hundreds

Participate in the 100 words project. (Link is to the left) I've gone and used this as an excuse to force myself to write, so here's my 100 words for the 25th of june. I never edit, hardly ever delete a sentence that's been written, and blatantly flounce all rules of proper grammar and sentence-structure.

25th june, 2005

On the other hand. When you aren't sleepy thoughts become precise. Point one. Point two. Sub-point one point three point seven-six-five-four-two-nine-eight. Short sentences punctuated by anxious punctuating punctuation. It says Lucidity! Clarity! The breath of day is dry and light. Only brighter. Difficult to recede into the mist because there is so little of it. Adjectives, bah. Verbs, bah. Condense! Words are king and queen (and the rest) and never, ever artifically lengthen by using phrases like 'never ever' or allow a little madness to get in the way of short concise writing.

-adam

So long and thanks for all the fish

I am the biggest hypocrite I know. Boys and girls, never, never, EVER post song lyrics on your blogs. At least not without some form of commentary. There's nothing worse than ripping off somebody else's badly-written lyrics to cover your own badly-written posts.
With that, here's the lyrics for so long and thanks for all the fish, OST for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

So long and thanks for all the fish
So sad that it should come to this
We tried to warn you all but oh dear...

You may not share our intellect
Which might explain your disrespect
For all the natural wonders that grow (around you)

So long, so long, and thanks
for all the fish

The world's about to be destroyed
There's no point getting all annoyed
Lie back and let the planet dissolve (around you)

Despite those nets of tuna fleets
We thought that most of you were sweet
Especially tiny tots and your pregnant women

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long

So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish

If I had just one last wish
I would like a tasty fish

If we could just change one thing
we would all have learnt to sing

Come one and all,
man and mammal,
side by side in life's great gene pool

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
so long, so long, so long, so long, so long
so long, so long, and THANKS!
for all the fish.

adam

back and bigger.

Whee, I'm back from camp.
I'm back, and I'm still super-high from the success. It wasn't to be unexpected, and it's really a good thing. Sometimes I think happiness is so rare, so I grab at it. Still, i'm not going to feel great forever, things are going to go back to the repetitive humdrum, and I want to remember that I've changed more than a momentary happiness, and feeling good won't solve my struggles.

So I'm writing it here, so if I forget, you all can remind me.

adam

I will be

away for 6 days until sunday, 12th June. Have camps to go to.
don't flood my tagboard!

Cheers, all of you!

- adam

trixie

In honour of my piano teacher's cat, Trixie. It should be illegal to be this adorable.

The languor of a morning nap - she opened her eyes to slits, taking in the sleepy sunshine. The cat lay splayed out on the front porch, tawny limbs tangled amongst the nest of shoes and footwear on the ground. She yawned widely and stretched - extending first one leg, then another, her claws extending as if reaching for some invisible plaything - She seemed to take exquisite pleasure in the act. Then curling back to fiddle with someone's blue pair of slippers, she yawned again, her sides expanding to take in the warm air. It seemed the cat could lie there forever, in the splendid, languid glory of a greek goddess basking in the morning rays, her ears twitching in miniscule movements to the sounds of other people who couldn't appreciate the joys of a morning repose, the tickling of fur against the stone tiles, the music of some distant pianist, and, just standing there watching her, I wished I could too.

technological advancement.

Just went to the comp exhibition-fair-thing at singapore EXPO. (can't remember what it was - but there were a lot of people around selling electronic stuff.)

They happen a couple of times each year, and whenever I go to them I come back loaded with junk. Make no mistake - not junk I actually PAID for, but all sorts of cables, wires, peripherals, cards, brochures, pamphlets, business cards, hands-free sets, screen protectors, and occasionally curry puffs.

This is a rather alarming trend. Last year I came back with a dubiously-acquired desktop replacement computer. This time the free gadget is a mysterious bit of white plastic called an ipod shuffle. Now, this thing confounds me.

Why, I ask, is Apple, capable of fitting 20 gigabytes of memory into a space not much bigger than a deck of cards, unable to place a screen on this device? It's not like I haven't seen smaller devices with screens, because I certainly have. The makers of Digimon did it. Creative did it. It can't be that difficult, especially for a company like Apple. And I'm not even asking for the kind of screen that shows you the song name with all sorts of graphical bells and whistles: volume meters, play time, battery life, graphic equalizers. The ipod shuffle, which looks like a little white stick with a button on top, doesn't even feature a little counter to tell me which track I'm playing. Ten out of ten for style... minus several million for functionality.

Unfortunately, Apple decided to take a revolutionary step, backwards, and market this new screen-less concept. No doubt I am intrigued that at any time I'm completely unable to tell what track is coming up next, oftentimes what track i'm currently listening to, and what other tracks there are, save memorising the order in which I downloaded my mp3s to the ipod.

This is not to say, however, that the thing is completely useless. It isn't - it still features Apple's wonderful itunes technology, allowing seamless synchronisation and uploading of mp3s. It functions as a fairly large USB flash drive. It still features good sound-quality, and most of all it is absolutely tiny, making it extremely portable.
Also, it has this immensely cute LED button at the back which lights up green when you press it if the battery is charged. A major selling point, that.

I can't complain - I got it free. But I wonder if I might've been better off trading my old cd player for a casette walkman... which is five times the size, and only slightly less functional.

-adam

words!

Here's some words for you people to ponder. I just learnt them in the last few months.
1. Partisan. An enthusiastic supporter, or a large pole with an axe blade.
2. Verisimilitude. Similar to reality. adj. versimilitudinous.
3. Corollary. something that results from something else. e.g. 'violence is the inevitable corollary of such a revolutionary change..."
4. Droll. amusing, especially in an unusual way. Anne McCaffrey overuses this word.


Expand your vocabulary.

- adam :D

this is not a poem.

Come to the dark side
resistance is futile- stand down
rule as father and son
what, no hyperspace?
we are the borg - trust in the
there is no spoon
force : mass times acceleration
captain, cruising at warp
Orange trees in the field!
Fire
you were
proton the
chosen
torpedoes! We've been hit
Master! I promise -
Promise me -
structural integrity

I'll train the boy!

falling.

Falling.
Seventy...
beam me tell your sister
You are a child of the universe.
You were right.

bitching abt blogs.

What is it with bloggers?

DISCLAIMER: This is purely my personal opinion on how blogs should be run. It IS ultimately up to you, and I'm not suggesting in any way that you should change your blogging style just to please me. Just realise that it is ridiculous.

rant

Blogging, in my humble opinion, has brought out the very worst in writing (and people as well).

Firstly, on Content. Honestly, who wants to know what you did today? A quick and simple answer would be 'nobody'. Now of course this isn't true, but it certainly is the case for the majority of us. If you absolutely MUST tell me what you did at 3.54:32 this afternoon, please, please make it brief, and explain to me how that is significant. Of course you're entitled to write about something if it was significant to you, but please be interesting.

Coherence! I know you like your pretty ellipsis and semi-colon. It doesn't mean they should be sprinkled like icing all over your entry. It makes you sound stupid. Poetry, unless you happen to be good at it, is also a strict no-no. Bad poetry is... bad. It neither reflects your current mood, current activities, nor aesthetic talent. Avoid it.
If bloggers are exhibitionists, you are running around with your underwear on your head.

EDIT. post-bitch: please be clear when using the second person. Lines like "Why did you do it? Why? Why?" often leave the reader confused as to whether he just unwittingly killed your parents. Unless you are referring to the readership in general, always identify when you use the second person. EDIT-EDIT - Otherwise, just don't bloody post it on your blog! MUST you push the limits of exhibitionism? I really wouldn't terribly like to know if you just had a spat with your girlfriend/boyfriend/pet.

Secondly, on Style. Lyk OMG. Plz lrn some proper speling kae? I mean, aftr over 10 yrs in sch mebbe its abt time you learn proper grammar an spelling and mebbe how to EXPRESS YOURSELF PROPERLY! Yes, I AM a bigoted, elitist bitch. Live with it, and fix your grammar. Appending 'sh' to the end of every other word does not make you cute. It does not make you interesting either. It just makes you sound like an idiot with a lisp.

EDIT - 2 hours later. I've realised I get amazingly pissed at people who love to use italics.
It IS annoying. You know you do it. I know it's all new-age and novelty and all, but for goodness's sakes, it's just a bunch of slanty letters! Get over it! The old-fashioned, obsolete "double inverted commas" often work just as well!
Oh, please save me.

Thirdly, on Strategy. LAYOUT! If you must blog, and I'm not saying you should, maybe make the main text of your blog the MAIN section of your website. As much as you're an interesting, fun-loving, enlightened person, I think most others are tired of reading your elaborate vital statistics while squinting at the narrow column of words that happens to be your latest entry. I don't know, maybe this is some inherent limitation in html coding, which i'm quite honestly useless at.
What's worse than this is refusing to use paragraphs. Paragraph breaks are the heart and soul of legible writing. An already badly thought-out, ungrammatical, badly spelled article which rambles on and on with no hint of reprieve can be quite off-putting. On the other extreme, having a respectable space for you to post your latest entry on, but actually
blogging
like
this
is
kind
of
irritating
don't
you
think?
Maybe not. It IS your blog after all. All I'm saying is that if you blog like that people might not go to your blog, and you might be flamed by me, and my supreme almighty self-righteous anger.

Bloggers were invented to torture people like me. Do me a favour, yeah?

/rant

I feel better now.

-Adam

can't think of another lame title.

I'm listening to the ABRSM recordings of my grade 8 exam pieces. Shit. Compared to this my playing sounds like me trying to play with the middle of my forehead and my two big toes. Most notably, I can't produce a good variation in tone colour... it all sounds kind of wooden. Will work on this.

Webcomics I frequent.

Order of the Stick
Ctrl-Alt-Del
Count your sheep

Just a few things I thought you might like to check out.

- adam!

16! w00tness.

What's so great about being 16? I think it's overrated. I mean, yeah, wow. I can have sex now. It isn't like i'm the sort of person who's really inclined to be having a lot of sex at this age, nor do I know anybody who'd be inclined to be having sex with me. So there isn't anything great about that.
I can watch NC-16 movies. Which is great, but I hardly watch movies anyways. So it isn't likely to affect me. And if I really was that bent on watching a movie I'd have found some way to get in. NC-16 or not.

So yeah, nothing great about being 16. So? We need an excuse to celebrate. There's never enough of that. Do you know that I have been alive for 5844 days? I initially thought it was 5843, but upon inspection I've realised that WHILE years divisible by 100 aren't in fact leap years, those that are also divisible by 400 are. So 2000 was a leap year, and I accidentally subtracted an extra day from my age. 5844 days, man! Soon to be 5845, but that's tomorrow's business.

Yay.

- ADAM!

the land of Cescus.

For we are on a boat, sailing towards the land of Cescus.
There , across the ocean, lies the glory of a years-long voyage, lie a thousand wonders never before seen by the eyes of man, rivers and springs and forests and trees in abundance, and animals new and old, and all wondrous. Yes, we're sailing for Cescus, and the fruit of all our labours.

But what shall the sailors do on the way there?

We Swab Decks.

Because! It is of utmost importance that we swab decks.

So the mighty Captain says (when he isn't throwing up over the stern): We are! My men, on THE most important journey! To! the other side of the world! To! The land of Cescus! Where all things grow! In abundance! And! It is of THE utmost! Importance that when! We get there there isn't going to be ONE! Speck o' dirt left on this deck! We are PIoneers of humanity! And! we better be making a good impression! Grab yer mop, sailor!

Throughout my years on the high seas, I have not seen a stouter man, a finer leader than our captain. We were brave sailors, facing the wind and the rain and the storms, even sneaking an extra hour or two after dusk to scrub the last of the salt and seagull-droppings off the deck.
It's just been a month since we set sail - the sea's begun to take its toll on some of the rookies on board. Had a man, yesterday - swabbed until his hands bled. Poor fellow. But we all know we've got the most important jobs to do. Pioneers of humanity... I like what the Capt. said. Has a nice ring to it. I do hope there're monkeys on Cescus. They'll be impressed how clean this ship is. I can just imagine them, sitting on the shore, munching on their bananas or whatever tropical fruit, chittering and pointing.
Yeah, they'll be impressed.

... with a juicer, a porcupine, and a flowerpot.

S YF's over. Gold with honours for RI. Whoop-de-do and all that. I wish I'd been able to play, though - unfortunately in the past I made a rather large decision that prevented me from doing so by making sure that I was unable to rehearse (or anything like it).

Let me tell you- I'm no pro musician like Zh or Rayner or Shaggy but I could tell there was an energy there, while I watched, the realisation that in the culmination of months of passion and practice there was something larger than the individual they were working for.
In the preparation, during the final tuning, I could tell just by looking that we were all nervous with the reality that the performance was just around the corner, inexorably close. We all had exams coming up. The musicians were in various states of stress, depression, overwork, or sleep-deprivation.
They all had their reasons to do well. For pride, for honour, for love, for whatever. The goal was the same, and the music was there. I held my breath, and when they went on stage and they played...
nevermind if they rushed a little.
nevermind that some entries were slightly off.

They were ensemble.

And that was enough.


- adam

Writing excercise 01

Taking a hint from a website I visited, I wrote this piece with my monitor off. (spelling errors have been fixed, though). Comments are appreciated.


I sheathed my sword, strapped it around my waist and went off in search of Phobos.
The rain came down in sheets; it ws the middle of autumn, and the trees whispered slightly as the rain struck the leaves. Phobos was in that forest, I knew it. I would find Phobos. I clenched the pendant tightly- it was a tuft of orange fur, attached to a ring; tied to a thin golden chain that I wore around my neck. There was blood on the fur... I hope it didn't belong to Phobos. This was Phobos, to me- the tuft of orange fur on a chain. That was him, and I pondered that as I went into the forest in search of him. Lightning struck, thunder. I plunged in, ignoring the wet and the mud and the branches.

Three days into it. I think i'd begun to look a bit emaciated; but even if there were any clear ponds to check that they would've distorted my image. It wasn't important, anyway; I caught a rabbit, skinned it and ate it. There was no fur left on my arm where i'd scraped it on a branch; on a rock where i'd scraped by knee. But my sword was still sharp; and still I looked for Phobos.
No sight and no mind- somewhere in here was phobos. I followed the scent of blood, although I was unsure whether it was my own. It mattered not, anyway. The rain wouldn't stop- I waded through mud knee-deep, sucking at my feet.

Leaves opened to receive the rain - like the pages of a book. Opening up, illuminated by the flashes of lightning, but I couldn't read them. I didn't know the language.

There was sun for a day. It shined down on me, tearing across my exposed body and chilling me even deeper. I was soaked; I shook myself and carried on. The birds chirped in the sun, emerged from their flooded nest-holes. There was a dark cloud on the horizon- but I looked beneath every tree for phobos.
The rains came- another blur of days. Trees after mud-soaked trees. My complexion had turned a rather depressing shade of brown from eons in the wet. Oftentimes I stumbled, and I clutched the pendant for support. It was a pretty thing, that trinket - I'd taken it from a dying man. 'Phobos' he'd said. Rain and branches and mud, and on the fifth day I met the monster.

First it slinked at me from the shadows, unheard beneath the patter of rain drizzling on the leaves. There was a pair of glowing eyes from the bushes, and a black blur that bore me to the ground bleeding from long gashes. My sword came loose, rusty a little (from the days in the wet). I parried left and right, dashing the creature to the ground once. It came again, howling - I tasted blood. I caught a glimpse of feline ears as I blocked several more gashes. A panther, then? But it seemed improbable; it moved too quickly and too surely. I pulled the pendant off my neck, snapping the little chain. I clutched it tightly in my right hand. MY sword came down again, once and twice, slicing off branches and leaves, tearing holes in the carpeted ground. Not a speck of blood on it though... only on the pendant. Another lunge broke my frail parries; I slipped to the side as I felt the bones of my right arm come loose, shredding like moistened paper. The pendant fell to the floor. This seemed to draw some attention off myself (well enough as I was nursing my broken arm). But as it moved to peeer at it, glowing eyes sibilant, I engendered a final blast of strength, lifted my sword, and cut the thing hard with my blade. It flew veritably five feet, landed in the bushes with a tumble of black fur, blood and fleeing squirrels.

There was an explosion. I opened my eyes, expecting a section of charred wasteland- but walking over to the bush, I only saw a figure cut deeply in his side, clad in orange fur.


- adam

anonymous

This is a major part of what inspired my literary pretensions. I found it somewhere, untitled and anonymous, but it struck me. If anybody knows where it came from or who wrote it, please inform me.

You and I, my friend
watched the shades of daylight
darkening to grey, clouds ripening above
until the first droplets plummeted earthward
You and I
unsheltered in your kingdom
let in the whispering rain
within the copse of swaying sycamores
You and I
watched steam rise from our skin
dance and swirl away, ghostly on the breeze
and mingle with the rain
You and I
strayed dangerously close
brushed the rain from one another's face
and with it went our doubts
You and I
fled at last
emerged into a world of warmth and comfort
and heat and light enveloped us
Beside me
you were bedraggled and splendid
shook the rain from your hair with a grin
and warmed my hand in yours


- adam

having your brains beaten out by a slice of lemon...

This has been a screwed up week. I'm tired and overworked. It's like the whole world conspired to place everything important to me in this week.

We're halfway into competition prep. Morale is okay. Team has finally shown some progress in actually writing a coherent case... I'm currently writing my share. Debate's on Friday, against SCGS. I won't say anything here about winning or losing, but you should know that this one's important. 3rd prelim round- given our previous record this match could decide whether or not we break quarters. More important to me as well... if we break quarters i'm dropping out of SYF, and that's one less worry i've got.

Schoolwork is at an all-time low. I haven't done anything since last week. Just realised that I successively threw away 10% of my physics CA, and then probably quite a good portion of my Bio as well. Haven't touched chinese since God-knows-when. Somebody please tell me i've got my priorities wrong before I fuck the rest of the year up.
Give me until april...

Well it looks like i'm not coping with the pressure well. No matter... schoolwork will pick up, and as for everything else... i'm sure we'll come through where it matters. I have faith in that.

- a d a m

go here.

For all skeptics, atheists, agnostics or people questioning the Christian faith in general.
Go to: http://www.whoisjesus-really.com
if intellectual proof is what you're looking for, you'll find it there.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stop reading this and go click on the link.

- adam

Poetry

Poetry has lost its meaning.

Not all poetry; I'm sure the great classics remaining just as great, and just as classic - but it seems that the art of poetry has been severely demeaned by the later generations.

Poetry is often thought of as the highest form of linguistic expression. I could go on about this, but to be rather brief, it is the condensation of feeling or thought into a short written piece that carries huge amount of insight or meaning. I may be generalising a bit, but that's the gist of it.
Also, poetry is remarkably free in its format; unlike an essay or story which requires a 'statement-elaboration' format or a coherent plot (at least), poetry can take any number of fixed forms or otherwise - as far as poetry is concerned there are very few limits on what you can do.
Unfortunately, very few limits on what you can do doesn't mean very few limits on what is good and meaningful, which is undoubtedly an exceedingly high standard. The general lack of comprehension of this difference leads to an impression that whatever you can slap together with a bunch of words is possibly acceptable - about as far from the truth as you can get.

Couple this with the recent insurgence of abstract, free-form, free verse or experimental poetry - a trend which is steadily moving away from classical poetic forms like the sonnet or haiku.
Yes, free-form expression is well and good, but what it cannot become for budding poets is an excuse to avoid the rigorous thought and composition which is enforced by stricter poetic norms such as rhyme and meter. I firmly believe that such basics of poetry must be established before anyone can move on to writing more abstract pieces. Without rhyme and meter (or otherwise) to govern conciseness and consistency, the general standard of poetry has become sadly degraded and frightfully unclear - poetry is thought to be the easy-way-out of expression to provide the facade of being artistic.

I just think any would-be poets should try and learn from the basics up; poetry is a craft like any other and you really, really can't just make a poem by slapping words together; not any more than you can make a painting by slapping paint on canvas. Please leave poetry with some dignity left.

- adam

frightened little boy

"You're just a frightened little girl in a teenager's body."
I quote from Terence's blog.
Absolutely right. We're all like that in some way or another.It's something which endured from childhood, perhaps slightly more circumspect, but all there. It's make-believe. Honestly deep down inside I'm just a frightened little kid too, and honestly I believe that nobody (my age at least) is fundamentally any different. Sure, we run around and do our studies and go for competitions and projects and war games and pretend that we're all grown up and we're all under control but it really is a facade for somebody who is pretty much as clueless as the next guy about what on earth is going on. And having a higher IQ or being taller or stronger or faster or having more pubic hair isn't really going to change the fact.

Why am I bitching about this? I do all that stuff too. I debate, I do my studies, my projects, go for all sorts of ridiculous competitions, I play in my ensemble, and basically pretend that i'm really important sometimes. Maybe I play too much make-believe as well. In fact I'm pretty sure I do. I'm just tired of people who think that they're anything more than anybody else because they're smarter or know more or whatever. It's fucking stupid.

I wonder where the line is drawn. It must be a thin one or somebody would have noticed it. Where do you stop being a frightened little kid and grow up and learn to be in control of what or who you are? Maybe the whole notion of 'grown-up' doesn't really exist after all... people grow old, they learn more and know more and get better at what they do - but do they ever cross the line to being 'grown-up'? I don't know, but i'm certain some people think they have.

Go ahead and make-believe. It's what's required of you - But don't get any illusions that make-believe is any more than it is. Just because ten thousand other people buy into it doesn't mean it's any more real. You're just a frightened little kid too - I know I am.

- Adam