Omega, and Alpha

There's nothing like a walk down Orchard late in the year to stir up my Christmas spirit. But before I go any further, allow me to make the mandatory announcement everyone's been making on their blogs, and one which I now declare with unabashed delight:

IT IS OVER. IT IS ACCOMPLISHED. IT IS FINISHED.

Apart from the unexpected easiness of the paper (it was remarkably straightforward, compared to what the other papers have been. One of the comparative poems for the PC section was even one of the comparative poems that came out for our prelims!), the sheer joy of having the weight of the A Levels being lifted off my shoulders is cause enough to make me smile all day. And indeed I have been doing that mostly today. First there were charming Brazillian chefs fawning over us with assorted skewers of meat (I personally loved the lamb. It wasn't that smelly. Too bad I discovered it late into the meal), then a cruise around Vivocity, then mindless entertainment by none other than Jack Black himself (I loved Ben Stiller's cameo), topped off with another meal. By the end of the day I was so bloated I felt positively nauseous at the sight of food. All that meat at lunch went a long way towards keeping me fairly fed for the rest of the day. Oh! and I even discovered my favourite type of coffee! The Columbian Supremo, from TCC. It is, as the menu eloquently puts it, the strongest of the mild coffees.

Yes, yes, yes, so Joel was a busy boy today, indulging in a whirlwind tour of entertainment not seen since, the end of the prelims? I doubt if I even came close then. And tomorrow, we shop!

I actually had a forecast of what prom would look like this evening. I was walking down Orchard past the Meritus Mandarin around 7, and as we looked in we realised another school's prom was about to begin. Lots of teenagers milling about fashionably dressed. I liked the look of it. I think this year's setting is much better than what it could have been, the Grand Copthorne. The Christmas decorations of Orchard certainly up the glitz factor, as well as making me feel all Christmassy and nostalgic. I always feel nostalgic when I look at Christmas decor. There's this sense of warmth, and longing within me for the past, and the nagging sadness that what was can never be again, at least, not for this year. Ha, well do I remember my incessant search for a Braun Buffel wallet last year. This year, such things matter so much less. Indeed, I don't even have a gift list for Christmas. My greatest wish is to snuggle up at home, next to the tree, eating roast beef and turkey and admiring the beauty of my boned in ham all sliced up on the table (it really looked like it was straight out of a catalogue when we set it up last year. Should have taken a picture). Oh well, one cannot always get what one desires.

To tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow! May all our days be as carefree as this season!

Hatred

Words cannot fully express how much I hate the army right now. I cannot even bring myself to write down here all that is running through my mind because I can only do so with such bitterness, such anger, that it can only come out with the foulest vulgarities.

My friends, I beg of you, from now till the 15th of December, please, say absolutely NOTHING at all about the army in my presence. Not a word about the SAF, not a word about NS, not a word about enlistment dates. Nothing. No institution in the world right now can foul my mood faster than it can. Please, as a friend, I am asking all of you now to never ever mention anything about it again. We can talk about absolutely any other thing under the sun, but not this, not this, please. Don't even try to console me, or I shall suspect that you do not understand. Indeed I suspect only very few people have any authority at all right now to speak to me on this matter, and the only one I know is leaving very soon, and I shall miss you dearly, old friend, when you are gone. I hope with all my heart you enjoy your stay on Langkawi.

Sometimes it is better to remain silent on a topic you don't understand than to offer words of pity that can only engender more hatred.

Well! I have a new template. It's um, very boring, yes, but I can't be bothered to find anything else. I'll just stick to what Blogger has. I changed because I;ve just switched to this new Beta Blogger thingy. Now it has improved layouts and management desktops, yada yada. I've been meaning to do it for a while now, never had the time. Well, this weekend just presented an opportunity, so here it is!

The End (almost)

I must say that I didn't feel particularly exhilarated after today's paper, partly because there were so many things to do immediately after it, like sign Mr Smith's card and rush off for lunch, and partly because, as always, the thought of the S Paper still to come was foremost in my mind. You'd expect that with every passing hour as the end draws nearer I'd get more excited, but the truth is actually counter-intuitive. I find that when the A Levels started, last Monday for instance, I was more hyped up as each paper passed, because I had the feeling that the end was drawing closer, that I was completing more papers each day, that I was actually doing productive work. Then, this week, today especially for instance, just when the A's are ending, I feel more and more impatient and lethargic actually, instead of happy, because to me it seems that despite all that's been done the end is still not here. This feeling happens all the time to me actually, on journeys especially. Like when I'm coming home from school sometimes, I feel ok at the start of the journey, but as I draw closer to home I get impatient cos each step is taking so long to bring me home. Actually come to think of it, I think it's a normal feeling. Beginnings are always fresh, but ends are often stale.

Anyway, I had lunch with Mr Smith today! He kept up a running commentary during lunch as you may imagine. Most of it was about dogs. He keeps a dog, a large crossbreed between Alsatian and something else which he's not sure of. He got it from the SPCA in 2000 anyway. Oh yeah, he's going to Cairns, and his dog has to leave one month in advance cos Australia has a one month quarantine rule for all animals entering the country. To prevent rabies epidemics and all...

But the most interesting thing was this. Owen asked him what Irish sounds like. Now a lot of us think the Irish speak English, or at least a variant of it, but in reality Irish is not English at all. It's Gaellic, with it's own alphabet and writing style. In pronunciation I suppose it sounds close to Tolkien's Elvish. Anyway, his name in Irish is actually Shawn MacGowan! That's not the proper spelling, I can't remember how he spelt it. I'm just typing it out the way it sounds. The "Mac" is pronounced as "muck", not "mack" like Macdonalds. "Mack" is the English pronunciation of it. In Irish it's "muck". And, "Mac" means "son of", like "Bin" in Malay. So he's basically Shawn son of Gowan. Ah, so now we know that Ewan MacGregor is the son of Gregor. (Ok, irrelevant digression)

Ah, dear old Mr Smith. I shall miss him when he leaves.

It started last Friday. First my grandmother came down with stomach flu, vomitting and all. Then late Saturday my maid had stomachaches till Sunday morning. During that night my mother got stomach flu too. And on Sunday morning my brother woke up not feeling well. It later developed into diarrhoea and vomitting.

Just as it seemed to subside (my brother's problem cleared up quickly on Monday and my maid was fine by Monday too. My mom was feeling better by yesterday night), my father caught it. He blames it on the char kway teow he ate yesterday for lunch. So now he's stuck at home with stomach flu too.

I have no idea why, but one by one all the members of my family are coming down with stomach flu-related problems. The symptoms seem to be primarily occupied with what comes out of either end of the body. Now, I am the last man standing, ha!

Turning Point

On this most auspicious of occasions (it is the weekend), I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate all of us taking this combi for making it thus far. I believe congrats are in order, not because the A's are over already, but for the sheer fact that we've made it through the most stressful week of our lives thus far, intact. Take time to consider this most wondrous fact, that as of today, each of you has completed 14 hours of A Level papers, 11 of which were done consecutively in one week, and all of which you never have to do again. Whether we have done well for each of those papers is another matter, and frankly, it is one that we cannot do anything about now and thus should not trouble our already troubled minds too much about. Rather, let us rejoice in the meer fact that we've actually sat for the papers, and completed them.

As for the rest, they should be relatively ok, even though I know I'm making an outrageous prediction here because after this week I think everyone knows the guys in Cambridge must have gone slightly off their rockers when setting our papers, but hey, I choose to be optimistic. Time will prove me wrong. Nevertheless, I marvel at the fact that it is actually Saturday, because I vividly remember last Saturday, when I was going around with thoughts of Monday plaguing me, thinking about how miserable the week was going to be. But tada! the week is over! We have only 2 more papers, 6 hours more. For us poor Lit S paper people we have 9 hours more, yes, and we have the unfortunate honour of being the last in Singapore to finish the A Levels, but still, The End is near!!! The bloody end is near!!! It's just nine freaking hours away!!!! Nine rather drawn out hours yes, but the end is still near!!! Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!!!

That brings me to my next point, which is yesterday's PC paper. I tell you, ever since Mrs Tan messaged me to ask what questions I did I've being going around muttering "sonnets" under my breath. The two bloody comparative poems were sonnets. Of course, it's not absolutely crucial to note that, but it would have been a bonus. I smack my head for not noticing that fact, because now the irony of the poems is further reinforced in hindsight by the usage of the sonnet form. Bloody sonnets. I can't seem to get that word out of my head. Sonnets. Of all the silly poems in the world, sonnets.

Ok ok, I'm going to stop thinking about it. I shall take my own advice and wash my hands clean of them. But I did truly like those poems. I love the word Ozymandias. So rich, so ancient, so exotic. "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" It echoes perfectly all those magnificent, dramatic and ancient statements that I'm so fond of. Hmm, I suppose that reveals something of my character haha. Power complex maybe.

On a sidenote, thank you to everyone who's commented positively on my last post, although I'm not quite sure why it's so critically acclaimed. I mean, I guess it's funny yes, but they're my genuine feelings. Ok, I'll concede that the crumbling walls thing was deliberately enhanced. I had merely a vague sense of bathos in the hall that day haha.

An update.

Fear of something makes it larger than it really is. A simple, common truth that I forget again and again. It's actually mildly amusing when it happens. For example, last Thursday when we sat for GP, I went in and sat there thinking like, oh gosh, ok this is it, it's the A Levels!!! Every word I write is going to determine my future!! I must be extra careful!!!

And for around 5 minutes I could not actually calmly go through the list of questions, what with all that agitation inside me. And yet, after the paper, I realised that, hey, it was just another paper. It felt, afterwards, just like any other paper I've ever sat for in JC. Perhaps, one could almost call it anticlimatic. The atmosphere was just like after the prelims, or after BT2, or after BT1. It was like, oh well, here we are again in the hall, same old, same old, ladeedah, write the essay, pass it up, feels like any other class essay. You walk out of the hall and realise yes, it's still the same campus, stairs on your left, benches to your right, toilets ahead.

Somehow, I was subconsciously expecting more, like I thought the atmosphere would be more rarified, somehow exalted, the very air you breathe smelling more academic than usual. The Chief Presiding Examiner (for such a grand title I wished he looked more presidential) would announce dramatically, "Lo! It is the A Levels! At the opportune moment when the clock striketh Twelve, thou mayst begin thy furious writing! Godspeed and avaunt!" And then suddenly a clock will chime solemnly and the whole hall will look like some magnificent ancient Hall in Oxford or Cambridge with crumbling stone and ivy growing round the pillars, while beneath the vaulted roof march row upon row of wooden desks and seats, as far as the eye can see. And then one and a half hours later the clock will chime solemnly and the CPE will once again proclaim, "Behold! The hour is past and thy doom draweth nigh! Hold up thy pens and cease thy writing. Invigilators! (and here there would be a dreadful pause... before a sinister whisper) Collect their scripts..."

Oh well, compared to all that, I guess Potong Pasir just doesn't cut a very dashing figure. And it is for the best that the real thing isn't half as dramatic as my imagination. Familiarity still allows for the most ease in writing haha.