{ and we'll play summer on repeat;

Monday, August 31, 2009

hello, old friend. 7:55 AM

Sunday, August 30, 2009

hello, old friend. 6:10 AM

:O

my dog ate Whitby's Cadbury chocolate
and now she's going to DIE

...why do things like this always happen to me.

hello, old friend. 5:07 AM

asian pride!

---

You know you're Asian when...

-You get a B+ and you are categorized as a failure

-You get a C and are kicked out of your living quarters

-You are continually reminded of the possibility of working at Mickey D's and mowing lawns

-You have a little dangly pooh or other adorable little character, pokemon, hello kitty, transformers included

-You can hear your last name when you throw a pot down the stairs

*ching, chang, chong, etc.

-You know what the real Yellow Fever is and while it doesnt kill people - well, maybe it does kill some people inside.

- The Bio lectures on marine life (seaweed, sea cucumbers, octopii) was last night's dinner

-Your first word when you were a baby was "Stanford", "Harvard", "Yale", "Princeton", or even "Ivy League"

- Your parents hover over your tired, caffeine-drugged body at 12 midnight to say, "In Korea (or other native country), we studied even more."

- Your parents expect you'll be best friends with any one off the street in any given area as long as they are Asian

- An Asian woman comes on campus and people ask: "Is that your mother?" Well then, "Is it your sister?"

- Your family always cheers for the Asian athlete on TV (i.e. Michael Chan)

-Taking 8 AP's out of 7 is still probably considered slacking

-You have off-color printed screen tees from an Asian country with bad spelling

-Half your house is a library - filled to the brim with large books that frequently only have 3-letter words on them such as SAT, ACT, and AP'S

-You understand that chopsticks are NOT for chopping although specializing them does result in weaponry. Seriously.

-Your parents cannot grasp their minds around the fact that there is more than one way to a successful life than a super "high ranked" college.

-You can draw crowds playing DDR at arcades or the movies

-You know what "old asian lady" smells like

-You've seen Mulan at least 2 times

-You know Jackie Chan's, Bruce Lee's, and Jet Li's Chinese name

-You've never heard of clothing that wasn't on sale.

-Your parents always remind to you to eat some sort of food by which consumption you either 1. become smarter 2. become skinnier 3. grow taller 4. have good complexion, etc

-You feel the need of taking off your shoes when entering an abode

-You go straight home to study after a test

-You ask your dad for help on a simple math problem and spend the next 2 hours listening to a math lecture

-You call all adult women "aunts" and all adult men "uncles"

-Your family takes a million pictures everywhere you go

-You don't understand the concept of knives and forks, only chopsticks

-You play the violin and the piano

-You've made honor roll for all your life

-You wash and reuse ziplock bags.

-You know at least three people named Alan Wong.

-Everyone assumes you're Chinese, no matter what your actual Asian heritage is.

-Your family buys rice by the ton

-While your friends are crying about I Love New York or Tila Tequila, you are uncontrollably sobbing about a Korean drama

-You automatically make the peace sign when someone looks at you with their camera

-People assume you know martial arts

-You wonder why there even is Yellow Fever to begin with and how no other ethnicity seems to be associated with a similar issue

-You start rolling in red envelope dough on New Years

-You take prodigious napkins from restaurants and ketchup packs from McDonalds or any other fast food joint

-You tend to look up a lot.

-You go skiing and to get ticket prices like 50% off, your parents say you're 12 when you're really 15.

-You tell jokes like: How do you know when an Asian's robbed your house? Your homework's done, the computer's upgraded, your noodles are gone, and the guy is still in the driveway trying to back out of your car.

- Your parents tell you about how long it took for them to get to school, how horrible the weather was in their native country, and how much they still appreciated going

- Your parents buy you clothes and shoes many sizes too big so you can "grow into it" and wear it for years to come.

- At least once, you've started a joke with "Confucius say ... "

-When you expose yourself to the sun and vitamin D, you turn into a different race

-When you were small, your maternal or paternal unit would put a bowl on your head, cut around and wala! a haircut

-Your parents think that the entire job industry is made up of doctors, lawyers, or engineers

-"You want a stereo!? !When I was your age, I didn't even have shoes!!"

-Overfishing isn't depleting our oceans of fish, you are.

-You could probably bathe in soy sauce.

Friday, August 28, 2009

hello, old friend. 12:13 AM

---

Vida la DWL.

Today has been lovely thus far.
...And believe you me-- I don't often use the word "lovely" on any sorts of days!

The weather today was perfect.
Hardly British weather- but defffinitely not typical Singapore weather: i.e hot, muggy, breathe-in-and-you-inhale-water.
Plus I listened to Miss Saigon all the way to school, so by the time I got there, I was in a pretty good mood. O, for bright lights! O, for Broadway!

Josh: (during Lit, while trying to analyze the poem) So the phrase "molten bowels" insinuates that they cannot be controlled, and--
Whitby: -- Oooh, Josh. It's all starting to sound rather unpleasant.

Ms Oon: (during History) Apparently, Lee Kuan Yew has an obsession with living. So he swims every morning to keep fit. And he visited some Japanese village to learn their diet, because the people there live for a very, very long time. So he tries to incorporate tofu into his diet...
Cara: ...oh no! I'm going to live forever!!

After school; Ily, Amrit, Josh and I headed over to Guthrie House for lunch at Coffee Bean.
GOT STUFF FOR THE WHIT BRIT LIT PACK. :)
And then we moseyed over to Swissbakery and got Joan a double brownie crumble cake for her birthday. And then back to the busstop, whereupon I opened my wallet to get change and dropped $70 by the side of the road, in the middle of the bus lane.
Cue: panic.

Cara: ...GAH!!
Amrit: Aah!!
Josh: AAH!!
(all three stand there for about ten seconds just screeching and pointing at the dangerously fluttering notes)
Cara: GAH!!
Amrit: Aah!!
Josh: AAH!!
(all three stand there for another five seconds pointing and squealing, before each individual realizes that the other two are probably not going to pick it up)
Bus: *rumbles down the road, approaching the bus lane and said $70*
Amrit: AAAHHH! *practically flings herself into the middle of the road* ...BUS! STTTOOOOP!!

So after our little precarious adventure (oh, we live on the edge); we got ourselves back to school to spring Pope Joan's birthday surplize on her.
Ran smackdab into the middle of the school field and plonked ourselves down with our bags and schoolbooks and the double brownie crumble until Joan came. We wanted a picture, but all of us wanted to be in it and none of us can take photographs worth our nuts; so we tried yelling after a group of JH1 girls leaving the field to take a picture of us, for us.
But obviously they couldn't hear us, because we yelled our lungs raw trying to get their attention and they just kept walking.

Lisa: *calls after their retreating backs* 'Scuse me! Could you help us take a picture?
JH1 girls:
Josh: ...Hello!!! Excuse me! Could you help us take a picture!!
JH1 girls:
Amrit: OY!!
JH1 girls:
Cara: *sits up, takes a deep breath* *screeches* ...FIRRRRRE!!!!!!

...and even then.

Anyway.
So we cut the cake ("...to Communism!") and then tribal danced around Joan in the middle of the field singing Happy Birthday at the top of our lungs; and at the end of it all we all fell on our knees and kowtowed to Great Chief Pope Joan.

We are so gay. :P

So yeah.
I'm in a pretty good mood today. After this: type out GP essay, head off to Holland V, and then get revved up for the awesomely long weekend. (in which I will, of course, be productive and finish every item on my To Do List and complete my Integration Tutorial 2 and revise Parliamentary Democracy and read the whole of Tess of the D'Urbervilles and, since we're on the subject, also come up with a universal cure to cancer and a covert escape plan to free Aung San Suu Kyi.)

So here's to a Friday finally being the way a Friday should be.

Till next time.
xxx

Monday, August 24, 2009

hello, old friend. 4:52 AM

"maybe one day I'll get smart and learn from my mistakes"

---

Damn. Blogger. Interface.

Tonight. will be study night (or so I try to convince myself). I've got a box of O's in front of me and I'm picking out the ones that're stuck together cuz I only eat those. My Mum's always complaining that I'll drive my husband up the wall because he won't be able to afford to feed me cuz I'm too picky an eater; but I say I'll forge my own living, thanks, and I'll put my bread and my own stuck-together-O's on the table before I become anyone's charity case.

So Monday's started out pretty okay.

Dr Lim wants Lisa and I to enter the UNIFEM 2009 essay writing competition. The theme for this year? ..."A New Land; A New Life."

Hmm. That shouldn't be too hard to do...

Study seshed with the DWLs today. We will make good yet!! Amrit and I plugged into my iPod and listened to Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, and Peggy Lee until my battery ran out. There's just SOMETHING about songs from the I Love Lucy Era. I swear- you can't not be happy while listening to them. Even if we've got grey instead of glitz, and Mathematics instead of Monroe.

So yeah.

Things aren't so bad.

We'll be okay.

...Dreams do come true!!

(ask me again on Friday.)

Lately, though, I've been feeling a little disillusioned. I know Lisa goes through cycles like that, too.

Maybe it's a Lit Kid thing. Maybe we overanalyze and nonchalant-isize and get caught up and then pull away far too easily. Leave them either completely oblivious or struggling to understand.

Because we're paradoxes like that.

..Sometimes I get so tired trying to keep up with me.

Joe and I were googling Chinese subtitles/roadsigns gone wrong, last night. To quote him- how can one race be so hilarious?! Screw British humour; Asian humour's where it's at...and we don't even realize we're being funny.

"Fatty, your thick face is hurting my instep."

"Normal people don't steal pituitaries."

"I have more knive's wound than your leg's hair!"

"You always use violence. I should have ordered glutinous rice chicken."

God bless China's...original subtitling.

Which other nation could singlehandedly change the entire course of the Power Rangers storyline? (refer to below)

"Keep up with me, big black man, and we will go town to kick the motherf-cking lizard man with our karate feets!!"

...Ohh yeah. Asian; and proud to be.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

hello, old friend. 4:11 AM

Direct quote, fressshhhh from FB Chat:
"oh wow
you've gotr an ang moh bf!
u like white meat eh"

*deep breath*

...Okay.

Explain to me HOW my boyfriend being "ang moh" even COMES into the equation.
Explain to me HOW, out of this distance-defiant relationship; the deepest, most profound thing you can get out of that is "u like white meat eh".

...At the most you could've used proper spelling!!

So no, T.A.R. (Hey. I'm giving you anonymity here.)
He's not, as you so delicately put it- an "ang moh".
He's British. And bloody proud of it, too.
And no, T.A.R.
He's not my "bf".
We defied 7000 miles and a 7 hour time difference together, kthx. I think you could come up with a better term than that.
And no, T.A.R.
I'm not "into white meat". How bout- maaaaaybe (and this might sound totally unfeasible but) I'm into him for slightly deeper things than skincolour?
Like, um, for one; intelligence?

Which is more than you can say for yourself.
So shut up, T.A.R.; and next time, before you speak, use a little tact.
And SpellCheck, too, while you're at it.

hello, old friend. 2:39 AM

"I am Alaska.
Will you come Looking For me?
I can offer you nothing.
Least of all permanence."
---

So.

I've been blogging a lot less frequently now because something's up with all 3 computers, and it won't show my Blogger interface properly and I can't blog a decent blogpost unless everything is up as it SHOULD BE.
Yeah because I'm anal like that.

I've got an idea in my head and it's walking around and tapping on the windows behind my eyes in the shape of a person.
Specifically- a girl.
Albeit- a rather odd one.
I don't know a lot about her yet. All I know's that she's got a penchant for chandelier earrings, and eats the marshmallows out of Alpha Bits but never the cereal, and has a crooked smile and a chipped front tooth that somehow manages to look quite charming if you're standing up close, and never reads the newspapers because they make her sad. She's a little bit of me and a whole lot of bits of other people I've known and one day, I'm sure, will make a charmingly oddball protagonist in what will be an odder book.
But for now, all of that has to wait.
Promos, ho.

Is it possible to lose motivation to do something before you've even started?

But Lisa's right. We've got to do this. We HAVE to.

Because in this big little box little dot little piece of engineered year-2100 geographical ingenuity
things you do/ and things you don't do = all have Consequences.
It took turning seventeen for me to learn that and if I ever live to be seventy seven it'll stay with me right up till then.

I've got a lot of questions on my mind.
Questions about "wouldn't it be great if..?" and "but if we try, wouldn't we be able to..?" and "but why can't I.." and friends are talking about wanting to make a difference but not being able to because their wings've been clipped by a ugly little phrase called Secure Investments. And I've gotten to know you and you've shown me that freedom IS out there- it isn't just a concept or something you read about in the pledge of America- it's there and it's alive and it's kicking and love the way you talk sometimes makes me half-believe that...I could.

Maybe One Day, hm?

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

hello, old friend. 7:02 AM

oh wow.

Euphemisms won't cut it here-- basically; I'm screwed.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

hello, old friend. 4:20 AM

Ew tomorrow's Monday.

On the bright side......okay there is no bright side.
But then again I'm alive, and have good friends, good taste, good love, and a sporadically functioning iPod so I think that in itself is something to be happy about.

Yesterday's trip to Sentosa with the exchange students was pretty decent.
Lisa and I were starving, so the whole "educational excursion through the Underwater World" was more like "ooh look; all you can eat seafood buffet". The Images of Singapore museum was uncannily like a cross between the Night Safari and the Malay Heritage Museum; cue for Lisa to murmur, "...close your eyes and if you imagine hard enough; this is you and I, back at Winter U last December..."

Bienh, Vietnamese exchange student: What's your Chinese name?
Cara: Jing En.
Bienh: Ohh. That means your Vietnamese name would be Jeng An.
Cara: Coool. What's your Chinese name, then?
Bienh: Bian.
Cara: Oh awesome. Then what's your Vietnamese name?

Oh yeah this one's a bright one.

Had good laughs at the kiasu Singaporeans trying to squeeze onto the open-topped second storey area of the open-top Sentosa bus.
Bus driver: "Please, passengers, if there is no space on the top; you cannot stay there. I repeat, if there is no space on the top- get down.
*exasperated* ...No; don't squat down there--- get down!!!"

Lisa and I collapsed onto each other and giggled.
Trust Over-eager Asian Tourists!!

Dinner later on at the Cragg's-- Amah's birthday. They'd invited her cell group over, so we had, like, three cakes.
I don't really like greeting new relatives/long lost ones.

"Waaaahhh this your granddaughter, ah? So big already!!!!"

Course- I KNOW that by that they actually mean "...Oh, is this your granddaughter, then? Isn't she all grown up? And so sophisticated-looking, too!" but the way they say it makes me feel like some gargantuan SKYSCRAPER
not fun
sat in the telly room watching Bratz (I'm allowed- I'm still a teenage girl anywayz omg hahaha lololol <333) and Dad sat inside with me during the second bit and going "Oh, how can she say that???" and "...that's very bad behaviour, okay Cara" and "so Cara, should you do what that girl just did?".

*grins*
Dad; it's a chick flick. Don't overanalyze its morals or anything.

Slouched around the living room with the cousins and J&J and discussed the possibility of Operation: Communist Christmas.
Because we're devious that way.
Joe- if I were you, I'd stay away from the butterknives and sleep with one eye open.

I'm going to catch all the 11:11s and 5:05s and put them into a glass jar with milk and cookies, send it over to Santa, and request very nicely that he grants. this. wish.
You owe it to me, St Nick, for never giving me that dappled grey pony I asked for back then when I was six!!!

God Save The Dream.

"*sees pictures of* Ohh he looks like a nice chap. Okay I approve"
"What he wants to go to Oxford, what? All right I've changed my mind. I don't like him any more."
-Uncle Gerry; God bless him, diehard Cambridger that he is.

Okay, now: off.
EOM, Econs essay, and a certain British Boi.
And an imminent Monday to tackle and take downnn.

xxx

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

hello, old friend. 9:31 PM

"...and I use the term 'human' on you lot verrrry loosely"
- Whitby. (who else?!)
---

So.
It's back to the daily grind.
I walked into Econs lecture this morning and stared blankly at the lecturer's moving mouth for all of six minutes before going, "...ah, screw this, I'm lost." and starting on an IGGY diary entry.
Because I'm top 10 percentile like that.

Speaking of which; I have no idea how that happened.
But thank you, God, I'm not complaining.

Now, Promo results...that's a different story. After two weeks in the UK, I can barely remember how to say my own name in Chinese; let alone remember the 130989309 theories of Maclaurin's Expansion!
Amrit: *hands over stack of History notes* *hefty thud* Here you go.
Cara: *skims over* ...Lecture 14? But we were on Lecture 1 when I left!
Amrit: Well...yeah. Now we're on 14. Have fun.

Payback time, biatch!

Still.
I may not be entirely thrilled to be back here; but I AM happy that I'm with everyone again. And by 'everyone' I mean close family, DWLs, school friends, random people who smile at me in the canteen and then think that's grounds enough to strike up intimate "so...how r u and the angmoh boi?" conversations via FB Chat.

The first thing Lisa and Amrit did when they saw me this morning was demand, "...say hello! Say 'hello'!"
and then both looked visibly disappointed when I complied. They were obviously expecting some kind of influenced UK accent but I've retained the "ay-meh-ree-kaaan" one I've got, so. Sorry, Amrit. Me mum dusnt wash me roogbeh shoorts todai.

It's 5AM UK time right now and I am completely stone-zonked. +1 hour of sleep? = not fun.
What I wouldn't give for one of Obed's legendary shoulder massages during a P&M breaktime now...and an Alpen bar emg. Or Westwood's Belgian Hot Chocolate (only 34 calories!!! sez the cup) and AEROOOOO I miss Aero.
And I miss the Poppins.
And my soulsister.
And her messy-haired boyfriend.
And MC Yankeefinger.
And My Lieutenant.

I still haven't had a Proper Post IGGY Cryfest yet. I remember sometime earlier this year when ____ happened and I was musing in my journal that maybe I had "feeling ceilings". Point's in the proving; but I suppose it isn't a bad thing.
Yaaaay defence mechanisms FTW.

I've even missed the long old walks from Tocil to Westwood.
In fact- this morning Daddy offered me a taxi ride out to school, and I said no thank you because I wanted to walk because I'd missed the Warwick walks to Westwood canteen.
Ofc- about halfway through the walk, I started regretting my decision because I'd also conveniently forgotten that Singapore weather = not the same as UK weather! and by the time I got to school I was perspiring incredibly unattractively.
Oh, for British rain again.

The DWL's currently M.I.Aing at the mo'; but soon Ily'll be back, and then Carol, and Josh'll be back this Friday!!! so yay for reunification.
I've missed reading Lisa's diary and giggling over all her naughty adventures, and laughing over all the hysterical things Amrit says (she never lets me down!) and listening to Hannah Montana/Jo Bros with Josh and explaining to Ily what hickeys are (brothers of Mickey, darling!) and Carol revelating "GUESS HOW LONG RASPUTIN'S WAS" and me asking a Maths question during our study sessions and being met by blank stares all around because of course being Arts students, none of us can do Mathz to save our lives.

Okay now.
School's out and I'm off to get Coke Zero and Special K.

....I still want Aero.

:/

Dammit.

Monday, August 10, 2009

hello, old friend. 11:53 AM

incomplete diary excerpt #158:

---

so.

back from summer.

hello world did you miss me or did you spin right past?

I can't yet find the words to say about Summer.

I wake up at odd hours like 2.17AM and 6.28AM to scribble snatches of words and pieces of incomplete half-poetical incoherency on old post-its

but the epiphany I've been waiting for isn't coming.

it was supposed to be one perfect, unbroken strain of lyricality

but it isn't coming.

the beginnings, the middles, the pseudo-endings of it lap behind my fingers like uncertain tides but nothing flows to paper.

That's okay, though.

It'll come.

I have faith in that much.

and now I'm praying for faith in this. in Us.

in this new/reckless/brave/brave/brave undertaking that will demand so much.

"defiance" you cry from over the ocean and I will raise the clarion call

I will find the courage to torch these bridges to build new ones over an angry pangaea

you will lift the flag and hoist the colours

we will battle on and break through walls and burn down the citadels they put up to keep us out

and if it comes to falling or the firmament we will blaze, love,

from Olympus they will raise their eyes to see the smoke

this our sacrifice we'll bring the old gods to their knees--