Rotten Heart

What if i have a rotten heart, one that seeps evil into my action? Can I turn back from such addiction of maleovolence? Or submit to the profanity that a mortal soul cannot help but indulge in?

Late for EG1413 exam

How does it feel like to wake up and find yourself one hour late for a two hour paper? Well, I am a "lucky" one to experience the adrenaline of the rushing and puffing and stressing and pulling hair and everything that is not so pretty.

Well, the night before, I had set my alarm clock to 7.30 AM with the full confidence that it would ring. Well, it didn't. So I slept on and on until I felt the bed was a little too warm for me to settle in. So I open my eyes and looked at the clock. The visual impulse shot into my brain and registered 8.42 am. It's okay to have 18 minutes to prepare. Test is at 9 and the venue of examination is but 5 minutes away.

Wait, why isn't there a double "O" stacked on one another to form the typical eight we see? somehow the left part of the lower "O" has chipped off to resemble yet another number I am very familiar with. It is a lucky number for those born in the Dragon year since a dragon has 81 scales, which is the square of the that number.

Oh no, it's 9.42am! I was seriously late, so late that I was already crying in my heart. 10 minutes later i was already at the exam venue furiously flipping the examination paper for the question and reading through the text I was supposed to critique on. The examiner refused to give me extra time so I had to make do with whatever I have, which was approximately one hour.

There I was, scribbling away as fast as I could. At 11 am, when the examiniation was supposed to end, I have completed 780 words with citations. I submitted the paper, went back to my room and started blogging, which is what I am supposed to do now.

All the time, the breath was short, the forehead was creasing, the heart was pumping and the adrenaline, yes that damn thing that is supposed to trigger your survival instinct, was seeping through every blood vessel in my body. Thank god I didn't sweat; otherwise, my exam sheet would be smudged beyond recognition with all the sodium chloride-charged fluid issuing from my face.

At least I finished the paper though. That is what I care about first. I'm happy that I'm given a chance to do what is best under such circumstance. Fate is kind sometimes.

Simon

Hi, I would like to introduce you guys to my most recent adoration: Simon. Well, I love him a lot that I would spend hours, literally, staring at him. That charming young lad is so captivating that I can't put my mind off thinking about him even in the midst of exam. Everyday, I would find every single excuse to see him and play with him. And he peed on my cheet sheet that I was supposed to bring along for my Math examination. Well, that is Simon - a bubbly hamster which I had procured two weeks back. Here is a photo of him in his sleeping den, fashioned out of a tissue toilet roll and cushioned with well, more tissue:

My bad. The photo quality is at best, inferior to any camera-phone but you still have a good idea of how he looks like up front, right? 2 minutes of wiki-searching has revealed to me that he is a Dwarf Winter White Russian Hamster but visual inspection suggests more gray fur area than white. It can't really be helped though since the dull coat is what these hamster sport during the summer season that is perpetually never-ending in the Singaporean context.

Anyway, isn't he just cute? Measuring at a respectable 9 cm, he is one of the most quick-witted dare-devils I have ever met. There is no opportunity lost in trying to get out of my hand (despite my best effort to sanitise every inch of the palm and fingers with soap before-hand) and into every nook and tiny dark slit of the room.

With an overpowering claustro-philic tendency, Simon manages to find himself in the most unusual places behind the fridge, under the bed, in the narrow slit between the photo frame and wall and worse, in a printer. Of course, I don't let him run wild all the time as he has a cage of his own. On top of that, he has this irresistible urge to leap of chairs, tables (and hands) regardless of whether what is awaiting him below is a cold, hard tile.

When it comes to eating, his favourite is sunflower seed kernel, which will be the first items to vanish among the variety of food he is offered everyday. With all the high content of saturated lipid in the seeds, it is no wonder that he looks much fatter than he was when I first brought him back from the pet store.

Yup, so much about Simon for now. See you then.

Reunion

No, I am not talking a small piece of terra firma jutting out in the middle of the Indian Ocean to the east of Madagascar a.k.a Lemur Country. I am talking about:

I know, I know. Beh, Chia Wei, Junyi, KC and Mun Hon are not present but at least, there is enough of the old guards to conjure the feelings of the past, the memories buried beneath the piles of university courseworks and co-curricular activities, the togetherness that is forged by the virtue that we used to be under one roof: McNair Lodge.

The thought of it almost makes me laugh. Now that we are all languishing in far more spacious rooms that what were offered in McNair Lodge, it is almost incredulous to the foreign ear to actually grasp at how five people managed to squeeze in a tiny windowless cell with bunker beds for two years only to come out alive and kicking.

Remember those times when the caterer thought dried chillies were on the vogue and started blending them in every dish we had? Remember the times when the boys enjoyed 24 hour air-conditioning so much that some of the girls actually got jealous? Remember how every birthday celebration was an opportunity to be creative and spoon out weird (and at times, not so tasty) recipes, and then to sing our hearts out to the birthday person? And remember...

Now that I am already in NUS burning the midnight oil for the upcoming test, I find it amusing to actually recount the nolstalgic moments in the past, especially those in McNair Lodge. Back then, the stress of A-Level preparation was gnawing away our brains but there were always people to look forward to for badminton games in the evening. The night was always bustling with activities as friends chatted, gossiped and pulled each other's tail (well-mannered way, of course) till the guards came to chase us away. Although we knew that post A-Level also meant the time for parting, we decided to pull together for one last activity, as a group, and used the pool to our benefit as a station to recharge our water guns and pails.

Those were the merry days. We are all growing up, aren't we. We have come to understand the world is not as simple and innocent as we once thought. Friends are almost impossible to make, what more genuine friends. Beneath the smiling facades of people with whom you mingle, some harbour the intention to exploit your goodwill to their benefits. In university, you are basically on your own, having to watch out for yourself despite having people to say "hello" to. It can't be helped. With each person taking different courses and having incompatible schedule, it is difficult to find common time to share and develop friendship further.

University opens a door to the adult world, although the scheming, conniving, and plastic expressions are toned down a little. Everyday, we are faced with moral decisions so complex that what were black and white now diffuse into one another to form a gray area. We only convince ourselves that our course of action is the most acceptable one especially in terms of self-preservation. It is difficult to trust another person and even more difficult to differentiate friends from adversaries.

My uncle used to tell me that of all the friends one make in his or her lifetime, childhood and school friends are the most genuine. At such age, we were still young, simple-minded and were capable to put all our faith in one another just like loyal comrades in battle. As we grow older, the we are "hardened" by so many ordeals to the extent that we become insecure about the world we live in and the people we mingle with. Perhaps, that is the nature of man.

Yup, McNair is a memorable experience. Pui Kheun-Samantha joint birthday celebration came close to reliving the atmosphere I once felt back in JC. Honestly, it felt so good that I am at a loss of words to describe the totality and intensity of it. You guys present at the birthday, do you feel it too?