I've always thought coffee never affected me much, no matter how much I love and drink it. Then last night, I drank some and ended up not sleeping till nearly 4 am. Zzzz. ZONKED. Me and sis were chatting in the dark for near two hours, about anything and everything. Until she was like, "Eh, what time is it???" And I was @.@ - "I have no idea, but very late."

I don't know how some sisters can be so different and I wonder how they get along. Me and sis are so similar in many ways - I don't know if it's a result of being close to each other, or being close is a result of our matching personalities. Hm. Maybe the two reinforce each other.

I was randomly mentioning last night of a memory I had when we were all younger and my siblings and I told our parents we wished that time would stand still. I think I was 9 and we were in Australia for the first time (on a trip with the uncles and cousins) and I remember us saying that that was the absolute best time of our lives. We didn't want to grow up. We had each other and it was so fun and we had our cousins we played with every time and anything different from that status quo would fall short.

And yesterday I realised, It's kinda true. :( Look now. It's all different. And I think I'm the one feeling it most. I think I might cry. Oh, the loss of innocence.

I had iftar with my primary school friends just now. A few of them, I hadn't seen in 10 years! XD It's just so amazing to meet people again after a long time. Yes, we're all a little taller, a little better groomed and a little more mature, but essentially we're all the same, it makes me want to smile non-stop for some reason.

Like, the cutest boy is still the cutest boy, the funny guy is still the funny guy, the weirdo is still adorably weird and our personalities, I'm thinking, are set in stone or something. Take Yus, for instance. She had always been the sportiest girl and tomboy-ish to the core, and look now - she's climbing mountains. Shahirah - loved reading books and was a pet in English class and she graduated as an English major. :)) I don't know - it's like a beautiful familiarity somehow.

I have a year left of school and a part of me is already dreading the end of it. No, it's not like I'm in love with NUS. It's more that I'm afraid of that crazy vastness that is the world out there, in which I feel I'm certain to get lost. I feel like the water's getting deep and I don't know if I can swim.

I came across this line while reading The Game of Thrones today:

"Beric Dondarrion was handsome enough, but he was awfully old,
almost twenty-two;"

I almost choked in laughing disbelief. XD Yes, I suppose to a 13-year-old, a 22-year-old is ancient, but still! Gosh.

Yesterday, whilst working on my seemingly never-ending task of putting together Kak Atiyah's wedding guestbook (I should learn to say no to people, no matter how painful, really. It's such a disease.), I rewatched episodes 3 and 4 of Nobuta wo Produce.

I was thinking about the Truth Man. In the show, there was a brief appearance of a strange character called the Truth Man and basically he would chase random people down and extort the truth from them. There is no specification as to what truth he demands, just simply the truth. And he would badger you and 'torment' you and he would not quit you till you gave him the truth. Of course, Akira gets accosted by this Truth Man at the end of episode 4 and at first he runs screaming from him (haha, Pi is seriously hilarious as Akira) but then gives in and confesses that he likes Nobuta so that the Truth Man would leave him. And after that, he was all like "Eh, I like her???" And it's so cute and all because next episode he tells Shuji he wants to quit producing Nobuta cause he doesn't want to share her with other people. <3

Anyway, I just thought the Truth Man idea was very smart - the truth , until you admit it to yourself, will eat away at you and torture you. The truth, as indeed the Truth Man demonstrated, will set you free.

Heh, I feel like I'm doing literature. :P But seriously, I love the themes and symbolism of Nobuta. Even to little things like the lighting of the show play a part - I love how when Shuji walks through the corridor, and he's thinking and being himself, the light dims and the sounds of his school fade away and you get the sense that he's playing this dual role - the real him, who thinks everything he's doing is kinda crap, and the popular him. And when some chattering girls accost him, reality comes flooding back and everything is colourful and noisy again, and we see Shuji back in his smiling public persona of all-popular high school boy.

I love how one can take little bits of Nobuta like that, and analyse them piece by piece. I don't get why the JEPCast (Johnny's Entertainment Podcast) refused to do it back when someone suggested it. JEPCast has a drama section where they review a drama, episode by episode, and the reason I knew JEPCast was cause one of the first dramas they covered was Kurosagi. When someone suggested Nobuta they said, if I'm not mistaken, that there was not enough interest in it and there was not much to delve into, and unless someone convinced them otherwise, they would work on other shows first. Needless to say, I was like this: O_O. Nobuta is filled to the brim with issues to discuss.

My sister, of course, doesn't give a toot to what the JEPCast people say because she quite dislikes them because of the irritating way they'd accent Japanese words. Seriously, they'd butcher names, so that Arashi gets pronouced as "Uh-RAA-she" and Takki gets called "tackey". Not to mention the annoying manner of some American conversationalists to include the word "like" every 10 words or so and end a sentence as a question, no matter the nature of the statement: "Like, I was so excited???" I get seriously tickled by it all.

Okay, functional genomics class - got to go!

Work is building up slowly like a storm. I can feel it. @.@ Yesterday, could barely understand a thing in my stats lecture. I have to make myself sit down with the textbook and get this or die. Not to mention that FYP is hovering like a cloud over my head -- I've been told what to do, but I haven't got around to doing it, and already, the prospect of looking up kinetic constants and reaction equations is scaring the frak out of me. I shall keep calm and try hard. I can do this!

Away from school, I've been wanting a number of things.

1) This backpack I saw at Tampines1 and been eyeing since. :S I've been chewing myself over it for a long time now.

2) TegoMasu no Uta album!!!! So far, I haven't seen it in stores in Singapore. And I just want it so bad. I realised that my top favourite JE songs are TegoMasu songs. This is one of their tracks in the album -- they sound awesome live. (And here's a clip with subs!)

I've had a little lull in spirits. And been a little busy with other things. So this place was neglected for a while. I've always thought how this blog gives the impression that I don't do anything besides spaz and ramble... but it's cause I just don't find joy in mundanely recounting my daily life happenings, unless they've truly moved me in some way that I feel compelled to share, and the event's something I feel open enough to share about. So yes, am not going to say what has happened in my life recently, haha. I have just been a bit preoccupied with other things. Quite memorable things.

Anyway, just tonight my sister and me were talking randomly:

I think it's guys that make relationships difficult, you know. Like you know, the girl has to be beautiful. No such thing as a guy admitting he likes a girl for her personality or virtues. If you watch movies or read books, the girl just has to be beautiful. If she ain't beautiful, she can't be the girl!

So what happens to the ugly girls then?

They just die.


XD HAHAHAHAHA. After that, I laughed like crazy. Gosh.

A short vid about the greatness that is Prophet Muhammad, Rasulullah s.a.w..



Another one:

A little documentary about the truth behind the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And it's made by an Israeli Jew too. It's a bit slow and muffled at some parts, but still watchable.

Come and educate yourself, please. Don't just swallow media propaganda.

(The other parts are linked under the same user.)

I just rewatched the first episode of Ryusei no Kizuna. :) It still made me laugh. And it still made me cry. And I'm putting up a review of Ryusei I wrote for my sis earlier this year (she used it for her Jap club exhibit or stg).

Ryusei no Kizuna (Meteor Bonds), based on the novel by famous mystery writer, Keigo Higashino, begins with the murder of a married couple. Blessedly, their children were out of the house at the time of the incident, having snuck out in the middle of the night to watch meteors. The three siblings returned home to find their parents dead, and their lives altered forever. The story fast forwards to the Ariake siblings as young adults, still haunted by their parents' yet unsolved muder case. Vowing to avenge the injustice done to their family, the Ariake siblings team up and in desperation, attempt various means and schemes to uncover the true killer before the Statute of Limitations puts a close to the police's murder investigation and the chance for them to confront their past.

Despite the rather dark and bleak premise of the plot, Ryusei no Kizuna has a surprising light-heartedness that makes watching a pleasure, even for non-mystery lovers. Screenwriter Kudo Kankuro, known for his unusual story-telling techniques, puts his brand of humour into the drama, creating fast-changing scenes and comical narratives. Indeed, there is rarely a scene that feels dragged out or out of place. The dialogue is riddled with laugh-out-loud punch lines and the crazy swindling schemes of the Ariake siblings - involving several cosplaying attempts - provide much amusement. More than all that however, is the amazing sibling chemistry between the three main actors. Viewers will most likely relate to the very natural sibling squabbles and interactions played by Ninomiya Kazunari (of the award-winning Letters from Iwo Jima), Nishikido Ryo and Toda Erika, which were always entertaining, occasionally heart-warming and more than once, tear-jerking. Ryusei no Kizuna, while driven by its mystery plot, is at its heart and as the title suggests, a wonderful portrayal of sibling love and the strength of family.