Sometimes, I just feel like the black sheep of my family. So I went to a family gathering today, to celebrate a cousins birthday or something of the sort. Problem is, this cousin is about as old as, well, something four years old, so, this mostly turned out to be a kids' party since the other cousins were smart enough to be either a)overseas, b)doing sentry duty in camp or c) mysteriously ill at the time. So, on one end are little kids playing, which I hate right now, because I just have a thing against high pitched voices. On the other, lies my mother and her sisters, along with my aunt who just gave birth, which links to breastfeeding as a perfectly acceptable public conversation topic. Which to me is as taboo as associating Maroon5 with nice music ( I am feeling somewhat bitter after listening to Maroon5's cover of Don't Look Back in Anger, which is absolutely terrible.) And of course, the men have myseriously disappeared too, presumably on wife-forced errands.

I am never going to a family gathering again.

Imagine you could never make a sound for the rest of your life. Not a word, not a whistle, not even a yawn or a snore. You'd just be mute.

Then, imagine you were given one chance to speak. To anyone.

What would you say?

For those still in the dark, MJ lost to VJ 4-2. Though to be frank, the scoreline didn't reflect how close the game it actually was since we were 2-1 up till a red card changed the tide of the match and VJ scored all the goals in something like the last 8 minutes. This might be due to the superior fitness level and size of the VJ players (and maybe the fact that they went for mass shaving), but the match was still a close one, and they should be applauded for how hard they tried.

On an irrelevant note, it seems the key to being popular is to do something so well the rest of the school gets a holiday for it.

---

Life is ultimately a game of resources, and whoever makes the most out of their resources tend to finish the happiest. However, at the most basic level, this would make life pretty boring. For an analogy, let's take sports as an example, since we're having the NBA playoffs and the World Cup right now.

In basketball, it's five guys against five other guys trying to get the ball into the hoop more times than the other team. However, what makes the sport interesting is how they intend to do it. Some teams rely on getting the ball inside for layups and dunks, while others rely on threes to seal the game, since three > two. In soccer, again, the most basic level of play is eleven blokes against eleven blokes trying to push the ball as far up the field as possible and get it into the goal. However, the way they do it again is different. It isn't simply a race to chiong the opponent's goal and every opportunity possible. Some teams play very defensively, looking the catch opponents on a fast break. Some will play for fouls in dangerous areas, looking for goals off set pieces, essentially winning the game at the feet of a great free-kick taker.

Similarly, what makes life interesting is that people find different ways of achieving happiness. Some are happy by being the most popular and attention-attracting person around ; Some like to kick back and laugh at the feeble attempts of the former to do so. Sometimes both parties are happy, and sometimes the law of scarcity demands that one party compromise(be it willingly or unwillingly) to the other can be happy. In terms of resources, many of the things we do in life(which are geared towards future happiness) are in fact a function of the many resources in our life - 1)time 2) money 3) freedom 4) brains. Right now, I don't exactly feel fulfilled in any of these areas. Which sucks.

You know what's scarier that thinking too much?

Thinking too little.

Yep, people like that are everywhere. Living zombies moving through life everyday the same way doing the same things. It's not just the seemingly dead and quiet people either. Even the noisy ones are that way out of force of habit, a need to satisfy their social cravings. These people learn nothing all day long, trapped within their own spheres, tricked into believing they are. This even spreads into the cyber-world of blogging, though I don't think something this obvious needs any stating.

There's something sickeningly scary about being on autopilot all day long. It means that you're doing things without much, if any thought. It means that all that joy, angst and anger you feel on a consistent basis surfaces pretty mcuh because of habit. It means that you're not finding new ways to attract attention and act cool, but that acting cool is part of your protocol because your system would overload if it tried to do anything remotely cerebral or different. It means that you're essentially a machine programmed to behave a certain way. It means that nothing short of a system overhaul is going to save you from this trap. The lucky ones are able to stop themselves early and carry out a virus scan. The unlucky ones also happen to be the stupid ones, the ironic part being that these people often have their noses too high in the air to give a hoot to what happens in the real world. Take a rock out from underneath that mountain, and the world collapses.

Such people would like to think that the rest of the world would be jealous of them. The only thing I feel for them, however, is pity.

---

It's kind of odd that being the fan that I am, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about watching X-men. It just might have something to do with the fact that 3/4 of the movie's been spoilt already.

---

It's also rather strange how some people tend to get more pissed at arguing and conflicting with people online than in real life. Such examples include losing DOTA games, petty online arguments, netstalking friendster profiles and getting outbidded on a yahoo! auction, among other things. For some reason, you don't feel to inclined to start a fight in real life because then you'd be doing so with a real person, in front of many real people, and a pair of real handcuffs on your wrists.

When it comes to computers, however, you take whatever indignance you'd have, multiply that by about 10. A computer is meant to be an inanimate object, nowhere near to achieving the greatness that humans have accomplished. Which is what makes losing to it so much more infuriating, even if you do know deep down that somewhere on the other end is another human smirking at your obvious inferiority. It also makes you that much more brave when you're hiding behind a screen ; After all, you can always disclaim responsibility, or get back through other means, such as spreading of viruses and whatnot. To make things even better, you'd have no risk of being hurt, theres no strings attached, and you avoid real life confrontations.

No wonder the government is taking internet surveillance so seriously ; It does, after all, bring out the aggression in all of us, even the cowards.

How utterly random.

Right now, there's less and less motivation to bother with coming to school. It is, however, too late to start registering for poly, so even if I backed out now I'd be left with a huge pocket of time between now and NS.

To put it simply, the cogs of fate are starting to turn. And fate is out to screw me. And there isn't much I can do about it, the non-believer that I am.

It seems I can find something to be pissed about these days. Which can't be good for my life, brain or my hairline, for that matter. You'd think that I'd be happy to step down from choir, what with not having to care anymore. Well, I'm not. Not because I suddenly realised I fell in love with choir, but because the way they handed over was completely and utterly crummy. The one thing the exco could have done properly and they still find a way to screw things up. What can I say.

---

I need a purpose in life. Real soon.

Singapore Idol is on right now, and quite frankly, it's excruciating. It gets even more painful when those who are supposedly good aren't actually. It is, however, above-average entertainment, in a gothic sort of fashion, where you derive enjoyment from seeing people so incredibly bad it makes your hair stand, get up, grow legs and jump off my body. In the long run however, this probably leads to balding, but hey, I'm an arts student for a reason.

Another point to note is that despite there being an apparent Chinese majority at the audition, the ones who got in are at most half chinese. If anything, the chinese people are the ones being made fun of half the time. Maybe this says something about chinese people and singing. Maybe.

Okay, screw that, they just showed the guy holding the note for like forever. Not to mention they're making a game out of this now. "Spot the fake model"? This is getting more and more degrading yet entertaining by the minute.

---

I really should be doing my work right now. Ah yes, the powers of the idiot box.

Silver has taken pretty bad knockings lately. I mean, look at it. It looks good ; In fact, it's quite flashy. It's rare enough to be considered relatively valuable, and it's unreactive and malleable enough to be a good choice for jewelry. Everything would be perfect in the Silver Age or a Silver World.... That is, if it wasn't for gold. Because of gold, silver has been associated with second place, or the "first loser" position, much like the Worker's Party is acknowledged as "most powerful association to not overthrow the PAP". It's always been the gold medal, followed by the silver medal, without any other deviation. A silver anniversary is twenty-five years. However, that only makes it half as good as a gold anniversary.

With the advent of "white gold" and platinum, widely judged to be more valuable, silver has been relegated to being a title for 2nd place, the last name of the guy who makes all the action movies and half the name of a popular surf brand, among other irrelevant terms. Even the phrase "every cloud has a silver lining" makes you wonder just how useful that silver lining is going to be, after all, you'd rather it be platinum.

Which brings us back to the argument we can make that's actually relevant today : What's so bad about being 2nd place? Overobsessed parents, psychotic education staff and paranoid students are all getting in on the action, seeing as how there's a need to have a portfolio thicker than a Dan Brown novel to do anything with your life, but even then, the definition of "doing something with your life" is highly debatable. Quite frankly, doing things for the sake of showing how good you are is utterly pointless ; After all, those who are actually good wouldn't feel the need to do all this. That's what makes them so hard to distinguish from slackers. So you manage to bluff people into thinking you're smarter and more capable than you actually are. Big deal. In the end, it's the results that counts, so if you have to rely on other things to get you anywhere, that says a lot about, well, everything about you.

It is, however, only human nature to be competitive. But when the argument for being pissed at a average grade is that "it's not good" and the argument for grumbling at a good grade is that "it's not great" and the argument for crying over 2nd place is that "it's not first", it makes me wonder if there's something inherently wrong with human nature itself.

Oh yes, one more thing about the NS checkup : Army people have some of the most monotonous jobs. ever.

Of all the instructions I received there, the most common instruction was to read the printed instructions on the table/wall/whatever. Yeah, they tell you to read a piece of paper and send you on your way. Unless you're being told to drop your pants actually, which led to a really embarassing exchange between me and the medical officer. It would probably disgust people if I put it here, but I'd tell you in person if you ask.

---

It's times like these where I feel completely useless. Even a couple of words from me would have made the situation so much more easy, so much more convenient.

Life sucks, and it's all we can do to plod through it. And if it makes you feel better, all those assholes and tyrants have to as well.

If the medical checkup did anything to me, it pissed me off real good. It did, however, bring about a certain amount of wrong satisfaction. Describing the entire situation would not be much more than a good cure of insomnia, leaving your face imprint on the keyboard the next day.

(I will admit I'm not very good with narrations, so please skip this unless you're really bored)

The eye doctors had fun playing with my eyes. First, they told me to sit down, and after the routine eye checks with I 6/6'ed, they shined a torch into my eye, to check for pupil imbalance or something. They then proceed to argue whether my pupils are actually imbalanced and argue that my eyes aren't big enough to give a proper reading. Assholes. They managed to do this for 20 minutes, too, until their superior came along telling them about the big queue behind me and telling them about the skin to the right on my nose being thicker than that on the left, hence I optical illusion'ed them without even knowing it.

The conclusion to that? Not much, actually.

Blood testing, however, was awfully fun.

"Eh, gimme your hand."
"OW!"
"Eh, you forgot to tell him it would hurt again ah?"

Ah yes, and then there was what made my day.

"See your feet? Wah, quite flat ah, you experience pain when you run?"
"Um, yeah."
"Because of your feet"
"Yah."
"Okay, I'm putting you in PES C"
"Ok"

Final result, modified BMT for me. Good times! Though not being able to upgrade for higher pay kinda stings, but little money for no effort is better than lots money for more effort.

Oh, and they put me in a room to take a bunch of tests too. I must say it was rather useless, albeit a good time-wasting avenue.

---

Ok, school is becoming a chore now. Think having to clean your room, but add a roomful of talkative teachers telling you how to do it at the same time.

Ohno, I have my ns checkup tomorrow! Which is rather creepy, but it also means missing lessons legitimately, which in MJC is like plucking the forbidden fruit.

And if all the myths I've heard are real, I'll either be coming out traumatised or so bored I'll be dying to come back to school, which seems awfully unlikely right now.

Okay, but it's also true I really need to get back to school soon, my brain is rotting faster a teenager's eyes from watching too much OC.

"Hey I'm bored, wanna do some integration?"

I am never studying with or anywhere near RJC people. Ever. Again.

Some random equations, since I probably should be practicing my math while I embark on my FIVE-day weekend. Yes, admit it. You're jealous. *big, toothy grin*

Gourmet Tierney's = Best. Supermarket. Ever.
Girl's + Toilets = Hours
Choir people + bus = No sleep for the average Insomniac
Wilfred + Dancing = Zero
Statistics . Integration = Frustration
School day - school = pon
Concert = No voice
Teachers + blogs = NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

ok time to actually go do something useful

Aaaaand I can't sleep again. Now be blogging about not being able to sleep well seems to be a recurring trend, but don't expect it to end anytime soon. I know I don't, what with this week being public embarassment week for wilfred.

First the stupid incident in econs lect where a popular voucher was mistaken for an NYDC voucher by a Random Female Classmate(TM), but admittedly, I kinda brought that upon myself. And then it landslided rather inevitably into lit lect, I might be a rather jolly fellow, but asking me to participate in a laughing contest is like asking Ashlee Simpson to actually sing.

And of course there was choir concert. For those who don't know, just ask anyone who was there about what happened towards the end with the guy with the tie on his hat. No, you won't sound stupid.

If my self esteem were personified, it would be an Oompa-Loompa right now.

I am going to spend the rest of my week at home.

Oh, shit.

Insomnia will be the bane of me. Just when I thought I could happily return the debts I owe to the Z man, he proceeds to sweep the carpet off from under me and send me back to the real world.

Yeah, that sucks. Not being able to sleep is bad, really bad. Ecspecially when you have a concert to try and perform at the next day.

Then again, the sudden burst of alertness today felt pretty good.

However, the sudden trend of blogging also means that I'm degrading into a bad blogger again, due to the lack of intelligent entries and bad humour.

---

It's amazing how we all look back at the past and spend time dwelling on it, some more than others. When you think about the past, you think of big moments in your life. Not to the rest of the world, but to yourself. It could involve winning(or losing) a huge competition. Or getting together with that delicious hottie{ / bimboticness}. However, the end result is always the same : All that happens is you lying on your bed, thinking what you could have done in retrospect and dwelling over it while wallowing in self-pity, conveniently ignoring the fact that hindsight is always 20-20. Either that, or you happily smile to yourself, giving people the impression that you're incredibly crazy or slightly off your rocker;trust me, i speak from experience. However, the things that people think about most are the little things that happen : the things that make them laugh. Joy fades out and life goes on as usual, setbacks are easily forgotten and overcome, betrayal is forgiven and forgotten and love burns out, but comedy is golden.

---

Embarassing myself during lectures is no fun.

Elections are over. Somehow, I'm not really surprised it's 82 to 2 again. However, it's also reported that the opposition's proportion of votes increased too, which can only mean good times because more money is going to be handed out next time elections draw near.

The newspaper(i forgot which one), however, did publish and article to tell everyone who the "top losers" were. I'm not too sure about this, but that seems awfully rude, almost like "Oh Damn! You were so close but since you lost anyway I'm going to put your face in my newspaper so the public can look at your face and smile happily to themselves!"

At the same time, I also recall how the newspapers decided to tip the election in the PAP's favour a while back by announcing that Chiam Swee Tong was facing a real challenge by a guy named Sitoh or something along those lines. What really irked me about the article was that the first word they used to describe him was "lively". It could just be me, but how "lively" can an election candidate who's likely to be upwards of 50 be? I mean, knocking on everyone's doors with a big toothy grin hardly justifies as being "lively", and neither does putting up posters all over the place. The weirdest part was the vote for that GRC wasn't even close. Sitoh wasn't even on the aforementioned "most creditable losers" page.

---

Okay, I really should be concentrating on my work right now. I'd like some willpower,please. Anybody got extra to spare?

And so it seems I'm continuing to backpedal. While people are working harder and harder on their essays and whatnots, I continue to sink into deeper pools of slack juice which disable me from doing anything more than eating and sleeping outside of my own home. Outside of that, listening to old music has become a new-found pleasure, seeing as sources of good music are going the way of dinosaurs, the dodo and democracy.

That being said, simple plan, blink 182 and other such bands are still terrible. Fort minor, however, is passable at least.

---

There's an awfully strange thunderstorm around my area now. Well, technically, I can't call it a thunderstorm, because I can't hear any thunder at all, just flashes and flashes of lightning. Of course, maybe it's because I'm listening to music on earphones, but that's not the point now, isit?

Wait, what was the point again?

---

I really hope stepping down day comes really soon, because choir is becoming more and more disgusting and awfully gothic.

I forgot to mention, periods with Silas and Daniel have been much fun, I've been laughing till my face muscles feel sore. Where Daniel is concerned, teasing just gets taken to a whole new dimension.

I've been hit by a terrible bout of insomnia!

This means that a) I can't concentrate and b) I can't sleep either, which sucks for a bum like me. If you want to put me in hell and want me to suffer forever and ever, just give me a curse to never fall asleep. Perhaps the sleep that never comes is worse than the one that never ends.

---

Honestly, I wish the elections would just be over by now. It's bad enough that we don't get a school holiday because MJ is too selfish to open itself up for voting(probably untrue, it probably isn't good enough or something anyway), it's even worse that those weird white people are going around pretending to actually do something. Maybe if I spill curry on them they'll wither away or something.

It's not like the worker's party is going to win anyway, they seem to be shooting themselves in the foot more than promoting their cause anyway.

---

Seriously, this is getting rather tiresome. Time to go on a vacation. Maybe a permanent one.

Oh no, I can't sleep!

This does not bode well for the coming resumption of school life starting in oh, I don't know, 4 hour's time? Not to mention it's a long day with choir to top it off too. Man, this sucks.

---

Elections are coming up this weekend, and the newspapers are reporting more and more weaknesses in the opposition's arguments. Not surprising, of course, given that the media right now is obliged to help the PAP, since we all know that the PAP is going to win and propogating against them right now would be blesphemous.

Seriously, though, when is Singapore going to see actual changes?

---

In the world today, images count towards first impressions, and first impressions are everything, so that must make images really really important, right? While this might be true in technical terms, it's also true that people choose boyfriends and girlfriends based purely on looks, which is bullshit. Not that I'm jealous, as certain snobbish and prude people might say.

Say these two people like each other and get together because they like how each other look, gender notwithstanding. Suppose they get married now. In 20 years time, they're either going to be divorced or not having a happy marriage, because once these looks wear off, there's nothing in the relationship left for either of them, and hence we're left with two ugly people who hate each other. Not that I'm saying people get uglier as they grow older. When looking for a life partner, I'd reckon someone you can grow old and wrinkly with and still love would be good as opposed to someone you'd start getting irritated with really quickly. Being left on the shelf because you're stuck with a kid isn't a very pleasant experience. Even worse is when you've been in so many superficial affairs that people don't go near you anymore because they think you're either a bitch or an asshole(which is true in many such cases, actually, though you don't really need it to be a bitch, MJ proves this really well. To think these people still complain about the gossip surrounding them, the idiots).

This isn't to say that loving at a young age is a bad thing ; John Dunne already disproved that, and who am I to argue with him? The bad thing is loving too much, lest you lose sight of what's really important in this world. Love may be a really nice way to feel, but it's too easily manipulated and twisted to enjoy fully.

How incredibly random.