I found a nice meme from kamika's blog!

Year in Review Meme

Take the first sentence (or two) from the first post of each month of 2008. That's your year in review.

January 1st

I met up with my primary school friends today!

Oh yes, I remember having meet-ups with Shahirah and Delfina and Yusrina and Mateen and eating at Fig and Olive. And I also went to Shahirah's birthday party. Qiaonan will always be a sweet, sweet memory.

February 1st

Sometimes I think I'm so psychologically damaged, it's not funny.

Oh man, my emo-ness. I remember how I'd posted that after a very random outburst, where I kind of cried at my parents. I think it was about being pressurized to do everything well. And then when I reflected, I kind of boggled at my own nuttiness and volcano-like outbursts.

March 6th

C++ midterm. ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE.

HAHA. My crazy computing modules. It's amazing I've survived them.

April 6th

I want to make this entry the last one in a long time. Cause I have to stay away and study.

I had a bit of a blogging hiatus back in Sem 1. I think I felt a little suffocated by the knowledge that people I don't know were possibly reading my blog, so I wanted to take a break and continue writing in private, without inhibition. Creativity cannot work under pressure. Eheh.

May 2nd

Nothing imprisons oneself like the exam period.

I was still having exams, but they were ending. My life centers around school. As it should, I suppose?

June 1st

This morning, my dad had a strange mood swing and burst into our rooms at 8.30 with a wide smile and announced that we were going out for a day excursion.

Random outings with family have always been a clear feature in my life. I'm happy for it. :)

July 2nd

SLEEEEEPY. -_-

I was in the middle of my internship thing at IBN. And had to wake up early every morning. Heh.

August 8th

photos! from escape2008 (:

The short chalet stayover we had at Downtown East. 'Twas fun.

September 1st

It's the fourth week of sem. And things are approaching a lull.

Deep into schoolwork again. I'm a boring person, am I not? How depressing. A large part of me wants to go on adventures around the world, I assure you, but just... no means, and all the wrong circumstances.

October 3rd

SELAMAT HARI RAYA!!! :)

This raya was no better than the previous ones because I was so bogged down by work that could only afford 2 and a half days of raya celebrations.

November 1st

Oh dear. Where did October go. I've been getting lazier and lazier to update this place.

I think I always just get lazy to blog during school semesters or stg... cause there's nothing truly interesting happening?

December 1st

Today's math stats paper was keeerrrraaazzy.

Exams again. Wow. BORING LIFE, MUCH? Haha.

~~~

Am off to Cik An's place for a farewell-cum-new-year party in a while. So... Happy New Year! To a beautiful (and less boring?) 2009!

Talking to Eunice online and we're discussing the sad state of world affairs. And I've been driven to tears because, my goodness, if we only let ourselves learn about the devastating truth of things, we will discover much to be shameful about, and much to be angry about. Eunice gave me something to read.

Harold Pinter's Nobel Lecture: Art, Truth and Politics

Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

Like I said to Eunice, we need a Batman of the world; someone, or some force, to clean up the streets of Earth from the hypocritical figures of power, and restore some dignity to humanity. I keep feeling like faith in Obama will be futile - because campaign speeches are always that: campaign speeches. Will Guantanamo Bay finally be shut down, for instance? Do you believe it? And Obama is no superhero with extraordinary abilities. He is still a man, who will no doubt be tied down by the never-ending evil forces I believe reside in the White House, and his scruples will be powerless, should he truly be an honourable man. I should have some faith, eh?

This kind of makes me realise why I love hero novels or stories very much. We all love the honourable dude who stands up for truth and justice, no matter the cost to his self. I've been reading my Sano Ichiro series, as usual; how horribly corrupt the bakufu, the samurai military government is, but how Sano constantly tries to embody true honour as much as possible despite threats to his family and existence. I want to believe that positions of power are still occupied by such persons. Too much to ask, maybe? :S Or is it a definite, that absolute power corrupts absolutely?

Whatever it is, I think, as we both discussed, we should first cure ourselves of ignorance. Let's not be mindless people, I say. It's the first step to constructive action.

Something else: A CNN documentary on genocide, titled Scream Bloody Murder.

My next entry won't be a depressing one, I hope.

Exam results have been released. CAP has officially stagnated, I think. It hasn't been dropping much at all for the past few semesters, but I haven't successfully raised it either, like I've been meaning too. :( Am fighting the rain cloud hovering over my head. I want to keep fighting for a CAP raise in the next semester! MUST NOT GIVE UP.

---

Yesterday, I went to watch the movie, Ip Man, with family. AND IT WAS AWESOME, AMAZING AND AWE-INSPIRING. I am so getting the DVD.

First, a little of synopsis:

Ip Man was the teacher of the famous Bruce Lee, and the master of the now world-renowned Wing Chun martial arts. The story revolves around his life during the World War II era and how he came to embrace his destiny as a martial arts teacher. Ip Man was initially content to practise on his own and not to take any disciples, but what he came to face during the war made him realise that he could do a lot more to help others.

The Wing Chun was just freaking AMAZING. AMAZING!!! I've always said that I appreciate well-done action movies - this one just takes the cake. This one rates number one on my list right now. Donnie Yen pulled off a wonderfully charismatic persona -- the can-melt-your-heart-with-his-honour kind of hero. And when he does his fighting duels: I just want to wow and wow constantly. We were wincing and screaming during the fight scenes, I tell you. Just beautiful.

FIVE STARS, I say!

This is so funny! XD A KAT-TUN commercial for LOTTE candy:



HAHA. You know how their initials make up the group name, right... Making someone be the hyphen was fantastic. >.< Seriously, JE has such crazy group names.

BACK! At first I was going to type a full, chronological written account of the Japan trip, but I figured that I already have enough on my plate with the photo album and video project. So I figured I'll work on those first and when I'm done with my video, I'll post it up here! And if I have time, I'll supplement it with random postings where appropriate. :)

But briefly: Jap trip was memorable, enjoyable and I was depressed the day we had to leave Tokyo. Japan is definitely one of my favourite places in the world, and I hope I'm saying this free of my JE bias. It really is one of the cleanest places, firstly. The public toilets are unbeatably superb. They're almost always spotlessly clean, no matter the location of the toilets or the number of people to have utilised it. Not to mention the amazingly clean streets too. What's with Singapore constantly trumping its clean streets? Japan has very clean streets too what. It's no big deal, if you want to compare cleanliness with Japan.

And the people!!! Nyah. I love them. The typical salesperson is one of the nicest anywhere in the world. Politeness and respect always take priority, and the never-ceasing greetings of 'Irrashaimase!' in shops always make me smile. And generally, people go the extra mile for service. It is so heartening. I don't know if I'm exaggerating, but there's this underlying spirit of 'Ganbatte!' and putting one's best foot forward at all times.

Human traffic is the scariest thing in Japan. Osaka Station was a freaking nightmare to walk through. The crowd comes from all directions and heads in all directions as well. I always felt like screaming when I walked past the ticket gantries and people in dark coats rushed out in intimidating purposeful strides, while poor tourists like us weathered our way through. Not to mention the confusing train lines. No English some more. Made us go wonky at times. But we survived. And figured things out. I wasn't that difficult, really.

Mount Fuji was gorgeous x 1000000000. We stopped at only the first station, but we got to walk into the edge of snow-covered forest, so it was awesome anyway.

Here are a few photos:





And then of course, coming across JE posters and merchandise was fun. :P And did I say Maki was everywhere? Haha. She's awesome. Her adverts were big and plastered on buildings - in Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Ginza etc. Then we found a life-size cardboard Maki and took a photo with her! :P


We went to HMV later and found an entire shelf of Johnny's! And we got NEWS' Color, which was cheaper by about S$18. We also got a Potato mag, just because.


And then in Asakusa St, we found a mini-idol shop! @.@ Complete with posters, keychains and uchiwas. We were so tempted to buy a Yamapi uchiwa but then decided against it at the time, thinking we'd find more in Harajuku, but we didn't get them in Harajuku either! REGRET, I tell you. Anyway, how I spotted the shop was cause the exterior of the tiny shop was hung with like a mini-Yamada-shrine. :D I exclaimed, "Oh my god! It's Yamada!" See that whole hanging wall of photos, next to my sister? They're all Yamada, or Yamada with HeySayJUMP photos. It is scary when you think that this kid is only 15.


Okay, I'll end here for now. And a peek at our Japanese lunch at Mt Fuji:

Today was spent alternately eating and spazzing and nothing else. Went out early to meet Yu Jie in Bugis, and we went to get swiss rolls and puffs from Kandahar St, just because. Then we had supposedly a "small" lunch at Banquet@Raffles Hospital. I had Wanton Mee and Yu Jie had Yong Tau Fu.

(NB: I am influenced by Pi and am therefore recounting my food experiences. :P)

After that, Yu Jie insisted I try Jap dessert, so we went to Ministry of Food, and I tried the Mango Sundae. AWESOME MUCH? It's one of the yummiest desserts I've ever had. And I showed her my sketchy Jap trip itinerary. And how I can't decide between Ginza or Roppongi on the last day.

After dessert, we went to buy my DV cassette tapes and then went for coffee and tea at TCC. (I had my hazelnut latte again and Yu Jie had the Special Breakfast Tea.) And we sat with my laptop for at least three hours, spazzing. I think the TCC staff were kind of, "Are these two girls nuts, sitting here for so long, laughing at their computer screen???" Mostly, I made Yu Jie endure my yamaki-biased rant (how Yamapi looked so happy during Kurosagi times and can they please get together already or at least make Kurosagi Season 2!) and we gushed about Tomapi and like how their friendship is awesome. And then digressed a little bit into the gossip of non-idol people and did you know that so-and-so used to be quite unbearably infatuated with so-and-so but now it's so over? Haha. It was fun.

Then we started playing Facebook games. XD Madness. I got Yu Jie hooked onto Word Challenge. It's crazy addictive.

That was Duckie's obsession surfacing into her word game. HAHA.

ANYWAY: I am leaving for my Japan trip tomorrow! So won't be around from 12th to 19th Dec. :) See you when I get back!

We did a birthday slideshow for my mum! :D Much fun this was.



Also: Tegoshi was on Arashi's show!!! I almost fell over in unbridled happiness when I came across the youtube vid. >.< Here. I have started to love Arashi a lot more now. Like a lot. The part of me still in love with NEWS is half-afraid that Arashi might take over. :s BUT NO. NEWS still takes precedence, I think. Ahak. Because when sis and me went shopping (for mummy's present) today and stopped by comic con, finding NEWS pics gave me jolts of excitement, but Arashi pics had less of an effect. Haha. But really. I am loyal like that - NEWS shall always be THE Johnny's group for me. :)

Three separate entries in one day! Eheh. I just have much to say, I guess, and multiple fandoms to give attention to. :P

Speaking of which, finally started on my Supernatural Season 3 DVDs, and I MISS DEAN <3. And Sam. And Bobby. And gosh, I love Supes. It is funny. And awesome.

So anyway, have been going out every day since exams ended. And yesterday, met up with Eunice and Yujie, spending the entire day randomly spazzing over JE (sorry, Eunice... :P) and trashing out stuff and talking about every other thing, and getting The Tales of Beedle The Bard:

I'm almost done with it. And just reading the first few pages gave me a feeling of nostalgia so strong, I was compelled to pick up Philosopher's Stone on the spot to start rereading the entire HP series. But rereading Lymond is enough to handle at the moment, I think. Not to mention the thousands other things I supposedly want to do this December break. You know what, I realise I have a crazy number of fandoms :D and I like it this way.

Later on in the day, the three of us wanted to get dessert and we were going out of Borders and I saw some dudes dressed in yellow robes drinking Ice Blended Coffee at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

Me: Are those monks?
Yu Jie: No lah, I think they're llamas.

Okay, I suppose it doesn't sound funny at all now, but I was bursting into laughter when Duck said that! Because yes, although she meant lamas as in the term given to 'Tibetan teachers of Dharma', upon hearing, I took it that she meant the clippity-clop-hairy-animal llamas and proceeded to laugh uncontrollably all the way to Cedele (where we had pancakes with ice cream). Can you try to see the funny in this? I saw two men, asking if they are monks by way of profession, and Yu Jie replies, that, no, they're furry four-legged animals instead! XD

So anyway, the difference between lamas and monks is that a monk can be a lama but a lama cannot be a monk, as in a square can be a rectangle but a rectangle cannot be a square. :P Okay, I'm being deliberately silly. Basically, the wikipedia link up there says that lamas are special Tibetan monks, who have attained higher levels of spirituality. The Dalai Lama is but one of many possible lamas. So yes, dear Yu Jie, you're right, they could be lamas. But they're definitely monks. I win!

LYMOND SPAZ (There are major spoilers ahead, if you care.)

So. I had like 2 and a half hours of sleep last night because I was reading Lymond. At first, I was reading Ringed Castle. About a quarter way through, I reached the Lymond/Guzel part, which kind of blew me away (although, yes, it's not like it's the first time I'm reading this). I remember saying to myself: Nobody can write sex like Dunnett. Haha, really. I mean, how can it seem like such beautiful prose and at the same time, be so... nyeeah, there's no other word - erotic?

Here's part of it (the paragraph before this, although written beautifully as well, was more explicit and uh... this blog was never meant to go beyond PG-13, so am excluding that):

Her needs over the years had become complex. Her passions, over the years, had found such force that one fulfillment could hardly assuage them. Couch to cushion to carpet became soft and desperate stations, moving from urging to torment to investment once again. And with an odd, detached insight, giving and withholding, exciting and loitering, he knew how to find her appetite, and force it into violence and withstand it without mercy, until she was aware of nothing in the world but her famine. And then of nothing in the world but the exquisite act which occluded it. And towards dawn hunger, fed and fed, at last allowed her to lie dispossessed in dreaming calm, satisfied.

So after reading that, I was like this @_@ and I felt a crazy impulse to just get to the Lymond/Philippa parts instead. Because hello, Lymond/Philippa is the ultimate fictional OTP. HANDS DOWN. And their love is heart-wrenching and beautiful and inspiring and ohmygod, I was desperate for beautiful quotes about their love! So, then I started flipping the pages of Ringed Castle speedily, stopping only when Lymond's and Philippa's names were spotted within a page of each other and scanning for the good parts and devouring them.

And when I reached the last page of Ringed Castle, I still wasn't satisfied and so I traipsed down to the bookshelves at 4 am to get the next volume - Checkmate - and continue my quest for Lymond/Philippa. My eyes were almost burning from tiredness actually, but I was caught in some crazy OTP fever or something and couldn't stop. And oh god, Checkmate is awesome for the love quotes. When I read the part where Philippa realises she loves Lymond but cannot dream of being with him (thinking he loves Guzel, and his adamancy about returning to Russia, among one million other reasons), I wanted to cry. It was heartbreaking.

Subconsciously, she had divined what he might be. That night, turned upon herself and not outward to others, the elements of his identity had been delivered to her, served upon gold, as the bread and meat and wine of a festival.

For an hour, blended with all she could offer, something noble had been created which had nothing to do with the physical world. And from the turn of his throat, the warmth of his hair, the strong, slender sinews of the hands, something further; which had. Though she combed the earth and searched through the smoke of the galaxies there was no being she wanted but this, who was not and should not be for Philippa Somerville.

Backtracking to Ringed Castle: Lymond's falling in love with Philippa is even more precious. Because he'd been so horrid to her, in my opinion (haha, I was already rooting for them and I love Philippa to bits), when he fell in love with her, I was like, 'HAH! Serve you right! You love her, now whatchoo gonna do!' XD I love how he thought he was completely invulnerable against such fluffy emotions, so that when love happened, he was utterly shocked with himself. Fantastic. Here's the part where Philippa gets knocked unconscious at the House of Revels and Lymond had to bring her back to Lady Dormer's.

He looked at her. The long, brown hair; the pure skin of youth; the closed brown eyes, their lashes artfully stained; the obstinate chin; the definite nose, its nostrils curled. The lips, lightly tinted, and the corners deepened, even sleeping, with the remembrance of sardonic joy... The soft, severe lips.

And deep within him, missing its accustomed tread, his heart paused and gave one single stroke, as if on an anvil.

And to finish, the best ever line to substitute 'and they lived happily ever after':

'We have reached the open sea, with some charts; and the firmament.'

Doesn't that simple line just describe the boundless future for Lymond and Philippa at the end of the series? Oh, Dunnett, you genius and gift to the literary world. I am in constant awe of you.

NEWS RANT

Oh mannnn. There is rumour that Kusano might come back to join NEWS. The wonderful 6-membered group dynamic will be disrupted! :( NOOOO. I AM SAD. Please don't disturb the wonderful balance anymore, Johnny! NEWS is at a good place now: Yamapi has always had Ryo, TegoMass forever and KoyaShige best friends for life. You add Kusano in and then... what? Please please please don't. I think the six that have stayed together have achieved a level of camaraderie that is separate from what NEWS used to be. D: Please don't destroy this. Okay fine, I learnt to love NEWS without Uchi and Kusano, so I'm a little biased. But my argument is still sound.

ALL PAPERS DONE!!! :D Oh, sweet freedom. I think I like myself best at moments like this. Because I'm all promises and plans of great and ambitious projects. My videos. My language studies. My book reading. My cleaning. Etc. :)

Also, my cousin has given birth to her daughter! She shares the same birthday as Duckie (who has also come back home). Yay. Happy times.

Today's math stats paper was keeerrrraaazzy. Like seriously, mad. Okay, I suppose it's my not having grasped the concepts better and having like almost zero practice that screwed me, but omg, I BLANKED OUT so much. When I reached question 2, I was like this: @_@ and going, "Eh, I should know this, why don't I know this, how do I do this..." And five helpsheets were no help, man. I was just getting confused everywhere. And then I skipped question 2 to go to question 3, and in restrospect, I think I shouldn't have done that, because at the last minutes when I scrambled back to question 2, it seemed somehow doable, if only I'd invested the time. And when I reached question 3 and it was equally stumping, I had to tell myself, "Okay Shamiah, no panicking and running away from this question. Just squeeze your brain and do this. DO THIS OR DIE." And so I spent nearly like 50 minutes making sure I got question 3 right. Then I went to question 4 and started panicking again because frak, why does it look so complicated??? And the thing about math is that you just cannot do it when you're not calm and thinking, so question 4 was only partially done before I started panicking again and looking at the clock and flipping back to question 2 and wondering if I could pass the exam with the questions I'd managed to complete. I think I did complete enough to scrape a passing grade (provided I didn't do something stupid or overlook anything), which means that overall, the best I can hope for for this module is a B grade. -_- But then again, miracles can happen, so... maybe a B+? HAH. XD I've always been a dreamer.

So now, I still have biophysics. Which is an insane module. Whose concepts are like misty white vapours in my brain. (Something about three-dimensional random walks, and movement across membranes and pressure and the activation of nerves?) The only consolation is that it's open book. So Allah and Rasul help me tomorrow. SOMEHOW. I can do this. I can do this. GANBATTE.