Humiliation

This is quickly turning into one of those weeks that falls flat on its face.

Just like me in law class today.

I can't remember how yesterday and Monday went, but I'm fairly certain they weren't particularly good days. If memory serves, they were filled with dancing, injuries and generally annoyance. Then today we had a really boring assembly.

After the assembly was quite possibly the worst law class in history. We had a mock trial, and I really screwed it up. There was a slim possibility that my team could have won, but I completely obliterated all possibilities. My cross-examination was dismal and my closing statement downright pathetic. Not to mention I tripped over a computer charger going up to do the closing statement, so everyone was laughing at me. Something tells me I'd be a really, really awful lawyer.

Then in  Chinese class today, my teacher was trying to teach about clothes, colors, and how to give compliments. This quickly turned into a prom discussion, which was entertaining at first. Questions that didn't cross any particularly boundaries, like what color dresses we wore and who we went with. Fine.
But then she picked up that I went with my boyfriend. This spawned a humiliating, 15-20 minute long conversation about him and prom in Chinese. The issue really is that I'm not comfortable with my Chinese class (mostly Freshman) and I'd never be comfortable discussing my relationship with a teacher.
Though she knew she had crossed a line and spoke to me after class, I'm not sure how I feel about the situation. In a way it's really funny, but it doesn't seem.. right.



I'm too lazy to pick a quote... so here, have a song:

Prom

I'm going to start out by saying this is the last time I'm going to talk about prom. Mostly because I'm aware I have been talking about it nonstop for quite some time. Anyways, prom was last night and it was a lot of fun. As you can see, I wore I black dress with a butterfly thing on my stomach.

Getting ready was quite interesting. I fixed my hair quite early so I wouldn't have to do it later. Then Nick came over and hung out a bit before we all ended up at Flick's house to get ready. Flick, her boyfriend Nick, Cathryn, Krutika, Nick and I all had dinner and hung out. It was a lot of fun to see everyone outside of school just being silly and excited for prom.

Before:

After:

Of course, I'm the only one not looking at the camera in that group photo. 

Anyways, prom itself was really fun. There was a candy-floss machine, really good food, and yummy sweets. There was also dancing, which means interesting lighting. The shapes projected by the lights are via gobo, which were changing on automatically. It was really cool. There was also a smoke machine that was puffing very dense smoke at everyone. It was annoying, but fun at the same time.

Overall, prom was amazing :D

Today was a homework day, which wasn't very exciting. Met up with Nick again- he crushed me at bowling (130 something to like 180 something for two games!!!)

Wasting Time

Yesterday was the last day of a terrible school week, and it certainly was the crown jewel. In addition to taking a HOJ test that I'm fairly certain I did badly on, I got a boatload of homework in every subject.

The long school day was followed by a three-hour MS dance rehearsal. It was the first time they tried to put the show together, and it looked like an explosion. Then, there was my dance, that was put together for the first time ever. It looked like death. The dancers were humiliated on stage, and I don't blame them. We were missing two of the four choreographers (thank goodness Rachel was there, or I would have just given up), and of course those were the worse sections. The girl who choreographed "French" is one of the worst dancers I've ever seen, and her dance reflects it. She had no idea what she was doing while teaching, so now the girls don't know what to do. 

Prom is tonight, finally. I've really been looking forward to it, as anyone who reads this blog knows. However, I didn't expect it to be this stressful for so many people. I really feel bad...

I started getting ready last night by getting my nails done. Now they are all pretty and French Manicured. Which took absolutely forever. 

While I was getting my nails done, I was watching a TV program about kids in Vietnam that are 2nd and 3rd generation victims of Agent Orange. I knew that it was devastating, but I never knew it could create such a large number of birth defects and disorders. It was really interesting to learn about, but also really sad. I wish I could do something to help those kids, that most certainly need help. I've worked with special needs individuals before, but never anyone as severe as the ones I saw on TV last night. It was chilling. 

... On another topic, they changed the format for Blogger. I now cannot figure out how to do anything, like check my stats. I find it highly annoying.  

Quote of the Day: "Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off. - Denis Diderot

Vampire

This has been a painfully long week, and it's not over yet. I've still got another day of tests, sweat and tears.

Apparently I have a HOJ test tomorrow on a load of stuff we've been half-heartedly been covering. As long as there aren't too many dates on the test I'll probably get at least a B. Therefore, I don't feel the need to pour effort into studying. I feel like I've said this before, but I think the way I'm learning Japanese history is stupid. It's not as long of a history as China's, but there's still a lot to learn. Japan's history is not just samurai and World War II. Rawr.

Then there has been dancing/teching all week, which is extremely draining. I'm not dancing that much in the show, but in a way it feels like I dance the whole thing. I have no idea why. At this point, I think dance is more mentally exhausting than anything else. Sure, it's physically tiring, but the worst part is just getting myself onstage again and focusing. Dancers here aren't the most sincere people, which is weird to deal with again after hanging out with only techies for the past couple of weeks. There's only one way I know how to deal with people who are clearly judging and laughing behind your back- stay silent. There's no way to critise someone for being quiet and dancing relatively cleanly.

Middle School Choreography is quite possibly one of the worst experiences of my dance life so far. No matter how much I dislike dealing with fake dancers, MS girls worse. Save a few exceptions, they are lazy, disobedient, and don't pay attention. I remember when I was in MS, no matter how annoying I was, I had immense respect for high schoolers. I looked up to them, and obeyed them. If they told me to shut up, I did. Now, I'm sure these girls look up to one of the 4 choreographers (though probably not me, I yell at them too much), but they don't show it. Instead of having a nice afternoon without dance or tech on Friday, I have to go to a tech rehearsal for MS. This is clearly just screwing with all the dancers who are in the HS dance show.  Some idiot told me that working with the MS girls would be rewarding. In reality, it's just something else to drain me of energy. And patience. And sanity.

Quote:

“Believe in angels? Then believe in vampires. Believe in me. There are worse things on earth.” - Anna Rice

It's Almost Over...

There are some days that are good, some that are mediocre, and some that are bad. And then there are days like today that were doomed from the start and went downhill for the rest of the day until it sort of ended.

To start off my day, I had HOJ. Which is always mediocre. My teacher was out (apparently he got surgery) so we got to watch a movie. Sounds nice, right?

Except the movie was "Grave of the Fireflies". The movie is amazing, don't get me wrong. It just happens to be one of the saddest movies on the planet.

Quick summary of the movie: Introduction is this boy named Seita who has just died of malnutrition in a train station. When this street-cleaner guy looks through his belongings, he finds a fruit-drop container. Upon opening it, bones and ashes, along with fireflies and the spirits and Seita and his little sister Setsuko. Spirit-Seita then begins telling his story. Essentially, they lost their mother in the fire-bombing of Kobe and then struggled to survive.

So, now I think it is very clear as to how this movie was extremely depressing. It left me in a generally terrible mood. This was followed by a math test, that I either did very well on or failed horribly.

Instead of having lunch, I had to practice dancing for my mini-performance tomorrow. I'll post that video when my teacher uploads it. It's not the most interesting piece, but it's fun.

English class was nothing to mention, but science was horrible. My teacher had a pig's stomach and liver and was walking around with them during class. I'm pretty certain I'm more grossed out by thinking about it than I was seeing it, but neither were actually enjoyable.

In short: I don't feel like eating anything today. Not after the sad movie or the pig's organs. NOPE

Life Goes On

There really hasn't been that much going on lately. Due to IASAS I got out of 3 of my classes, and ended up talking to people in the US. I miss them a lot- Anime Boston was last weekend (a convention I really wanted to go to) and they were telling me their funny stories from it. I also spent a decent time with Nick, who managed to get out of all his classes (lucky). This upcoming week is going to be really busy with dance show tech week, a busy week for me (2-day rotation timetable, with 3 'busy days'), and prom next Saturday. There's been a lot of prom drama... some of the promposals are quite interesting. Apparently there was a mock wedding, which is just weird!

Yesterday after school there wasn't much to do so I dragged Nick to Build-A-Bear. The video is below, though I will admit it's not very interesting because most of it is just him standing around. He ended up making a stuffed rabbit named Natsumi (my Japanese name). I was very amused, which is why the video is so shaky!

Today I ran a lot of errands with my mom. I finally ordered a boutonniere at the florist's shop near my house, picked up my prom dress, went grocery shopping, and bought some art supplies. Which makes today not terribly interesting. Oh well.  

I can't decide if I'm really looking forward to tech week for the dance show, or dreading it. I've kind of really angered the dance teacher by purchasing a tech shirt instead of a dance shirt. I'm in ONE dance, versus teching nearly the whole show. Please explain to me how I'm 'a dancer before a techie' for this show. In addition, the dance teacher is irritated that I didn't audition for Dance Performance (the class of kids who choreograph for dance shows) like I thought I would at the start of the year. Not to mention that she really dislikes techies. So, I feel like this dance show is going to be avoiding her as much as possible while awkwardly realising that I'm a useless stage techie. This is going to be either very funny, or very depressing. 


Quote of the Day: "There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them" ~Vikki Baum

Homework For Fun

Whenever I want to be productive and actually have enough energy to do stuff, there's nothing to do. IASAS softball is here in Singapore, and a reasonable number of my classes were let out to 'watch the games'. In reality, when any techie was let out of class they went to the tech office and played games/chatted. I was no exception to this and spent a fair amount of time doing nothing today.

There was sort of stuff to do at tech today, but no one was staying so I went home. I then wasted more time playing The Sims 3, which I really need to stop doing. After a while I got bored so I started doing extra-credit Chinese homework for fun. Then I started on History of Japan homework...

I'm such a nerd.


So apparently there was an earthquake in Indonesia the other day. Some people felt buildings shake here or something, but to be frank I felt nothing. Singapore generally doesn't get hit by that many natural disasters- we're sheltered by Malaysia pretty well. That being said, there is still a definite potential for something to happen here. Not to mention we make it up with one of the highest (if not the highest) lightning strike rates.

I think I'm actually going to go to bed early tonight. Considering I don't have that much work to do, it seems logical.

Quote of the Day:

"You'll never know until you try" ~My mother, though I'm sure she got it from somewhere

This Generation is Stupid

The beginning of this blog entry was written in my HOJ and Molecular Biology Classes.

... What? I had some free time, okay?!

HOJ:

I'm blogging in HOJ because I've completely  run out of patience for my classmate's ignorance. At this point, I don't even know if they are joking about not knowing some of this stuff. Generally speaking, you know, when a country gets invaded by another, they are not on the same side. Right after my teacher said that Germany made France surrender in the Fall of France, someone proudly declared that they were certain the Axis powers were Germany, Japan and France. Shortly after that, someone said that the UK used fascist rule during WWII. I don't know how much my readers (because I assume I have readers) know about history, but this is just another level of stupid. In a lot of ways it's positively terrifying, because the kids in my class either can't listen or can't comprehend basic facts. *shudders*

M. Bio:

You know, I really hate it when I finish tests early. It always feels like I've gotten everything wrong, no matter how many times I look it over.

 Anyways, something kind of funny is happening today. One of my friends decided to ask her boyfriend to prom, because he apparently hasn't asked her yet. However, he was planning to ask her to prom today. Now, my friend's plan involved putting origami dragons in each of her boyfriend's classes, eventually leading to him having to find her for the last dragon to complete the question, "Will you go to prom with me?" So there was no way for her to back out of her plan, and she's not the type to do so anyways. Then her boyfriend is trying to spell her name out with rose petals or something in the tech office, I don't really know.

Personally, I think the whole thing is completely hilarious. I mean, what are the chances of two people planning to prompose (that is a word, in case you didn't know) to each other on the same day? It's quite amusing.

Quick question: What makes a cause worthy of raising awareness/supporting to you?

Today at school there is this weird  'Raise Awareness for X Cause' thing today. If you donated a pair of shoes to a needy kid, you didn't have to wear shoes to school today. First of all, I think this is a weird way to raise awareness for the cause. Mostly because I would never go without wearing shoes, even if I cared about the cause deeply. Second, I don't understand how this is a super huge cause to worry about when there is malaria, AIDS, general poverty, human trafficking, starvation, global warming..... you get the idea. Giving people shoes should be part of the 'anti-poverty' thing I guess, but it just doesn't seem as essential as getting people clean water. I don't know. That being said, now I feel bad for thinking this charity is kind of weird and I'll probably end up donating to it.


After school today, there wasn't really any tech since I'm not working the next upcoming show (that's on my mother's birthday). Instead of doing something smart like doing homework, I went to Floor Hockey. I swear, every time I go I wonder why I am there. That being said, I keep showing up (though not very often) so I must like it enough to risk getting clobbered over the head by guys a foot taller and 50-70 pounds heavier. I noticed today that I'm a lot more prone to falling to the floor than other people who play. I guess when I get pushed, I don't exactly have the great reaction skills they do. Oh well.

Tech week for dance show is next week, which is exciting. Basically, I get to see how I'm going to handle teching and dancing at the same time. I'm sure it will end up being an educational experience. Besides, I've never worked stage before in tech!


Quote of the Day: "Shut up! Actually, don't shut up. I like the sound of your voice." ~some TV character in a drama

The School Calendar Makers Are Silly

Blogging is not working well today. So it's a list-y post.

1. Today is proper Saturday, not pseudo-Saturday like yesterday was. Yesterday was really Friday apparently, and we had it off for Good Friday (that practically no one observes). This means I have a 3 day weekend after a week long break. And it just doesn't seem logical to me. Some people didn't come back for the 4 days and just made it a two-week holiday. That sounds horrible, because that's 4 days of work one has to make up.

2. Today on proper Saturday I went shopping with my mother for prom shoes. We were out for about two hours and went to five department stores. The shoes, black with sparkles crossing over the front part, are beautiful. I was going to post a photo here, but I'll do it tomorrow because getting my camera out seems like a lot of effort. Later with my family I picked up makeup and a bag thing. I don't even want to think about how much I've spent on all this prom stuff.

3. I had dinner at an amazing restaurant that's not far from where I live. I forget what it's called, but I had the best chicken rice ever there. My parents got some interesting things like venison. Honestly, it's one of the best meals I've eaten in Singapore. As my father says, it's a good thing when there's a large queue of locals outside the door who don't seem like they mind waiting.  Must remember to go back there.

4. You may notice that I did not mention going to Chinese dance. That would be because I have dropped that class. It didn't make sense to continue when I'd miss so many classes, couldn't understand the teacher, and generally hated the whole ordeal.

5. Freedom is amazing.

6. I bought The Sims 3 yesterday, and I've already managed to get myself addicted. It's kind of terrible.

Scenes and Monologues

I'm quite certain that it's no shock to anyone that I did practically nothing today.

First thing in the morning I had a Chinese skit that I, "Did your personal best on," according to my teacher. Does it bother anyone else when they are told this? I never know if it means I got a good mark or not- sometimes my "personal best" is a good grade, and sometimes it's not. Regardless, the skit went really well and I actually tried to not look like a zombie during it. Which was extremely difficult when one did not get a lot of sleep the night before.

Dance was irritating today. I decided to work with a different group than I normally work with, in hopes that they were going to do an interesting topic. Instead, they decided to explore the concept of human trafficking (the project is on human right's issues). Human trafficking is an important issue of today, but to be frank everyone else was dancing about it and it's annoying. I wanted to do something about the general intolerance of homosexuality, which appears to be a topic everyone is a bit scared of here. So now I'm stuck dancing as a victim of sexual slavery. It was either that or being a victim of black market organ trade.

After school I had a lot of free time that I should have spent doing my homework. Instead, I sort of did my homework. Mostly I just hung out in the tech office.

There was only one show of Scenes and Monologues because there was a memorial today for a teacher who passed away from cancer recently. As I never knew this teacher I figured it was improper of me to attend. During the one show, I tried my hand at working camera. It's not something I could see myself doing every show, but it's nice for small shows like tonight's. The show was quite funny overall, some of the skits were interesting. I have to admit I have no patience for monologues, much like how I don't always appreciate lengthy dance solos. There's just something that never manages to capture my attention. Also, saying someone else's words on a stage by oneself just seems strange to me. When one dances, one can make the choreography her own. However, it just doesn't seem like actors can ever make another's words their own... or I'm bias to think dance is better. 


Whatever. 


Quote of the Day:



"Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory." ~George S. Patton

The "Promposal"

... I'm really rocking the "creative title" today. Somebody please give me an award.

So I'm really tired. Anyways, there was nothing really worth mentioning until after school. Except how everyone kept telling me to go to the Drama Theatre after school. And how there was some mysterious item at Mr. K's desk during our second break/passing period. Oh, and how my English teacher has managed to pile on a sickening amount of work, but I won't whine about that too much because it's halfway amusing. Satire is a fun unit, even if I can't understand Huckleberry Finn worth anything!

Moving on to after school....

Molecular biology was my last-period class, and it's never terribly interesting. However, some of the Freshman techies were obviously trying and failing to hide something from me. After class, three of them ended up... er... escorting me to the tech office so I could drop off my bag before going to the all-important drama theatre. Upon entering, I realised there was a decent crowd in there, mostly techies. To be frank I couldn't quite figure out what was going on- my subconscious knew but I was not thinking straight. Then, this happened:



It is very worth watching the above video. If you haven't clicked on it, go click ^^


The video took him 2-3 hours to make, and involved multiple people. I am very thankful that he put so much time into asking me to prom!


... Yes, I'm going.


Quote of the Day:

"Love doesn't make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile" ~ Franklin Jones

Bleh, School

Today was my first day back to school after a lovely week of doing absolutely nothing academic, and it's very annoying. Granted, it was an easy day so I didn't really do anything particularly difficult, but simply sitting under those artificial yellow-colored lights makes me sleepy. My first-period law class was quite amusing- we were playing a review game for a test everyone is going to fail on Wednesday, and I got my team two points by finishing another teams definition and smiling at my teacher. The deadbeat Seniors were quite irritating during the game: 'habeas corpus' was not the correct answer for any of the questions! So that was mildly entertaining. Dance was tiring in the afternoon- it's never fun coming back after a week of not really stretching and having to do a proper class. We're starting an interesting group piece about a 'social issue' next class, which hopefully will be fun.

Tech today was kind of interesting, and kind of a fail. In the tech meeting, officers for next year were announced. A guy named Elliot, my friend Flick, and Nick all got officer positions. Hopefully next year if I'm a good techie I'll become an officer my senior year. At rehearsal for this show called 'Scenes and Monologues', I was stupid enough to sign up for camera. I'm pretty certain it's the most boring possible job in tech. I stand around and point the camera at people, all while getting bossed around by the Switcher. The Switcher, when there are two or more cameras, 'switches' which one is recording and ends up with a smooth video. However, there may only be me on camera and since it's my first time anyways, I'll probably just get bossed around by Flick while all my mistakes get recorded. Which will be lovely.

Quote of the Day:

 Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. ~Albert Einstein