went to the embassy today. nothing much confirmed. managed to understand abt 70% of wat daniel thiel and stephanie fauvre said, quite bad. looks like i really have to brush up big-time. if only the words are pronounced more clearly, what with the liaisons and soft consonants, it only makes diction plus molle but comprehension plus difficile. should be leaving in early sept for lycee d'Arsonval or EPF in suburbs Paris in early Sept. french govt wld be giving me a grant on top of my allowance, which wld be gd. theres only one thing i need to settle before i can leave with a peace of mind, sadly i think the end wouldnt be gd...

everyday i have a few things i wanna blog about, but i either forget about it or didnt blog, so they are just gone with the wind like dat, such a waste. looks like my blog is gonna be damn boring, and dun get me started on the state of it. had i known the template cannot handle comments, and only looks gd but is not very functional, i wldnt have used it.

lemme see what i could recall for this whole week. did very little as usual. went to collect my translated stuff from alliance francaise, the 3 documents tt cost me $157.50. and they have mistakes!!! what the hell... in french, the nationality for a singaporean male is 'singapourien',while that for a female is 'singapourienne'. guess what the cuckoo put under my dad's nationality? SINGAPOURIENNE!!!!! tts like really horrible, and i became a female too argh... hope that the embassy would close one eye. if they expect me to redo the translation and pay for it again, they can go rot in hell.

and guess wat? my student cancelled his lessons twice this week. its already been 2 months and I havent even taught him 8 times,can u believe it? its 2 freaking months and i only taught 6 times. go figure how many times he keep postponing his lessons. besides meaning that i cant get my pay, it also means that i have to reschedule all my activities just because of him. sickening. said that he wanna study for his gce o level chinese. yeah rite. when i was away in hk he cant study, and now just 2 lessons of one and a half hr each would eat so much into his time he may not be able to finish studying for it....

and i ironed my clothes for the first time; not that i never iron before, but the last time was .... i cant remember, but i DID iron my clothes before. but this time was special. i happened to open this top cupboard that i seldom open, and i realised that i have a lot of clothes inside that were brand-new! they were bought and conveniently stored there for ages. so i found this shirt and decided to iron it so i could wear. was merrily ironing out the creases when suddenly the electricity tripped!! the whole house was plunged into darkness. u can hear literally hear the soft dying sound of electricity. i was v shocked of coz, so i went to the circuit breaker ( with the aid of streetlights outside) and turned it on. i dismissed it as nothing,but when i turned on the iron, it tripped again!!! mum scolded me, argh so freaking annoying. like its my fault. went on to nag about how i'll cope when im overseas. fair pt, but its a hit under the belt. dun need her to pre-empt bad news for me.and at last, moe replied. only a local scholarship. sigh. god, if its not your will for me to go onto a teaching path, i pray and confess favour and grace upon me in jesus' name for my studies in france. haiz... to have put so much hope into it, only to have it dashed. the feeling's indescribable. shall not tok abt it further.

on a happier note, GSS has started. went shopping with mum on one nite. quite a fruitful trip. managed to cajole her to buy for me clothes haha, i dun need to spend a cent!! and went to crystal jade, taiwan shihlin eatery and tong heng confectionery and bought a lot of food from all 3. stupid bro only knows how to comment how greeedy i am, yet he still eat quite a bit of it. bah... hopefully will be able to buy lotsa nice clothes at decent prices. have walked around already,but its either off-budget or it doesnt catch my eye at all. looks like i'll have to loosen my purse strings a little more or settle for stuff thats more ordinary. time to watch sex and e city, woohoo,20 hrs of it and 3 thick books waiting to be read, shall be quite occupied this week.

yawn, shall stop here. may tomorrow be a gd day.

can anyone help me with the comments bit here? argh i dunno how to go about enabling comments to be posted!!!! *pulls out hair*

i realised that everytime i begin to blog its already at least 1 plus in the morning, thus i'd be too tired to blog properly; even tho i always tell myself earlier that i wld do a proper entry. tonite's one would be another slip-shot one haha ,am simply too tired for words.

The Seven Deadly Sins

Pride-checked
Envy-checked, checked
Anger-checked, checked,checked
Sloth-checked
Greed-checked,checked
Gluttony-checked 5X
Lust-checked,checked

eeks,i think i'm most guilty of gluttony out of all the 7 sins. realised that i'm gonna tip the scales at 58 kg very soon if i dun curb my food intake. last last fri just went to four seasons hotel for a dinner buffet to celebrate faliq's birthday, ate till i was in such great discomfort i had to sit in the hotel lobby for half an hour. overstuffed myself that it took me 3 hours before i felt normal. was a vicious cycle of bloatedness and thirst, drinking water to quench it only served to swell me up further... horrible.in the end had to take a taxi home, dun think could survive a bus ride. the following week in hk wasnt much better, poultry meat was amazingly fat, ate fast food, dim sum and a lot more. and i went for jianyu's birthday celebration just now.

jianyu happy 21st birthday!!! i have no idea the party would be that huge. its really amazing that there were so many people- pri sch, sec sch, jc, basketball ppl, army ppl, family, wah, i think got around 100 ppl. and the cake was the best, its the largest cake i've ever seen in real life!! haha its about 1m in diameter i guess? managed to catch up with daryl, who was from my bmt section. realised that the scouties dun meet up so often as much as the signalers, as such they seem to have a lot of catch up on, and its quite fun seeing them getting along fine and dandy. sets me thinking a lot about my own platoon and my own bday celebration, assuming that i even have one considering that i'd prob have to celebrate it at least 1 month in advance which makes it lose its significance. i used to think that 21st birthdays are just over-commercialised and over-hyped like valentine's day, but somehow tonite has changed my mindset slightly. the 21st birthday does seem like an important milestone that marks the transition from adolescence to adulthood, and celebrating it gives one a good opportunity to gather friends and family together for a big makan session, not forgetting the ang pows and presents and food and cock-talking. nonetheless, i also feel that its just another ordinary birthday, and i dun think i can handle all the attention, it would be quite unbearable.

and there comes the question of who to invite, and surely there would be some that u have to call as well simply out of courtesy. had there be a day in my life where candour is given free reign, i would probably offend a lot of people out there,but thats not the point. seems that it simply would not do to invite only those you feel like inviting isnt it? firstly if u only include those close friends, it somehow doesnt feel very proper number-wise, but if u extend the circle of invitation, there comes the problem of having the entertain all of them, which would be difficult. haiz, seems like im complicating matters for nothing.its not as if im gonna celeb it or what, but i still cant help but fantasise abt it.quite interesting haha.think i shall just take things as they come. and i need to upload the hk pics soon, but must find the drive ( in me) to do so. hope to be able to recall what i did in HK and shenzhen. learnt that some revelations are better left unknown at times, they only make me so sad i cant seem to pick myself up.

went to paragon for a medical check-up yesterday. quite weird that i have to go twice considering that i've already gone for it once when DSTA told me to 2 years ago. anyhow, i drank a lot of water on the bus and was thus quite urgent when i reached the centre. Was 'detoxing' myself when i suddenly remembered that there's bound to be a urine test later. not wanting to repeat the incident 2 yrs ago when something similar happened, ( i was urgent back then too and felt immense relief at the discharging of my load, only to be told at the counter later that the first thing i had to do was a urine test. i had to drink almost a whole bottle of water and pace about non-stop in the cubicle for abt 20 mins, all the while thinking of gushing waterfalls and willing myself to pee before succeeding.) i immediately stemmed the flow. thank goodness i was right to do so, haha, felt quite smug then,but striked me as silly now. the whole appointment was a waste of time, nothing much was done, just a few questions asked and a form to be filled in, a few cursory stethoscopic readings and i was done.

had to take an x-ray too. and i proceeded to a radiologic centre to have it done. seems that the clinic specialises in doing mammograms, since the full name of the clinic,which had the words ' breast- imaging' was clearly embossed on the wall. as i was having the x-ray done, i wondered what it must have felt for women to undergo such 'examinations'. the feeling of having your mammary organs clamped between cold metal and the sense of foreboding that comes with it must be quite unbearable, and on top of they have to do pap-smears, which sound really painful.
being male is so much easier indeed... tho with it come certain cons as well.

i still need to apply for ISIC,exit permit, chase the people for my university acceptance letter and settle a lot of other stuff sigh... am wondering why im not feeling excited abt it at all; reality has finally hit home that i'll be away 3-4 months later, and thats how freaking fast... im not ready to leave everything and everyone behind sigh... my family,friends and food... the 3Fs of my life!!

I finally got down to settling my university stuff. And its really quite a hassle. Have to get the documents translated into french, and that alone would cost me about $100 at least, I'd better be able to claim it from DSTA, 100 bucks is no small sum... On top of that, I have to arrange for an appointment at the french embassy to discuss which lycee I wanna attend,and the particular combination I would like to take for prepa. Hopefully I would be able to be in Paris and attend one of the private lycees there. Facilities would be gd for sure and on top of that there would be l'internat, meaning that I would not have to seek lodging outside campus, which would be a load off my mind. Then again, I may not have much say in the choices made. Am still feeling quite sore over not being able to go to UK and study Chem with Maths at UCL. It would have been so much easier, studying something that I like in English, and going on to do something at which I'm able to apply myself more effectively. Perhaps I'm too easily daunted at the prospect of studying everything in french, but I really cant help but worry about all the technical terms in engineering... *shudders* Lets just hope that everything falls nicely into place.

On a lighter note, I did some very good reading today. Do you people remember the PETS English textbook in pri sch? the ones with some rabbit/squirrel on the cover and some very interesting stories inside? There was this story about this girl who had to sew 6 shirts using nettles and use them to save her 6 swan brothers in order to lift a curse rite? the book I read today was the fully unabridged version, titled Daughter of the Forest. The fable ambled along fairly well till I read the part when the girl matured. Maybe I'm used to squeaky-clean fairy tales but I've never read about menstruation and rape scenes before. Haha,quite shocked by it, but still a good read nonetheless. Hope to finish it asap, am going to be busy in the next few weeks sigh...

Sigh... Am in a fix right now. Life sucks, everything never ever seems to go right... There's nothing it seems that can alleviate the situation in any way. Whatever I do, I reach a cul-de-sac. FUCK man!!!!!!!!!! Why does nothing ever go smoothly? Am I holding onto something that promises but never delivers?

Olympiades Francophones
SEAMEO-France

Les Olympiades francophones ont vu le jour en 2003, a l'occasion du 10 eme anniversaire de la cooperation de la France avec la SEAMEO, l'organisation regroupant les ministeres de l'education des pays d'Asie du Sud Est.

Organise pour la troisieme annee consecutive, le concours des Olympiades francophones reunira cette annee deux participants ages de 15 a 19 ans, orginaires de chaque pays membre de la SEAMEO. Cette troisieme session reaffirme la volonte de donner a ces jeunes etudiants l'opportunite de se rencontrer, de mettre en pratique et de partager leurs connaissances de la langue francaise. Ils temoignent ainsi de la realite d'une francophonie jeune et active en Asie.

Pour la premiere fois, ces participants, deja vainqueurs d'une preselection dans leur pays respectif, concourent pour une recompense prestigieuse: le gagnant se rendra en France- a Paris et en Avignon!- pour y effectuer un sejour culturel et linguistique de haut niveau au mois de juillet 2005, dans le cadre du programme organise par le Ministere des Affaores Etrangeres francais.

Le deroulement est separee dans 3 parties. Nous pouvons seulement regarder le representation theatrale le vendredi soir. C'est assez amusant et pour moi, je peux finalement practiquer ma francais, sans succes bien sur haha. J'ai fait un blaque de moi-meme quand j'ai rencontre mon professeur francais de VJC; il m'a demande quelque questions mais je ne les ai comprendu pas oops. Neanmoins, je continue.

4 etudiants representant chacun un pays different ont constitue une equipe pour preparer une courte piece de theatre pendant toute la semaine. Ils presentent ce soir- la le resultat de ce travail.Cette piece doit etre de tonalite comique et durer de 8 a 15 minutes.

Favorisant la cohesion du groupe, cette activite cree un environnement dans lequel les candidats vont devoir travailler ensemble et exploiter les competences de chacun tout en s'entrainant a l'oral. Enfin, elle donne un role plus actif aux professeurs accompagnateurs.

I went to RELC last friday to watch the finals of the french-speaking competition. It was the 10th anniversary of the SEAMEO ( Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation) - France cooperation, and this is the 3rd time the competition's held in Singapore. The contestants were really strong, and they speak in such rapid torrential french that I cant catch anything. Not very comforting exactly, considering that I may be heading to France if MOE's reply is negative. Anyhow, I quite enjoyed myself that night. There was this guy from Thailand who's really effeminate, and I had a lot of fun guffawing at his antics. Predisposition to becoming a strong contender for Miss Tiffany 2005, Thailand. haha. The winner of the competition was this Vietnamese girl called Phuong. She's really pretty and she got a good role in the play-acting, so little wonder why she got it. And I realise Laos gals are really gorgeous ( are the citizens of Laos called Laotian? haha) , they have clear luminous skin, big eyes and in general very good features. Perhaps I'm generalising as theres only 2 representatives from every SEA country, but the rest of the girls are quite CMI-type.

And yes, the refreshments. I heard rumours that french foodfare would be served. What a major let-down. Not that I'm so terribly greedy,but you must admit that refreshments, and paticularly french food would be very enticing, no? So I just had the usual pastries, curry puffs and samosas and fruit punch. Chey... Went home with a load of french books that are given free. Very very cheem stuff. My interest completely died when I flipped through them. Roles of females versus males in Southeast Asian Societies. Critics on contemporary french movies. Technological advances in the last decade. You get my drift. Dry boring stuff that would probably make me hate french instead. Shall just content with revising my grammar and building on my vocabulary then.

These last three days have been extremly well-spent haha, never had such a fulfilling and meaningful time for a few weeks. good for my soul, and my stomach too. am so tired... shall blog tomorrow. sigh, after such peak periods, its inevitable that the off-peak periods will cause me to be in the doldrums. yawn, time to hit the sack...