Halloween

'bout 3 days since I ate at the Singapore Polo Club, and damn their food is good.

But that's not relevant. >_>

Over there I saw an interesting sight: Bunches of kids dressed out in various costumes, obviously for Halloween celebrations. Now isn't that a rarity. Kids with scythes, kids with Scream masks, kids with The Mask Masks >_>, and so on. And among them was one little Asian kid with le katana. TOTALLY Halloween, but then again maybe he was trying to be a ninja or something.

It's seriously a queer feeling to suddenly stand among so many Caucasian families along with so many Caucasian kids in random costumes. Such out-of-the-norm things as said, don't happen in the norm. I guess it's because we don't embrace the Halloween culture in any way whatsoever, but nevermind.

Here's the next note. I did note a number of teenagers around the area too, but none of them were in Halloween costumes, instead just wearing normal clothes. Well, duh, some of you would say. Don't people grow out of Halloween by the teenage age?

Now isn't it a gigantic irony that costume parties are carried out at a later age for Singaporeans, instead of at the young age for children? Perhaps it's due to a more cosmopolitan nature brought out in older Singaporeans (You can't expect kids 5 years old to have future plans for moving out of S'pore) resulting in embracing different cultures at a later age, but even then the reasoning and idea is somewhat queer in the first place.

Seriously, what does this say about Singaporean culture? Are we truly embracing different cultures, or are we stuck in the middle without any? Hmm. Then again, they're not mutually exclusive.

Fighting Moments

Out of sentimental feelings, I decided to take a look at a few replays of Immaterial and Missing Power (Touhou gone fighting. Not that you know what Touhou is anyway) and damn, some replays are just amazing. Love Sakuya, she's like Dio Brando of WRYYYYYYYYY fame made female and placed in a maid costume. Ownage. >_>

But seriously, I never recalled IaMP to be so fast. I mean, people consider Guilty Gear fast compared to fighter games like Street Fighter, KoF, DoA, etc. If GG is fast, I have no idea what this is o_O. Must try picking up IaMP again after not playing it for months.

Having sparked a bit of curiosity into this, I decided to look around for some ownage fighter game vids. And I managed to find the epic, and the not so epic. Nonetheless, good vids, somewhat. >_>

The End

So school's ended. So we've had a class party. So we've got Mdm. Loo Shek Kien and Mdm. Sandra Sim (More used to calling her Mrs) and Mr. Alvin Tan is not in the same class as Michael Ong, a thing to be very thankful for.

*In SJAB Room*

AV Tan: Sian eh, I think I may become PCT of 4.9 or 10 leh... eh Herrick
Watashi: ?
AV Tan: Mong is in which class? 9 or 10?
Watashi: Why do you wanna know about Mong
AV Tan: Just tell me. 9 or 10.
Watashi: Uh, 9...
AV Tan: Ok good I hope I become PCT of 10.
Watashi: What's wrong with Mong?
AV Tan: He has a way of getting to you.

And in addition, I'm not chairman next year. Kwong is. I'm just a regular student~ haven't felt what it was like for some time now, though given me I'll probably end up acting authoritarian again. Darh. But oh well, my plan to make Jason chairman was semi-successful. >_>

Some other thoughts on being chairman, but I shan't talk about them here.

Anyway, will be getting back to writing soon. Had some funky idea that I wanted to work on a bit, so haven't really been writing any conversations or whatever lately.

英华偷了我的心

你问我爱英华多深
我爱英华几倍
我的情牺牲
我时阴牺牲
英华拿了我的心

你问我爱英华多深
我爱英华几分
捐了一万块
失钱得痛快
英华拿了我的钱

薄弱的一张纸
已经使我会失眠
小小的芝麻事
教我节检到如今
你问我爱英华多深
我捐给它几分
你去拿一拿
你去看一看
一二零里存的钱.

-------------------------------------------

I chose not to say 英华代表我的心 purely because I couldn't think of what to write then. No offense is intended through the creation of this random piece, and hopefully no offense is interpreted >_>

Rosenthal

Somehow, naively, I wish to make up for my mistake the entire year of being a bad chairman. For this I thought of doing whatever crazy ideas any of my friends were thinking of, rushing headfirst even though my friends and I both knew that it was, ultimately, vain. As Xi Min begins to bring the mentos and coke tomorrow, my own self gets torn apart again between the chains of reason and the idealistic child (How ironic that Chained Wings, my completely unseen blog name, would on this day refer to two sides of myself, an intraconflict rather than an interconflict. Life's just a sad joke in that way, the same way that Murphy predicted).

People always talk about how it's better to regret that you did something, than to regret that you did nothing. But what of those who try again? Is their pain just twofold, or more?

Mr. Ng Yew Hong asked me what was wrong with me today after reading so much and completely not paying any attention whatsoever to him. Isn't it obvious? You yourself are partially guilty of this. But nonetheless, I will agree: it is my own fault that I am so overly critical of others, and that I am so incapable of just directly telling them what I consider important. It's just a guessing game with everyone, though the latter part of the alliteration fades into etherality at times.

The Pygmalion Effect, in my opinion, goes beyond just a mere expectation on the mentor's part towards the mentee. Obviously, the former party has to be first held accountable for whatever expectations made. No mentor would place hope in a child by treating him specially and raising his expectations of the child, only to have him fail once again in the test. What's this then, the Rosenthal Defect? False hope and hypocrisy are the double side of expectations.

...ah. What am I doing. I shouldn't be pushing blame onto others, should I? Cursing others for one's own failings is such the mark of a prideful one. Perhaps I'm just annoyed at others for not bearing the same conviction as I do; but then again, who wants to fall from higher ground?

(Wonder who understood that.)

Post-Exam

The exams are finally over, despite being a gigantic joke overall. I mean, A Maths...

Post-exam two years ago, I talked about how I believe I fared. I talked about the movies we watched after the exams ended. I talked about how boring life was without a proper cause in life. I talked about a bunch of people.

Post-exam one year ago, I talked about class spirit. I had a few particularly interesting conversations with Zhang and Sheu Zhi.

I seriously do find certain segments rather interesting.

"SZ: Where does your happiness come from?
Me: Me, huh. My happiness, I suppose, comes from the fact that I could be alone, and I can have faith that someone out there is still thinking of me.
Me: That something has been done due to me. That people can remember me due to me being me.
Me: No matter where I am, I can always know that I still have friends I can trust in. Friends I can have conflicts with yet never go beyond the point of no return. Friends that will be friends when I need friends.
SZ: omg sophisticated >_<""" lol, hmm.
Me: Haha. That's me, all right."

In all honesty, I really was rather idealistic (Despite my argument with Zhang. As Mel said in the comments, I really was far more of a hypocrite than I thought I was at that time.) and rather... well, incapable of understanding certain stuff. I remember Hsieh Wen saying some time ago that people considered me to be a joker because I was essentially not doing anything with whatever I knew to change people's perceptions of me. In retrospect, I probably didn't have this 'whatever I knew' thingy in the first place. Or maybe I do, just that I've forgotten about it.

My past, though, is largely idealistic (Very well exemplified by certain memories) and in all honesty, semiempty idealism. Why empty? Because it's vain. Why semi? Because it wasn't completely so.

This year, however, has not left a particularly good aftertaste, in my opinion. I, admittedly, started out the year with the idealism I bore as class chairman, capable of bringing a whole new class together just as was done in 2.12 by Kev.

But idealism is idealism. And when you don't feel the true sacrifices, you don't get the true payoffs. For all of Klow's stress induced through being class chair, he managed to divert it somewhat, and still somehow link the class through, honestly, one of the most ingenious (sp?) ideas I've seen. Somehow, TNN just worked. Maybe this is pure delusions on my part, but it just somehow got this class together.

Zhang said that maybe he was just continuing a job half done by 1.12. Maybe the smaller class contributed to a warmer environment. Maybe it was all just fate, and I couldn't be blamed for failing where Klow had succeeded. Maybe being forced to create class T-shirts (I didn't really take Zhang at his word, but well, given Azmi >_>) was ultimately still more effective than going in with pure idealism and trying to inspire others who didn't exactly bear the same idealism you had.

Or maybe I just failed to do what others have done, and lone idealism isn't enough to transform a group. I need to be more, and that 'more' just happens to be out of my reach. Perhaps it's an inferiority complex, but I never considered myself to be on the same level as Klow, despite never trying. Perhaps I'm just trying to desparately console myself for completely failing to do anything worth doing, and trying desparately to make up for it in one single week. Or perhaps, I'm not as cut out for this job as some people thought I was.

But then again, if not me, then whom?

"There are no 'if's. There is only the assumption of 'what if', and the wish that 'if only it had turned out different then'. There is no absolute truth that supports this. There is no preparation to accept what is there, only tightfisted sentiment and bitter illusions. That's something that elementary school brats know very well of. It's just, even if they say they understand it, they can't possibly understand things that they haven't done nor experienced. Ah... I get the feeling that this is all useless. The harsh reality."

-- Rentarou, Futakoi Alternative (AnY Fansub)

On Finding A Small Beetle Flying About Randomly In The Room

On Finding A Small Beetle Flying About Randomly In The Room

Some beetle wound up flying here and there
Around the cobwebbed study called my room.
It crawls and flies without the world a care
While I the human one must brace for doom.
Why not go out, a world outside so fine!
That paradise, far sweeter than goodbyes
Yet see you do, this painful day of mine
As if you want to offer me advice
What words can one unwise as you transfer?
Distract me from my fight is what you do.
Do cold hard facts remind you of the myrrh?
Perhaps to you, but science is far more crude.
Oi simi leave my room oledy lah
Tomorrow test today mus study lah...

*Non-Sec 3 Readers are advised to reference to Charles Tennyson Turner's "On Finding A Smalll Fly Crushed In A Book" to understand. But I doubt you can find this poem on the net. Oh well XD*