Finished with bio paper.

I am surprised at how my SAT essay fared. I don't know... How do I keep consistent in my writing? I write crap within half an hour, I get a high score. But I painfully write GP essays, and barely get over 30 each time. It's darn hard. I think I have to take SAT 1 again, see if I can get a better score. My critical reading was atrocious. But thinking of the four hour paper is... exhausting. Why does the test have to be so long??? Blah.

I am a slow person. I confess. Everything I do just lags behind. Be it responding to someone's call, laughing at a joke or getting it. Doing homework, studying, everything! It's like, I'll plan to stop reading at a certain time, but I'll only stop at least 15 minutes after said time. Or I'll plan to stop studying at 10 to watch Desperate Housewives, but I'll end up missing the first part of the show because I stopped studying later than I planned. I just never follow my own plans! Maybe I'm half-sloth. Or, of course, am so ill-disciplined, it's disgusting. I really wish I was duck sometimes.

And long overdue birthday presents.

I hate learning about sewage and sludge and filtration and making clean water and such. It's so mundane! It's the same thing for almost every process (filtration again and again) that I get things mixed up. The thing I find, weirdly, amusing and entertaining though, is memorising the names of those bacteria. I think I like learning names. Maybe I should go learn taxonomy.

Am still obsessed about Les Choristes. Have succeeded in downloading half the soundtrack (I think) and the songs are stuck in my head. Gosh, his voice is just magic.

Why do I easily get obsessed over things? It's both a bad thing and a good thing. I become really happy and occupied, but then I forget all about being practical and responsible.

Bio in two days. I won't bother writing the same things I always do when exams and impending doom is in sight. Ugh.

Celebrating Mamu Ghulam's birthday today. I find it strange. But whatever - it's a nice gesture. Something we should have thought of doing earlier.

Love Les Choristes! Bought the vcd already, and am now thoroughly addicted to the music. Endeavouring to download the whole soundtrack, and maybe buy it still when I see it around HMV. And Maunier has a gorgeous voice I could listen to for hours and not get bored. And am consequently learning some french. Nice.

You are Poetry.You are often the most emotional of the arts. You
are introverted, in that you tend to let people
come to you rather than trying to get their
attention. You get along well with Music and
Literature.

What form of art are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

How nice.

Anyway, I've found a nice place to get book icons! I think some of them are really gorgeous. There are even Lymond ones. Lots of HP, Discworld, LotR and there's Narnia too.
Here: http://www.livejournal.com/community/book_icons

I think one can do a lot through sheer force of will. Problem is...

Oh, how frustrating. There must be something wrong with me.

SAT scores. Oh, disgusting. And it's all my fault!

My verbal is disgusting! How. How. How. I don't want to pay and sit for it again! It's not cheap. And those bigshot universities always require 700 and above for everything! Except for Princeton, which requires 680. Of course math is relatively okay... Although I should have gotten at least 790. Maddening!

This is what I get for not working as hard as I should. Blah!

Watched Batman Begins last night. I think this batman movie finally explained a lot of unexplained things to the non-comic-reading audience. Slightly draggy at certain parts, but overall, satisfying.

So that's why he's BATman of all things. And oh, that's why Gotham City's all dark and gloomy. And oh, no wonder there are so many baddies in Gotham, all with their own silly ideas of costumes. And I think it's so cool how he disguises his voice. And the whole invisibility thing. Christian Bale did good. And Michael Caine is just so funny!

Anyway... I was thinking, should I believe in signs? There have been instances when signs have been proven true, for me. (Like the time when I picked up the pebble at Giza, and it actually tumbled out of my hands by accident, and Abah saw it and went like, "Hah?! You're going to bring that home?" and gave me a you-better-don't-I-think-it's-a-bad-idea look, but I ignored him and look what happened.) But... if it's true, then, that God does give signs as warning (I think the Quraan sort of supports this fact)...

Oh no. I lost it, I lost it. I must be the evilest person on earth. In the first place, how could I have lost it? It seems almost planned. I can't even recall the last time I saw it. And it happens just so... aptly with the situation, you know. Oh no, I must be really evil. I have damaged things for good or something. Oh no.

The good thing about keeping an account of your life is being able to observe how you've changed over the years, if you have at all. I have two different sources for this: my blog (which isn't that much) and my private written journals. Everytime I go back to reading old, old entries, I marvel at how... lighthearted I sound. How terribly innocent, sometimes. (How deceptive.) How naive. But it saddens my heart just how much... sadder my entries get as I grow older. Well, there are those occasional happy entries, but the frequency of depressing events is higher at this age.

Am looking at a blog entry dated November 22 2002. When birdieocracy was only beginning to take shape.

"Went to Suntec just now with the two birds - turkey and duckie. Bless those two fluffy things."

Back then, my life really revolved around HP. How very amusing. I knew everything there was to know about the world. I am still, somewhat, a master of HP, but not at that top level anymore, if you get what I'm saying. And I seemed a lot happier. Despite everything.

I don't know if everyone experiences this: that one moment during your childhood, when something just snaps and then... nothing's the same. You don't feel as carefree anymore, you start thinking more and the realities of the world start piling on your chest. I remember that day like it happened only yesterday. I think there was this roaring in my ears. And I remember gripping the table hard, really hard, and staring at my knuckles till they turned white. From then on, I think, I had become the 'me' now. As though my consciousness begun then, at that point. And I haven't grown or changed since. Well, not much at least.

By the way, read DV 16 Part One. Nothing much happening. But made me cringe initially. Look at my previous post and look how I posted about new DV chapters in the past.

OMG!!!!! I'm about to burst with excitement!!!!!! DV 11 will be coming out in less than 3 hours!!! Eeeekkkk! ~ dated December o2 2002.

Mad. My enthusiasm has dropped considerably.

DV 16 Part One is up!!! Omg.

Red Sea

Rehal (holy book rest) arching over the road as we left Makkah.

A black woman beggar, with her baby strapped to her back. So poor thing.

Masjidil Haram, miniature version, at the museum.

Gua Hira'

View of Masjidil Haram from outside our hotel. Lots of construction going on in the background.

Maqam Rasulullah. The famous green dome.

Sis and me, in front of the doors to ladies section of Masjid Nabawi

I thought this was a nice random photo. Haha.

The walk to Masjid Nabawi (Prophet Muhammad's mosque) from our hotel.