How true.

As much as I would like to remain 17 forever, having to sneak unabashedly into M18 and R21 movies, I guess we just have to accept that growing up is not a choice, and every day, whether we like it or not, is one day closer to dying from dysfunctional body parts, one day closer to being dumped into an old folk's home by unfilial children, one day closer to losing jet black hair(be it to aging or to NS), one day closer to waking up finding brown spots and stretch marks on your skin, one day closer to realising how dreadfully outdated your fashion sense is, and one day closer to.....death. Which I'll probably be looking forward to, just to see what the afterlife holds. Maybe I'll earn a "get out of Hell free" ticket along the way.

Do you ever realise how as time passes, whatever you liked about your old friends disappears without a trace, and all their qualities that were irksome somehow still manages to remain? Somehow, it's so much harder to get rid of bad things than good ones. While Steve Irwin gets murdered by an arbritrary marine animal(face it, he had it coming - Just that the stingray was unexpected), Paris Hilton, Colin Farrell and almost every other US president will almost undoubtedly live to a ripe old age, but not before wreaking unmerciful havoc on the world before them in the form of bad policies, bad music and even worse movies. (Alexander - Ouch.)

Yep, I hate birthdays now, because birthdays are a beacon of the passage of time. And we all know time is a bitch. If you disagree, try disagreeing again 50 years from now. I'll be lying in my coffin.

Alright, alright. I have no mood whatsoever to launch into deep-thinking, reflective entries right now. I do, however, like this picture alot, and as the old cliche goes, "a picture paints a thousand words". Soon, we'll be looking at "Battle Cruisers - When Imperial Tanks just don't cut it", "Storm Vessels - When Battle Cruisers just don't cut it" and "Chuck Norris - When nothing else cuts it".

---

So, it's been a while since the A levels were over! The chains that held us back have been cut loose! The door to the open world of possibilities has opened, revealing with it a land for us to conquer! The Bollywood villain has finally learnt how to shoot! Kanye West is a jackass! I'm screaming random statements!

Aside from that, I haven't really been doing much. Along with graduation is the loss of an identity.(Apparently, you can't spell identity without tit.) And without an identity, purpose is lost as well, as life becomes a mash-up of random occurences in which people try to derive a definition of the meaning of their existence, be it a doctor, a pilot, an army general, a criminal, a voodoo-doll manufacturer who specialises in Courtney Love dolls, the imperial general, the vacuumer of the Rug of Existence, the guy who tells people that they're the last team to arrive, the tribe has spoken, and so on.

I have 2 months to find myself, before I run off to Tekong and proclaim myself the most reluctant soldier ever.

That pretty much explains what I'll be doing to my notes sometime in the near future. Obviously I don't have the same gorgeous countenance, long flowing hair and ample boob job, neither am I able to cast blue lighting against myself at wil, I have an irrational fear of candles and I don't know Batman personally, but you get the idea.

That being said, the end of A levels(Ok, while I can still say it : HAHA S-paper people) wasn't so much a "YAYYYY omg teh As r 0v3r Eiiiii can eeuuuussseeee 4|| e b4d 3N9lIsH Eiiii wan now worx worx worx ^_^" but rather an "Eh? It's over?" as I clamour for further chances to redeem myself or face the dire consequences of retaking my A levels in a green uniform on a random off-shore island. (On a side note, aren't all islands off-shore? I mean, if an island wasn't off-shore it would be on-shore, which wouldn't make it an island.)

Needless to say, I see many dead directors producing movies for my subconscious at night. (Read: Nightmares.)

So what is it about humans that makes them like blowing stuff up and causing carnage? Deep down inside, most of us, at some point of time, have at some point wanted to make something explode that doesn't involve diet coke and mentos. Human civilisation, and for the most part, human success and endeavor has been fueled by the meticulous construction entailed in building society. The elaborate plans involved in technogical advances and construction of structures. By blowing things up, Man not only undermines his own progress but at the same time gives up time that could be better used. So why do this?

The first thing that we need to understand is that despite all the inspirational talk you hear, from people such as politicians, Oprah, Bono, Superman, Martin Yan and William Hung, Man does not operate as a race. They are split up into factions according to varying biases, for example territory, and each faction seeks to improve its own state. Oppotunity cost dictates that one can only improve on his position by using others as sacrificial lambs. So, in theory, by plunging people around you into a pigsty of faeces or a CD shop playing Kevin Federline(whichever is worse) you'd make your state comparatively better, and since the world is driven by people, comparison is all that matters. And if you're bigger, you'd have the means to wipe other out. If America controlled half the world, do you think they'd stop there? So, a superiority complex might make people do malicious things.

However, an inferiority complex, while being the complete opposite, would achieve the same effect. The thing about burning, explosions in general, is that when applied with enough reckless abandon, you get the same result. Burn a piece of paper, you get ashes. Burn a tree, you get ashes. Burn a CD, you get ashes.(Well, technically no, but not the point.)Burn an Iron Chef, you get ashes. Burn a house, you get ashes. Burn a stapler hard enough, you still get ash. The point is, destruction can show and remind us that ultimately, all of us are reduced to a very basic element(not in chemical terms kthx). This means that being inferior, you have less to lose from retaliation by blowing stuff up. Inferiority comlex also leads to suicidal tendencies, which would explain the net result as well.

So you say, wouldn't everyone being equal solve everything? Well, humans are selfish. They would continually look to improve their position, and those who don't are forced to as a result of being victimised if they don't. Which would then trigger off a chain of imbalance which would lead to stuff being blown up(I do believe that Iraq is just waiting to fire off their explosives.) And that is how the world shall end.

---

Played some ball today! The more appealing option than awkwardly sauntering around vivo city pretending to be gay to explain being with 10 girls at once. However, the fact does remain that I'm only really good at ball when my team has the odd-numbered advantage(overkill) or when I'm really, really lucky. I mean, rabbit-foot-on-each-toe-and-horse-shoe-on-each-foot lucky. And my shooting skills still remain about as competent as Monty Python and the Holy Grail's Black Knight, post decapitation, trying to do an econs essay.

People make errors all the time. There's no denying that. But sometimes, people just won't admit it. This can be done in a variety of ways that would bring Wal-Mart to its knees - Defiant denial, deflection of blame, breaching of opposing credibility, ignorance, and so on.

You see, admitting mistakes is more than just distinguishing between yes and no, right or wrong, white or black, Macdonald's and KFC, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie(Eh.. they're both wrong actually), Godzilla and King Kong, the Care Bears and the Power Rangers or pretty girls and smart girls. When you admit you make a mistake, you're not just admitting you made a mistake. You admit that you're capable of making a mistake. You demonstrate your lack of decision-making competency. You display a lack of luck. Most of all, you present the possibility that it might happen again.

Yet, there are altogether valid reasons for such pompous behaviour. Some mmothers feel they absolutely need to be good role models to their kids, and one aspect of being a good person to emulate is never being wrong. Others do it to save time that would otherwise be spend arguing with their kids, though the "Don't talk to me like that","I'm your parent, do not question me" and other such arguments have always been flimsy at best. Sometimes, it's a question of national pride. If Bush admits the US is wrong, he is also admitting US inadequacy, which would then threaten American stranglehold on World Power.

However, conflict arises when both parties decide that no quarter shall be given. So, to settle their argument, other methods are taken, some useful, some completely irrelevant. A debate is not pitting countering ideologies against each other as much as it is a contest of merciless brainwashing and browbeating. War isn't a test of ruling methods, it's simply a way of punishing others for having opposing views, sometimes by nothing but sheer overwhelmage. Wonder why nobody was ever able to conquer Russia?

Sadly, might almost always never means right, because the usage of might is wrong for the most part. So, what happens is that a conflict is never "a man-to-man thing", "grown-up's business", "child's play" or "Ultraman's final 3 minutes in which he shall mercilessly kick thge bad guy's butt". External parties get sucked in like genitals to a hooker's mouth, whether they like it or not. People die as a result of overbearing monarchs with overinfalted egos that threaten to brust in a river of fire at any moment. You could say that scientific advances have been made as a result of people eager to prove themselves tothe world, but the fact is that egos have caused far more destruction than creation. Not to mention they're a pain in the ass to deal with, too.

An ego is the most destructive thing man can have right now. Stupid egos.

One of the greatest powers in the world is social proof. In our world this can be called fads, fashions or "never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups". What this means is that if people are enjoying something, that means it's fun. Or something along those lines.

Perhaps our world isn't as capitalist as we thought, and free choice is nothing more than an illusion to make the masses happy. If you give the masses free choice, and they all gravitate towards the same direction anyway, there really isn't much of a difference.

Case in point : There are an awful lot of people(more than one isolated case) who don't have cable television, and hence are unable to watch Rockstar Supernova, and may not even have heard the music before, but are blindly strung along just because friends tell them it's good. You could attribute this to trusting your friends, but at the end of the day you're still being strung along. I won't deny that it's a fairly good show, easily dwarfing anything Singapore can come up with. But. If you're going to herald it as the best "bla blah blah" since "blah blah blah", you could at least give the show some dignity by watching it first. As you can tell, I've given up on listening to people for a while now.

As some of you might or might not know, Ryan Star came to Singapore recently. Now, he's not actually anybody big, nor is he exceptional. But the fact that he's a "rockstar" does get everyone excited, because, hey, he's a ROCKSTAR! That's pretty much it. It's effectively nothing but the social stigma of being a rockstar, kind of like a reverse poserism - It actually works. You have no idea how many idiots will act like fanatics just to say "I got a picture with ______!" for the simple fact that _____ is famous. Once again, social proof and reflected glory for people who can't get any of their own and can't live without it. For reference, please listen to "my band" by Eminem and d12.

Obviously, social proof, or "fashion trends", as the more conservative analytical may call it, is also behind some of the world's most shameful acts. Notice how protestors always show up in bulk. Some of theese protestors may in fact be indifferent, but seek a sense of unity with the community. If everyone is angry, then I need to be angry too, they think. In a similar sense, "There are so many shameless groupies nowadays, I should be one too!" or "Skimpy clothes are the in-thing right now, how can I not follow the trend?" The "Kiasu" mentatlity of Singaporeans plays a big part too, as it makes the problem even worse as nobody wants to lose out in any way. And it's eating the world alive.

And they say morality is still alive in this world. I'm not sure how it works, but just because everyone around you is/dresses like a slut does not give you the license to follow them and be both an idiot and a slut. In fact, it makes you look even dumber because the people who started it actually might be able to pull it off respectably, which probably can't be said for supposed imitators. People might say it's their choice and they dress how they like, but then it's not really their choice anymore, because in their minds they absolutely need to follow the crowd. And at the end of the day, society becomes a mish-mash of moral disasters, imitation DVDs that lack quality, and this bleeds all over, as you start to realise that nobody thinks differently anymore, opinions diluted by the wave of sociality. Such a trend takes away individuality, personal dignity and ultimately integrity, and trades it off for an invisible hollowness that people don't notice until it's too late.

---

On a side note, please attend my funeral when it happens.Most likely on A level results day.

Areas to focus for Paper 2 (Case study and DRQ)

1. Demand and Supply; Elasticities ; Max and min price

2. Standard of Living and measures of income ( e.g. GDP & GNP)

- measures

- differences between Money income and real income

3. Balance of Payments � structure and items affecting e.g. international trade, direct foreign investment

4. Oil Market and China Effect

-MJC Econs dept.

For those who took the paper, you know how the story went after that. For those who didn't, bring Murphy's Law in.

Germany? Water? Really?

Well, the shock didn't actually sink in until the examiner said "pens down", at which I had an urge to exercise the age-old pun by getting up and taking off and taking off my lower garments, but decided against it since I already got caught with my metaphorical pants down.

The articles were complete nonsense too. The world doesn't have enough water, so now it has to restructure itself so it can trade in virtual water? Next thing you know you'll be eating virtual food, burning virtual calories and dying a virtual death. And I'm sure nobody saw the article about Indian marble coming either. As if India wasn't blind-sidingly weird on its own, a state 99% of the world probably hasnt even head of has to be in it, with an equally redundant industry as well.

If nothing else, it's good to know that some people in the world have marble, I know i've lost mine by now.

I wouldn't go so far as to say the lit paper was "exceedingly simple", "too easy" or some other quotable term ; You'd think that if they went through such measures to make it idiot proof, they probably would've tried to make it Wilfred-proof too. Sadly, no. Thirteen pages of chicken scratches later and I knew I could kiss my A for lit, place on the powerpoint presentation, concert tour and marraige to Jessica Alba goodbye.

Well, looks like it's a career in the army for me.

You know, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any insecurities and fears for the As. I mean, as a mediocre 3-subber my potential is already somewhat limited, and I don't really fancy spending an extra 3 years of my life somewhere dumb like SIM or poly. If current events are anything to go by, that's 10% of my life gone right there.

Then again, fears and insecurities aren't really excuses in as unfeeling a world as this - It's what you do with these fears and insecurities that matters, since society only cares about the end rather than the means - After all, a successful asshole is still successful. Fear, for some, act as a motivator, because the feeling that you're knee deep in trouble does make the mind more keen to salvage. For some, however, fear paralyses, rendering the being helpless. The worst kind of brain is one in stasis.

I'm the type who won't be triggered into a lack of action because of fear, but rather, an excess of it. When the mind wanders and the body takes over, there really isn't much I can do about it. So the A's for me are a test of how clever my body is and not how agile my mind is.

Ooohhhhh shit.

---

Every time I listen to it, Welcome to the Black Parade sounds more and more like a cheap imitation of Bohemian Rhapsody. Hmmmm.

On a side note, however, Cable TV on saturday nights is pretty good. The Tonight show? Whose Line is it anyway? Soccer? Celebrity Deathmatch?(In particular, I liked Christian Bale vs Adam West)(For those who do not know, Adam West is the star of the old, and extremely corny live -actionBatman series. The one with the corny tune and the worded sounds.) Wow.

Adding new questions to the "Things I want to know but will never find out" list...



Why do some middle-aged/old men like to pee in a queer manner? They pull their pants halfway down so the entire toilet, whether they like it or not, has to look at them in carying degrees of sickening indecency, stand like ten metres away from the damn urinal, spread their legs like you thought only hookers and secreteries can, and when they actually get down to peeing they have to thrust their hips forward and bend their legs. That is a thousand different types of obscene. Are they doing it because they have weak knees? Because their sight is failing them? Because they want to create the image of huge genitals.....in front of other males?Really?

Related to the previous question, why do the majority of old men have to clear their throats at a roughly equivalent volume to a rock concert? Why do they have to rush for every public transport seat available, even willing to push past/barge through/obnoxiously block/menacingly glare at every one to do it? Do they really think the world owes them a living? I don't mind respecting elders, but time has proven time and time again(HAHAH PUN) that age is not exactly a measure of, well, anything. Not even wrinkles. Ecspecially when these people prove they don't really deserve the respect they believe they are due.

On another note, I think I saw another hot tranny today. Well, at least I think I did, because this person was standing between the male and female toilets, quite obviously pondering which one to enter. In case any of you are wondering I haven't been developing a tranny fetish of some sort, they've just been popping up somewhat more regularly late that I can't help but take notice. So no, not my fault.

I walked past a transvestite today. It scared the shit out of me. Not just the act of walking past him/her/them, but him/her/them as well. To be fair, he/she/them actually looked quite good in tight ripped jeans, black top....until the mobile phone rang. If her voice was any deeper, I'd be off my feet as a result of the ground trembling. Thank goodness it was a one-of experience.

Would anyone care to tell me why trannies look better than real women?

---

I got orange juice in my eye today.

Now, that wouldn't seem painful altogether, but when one considers that orange juice contains citrus acid....

Yeah, ouch.

Alright, I should go rest my eyes soon. Don't want parallax error or some other eye-related screwup interfering with A levels. Then again, since I'm going to fuck around anyway, why not do it on the big stage?

Hmm...

Surprisingly, the paper didn't turn out to be all that bad, compared to the earlier monstrosities previously unleashed. Apart from the question I unnecessarily skipped and subsequently gave up on, the rest of it was pretty much fine. Well, it seemed fine anyway. If I double check and still get the answers wrong, then I don't deserve a good grade anyway, because it means I totally stink anyway. I am, however, pretty confident of getting a decent grade. English lesson of the day : Good more positive connotation than decent.

Calculator-Fu wasn't tested as much as I aniticipated, but I guess that's a good thing. As someone who has trouble typing coherently as a keyboard a calculator resembles a torture device more than a profit-adding tool.

On a brighter note, to hell with math! I don't see how I'm going to need it anytime in the near future, not unless hell consists of all the burned TYSes over the years anyway. Which just might be plausible, if the idea of hell money actually going to hell actually holds true.

---

Reference : http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2069849.html?menu=

The Quadruple Bypass Burger has four slabs of beef weighing 2lbs, three cheese layers, four bacon rashers, lettuce and tomato.

The Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Arizona, has wheelchairs to carry customers out of the restaurant.

Customers can also order the smaller Triple Bypass Burger and Flatliner fries cooked in pure lard.

According to the Sun a spokesman said: "You have to be a real man to dine here."

...

That has got to be the most pleasurable suicide mission ever. Over 3 days worth of calories in one sitting? Gimme! If nothing else, it's the experience that counts. Uberburger's got nothing on this.

---

Coming soon - The Lean, Mean, Economic Machine! or, why Wilfred is never going to touch get rich.

As much as I'd like to don oversized clothes, put on overexaggerated bling and start writing a song about how screwed up my life is hoping to get mysteriously scouted into the entertainment industry, the rare instance of common sense has told me that I should be trying to unfuck my life as opposed to wallowing in my misery. That, and being talent scouted in Singapore is one of those distinct, dubious and slightly embarassing honours - Kind of like being in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest time spent in a bathtub full of maggots.

2 Papers have passed so far - Three, if you split GP into 2 papers. On a scale of 1 to 10 with ten being the hardest, I'd rate this as a |22i + 18j - 10k|, not only because the untrained eye would have palpitations trying to figure this out, thus giving him/her/it a glimpse of how helpless I felt during the papers, but also because I probably am on a completely different tangent from the paper itself - The paper says "gogogo get your free marks", I go "duh,wilfred stupid" and start talking to myself while the troubled onlooker believes I am frantically composing tongue-twisters.

In case none of that makes sense(and I'm positive it doesn't), you can read it as "What in Jurassic Park was that?!"

Great. Now I feel as hungry as a dinosaur, and with any luck, as stupid and clumsy too.

---

"You are in control of your own destiny."

Such a phrase is often used as a motivational technique to get delinquents to start working, working students to work harder and M.Night Shyamalan to make good movies, which sadly enough has yet to happen. Such a phrase works because it gives people the idea of human empowerment, that they are dictators in at least someone's life, that they actually have some control over a small portion of their world, sadly not a Baltic nation, but at this point anything will do. When people feel powerful, they feel inclined to use it. People work to avoid living a life of solitude by getting drunk in bad social games which at the end can work to give others a worse impression that hermeticism ever did. People work to avoid poverty, and wind up being distracted from the important things in life. Even at our level, "not getting into uni" is also a common threat to press the branding iron onto the asses of hapless students.

Notice the trend? Negativity seems to be a better motivator that its underrated estranged cousin. With enough negativity, anyone can be motivated through fear into doing something. To avoid a lack of education, to avoid poverty, to avoid death, to avoid having to watch Westlife in concert a second time, the list goes on. It could be social conditioning or a history of evolution, but it seems that the human mind is more conditioned to register negativity than positivity. Rather than the soothing image of angels picking the being up to the pearly gates of heaven with an acoustic arrangement and a singing choir in the background, people are more motivated to worship by the thought of little red imps jabbing them with pitchforks en route to meeting the Harbinger of Suffering, the Fallen angel, the evil to end all evils and the inventor of the pentagram, the devil himself.

Compare this and our society as opposed to the American society that preceded the Great Depression, where everyone was living the American Dream, thinking only of the joy they would be privy to and what would happen the next day, and you'd realise that negativity drives the world more effectively than a positive outlook. People don't fix their computers so it will achieve optimal performance ; They do it because if they don',t "The RKO will cause an MDO in the main RFH terminal which will cause the ISP to be rerouted to the PJI via the BNN and the EHD will crash, causing the CPU to explode". The abbreviations don't even have to exist because people will be scared sufficiently be someone who seems to know what he's talking about - Sometimes, we don't even know what we're afraid of. Low crime may not mean no crime, but if you live in an area where there's next to no transport with significantly richer neighbours, there really isn't anything to be afraid of.

Something tells me there isn't really much to be afraid of in this world ; Unless you're the type that gets intimidated by superficial situations, many of our fears are unfounded. You're not pretty enough, or rather, too ugly, to get targeted by perverts, I'm not rich enough to get tricked by a conman, she's fat no matter what colour or dress she wears, Man U is not going to win and get him a bucketload of money, the list goes on. Even if one of this so-called fears does end up being realised, nobody really ends their lives because of such things, because humans want to avoid the ultimate consequence- death.

---

Coming soon - Statistics, Probability and a test of Wilfred's Calculator-Fu!

(On a side note : I mistyped my name four times, then spelt calculator at the first go. Hmmm.)

Conscience says:
Surreee, pick 3 days before the math paper to realise you suck at maths, huh? I knew the B for
maths was a fluke but did you listen? Noooo, instead you decided it would better a better idea to make like a polar bear and hibernate half the time, huh? And spend the other half puffing your head up and boosting your ego? Don't blame it on me if you have to turn sideways to enter the exam hall. So you can prove yourself wrong and promptly hand up such a stinker no amount of freshener is going to do anything about it.

Heart says:
Don't listen to him, all he does is sit around all day and discourage people. You know you can do it, you've got the fire in the belly, so just go out there ace those papers!

Belly says:
On the contrary, my blood pumping friend. He's drunk so much cold water lately that the fire's been put out. Well, that's what I would say if there was any fire in the first place. All the fire's in the disco, baby!

Brain says:
Stuff it, all of you. Wilfred is going to ace this paper, and none of you are going to do anything to stop this. Not Heart, not belly, not big toe, not any random jackass he might know, NO ONE. Do we understand?

Left Hand says:
No, you stuff it. If you ask me to write another 9 pages in 90 minutes at 9 degrees celsius I'm going to follow the example of the Addams family hand and plop off on my own, and your going to have to teach my retarded twin how to write.

Brain says:
Point taken. No more redundant writing. I'll implement quality control as soon as all 3 brain cells assemble for the annual meeting.

Conscience says:
Are you kidding?! This is the time where we'll have to work overtime. If he ends up tossing chicken into boiling oil for a living it's gonna be on you both, lefty and pinky.

Brain says:
I'm grey, you fool. Besides-

Right Hand says:
Duh... Hey! Somebody just insulted me!

Jaw says:
Hey, stop it, mofo! It was lefty! Just let me go back into slack mode, will ya?

Fashion sense says:
Sure, if you wanna look like a bumbling idiot, go ahead. Not like his fashion sense isn't already the greatest travesty of the world. If you're going to make him fail guys, please at least make him look good doing it.

Heart says:
Shut up! Nobody is going to make Wilfred fail! HOW COULD YOU EVEN HAVE SUCH THOUGHTS? IF I WERE BRAIN I'D COME UP WITH A MILLION DIFFERENT WORDS TO DESCRIBE HOW...APPALLED...I...AM...

Kidneys say:
I've just about taken enough shit, let's get him!

Eyes say:
You know what? Let's just end this right now. I'm closing for the day!

All:
Noooo.....must....redeem....self..and....do....math....*slump*

Such is the internal conflict I have when I attempt to do work. Which would kind of explain what the hell I'm doing online now when I've just realised how bad my pure maths is.

Am I the only one who finds this funny? (if its not clear just click on it, i think it'll enlarge. I think.)

---

You know, yesterday I woke up, looked at the clock and almost went back to sleep. That was before the Mike Tyson part of me started hitting me in the brain saying "It's A levels, foo!" If a mental image of a big black man towering over you doesn't jolt you up, I don't know what will. Ecspecially when said man has a reputation for biting the ears off people. If you're wondering if it scares the wits out of you, it just might. I know I lost mine during the actual exam.

Seems like only a short time ago when I was still doing homework just for the sake of doing them to keep crazy mid-life-crisis-stricken women off my back. All of that seems so minute and insignificant now; Not that they weren't before, but it seems such a distant memory. In a few short days we're never going to need those notes anymore, and we can do what we want with them - Burn them and wave the smoke towards Indonesia, save on toilet paper for the next ten years, cheap footrests, the list goes on.

This, obviously, leads to the "temporary problem, permanent solution" problem. While a solution may seem to solve a problem, too often it ends up creating more or doing permanent damage as a result. While notes may seem like a solution to pass exams, the fact of the matter is that collectively the damage is permanent - we're actually killing the trees, and the damage to the earth is permanent while that in our lives is in fact temporary even if it does seem more urgent. A white lie now may be a solution, but when your best friend realises you've been dating his girlfriend there's gonna be hell to pay. This is a problem. Throughout history, mankind has resorted to methods to solve problems at hand, with the ramifications ringing into the future. The bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki are clear proof of this - The effects still hold today, much like other disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Chernobyl disaster. The five-year plans implemented by communist leaders, while accomplishing short-term goals may have in fact hurt the country more than it helped - The number of people that died in these disasters were astonishing, and the way they disposed of the corpses even more so, as they were just dumped like garbage into a landfill.

Then again, to the earth, us humans should be treated as garbage anyway. For all the superior intellect granted to us all we've done is be short-sighted in our views, blinded by our own selfishness as the the wool is pulled over our eyes. Everything in life is in fact one big circle - We destroy the forests, animals lose their food source, animals die. Animals die, we die.

Yes, you could argue that there have been breakthroughs for man, and that not all of this is damage - after all, we've come up with alternative sources of generating energy and resources. However, it's rather obvious that this is merely a speed bump, a blip in the general plan, and that sometimes the research does more harm than good - There already is a way to produce lab-grown meat, but right now it costs a thousand dollars a pound. And besides, who's going to eat meat that doesn't come from animals? Another thing humans are afraid of is uncertainty. They won't touch anything foreign without a 3cm-thick lead-coated glove for protection.

This is, in fact, the source of discrimination in the world today. If we haven't seen something before, or have had a bad experience involving it, we are going to be apprehensive. This would be fine if we're talking about inanimate objects - If you got your finger cut off by a paper shredder it would be understandable to turn green and big and stupid and angry at the sight of the dreaded office contraption. But people are living things. Somewhere down the line you have to realise that "thirty-four-fifty" isn't the favoured word of the Hong Kong-ese, not all blacks are good at basketball, not all Indians can dance, not all Africans can run, the list goes on. Humans are so diverse that they demand unique treatment, not just for their own good but to clear up any confusion that might occur because of their skin colour or their accessories.

Yet, human life, as a whole, should be regarded with some form of homogenity, because we are in fact moving in the same direction of destroying earth no matter how we treat other - Conflict results in scorched-earth policies and nukes flying around like Tinkerbell around Peter Pan, and collusion results in "globalisation", which happens to be Latin for "pwning the Earth, and ourselves as a result". So what is the point of me rambling here? I don't really know myself. The world, like it or not, is slowly dying, and trust me, it will not be pretty. Not unless Jessica Simpson spells the end of the world anyway.

Funny how I know all this and yet am still doomed to fail my GP, huh?

Sooooooooo.....

I swaggered into the hall with an imaginary soundtrack in my mind, thinking I was going to absolutely blow the paper away. Well, I would have, had my head not been so big it threw me off balance. And this is how I fail so many of my exams, and it starts when I crumpled my first piece of paper, having spelt General Paper ah "Jeneral Papuh".

I had the options in my hand. Take the safe option and do mediocre or take a risk and hope it pays off? Well, I took the risk and it's not going to pay off. It's the longest 8 pages I've ever written, and while the 8 pages is something to feel proud about, 8 pages of gibberish is not when you bring in things like Sun WuKong and Sang Nila Utama. In case you were wondering, I did the myths and legends question. Anyone else did it?

Paper 2 was where things started going downhill. From a crappy summary question to a long aq and a sudden urge to stand up and do a Bee Gee dance, the paper was excruciatingly painful to do. It probably didn't help that the girl beside me was trying to contruct a model of the Great Wall of China in ink with her answers.

Coming soon : Maths, and how Wilfred attempts to nick a grade again!

So many things are going wrong at the same time, it's not funny anymore.

Okay, okay, I was kidding- It is kind of funny, even if I am at the receiving end of it. There isn't really much you can do on days like this but hope that Lady Luck isn't about to declare bankrupt and settles her bills within short notice - And at this point, I need it to be really short notice.

There was a kind of foreshadowing when I woke up - I slept so close to the end of the bed that when I turned to get my ass off I inexplicably slammed my head against the mantle. It's not that I didn't see it ; I just let my momentum hurl my forehead into the table. What a great way to start the day! If that incident was rock bottom, then I must have had a spade to dig further in with. And it's of better quality than that damn $1 cheese knife.

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I guess at some point you just have to realise that people aren't going to realise stuff till you put in front of them. You say "I'm Lovin' it!", they think you're a masochist for saying it in front of a math paper. You say "It's Morphin' Time!", they never realise that the world needs saving. You say "I love you" and they marvel at you for memorising your Measure for Measure quotes. Even when things become crystal clear they find a way to look right through it and at the proverbial jester prancing around in the background.

This isn't to say you can easily blame people who want to be ignorant. After all, ignorance is bliss, and everybody's ultimate goal in life is to keep themselves happy for as long as possible.