14 - Always Onz: 04/27/2003

Saturday, May 03, 2003

hey,

so much for s.a.t on sat :) so mentally tortuous.

i think johnny makes a very good commentary writer, and tong kai too. the former evokes and the latter provokes. other names are not included in regards to commentary praise because not much has been written by anyone else that aspires to similar genres, and not due to poor recognition.

who's Natsumi Shizuka? is it jane?

chess chess chess chess chess :) one day i'd win games :)

Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountains, like a wind in the meadow,
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow,
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?

To make my little contribution to the inundation of the class blog by poetry over the past few days....This is a favourite from the Lord of the Rings. This is supposedly written by "a long forgotten poet in Rohan"....

Friday, May 02, 2003

What a labyrinth of educational choices! Certainly it does not whet the appetites of the more conservative Singaporean parents.

Of course, none of these changes would affect me. However, I will be stuck in an identity crisis as I return to collect my “A” Levels results in the all so familiar botak head plus green uniform. Simply because all around me, there will be no mention of any junior college called HCJC – which I was in – and I will be seeing my juniors in The Chinese High uniform and calling themselves “Hwa Chong”. When I apply for a scholarship, will anyone be able to understand ”Hwa Chong Junior College” in the “Highest Institution Attended”? It is particularly traumatic for a person like me so sunk into nostalgia (who still insists on using those plastic partitioned plates with cartoons on them for my meals) to wake up one day and realize that your past has been erased. It seems to be a bad episode taken out from an Arnold Schwazzeneger flick.

In the end, I will be a sacrificial victim among many others, when remnants of our past can only be found – in the past. The building may be there but it has taken on a whole new image. That makes it no different from demolishing it, and perhaps set up a little plaque on the same site in a few years to commemorate its existence. But alas, I am only a small force to stop the big wheel of development destroying everything in its way based on my own emotional sentiments. Perhaps the through-train system does have its merits.

But one interesting point to note in this merger is the need to integrate other races more effectively but a more pressing issue is perhaps to get more females interested in the idea of coming to this new institution, which looks set to be more dominated by The Chinese High boys after 2005. After all, Hwa Chong Junior College has been gradually growing to be a cosmopolitan society but this change may cause it to take a step back.

Nostalgia, coming before it should even come.

[Pg 2]

The 30 Year Crisis
As Hwa Chong Junior College celebrates 30 years of establishment in 2004, it is ironically celebrating its last, with the merger with The Chinese High School in the pipeline.

Nostalgia.

It’s a terrible feeling to know that you will be leaving a college which holds so much memories in 2 years’ times, only to return in a month to find it completely transformed. Come 2005, and hail to communism, the fundamental value of The Chinese High School touted by alumni in khaki shorts. Hwa Chong’s impending merger with them will be bringing so many reforms – that she can be considered as dead rather than regenerated.

Yellow tee-shirts and red shorts?

But fashion will not be the highlight when the Upper Sec and JC Educational Review findings raze down the old rote-learning habits and the exam centralized educational system. It is the initial results of the through-train system that will be taking up most of the press space. Nonetheless, there is never a 100% perfect and satisfied education system – we have changed it again and again; the last major one being 1979, with Goh Keng Swee’s controversial introduction of SAP among many others. Thus, the through-train system will have bound to throw up more personal, administration and even social problems.

One can be a Rafflesian, Hwa Chongian, Anglo Chinese boys for his entire educational career unless they desire to leave their comfort zones. The through train system has been recognized as being the new direction for GEP-potential students to essentially cope with more difficult syllabi at a younger age. This will only bring about the problem of lesser interaction between elites since the Gifted Education Branch, the glue to all gifted students, would be dissolved. Thus the idea of loyalty to his school will be even stronger. Furthermore, this will also contradict the idea of meritocracy in the educational system even more because a student from a primary or secondary school not part of this family of institutions would find fewer benefits to join in face of a mountain of privileges awaiting those who are. This is where the National Junior College through train system comes in to save students of neither families in the name of pure meritocracy. Then there are some schools who insist that they will offer the traditional way – 4 years of “O” levels and then you will be booted to a junior college to complete the “A” Level courses.

[Pg 1]

Haha. In rgs we had weeding for dc too (although being the smooth talker i can be, i talked my way out of all the dc's i got put down for for 4 years... only got caught once, so i haven't actually done it). well what my classmates did was fill the necessary trash bag full of sand and stones and put a handful of weeds on the top to create the illusion of actually having done DC, then scooted off.

The security guard who is chief suspect for the tip-off really has a problem... he refused to let me into the humanz room to take out my bro's laptop, thus incuring his wrath (on me) for yet another day. i mean, did i look like i was about to haul off somebody else's laptop? hell, i even told him i could show him i knew the password. grr. so watch out for him...

oh yeah, regarding x-men: jean did what she did because she couldn't help the plane lift off from inside it; professor x couldn't do the lifting cos according to andre, who knows a lot more about x-men than the rest of us apparently, is telepathic but not telekinetic; jean is telekinetic. yay!

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

according to 15's blog, OUR blog is flooded with "amazingly intellectual stuff"! haha...they obviously haven't been reading your entries, melissa (now take THAT with a pinch of salt :P)

sigh...don't ask me why i'm up so early. my guess is that it's because i didn't have dinner so my stomach was growling all night long. stupid stomach. hmph. but i had a really filling lunch in the afternoon at around 3pm plus what?! sigh...aniway to all goin for the "class" outing (but it rarely ever is substantially enough to be one) seeya all later. x-men2 won't disappoint i'm quite sure of it.
guys(and gals), do u all miss your sec sch classmates? i know i do, which is why i appreciate that so many of them are still around me(ie. same school hcjc) right now. cause i don't think i'll eva wanna 4get them. wait, don't get me wrong. i love u guyz too. but my class in sec sch was very well-bonded(pun fully intended) as well.

re: Poem "The Social Plan"
What a cynical poem. The social activist/politician is despised for his "obsession" with the Social Plan.

Heh. I think it reminded Barnard of himself. He's probably reminded of his Old-Labour sympathies (not sure whether I observed correctly...).
__________________
Too much heat, too much work

It's the fourteenth of August, and I'm too hot
To endure food, or bed. Steam and the fear of scorpions
Keep me awake. I'm told the heat won't fade with Autumn.

Swarms of flies arrive. I'm roped into my clothes.
In another moment I'll scream down the office
As the paper mountains rise higher on my desk.

O those real mountains to the south of here!
I gaze at the ravines kept cool by pines.
If I could walk on ice, with my feet bare!
- Du Fu (8th century AD)

It's surprising how some problems never go away despite technological innovations.

ah, this is the poem i sent barnard. nothing scandalous, as you can see...*ahem* don't you think it's awfully cute? nearly perfect rhyme, too.

The Social Plan
I know a very tiresome Man
Who keeps on saying, "Social Plan."
At every Dinner, every Talk
Where Men foregather, eat or walk,
No matter where, -- this Awful Man
Brings on his goddam Social Plan.

The Fall in Wheat, the Rise in Bread,
The social Breakers dead ahead,
The Economic Paradox
That drives the Nation on the rocks,
The Wheels that false Abundance clogs --
And frightens us from raising Hogs, --
This dreary field, the Gloomy Man
Surveys and hiccoughs, Social Plan.

Till simpler Men begin to find
His croaking aggravates their mind,
And makes them anxious to avoid
All mention of the Unemployed,
And leads them even to abhor
The People called Deserving Poor.
For me, my sympathies now pass
To the poor Plutocratic Class.
The Crowd that now appeals to me
Is what he calls the Bourgeoisie.

So I have got a Social Plan
To take him by the Neck,
And lock him in a Luggage van
And tie on it a check,
Marked MOSCOW VIA TURKESTAN,
Now, how's that for a Social Plan?
- Stephen Leacock

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

kaisiang: a pictorial representation of your quote

Interview day today. Wasn't that fantastic or great or anything but I think (or rather I hope) I didn't screw it up. They asked me all sorts of politically loaded questions like how Bush Jr compares to Clinton and what I think of Lee Kuan Yew after reading his memoirs. Hhhmmm. Maybe I'm quite screwed after all. But truth be told, today's panel was really kind. And Mr. Ang just kept nodding his head and smiling most beneficently. Although the way he asked his questions.....Well you know. I didn't get all of what he meant on his first attempt.

I don't think Hector looks very nice (like the way he was described) being dragged around, bouncing on the ground behind a chariot. Hhmm. But then writers never let little things like the truth get in the way of nice words or a good story. But then again, neither do historians, to be honest. Historians can be great liars or are highly biased. So they are story tellers too! :) hahahaha. Anyway, I'm just being lame. Lalala.

It rained most heavily today. I like rain.

Monday, April 28, 2003

(since we're so hot about big cats)

Pursuit
Sylvia Plath

Dans le fond des forêts votre image me suit.
RACINE

There is a panther stalks me down:
One day I'll have my death of him;
His greed has set the woods aflame,
He prowls more lordly than the sun.
Most soft, most suavely glides that step,
Advancing always at my back;
From gaunt hemlock, rooks croak havoc:
The hunt is on, and sprung the trap.
Flayed by thorns I trek the rocks,
Haggard through the hot white noon.
Along red network of his veins
What fires run, what craving wakes?

Insatiate, he ransacks the land
Condemned by our ancestral fault,
Crying: blood, let blood be spilt;
Meat must glut his mouth's raw wound.
Keen the rending teeth and sweet
The singeing fury of his fur;
His kisses parch, each paw's a briar,
Doom consummates that appetite.
In the wake of this fierce cat,
Kindled like torches for his joy,
Charred and ravened women lie,
Become his starving body's bait.

Now hills hatch menace, spawning shade;
Midnight cloaks the sultry grove;
The black marauder, hauled by love
On fluent haunches, keeps my speed.
Behind snarled thickets of my eyes
Lurks the lithe one; in dreams' ambush
Bright those claws that mar the flesh
And hungry, hungry, those taut thighs.
His ardor snares me, lights the trees,
And I run flaring in my skin;
What lull, what cool can lap me in
When burns and brands that yellow gaze?

I hurl my heart to halt his pace,
To quench his thirst I squander blook;
He eats, and still his need seeks food,
Compels a total sacrifice.
His voice waylays me, spells a trance,
The gutted forest falls to ash;
Appalled by secret want, I rush
From such assault of radiance.
Entering the tower of my fears,
I shut my doors on that dark guilt,
I bolt the door, each door I bolt.
Blood quickens, gonging in my ears:

The panther's tread is on the stairs,
Coming up and up the stairs.

'Ballad of Hector in Hades'

Yes, this is where I stood that day,
Beside this sunny mound.
The walls of Troy are far away,
And outward comes no sound.

I wait. On all the empty plain
A burnished stillness lies,
Save for the chariot's tinkling hum,
And a few distant cries.

His helmet glitters near. The world
Slowly turns around,
With some new sleight compels my feet
From the fighting ground.

I run. If I turn back again
The earth must turn with me,
The mountains planted on the plain,
The sky clamped to the sea.

The grasses puff a little dust
Where my footsteps fall.
I cast a shadow as I pass
The little wayside wall.

The strip of grass on either hand
Sparkles in the light;
I only see that little space
To the left and to the right,

And in that space our shadows run,
His shadow there and mine,
The little flowers, the tiny mounds,
The grasses frail and fine.

But narrower still and narrower!
My course is shrunk and small,
Yet vast as in a deadly dream,
And faint the Trojan wall.
The sun up in the towering sky
Turns like a spinning ball.

The sky with all its clustered eyes
Grows still with watching me,
The flowers, the mounds, the flaunting weeds
Wheel slowly round to see.

Two shadows racing on the grass,
Silent and so near,
Until his shadow falls on mine.
And I am rid of fear.

The race is ended. Far away
I hang and do not care,
While round bright Troy Achilles whirls
A corpse with streaming hair.

-- Edwin Muir
from First Poems (1925)

such, such a beautiful ending.

"follow the trend!
be unconventional!"

hello peoples #:o) my life is quite, to quote miles (the authentic one), shambolic! just realised i missed that museum trip (was there a notice?) bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter. now it's off my chest (the authentic one). elated though that i'm not in cheerleading anymore #:o) was conscripted but happily forgotten. yuejer: i'm in afghanistan! is that how you spell it? does that show how far i've done my research #:o) when are we presenting?

judith: "that" "poem" "is" nothing "compared" "to" "what" "i" "am" "going" "to" "paste" "now". (nothing has no quotation marks for existentialist purposes

hrm.. just noticed andre's german poem, and it reminded me of this one by ted hughes which i think was in O level lit last year. it's so much of a contrast it might even be a response.. you think?

The Jaguar
The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion

Lie still as the sun. The boa constrictor's coil
Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.
It might be painted on a nursery wall.

But who runs like the rest past these arrives
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized,
As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes

On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom -
The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear -
He spins from the bars, but there's no cage to him

More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.

Ted Hughes

Sunday, April 27, 2003

haha, open mouth, insert foot.

ahh hacas field trip... the tour was useless except maybe if you want a nice view of the top of the national museum.. oh well but it was kind of fun anyway. it is e e cummings time!

Song V
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.

Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.

Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.

Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.

Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.

Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.

Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.

Paler be they than daunting death
the sleep slim deer
the tall tense deer.

Four tall stags at a green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.

isn't it incredibly beautiful? i especially love the alliteration in "the lean lithe deer/ the fleet flown deer." and the lines of "tadumtadum before". mmm.

14 - Always Onz