qian (altessa), girl, 20, bespectacled, sci-fi, bookworm, more? aprilesque is version 7, photoshop7, original art, get your own, more? 5TORM Kathy, Dawn, Yingwan, Weiqi 05S34 class blog, Hui Fang, Jason, Poh Wei, Rachel, Wei Jie, You Jin, Yvette, Zirui friends Wen Lin, Natalie, Elyse, SozoS, Sam archives When browsing through the archives, please keep in mind that they are pieces of who I was, not who I am. People grow, people change, and I am only human. go? lyrics Hotspur - Heads/Tails, Stars of Track and Field - End of All Time, Dashboard Confessional - Hell On The Throat

Went to get my A level cert yesterday. Haven't been to the bus interchange for some time, so taking 174 again was nice, except for the long journey bit. Everything feels different though, looking in from the outside. Anyway, the certificate is dressed ostentatiously in a large A4 clear folder with an MOE logo in front. They've thrown in nice copies of your own testimonials as well (both the one you wrote yourself, and a shorter one from the teacher). I expect it to lounge on the bottom of my cupboard for the rest of its days, together with forgotten photographs from Kindergarten and report books from primary school, until I apply for a job or something.

I'm not really proud of my A level cert. Not the way I'm proud of my O level one. But it's the result of two years of blood and tears. I guess that should mean something, right?

Anyway, marathon-ed a four and a half hour tuition session yesterday! :D Took one P4 class and two P5 classes. The P5 classes were fine, but I spent 90% of the time in the P4 class trying to out-shout two boys, who were worth a classroom full of children in decibels. The only time when there was peace and quiet was when I let them go for a toilet break, more for the benefit of my own nerves more than anything else. Teaching is a little tiring, but fun. A little ego-boosting because hey, everyone listens to you (most of the time), and when you're speaking, your words are worth their weight in gold. xD

My computer is turning from being laggy to downright slow. I think it needs a fresh reinstall of Windows and a complete reformat, but I don't want to have to reinstall everything all over again! And I have SO. MUCH. STUFF. to back up. *horror* I think I'll just live with it, until it gets unbearable. I think I need to run a defrag sometime. I think I last ran one last year. O.o;

As for aprilesque.net, it's here! IT'S HERE! If you haven't noticed, my blogspot URL automatically redirects to my domain now. :D I don't think there'll be a new layout any time soon though, so don't get your hopes up. I've been in a creative-crunch ever since I stopped school. Whenever I open Photoshop, anything I create looks downright ugly. I can't even write anything marginally satisfactory. :/ I hope this creative drought ends soon. :(

I got accepted into USP! Received the email last night. I thought they would only tell us if we accepted the NUS application? It's making me teeter over the edge of indecision again, but most of my heart is with NTU at the moment (well, about 70% of it is, anyway).

This week will be a busy week for me! Have to make time to go down to HC to collect my A level cert, which is so out of the way, seeing that nowadays I rarely leave the Jurong area. I'll also be taking over all maths classes at the tuition centre, because the teacher is down with chicken pox. :X Hope she gets well soon! I'm kind of thankful for this opportunity though, because I can earn a bit of extra money (haha), and also gain more experience teaching the kids. Currently I'm only conducting one class on my own, and I thought it was scary enough. Well, not scary per se, but I'm always afraid I'll trip up and make mistakes and teach the kids something wrong. O.o; Now I've got two classes a day, and the kids don't know me, and I'm horribly insecure with people I don't know. :/ Which is why I enjoy my Saturday classes so much, because I've been with them since December last year.

Ah well.

As for the domain, I've picked aprilesque.net and it should be up and running by next week! Hopefully. I don't know if I'll have the time to whip up a new layout for it though, so there might be no cosmetic changes to this page. You guys can still access my blog at this URL; I'll have it pointed to my domain automatically. :D

Some children are so hard to love. Yet they are often the ones who need love the most.

Anyway, I really need to go and sleep, seeing that I have to get up at 8am tomorrow (yes, it's a struggle... I can't believe I routinely woke up at 5.30am to go to school...). But I just had to upload and post more JANG HYUK SCREENCAPS!! AHHH!!!


Those were from episodes 10 to half of 13. Still haven't finished watching! But I don't want it to end... T_T Argh, I'm really going to pay for sleeping so late. Will have to drag myself to work tomorrow. >.<

Which one is better as a domain name? Aprilesque or silentstars? I can't decide. Comment and tell me your opinions, LOL.

Anyway, I've been watching Jang Hyuk's latest drama, 고맙습니다(Thank You). OMG! He is so cute. *fangirls* I had a problem with the stubble he's sporting, but after awhile I got used to it. Besides, it kind of suits his rogue-ish character. He's all angsty, brooding, OMGIKILLEDMYGIRLFRIEND so IAMNOTFITTOBEADOCTOR. xD I watched the drama only because he's in it, but the plot and other characters are equally good too.

Briefly summarising, it's about an 8-year-old girl who gets AIDS because of a botched blood transfusioin. So yeah, Jang Hyuk is the (BEST LOOKING EVER) doctor whose path crosses hers.


Hehe. Sorry for the picture spam. I'm so glad that more people are taking notice of him now! :D I've been a fan since, what, sec 2? Then he went into the army three years ago (I think) and only came out at the end of last year. 장혁오빠! 나는 보고 싶어요! When I found out about his new drama and just squealed like crazy. ^o^

I can't wait to find out what he's going to do next. There's news IN KOREAN about him, which I can't read, and I haven't bothered to navigate his English fansite. Well, in the meantime while I wait, there are some good dramas to catch: So Ji Sup's Cain and Abel, and Lee Jun Ki's Time Between Dog and Wolf. They're both supposed to be out this year, but I don't exactly know when. But who cares! All my favourite actors are acting in new dramas this year! xD

Bleh. This is making me want to learn Korean. But I will just stick to Japanese for now. I'll be signing up for the intensive course at Japanese Cultural Society Singapore this coming June. I'm a bit worried about whether I'll be able to handle it, but I guess I have to make certain sacrifices for the things I want, eh? Anyway, it's only 5 and a 1/2 months long, and we all know how damn fast half a year goes by (hello, I think one year has passed without even me noticing), so the suffering, if any, should be short-lived.

I've actually gone ahead and applied for NTU. GASP. I made a decision. I don't know. It was the easy way out. But today I was chatting to one of the teachers at the centre whose class I'm helping out with, and she was telling me all about how good NUS is. SIGH. I must say I was quite swayed by her opinions. Well, it's too late to do anything now, though the Joint Acceptance website is allowing me to log in and supposedly accept another choice. I think it'll give me an error if I press "Submit", but I don't have the guts to follow through.

She was telling me that there are many opportunities to go on exchange programmes in NUS (and interact with foreign students on their exchange programmes locally as well), and that campus life there is vibrant and interesting. She kept on emphasising how suited I was for the culture there. GRAAHHDFSDSFDJ. I don't know if the choice I've made was right. NTU isn't that bad, right? Though I agree with her point that the campus seems so quiet most of the time. According to her, the NUS campus is bustling with students during academic hours, and there's all sorts of activities and bazaars going on. Anyway, she's going to NIE later this year! So I might see her on campus. :D

Oh, and I discovered a new band: ELLEGARDEN :D Love their pop-punk infused with occasional Jap lyrics.

In slightly related news, I think I need a new MP3 player. Yeah yeah, I know I bought my Sony Ericsson W800i because it is a walkman phone, but I find it so troublesome to have to plug in that special jack and then connect it to my own earphones. I know I can use their earphones, but I don't like blocking out all background noise entirely. I know it's supposedly "better", but I like being able to hear what someone is trying to tell me, or the engine of an oncoming car. Anyway, my only pair of earphones that have a short wire are my old Panasonic discman ones, but they're the one-short one-long kind which means I have to loop them from my left. Problem is, I carry my bag on my right shoulder, so it restricts movement if I do so. The other option is to plug in normal earphones, but that makes the wire overly long. I also find it troublesome to navigate my playlist, because I keep my phone in a handphone pouch and wind the longlong wire around it, so everytime I want to skip to the next song or whatever, I'll have to unwind the wire and remove it from the pouch. Argh.

LOL. Did I need to go to such lengths to justify myself to... myself? I know I won't buy a new MP3 player anyway. Although the radio function is wonky because the sound only comes out through the right earphone, and the sorting of tracks is screwed because occasionally it plays the songs from back to front (which is IMMENSELY annoying, especially when you have songs in an album that run sequentially, like American Idiot). Not to mention the battery cover is spoilt so that it doesn't catch anymore and I have to keep the earphone wire wound tight so that it doesn't drop out.

I think I will settle on new earphones. Because the problems I just mentioned can be worked around (renaming my music tracks and making sure it's sorted right by brute force, i.e. deleting and transferring my music a few times; not listening to the radio; tying a rubber band around the player). I currently have two earphones. One is from Creative which has white wires and is lime green, while the other's a generic black Sony earphones, the cheap kind. The Creative one seems to have taken a recent dislike to bass, and crackles in my ear like Rice Krispies in milk, which is very annoying when I'm listening to my rock/punk music with a lot of bass. The Sony earphones were previously abandoned in favour of the Creative ones because the contact is not very good and the music fades in and out if I twist the jack. I'm using it now though, because it's the only one that I can listen music with without getting irritated. The wire is very stiff though, and doesn't like being coiled tightly around my MP3 player, so the battery cover keeps getting loose. I really need to get that rubber band tied.

Just for the record, my MP3 player is a two and a half year old 512mb white Creative MuVo V200. It really isn't bad, considering the amount of crap I've been giving it. Knocks, drops, scratches. Everything. The first victim was the brand name (haha), which got rubbed off from wear.

WHAT THE FUCK. BLOGGER ATE MY POST. THIS SUCKS.

But as I was saying. It's hard work thinking up a domain name. And the fact that so many domains out there are unavailable just because they're being reserved by domain squatters doesn't make it any easier.

I understand that they're doing that to make money. Or rather, in the hope to make some money. I don't see how they're going to do that, honestly, because no one in the right frame of mind will click on those stupid ads (I hope). Well that's not the main reason the domains are there--they're hoping some idiot's willing to fork out some money to buy it off them. I suppose corporations or companies would, but individuals like me would most certainly not. I know we're powerless against the fact that they're not actually hoping to make any money from us, but from the aforementioned companies, but it still irritates the hell out of me. ARGH! Just go away so I can register a nice domain name and be HAPPY.

Good lord. I wish I had L337 H4X0R 5K1LLZ so that I could flood a few of those useless domains with traffic their puny servers can't handle and accrue so high a cost that they'll decide that it isn't worth it to hold that domain name hostage any longer.

You know it's funny how I'm getting so worked up over a name. It's just that, nothing more. But still. >:O

I can't decide. I really, really, really, can't decide. T_T This is a horrible dilemma. I don't know if I want to do Communication Studies or focus on New Media.

New Media sounds like exactly the thing that I'm interested in. Stuff to do with computers and a bit of designing as well. But NTU has so much more, well, prestige. And not to mention, they accepted me, so I must have done something right during the interview and test (although part of me still thinks those were redundant and meant to scare us). Going to SCI is an ego boost for me. I mean, they accepted me, even after seeing what I really am like. Plus, NTU is nearer. Gah, I know I said I was 90% sure that I was going to NTU before, but when I actually went to the website to apply, I couldn't pick either one. I couldn't bring my mouse to click on the radio button. I ended up glancing through the curricula of each school again, and now I'm horribly undecided. :/

Asking my mother for an opinion is useless. She doesn't really approve of me studying this anyway. She thinks this course is for "people who go to poly". She would rather me study Law or something. Not that I could get in. I'm not even interested in it anyway.

What's really holding me back from applying at NTU is that I'm very unsure about how I'll handle journalism. As much as I want to lie to myself, Communication Studies in NTU is very much focused on journalism. Whether print or broadcast or whatever. I used to think I could have a shot at being a journalist, but seriously, GP spoiled it for me. GP threw that dream out of the window and ripped it to shreds. I don't know how I can handle writing. I love it and all, but I think my style is rather unorthodox. Plus, I don't care much for current affairs. THERE, I SAID IT. I don't care much for current affairs. That's such an apathetic statement, isn't it? But I'm that kind of apathetic person. My sec one form teacher once told me that I was a very self-centred little girl. And I agree. Deep down, I don't really care for anything that doesn't affect me in one way or another. Oh, there's a war somewhere in the world? Okay, I'll memorise the facts and figures, analyse the topics that are in hot debate, give some opinions that look like I care and that I've thought about it. But when it comes down to it, I don't care. I know it sounds crude, and I hate the way it is, but it's true. It's not even limited to things that happen "outside", but in a lot of my interpersonal relationships as well.

Sometimes I think I'm so unfeeling I'm not human.

This is not helping my decision any. I know it's still early. The deadline for the offer acceptance is 4 June 2007, but if I've learned anything at all this year, is that time passes way faster than you think it does. Well, it did for me, anyway. I feel so unprepared, like I've been thrust into something I'm not ready for. I don't feel 18. I don't feel like a JC graduate. I still want to crawl into my father's arms and lie there forever.

So what if I'm living in the past? It's nice and cosy and smells of dust and yesterday. So what if I like it? It's not like there's anyone to move on for.

OMG. This show just blew me right off my feet. I'd take some screencaptures and post them up, but I just can't decide which are good enough to represent the total awesomeness of the show, and not give away anything about the plot. It was a fantastic journey.

The plot is good. The complexities of the situations, the themes brought up and discussed, the politics at play... everything is handled very well. You never get bored or feel that an episode is just there for the sake of being there. Every episode makes you want to watch the next one to find out what happens.

And that's because you care about the characters. If there is nothing else that is good about this show, the level of characterisation will still blow you away. Every character feels deeply fleshed out, with well-rounded personalities. The anime takes time to develop them fully; you see their motivations, their hopes, their dreams, their visions. You understand why they do the things they do. And that doesn't apply only tot he main characters either. Almost every single character in this show is portrayed to the fullest, some even return later in the plot, and it's like meeting old friends again.

What piqued my interest in Planetes was a comment in its Wikipedia article which mentions how realistic it is. You can definitely see the painstaking effort the animators put in to make everything seem real and plausible (well, there's that handphone-shaped spaceship...). Being the hard sci-fi nut that I was, I was immediately hooked.

This is not to say that Planetes is all about spaceships and technology. It's not. There's a huge human element in the show, and deals with questions like "Where am I from?" and "Where am I going?". Space is such a vast place and it's infinite nature boggles the mind. It also talks about the divide between rich and poor countries, and how rich countries are the only ones who will benefit from further space exploration, using up resources that could have helped the 10 million people who starved to death back on Earth.

There are some funny parts as well. Several characters (like Ravi and Myers) provide comic relief, although at some points I think their idea of funny is a tad too kitsch. Thankfully, they don't appear in the manga. We also don't see Tanabe's family, nor learn about her past and childhood. Oh, and remember that favourite scene I mentioned in an earlier post? They used it as the last scene (before the extended ending) in the anime. ♥♥♥!

I haven't actually finished the manga yet. One more volume to go. But I'm still kind of reeling from the total awesomeness of the show, so I shan't spoil it yet. :)

I'm inexplicably tired today. Don't know why. Today was the first time I went over to the other branch. It's at Chinese Garden and I sort of have a direct bus there. Thing was, I overshot one stop, and had no clue where the place was on top of that, so I spent about ten minutes walking around Jurong Town Hall Rd and Jurong West St 20-something, trying to get my bearings.

Of course I finally found my way after reading road signs and figuring out whether I should turn right or left!

Didn't really help out in any classes today though. Continued working on some dumb assignment which involves me staring at the computer the whole entire day. Which is fine and dandy because that's what I do usually when I'm not at work, you know? But I got really super sian near the end, and I have like, a mild headache from staring at the screen so long. Bleh.

I don't really like this branch. It's inside a CC with no amenities nearby unless you want to walk quite far (like 10min?). There's only this small cafeteria place which closes at 6pm, and when I went down at 5pm to buy dinner there was like, very few things left. I bought two pau instead. O.o; I also think the people are not as friendly, but then again, it might be just me, because I don't know any of the kids or teachers there.

Oh and something embarrassing happened! I can't remember who it happened to, nor do I know her name even if it did, but yeah, it was embarrassing anyway! >.<; I was working at the computer, and then I heard someone say hello. Since I was the only one in the room, I assumed she was talking to me, so I turned and smiled and said hi back, then went back to work. After that, there was this weird silence, and I was debating on whether to continue the conversation, when I heard her talking. It didn't make sense though, so I glanced at her, and she was talking on the phone. YES. She said hello TO THE TELEPHONE. Not me. ARRRGGGHHH. I was super embarrassed so I just tried to look really busy. T_T

Blarghdfahgd. Have to wake up early tomorrow. But I actually like going to the Jurong West branch because I know and like the kids there and everyone's friendly and bright and nice. Lalala.

OMG I'm so excited! I'm going to get a new domain! Just found a very cheap hosting plan which has everything that I need. Now I just need to think of a domain name. I don't want greyprism.org though. I sort of... grew out of that. I need something new. Heh. This will give me something to think about during work tomorrow, when I'm bored. :P

Received the acceptance letter from NUS yesterday. Was it only yesterday? I forget. Sometimes I lose track of time. Anyway, I just wanted to say that NUS HAS A LOT OF RESOURCES. Evidence:

• They give you a PIN no. to use when applying for their courses
• You don't need to enter any personal info when applying, because it's all stored in the database already
• You have an application no. which allows you to log in to your application and change your details until the deadline of the application
• You can track your payment through the computer system
• When accepted, they send you an freshman package thing which is A4 size and super heavy, with forms for applying for health check-up and student loans and whatnot

On the other hand, you can't change your details after submitting your application to NTU, and the acceptance letter is just that, a letter, with a small booklet with redundant stuff (seriously WASTE PAPER). But I was kind of "errr" about NUS, because they seem so 奢侈 you know? So extravagant? Like, before I say that I'm going to accept your offer, you already send me all this stuff that I don't need.

Still kind of debating which one to accept, but I'm 90% leaning towards NTU already. I don't know though, I feel that if I got into USP (which I'll never know), it will be such a pity and waste of effort, since I went to all the trouble to write a freaking essay on M. C. Escher (yes, his rendition of the Penrose staircase in "Ascending and Descending" was my topic) and go for the interview during which I actually cried. <-- so totally ignore that, okay?

I've been watching Planetes lately as well (remember I said I was reading the manga?). I actually wanted to finish the manga before watching it, but I couldn't resist. >.<; I'm not done with either, but I must say I like it a lot. I don't have a preference for one or the other though, because they're a little different in their own respects.

In the first place, I've always found manga a little hard to follow, especially when there's a lot of action because I get confused, so the anime wins in that I can follow the plot a little better. The manga is also a bit more serious, while the anime has more comedy in it. I prefer the love story in the manga though. It winds hands down! I thought it was more dramatic and meaningful, while the anime portrayed it like a typical love story.

One of my favourite scenes was when (highlight to read) Hachimaki and Tanabe were playing a word game in Japanese. You know, like the Chinese one where you go 苹果-果汁-支票-票房-- etc.? Except in Japanese. So Tanabe ends her turn with the sound "ke", and it's supposedly a little hard to continue. So Hachimaki stops and thinks awhile, then says, "Kekkon shiyo," which is "marry me". I was all OMG!!! *squealsquealsqueal!* And I think I stared at that page for quite awhile before I moved on. SO SWEEEEET.

I want to buy the mangaaaaaa. But I musn't waste money. Graah. Shall continue watching the anime and see if there's that scene in there. ;)

Ahh, first day at work and I'm bored already. -.-; Actually it's nothing very brain-draining or difficult, I'm just supposed to look for illustrations and photographs on the internet to supplement their science notes. And anyway, later when the tuition starts I'll be helping out so that will be less boring. :D Only 2 lessons anyway. Next time I'll be taking over some of the classes so I should grab this opportunity to see how the teacher conducts the lessons.

Still, they gave (loaned) me a 2GB thumbdrive. Haha. I'm so contemplating to put in my comic collection so I can read when I'm bored. I was reading PlanetES before I left the house... it's really quite good. Considering that I'm getting some money from this, the next time I pop by Kinokuniya I'll have a look. There are only 4 volumes anyway. I think.

But... I really should finish my work, eh? Then again, it's not like they're paying me a lot. *moneyface* Er. Blogging this in the first place is kind of bad already, but who cares. :P

This sure took ages. The last time I remodelled, according to my impeccable records, was on 25 January this year, which is damn long ago. :D I suppose this will stay up for supremely long as well, until inspiration hits me again.

This layout wasn't born out of inspiration though. I sat myself in front of the computer and waded through loads of stock photographs before I decided that I couldn't make anything from them. So I started drawing the wings in Painter, and then I realised I couldn't draw a proper bird, so I stuck a random vehicle in. Now that I look at it, it's rather ridiculous, but who cares, yeah? xD But if you think about it, it's a little existential and sad. Don't you want to reach out to the little schoolbus and give him a hug? *puppyeyes*

One thing about layout-creating, is that I usually have a song looping ad infinitum while I'm working on it. This time it's The Decemberist's Eli, the Barrow Boy. It's a really sad song. I think it contributed to the underlying message of the image as well. All about dying and things.

I need a new layout, pronto.

I kind of like how blogspot makes it so easy to change your URL. Definitely a huge plus point. Of course, I'm reluctant to move anywhere else, now that most of my posts are linked up properly here and all that. It's the single most comprehensive archive I have of my blog posts anywhere! I wonder if it's possible to download it somehow.

In other news, I've finally found myself something to do for about 6 weeks. $1000. Not full time. Not bad right?

Twitter Updates

follow me on Twitter