WE SPEAK

Oh My Friend, Oh My Friend.

2009-07-22T11:31:00.009+08:00

So I was, am, and will undoubtedly still be bored after I put up this post. It is a beautiful picture of one of my dear friends with a favourite Korean superstar, Key from SHINee.

Edit: The picture has since been deleted. It was all in good fun and not meant to be offensive to anyone. I will still play around with photoshop but will no longer post anything up anymore.

Pearlyn

Big Bang Minus Seungri?

2009-07-13T19:51:00.003+08:00

I've been reading forums and blogs lately about people who believe Seungri should be cut from Big Bang because they think he is too arrogant and talentless.

Ever since I watched the Big Bang documentary (as well as Battle Shinhwa), I've felt kind of partial towards Seungri because I feel sorry for the things said to him and the things he has been through. I was glad that YG gave him a second chance when entertainment companies like SM did not.

He may not be the best singer or the best dancer (I believe the reason why he's touted as the dancer of the group is because he has no other role), but one thing to say is that I think he works really hard. Although he sleeps a lot, I think there's something about him that will shine at the end of the day.

Mostly he's just mediocre, and he tries too hard sometimes (I was not too fond of his Strong Baby period), but the effort is there for me to see, and I feel that people should support that.

That said, it is a very sad thing to read about how people have been saying that he is by far the most useless member, and that he should be cut out. Actually, I don't think he's arrogant. If you have followed through with how he was like pre-debut, he went through a ton of obstacles, and I think this over-confidence image he sets out is to get people to believe in him now. What he doesn't realize is that it turns people off more than they want to accept him.

He's still a kid, born in 1990. Came to Seoul alone at the age of 15, I think he's way mature beyond his years. He has explained many times before in interviews when the other members laugh at his over-confidence that he acts this way only because of the things he went through last time. And I think even now he faces the same sort of discrimination, about not being the best singer and the best dancer, so he has to project some form of confidence about himself because honestly, if you don't believe in yourself, then who will?

As for him not dancing well, I think he probably knows he's not extremely talented. The look on his face said it all when he battled Taeyang in the dance battle, he knew he was nowhere near Taeyang's level.

But give him a chance. He may or may not suck as a person but I don't think that's the issue at all. I think everyone deserves a chance.

Cut him some slack. If anything now, maybe he should just leave Big Bang so that all these fans can get off his back.

Being the maknae cannot be easy. I should know, I'm the youngest in my family.

Signed

Sincerely, me

P-Dragon

The Ultimate State of Boredom Part 2

2009-07-03T15:39:00.003+08:00

These questionnaire things are useless but I seem to be receiving them by mail a lot. Here is the next ridiculous questionnaire which I shall make Samantha do as well.

♥What/Who got you into kpop?

Super Junior Full House, Super Junior Mini Drama.

♥Favourite boy group?

I won't lie. Super Junior, Big Bang, SHINee, the occasional 2PM. Actually I'm really peaceful, I like almost any group. With different measures of love.

♥Favourite girl group?

SNSD, Wonder Girls, Kara, whatamIdoingI'mnamingeveryone. My guilty pleasures.

♥Favourite idol group overall?

It depends on how I feel when I get up in the morning. I will always like Super Junior, but I hate the "Only 13" nonsense. I think I like Big Bang mostly, but I also hate how people always say they're not an idol group. They obviously are.

♥Other groups you love?

How many times do they want me to say this, I like Super JuniorBigBangSHINee2PMSNSDWonderGirlsKaraIcan'tthinkofanymore.

♥Rank your favourites from each of your stated groups above?

I'm not THAT bored.

♥Favourite pairings from each of your stated groups?

Ignore.

♥Favourite idol group pairings?

Enough already.

♥Favourite solo female singer?

Myself. And Son Dambi.

♥Favourite solo male singer?

I really like Kyuhyun's voice. It'll be nice if I had such a voice, only problem being that I'm a girl.

♥Favourite idol overall?

I like everyone.

♥Favourite songs right now?

Muahaha. I was waiting for this question.

SHINee - Hit Me Baby, Juliette, Love Should Go On

Super Junior - Neorago, Smile (Kyuhyun)

Big Bang - Prayer (Taeyang), Babo, Heaven, Lollipop

2AM - What Do I Do

SNSD - I still like Gee because I do the dance from room to room in my house, Genie

HOT - Candy

Amongst about 10,000 more. Ignore the titles, I know they sound dubious.

♥Favourite fanclub(s)?

Oh god, none.

♥Favourite entertainment company?

No particular favourite.

♥Loved a group your not into anymore?

I have a lot of love.

♥First kpop song ever?

Can't remember.

♥First kpop music video ever?

Super Junior's Miracle.

♥First kpop love (group/solo)?

Super Junior.

♥First variety show (and with who)?

Super Junior Mini Drama games.

♥Group you could never get into no matter how much you tried.

DBSK, even though I have a poster of them. I am neutral towards them.

SS501, not my type.

♥Any dance you can do (from a MV etc) or want to learn?

Where do I even start with this question.

♥Any songs you memorised the lyrics to?

A fair few.

♥Hottest male in the industry to you?

Hmmm.

♥Prettiest female in the industry to you?

I have some in mind.

♥A person you want to be like/admire the most?

Onew from SHINee.

♥A song you must/always/usually listen to EVERY day?

Uh. SNSD's Genie.

♥Your favourite music video?

I don't like music videos, I like live performances. I'll say when Big Bang performed Heaven at the SBS Gayo Daejun.

♥Any of your friends into kpop and who?

A number who are too ashamed to be public about it.

♥Have any kpop merchandise?

They were gifts all right.

Do it too, Samantha!

Anyway, I'm not ashamed to say that I adore kpop. I still listen to lots of other things, so I get very irritated when people think I have stupid music taste.

No music is stupid, everything requires hard work. Be it instruments, digital equipment, everything needs creativity.

Enough no more! Tis not so sweet as it was before.

Signed,

Sincerely, Me

P-Dragon

The Ultimate State of Boredom.

2009-06-24T17:58:00.001+08:00

So I am always seeing those Facebook notes thingy things on, well, Facebook, and since I like keeping a low profile on Facebook, I decided to participate in such things not on Facebook. I usually make sense when I speak, just so you know. But my communication skills of late have been nada. Perhaps this is what you get when you immerse yourself too much into studying Korean.

So here is the Facebook note.

The rules are:You think of a person whose name starts with the letter. Choose the first name that appears. You must answer truthfully.

A is for Amanda
1) Do you love this person?
Yes, one of my closest friends in this world.
2) Is this person your enemy?
I hope not.
3) Would you hug this person?
She and anyone with a brain will know that I don't generally like touching people.

A is also for Adam (I apologize because the few friends I have all happen to have similar names)
1) Do you love this person?
I have a lot of love to share.
2) Is this person your enemy?
Maybe, because he attracts more males than I ever will.
3) Would you hug this person?
Hugging is reserved only for certain people or things in this world. Like Nuowen, my backpack...etc.

B is for Boon Ee
1) What do you really think of this person?
Very innocent and pure.
2) What’s their favorite color?
I think even the colour-blind will know that it's pink. The only way I could tell where her birthday party was was to follow the pinkness.
3) Ever danced with them?
Not really, because my idea of dancing is break-dancing, and I don't think Boon Ee will enjoy that very much.

C is for Chelsea
1) What do you think of this person?
Interesting sense of humour.
2) How far does this person live?
Currently? Malaysia. According to my map, that's far.
3) How old is he/she?
My age.

C is also for Chuang May
1) What do you think of this person?
So many words, can't pick one. Out of this world, mostly.
2) How far does this person live?
In a pretty little house near where Temasek Primary is. I hope I'm right.
3) How old is he/she?
My age.

D is for Don Teng
1) How long have you known him/her?
From my calculations, it's been over 4 years.
2) Do you like this person?
I like anybody who loves Rafa Benitez as much as I do.
3) Do you hate this person?
Only if he manages to touch Rafa's beard when he comes to Singapore and I don't.

D is also for Darren Sshi
1) How long have you known him/her?
Most recently, in Korean class.
2) Do you like this person?
Of course, it's so rare to be able to chat about SNSD with any sane Singaporean.
3) Do you hate this person?
I never hate.

E is for Evon
1) Have you met their parents?
Who is "their", Evon is only one person as far as I know. And no.
2) Worst thing about this person?
I send her perfectly innocent pictures of Korean boys and she ends up looking at all the wrong things.
3) Best thing about this person?
So interesting and amusing to talk to.

E is also for Ephraim Lin
1) Have you met their parents?
Mr. and Mrs. Lin? No.
2) Worst thing about this person?
He completely disappears during MSN conversations to do god-knows-what boy things.
3) Best thing about this person?
Will cheer you up instantly.

F is for Fatima Musa
1) Have you ever dated this person?
She did try to get fresh with me when we shared a bed in Sydney.
2) When is the next time you will see him/her?
August 6, when she returns from her stint in the American forest. Provided she has not been infected by swines.
3) Do you go to school with them?
Sadly for her, no.

F is also for Fernando Torres
1) Have you ever dated this person?
I don't think I ever have.
2) When is the next time you will see him/her?
You mean the first time? Perhaps if he deigns to show up for the Liverpool-Singapore match.
3) Do you go to school with them?
Last time I checked, he's not an SMU student.

G is for G-Dragon
1) Have you heard this person sing?
I hear him rap all the time.
2) What's his/her pet's name?
Seungri.
3) Will he/she repost this?
If he comes to know of this and if YG gives him some time off, maybe.

H is for Heechul
1) What grade are they in?
Already graduated I should think.
2) Is he/she your best friend?
In an alternate universe, yes.
3) Ever done something illegal with this person?
He will be off doing things illegally by himself.

I is for Izzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzah
1) What is this person's favorite food?
Miracle Popiah? Cup noodles? Brownies that taste like vegetables?
2) When are you next seeing him/her?
When she returns with The Fart on August 6.
3) Do you trust him/her?
Of course.

I is also for Iman Nabila. The Sex.
1) What is this person's favorite food?
Sex. Or chocolate-covered strawberries.
2) When are you next seeing him/her?
Maybe at a hula-hoop shop.
3) Do you trust him/her?
Yes.

J is for Jesus Navas
1) They have any siblings?
He has, like, four or five brothers.
2) Do you know their favorite song?
"Green Eyes" by Coldplay.
3) What would you do if they confessed they liked you?
I would try to enjoy the dream for as long as I can.

K is for Kang Daesung
1) How old were you when you first met?
Inapplicable.
2) Do you like him/her as a friend?
His only relevance is as a singer.
3) Would you go to disney world with this person?
Actually that might be quite fun.

L is for Lee Donghae
1) Is this person older than you?
Yes.
2) Is this person single?
So he claims, but I'm pretty sure no.
3) How many times do you talk to them in a week?
I sing to his poster sometimes.

M is for Makalingam
1) How old were you when you first met?
When we were 13.
2) Whats his/her pet's name?
Oh my god I should know this.
I don't.
3) Ever danced with this person?
Oh. Uh. If you consider that dreadful dance we did for a drama farewell.

N is for Nobody.

O is for Onew.
1) Are you related?
Maybe.
2) Could you live with this person?
He cooks well, so that solves almost everything.
3) What school do they go to?
SM Entertainment.

P is for Pearlyn (P-Dragon)
1) Have you been to the mall with this person?
Seeing as how I can't attach myself away from myself no matter how hard I try, I would say yes.
2) How about a sleepover with them?
Read above.
3) Does this person have a job?
Yes, like now.

R is for Ronaldo. Cristiano.
1) Have you heard this person sing?
Thank god no.
2) Will she/he repost this?
With the money he has now, he'll pay someone to do it for him.
3) When does this person look best?
Should I even attempt responding to this?

S is for Samantha Lee
1) Is this person taller than you?
All right yes yes. Since primary school! :(
2) Do you enjoy spending time with him/her?
Of course. But all she ever talks about now is Kangin.
3) Is this person your friend?
Yes, in most cases.

S is also for Sang to the Ita
1) Is this person taller than you?
And she never lets me forget it.
2) Do you enjoy spending time with him/her?
Yes, how else do you think I stay sane in that dreadful school.
3) Is this person your friend?
Yes, through a mutual friend called E****d.

S is also also for Sheen Yap
1) Is this person taller than you?
This is getting slightly depressing to answer now.
2) Do you enjoy spending time with him/her?
Yes. Can't wait for when you're back!
3) Is this person your friend?
We have to be, we're related.

S is also also also for Sin Ee Sshi.
1) Is this person taller than you?
For once, I can reply no! But that's because she's a young girl.
2) Do you enjoy spending time with him/her?
Of course, because nobody my age will entertain me with talk about SHINee.
3) Is this person your friend?
The SHINee love bonded us.

T is for Taeyang
1) What grade is this person in?
Supposed to be my grade.
2) Would you hug this person?
What a question.
3) Do they live close to you?
He doesn't live in Neptune, as far as I know.

U is for Usher.
1) How is this person related to you?
We practice dancing together.
2) Would you hug this person?
Enough with the hugging questions already.
3) Have you met any of his/her family?
Perhaps, in some other life.

V is for Vic
1) Would you do anything for him/her?
I clean his dog's shit for him.
2) Do you consider them a friend?
Yes, because he has nice PS3 games.
3) Have you met any of his/her family?
You mean, like myself? Yes, I've met myself.

W is for Wenpo
1) Is this person loud or quiet?
Loud with the harmonica.
2) Have you seen this person dance?
Dance?
3) What color eyes does this person have?
Seems somewhat black/brown. But maybe it's orange. I've not looked.

X is for Xueting
1) How old were you when you first met this person?
20 I think.
2) Do you like him/her as a friend?
Who else will tolerate my Spanish outbursts.
3) Would you go to disney world with this person?
Sure thing.

Y is for Yesung
1) How old were you when you first met this person?
Inapplicable.
2) What do you think of this person?
He has such a lovely sense of humour.
3) Have you heard this person sing?
Everyone has. It's beautiful.

Z is for Zara
1) Does this person have msn?
Yes. A harmless grinning smiling idiot or something is her nick.
2) What is their favorite sport?
Japanese samurai.
3) When did you last see this person?
Last day of school. Oh my god I still have her slippers.

Z is also for Zhuhuii
1) Does this person have msn?
Yes.
2) What is their favourite sport?
Mahjong.
3) When did you last see this person?
At Ming's band concert. Which was I cannot remember when.

A lot of people have asked me why I didn't put this on Facebook. I don't like Facebook, I don't ever go on it anyway.

Signed

Sincerely, Me

P-Dragon

Homosexuality as a Neutral Word.

2009-05-04T00:45:00.004+08:00

It's not easy trying to remember usernames for accounts I check up on once every 6 months or so. It took me a while to remember that I even had a blog! To be honest, it was mine and Sam's. Suddenly it became mine. And to further imprint that in everyone's brains, I am going to change the layout when I finally possess the technical ability to do so. The blog layout around here is unpleasant to the eye, whereas the new layout that I have in mind will feature 5 Korean boys who have, somehow, rapped their way into my little cloistered oyster. RAPPED. I don't even like rap, has anyone HEARD me beatbox?! Time and time again, it sounds like I am suffering from a terminal disease when I try. Korean rap is different, however. Perhaps because the teenybopper rap I listen to is so close to pop music that it can actually pass off as something you can actually pretend to dance to, rather than a real off-the-alleyways hip-hop beat.

In fact, I dance to such "pretty boy rap" when I think no one is looking, and when I am semi-sure that everybody in my family is safely in their beds or locked in their rooms. And after having done that for many months and after being lulled into a dull sense of complacency, I stopped paying attention to the possibility that someone would, one day, barge into my room when I least expect it (like when I am in the middle of a Korean dance battle with my mirror reflection). When that happened, I had to suddenly awkwardly PIROUETTE balletish style to pretend I was pulling a classical ballet move instead of the cringe-worthy dance moves to Big Bang's "Sunset Glow" song. I could have DIED. And it had to be the chorus, when they go "I love you girl" and they do that really embarrassing hand thing when they are crouched in a strange position (oh my god, go check it out if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm making it sound worse than it really is) and thank all the gods that I wasn't SINGING along, because that would just sound really narcissistic and self-indulgent (might I remind you, I was dancing to my REFLECTION). And I forgot my original point.

And don't even wonder what happened when I was inspired by 2pm's (Korean b-boy group) breakdancing abilities, and because I have no brains and no mental processing abilities, I thought it would be cool if I tried to replicate such moves in the comfort of my own bed and in full confidence of my non-existent arm muscles.

I could have lost my thumb that night? Pssh. The one thing I gained from this is perhaps sanity, and my mind back. I am now more careful about replicating moves that I see from Youtube videos, just because 2pm's b-boy performances don't have a "don't try this at home" tag doesn't mean I should go ahead and pretend that I am Tarzan.

Oh but if anyone wishes to teach me breakdancing, please holler. I think it's really cool when people do those FLIPS, you know? Like all of a sudden they're standing so calmly and stiffly, with these stony expressions, and suddenly they're flipping like dolphins on land, which is a weird expression of course because dolphins obviously don't flip on land without dying...but anyway it's cool. Suddenly it sounds more like Kungfu than breakdancing, but no I really mean breakdancing.

I think the above paragraphs started after I shared with the world that I wanted to change my layout to a Big Bang one. As in the Korean hippyhoppy/boyband/boy group, not the huge theory that has got all these scientists up in arms. Though that would be kinda cool too, if I could find a layout which has an explosion effect like the Big Bang, it will be stunning. You know, all this mindless chatter I am engaging in now is a result of not blogging for months on end, all that repressed speech, with only my reflection to dance to at home.

So anyway, there has been lots of...drama these days. The whole issue of homosexuality has been thrown up yet again, and it pains me that some people just don't get it? Or don't want to? That's your prerogative I guess. But if people come to me talking about stamping out minorities and disregarding them and not treating them as normal when they are obviously human enough...that's when I get frustrated, you know? It is ok if you don't like them, just stop the endless talk about how an alternative lifestyle will lead to this and that and this and that and hey, the world might end soon enough. Yeah, the power of the world these minorities possess in their hands.

Homosexuality, in my opinion, is a neutral word. Hey, it's a fair world. We all came the same way, we all live in the same space, we are all trying to survive, we are all trying to love, we are all trying to contribute. The minute people stop attaching a stigma to this socially-constructed term used to stamp out people who are different from the mainstream is the time when people have learnt to accept, and move on.

Neutral. That means it can go either way. To be honest, my individual opinions would even fall under pro-gay, but for the sake of society and for the sake of a balanced argument, I will say it's best to leave it as neutral if we talk about it in sex ed in schools. To say it's positive would be one extreme, that will disregard the religions that prohibit it. To say it's NEGATIVE, however, is scary as well. In such a case, we are doomed to marginalize the religions that do not consider it as wrong, as well as people who do not subscribe to any religion whatsoever.

If we were truly a sensitive society which promoted equality, which promoted inclusiveness of all mankind, then we would leave the word as it is. Neutral. Leave it to the young minds to decide on their own. They are smarter than we think. How naive is it to think that talking about homosexuality is promoting it in schools? In that case, maybe we shouldn't talk about Hitler in schools, what if there is a neo-Nazi movement? Maybe we shouldn't teach biology, what if the children realize that their body parts can be used for reproduction purposes? The horror.

Not talking about things make such things taboo, and perpetuates the stigma to a socially-constructed term that was neutral when some bright person first coined it. People learn to be scared of it, and people learn to avoid it. Prejudice, discrimination, stereotypes...it is endless what happens after that. Discussing such topics in schools, telling the children that it is neutral is not going to make a light bulb suddenly go off in the children's minds -- "Hey, homosexuality is a neutral term. Let's go engage in some after school." -- Sure, there is always that fear that such a thing might happen. You know, children have no minds of their own and do not know anything right? Riiiight.

Keeping it as a neutral term shows that we have advanced as a tolerant society. A mature society that accepts diversity in all its forms, as long as we are socially responsible in our behaviour and do not hurt anyone. Why fight it? Why try to change them? Remember that everyone is different, and that trying to change that not only makes you a tyrant, but a totalitarian and overbearing one at that. Accept it and move on. The scary thing about saying that homosexuality is negative will make those who fall under such a category feel dirty and guilty, through no fault of theirs. If you believe it is wrong, so be it. But remember that there are people here who do not believe that it is. So why force this ideology down on every single person? Isn't that similar to forcing down your opinions on others, and your lifestyle on others? Yep, you have a good life, just know that people will be suffering under your rules.

And for the last time, homosexuality is not contagious. Perhaps it's all this talk about the swine flu that is also capturing the news, and people just get confused and start thinking after that that acknowledging homosexuals in the society will lead to an inclination towards an "alternative lifestyle"...where do people even get such ideas? All this fear is just making people think irrationally. Honestly.

Basically, all that pish posh I've been rattling about is just my way of saying that taking on an extreme stand in a contentious issue is not the way to go. In every single thing we do, we should always take a balanced approach, because whatever you do and say will have an impact on someone else, believe it or not. The bad thing about being extremely pro or extremely anti is that you start to lose your rationality to even think in the minds of people on the other side. So what do we do as a compromise? You got it. Keep homosexuality as a neutral word.

And for the last time, for people who are wondering (and I know because people have asked me before), I'm not even homosexual. You don't have to be one to know that they deserve a place in society, that they are one of us. I hate this us-against-them idea, it shouldn't exist and I hope it doesn't by this lifetime. Then again, look at how civil rights have been extended to racial minorities, and rights have been extended to females in most countries. All in the span of this century. Let's add sexual minorities to this current century, shall we? Don't try to fight it, accept that societies evolve and societies change, just like our predecessors who lobbied for equal rights back then. Only then can we move on.

Who am I kidding? It'll take a long time before people change their mindsets. People in the mainstream just love enforcing social norms on others, don't they?

Since I'm so fond of writing once in every semester...I shall give you a round up of what I have been doing this semester. Got back my grades, and they aren't too bad. Because I'm possibly an alien, I did best in my business ethics module, maybe because I always smile politely when I see my professor. The ethical radiance and loving kindness glint in my eyes. That could have tweaked it.

I got Bs in my other modules. My Gender module, my Social Psychology module, and my Spanish module, surprise of all surprises.

Business ethics: A class that requires you to form your own opinions on whatever ethical issues you are made to write essays on. Not much of a problem because I usually feel strongly when I read about marginalized people, and much of the module makes you think about people (and animals!) who are powerless to free themselves of unequal transactions and unfair practices.

Speaking of animals. You know, I'm not really one who falls to peer pressure, mainly because my closest friends share similar beliefs to mine. I am, however, susceptible to familial pressure, because their opinions mean a fair bit to me. So just today, my dear sibling was talking about the suffering that animals go through before they are slaughtered and fast forward a couple of weeks, and they appear on your dinner plate.

I do not like eating meat. I just...never liked the taste. Never did as a child, not even now. I do eat some fish, and some chicken, the occasional pork. But i like them in minimal sizes, in small amounts. My mother always said it was because of my lazy teeth. Which I grew up believing was true, I went around in primary school telling my dental nurse that I had lazy teeth when she suggested me crunching on meat so that my baby teeth could fall out when they were shaky. Of course, it never really occurred to me that I was the lazy one, and that I just...did not like meat. When I grew up and my parents turned vegetarian, I cut down on meat even more, not that it was much difference because I never ate that much in the first place. The idea about the suffering of animals was clear to me of course, everybody knows. But unless you are made to kill the animals with your bare hands yourself will you realize how cruel the practice is. Which was what my dear sibling was yammering about today. Yep, we are paying for our food when we buy meat dishes, when we eat seafood (which I DETEST by the way, people find that weird?), but basically we are just paying someone else to kill for us. Isn't that what the transaction is all about?

So who are the guilty parties here, is it us or the food people? Both of course. And I feel really guilty about it, even though I hardly eat meat in the first place. So my dear sibling isn't vegetarian, neither am I, though we don't enjoy meat too much. Except for my other dear sibling, who as the middle child, is doomed to stand out.

So I told my mother today that I am going to cut down even more meat, and my mother was like, "What meat?" Which is her way of saying that I'm already a pseudo-vegetarian, but you know, I still have a long way to go. It's going to be hard, of course. I like salmon, but it has to be about 4cm by 8cm, anything bigger than that I will not eat. And being vegetarian is a lot harder than I can imagine, it's hard enough for my parents having to explain to dolthead relatives what being vegetarian is about. They imagine it to be all vegetables and no fun...ok they got that right. But meat isn't everything. And there are other ways to supplement your diet, not just vegetables. A vegetarian meal can be tasty. I should know, I eat that at home. My favourite restaurants are vegetarian ones.

Being vegetarian also means lots more vitamins, lots more extra additives that you have to down to pump in whatever you are lacking from the meat you have given up. I'm definitely not ready to become a full vegetarian, but I'm hoping to make it there someday. I will start by cutting down even more, I already warned my mother to relinquish whatever meat there is (which isn't much really) to the meat-loving dear sibling, and I will try to follow my parents' vegetarian ways at home. When I'm outside, for convenience, I will of course eat the little meat things I get, like chicken nuggets which is quite scrumptious I admit.

And I don't even know why I got started on this, but let's move on.

Social Psych: Very interesting module, even though I'm not really all that into psych as an actual major. Nothing else to say about this except that I kinda like my grade for this one too.

Gender: I'm not really a feminist, I just believe there needs to be gender equality. Some feminists (many women I have met around here) mistake feminism to being powerful, so much so that it is at the expense of men. Hello, we are talking about gender equality here. If you so much as order a man to carry your BAG or to open the door for you, that doesn't show love, but more like your incapability to do such things on your own. Gender inequality right there.

And being a housewife doesn't mean you are unequal, doesn't make you a weak helpless woman. I am appalled that many "feminists" around here think that. No way. It is only unequal if the husband locks you up and forces you to stay at home. But hey, if someone wishes to do it if family finances allow it, then why not? That makes me frustrated and disappointed, when some women equate success to climbing up the corporate ladder. If that is their choice, then lovely. But remember that some women choose to go different paths, and that doesn't make them weaker. Being a housewife is a tough job as well, my mother is one. It's like a million jobs stuffed into one, with no rest. Working mothers is another issue, I don't want to go there. But it sickens me when I hear stuff from girls (yes, girls!) like, "I don't wanna be a housewife and just rot away and slack off at home."

Shows how little understanding one has and how little appreciation some people have for those who do relatively menial tasks. Yes, household chores are boring, and I have made it a point to do it even if I have an exam the next day. And yes, they are "brainless". Doesn't make a woman weaker. These are the people who may overlook the hard work of, say, construction workers and cleaners.

How did I even get here? I don't know, my brain bounces from one topic to another, I think I have 50 different brains? That explains my big head.

Anyway, I did pretty ok for this module too. I liked its relevance, and the issues discussed. And if you want to know more about my opinion for this module, you can try hacking into the school website to find out what I wrote in my midterm and end-of term course feedback sheet.

Spanish: Remember I had a post about how grades do not reflect reality? Like say, you can fail a module even though you know very much about it and is as informed as those who ace it? I feel that way all the time, because sometimes I read the "model essays" and I don't like it. Especially the model GP essays we used to read in JC, I always found some of them so structured and rigid, like the people were writing what they were taught and run-of-the-mill examples. My friends who did not do well knew so much more in terms of broad examples and unconventional viewpoints (which made sense if read with an open, liberal mind). And I have always told these friends, your grades do not reflect what you know. Of course, since I am not of high authority and I am usually somewhat mentally unstable and deranged when I'm around my friends, no one would really believe me.

And also because I did badly in GP myself, and I failed at one point, so of course I was not the best person to judge. People adviced me to change my writing style, to change my EXAMPLES (how on earth can you tell a student to do that, talk about stamping out creativity here!), to change my approach to writing essays. I said no. I said that I don't care if I consistently do badly, I'm NOT going to change my thinking just because some person (who, no doubt, has the power to FAIL me) doesn't like it. The unheard of examples I gave were not discussed in class, but from stuff that I read outside, from the random history books that I flip through when I stand for hours on end at Kino sneakily reading them. They didn't like it, they asked me to stick to what was discussed in class. Which was where I saw the flaw in GP in the first place, you cannot teach things like how to approach essays, and how to form opinions on issues, and what examples to use. Because it shows. To anyone with half a brain, if you learn by hard stuff that is taught in school, your essay will show your lack of passion and your lack of awareness. Forget it, I'm not changing my style, I said...not to my teacher of course. But in my head. And hey, it turned out well in the end for the a-levels.

My grade jumped up about 5 grades for the a-levels. Exactly the same thing that happened to me in the o-levels for English (same thing, I was told that my examples were too obscure, too different...). But for anyone who reads this and for anyone who has suffered under teachers telling you what style to pursue, and telling you to change this and that about yourself...don't. Just don't. I learnt from the mistakes where applicable, like if I missed the entire point of the essay question, then of course a fail would be expected. But if a fail was granted because of something like writing style and obscurity of examples...then forget it. Realize that your fail was only because the person who read the essay didn't share the same idea. Accept it and move on, but don't try to change and stamp out your ideas. Stay determined, and someone along the way, hopefully, will acknowledge it. Don't write to please people. Write to please yourself.

Hmmm. Long tirade, and I forgot again what I was talking about.

Oh right. So there you go, I don't think my Spanish grade accurately reflects my understanding of the language. A B- should indicate some form of understanding, some semi-talent in conducting conversations with a Spanish person, yes? If I am stuck in a lift with a Mexican person, will he understand me? Of course, I think the term "swine flu" is universal, so he should be able to understand me. All in jest, no offense.

I think I was lucky. I got through the examinable stuff, I reproduced what I was supposed to know. But I still don't think it accurately reflects my understanding. I know way less than what the grade showed. I can't even remember what to say anymore if I see Rafael Benitez and I want to tell him in Spanish that he looks much more handsome without his facial hair. That definitely means an F in Spanish, yes?

Just as a grade shortchanges your genuine understanding of a certain subject, it can also overreward you when you basically know next to nothing.

Since we are on the subject of my language inadequacies, I shall announce to the world that I am currently taking up Korean. Since my dream is to one day go to North Korea and write a book about it (I went public about my dream to many of the people in my Finishing Touch business module and people were kinda creeped out by me, it's not like I'm going to be doing jumping jacks with Kim Jong Il anytime soon, relax!), the Korean language would be a good thing to tackle. Of course, I am also highly inspired by the entertaining K-pop scene, and their endless variety shows. Hey, everyone has a guilty pleasure.

Since my Korean vocabulary from K-pop and variety shows is restricted much to the love arena (I love you, you love me, don't leave me, you are an idiot, you bastard) and whatnot, I decided that official lessons might do me much good.

Oh I'm exhausted. And what is this about Barca thrashing Real 6-2 in the Bernabeu?

And the news about Michel being Getafe coach, he's going to send the current team to relegation. And he has a knack of showing up in teams where his son is playing. Or semi-playing. I don't know what Adrian does anymore. He seems more like the guy stationed to usher Getafe fans to their seats before games. I feel like I've not heard about him for a lifetime. He might even be buried under the Getafe grounds for all we know, especially since his dad is the new coach and all. Should I check to see if it is confirmed?

I shall sometime in this lifetime. For now, goodbye.

Signed,

Sincerely, Me

Pearlyn

Or P-Dragon. Only those who know me AND G-Dragon will get it. Which narrows it down to hardly anyone in this world.

First post of 2009...and it's almost the end of January!

2009-01-23T00:03:00.002+08:00

Just a few minutes ago, my mother asked me, "How come you don't seem to have any work to do at all since school started?"

Note to myself: Lower the volume of those Korean variety shows I have been indulging in of late.

Anyway, what work? It's just week 3, the school semester has hardly begun!

For now, my mother seems satisfied that I look as if I'm meticulously typing out a term paper. I'll throw in a couple of deep sighs as well and frowns and wrinkled foreheads for dramatic effects. If I want to lie, then I might as well do it in a classy manner.

So, lots has happened since the last time I came on here. Actually I don't remember when that was, it was in another life I think. But anyway, here's a summary of happenings in the last few months of 2008.

1) Sat for finals without knowing what was going on, nothing shocking there.

2) Went to Paris with the parents, proudly navigated my way in sub-zero temperatures in the icy rain all by myself (all right, with my mother in tow). Met some Spanish people in a random Parisian park, was overwhelmed by the speed at which they communicated. As brain was not quick and intelligent enough, I responded by nodding to all sorts of things that I had no idea about.

3) Dear cousins came to Singapore. One will be back for good to do his national service, all the very best muahaha. Better start learning some Chinese/Malay/local phrases!

4) School has started. For the unenthusiastic like me, school is nothing but a place to attend lessons and skip off as soon as possible.

I'm getting lazy, so this post will be short. Besides, I have to start doing some "work". Will have to sort out all my notes to see what I should do first. I will sort that out all the way to my bed.

Chinese New Year is on its way, hence the red that I am proudly displaying right now. Some of my neighbours have gone a bit overzealous with their decorations, it's like there's this unspoken competition to see who can hang the most lanterns in the neighbourhood, it's becoming a red-light district around here. In contrast, all my house has is PLANTS. I stood outside my house for the longest time today, just looking to see if there was anything distinctive about my house.

Plants. Plants? Plants!

And a skate scooter that is in danger of falling apart, after the dear sibling and I tried to ride it. AT THE SAME TIME. I have no balance skills.

Speaking of balance skills. I do not understand why unfortunate happenings always seem to befall upon me. Last month, I was at ToysRUs with my dear cousin.

Whenever I start this story, I'd be so excited to continue, but apparently it seems like the highlight of the story stopped there. Everybody seemed to want to know what I was doing in ToysRUs with my equally grown cousin (20 years of age like me). WE STILL LIKE PLAYING WITH TOYS OKAYYYYYYY. There.

So we were both having fun experimenting with all sorts of gadgets. Toys have gotten so much more complicated since we were children. Even normal balloons have become pet-looking balloons which you can WALK. That is incredibly unfair. What next, will my children have balloons which can be controlled by their phones?

Anyway. As we were playing with the toys, we noticed this lonesome skateboard just SITTING there. So the cousin and I thought it would be so fun to attempt some "tricks". We bounced, we jumped, we vroomed, I tried manouevering it with my foot...and then we noticed this dude just standing there staring at us, looking very perturbed.

So rightly so, we started to feel really self-conscious. We tried to look cool making our exit to the next aisle. And I think I managed to pull off looking cool.

Until I turned back and saw the dude briskly walking over, snapping up the skateboard, and hastily walking out of the store.

IT WAS HIS SKATEBOARD.

How in hell could we have known that it was not a random skateboard for sale in ToysRUs? :(

Argh, he could have said something instead of letting us destroy his skateboard.

Sorry dude, if you are reading this.

Where was I? Talking about Chinese New Year yeah? My mother has put much thought into this year's decorations, she went out and bought a pair of firecracker things to hang on our main staircase.

They were huge, and actually very nice, now that I observe it. My mother was very hurt, however, because it took me a few days to realize their existence. Even the dear sibling noticed it, and my dad, which spells bad news for my attention span.

I am a bit sad that my mother is not going to be buying too many snacks this year. Why o why o why o. Does she not know that her daughter is a blubber whale? She caught me today trying to open one of the VERY FEW tins, and she stopped me immediately. I'm not even allowed to eat this cake thing. What will my stomach feed on, mother?

Also, my mother went out today and got us some new fish to put in our pond. Not that I realized anything, my mother is always talking about the fishes in our pond, but I can never find any. Phantom fishes.

Yet today I saw some! My mother got 12 new fishes. Small tiny ones. I made sure to name them all. Because it was hard to name all the fishes in one go, I took the way out and decided to name them after a Korean boyband. Super Junior. They have 13 members, but unfortunately I can only use 12 names. There is a horrendously HUGE fish swimming around though, I don't know if my mother knows of its existence, because she's never mentioned it before. I wonder where it came from? Anyway, I will name that one Kangin. Kangin from Super Junior. Kangin is the strongest and biggest of Super Junior, so it is only right that I name the big unknown fish after him. The other 12 small fishes will be named after the comparatively smaller Super Junior members.

There are some other random fishes that are swimming about as well, different from the 13 I just mentioned. I will name 5 of them after another Korean boyband, Big Bang. In particular, there's a naughty one that my mother says is always eating the hyacinth plants, I will name that one Seungri, after the cheekiest member of Big Bang.

On another note, I have revamped my room a little. But I will be very unkind to people who barge into my room during Chinese New Year when they come to my house to visit. I do not mind entertaining people, but I don't like it when they wander up and down my stairs and enter my room and stare in confusion at the disturbing posters I have put up. If they like entering rooms, go to the dear sibling's room. Which reminds me of the time when my father brought a distant cousin up to the dear sibling's room without warning and the dear sibling had just had a shower. Muahahahaha I don't know who was more awkward.

Oh I'm taking Spanish officially now. And I'm no good. I think I'll just pretend I can't speak Spanish if I ever go back there again.

The internet is being really agonizing today. With this, I leave.

Happy Lunar New Year to all!

Pearlyn

HELLO CYBER WORLD!

2008-11-15T00:26:00.003+08:00

As usual, I have no concept of time. Whoever invented clocks would be turning in his grave right now, looking at how I manage my time.

It's break week next week, but I've got an International Political Economy term paper due Monday, a Research Methods for the Social Sciences term paper due Wednesday, and the exciting Finishing Touch interview also on that dark day.

Let's run through a list of what I've completed.

...

Oh yeah, none.

Let's look at what I'm at least halfway through.

...

So halfway is a bit of a grand ambition. How about looking at what I've already started?

...

Heh? No such records.

Today is Friday, the last day of school, and as usual I'm acting as if my entire semester is over.

When will I start on my term papers?

Manana, manana.

Which means tomorrow, tomorrow in Spanish. But I'm missing that squiggly "n" letter thing which is used in the Spanish alphabet, so I'm effectively talking about manly bananas instead.

Because I feel it is important to reflect upon my life at some point, and to take pride (or a lack thereof) in what I have done, I shall look back at my semester and my life in general to see what I've been up to.

International Economics A:
How exciting, I've gotten back some of my grades for this.

It seems the professor only knows one letter, and that is C. But what am I complaining, considering I opened my textbook for the first time during the midterms and I spent the time during the test READING my textbook for the first time (a fact which surprisingly wasn't lost on the people sitting beside me...were people so confident in their midterms that they spent most of their time looking at me bonding with my textbook? Wah.), I guess I am pretty contented with my grades.

I think I have frightened some of the people in class with my low expectations in life. I think it's pretty clear that my priority in life isn't comprehending balance of payments theories or doing well for this module. In fact, I didn't even know we were allowed to bring our notes in for the midterms. I thought it was just the book?

Me: (Burst into class triumphantly, after having snuck in right on time before the midterms started) Hello! (Waves at friend, sits down beside friend)

Friend: WHERE ARE YOUR NOTES?!

Me: Notes?

Friend: Notes!

Me: (Flashback to previous classes...what notes...) Oh, I don't have any. (Not to mention the fact that I didn't even know we were allowed notes)

Friend: (Eyes wide, mouth wide, nose wide? Everything wide!) HUH?!

Me: (Looked around at classroom, notices stacks of notes on every person's desk) Oh all right all right, I think I'll use what I have. (Takes out my "notes" --> If you read the previous entries, the notes that I effectively have are those that I scanned...a mish-mesh of notes in fake Chinese?! Drawings of everything somewhat related but yet totally unrelated to Econs?! Go me!)

Friend: Huh...you're using THAT?

I think he was more concerned than I was. Ah, as much as I don't believe it myself, there is some Econs wisdom hidden beneath some of the junk and gunk in my notes, if you look carefully. Of course, it would have helped if I actually completed some of the sentences I wrote in my Econs notes, because some of the notes came out like this.

"Singapore is an open economy which does not fix its interest rates because it is DAVID SILVA SITTING ON GRASS." Followed by a drawing of David Silva sitting on grass. Singapore's open economy is not as important as David Silva sitting on grass.

Did I mention that I like drawing David Silva? His head is really simply-shaped, and round.

So that was how my midterms went. Got a C- for it, which honestly I can't complain. Frankly, I don't even care. I don't care for things that don't interest me, which I've been told off for, but I absolutely hate being forced to do things that I don't like to do. Econs is one. Remind me never to invest my money in anything in the future. My notes about hedge funds ended up as a beautiful drawing of the scary house in "The King of the Castle", hidden behind a plethora of hedges.

Research Methods for the Social Sciences:
Probably more useful if I was considering Psychology, which I am not, so adios.

Finishing Touch:
Hahahahaha. What can I say about this module?

To be honest, business has NEVER appealed to me. Working in a 9-to-5 is, to me, a pretty stifling option. This module is very useful...if you fit into that kind of mould. The mould that every parent would be proud of. The academic, the white-collared job, the money-making child.

Thank god my parents aren't like that.

I have always been really clear about what I didn't want. And it still hasn't changed. Possibly, people were hoping to change my mindset with this module, but nope, I don't let people change my mind. I went into class knowing I didn't want a 9-to-5, and I still don't. I find it admirable that people in the class have all sorts of grandiose dreams, and even a little sad that I lack such mighty plans of my own, but I think I'm happier than a lot of the people I talk to, not just in that class, but people in general.

It doesn't take much to please me, I'm not looking for a high-paying job with an inflated status. I don't see the importance in that. However, I had such a hard time writing my Career Essay (a detailed career goal and plans for the future) because I was so sure about what I didn't want, but not entirely sure about what it is that I wanted.

That said, I made myself think late one night. While looking out the window at a non-existent moon (I mean, they ALWAYS did that in the movies, but there was always a moon conveniently outside the window, which is really unfair), I decided to think back to my childhood days, when everything seemed possible and I was too young to know what I could and couldn't do. It was pretty easy to see where my interests laid as a child.

1) Archaeology -- Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones! Did I mention that I love the adventures so much that I spent THREE ENTIRE DAYS JUST SITTING DOWN PLAYING my dear sibling's PS3 game, the Indiana Jones one. I was so into it that I pulled my arm muscle trying to hoist Indiana over this ridiculous lava-filled hole, which if he had any sense in the first place, he would have avoided. And I completed the entire game in 3 days, which is no mean feat I tell ya. My other dear sibling helped me out at some point, but I was mostly left battling all those enemies on my own, which gave me such a headache that my dog started to look concerned with my well-being because I was groaning everytime Indiana did something wrong...why am I talking about this?

So, I wanted to be an archaeologist. A lot. As a kid, I used to borrow those archaeology/history encyclopedias and just peruse through them everyday. At my old house, there was this playground and a small hill and I used to pretend that I was climbing some sacred mountain and all the other kids were the tribal people and the swings were tree vines and the monkey bars were tree branches and the sand was really quicksand and the pebbles were the only places that you could walk on or you'd die a painful death...no wonder I didn't have many friends when I was younger, I clearly had issues.

So AHHH whatever. I wanted to do archaeology. I remember asking my parents once if I could be that and if I could live in a pyramid and they were appalled. Aish.

2) Actress -- CLEARLY a childhood dream. I really liked acting, I used to pull a lot of acting nonsense here and there to freak people out as a child. The fake crying and things like that, which being the youngest, usually worked.

3) Writer -- I liked writing, I still do. Which, I'm sure, isn't lost on you if you're reading this. Of course, I'm too long-winded for my own good, and I know no one would ever pay to read any of my stuff, but I just like doing it for myself, it's a nice way to document thoughts.

This is probably the most realistic dream I've got, the nearest profession I can think of is that of a journalist. A foreign correspondent of some sort, that would be really cool. Exploration is key, and I love writing about things that we don't know the answers to. Which is why I secretly dream of going to North Korea...I think I'm really strange. People are dreaming to get out and I'm dreaming to go in. I'd just like to explore that society for myself and see the 2 extremes of Korean culture. North and South Korea. One culture, two ways of life. Why? It'll be nice to see for myself how that came about. So culture is not that important to a society after all, but the political systems instead.

So my Career Essay was about this. And I don't think anyone would be really impressed with how small my dream is, but to me, it's big enough, it'll make my world if I could even be like that in the future.

It's easy to feel out of place in that class. It also sucks knowing that most of my ideas aren't realistic to begin with, at least not here. But well, I'm hoping by the time I graduate, there'd be something for me to do that I can seek solace in.

International Political Economy:
Oh, I like this module. I apologize for always looking so dazed in class, but it's just that FT before that would have totally killed my brain cells. I mean, we're forced to think about our careers in that class. And since I have NONE of such plans, the energy I put into creating an imaginary career just for class is enough to wipe me out for the rest of the day.

Development, Underdevelopment and Poverty:
I really like this module too. In fact, I really enjoyed the 2 Political Science modules I did this semester, it made me even more certain that Political Science is my calling. of course, I would have preferred doing History or Anthropology as a degree, because I would do such things for fun, but at some point I gotta not get so carried away by my interests...

Dare I say it? I'm sad that school is over because I really did not want my 2 Political Science modules to end. It sounds like I'm going insane yea? Well, at least I'm documenting all this down for future reference.

I dunno, it just seemed like I learnt a lot from these modules. Uni is seen as a drag mostly, when it comes to doing things I have to do, like Econs. But the good thing about doing a degree in something you're interested in is that you'd willingly read up on all the notes, and I like it so much that I don't even mind being examined for it. I'm a nutcase, I know.

Is it weird that I'm also looking forward to next semester? Mostly because I got my bid for Spanish, which is something that I've been meaning to do since I was, what, a zygote?

I'll be doing Gender & Family (Sociology), Social Psychology, Ethics and Social Responsibility (bore of a core module) and SPANISH. Fantastic.

Is it weird that I have not watched A SINGLE FOOTBALL MATCH ALL SEASON? And it's already almost mid-season. I like football and all, but it's dying down. I think everyone goes through that, my dear sibling stopped watching at some point too, which explains why I've got a mad number of football collectibles dumped in my room, because my dear sibling did not know what to do with all the things.

Looking at my room, I feel like doing something radical to it. Right now, there is my bed obviously, with a Torres scarf cohabiting with me. I'm really not into soft toys at all, never was, so I don't have any huggable items on my bed. I've only got some Brazilian bear and Scottish bear thing which were given to me, and that's all. Then there's my radio, which I doubt even receives anything remotely human-like anymore? It sounds like I'm communicating with UFOs when I turn it on, so I gave up a long time ago. I should dump it out at some point. I've got a stack of CDs as well, which I should clear at some point, because I don't even listen to half the things I used to listen to anymore. Right now, I'm going through a weird Korean phase, so I listen to that a lot. I still listen to my old Aussie favourites like Motor Ace and all, but not as much. So...will clear that area soon.

I've got a football poster up as well, that of the Spanish team, it was a gift because I spent so much time gawking at it that my friend got it for me. Which is really nice, so I put it up. I never noticed that Iker Casillas was looking so much like a warlord, he looked really peeved in the picture. He has his arms around Antonio Lopez and Ruben Baraja and with his massive gloves on, he looked like he was holding them hostage. They both looked really pale too. Also, Michel Salgado is squatting in a rather awkward manner, I don't even wish to comment further. And Carles Puyol, as usual, looking cool with Steven Tyler hair.

So the main problem is that my poster likes falling down sometimes. Like I'd get up and have Awkward Salgado staring straight at me, because the poster would fall on my head, and it's not a very enjoyable moment at 5 plus in the morning, waking up to see Awkward Salgado and his indecent pose.

At some point, I'd like to clear the newspaper cuttings and pictures I have on my wall at my desk. It's a bit odd whenever I'm feeling wise, reading about Escobar's idea of development in third world nations, and then I look up and I see Fernando Torres scratching his ear. It's a really nice picture, but his fingers are busy scratching away.

There's also a picture of Raul, from a long time ago, back when I used to like Raul. So there I am, reading about colonization in the African nations, and I look up and I see Raul and his slightly open mouth.

There's also a picture of my dog, looking really peaceful before she lunged at the camera after the picture was taken. A picture of Fernando Torres again, this time from a Spanish newspaper article about his contribution to a match against poverty. This is the one inspiring picture that I try to look at whenever I'm doing my readings for my poverty class, because Fernando Torres is looking pleased in the picture wearing a jersey that says "MATCH AGAINST POVERTY".

Then there's this nice Cesc Fabregas art thing that my dear sibling bought from Thailand, so that's sitting coolly beside Fernando Torres. And for some reason, I have a Chinese sticker stuck on my wall...I think it was from the TJ Chinese teacher that Sandy fancied. Then there's a nice drawing from my tutee, an old Juventus poster courtesy of the dear sibling, even though I don't even like Juve. Mini ballet shoes stuck on the wall too, from when I was 6 or 7, a gift from my ballet teacher. And also...a non-working clock. It says 5.26pm. I think it's said that since the year 2006. No wonder I have no concept of time.

Maybe I don't want to clear all this up after all, it's got such nice memories attached to it. There are a ton of other stuff but I'm writing too much. I started out writing this to kill time while waiting for my friend, but I got carried away.

So goodbye!

Abrupt ending as always.

Pearlynnnnnnnnn

Not Death, Just the End of Living.

2008-10-24T01:30:00.002+08:00

Arundhati Roy knew it best.

Really, does it not describe most people in society today?

For students, all they seem to want in life is good grades. Respectable job with a good pay. If I had to do a tattoo everytime someone told me that is his or her ambition in life, I don't think I'd have any skin left?

For the working adults, all they seem to want is...surprise, surprise. A respectable job with a good pay.

Self-centred much.

Money was supposed to be a good thing, it was created for convenience purposes, even though I like the barter trade system much better. But I think we've created a Frankenstein here.

Because suddenly money talks, and money controls our actions and our goals. What a laugh, when having inanimate objects pleasure us in such ways...

And grades? Aish. You have got to be joking. Alphabet on paper, yet it has been a socially constructed virtue to put so much importance into that one slip of paper.

There's this whole idea that failing is a very bad thing. Do you know why failure is so bad?

Because it is not a norm. If you fail, you make up a minority. And generally society does not favour minorities very much, because minorities are usually strange. So if you fail, that means you must be very odd. And for most people, being classified outside the mainstream is a very bad thing.

But when you come down to it, is failure really so harmful? Why are people so afraid of failure? Could it be that people are just so prideful that they have to uphold a certain demeanour in society's eyes? Could it be that people are just genuinely concerned about making a living in the future?

And yet, whoever said that failing once will result in you being doomed to fail forever?

The thing about society is that, they let people and inanimate things decide for them if they have failed. If you failed a module, you're deemed a failure. People are so subservient to such external forces that they do not realize that ultimately, the only person you have to get over is yourself.

When you come down to it, you realize that grades are just alphabets streamlining you into different categories. An 'F' is just a socially-constructed letter thought up by MERE MORTALS to decide if you are a failure.

So do you bow down to such forces? Do you just sit there and accept this "failure" tag?

No.

So why are people so afraid of failure? Sure, it jeopardizes chances in the future, it will not be smooth-sailing, that I will say.

But to me, failure is an internal thing, and I will only admit failure when I myself have given up my own fight, when I myself have taken my last breath, when I myself have decided that enough was enough. THAT is failure.

An 'F'? That's not failure. That's just what other people think of you. So be it.

And yet people rush around all the time just worrying about their grades, about their futures.

If that's the way they choose to live their lives, then do it.

But me? If I were to disappear someday, I hope people will remember me for who I was, the differences I made, and not what I did in school.

And for the record, I am not suicidal, because I know people will be asking me that once I put up this blog post.

I am just, frankly, very intrigued by the strange way people seem to have their lives revolve around school and nothing else. And do not give me the crap that it's beyond your control, because nothing is ever beyond your control.

Unless you are talking about mother nature, that I succumb to.

But otherwise, there are always ways and means to cope with school. And don't feed me the line that I'm just lucky for having no schoolwork.

No schoolwork? In an alternate universe, I don't. But unfortunately, I have a ton of term papers due, as well as various reports and readings. Political Science is no walk in the park I tell ya.

But I am enjoying myself doing Political Science, so I don't complain. And I don't freak out with the amount of assignments I have, that part can be worked out.

That's why I say this.

Not death.

But just the end of living.

I am alive, because I am glad I know how not to let academics rule me.

I feel sorry for the majority of students who fast-forward through life without experiencing anything outside school and clubbing though.

I realize I sound like a 55-year-old man now, especially since the one person who has agreed with my words so far is MY DAD. But well, my dad and I are alike in many ways.

...

...

...

Samantha is talking to me on MSN now, so understandably I am distracted...Samantha liked Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Dragon? MUAHAHAHAHAHA. And I thought I was the weird one between us.

And for the last time, you're spelling thee bee ass kay wrong! Hahahahaha.

And AHAHAHAHAHA. My dear sibling just fell down on the stairs, while carrying some fruit and water and...shoes? Aish.

Ok. Bye.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn

Speak Chinese Week.

2008-09-30T19:02:00.009+08:00

In International Economics class today, I made a resolution.

Let's see how far I can get writing my notes in Chinese.

Now, I take every pride in my Chinese skills...or lack thereof. I'll have you know, when I was in Primary 3, I won the second prize in some school HanyuPinyin competition, and I still have the giganto gleaming silver trophy sitting pretty in my room. In fact, I take the pains to clean it once every few months, and I am proud to say that I can still see my reflection on the trophy.

Of course, the main reason why that peculiar trophy is still in my possession is because I do not exactly have any other trophies to put up. I've got only ONE other trophy, and it's considerably smaller in size...though still silver.

It was from coming in second in a three-legged race in Primary 3.

Out of all the other Primary 3 students, a big feat back in those days I tell ya!

I remember when I was younger, there was a shelf in my house where my parents lined up all the trophies or medals of us kids. My dear siblings had trophies from...tennis or essay competitions or whatnot.

In Primary 3, I decided to put up my three-legged race trophy next to all the rest.

The trophy was actually very pretty, with the KCP school crest and things like that...until you move closer and read the anticlimatic words "Silver -- Three-legged race novelty event".

I also won some Chinese handwriting competition in primary school...I'm not entirely sure why KCP was always having competitions like that, and why I ended up participating in them, but I did anyway, and I have some accolades under my belt that I suppose I should be very pleased about.

I think that's where my talent in the Chinese language stops, sad to say.

I don't think I was always horrible in Chinese. I used to like memorizing Tang Shis/Poems and pretending I was living in a cave in the Chinese mountains and I had no food and no water and all I could do was read out poems everyday to my multitude of goats and chickens and birds.

I was a strange child.

The parents did Malay in school, and they're considerably better with Malay than Chinese. The sad thing is, I can't speak Malay either! Except ungrammatical Malay taught by Minah Izzah. And I know how to say things like "tiga people!" when I go to a Malay food stall and they ask me how many people there are...yeah I have to refine my spoken Malay.

I will say that I never disliked Chinese, I just didn't have anyone to speak it to. If I spoke it to my dad, he'd try really hard but he always ends up talking about the same things because his Chinese is pretty limited. I remember asking him for the time in Chinese once and he said "Qi1 dian3 (seven o' clock)". I asked him again a while later and it was still "Qi1 dian3". If I asked him 45 minutes from then, it'll probably still be "Qi1 dian3".

My mom is considerably better, but she can't really read Chinese words. So sometimes we'd try watching Channel 8 and there'd be the emergency newsbar in Chinese on that channel and she'd always ask me to translate it...and I don't do a good job of it so I always end up telling her the wrong news and getting her all alarmed for no reason.

My dear siblings sound strange when they speak Chinese. It just sounds like they're trying to communicate with extraterrestial creatures. Half the time, we don't know what each of us are talking about, so we abandon speaking in Chinese. We'd probably be more successful with morse code.

And most of my dear good friends aren't even Chinese to begin with. In this case, English is always the best way to communicate in my life.

But you know what? I somehow ended up doing Higher Chinese in primary school, because I wanted to copy my dear sibling. It wasn't too bad because I was being tutored like three times a week in Chinese, but when I got into secondary school, it just...fell.

I never did pay attention in Chinese class. That is, to be honest, through no fault of others. Only maybe Gladys Chung. Hahahaha. We sat next to each other in class, and we did stupid things like change song lyrics into Chinese. At that time, Gladys really liked the song "Eternal Flame", so we decided to translate it into Chinese and sing it in class...

It got confiscated.

Now, I don't know what the teacher was so mad about. If she could just see my potential as a musician, or a professional translator...

And then I somehow managed an A2 for the O-levels, but was still made to do a year of Chinese in jc. Which is pretty senseless to be honest. I wouldn't have minded if there was an actual syllabus and if we did actual things in class, but the only things I seem to remember of me in Chinese class in jc is:

1) "Doing worksheets", but really playing the air guitar with Crazy Solly. Got caught by the teacher but he was too resigned to do anything about us.

2) "Doing worksheets", but really busy deciphering song lyrics with Fart.

3) "Doing worksheets", but really busy making crazy lists with Chelsea.

4) 'Doing worksheets", but really looking at the injured bird that Hsin Ching brought into class in a shoebox one day. Its beak kept poking out of the shoebox while the teacher was talking, and just to let you know it's not the easiest of things to prod a bird's beak back into a shoebox.

5) "Doing worksheets", but really busy looking at Hsin Ching, who this time, decided to bring mangoes to class. Mangoes that she had picked from the ground in our school yard. Some had worms.

6) "Doing worksheets", but really busy coming up with crazy games like the "Who will get married first in the class?" game or the "What is his/her future occupation?" game.

7) Not doing worksheets, because other than that I would have skipped the classes. Teacher actually came up to me one day and asked, "You've got lots of medical problems, eh?"

Sorry, teach.

That's why today, I decided to do something I've never done before. Write my notes in Chinese.

No easy feat, to be honest.

And to tell you the truth, I really don't understand what I've written at all.

I mean, economics is bad enough in English.

Bring on Chinese and my world gets even more complicated.

Now, based on the feedback I've gotten from some of my friends who have seen this...three-quarts of my notes make no sense :(.

And I have not cured the drawing incessantly problem I have when I am bored. That is a picture of how my eraser looks like, and the picture next to it is...I dunno, my professor was talking about some investment thing.

I also decided to write in detail what happened during our end-of-the-session discussion. The topic was "Why is forecasting exchange rates so difficult?"

I wasn't really bothering to follow in English.

Let alone Chinese.

But I got some of it down.

Joyce, who was sitting next to me, had her laptop on so we decided to check out the online translators. We decided to translate numerous quotes and important phrases into different languages, to prepare us for when we become global travellers in the future.

1) "Irrational" into Chinese and French

2) "Hi, my name is Pearlyn" into Spanish and Greek

3) "I am falling asleep in class" into Spanish, French, Korean, and Swedish

4) "Look, there's a bear!" into Korean, German, and French

As you can see, I'm already preparing for when I go on exchange sometime in the future.

Adrian Gonzalez is STILL not playing for Getafe. I've not checked to see if he's injured or what, but how can he be injured without even playing?

Then again, he's too tall for his own good, and he looks a bit clumsy sometimes. I wouldn't be surprised if he broke his toe after walking into a rocking chair.

Poor Adrian has been looking so sad lately, though he was born looking sad. But just look.

Even Esteban Granero isn't a regular starter, but he's been afflicted with injuries as far as I know. At least Jaime Gavilan is doing well in Getafe.

Speaking of Granero...

Human Granero and Dog Granero :).

Food! Bye.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlynnnnnnnnnnnnnn Granero

Shiny Soup Per June In Year.

2008-09-23T22:39:00.004+08:00

I am amazed that no one has actually figured out what the lunatic phrase above means or entails. Fart and Maka thought it was an entirely cryptic and philosophical phrase dripping with wisdom and undertones of profound misery, but alas, i am not suicidal or remotely wise. My mind is simple and I think not of complexities. Fart and Maka, who have since discovered what it means, have since refused to acknowledge this phrase anymore. O, what bitter ladies, just because they took a thousand months to decipher it instead of a few seconds like a mere mortal would have.

Sometimes, the wisdom of life emerges right in front of you in the most simplest of ways. Think like a twisted-minded philosopher and you'll never get the phrase.

So. It's been a long time, as usual, since I have updated this thing. Have reluctantly dragged myself back to school, where I have a 4-day week and where I have no desire to spend more time in. I go to school, I physically appear in classes, I disappear. Try to do something more and I'll be shooting myself. No offense, I'm just not a school person. It's a place where like-minded people group themselves, a place where the ones in the peripheries are misjudged, and a place where I have no desire to feel a sense of belonging to. I do try to smile occasionally, there are other nice human beings around that make it pleasant at times. Mostly I enjoy sitting in a dark corner and doing something obscure, but I have realized that not many people in school are very receptive to such behaviour, judging by the looks of utter astonishment when people turn round the corner and see me doodling in some strange area. It might be odd if you don't know me, but I believe I am fairly harmless. I have benevolent thoughts almost 90% of the time anyway, so dare not be frightened when any of you chance upon me like that again.

Am doing 4.5 credits this semester, which is a bit of a drone. Well, I have decided on Political Science as my major, it's the closest thing that I'm interested in around here. Sure, if I had a choice I'd be doing European History or Cultural Studies or Archaelogy or Ancient Civilizations or Crumbling Monuments 101, but it's bad enough already having to explain to old narrow-minded relatives what Political Science means. If I even contemplated doing anything like Archaelogy which I've always been interested in as a child, I think I will be studying my own tombstone. If only I lived in a place where such things are encouraged. Well, I can still do that for fun I guess, like dig in the sand at Pasir Ris Park hoping to find some Orang Laut straw hat, but it'll be even more brilliant if I can do that as a living.

I have strange tendencies, I know. I used to think that Indiana Jones had such a cool life. Minus the whole bit about him being killed by rival archaeologists and tribal people, that I can live without. It's fascinating just sitting down wondering how humans came about and how and why different cultures evolve and how some monuments can be so timeless in nature and how some artefacts were used in olden days. It is true that people always pine for what they cannot have. And obviously I cannot travel back to the old days to see how the Stonehenge came about, so obviously I am curious about that. It's the whole mystical thing, just thinking about things you don't have the answers to is incredible. That's why I never felt anything special for anything scientific. Don't get me wrong, science is great. If it wasn't for science, i would be cowering in a cave with a campfire talking to bats.

In most cases, there are answers to science. It's either A or B. But I like the possibility of options, and grey areas. The idea that not everything is clear in black and white is something that appeals to me. A reason that I chose the subject combinations that I did in school. People say it's crazy to do the arts, it's not rewarding, it's too difficult. They're wrong. It's rewarding in its own way. There are no guaranteed and observable results, hell studying all this won't even guarantee you a proper future in this land, but there are so many things you can learn from the books we did in lit. Cultures, behaviour, empathy, history, compassion. History as a subject involves much reading, but it's worth it. If this society continues to progress in its methodological scientific narrow-minded way, we'll just end up like mindless robots who will never see things beyond the observable surface.

Before I start to creep myself out further with these thoughts, let's move on.

Adrian Gonzalez doesn't seem to be having a grand time in Getafe, why am I even surprised? This is the boy whose own father doesn't even want to look at him and treat him like a son, so I can't imagine him ever being well-treated in this lifetime. I seem to have forgotten how he looks like kicking a ball, it's been such a long time since I've seen him do that. The poor dear, he should not have quit school so hastily, what is to become of him now? All I've been seeing of him recently is fan pictures of him taken after training, him posing with various fans, lots and lots of pictures of all that in the past few weeks.

Well, if he doesn't even play, then obviously he has all the time in the world to entertain strange loitering fans outside Getafe's training grounds. I suppose that's the only reason why they even bought him in the first place. So that they can send him out to take pictures with randoms who'd leave the REAL players alone. I hope they feed him at least, Adrian is getting hungrier-looking everytime I see him, he's such a pitiful boy.

Oh right. I feel like I should talk about the classes that I'm doing this semester.

International Economics:

Econs as a whole is really something that I can do without. I mean, of course it'd be good if I can instantly understand all these things so I don't actually lose all my savings on roti prata when I grow up, but I dislike graphs more than anything and I despise all these various formulas weighing me down.

And I don't get how I should write essays for Econs. Half the time I'm drawing graphs that make no sense, and coming up with Pearlynistic theories rather than quoting Marxist theories.

The professor is really nice though, in the adorable old man way.

My notes from a typical day in Econs:

Not really sure if it can be seen, the scanned results came out pretty small (EDIT: Click on it to see the enlarged version). Ignore the "Temasek Junior College" notepad, all I have left lying around is a bunch of old school stuff left over from my time in school compounded with the dear siblings' old school things which have somehow came under my care. I'm left with the "Temasek Junior College" notepad and a tattered ACJC ZuoWen notepad, which will be very helpful when I decide to write a novel in Chinese.

And in my defense, I WAS paying attention mostly. But I tend to digress and I like to do a million things in one second. So I'm drawing and 1/4 listening...so there ARE some useful notes scribbled at the side. THERE, that's proof.

The first drawing is "Time : 1240", which is when I first thought I was going to fall off the chair in lethargy.

The second drawing is "Trading". That word was tossed around quite a bit in class. I don't know why i tend to draw men with puffed-out chests or stomachs, considering they are neither biologically able to grow out their chests or conceive a child. And I can never draw feet right, they're always pointed in strange directions, no normal person is able to stand that way without pulling a calf muscle.

The third drawing is "Country with budget surplus" and "Country with budget deficit". Well, economically I don't think I got it right, considering countries with budget surpluses aren't necessarily rich and countries with budget deficits aren't necessarily poor. But because I was bored, I decided that the man representing the country with a surplus should be a pompous businessman, while the man representing the country with a deficit should be a sad-looking little dude, who actually resembles Adrian there.

Don't know why I always draw hands sticking out like that, who stands like that?! And I don't get why I think that humans have webbed fingers.

And the sad-looking little dude...has no toes. Sigh.

The fourth drawing is "Neoliberal economist" and "Young Karl Marx". I'm not a fan of neoliberal economics, I find it too rigid and with a lack of regard for politics, so I'm trying to draw a stuffy old messy-looking scholarly man who thinks he's right all the time. I don't know why Karl Marx is drawn like that, and I'm not sure if he even looked like that, but I think most great thinkers of that century had no hair on top and hair growing out of their ears, with subsequent hair enveloping a sinister mouth lurking beneath.

This was after the break, and I told myself to listen instead of move away to Pearlyn Dimension again, but I disobeyed myself and started drawing again. I tend to tune out when I'm not interested in things, apologies to all.

The first drawing is "Country house with hedges". Well, my professor was talking about...hedge funds? Finance is really not my cup of tea, so when he said that I started thinking about a beautiful cottage surrounded by luscious hedges. However, I was not feeling very inspired then so I decided to draw not-so-luscious hedges and a decrepit-looking house with two random seagulls. Well all right, it's how I imagine the house in "The King of the Castle" to look like, though if I really wanted to I would have made it more foreboding.

The second drawing is "Market". My professor was having a field day, talking about...free markets? Well I was thinking of food because I didn't have any during the break, so I thought drawing some raw-looking vegetables and malicious-looking fishes would help me snap out of it, and before long I started to draw an entire market stall.

Don't know why the seller's arms turned out so hairy, I was going to draw just a few specks of arm hair, but suddenly it's all over his body.

And for the last time, he's not crying. It's SWEAT.

The third drawing is "Herd Mentality" and "Outcast". I think my professor was talking about the herd mentality in investments and things like that, and generally I hate anything to do with herds, so I made sure to draw a sad but brave outcast. Every society has an outcast and we must not leave them out.

Oh dear, the little girl at the far corner has no neck. I have to improve on the drawing of essential body parts.

I don't know why I coloured "MAS" there, which looks quite ominous to me. But I think it stands for the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which my professor kept referring to.

Research Methods for the Social Sciences:

I would like to reiterate that me not liking a course has nothing to do with the professor whatsoever. I have very clear interests and anything that I'm being forced to do will be done, but very reluctantly.

So I'm a reluctant member of RMSS class.

I can't ever imagine myself doing anything like that in the future. I'm curious about things, but I'm too lazy to specially create experiments to test out my thoughts. Besides, the time taken to verify these results would just kill my curiosity eventually.

International Political Economy:

Interesting class. A bit dry at times when it comes down to economic theories but at least it's nothing crazy like actual economics. Lots of international students in the class, they tend to travel in gaggles, but I like the class nonetheless, it's the least stressful one and the professor is a bit spacey and I like that sort.

Development, Underdevelopment and Poverty:

Heavy.

The group project confused me to the point that I DREAMT about it. Do not wish to relive that. Nevertheless, we got thru it with time, and it was amusing mostly because we (including the professor) were SO UNSURE about what we were doing so we were just confused together, right up to presentation day.

But heavy.

Enough about school. On another note, Maka went back to Liverpool, which makes things a bit quieter around here. No more satanic laughter, no more whining, no more BLING. Come back soon, please.

What is Fart sighing about now, have to go respond to her now. Goodbye earthlings!

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn

PEARLYN IS BACK PART TWO

2008-07-24T17:07:00.005+08:00

Day 5, Wednesday, 8am

Was awakened rudely, as usual, by Fart. Fart’s alarm was of a siren, and we had gotten a false alarm in the middle of the night because some sort of fire engine or ambulance was driving by and we thought it was Fart’s alarm. Or at least I did.

So we were getting ready to head to Melbourne. It was a one-hour flight, and we had to be at the airport by 11am or so. Human Clock Fart was, of course, counting down the minutes so we would not be late. So dramatic.

Have I mentioned that Maka the Incredible Sulk was contorting her face in unpleasant expressions because of…I don’t know why. But we’ve gotten used to it by then.

(That is me by her side. I was frantically penning down our thoughts in OUR travel journal, but Fart and Maka were notably unhelpful.)

So we took a plane down and was greeted by a jovial Christine, who was going to board HER plane to Singapore in about half an hour. The gods up there must have been laughing at us silly, it’s as if they planned for us to communicate with each other for such a short period of time.

So. Christine was extremely excited, was immediately scooped up by her in this big bear hug. If you have met Christine, you will understand what I mean. I detest hugging people and any other substance (mostly because I am so short that hugging a grown person would result in my head clashing into inappropriate body parts), but Christine is different. Hugging anyone else would have been like hugging a pillar.

So we didn’t have much time with Christine. But Christine was entirely professional and whisked us all to some food place (I can’t even remember where, she was so efficient in dragging us to someplace that I didn’t even look up to see where we were) and briskly instructed, “Pen. Paper.” With that, she grabbed the pen out of Fart’s hands and took our travel journal and proceeded to ramble on about which places we should go to if we wanted cheap food (CHEAP to Christine but insane to us). Also drew out some streets, it was as if Christine had been rehearsing in front of the mirror everyday, because she was just regurgitating everything she knew about Melbourne without even stopping for a breath or without looking at us to see if we could catch up with what she was saying. I noticed Fart’s and Maka’s eyes were all glazed over though, because Christine was speaking THAT quickly.

In all the excitement, Christine sort of forgot that we were all actually on budget, because she was so eager to tell us about this wonderful lemon cake thing.

Christine: OK, go to this place and get a slice of their lemon cake, very VERY nice…hey you know what? Forget it, get the WHOLE cake, only $38!

Fart/Maka/Pearlyn: Stunned

Getting a cake in Australia. I know all 3 of us eat a lot, but…

Alas, it was time for Christine to part. We were sad to see her go, and we were actually very depressed for the rest of the day…because we were dealt with a SECOND blow. Details later.

So anyway. We made a huge blunder with the airport transfer and somehow ended up spending $55 just to get to Bob and Christine’s place (this is a DIFFERENT Christine, mind you. Our real friend Christine is married to a man named Nuowen, not Bob).

So we ended up at Bob and Christine’s lodge, which we found a bit dubious at first. You see, it took a while for someone to come to us, and also because it was like a B&B, a big house. We booked for a 4-bed room, so we were flabbergasted to find out that, SHOCK, there was actually a 4th person already living in our room. Apparently at that moment, that was enough to make us think suicidal thoughts for the rest of the day. We were THAT down-hearted.

Maka was the moodiest. And I am not kidding. As we entered our room, we saw our new roommate and Maka’s face just SANK. But to be honest, our roommate was very very nice. Irish girl named Monica who was living there for a few months. You see, I was sort of talking to her alone while Fart and Maka were somehow around the lodge, and when she told me she was working in Melbourne, I knew that Maka would throw a tantrum because that would mean that she would be there throughout our stay. Then she said she worked night shifts and that seemed to appease Maka a little bit when I told her. Muahaha.

(But Irish, wow. Fart HAD to ask her about U2. Pssh. I wanted to ask her about BWitched but for some reason, that slipped my mind everyday I saw her.)

So Maka was unable to concentrate for the rest of the afternoon. I don’t even remember why we were so down, I guess because we wanted our privacy like how we did at Alfred Park. Muahahaha served us right for booking a 4-bed room.

BUT Monica was really the nicest roommate ever…RIGHT FART?

So for the rest of the day, we spent our time discussing and discussing and discussing if we should move to a 3-bed room. Our world must have been very small, because it was all we were concerned about. In retrospect, I really wonder what we were all so traumatized about. It’s not like Monica hung a sword on top of her bed or anything (we slept in double-deckers).

Went to Subway as usual, because it was the cheapest of all in Australia. At least, as far as we know. We later dubbed it Indian Subway, because the people working there were all Indians and they were blasting Indian music for Maka.

Moved on to Macs, where we stayed for the longest time. Spent the night playing the “1, 2, 3 Game”…it was a game we were very fascinated by but I am too ashamed to put it up on my blog.

Was on our way home, when we decided to walk all the way to Coles, a supermarket which was apparently “5 minutes away” from the lodge. According to Christine that is. Lodge Christine. Not Friend Christine.

So it took us about 25 minutes to walk back to our street. And so we thought that since Coles was just 5 minutes away, it wouldn’t be so bad yeah?

WRONG. I don’t know what sort of watch Christine uses or whether she was travelling by rocket or what. Because Coles was at least FIFTEEN minutes away.

By that time, we were in the mood to punch someone. It was exhausting mind you.

Coles was fascinating, and their house brand foodstuff were actually pretty good. The packaging they use, however, was a little OFF. For example, the Coles cereal box was white in colour, with just a logo on it.

Nothing else.

No picture of the supposed cereal. No name.

Nothing.

Scared us a bit, but we ended up buying some of their foodstuff. Like the garlic bread. Highly recommended, it pulled us thru our darkest days.

So we went back to the lodge, and LO AND BEHOLD, we returned to find a sleeping Monica. At 9.30pm.

Obviously we didn’t know what to do. We could have turned on the light, but we had just arrived that day and knowing King Kong Fart and Moody Maka and Clumsy Me, we’d make a whole lot of noise jingling and jangling because we had to unpack all our stuff.

So we just stood there. For the longest time. Fart was the strangest, she kept staring at Monica’s unconscious head. As if she was willing sleeping Monica to get up all of a sudden.

That didn’t happen though.

So we went to the lounge, where we panicked and paced about endlessly, wondering what our game plan was.

To be honest, I think we brought it upon ourselves. We’re dramatic people I guess, and Monica sleeping was apparently a huge complication. Though now I wonder why.

In our anxiety, I managed to snap a picture of the lounge we were in. Warm and fuzzy, no?

So we decided maybe we should try to get hold of Bob and Christine and ask them if we could move to a 3-bed room, since we hadn’t paid yet. And then came another complication. WHERE WAS BOB AND CHRISTINE?

After about 20 minutes of frustration (we were extremely astonished that Bob and Christine just TOOK OFF like that, leaving the lodge to no one’s care, what if there was an emergency?), we decided we should just CALL Bob and Christine on their emergency number.

And all this while, Bob and Christine were actually in the next room. The TV room.

Let me tell you that Fart had been into the TV room a while before to see if anyone was in there. But FOR SOME REASON, she had COMPLETELY forgotten how Christine looked like. I mean, I would not have been able to recognize Bob, but Christine brought us around the lodge and tended to us in the afternoon, and somehow her face was lost on Fart.

Also, Bob is a Western man while Christine is an Asian woman. I wonder why it never occurred to Fart that it was, in actual fact, Bob and Christine in the TV room when she checked a while before.

So we were panicking and trying to get hold of Bob and Christine at this point yeah? And all that time they were just fifteen steps away. I remember asking Fart this.

Pearlyn: Hey, who was it in the TV room?

Fart: I don’t know, it was really weird. It was a Western guy and an Asian woman, kinda suspicious.

(YES, Fart, you did use the word “suspicious”. I know I love embellishing things, but THAT part is true!)

Pearlyn/Maka: Thought nothing much of it

After a while, I decided that maybe we could ask “the people in the TV room” if they knew where Bob and Christine were. Maybe they could help us if they had been living there for a while.

So we entered the TV room. Fart was first in line so she called out, “Hi, excuse me. Do you know where…” And then I caught up behind her and saw that, good lord, IT WAS BOB AND CHRISTINE. For some reason, Fart STILL had no idea, she still thought they were a strange mixed-race couple, so I had to POKE HER VERY HARD and mumble, “Faaaaaaart? THAT IS CHRISTINE YOU IDIOT.”

Fart was stunned, but she recovered and tried to cover it up, but I think Christine heard us both. Oooooh deeeeeeear.

So we politely asked for a 3-bed room, but were unable to get one. AND FROM THEN ON, Bob was VERY VERY WORRIED about our well-being. I guess he thought we were suffering very much, but I think we were over-dramatizing it a lot. I sincerely apologize, it was just a very bad day for the 3 of us.

We went back up and turned on the light, and NOTHING HAPPENED. Monica didn’t spring up from her bed with a dagger. Nothing of that sort. She just…continued sleeping. I don’t know what we thought she would have done, but anyway we made as little noise as possible because we did not want to disturb her. I mean, she was working as a NURSE. What would we do if she lacked sleep and ended up extracting too much blood from a patient or something? Nooooo, we cannot be responsible for that.

We went back down after that because we felt so bad, worrying Bob and Christine like that. I think they were genuinely concerned. Mostly we were just afraid that Monica’s sleeping hours were early in the night and we did not want to have to disturb her every night, especially since I was always knocking into things when I’m trying to be quiet. So we assured Bob that “everything was absolutely fine” and we could not wish for a better room. Bob was still a little bit worried and kept telling us this.

Bob: Monica, you know, she’s hardly ever around. We don’t really ever see her, she’s gone mostly. In fact, I’m a bit surprised to know that she’s sleeping now…because that isn’t usually the case…(calls out) Christine? Christine? WHY IS MONICA SLEEPING SO MUCH?

Well we were trying hard not to laugh at this point, because we felt so bad for Monica. Like she had no right to be sleeping at all. Muahahaha.

Day 6, Thursday, 8am

Went to breakfast, where we were immediately pounced on by BOB. He kept asking us again and again if everything was OK, and obviously it was because we weren’t exactly strangled in our sleep or anything, but I think we really gave him a fright the night before.

Also, I kept bumping into this girl from Toronto in the morning, we had met her the night before in the lounge. To cut a long story short, she had invited us to go to the Queen Victoria Market with her today, but not only did we already have plans, but we were also unanimous on the fact that she probably would not have been able to take our budget travelling. I mean, I think she would have fainted at how little we spent on food. And how much we spent on transport. Which was NOTHING.

So I kept seeing her and she didn’t seem as friendly as the night before. Maybe she thought we found her disturbing or something, since we declined her invitation. Oooooh deeeeeear.

So. We made our way to the Fitzroy area. Maka was adamant that the parks there are like those in Singapore (for the last time, Maka, Fart and I are still perplexed by that misjudged opinion. Muahahaha) and we made our way to Cook’s cottage, this quaint little house that I really wanted to check out because I like crumbling old historical monuments.

We went to buy our tickets, where we were immediately ambushed by the counterboy and his partner. By partner I mean colleague. They were impressed by how different all 3 of us looked (honestly, it NEVER occurred to us three before how puzzling we look together as a combination, I mean we’ve ALWAYS hung out with each other, and in Singapore we’d be joined by Minah Izzah, who I suppose would have complicated things more because then the Australians would REALLY be wondering where all of us were from) and the counterboy asked Maka and I first what race we were. Indian. Chinese. And then he looked at Fart and exclaimed, “Then what are you?!”

Hahahaha. He meant it in a nice way, of course. Fart had a hard time explaining to him that she was the lovechild of Maka and I, because she was Chindian.

OK, minus the lovechild part.

So we went into the cottage…it disappointed me. It looked moderately huge on the outside and when we went in, it was nothing. It’s like all the wings and the bricks just disappeared or something, because it was just a few rooms. And ta-dah! The end.

Were a bit perplexed with some tourists from China. After seeing the 3 of us, they probably decided that none of us could understand Chinese because they proceeded to speak it in front of us.

They wanted us out of there so they could pose with the old metallic tools or the crumbling fireplace or something. So they were all just hanging around waiting for us to be gone so they could start snapping away. May I just add that I hate to have to rush thru things?

Went back downstairs where we hung around the garden. Met this solitary Polish boy who had the most complicated background as can be. Something about World War II and his grandmother and his sisters or her sisters or some people who were related to him who moved to Australia and left him in Poland and he decided to come down for a visit…

I tuned out after a while.

So the Polish boy was called…Majiek/Machek/Makchik. Well, those 3 names are what all of us heard anyway. He was loitering around with this humongously professional camera but he was alone so he was secretly frustrated because he could not get a picture of himself. So he made friends with us, because apparently we look like we are capable of taking good pictures.

Hmmm. So he kept thrusting his camera at us, getting us to take pictures of him posing next to a statue, next to a tree, next to a bush, in front of the cottage, behind the cottage...and he really liked posing the same way. Arms folded, one leg over the other, with a wide grin.

Maybe it’s a Polish thing?

Guess he was really itching for friends, because he made us take some pictures at this board thing where we put our heads at. Definitely unflattering, and they’re all in HIS professional-looking camera.

See, does it not look big? Of somewhat worthy size at least.

So we left the cottage and moved out to the park area, where there were some other things to see. Bumped into Majiek/Machek/Makchik again, hovering about with a pensive look on his face. He then asked to join us after robbing us of our treasured Melbourne map, because I guess he wanted more pictures of himself around the park area. Otherwise, nice lad. We were wondering how to lose him though, because we had plans to check out the stores around our lodge and obviously we can’t bring him along unless he wanted to get cheap earrings.

Walked around the park area for quite a bit, that Majiek/Machek/Makchik boy kept mumbling about wanting to see some fountains, which was stressing us out for a while because WE COULD NOT FIND THE FOUNTAINS HE WANTED. Also, I was more concerned with looking for some miniature Tudor Village things but he really was more inclined towards fountains.

After seeing his lovely fountains, we managed to find the Tudor Village things that I was so excited about but which really disappointed me because it was…like Polly Pocket stuff. Well, I didn’t know, okaaaaaaayyyyyy.

We look so miniature because Majiek/Machek/Makchik probably did not realize how unprofessional our cameras were compared to his. If we used his camera, we could probably see our pores.

We soon parted, much to our relief. Ended up at Bridge Road, which is the street next to our lodge and where Coles is. Good stores around there, you’d have to dig but you can find pretty good stuff. As much as I pride myself for hating shopping, I’ll have to say I like doing that outside of Singapore because…I don’t know, I just like how they have little brandless stores everywhere in Australia and Europe, where you can find nice-looking things for budget prices. And by budget, I really mean budget because everything I bought was under $15 (trust me, a bulk of the things I bought were under $10…). I made sure I never exceeded that anyway. Unless I’m getting things for people and the price doesn’t matter in that case. And I hate how people buy into brands and all that, I hate branded stuff more than anything because firstly, they don’t even look nice (you can find cheap things which look as good, save on quality but that’s just bull because it’s not like the things I bought from Australia are RAGS or anything) and secondly, because most people do it just to show off, and why do you want to go around looking like everybody else anyway? Getting stuff from brandless stores allow you to mix and match and formulate your own style and stand out on your own. Jeez.

Where was I?

Spent the entire day like that, and the salespeople were very nice too. Maybe because they saw how easily they can trick us into buying things.

Maka was down again, this time because of her plane tickets issue. She needed to get affordable tickets back to Liverpool but the universe was just out to get her. Oh and the fuel prices too.

Also, Maka knows about 10,000 Hakeems. All this while I thought it was one single Hakeem she was talking about, but it turns out there are a ton of them. And I thought Hakeem was just a very happening person, who was constantly around doing things. Turns out they’re all different people, sigh.

Went to Coles as usual, because we needed…I don’t know what we needed. Maybe water? It was there where I saw an Adrian lookalike, he was calmly stacking celery sticks or some vegetable, looking very miserable. Perhaps it really was Adrian, since the season is out anyway and since was unwanted by Real Madrid at that time.

(Found out after that that Adrian was actually at Canizares’ wedding the whole time, how do those two even know each other?! Adrian and his entire family were there, along with his dragon father, so I presume Canizares is his father’s friend, they’re about the same age anyway…why am I talking about this?)

So we were at Coles, and we were frightened by this counterwoman, who was even clumsier than I was (how is that even possible?!). She kept dropping things (OK, maybe only once) and then proceeded to do something which made the woman in front of us drop her credit card twice. We were so afraid that she would, you know, burst open our water bottles or something, so I was on guard, ready to pick up things if need be.

Went back to the lodge, where we had our daily intake of garlic bread, much to the horror of Bob. I suppose we looked a bit pitiful, since we were furtively nibbling on our garlic bread in the kitchen (because we did not want to socialize in the lounge), but Bob was just staring at us like we were lunatics. He exclaimed, “IS THAT ALL YOU’RE EATING?!” I suppose he thought that was our dinner…it wasn’t. We had already eaten 10,000 things before.

So he offered us everything he could find in sight. Which was this dubious-looking cake-like thing (OK, it WAS cake…but it looked like a sponge), and we declined politely because we were actually very very happy with our garlic bread, but he seemed to think we were torturing ourselves. I guess he was afraid that we were secretly miserable, what with the room arrangement and all that, now we were starving ourselves.

If you’re reading this, Bob, we were really very happy.

There was this unhelpful German dude who was also in the kitchen, cooking pasta all for himself and only himself. It was an enormous pot, I’d like to add, and all the while when Bob was chiding us for eating so little, there that German bloke was, calmly scooping his 8,000 spoons of pasta into this lunchbox, so he could eat elsewhere. I suppose only Bob was capable of empathy.

We were feeling ambitious, so we thought we would just WALK all the way to the Observation Deck place, which overlooks all of Melbourne. It’s in the city and the city is 25 minutes away, but we didn’t actually realize that the city itself was big.

We did ask Bob if we could walk though. He looked horrified again, I think he really thought we had no money. Especially since Fart’s credit card could not work on the first day. He must have thought we were living off dimes and pennies.

So Bob gave us our blessings, after staring at us with a concerned expression for the longest time. Hey Bob, we really like walking…

It actually took us about 45 minutes to get there. It was a bloody long walk. Walking to the city at night is bad enough, but it took another 15 minutes to get to the actual place. No wonder Bob was so astonished.

And then guess what. We decided not to go up after all. Because we had to pay about $8 per head. Guess I’ll go headless next time.

So we decided that we should just go back, since it was almost 10pm. Stopped by Macs, as usual, where I just had to get some apple pie. Maka was a bit grouchy, she had fallen into a trance midway thru, and we thought it was because she needed the toilet or something (it wasn’t because of that, she was just secretly tired of walking).

Fart and I were slightly concerned because these men kept chuckling away merrily, so we were wondering if maybe I had, like, a twig in my hair or something. Also, we met a cool counterboy, Kenan. He had the biggest head and the smallest cap (OK, maybe his head wasn’t that big…) and he had the loudest voice which could wake someone in a coma. It was frightful, how he boomed, “TWO APPLE PIES RIGHT AWAY!” And by the way, he totally forgot about my apple pie, and he was very very very apologetic. Good man, good man.

There was another counterboy who looked exactly like him. For a while, Fart thought Kenan kept changing clothes because they really looked similar.

And all of them thought we were checking them out. Sigh. All because I was staring at how similar he and his coworker looked. Pssh.

Walked back home, where Maka confessed that she almost died as a child.

And Fart has burnt cushions/pillows in her storeroom somewhere.

My friends horrify me sometimes.

Day 7, Friday, 10.30am

We were supposed to get up bright and early to go to Queen Victoria Market.

We were also supposed to meet Mysterious Friend BenShane so he could hand us some cryptic top-secret documents to Christine. Friend Christine, not Lodge Christine.

But then, he sent us a very mysterious message.

“Uh…there was a COMPLICATION getting the documents…”

Talk about shady. Are he and Christine holding some people hostage somewhere?

So we decided not to meet him after all and instead decided to spend a longer time at the Melbourne Visitor Centre (or whatever it is called) to talk to Gail, the volunteer who was helping us with our various predicaments.

Predicament 1: How do you get to Dandenong?

Gail: (Hands us a complicated-looking brochure) Here, these are the trains you can take…when you’re in Dandenong, you should look out for the Puffing Billy…

Us: The WHAT?

Gail: The Puffing Billy.

Us: Slightly confused

Gail: It’s a steam train that goes around Dandenong…(yammers on about the Puffing Billy and nothing else, then proceeds to photocopy everything she can about the Puffing Billy)

Don’t get me wrong. Gail was so cute. In the old lady kind of way.

But, uh, the Puffing Billy wasn’t really high on our priority list.

Predicament 2: In your opinion, should we go to Dandenong or Williamstown?

Gail: (Looks at coworker who was helping out someone else) Dandenong or Williamstown? (Coworker tried to help out but was soon cut off by Gail) They’re different kinds of places…but in Dandenong, you have the Puffing Billy…

Puffing Billy.

We looked at the brochure and the front of it showed a picture of the Puffing Billy with a gaggle of CHILDREN in it.

Oh Gail.

Eventually made our way to the Queen Victoria Market. It was great, and Chief Organizer Fart was, as usual, planning our route. We decided to go column by column again, just like Paddy’s Market in Sydney.

Before that, we got some CHURROS. Hola churros! My favourite snack. I wish I had worn my Spain jacket out, so maybe the guy could give me about 15 free churros, because I noticed he was slightly more generous with the old Spanish woman behind me, and the both of them started chattering vigorously in Spanish for the next 3 minutes.

His churros were so good.

I was at Queen Victoria Market last year as well, and I distinctly remember good jam donuts. It was, however, a sorely disappointing event this time round. Fart and I thought it would be so good, so we bought SIX in one go, especially since we met a man devouring it and he insisted that we get it.

We ended up eating two out of the six. Fart was so frustrated that she shoved the remaining four in her bag and groaned everytime she opened her bag and saw them.

There were lots of Spaniards selling stuff. And I was so tempted to get a fake David Villa jersey (believe me, if I had ANY choice at all, I wouldn’t be picking Villa because I like the man but I’d prefer wearing a jersey of a lesser-known player…I really like Senna for instance), but it was dirty. Don’t know what the seller had been doing to the Villa jersey while no one was looking, but it had mud streaks, sigh.

Maka kept whining about wanting some Billions jacket, but after about 50,000 years, she decided not to get it after all.

And there is never a day that goes by when Fart doesn’t panic. She panicked just as the place was closing up because she forgot to get sweet friendship stuff for Neha.

Me? Well, the afternoon ended more pleasantly for me compared to my 2 friends. But I was sad because the churros man was going home and I really wanted more churros and so did Fart and we asked him in our most non-scary voices but he said, “No more! Tomorrow!”

Tomorrow. Pssh. Easy for him to say.

I remember it was also the day that Spain beat Russia 3-0. And my favourite player David Silva scored. And I really wanted to high-five the churros man, you know? But he would have thought I was crazy probably.

Went to the Shrine of Remembrance after that. It was getting colder and colder and Maka kept on whining about something. She even scoffed at a tribute to the war horses.

Well. Uh I suppose it’s not a tribute we see very often. But it’s sweet.

Maka then aggressively requested that we move to a large bonfire, where we stood for the longest time. Eventually, we moved INTO the Shrine of Remembrance, which was really what we were there for in the first place.

It was a very peaceful place, and it was interesting. I’ve always liked museums and anything to do with history, so I was looking forward to that. It didn’t disappoint.

After that, we were hungry so we decided to go get some dinner. Fart somehow managed to devour an entire packet of chocolate balls, after which she started to complain about how she was still hungry.

She ignored the fact that she still had 4 jam donuts in her bag.

I don’t know what she was keeping the donuts in there for. Probably for when we were dying of hunger.

So Maka was forced to eat the donuts.

OK, Fart claims that Maka OFFERED to eat the donuts. But I vaguely remember force. And a frightened Maka.

Went to the Indian Subway. Maka was, as always, unhappy about something.

Day 8, Saturday, 10.30am

Fart fell off her bed at around 5am.

She was sleeping in the bed above mine, and I did see her limbs sticking out after being awakened by her tossing and turning.

I was a bit confused and disoriented, as I always am whenever I get up.

And then suddenly, her limbs started moving out even more. And more. And more.

And I know Fart gets up early to go jogging round the block sometimes, but 5am?

So I thought the best thing to do was to stick my hands out and prod her back up to her bed. Yeah, for some reason, I thought I was strong enough to poke her all the way back up.

THEN SHE STARTED FALLING.

And then I thought, “Hmmm. Maybe she needs the toilet…but why isn’t she taking the ladder? What an ungraceful way to come down.”

Then she lands neatly on her feet next to my bed all of a sudden.

If I wasn’t so puzzled, I would have been shocked.

Pearlyn: Fart, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

Fart: Ohmygod I just had a dream and I fell off.

Pearlyn: WHAT?!

And all the while, Maka the so-called light sleeper was sound asleep. Monica, however, was secretly eavesdropping and was WELL AWARE of what happened, and confessed only in the morning.

So Fart was still rather dazed. And so was I, but I was sane enough to order Fart to sleep with her face SMACK against the wall.

And then she kept whining that she had to sleep facing a certain direction or she would not be able to sleep. Like she had to sleep on her right side.

Basically, it means that she would have to sleep facing Maka or she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all.

So it turns out that Fart was actually dreaming about CURRY. And she was arguing with the curry-seller. And I suppose it must have resulted in a violent tussle for his curry because that made her fall off the bed.

That morning, Fart had an “incident” with Bob.

Apparently she got up to go jogging and let in two stranger girls just as she was about to go out.

And Bob snarled, “WHAT DOES THE SIGN SAY?!”

(The sign said that we should not let strangers in.)

Fart was depressed for the entire morning, because she believed that Bob hated her to the core for endangering everyone’s safety in the lodge.

So we were going to go to Williamstown that day, but the ferry man was SICK. And Fart was incredibly disgusted because that meant that we had to change our plans.

We had no backup plan, so we decided to check out some of the cheap stores that Friend Christine was telling us about.

Of course, since we’re the greediest people alive, we’d HAVE to stop by a quaint-looking bakery. It was run by an Asian mother-and-son pair, and everything looked so good and inviting. So what started out as a simple snack ended up as a feast. At first, I ordered a jam tart.

It was so good.

Then I went back, this time with the intention of getting something else.

Asian boy: (Upon seeing me) ANOTHER jam tart?!

He sounded condescending yet incredulous.

I must have looked very hungry.

Well, I decided to get a yo-yo, which is this cookie thing with lots of cream everywhere. And Fart had ordered a donut the first time I think, and then after that she could not control herself and got us a slice of cake to share.

It was MY cranky day, my one and only cranky day on the trip. But for me, I don’t get moody for long, and I tend to be very easily appeased.

What appeased me?

Sushi.

Of course.

Went to the Indian subway again. We had nothing else to do, so we just sat there playing Pictionary. I was really tired so I fell into grouchy mode again, and Fart and Maka were afraid coz I was always such a bright light. Muahahaha.

Maka was strangely crazily delighted that night.

So we played Pictionary, and Fart and Maka ended up in a heated debate about the best way to draw “me”. Maka took a long time perfecting a picture of Maggi Mee, none of which Fart understood. When Fart found out that Maka was just trying to illustrate the word “me”, Fart was flabbergasted and insisted that she would do it some other complicated way that only made sense to her.

It was tension-filled. Being the peace-maker I was, I decided to step in wisely, just as Maka did in Sydney.

“Relaxxxxxx guys…”

Hahahahaha.

So I tried to introduce another game so that everyone would be happy again. I mean, Pictionary was obviously a stressful game.

All right, I was simply bored by Pictionary but I was too shy to say. Instead, I decided to use Fart and Maka’s “fight” as the reason why we should not play Pictionary anymore. Sigh, they actually saw right thru my true intentions.

Also, a rat crawled on my foot. So I ended up kicking the table very violently because I was so horrified. Fart and Maka thought I had a nightmare because I had my eyes closed at that point. Hahahaha.

So for once in our entire trip, Fart was reluctant to go back to the lodge. Usually, she’d be chasing us out of there by 9pm. But this time, she did not want to go back because she was afraid to face Bob, after her boo-boo in the morning.

Maka and I tried telling her that it’s the LAST thing on his mind, but she insisted that he would have held a grudge against her because he was such a stickler for rules. Not only were we not allowed to let strangers in, we were also expected to make sure that the toilet doors were closed at all times (even when not in use), and clothes were not hung over the heater, and doors were not slammed…it was then that we decided that we were going to do EXACTLY all of these things before we left. Let all homeless people in. Open all toilet doors. Hang everybody’s clothes over the heaters. SLAM ALL DOORS.

Nah. We’re not that daring.

So on the way home, Fart practiced her apology to Bob about 60,000 times. I had to pretend to be Bob so that she could do actual role-play, but she was still nervous anyway when we really did see him that night.

Bah. He thought NOTHING of it.

See Fart? Always worrying.

Day 9, Sunday, 9am

Decided to go to Camberwell Market. A secondhand type of thing where people set up makeshift stalls at a carpark.

It started out a bit dull. Fart and I were a bit wary of the things they were selling, like fur carpets and whatnot. I would probably be arrested if I tried to bring that back to Singapore.

We were so disillusioned that we ended up stuffing our faces. Actually saw some SMU people, but I really wanted an SMU-free holiday/term break, so I tried to distract myself by looking at the pet dogs next to me.

And then, came Maka’s $1 jacket purchases.

Very worth it, and still in good condition too.

Then we decided, hell let’s just look around a bit more, maybe we’d find great things.

It started out calm, and ended frantic.

Because all of a sudden, there were all these good sales…sure they’re secondhand but they still look good. And it doesn’t go above $5. Well, the ones I look for anyway.

The place was starting to close up by about 12.25pm, because all of them had to clear out by 12.30pm. By that time, all 3 of us weren’t even really thinking anymore. We just bought stuff that we’d probably never ever need.

Maka was a bit slow though, she processes her thoughts too long.

Tip: Always go towards the end, because that’s when the sellers are at their most desperate. I remember last year when I was there, this dude was just giving out free CDs to passers-by.

Maka then went off to meet her friend after that, leaving Fart and I alone. So we went to the Indian Subway. Again.

And who knew, Maka was actually there with her friend. But Fart and I didn’t see her.

Maka, however, knew we were there and actually saw us walking up and down and ordering stuff and things like that.

But she thought it was “unnecessary” to say hello or give a friendly wave.

Chi chi chi. MAKA.

So Maka was supposed to meet us at 3pm outside Macs. Fart and I had some time after lunch so we walked around the city and was waiting outside Macs when Maka told us she’d be there at 3.30pm.

Chi chi chi. MAKA.

So it’s basically all her fault that we then proceeded to stuff our faces with a cake and fries at Macs, even though we were full from Subway.

When Maka FINALLY arrived, we decided to head on to St. Kilda’s. A beach area. Pretty.

We decided to take Bob’s advice and look out for penguins for free. If we went to Penguin Island, we’d have to pay a lot of money.

Phillip Island?

Yeah, Phillip Island, my bad.

So it was shivering COLD there, because it was the ocean. It was probably the coldest of the entire trip, but it was a lot of fun. Sat by some benches for the longest time just to wait for those stupid penguins to appear.

We waited till it was dark.

NONE.

Well, if you count those penguins huddling in between the rocks behind us, then we saw a grand total of THREE penguins that day.

Moral of the day: Never listen to Bob too seriously.

It was that night that we discovered that Bob was the Phantom of the Lodge. OK, Fart and I are nuts for the Phantom of the Opera. And if you have watched the musical, you’d know that Christine is the female protagonist.

Because we were all a little crazy from the cold, we concluded that Bob was the Phantom of the Lodge.

Also, Maka could not stop showing off her spiffy leather jacket. All for the great price of $12.
See.

She just didn’t wanna take it off.

Ohmygod, how many did she take of herself?

(By the way, Spain was playing the final that night, which explains the jacket.)

THE FINAL.

Sigh.

I was so wanting to catch it ANYWHERE.

HOW WAS I TO KNOW THEY WERE SHOWING IT RIGHT THERE AT THE LODGE, IN THE LOUNGE?

Just as well. There were a ton of Germans living there. I don’t think I’d have gotten out of the room alive. I remember the next day, I was wearing my Spain jacket again because I was so victorious, and this German dude shot me a rather disapproving look.

Sigh.

I’m glad I didn’t have to see this though.

Eventually, we ended up at Macs after zooming thru Luna Park. Because I was greedy, I ate an entire burger. Even though we were clearly having Subway after that.

So Fart was exceptionally jumpy that night. She wanted us to leave Macs ASAP so we could go to Subway to relax.

Pearlyn: Why can’t we relax here in Macs?

Fart: Because I KNOW we have to go to Subway later, so I can’t relax here.

Despite all this, Fart does make sense sometimes.

So we went to Subway.

And then, we were hustled away again by Fart. After our sandwiches, thankfully.

Fart: Can we go back to Macs?

Pearlyn: But you said you wanted to relax here.

Fart: I need the toilet.

Pearlyn: THEN can we relax in Macs?

Fart: OK.

Also, I think it was because she was a bit disconcerted by this punk who kept talking on his phone and standing so close to our table he was practically SITTING on it. Mind you, the place wasn’t even crowded, there wasn’t any other table occupied.

So we went back to Macs.

Then Fart decided that we should leave soon. Because we spent so much time travelling to and from Macs that it was late.

Also, Maka found the most disgusting chewed-up piece of gum in her bag.

Chi chi chi. MAKA.

Day 10, Monday, 10.30am

Because it was apparently the last day of most of the sales, we decided we should head around town to get stuff we needed to get for everybody in our lives.

Made our way to DFO where Maka suddenly fell into a stony trance. Fart and I were too afraid to talk to her, because every reply she gave was monosyllabic.

The day then got worse when Maka received a call from Mama Makalingam. Maka needed to find a scanner, to cut a long story short.

Fart sent out a panicked text message to Friend Christine, who was in Malaysia at the time (wonder how the phone bill would be like). For some reason, Christine thought we wanted to BUY a scanner. From what I understood that is.

So we were sent all over the city, and Christine, who finally understood us, told us to go check out Dinkums/Dumkins. On the way there, we had to meet an exhausted-looking Mysterious Friend BenShane, who had BLOODSHOT EYES.

Fart and Maka claimed there were no bloodshot eyes. But there clearly were. He had stayed up all night watching the final.

THE FINAL WHICH I SHOULD HAVE WATCHED. AND THEN WE COULD HAVE BLOODSHOT EYES TOGETHER.

So BenShane apparently got the documents all neatly put in a package. And he suspiciously whispered in a coded message, “Christine left her keys as well. Hand them to her.”

OK, minus the coded message bit.

He wasn’t very helpful when we asked him how to get to Dinkums/Dumkins by the way. He was like, “…you have to find some baths…and then go past that…and then you’ll see big mama’s kitchen (or something like that)…”

Very cryptic boy.

Well, we finally found the place after going past the dodgy bath place he was talking about.

However, it was only going to be more exhausting for the already lethargic and angsty Maka.

Since we were in the city, we thought maybe we should check out Myer, a department store that Christine recommended.

We were appalled by Christine’s disturbing fashion sense. The clothes were fit for anybody above 45 years old.

Because Fart is Fart, she started getting an anxiety attack because she realized that she needed to get things for like a billion people.

I was cool because I had already got most of it sorted out.

Maka was too grouchy to think if she had gotten her things sorted out.

So we decided to go back after having dinner. On the way back, I dropped back a souvenir store to get a postcard of “Sensual Australian Men” or something like that, especially for Samantha. The postcard had supposedly sexy pictures of surfer dudes and their artificially tanned abs, with muscles bulging in all places I never deemed possible. There was also a bare buttock of a beach boy.

Well, it’s not something that I would want the counterboy to see I’m buying. So I STRATEGICALLY FLIPPED IT DOWN. Plus, the price was written there too.

BUT THAT BUSYBODY DECIDED TO FLIP OVER THE CARD. Chortled to himself for a while, thinking I wouldn’t notice. Grrr.

Hey, Samantha loved it by the way. It would perfectly complement the sexy “Bronzed Australian Males” calendar I got her.

So we were waiting for the tram to bring us back. And we were TRAUMATIZED by this flirtatious lad who only had eyes for Fart. So he walked past, snapped his fingers at Fart, and grinned naughtily.

But because I was with 2 friends who were in another dimension, I was the only one who noticed that.

So I told Fart.

But she was not listening to me.

You know why?

Because she was busy staring at a dude who was sitting on the tram, looking out the door blowing kisses at her and waving frantically.

IT WAS THE SAME MAN!

Fart unwittingly let out an “EEEEEEEEEEE!” squeal, much to the amusement of the man and everyone else within a 50m-radius. The man seemed to find it exciting that he was grossing Fart out so much, so he proceeded to imitate her “EEEEEEEEEEEE!” squeal, while still blowing kisses and waving of course.

And the tram driver JUST WOULDN’T LEAVE.

Those were the longest 2 minutes ever.

The people at the tram stop were fairly amused though.

This reminds me of the time (I can’t remember which day) when we were in the city and this little boy (who looked like Crabbe or Goyle, one of them) suddenly came up to Fart and growled “HOO!”

And I swear he was serious about it.

Like REALLY serious.

When we turned around, he was still staring at her. Glaring at her more like it.

Some Aussie bloke saw that asked her what happened.

Bloke: What happened there?

Fart: Don’t know.

Bloke: But hey, you’re a beautiful girl.

Awwwww.

Fart was disgusted.

Day 11, Tuesday, 10.30am

Monica was strangely never home for the past few days, though we were always very suspicious of her, like maybe she was hiding under the bed or in her locker, just so she could hear us talking about her.

But we saw her this morning. She offered Fart and I hot chocolate while Maka was primping in the toilet.

Maka was deeply hurt that she was not included in the hot chocolate party.

Made our way to Williamstown, where we only had about 2 hours before we had to go. Didn’t really know what to do there, it was a very pretty town but we couldn’t do much within the time we had.

So we went into some quaint little stores which sold candy and all that kinda stuff.

However, a mishap occurred.

Fart stepped on some dog poo.

Maka was rather terrible, she could not stop cackling. Even though if it wasn’t for Fart stepping on it and warning Maka not to, Maka would have too.

Maka vehemently retorted that Fart did no such charitable act.

So for about 20 minutes, Fart acted strangely. She could not really walk properly after that, and she had her fingers twisted in the strangest way because she said that was her coping mechanism?

Never try to understand Fart.

So we entered a cute little bakery. I wanted a yo-yo. And I must have looked like the greediest person alive, because the woman ended up giving me 6 bloody yo-yos for free.

You know, we fully intended on giving that to Bob and Christine, so we didn’t really have to buy them anything before we left.

BUT FART BEING FART ended up CRUSHING all 6 yo-yos.

So no.

Not only was Fart acting strange, but so was Maka. She refused to keep this postcard about love that we were given for free and gripped onto it from the store where we got it to the supermarket where Fart met the dog poo to the bakery and to the toilet and to the train station and to the train.

Don’t know why she was holding onto the postcard for so long.

So we made our way to the Scienceworks Museum. You know, I think we were the oldest people there. Save for the parents of the children there, but we were definitely beyond the average age.

Muahahaha. Fine. It was MY idea to go there.

It was fun though. I mean, some of the stuff were pretty DUH. Like, Maka was rather unimpressed with some exhibits because it was just so brainless…for people our age that is. But we had fun in the sports section, where we cheated in some of the games. There was a goalkeeping game, in which only one person should be the goalkeeper at all times. But all three of us protected the goal.

Enough said.

The computer seemed to know we were cheating though, and warned us, “Hey you, only one at a time please!” But we somehow managed to work around it.

Then we cheated at this other game as well. Some reflex thing. Again, only one person was supposed to do it, but all three of us positioned ourselves so we could win.

Uh, but we lost anyway. Pathetic much. For people our age too.

We were then chased out because it was closing time. Maka was rather displeased because she was in the midst of measuring her height. She frowned at the Scienceworks man but he failed to see that.

Since it was our last night in Melbourne, we decided to have a feast, just like in Sydney. We thought maybe we could go to some of the places that Friend Christine recommended. So we did. We went to Papa Gino’s, an Italian place which was really good.

Maka was traumatized by her lasagna. I mean, I was wondering for the longest time why Maka was just sitting there with a dazed look on her face staring at her plate of lasagna like it held the secret to life on earth. And when Fart asked her how the lasagna was, Maka seemed to not have heard her.

Fart and I were worried of course.

Turned out that it was BEEF. Maka wasn’t supposed to be eating that. The waitress was really nice though, managed to get the chef to change his mind and send out another dish.

Fart and I were so sure that 2 of the waiters there were Singaporean. One of them looked like a beng while the other looked like he acted in Growing Up. I really wanted to test if it was true though, so I planned to shriek “ALAMAKKKKKKKKKKK!” when the Growing Up waiter walked by, and to see if he reacted violently or excitedly. But Fart and Maka stopped me. Sigh.

It was also there that I saw a lovely ginger-haired Casillas. Well, Fart and Maka weren’t very impressed, but I stand by my opinion that he was the spitting image of Casillas. With red hair that is.

Plus he had on stripes. A plus.

Of course, Fart had to comment SO LOUDLY about the stripes and about Casillas and the lookalike and blah blah, failing to notice that the dude in the table beside us ALSO HAD ON STRIPES. He heard bits of what Fart was saying, and obviously felt very good about himself. But nooooo it wasn’t him.

It was then we decided that we SHOULD leave.

Also, Prince Charles was sitting beside us with his family.

OK, “Prince Charles”.

So many lookalikes in that restaurant, it was so exciting.

Went to San Churros for dessert, because I demanded it. Me and my Spanish fetishes. But it was good, very good. Owner’s son really looked like this Spanish TV host called Juanma, and I really wanted to try saying the name “Juanma!” very loudly and see if the son turns or bristles.

It was a good last night. But Fart was as usual, squeamish about so many things. This time, it was a problem that she had that only the 3 of us should know.

Spent the night sadly packing. Bob actually came into our room to ask us about airport arrangements and all that.

He could not stop staring at how large my suitcase was. But he tried not to be obvious about it.

Day 12, Wednesday, 8am

Got up really early because we had to check out by 9.30am. It was sad to leave the place and it was a bit funny because Bob decided to hug us all very awkwardly.

Damn, I miss the place.

Went to the airport, where we had a flight delay.

I mean, I know all 3 of us were hoping that there’d be some delay and we’d have to stay another day. But we didn’t really MEAN it.

A few hours of doing nothing at the airport.

We were a bit down because we were heading home, and the feeling was exacerbated when I kept losing at Tetris on the plane.

Great great trip.

Thank you, my 2 friends, for being as crazy as I am. Good times, good times.

Things we learnt during the trip:

1) Fart is a HOT THANG. Muahahaha.

2) Fart panics VERY easily.

3) Maka has 2 talents. She can do that clicking sound with her tongue that nobody else can do and she can play peanut football.

4) Maka is ashamed to like hip-hop.

5) Bob is Swedish. We could NEVER place his accent.

6) Christine is from HongKong.

7) Germans don’t like going out. They were ALWAYS there. Also…

8) Germans don’t like sharing their food. Bad pasta man.

9) Monica actually seemed to like us. We like you too, Monica.

10) Bob was a sailor who liked trishaws.

11) Maka reads magazines VERY SLOWLY, like it’s a religious text or something.

12) We walked EVERYWHERE. Go us!

Signed,

Sincerely, Me

Pearlyn

PEARLYN IS BACK.

2008-07-24T01:33:00.004+08:00

Hello universe.

Got to flog myself for always forgetting this baby. Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks, not to mention a psychotic couple of weeks.

Here is a summary of what is to come. Escape while you can, because it is going to be a borefest.

1) Spain won Euro 2008. Is it possible to be proud and resentful at the same time, as well as victorious and heartache? How can one person be capable of so many emotions without combusting is beyond me.

Proud: Because I have seen the team grow after all these years. And I stand by the decision to leave Raul out because all he did was destabilize the team.

And to think that new coach Del Bosque (Ex-Real Madrid coach, and GROSSLY pro-Raul) is leaving the door open for Raul.

God, please no. Unless you want the team to give up everything they fought for over the past few months.

Liked you once before, Raul, but your presence is like mould. Silent but deadly.

Resentful: Half the world had no idea who David Silva was before Euro 2008.

The other half of the world did not even like the Spanish national team.

As always, after every triumph, there will be new fans popping up from Bora Bora to Tahiti, which pains me to no end.

Guess I should go find a pitiful team to support from now on. Andorra, here I come.

Victorious: Do you know how it feels like to see a team you support win it all? After all these years, they've managed to defeat their enemies -- themselves. Which leads me to my next emotion.

Heartache: Unfortunately, I was only able to feel victorious by reading match reports and watching match highlights.

Because I missed everything.

Everything.

All of it.

Stupidity catches up on me so many times in my life. But it couldn't have waited till after Euro 2008 to strike me, can it?

Noooooo, I had to miss the quarter-final against Italy, the semi-final against Russia and the final against Germany.

Just as well. The good thing was, I avoided a potentially traumatic experience because the Spanish celebrations would have proved too much for me to handle. Casillas in his underwear, frolicking about in glee.

Really not an image I wish to subject my weak heart to. Casillas is lovely with an impeccable jawline sometimes (when his head is facing a certain direction and the light is just right), but he should always be clothed in my opinion.

I apologize if you are reading this, Iker, but shouldn't you be scrubbing your goalkeeping gloves rather than reading a deranged blog?

2) I went to Australia with 2 of my closest friends. Time of my life. Highlight of my world. Story of my universe.

Originally, I thought I would just give you the link to Rekha Makalingam's blog. Which is http://someone-like-me.livejournal.com/

Alternatively, I thought I would just copy and paste the entire travel journal that we wrote during our holiday.

Then I thought it'd be like plagiarism, you know? Since it appeared on Rekha's blog first.

All right, I know I was the one who wrote it in the first place. But I realized there were many things I left out, and some things that I wish to clarify. So I'm going to write an entirely new day-by-day journal right here. Hope I beat the record for the longest blog post ever.

Here we goooooooooooooooo...

Day 0, Friday, 6pm

I was late to the airport.

Well, late by Fart’s standards anyway. Muahaha.

The plane ride was rather unfruitful, since none of us actually slept. Fart and I were trying so hard to make ourselves go to sleep, but the stupid chairs were so stiff and I don’t particularly fancy the idea of reclining my chair because I’d always feel sorry for the poor suffocating bloke behind. So I ended up trying to sleep in a right-angled position, which I can tell you is not the best of choices.

So Fart and I thought that we should choose some mellow music to listen to. You know, something sleep-inducing. Since Fart and I were sharing my mp3 player, Pablo, both of us had to make do with my music list.

Where is Brian McKnight when you need him? We both thought Brian McKnight would have been perfect in putting us to sleep, especially the dreadful songs “Back at One” and the other one which involves counting and numbers as well…six, seven, eight or something, is it? Unfortunately I had neither. Pablo has a standard to uphold and Brian McKnight will not be accepted in Pablo.

So for some reason, we decided that the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA songs would be a good choice.

It started out fine and the initial soft melodies lulled us into complacency. Then came the pounding organs all of a sudden, which stunned us tremendously and caused us both to open our eyes in shock.

Never listen to the phantom when you are trying to sleep.

We finally decided on Nsync…which put Fart to sleep for fifteen minutes or so. Me? Oh I took it upon myself to sing along in my head to test my memory of their lyrics. So, no sleep in the end. Grrr.

After we realized that none of us were going to go to sleep, we decided to amuse ourselves with the entertainment system. We started out playing Hangman, which was such a yawn. And the cartoon man being hung wasn’t even remotely interesting.

Then, Fart and I realized that Maka was utterly silent, as she was intensely playing a game which caused her utmost agitation. The game is called “Twins”, which is basically the computer version of the Memory game. It had a time limit and it was tricky, very tricky.

Maka almost sprained her wrists playing it. It was only because she was rather incompetent in the game, unlike Fart and I who approached the game in a cool, calm and collected manner. Maka could not get past Level 1, while Fart and I got to Level 4. Go us!

I suppose we were also a bit loud on the plane. Maka kept cackling (if you have met Maka, you will understand what I mean by this) insanely in the middle of the night, which was so disturbing on so many levels. At one point, there was a woman who raised her eyebrow at Maka because I believe she was a bit frightened by the sadistic laughter in the dead of the night.

Was a bit intimidated by the white cards we had to fill in. Fart was afraid she would break the law by bringing in an extra pair of sports shoes, because the card stated that such shoes might have infected soil in them.

Resorted to asking the air steward in our desperation. He must never have gotten such a question before (I suppose it WAS quite a ridiculous question, since we were asking if we had to DECLARE Fart’s sports shoes, which sounds VERY dramatic I admit), because the air steward looked a bit stunned. He thought for a long time, and eventually told us, “Well…uh…I suppose you don’t have to declare those shoes…Unless, say, you have, like, a BIG CHUNK of soil stuck there.”

Hahahahahaahaha. We felt so stupid after that. Big chunk of soil. He kept staring at us like we were safari people or aliens after that.

Day 1, Saturday, 5am

So! We arrived in Sydney. None of us could believe it, we were so convinced we were dreaming of it and that suddenly we would walk out and it’ll be Changi Airport. No such cruel joke occurred, thank goodness.

It was a dead hour but we took a cab to our budget accommodations. Alfred Park.

It was a Middle Eastern cab driver, who had good music at first…One Republic. STOP AND STARRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEE (not a big fan of One Republic but I don’t mind that particular song, I fancy myself singing it you see). HOWEVER, due to the presence of my 2 friends, the cab driver thought it would be cute to change the radio station to suit THEIR musical tastes. Arabian music for Fart and Maka. I think it was lost on him that neither one of us was actually from there.

We arrived very early. It was about 6.30am or so when we got there, and some China youths let us in, thinking that we were harmless.

I mean, we WERE harmless, but how were they so sure we weren’t armed? Plus, Maka looked like a thug because she was a bit grouchy. And I had mad airplane hair. The China youths were however a bit perplexed, they were wondering where all 3 of us were from because all of us looked like we dropped from the sky. I guess they decided that none of us could understand Chinese because Fart and I overheard them talking. For a while, we wanted to pretend that all 3 of us were internet friends from all over the world or that we were step-siblings or strangers who met at the airport and decided to go on holiday together.

So we were stuck playing the Alphabet game for about 2 ½ hours. We exhausted so many categories. Bands. Songs. Movies. Actors.

Counterman at Alfred Park could NEVER remember us by the way. When he eventually arrived, he spoke to us three like we were old buddies, but within 2 hours, he forgot who we were and things like that. For the next few days, we had to announce to him which room we were in everytime we talked to him. Otherwise, nice man.

Tried to force ourselves to take a nap in the morning once we got our room. Were placed in a 4-bed room despite booking a 6-bed room. Thank goodness the 4th person never did arrive, because we made ourselves VERY comfortable in the room. All our clothes were strewn all over the place, as well as our towels…Fart had a really humongous towel by the way.

Could not force ourselves to take a nap because this live jazz band was playing in the park opposite our hostel. Frank Sinatra. Grrr. Decided to go to the park to kick off our day.

Caught a dogshow. Bark in the Park. Cute much.

As you can see, Maka was not very impressed with some of the dogs. Especially bulldogs.

Went to the Paddington Bazaar. On our way there, we met this German girl named Carolyn/Karolin, who seemed perpetually confused. We told her we were going to WALK all the way to the Bazaar, and she said she was going to take the bus. However, we gave up because some people told us we were crazy. Well, not exactly, but they implied that we were crazy. So we decided to take a bus. And there Carolyn was. Bumped into her again and again and again and again and she perhaps seemed to welcome our presence quite a bit because she invited us to join her at Bondi Beach, which was where she was headed to. We declined because we didn’t think we were going there…but in the end WE DID. She must hate us if she saw us there.

Before Bondi, we went to Kookai. A dodgy-looking place, really, but it was where Fart had her first Australian girl-crush. Rachel Fah!

We could have gotten free clothes but we somehow missed out on that.

Ended up at Bondi Beach. Very very beautiful. It was winter but the place was filled with surfer dudes…surfing obviously. Lots of strange people tanning as well, I guess the fact that it was obviously cold was sort of lost on them. Kept seeing an obscene man as well who refused to put on looser shorts, which ended up in us seeing more than we really wanted to. Plus he kept tossing a rugby ball with his dude friend, so he had to keep jogging in front of us. Trauma.

Maka was a bit cranky at first. Because she THOUGHT she did not bring her camera (she only realized it was in her bag all that time about 2 hours later, when we were in Macs). She was also moody because she hated the birds for pooping in the air while they were flying.

I must remind you, Maka hates any form of living organism other than herself. Even children are not spared.

Beeyooteefulll.

Ended up at Macs. Busy place, and we ended up intimidating a newbie named Nathan. Actually, “we” would be inaccurate. It was really all Fart’s doing. She had to confuse him by asking him for Ice Lemon Tea. And if he was panicked before that trying to push all the buttons, he was about to heave and hyperventilate after Fart gave her insane request. He furrowed his eyebrows, his face turned white, and he whispered pitifully, “Excuse me? What is that you want?”

I suppose Australians don’t drink that?

Nathan got scolded after that.

Went to get cheap fruits after that, as well as lettuce, which Maka secretly harboured a hatred for but was too polite to voice her opinion…

Took a bus back to the hostel. Had a mishap along the way, however. Maka, who was responsible for carrying the two big bottles of water, was totally unable to withstand the pressure of doing so. As a result, she carelessly dropped the said bottles ONTO MY FOOT while we were on the bus, which is not the most pleasant of sensations. As the bus was crowded, in my haste in trying to pick up the bottles, I somehow managed to drop it on some unfortunate punk’s foot. He was not very kind as he gave me a rather steely stare, what a dramatic dude. It was really all Maka’s fault to begin with, but she was too tired to notice.

Day 2, Sunday, 11am

Fart tried to assault me in my sleep. We were sharing 2 large beds, all three of us, and I had the fortune of being next to Fart.

Woke up in cold sweat, obviously.

Was headed to Chinatown that day. We were unsure of the way so we decided to ask a kind-looking old man for directions. He was initially very helpful, but upon seeing my Chinese face, he snarled in a condescending manner because apparently, I was supposed to have a telepathic connection to Chinatown and because of that, I shouldn’t even have to ask for directions. He still helped us nonetheless, but he did keep shooting glances at me whenever he said the word “Chinatown”. And he emphasized it very hard as well.

Along the way, we were asked for directions by Rain.

OK, he really looked like Rain. As in famous Korean man Rain. He was asking for some visa thing. At least, it sounded like “visa”. Or it could be anything that rhymed with “visa”. Pizza?

We sent him away obviously.

If it was really Rain, I’m sorry.

Went to Paddy’s Market. Spent money unnecessarily. On things that none of us would actually need. But that’s the point of holidays yes? Cheap things, obviously. But strange things like loose leather bracelets in my case which I still regret to this day. It made my wrist look diseased.

Maka had cramps, so we went to Macs to relax for a bit. Maka, through her pain, actually managed to sneak in 4 whole packets of sugar into her hot tea while no one was looking, talk about being an ant in her past life.

Met 2 young Asian boys (we strongly suspect HongKongers) who could not stop saying “Hi!” to us. It was really our fault actually, because we started it. But they just did not want to stop. I suppose at their age, greeting people is a tremendously fascinating activity. Maka, being the demon that she is, rudely commented, “Can’t they say something else?” As honourable as her intentions were to expand their vocabulary, Maka came across as a thug.

Went back to Paddy’s Market, where Fart was as usual rather inflexible. Being a master planner, Fart thought it would be perfect if we went column by column, so we did not miss anything out. Organization is her past, present and future.

It was then that we were told that we would not be seeing Christine/Nuowen. We were going to go to Melbourne to surprise her.

And then she told us she was flying back to Singapore, ON THE SAME DAY may I add, to likewise SURPRISE US.

Surprises are never good things.

Went to Sydney Harbour after that. Was entertained by an old man who played a hauntingly pleasant tune on the guitar to entice us to live in Sydney forever. Maka still claims to this day that she can recall that particular tune, but Fart and I have our doubts, and rightly so too.

Walked down the harbour, where we were approached by a little lad who bore a striking resemblance to a young Beckham (to ME anyway). He politely asked for 50cents for some ice cream. A modern-day Oliver Twist I’ll say. Plus the skateboard that is.

So we asked him to do a skateboarding stunt for us to earn his 50cents. I suppose he never ever got that request before in his entire life because he looked horrified for a minute, but he coolly turned around and said “OK” before proceeding to do a non-existent stunt. Which basically involved him jumping on his skateboard. Just that one jump. And his skateboard didn’t even go above the ground.

His little dude friends were more excitable, and was very eager to show us some of THEIR stunts so that they could earn money from us as well.

But uh, they were really lousy.

Charming, but just terrible.

Ended up giving 50cents to the cool leader of the pack, the one who first asked us. The rest of them were grumbling because they didn’t get any money, so we told them to share that one cone. Though the thought of 4 young boys sharing one cone is a little bit amusing.

Fart taught us to do the Mat kiss. It was, unfortunately, an action that me as a Chinese was unable to master, though I still insist that I was able to do it a couple of times. Maka sounded like a lizard.

Also tried to beatbox, because we were bored. I was the best. Maka sounded like she was suffering from a terminal disease.

Spain jacket worn to pay tribute to the team who was playing Italy that night. Not that anyone there knew.

Spent a long time trying to figure out the lyrics to “My Boo”. Fart and Maka were slightly unpleasant during this period, because I was apparently very distracting. SO HURTFUL.

Went to Macs. Maka asked for hot tea again.

And she proceeded to dump 7 packets of sugar into her hot tea.

SO CUNNING.

We then tried to steal some Macs cups, much to the horror of the Asian countergirl who was probably aware of our heist. Pity us, we had nothing in the hostel.

We had our first “quarrel”. Kudos to Maka, who stepped in wisely, like a saint dropped from the sky. All she had to do was go, “Relaxxxxxx guysssssssss…” in her Luna voice, and Fart and I were appeased. So calm, so cool.

Words could not be remembered due to the TENSION.

Muahaha! Maka then admitted that SHE was the cranky one because of bad cramps.

We had Lebanese bread for dinner that night. Frighteningly cheap bread that nobody wanted, which made it very dubious but we bought it anyway since we were on budget. We were so daring.

It didn’t taste too bad actually. At some points it was like rubber, but it was fine as a whole.

Watched UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN on TV. Ohmygod, can I just say what a lousy movie that was? I could feel my hair turning white just watching it, one scene jumped to another and we kept saying it was probably because the TV station was bored with it and fast-forwarded bits of the movie.

Maka went to bed a bit earlier, while Fart and I stayed up to play the Memory Game with my handy pack of cards. Fart was uber competitive, she wanted to win every game, but I was the master of the game and I won it mostly. Maka was grouchy and I think she was awake the entire time, because she kept opening her eyes all of a sudden sometimes.

Can I also say that Maka is a VERY light sleeper? According to Fart, all Fart has to do is to turn and face Maka and Maka would suddenly open her eyes and get up. I don’t really know how many times Maka opened her eyes at night, but apparently she sleeps while anticipating for all sorts of exciting things to happen. Unlike me, a dynamite can go thru the room and I’d still be sleeping soundly.

Day 3, Monday, 1pm

We had no discipline.

Woke up late.

Valley Girl was our friend.

Fart denied me a long-awaited trip to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Or National Botanic Gardens. Along those lines. There were nude beaches there for Maka.

So that was what we ended up seeing. It wasn’t even slightly BOTANICAL in any way (uh, WHAT is it actually?). But Fart the Human Clock was insistent that we not miss our ferry to Manly Beach.

Ended up in Manly Beach. Took a ferry there which was sleep-inducing for SOME. I was the coolest. Maka was drifiting off to some other dimension while Fart was staring into space.

Went straight to Macs because it was DARK when we got there. So much for our time management. Fart had an Australian boy-crush this time…jailbait! He looked no older than 14. Or 16. Ordered things from him the first time. After that went back to him again for a teaspoon. After that went back to him AGAIN for sugar.

A few hours later, we were back in Macs again and guess who Fart wanted to place her orders with?

Boy looked traumatized. Maka as usual was blissfully unaware because she was caught up in her fantasies of her sugar-filled hot tea.

This time, however, Maka actually had the determination to reduce her intake to a mere 4 packets of sugar. I wonder how her blood looks like. Clumps and chunks of sugar everywhere.

On the way back to mainland Sydney, Maka timidly asked for some Lebanese bread. Like we were starving her or what. Don’t really know what she was so afraid of.

We eventually decided to have cup noodles, but they had a very dreadful range of flavours. Decided on Tandoori Chicken cup noodles after that, plus some cheap sushi for me.

I went on a psychotic sushi rampage in Australia, you know? I ate it night and day. If Maka has balls of sugar in her blood, I’ve got seaweed.

Ate the cup noodles in our room in the hostel, because we did not like to socialize. Besides, the English lads in the kitchen were having a joyous time flirting with this one girl. I suppose we could have marched in with the Tandoori Chicken cup noodles in tow and pretended to be a part of their fascinating conversation about Birmingham, but we decided we would have more fun by ourselves.

After that, on our way downstairs to dispose our trash, we met a strange man. For the longest time, he kept staring at us thru a window. Well I sort of noticed it when we first walked by, but I thought maybe he was staring in disgust at how big my nose was, but after a while I looked back and he was still staring at us. I mean, I know my nose is giganto but no one has really stared at it like it’s the eighth wonder of the world before. Fart sort of found it strange as well so we decided to edge our way back to our room, which unfortunately was on the fourth floor by stairs.

Suddenly, the man started talking to us and staring at us and asking us where we were from and blah blah. For some reason, all 3 of us stared at each other and blurted out at the same time, “Malaysia!”

And then we gave weak smiles and ran all the way up and back to our room. Maka then chided Fart and I for being so childish, but she forgot that she was running frantically as well, faster than me I’ll like to add.

Day 4, Tuesday, 12.30pm

Planned to get up earlier. Really, we did.

But no.

Counterman then, after asking us for the ten thousandth time which room we were from, tried to discourage us from going to the Blue Mountains, because it was apparently too late.

See, Fart and I aren’t really the sort who’d take no for an answer or who would like to change plans all of a sudden. So we stamped our feet and pumped our fists in the air and stood our ground. We were going anyway!

Minus the feet-stamping and the fist-pumping that is.

It was a two-hour train journey on the coolest train ever. There were 3 levels. 3!

And so many seats. Cushioned too. I felt like I had never seen the world before.

Started playing the Alphabet Game. Yet again. That’s the tradition we have to pass time by. Exhausted all categories before, so we added in new ones. Countries. Cities. People we know. Places in Singapore. ANIMALS (Maka really wanted that, she had the most boring category choices).

Also, Maka kept saying “Xena” for “X”. WHATEVER category it was. Name an actor starting with the letter X? Xena. Name a person you know starting with the letter X? Xena. Name an animal starting with the letter X? Xena.

Reached the Blue Mountains, which was in KATOOMBA. Sounds so suspicious eh, like a tribal war chant. It was a very pretty town, too bad we went so late. All we saw was the Three Sisters, but the scenery was just, not to be cheesy or anything, breathtaking.

It was also there that Maka commented rudely, “WHAT DEFORESTATION?”

It IS a lot of trees.

I was so unfit by the way. I took a thousand years to climb these giant step things, while Fart and Maka were merrily prancing up the steps like Mary Poppins and Winnie the Pooh.

Because it was our last night in Sydney, we decided to give ourselves a treat. For the past few days we had been stealing things from Macs (cups, spoons, ketchup) and eating plain bread with raw tomatoes and things like that. So we decided to get ourselves some PIZZA. Go us!

2 large pizzas to be exact. Plus garlic bread. Plus the larges bottle of Pepsi I have ever seen.

All of which we could not finish.

And Fart and I still had the cheek to get ourselves donuts.

We were going thru some psychotic episode I think.

We decided to bring the excess food down to the kitchen in our hostel, where we offered it to whoever wanted it.

And THE MAN was there. At first, he was a bit hostile and refused to look at us when we offered him our leftovers. The other people in the kitchen were greedier.

However, he warmed up to us when we said the word “pizza”. And we made sure to smile for more than 2 seconds when we saw him there, because we felt bad for the night before.

AND THEN. Fart and I were headed to the toilets late that night and who did we see?

Well, at this point I would like to say Adrian Gonzalez. But alas, no.

THE MAN was edging sneakily out of the toilets. And Fart was, as usual, spacey. I was horrified.

The man seemed to remember us three (though Maka was not there). He chanted and boomed, “ONE CHINESE. ONE MALAY. ONE INDIAN. ALL FROM MALAYSIA. MULTI-RACIAL COUNTRY, VERY GOOD.”

I seem to remember us nodding a bit weakly in return. Wanted to run back to our room but that would have looked really absurd. So we ran to the toilets after making sure he went off.

I think it was just the way he stared at us and how he talked to nobody else but us.

Benefit of the doubt, maybe he was very chatty with everyone else in the hostel too.

And that wraps up the bulk of Sydney for you.

I’d really like to go on to Melbourne instead of stopping at this CLIFFHANGER here. Like, what happened to the man? What did we do next? Was Maka grouchy again?

But I have to go to bed. Mother was very upset that I slept at 620am last night. I know I know, I’m a freak of enormous proportions.

I’ll continue sometime soon with Melbourne.

In the meantime, here are some snapshots of Sydney.

Goodnight.

OK guess what. I’m too lazy to upload anything else. My facebook’s got some pictures if you’re dying to see how Sydney looks like.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn

Euro 2008 -- Who Says Spain Will Win?

2008-06-09T14:37:00.002+08:00

Fatima is getting increasingly suspicious, because I am apparently calling her "Fatima" on this blog. Usually she goes by the name "Fart", so she finds it disturbing that it isn't the case on this blog.

Well, as crude as I usually am in real life, I do wish to preserve some form of formality on this blog. Besides, if this blog finds it way to the eyes of Queen Elizabeth for some peculiar reason, I do not wish for her to think that I have unsavoury and unwashed friends.

Also, I am quite surprised that Motor Ace has disbanded. I didn't see a comment left by a very helpful person (muchos gracias to you, kind person), seems like they disbanded sometime ago. O, life is dealing me with strange blows.

On another note, the glorious and majestic Rekha Makalingam has returned from the historic place of Liverpool to brighten our dark lives in Singapore. Thank you very much for the Fernando Torres scarf, Rekha. I am trying to come up with a number of things to do with it, and as much as I wish to hang it outside my door as sort of a WELCOME BANNER-like thing to my room, I think my mother will pull it off after one day. Right now, it is draped beautifully across my bed, right next to the Spanish jersey that I always have there and this Brazilian football bear thing and a very nostalgic Milan jersey. As enormous as my bed sounds with all the things I seem to have on it, sadly it is not very large.

So. Euro 2008 is here. Strangely enough, I am not very excited. After years of following Spain, what is the point? As much as I wish to believe it will definitely be different this year, I can't. We just don't seem to be playing as a team enough, we have too many talented individuals but that is just the first stage of greatness. Knowing how to USE these individuals is another thing altogether. Look at how Real Madrid self-destructed during the Galacticos era, they had so many stars and yet they flopped. Football is a team sport, and individuals can save the game maybe once or twice, but not forever. Individuals don't win the trophies, the team does.

So all the talk about Fernando Torres being in the team is bull. I enjoy the man, mind you I have supported him since he was just a skeleton-face in Atletico. But we have all seen how ineffective he can be without proper support from his teammates. I have been very frustrated with people supporting Spain just because of Torres, because they insist that he will do great things and might even be top scorer.

I am confident he can shine occasionally, but Torres is Not Spain. It is not a one-man team, and his presence is not going to help bring Spain to greatness. It can, and of course I do hope he will. But I just do not believe that it will happen.

For one, Liverpool's style of play is entirely different from Spain's. And Spain's style is not Torres' style. And thus the logical conclusion. As long as Torres is able to adapt to the team's style of play, he will shine as he does for Liverpool. However, unless Torres is secretly Harry Potter or Lord Voldemort, I doubt he can magically transform himself just for this tournament.

And people forget that Steven Gerrard does not play for Spain either.

So all the talk about Torres' great season with Liverpool is not reason for Spain's success. I hope people get that straight because I hate it when people support teams without knowing anything about the team and just do it for one or two players.

Personally, I am more fascinated with the younger and less fortunate Spanish players. What more joy can one feel when the unfortunate players suddenly shine, and then you can say that you believed in them when no one did?

If Spain really wants to win this, the entire nation must back them. Sad to say, it seems like most of the team's fans hail from other countries.

Well. As long as they have fans. But ME supporting them is not going to mean much to them, because who would want a half-walrus half-squid person supporting them? It would mean more to them if their own people supported them.

But we know it's always complicated. And I cannot blame the ordinary Spaniards for rejecting their national team. It's changing of course, but let's not be ridiculous. The divisions will probably always be there.

So here it goes. Euro 2008. Spain plays tomorrow. Let's not get carried away. I will support them but I will not expect them to do great things. Maybe this year will be different, maybe this year will be the same, who knows?

Because right now, I need my food and I have no patience to analyse this issue any further. So goodbye.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn

P.S. I think I forgot to mention that Adrian Gonzalez scored yet another goal for Nastic. Am actually very proud of him, because he has been looking so pitiful and unfed. I am very comforted that at least he has something in his life to smile about.

P.P.S. David Silva will leave Valencia if the price is right. I wonder if it is possible to send a petition to Valencia with me forging 15,000 signatures?

P.P.P.S. I don't know why I always insist on using this font, when I actually dislike it very much. The thing about me is that I like to give things I don't like many different chances, but it seems to be not doing any good.

Pete Yorn

2008-05-19T00:30:00.005+08:00

A big HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to Planet Earth and to all my fellow breathing Earthlings!

Have I mentioned that I like Pete Yorn? I am not too sure, but I am too lazy to scroll down and check if I openly declared that sometime ago.

Fatima claims that Pete Yorn is one of the most boring living persons on Earth. Then again, if you scroll down Fatima's playlist...I was utterly astounded and disappointed with some of the songs she has on her playlist.

Well, sometimes Pete (yes, I like the whole first name basis thing) does get a bit, you know, melancholic for no reason at all, and sometimes some of his songs are perfect as soundtracks for when people die in TV shows. But otherwise, his songs give me chills.

Nice and wanted chills, I would like to add, like the sort of chill you would get when bungee-jumping for the first time. Which might be a bad comparison considering I have no idea how it feels like to bungee-jump, for most people it is a pretty terrifying experience, so Pete Yorn might not feel very comforted by that.

Right now, I have got one eyeball on the Valencia-Atleti match showing on TV, and the other eyeball firmly fixed on Dwayne, my laptop.

I think I called it Dwayne anyway...VILLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! AMUUUUUUUUUUNT!

Why is Villa not celebrating? I mean, the Valencia guy over the loudspeaker is howling in glee as if his heart is going to leap out of his chest any minute now, and there Villa is, looking unimpressed with himself and with the world around him.

Does this mean Villa will be leaving the Mestalla?

Everyone says that Villa, Silva and Joaquin will leave Valencia. And I am starting to get even more suspicious. And that is because I am naturally suspicious. But that is not the point.

For one thing, Villa does not look happy anymore.

All right, he smiles sometimes, like last week when the Valencia players were playing with water on their training pitch.

Don't ask me why that was so enjoyable for them, the way they acted that day, you would think that these players have never showered with water before.

See, just when I typed that, there he goes, dragging his feet across the pitch and scowling as if there was a skunk perched on his head.

And then, there is Silva. The lovely, wonderful, talented, and tiny Silva. The Silva who is always doing stupid (yet I must admit, very amusing) things during matches, like running across pitches to give referees a piece of his mind and then getting sent off after merely exercising his right to free speech. Sometimes, he just doesn't know when to keep his mouth closed, which is sad because at 22, he should know that by now. And when the time comes for him to open his mouth, like during group interviews, he pretends he is a potted plant and keeps silent.

Joaquin just did something very selfish. And Villa just shot him THE LOOK of death.

If you have been following Villa, you would know what I mean. Villa is the grand old master of fierce looks, I think it has something to do with that hair thing under his lip, it sort of makes his face a lot more threatening. Like a cult symbol you know? Our national army soldiers might want to take note of Villa's style, imagine how many enemies we can scare away without even having to touch our rifles.

SO, what was I saying about Silva?

Yes. The cameras have been zooming in on him every 10 seconds in the Atleti match, and I am starting to think it might be his last match for Valencia, that is why the cameraman is being so odd and constantly following him around, for no reason at all. All he does is run, and flick his hair, and open and close his mouth to breathe, and the cameras zoom in on him as if he is doing something remotely life-changing. Possibly they are trying to catch his last few moments in a Valencia shirt?

Could it be that the cameraman likes Silva's pores, like me? However, I do not like to be reminded of how his pores look like every 10 seconds, as fascinating as they are.

And then there is Joaquin. The resident ha-ha man of Valencia. Ha-ha in the sense that it is very easy to just look at him and laugh to yourself, because he is entirely amusing without even having to open his mouth.

Or it might just be me.

I don't want any of these 3 dudes to leave. Villa and Silva have announced very grandly that they do not wish to leave unless they are being forced to...Ze Castro on the floor! Ze Castro on the floor!

I have a soft spot for Ze Castro, he is an Atleti defender and I have always found him fascinating. If you go back a few thousand pages, you might even find the back of his head in a picture I put up of him and Fernando Torres, back in happy Fernando-Atleti times.

Alexis is on the floor now.

To be exact, I should say GROUND instead of FLOOR...oh dear! Alexis is being wrapped up in a blanket, like a cocoon. It must be time for him to turn into a butterfly.

WHY IS HE BEING WRAPPED UP LIKE A DEAD MAN?

ALEXISSSSSSSSSSSSSS, that silly boy, all he did was knock into somebody, somebody who looks suspiciously like ZE CASTRO, who I do not have a soft spot for anymore. Alexis has just gotten back from injury, and now he is being wrapped up like a corpse again? Iron man Ze Castro, going around breaking other people's bones, I am very disgusted by your actions.

On a brighter note, Banega just came on. You know what, I am very angry with the reports that Banega will be sold off this summer. We paid, what, 18 million euros for this guy, barely used him even though he is a wonderful player, and now we are shipping him off? The only reason why we are doing that is because he is getting into trouble off the pitch, on top of his whole adult film video nonsense. Which is, frankly, very entertaining, if only the management would see what potential Banega has.

You know, football-wise.

3-0. Villa.

He finally cracked a smile, after aggressively rubbing his palm on somebody's neck. If that is what will keep him happy, then I hope all his teammates will let him rub their necks on a daily basis. We have to do EVERYTHING to keep Villa in Valencia, he is one player I think we should keep with us.

Atleti is very unlucky tonight, so many shots wide, and Forlan and Aguero are doing everything wrong...WHY IS SILVA COMING OFF?

Standing ovation for Silva, BUT OF COURSE. Finally, some other human beings of the world appreciate THE SILVA.

Although maybe I imagined the applause. I was cheering and clapping so loudly to myself when he got substituted so it seemed like everybody else was hooting for him too.

Let's take a break from the football world and talk about my bore of a life.

1. Pearlyn bought the Boyz2Men CD.

It was such an impulse, I got up one day, with a purpose in my head, "GET THE BOYZ2MEN CD AT ALL COSTS!"

Dragged Fatima all around to look for their Greatest Hits album, BOOM, found it, bought it. Took me all of 1 minute to decide to get it, despite Fatima's silent disapproval. I really wanted that "Water Runs Dry" song...

Sigh. I rarely go on frightful impulses like that, usually I take an hour to decide if I want something, after walking around in circles for a while of course (that really helps in making decisions, try it!). But I cannot control impulses when it concerns...
(a) Football
(b) CDs
(c) Non-fiction books

Dweeb much.

2. Pearlyn meets some old old friends.

Most common thing I have been told this year by people I have not seen in a thousand years.

"You lost weight."

With different levels and tones of excitement from different groups of people.

With family members, like those relatives you'd usually avoid bumping into until the inevitable like Chinese New Year visits, they actually sounded appalled. Or concerned. It depends. Please, have they seen Nicole Richie before and after?

With friends, it was more like, astonishment. Or politeness because they have nothing else to talk about. Which happens very often, because I suck at coming up with polite conversations, so sometimes the conversation would veer off to a discussion about my apparent weight loss (and how I still look the same even after XXXX years...which is quite worrying to some extent). Either that or the course that I am doing in school now. I really have to sit down one night and make a list of polite conversation topics so I am not taken aback in the future...

I acknowledge that for most of my life, I looked like a pregnant walrus. The only exception being when I was a baby, I looked like a baby boar. I think I still resemble a walrus though, but looking at the comments, I think I now appear to look like a walrus who had just given birth?

Don't really care either way. Not really into weight issues much. People should not be so obsessed by such things, it's boring to think about.

3. Nothing else worthy occurred in my life to talk about.

AMERICAN IDOL TIME!

I caught some of the American Idol marathon they were showing all weekend. I will now proceed to throw in my two cents' worth of the Top 12, because I like doing such things with my time.

1. DAVID HERNANDEZ

First thing that comes to mind: Stripper.

Poor dude. I am trying to change the first thing that comes to mind when I think about him, to something more, well, encouraging.

Honestly, I thought he should have gone way further in the competition. His parting song was "I Saw Her Standing There" by the Beatles, a song that I myself like to sing...that's not the point, is it?

People keep saying he should have been kicked off the show. OH COME ON.

It's not like he committed MURDER. It's not like he did something gravely wrong. All he did was take his clothes off for other people. And get paid for it. If he did a good job doing it. Which he probably does, he has nice hips.

This discussion is starting to take a very strange turn, and I will change the subject before this entry gets forcefully removed by Blogspot.

Well, the main problem is that he mostly performed for males.

We're all humans, and we have no right to dictate what is considered a right way of life or not. Neither do we have the right to forcefully deny someone of the right to win a singing competition just because of his past, present and future.

But apparently that was why he got kicked in the first week, when other people obviously deserved that treatment more (not naming names here, because I have yet to find out what Kristy's full name is).

Who cares if he stripped for males, or if he stripped for earthworms?

(The latter would be a concern to me, to be honest.)

I don't even know how people found out about his past. But it is such a waste, really. To me, David H had one of the best vocals in the competition.

And the best hips.

Too much information.

Discrimination is heartless.

2. AMANDA SOMETHING

First thing that comes to mind: Hair.

Google her, go check out her hair. Kinda like Cruella DeVil (however you spell it, remember to check!), but the white is in front and the back is all black. The way I am describing it, it sounds disturbing I know. But you have to see it to understand what I mean.

Not one of my favourites, but she seems like a cool person. Just not my type of a singer, reminds me of Anastacia (HOW DO YOU SPELL THIS?), the singer whose voice pierces my head everytime she sings.

3. CHIKEZIE (Check check check!)

First thing that comes to mind: Suit.

He wore this SUIT that Simon really hated one week, I think it was bright purple.

I wasn't too horrified, knowing a certain person named Sergio Ramos has sort of desensitized me when it comes to bad fashion sense.

Chikezie was amusing at times, but to me he never really had that oomph.

You know, that ahhhh factor.

Like, I didn't go YOWWWWW when he sang. You know, except for whenever I stubbed my toes on whatever is in front of me when I am watching American Idol. Which is very often, coz I like to move about violently when watching TV.

But he didn't stick around much to prove me wrong.

4. MICHAEL JOHNS

First thing that comes to mind: Aussie.

Good man.

Uh. What else can I say?

Scandal-free.

Hmmm. Departed too early.

Sang that song that I remember from my childhood, "DREAM ON...DREAM ON...DREAM ON...DREEEEEEEEEAM ONNNNNN!" Good times, good times.

Totally undeserved. Because a certain person named KRISTY LEE COOK should have left instead. Speaking of.

5. KRISTY LEE COOK

First thing that comes to mind: Horse.

I am not being cruel.

She rides horses, that's all.

I don't fancy her. I thought she should have left in the first week, instead of a certain living thing named David. The grudge built up over the weeks, I regret to say.

Nothing personal, KLC, if you are reading this (which would be really creepy if you actually googled yourself under blogsearch). It's just that, I'm not into country much. I was very sad with what you did to the "8 Days a Week" song.

I'm not into country AT ALL, to be exact.

Her parting song was some Mariah song, which went on and on, something like, "UNTIL FOREVER...AND EVER...YELLYELLYELLHOWLHOWLHOWWWWWWL!"

Not a Mariah fan.

6. CARLY SMITHSON

First thing that comes to mind: Irish.

Followed very closely by tattoos.

The only girl I fancied, seemed the most genuine, the coolest, I would like to be her friend.

Plus, I have always said I would like to be stuck in a lift with her. I'm sure eskimoes would be able to hear her cries for help.

She sang "Jesus Christ Superstar". Stellar performance I thought. Memorable as well, because I spent the next week singing that every hour. It's like, I will be doing something random like, you know, arranging my CDs, and then I would stop and go "JEEEEEEESUS CHRISTTTTT...SUPERSTARRRRRRRRRRR...HUMHUMHUMHUMHUMHUMHUMHUMHUM..."

7. BROOKE WHITE

First thing that comes to mind: Gwyneth.

She ALWAYS reminded me of Gwyneth Paltrow.

A bit annoying at times, should have left instead of Carly, that is a very unforgivable thing in my opinion.

To give her credit though, I quite like the songs she did on the piano.

You know, I always wondered how people could sing and play the piano at the same time. Maybe it is because I am impaired in so many ways myself, and my coordination skills are null, and I am surprised that I can even clap with both hands without losing balance. But it always seemed like such a hard thing to do, to remember what you are singing and to position your fingers in a piano-playing way without faltering.

I have tried doing that. Singing and playing the piano. When I was young. 3 words later, I realized that my fingers weren't moving anymore and that my feet were never even on the pedals (is that what you call it?) in the first place.

It's like, singing and playing the guitar. Just that you need not do anything to your legs and feet, like when you are playing the piano. All your legs need to do is dangle off the chair you are sitting in a cool way, or if you are standing, then there is nothing much your legs can do. Of course, there are some brilliant people who can dance at the same time while singing and playing the guitar and jumping up and down like gymnasts. How come their nerve signals don't get tangled up or lost in their spinal cords like mine?

NOW I KNOW WHO I FORGOT.
8. RAMIELE MABULAY or MALUBAY

First thing that comes to mind: Filipino.

I was neutral towards her.

A bit disappointed with her "In My Life" rendition, because that is one of my Beatles favourites.

Nothing much else to say. She had some scandals but I would prefer to ignore that. Besides, after the David H scandal, the other American Idol contestants could get away with anything under the sun without anybody making a big deal.

Poor David.

9. JASON COOK

First thing that comes to mind: WHAT ELSE? Dreads.

One of the more amusing contestants, loved his attitude. I never really cared for ultra-serious people, so it was nice to see somebody like Jason in the competition, with his blank expressions and half-open eyelids.

Which does not sound entirely flattering, but he really is quite fascinating.

HANG ON, JASON COOK?

Forgive me, I am paying more attention to Valencia at this point so I am barely paying attention to what I am typing. I am sorry, Jason, for unlawfully marrying you off to David Cook.

Jason Castro Jason Castro Jason Castro, Fidel's lovechild, remember that.

He was...frankly quite dreadful in some of his performances. But I liked him with the guitar, and I liked him in the Mariah week. And his interviews were the most interesting of them all. Save for David Cook, who also tries to be amusing sometimes.

Also, Jason has Jesus Navas eyes, which is a very impressive thing to achieve.

10. SYESHA MERCADO

First thing that comes to mind: Afro.

I apologize for not paying attention to Syesha a lot more beyond her hairstyle.

11. DAVID ARCHU

First thing that comes to mind: Elf.

Come on, all of you have imagined him as a Santa elf sometime before I bet.

Or, it's just me again.

Find him a little boring sometimes.

Predictable.

Wrong thing to say, coz I ALMOST LOST MY ENTIRE ENTRY just when I typed that.

David A's a good guy.

Way too good. I can imagine him smiling shyly and singing to gangsters while they beat him up.

Because I am not above 50 or below 15, I do not fancy him in any other way other than his voice.

I don't know how some girls/women even look at him in sensual ways. It is all very disturbing for me to even think about.

12. DAVID COOK

First thing that comes to mind: Beard.

Well, I can't help looking at all the hair he has. On his face. Distracting really, because there he is singing so well and I am trying to find his lips beneath all that forest.

Also, HIS KNEES. I believe I have mentioned this before. I hope David C realizes one day how distracting his knees are behaving sometimes, they bend in very awkward angles, like he's got a muscular cramp of some sort. Don't know why the judges still have not commented on that, but I find it very uncomfortable, don't his legs ache frozen in that way?

Otherwise, he should win. If I have my way. I fancy everything about him.

That is, leaving aside the knees.

I have to get up early. Goodnight.

Signed,

Sincerely, Me

Pearlyn Silva

P.S. Valencia wins 3-1. Was hoping for a draw because I have a soft spot for Atleti, but I am sitting in a very uncomfortable position right now, which sort of impairs my emotional judgment. I will possibly feel sad only later.

Chromakey -- Motor Ace

2008-05-02T19:32:00.004+08:00

Motor Ace is fascinating as well.

Based on the feedback I got, my posts are too long. I apologize, for I tend to write about everything and anything that comes up in my head, and one thing usually leads to another which leads to another and another and suddenly I have a novel all done up.

For this post however, I will attempt to be very reticent, let's see how quick I can be getting all my thoughts in my twisted brain out.

Judging from that introductory speech I just gave, I am not doing a very good job cutting down on my thoughts eh.

Also, I tend to like writing a lot more than talking, I can go for hours without saying anything to anybody but I would be able to write about 4 pages worth of thoughts during that same period.

In fact, I had a brave soul approach me sometime ago and ask me a question I have never really been asked before in my entire life.

Person: Hey Pearlyn...do you mind if I ask you something? You do not have to answer it if you don't want to.

Me: *Mind working at full speed, was wondering if the person saw me trip over myself THREE TIMES that day and was about to ask me if I was really an octopus trapped in a human body* Oh...OK.

Person: I have been observing you in class, and I find you've been so quiet and you don't like talking much to other people.

Me: (Thought to myself) Dude thinks I am a freak/sniper/antisocial organism/professional mimer.

Me: Oh...(Tried to laugh heartily) I do talk, I just do it when necessary.

Person: You have been so QUIET!

Me: Ha. Ha. You should see me with my friends, I'm crazy around them.

Person: (Seemed more alarmed by that revelation, possibly thought I was really deranged) Coz I've always wondered...you seem comfortable sitting by yourself...

Me: Ha. Ha. Yes I am pretty comfortable doing things on my own, you know, I like my bonding-with-myself time. Ha. Ha! (Tried to laugh even harder, so he could see I was not really some depressed kid with malevolent thoughts. Person didn't seem particularly enamoured with the whole bonding-with-myself idea though, but hey sometimes I really do like being alone, I don't know why people don't ever believe me when I say it)

Person: Ah.

Me: I am not the sort who would be really chummy with people I have just met, you see.

Person: Oh.

Me: (Random babbling, cannot remember what I said to be honest, but it all revolved around the same thing, that I am just naturally shy and reserved and my idea of fun is to sit in a dark corner and read books about Spanish wars or to lie on the floor somewhere and draw or to pen down my thoughts and things like that...Freak of enormous proportions, that I am)

Person: Yeah I am like that too.

Me: (Thought to myself) GRRRRR, after all that has been said, NOW he says that.

But, turned out to be a nice person, we are friends anyway.

Well, I have already accepted this very strange trait I have. People like Thomas Hardy were like that too, of course he did spend half his life pining for a dead woman in an air-blue gown and sitting on shaky cliffs and listening to birds squawk, but uh...

There, I am doing it again. Let's just cut to the chase and get down to business.

1. THANK YOU XUETING!

Yes, YOU. She broadened my world by helpfully and graciously informing me that de la Red's first name is RUBBBEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNN.

Or Ruben.

Sigh. I guess that gives me no excuse to refer to him as "Dude with the Serpent Eyes" or "Getafe Medusa" anymore :(. But look at him hard, I am sure you all would be able to see that serpenty-eyed look he has got. Which I know sounds bad but it really isn't.

Also, XT has also shared with me David Archu's real name. It is David Archuleta! 4 grand syllables, a bit too long for my small brain and reticent nature, so I am afraid he will still have to be referred to as David Archu for the rest of his life.

And Brooke is really called Brooke White. No matter, she is out anyway. Which brings me to the next item on the agenda.

2. BYE BYE BROOKE!

Because I am not supposed to write too much, I'll make this brief.

Adios!

3. THINGS I WOULD DO TO DIDER DROGBA

(1) Step on his toe, one at a time.

How do I do these things discreetly, will have to go research!

(2) Pretend to shake his hand but twist it accidentally in my eagerness.

(3) Run my fingers thru his hair...and YANK HARD.

(4) Because I am kind and forgiving (and afraid to get arrested), I will run away at this point.

4. ALL GRADES ARE OUT

Strange semester.

I did best in Political Science and Creative Thinking.

Huh?

Guess my CT professor liked my twisted ideas, which have no sense of reality in them unless she lives in another dimension.

Worst in, WHAT A SHOCKER, Econs.

I guess my professor did not fancy the long essay I wrote about Japan, especially since the entire essay was only revolving around ONE point: Japan has a great exports industry.

1st paragraph: Japan relies too much on its exports.

2nd paragraph: Japan has a great exports industry.

3rd paragraph: Japan is affected when bad things happen to other markets --> Japan's exports would decrease.

4th paragraph: Japan should focus on other things.

5th paragraph: Japan relies too much on its exports.

6th paragraph: Japan relies too much on its exports.

7th paragraph: ...

...

...

...

12th paragraph: Dear examiner, I have no idea what else to talk about so I am telling you once again that Japan relies too much on its exports.

The sad thing is, the question wasn't even about Japan and its exports.

5. VALENCIA IS IN TROUBLE

Key words: Juan Soler. Economic crisis. Debt.

See, if I got to talk about THIS in my Econs essay instead of how Japan relies too much on its exports, I would probably ace it.

So, Valencia might sell David Villa.

I have since accepted that.

Also, Valencia might sell Joaquin.

I will get over that eventually.

Oh, and Valencia might sell David Silva.

LIKE HELL I WILL GET OVER THAT!

More key words: Massive rebuilding. New squad. No coach. Deep shit.

If they want, they can hire me to be coach for the grand majestic price of 5 euros.

6. DEAR SIBLING SCRATCHED NEIGHBOUR'S SISTER'S CAR

They were very nice about it, but for some strange reason, the neighbours ended up thinking it was my dad who did it.

Neighbour: Oh, don't worry about it, I know you are very stressed out with your work, so you probably didn't see the car, ha ha!

Dad: Uh...Ha ha!

While the dear sibling stood there without correcting the neighbour.

It was such a strange incident, I was in the house with my mom, and when the so-called accident happened, the entire neighbourhood (well, 4 families) all came rushing out, while my mom and I watched American Idol.

First to the scene was the neighbour on my left, who can be pretty dramatic most of the time. She started patting BOTH cars, even though it wasnt even remotely bad (to tell you the truth, I didn't even notice the damage).

Next to the scene was the neighbour across from us, they were leaving their house to go out and saw the neighbour on the left patting my dad's car affectionately, and they asked what happened and gasped.

Next to the scene was the neighbour on my right, who came out and yelped, "OH MY GOD!" and started asking what was happening.

Last to the scene was the neighbour ON THE NEXT STREET, who heard the commotion and came because everybody was wondering whose car it was at that point.

And all that time, my mom and I were unaware of the drama unfolding outside. Can I help it if Ryan Seacrest was louder than the so-called bumping noise that the car made?

You know, it seems like it's the most exciting thing that has happened to my neighbourhood, my dear sibling grazing a phantom unknown car that is. Bet it was everybody's dinner topic last night, especially since everybody was wondering for the longest time whose car it was that got scratched.

Well, it took us about 3 hours before the owner of the car came looking for us, it was another neighbour's sister, and they were incredible about it. Especially since they parked illegally in the first place, so they would be fighting a lost case if anything muahahaha.

High drama I tell ya. For now, word must be passing around the neighbourhood that my dad, seemingly the most responsible and most careful man in the world, is so stressed out that he scratched somebody's car. Tarnished his reputation thanks to the dear sibling muahahaha.

Dinner. Gotta zoom.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn Silva

Space Rock -- Weezer

2008-04-30T19:08:00.005+08:00

I really do fancy Weezer. I don't really know any recent tunes by them, my love is only based on the older CDs of Weezer that I found lying around the house...one of which is missing...! Jeez I totally forgot that I was supposed to be searching for it, I think I was supposed to do that a month ago, the dear sibling must be fuming.

Spent a hell of a time at Kino yesterday, but I fought the urge to get more random books about the history of Spain, it was hard fighting it, I had to pinch myself on both arms. Which of course, frightened some of the stuffy old people around me milling about the military history section, they must have thought I was re-enacting some brutal wartime punishment on myself. The book that I was making eyes at is titled "THE GHOSTS OF SPAIN", ooooooooooh.

Yeah, it is not exactly like an AHHHHHHHHHH thriller on centuries-worth of unexplained mysteries in Spain, but it is about the country's modern history, and the repercussions of the Spanish civil war/Franco's brutal regime and the rise of feminism and the downfall of portly old men like Jesus Gil (PRONOUNCED AS HAYYYY-SOOOOS! I have to get that sorted out before people think I am being anti-Christ or something like that, it is a legitimate Spanish name, a name that a certain waif-like green-eyed footballer named Navas goes by. You might have seen his eyeballs sparkling away a few posts below).

Some important things I have learnt from that book (which I spent an hour and a half leaning on a wall reading, HIGHLY NOT RECOMMENDED, got up today with a massive ENORMOUS backache and neckache, thank you very much for removing those benches Kino):

1) Euskadi. Catalunya. Galicia. Breakaway states.

--> But I already knew all that. The things football teaches you about regional Spanish politics.

2) Spanish dialects are all very distinct, and the cultural differences between the regions of Spain are not celebrated but are in fact, used as tools for bickering.

--> But I also already knew that. Most of their road signs are in their regional languages, not in so-called Castellano/Castillian Spanish.

--> Also, you have to hear Xabi Alonso speak to understand what I mean about Spanish dialects.

--> And after that, you have to listen to men like Sergio Ramos speak, Andalucians have a different way of talking too.

--> Actually, you can choose to listen to Jesus Navas instead of Sergio Ramos, because not only does Navas have the same accent as Ramos, but he also has a more interesting voice (the first time I heard him, I had no idea it was him talking until I saw the vague movements of his lips. If you have somehow stumbled upon my blog and are reading this, Navas, don't get me wrong, the voice is certainly unique, with a lot of personality...VITALITY! Yes, that is the word. He sounds excited all the time even when he is sad, I don't know how he would sound when he is SINCERELY excited!). So I would like to actually recommend Navas instead of Ramos.

--> If you would still like to listen to Ramos speak, I would recommend you listen to him speaking English instead of Spanish, because that will make your day. Ramos has that effect on people, even though it is not usually his intention.

--> In fact, you might want to youtube this golf advert that Ramos did with Wayne Rooney, HOW did they come up with such a strange pair, putting Ramos and Rooney together is like putting...ME and Angelina Jolie together to do a detergent advert.

Where was I?

3) To understand the regional differences in Spain, you have to look deep into its history, and the differences were pronounced mostly during the Spanish civil war, and exploited by a certain man named Francisco Franco.

--> Me writing about Spanish history in detail would not do them justice, so I recommend you read books by Spanish people or by people who have spent decades following the progress of the country.

4) Real Madrid = Right-wing political tool

--> I am tired of talking about this, and frankly lots of Real Madrid fans are peeved at being associated with Franco. Sadly, it is the truth. And they will have to live with that.

--> On this note, I would like to declare how disgusted I am that Esteban Granero and de la Red (I HAVE YET TO FIND OUT HIS FIRST NAME, REMEMBER TO CHECK!) will be returning to the Bernabeu after their loan spell at Getafe this season. That is fantastic news for some I suppose, since I trust that Granero and de la Red will make talented grass-cutters/bench cheerleaders/laundrymen/mannequins.

5) Spain is considerably liberal in Europe, of course after the Netherlands and Germany.

--> How on earth am I supposed to comment on this without sounding incredibly perverse...

--> Apparently, there was supposed to be a law declaring "sex-zones" for the young, since most Spanish people live with their parents till they are about 30 (except Fernando Torres), and if you have not already figured out by now, the proposed law will allow young Spanish people to, you know, bond with each other at certified dark areas, instead of having to confuse their parents with strange sounds from their bedrooms. However, the law fell thru and some politician was quoted as saying, rather insensitively as some people had remarked, that "the young people should just go find their own places!".

Muahahaha the things they debate about there. If we ever mumbled anything like that in this country, I think half the population would get strokes.

6) Spain is the best place to be pregnant in.

--> This post is taking quite a bizarre turn, especially since I am commenting about this right after talking about the proposed law on sex-zones. It is not meant to be a dirty and impure post.

--> It is a brilliant place to be pregnant in (notice I did not say a brilliant place to GET pregnant in, muahahaha the difference one word would make) because pregnant women are raised on a pedestal in Spain. Spanish people love children, and family is the most important unit in Spain, so Spanish people would break down in tears when they see young mommies waddling with strollers and bowling ball stomachs.

--> In a way, you can say that Spanish children are spoilt and coddled to the core. However, there is a difference between being spoilt and being spoilt ROTTEN. Based on what I have seen and what I know, Spanish children in general are beautiful little things, and they aren't ROTTING like most of the brats I face here in this country. Spanish children are little princes and princesses, but few of them are rude. Except for those who kept STARING at my face (because they could not figure out WHERE I was from, since I did not respond to KONICHIWA and NI HAO) and at my cousins' faces, perhaps because they thought my cousin was the Smashing Pumpkins guy, he was mistaken before by some Spanish people hahahahaaha.

--> The book also talked about how this old Spanish man moved to England and spent his first few weeks pinching boys' cheeks (their face cheeks I hope, ass cheeks would give a whole other meaning) and talking up little girls. Instead of welcoming this sweet harmless old man with open arms, the COPS were called in and he was hauled to the police station for suspected paedophilic tendencies.

--> I must say, based on my time in Spain, the old people are cute like that yes. Affectionately approaching young strangers to compliment their appearance or to make conversation would be creepy to most people visiting Spain, but pretty normal for them. Of course, there can be such a thing as TOO affectionate, have I ever mentioned how that old Spanish lady (my uncle's friend's mother) was practically having an orgasm talking about then-jailbait Fernando Torres?

--> Also, be prepared to be reprimanded by random Spanish people if you "mistreat" your children. Perhaps if you were gripping your child's arm a little too tightly, expect to be approached and taught the proper way to do it.

Just imagine what the Spanish people would do when they see how parents/teachers here whack their kids/students with all sorts of power tools.

Yes, I do not support tough love. Although most children here deserve to be slapped (believe me, the urge comes occasionally), I do not believe it does anybody any good. Children are homosapiens/human beings/living organisms for god's sake, not scarecrows.

7) The Costa del Sol is being invaded by the Russian mafia and British runaway criminals. And by my cousins, because they have a house there, but that is a different thing altogether.

--> Costa del Crime. At least, that is what the alarmed British people call the area. Very funny, considering it is mostly because of them that it's got that reputation.

In high-luxury places like California, every posh area has a seedy underbelly. Where there is money, there are drugs. Where there are drugs...the cycle is a long one.

It was an interesting, amusing book, which I would have liked to read in much greater detail (and while SITTING DOWN, rather than when I was trying to come up with 15000 comfortable positions while leaning against a cold hard wall), but I am still midway thru my "The Story of Spain" book, and I have promised to punch myself if I dared to buy another book. I will read it some other lifetime I suppose.

It was a terror day yesterday, not only was I knocked about 5000 times by women with GARGANTUAN ladybags (WHY DO PEOPLE NEED SUCH HUMONGOUS BAGS, how many dead bodies do they have in there??), but I was also THE UNFORTUNATE RECEIVER OF A MAN'S SENSELESS AND THOUGHTLESS SNEEZE. Nearly jumped out of my skin, that sneaky man slithered up from NOWHERE, and SNEEZED to his heart's content, and of all places he thought of to turn to, it had to be in MY DIRECTION. I leapt about 3 steps away from him, and I would have done it more gracefully and less destructively if he had not surprised me like that, because I was actually deep in thought (next time, I will make sure to only think simple thoughts on trains, no more deep thoughts!). He looked a little bit wounded, but what did he expect me to do, pat him on the back with a smile and say, "That was not powerful enough, try again?".

The hygiene levels here are absurd. It reminds me of when this woman spat ON THE FLOOR ON THE BUS, I wanted to kill myself right there. But then, I thought that was a foolish way to make a statement about cleanliness, considering I would probably make a greater mess if I did that.

ANYWAY! I just caught American Idol.

Truth be told, it bored me this week. But they should not take it that personally, I have found myself getting bored over almost everything the past few days, I think it is the scorching heat.

Yeah, there is no real connection there but never mind.

The only song I knew of this week is that "Sweet Caroline" song, and I tried to sing along with David Archu but he kept interrupting me. Sigh.

So, here is what I think, because I fancy myself a fourth American Idol judge:

1) JASON CASTROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A little bit disappointing, and I am starting to wonder if my jinxy cursed powers are back? I started supporting him just 2 weeks ago, and that is when all the judges started to criticize him. From stellar performances to bland performances, down in one fell swoop.

I am starting to take it personally I'll say. It is like how I told my dear sibling, "Oh, I really like Thierry Henry." and BAM, he got sent off a few minutes after that.

At Leandra's house during the world cup of 2002, we were watching a US-Mexico game and I hollered, "GO MEXICOOOOOOOOOOO!" and the US scored a few seconds after.

I rest my case.

Back to Senor Castro. Well, he did better than last week I thought, and he did throw in a lot more megawatt smiles to WOW Simon off his chair (which did not work, sadly) but he ended up with burning words from all the judges. The lad looked a little bit hurt, but then he's been making a lot of strange expressions these couple of weeks...

His voice isn't strong enough. He sounds so much like somebody but I just cannot put my hand to it, I know I said Jesse McCartney before, but there is also somebody else. One of the Hanson brothers (I can never remember who is who)? The Jonas Brothers (Have I mentioned that I have no idea who is who)? The Moffatts (The only band where I can actually differentiate which brother is which, which is ironic because 3 of them are triplets)?

He has got the perfect boyband voice (I'm back to talking about Jason Castroooooooo!), with the occasional deep-breathing and everything that Justin Timberlake mastered very coolly (which I remember my mom commented on when I was 11, "Why is this Justin always breathing and panting so hard?"). Sadly, the judges didn't seem to like his whole breathing act, which I didn't really mind because it made him more, I dunno, human you know? Because all humans need to breathe at some point.

You know what, never mind.

Time to practise performing some tribal chants, Jason! He's got too sweet a voice I think, maybe he should watch how the New Zealand rugby team does their Hakka chant, THAT is the aggression I want. Although Randy, Paula and Simon might fail to agree with me. Here Jason, just in case you are severely depressed and at a loss and are, for some reason, actually reading my blog:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K-UKp9dDFM

WATCH AND LEARN, JASON! One of them has dreadlocks, just like you!(One of the South African players looks like he's enjoying it, I would too if somebody did that to me hahahahaha.)

GREAT, now that Jonas Brothers song is in my head, I think it is that S.O.S one, HELPPPPPPP.

2) David COOK!

Am only paying attention to him because bizarre Izzah instructed me to do so, and because I feel sorry for her still slothing thru exams.

He likes to bend his knees when he sings.

Week after week after week, whenever he goes into the high "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" notes, like he is going thru some deathly ritual or as if somebody was piercing his chest with a spear, HE WOULD BEND HIS KNEES.

\ \
\ \
/_ /_

LIKE WHAT I HAVE TRIED TO DRAW ABOVE!

Yeah, that looks more like he's got Transformer legs, but that is how his legs act when he sings. I bet I am not the only one who notices such things, it is a little bit distracting because there he is with a dramatic face and wolf-like howl and then his knees are like giving way, like his bladder is too full.

Otherwise, he sings good. My candidate for American Idol, that is, if he does something about the legs.

3) Brooke...somethingsomething (I really have to check out her last name one day, as well as de la Red's first name...So many things to remember, so little brain space!)

I would really like to ignore her, because she irritates me. I did not like her first performance, I thought it was very karaoke, which was exactly what Simon said and I wanted to pat him on the back for saying it. If I were there that is.

However, credits to her for her second performance. The end.

4) David Archu (I have given up trying to figure out his last name, everytime Ryan Seacrest says it, I would try to figure out how to spell it, and then I would be distracted and miss the first part of his performance, which always explains why I never have anything much to say about his singing. So from now on, he will have to DEAL with being referred to as David Archu.)

Yes, I was not paying attention to his performances. I did, however, notice that his voice got a little bit strange on one of the notes for the second song, and I thought I saw his face TWITCH when he did that, possibly in a "oh-my-god-what-did-my-stupid-voice-just-do" kind of twitch, but maybe he twitches all the time and I was just reading too much into it. But I could have sworn I heard him go off-key at that part, and I promise you he twitched because of that.

If I see him someday, that is the first thing I will ask him. The second question I will ask him after that would be if he would let me go, because he would probably try to have me arrested for the first question.

5) Syesha (all hope is not lost, I actually remembered how to spell her name!)

She is starting to be a Brooke. Pouting at the judges when they criticize her, you know, the works. Criticism can be a terrible thing, but don't make faces or try to argue with the judges because that will only make you come across as arrogant.

I like her singing, but attitude always decides it for me.

As such, my candidate for American Idol is...DAVID COOK! Followed by...NO ONE! Followed by...ME!

Hey, one can dream yes? If there was a Boyz2Men week, I would OWN that.

Yeah, maybe not.

So, Chelsea-Liverpool tonight! I do not want to say anything, because of said jinxy cursed powers. It is obvious which team I support, and which team I find absolutely disgusting.

I will just quietly go eat my dinner now. Until later!

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn Silva

Unite -- Lo-tel

2008-04-27T00:46:00.003+08:00

Quite a favourite of mine, that song above. You know, there are certain songs that you can listen to 5 times a day and you would just feel so RECHARGED you know? Like you can blast into outer space even without a rocket. That is the effect some songs have on me.

Oh dear, do you think that is how drug addicts feel when they get high? Damn, I would recommend listening to this song by Lo-tel instead, it is not as hazardous to personal well-being at least. Though the song title sounds like a revolutionary war chant by a totalitarian pro-Mao Zedong boyband, it is really pretty much harmless.

So much has happened this week. Because I have as interesting and exciting a life as the sexy millipedes in my backyard, all the crazy things happening in the world this week obviously have nothing to do with me. As a result, this entire post will be revolving around two things: FOOTBALL and AMERICAN IDOL. Shocker.

My world is too small.

Firstly, I am confident that all of you out there, from the eskimoes of the universe to the warring tribes of Bora-Bora (there are tribes there that fight right?), know that Ronald Koeman has been sacked by Valencia.

I have things to say about that but I am frankly quite tired of talking about it. Koeman is out of my life and I click my heels in joy every 5 minutes to celebrate that.

All right, out of Valencia's life. You get my point.

Secondly, I am hearing news that a certain Adrian Gonzalez (also known as Real Madrid legend Michel's offspring) might be headed to Getafe next season. I don't know, does Getafe want to be relegated that badly?

No offense to Adrian, whom I apologize to if he happens to be reading this. Though since he clearly stated in an interview that he found reading "meaningless" (MEANINGLESS? WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO?), the chances of him actually reading anything more than the title of my post are relatively low.

Adrian has been tossed around from club to club like a potted plant (hell, they probably treat their potted plants with much better care), and it seems to me nothing seems to be improving. He was initially asked to join the Real Madrid team for pre-season friendlies (also known as time-wasting matches) but has since been told by Bernd Schuster to find himself some other club to occupy his time this season.

They ripped Adrian's heart out and trampled on his pride, like heartless barbarians they are. One day when I have the courage to, I will give those Real Madrid people a piece of my mind. Not that it will do anyone any good because they do not speak English. Having a translator by my side to repeat my tirade would also lower the impact of my words significantly, but I will figure something out sometime in my life.

And so Adrian sadly moved on. I think I talked about it a few posts ago, about how he moved to Celta and eventually ended up in Gimnastic de Tarragona (DO YOU SEE HOW HE IS BEING SHIPPED AROUND LIKE A CARTON OF DEAD FISH?). Now he's like a stuffed mascot travelling around with his current club, because I don't think he's playing regular football there (from what I can understand from my barely-existent knowledge of Spanish). All he seems to be doing is playing cheerleader on the bench, providing distraction with his perfect Adrian-like hair and Adrian-like pouts and dangling his Sharon-Stone-like legs on the bench, and giving sad interviews to anybody who would listen. I do not know what the deal is with him and his equally pouty father (also known as Real Madrid legend Michel, who is also known as the man who nearly ripped off Carlos Valderrama's manly tools during a match 20 years ago), but it seems like all is not going well between them either.

So now, Getafe apparently wants him.

I am, of course, delighted. Getafe is not exactly relegation-threatened, they are playing in the first division, and they made stars out of two of Adrian's ex-teammates and ex-BFFs, a certain Esteban Granero (who has INCREDIBLE fashion sense, now he is starting to adopt BLUE headbands that will go well with his blue jersey woweeeeeeeee) and a certain somethingsomething de la Red (WHAT IS HIS FIRST NAME? REMEMBER TO CHECK!).

OK, enough of Adrian. Now on to more urgent issues, like...AMERICAN IDOL!

I don't know what happened this week, because for some utterly disgusting reason, Carly was voted off. CARLY! THE ONE WITH THE BOOMBOX VOICE! THE ONE THAT I WANNA BE STUCK IN A LIFT WITH!

Not that I ever want to be stuck in a lift with anybody, or stuck in a lift PERIOD, but Carly is currently top of the list, followed very closely by Joaquin, because Joaquin looks like he tells good jokes and what a better time to do that than when we are trapped in an enclosed space?

TOP 10 PEOPLE I WANT TO BE STUCK IN A LIFT WITH:

1. Carly Smithson (Smith...SEN? WHAT IS HER NAME, REMEMBER TO CHECK!)
She will HOWL our way out of the lift, I tell ya. There is no stopping those lungs.

2. Joaquin
He is by far one of the more amusing footballers in the world today, and he looks like he has an insane sense of humour, what great fun being stuck in a lift would be!

Of course, that can easily backfire because the jokes he tell would be in Spanish, which would be completely lost on me. That is IF I DO NOT START GETTING PROFESSIONAL HELP FOR SPANISH. I can understand Spanish, but only if I read it. Listening to them speak is equivalent to being stuck in a working washing machine, I will only come out of it confused.

All right, if I am stuck with Joaquin, then I have to make sure I have a pen and paper and a torchlight so that he can write out his jokes for me and so I can actually read his words in the dark.

3. Any Real Madrid person
As I have mentioned earlier, I have to direct my tirade about their treatment of Adrian to SOMEBODY, and what a great time to impart Adrian propaganda while we are stuck in a lift.

Wait a minute, what am I doing? I do not even LIKE Real Madrid. Adrian would be better off not playing for that team of white ghouls.

I am going to have to think of a new reason why I want to be stuck in a lift with a Real Madrid being. Sigh. Suddenly the thought does not exactly thrill me anymore.

4. EVER BANEGA!
It will be so fun asking him about that adult video he did. That is, before he bashes me up to death. Though that will be very risky, because he cannot effectively tell the police that he did not commit murder since it will be only him and my body in the lift when eventually we are both rescued.

Then again, it might be very dangerous being stuck with him, considering how we know he likes to shed his clothes for other people. At least that will inspire me to find an escape route much quicker than I would otherwise have if I were stuck with someone like, say, clown Joaquin.

5. Any greedy person
I assume that greedy people would have food in their bags. At least, that is what I do.

If I were stuck in a lift, the least the other person could do is comfort me by assuring me that he/she also has food in his/her bag. Then I can bring out the food that I always keep in my bag (emergency Oreo cookies, if I am dying of hunger when I am out, which is very often) and we can share our food and have a claustrophobic picnic.

Wait a minute, what am I doing? If the person is greedy, the person would eat up MY food.

Edit: Any greedy BUT KIND person.

6. Any random magician
How useful would a magician be! If I want food, I would expect the magician to somehow come up with food for me. I mean, that is partly his job, to do some fanciful magic.

7. HARRY POTTER!
NOT Daniel Radcliffe. I want the boy wizard. I think he would be more useful than anybody else above on the list actually, because I am sure Mr. Potter would get us out of the lift immediately.

However, I am putting it low on the list because I assume that Lord Voldemort would come looking for Harry, and by sheer luck, I WILL BE THERE TOO. I do not want to be at the receiving end of those unpleasant unforgivable curses, no thank you, does nobody remember how Cedric Diggory got killed?

Very dangerous, especially since I am just a stupid Muggle.

8. John Terry
I HAVE to know what it is he has been saying to Fernando Torres to upset Fernando so much. Although I will probably be arrested once we are rescued, it will be worth it.

Also, I want to ask him if David Silva can speak English, since he also tried to break Silva's legs when Chelsea played Valencia. If Silva screamed "HELP!", that means he can speak English. If Silva yelped "SOCORRO!", that means that he is pretty much useless as a human being.

I THINK it is spelt as socorro? REMEMBER TO CHECK!

9. Jason Castroooooooooo
I really want to know how dreadlocks are made. I know it will be easier going up to any random hairdresser and asking him/her, but it will be so exciting if Jason could sing out the explanation to me instead.

Besides, he can then attempt to dreadlock-dify my hair, since I have long hair too. Possibly we will be stuck in a lift for a few hours, I might as well make full use of my time.

10. Random electrician/genius/person with great interest in solving problems
It will be cool if the person I am stuck with is actually able to get us both out just by playing around with the lift buttons and things like that, but I put this bottom of the list because why would I want to hang around a random electrical person if I can instead assault John Terry or learn about dreadlocks?

HOLD IT! BACK TO AMERICAN IDOL!

So after that incredible performance this week, Carly was told to leave. WHY AMERICA WHY?

Syeeeeeeeeeeesha/Syieeeeeeeeesha/Saiyeeeeeeeeeeeeesha was also in the bottom 2, which surprised me as well. She didn't look fantastically pleased, I mean of course I wasn't expecting her to be a barrel of giggles in that situation, but sometimes it seems like she is acting as if she deserves to be in a high position. Red card for Syeeeeesha!

Brooke was safe for the week. I am not really surprised, because such things ALWAYS happen. In fact, at some point I suspected a conspiracy by Ryan Seacrest, like maybe he forgot to put on his contacts or his eyes were crossed for a millisecond and he read the names wrong, and Brooke's name looked like Carly's name and Brooke was really the one who should have gone. I have, however, given up that theory, because I have realized that Ryan Seacrest has no real reason to do anything like that, unless he is inherently cruel or just a twat.

Jason Castroooooooooooooooo was safe too, which is not much of a shocker. Hearing all these random girls screaming for him, it is no doubt that Jason has a massive fanbase. I wonder why? I mean, the dude has nice eyes yea.

But so does half the planet.

Watch some football, girls, once you see Jesus Navas, Jason Castro and his pretty eyeballs will be a distant memory.

Nothing much to say about the two Davids. David Archuwhohuh and David Cook, both were good, both deserved to be in, the world is fair sometimes, congratulations and good night.

By the way, David Archublankblank is pretty small yea? Either that or the people on the show are massive statues. He's spent much of the show communicating with other people's chests, while they responded to his scalp. I have to go see what his height is, I do understand how sad it must be being a small person in a big big world (and I mean HUGE), because I too spend half my time smiling at people's adams apples. I understand, David.

Next week is Neil Diamond week. When my parents heard that, they got very excited.

Translation: It will be as exciting as watching ice melt.

Goodnight world.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn Silva

BIG SUR -- THE THRILLS

2008-04-24T00:33:00.003+08:00

I've been using that as my alarm for the past couple of weeks, and now i find myself twitching or jolting uncontrollaby whenever that song comes on Pablo, my MP3 player. Sigh, this has got something to do with what we learnt in Psychology, something about conditioning and learning (conditional learning?). However, because I am incredibly stupid, I cannot remember the actual terms to diagnose my condition. I do know that this dog named Pavlov was involved though.

All right, never mind.

Wait, what? Possibly it was the experimenter that was called Pavlov and the dog was called...Dog.

NEVER MIND, I hated that chapter in Psychology, as evident in the above paragraphs. The more I hate something, the more I do not bother remembering anything about it. That, unfortunately, does not extend to people, because the more I dislike someone, the more I seem to remember that person's name.

Like John Terry, who can ever forget that man's name? After he tried to castrate one of my football favourites Fernando Torres 4 years ago in an international friendly, he has graced the most privileged Top 5 positions in my Most Hated Footballers list. Earlier this season, he was again seen galloping violently around Fernando, and they ended up in a tiny man-to-man scuffle. Don't really know what he said to Fernando, and it seemed that Fernando did not know what was said to him either (Fernando was not exactly proficient in English then, though I wonder what sort of big English words Terry used to taunt Fernando to confuse Fernando so much...).

Here are some things that Terry could have said to Fernando that threw Fernando off so much that he did not wish to relive it with the eager press:

1. I have seen better faces in my time than stands alone on any shoulder that I see before me at this instant.

Well. Terry does look like the formal sort.

2. The tartness of your face sours ripe grapes.

Not that I agree that Fernando resembles a tart, but most footballers don't eat before matches. It is thus not strange that food is the first thing they think of when they insult someone.

3. Thou smell of mountain goat.

Well, one thing is for sure, footballers don't smell like a basket of roses I daresay.

4. Thou cream-faced loon. Where got'st that goose look?

I 80% believe this was what Terry said to Fernando, because Fernando looks like he would not understand what a "loon" is, and he would probably be concerned about the "cream-faced" comment, because Fernando has a more polka-dotted skin, what with his freckles. I also do not believe that Fernando's English teacher taught him what a goose is, it is not exactly a very threatening animal that he has to beware of in Liverpool.

5. Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage! You tallow face!

Well, it makes more sense for referees to say something like that to players they are sending off. I am just putting it on this list because I quite like this quote. I mean, how anyone could ever come up with that when they are furious is beyond me. I should probably try that out when I am pissed off with someone one day, but that someone would probably respond with a "huh?" and totally ruin the flow of the argument.

6. Out of my sight! Thou dost infect my eyes.

Now THIS seems more likely. Terry does look like he can be very dramatic sometimes, yes?

7. My tongue will tell the anger of my heart.

Terry did look downright outraged there, and so did Fernando, but sadly there is no Spanish poetry that Fernando could quote from to impress Terry with.

8. You have not as much brain as ear-wax.

Fernando's ears ARE quite large.

9. There's a man hath more hair than wit.

Fernado's hair IS quite long.

10. Thou hast no more brain that I have in mine elbows.

Well, Terry WAS gesturing wildly all over the place, so this is quite likely too.

11. Heaven truly knows that thou are as false as hell.

85% likely that this was what Terry said to Fernando, it was after Fernando sort of dived, if I am not wrong.

Trust Othello to come up with something like that, I remember having to write an entire essay on his use of heaven and hell imagery, thanks to his flowery pompous use of words.

12. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

Hey, you never know what Fernando first said to Terry.

13. Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

There is probably not a single word that Fernando would understand in that, which makes it 90% likely that Terry declared this in his face.

14. From the extremest upward of thy head to the descent and dust beneath thy foot, a most toad spotted traitor.

I think Terry would be better off directing this to Ashley Cole, but maybe he was practising it on Fernando first to test out his reaction. No wonder Fernando was confused.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, John Terry is English after all. I expect he has been properly educated in the studies of a certain fellow countryman William Shakespeare. He died today I think. Shakespeare, not Terry. As much as I dislike the man, he can be useful in entertaining me. Don't really wish him dead!

ENOUGH ABOUT JOHN TERRY. For someone I do not like, that is one hell of a long post. Imagine how long it will be for someone whose presence and existence I do not actually mind.

I have been watching more TV of late, because me has finished the dreaded exams. Just last week actually, and already I am receiving gleeful emails from my professors delightfully proclaiming that grades are out. It would KILL them to contain their excitement and wait for a few more weeks before telling us our grades, wouldn't it?

Analytical Skills and Creative Thinking. Quite contented, no complaints there. End of story good night.

On another more pleasant note, I have found myself, gasp, actually watching AMERICAN IDOL.

Yes, I did scoff haughtily at Bizarre Izzah for still watching that. However, it has proven to not be that much of a waste of time and energy. There are 6 of them left now, let's look at them shall we?

1. Syeeeeeeeeeeesha. Syeisha? Something along those lines.

Don't know much about her, sings well, big voice, great look, seems considerably okay as a person.

Moving on.

2. Jason Castroooooooooooooooooooooo!

Ahhh. Fidel's long-lost lovechild maybe? If so, Fidel would be appalled that Jason is very much a peace-loving "make love not war" hippie, or seems to be, which conflicts very much with Fidel's past cries for revolution in Cuba.

Serious now.

When I first saw him, all I could see was dreadlocks. And a soft voice struggling to be heard in that mountain of hair.

His voice is still soft. But at the risk of sounding like a FANGIRL, Jason actually has incredible eyes. Like Jesus Navas, whose picture is swimming somewhere below in one of my previous posts. It is a Texan thing, I think, like a law for people to have pretty eyes. The Texan people I know of have really nice eyes. Like Alexis Bledel, and...Jason. Okay, that is TWO people, but that counts for something.

So. His voice isn't as AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH as the rest of them idols, it's more like, I don't know, teenybopper, he is like Jesse McCartney sans blonde hair/Aaron-Carter-features.

I think he will last, mostly because he has tween fans, I should think. CMON, if ME at the ripe old age of TWENTY can admit to having fangirl tendencies towards Jason, I can bet you another million people under the age of 15 fancy his eyelashes.

3. Brooke something something.

I am ashamed that I cannot remember the girls' names, it is just that they are not as attention-grabbing as the men, I am absolved of all blame.

A beautiful lady I daresay, but she is in danger of being kicked out. Stumbled in today's performance, she forgot the lyrics. That I can sympathize, because the lady looked so traumatized, I don't think she can ever get over that. In my very humble opinion however, the lady seems too defensive at times, which is natural of course, but I think playing it cool would make her more endearing.

4. David Archu-something.

YESSSS it is not just the girls' names I forget, I can never remember what this boy's last name is.

He is always smiling. He looks like he will chuckle bashfully even if somebody was heading towards him with a hedge-clipper.

He has many fans. And when I say many, I really mean MAANNNNNNNYYYYYY. Granted, he is a young boy, all those tweens not supporting Jason Castroooooooo would be supporting David Archufillintheblank.

Quite like him though, seems to really want it, quite an AHHHHH voice too. He might be TOO nice however, very few famous people are nice.

Except David Silva (who might be leaving Valencia, which suddenly makes him not very nice anymore, but I will save that story for Christmastime).

5. Carly Smith...son?

Really testing my memory here. Carly Smithson sounds normal enough, I am not clever enough to create a name out of nothing, so that should be her actual name.

I quite like her, I am quite gunning for her. If I were stuck in a lift, I would like to be stuck in a lift with her. Can you imagine, I need not even have to press the emergency button, all Carly has to do is YOWWWWWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL and people in Alaska would be able to hear her cry for help.

She has an AHHHHHHH AHHHHHHH AHHHHHHH AHHHHHHH voice.

Her tattoos are fascinating too. A bit too much obviously, but have you SEEN her HUSBAND? WOW, if I didn't know any better, I would be wondering if he was even born with skin.

6. David Cooooooook.

A good singer, quite like him too. Seems like quite a boring individual (no offense to Mr. Cook, if you happen to be reading this, though you should not even be wasting time on this, you should be singing!). I mean, he looks like the sort who would read bedtime stories to his cat next to a fireplace in a dimly-lit room with a few candles...I have the most random imagination in the world, sorry about that.

He likes Our Lady Peace though. Of all songs he had to choose "Innocent", which is one of my least favourite songs, but he is emotionally connected to that for some reason. Maybe he murdered someone before and now regrets it?

Otherwise, I think he might go far too. For Jason Castroooooo and David Archuwhatwhat, they have tweens on their side. For Lord Cook however, I think he's got mothers on his side. Seems like he's got a fanbase of 50-year-olds, which is quite sad really. Maybe he should get some dreadlocks and perpetually smile like his counterparts?

Okay goodnight earthlings.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn Silva

Part II of Futbol Analytical Skills

2008-04-12T20:38:00.004+08:00

Because I am a slob who does not wish to get started on Robert Putnam's thrilling tales about politics, I will continue to preach what I have learnt in Analytical Skills to all who are concerned.

Why do I hear a bird in my house? Better go check.

Sound has stopped. Must be the neighbours pretending to be birds again.

FALLACY 9: APPEAL TO AUTHORITY

Somebody of authority says something that might be contentious

For example:

Rafael Benitez said that Fernando Torres has nice legs, so we must believe him.

Now, I would probably not fight this claim if Rafa did say anything like that. Although Fernando's legs are a little too long, like a pelican's.

Pelicans can be cool, with their beaks and all.

I would put up a lovely picture of Fernando's legs if anybody wants though. Not that I have any, I don't think I have a "Footballers' Legs" folder in my computer.

FALLACY 10: APPEAL TO IGNORANCE

It has never been shown that P...
-->P is not true.

OH MY GOD NOW I KNOW WHY IM HEARING BIRD SOUNDS IN MY HOUSE.

HOW was I supposed to know that my COUSIN is IN MY HOUSE, I thought everybody had gone out.

Scared me out of my mind when he appeared right next to me just as I was deeply enlightening myself with fallacies. Thought it was a very calm and peaceful burglar, but it turned out to be MY COUSIN.

GAH how embarrassing, and I thought I had the house to myself so I just spent the last 10 minutes belting out Boyz2Men hits.

ARGH.

Anyway, back to the fallacies. Sigh.

What is he DOING downstairs, de-feathering the neighbourhood birds? Strange dude he is.

OKAY. BACK TO WORK.

For example:

There have been no known pictures of Sergio Ramos with short hair.
--> Sergio Ramos was born with long hair.

Now, honestly I have never seen Ramos with short hair. I wonder sometimes.

For the Ramos-impaired, google him. I am tired of putting up pictures.

FALLACY 11: APPEAL TO PITY

Pity is evoked to establish a logically unrelated conclusion.

For example:

Ever Banega is being laughed at by everybody because of his adult video.
--> We should not condemn his pornographic actions.

Awww, I would fall for that fallacy anytime. If you had seen how melancholic Banega looked the entire two weeks he was in the news for his adult video, your heart would weep too.

To be honest, everybody was fairly amused with him and I think Banega made lots of friends in the Valencia dressing room, though I know nobody in the Valencian team would exchange MSN contacts with him, who knows what webcam activity he'd hook up this time?

Here is a video of our lovely Joaquin and his reaction to Banega's adult film controversy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGWPh-kPr6M

There is a better video out there, but I am afraid to youtube Banega's name any further.

FALLACY 12: APPEAL TO POPULARITY

Many people believe that P...
--> P is true.

For example:

Many people find Kaka attractive.
--> Kaka must be attractive.

Well, I am only putting this up as a fallacy because I find it gravely disturbing that girls watch football because of this creature.

He plays for Milan, he helps Milan, that's all I like him for.

As soon as he leaves Milan, I will possibly break his nose.

FALLACY 13: ARGUMENT AGAINST THE PERSON -- ABUSIVE

There is something bad about X.
--> X must be wrong in his arguments.

For example:

Ronald Koeman: I like David Silva.

Skeptical Football Fan: Koeman is a lousy manager, so whatever he says must not be true. David Silva must be a lousy player.

COME ON. The statement "David Silva must be a lousy player" is fallacious on its own already.

FALLACY 14: ARGUMENT AGAINST THE PERSON -- APPEAL TO EXPLANATION

It can be explained why X argues this way.
--> Whatever X says is wrong.

For example:

Arsene Wenger believes that Liverpool did not deserve that penalty. He is only saying that because his team was disadvantaged and crashed out of the Champions League because of that penalty decision.
--> Wenger is dead wrong in his assessment.

Well. That "is it or is it not a penalty" argument is still being violently discussed in the footballing world.

If they paid that same amount of attention to worldly matters like poverty, we might start seeing some societal improvements.

FALLACY 15: ARGUMENT AGAINST THE PERSON -- YOU TOO

You do it too.
--> It is all right to do that.

For example:

Alex Ferguson: Liverpool should not complain that Javier Mascherano's red card was unjustified.

Rafael Benitez: You complain too when your players get sent off, so you make absolutely no sense.

They did not exactly say this, but looking at the way they looked at each other, you can just TELL what their eyes were saying. And I don't think it was anything along the lines of "Fergie looks hot in tweed" or "Rafa oozes appeal with that face hair".

Rafa looks nice with his face hair though.

FALLACY 16: FALSE CAUSE (POST-HOC)

After a certain event, something happens. That something is attributed to the event.

For example:

After David Villa patted David Silva on the head, Silva scored.
--> David Villa should always pat David Silva on the head so Silva can score.

If only scoring goals were that simple.

FALLACY 17: FALSE CAUSE (CUM-HOC)

Correlation between two events does not mean that there is a cause-and-effect relationship

For example:

Lots of good footballers have children out of wedlock.
--> All budding footballers should have children out of wedlock, so they will be good.

Quite an amazing number of footballers actually. Raul, Steven Gerrard...

That is all I can think of right now. But it really is an amazing number.

FALLACY 18: HASTY GENERALIZATION

Sample is unrepresentative as it is too small

For example:

Luis Figo and Fernando Morientes have hairy chests.
--> All footballers like to have hair on their chests.

For the record, I did not go out looking for Figo's and Morientes' chests. It was an accidental discovery.

Some discoveries are best kept undiscovered. Those chests ought to only have been seen by Mrs. Figo and Mrs. Morientes.

FALLACY 19: BY COMPOSITION

Each part of X has this property.
--> X has this property.

For example:

Silva is made up of atoms.
Atoms vibrate.
--> Silva vibrates all the time.

He is quite jumpy sometimes.

FALLACY 20: BY DIVISION

X has this property.
--> Each part of X has this property.

For example:

Adrian Gonzalez is a very handsome player.
His bones must also be very handsome.

I am human. I admit Adrian Gonzalez is probably more useful as a model than a footballer.

Can't wait to see how HANDSOME his liver looks.

FALLACY 21: SLIPPERY SLOPE (CAUSAL)

Something will trigger off a chain reaction which will lead to eventual disaster

For example:

If Valencia continues to lose, the club will be at the bottom of the league.
Valencia will then be relegated.
Valencia will then become poor.
Valencia's players will then be driven to insanity.
--> Valencia will then be closed down by the Spanish government.

Actually, I fear more about how fans like ME will be driven to insanity.

But see? That is a common fear that we Valencia fans have.

People are home! Have to start looking like I am doing actual work now. Goodbye world.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn Silva

Futbol Analytical Skills

2008-04-12T12:55:00.004+08:00

Greetings.

I was ready to slice my head off with a penknife looking at all those fallacies and mountain-loads of examples given (I have a small head).

Then, I came up with a DING-DING-DING-DING plan!

Because I am stupid and I only listen to myself, I have decided to take matters into my own hands and instead come up with my own examples to help me with those Analytical Skills fallacies.

Here it goes. I hope I do those fallacy-creators justice by getting the fallacies RIGHT. I have a sinking feeling that some fallacies have been distorted, by me unfortunately. If anybody comes across this and is deeply flabbergasted by some glaring mistakes I have made, it would not be very kind to aim missiles at my home. I am a simple human being with a disturbingly simple brain, therefore I can only come up with simple theories.

FALLACY 1: BEGGING THE QUESTION -- OMISSION OF PREMISE

Premise is needed to derive a valid conclusion.

For example:

David Silva is a good player.
--> It is foolish to sell David Silva.

For the football-impaired, footballers are traded around and sold like a sack of potatoes. It is a very normal phenomenon.

However, there is a missing premise.

David Silva is a good player.
IT IS FOOLISH TO SELL GOOD PLAYERS.
--> It is foolish to sell David Silva.

Ahhh that's better. I will send the above statements to Valencia in a little while, so the president and the sporting director see how important Silva is to the team. There is no way they would not be able to understand my CLEARLY-ARGUED statements.

Oh except for the fact that they do not understand English.

FALLACY 2: BEGGING THE QUESTION -- BY RESTATEMENT

In this one, it means that the reason and the conclusion given are similar. There is no imagination in the arguer's brain, to put it simply.

For example:

We lost because we did not win.

Mind you, this excuse is always given by managers and footballers, including one man named Ronaldo. The unfortunate Brazilian one, I mean. However, it will be a matter of time before the Portuguese one says something ridiculous like that as well.

There are TWO other Begging the Question fallacies: By Circular Chain and By Inferential Circularity. However, I was unable to come up with anything remotely intelligent for those two. So, figure that out yourselves people.

FALLACY 3: FALSE DICHOTOMY -- BY NON-EXHAUSTION

Either P or Q
It is not P
--> It is Q

People assume that there are only two choices here. However, there can always be a third choice.

For example:

You either like Real Madrid or Barcelona.
You do not like Real Madrid.
--> You like Barcelona.

NO WAY! I LIKE SEVILLA!

Oh, and Valencia.

And Atletico de Madrid!

Just not Barcelona.

FALLACY 4: FALSE DICHOTOMY -- BY NON-EXCLUSION

Either P or Q
It is P
--> It is not Q

Again, people do not realize that there is, GASP, the possibility that it can be P AND Q.

For example:

You either like Jesus Navas for his skills or for his eyes.
You like Jesus Navas for his skills.
--> You do not like his eyes.

HEY! I like Jesus Navas for his skills AND eyes.

He has stunning eyes by the way. They are green.

If he lived with Shakespeare, he would be accused of being perpetually jealous.

Sigh, for those Literature-impaired, "green-eyed monster" means jealousy. Othello was very fond of that particular emotion.

Here is Green Eyes for you. Well they do not look particularly green there. It is most obvious when he is staring into the camera, or when he is standing next to grass, but I do not have such pictures at the mo.

FALLACY 5: Complex Question

Assumption is made in the phrasing of the question.

For example:

Has Cristiano stopped thinking highly of himself?

Here, we assume that Cristiano has always thought highly of himself.

And we know that is not a fair claim, eh?

FALLACY 6: MISSING THE POINT

Premises lead to conclusion X.
However, conclusion Y is drawn.

For example:

Esteban Granero has the curliest hair I have ever seen on a footballer.
--> Esteban Granero should leave Real Madrid.

WOAH! Hang in there! That is TOTALLY MISSING THE POINT!

Though both statements are very very true and very very sound, there is no link there. The correct conclusion should be as follows.

Esteban Granero has the curliest hair I have ever seen on a footballer.
--> Esteban Granero should straighten his hair.

The conclusion here is more valid, though it is not sound.

I do not wish to imagine how Granero would look with straight hair.

Although the picture here does not indicate so, Granero is really quite a nice and sane man.

FALLACY 7: RED HERRING

Irrelevant issue is brought up to divert attention.

For example:

Silva: Cristiano, I think you are not as great as you think.

Cristiano: Pish-posh. I have hair that is much greater than your mushroom head.

Silva will now DIVERT HIS ATTENTION to his mushroom head.

See how SLY Cristiano is? He cannot give sufficient reasons as to why he thinks he is great. Instead, he attacks a stricken Silva and his mushroom head.

Silva and his mushroom head.

FALLACY 8: STRAW MAN

Misrepresentation of opponent's argument. Person often ends up attacking the extremes, which is not true of the opponent's argument.

For example:

Koeman: I feel that Valencia fans ought to be partially responsible for the dismal performances of the team this season. If they can just stop waving white handkerchiefs and calling for my head, the players would not be so distracted all the time.

Head of Valencia Mafia and Ultras: HOW DARE KOEMAN SAY WE ARE TO BLAME FOR EVERYTHING THAT WENT WRONG THIS SEASON, THAT WE ARE AT FAULT FOR ALL OF VALENCIA'S LOSSES? What a twat, he is definitely wrong!

And that is how major wars get started. Because of misrepresentation.

By the way, I do not like Koeman.

There is some truth in that example, Koeman has blamed us sometimes. I think he is running out of things to blame though, next week he might blame the cafeteria lady for making the players fat.

And that is it for now. Food beckons.

Signed,

Sincerely, me

Pearlyn Silva

M.E.M.O.R.I.E.S.

2008-03-30T02:36:00.003+08:00

Am clicking my heels in joy. I have just finished coming up with nonsensical thoughts for my political science term paper, and I have no desire to edit it.

Should really be going to bed now, as I was considering doing so midway thru my term paper. However, now that I am done with it, I feel entirely revitalized, like I have fireworks in my hair. So ridiculous, if I could just gather this amount of energy when doing work, I would possibly be the president by now.

Anyway. I was just thinking. Every year in my life, there would be a certain band or music that would characterize it. Music brings back all sorts of odd memories for me, and I can almost always remember vividly where I listened to such music and what I was doing. Great stinking memory system I have, but for some reason I can never remember gravely important economical concepts like MS = MV. Or something earth-shattering like that.

Behold. I am going to pen down my Music Over The Years list now.

1988: I was born. I think the only music that I can possibly remember from that year is the melodic cries of my wailing.

However, since I was told I was a disturbingly happy baby, I probably did not wail too much.

1989: Did I even have ears back then?

1990: I think I was still in love with my own voice, so I never did pay attention to music yet.

1991: AHA! THAT was when I first started paying attention to music. What music, you wonder?

LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN!

That was absolutely my favourite song when I was 3. I kept singing it for some reason, which makes me a really creepy child I must say. I am surprised the parents did not just slaughter me right then and there.

1992: And apparently I became a Beatles fan. The folks were great fans of the Fab Four, so I naturally became one as well.

AND THEN apparently, on this fateful road trip to Penang or somewhere obscure like that, I performed for my entire family AND extended family a Beatles song. "Yesterday", to be exact.

What exactly was I so troubled about at the age of 4 to make me memorize the lyrics to "Yesterday", I wonder.

1993: Guns N Roses "November Rain"

Aerosmith and Guns and Nirvana. The dear siblings used to listen to that, and I used to be made to listen to that, and I always found all the songs really sad, no wonder I am such a whack job right now.

1994: Janet Jackson "Again"

Janet and Michael Jackson. From hereon, there started to be this huge wave of pop fascination.

1995: Boyz 2 Men "On Bended Knee"

Boyz 2 Men. Muahahahaha geeky pop! My dear sibling used to like singing Boyz 2 Men, which really frightened me. But I liked them, made me melancholic sometimes and if I heard their songs in the morning, I would not want to go to school.

I am WEIRD I know.

1996: Take That!

Haahahahahaahahaha.

Check out THIS video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pHnqmw9QRM

Caught that video when I was just a young thing, got very appalled because I did not fancy naked people very much then.

NOT that I fancy naked people any better now, thank you very much.

1997: U2 "The Sweetest Thing"

Can't remember if it was that year. I do not particularly like that song, but I kept hearing it when I was in Aussieland that summer. Whenever I hear that song now, I would think of that trip.

Incredible trip I must say. Except for that moment when I followed some other dude who looked like my dad. I was and still am a very stupid person.

1998: Backstreet Boys "We've Got It Goin' On"

I have to admit, it was a catchy tune. Still sing it to myself from time to time, when no one is around.

Nick Carter was apparently very fascinating to me then.

Astonishing much.

1999: Still Backstreet!

Loaded the car with all the Backstreet CDs so everybody could listen to them on road trips.

I honestly thought I was doing everyone a favour by being so generous with my CDs.

Wow, my family WAS very patient with me.

2000: Nsync "It's Gonna Be Me"

Nsync and The Moffatts and Britney.

Give me a break, The Moffatts were big in KCP. And some of their songs are nice to attempt singing along to.

And yes, I was an Nsync groupie, and a Justin-Britney fangirl. So ludicrous I know, I used to download old Mickey Mouse Club episodes so I could watch Justin and Britney in action.

All right, I still secretly do that. It is fairly amusing stuff.

2001: Nsync "Pop"

Sick and tired of hearing all these people talk about
What's the deal with this pop life and when is it gonna fade out
The thing you've got to realize what we're doing is not a trend
We've got the gift and melody we gonna bring you till the end

HAHAHA! Can't believe I can still remember the comical lyrics.

It was a period I would have liked to phase out of my life. Many a email add were created based on my Nsync fantasies, I admit.

2002: Incubus "Stellar"

Stole my dear sibling's Incubus CDs one night because I thought the lead guy Brandon Boyd looked like a footballer. Roque Santa Cruz. Don't you think?

Then I decided I liked Incubus. Listened to their stuff every night, defined my days in 2002. Got to the point where I kept bringing the CDs around so much that I cracked one of the cases and misplaced one of the CDs, dear sibling was downright furious.

For the record, I found the CD after that.

2003: Ashlee Simpson "Pieces of Me"

Muahaha! Can't remember if it was this year, but it was definitely in secondary school.

Don't you think Ashlee sounds orgasmic in the chorus?

2004: Good Charlotte "In This World (Murder)"

All right, to be honest, I listened to their albums very much while I was traipsing about in Spain. As much as I reject Good Charlotte now, I listen to their songs sometimes coz it always gave me the I'm-in-Spain feeling.

2005: Good Charlotte "Walk Away (Maybe)"

And yes, the Good Charlotte thing went on to TJ as well.

Good Charlotte. Bittersweet.

Muahahaha. Good Charlotte made some money off me yeah. Just their songs alone bring back all these myriad of memories, from Spain to TJ to certain human beings.

That song says a lot eh.

No regrets.

2006: Beulah "Popular Mechanics for Lovers"

That was on my favourites playlist, so that came on a lot while I was studying in school.

Reminds me of the people I hung out with, like Solly. She used to play that for me when I was pissed off about something, which was quite often, because TJ was hardly a place that inspired happiness. Muahahaha.

2007: The Strokes "12:51"

Definitely a song with vivid memories. It always came on on my way to work at TokioMarine, and it is like a knee-jerk reaction to think of Shenton Way whenever I listen to that song.

How absurd.

I LIKE THAT SONG. And I do not wish to think of SHENTON WAY when it comes on my playlist.

2008: Well, I have come a long way. I will be 20 this year, and I am still unsure what my song of the year will be.

For now, it is Trapt. "Still Frame".

All right, now I am getting REALLY upset because my Boyz 2 Men youtube video does not seem to be loading WELL, so now the boys are looking frozen in awkward positions while the song has STOPPED ABRUPTLY.

Wow, they really do look pained.

I wonder where they are now?

Anyway. I really should go to bed. There is something wrong with my throat, for some reason I have been choking a lot tonight.

Worrying much.

Got a wedding to go to tomorrow. More awkward conversations with relatives who cannot remember my actual name but who choose to instead remember a name that people called me when I was THREE. Maybe I will put on a nametag as well as a picture of me with my family on my forehead so at least they will know which child I am.

Goodnight!

Signed,

Sincerely, Me

Pearlyn Silva

HELLO EARTH!

2008-03-25T20:52:00.001+08:00

incredible week for valencia. strange week for me. however, since im undeniably more football-centred than self-centred, three-quarts of this post will be focused on football.

1. valencia beat barca ---> will now play GETAFE in the copa del rey final.

by goose, WHO would have expected that of even occurring in this present lifetime?!

when i saw the results, i almost fell off my chair. stunned, u might conclude. FLABBERGASTED is another word i would use.

teams like the team valencia has this season do not just beat barca like that, even though admittedly barca had a strange match. however, the football gods must have been feeling generous towards valencia that night, because all of a sudden valencia looked as if all their players had dynamites in their boots. or in their shorts. considering some players looked a tad too ecstatic for no reason that night.

MATA scored a brace. MATA! of all people! whose last name sounds like what kungfu masters would yell before they karate-chopped someone.

a force to reckon with, this mata fella. so young, i think hes about my age. MY AGE!

he looks about 35.

which i suppose sounds like a negative comment but hey, he looks matured. dignified.

of course, after the match, the valencia players were off celebrating in the streets with a huge platoon of fans, acting as if they'd just won some inter-galactic football competition. happy i know, but WAY too dramatic a celebration.

especially since mata almost killed himself celebrating. a little too zealous, that's the boy's only fault. he sort of hung precariously off this balcony waving to all of these eager crocodile-like fans, acting as if he had just been crowned ms universe. thank god somebody's hand pulled him back before the lad went hurtling down about 3 storeys into the sea of rapists/valencia fans, who were trying to jump up the 3 storeys to touch him.

i like mata and all, but i dont think i'd want to touch him. he looks so FIERY and BOISTEROUS all the time, he looks like he might spontaneously combust if anybody touches him.

2. valencia beat REAL MADRID.

AHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

i HATE real madrid more than anything. lots of people ask me why, but i dont usually have the time or the energy or the patience or the fast-talking genes to explain why i detest them. i could probably draft out a booklet as thick as one of those UN charters explaining what is so grotesque about real madrid.

(WHY IS FATIMAMUSA DISTRACTING ME WITH ALL THESE STRANGE STORIES ABOUT MY FAVOURITE JAPANESE FOOD PLACE?)

i dislike real madrid and their history. they were franco-ist, enough said.

(OH FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THE WOMBATS IN THE UNIVERSE! I CAN NEVER EVER EVER EAT AT MY FAVOURITE JAPANESE FOOD PLACE NO MORE!)

due to my apparent attention deficiency disorder, i will stop talking about why i dislike real madrid and just go on to the happy part: VALENCIA BEAT THEM!

very very odd week. first barca, then real. how on earth is my heart going to take all of these shocks?!

actually i like some of the players from real madrid. the more polite ones.

(1) sergio ramos: fine fine player, would have been more well-liked by me if he had just STAYED at sevilla. silly lad.

only problem is his entirely metrosexual demeanour. four words: pink headband, green shirt.

or green headband, pink shirt.

oh for christ's sake, it was a pink-green combo, that outfit. appalling is what it was. even aragones looked a little bit concerned when he was talking to sergio.

other than that, he seems amusing. tells some good jokes. and his love affair with his hair is entirely hilarious. he'd probably make a good hairdresser.

OH and he READS. how rare is it that footballers read?! for example, i saw this picture of casillas at this bookstore at some airport. he looked entirely confused flipping thru a magazine.

obviously casillas cannot read.

(2) actually, i think ramos is the only player i would accept as a human being in real madrid. the rest of them all ought to be culled.

the real madrid castilla boys are okay too i suppose. quite pity them really, coz theyre hardly given a chance to prove themselves.

for example, there is ESTEBAN GRANERO, who is currently playing for getafe. not seen him much in action, but he has his moments.

real madrid does not want him.

his story is just one of the thousands of stories of youth players being mistreated in real madrid.

might i also say that all of them look entirely malnourished as well? obviously they are not being properly fed. no wonder they got relegated last season. the youth team that is.

ANYWAY. valencia beat real madrid. was on cloud nine the next day, which was yesterday. smiled to myself a little bit too much while walking across campus. very possibly frightened a number of passers-by.

ALL RIGHT. tired with the football talk. on to my strange life.

ive been busy.

and easily agitated.

construction work next door is STILL not done, will possibly be done in october.

OCTOBER. o slap me now! why dont these people just build a new house from scratch at pulau semakau? lots of land there.

dont know what theyre doing too. occasionally i would gaze out of my window trying to figure out what those dudes are knocking about. looks like theyre building a castle, or a lighthouse, who knows? there are all these strange sticks sticking out from NOWHERE, maybe theyre building turrets as well.

and they drill EVERY SINGLE DAY. WHAT IS THERE TO DRILL EVERY SINGLE MINUTE? that is so entirely impossible, unless my neighbours want big holes or polka dots in every corner of their house.

and the people working on the house sing. they SING. at eight in the morning.

it would not be so bad if i KNEW the songs they were singing. however, it is highly unlikely that the people working on the house like weezer.

october. jeez one neighbour after another. theres hardly any peace around here. i guess theyre getting back at us because my dear sibling used to play the drums at ten in the morning.

so about my week.

u know, im good at reading people. im also good at telling when people are hypocritical and when people say nice things to me because they are afraid of me (although WHAT is there to be afraid of, i know i look like a GORGON, but its insane to hear that people are AFRAID of me, like im some kind of monstrous demon, when im really just a tree-hugging, peace-loving homosapien).

ohmylove food! forget my tirade, i am going to get some food.

signed,

sincerely, me

pearlyn silva

FELIZ CUMPLEANOS FERNANDO TORRES!

2008-03-20T20:33:00.007+08:00

sounds like a curse or a potter spell, but its really a pleasant phrase directed to fernando torres.

a phrase that, i dont know, sounds pretty much like...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FERNANDO TORRES!

well well well! it's been FIVE years, and im STILL celebrating fernando's birthday. quite a sad life, i know. o it seemed like just YESTERDAY when fernando was just a 19-year-old with a polka-dotted face, struggling to make a living in one of the most pitiful clubs in the world.

all right, so atletico isnt exactly kosovo. but compared to where he is NOW, wow, so much has changed.

when i first started liking him, he was so skinny and fragile-looking that a thunderstorm would have broken his bones.

now hes all MANLY and SUCCESSFUL and MATURE and BIG-BONED, like a baby dinosaur who has just transformed into an adult dinosaur, and an INTERNATIONALLY-KNOWN SUPERSTAR who is so well-liked that even jamie carragher's son fell for his charms (can't blame the poor lad actually, especially since torres seems to speak more comprehendable english compared to carra).

it is touching really. inspirational indeed. a tear to my eye, just thinking of ol fernando times.

all right all right, i'd better stop before it starts sounding like a eulogy or a death tribute.

so anyway! for this next section, if ur name isnt DON TENG, then u need not have to read this.

HERE YOU GO DON! the long-awaited pictures to cheer u up since uve been so pitiful in the army.

lovely, lovely couple, absolutely inseparable.

and of course, i HAD to put this in so u can feel better about your head injury. look how cool francesco coco looks with that THING on his head!

anyway, remember to HIDE IN THE BUSHES if u hear anything, and BEWARE OF CEILINGS.

ok! forget about don. now let's move back to my world. muahahaha. i think i PULLED various arm muscles yesterday while playing AIR HOCKEY and FOOSBALL (HOW DO U SPELL IT, REMEMBER TO CHECK!). at the same time, im also suffering from BACKACHES and NECKACHES.

HONESTLY, how violent were our games yesterday? i suppose those wushu-type moves i tried to pull while playing air hockey backfired.

one more reason to add to my long list on why i should never ever take up sports. especially since i would pose myself extreme harm (looking at my senseless and entirely ridiculous muscle strains) not to mention what a disastrous hazard i would pose to the people around me (remember pearlyn, NO MORE WUSHU-TYPE STUNTS for ANY sport!)

and to think i wanna take up muay thai. pfft.

btw, im not even trained in wushu, which is what is so worrying.

DIIIIIINNNNEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

i will leave with one last foto. muahahaha.

signed,

sincerely, me

pearlyn silva