ahead

Good Friday today, which got me thinking about how


"He was wounded for our trangressions, bruised for our iniquities. The punishment for our peace was put on Him, and by His stripes we were healed."

I watched the Passion of the Christ with Audrey yesterday, and it was pretty good : ) It was very graphic and brought the events of 2000 years ago into the context of here and now. I almost felt like one of the crowds following Christ as he was put to death on the cross. Each lash of the whip was depicted in excruciating detail, which made this verse run through everyone's heads: By His stripes we are healed.

Some parts were too terrible for me to watch, but the middle-aged lady beside me took it all in with shakes of her head. It would have been rather amusing actually were I not so affected by the film, to hear her going, "Haiyoh! Tsk tsk tsk." whenever the soldiers whipped Jesus, shaking her head vigourously, as though with her stern Singaporean-auntie disapproval she could cow the soldiers into putting down their whips in meek submission.

I used to pray this strange prayer when I was a kid: I prayed that I would be allowed to see Jesus being crucified. I used to think that if I had been there, at the foot of the cross, my faith would have been all the more real. In a way, I guess my prayer has been answered.

I've been having trouble sleeping o' nights, because I've been imagining all sorts of strange things. I keep thinking that my KLM flight back is going to crash, and imagining how Audrey and I, with our orange life-jackets, will plummet into the sea; or thinking that there will be a bomb in Amsterdam when my flight gets there, or that Singapore will be bombed by terrorists, or that another World War will break out and I will be thrown into prison and whipped. It's no use telling me that all these imaginings make no sense because I know they don't. In the light of day everything seems silly, but at night in the half-stillness fantasies seem to become so real and sleep seems all the more terrible because I don't know what manner and shape of things will come at me in the half-darkness.

I wonder whether people go mad this way, but there; I won't think about it now.

Got an email from Katie : ) She might fly down in the summer for a visit. It'll be wonderful if she does. I'm already thinking of all the things we could do, and if I really do go down to Newcastle to stay with Gemma as well, it looks set to be a really exciting summer!

Better try to get some sleep now!

Beef Noodles and Neil Humphreys

I went out with my dad today to Tampines Mall for the beef noodles again. Sitting in the crowded food court slurping away and talking and just enjoying the feeling of being together with my dad and getting his views on things was an experience I wish I could've frozen in time.

I always wish I could relive these times: the times when Janice and I would cycle to the East Coast Beach and chat away looking at the waves wash over the sand and getting ourselves sunburnt, the time when I was learning how to rollerblade on the aforesaid beach and how when I successfully bladed from one hump to the other, a whole group of watching Marines whooped encouragingly; the times in Secondary School when we would laugh over anything and everything, the times swimming in the Bedok pool with my dad and my brother, church camps where we would giggle into the late night with our secrets and over which guys in church were cute, and of course the times spent hanging out in Tampines Mall with my dad eating beef noodles.

When we were sitting in the crowded food court a group of aunties came over and without so much as a by-your-leave three items were laid down on the table: two packets of tissue paper and an umbrella, and then the aunties charged off to get their food. This was the first time I'd seen people reserve seats in the food court with tissue paper with my own eyes. My dad was nonchalant, I was aghast.

After that my dad brought me to a little old-style cafe called "Ah Kun Coffee Shop" where he bought two slices of kaya toast (90 cents for two) and a cup of hot "kopi" for him and "teh" for me. (90 cents each) And we had our tea in those little porcelain cups with red plastic spoons.

And I told him about how Linda and I went to a coffee shop and she said, "teh with milk please" and the Ah Beng seller said, "Teh la" and she said, "Yah, with milk" and he said "Teh la teh la"... and my dad laughed his head off and said in Chinese, "Gai tian ni de peng you lai keyi dai ta men lai zhe bian. Zhe shi Xing Jia Po de Starbrucks! (Next time your friends come from other countries to visit, you can bring them here. This is the Singaporean Starbrucks!)" and I laughed and laughed and my dad tried to say "Starbucks" but we both ended up slopping coffee all over the table.

So then I told him about Neil Humphreys and how, when he'd come to Singapore and tried to look for a hawker centre, he'd ended up sitting somewhere with tables and chairs and filled with people eating quietly. He had been waiting a long time for the food to come and was wondering what on earth was happening, when his friend Scott grabbed his arm and said, "Look! There's a ****ing dead body over there!"

"Where?"

"There! The one who is lying down and not ****ing breathing." And Scott was out there as fast as his legs couuld carry him. (*)

My dad laughed and I continued jabbering on fuelled by the knowledge that, come 13th April, there would be no one so tolerant of my constant jabber anymore. Not until June, at least.

(*)Notes from A Smaller Island by Neil Humphreys

Fourier My Hero

I've been studying the Fourier Series and Wave Transforms for the past three days, and do I ever regret not paying attention during lectures. For the notes are comprehensive enough in themselves to captivate, and I've been doing examples and kinda enjoying them too. *geeky look*

One of my coursemates complains incessantly about the lecturer and I remember grumbling about him too, but I guess he's alright. He may be a little old and he may be happier sitting at home watching Neighbours and he is definitely underpaid, but his notes are lovely and I really should have read them earlier.

It was my brother's birthday yesterday and we went to a hawker centre at Simpang Bedok to celebrate. We had

1. Oyster Omelette

2. Black Pepper Crab

3. Lady's Fingers with chilli and shrimp

4. Huge prawns fried in butter

5. Barley drinks

Very very Singaporean and cost us just about $12 (3 pounds) each.

When we came home that night the playground was empty except for three little Indian children running around and playing hide-and-seek and being watched by their mothers clad in saris. And then going up the stairs to our apartment I saw three Malay men in T-shirts and sarongs standing in the cool night air having a laugh together, and in that instant I knew I was truly home. (cue cheesy National Day song)

Think this is kind of a really really geeky entry, but I can't be bothered to delete it after I've typed it all out...:oS