Panthera Sapiens Ellipsis: The Blog

I got back yesterday from my grandparents' in So Hour, and I'm still missing them. I started missing them as of one hour after arrival at my hostel room yesterday, when I realised that it was lunchtime and there was no Teochew porridge and food waiting for me. (Typical me, I suppose.) The trip down was most certainly worth it, even if it cost me about 30 or so bucks and my facial wash (which I packed lying on its side) leaked and drenched half my stuff in strong-smelling liquid. After all, I did enjoy myself thoroughly while I was there. My grandfather is as hale as ever, my grandmother equally so, but my cousin (hereafter referred to as Lucky) rode a motorcycle over a cat the day before I arrived. The cat survived, but he fell onto the road and got scraped and cut in a dozen places, including three piercings on his left foot that went bone-deep. When I saw him he had more bandages on him than the typical Egyptian mummy. That was the beginning of my week in Three Waves, d...

It rained yesterday, after nearly two months of drought. If anything could've been a better way to celebrate the absence of haze, it was rain. A proper heavy drizzle, not too heavy, not too light, and leaving behind a nice lingering scentlessness. It's nice to be healthy. I've always envied other people their physical hardiness and resistance to sickness-- due to various factors, I'm not the strongest body on the block-- but all the same, a point was made and taken when I came down with eye pains, a hacking wet cough with phlegm, a sore throat (and consequently a creaky bass voice--I'm a baritone), a bad headache, and constant thirst, all at once, thanks to the wonderful guys over at Idiot-esia and their lovely lovely haze. And now that all of the above sicknesses are gone, I'm actually breathing with a renewed thankfulness that I'm alive. I'm just glad to be breathing without coughing every five minutes. And, of course, for the fact that the rain wa...

It began about four days ago, when it was nothing more than a couple of extra large clouds that didn't seem to move all day. Then those clouds called forth their brethren and multiplied, and behold the result: the visibility from my hostel room has gone down to about 15% of what it used to be, the very air I breathe stinks of smoke, and everything around me looks like someone wrapped it in gray gauze. I hate the haze, but what's to be done about it? It's not like I can pack the stuff up in little plastic containers marked 'Biohazard' and send them off to Idiot-esia, right? And supposedly my college has loads of trees to help filter the air. Well, those trees should be fired for not doing their job, because the air is as smoggy under them as anywhere else. Or, on the other hand, if they ARE doing their job then I dread to think what it's going to be like if I go anywhere else. Andthe newspapers say it's only going to rain on weekends. Excuse me, but didn'...

It came to pass in the late days of July that I went to the library; and all was boring and drab to my eyes. And behold, I saw a copy of the Silmarillion on a shelf; and the sight of it was as balm to my eyes and soothing to my mind; and I said to Gene, 'Behold; for ages have I sought a free copy of this, and now one has fallen into my possession; therefore rejoice!' But Gene had not the mind of a fan of Tolkien, and his countenance was puzzled; so he asked and enquired into the contents of the book: whereupon I lent unto him the book for a span of a minute, a minute and a half, and in this time he read the synopsis upon the back. And he gave forth utterance to the question in his mind, and with great thought and deliberation he said, 'Is this book of the Lord of the Rings?' And I took the book from him, lest his hands should sully the covers; and I began to read it. And when it came time to leave the library and proceed unto our class, I checked the book out of the lib...

Well, these are the pictures Vida took durring the All-You-Can-Drink contest at Patty Queen. Gene isn't here because he decided that his face is too shameful to be put up online! (And perhaps it is. I'm no judge of such things.) [edit: Gene sent me a picture after all./edit] Panthera Sapiens: The Frightening Face. (Ignore the black tooth.) Psycho and the next trend in hairstyles. Say wow! Vida and what is supposed to be an enigmatic smile. Eugene and my great-great-great grandma's tinted red spectacles. Can you say scary? Now, here's a real kicker. KennySia recently put up a post involving FaceAnalyzer.com, which is a site supposed to tell all about you based on your face. (They obviously believe that you can tell a book by its cover.) So I put in some pictures, and look what I got. I'm a genetic mess, apparently. European? How am I related to Jay Chow? (And isn't the name spelled wrong?) Psycho is now a Korean. Does he look freaking Korean to you?... thought no...

It's amazing! I never expected to do at all well in Biology--in fact, it was the worst of my subjects in SPM along with History--but out of the blue, I got an A for it! 80 marks! And to think that just a few minutes before receiving it, I was telling Cheeky Long that I'd be satisfied with "only" an A. (I never expected to actually have it happen.) Well, God be praised, I've gotten the very first A ever I've got in Biology. Of course, it's likely to be the last one I'll ever receive, given that I don't study much at all. If I can manage to keep the trend going, on the other hand, it'll be proof that my brain somehow grew an extra couple million of memory cells. Woo hoo! (Pardon the colloquialism.) I have, it appears, been projecting a very odd image of myself to some people. On Saturday, Psycho, Gene, myself, and a kid called Vida (an anagram!) went to cheat Patty Queen out of some money. It was legal--they're having some kind of All You...