I stopped at skiing. After skiing was VANCOUVER!!! But before that, a mind-blowingly beautiful and kind of majestic drive down the mountains on the sea-to-sky highway…it really was just…orgasmically gorgeous and I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t bring myself to take any pictures because my lousy camera won’t do that view justice – and looking at professional pictures online doesn’t seem to do the trick either. You really just have to go visit someday – it trumps Melbourne’s Great Ocean Road ANYTIME and that itself was prettty darn scenic already. And now I really wish I had my crappy pictures (which I deleted!!!) because everything I can find online seems to be taken in the summer! Hopefully when Dan goes up she’ll get something good, haha.

Vancouver from my bed at the top of the Sheraton! From 2008 WHISTLER

SO yes, we stayed over at the Sheraton to explore Vancouver for two days and the view from the room was stunning and everything and I realise I should really start describing all the sights and sounds collectively before I start running out of descriptive phrases and such, haha. And budget travel with a small group of friends might be exciting because you never really know what you’ll get, booking those cheapish youth hostels and dodgy hotels…but there are clear benefits with travelling first class with my aunt – very clear, tangible and inspiring benefits…and there I took all the cliched shots of winter…and the rascal Nayan stopped EVERYWHERE to play with snow. Clearly, somebody in the group still has their childlike sense of wonder. This was my first white christmas (first white anything, actually – the last time I went to a place in winter…that place was Egypt and obviously not quite…wintery, in any sense of the word) and I lost my intrigue and fascination and all that after awhile.

Shot of Nayan doing his fascinated-with-snow thing and also one of my favourite shot from the entire trip because he simply looks so freaking heart-meltingly angelic here!!! From 2008 WHISTLER

And along the way, while waiting at the bus station…I got this video of Nayan acting…drunk(?), haha and it is just a really bizarre video clip but he is SO cute and PRECIOUS. (okay, to me anyway)

Nayan: Try and catch me in a falling scene! Me: Okay Mira: *waves spastically* Nayan: Did you get a good shot of me? (I know right, HUH???) From 2008 WHISTLER

And then, it was back to Whistler for other snow/mountain-related activities like:

Snow Angel-ing…okay, not the most flattering picture of Mira here, haha From 2008 WHISTLER

And of course…snow-man building! From 2008 WHISTLER

Except this picture only catches us red-handed snow-man stealing because we decided we couldn’t make a nice one and that we’d “borrow” our random neighbou’rs snowman. Anyhow, apparently no winter is complete without actually building one so we thought we’d build one.

From 2008 WHISTLER

…Except, we got lazy after the first giant snowball. Hence, the oddly truncated snow-torso. And shamelessly enough, we pretended it was TOTALLY intentional and that we really making snow-aliens – you know, just for variety and to dodge even more obvious cliches uh, Christmas staples.

From 2008 WHISTLER

And then, conscience got the best of us and we (might have) overcompensated with accessories.

Oh and this ranks as one of my most FAVOURITE experiences of the very…colourful month! HOT-TUBBING!!! Mmmm!!! BUT, unfortunately, I only have pictures of us trying to GET to our private hot-tub. (another one of those above-mentioned benefits, haha)

From 2008 WHISTLER

Okay, more later. I’m having problems with formatting and feeling really pissy about it. Grr.

I have just created a livejournal account! Its not my first, but whatever.

Its cherelladeville.livejournal.com!

…because I am THAT incredibly creative.

Okay, go see.

Bye.

About its super taboo premise: basically, Majo no Jouken about the “forbidden love” *scoffscoff* between  high-school student, Hikaru (17 years old) and his 26 year-old teacher, Hirose Michi. Apart from the obvious problems with height and the embarassment of having the female bend to kiss the male (although they try and frame it such that this is hardly the point)… they also face massive societal pressures! Because, well, society’s an anal-retentive and illogically conservative bitch.

Ah frankly, I don’t like alot of things about the drama – much as it appears to be SO well received at JDorama.com. For one, it is truly truly trite and hackneyed. But that is to be expected, I suppose. Since Trite and Hackneyed becomes Trite and Hackneyed only because Trite and Hackneyed means commerically successful. I think it’s greatest offence though, is that the characters were so damned selfish and irresponsible and well – in the spirit of all that is cliched – “blinded by love” . And there is nothing (or at least, very little else) I get more annoyed at than completely-irrational behaviour in the name of love.

Obviously, I’ve already established that I have very little against deviant behaviour (unless it involves like, MUCH younger children. As in the case of paedophilia but 17 is 17) but if like, your family, friends and fricking fiance (ah yes, Protagonist Woman is also about to get married! Case of the Wedding Blues, perhaps?) are soooo emotionally scarred by such a relationship…wouldn’t you just give up? I would. Not least because my family would have been the people supporting me through 26 years of life and especially if the 17 year old guy I’m so hopelessly in love with is someone I’ve met only a week ago or something.

And yet I was absolutely, shamelessly hooked on the drama and few JDramas are actually addictive. (Digression: I vastly prefer Jdramas to Kdramas but if there’s one thing I’ll say in the defence of Kdramas like Goong and I’m 18 - its that Kdramas are so wickedly addictive). I think, maybe, its because the side characters were so deeply intriguing.

…Like 17 year old boy’s Mother who was totally Duchess-of-Malfi-Ferdinand-esque in her “motherly love” for her son. Part of the reason I stayed on was because I was just itching to find out if this daring drama would take the final plunge and conclusively establish her true incestual love for her son. But I think that would have made ratings and everything tank – if the drama even made it so screen. Still, it was so…THERE. And I’m not even the type to see sexual relations in every bit of literature that I read or every drama that I watch. Also, the Jun-chan character. And Michi’s mother. Fascinating people.

The point is, I suppose. That if you have to watch a show about teacher-student relations…watch Notes on a Scandal. It stars Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench – CATEBLANCHETTANDJUDIDENCH!!! Tell me that’s not enough reason to go watch Notes on a Scandal NOW. It was completely haunting, I tell you. And exquisite and really, really dark. BUT the sky is dark and heavy with clouds now, and we all need some really dark film to retreat into.

***

HM. SO Many shows I want to watch I don’t even know where to begin. O.O

And I just got back from another Lunch with the Relatives. “Another” because on Saturday, I went for my Grandparents’ birthday dinner (where all FOUR generations turned up ^^) and on Monday, I lunched with my grandparents (again), grand…um, aunts and the Indian Uncle from Australia. Anyway, it’s just amazing how many languages/dialects I have to know in order to understand what’s happening during all these family meals. On Monday alone, there was English, Chinese, Teochew and Malay …because that’s the only common language Indian uncle shares with my grandfather. And today, Mummy and I came out very shortchanged because of my LOUSY, half-assed mandarin. Mummy has an excuse because she didn’t go to a Chinese school (she was taught Malay instead) but I have none because I’ve sat through four years of Higher Chinese.

While Setting up the Meeting Place On the Phone:

Mummy (in Chinese): Okay, we’ll meet you at the uh…uh…Cheryl, how do you say escalator in Chinese?

Me: Just say “Macdonalds”.

While Ordering Desserts at Swensons:

Mummy (in Chinese): Would you like a Gold Rush? A um…Huang Jin…something. How do you say Rush in Chinese?

Me:…

And then FINALLY! My shining moment:

Mummy: …how do you say Frog in Chinese?

…I never dreamt I would be SO excited saying “Qing Wa” in my whole entire life.

(and so relieved she wasn’t looking for “toad”) ^^

***

My “Uniquely Singapore! TV” tag drew in an enormous number of views. i think I shall try again with a similarly cheesy Singapore title…Multi-racial Singapore…here goes!

Man: I heard the Government is stepping up on measures to raise the declining birthrate!

Woman: Yes, they are issuing ________dollars worth of Baby Bonuses/ Tax deductions.

Man: Wow! I think that must be a good move – aren’t you convinced to have a baby now?

Woman: Hm, but I think there is more to raising a child than money – what about my career?

(Okay, obviously I can’t reproduce it verbatim since I wouldn’t waste my brain matter on such complete banalities but this is true to screen as possible).

Also! Call me cynical but I am highly suspicious about the sudden flourishing of Peranakan culture shows – first there was Channel Five’s Sayang Sayang and now there is Channel Eight’s Nonya Something show. (incidentally, I saw them filming the show in my neighbourhood – Jeannette Aw’s such a diva snob.) And in between the two shows, some very heavy publicity about the opening of the new Peranakan Museum or somesuch tourist trap. Not that these shows are bad, but again I see the hand of some wealthy sponsor trying to play up some Uniquely Singapore! traits like…Peranakan culture – which isn’t even unique or native to Singapore, but what the heck. I don’t know when we’ll ever have a drama that’s good, honest and not some attempt at playing up nationalist sentiments or persuading people to donate their kidneys and love lepers or something.

***

In other news, TODAY provided another textbook example of Journalism ala Uniquely Singapore! style when just the other day with their feature article on Euthanasia in which they unabashedly proclaimed how an incredible 100% of doctors interviewed are against Euthanasia. And then you flip open the paper and like, seven out of ten doctors interviewed are (very representatively) in the business of palliative care or run hospices or some such venture in which they might have a potential commerical interest in keeping the law AGAINST euthanasia.

***

Less depressingly, I managed to watch and understand a raw, unsubbed episode of Cartoon KAT-TUN (Japanese variety show)!!! Then again, it was just Nakamaru inarticulately screaming in primary-school japanese “ah! this is scary!”/”I really don’t want to do this!”/”My greatest phobia is of heights!”…I guess you can’t expect somebody to climb 24m up to the Bungee Jumping place and start reciting haikus. That would be…weird. Unless it were a Singapore drama. Then you’d have some actress climbing up to recite the 20th clause of the Singapore constitution or something just before jumping and it’d be perfectly normal.

I finally found my true calling and the purpose for my having spent four painful, painful years studying Japanese in a MOELC eons away from my secondary schools – to watch raw, unsubbed episodes of Japanese telly. It’s so sad the fruits of my education are turning out like that…hurrhurr.

…That it has to start with a trip to the doctor’s, a ONE HOUR WAIT for his royal diva-ness and a throat that still feels like a raw wound anyway. I know how visually grotesque this sounds but it really does feel like I’m grating the back of my throat with something rough and unpleasant every single time i swallow. Also, its completely…ARID there I tell you. and I’ve already drank like three bottles of water already and still its dry like fuck so I keep gagging. I don’t know how it works, but yeah. Christ, its miserable.

Still, if I concentrate hard enough on ignoring it, I can still get to enjoy the many wonders of Japanese TV that I’m enjoying! I think, when I have the time and will, I shall finally get down to doing my reviews which will be more so I can actually remember the stuff I watched. ( :

Oh yes, the A-levels. Dang, the more I think about it, the more I feel like slapping myself. You know the topic I’m supposedly good at? The topic on China’s economic rise on which I wrote an essay an almost scored 24/25 but for a clumsy introduction (according to people-at-his-tutorial anywya, I don’t know because I didn’t actually attend. hurrhurr.) For god knows WHAT reason, I dropped that topic for the prelims. And after the prelims, I was like bloody fuck. Why did I. And then, because it seems now I NEVER LEARN, i dropped it again for the A Levels. And the question that came out was so unbelievably manageable that almost everybody balked and thanked their lucky stars. Everyone except me, that is. I could have kicked myself if I  were only that much more acrobatic. And instead! I attempted the essay on Religious Fundamentalism! Which would make my A Levels essay the FIRST essay I have EVER done on that subject. A subject which, incidentally, I only begun revising two hours before the paper. Grarh, the misery.

Anyhow, its all over now. YAY YAY YAY. (:

HELLO Catty Humbug. Whatever. I couldn’t care to get in your good books.

In fact, I’m really starting what it’d like to have to deal with Catty Humbugs who (I suppose, partly out of job-necessity) are all either (1) Two-Faced or (2) Not Successful. Really, the working environment of the MFA can be one of the draning places for the morally-timorous (like me!) (and Pip, HAHA.) And all the people I’ve ever met from there are the freshfaced junior-level saikang warriors and the twofaced senior-level Successful People.

At first I thought it’d be fun navigating through a whole minefield of bitches and backstabbers with my own brand of viciousness (face it, I’m not quite the unbitchiest angel about) and in my mental epic novel, still emerge the victorious heroine with all my morals and virtues intact. Now, I still think I’ll have to manouvre the place with a brazen, unjustified arrogance and heaps of bitchiness but I am also beginning to believe that all my ideals will positively suffocate and die in the barren landscape. And I’m not sure I’m prepared to trade all that up for dry cynicism and pragmaticism… I’m still quite a romantic at heart, *sniffsniff*

I wouldn’t write off that interview so quickly in that I’m pretty sure it didn’t self-combust to a sad death. But I TOTALLY didn’t get along with that fiesty bitch with her fakey smile and I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual and as I told some people, there was “latent vicious energy” all about the place. Also, there was this man who kept injecting stupid, irrelevant, poseur comments by the side and I practically glared at him by the end of the interview. I think it was when he said no country should be a democracy since all countries play dirty politics and I snapped that “some are dirtier than others”, or something. STILL! If they were looking for me to keep my cool and not have some grand emotional melt-down – I’m pretty sure they got that. I was so pissed I wouldn’t back down. Plus, my interview was twice as long as the previous one. So I don’t know how that works out. It could go both ways but like I said, at this point…I don’t really give a rat’s ass.

On a brighter note – or perhaps, not really. Everybody should go watch The Queen’s Classroom okay? It is like, kickass and everything. In fact, I think it could potentially the best Drama Ever. And don’t waste your time on Gokusen 3 its brainless bullshit.

Brighter note still! Palin, I mean McCain, lost!

1) That Today’s Session with Mrs. Cheong was Cancelled

This is an inordinately annoying fact because I was going to be late (as usual) and everything went wrong (as they usually do when I am going to be late) and this made me panick even more about being even later (than usual). Things that went wrong include (1) the frigging sun which is blazing at like, FIFTY MILLION DEGREES CELSIUS now on blessed Singapore with its happy sun-soaked tropical island scenery; (2) the burger which I ordered which was made as if it were made from scratch with rooster sperm and lettuce seeds and flour…(what annoyingly obscure ingredient is Flour made out of anyway) and (3) SBS. Well, SBS is ALWAYS in the wrong but today it was wronger than usual for being so late. And so after all these bad things happened to me, I got a message telling my tuition was cancelled! So bloody annoying okay! I almost hailed an inflation-times-infinity-hit, over-priced taxi! Which I suppose, is the only bright side of today’s fiasco (apart from the bleeding sun…hurrhurr).

2) That Death Note is so Incredibly Compelling. (that I blew five hours plus on it)

Hello L, you fictional character. I would like you to become real so that I can marry you. And I shall even pretend that I never found out your real name (L. Lawliet) or maybe we could get it fixed on your fictional IC. And a personal shinigami (death God) would be kinda cool also. I could like…kill people. Except I don’t want to. I just think they make such awesome pets, I’ll have my social status elevated a billion times and become the coolest kid on the block, yo!…And nobody would dare offend me. Muahahaha. And then I can go and colonise a few African countries and get rich on oil reserves.

3) That Last Minute Mugging is so Unfun.

If I’d known, uh…I’d have started earlier. :(

Oh and I probably can’t go for this year’s Deepavali celebrations because I intend to finish up my Georgetown Apps. on Monday. This bums me out… and I’m not even Indian. So I imagine that if I were Indian, I’d be quite a depressed Indian. But then again, I suppose Deepavali comes by every years – so don’t be sad, Indian-friends-taking-the-A-levels!!! Have fun!!! (:

“When life throw Lehmans, make Lemonade” – SUBARU

I bet the advertising executies up there all thought it a timely and witty pun; and to a very small extent, I think it is? But for its very unfortunate associations with the economics phenomenon/concept of “the Market for Lemons” – and isn’t the Market for Lemons where defective products are sold to the ignorant buyer or something? And isn’t the (used) car market always a popular example of such Lemon markets? Anyhow, I am rusty on my econs concepts (yes, mere weeks before the Econs A Levels) and too generally-unhappy to think straight. MUAHAHAH. okay, whatever.

So, the point is, really. That I secretly, secretly, really, really, want alot more than I seem to want and that therefore, I am not all to excited about my grades! (And that therefore, I wouldn’t go about publicising my grades myself) Anyway, I hope this doesn’t offend anybody – its all alot to do with context, really. I’m sure there are a moments where you’ve disappointed yourself – even in doing really well at something. Simply because you’ve put in the effort to achieve something better than good or simply because you know you COULD HAVE achieved something better than good. And I hope you can remember and understand that I DID plummet from top-of-the-class to average and top-of-the-cohort to below-average respectively. (I know people sometimes forget the whole Outward Frivolity, Inward Sobriety gig *ahem*yixiang,miss G, mr L*ahem* and that I haven’t actually been underachieving or something) And that is justifiably, a very sad thing in and of itself, right?

P.S. I’m actually quite hurt that people forget that. Or get surprised when I do well. Or get surprised when they know of my having done well before. But then, I shan’t harp on that because I know I don’t quite present a picture worthy of respect with all my silly dalliances with meaningless TV serials *cough*gossipgirl*cough* and all my sleeping in class and all my not turning up for lessons at all and all my…*gasp* some people say, Bimboticism?! *sobs* But for those who’ve always believed in me, and who haven’t been at all surprised when I do well. Or who don’t get surprised when they know of my having done well before. Thank you so much for taking the time off to know me. (:

P.P.S Also, to be fair to me and to illustrate how I am NOT simply a whiny, insensitive, discontented obsessive…I would like to point out that my Math grades? Are not exactly that big of a deal when something like 50% got As and that I am hence below the median (median? average? mode? whichever the fuck it is) but I am still insanely happy simply because I was once an E and expected an E and everything. See! I am very lucid and aware of what’s right and wrong, good and bad! I don’t have warped yardsticks and I don’t whine unjustifiably! Anyway, I sincerely hope everybody well this time round and for those who are disappointed and for those who are sad…there’s always the one last stab at succeeding for all of us, I suppose. (:

P.P.P.S I got 25/30 for case studies before lah! I not stupid okay! How come everyone so surprised at my grades! GRARH.