Panthera Sapiens Ellipsis: The Blog

I just wasted half an hour of my time walking up and down a slope to get my schoolbag back from where I'd forgotten it. Fortunately nobody else had seen it and the contents were all intact... It's been a weird week. First off, I guess there was that Math test on Tuesday--all the mugging seems to have paid off a little, since this time the complaint is there wasn't enough time to do it all, rather than that I forgot all the necessary formulae. Well, actually I did forget some of those formulae, except that I managed to remember them again with about ten minutes left to do them with; so I ran out of time before managing to apply them. Rather frustrating really. And then that night, I got introduced (through Silver D and Clay Sister) to Brain Rink, which set off a bunch of decidedly strange happenings. Because, you see, Brain Rink is also in Spore, and although she's 21 and Muslim, she's definitely very, hmmm, liberated: her conversation tends, more often than not, to ...

Both Marsh and Easy Kill have made statements to the effect that I appear to be completely relaxed and stress-free. I didn't know that--and in any case anybody who reads this should know by now that I worry too much about too many things... apparently neither of them reads, though. Easy Kill spends a lot of time online and Marsh... well, Marsh is going the way of Gene. Apparently my habit of sleeping through uninteresting classes (Economics and Chemistry, so far) has given them the erroneous impression that I'm perfectly able to cope with anything the professors happen to throw at us in the way of information, and now they seem to regard me as some sort of incredibly lazy demi-genius. I had to shatter that impression, but it made me wonder how I gave it off in the first place... It's easy to see that Marsh is stressed out; he insists on telling everybody he meets that "it's all about the effort you put in", that "school is difficult", that "he...

I woke up at 1pm today, after 5 hours of sleep. You got that right: I went to sleep at 8am this morning. It's not the first time; after all, I did it once before. I merely did it this time with different people. It turns out the Emoticon and the Corn have taken a strong liking to each other, and since the Corn is (or was; I don't know if she won the election) on the Hall Committee and was finishing off a Vote-For-Me poster late last night, she somehow dragged the Emoticon out of his room, two blocks away, to accompany her in the TV room while she painted. And since my room commands a very convenient view of that particular TV room (and vice versa), I got dragged out of my room too, to accompany them. I didn't complain too much since I wasn't doing much more than playing BeJeweled and Virtual Villagers at the time. So we sat around and and chitchatted, excepting the time when the Corn's foot (my goodness, what a pun) got stuck to some wet paint and she had to find so...

[Monday, May 21] I have finally got some good news regarding the job--it's over. My parents have decided that a month in China with them would be vastly more therapeutic than living with the Brats. (It's also something to do with me going off to Singapore soon and being further separated, and with their impeding move of house, which will require spring-cleaning of the new house and arrangement of various possessions.) So they told me, by email and via the Empress, to get my visa ready and my passport and to get a ticket to the Big S, as soon as I can. The Coconut said not to worry about her while I'm gone. So far I've got two travel agents' numbers to call and compare prices and visa preparation durations. I do hope everything goes OK, or else I'm going to have to get a ticket to Wuhan, which might be more expensive than to the Big S and might require a transit flight into the bargain (I dislike transits). But at least I'm going to be merrily jobless after t...

[Monday, May 14] ...you know it's not going to be a good day when your first thoughts on waking up are, "Shit, it's Monday". I suppose being late--again--does things to my mood. I don't particularly like being late. Then again, it's been a pretty OK time so far apart from when the Brats are around--I guess they have some sort of allergy to human decency or something. I've been receiving loads of letters the past few weeks, mostly from universities in the UK--even though I'm definitely not going to any of them anymore since I've decided on NTU, I haven't told them yet because I haven't found a suitably tactful way of saying No. Even if it's to a computer... anyway, so I've got loads of letters waiting for me at the Gorillas' every week when I go back. I don't usually look forward to those all that much, since they're like an instant guilt trip, but this week I got something nicer--a letter from myself. I should probably e...

[Monday, April 30] I wonder if I should sign up for this year's Copa di IBA. It's not like I'm going to do much good if I join anyhow, though--Claus has already told me that the way I play, I'm a liability to the team. Apparently because of the way I jump, people behind me are liable to have their eyes damaged... so unless I have a sudden improvement in style or technique or whatever it's called, I guess I'm not going to be on our delegation to the competition. Not that I mind. Sweat and sore limbs are not my cup of tea anyway--if possible, I'll probably just find a nice steeple hat somewhere and wear it there to keep the sun outta my face. I might even want to try and buy a (hooded!) trenchcoat or something in case it rains. It's a pity there aren't many shops selling ankle-length cloaks--I've always thought those looked kinda nice. Still, one has to make do with what one has... Things are definitely getting stressful around the office. With all...

[Monday, April 16] CS Lewis wrote somewhere that God, if we may say so, is very unscrupulous. And I don't know whether I want to nod in agreement or start drafting legal agreements for God to sign... Well, I can't take God to court--He is perfectly just, after all, which makes my chances of winning that argument pretty slim--so I'm stuck with nodding madly and sighing. Actually I think God has been dropping those hints for awhile now, but He only chose this past week or so to start in on the nagging. Well, if you've been reading and you didn't doze off halfway through or click that handy little red X in the top right corner, you probably know I've been ranting a bit about the Brat. (Even the name I chose for him shows that.) And I've been ranting a bit about my uncle and his tendency to fly off the handle at what seems to be the merest of jolts... Yesterday in church, a song about thanking God for trials came up, and I found myself wondering what exactly I w...

[Monday, April 9] I'm wet. I'm in an air-conditioned room. The air conditioner is on Oscillate, so it sometimes blows me and sometimes blows other places. I'm cold. I don't like being cold. It's my own fault anyway for running in the rain... OK, maybe I should explain. Remember a few posts ago when I mentioned one of my tasks being fetching cousins from tuition or school? Well, I just ran one of those errands. Now cast your mind back to the last post, where I mention the weather being unpredictable. Now you probably get the picture: I went out of the building and it was cloudy. (Fortunately my colleagues insisted on me bringing a little pink umbrella along.) By the time I got to my cousin's school (where she was waiting because she'd finished school), it was drizzling lightly. We went twenty paces away from school, and the wind and rain increased exponentially. I do declare the rain was almost horizontal by the time we had gone one hundred meters--and do rem...