Panthera Sapiens Ellipsis: The Blog

I had a better time today, visiting the Great Wall and the Cheng Long Mausoleum. I woke at 6 this morning, to the sweet sound of my brother and the driver snoring in concert, each one apparently trying to outdo the other. Needless to say I entertained thought of pouring ice water down their necks but didn’t, and ended up not in the best of moods during breakfast. The journey to the Wall took about ½ an hour by car, during which we passed the time by telling (blonde) jokes and (not blonde) riddles as well as discussing the relative merits of each character in a movie. (We were travelling with another family which my father somehow got to know. The three kids are Jon, Joanna, and Amanda.) The Great Wall was great (well, duh). The scenery was incredible, and I’ve photographs to prove it; the sun was shining brightly; it was warm—I sweated; and the incline wasn’t too steep. It’s more like lots and lots of flights of stairs piled together, really. A strong wind was blowing, but that on...

I am again in Beijing, but I now feel the warmer for it. Having arrived from Harbin this morning how could I not? The temperatures there are—but I’ll talk (read: complain) of that in its place. Shopping the last time I was here got me thick gloves and a pair of greater thermal pants. I later got a face mask which made me appear like something out of Counter-strike or something from Afghanistan. Wearing the thick, woollen, itchy, static-laden thing kept fogging up my glasses with my breath, but it was a necessary evil: Harbin’s air is such that all unprotected skin turns numb in seconds. About Harbin itself…well, I once heard that if one has nothing good to say, then one ought to shut up. Fortunately I don’t buy that adage, or I’d say nothing at all about Harbin, which, I am sure, is a short, innocent-sounding name for the Harbinger of Icy Doom. The first day (the 25th), I had breakfast in the hotel. It was a buffet. It was quite nice, but not much so, because of the near-tot...

I am now in Beijing, and am much the colder for it. To the layers previously mentioned, I have now added a thick overcoat and a long-sleeved shirt. They help keep out the cold somewhat. Travelling here took all yesterday and most of today; I am by now quite bored of the view of the inside of the car; I am cold and sick of it. It shouldn’t have taken this long, of course, but a snowfall on Beijing caused all major highways leading here to be closed down, so we spent yesterday negotiating country roads that are nowhere on a map. Nearly every road seemed to have been cut off by fallen trees, accidents, or bureaucracy. Thank God we did at least get to a hotel last night, and that the snow was cleared off the highways today. That’s how we got here. I just had dinner, and lots of it. Apparently the people here are even more generous with raw material than in the big S; and they don’t seem to ever have heard of Aristotle’s Golden Mean. If the food is spicy, it’s burning fiery; if sweet, pot...

Well, Fuzhou Road was disappointing. The books weren’t as cheap as I’d hoped (inflation, I suppose), I didn’t have as much time as I’d wanted, and I couldn’t find Wolf’s wish list. But I did manage to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (3 hours), the Artemis Fowl Files (1 hour plus), and I did manage to buy 5 classics and a Christie mystery. Total spent, RMB 120. I had to pick something at random for Wolf, so I did; also, I noticed a book entitled ‘Homosexuality in Ancient Art’, with full-colour illustrations, but I doubted if the price were right or if Wolf would want it anyway since I don’t think he’s gay. Besides, it was a large book and heavy. This morning, I had my shoes’ soles refastened. Now I have one pair of increasingly tattered shoes with wonderfully fixed soles. I and my siblings then proceeded to my father’s office to sing carols to his colleagues, none of whom we knew or had seen. They also had never before seen so many children on one family, as Chinese regu...

I bathed today, with the nearest experience so far to a KK cold-water bath as the hot water was all being used up by another sibling in another bathroom. At least it helped get rid of some of my fatigue; I woke at 8 this morning and, again, have been out all morning, afternoon, and evening. Sleeping at 11 last night didn’t help. I was up last night setting up my second G-mail account. Herr Robson, who was online at that hour, suggested the name for it: panthera.sapiens@gmail.com . It’s based on a nickname I’ve had since 11 years old, slightly modified and paraphrased to sound more imposing. I am, after all, a science student. I have watched ‘White Chicks’ on DVD. It was pirated, of course. Fake DVDs are everywhere in the place; one can’t walk five hundred metres without seeing one. It’s not too bad, but the plot could do with a lot of help. Maybe these things are the reason for the spate of book-based movies; books’ plots, generally, are better than those of movies. I shall be going...

I am very tired now, in the full sense of the term; I am suffering from a lack of sleep. Having slept at midnight this morning because of a late cell group meeting and gambling sans money, I woke up at 8:30 this morning hardly refreshed. Having been on my feet since 9 this morning till now hasn’t helped one tiny, little, whit. I have been listening to discussions about the trip to Beijing and Harbin, and am now very pessimistic about my chances of getting a rest while on holiday. The temperatures—I have already told you about them, so I shan’t bother you with redundancy—gangrene is reputed to result from entering a warm room directly from the outdoors; ice and snow are warmer than the air; we are supposed to wake at 6:30 every morning and sleep at 10; and we shall have to walk nearly everywhere! It all sounds quite chillingly un-restful and exhausting. Wonderful holiday, this. I should, of course, be preparing to rest by now, as I have a full day of church to look forward to tomorrow...

It appears that I have a habit of breaking resolutions. Observe the never-ending “Last post before SPM” s! I have just seen Canal, Ice, and family again (I presume for the last time this year). And not only have I seen them, but I have watched them play basketball for about 1 ¾ hours, returned them several DVDs, gotten a plate of baked sweetmeats as well as a box of cookies, and had a Bible study with them. Oh, and I also got lost momentarily in an LRT station. It wasn’t my entire fault—my ticket wasn’t expensive enough, and I got held up to repay the balance, during which my accompaniments vanished. So I got lost. They did find me eventually, though. Plans have now been laid to go to Beijing and then to Harbin soon; I shudder metaphorically and literally. Beijing is 2 days away by car and about 7 to 8 degrees colder than the Big S; Harbin is 12 hours away from Beijing by train and has an average winter temperature of minus 29 degrees in the afternoon. Pros: I’ll see snow. Cons: I’ll ...

I have just returned from a long and tiring day out, most of it spent at Canal’s. Well, it’s not really tiring in the popular sense of the word; fatigued would be a more accurate description of me at the current moment. I awoke at 7:30—late by KK standards but early for my current schedule—for a quick breakfast before setting out for a local shopping street, whose name literally translates to Orange-Yellow Temple. (My father and my brother had left the house one hour earlier for an hour of extremely early tennis.) None of the four of us knew the way, but my father had insisted that the 911 or 926 buses would deposit us right at its front door, so we set out after obtaining a little money. (The brother who played tennis got tired and declined to come.) Well, he was very wrong. We had to ask directions several times before being directed to the number 26 bus. And even then we had to walk quite a distance before we arrived. The Orange-Yellow Temple is a huge market, located in the older...

I have been vomiting and having diarrhoea for most of the past 3 days. Treatment administered by family: plenty of walking, abstinence from all beverages but plain cold water (and I do mean cold), and absolutely no sympathy. It’s irritating, to say the least. Anyway, I’ll now recapitulate the events of the past few days (behold my sacrifice: for this blog I prevail against sickness!). on Friday, nothing occurred but that we went to a local cell group, some of which’s members I later saw in church. On Saturday, we went to Suzhou and stayed there for about 6 hours, during which we bought nightgowns, thick hats, shawls, fans, and other trifling stuff for a fraction of the prices written on their tags. Yesterday, we went to Canal’s in the morning for a house church service and to get our left-behind things back. After that, we went to the church proper for the English services and a cantata, which was quite well done and enjoyable. At night, I had some fries and ½ a burger for dinner,...

I was laid up for most of today by a terrible stomach-ache that has been hypothetically traced to the bowl of noodles that I had for lunch yesterday. Drat that oily, unhygienic bowl of slimy noodles! The experience has been most uncomfortable; I began today with a bout of vomiting that turned the toilet bowl murky green and turned the toilet odorous, after which I had absolutely no appetite for breakfast or lunch. Woe is me—and my cough isn’t gone yet! It, however, seems to be temporarily abated (by the absence of food to throw up or dispose of via diarrhoea); so I had a very little dinner at Canal’s. It was, I suppose, a typical gweilo dinner, by which I mean that it had plenty of meat and little or no fibre. That’s the end of my nonexistent weight-loss plan. However, it was enjoyable, if only because the sight of soft drinks being guzzled down in huge quantities by 16 people at once is a sight worth seeing. Not, though, during normal meals. I have gotten G-mail, thanks to Kelvin. I...

I went shopping with most of my family (my father was absent) this morning at a nearby flea market. (Note: My definition of ‘near’ has now been changed to ‘within 30 minutes’ walk from a subway station’.) It was fun, especially as we went there early and got some pretty good bargains, although we really should’ve driven the prices much lower. Anyway, I did manage to chop a bag from RMB 400++ to 140, T-shirts from RMB 185 to 35, and others. Quite enjoyable, the haggling, especially when the sellers have enough wit to banter and come up with the most outlandish reasons why the price should be higher (‘My sister’s friend’s husband’s second babysitter just went bankrupt and I’m trying to help them’), upon which one has to come up with one’s own reasons and replies (‘Go tell someone who cares, sister’). Canal did not enjoy it one bit as his gweilo temperament is impatient—even though I was haggling on his account! (I had no money of my own to buy things with.) From his expression, the poor ...

I just bathed for the first time since arriving here, but I have not changed my long johns because I haven’t any others. Otherwise, I am wearing clean clothes. I also just finished reading The Hobbit. Quite a nice book, but I wish all good books lasted longer. J.R.R. Tolkien writes in a similar, albeit more long-winded and detailed, fashion to C.S. Lewis’ books; both have a knack of writing about the magical or mystic in a familiar yet charming way, as if they were next-door neighbours or some such thing. I have just realised that I am an oddity of nature and that my DNA should be preserved for the lasting benefit and close study of future generations. I am destined never to have a beard or moustache and never to use a razor or other shaving equipment while always preserving a full head of hair. The Pig shaves; Canal—2 years younger than I!—shaves; I do not have the least bit of stubble on any part of my face but the scalp. Not that I care; it’s all the more money saved for me. The mo...

As I expected yesterday, this morning, my mother went into a spring-cleaning frenzy although it’s the middle of winter. As a direct result of the ensuing flurry of activity, the floor is gleaming, the windows and furniture wiped, and the piles of assorted stuff on the floor put in relative order. It took all morning to get them that way. I also went to the local market whit my mother—or, rather, what’s left of the local market. Most of the streets where it used to be have been torn down, and so the market disbanded. The sellers are still around, though, just not so apparent to the eye. Anyhow, we found it and I got a chance to see a chicken slaughtered before my very eyes. The sight is gory, so I’m not going to describe it here in the interests of better taste. I played some ping-pong for part of the afternoon. I’d rather play badminton, of course, but the weather being inclement (too windy), I had to make do and pick up a new sport as best I could, which was not very well. My brother...

I have just returned home from a long day out. This is easily proven from the fact that I left the house at 9:20 this morning and, as just mentioned, just got back. I have also walked more in this one day than I usually do in a week. It is somewhat surprising that I should have so quickly gotten used to calling the dim little flat that I now inhabit with my family ‘home’, but then the old bromide—are there any new bromides?—says that home is where the heart is, and what better place is there for the heart to be than where one’s family is also? I have met Canal and family (Father: Leaf, mother: Trace, brother: Ice, sister: Broccoli, kid sister: Mercedes, kid brother: Jo, last brother: Ben), as well as several other gweilo families, including a Chinese American one, which is the first one I have met so far (outside my own family) that speaks both good English and Chinese. Unfortunately, he is a rugby enthusiast, which I am not. In fact it seems that a large part of the local English...

It seems incredible that I should be at last out of the grip of the Slimy Purple Muck, although it did turn out as evil as its name. The Biology test was a killer, and I mean that wholeheartedly. Half the class was in a daze after the exams! It just goes to show the amazing ability of the teenage mind that less than four hours later, most of my class and the next few classes were at a prom at Silk Harbour. Yes, I went to the prom, notwithstanding the numerous objections I put up to it in my last post. (Incidentally, I’ve noticed that I have about three ‘last posts before SPM’. Wonderful how resolutions can never be stuck to, isn’t it?) And I did, surprisingly, enjoy myself somewhat, so the 40 bucks wasn’t totally wasted after all. I went with Wolf. He, also, had planned not to go, but when he found that he was going to have a dinner with his extended family, he suddenly remembered that he had to go to the prom. So he went in my car, since he lives near me and didn’t have other transp...

Here I am, once again in the death grip of the Slimy Purple Muck. It’s not as bad as one might think, though. It appears that the recent Malay New Year celebrations have mellowed the test setters somewhat, as the few papers I’ve taken so far are quite definitely not the horrible, torturous experiences that I was envisioning before. In fact, I would almost be confident about obtaining A1’s for them all, if not for the fact that a paper that is easy for me will almost certainly be easy for the rest of the nation, thus causing a disruption in the grade curve, and therefore that I will have to do particularly well to get good grades. I hate irony. At least I’m on a holiday of sorts now; with only EST on Saturday, I have until then to goof off. This is mostly, of course, because nobody ever studies for EST except those who are linguistically challenged. It’s so easy that I think of it as a guaranteed A, there only to fill up blank space on the certificate. Not, of course, that I’ve got...

Well now, this is my next and probably last post before I’m overtaken once again by the vice grip of tyranny that goes by the seemingly innocuous name of the SPM. Right now, I can safely say that I have not been studying quite as diligently as my mother would have me. After all, she says that the only way I’m going to an Australian college is on a scholarship, and if I don’t get good grades on the SPM, I won’t get a scholarship and will be forced to take STPM. Oh horrors. Anyway, I am now once again in uncertainty as I wait to see what college I can go to. (As I see it, the STPM is only to be taken as a definite, desperate, only-to-be-taken-in-times-of-great-and-perilous-danger last-minute choice; even A-Levels are better.) I shall soon be applying to TAR college, which I will probably not go to even if I do get in because my mother will have found yet another, better (read: cheaper) college to apply to. But then it’s just my grouchiness taking over. I’ve been particularly grumpy ...

That’s the first bit of SPM over. I won’t call it the first half, since it isn’t. I’ll just say that the worst is over, and worse is to come. I had History today, and let me just say, without going into details, that what I hoped for wasn’t asked for, and what I passed over turned out important. It’s that whole cornerstone paradox again. At least it’s raining. I could eulogise it in prose or verse (not, God forbid, FREE verse) for hours on end. But I won’t, since my eulogies usually come out somewhat grammatically questionably, and they tend to ramble on and on, non-stop, never-ending, ever-lasting, unto eternity and beyond (oh good, no hyphen here), forever and ever, time unto end. I’ll just super-simplify it and say that I think that those who don’t enjoy rain are idiots. And at least I have the next 13 days off. Less about eight days’ study, I’ll still have about one week to unwind. Interesting that I need six days to unwind from four days’ exams, but then most strange things are....

Well now, it appears that the SPM is upon me—and no, I haven’t gotten anywhere near the swimming pool yet. I can’t even leave the house without my mum yelling after me not to forget my books! In fact, I just counted, and we students are actually taking about ten days’ exams, stretched out over one whole month. For every day that we take a test, we have two days off…and that’s for those who are taking extra subjects like me. For those like the Pig who take nothing more than the absolute necessary, they have only nine days to freak out over. And I do mean freak out. Now, as for my plans…well, I certainly won’t be going to Shanghai in the foreseeable future, since my foundation studies are expected to begin in January and the SPM ends in the beginning of December, leaving a little over one month to relax. And thirty days, obviously, is definitely not enough to use up my 45-day visa in China, so I’ll be stuck at home. You can be expecting more posts like this, especially because I’m a rec...

Panic stations everybody! The SPM is fast approaching—I’ve only a week or so more to go—and what am I doing? Panicking, of course; and trying to persuade The Pig to go swimming. No, I’m not trying to drag him down with me so that I won’t be the only one in the place to fail my exams; it’s just that I need something to laugh at now that I’m fast approaching insanity, and watching him half-drown himself in the pool will at least amuse me. The weather hasn’t changed; it’s still horribly sunny, which is ironic given the general mood of the local Form Five population. I only wish for a little rain; it would make walking home from school so much more enjoyable! Incidentally, I’m supposed by some people to have really big biceps by now due to lugging my extra-large bag around everywhere. Unfortunately, they’re wrong. I don’t know what I did wrong, but my arms are still about the diameter of a really thin, dried-up stick. The teachers have been unloading practice questions and last-min...

The weather is simply rotten these days. Sunny, windy, not a hint of rain anywhere—the tank in the back is getting seriously depleted. Not really, of course. It’s only been sunny a couple of days, and it’s a 600-or-so gallon tank. In any case, though, I hope the monsoon brings more rain my way. It is still supposed to be monsoon season, after all. I just consolidated my status as English King of the Class with yet another A in an English subject. I think I may have gloated a little too much, though: the charitable classmate may not be feeling quite so charitable towards me for another day or so (she got about 10 marks less than I did, and I’m afraid I rubbed it in a little too much. Same goes for Kelvin and the Pig, etc; I got the highest marks in the class, and like Herr Robson, I rubbed it in well). Speaking of Herr Robson, we got a form yesterday to fill in. There was a section to fill in with ‘Contributions You Made to the School’, and he filled it in with—you’ll never guess—all ...

I just got my English Literature results back from my teacher, and I got the second highest results in the class! (First spot in my own school; there are only two students from my school taking this subject, and I beat her by three whole percent.) This is kind of surprising to me, considering that I only started the tuition class in June—four months after the rest of the class. Maybe I just have this weird affinity for bombastic writing. Seriously, I mean it. After all, I’ve read tonnes of books, including Lewis Carroll (the guy was the original nutty professor), C. S. Lewis (the Narnia series etc.,), Victor Hugo (Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Eoin Colfer (the Artemis Fowl series), Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray), Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice and Emma), Chang Jung (Wild Swans), J. K. Rowling (duh), David Eddings (the Silmarrillion series), Agatha Christie (the Poirot cases and the Miss Marple series etc.), and Arthur Conan...

It appears that certain people have a problem with cleanliness—tenants. I’ve a house that has been rented out to various people for the last three years, and I’ve decided that upon renting houses, most people lose all sense of hygiene and begin breeding a plethora of pests. Cockroaches are a prime incidence: I just went to clean out the house after the last tenant ran out on us without even saying goodbye (it appears that tenants also have no manners), and the kitchen was a veritable zoo of mould, algae and roaches in small, medium or large sizes. It reminds me of a line I read somewhere: “The house had hot and cold running roaches”! Oh, and the tenants even had the gall to leave their bills behind for us to pay. I must say that I hope that (with apologies to all anti-racist groups out there) that the Muslims who thus treated my house will get a taste of their own medicine soon. Or on second thought, make that a double dose. You can’t be too cruel to people who use your bedroom walls a...

Apologia I’m back! After studying all day and night for the past three weeks…Oops, my nose is growing real fast. Ouch! It just hit the monitor. All right, I confess already, hold off on the proboscis enlargement. I did not study all that hard during the recent exam period (recent as in ended only on the 28th). Instead of staying at home and hitting the books like I should have, I went cruising the mall looking for tennis shoes for my father—I rarely even so much as step into malls on normal days, but during exam period, I strolled around the shopping complex for several hours and didn’t even buy anything! Also, I went to the beach on a church outing. Appropriately, it rained and poured, and the sand turned to soggy muck. And after that, I still did not learn my lessons (as I should have) and went out on a round of all the local resorts late one night, after which I got home in no state to study. Of course, I have been suitably punished. One does not loaf off during important examinati...

The New Name List of Doom is out, and I haven’t checked it yet. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I won’t be on it either, but that just might be more luck than I’m entitled to. So far twelve people from the class are on it, but I hope it doesn’t go to thirteen. I just got a title. No, none of my relatives that I know of died and left me a kingdom. Hail me, Bringer of Destruction! I just cost the charitable classmate about a hundred or so to get a new computer after I sent her a diskette. It appears that all my diskettes are harbingers of doom; so far, I’ve hung Herr Robson’s computer several times, caused massive errors in laptops, and crashed a system. Each time, it happened unintentionally. It appears there’s a future for me as computer destroyer. Call ###-######, receive a diskette, and watch your computer explode. I think in the future, I’ll send all files via the Net. I also think the charitable classmate is a little mad at me. I mean, if my computer crashed when someone else’...

Stress city here I come! My exams start next Thursday and I don’t even have the schedule yet! Talk about typical school board efficiency—knowing them, we’ll receive the schedule sometime after the exams are over. The Name List of Doom is out; at least, that’s what I call the list that the government posted online stating who’s been drafted into the National Service program. That’s what they call it; I prefer to call it 3 Months of Torture, Brainwashing, and Possible Death. The worst is that the draftees have to return to their place of birth for the program, so I’d have to go to another state just to get tortured into pain and suffering. Fortunately, I didn’t get in. The Book-hater did, though; most of the sports nuts in my class did. It’s a pity the charitable classmate didn’t get in, though; to be candid, her voice is somewhat like a chipmunk’s, and it would be amusing to hear “One! Two!” yelled out in soprano…make that sopranissimo. This morning, the Cue Ball lectured my class abo...

Exams will be here in another two weeks or so, so I’d better post as much as I can about what’s been happening before the computer gets a Do Not Touch sticker on its screen. Anyway, I’m just posting this because the charitable classmate mentioned in connection with Vanity Fair below asked me when I’d be blogging again. Well, here’s her answer. Also, Herr Robson (another classmate but not necessarily charitable) told me that my blog was just one long list of rants and insults, so I think I’ll make this post as sugary as possible so nobody can accuse me of libel. I just made up my list of Things to be Grateful For, and first on the list is that I’m not female. (Some of my classmates would claim that I’m not human either, but that’s beside the point.) My Biology teacher just finished enumerating the pains and toils of birth and childrearing, and I am so glad I’m not going to suffer all that! Then again, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be called labour, would it? And then, of course, I won t...

Holidays might be a nice idea for the Form Five students of SM Loch Yuck, if they actually occurred. We were supposed to have a week of holidays next week, but no, the cue ball we call the Unprincipled of the school decided that the best class in school needed more classes, ostensibly to better our grades in the upcoming exams. And to think that no other secondary school in the city has them. Hah!! What he needs is some serious quality time with the school counsellor and a bottle of Hair Grow. I seriously believe that the reason he tortures us so (poor, innocent, pure, downtrodden angels that we are) is that he’s jealous of every single hair on our heads. Classic envy complex is my diagnosis: some time alone in the nearest mental institution and far away from normal people, my suggestion. My results in the exam just got back. I only failed one subject this time (Oh joy!) and got three A’s, one of which was Malay, which was never one of my best subjects. My average being 61.00 exactly,...