another post from dearoldlove.tumblr.com (thanks to pak for the recommendation). looking at the picture brings back such memories, truly. the feelings were so yesterday but i guess some memories stick with you for a while. i should be sleeping actually. need to do some major spamming tomorrow, 1.5 weeks left and i'm still feeling unprepared WHY IS THIS SO.

koped off nush's friends-only lj blog. A Levels is killing me, omg. and i'm not bloody getting anywhere with anything and it's demoralising me. ate a whole bag of cookies today though.

i hate falling sick. and it's not like i've been pushing that hard or being that productive enough for my body's limits to be reached or anything. i suspect that i'm worrying too much and that's probably taking a toll on me mentally. sigh. okay time for a nice song before i head back to geogifying myself dead.

will i be there when you call me in the middle of the night?
will i keep the rain from falling down into your light?
i promise, i promise
i promise i will

(this song sounds best when it's blasting into your ears via earphones instead of via laptop speakers. this is a proven fact.)

this is because teasing angsty liverpool fans is good for my soul (:
now time for man utd to win on sunday!

i realise that levu tends to call me at the strangest and most inopportune moments to get me to look through his college essays and whatnot. allow me to give two examples as substantiation.

incident one
levu: hi tiff!
me: hey levu, whats up?
levu: where are you?
me: ...i'm in the dressing room trying on clothes, if you really must know.

incident two (which just happened)
levu: hi tiff, are you free now?
me (garbled): can you call me back five minutes from now? i'm brushing my teeth.

...i don't know why his timing is so strange hahahaha. but it does allow me to have a few giggles at that boy (:

Bold what you've read. If you've read more than 6 then you're good, according to the BBC. (i think either the BBC is trying to make people feel good about themselves or someone's making this up. these are classics! shouldn't most people have read them?)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth.
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

55 out of a 100. i ought to be ashamed of myself, some lit student i am hahahaha.

well i figured i could never stop being amazed at the kooky things my brother does, and evidently i was right. nothing quite like trotting out of my room to the dulcet tones of the love story/viva la vida acoustic mix blasting from the living room and discovering my brother with his arm submerged in a bucket of ice water. for half an hour. per arm.

after some explanation, i gathered that its apparently for healing properties, some sort of blood flow thingum thing which sounds pretty cool but not something which i would ever subject myself to. he then proceeded to grab my thigh with his ice cold hand while making GRAAH/RAWR noises. needless to say, i squealed.

okay i'm gonna head to bed now, econs consult today was demoralising but i know i have to pick myself up and do some shit about it dammit.

okay read this for a laugh and for a break from the shock/horror that is the A Levels! :D

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.

These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners...

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was
room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p. M. Instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p. M. Traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 P.M. At a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

He's Not Into You…So Why Are You Into Him? <-- click this.
(Why some women chase men who exhibit all the red-flag universal signs of not being all that interested)

yes random article that popped up on msn.com, and i figured it was worth a post on my blog because at this young age i think quite a lot of girls tend to delude themselves about certain things and maybe they ought to realise the warning signals and let go before they waste too much time. don't hold on to someone who won't hold on to you!

okay back to work (:

tons of things to do and not near enough time to do them. three weeks til hell begins, here we go. its pretty disgusting considering the fact that i'm nowhere near prepped for any of my five subjects. i'm sort of having 'omg' moments for lit, and geog i haven't finished mugging the syllabus, math its just gonna be crazy whacking of papers from here on out, econs its well...always worrying, and gp is never stable cuz if the essay questions come out screwy then i'm screwed!

this is no time for complacency, srsly. by today i have to finish human geog plus gp essay plus gp plans plus half a math paper more. and its 4:15pm already. fml.

yes i just changed my blogskin, and some may wonder why. perhaps it's because what with all the crap happening lately and all the stress starting to set in, we all need something cutesy to make us smile and keep us going. (yes i'll probably change it after A Levels actually hahaha.)

i'm approaching A Levels with a sense of trepidation, but yet i'll take it like a canoeing race. i'll race the finals just like i'd race the heats, so i'll just pretend it's like prelims or something just to keep the pressure off. no one ever did that well with too much pressure anyway and i've learnt to lay off when i can after my fainting episode a couple of weeks ago. gah.

i vow to finish the whole of human geog by tomorrow. i know i can do it. whee hah.

today: three hour geog lecture plus an aston's lunch with isaac where he was kind enough to explain some econs theories to me. i find that when you talk things through with people, that's when things become clearest. hahaha. geog scrambled my brains though and now i have a throbbing headache. came to school one hour before the geog lecture started for the free ride from dad and i ended up crashing for an hour on one of the school benches. it wasn't the most comfortable for my tail bone really, i hope i didn't bruise my bum. guess i was so tired that i didn't really care.

i actually just wanted to come blog and share an excerpt from a song which i haven't listened to in a while but the band has always been one of my favourites and it's oddly fitting for both my outlook on life and also since baccalaureate is over and its a time for endings.

oh, i'll settle down with some old story
about a boy who's just like me
thought there was love in everything and everyone
you're so naive
they always reach a sorry ending
they always get it in the end
still it was worth it as i turned the pages solemnly, and then
with a winning smile, the poor boy
with naivety succeeds
at the final moment, i cried
i always cry at endings.

'its a long long journey / til i find my way home to you.'

i've been missing out on blogging about all these lovely events that have taken place over the past week, from skipping school to do math and have lunch with pak at ion's taste paradise last thursday, a crazy trip to the MOE building before frolick at hv with hwee and deb last friday, to an ikea meal complete with the world's most awesome cheesecake with chrys on monday.

but that's just a short summary and now i can't miss talking about baccalaureate. the most epic awesome graduation i've been to. not that i've really been to many, since the primary six times but then it wasn't particularly happy. i guess now that we are older and a little bit more mature (or so i'd like to think) we know that goodbyes and adieus are just part and parcel of life. they say that people come and go, but true friends leave footprints on your heart. i guess my heart has sort of been trodden on for ages hahaha, what with all the goodbyes i've endured.

people who know me well, know that i dislike goodbyes. they are overly emotional, and sometimes completely unnecessary. perhaps a 'see you soon' would be more appropriate, seeing that singapore is so small, and you meet people in the strangest parts of the world, but i guess that may take some meaning away from baccalaureate so i shall desist. even when junyi flew away i just hugged her at the gate and wished her a safe journey, like she was going on a week long trip or something, instead of a six month to one year absence.

i reiterate, goodbyes are unnecessary. we simply move on with our lives, never forgetting, because we do not have a choice. nothing is forever, and god willing, i'll see you all again. perhaps because i dislike goodbyes, that's why i'm so bad at them. i sort of disregard that goodbye is really goodbye, and i just sort of pretend nothing is wrong. i suppose that helps me cope in a way. i guess everyone deals with things differently!

so, today. baccalaureate was beautiful, it went exactly the way i expected it to, with a few surprises. the usual chapel service, speeches, prayers... though i was rather surprised by the teachers all gathering on stage to sing to us, and of course the unexpected request for another song from us cca leaders after our two songs 'find us faithful' and 'you'll be in my heart'. (: i think poor irvin had to do some major improvising on the keyboard for 'at the beginning' and not everyone really knew the lyrics but i did so i was happily bopping along.

lots of muffins and cupcakes went around after, and then i had to lug this super thick 'The ACS Story' to coro and town, as we had class lunch at burger shack before hwee and i cabbed to town to meet chrys and sean for (500) days of summer. hwee didn't like the ending but i felt it was oddly fitting in a way. i guess it rounded off nicely, and it was sort of fitting for baccalaureate day what with the goodbyes and everything. thanks guys for the notes and the love and pictures!

this is not a goodbye. this is just a new beginning, and i know that a small part of everyone will be with me through the post As fun, the boys' army, through life, through everything that may come.
sing ACS forevermore, our ACS forever.

funny quotes from today! 'cuz we all need a laugh sometimes.

alex: tiffany. i have a proposal for you.
me: ...NO I WON'T MARRY YOU D:
alex: -looks comically sad- but...but...you said that you'd shoot gideon!

(context: in a game of 'shoot, shag, marry' last year, i said i'd shoot gid, shag LV and marry him.)

okay here comes the other quote.

me: mom could you get me a cup please?
mom: no i'm gonna just stand here and scratch my butt. get me a cup of ribena, thanks.
me: -.-

feeling rather confused, and stressed. i need to go out. its stifling in here.
(text me if you are free to head out, anyone. this is assuming i know/like you.)
i keep telling myself i ought to finish up the damn hydro for geog, but then its like oh i'll do it after i finish this case study/chapter in econs notes, or this single math paper, or this lit online research, or blah. i'm such a useless student, dammit.
juggling things is so hard. making decisions is so hard.
no one ever said it would be this hard.

i'm feeling sleepy, which is horrid when one realises i really haven't done as much work as i should've over the weekend. gah. five weeks more, it's time to wake up. after my nap, which i'm going to take now. i need more motivation, honestly. too much on my plate now and i'm chomping through everything so slowly. going out with pak this thursday for some ramen at hv, haven't seen him in years and i'm pretty glad he's back in singapore hahaha.

capitalisation is too much for me right now, though thankfully i'm still holding on to punctuation. also, i think i need to moisturise my paws.

Okay after Honours Night (bye bye seven hours of my life) and a full GP mock paper (bye bye four hours of my life) along with two Econs case studies on top of that, I am officially zonked out just from the past two days alone. I was sort of sleep-doing the GP AQ, if that's even possible.

I also discovered that Isa can still lift me with one arm (eek). Had fun with P.Chuan before Honours Night though, haven't properly hung out with him for a super long time. Met his sister too, I think I quite like her (this is younger sibling empathy speaking hahaha). Hwee also tied up her hair which was like WOAAAH HAHAHA :D :D :D

Can't wait for prom actually, think its gonna be epically fun (: Need to survive A Levels first argh. SO MUCH SHIT TO DO AND SO LITTLE TIME TO DO IT and the past two days did not help at all omg. Sigh so tiring. I shall leave everyone with a picture/quote that my mom sent me via email.