December « 2007 « Chooeee

December 29, 2007

In Perfect Harmony

I am very much in a I-Need-to-Celebrate-Life mood right now.

“Celebration” is a very exciting word, isn’t it?

So is “Jubilation”.

Ditto “Adventure”.

Suddenly I am very excited about nothing in particular.

And suddenly I so appreciate everything and everyone around me.

I mean, I feel like having the biggest party ever, get everyone I know and like to attend, then party the night away to all my favourite songs. (All MY favourite songs!)

I also feel like going on a round-the-world road trip, a spontaneous one without any planning.

I have been in a very Uplifted Mood since my last post.

Gaiety, song-and-dance, belly laughs. Sigh.

Life really is a celebration, innit?

Stuffed under Ramblings at 7:21 am

December 27, 2007

Thy destiny awaits

Has anyone watched the Bee Movie?

Remember early in the movie, they showed text saying how men thought it was theoretically impossible for bees to fly (fat bodies, teeny wings), but bees don’t care what men think, they fly anyway?

I suspect there’s a lesson to be learnt there.

Lesson: Not caring what people think, doing what you want anyway.

Obviously this whole scenario has been playing out since long, long ago (i.e since we were kids).

Take for example, this thing that happened a few days ago.

Me, I was eating a piece of chocolate cake. Mmmm chocolate!

I finished mine, and was eyeing my sister’s.

“Eh, I eat your cake ah.”

“You better not I tell you!”

“If I eat?”

“Then I think you are the most sui person ever lived.”

“Cheh like that only?”

And I ate.

Who cares what she thinks.

Okay no la I didn’t. Thank goodness for the last bit of decency in me.

But then again there’s another lesson to be learnt from the Bee Movie.

Lesson: What people think is impossible isn’t necessarily truly impossible.
You just gotta do what you gotta do.

So I was watching A Beautiful Mind on TV3 a few days ago.

It is one of my most favourite movies (it’s slotted between LOTR and The Pianist), but watching it from TV3 was really sucky, it cuts to ads without warning, tak syok.

I love, love, LOVE the part where he’s told he’s been nominated for the Nobel Prize.

I mean, can you imagine?

Schizophrenic guy, whose nerdy ways of walking was mocked by Princeton kids, really pathetic looking, ends up becoming a Nobel Laureate.

How cool is that.

This is the part where we learn that nothing is impossible.

But then again, John Nash is a genius to begin with, so he has an unfair advantage.

I am not a genius when I Started, not a genius Now, just an average kid with average grades and everything.

But the world is my, and OUR, oyster. And clam, and abalone, and mussel, and scallop.

It’s so exciting to hear that my friends are starting to get / has already gotten university offers.

Makes me wish I applied to Australian unis when they were having an application fee waiver thing, just for the sake of seeing university acceptance offers coming in ’round this time of the year. Plus Australian university applications seem so much easier (when compared to US apps la).

Imagine, you know, that someone among us will someday be as influential as Oprah Winfrey, or wield as much power as George Bush, or be as Kick-ass-Rockstar as (insert name of rock star).

I’m in the middle of reading The Life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer, and of course it hit me that even someone as great as Gandhi used to have a very ho-hum, unglamorous past.

I mean, there you have this kid who is like every other young male kid – hungry for sex, lies to his parents, tries hard to impress.

And look how he ended up. (Well, assassinated, but still revered all over the world.)

One day, you could watch TV and see this guy in power suit being interviewed on some Important Channel like CNN and the like, or you’d see a skinny-jeaned girl (or whatever is hot decades later) being interviewed by MTV VJs, and you’d think, “Familiar wei!”

Neh, that person who used to sit next to / in front of you back in high school loh.

Another lesson learnt: Be nice to everyone in your high school, who knows, he/she might zip right to the top of his/her game and squash the puny still-working-as-janitor/clerk/cashier-you like a cockroach.

Step, splatter, grind, grind, SQUASHED!

However. The saddest of all, undoubtedly, is when we squander off our Humongous Massive Gargantuan Big Big Potential.
Yes, if you collected all our Potential and lined them up next to each other, you’d have a Trip Around the World, Times Ten.

Can you believe next year we’ll all be off to university?

So I guess as 2007 comes to an end, and as people SAM people start deciding on which field to devote their entire-forever life to (ooh I made it sound so intimidating), let us not forget that we are, in fact, destined for great things.

Was that motivational enough?

We are destined for great things!

That?

And with this, I end this post of mine. Thank you.

P/S. Changed my font. In case you were wondering why suddenly chooiyen’s blog not so hard to read any more.

Stuffed under 'Bit More Serious at 6:23 pm

December 26, 2007

Doing medicine?

For anyone thinking of applying to do medicine, this might be a helpful link.

Thinking About Studying Medicine? Read This First. from Educate Deviate.

It’s initially an Ask MetaFilter thread, but someone answered particularly well, and here that answer is being highlighted.

Almost everyone I know has thought of doing Medicine at one time or another, so if you’re not sure if you’re cut out for it, this is helpful as heck.

I know of people (okay maybe just one or two) who initially decided to do medicine, because they genuinely want to help people, but then later they realize that you don’t have to be a doctor to help. There are many other ways.

Studying medicine sounds very glam, I mean your parents will actually be able to say, “My son/daughter doing medicine!”

But talking to a doctor person at an education fair earlier in the year, he said that a lot of people forget that it is very, very unglamorous behind the scenes.

So. Choose wisely, and good luck everyone deciding on their future paths!

(Here I am kind of thankful I don’t have to choose a major until I’m, what, 21?)

(SAM people are getting university offers / already accepting offers! Jeles!)

Stuffed under 'Bit More Serious at 1:17 pm

Christmas 2007

Merry Christmas all!

A day late but nevermind.

So how was your Christmas this year?

Mine went by without much fanfare or bright lights or very fancy parties.

But very special nevertheless.

The night before, the Ling said she’d pick me up at 9.30 am.

I woke up at 9.36 am, woken up by the text message of the Ling standing right outside my gate.

Went to church, stomach growling like crazy due to not having had breakfast, and after it ended, Ling and I decided to go have lunch at Satellite Chicken Rice near Jalan Gasing. For old time’s sake.

And no drive to Jalan Gasing can end without a walk back to Catholic High, riiiight?

We ended up going to the reading corner, and spending a long time there Talking.

Frankly, I’ve not Talked like that since 2007 begun.

Weirdly, 2007 had been a very, very peaceful year for myself. No unnecessary drama, no tears, no urgent need to call up a friend to complain about something or other.

Until of course, yesterday, when I realize I haven’t been sharing much about myself to my friends.

And so back at the reading corner (that place back in high school where many, many secrets were exchanged), I shared much more than I thought I ever would.

Man I miss the times when I’d go to the Ling’s place, or she’d come into my room, get into my bed in her school uniform (“I told you dun mess up my blanket loh!“), and we’d talk and talk, about Things and Life In General.

It still amazes me how the things she says are so deep and insightful.

Had a very, very wonderful Christmas dinner.

Roast lamb, jacket potatoes and sour cream, garden salad, errr broccoli (eww), sparkling wine. And a very lovely Christmas log cake.

Speaking of Christmas dinner, Chooiyen single-handedly kind of ruined Christmas Eve Dinner!

Because she was supposed to be looking after the chicken in the oven, but was too busy surfing the web and the chicken ended up getting a little burnt.

Partially to blame is my sister who has managed to contract chicken pox so that my parents have to get her to the clinic and leave me at home to attend to the chicken.

We ended up having dinner at 9.15 pm.

I never had chicken pox.

I took a vaccine shot 3 years ago.

So did my sister.

But she still has chicken pox now.

Chicken pox is highly contagious.

I might get chicken pox.

Incubation period is 2 weeks.

2.5 weeks = my birthday!

Shit shit I will probably have chicken pox on my birthday!

I thought vaccines were suppose to prevent you from contracting the disease?

Merry Christmas y’all!

Stuffed under Significant Days at 7:00 am

December 22, 2007

I slay.

We Will Rock You the musical will be showing in Singapore!

They perform to Queen’s hit songs, so I imagine it’s one heck of a musical.

Best part best part – Mig Ayesa will star in it!

Remember Mig?

Third last guy standing in the Rockstar: INXS show!

I wanted him to win if Marty Casey couldn’t. Ended up both lost, JD won, nevermind I don’t listen to INXS anyway.

I have a video of him performing Bohemian Rhapsody in my cell phone, and he rocks everyone’s socks! Except the socks of INXS members ’cause they obviously didn’t let him win.

Oooh how I miss Rockstar shows.

(I remember the grand finale of Rockstar: Supernova was the night before my Physics exam, so I ended up…… watching the show and studying Physics at midnight.)

Perhaps Malaysia should put up bright neon lights to attract international shows / bands to come over.

* * * * *

Here’s a completely different matter altogether.

I had a I Am Legend-esque dream last night.

Except in my dream, I was not alone in an empty city / world. There was a clique of “Darkseeker” slayers, and I was one of them ahah.

I also had a very close friend / partner always with me, but I don’t know who that person was, sometimes it seemed to be Chuan Ling, sometimes ZiHui, sometimes just a shadowy figure that prances around.

And I almost got killed, by the way.

But it was my dream, and naturally I was the hero, and heroes never die, so I obviously survived.

By then I was scared shitless, wanted to drop out of the clique, but then Lena (whom I met in church in real life and has kind of taken the role as my spiritual guide) told me that… um, that it is my job to slay Darkseekers and that I’d be doing it for the greater good.

So I ended up being a full time Darkseeker slayer.

Oh my oh my. Stupid dream.

For the uninitiated, Darkseekers are the mutilated kena-virus ex-people that are the bad guys in the I Am Legend movie.

They are supposed to be cured (not killed!), which is Will Smith’s character’s job.

Anyhoo. This dream probably has some psychological significance, but nahhhh I don’t read into dreams so much.

Christmas is almost here! Woot!

Stuffed under Ramblings at 7:49 pm

December 20, 2007

Near death. Or not really la.

WAH the scariest sh*t happened to me today!

I think, I could have died. (Uh, exaggerated or not I dunno la.)

People who’ve been passengers in my (mom’s) car would no doubt realize, that dull looking red Kancil that I drive is a real old clunker of a car.

I remember that time when a bunch of us went to the National Museum, and they had an exhibition of old cars, and there it was, a Proton Saga being exhibited amongst old, really ancient cars.

Back then I thought, “Wah good thing I don’t drive Saga. Very malu.”

In restrospect, I drive something that is more memalukan than an old Saga.

I drive an old Kancil.

The radio doesn’t work, the lock on the front passenger door is totally messed up (doesn’t come up/go down when it’s supposed to) (confuses friends who sit there), you step fully on the accelerator and instead of going “Vrooooom!“, it actually goes, “Eeee-kachung-kachung-eeee” or something weird like that.

Needless to say, it takes longer to accelerate, even with the pedal fully stepped on. Even worse when it comes to uphill slopes. I’d be thinking, “Hurry up hurry up hurry up!” Cars behind overtake only.

Plus, and this one’s a sure sign of Embarrassingly Old Cars, the windows have to be rolled down.

Yes, roll down that little handle thing.

Very very mafan when it comes to getting/putting in tickets in parking lots.

Oh, I’m veering off topic.

You know those overhead highway things, that have these concrete borders to prevent you from going off the edge and plunge right into Death?

The one I was on curves to the right (I hope I’m painting you an easy picture here), and at that time I was blanking out.

You know, your mind wasn’t on the road.

And I came, what, an inch from the concrete blocks? And I was driving straight.

Curved road + driving straight = barge right through concrete blocks! = DIE! (or accident la)

I came to just in time (any further and I’d totally have hit it!), steered sharply to the right, and OMGWTFBBQ big ass truck right beside me!

Got honked, steered left, but cannot la the road is turning right!, panic a bit, steered right, and went on my merry way.

Very un-drama here, but trust me it was scary as heck. You know that very millisecond when you realize you’re this close to hitting something large like a concrete block (and you know you’ll fall off and die if you do), and you’re doing 80 kmph on the highway, scary as heck. Then got truck somemore!

I have this fear of trailers / large vehicles. The other day something similar happened to Ling when she was driving, only it was less dangerous ’cause she was on flat, wide road, and I screamed, very unnecessarily loudly. Ling wasn’t even the least bit shook up la.

Oh by the way. This Kancil I drive does not have power steering. (Yes it is thaaaat ancient.)

It is difficult, driving a car without power steering. It it stiff, and you pretty much cannot drive it with one hand.

Now you know.

Fortunately, no one else was in the car with me.

Even more fortunately, my mom was not in the car with me.

She’d totally stop me from driving out any more. She is already very sien ’cause it seems to her that I am dominating her car.

I so wish I had a car of my own. One that is actually un-Old.

I have to wake up at 7 am to drop my mom off if I want to have her car for the day, then go out at 8 pm to pick her up.

You people who have your own cars, so lucky!

P/S. I don’t usually drive like that la. In fact I’ve never driven like that before. I was just thinking about Something Important today. Don’t boycott sitting in my car, okay?

Stuffed under Life the Subject Matter at 8:38 am

December 19, 2007

I Am Legend Chinese

Wow. Unique visitors count doubled today. Ahah.

Okay so now I’m a little apprehensive about telling people my TER.

From the looks of my last post, I sound like I did so well hor, um no la it’s nothing stellar.

Now that excitement wore off, I realize it’s no big deal. No biggie at all.

Sorry, was just so excited at that time, because.

Well, because my internal assesments sucked like vacuum cleaner. You cannot expect much from a B’s, C’s and D’s sort of person.

Anyway, moving on!

Will Smith is ice cold (“cooler than being cool”)!

I mean, think about it la, have you ever watched a bad Will Smith movie? No.

He’s like Johnny Depp, only a lot less QuirkyEccentric and has more Tough Guy roles.

And my point is?

I Am Legend is an ice cold movie, you really should watch it.

Prepare a packet of tissues also la, you might need it.

Watch watch watch!

* * * * *

Here. Did you know Wang Lee-Hom plays over 10 musical instruments, had a perfect 1600 SAT score, and studied at Williams College (which is the like Harvard of liberal arts colleges)?

I had no idea, until just now. I Wikipedia-ed him.

(Oh, see? ‘Wikipedia’ is a verb now! Just like ‘Google’! As in, “Why you Google youself so tak tau malu?!”)

Book smart, musical genius, pretty good eye candy also!

And he’s multilingual. Wah that totally tops it.

So I watched ‘I Not Stupid Too’ again the other day, and you know those unbelievably irritating students that cannot speak Chinese?

It made me feel so guilty for not even attempting to improve my mandarin.

My bro’s mandarin is BAD, that if you put him in primary school he’d still have a hard time during chinese classes.

But he used to say, “So what? I can speak I can understand, good enough already la!”

I can speak, I can definitely understand, and I can read (albeit a lot of effort is needed, so much so that I get lazy and not bother most times), but I wish I could write like Chuan Ling and ZiHui and LiAnn in their blogs.

I used to wonder just how did they find chinese phrases like the ones they used. Then I realized, they don’t “find” the phrases, they came up with those themselves.

So poetic, you know?

That’s the thing about mandarin. If you can compose in mandarin, then you cannot help but be poetic.

Unless you talk crap la, like the messages Ling left in my Bahasa Cina Form 5 textbook I lent her.

And I think it’s so cool if you go off to some foreign land, and people ask if you can speak Chinese (being Chinese yourself), and you go, “OF COURSE!” and start word-swishing away in that Orang-Cina toned mandarin.

As opposed to being ask if you can speak Chinese, and you apprehensively go, “Err yeahh..” and start speaking in an ahpek toned mandarin.

(But then again, them being foreign-land people, they probably don’t know mandarin, so you can pretty much simply insert Ming Ju Jing Hua, and no one would know if you were wrong.)

Speaking of which, Chuan Ling laughed at a Cheng Yu I used wrongly. Embarrassing as heck.
Just so you know, Chuan Ling you are so not helping!

I used to think it’s so weird, ’cause I’m not entirely Orang Banana, ’cause I’ve had -counts- 11 years of chinese classes. Eleven! But I’m not good at it enough to stop constantly having to ask my friends what they mean when they use slightly more advanced mandarin.

But ah, I am SO grateful that my parents ultimately decided to send me to a chinese medium school! My dad wanted me to go national school initially.

I think it puts us to shame, when American kids at American colleges go for Chinese classes, and end up being better Chinese speakers / writers than us. (And by us, I mean only some of us la.)

But I am trying.

[Did you know I once won the Zui Jia Zuo Wen (err, best essay?) prize back in primary school?
I must've took the wrong turn at the junction to end up here!]

Zi Hui I read every single Chinese post on your blog!

And here, I go off to sleep. Night!

[Added: Oh I just read Chew Woon's blog. Wah coincidence! LOL.]

Stuffed under Ramblings at 7:25 pm

Results (unimaginative post title!)

By God’s grace.

Logged into SSABSA’s result page in what, my first try?

I got no idea why people keep saying it took then “frickin’ long” to log in.

So I got in.

Loaded the Tertiery Entrance page.

Covered the screen with my palms, because heck, need more self-induced suspense hor.

But uh, what the heck, look only la.

And guess what.

The hours of last-minute toiling away at the study tale paid off.

I got all A’s!

Yes, even Chemistry-the-dreadful-subject.

Now why did I say that so calmly ah?

Me insides are boiling over, I’m so HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMGoodness slap me slap me!

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

- picks up cell phone, speed dial mom’s number -

“Hello. This is the toilet bowl. Flush and leave your message. *FLUSH!*“

Argh stupid voicemail.

Dr. Zul predicted that people in our class will get a TER of 70, seeing that all of us did so badly in the common tests.

I was worried as heck la!

Surpassed my personal aim. WAY surpass my aim!

What I mean is, ZOMGWTFBBG WAAAY surpassed my aim!

Surprised as heck, but so NOT the SPM kind!

To hope for a TER of anything more than 95 was like asking my mom for a bungalow la, you know, like very exceeding like that.

But only by God’s grace.

Thank you Lord.

(I know it sounds a little stupid, to be so excited over a non-99 TER, but believe me when I say, I expected a lot less of myself.
And I would’ve totally kicked myself if all the skipping class and refusing all social outings didn’t bear fruit.
The two months leading up to the finals were like hell, partly due to the SATs and the TOEFL, but also because I realized my grades so far had been crap, and I needed, I mean needed, to get my ass into my study chair and actually STUDY!

You should see all the stuff I put up on my study table to motivate myself!

Dr. Seuss’s Oh the Places You Will Go!, and this note I wrote to myself, telling present-Chooiyen that future-Chooiyen would be ever so grateful if present-Chooiyen would actually study!)

Anyhoo.

Gotta go the Curve to meet up with a buncha friends soon.

Slept two hours before this, cannot sleep now.

Like that how to drive? Road hazard I tell you.

Bye world!

Stuffed under School n' Stuff at 12:04 am

December 18, 2007

Nervousness la!

Can you hear it?

Like a cross between a bass drum being hit and the loud, random clanking of metal pots and pans.

That, my friends, is my heart refusing to calm itself.

Shit I am scared.

Who cares what you get in PMR. You’re moving on to Form 4 anyway.

Who cares what you get in SPM, you’re getting into A-Levels/SAM/ICPU/foundation anyway.

Who cares what you get in your pre-university exam? EVERYONE!
Bad results = no chance of going into good uni!

And results are out, so soon, so soon!

I don’t want that whole SPM episode to repeat itself la, suddenly get a C lidat.

Thank goodness we can check it online prior to retrieving the slip in college.
Thank goodness for sparing us the humiliation of, well, everything actually.

Scream if you did good, cry of you did bad.

And my heart still won’t quiet down.

Stuffed under School n' Stuff at 12:12 pm

December 17, 2007

Post not worth reading (really!)

So I just received the most valuable Christmas present ever.

From someone I got to know 1.5 weeks ago.

Everyone exuded so much warmth, if it was winter here, you wouldn’t need heaters. It was weirdly unsettling initially.

Christmas this year is going to be totally wonderful, can’t you just tell?

* * * * *

My mom is asking me to go for National Service next year. Sighh I’d rather bum around at home.

Okay no. I’d rather look for a job, earn a little money, and….. buy something.

Or I could bum around at home.

Whatever la, I’m in no mood to do anything lately.

Essays not written, cancelled one college off my To-Apply list because I was too lazy to finish 2 essays required in the pre-application due December 15 [too late now anyway (me mom would slaughter me if she found out)], worried as heck over the impending disaster that is my SAM results, and I have a crazy hankering for doughnuts.

I have a good mind to drive off to Sunway Pyramid just to get them. I don’t know the way to Pavilion, by the way.

I’m in the mood for, uh, nothing, except go out with friends, and eat doughnuts.

And I love-hate my blog, I think. Right now I love it less.

Simply put – I am in a Complaining Mood.

I think it comes right before That Time Of The Month.

Thankyou and goodbye.

(Having a blog makes people complain more, of course. Did you realize?)

Stuffed under Quick updates at 9:12 am


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