Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Horror.

The pure, unadulterated, first-person-point-of-view-with-a-ten-year-old's-perspective horror.

Every single blog post which recounts an event or a day seems to written in the style of Paddy Clarke. And then the problem is, I can't tell if it's the writers being affected or the reader being influenced.

Curse you IB Literature and your infernal reading material!
The Edna Man

Running of the Bulls

So I managed to get well by Chinese New Year and managed to eat all the awesome awesome stuff that only comes round once a year. This year's stash seems smaller that last year's though, and it's nothing compared to what we used to have maybe five, seven years ago? That was a CNY snack BONANZA.

Moove media is really capitalizing on what could be a once-in-twelve-years event. There are like, super-cows everywhere. My dad said their goodie bag came with two cans of Red Bull - another lucky opportunist.

I got better at Mahjong this year too. I love all the special winning hands with the long cool-sounding names, and I like all the colours on the tiles. I played at my aunt's house a bit, and then a bit more at Charmaine's house. Charmaine's grandparents are like, Mahjong masters. They had a lot of new diciples; Justin and Jun Siong and Guangda, who all seem like the type of people who know how to play Mahjong but they didn't, apparently. Neil is awesome at it though.

Well, I can't wait for next year's CNY, because that's the year of the TIGER and you all know what that means!

Happy Chinese New Year!
The Edna Man

Thursday, January 22, 2009

In Sickness and in Health

Joy of joys, I got sick again. I've been stuck at home for the past two days with nothing to read except Paddy Clarke. The horror.

Anyway, recent records show that I haven't fallen sick since last last year, when I got hospitalized for five days with mycoplasma. So anyway the doctors said that if my adenoids were removed this sort of thing would happen less often and less drastically. Well it was true, kinda; I haven't gotten sick in over a year and this time the fevers weren't so bad and the temperatures weren't so high.

So anyway I went to look up all the animated series that was released in the past two decades and I found some old classics that I watched during my childhood days (oh man I have childhood days; I'm getting old). And because of prom, I've rediscovered the insane genius which is the Mask.

I remember watching the green-headed superhero way back in the day. I was amazed by the way he could transform into so many different types of people and speak in all those different accents. I loved it; it was hilarious. I think that's where I picked up all my accents from. It's brilliant.

Somebody stop me!
The Edna Man

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Singing Security

There are awesome people in the world. You just have to look in all the wrong places.

There's an awesome security guard in our school. He can sing; Ernest was playing for him yesterday. He came in second in a Talentime when he was in the army. He knows you have to sing with feeling. He tells awesome jokes. He seems fascinated by differing meanings of words and their multiple usage.

"Our school employs damn interesting security guards." -- The Seah

Ain't no mountain high enough,
The Edna Man

Monday, January 19, 2009

Collective Heartbreak

It's such a drag to be alone, but sometimes you've got no choice. Maybe it'll take you off on a world of adventure.

I went down to the Esplanade Library yesterday to borrow a couple of music scores for my EE. And since I was there, I thought I'd drop by the Museum of Broken Relationships, an art exhibition originating in Croatia, with items and memories donated by people from a number of Eastern-European countries and Singapore, the first Asian stop on the tour. I don't really frequent art exhibitions, but this one was quite intriguing. I took lots of pictures; there were some really unusual objects. There was this film of the hunting areas around some Croatian place I think, and the caption said it won the award for the Fastest Loss of Concentration during a Screening. There was a whole bunch of memories and stories behind them; one item, a key bottle-opener, had a caption that explained that the previous owner's lover kept getting her gifts but refused to sleep with her. Then, "I never knew how much you loved me until you died of AIDS."

After my borrowing, I noticed that there was music coming down from the bayside amphitheatre. The was a cool jazz/blues band there, with a harmonica as lead, which was quite awesome. I had time to sit through three songs before I had to go. I never knew what they were doing it for, because there were no posters or anything, but I think I will forever remember the name of the band as "Sound Check in Progress", because that was the only sign they put up. Oh, and there was this really big ang moh lady sitting up at the front whose pink underwear had rode up to her lower back and she was completely oblivious to it.

Yeah, so that was my adventure at the City Centre yesterday. I went into MPH and realized that there was a whole bunch of books I wanted to read, but I don't think I'll ever be able to read them.

Ally got hit by a car on Friday. She's apparently okay, with no head trauma or internal bleeding or mental scarring or anything. Just bruises, and a scratch. I think when I want to get knocked down by a car, I'd look around and make sure that no deputy principals are around, who will come around and visit me in hospital. Oh and I got knocked down today too, but not by a car, during the PE run, and I got this huge gash in the palm of my hand which until now would not stop oozing blood plasma (at least I think that's what it is). I'm now incapable of clenching my fist or holding chopsticks or giving anyone high-fives. Sorry.

Charmaine and Lorraine have two gu-zhengs in class and are frantically practicing at any free moment in class. It's a very fascinating instrument, the gu-zheng, like a cross between a harp and a guitar. It has the very Chinese-oriental sound which is awesome for Chinese-oriental music. A bit of their song sounds like When You Believe from Prince of Egypt though. There's another bit that's stuck in my head and I can't get it out.

My mom got me an external hard disk drive today. It's 250 Gigs, which is about four times the size of my desktop hard drive. I'm going to test it out now.

On hindsight, this post seems too much in the style of Paddy Clarke.

Ha ha ha,
The Edna Man

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Carbon Battery

So we watched The 11th Hour in Physics today. I think one of the more awesome ideas which I haven't been exposed to before this, is the fact that right now, our civilization is living on borrowed sunlight. Normally we'd only be able to harvest energy from whatever plants grow over the course of the year; but because we found all these carbon batteries in oil and coal and all the fossil fuels, we got supercharged into advancement and technology. But like all batteries, they'll run out eventually, and so when that happens (in about 50 year's time according to conservative estimates), life as we know it is pretty much screwed. Unless we're able to fine-tune our alternative sources like fission and fusion or whatever. It's an interesting way of looking it that I've never heard of before. It's quite awesome.

Oh oh oh most hilarious thing today was Shaun's Michael Jackson/X-Box joke. AHAHAHAHAHAHA BLACK THEN WHITE AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Uh, yeah that's most of what I wanted to say today. If you were expecting a story, sorry, I haven't had any ideas or any time to write them down.

Life goes on,
The Edna Man

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Special

"Emma! Emma, over here!"

Emma finally spotted Rachel bouncing up and down, waving frantically above the sea of heads. Nudging her way through the crowd of chattering students, she reached her friend, who promptly flung her arms around her.

"Ahhh! It's been so long!" Rachel squealed as she squeezed. Eventually, Emma managed to wriggle out of her grip.

"Hey Rachel," she said, with an embarrassed smile. "You didn't have to hug me that hard, did you?" she asked. Then, "People were staring," she added.

"Oh, come on!" Rachel laughed, "I don't see my best friend for two months, and I'm not allowed to be excited?"

"It's great to see you again, too," said Emma quietly, grabbing her friend's wrist. "Come on, they're all moving to the auditorium already." She started dragging Rachel towards the staircase.

"So how's the job?" Emma asked, as they climbed the stairs. "The boss still harping on your paperwork?"

"Not any more!" Rachel replied brightly. "I've been shifted to do sales. And the boss is really impressed with my - what did he call it? 'Interpersonal skills and marketing prowess'." She drew herself up in mock pride, and laughed. "What about you?"

Emma showed her the cover of the book she had been reading, a finger carefully slotted between two pages to mark where she had left off. "I decided to do a bit more reading first. Anyway, I doubt that anyone would want to hire such an unimpressive person like me."

"Still as pessimistic as ever," sighed Rachel, but she was grinning. "Come on, let's sit over there."

The girls edged down the row of chairs and dumped their bags on the floor. They watched the other students filing into the auditorium for a minute. Rachel broke the silence.

"So, results!" she said. "I'm really nervous, aren't you?"

Emma mumbled something in reply, with a non-committal shrug.

"How well do you think we did? I know I screwed up Econs, because of the stupid question number; and then Maths was a killer, I left the last question blank! And of course, I don't think the markers are going to like my essay; it's so unique they probably didn't know how to-"

"Shut up, Rachel, I'm nervous too," Emma muttered, pulling her jacket tighter around herself, but smiling. "It's really cold in here."

"Yeah, I know," said Rachel, casually tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes flickered over the crowd in silence.

"Do you think you'll get 42?" she asked. "I don't know, I think I'll get 40 if I'm lucky. Maybe even 39. There's no way I'll get 41, let alone 42. Even-"

"Rachel, I fully expect that you'll get 45, like you did for the Prelims and the tests before that. There's no way you're sitting here throughout the ceremony. You'll be up on stage eventually."

"No...! I told you, I didn't write the question number for Econs and- okay, okay! I won't start that again," she said as she noticed the look on her friend's face. "But I know you'll be on stage with me too! You're going to get at least 43, definitely."

Emma just smiled faintly. "I've been an average girl all my life, Rachel, not like you. I'm never the best in anything, I only manage to do enough to get by. I'm not going up that stage. I've resigned myself to that fact of life."

Rachel was silent for a moment. "But you would like to, wouldn't you?"

"Wouldn't anybody?" she asked, and then laughed.

"I think you should get a score over 41," said Rachel, unusually serious. "Wouldn't it make you feel... I don't know, special? That's a bit of what I feel when I do so well for exams and stuff, I guess that's why I try so hard."

Emma started to reply, but was cut off by the Principal, who had begun to speak from the podium on stage, his voice echoing around the hall, which had fallen silent with every student staring at him with an abnormal amount of attention.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," said the Principal. "I have the results for the year, right here..."

********************

"Emma! Emma, over here!"

Emma finally spotted Rachel bouncing up and down, waving frantically above the sea of heads. She saw her push through the chattering crowds of graduates and run down the steps off the stage.

"Congratulations," Emma said. "Just like I predicted."

"Oh, shut up," Rachel said, grinning. "You didn't get up on stage?" her grin faded. "Why? How much did you get?"

"39," said Emma, nonchalantly. "Just like I predicted."

"Oh."

They were silent for a moment, both at a loss for words.

"Well, d'you want to go out for lunch and celebrate?" asked Emma.

"Yes I do! But - I'm so sorry Emma - they want an interview with all the 45-pointers. And that's after the photo taking and everything. I don't know how long that'll take."

"Oh, well, we'll just have to celebrate some other time, then," Emma said.

There was another pregnant pause.

"Well," said Rachel, "I've got to go back now." She turned to go, but changed her mind and flung her arms around her friend again. "I'm special, Emma," she whispered in her friend's ear,"and so are you. They just don't know how to see it."

Emma broke out of the hug. "Yeah, Rachel, you're really special." She forced a smile, and glanced at the hundreds of happy students still milling around on stage, dozens of handshakes, congratulating each other with a thousand cheers of delight.

"Unique. Just like everybody else."

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Seventh Heaven

Pleasantly surprised has nothing on this.

Thank you so much, Lao Shi
The Edna Man

Sunday, January 04, 2009

From Miss to Missus

Not really much time to write a novel or anything, but I (along with the entire Get the Message OM Team and the original MPac exco) went to Ms Loh's wedding today (yesterday at time of writing). I don't really have much to say but I think that this is the most interesting church wedding I have ever been to, because the pastor was so funny and the then Ms Loh was really spontaneous (hahahahaha OM) and all that, so it was an extremely enjoyable experience. It's really nice to see her married finally, but I don't think I can get over calling her Ms Loh. Mrs Tay sounds so weird, and Mdm Loh sounds worse.

I think if or when I actually get married, I'm gonna try to squeeze in as many awesome things as possible. I dunno; I thought weddings are supposed to be happy; I don't think we're supposed to be so serious and stuff.

"Hahahahahahahahahaha... no, no, I'm sorry, I do."
The Edna Man

Thursday, January 01, 2009

It's 2K9!

Let's Make A Resolution
I'll Drink To That
Let's Always Stay Friends
Tho' We May Have Our Disputes
This Family Tree's Got Deep Roots
Friendship Is Thicker Than Blood
That Depends

Depends On Trust
Depends On True Devotion
Depends On Love
Depends On Not Denying Emotion

Perhaps
It's Gonna Be A Happy New Year
I Guess
It's Gonna Be A Happy New Year
You're Right
It's Gonna Be A Happy New Year

Maybe this year it'll come true.

Happy 2009!
The Edna Man