Oh my god I'm watching the NDP celebration on tv and I ran out of the house several times to try to catch the aeroplanes, to no avail. Then my dad suggested I go to the attic so I ran up two flights of stairs and out into the balcony and I SAW 4 FIGHTER PLANES FLYING DIRECTLY OVER MY HOUSE OH MY GOD SO FREAKING COOL.

Every year I get bored stiff by the celebrations then the air force starts doing their thing and I'm like DAMNIT WHY AM I NOT THERE. There is something so exhilarating and liberating about aeroplanes that literally rises above everything else and makes you completely forget the clichéd performances, bored soldiers and dowdy parliament people and just gaze upwards in wonder. To the skies!

Okay I can't wait for the fireworks!

-

Went to Beverly's house today at 8.30a.m. (bus, legs, etc.) to have Maths tuition and wow I think I understand vectors now. I swear, also, that everything is brighter and more vivid in Bishan... at least in the morning when a skinny sleepy lady in a shapeless pink cartoon nightgown and crocs steps out into the streets and jaywalks across the road to have breakfast. The crows peck at something on the green sidewalk grass, the hot security guard nods at you, and upon taking the lift to floor 24, a man and his baby son thank you as you hold the door open for them.

Girl: They say Britain mei3 you3 bei4 conquer guo4, suo2 yi3 ta1 men2 mei3 you3 independence day! *peals of laughter*
Boyfriend: *Exclaims and makes cute stilted conversation*

Man on bus on phone: Taxi drivers ah, they don't have hunch also walk with a hunch! Of course they walk like that lah, everyday sit sit sit! You see them walk only ah, you know is taxi driver one.

<3

Happy National Day, everyone :)

I just watched the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. It was the most fantastic, amazing thing ever and I could not imagine a better coming out party for China. Srsly no one parties like the Chinese. The word that came to mind was long2 zhong4, as I thought of the stunningly grand celebrations they must have had in the Forbidden Palace hundreds of years ago, and it was like - oh, fabulousness? it's in our history.

<33

7th August, Thursday

Just had mock paper English Paper I. Oh boy it was such a fiasco. I wrote a story/essay on parenting, and I said, 'A simple act of passion can turn a student into a parent'. It was a bleak, emotional affair written in present tense. Oh and Beverly started her essay with 'Sky is the color of cat's vomit'. Awesome.

A million years ago, I wrote everyone in the class a warm fuzzy and forgot all about them. Today, people are only just starting to look inside their warm fuzzy envelopes because they have been forcibly removed from the board in favour of gaudy national day decorations. And people are talking to me about things which I don't remember writing.

This is like a bad case of waking up from a 5-year coma. Also can you believe Claudice has never heard of the flying spaghetti monster?

Claudice: Why did you say 'May the ramen be with you'?
Stacy: Oh, you know the flying spaghetti monster?
Claudice: ...what.

After tomorrow, I will have completed the composition part of my O'Level MEP Coursework. I am nervous. I have 50 minutes to copy down everything I've memorized, and I need a watch to keep time, and all the MEP students have to report to school one hour before everyone else just to complete this... gah... gah!!

Anyway I'm listening to Symphony No. 104, London, by Haydn. It sounds grand, well I guess it is, but it actuality it is this beautiful, REALLY COMPLICATED movement that we have to memorize/study/analyze and is worth like 15 marks out of 75 for MEP. MEP written prelim is on the 28th August so I must start neatening my notes, like, now. And in general improve drastically in 3 weeks. Why am I saying all this.

8th August, Friday

Hohum. I awoke at 5.30am, reached for my handphone under my pillow and to my pleasant surprise found greg's sms. Apparently, they don't sell postcards in Britain. <3

My mum speed-carred all the way to school because we were both late, and honked impatiently at this slow, methodical old lady driving her car in a slow manner. Said lady somehow ended up in front of us twice. Gosh.   

We had the final, nervewrecking session of our MEP coursework that ended just as assembly began. Almost. I ran out of the MEP room dashed up four flights of stairs, desperately tried the class door only to find it locked. I unslung my bag, took/tore off my pinafore and flung both over the windows. I ran into the toilet grabbed toilet paper. Etc. I dashed out, clattered down four flights of stairs and brisk walked to the spectator's stand. Then I calmly walked down the spectator's stand and strolled across the track to join my class.

4Truth we got spirit! Our school participated in Connect Singapore which was a lofty ambition, but poorly organized, so everyone returned to class pissed. No one actually heard the pledge recited over the radio, but the radio itself was cool. Bessy's. Baby blue vintage.

---

And thennn Zhuwei/Beverly/Myra/Abigail/Yanlin/Jiamei/EmilyT/Roxanne/Louisa/Vanessa/Me went to City Hall. We went to NewYorkNewYork (do Americans really eat like that everyday.) and ate a lot. Smoky cheese balls, spring chicken, cheese fries, pizza and ultra rich hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream. So freaking good.

HMV!!! I love walking around in places like that, but not when I'm broke and everything I see is hence a cause for envy and distress. I really wanted to get the documentaries. Bob Dylan, Paris, Feet Unbound, Britain's Nature! Jonas Brothers is probably one of the only bands I dislike with something even remotely approaching passion- did anyone hear them sing at the Hannah Montana concert? I'm sorry, I meant squawk. Really.

I also find it a little nauseating how publicity crews like emphasizing the humility and normalness of a celebrity. As of course is the case with the jonas brothers. One can only afford to be humble when one actually has talent. Declaring that you're an ordinary person when no one thought you special in the first place is like, cool you just confirmed my suspicions.

Then we walked to Marina Square from CityLink - (you can actually do that? but beverly seems to find her way around like... a cat with a map. That's a compliment) - and looked at bridal gowns. RoxanneBev and I were gazing wistfully at the pretty pretty pretty dresses. Bev says I should marry once just for the heck of it. You know, it's only a matter of time before we start imposing fines on people who divorce too early. Just a suspicion.

Vanessa abandoned us to go to the hair salon but we bumped into her again, when she was still looking for said hair salon. So we followed her. But left eventually. She is probably the only person I know who goes to get her hair cut without parental aid. Empowerment!

From there we walked into a supersecret passageway and ended up in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel where they had perfumed toilets, scandalized doorladies. Zhuwei's hobby was revealed. We then walked in no particular direction which somehow ended up to be the riverside.

(I am still amazed at how we can be at school, and then end up at the riverside. In a single day. The perks of living in a small country!)

In daytime, the river looks really unglam. And yet I suppose there is beauty in the way the murky water has at least 3 different shades of white, grey and black. If you gaze at it and nothing else eventually the shadows blend into each other and you feel like you're looking at a computer animation of Chinese ink mountains. There were also tourists happily camwhoring with the merlion. Wtf.

THEN WE TOOK THE MRT HOME

Finally,

I think this is my favourite garden. The overhanging wispiness reminds me of Bambi's glade, when hunters were shooting, and his mother told him to run Bambi run, so he ran back home to the glade. He waited and waited for his mother but she never came back. Home is soft and heartbreaking.

I was also wandering through the hall at level 4 with all the orchids, which frankly quite bored me. I mean, pretty, but too many at one go to feel any affection for any particular flower. Then I noticed this,

The most exquisite tiny jade hairclip I have ever seen. It's pinning a slender orchid stem to a wire support. Orchid? No idea, but it was a pretty flower. A man was waiting behind me to take a picture, and I was about to walk away when I noticed the hairclip and hastily snapped a picture.

Lady and lady enchanted me from the back. On front sight, the blond lady turned out to be Asian, whose features were dulled and lightened by the blonde. And the girl was wearing a blue polo shirt which didn't quite become the cute sweater. Dieu, chance!

I have a picture of the third lady bending over to take a picture, which reminds me of House where he asked Cuddy to bend down and the camera zoomed in on her ass to check for a pantyline and House exclaimed 'OH. MY. GOD. You aren't wearing panties'

I have like a hundred more photos. No, really. There are a hundred and forty three in total. I have absolutely no number sense - I remember walking around the hall, wondering why I had less than thirty. One day I will be one of the people on flickr with 1000+ photos and no pro account, OH WOE ME.

----

Also my dad bought me a $69 dollar shawl. I don't really know how that happened. I was wandering somewhere among the orchids, then he called me and asked me to go the the Singapore Shawl store. When I went there a charming lady was talking to him, and then she spotted me and taught me how to wear the shawl. She's the sort of lady you can't help but listen to. She's published a book.

She also said that she's on the verge of publishing a book about the customer industry, to oppose the unfair demands placed on the service industry. Oh my god, it was exactly my sentiments, except she phrased it better: "It's time people learnt to be better customers."

She then exchanged business cards with my dad and asked him if his company could possibly help her do some mass printing. Oh wow, I am skeptical of such casual polite insincere business deals, but it would be lovely to see her again.

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

Yay and I'm going for {Baybeats} with Robyn, Greg is returning to Singapore in roughly a week, I finally sent Mrs Kumar a polite sms telling her I was quitting AMaths, I have a multitude of heavy tests next week. I have finished reading Pride and Prejudice. I haven't done my (lit essays) oops. I have to practise my piano accompaniment for Wen Man. Thus, my loverlies, ends my blogging stint for the weekend!

------

Mrs Hoo: You all know right, next week you'll be having your Chem SPA. So we have decided...
Weng Jun: She's going to say got no chem test next week.
Beverly: You wish. Wish on a wishing star.
Mrs Hoo: ...that next week you won't have your chem test.
Beverly: Oh. Which star did you wish on?

Friday, August 1st, sometime before midnight

I just came back from the Singapore Garden Festival with my dad!

It was basically an avenue for the curious, the gardeners, and the photographers. How lovely it was. I myself love taking photos and for once I didn't feel left out and awkward because everyone was taking pictures. You cannot imagine the exhilarating freedom - strutting about in the air-conditioned hall, camera held brazenly in one hand, with absolutely no one to glare suspiciously at you.

Yeah and there were loads of people posing as their families happily snapped away. Let's just say I joined in discreetly.

(The lady on the left is wearing some sort of creamy brown weird pretty dress with lace)

I thought it would be a lovely, enlightening experience akin to a walk in the country, or... well I don't quite know what I expected. But it turned out to be a gallery walk, examining delicate temporary conceptual art, which as it turns out isn't really my thing. But some gardens were really very beautiful and made me wish I could ignore the barriers and sit down on the grass and have a picnic in front of all the gaping onlookers. Others, however, were awkward pieces of 'the relationship between metal and nature' or 'imitating the malay kampong' which were aesthetically pretty, but were simply artificial and just not real. Too much synthetic material. Apparently it's called floral art. Psh.

Also, I love flowers! I realize I have way too many close up shots of flowers, and it's not like they require any great skill, just a good camera and a basic angle sense. Nevertheless, have some.

There was also this giant wall montage but I couldn't make out what it was, till my dad told me to view it through the camera, and this is what happened:

 

A giant plant montage of Marilyn Monroe. Way cool. Couldn't get a proper full clean shot because of all the people, grrrrr but nevermind there it is!

Beautiful and awkward. Nevertheless, in the first photograph I love how it looks like many cakes stacked up on top of each other. It's so very Enid Blytonish, where Peter the greedy boy accidentally stumbles upon a fairy food warehouse and sticks his fingers into any cake he can find. Okay just ignore that. In the second, you can see fake snow layered on the ground, but I think the green ribbon like structures in the background are just... gross.

Close up of the fake snow. I had to bend/kneel to get that shot. I was wearing a skirt. Let's just say it was a narrow compromise between girlish modesty and artistic fussiness. The second one, on the other hand, enchanted me particularly because of the painting (?) on the wall. Not very gardeny but the lights totally stole my heart.

This one, mamma mia, is so gorgeous it deserves a huge space all to itself. Okay I am basically a sucker for bright, gay colors (I am using the word 'gay' in the context of the 19th century, remember, I am still in Jane Austen's clutches), and glass spheres. So magical, shining, heart-bursting! Like a cluster of ripe peaches! Glass grapes! If my garden had a ceiling, I would install this IMMEDIATELY.

Also, the test tube flower idea seemed very popular.

Then guess who I met? Constructed/obtained by Jurong Secondary School, I declare it a stunning likeness, if a little slimmer at the sides. Actually all they did was have something look vaguely like a lion from the side and have it spout water, and... tada. So versatile. It really is fascinating though.

And here we have a close up of the blowhole. Beautiful purple flowers in the background and everything. The government should take a hint. Flowers! Color! Scenery! Everything really cannot be contained in one post. I think it would be really cool if we had statues of the merlion everywhere, with a spurt of concrete water flying out of their mouths. I give them two hundred years before all their scales are eroded away.

31st July, 00.13a.m

Not updating regularly makes me love myself more and more. I mean, you know, now that my supply of getting high comes from sources not virtual. Gosh, right now I'm perspiring profusely because I just spent 45 minutes practising the same passage on the piano over and over again and I still can't get it right.

I will, eventually, but once I'm done playing it for prelims and olevels, I'll forget every single note. It's not a very rememberable tune.

Today is a milestone day because it is the deadline for CIP submissions. Also, I might be going to the Singapore Garden Festival later in the day. We have free tickets. I would blog more, but it feels so inane, I am starting to feel what someone once said about blogging: like swallowing your vomit.

We had a Chinese compre yesterday that questioned us pompously, what determines self-worth? A few weeks, months ago, without my blog I would've died. How painful to type that. And um well, the compre passage said thoughts and contributions determined a person. We are basically plants with feelings.

No? I need some cold drink now. Oh INCIDENTALLY isn't it Harry Potter's birthday?! Happy Birthday, Harry! You've come so far. I saw the trailer for your sixth movie, and aren't you completely jealous that Tom Riddle gets more airtime than you do? Nevermind, we all know who dies in the end. Have faith, I love you for ever and ever even though you married you-know-who. I refuse to say it. THERE WILL ONLY BE ONE MRS. POTTER and that is your mother.

10.04pm

Lame puns make me laugh.

Sini just showed me pictures of her cousin's wedding. Her family is amused and astonished at her deciding to marry so quickly because she has just graduated from university, and now decides she wants to stay at home and be married. Pretty pictures! Sini goes home this year to get married as well, and I must ask her to send photos to us.

So everyone rejoice. A young Malay girl in Indonesia has married of her own free will! May they prosper, etc etc.

I've been reading Pride and Prejudice where characters often correspond by letter, and I like reading the letters. They sometimes sign off with a Yours, etc. etc. which I find fascinating - etc. seems like such an informal term, and I never thought anything in the 19th century could be anything but formal and decorated.

ALRIGHT, clearly I have a lot to learn, history-wise. However I do think I would never properly remember things like 'Hitler invaded such and such at such a time'. I am more inclined towards the trivial, essentially useless things that would nevertheless add warmth to a story. Like um, there being a mass outbreak of gum disease after a renowned quill-making company released a batch of quills made of contaminated feathers, hence between such and such a time, the people who liked biting the edges of their quills had to go without a tooth or two.

I love Pride and Prejudice so much I don't want it to end.

In fact, I want to stop now, and never pick it up again till the day I die. So I know there'll always be just this much left. Except my curiosity always gets the better of me. But I hate saying goodbye!

(edited for convenience):

Yvolana / happy fair says:
ha! that I can't believe people were actually BORN like, 200 years ago

{bev}Exhausted Momo Hat says:
wow, reading the bible will be a real stretch of imagination for you?

Yvolana / happy fair says:
...true

{bev}Exhausted Momo Hat says:
it's funny though, next time people will be floaitng in space and reading your biography and say wow I can't believe Lee Kwan Yew was ruling the world 200 years ago

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

Friday, 1st August, 5.24pm

I declare I must be the happiest girl in the world! Indeed, I have just finished reading Pride and Prejudice, the sun is shining in a very becoming manner and I am delighted with Jane Austen's particular wit. Moreover, I just had the most scrumptious cheese stick of my life.

Oh beauty, beauty. Indeed I do miss the book more than ever now that I have finished it. I seem to have lost my ability to be completely satisfied, will my curiosity not meet a gentle, harmonious conclusion? Such wonderful characters! The charm of the language! The finicky obsession with which I read sentences aloud over and over again till I had gotten the pronunciation right, skewered British accent and all!

Merry fair, I must declare!

Also, yesterday I had a dream which was delicious. It involved me walking down a street and coming face to face with a camel. I did not eat the camel. Oh how happy I am!

On Thursday, during assembly, Beverly and I also had the most delightful conversation which involved me saying emotionally, "Oh my god, Beverly, Chen Yong Ming looks like Johnny Depp!" To which she did her usual ceremonious gasp and uttered in horror, "NO, Johnny Depp is like, hot!" In reply, I said more forcefully than ever, "The intense stare!" Beverly overruled my passions with a dry "Just because he uses eyeshadow?"

Such allurements. Those of my sex must endeavour to resist, and yet we are of an adolescent age which even Jane Austen describes as 'troubling', and I am sure she was not referring to matters like embroidery.

Happy August, to those who read! Pray do not be alarmed, I am merely in high spirits, of which Elizabeth Bennet herself possesses so many and delivers with such flair! <3

-----------

Siyun struggles to find a sentence for her word of the day. Lounging in the teacher's chair is Mr Adrian who berates her while simultaneously shooting off all the sentences he can think of. Naturally she chooses one of them.

Mr Adrian: Hey, that's MY SENTENCE
Siyun: No. We have telepathy.

Janey Godley is also awesome, as usual.

"There comes a point in everyone’s life where they sit in a studio, theatre or gallery and stare at something that the middle class cognoscenti deem art and you recognise it as mental illness."

"I may be a total philistine but at least I know shit when I see it."

-------

I feel totally exhausted. Robyn and I went to Coffee Bean which was scarily dim; what happened to the cute Indian cashier who was there the last time? The pastries looked dead lying inside the glass case.

So we sat outside and sipped our various ice blends and talked and talked then walked home. I swear the place is a ghost town. Hopefully it gets crowded soon.

In the meanwhile, Video Ezy was totally tempting but just... no. No, no, no. I'd rather sleep on my bed and avoid homework than watch Pride and Prejudice and avoid homework. Make sense? You know it.

--------

Oh my gosh there is a library book sale at Expo and it ends in APPROXIMATELY 1.5 HOURS. I love second hand books... though I would love new ones better. I comfort myself by saying that the good books are probably all gone. To people... who... don't. deserve them. GRR?!!

Just now we saw the most beautiful shaggy brown silky retriever dog. He was HUGE, bigger than a bicycle. And the wonderfully groomed hair... amazing. Owned by a lady who wore a sunhat and a skirt, I never saw her face.

Before I saw the owner, he was just standing there. Leashed to a shopping trolley of sorts, outside NTUC, standing still and breathing gloriously like a great shaggy horse. Alone in a field of cars, mops and household cleaning equipment.

-----

HAINANESE. CHICKEN. RICE.

I figured I'd fucking blogmilk the entire weekend, before returning to about a million years of celibacy. Let's just say it got a little lonely.

Firstly, I've been watching House. How did I not love it before? What did you say? I CAN'T HEAR YOU. But I do love Gregory House,

Guy: Where'd you get the keys?
House: Blew the janitor.
Guy: Oh.
Guy: What?
House: That's his name.
Guy: The janitor's name is Luke.
House: Then I owe him an apology.

Father of cured patient: Thank god.
House: Thank god? God's the one who gave it to him.

Secondly, I've been writing poetry. How amazing is that? And such a coincidence, too, that my creative juices have sheepishly decided to return home - in the midst of my o'level preparation. I mean, wow, this is just a total euphemism for big fat escapism. Whatever, I'm happy to have them back, I mean by the time I graduate they might be dead.

Beverly once said 'Are we supposed to get poetry?'

And I totally agree. Poetry is like translation; if you understand a poem, you've understood the poet. And everyone knows how cryptic and mysterious poets can get.

Thirdly, streetstyle blogs, TOO MANY.

stylites.net, Beijing

They are probably all gay, right? I think it would be fun if I dressed up my future boyfriend super chicly and he walked down the street and everyone's gaydar is instantly set on fire. Yes, my ideal boyfriend should aspire to look gay. Go figure.

Fourthly, apartmenttherapy is awesome. Look, prettiest useless things ever. How exquisite, no? I am such a magpie honestly, my table is cluttered with stuff that I never use, and yet I would feel so lost without them. Am I the only one whose hoarding interrupts work? (I have to resort to using my sister's desk for work) Robyn's table is cluttered yet functional, Greg's table is neatfreakprettyfreak and totally useable, Mooty probably does his work on top of the mess. Stefi does her work in front of the tv.

Gosh btw I hate green glass. Or you know, those green plastic roofs people install when they realize that their fancy tiled roofs can barely keep out the sun? Hideous hideous hideous. Amanda has this beautiful white corner house, the look of which is totally marred by her neighbour's dumb idea to stick a sheet of green plastic between her house and his.

Fifthly, I WANT A NEW AMATHS TUTOR. I can only take so much of Mrs Kumar's annoying cheerful, 'Don't join the Singapore Nerd Society. SNS... Stnicks. Oops, do we have anyone from stnicks here?' Whatever, !"£!£$%£!$£!^". 

Sixth, I have so many books I want to read, which I would if I didn't have to study for a million tests every week. How typically human of me that I feel the need to indulge just as the noose starts tightening. Has anyone seen my list of Books I Want To Read? HANNIBAL LECTOR I WANT YOU. Gregory House, we have a date every Saturday night at 10 okay? DEAL.

Seventh, I realize that it is a little difficult to keep a personal diary and blog at the same time. The content is very different. Blogging is like stylized exhibitionism, peppered with craziness, whereas keeping a diary is... feelings and thoughts. It's a curiously different feeling. When blogging I feel inspired to say and comment on things, whereas when writing in a diary, I am less of an observer - simply introspective.

Possibly I am just too lazy to write out long descriptions.

Eighth, I swear some of my milk tea evaporated while I left the bottle uncapped. Lactose solution = volatile liquid? God knows. I want to go shopping tomorrow, but I guess I have stuff to do - copy Liu Yi's MEP notes, study plane geometry even though I don't understand shit about it, practise piano. Hmm actually that's not much.

bye everybody luv

Hello everybody. I'm back! Right now I'm exhausted. It hasn't been a test-heavy week, I am just troubled by the usual academic woes. Robyn, I don't think we should attempt church again. I think last Sunday was a testimony to our inability to absorb biblical theories on life at wee hours in the morning... that Sunday was magnificent though, wasn't it? Hey Greg, STAY THERE DON'T GO AWAY. Mooty, your handwriting is very manly. I hope now you feel guilty for calling me ungirly. PAULA I WISH WE WERE ROOMMATES for some strange, strange reason - of course I know exactly why but I'm not about to say. Psh.

Zhuwei, even though you force feed me one vegetable a day, I will try to look at it as your generous offer of ickygreenveg protein and unsaturated fat. Even the ugliest plant is beautiful, deep down inside! Claudice, at 9.a.m when you take out your lunchbox of apple cinnamon cereal, I like you a lot. But of course at other times too. Jazreel, we've been taking the same bus more than once. AFFINITY HAHA. Beverly - no ducks? No?! But I liked your article. WHY DOES AUSTRALIA GET TO HAVE YOU, they don't even know you can speak English!!

I smell cigarette smoke, for some reason. My flickr has been updated with an inordinate number of photos tagged 'sun', and Mooty and I are lamenting our threadbare pockets. No money to get pro-account. Stuck at 200 photos. I need to buy stamps, books and shoes. Do you ever feel that everything inside you has diffused out, leaving big confused shell? Yeah?

I have been reading Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, courtesy of Yiying. Battery is running out and I will be back someday!

If you thought I was dead, I'm not!

I'm on an indefinite hiatus and until after my prelims, I will blog from time to time. However flickr will be my constant companion and I'm afraid my photostream will have to be a substitute for my once frequent writing; rely on the descriptions underneath the photographs. They will tell you what words are too lazy to describe.

-

About yesterday I decided to do the old idle experiment of photographing something on a computer screen. I had fun and I got addicted.

Unfortunately, in these colossal sizes, the photographs lose their charm entirely. To demonstrate, I now show you the thumbnails

HAHAHAHA I LOVE IT.

-

Sunday was a Robyn Day because we must have seen about 6 hours of each other - Chinese tuition, sitting at the park talking for an hour, taking a bus and a train, going to Festival for a Future, and all that.

FFAF itself was not very spectacular, hardly in fact. The music was mediocre and the highly hyped Electrico wasn't that much. I saw one person I recognized through photographs from a stranger's blog - strange, right? - and one person from my school, one person who'd graduated from my school, and one person I recognize only through a friend whom I haven't talked to in forever.  

We hung out with the people Charis loosely dubbed 'the Raffles debators', which included Jarret who lent me a pen. We parted ways with Jarret, only to meet again at Bishan MRT, having taken the same train. We are, after all, neighbours.

I learnt how to play Indian poker, learnt how to play old maid even when there are no old maid cards, and marvelled at the freedom a skirt bestows on my suffocated legs.

On 6th July 2008, I found my skinny jeans unbearable, and in a fit of pique I ripped them off and wore a skirt instead. This act of courage is hopefully the first of many, which will herald the abandonment of the skinnies, leading to an abundance of feminine bottoms in my wardrobe. I will also, at last, learn how to sit properly in a skirt. God why can't I just wear a petticoat underneath and sit as I please.

Robyn introduced me to The Shins, so I am now in love with them. She also got me something from the US of A, I love her, look