I don't know whether I should be blogging at all right now, though I've been wanting to all week. Why? Well, for one thing, tomorrow's my chem lecture test and I should be studying. I think I sort of understand Chemical Kinetics and Equilibrium... but I don't think I'll know how to solve any problem they give. I just don't have the drive to work hard anymore... which is pretty scary, really. The second reason why I shouldn't be blogging is because my internet connection is being crankier than usual and there's a very big chance that whatever I type now might not end up in my blog. Everything might just disappear as soon as I click 'Post and Publish'.

But I shall blog anyway.

When things are too coincidental, is it fate? Like how Jean and me ended up in the same JC class. Or how Duck and me, and Turk and Pige became friends. It's strange that Eunice became my classmate and Shen Onn became Yu Jie's. It sort of created the perfect situation for the blossoming of a special friendship. Or how about the way my mum and dad ended up together. They had been in TKGS and TKSS respectively. Which is incidentally physically situated next to each other. And they had been in the same polytechnic. And had been friends at some level. After that, they only met again because they ended up working in the same vicinity and bumped into each other. Coincidence? Is fate a bunch of coincidences? I don't think Jean and me would have been as close friends as we are now if we hadn't ended up in the same class now. Or take what happened yesterday when me and Nadia went for photog outing. We went to Botanic Gardens. We got thirsty and so we went to the cafe. There was a Malay guy there who Nadia thought was cute. I agreed... somewhat. By the way, I think Nadia has the strangest tastes in boys. Anyway, we bought our drinks, walked around some more, taking photos, and then went home at about 6pm. We were on bus no. 7 and guess who was next to us? The guy Nadia thought was cute. Me and Nadia were furiously exchanging glances and grinning. My eyes were positively bulging, I think. And I muttered under my breath, "This is too coincidental, Nadia." Haha. Of course... after that we got off at Orchard mrt station and he didn't come off with us or anything.

But still... Maybe we shouldn't ignore certain coincidences. They might reveal a glimpse of the future, eh?

A warning just appeared on my screen. It says my computer might have 'spyware' and suggests screening. Is this a normal thing? Do you have pop ups regarding spyware?

I realise that I haven't reviewed Checkmate yet. And it was (how long...) a month ago that I finished it. So I shall. And I shall ignore that part of me that worries about what my reader thinks.

Checkmate is the best of the six volumes, though Pawn in Frankincense (frankincense is a mediterranean thing that you burn for its scent, I think) and Game of Kings come close. First of all, Francis is tortured more than ever here. To digress a bit, Francis is Lymond's first name. Lymond is the name of his property. And the fact that I know he's hiding a secret so important to him makes everything so... exciting. Every scene I read, I look out for clues and 'watch' his behaviour to see if he might reveal himself in anyway, unawares to the other characters. That's the thing about the chronicles! You become so involved with it because the reader himself does not know Francis well. This is because hardly anything is written in Francis' point of view. You want to know what he thinks, you have to work as hard as anyone else in the story in figuring out this enigmatic person. It's frustrating yet so satisfying when you find out finally, the truth of his actions or his intentions when he finally speaks of it. It's just very... interactive. I can't seem to find words that are adequate enough in describing my experience reading it. I can only recall two scenes where Dunnett writes what Francis thinks. When he falls in love and the time before he was on the journey to Flaw Valleys, England. And those short segments of writing are so rare and precious, they stick in my mind. Like the quote I once pasted here...

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

That was when he realised he had deeper feelings than he thought he did fora cetain someone. And the visual imagery just dramatizes everything. I just love the way she writes! It's poetic, sometimes. Sometimes it's direct. It's like she mixed a modern way of talking and the beauty of old English together... so that it's not so hard to read yet the, the, beauty of English is there, you know. It's not as hard as Shakespeare. But you know how in the end you understand what Shakesperare means and appreciates how he conveys his meaning? Ah, that's what I mean with Dunnett. Though not at Shakespeare's level. So if you think hard enough, you can understand.

Sometimes it's like instead of reading a scene, I'm watching one and I'm trying to figure out what the character feels and means. Sometimes you don't know what to think, then you may get frustrated and confused. For instance, Philippa, who's busy helping Queen Mary of Scots at court, gets a distressing letter. Instead of writing that 'Philippa was distraught. She felt as though she couldn't go on anymore' and easily let her reader know the impact of that letter, Dunnet goes on to show that Philippa put the letter aside, left to attend to the queen and describes how Philippa spent the remaining of that day. At this point I'll go, "Hah! Hah! What's going on! Did she not care about the letter?"

And finally Dunnett shows how Philippa laid in bed at night, too tired to fall asleep and when she finally did at dawn, she was woken to the sound of cries. After a while, she realised her maidservant was hugging her. And that it it was her own cries which woke her.

Ahah! Here is where I start to choke up. The impact is a million times more than if Dunnett were to simply write what Philippa felt and thought directly. And this technique is used qutie often, I think.

Anyway, about Checkmate... I love it. I found out who Francis Crawford really is. Philippa has become an amzing woman. She's grown from a 10 year old tomboy who hated Lymond's guts to an intelligent, respectable lady 11 years later. There's the romance which is heart rending, because of its numerous complications. Then there's all the pain of reading about Francis in pain. The blindness. The headaches. The hurt of having killed his own son. The constant fear of his death. It's as though he's become so fragile. In Game of Kings, it wasn't as frightening because when he was fighting or running or battling, you know he has the will to live and he's strong and skilled. In Checkmate, though he is just as strong and skilled, experienced now, it's scarier because his will to live has dimmed. I was clutching my cheeks at some parts. Hello, he tried to kill himself. Sometimes I wish I could take him by his shoulders and shake him. Make him see that he should not blame himself for all the deaths he thinks he's responsible for. For all the people who have died because of him or for him, he saved many more.

Game of Kings' theme is mostly about loyalty and one's roots and honour. Queen's Play about leadership. The biggest theme in Checkmate is undoubtedly, love. I have never known a love story more amazing and touching. Or one that spans as long a period. Each thinks at first, that the love is not reciprocated. Then when they do find out that the contrary is true, new things become an obstacle. It really is much too complicated to say them here. And the most interesting thing is that they love each other so much but they display no physical affection (because of a certain complication). But their love is still so evident in how Dunnett writes... How they understand each other by using eyes and without any need of words, how each affects the other in the littlest things, how much each is willing to sacrifice for the other... They don't kiss till the very end. Because they have suffered so much, you want them to be happy so much too. I really became so emotionally involved with the whole world of Lymond. As much as I have with HP, I think.

Hehe. The rally speech is finally over. SO LONG. Isn't he thirsty?

I think I've written enough about Lymond too.

I really don't want to talk about how dreadful school is. Or how much stress I'm going through. It's terribly boring. I can't seem, though, to write of anything else. There is nothing going on that isn't about school.

Well. I ate ice-cream yesterday. Macs vanilla cone. And some at night from the tub that my mum bought.

Oh my god. Even that isn't interesting.

I have reached the lowest of the low.

My life is so mundane. Boring.

Started on Inheritance in Bio!

I can't make that sound interesting either...

I am drawing blanks here.

I need adventure. I need something new to happen. Not new in the form of a new topic in chemistry or physics. But something different. I feel BORED.

I found out that my blog is being read by anyone who's interested in the name 'Bafadhal'. And since members of the Bafadhal clan tend to want to type in the aforementioned family name in yahoo, my blog pops up. And they read my blog. Cousins... father... god knows who else. It's weird. I normally have no interest to read blogs of people who I'm not close to. Why would I want to? It's more or less the same as being kaypo. A high-tech kaypo person. But hey, you say, people have blogs for others to read what... I suppose you've got a point. But I still don't see why you have to be interested in someone else's life so much unless of course the person lives a wonderfully exciting one (not me) or you're interested in getting to know the person better. The latter is a valid reason... I realise I'm going in circles with this argument...

I think it's just that the idea of people I don't know reading my blog irks me! The idea that people who are not supposed to read my blog, read my blog, irks me! Ah sigh.

I also found out that if you type Lymond, my blog appears too. I was amazed at first. Dunnett fans are rare, I guess...

Dr Allan Balmain is Scottish! Hee. Went for the cancer talk with Eunice. Was pleasantly surprised to find that he's Scottish and was slightly thrilled by the accent. I really can't help it that I get excited when anything remotely related to the chronicles happens. Anyway, I think the title of the talk was inappropriate. He wasnt really talking about what actually causes cancer... But more on what he thinks will cure cancer, which is very informative all the same.

Despite all my complaints about my life being uninteresting, I actually crapped some stuff. Hah.

Lysistrata tomorrow! Some entertainment to look forward to. :)

I find it so hard to be happy for long nowadays. Depression has become so normal.

People can see it in my face, sometimes, I think. Samuel saw me today and said I looked tired. But I wasn't, really. I just felt down. Emotionally tired but not physically tired. I don't know why. I should learn to find joy in those happy little things that happen, right? But now that I think of it... Those happy little things come rarely too.

It's the whole thing about promos and getting good grades, I think. My whole life has transformed into this obsession over school. School. School. School. It's really giving me a headache. If it's not all the homework I'm having trouble keeping up with, it's all the CCA responsibilities I have to fulfill. I'm taking all these the wrong way. I must be. All this school experiences should be enriching. Why am I feeling as though I'm being drained of all my energy instead? I feel like I'm running endlessly, running and chasing... god knows what. My As. The dream of a scholarship. I want those, don't I? I do. I really think I do. But why then... do I not have the enthusiasm to keep going? Why am I not feeling completely happy?

I think what I need is to pray more. I shall strive to find that inner peace.

*****

Ramblings aside, I shall say that I read Yeo Lay's (Ex physics teacher) favourite book, Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom. It hasn't become my favourite book but I highly recommend it to anyone. I think I cried over it more than I have over any other book. It's very enlightening. It sort of sums up all the lessons I've heard of about life... What to think about death, about family, about love, about aging and the meaning of life. I finished it within a few hours. An easy read.

Oh. I paid the $21 premiere library membership fee and borrowed the cds. Haha.

And I watched The Village. Most people say it sucks but frankly, I like it. Not an entirely fantastic movie, but I like it. Shyamalan is still a genius to me. Some think it a waste of money because they entered the movie theatre with all the hope of receiving a good, entertaining scare and not a good story. You want that, go watch Ju-on. I think everything that happened in the story fell perfectly into place at the end. It's the kind of story that makes you want to recall everything from the beginning to end.

Maybe not Shyamalan's best work (That's still Sixth Sense, I think), but still a good piece of story.

Read DV 15. Slightly disappointed cause I finished it under two hours. But I still love it. Some of the parts cracked me up. Really. Few authors are able to make me laugh until I clutch my stomach in pain. Cassie's one of them. Of course... the jokes are still not as good as they used to be (recall peanut butter sandwich scene)... but some of the humour's back. :)

"Ginny!" Draco cried. "My Ginny, my darling - thank heavens you're safe!"

I am now going to launch into a DV ranting/review so... in case you're a reader, you've been warned...

*****

Of course Hermione's not dead. It'd be too good to be true. I really think the Rhysenn who returned was really Hermione... somehow.

Poor Ron. I'm so afraid he's going to kill himself or something. I mean... If I were him and I knew that my blood and existence were to bring the end of the world (my gosh, this sounds cliche), I'd want to die.

I really, really like Ginny. I've always liked Ginny. I love the way she's being strong, selfless, and honest with herself. (Unlike selfish Hermione!) I almost wanted to cry at the part in the garden with Tristan/Draco. I love, I hope. Wonder what that means. Maybe there's hope still for them both? I think so.

And oh my gosh, is pesky Seamus dead for good? I almost feel guilty for always calling him pesky... He's a good guy... His kind of characters always exist... They're good and they don't deserve to be hated but people just hate them because they're pesky.

I foresee the two Voldie's ending up killing each other.

And of course, the friendship between Harry and Draco cannot get any closer. What they have is so special... As long as they don't turn gay! I pray they don't. Their bond is so unique, to make them gay would ruin everything.

I'm going to paste a quote that probably all DV fans have on their blogs by now.

"I don't," Draco said. "I want to stay with you. Watch over you. Follow you always. It's what I was meant to do. Blood binds us, Harry, and some fate more inextricable than that. And I want more selfish things. No one wants to die at seventeen. I want to be young and to live, and to be with the person I love, and I want to travel and see the world. And I want to get married and have children some day, and spoil them rotten so they grow up to be foul little bastards, and I want to die in bed when I'm a hundred and ninety, hexed to death by a jealous husband."

The 'jealous husband' part made me squeal! Goodness. Luckily Harry didn't catch on that... Well, of course he didn't because he's nobody's husband... yet... Let's just hope she's dead. Actually, I pity her... But better her than anyone else! Selfish female dog.

*****

I was reading the reviews at Cassie's blog and apparently I'm not alone where being torn between Lymond and Draco is concerned. There are people who agree that those two are probably the two most amazing male fictional characters ever created. And who also can't help but compare the two.

Though... Recently I've begun to suspect that Cassie has been ripping off certain things from Dunnett. There are things common between them that are much too coincidental.

Like the way both Draco and Lymond always lean on things to support themselves so as to appear unperturbed but are actually unable to stand up, on the brink of collapse or blind. Oh my god! YES! BLINDNESS. Just realised that. Now THAT is too much of a coincidence. Both of them experience bouts of blindness!!! Due to poison! Though Lymond's is slightly more complicated. Maybe I should ask her directly, if she's shaping Draco according to Lymond. Because if she is, then, then, then, it'll be really wrong! Because Draco will essentially be Lymond and at first, the reason I was attracted to Lymond was Draco! This distorts things pretty badly. But I suppose there's nothing much wrong, legally, with using Dunnett's stuff because it is fanfiction.

They both like brown haired girls. And have been associated with red haired girls.

Both had almost crossed a river to the afterworld (Draco via the bridge and Lymond via the boatman) but were being called back reluctantly to fulfill duties they hadn't completed. And they both actually wanted to die.

Both are adept with using the sword. Both are filthy rich. Both have sharp tongues. Both have been described as someone who you really, really like or really, really hate.

Of course, not to mention, the likeness in the physical attributes. Except for the colours of the eyes. Maybe Cassie couldn't make it blue cause the book already said grey.

And oh my gosh. The French roots. Isn't it peculiar that Cassie has to make Draco have French blood? He can speak French... Lymond's born in France but he's full Scottish.

Oh yes, both have been misunderstood as evil.

I rest my case. They are very, very much alike. And there's a 70% chance that Cassie is either consciously or unconsciously making Draco into Lymond.

*****

Had nowhere to go after national day celebrations today. So sad. Nikki had RP so we couldn't watch The Village like we wanted to. And Jean didn't even come today. Addy went off with Joel. And everybody I would consider going out with just disappeared! Smsed Duckie but she said she was already going out with some friends... Understandable. Called Munirah and she had already made plans with her rock climbing mates. Almost called Jiawen before realising she's in Australia. Eunice has her learning journey thing. Bet Pige had something on with her class too. I just had nowhere to go. And it was utterly disappointing. Called my sister and even she had plans with friends. Ended up going home with Pramidh who I hardly know and who's only been a recognisable entity for being in the same Thursday PE class. She's nice of course. And has extremely pretty eyes. I told her that and even added that it sometimes looks green. Which sent her laughing. I added that it could possibly be all the greenery of bouna vista reflected in her eyes. Haven't I mentioned that I love green? For the wrong reasons, some would say. But hey, I still like it.

Anyway, was so very down because of the fact that I appeared friendless (Sister did not help the situation by taunting over the phone that all my friends have left me. I kept cursing her and she kept laughing.). So I decided that I could very well entertain myself. Am very good at that. So I set off by myself... First of all, bought waffles with blueberry paste. Nice. Nicer than the ghim moh one, I feel. Then walked down some shops and went to the Tampines library and stayed there for approximately two hours. Time flew past. I just looked through so many books and enjoyed myself immensely. Looked at all the Literature books. My hand itched to pick out one of Shakespeare's plays but the logical and sensible part of me prevailed. How could I possibly understand it by myself? And even if I could, I could not possibly afford the time. Found some cds to borrow. Educational ones. A Dorling Kindersley interactive history encyclopaedia which got me all excited. And one about Egypt and another one about Lost Civilisations. Wanted to borrow them all but when I got to the borrowing machine, it rejected my card. And it turned out that borrowing cds is a completely separate thing from borrowing books. Membership was required. WITH AN ANNUAL FEE OF $21. That made me all angry and sad again. Because when I found the cds, I thought the day had turned out a bit better... only it didn't. Comforted myself by marching around a bit and returning the cds in the incorrect place. Then went back to the lit shelf to see if I could at least borrow a book. But because my mood had been spoiled, I couldn't appreciate anything much anymore. Wandered off to the psychology section and finally got absorbed with those personality things I get obsessed with occasionally. Found a Chinese destiny precicting book which says that my element is Earth and I have a voracious appetite. And love to learn things and because of that, think I know more than others. Haha. Also found an astrology book which says that psychology is a profession strangely common for Taurus people (which made me go yay). It also said that marriages between Aquarius and Taurus people are strangely uncommon. And Taurus people like Taurus people. Which explains why I love my aunt so much and think she's leading the perfect life.

(Realise I need to start a new paragraph.) After all that endless browsing, I ended up borrowing a book called 'The Secret Language of Dreams'. Pretty interesting so far. Has Freudian and Jungian theories which I find intriguing. Though I think Freud is a bit mental because of the way he assumes his sexual repressions are shared by everyone.

The mind exists in 4 levels:

1. The conscious. Where the ego is in control and the 'I' decides everything.
2. The pre-conscious. Where the mind stores clear facts, memories, ideas and motives.
3. The personal unconscious. Where a person's deepest unacknowledged desires and fears are stored and appear in dreams as symbols which are personal to the person.
4. The collective unconscious. A large pool of symbols and ideas shared by the human race which Jung thinks forms the world's myths and religions.

Read a section about lucid dreaming too and feel like up to trying it again. Being able to do it would be amazing.

So... after borrowing that book and feeling ok again, I got out of the library, bought a coke and green apple slurpy from 7-11 and headed home.

And here I am.

I wonder if this is my longest entry to date.