im finally back in spore! was quite happy to return, though e short-lived excitement only set in e night before e flight. was quite sad to leave france as e southern france trip was incredibly fun, all thanks to the ' big catastrophic ' company heh, and also becoz it's destabilising to know that i wldnt be speaking french for e coming 8 wks (which isnt gonna bode v well for me since i'll be dealing with some dreary karl marx text for philo next yr BOO HOO), not to mention the fact that T will not be in france come next acad yr. nonetheless, im glad as ive scaled an all-new apogee by talking lotsa cock in french for hours on end during e trip. hah, it feels different to talk cock in different languages, and there's an extra kick i get out of finding e right equivalent expression. btw, im keeping my fingers crossed that i'll be able to get my return SIA flight back to paris. called to book one month ago yet all the flights for that period are already fully booked. thats a whole 3 months in advance and apparently its still not early enough.TSK. anw, e reason why im so hard-up to fly with SIA is that her bevy of new boeing 777-300 ERs is just like WOAAH!! e seat pitch and width, e space in e toilet, and e kickass wide screens!! WAH! and as i always try to, and usually manage to get seats beside the emergency exits, i can spread and move my legs like no one's business. if not for the unusually nondescript movies available onboard this time round, i think i wld have been much better entertained. and oh, those ppl flying raffles and business cls ought to help us economic ppl by sending feedback that its high time to change the menu across the board. its still e same since last summer.

e sporean furnace heat is just enervating beyond words, and it totally kills whatever joy there is to have over food and going out. have been dripping like a salty faucet whenever im out of the blowing range of an aircon/fan, and tts making me lazy to go out. even stoning seems like a hot, sweaty and sticky affair now. hmm.. anw its time for supper and some entertainment, but first, a shower.

p/s: a few words of gratitude for divine intervention in:

1) academics, for allowing me to do surprisingly well, very well indeed; though greedy me was still crestfallen at first at the partiality practised.

2) my social sphere, for allowing me to foster some very nice friendships in and outside of school, e former of which i couldnt even remotely imagine at the very beginning, so much so that i was kinda shocked when i felt sharp pangs of loss when school ended, and the sweet relief tt flooded thru me when i knew that at least some of the ones i hang out with are streamed into the same class as me next year. as for those i love hanging out with on wkends, they are beyond awesome.

Also, i must thank God for:

3)my over-hearty appetite haha, and my ability to lose weight quickly, and sadly, gain it back just as quickly. FOR, in just a span of 10 hours after touching down, ive wolfed down food sufficient for 2 ppl for a day. going at this rate, id be.. i dun wanna imagine.

4)my immunity to jetlag and getting drunk; for as such, i can play to e max!

5)my friends, esp those who care!!

6)last but not least, my family. for e gd-intentioned nagging and the sibling bickering tt helps sharpen my wit. and also for e macau/china/hk trip next wk, yippee!!! portuguese egg tarts and dimsum and shopping!!

i realised i left my uob mini-debit card back in france , and ive forgotten my PINs for my two spore cards YET AGAIN after 10 months of not using it. GREAT.

into the shower.

(caution: verbal diarrhoea ahead)

hey guys!

im finally back after a long absence! and with good news too: im done with my offical last paper today!!! OMG can u sense my blardy excitement? its not even bubbling within me, it's overflowed and making me so thrilled im smiling nonstop as im typing this. after taking 27 exams this whole year, excluding lab tests, programming tests and bi-weekly oral tests, im finally done!!!! well, almost at least. that annoying cunt of a math prof of mine decided to have another paper the following monday, so thats freaking annoying. thats what u get when u have a young prof thats full of verve- plenty of assignments, and notes littered with ridiculous words like 'powerful' and 'handsome' and 'meditation'. powerful formulae yes, but 'de beaux théorèmes' and 'méditer sur les corollaires suivants' just made me roll my eyes. anyway i doubt id have the time to study for that stupid paper as i will return from brittany with my cls on friday, so screw it. anyway im so delirious with joy right now i decided to post the above pic that i took last year when i went to disneyland. its so befitting of my mood right now: cranky, high on nothing in particular and positively spastic.

just went out to paris just now, and forgot that i had a zone 2-3 pass that doesnt allow me to travel in zone 1 on wkdays. as a result, i got caught and kenna a huge 45-euro fine from those freaking two-bit bastards of a train conductor that gave me a long spiel about cheating. i tried pleading for amnesty at first, but seeing that they took great pleasure in fining poor souls like me, i adopted a rude and curt tone. oh my heart bleeds over the 45 euros =( its so painful!! but owell, its an expensive lesson learnt.

and yes, before i forget, my new spore hp no is: 90817364. so pls sms/call me at that no. from 28th jun onwards =) i will only be back for about 8 weeks, so for those who bother, mutually speaking of coz, let's meet up. anyway, isnt my new no. so easy to rem? 9=0+8+1 and 7+3=6+4=10. ok, lame math humour aside, lets engage in some philosophy. i just got to know of the theme for the philosophy syllabus next year: l'histoire de pensée. OH MY GAWD, if this year's power of imagination is bad enough, i cant imagine how 'the history of thoughts/thinking' is gonna be like. now, philo cum history to me is like oil and water, and never the twain shall meet. worse, i once read some prof of philo mentioning succinctly: 'la philosophie est à la mode', which means "philo is the 'in' thing." *vomits blood*

now, what could be more quintessentially eurotrash than a philosophical debate, in english, in a french café? esp when its the café de flore, home to existential tourism and e most exp chocolat chaud on the left bank. here, in this cradle of pretentious glittery, paris's finest expat thinkers meet once a month to dissect topics such as : does fate exist? is maturity necessary? as well as completely mind-boggling qns like 'are beliefs borne out of e limitations of our intelligence?. was researching online desperately for help in my philo dissertations about 2 mths ago, and chanced upon the philo paper for the bacalauréat exams ( e equiv. of our A levels). scary. is the value of a theory dependent on its practical efficacy? is man by nature neither morally good or bad? can u describe an act as inhuman? these questions deflate me in a nano-second, and yet, apparently the average 17-yr old can answer these with reference to comte, hegal, kant or aristotle rather than say, natalie imbruglia. so where does e french adolescent get to grips with great minds? im telling u its in the VOGUE magazine. lol, kiddin. but yea, for e uninitiated, i heard VOGUE has a monthly philo page (OMG wat on earth is it doing in a fashion spread?!?!?), proving high heels and dapper suits dun mean low intelligence. he/she may look like a fashion victim, but inside, the VOGUE reader is perhaps wondering 'what gender is la philo? male or female??'. it seems the qn remains as difficult as defining e sex of angels.

btw, i just bought a baguette last sun for bfast this wk. u know, this is my very first time buying a baguette for bfast, as im usually v lazy and just eat cereals/ bread/ madeleines/ pastries/ muffins blah blah, and i finish eating in less than 5 mins so i can chop chop wash up and run to catch e bus. usually i cant be bothered to tear the baguette apart into smaller bite-size pieces and worse, risk leaving crumbs all over the table which wld then mean i have to wipe up. im just lazy beyond redemption. but, i finally gave in to temptation as i melted in front of the boulangerie last sun, e fragrance that wafted in the air being too strong for me to resist. and so i bought 1 whole baguette, and had it sliced into half so that its easier to bring home. gosh, they dun give proper bags, and just wrap it around e middle with a miserable piece of paper. what if people around me cough and sneeze how? all e germs and bacteria in e air will infect it. then if it accidentally brush against smth how?? so wasted to cut and throw that portion away. anyway, the baguette was good only for monday! its initially delicious, but i think at the end of the day, it develops a granite-like resistance to a knife. it reminds me of that roald dahl story where a wife kills her errant husband with the frozen sunday joint, and then cooks the blunt instrument and serves it to e investigating policemen. my 1-day old baguette was equally promising. and on e topic of food, ive decided that im not a glutton, nor a gourmet, but a gastrophilosophe! haha, doesnt it sound so regal? anw, a fren once mentioned that e essence of every french resto is to be found in its crème brûlée. if e dessert is eggy and soggy, e top not suff. caramelised and crunchy, then e entire establishment has failed in his books. i think i have to concur partially as i personally value the main dish more, and besides, crème brûlée is but one of the various desserts available. anw, i eat lunch in sch everyday and have lighted upon gd desserts and puked at the dégueulasse ones. this tues, my over-ambitious kitchen staff has decided to be adventurous and embarked on a quest to make crème brûlée, all at e expense of us victims. they shld have just bought those readily available off-shelf, and thus spare my taste buds the torture of eating some weird curdly mix with inconsistent texture. ive eaten tis dessert about say 30 over times, and have come to e conclusion that e version in a wide dish with more surface area, which thus improves e ratio of crisp top to cream, is e best. =) u guys shld certainly try it, and e desserts as well!

today, my prof was dressed in a polo-tee and jeans. one of my classmates was decked out in a suit, replete with leather shoes and briefcase. i cant stand that siao ding dong, who is always so extra, overdressed and over-expansive with his gestures. anyway, after i blogged in my last post abt summer coming early, i had to eat my words; coz the weather turned really grey and cold for about 3-4 weeks following that. it was awful, and e sun only came back since last wk, and in full force tis time. as a result, in e poorly ventilated classroom this morn, where e heat was starting to get soporific, mr flamboyant decided to lay his head down on the table and got promptly told off by the prof. HAHAHAHA. its so evil of me, but i thought he deserved it. luckily, not all of my classmates dress like that, else id def be the worst-dressed in cls. ive a sneaking suspicion that some dress mostly from kind donations, and the occasional Gap sale, which in itself is perfectly fine, but not when they look like rappers and junkies just released from prison. tsk, what is this attitude man? it doesnt conform to the cross-Channel snobbery that ive read about at all! when i first came to france, i thought i wld nv make the social and sartorial grade in paris. but thank god for the somewhat numerous guys in sch that dress as if they have a wardrobe time-table, or better still, dress as if their ensemble du jour is their mandatory uniform for school whole year round (read:they dun change clothes at all). thankfully im in e suburbs, as if i were studying in paris itself, id prob think twice about re-wearing a pair of jeans to sch. on sundays in jardin du luxembourg ( the luxembourg gardens in paris), after an enormous family lunch, parisians parade their children there in outfits the british wld reserve for weddings and funerals; in summer there are sailor suits, in winter wool coats with velvet collars and shoes designed for dancing, not playing. ok i made that british part up.

gah, my hair's long dry by now, so i shall stop here, tho its kinda abrupt. till when im back in spore.