I love my friends

I was mad last Thursday. Mad in the sense that I was angry, and mad in the sense that I went crazy. All because of some money collection woes which I shall not elaborate on much. It was not a major crisis, this money problem, but it made me feel sick all the same. Sick enough to screw up almost everything I did that morning. Then while playing volleyball, I finally snapped. Before the tears leaked at full force, my friend Sumaiyah came to my rescue and dragged me into the toilet. She made me sit down and told me to let the tears out. So I raved and ranted at no one in particular at the top of my lungs , using swear words every now and then, while Sumaiyah just listened silently. When I cooled down, she began to talk."It's a beautiful day. You have GP and History lessons later on. You love those lessons don't you? So cheer up and be happy about that." She also told me about a major screw-up involving money which happened in her secondary school days. We stayed at the toilet for the rest of the lesson. Before we left, she offered to French-braid my hair. A friend in need is a friend indeed, I thought, as Sumaiyah tied up the last of the loose strands.

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I met up with Sumaiyah, Parri, Lay Lian, Samantha and Mathilda during Common Lunchbreak. Sumaiyah had told them about this morning and none of them thought I was insane or anything. Instead, they asked if I'd like to join them in their badminton game. I don't think I had that much fun playing a sport than I ever had in my entire life.

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"I count myself in nothing else so happy
As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends."
- William Shakespeare



Thank you

Sumaiyah for being there for me when all seemed bleak

Samantha for being an excellent Pre-U-Seminar team mate and for the funny stories

Parrimala for your unwavering optimism and determination

Lay Lian for your infectious cheerfulness

Mathilda for those hilarious imitations of foreign accents, President Bush and opera singers

Kheng Meng for being a good listener

Hao Yi for your witty remarks and lame jokes

Clarence for all those in-depth discussions on various topics, especially History

Leong Min for keeping in touch even after primary school

My squadmates for being such a lovable bunch

Benjamin Cheah for having faith in me as nutty as I was

My Mum for being by my side no matter what. Somehow, somewhere, you became a close friend.

Mdm Shasila for being the nicest teacher I ever knew


and all acquaintances, simply for entering my life.

Another meme + tag replies

I kinda like this meme:)

1.- If I were a fruit I'd be... a yellow kiwi fruit.


2.- If I were a colour I'd be... raven black/rosy pink/dark purple.


3.- If I were an animal I'd be... a dragon. Specifically, the Hungarian Horntail;)


4.- If I were a dometic appliance I'd be... a pizza knife.


5.- If I were a book I'd be... "My Sister's Keeper", by Jodi Picoult


6.- If I were a clothing item I'd be... a silk scarf.


7.- If I were a jewel I'd be... a gold heart-shaped locket.


8.- If I were an object I'd be... a Swiss Army Knife.


9.- If I were a car I'd be... a Ferrari that runs on biofuel.


10.- If I were an element I'd be... Silicon. I'm already the 4th electron of the Silicon family:)


11.- If I were a tree I'd be... a Japanese Maple.


12.- If I were a drink I'd be... chilled water.


13.- If I were an ice cream flavor I'd be... white chocolate.


14.- If I were a person I'd be... myself.


15.- If I were a planet I'd be... Mars.


16.- If I were an insect I'd be... a butterfly.


17.- If I were public transport I'd be... an MRT.


18.- If I were a song I'd be... something with Rock infused into it.


19.- If I were a movie I'd be... LORD OF THE RINGS 3!!!


20.- If I were a season I'd be... Autumn.


21.- If I were a flower I'd be... Sakura.


22.- If I were a job I'd be... Journalism:)


23.- If I were a cartoon I'd be... (anime counts as cartoon doesn't it?) Ergo Proxy.


24.- If I were a place I'd be... atop Mt Pilatus.


25.- If I were a gift I'd be... a homemade one.


26.- If I were a memory I'd be... looking my prettiest.



27.- If I were a city I'd be... Otaru, Japan.



28.- If I were a sense I'd be... sight.



29.- If I were a game I'd be... Final Fantasy 10/ 10-2/8



30.- If I were a candy I'd be... a fruit jelly from Leonidas



31.- If I were a time of the day I'd be... twilight.



32.- If I were an invention I'd be... anime!



33.- If I were a bodypart I'd be... eyes.



34.- If I were a country I'd be... Singapore/Japan/England.



35.- If I were a flavor I'd be... mildly sweet.



36.- If I were a sport I'd be... a martial art.



37.- If I were a smell I'd be... grass after the rain.



38.- If I were a subject I'd be... an art related one.



39.- If I were a flag I'd be... the Jolly Roger;)



40.- If I were a building I'd be... the Leaning Tower of Pisa.



41.- If I were a month I'd be... April.



42.- If I were a perfume I'd be... one with an Oriental base.



43.- If I were a gummy candy I'd be... a Jellytot.



45.- If I were a toy I'd be... an anime figurine.



46.- If I were a textile I'd be... black silk.



47.- If I were a shape I'd be... circle.



48.- If I were a answer I'd be... a witty one!



49.- If I were a common liquorice I'd be... a pure black one.



50.- If I were a word I'd be... zephyr.


And the honour of doing this meme goes to:

1. Kheng Meng
2. Hao Yi
3. Clarence
4. Kelvin
5. Leong Min

*applause*

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Sorry all, for not replying to any of the tags. Here are my replies:

Kelvin: I was from Crescent Girls, a.k.a Crez! And yep I totally love watching movies. Unfortuantely I often don;t have the time and money to do so.

Piano Fanatic: So far so good. Things at my side haven't got REALLY heated up yet. But soon enough.

ykm: Here's a REALLY generalized way of putting things: Science is about understanding the mechanics behind what's going on around us, while Arts is about appreciating the beauty and complexity of our world. Whaddaya think?

Zen: I agree it's a lot easier to understand notes on a Humanities subject. Somehow i can relate with what's being taught a lot better.

Cc: That makes two of us, girl:) And yay to the Arts!

Science in retrospect

It's an interesting question to ask of myself: do I miss studying Science? As you all know, I'm currently studying GHEM, and loving it! But there have been occasions when I find myself getting all sentimental when I see a Science textbook or walk past the labs. It feels a little weird that I'm not crunching chemical formulae and the like anymore.



Interestingly, I never thought I'd be an Arts student. Science was my best subject back in my primary and lower secondary days; I was always confident I could bank on my Science grades. Unsurprisingly I envisioned my adult-self in a white lab coat and poring over test tubes of brightly coloured liquid.



A paradigm shift is when one has a sudden, dramatic change in his perception of something. Like when it just struck 15 year old me that science was just not my cup of tea. That I'd actually dread laboratory sessions. That it can be so hard to get an 'A' for Chemistry. I remember Chem being quite a pain for me. Stoichiometry stumped me, titration experiments were often badly bungled and I never, never managed to understand the concept of limiting reagents. Biology was better as I could understand and memorize most processes taught. But I still didn't like doing experiments.

What happened? How is it that a subject I once found a breeze suddenly gave me a hard time? The best guess I've made so far is that I'm not the sort of person who can apply concepts well. There wasn't much of application of concepts in primary school or lower sec, but quite a lot of it in upper sec. Give me a concept to learn and I can tell you what it's all about but ask me to take one step further by applying it to solve problems and I'm often at a loss.

Sometimes, I'd ask my friends in the Science to lend me their notes simply because I wanted to know what I've missed as a result of not doing any Sciences anymore. Then I realize I might as well be reading Swahili; figures and charts and data make no sense to me at the first glance. In the end, whether a subject is 'easy' or 'difficult' is relative. I wonder if my friends doing Science now miss studying the humanities?

Kaede

A number of friends have given their blogs makeovers so I thought I'd follow suit. Of all the blogskins I designed so far, this one is probably my favourite. That's because it combines 2 of my loves: anime and Japanese Maple leaves.

So, about this blogskin, which I see has generated some excitement when I popped in at the Trashout Department. Kaede is Japanese for Maple, and it also happens to be the real name of Lucy from Elfen Lied. In that sense, I thought it would be fitting if I superimposed a picture of Lucy onto the photo. The photo, featuring the Todai-ji temple in Nara, Japan, was taken by Yours Truly:) It's got to be the best photo I ever took because I simply love those ruby-red Maple leaves. It's amazing how the Maple tree retains its beautiful foliage even in winter.

In fact, I was so awe-struck that I developed a fetish for Maple leaves. Speaking of maple leaves, the falling maple leaves brushes used in the photo were created by myself. I added smudges of dark red to make them look more realistic.

With the creation of Kaede I have decided to make a few changes to the way Zephy is run. For one thing, I'm gonna start labelling my posts. Posts shall henceforth be classified in any of the following categories:

• Anime (where I go into fan-girl mode and rave about how cute XXX is or how awesome/sucky a certain show was. Then again, I may do a more in-depth analysis like I did for Elfen Lied. Yeah, I think I'll do more of the latter)
• Musings (where I ruminate about anything that cateches my fancy, from Ardvarks to Zimbawe:) Musings are going to form the bulk of my posts.)
• Blog admin (for notices relating to Zephy. Or posts such as this one in which I talk about my latest blogskin)
• Quizzes (for memes or those quiz-thingys)
• School (for school stuff)
• Emo-ing (where I rant about something that's getting on my nerve)
• Miscellaneous

That's all the labels I can think off for now, I may add some more when I deem necessary. Oh and I have yet to officially say this but Zephy is updated on a weekly-basis. So most of the time, there'd be a post a week. There may be more, but with the A Levels and all, that'll be rare.

I'll sign off for now. Keep an eye on Zephy, people, because I have loads to share. I always do:)

Thank you

This afternoon, I returned to my study table to finish up my Economics revision when I noticed a new book opened at the page 'Monopoly and Perfect Competition: which better serves public interest?' It so happened that I was working on my monopoly notes before I left for lunch. My Dad must have figured out as much when he placed Essentials of Economics by John Sloman on my table.

Little things like these really touch my heart. Thank you, Dad.