My tagboard is apparently flooded in tandem with the overflowing canals at Bukit Timah. Thanks to all of you readers! And yeah simplicity triumphs over anything else so this colour scheme shall have much more appeal than my previous disjoint cornucopia of food.

Note how I don't treat myself to a sumptous buffet anymore?

Ok my incoherence shall continue. Was wondering if i should start learning Italian after A's. Been wanting to learn it since primary school given my predilection for pasta and pizza but had to contend with french since italian isn't offered! Had a brief (2-day) encounter with Italian during sabbaticals last year and loved every minute of it!

What else? Cantonese? Japanese? Vietnamese? The former and latter are just ephemereal thoughts that lingered for less than a nanosecond for my grasp of tonal variations. European languages for now:))))))

YUI KUEN HERE'S A SONG DEDICATED TO YOU!!!!!!!!


like,literally!

Advertisements regarding the latest royal carribean cruise are flooding all forms of print media. I find all forms of luxury cruises overrated as the emphasis is completely distorted- cruises are meant to connect anew with nature, not enjoy amenities which city life can very well provide:)

There's absolutely no need to traverse unknown oceans or make strenuous ascents up snow-capped mountains for the inspiration to blog. A close inspection of supermarket aisles would suffice.

Well, I shalln't chastise Cadbury much for this, since TIME magazine has venerated it for its emphasis on fair trade. But the meretricious packaging it enveloped one of its products with is genuinely appalling. Deliberately misleading photos that thoroughly misrepresent the product.

Not chocolates. I mean the cookies. The cover, glamourised by a dazzlingly glistening purple, had to resort to chicanery to intensify its charm. The photo depicted a large (twice the size of a $1 coin) scone, with soft, fluffy, furry edges, and thick liquid chocolate sauce oozing out from it.

Enjoy getting disillusioned by the time the cover's detached. Guess what the actual product proved to be? A tiny cookie(not scone!) of Lilliputian proportions of comparable magnitude to a 5-cent coin. And if the drastic decrease in size doesnt matter, I'm sure the complete distortion of the texture does. Guess how it tastes like? Well, to put it horrifyingly, it would be an excruciating experience to even start your first bite. I sense its desperation to match up to the hardness of diamonds.

And instead of anything that resembled a dark liquid chocolate flowing out from within, all that gave the cookie its chocolate-y flavour was the measly flake of chocolate embedded deep inside. Size of flake? Smaller than 20% of a 5-cent coin.

It's unlucky for Cadbury, I must concede, to have fallen prey to mendacious advertising. Now come the hidden industrial secrets that I gleaned from a recent TV show.

Guess how they take photos for ice-cream? No strategic photoshop skills required, for all they do's to build a fake model, and smear glue on it to create the visual illusion that the ice-cream's melting.

And roasted chicken? It's coated with layers of DETERGENT for the added gloss in photography.

A very big thank you for the honest labels of "Cover photo for illustrative purposes only". That's integrity. As for those who didn't disclaim that, you can't fool me the second time anyway.

The water at the Tiong Bahru exam centre, where i sat for my french written papers, tasted bitter the first day, and sweet the next. Note the inconsistent quality.haha.

I refuse to have my creativity stifled by the syllabus, and here I am, offering my personalised curriculum on P&C. Thats going to be much more delightful with the spurts of hilarity.

PART ONE: WORD JUMBLE!
How else to get started? With a fictitious description of course.

My hands are not very strong. Understood. Almost a platitude.
My hands are very not strong. It borders on Chinglish, but note the slight change in position.
My very hands are not strong. Thats innovative. Unconventional placing.

PART TWO: MY NAME- MISPRONUNCIATIONS GALORE!

HAHAHAH! this is really carthartic, to redress justice for my name which has been pronounced correctly by only a measly 10% of the population. And misspelt 50% of the time.

Sicheng. Not Si(BIG VISIBLE SPACE!) Cheng.

Using the multiplication principle, the pronunciation of Si and Cheng are separate entities are should therefore be considered discretely( or discreetly).

First, about the Si. According to the mistakes I've heard over the past 12 years ( in Singapore), there are 3 variations, namely Si1, Shi1 and Si4.

Second, about the Cheng., Now stuff gets complicated, with two parts to consider, with the "Ch" part and the "ng" one. There are two variations of either, so altogether we end up with a whooping 4.

Grand total of pronunciations: 3X4=12. So a complete illiterate of the chinese language would be 1/12 chances of getting my name right. Does that explain the slim 10% chance of getting my name right?

I'm in the midst(more like mist, since Im lost.) of my A levels, and I hope my focus is better than that by a diverging lens. Perhaps IP students like me are so attuned to the comfortable break that commences in october that major assessments extending beyond then are disregarded with apathy.

And more significantly, my lack of concentration is due to my annoyance with repeats. Having to assimilate the exactly same content, and to go through the same formats of assessments, replicated with 100% precision, I mean. I routinely malfunction when repeats of previous tasks are elicicted from me.

My amused fixation upon the monumental end of my General Paper course has lasted throughout this year. Would the linguistic awareness pervading my blog instantly crumble without the structural support necessitated by the need to conform to the pedantic requirements of GP? Would hilariously casual Singlish triumph visibly over my previous adherence towards perfect sentence constructions? Without a language proficiency closely monitored by a condescending body of authority, what would the sudden surge of autonomy do to my writing? Urburdened by any circumscriptions, my imagination can finally undergo Brownian motion(Science students, get what I'm alluding to?) .

Well, as the previous paragragh has made blindingly evident, my style would remain, due to a constellation of the following reasons:

1) Well, firstly, I don't blog in order to improve my English. That's not the way to go. My blog is an orifice through which a cornucopia of my traits is made visible and thats all.

2) And does the use of perfect English in blogs correlate strongly with high GP grades anyway? The r value is nowhere near 0.8 (H2 maths students, right?). I learnt this the agonising way when my essay saturated with vocab irked Dr Wilks so deeply during BT2 that I had the underachieving label stuck with a terrible E.

3) The third reason is less glamorous. Once your ego is boosted with innumerable compliments by blogreaders, you can never bear to let your style slip back into decadence:)

haha, what else does azure mean, apart from blue? It means nitrogen gas in french:D

hahahh this song is quite old but upbeat nonetheless!

It might come as a genuine surprise that within the exceedingly small 710.2 km square(Gp resource package) of Singapore, the meteorological conditions vary dramatically and unpredictably across every 10 km square or so. Well, count yourself preposterous if your HDB flat has to be divided into two discrete portions, one of which is balmy and the other dull.

It's always refreshing to momentarily break the gaze with the bleached paper stiffened by the gratuitious smears of ebony toner. It's alarming how rigid piles of them can get when accrued(like 20++pages of printed matter, think GP resource package). It's even more entertaining to divert your attention to the patch of sky high above, if you've intelligently planned to study by a window where an unperturbed view of the sky is possible.

Well, about my side, yishun: the sky has been quagmired within the insipid boundaries of a monochrome shade. Default settings: The sky is covered with a shade of soothing cornflower blue in the dawn, glows with a more intense shade by noon and exudes a pastel pink by dusk. AND MY SKY IS APPARENTLY ANOMALOUS. Guess what colour it has alwasy been? Varying shades of grey.

If you film the colour changes up high from dawn to dusk in colour I bet it would be no different from one captured by a simplistic black and white one. All variations in intensity of black. When it isnt cloudy, the sky spooks we earthlings in yishun with its pristine bleached white.

And now for the bigger surprise? My mood remained sunny and vernal despite the colour scheme of my life which supposedly would be a major causal factor in determining our moods. My mood is never a function of the weather. Lucky me. Hardcore optimist(:

I love techno pop!

I think I must be inhaling vapourised honey or sugar in the gaseous state:)

SAT II 2400/2400 ultimate cause for celebration yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!
and hwachong diploma with distinction :D

Good job orange yeah! hmmm but i did study for SATs. Thank you to my books for conferring me with knowledge heehee!

Alright here's my 501th post. For the more interesting 500th just scroll down:D

Flipped through the little booklet Ms Liew got us a few days ago. In vivid shades of vernal colours. With fascinating quotes to top it off.

"Often the greatest enemy of present happiness is past happiness to well remembered" reads one of them by Oscar Hammling. I disagree(and i don't have to BEG in order to differ) cuz without pleasant memories, or even a conscious attempt at building or cherishing them, how are we supposed to find joy in life?

500th post anniversary- check this out!

hey there everyone, looks like my tribute which ive planned weeks ago isn't going to surface right now, for my straggling and pathetically flatlining blog traffic is making this blog look more like a deserted lane than a bustling street ablaze with vibrance. Well, sicne everyone's cocooned in their worlds of regurgitative facts which drive them away from the computer, guess the tribute shall be done after A's then. As for thsoe whom I've promised a tribute, they're all ready at your blog comment panels since I feel guilty about breaking promises:)

So yeah, a 500th post befitting the grandiose air of it all. What shall it be? Alright, ive decided:D I shall blog about the joyous journey of my development... In third person:D



Once upon a time(not too long ago), a little ( everyone's LITTLE as toddlers what!) girl slithered her way out of her womb to discover the marvellous world awaiting her presence. Opening her eyes, she saw two pairs of eyes saturated with delight at the prospect of a fresh addition to the family. With a mind too young to fully comprehend her uniqueness and significance intensified by China's one-chidl policy, she grinned throughout her 6 years there, passively soaking up all the CCTV children's programmes while bubbling over with embullience in Chinese with her parents, who wanted to, but could not, edify her linguistically with a new language.

Then the stories of air travel became all of a sudden a reality for her: she was dragged to the airport by her enthusiastic mother and was dumped into a room extremely long and crowded. It was unnaturally long. And it enthralled her with teh free flow of food and drinks. It provided free Tv channels(cant remember if i was watching CCTV then) which entertained her 6-hour stay there. It was only upon leaving the room did she finally realise that it was AN AIRPLANE.

So she underwent a dramatic increase in temperature. (30 degrees suddenly?) She stared fixatedly at the masses of letters twisted into shapes that looked curvier than chinese characters. She gave blank stares to CAPITAL LETTERS because she learnt them last. She used to write H with two horizontal strokes(because she was told by her desperate teachers that it looked like a ladder) instead of one. (yes, me.)

And she broke down in fits of giggles trying to efface her echos when speaking chinese. She delighted in her curiosity at assimilating the Sinagporean chinese accent. She had lots of fun flattening her accents and pretending to sound a little more curt and irritated in her new tone.

And assessments came. She breezed through all of them due to their ridiculously easy levels of difficulty. However,s he had no idea that she was sitting for exams that would determine her future , or at the very least, segregate her into a distinctive band. The whispers of wonder and the compliments of her ease of linguistic adaptation sounded as meaningless as the random irrelevant chatter of a marketplace.

She had no memory of any painful struggle with a new language. She mistook that for a continuation of the chinese language. She knew not the horrors and terrors of the failure of localise, she knew not the importance of learning it. All she was aware of was, she opened her inquisitive eyes to a world of alternate pronunciations.

Then the rosy hue dulled, without her being blissfully unaware. Comprehension exercises groped for substantiation, and essays demanded some sophistication in content. Attuned to the label of a lingustically comeptent child capable of bilingual fluence, she experienced disillusion for the first time in life( lucky girl,eh?) She justified her falling grades for english and chinese with innumerable complaints that she had no problems with teh language itself but stumbles with its relevant manipulation. Fortunately, her parents were understanding and did not get stuck in the tramlines of the past. They condoned her egregious failures in language-base subjects by encouraging her to devote more time to maths and science.

But she couldnt stay apathetic forever. Higher chinese O levels made its intimidating presence known. Her chinese teacher drummed into her the implications of scraping by with a C6. She attempted feebly to defend her grades by claiming that she can do an entire maths/chem paper in chinese but not a chinese paper. In the end, she worked at it.

And she got a glossy A1 for higher chinese. To the utter bewilderment of her parents and teachers alike who eventually agreed taht im better off doing some maths paper in chinese than doing chinese compre. (how not to,w hen i HAVE proven my ability to do that?)

Meanwhile, unfazed by language barriers, she ventured into French, which tested her only on her linguistic competence in secondary school. She declared her love for french and vowed to continue with it in JC.

deja vu. (french for"having seen already") the nightmare swept her into its menacing claws with the humanities incorporated...little did she realise taht french geography and history and even literature were involved. She fantasised of having taken CLL instead, but stopped cold in her tracks upon realising that the second L stood for Literature. She thought for a few fleeting moments of having taken a subject that somehow resembled her name, CSC, but shuddered at teh prospect of having to memorise china history again. (BSP exams already put me off). She fought on.

She emerged with an A for H2 french prelims. She severed all ties with chinese by getting her A1. She relied on her linguistic awareness to compensate for her incompetence in "the-part-of-chinese-that-doesnt-require-knowing-just-how-to-recognise-the-words".

What's next? Reminiscence.


favourite childhood song. encapsulates 6 years of FUN!!!!!!!

Hey everyone this is my 499th post- one more before the spectacular 500th!

I've already planned for my 500th to coincide with the last day of school( where a special CT session awaits) and I'll be lovingly preparing a cheery tribute to ALL MY FRIENDS. That's a meaningful closure befitting the 2 fun-filled years in hwachong(: SO keep a lookout yay!

So yup about my this 499th post- you know that your imagination can't ever be tempered with regardless of the fetters academic pressures are so bent on circumscribing you with when your vividly hilarious dreams trasnport you to heavenly magical lands:)

Sicheng's dreams- an entire galore of ridiculously logical events
1) (yesteday) I was playing ORIENTATION GAMES in some field, where(YES! IT'S THIS DETAILED AND SYSTEMATICALLY MAPPED OUT GOODNESS!) we're supposed to form two teams and attack our opponents from the opposite team WEARING ROLLER SKATES AT THE SAME TIME. wow, ISYF organisational skills obviously linger about for some time right?

and the dream continues. I spun around my my skates(see?imaginary. Really think my inline skating this good meh?) to avoid the lethal blow, and succeeded. Next(yes my dream still goes on) the next pair consisted of a little boy and a teenage boy engaging in a cat-and-mouse duel where the little boy spun at an astonishing frequency of 3 revolutions per second. And more interestingly, i remember calling out "DONT HIT HIM NOW! WAIT TILL HE SPIN UNTIL GIDDY FALL DOWN THEN YOU HIT WHAT!"

how very fascinating. MY DREAMS CONTINUES. next, i dreamt of my lovely junior WEITING coming all the way to hwachong library to find me(SMART GIRL, WEITING, AT LEAST YOU WHERE THE PROBABLITY OF FINDING ME IS RELATIVELY HIGH, GOOD THING YOU DIDNT GO INTO THE READING ROOM) and i remember myself opening a blue locker! (yeah i dream in striking hues whee)

okay, my psychedelic visions end. I awoke with a mirthful grin which lasted for 7 hours right till THIS MOMENT.

2) That was a few weeks ago, and guess where my dreams took place? BUGIS MRT STATION. (the profound etchings of our SL project in my mind. see? memorable experiences yay!) I dreamt that there's a fountain and a rather intricate structure of water slides at the control station, manned by an indian man. LOL MY DREAMS ARE SO FUNNY!

and the conversation embedded within my utterly joyful dream:
me: is the water slide free?
indian man: YEAH! IT IS! SO MANY PEOPLE COME EVERYDAY THEY NO NEED PAY ANYTHING!
me(after returning home): 你知道吗，现在地铁站还有水上游乐园呢！人家说是免费的！
mum: 别相信他，要是真的免费不亏本了吗？

HAHAHAHAHAHA OMG!!!!!!!!!! my dreams are just THAT vivid!!!!!!!

3) (a few months ago) I dreamt that i won a holiday package to PHILIPPINES!

4) ( after maths prelims) I dreamt that my FRENCH teacher told me (not in french though...in english) that my maths got 14/100. (precisely why i realised it was a dream while im in it)

Dear faithful reader, (if you're just a passerby, you're STRONGLY RECOMMENDED TO BE ONE NOW!)

The contents of this post are incompatible with refreshments of any kind. By that, the scope of forbidden items within 30 cm radius of you(or worse, in your mouth) encompass sweets, chocolates, sandwiches, and ESPECIALLY drinks. No liquid beverages are to be swirling about in your buccal cavity(wow, sec 4 biology class taught me that- it simply means MOUTH) or your journey here would prove to be LITERALLY EXTREMELY REFRESHING, in the sense that you'll awake with an abrupt jolt from your drowsy half-slumber by CHOKING ON YOUR FOOD!

qiuting: how come you suddenly take this bus?
me: oooh cuz my normal bus always never come one. See lah, the bus never comes and it never calms.

jiahui: you want kids next time ah?
me: yeah! and i'll teach them 3 languages! you eh, you don't want kinds meh?
jiahui: i want KID, not KIDS.
me: haha, are you KID-ding?
jiahui: muahahahaha! thats a nice one!

me: jiayuan! you won the "neatest handwriting award" in my autograph book!
wanling: where's the prize?
jiayuan: yeah lorh! i want nobel prize!
me: then you just remove all the bells at home lah! then you can get a "NO-BELL" prize what!

me: i'm getting back physics paper later................................................
gean minn: may the NET FORCE be with you!

e-hui: why you today laugh until like that?
me: (suppressing the previous fit of laughter) cuz today got trigger!
e-hui(referring to her, me, wanling, yushi and jiayuan): nope, today got five!(as opposed to "3 girl =trigger")

me: i forget how to write chinese word with pen and paper already eh! now only know how to type on computer!
xiaoming: are you serious?
me: it's not I serious okay, it's THE PROBLEM very serious lah!

xiwen: don't think about your cramps lah, think of someting else, like you know, think of you're going to stanford!
me(wincing in intense agony): nooooooo! I'm not going to stanford! I'm going to die!

sanyu(amusing himself by how i climb into my seat in the LT by stepping on the seat below me): haha, other people will sit also eh!
me(lyrics adaptation): YEAH, THEY'RE ALL GONNA GET A PIECE OF ME!

My weekly horoscope advises me to.....(I'm not doing some copy& paste job cuz it was originally in CHINESE and i'm proving my bilingualism here by translating)

1) ........think carefully before making any major decisions [NO not what you're thinking of, I wasn't advised to think THRICE)

Analysis: WOW, THATS TRUE! and you were smart enough to make a weekly and not a monthly horoscope cuz application for US colleges terminates right this week. I need to manually install the programme of PRUDENCE in the computer of my brain in case it goes mad and pushes me into distressingly terrible choices:( i crossed my fingers!

2) ...........not stare fixatedly before the computer screen for prolonged periods of time

Analysis: Did you craft this knowing that the college application season has freshly begun? Well, I'll try; but how not to with all the supplements and essays to be submitted online via commmonapps?

I used to have such a sweet tooth back then that I found the aversion to desserts by others profoundly incomprehensible. Well I do retain my penchant for sweet stuff, but savoury, creamy treats are edging their way into the acceptance and consequently LOVE by my taste buds. so hey there, a spread of my new favourites(with effect from sec 4)awaits!

Hey Hui Lin i linked you! check if the url's typed correctly!:D