deutschland, tage sieben.

apparently alot of germans don't know what exactly sg is. a few thought that sg was bigger than germany itself.

if sg was as big as germany, going to the airport would be a nightmare.

and alena's mom only knew last night that sg is not under the brits anymore. when she read that sg gained independence in 1965, her face was filled with enlightenment.

i just came back from the shisha bar that alena worked at. three of her six friends were smoking. one was shisha-ing. sebas knows how much i can't stand smoke. but i didn't say anything. i guess it'll be quite rude, since it's like the norm to smoke here. so i was rather relieved when after food, alena asked if i wanted to go home. she drove me home, and went back to the bar.

this morning we had an almost 2-hour journey, by bus from gießen to köln. it was very windy when we got off the bus, and inside the kölner dom wasn't very much better. and the place has a weird atmosphere. i mean like, well it's a church, and i generally don't mind churches, but i just felt weird inside there. elizabetkirche was okay though. the one ytd.

at 11.45 all the tourguiding had to stop, because it was the service time. so we went out to wait for the exchange students from france. they were on the bus with us, but they had a different itenary.

and it was bloody cold. there were joker buskers all dressed up outside the church. cold, yo.

so the young french boy and girls finally arrived and we walked to the restaurant we were supposed to have lunch together. it was fried pork cutlet with your choice of sauce, with soup, salad and ice cream. and a 200ml drink.

i chose this sauce that reminded me totally of roti prata. andrew had his soup bowl 5/6 filled, and mine was only half filled. unfairness, people. and my chocolate ice cream didn't have chocolate chips but his did. but then i had a second helping of chocolate ice cream because somebody didn't want it, and it had chocolate chips! haha. and they thought it was amusing when i scooped the icream out of the cup onto the plate. i did that so i could reach the chocolate one before finishing the strawberry.

then we went to the roman-germanien museum. idk how it's spelt in english. the guide there was the first guide i could understand in germany.

halfway through grace, nicole and i had to go to the toilet, and grace had constipation because the vegetables we get here are not that plentiful. and when she was finally done, the cleaner went into the cubicle, idk why, and made a very disgusted sound. lol so we went off. without leaving money in the plate.

about that. here they don't explicitly charge you for toilets. but the shopping centre i went to a few days back had this guy outside the toilets with a small plate. most people who came out of the toilet would put a coin on the plate, and only after that will he say goodbye to you. well i didn't know that, so while i was outisde waiting for alena i was wondering if i should just drop some money in. but i only had notes, and the smallest denomination is five, so i thought, forget it. alena came out and dropped a coin in.

and everytime after somebody puts money onto the plate, the guy would take it out and put it under the plate so that there is always only two coins seen.

and in the museum they had the same plate at the sink area. it only had one coin. 50 cents. somebody paid 1 sgd for toilet. the smallest denomination i had today was 20 cents, and i didn't even want to put it there.

oh wow i was so engrossed in blogging i totally forgot about my gems swap at facebook.

okay so after the museum we went to the christmas market. the stuff there was quite interesting, but most are really expensive. if you convert it to sgd, especially.

then we spent another nearly two hours on the bus and we returned to herderschule.

i was so lookig forward to homecooked dinner, then after we reached home alena told me, "we go to play billard with my friends."

and i was like, "now?" and she said, "yes! in five minutes!"

ach so. okay then. so we drove over with the friend, arick's car in front. and at a bend alena drove her car into his car. luckily it hit the bumper and there wasn't visible damage done.

i had nachos at the bar. because grace tols me they were nice. and i didn't know it would be my dinner. they taste like sg's dorritos. only with cheese on top and with two dips. salsa and sourcream.

so now to make myself feel more dinner-ish, i'm eating yoghurt. it was from my lunchbox, i get one every day, but i usually don't clear everything.

now i've got coasters from three places. haha.

tomorrow the mayor of giessen is going to visit us in herderschule. i wonder if he has bodyguards like mr president does.

and sebas, my host doesn't read your blog unless i show it to her.

oh and alena has near twenty piercings all over her body. but the parents only know of four.

deutschland tage sechs

yesterday...i forgot what we did yesterday.

oh. first i went with sören to german class, where we watched a movie called der prozess. the trisl, in english. apparently it's an english movie originally, but they had it translated.

we left halfway, because all the sg students were supposed to leave at nine.

pan didn't arrive, and nobody knew where to find brigitta (his partner) so we left without him. halfway through, andrew, i tzhink, received a message from pan. "where are you?"

then herr spindler gave him a call and asked him to meet us at the elizabetkirche in marburg. the church of elizabeth.

and brigitta drove him there at a speed of 180km/h. pan said it was damn fun.

the church was...nosso interesting. elizabeth is a lady that sounded like mother theresa. but she's actually a princess and devoted her life to helping the poor and sick. so they built a church in her name.

the brick walls are pink and the cement filling the gaps between bricks is white.

then we walked around marburg. it was rather early and we weren't allowed to shop, so i think everybody was wondering why did they even bring us there in the first place. but wells. we heard the marburg clock tower strike twelve. i have a video of it. the rooster flapped its wings, the trumpeter trumpeted, the bell rang...yeah.

then we went to the marburg university for lunch. we were allowed to have one main and three sides. they paid 5.50 euro each, for us. and the three sides include drink/soup. i didn't know that, so i took three sides and a drink, and the chef came out and sort of scolded me. i think now he thinks that singaporeans are greedy.

but still the food was quite nice. and i eavesdropped on herr spindler's conversation with a herderschule teahcer. he's forty two years old. back in sg he refused to tell us his age.

oh sebas. don't worry about me getting a german boyfriend. i let my host read your blog post, and she said that she'll take away all the guys before i can do anything. haha. just so you can sleep better.

after lunch we visited the liebig museum. if you think this name is familiar, here's why: liebig condenser. the original one was made out of wood. the cold water in and hot water out thing. the guy there (no not the liebig person definitely) was carrying out alot of experiments there, trying to make us think he's damn good. but when we see blue colouring, we'll go, "copper two sulphate." but he poured liquid nitrogen in his palm and "slit" his wrist. the blood was iron something. but he friggin used a breadknife. maybe it was blunt.

then we walked around and they made raspberry ice cream with liquid nitrogen for us. i took an extra serving for whoever picks me up. i thought it was going to be alena's father, but it was the mom instead. but, no diff. she liked the ice cream. i just thought the cream taste was too overpowering. the same with the cakes in germany. it's just...the feeling of fatness.

then we went grocery shopping again. the orange juice that we buy are freshly squeezed, so every two or three days we have to replenish the supply. and we got baking stuff, and some more food, and the total bill was 60+ euro. my mom goes to the market once a week, and i don't think she even spends 60 sgd per trip.

so either this family is damn rich, or the stuff in germany are really that expensive.

and you know, after staying here for six days, i've made up my mind to stay in sg for good. winter. is. not. good. for me, at least. i know chu yun definitely likes winter here. and she only knew today that i was from nh. cuz i asked if she knew jeslyn since they're both in western dance in nj. all the while she thought i was from nan chiau.

oh don't all nanhuarians hate how people mistaken us for them.

okay so we got groceries, then we went home to bake. i made walnut and hazelnut cookies.

then was dinner. we had this ham that had a picture/silhouette of a mouse on every piece, and tebea said, "kill the mouse before you eat it!" then proceeds to slit the neck of the mouse.

i'm still getting used to them saying, "i have to learn math. i have a test tomorrow." because "study" is reserved for university students. only they study, the younger ones learn. and only they are called students, the rest are just "school goers". in german context.

and shannon if you're reading this. i asked, they start learning el at ten years old too. i told them my dutch friend asked.

i told my host family that i have a boyfriend, and the father asked if he was in china or singapore. lol. i think it's because a chengdu student smsed me ytd and i replied him, then after that i told him i messaged my friend in china. and in german, fruend=boyfriend.

today the mom packed all the cookies i baked and asked me to share them with the other sg students. i thought it was mission impossible. when we first reached herderschule, almost everyone was too full to eat. them halfway through our lesson about romans in germany, i took out the box and passed it around. herr spindler took four. it was passed one and a half rounds, and an empty box returned. chu yun passed it to me and said, "you succeeded."

after that lesson we carried on lessons with our host. alena had english and chem. for english they were doing something like lit. read texts and compare their setting, tone, characters, first impression...and in the end they were to vote for two books they liked best, and the one with the most votes, everybody would have to buy the book to read. i was sad that the handmaid's tale only got three votes. they are to get the clockwork orange in the end, at 6.20 euro.

their chem lesson is like our econs lesson. the teacher only teaches abit, and the rest of the time is spent talking and joking. only the teacher doesn't laugh like winnie does. they were doing chem equilibrium, and i had one rj guy and one hc girl saying, "this is so easy!"

apparently chem o is tmr. but fll skirmish is also tmr. if i didn't have this german trip, i'll be caught between the two. if i had taken the chem o test and qualified, of course. but this trip pwns everything else.

oh the envelopes here are white outside and grey inside. but still can see through. and they sell toilet paper that have english lessons printed. in a resaurant there was tissue with advertisements printed on. very clever.

after chem we went home to eat. fried fish fillet and potato salad. then wall's chocolate ice cream. i think wall's is sort of a high end brand here. somewhat on paar with haägen daz, i think. and even here, haägen daz is not something every family can afford.

then alena painted my nails. they're purple now. sebas was supposed to paint them for me before i left for germany, but we didn't get a chance to meet. so, hah. nail virginity taken.

after that we went to visit the graves. alena's mom's dad, and alena's dad's mom. i didn't dare to ask about the dad's dad. the mom's mom stay with us, so that old man can't possibly be staying alone, and i didn't want to bring sad moments by asking where he is. just in case.

then we went to see the gate where the germans used to fight with the romans. photos when i'm back.

and then we drove to another state, wetzlar, just to have coffee. but it's alena's mom's favourite state, other than gießen i suppose, and the cafe we went to was her favourite cafe.

then we drove back and now i'm here. i drooled while sleeping in the car.

deutschland, tage vier

this morning we sat through a presentation of the education system in germany, a brief intro of giessen (the province i'm in) and propaganda about herderschule. the school that collaborated with moelc to come up with this exchange programme, aka my host's school.

i think i could't understand 90% of it. and the leftover 10% was random words i couldn't form sentences with.

but anyway.

after that we went for a tour around giessen.

we climbed a very tall tower, it had 84 stone steps and i didn't count the metal steps. and the stone steps made up a super long spiral staircase. the metal steps definitely made it more than 120 steps.

it felt like derailment during cssp, only colder, darker and a longer distance.

yep and then we went to the elefantekol. the elephant bridge. named as such because it has the largest toilet in the whole europe. our tourguide for the tour was bloody sacarstic i didn't really listen to him. everytime he wanted our attention, he'll go, 'HELLOOOOOOO!!!'

then was lunch. buffet lunch.we were entitled to one drink which, anything else we'll have to pay for it. but food was freeflow and us being quite typical singaporeans, we took a number of servings. and my plates always had leftovers, because there are stuff i don't exactly like. for example, knödel. it's supposed to be potato dumpling, but it tasted plastiky and like powdery sponge.

but still i ate so much that i'm still full. i finished my meal at around 1.30pm, and it's 7.33pm right now.

after that we went to the mathematikum, which is a math museum. it's really fun. i think more info can be found online. just google that long word above.

digressing, alena is george yeo's friend. on facebook.

there was this exhibit in the museum where you can search your birthdate in the pi value. and everybody's birthday can be found.

and i was in a bubble(:

at 4pm alena's mom came to pick me up. she said we have to go to the city for awhile, because she had to get two presents for her relatives' birthdays.

but she went to collect her already reserved boots, for me. they're white and shiny. we have the same shoe size, and i don't think i'll need the boots anytime soon (they're really warm), and i feel bad about her having to spend money on me (though it's just 19.99 euro), so think when i leave i'll just return them to her. or leave them in the room.

she got me pullovers also, but i'm going to give them to alena/tabea when i have to go. but if they insist i take them, i'll just take one. it was 6 euro only anyway.then i can wear them during lectures and match xueni's jacket. they're both grey.

yes and only after getting those stuff did we go get presents for the relatives.

she got two vases from a furniture shop that's like ikea but not ikea becaue ikea's 80km away. then we went to a florist to have her put flower arrangements inside. they'll be ready by wed afternoon.

we drove past the bar where alena worked. it doesn't look very menacing. so if i'm invited to go this coming weekend, maybe i will.

then we drove back home. the thermometer showed temperatures dropping from 18 degrees to -2 degrees. but i think i'm getting used to the cold. but not the lack of humidity. i think my lips face is cracking. and my ears may break off anytime soon.

and just fyi, in germany schools they can have a maximum of three tests in a week. i rmb in nh last year we ever had three in a day.

oh yeah, last night, after i posted that entry, we went to build a snowman. sören made a snow rabbit too. then we had a snowfight. then i was a happy girl.

our dinner last night was nice too. everybody gets a little pan, we put whatever food we like on it, e.g. cauliflower, ham, potato, corn, capsicum, shrimps... and then you put a piece of cheese on top, and stick it into the grill thing. after maybe ten minutes, it can be eaten. it's like diy pizza without the bread.

okay that's making me hungry already. bye bye people, i hope you all are sleeping well.

deutschland tage drei

i didn't blog ytd weil ich sehr müde war. sorry i'm getting quite used to the german-speaking environment.

i was too tired.

we shopped for groceries, then we went to the mall to get christmas presents, then we went for coffee and finally we went home. alena went for work, and after dinner tabea (alena's younger sister), lio (tabea's bf) and sören (alena's best friend) went to the bar that alena worked at to play pool. i was supposed to tag along, but i was really tired so i stayed at home and slept.

the supermarket we went to's called REWE. it's very much bigger than our ntucs, and the refrigerator section is huge. we purchased ard 124 euro worth of grocery. for sgd, please times two.

then we went to the getrankemarkt. this is where we get all the stuff we drink. so the difference from sg is that rewe has two buildings instead of one, one for food and one for the drinks. the drinks building is also quite huge. because they have to sell drinking water too, since tap water here isn't potable. the toilet bowl water is yellow and cloudy.

we got i think 60 enros worth of drinks. they had to get still water especially for me, because they only drink sparkling water. which is cheaper, surprise surprise. i thought the added carbon dioxide would make it more ex. but well, they don't like still water.

and after we got the water home, i finished a 1.5 litre bottle within 4 hours. i don't even drink that much water in sg.

okay so after groceries, alena's mom drove us to the mall. we went to their open air market, and outdoors it was so cold i shivered all the way. now the area around my lips are dry and peeling. i need dollops of moisturiser.

and near the open air market, there was this asian supermarket. thexý asked me to recommend them stuff to try, so we got laksa paste, chicken rice paste/powder (i couldn't tell what was in the packaging), curry paste, 5kg rice (at 15+ euro omg), bean sprouts (mental note: rmb to tell them these can't keep for long) and lemon grass. because we got tom yum paste also.

yep then we walked back in the cold to the mall and had lunch. it's like our hawker centre, the dining area. but of course it had air con. the similarity is that you have to chope seats. and snatch seats.

-----i went to shit and apply moisturiser and change clothes and now it's snowing outside-----

okay back to ytd's lunch.alena and i had turkish food. something like kebab. with coke. then alena's mom had chinese food. the springrolls here have meat. and their fried noodles are nice, only it's abit on the salty side. and their one serving can feed me, my brother and my mom.

lunch here is around two to three in the afternoon, and dinner is between eight and nine.

so after lunch we walked around the fussgangerzone. which is like our orchard road. during winter here, it gets dark before five pm. so it got dark in a while, and we met sören because we got stuff and the car wasn't big enough we had to use his car.

then we went for coffee. i had hot chocolate. alena had cherry-banana tea. she loves tea.

and after that, we went home for dinner. they have poppy seed bread, and i didn't dare to try it. poppy makes marijuana right? idk, i was scared that i may get drugged. then there was this dish that's sliced tomatoes with pieces of mozerella cheese and basil leaves, drenched in a vinegar sauce. it's quite appetising i must say, only i'm not a big fan of tomatoes.

and after dinner i went to sleep.

today we went sleighing. it was negative two degrees and after an hour or so outside and three rounds of sleighing, i couldn't stand it so i went back to the car. alena's father was really nice, he changed gloves with me twice so that my hands won't freeze. i took a couple of photos, i'll post them up after i return.

snowfight was nice. we should build a snowman in the garden.

it is now 6.01pm, which is like what, 1.01 am in sg? haha.

deutschland, tage eins.

okay i'm in the same room where alena's studying, so i'll keep this short.

i forgot to bring the wire that connects the camera to the comp, nor the phone to the comp, so i can't post pictures up till i'm back in singapore.

so far it's been really fun here, except the very long travelling (13 hours 20 minutes) from sg to amsterdam, and the very long waiting time at amsterdam to get our plane to frankfurt.

about the latter. our plane was supposed to take off at 8.45 am, but the announcement said the air traffic was too congested, so we were delayed to 9.15. at around ninem another announcement came, saying that our flight has been delayed yet again, because the crew members were missing.

and to compensate our waiting time, klm gave us each a free bottle of.....




water.

yeah. i took two anyway, second one courtesy of herr spindler. but the water costs 2.50 euro, which is like, 5 sgd. so it's still okay, not like giving you 50 cents sgd new mountain water, but still not like sia that gives sgd 50 voucher.

it's hard to type with a curvy keyboard and having the y below the a. because they have to put in the dotted letters too.

oh yeah. i saw snow for the first time in my life. it was snowing outside alena's house and we bore the cold to go play. i hope it snows some more.

tomorrow we're going grocery shopping, i'm supposed to cook a chinese meal/dish for them. when it's a more sane hour in sg time, i'll sms home for ideas. i think most likely i'm cooking fried rice. only when it's done with german sausage it'll totally not be chinese anymore.

almost one day down, around two weeks left, hopefully by the end of everything i'll be able to at least understand a german dialogue properly.

take care people, i love you.

19 nov, yo.

alena chatted with me on facebook last night/this morning. she said that the german way of life is drinking, taking drugs and having sex.

which means i'll have alot of stories to tell when i'm back. i hope she can lend me her comp so i'll be able to post pictures up everyday(:

i'm not done packing my luggage yet, but gifts are all prepared. tommorrow at this time, i'll still be at home, only i guess more nervous about the trip. alena works at a bar.

rantings of a person leaving sg in a week.

time's passing very fast. in a week, i'll be heading off to germany.

and throughout this week, there are alot of things i have to do.

like:
pack my room
read up ref guide
pack my luggage
get as much homework done as possible
understand more about alena
get well
go shop for stuff for alena and family
attend ref training
babysit my brother

i should be in school studying, to clock my 24 hours a week, but after three days, i really felt that it was better to study at home. at least i don't feel pressured like i do in the school environment. yes i can study on my bed, actually i can study pretty much everywhere at home. i don't usually study at my table because most of the time it's cluttered (like now) and i'm too lazy to clear it up (like now).

my table still has a tcc booklet from a historic pw meeting, my promo timetable, my german oral stuff and calendar pages from months ago because i don't want to forget those important dates that have passed.

oh yeah. can somebody help me find out if i can bring bak kua overseas? either check-in or hand luggage, doesn't matter. i called up the airport person, i think he doesn't know what bak kua is.

referee steph.

sooooo. the postitions for fll are out. i am a referee.

there are alot of documents i have to get into my head, and it's like going back to primary school days, staring at the playfield with its different components.

only this time i'm really in, really playing a part in the competition. i wasn't even a competitor the four years i was in robotics when i was in primary school.

and this time the sponsors are definitely more generous than njrcs. the playfields have colour.

i am looking forward to the tournament. but, the training this friday first. i hope they'll print out the referee guide for us. cuz it's 22 pages long, excluding the q&a which is very important, as emphasised in the guide.

-----------------------------

alena wants to bring me swimming in germany. when the temperature is max. 13 deg. celsius at this time of the year. haha. but i'd guess it'll be fun. and she's bringing me to berlin too!(:

qwerty.

i'd rather you never made that promise. because now it's so hard for me to imagine, that i've been kept from the truth the past few months. i know you meant good. but if you knew i didn't like it, why did you still do it? why didn't you even give us a chance to discuss it?

this should be deemed unsuitable on my blog. but, heck.

flying down five storeys.

yukiko
hello ziqi! haha. thanks for dropping by(:
jiabin
yeah, then maybe nobody would have to fail ever again huh.
weien
idk how it's like to be late for op. i wasn't late for mine what.

hello people. i'm leaving the house soon, not run away from house sort of leaving house, but going out. xueni's church friends organised some activity for us, at paya lebar.

ytd was 10-hour first-aid duty at the personal leadership workshop. it opened my eyes to alot of stuff, and i requested to try flying fox while i was at the rooftop tending to edmund's injury.

i spent alot of time at the edge of the wall after my harness was tied up thinking whether i should go down at all. because the distance looked scary. and after prolly half an hour, mr ang just pushed me down all of a sudden.

so off i went. the first half of it was scarier compared to the later half cuz i guess it's steeper and therefore faster. but still, thanks to all who were there, razak, xianghui, mr ang, mr choo, ms ng, wei en, and the trolley crew downstairs who waited so patiently for me, and wei ming who climbed up five storeys threatening to push me down though it was mr ang that did it in the end.

i think this is the most fun first aid duty that i've ever done.

ministry of education language centre (bishan)

well i'm sure we all have a list of stuff we hope to experience before we die. i was conjuring up mine some time back, and on my list was "get into a car accident (but without getting harmed)".
i mean like, i sure want to experience a car crash, but getting hurt just for that won't be worth it.

after my first race in sec 4 i aimed to run my first marathon by 18, but since my mom banned be from racing, i've lost all motivation to run. hence, i've postponed, not cancelled, my aim to after i'm married. then i can make my own choice and maybe my husband can run the 42.195km with me.

i don't think many of us have experienced being late for major exams, and i've always wondered what it's like for latecomers.

and for once, i tried it. i was late for my german listening yesterday.

basically, i just underestimated the time i would need to reach moelc from my house. so, i woke up at 5.30am. the exam, as stated in my entry proof, was to begin at 8am, but as all other exams, we have to report fifteen minutes earlier, which would be, in this case, 7.45am.

after getting dressed, i looked at my air-con controller clock. 6.35am. i thought i should have enough time.

then i meddled with my hair, tied it up, clipped my fringe up, redid everything because it looked horrible, and by the time i was satisfied, it was 6.43am. so i went to wear my shoes and everything, and got out of the house at 6.50-ish.

i wanted to take a bus to boon lay interchange because i was lazy to walk. luckily i had that thought. because when i saw the bus arriving and i wanted to take out my ez-link card, i realised it wasn't with me. and i needed it not only to grant me entry to public transport, it was also my identification pass for the exam.

so i went home to get it back. much more time saved then if i were to walk to boon lay and back home, then back to boon lay again.

in the end i think i still walked to the mrt station. damn fast.

the train began leaving the platform at 7.08am. i remember up to nearly every minute of every milestone of my journey, i.e. the train stations between boon lay and bishan.

it was only at 7.40 that i managed to reach raffles place to transfer to the red line. the clock in the train showed time much earlier, such that when i reached bishan at 8.03am, the clock read 7.40-ish. i was already late. i made sure that by checking everybody elses's watches on the train.

so i walked (damn fast, again) towards moelc since there wasn't any 410 in sight. i was imagining the scene when i step into the gates. i pictured the security guards chasing me out of the centre since i was late for the exam. i imagined my teacher saying, "stephanie, you were late for listening so you could not take the exam. and because of this your german paper is incomplete, so you have to take it again next year."

and the worse i thought about, the faster i walked.

i was passing by the bus stop at the mosque just next to moelc when i saw stella alight. i was delighted, that i wasn't late, alone. its always better to have somebody accompany you, whether in good times or bad.

"do you want to run to moelc?" i asked.

"ok."

then we started running. i think it was the first time that i ran to the centre in the five years that i've gone there twice a week.

we burst into the main gate, and the security guards looked quite surprised. i was bloody scared my imagination would become reality and they would chase us out.

but they didn't, they just asked us to check our classrooms to make sure we got it right. then we ran up the stairs (first time i did that as well) and there was a lady there waiting for us. an external examiner.

she directed us to the comp lab next to the one the rest were having their listening. under her instructions, we brought out our entry proofs, ic and stationery. she said, "bring in the stationery you need. no pencil cases." i thought she didn't know what pencil cases mean, since it's just normal that we bring in our stationery in them.

so i fished out, from my roxy bag, my billabong pencilcase with an aeroplane collar pin on it.

then she repeated, "no pencilcase for the exam."

i was puzzled. "but we have always brought in our pencilcases for exams!" i recalled my o level, as well as my german a's at nj.

"no, who told you?"

fine. so i took out the stuff i thought i would need and we went into the lab.

normally there will be stickers announcing our names stuck onto the table, but another lady inside just ushered us to the first two seats in the front row despite the table not being labelled with our names.

we began the exam, but they penalised us by only letting us listen to the first passage once, when we were supposed to hear it twice. thankfully that part wasn't so difficult.

but throughout the exam, at least for the first part of the exam which consisted of two different passages, i could hear stella's and my panting.

and the teacher was less than a metre away from me.

the 11th to 20th questions were open ended, and it took me up to all the three times the passage was read to answer the first question. and the last, i think. the middle questions were fine, but i thought the way i spelt "french" in german was weird.

there was a five minute pause at the end to compil our answers, and i battled through so many thoughts before deciding to change my answers for one of the questions. i was halfway throught writing my new answer, then the recorder went, "this is the end of the listening examination." and the examiner demanded that we put our pens down. so i cancelled the half of the new answer that i managed to write down.

we indicated our names and centre/index numbers on the cover of the answer booklet, and packed our stuff. stella and i were brought to the chief exminer at the conference room at the moelc staffroom (first time i've ever been there), and we were asked the reasons why we were late. both of us said we left home late.

after the chief exminer recorded everything necessary down (he had to refer to our entry proofs and ics as well), i asked him, "will anything happen to us?"

"no."

so i think both of us felt super relieved. we were given the permission to leave, then we went to the exam venue of the rest to wait for them.

boy were they surprised when they saw us outside. we shared our experience with them and walked, for the last time ever, together out of moelc. we went our separate ways. stella went home, hiren had to go back to school, christine had her h1 bio paper, darren badly needed more sleep, and the rest went to subway for breakfast while i went to wait for sebas.

my last official trip to moelc. how memorable.

pre-op illness.

i'm not feeling well. and that's not something to rejoice about when i have german a's listening tomorrow, and pw op on thursday.

listening may sound easy, but not when your cold gives you blocked ears.

and op's not good when you sound weird. and have a red nose resembling rudolf's.

deutsche welle's talking about how people have different opinions about work.

i want to watch hsm3.

department for appropriate behaviour.

i would think almost everybody has seen this "public notice" before. in the papers, at bus stops, it has infiltrated into almost every kind of mass media available in singapore. except the tv, i think.


i read it, got quite interested since there wasn't any signature of anybody, so i went online to search for (oh not for fx) the department for appropriate behaviour.

it doesn't exist. not even in wikipedia.

haha. that explains the fine print reading "advertisement" right at the bottom. clever people.

so you horny people who own cable, don't worry about ripping the moral fabric of sg apart. just go enjoy yourself. undergo californication, meet the mad men and earn the riches.

but remember, mind your morals.

HAHA.

HAHA.

today was gek poh ville cc's open house, and that's where i learn guitar, so my class had to perform an item. no wait i don't think it was compulsory. let's say, we were invited to perform.

and since my brother and i share the same guitar teacher (but he learns at another cc), the teacher invited him over to perform as well.

but he fell sick like, two days ago and today he was running a fever so he couldn't go on stage.

but that's not the point of this post. i want to share with you the on-stage experience.

so we went up on stage, around eight of us people. the environment was quite/very noisy. there was this bunch of people drumming outisde the hall, and games were held n the hall itself. our audience number was rahter measly, and they were seated like a planet away.

the first time we played (yes there is a second time), the base-player forgot which set he was supposed to play. so he tried like, three sets before he found the right one.

and since the surroundings were bloody noisy, we couldn't hear him well so it took some time for us to actually play.

and when we did start to play, we realised nothing was coming out of the speakers.

we were like, more than halfway through the first song, and i think it was then that the emcees actually realised we already started playing. she requested for us to stop and wait for the pa crew to adjust the mikes and asked us to start all over.

so men came up armed with big mikes (they were using small ones in the beginning). they added it the big mikes, and pushed the small ones nearer to us. the small mikes are for instruments amplification.

but even with maximum volume, they couldn't hear us. we continued anyway, since they've already expanded all their resources on us.

so we replayed the first song, and continued with the other two.

at the beginning of the second song, i got like, the second note wrong. and everybody stopped. but the base-player didn't know nobody was playing and he carried on doing his thing.

so i turned around and told him nobody's playing.

apparently his mike caught my voice. my mom heard me. haha.

but we replayed and got it done with then we went downstage.

our teacher wasn't very happy with the performance conditions. he was quite pissed i think.

i just thought the whole process was very funny. though there were claps at the end, i don't even think those people were listening to us. because i don't think they could hear us even. like what we do during assembly performances huh.

even my mom gave up trying to hear what we were playing and focussed on looking after my brother.

haha. i would expect the teacher to be complaining alot about the organisers the next lesson.