Here's a local band you should give a listen to:

The Great Spy Experiment.

Class A Love Affair
very, very listenable - hard to dislike!

Siti in the City
can see the Franz Ferdinand influence, still really good!



Hurrah, three more papers to go.
See you around kiddos!

Oh my giddy god trousers, this is what the A Levels do to you. Only finding out two days later that

BRITNEY SPEARS HAS BEEN SAVED*.

God bless your Cheetos Brit-Brit, and may this be a sign that I shall glide through the exams as well as your svelte new shape and spiffy haircut.

Bring on the singing fangirls!!

*Via divorce with K-Fed.



What would I do without celebrity gossip!
Die of ennui, probably.

Haha, have always wanted to use that fancy-schmancy word!
I am happy, also beyond words.

all is well.
all is well!
i sing, heart in throat;
and all is well in this
lovely, lovely,
silence

Pictures taken during Hari Raya! I quite enjoyed it this year actually, maybe because I talked more with the adults instead of skulking around. Although! Watching my younger cousins play is lovely too.


Shot of the parents! My dad is smiling, which is a big deal cos he usually doesn't in photos.


At my aunt's - one of the manymanyMANY attempts of trying to figure out people's timer functions. Obviously this picture failed, but it was very funny! I am under my uncle's elbow, laughing and trying not to fall off the sofa's arm.


A more moody shot, I suppose? I don't know, I kinda like it although at the same time, it seems a tad unfocused.


Variation of the above! Upgrade/downgrade/no grade? HAHA oh god I need to shut up.


My grandmother! I'm always surprised each time I'm told her age, I've always thought she's much younger - spunky woman. I REALLY WISH THIS PHOTO WAS SHARPER =(


Boy cousin!


Girl cousins!











Finis!

Evidently, my tagboard has gone WHACK.

So, what do you guys use? Message my phone people!

PHWOAR so yesterday, I had an almost-monumental emotional freakout. It seems these episodes are quite periodic and happen about...every two months or so. Is that healthy? I suppose not, but in a very strange and quite masochistic way, it of course feels very good.

I BLAME THE RIGOURS OF ADOLESCENCE.

Haha well I am half-kidding anyway. It seems that after such breakdowns, I take very little seriously and everything's a joke as if I've just run out of emotional juice! It is quite funny, observing one's own emotional cycles. Not so funny when you see how ridiculous it all is but well, no matter!

Wednesday was the submission of our Art A Level Coursework, and no I don't really want to talk about it because I'm not veryvery happy with it and oh woe, artistic anguish!

Although I will send pictures to you Aini, if you ask!

And at some point of time, when photobucket is being kind, will post up pictures too.

But hey! Let's talk about my sooper-dooper fun art class! It's a pity we only got to know each other better these recent weeks, but heck isn't that how things always are?
They're marvelous people and what's so great is that we're like a collective of random people thrown in from different cliques and backgrounds, so things are always always interesting.


So here's Zara and I (woah, proper grammer) at the examination center at Margaret Drive where we submitted our projects. We took a bus there, while Kenneth was carted into a truck with his larger project. We are jumping with MUCH JOY because it is all over!

Joy also, because the trucks delivering the works of other schools (and hence, anxiety over our own competency) have not yet arrived.

You know funny thing is that while we look so happy here, the class was collectively having seperation anxiety after we submitted our works. Typical symptoms exhibited include: reluctance to leave the submission room, half-hearted attempts to sneak back into room and MASSIVE PARANOIA.

EXHIBIT A

While giving a last check on our coursework 5 minutes before it goes into the hands of Cambridge

Zara: (pointing to the name label on a prep board) Iz, that's my name right?

(Izyanti reads: Kok Dengyun Zara)

Me: Yes Zara, that is your name. NOW GET YOUR O.C.D BUTT TO THERAPY NOWWWWWW!

Okay fine, I didn't quite say the last bit but I did give her the Look! Right Zara, that look?

So while waiting for Kenneth's truck to arrive, the rest of us decide to explore the wilderness that is Margaret Drive.



We frolicked on fields, poked about mimosa patches and hopefully looked for four-leafed clovers for A Levels luck!



Here's a picture of our art room that we have grown really fond of. In a good mood, we call it cosy and um, a rustic terrace if one were to consider the open space downstairs where the easel-painters work to be an extension of the art room.

But when the electricity goes bafflingly bonkers, it is just stuffy and REALLY sucks.

As you can see, the two walls in view in the photograph are exact width of the room. The windows seen make one end of it, and where the picture was taken is the door. THIS MEANS IT IS VERY SMALL.

And here we have with us our art teacher, Mrs Haworth! Who, as much as she frustrates us, probably saved us. We like her a lot secretly, although sometimes we have little jokes about her British mannerisms but HECK, that happens to all teachers! It's an occupational hazard.



Okay. So now that's done, I'm off to grapple with the next art assignment due next thursday HURRAH!!!

Death! Death! Death!










PATD is good for massive anxiety assaults. Pushing off the cliff!

So have been hearing that some people in the fashion industry do not agree with Milan's move to actually ban 'sick-looking models' who have a BMI under 18. Granted, some reasons given are quite valid:

- BMI inaccurate:
Very true actually, if you do research surveying a wide range people with different body types, you kinda find that some perfectly healthy, athletic people have soaring BMIs that would otherwise categorize them as obese.

Come on, I was looking through a livejournal community's response to said issue, and had enough varied answers.

- Legislation not the only answer:
True, gotta throw in the whole educating-the-youths package.

BUT!

BUT!

When Elite accuses this recent development for using the fashion industry as a scapegoat for spikes in eating disorders, well!

Who in the world are they trying to kid?

Right, people didn't starve themselves a decade back to look heroin chic. Of course. Not for fashion. They just...weren't hungry.

When they say that the industry is being used as a scapegoat, they're saying that they don't have that much of an influence in the real world after all, and god knows that ain't true. People at the top of the industry themselves know very well how influential fashion is, and what that spokesman said is probably the hugest, embarrassingly blatant,whopping lie I've ever heard in the media.

People watch celebrities and who we define as beautiful and naturally, if stupidly, we try want to have some semblance of that beauty. If you say that well, high fashion doesn't have that much of an impact on the common Lime-reading teenager, okay. But you can't deny that the celebrites that said teenager does know about, and probably adores do follow trends set by high fashion.

I think more concrete evidence about how influential fashion is anyway, is to consider the changing trends in beauty. Not in decades, I'm talking CENTURIES. During the Renaissance, fat ladies were in. Reubans through his paintings made sure that even now, we know that at some point of human history, fat people were hot.

Aiya - Singlish for emphasis! - and what's really wrong with not having sick-looking skeletal models on the runway? I think the difference between Jack Skeleton and the toned Gisele or even waif-like Gemma Ward is quite, quite apparent.

I suppose there's only a problem because it means somebody has to determine what's healthy, and what's not. But ooh, big moral dilemma! The fashion industry has only been like, deciding what's beautiful and what's not, at the loss of a massive amount of consumer welfare!! (Sorry, economics exam tomorrow.) Point is:

"In fashion, one day you're in and the next day you're out."

Sounds familiar, eh? But I still love you Heidi.

So c'mon fashion people - at least have the dignity and shame to play by your own rules! Can't keep the fat people (I use this term here REALLY loosely) off the runway just because you say so, and then cry foul when we want to keep the super-skinny people off too.

Maybe when you have size 10 people beside the size 0, I'll shut my trap.

In any case, this whole brou-ha-ha is as funny as the word brou-ha-ha itself because it accidentally and finally revealed the industry (and our) hypocrisy to the WHOLE WIDE WORLD so come, gather round and let's hear it: hahahahahaha!



(I think some equally generously proportioned comedian said that if she was in Reuban's time, she'd be the Pretty Young Thing and Kate Moss would be his paintbrush. What, it's funny!)

Because this is disgusting, and you need to read about it.



"The two teens are those spokeskids for white separatists, [14 year old] Lamb and
Lynx Gaede, who vaulted to international attention after they appeared on ABC's
"Primetime" last year.

Lamb and Lynx created the band Prussian Blue to communicate their white
separatist views musically. The song "Sacrifice" praises Nazi leader Rudolph
Hess, Adolph Hitler's deputy.

In the "Primetime" interview, Lynx who was 13 at the time, says she and her
sister were "proud of being white."

"We want our people to stay white," she says. "We don't want to just be, you
know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."


YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

I've heard of white supremacists, but this just makes me sick. So, in the same interview mentioned above, the interviewer asks, "What are your views on Hitler?"

"We think...Hitler was just trying to preserve his race."

"...But he killed 6 millon jews."

And then the other one, amazingly says, "We think that's an exaggeration...we hardly believe there were even that many Jews alive back then."

Yes, because people like you killed them!

I think what grosses me out more than the things that they say, is that they say it so easily. They are so convinced by their brainwashing that I am just amazed. Their parents by the way, are divorced with the mother holding full custody. The father contested this - evidently because the woman taking care of the children is a PSYCHO RACIST DELUDED WITH THOUGHTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY.

Notably, they call themselves Prussian Blue as a reference to their German descent and blue eyes. Funny thing is, despite all this pro-Aryan shit, that crazy mum is a brunette.

Accompanying my feelings of nausea, was some curiosity over how racist racist their songs can be. Existing racism in Singapore, due to the effective *cough* control of speech, isn't very malignant. We have jokes about Singhs in turbans (I don't understand why this is funny, I mean really. I don't get it), male Malay bums aka 'mats' and crazy-kiasu Chinese people. At the worst, some suspiciously dubious trends in the military, but it is not in general very malignant.

Well at least, not as bad as these lyrics:

(Hate for Hate)
"Because too many white men choose wrong over white over the fight.
If the white man won't battle for life and for race.
Then women and children, the terror will face."

Or another one! Possibly, I might be interpreting much in this and may have taken in out of context. But well, when the context is white supremacy, you just don't know.

"Completely oblivious,
To what is going on.
What matters is us."

Or this!

"And black masked men with guns come bashing down the doors.
Where freedom exists for only those with darker skin.
Where lies and propaganda will never let you win.
Where symbols of your heritage are held with such contempt,
and benefits of country 'cept tax are you exempt .

Aryan man awake,
How much more will you take,
Turn that fear to hate,
Aryan man awake."

Thanks for being much more direct girls. Now I can point my finger at you and scream, "BLOODY IGNORANT RACISTS!" so much more easily.

But this, oh this makes me shudder.

"Rudolph Hess, a man of Peace.
He wouldn't give up he wouldn't cease,
he gave his loyalty to our Cause."

Rudolph Hess of course, was one of Hitler's deputies and according to Wikipedia, third in leadership of Germany during Nazi rule. I suppose he has my sympathies though because as the Fuhrer's private secretary, he had to read and edit that apparently unreadable tome, 'Mein Kampf'.

Evidently, he didn't do quite a good job.

C-c-check this out!


Spanish Fashion Show Rejects Skinny Models

MADRID, Spain (Sept. 9) - Spain's top fashion show has turned away a slew of models on grounds they are too skinny - an unprecedented swipe at body images blamed for encouraging eating disorders among young people.

Organizers of the pageant, known as the Pasarela Cibeles, used a mathematical formula to calculate the models' body mass index - a measure of their weight in relation to their height - and 30 percent of the women flunked, said the Association of Fashion Designers of Spain.

The association said Friday it wanted models at the show running from Sept. 18-22 to project "an image of beauty and health" and shun a gaunt, emaciated look.

The decision was made as part of a voluntary agreement with the Madrid regional government, said Jesus del Pozo, a designer who is part of the association, said Thursday.

Last year's show, also called Madrid Fashion Week, drew protests from medical associations and women's advocacy groups because some of the models were positively bone-thin.

This time the Madrid regional government decided to intervene and pressure organizers to hire fuller-figured women as role models for young girls obsessed with being thin and prone to starving themselves into sickness, said Concha Guerra, deputy finance minister of the regional administration.

Fashion shows, Guerra said, "are mirrors for many young women."

Del Pozo said this was the first time skinny models have been snubbed at a major international fashion show.

Ryan Brown, director of marketing and public relations in North America for the Elite modeling agency in New York City, agreed. "It is very unprecedented," said Brown, who has nothing to do with the Spanish show.

He welcomed the decision saying "I think it is great to promote health."

Madrid's show, which features mainly Spanish designers, is not as prestigious as catwalks in Paris or Milan but "it is not at the bottom of the pile," he said.

The impact of rejecting skinny women would have been greater at those other glitzier venues. Still, he said, "I am sure the industry is taking note."

The body mass index is a tool for doctors who study obesity. It is calculated by dividing weight in pounds by height in inches squared, and multiplying that total by 703.

If the resulting number is between 18.5 and 24.9, the person's weight is normal. Below 18.5 they are underweight. In the case of the Madrid show, organizers rejected women with indices under 18.

Brown of the Elite agency said fashion shows reflect the tastes of clothing designers, who for now prefer the Kate Moss look as opposed to the curvier dimensions of models such as Cindy Crawford in years past.

"They don't want voluptuous girls any more," he said. "It would be nice if fashion got back to that."

In the words of Georgia Nicolson, my dear friends:
OH MY GIDDY GOD TROUSERS AND PANTALOONS!

See, was organizing my Firefox (inferiority, thy name is Internet Explorer!) Favourite folders and I came across a long forgotten folder optimistically labeled 'Universities and Scholarships'. A vague sense of nausea arose in my being O comrades!

The reason is such - there is no plausible and human way for me to do barely decently (C average) for my prelims while at the same time, meeting my A Level Art deadline. There is no way. What frightens me as well, is my absolute certainty of said impending doom. Usually, I carry along in my Survive-It-All backpack massive doses of Desperate Optimism that usually buoys me up so that I am able to do slightly better than gloomily forecasted - wherence of course, my neurones proceed to implode from sheer exhaustion.

This time however, I've been using up said Desperate Optimism (D.O? O.D? HAHA!) to push myself for art. Some days it is good, some days not so and productivity is as high as um. Wait, I'll think of an analogy later.

Then on some days, I think up of clever ploys to survive said deadline! If technically, September 18/21 is the deadline because we need to photograph our work and September 28 is the REAL deadline...well, perhaps since my project is an illustrated book, maybe I don't need a picture taken of every single COMPLETED page!Eh? Eh? So, if I complete 80% of it, maybe I'll come out of this alive?

Nevertheless, with screwed prelims, it is thoroughly thoroughly unlikely that I can successfully apply for a scholarship which means NO OVERSEAS ART COLLEGE BABY. Goodbye! Farewell! I shall be stuck here with you, my fellow comrades. Which is only a bad thing because it means I'll only ever know you.

The Chinese call it being a mountain tortoise. The Malays call it being a toad under a coconut shell..I think. Say it with me, it's very funny! Katak dibawa tempurong! Malay, phonetically, is an awesome language - very dramatic and emphatic. For example, if you wish to say you waited and waited and waited for someone untild GOD KNOWS WHEN, you say:
"Aku tunggu tunggu sampai bulan tak timbul!"
Translated: I waited and waited until the moon didn't rise!

or

"Aku tunggu tunggu sampai buah tak jatuh!"
Translated: I waited and waited until the fruits didn't fall (of the tree)!

It is 3:48AM, and I am very scared.

How can I not fangirl Astreal when they say things like this:

Titled Fragments Of The Same Dead Star, the album is a whimsical tribute to a myth the band's vocalist/bassist heard. Explained Ginette, "There's a myth that goes something like we're all made out of star stuff, carbon etc... And when stars die, they form humans and other living creatures, so you spend your life looking for that one soul mate who came from the same dead star as you. Your other half, your cosmic twin. I heard that myth from a friend and was instantly charmed."

Well anyway, to accompany this fangirlish entry, here are a few songs from Hazri's copy of the said album. I suppose this is not very legal.

Crowd favourites -
Wallflower

Snowflake

June12 my favourite, so far!

In case legal type people are poking and tsking around, well, I'm just spreading the music love babe, the music love!

Because posting up random pictures is easier than actually writing:

More photo-editing.


A watercolour I did. As much as I enjoyed painting this, some angsty gender-conscious part of me thought, "Oh look: some girl painting pretty flowers. PFFBT!"


And hey hey CJ people! Check out cikgu yati's baby!





Feeling rather down recently, not quite sure why. Listening to The Dear's 'No Such Thing As Love' DOES NOT HELP.

Although it is a very good song.

Because
a) I didn't really like the photo editing I had done on the previous entry either,
b) I just discovered the significance of my digicam's ISO settings so no more grainy shots because of unfavourable lighting conditions,
c) and just to prove that I still have m4d editing skillz,

Matthew's Birthday

We baked!




Chopped up Cadbury's fruit&nut hocolate that went into the cupcakes!


Vincent is very excited (by the chocolate that went in)!
He also claims superiority in dolloping batter into the cupcake cups.
PFFBT.


Evidently, Charmaine is distressed!


The icing, very very evidently, REFUSES to cream!


"Oh come now, don't be such as wussy!" says Hazri.


PWNAGE


Charmaine doesn't care of course, she's just glad to get it off her hands!


Iced! Well, we never got it to cream properly cos we used the wrong sugar =(
But it did give the icing...interesting texture. Really, I mean it!




HURRAH TWENTY CRAZY-SUGAR CUPCAKES!


Close-up. Charmaine is convinced that the artificial colouring will eventually give us cancer and DEATH. Possibly Charmaine, possibly.


Matthew arrives! He mutters, "More confectionary."
You're welcome, Matthew.


Looking more appropriately enthused!




HAPPY PICTURE! Ooh, cupcakes.


The eating commences - look at all that icing! Vincent chooses to handle the icing by avoiding it completely. He ate a hundred chicken wings.


"Too many cupcakes! No more!" pleads a flailing Charmaine.


The sugar high hits, and things get trippy.

So we triapsed off to Hazri's room to do things wholesome teenagers do for fun. We took lots and lots of photos on Matthew's camera (anticipate a sequel to this photo-post!), lolled around the bed, watched Vincent's ears bleed as we unabashedly sing Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne, smoked weed -





AS IF.


It can't get any more wholesome than this! We're like, the Brady Bunch. Poster children for the MOE!

It was a happy, happy birthday.




FINIS.

sms spam!

"Being not attractive is not an excuse for not having friends. Call Dreamchat 1900-9111111 now. Real people waiting to know the inner side of you."





GUYS, YOU KNOW I TOLD YOU TO KEEP MY UGLINESS A SEKRIT! COME NOW, OWN UP - WHO SPILLED THE BEANS?!

HULLO HULLO!

For the few random souls that are still browsing through this thoroughly non-regularly updated blog, I offer you this: http://smartypants.diaryland.com

It is a hilarious blog kept by a mum of a adopted 2 year old girl, Nora, who is so precocious and random and weird and OH IT IS SO ADORABLE that it makes me want to have a baby. So yes, occupy yourselves with this blog while I go through the rigours of the impending A Levels!

Rigours! Tomorrow I am having my Econs mock exam and yet, I spent half the time reading the archives of aforementioned blog -- I am up to July 2005 so far, and it has been a cheery and laughy read. Which in any case, is certainly preferable than tediously going over old lecture Powerpoint slides trying to figure out why a decreasing average marginal cost would lead to an implosion of white matter, grey matter and doesn't matter!

I also feel really stupid sitting for mock exams, because they make me think of mock meat vegetarian food, which I think, is the cruellest affliction on these morally-righteous souls. Surely, the Powers That Be should grant these high-minded people proper and nice-tasting food for their sacrifice?

My boyfriend is a strange person, and I only say this because I suspect he might be more strange than me. Yesterday in the balcony, he suddenly proclaims:

"I AM A KING. This is our kingdom of - where are we? okay, Teck Whye Lane - and you are the queen of queens! WHERE ARE OUR PEASANTS WHO WORSHIP US, WHERE ARE MY KNIGHTS. WHERE ARE MY KNIGHTS, OH HELLO TAXI!"

What?!

Although to be honest, after I got over the initial seconds of why did he just say that?, the first thing that popped into MY head was: wait, I don't want to be queen of queens! That sucks, i want to be king, the king of queens because queen means you're second, but wait I don't want to be a guy AND WHO SAYS QUEEN IS SECOND PLACING ANYWAY.

So I told him shut up, because look at all my latent gender angst and prejudice!

(Paraphrased)
Once at an Adidas store, he points out a pair of red shoes, "Those are my soccer boots."

"Really? They're nice."

"I have them with me right now."

"But, you didn't have any soccer things just now, did you?"

"I know, I just wanted to use this bag but it felt weird and light because there was nothing in it so I brought my boots to make it heavy."

Oh such bursts of irrationality! But they are amusing and funny, and I like them because it is more entertaining than when he seriously tries to convince me that Spiderman is real because hey, doesn't fiction all have some basis of truth? No, no Syahrul, don't take my quasi-philosophical statement and put it in something that is terribly implausible because then I feel all the little philosophical convictions I have are just pieces of stupid bunk and oh I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ANYMORE!

But then, sometimes he has these moments of absolute lucidity and insight! Once, quite some time ago, in a conversation where I was having a burst of iamsomessedup introspection, he says:

"You know what you are? YOU'RE LIKE A DUCK IN A POND."

"What the fuck - what's a duck got to do with it?"

"Because on the outside, you're really calm, but underneath you're panicking you know, like aduck paddling furiously under the water surface."

WHICH IS THE FUNNIEST, STRANGEST, BUT ODDLY ASTUTE ANALOGY I'VE HEARD SO FAR. Which was why then, I thought, hey I like this boy.

Behold! I have succumbed to peer pressure - once more, after an odd and idiopathic month of massive inactivity, am blogging.

Just wanted to say though: NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS PEOPLE.

My lovely readers (probably about say - 5 of you in total), I am more than well and fine, and it is perhaps this newfound general cheer that must be blamed for the quiet spell over this blog. Oh I have things to say, but for some reason I like keeping my blog at a detached and impersonal distance so it is indeed very unfortunate that the bulkload (in both quantity and significance) have been of that opposite nature.

Oh well, haha!

You know, public toilets are strange things. There's a level of absurdity in going and using one: receding into a tiny cubicle, where you're partitioned by somewhat flimsy walls for a sense of privacy and isolation. But the fact is, the person next door is still well, shitting and peeing like you - which if you think about it, are actually rather intimate activities, but are considered so undignified. The same person who may be okay with making out in public (or semi-public), might cringe at letting out a loud fart.

Why are we so shy about excretion, when ingestion itself is a process that if you look at it carefully, isn't that pretty either.

So what, it's just eating. But think about it: you're shoving foreign material into an orifice, and the chewing! Mashing it all together - plant fibre, meat protein into an unidentifiable mess. Your mouth is literally like a food blender! It seems natural since we're so used to it, but technically, it can be seen as just as unnatural as shoving batteries up your nose.

BUT THIS IS JUST A VERY LONG DIGRESSION. What I actually wanted to talk about was the strange experience while I was well, taking a shit in the library toilet. The toilets there are white, with narrow cubicles and due to some bad planning, very shadowy because the ceiling lights can't reach the inside of the cubicles. So when you're inside for a rather long spell, it feels strangely...amniotic. You are by youself, confined in small quarters by the white walls that melt into the shadows, and then you hear your neighbours next door making the same very embarrassing sounds that you are - and, it feels clinically intimate! Maybe because when you are stoning on the porcelain, you kinda let slip the consciousness of your self and your senses become so much more aware of everything.

You imagine the person next door being in the same socially compromising position as you, and the thin panels that seperate you and the other person seem ridiculous suddenly! So you can't see, but you can hear and well, smell - and the visceral absence makes it so much more surreal. Privacy! The partitions are an absurd irony that can't help but betray the actual, unintended intimacy shared between faceless strangers.

Then you step out of the cubicle and see your neighbour and all at once, cannot link the sounds you've heard with this complete stranger. Given a face now, you can imagine it and you blush, turning away.




See, complain so much about me not blogging - now you've read an entire long post about shitting and going to the toilet! I don't know how much you enjoyed reading that, but well, I really did want to talk about it. Be careful what you ask for haha

On another quick note:

you can tell what's been on your mind when you dream that you're stuck in a sleepy tutorial, really not paying attention, then your lit teacher calls you up to give an answer for a question and it's a (d) question and you know, man that's the hardest! But it's not lit, its econs - an econs DRQ at that and you haven't read the bloody thing and your seat partner just went to the toilet so no one is giving you a clue to what's going on and then, the lit teacher says, "So, what is an ester?"

And then you think, "Ester? Is that spelt as 'esther' - wait, do I know someone by that name.." trailing off in befuddlement because even your dream-self hasn't realized that maybe, the reason why you're so confused is because you're being asked about a chemistry concept, in an econs tutorial, by your lit teacher.

Flipping through lj communities, I always perk up when somebody says that they're from Singapore too. This perky feeling however, is oft dampened when they continue vaguely about how Singapore is terribly boring, ugly and (inserted derisive adjectives here).

But I love Singapore! I mean honestly, even if you hate the parades of cheesy propaganda, I kinda find them a hilarious experience of overenthusiastic patriotism. Hours of too much organza and cheap satin, body glitter and anal organization and FIREWORKS. It's funny! I don't see how people don't get that, and sort of choose instead to moan and groan about it. Even the clearly biased reporting of the General Elections in the Straits Times was funny, because it's kinda ridiculous how *obviously* slanted they were being! That we seem to have a hub-obsessed neurosis: we are/want to be an education & sports & arts & biomedical & business & telecommunications & defense & trading hub. It's like the scrawny guy out there with the sports car - trying to make up for something, aren't we? We've got our fingers stuck in so many pies, its silly.

It's not a boring place to be either, you just have to know how to tear yourself away from the Orchard Road belt of hyperconsumerism.

And we have good local music, if you know where to find it.

Oh I don't know why I feel so obligated to prop up Singapore. I like this place, even more so because sometimes it's so indignantly stubborn and silly. Singapore-bashers just need to chill and grab a 70 cents teh tarik from the coffeeshop, take a look around and grow a sense of humour.

Besides, what is it that you really want, my Singaporean Fellows?