come sit and stone with me

and i said what about breakfast at tiffany's

2009-11-05T10:52:00.007+08:00

the classic novel is quite undervalued these days. i think everyone secretly shares that own it/heard of it but never read a word of it syndrome about old books. or maybe (like in the case of anna karenina) read the first 12 pages about 60 times and never got past it. anyway, have been trying to increase my list of novel reading triumphs and so far, some of my favourites..

1. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

2. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

3. Alice Through the Looking Glass & Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll- love this to the power of Avogadro's #

4. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

5. Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

6. Perfume by Patrick Suskind

7. Animal Farm by George Orwell

8. the Anne of Green Gables series! (this made up my whole childhood. at least the parts that weren't spent playing pokemon) by L.M. Montgomery

9. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

10. Dr Doolittle by Hugh Lofting (becoming painfully aware that about half the books here were meant for children but really.. they were VERY good)

11. Moulin Rouge by Pierre La Mure
[bought it at a secondhand bookshop just because of the red clothbound cover and it turned out to be SO GOOD!]

Also, among those that were bought with the intention of reading but have been neglected till now:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (maybe it gets really good after the first chapter? =/ )
Vainty Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Candide by Voltaire
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Dernieres

Is it just me or is it really easy to remember the first time one ever learns something new? Can't think of many examples now but for instance i'll always remember that i learned the word 'ambergris' from a story about a whale being blown up. and everytime that word crops up my head will just go 'oh! the first time i ever heard that word was from that story. about that whale'
of course i never say it to anyone because im sure it can get annoying after a while. no one wants to know about the origin of your entire vocabulary.

ALSO, never underestimate the power of your Lit text!! talking about Faustus for 45 mins during one interview got me into med in Ireland! :O

boring post! (now that i've read it) hopefully will stop blogging so strangely after a while of getting used to it again..

dum dum dee dum

2009-11-04T14:22:00.003+08:00

in my normal manner of exponentially increasing procrastination during examtime, was reading back through the old blog archives and realised a couple of things

1. i used to have so much more stuff to blog about!
2. breaking my camera screen has forever cultivated in me the habit of taking 123456789654323 pics of the same thing. (in case the 1st one doesn't turn out..)
3. things seemed a lot funnier back then..even nonsense like falling over in the middle of the street for no reason
4. i climbed the housegate FOUR times this week! (irrelevant but still a realisation)
5. i cant spell
6. physics was the best thing ever. mr lim features in about 75% of a levels posts :)
7. my doodling has improved slightly..i think? /shy
8. never kept one single new year's resolution
9. suddenly there were TWO people online on the blog? two?? who else still reads this..i thought i was the alone! SHOW YOURSELF! :D

AGAIN?!

2009-10-26T13:59:00.003+08:00

AARGH how can it be that my last post here was during exams and now its exams again!??! HOW???

sigh. feeling spectacularly retarded now. miss the days of being a competent student :(

merde!

2009-06-14T21:23:00.002+08:00

one never realises how many prepositions are loose in the world until an attempt is made to learn a new language :(

feels different

2009-06-09T22:16:00.005+08:00

at around 5-6 when the sky turns abruptly from black to cold and grey, there is no muazzin call in the air. and the birds sound different too. a lot more SQWUAKY and CAW CAW CAW.

when the drive is running down there is no sarah jean or stef on the other end of msn to rant about the past years or how much o chem we've done. or how much C4 we haven't done. there's nobody to shout in capitals, " STUDY SARAH LIEWS OR YOU BURN THE A'SSSSSS"

mum is not there for me to divulge my sorrowful whining about how little sleep i am on. nobody would pamper me with chicken soup or brands. haha..ming once brought brands to the library before phys 6 and said his mum forces him to drink. i guess it is a ubiquitous asian mom thing.

no kiasu beans to motivate every lab to be hardcore and fast & furious. mr lim is not there with his "STUWENTS FASTER I HAVE A CLASS AFTER THIS FASTER STUWENTS FASTER FINISH IF U DON'T FINISH THE NEXT CLASS CANNOT GO AND MR LEE WILL KILL ME STUWENTSSS" siren. no mr yeap to shout and terrify you into never leaving the funnel in the biurette while titrating again. no more "aiya shittt.t.t.t.t...air bubble" at the end of finishing an exp. no more breaking apparatus left right & centre (1 conical flask is RM 14)

there is no feeling of everyone suffering together and the next day in class you can all compare who has the biggest eyebags. last night on webct i was watching the # of people online deplete from 60++ poeple till around 4am when there was a grand total of 7 asians left.

no king yi tempting me to sneak out of the house for supper. no supper at all because everything is closed by 12.

no past year answers!!!!!! DDDDDDD: how to memorise essay question answers liddat?!?!

for the first time, not one single paper to look forward to :( no chem n no phys to break the killer feeling of being in deep crap. stress stress stress. every paper is dreaded n unpleasant. mighty stress :((

no random waking up sounds when nanay or the brothers eventually get up. 6am is pretty quiet without them

no donny singing around the library n terrorising the cubicles at random. no more "i can do all things" verses on the painted board in front of your eyes

cramming here is such a lonely affair! :(

ok back to the books! redbull break is over 8)

fahb my life

2009-06-05T04:05:00.003+08:00

grr.. exams again. the season when the biggest variety of the day is deciding between redbull and coffee. singing the usual song of "aaaaaaaaaaaaihhhhh...should have started studying earlier T_T" /regret regret regret. ok back to drowning in mgc now. metabolism! woohoo!

i am vertical

2009-05-08T01:21:00.000+08:00

But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them--
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

-sylvia plath

and all my sandcastles spend their time collapsing

2009-05-05T03:08:00.006+08:00

if there was ever a contender for my love for canon, it would be lumix. maybe it is just me and my notion that leica=godlike but looking at this bunch and also the mini olym pics, it seems to give everything a pretty epic feel.

surprising

2009-05-03T22:09:00.001+08:00

one of the things i really miss: standing in church and singing hymns from the green book. or sometimes when min fook or a happening uncle requests something radical like 'how great is our God' haha. far out :)

reve

2009-04-27T20:18:00.004+08:00

don't really know what's been up with my psycho dreams lately. some of them are really viciously bad like they're composed solely to leave me feeling upset the rest of the day. the really vivid ones can leave a hot ball of jealously, sadness, anger etc etc etc in my chest that won't go away for quite a while. rolling out of a dreamless sleep on the other hand is pretty unsatisfying, almost like all i did was shut my eyes for a little while and its back again to life in perth. i guess frightful and terrible dreams about home are better than none at all if it means imaginary me gets to be back there for a while. hur hur. sleep is such a baited trap these days =| never know what lovely emotions the night is gonna bring next

play our hearts lament like an unreheared symphony

2009-04-22T15:40:00.002+08:00

do you ever get the feeling that you are only full of empty words. somewhere along the way those words that carry real meaning must have slipped away unnoticed, or maybe they have just gone into hiding. because it is always easier to say what we don't really mean and slide the truth away behind a screen of smoke and mirrors. what is it like to have all the things you actually feel and think suddenly tumble unprotected from your lips.. oh well haha lol..who knows =/

L’esprit de l’escalier

2009-04-18T01:32:00.003+08:00

In hindsight, there are so many things that could have been done differently. and there are so many things that could have been different about this present moment. rearview mirror vision is always the most clear and revealing but sometimes maybe its better to not be able to look back and wonder about this and that n the flotsam n jetsam and lalala..

am missing a certain canine in kl at the moment. but this afternoon we managed to coerce tilly, who is the smelliest and dirtiest dog in the whole of perth to come into the house. simon and cheryl won her over because their combined forces were the most powerful but after all the ruckus was done, she rolled over on the floor and let me scratch her big fat belly. hmm the thing about dogs is that they all kind of love you the same. and they dont really give a crap if you are big small fat skinny purple orange smart talented attractive ugly plain stupid etc etc etc. and thats why dogs can sometimes be more awesome than a lot of humans.

c'est la vie! transient and always shifting. keeps you second guessing and doubting and wondering and lalalaa. being wise after the event. pooh pooh..why cant wisdom come before once in a while!?

there's a corner of your heart

2009-04-03T13:18:00.003+08:00

still have not found a place for ballet here. woee woeeee! my poor shoes are still stuffed in the back of the drawer and perhaps there they shall remain to the ends of their days. :( maybe nutcracker was never meant for me and god is gently trying to deter me from dreaming of being semionova or cojocaru. haha..where would you fly? to the kirov! or london or berlin or moscow. and always at the end of the day home to kl :)

wish i had more of my books with me here to read. should be studying instead but am always toooo lazy to open up the textbooks. sigh..how i miss my favorite companion, nights are so long and lonely without him. internet oh internet PLEASE HURRY UP N COME :(

36 hours of blisss! :)

2009-03-31T13:27:00.012+08:00

home again for one weekend! the humid air has never been more welcoming and the smell of kl at night has never been sweeeter. sigh..home sweet home where the siu yuk is tender and crunchy and the roti is fluffy and hot. how i miss you and all the people who make it the best place in the universe :( hehe..thank you ss for letting me hide out at your place. n thanks everyone who let me take up a huge chunk of your weekend :)

la vie est pleine de la perte

2009-03-25T14:14:00.004+08:00

If Hands Could Free You, Heart

If hands could free you, heart,
Where would you fly?
Far, beyond every part
Of earth this running sky
Makes desolate? Would you cross
City and hill and sea,
If hands could set you free?

I would not lift the latch;
For I could run
Through fields, pit-valleys, catch
All beauty under the sun--
Still end in loss:
I should find no bent arm, no bed
To rest my head.

Philip Larkin

Maybe I have fallen through this small hole in the fabric of the universe and am now floating around in an semi unreal existence. Chirality and doppelgangerism and duplicity are all part and parcel of everyday life. Sigh.

perf

2009-03-18T13:53:00.007+08:00

hmm..so

2009-02-27T14:04:00.002+08:00

uni has started already, in fact the first week is already over! *sigh of relief* after a DISASTEROUS first day there the rest of it was comparatively quite alright. haha. have so far met plenty of singaporeans and east malaysians but 0 klites. bussing to uni is quite sweet. as is walking to the station. ipod has officially become my new best friend and into the west is like..the theme song of everyday. T_T

havent bought most books yet because still have no place to stay and dont wanna be lugging them over when it is finally time to move in. kinda wish i brought big canon over =| somehow have gotten unused to the tiny camera's screen..im pretty sure it never used to be this yellow.

dissecting the pigs next week!! :D cant wait muahaha..

the importance of elsewhere

2009-02-20T22:34:00.006+08:00

I MISS KL :(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
I WANNA GO HOOOMEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

since getting here to perth its been 1 massive rush of going to uni (late) and completely missing all of the orientationa ctivities thus having to scramble from one end of the campus to the other looking for obscure buildings and gathering up one by one all the bits and pieces of info that i assume usualy come together conveniently in the welcome pack eg timetable, booklist, subejcts etc etc. also has been really hard fiding somewhere to live because all the residential colleges are "fully booked" because for some dumb reason the returning studetns get first priority and first years are all left out in the lurch :( huhuhu. so showed my face at all their doors but was turned away so have been house/flat/apartment hunting for the last 2 days and have finally found a possible living setup because today while waiting to view a small aprtment met celena from elizabeth n justin's church and she and her friend managed to find this 3 bedroom apartment so might end up staying with them and not all by myself in a sad little hovel with nobody to talk to except maybe a potted plant or goldfish yayy!! also had to pick subs yesterday plus one elective and i really wish i could have taken physics but wasnt allowed because took it for a levels :( so signed up for french!!! hahaa..am quite happy about that =P should be funny. huh..classes start on monday and i still have no clue which groups im in or which classes to attend because the woman who was supposed to gie me my timetable (and whom we have been calling incessantly for the last 48 hours) is not in he office so i met someone really nice and elpful who called up differet departments and eventually managed to get a few of my classes determined except for the most crucial one on monday so will have to turn up at 8 to see if i'm in that class and if not will wait 3 hours for the next one.

sigh. super freaking freaking freakin freaking super super duper suepr very veryv eryv miss home :( i keep thinking i'm only here for an interview and will be going back next wednesday with mom but that is NOT TO BE!! haha. im hoping it doesnt all hit me at once like when parents leave and im stranded here by myself and because of that start blubbering but have a dreaded feeling that that is exactly what will happen T_T huhuhu..have not cried since leaving which is a good thing..keep it up sarah haha. ok great now im talking to myself. sigh. miss kl miss kl miss kl

okok happy thoughts. doing french. am in uni. found the most pwning 2009 planner in the universe at oxfam shop today. because was looking for the secondhand bookshop and on the way stumbled upon the army surplus store (lolol) and oxfam. hehe. that was a good thing. and also met a few people who are in the same homeless boat as me so is not too bad. also roughly got the timetable so maybe wont be too lost on monday.

sigh very sad :( wanna go home

3

2009-02-15T22:13:00.001+08:00

4

2009-02-14T19:40:00.000+08:00

5

2009-02-13T22:17:00.000+08:00

an update

2009-02-13T14:56:00.002+08:00

Am no longer going to Melb Uni because yesterday UWA dropped the bomb that they have a spare place in med which they offered to me. And because the prospect of facing another whole entire round of interviews later on is wholly unappealing (and also will prob FAIL ALL OF THEM AGAIN) I said yes. And so now, everything is being rerouted from Melbourne to Perth which is kinda incredibly last minute and also has left me still in a bit of a daze =S hu hu hu..

6

2009-02-13T02:40:00.003+08:00

a most abrupt change

2009-02-12T15:22:00.001+08:00

can leave you reeling

7

2009-02-12T03:51:00.005+08:00