SMS 1
Hi i would like to sign up for vocalist auditions. Regina here.

Reply SMS
Hi Regina, our apologies, we're auditioning for male singers rather than female vocalists this semester, but if you are able to do vocal percussion, you're welcome to come for auditions too.

SMS 2
I was a tenor before.

oh crap! Talk about mistaken assumptions.

*blink blink. blink. blink blink blink blink*

Putting on contacts -blink- for the first time ever is quite a -blink- experience. You're seriously poking yourself in the eye (and that's only the putting-in). The other problem is the taking out. *tears* That's poking two fingers into your eye and -don't blink, stop it- jabbing out the foreign layer on it. Ouch. Really, lor. The price one pays for vanity.

I shall keep my daily disposable lenses for performing days and for birthday parties *squeezes eyes shut. blink. blink.* I shall not look like I am -blink- fluttering my eyelashes at my tutors during lesson time, or tearing with emotion during lecture time, in order to lubricate the eyes.

Second time will be better. Now let me tear a little more to get my eyes to feel more comfy. Bit tired, better sleep soon, after a couple more scenes from Faustus.

On a totally irrelevant note: I didn't know co-op sells condoms, until today, when I was peering at the name-tag holders under the counter. When I straightened up I found myself face to face with a rack of colourful condom packets, positioned most conspicously, cheerfully in-your-face atop the counter. Well. Makes you wonder how happening hall life really is.

alas, that migraine...

I feel a suspicious tiny dull ache in my head. *annoyed* If this means a headache, then it's one headache too much liao lor. I shall log off soon, after putting up last Tuesday's entry, which was left unposted in notepad for some reason that I cannot remember. Unvetted grammer or written expression or something. Yah, I'm that particular about what I write, sometimes =P Okay, here goes...

____________________________

10 minutes! Then I MUST log off. WHY, my dear Charm, are you so obsessed with blogging when you're supposed to be doing anything else but that? *shakes head in exasperation* Well. Must be the 'blog spontaneous things without fretting too much' resolution, because blogging suddenly becomes very appealing, after getting stuck with a block for a while =) Or maybe it's a reverse psychology thing. When Charm is free, she has nothing to blog. When Charm is supposed to be busy, why, there're plenty of things to say.

Yesterday was the first day of school, and what do you know, by the end of two lectures I get plagued with a throbbing headache that crescendoes dramatically into a screaming migraine. No joke, I tell you. I distracted myself long enough over lunch and book-buying, napped away the hour-long bus trip, distracted myself again by singing random running notes on my way home and through a shower, then collapsed into bed and died for a couple of hours. Woke up woozy and the pain doesn't go. Not a good sign, because when the head throbs like there's no tomorrow, you get a very empathetic understanding of what the common English expression of "a bear with a sore head" must feel like, and I'm a lot less sweet-tempered, and lash out spontaneously when provoked.

My mum gets extra anxious, I think, when I have a migraine, because I flop around like a boneless undead, which means I get scolded a lot more for horrible daily habits like spending long hours on the computer, and sleeping late, and not taking care of myself properly that lead up to this painful end, and how I oughta have known better. Which is perfectly true, but I cannot digest harsh words nicely when every light and sound jars at my nerves, disgustingly sensitive as they are then, throbbing and crushing so, and ugh, everything also cannot. It didn't get to the point where I'll be nauseous enough to not be able to take in food... Had enough discipline to last through dinner, thank goodness, and after a few pounding minutes at the living room still decidedly bleak and grumpy and ugh, paaaaiiiin, I retreated upstairs and collapsed in bed again.

Dr A mentioned during lect yesterday about how one of her friends was giving possible explanations to the rising cases of troubled young girls slitting themselves continually with a knife. One possible reason is because they feel so much emotional pain, they need to inflict physical pain on themselves to take their minds away from the mental agony. Another possible reason was because they've become so numb towards living that they need to inflict pain on themselves to actually remind themselves that they exist, because they still can feel pain. Later that evening, in the myraid of throbs, I had unsympathetically grounded to myself "They should freaking try having a migraine then, they'll be screaming 'Okay! Okay! Enough!! I can feel, I really can feel, I do freaking exist, just stop this pounding now...!'" because before any other thought the aching head stands a-glowering, and the eyes hurt so.

*shudder* I hate migraines. I get filled with the bleakest thoughts ever, and flounder to distract myself, yet there are so much stuff the head has to grapple with, because of the sudden, acute sensitivity to not only light and sound, but negavity-- I pick up on latent tension more sharply than anything else when I'm having a migraine, without the luxury having my consciousness auto-shutting them out-- and the eyes, they freaking burn and set off chain reactions in my head, so that all I ever ever want to do is to is to keep them shut, to drift into sleep so the pain is never conscious pain anymore, so that it will eventually go away...

But in the midst of half-consciousness my little brother brushes against my hair, an uncharacteristically sweet gesture, and asks me if I'm all right, and my mum sighs "haiii, this girl..." tugs and gently draws the blanket over me, and my dad comes in to quietly shut the windows and switch on the air-con, and you know, with the glowing warmth not from the feverish heat that burns within, the littlest breeze of soothing cool, that you're all right really, because there they are, with you still, though you might mess up so, and say all the wrong things, and feel like absolute crap because of one dehibilating migraine.

And sure enough the next day is ever more beautiful, more refreshing, glowing with a joyful, abundant something that you cannot quite place your finger on, because the darkness rolls away, the heaviness lifts, the throbbing has ceased, and everything is oh-- so much lighter.

It hurts like crap, but it makes me feel human, and so very very grateful, for so many things.

:)

Rounding up the hols...

New layout for the new year :) Took a fair bit of tweaking around but I'm quite contented with the way it looks now... Had to make the transparent white background a little more opaque so that the words turn out clearer, hence the overlapping white edges... Credits have to go to blogspottemplates though, they have really pretty layouts over there.

Two parties that rounded up the holidays before sem begins...

Derek's birthday (where we heard Derek sing many many words! =D)

















More pictures here.


and Project WTF (a.k.a Weijin-Tim-Farewell)
















We'll miss you guys... see you both in a year's time yeah? Or in half a year, if we figure out how to get a live webcast of you to guest-sing with us for our concert =)

More pictures here and here.

I forsee lots more parties this coming year, what with all the girls turning 21... Embarking on the path of adulthood already, huh... *wistful* We all have to grow up someday, I guess... It used to be a fact that I was quite terrified of at some point in time, in the latter secondary-school years, the fear that people change when they grow, and that growing up meant growing away... And then I realised it doesn't work this way, for whaddya know, we're all growing up together, and changing together, and even if we do go away, it is never a forever--we still do come back to meet at some point in time. [To dear I-mei: I'll miss you! Write k? and update your blog too! Just so we know what's going on at your side...]

What's forever are the memories we hold, the friendships we've made, and even if some people never talk to you as much as they did before, it doesn't mean they've forgotten, or cared any less.

Feel any better now? :)

Eh, all these wistful contemplations. Small part of my write-more-thoughtful-stuff-on-blog campaign. We'll see how long it lasts... After all, school's about to begin, and then you oughta find me moaning about reading and writing again =P Which reminds me, I have an approximate 15 books this sem for lit alone, excluding extra poetry and so on...

To update, I'm doing Romanticism, 18th Century and English Renaissance for lit, Singapore film for SS, and Anthropology and the Human condition for soci (sounds darn cool, and it went for *phew* only 1 point, cos the exam date's a very late 5 May -_-) Interesting sem ahead =)

Okay, update done, your turn now, people... I shall now ponder whether to start reading a text, or maple =D

Bidding mania

Desperate people do desperate things. Like spending 1,985 points on one module.

If one is 'once bitten, twice shy', then what does one do when you're twice outbidded? You throw in nearly everything you have the third time round, never mind how extravagent. It's 7 people, 1 vacancy, and the next min bid is 902, and no one is backing off.

I think I had been rather irrational, though, driven wholly by sheer exasperation and near desperation when three major modules were outbidded in two (protected!) rounds. Second-highest bidder at 1,215 points must be patting him/herself on the back with a certain sense of satisfaction (and relief) that this siao char bo outbidded her by a 750-point margin. (It's a lot more dui if you are kenah outbidded by a tiny margin)

I dunno whether to laugh or cry at this turnout, but then after a brief shower just now after re-sorting my timetable (for the millionth time), I decided that I should just be very very grateful. Take it as a painful lesson in bidding wisely, Charm, one that costs you enough points to remember by. (eh, this is outta point, but 1985 is the year I'm born in. Maybe I should have set it at my birthdate 1710, and saved another 200 points, but I was panicking way too much then, to set my bid any lower)

One more round left. All the best, people!

*panics* HOW CAN YOU GET OUTBIDDED FOR THREE FREAKING MODULES? When you have enough points in your account to easily secure them in the first place?

I hate horrible deceiving last minute bidders who suddenly emerge in the veiled hours of closed bidding and throw in lots and lots of points and kick you out of the picture. Wicked.

*despairs* Give me one decent module back, come on... please please please... Shakespeare, Romanticism, Psychoanalysis... don't leave me with a despairing bunch of cheem modules whose synopsis I cannot even understand...

I'm going nuts. I never had problems with module allocation before. Never. Doesn't make sense that the minute everyone I know gets their modules within the first try, I get myself repeatedly outbidded.

Ironic. The moment the CORS team launch their new improved system to reduce the trauma of the masses, I get into this-- *gestures helplessly at the CORS site*

There's got to be a way to get through this, right?

Happy New Year, dearest people

Family, and friends, all you people who matter so.

I love you all! (because I never say this to you all before, and will probably not say spontaneous things like that in your face-- eh, I'm shy, what -- but every one of you still do matter a lot more than you think)

......

*pause*

Okay, your turn now. Click on the "Leave a Ripple" link right below this, and type, "I love you too, Charm!"

*laughs* Okay lar kidding kidding. Have a wonderful, blessed new year ahead, and here's to more laughter and warmth and everlasting bonds of friendship. Cheers!

Spur-of-the-moment entry

Terribly drowsy now, but shall get this down anyway...

I love sing-sing-sing-ing... There's something very uplifting about each song you sing, a note, or two, and then with a graceful swoosh a whole line of musical notes that dance a tune, that begins to mean a little more with words interwoven with it.

I love words, too. Written, spoken, read... One word, and another, and soon a story is laid by your feet, a world for you to delve into--

Hence a cappella, hence choir, hence Lit, hence arts. And all the lovely people who come with them, people who tap into the same flowing rush of energy, who can thus understand, in their own unique way, what it is that makes this world a very pretty one indeed, if you were to shut your eyes and reach out and listen.

Happy New Year, my dear people =)