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Despite my sisters’ and my ardent requests, this wish has never been fulfilled. The reasons are that it’s too troublesome, and the subsequent response to the “we’ll take care”, is “I don’t want to be tied down during holidays.” from my mum. But why would a dog matter?
First a dog is an absolute listener. It doesn’t flinch when you speak, and only makes the occasional bark that could hurt. A dog never – ever – stops to leave.
Second a dog is undivided in its sincerity. It doesn’t hide a thing, except its hurt, and even then only when it is dying. A dog tells you exactly what it’d like, and it might pine, but you remain its friend. Man’s best friend. A best friend.
And third a dog loves unconditionally.
I wish I had a dog. I just want to be happy.
Happy – Leona Lewis
Someone once told me
That you have to choose
What you win or lose
You can’t have everything
Don’t you take chances
You might feel the pain
Don’t you love in vain
Cause love wont set you free
I could stand by the side
And watch this life pass me by
So unhappy but safe as could be
So what if it hurts me
So what if I break down
So what if this world just throws me off the edge
My feet run out of ground
I gotta find my place
I wanna hear my sound
Don’t care about all the pain in front of me
Cause I’m just trying to be happy
Just wanna be happy
Holding on tightly
Just can’t let it go
Just trying to play my role
Slowly disappear
Well, all these tears
They feel like they’re the same
Just different faces, different names
Get me outta here
Well I can stand by the side
And watch this life pass me by (pass me by)
So what if it hurts me
So what if I break down
So what if this world just throws me off the edge
My feet run out of ground
I gotta find my place
I wanna hear my sound
Don’t care about all the pain in front of me
Cause I’m just trying to be happy
Just wanna be happy
So any turns that I can’t see
I’ll count a stranger on this road
But don’t say victim
Don’t say anything
So what if it hurts me
So what if I break down
So what if this world just throws me off the edge
My feet run out of ground
I gotta find my place
I wanna hear my sound
Don’t care about all the pain in front of me
Cause I’m just trying to be happy
Just wanna be happy
And so it goes. I’m sure I’m not alone in this – on the first night before the GP paper, as you lie sleepless in bed (you think that you are sleeping earlier, but in fact you only really sleep after 1) you begin to visualise yourself finishing the exams. Or at least you try, but it’s all just a blur. Then the next few days of exams come and go, and each day you find it exponentially difficult to visualise yourself doing the next paper.
And today: math, then lit. I went into the exam hall feeling slightly confident, then the decline in morale was palpable in the air. Lisa complained about my periodic slamming episodes of my correction “applicator” (serious – that’s what they call it) coupled with the shuffling of papers beneath my pencil case. I couldn’t believe when I entered the Lit exam hall – the feeling was emptiness, but peaceful emptiness. So I did the lit paper, as one should, and our class went to island creamery.
But it wasn’t the usual “boomz” exuberance I would experience right after the exams. (and yes, I wrote “boomz” for a geog volcanoes question, part of the dare between the A13A geoggers) Instead it was a gradual realisation that the examinations were over. I attribute this to perhaps me not being able to do well for Math: in the aftermath of an exam, you think nothing of everything, and this vacuum is filled by the negativity that remains.
The real question is, what am I going to do for the holidays? I’m starting a list in which you are expected to continue, so do so:
- Finish up all my unread Economists and TIME, or the equivalent of a mountain on my now-barren desk landscape.
- Read Hamlet and Revenger’s Tragedy, next year’s lit texts.
- Just stare blankly at the screen and re-listen to Mariah’s, Whitney’s, Reba’s latest albums.
- Have an intense 4D3N stayover attempt at Aaron’s, Vincent’s and my house (together with wenjie and if it doesn’t impose on too many people, 4C), including creative sandcastle contests, random bicycle riding, badminton, movies, cards, board games, more cards, and swimming
- Midnight cycling. (approach if interested and have lots to talk.)
- Run weekly or bi-weekly. (but this is already happening)
- Borrow and read books from the library. (This is likely.)
- Meet up with my beloved and dearly missed 4am Gang
- <Help the poor: leave a comment>
I don’t usually post any academic stuff up here – but this is a potentially good read for those desiring a relevant and updated example of human’s systemic (and usually foolish and unnecessary) abuse of nature. Have no doubt about it: humans are very creative when it comes to destruction. This is just some essay done for a geog question, but it adds much more information than can be found from Wiki.
Conflicts of Interest: The Aral Sea
Mariah Carey: I Want to Know What Love Is
The latest single from her new album. This seems like a back-up plan to Obsessed, and shows her tracking back into “familiar territory”. It’s a cover from Foreigner, and a moving remake it is – with a modern twist and strong thrust. A light piano prelude begins, and she does her usual cooing preamble – then the chorus. “I want to know what love is, and I want you to show me…” That’s the real winner: she takes a nuanced approach towards the emotional sensitivities of the song. The song ascends and climaxes at the two-thirds mark, with sensible development. The soaring vocals come in at 3:00 or thereabouts, with excellent layering between the vocals. The ending is slightly disappointing though, because it just fades off, which is not her usual style, leaving me asking why she would waste this single on an unsatisfying conclusion. Overall it’s still a 4-star – better than the recent spate of R&B she’s been producing (addictive, but hardly vocally accomplished), but it’s not her best. She shows that her Butterfly-era voice remains even after long disuse – finally.
John 3:16-17
16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
This message was shared in church today, and I think it’s a very fitting reminder to the Christian (or variants) readership. The pastor shared a message on grace, and he drew some interesting links about the countenance of Jesus when he gives grace. But the most striking reference was the Prodigal Son.
Luke 15: The Parable of the Lost Son
11 Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. 13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. 14 But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. 15 Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.
17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’
20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring[or Quickly bring] out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.
25 “Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.’
28 “But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. 30 But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’
31 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. 32 It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’”
Not only does the father display defining elements of unconditional love and grace, he also blatantly ignores the son’s words of disbelief and distrust. Now we don’t have to be perfect to receive gain salvation – I think Jesus made that pretty clear – and that was expressed by the father’s actions toward the wayward son.
But look – when the son, already having accepted into the father’s arms, expresses his distrust, He lavishes all the grace there can be.
Well, well, how exciting can my life get?
Very.
That’s why I haven’t been posting. My life, bubbling with life, has been fun.
Besides RECAC, nothing major has happened really. I’ve starting running a little lately – and it’s always feels good after that. I’m running alongside the huge canal spanning for a few hundred kilometres and going all the way to Thailand. That’s the benefit of being me: you get to run like leona lewis. Scandals continue all around school: it gets so boring when the same people are constantly mentioned. How many pointless discreet smiles can the gossip circles contain? Stories are circling like curry, and now I’m involved as well. People go up to you and ask you in a very “by-the-way” manner: Hey are you erm… (insert long, restive pause) in a… relationship? I think it’s the facebook profile: it’s the new fiction, people read a lot there. So now I’m supposedly “with” some girls, not all from RJ. Interesting. (And for the last time, teeheehee – I’m not in anything with Lisa! We both agree: it’s complicated.)
On another note, I’ve recently added Patti Labelle and Reba McEntire to my diva favourites. (Please notice the pun.) Conan says it’s the mature singers over 40 that I like – and so I seem to be proving his silly hypothesis right, yet again. Right now the list is at CeWhLePaReRoBaMa: Celine Whitney Leona Patti Reba Roberta Barbra Mariah (ce-whle-pah-re-robama). Their songs are uncomparable, their voices divine. Obviously not all of them are still very good now, especially the last, but they all had their moment in time.
There’s so little singing talent in this world: when you see one, you jump on that opportunity to fully appreciate that talent. Speaking of talent, I’ve been watching so much talent on youtube (in the form of normal people singing phenomenally), that I’m tempted to have a little go at it myself – not that I have much to begin with of course. 
I have quite a queer range: I’m able to sing 1.5 octaves from middle C, and then there’s a gap, then I can sing 2.5 octaves from C onwards. So I end up going either (i) too high or (ii) spoiling the song altogether by singing it “normally”: given a choice, it’s somehow easier to hit it high. And it becomes occasionally weird when you actually hit the notes though. (If at this point you feel uncomfortable reading about a male able to sing high notes, my sole conclusion is that either you are very unexposed to the singing world, or you only listen to rock and metal. Or both, which is classically the case.) And I’m just toying with this playful idea for a while! It’s a phase. It’d be nice to have a singing partner to kick-start these things. But giving weird looks certainly isn’t going to be a very conducive basis for that. So talk to me.
The watchword of the past few days is stress, with the workload. I’m going to start my revision schedule for Promos tonight – that means no more procrastination. Take time to me how I’m doing if you see me. Start your revision now, if you haven’t already. It’s the Promos, not a dress rehearsal.
Nick Pitera – The Climb (cover, Miley Cyrus)
Lisa Lavie – Hush Hush (cover, PCD)
Patti Labelle – If you asked me to
Reba McEntire – And Still
Sorry for the absolute lack of updates on my part. It’s been very busy for me recently.
But here’s what I have to say!
