The Completely Pointless Personality Quiz

At the Pertapis carnival at Yew Tee, I realized the enthusiasm of Malay audiences. At least, perhaps that is what I saw. They filled the seats under the little tent, and ran on stage as though hula-hooping was the most exciting of activities.
This is their world, where kids don't mind sitting in cramped spaces, squeezing in and out of plastic chairs, imitating their fathers alongside loud bouncy music. They can spend a whole stale afternoon practising skateboarding alone, lending it to policeman uncles having their own celebration in the middle of the void deck. (They offered us apples.) They weave their way around our so-called clinic, patting the guitars. Here, tough, muscular workers slouch by post-performance, sucking lollipops instead of cigarettes, and ask if we need help with the chairs, bid us goodbye one by one.
They cheered Moses and Ben's impromptu electrical rendition of Tanjong Katong and Chan Mali Chan, which was joyfully hooliganish. No-end supply of Mc's orange juice and Hello Kitties, and melting ice-cream. I love Shuyang's endless, encouraging appetite.
I was revisited by a childhood memory too, when imitations of my mum's past doll franchises emerged from the cardboard boxes - Red Riding Hood, with Grandma hiding under her skirt, and Big Bad Wolf behind her bonnet. Everyone screamed. For starters, I didn't find it scary as a kid. I didn't understand "mutated". Anything can fit anywhere, as long as it is part of the story.
Here's to the "CHIHUAHUA!!" gang, hyperventilating conductors, lion-protectors and sneaky video crew. Now drink your water.

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Alfian Sa’at read poetry for the CAP Opening Ceremony! *Beams* Yeah, I’m actually enthralled by that fact. I’m becoming like the rest of them. Scary. Jazz, shadow boxes, drum lessons, and cartooning?? Get me back there now! “Lee Shuang Ning” has no ring to it, at all, at all.

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All that you reason, (it's only time)
(Love is a feeling on my mind)
All that you sense
All that you scheme
All you dress up
All that you've seen
All you create
All that you wreck
All that you hate...
All this you can leave behind

You are Nino!


Which Amelie character are you?
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Crazy! I expected to go see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban all smoothly yesterday, with a leisurely lunch at Fish and Co. as a preamble. Instead, I somehow got my legs tangled around my desk chair around midnight, fell down heavily and did my knee a severe injury (although I am not even sure what it is). As a result, I spent the morning being wheeled around Mt. Alvernia, lying on a cold steel table (and being told not to shiver 'cos it would screw up the X-ray)and having 70ml of blood drawn out of my swollen knee. Apparently the knee-cap is still floating in limbo despite the cast.
My mother felt sorry for me and sent me down for the movie anyway. That was after we ate together at Scotts', talking about my post-JC education (again). I finally got down to Internet research and found out about this fascinating programme called NELP.
I study so little. It's all about getting through it, and then what?
So, after wedging my cumbersome, encased leg into a seat between Huixin and Limin, I saw HP3. I love it. It's the most satisfying movie I've seen this month - with added layers, Hogwarts areas i.e. the suspension bridge and leaf-scattered gazebo-like courtyards, funky/teeny uniforms of stripey ties and rolled-up sleeves vs. the full-on cloaks and scarves kiddy gear of the previous two movies, slick, potent, sparkly transitions (like that Dementors shrivel everything they touch, though they AREN'T supposed to fly). Sequences are either cut or shortened if not relevant to the plot, or lushly expanded on - when the source of Harry's 'happy moment' that inspires that gorgeous Patronus is brilliantly implied, where the grey area of evil comes in with Lupin's werewolf character chillingly turning on Sirius, Harry and Hermione. Time, thematically a giver of second chances (whether it be to save Sirius/Buckbeak or the chances Sirius and Lupin have to redeem themselves) is depicted through Dumbledore's sometimes befuddled speeches (Richard Harris is sadly missed here) and the slow, dignified swing of the clock's pendulum in the school tower, camera frequently panning through the glittering face.
The black humour of the Knight Bus and Leaky Cauldron - a shrieking Jamaican shrunken head with a right cool accent, sloppy housemaid who deadpans "I'll come back later" when a room explodes on her, and the ghoul-like innkeeper who enjoys dragging Harry violently around by the arms - is right up my alley, I should say.
Although the I-like-you-do-you-like-me thing between Ron and Hermione is a book early, it is underplayed and extremely funny. Rupert Grint remains a master of comic timing. He and Tom Felton (a Draco Malfoy endowned with Nick-Carter-like locks, thereby shifting him from the bratty-kid to sullen-teenager mold) get the most laughs here. Even added scenes lend added colour to the story, such as when the Gryffindor boys gather in their dorm engaging in an "animal noises" competition - it gives this boys-will-be-boys, true-to-Muggle-life parallel element. It is near-heartbreaking, though, that Neville has lost all his baby fat.
Maximum entertainment, with a head-on plunge into the darkness of "everything will change" - I'm all for it, and the next one.

Just examined my shoulders; I'm a bloody roast chicken.

Hey there Mr. Blue
We're so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do,
Everybody smiles at you.

Hey you with the pretty face,
Welcome to the human race
A celebration Mr. Blue Sky's
Up there waitin' and today
Is the day we've waited for

Mr. Blue you did it right,
But soon comes Mr. Night,
Creepin' over, now his
Hand is on your shoulder,
Never mind - I'll remember you this way.
- Mr. Blue Sky, Electric Light Orchestra, OST Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I don't think I will ever learn to wear suntan lotion at a beach. I just like frying, and being pink in the face, as if that's something to show for it. Today we explored puke-inducing swings, distorted raps, lost peacocks, self-dunking, polar bears for polar bears, stolen clothing found in trees and sweet if sappy farewell songs.
Ohhh. Groan. I'm going to cry now, over things that cannot be helped. Only they can, they can.
My dad ran in asking me how to spell "sympathies", as he scribbled it on an envelope. He's going to attend the wake of his classmate's husband, a year older, who collapsed after a workout in the gym. Which, of course, reminds me more of how I can and should be helping this.

The holidays are here!
The holidays!!
*Drops hands* I don't know why I put those exclamation marks up there.

Been reading White Oleandar by Janet Fitch after watching the movie on HBO. It’s got a lot of what I’ve heard high-minded critics call “purple prose”. I like it – wondering how far the author can go before she seduces her readers completely, and when, exactly, I’m supposed to “commit it then to the flames” and disagree with her so-called art. Ingrid is echoed, unintentionally, in Counting Crows’ Four White Stallions:

She had skin like a statue, milky white and pure
carved by an artist whose hand is demure
got a mind like a sabre
razor sharp and sure

I went to the HC production of The Odd Couple. The acting (of course! Duh!) was great, although, yes, perhaps the script wasn’t entirely appropriate for a JC production. Could not help rolling my eyes at “I’m not Spanish, I’m a frustrated American woman.” Oh yes, aren’t we hostile. My dear industrious Huixin must have slaved over that beautiful display and merchandise (merchandise?), and I cannot believe that they built the set entirely on their own. Mrs. Perry and her funky kids were sitting in front of us.
(Pink daisy, the milky sweetness/bitterness of teh-tarik ice-cream, the spicy, tart explosion of crystallized ginger.)
My eyes are still recuperating from the sleepover – watching movies until 2.30am with contact lenses on. Ouch. Should not have eaten so much. Until now, the committee still cannot agree on anything. Only now instead of venues and timeslots it is biscuit and potato-chip brands. Yu-Hsin insisted on conjuring ghosts out of the Botanic Gardens’ pond (apparently someone fell in as a child) and of course got freaked by a speeding, silent roller-blader. Jiahan claimed to have forgotten to come because the end of school rendered his brain blank with happiness. I wonder what that would feel like. I don’t think it would be healthy. So blank that we had to pepper him with pillows and cow cushions and bury him in mattresses the next morning before he would crawl out.
Of course, nobody wanted the ginger. (Do you, Cheek?) It will rot in my fridge until the next time Zhixuan loses Five Alive.

[Footnote: Now girls, if you think you are fat, there's this 5-year old in Georgia who weighs 63 kg. Eat that. (I know that wasn't funny.)]
[2nd footnote: I do so little.]