やっぱ、本は買えない
i'm not the kind who buys books, i guess.
sunday: went to kino with my $40 voucher, walked round for 1 hour and in the end, my mum went to exchange it for cash with some other people who were going to pay for their books.
=.=
i think bookoff has further dissipated any previously present book-buying inclinations.
well, for one, there are always the libraries (singapore's libraries are excellent, i must say). or you can always borrow it off someone, but that's harder.
for a person who grew up holeing up with my sister in libraries across the island (the libraries at jurong east and woodlands were my favourite), searching for books in libraries is what i do when people go to the movies, sing kbox or play pool. P:
two, if i buy new books they're books i really like. and if i buy new books i usually can't bear to read them more than once lest i smudge them with my grubby fingers.
they're more for collection.
so they hang around in some shelf or drawer where they'll be safe and treasured, aka left alone for years yellowing in the bad environmental conditions my house has.
sometimes i take them out and read them, but i probably know the story and what everyone says by heart, anyway.
and there are some books that can only be read once. after that, all the thrill is gone.
third, the good books are always so frikkin expensive and by the time that paperback version comes out or the price drops you can easily find it in the library already.
the only books i'll probably buy from now on are those which i can get new things from every time i reread them.
... they're ... not what i have been reading.
so i guess i won't be buying books for a while.
especially not after 4 books for less than $10.
Labels: books, random
Monday, November 30, 2009 9:57 PM
google wave invites up for grabs!
my google wave invite is HEREEEEEE :DDDDD
still trying to find my way around.
i have 8 invites left, who wants!
Labels: computer stuff
Friday, November 27, 2009 11:05 AM
the year of the flood
i know i missed it, but this is really funny. ^^
mrbrown and the floodit's my long-time childhood dream to experience a flood. T.T
don't ask.
i think it has something to with the image of riding on a tiny boat among houses that were once above water.
i'm sorry, everyone who got inconvenienced by the flood or whose car got shorted out by incoming pools of muddy water. P:
(and no, not the book.)
Labels: random
Thursday, November 26, 2009 9:46 PM
ただいまー。
back from japan!i'm definitely going back someday.
Labels: japan, photos
Monday, November 23, 2009 2:40 PM
旅立つ、日本へ
flying off tomorrow into, well, heaven.
cohabiting with 4 strangers for 7 days. i'm still nervous about it. (i know, i've been through it before, but every family's different.)
there's so many places i want to see but they're so random, a bit here and a bit there (like THE CROSSING IN SHINJUKU) so i don't really know where to go.
(i want to ride the enoshima electric railway!!! but i think it's very far from tokyo.)
well!
i hyperventilate even at kanji signboards, so. it'll be fun.
I AM GOING TO TOKYOOOOOOOOOOO~
see you all in 8 days.
:D
Labels: japan
Friday, November 13, 2009 10:25 PM
ha!
today, msn finally gave up on asking nicely.
it tried to force me to upgrade by threatening that i can't use msn unless i get the new one (which rocks as much as vista does, imo).
and
this is how you prevent obnoxious windows from doing that.
(only for vista, though.)
i'm keeping my skin and my messenger plus, thank
you.
Labels: computer stuff
Saturday, November 7, 2009 7:51 PM
*bonk*
just spent 5 and a half hours with 300 lovely mcqs.
*eyes falling shut*
even going through the answers is some marathon-like thing.
i wonder how far i'll go, anyway.
--
bakemonogatari ep 13 is out!
Labels: bakemonogatari, school
Thursday, November 5, 2009 6:52 PM
neil gaiman!
... was UNREAL.
unexpected.
and AMAZING.
(thanks gecko! :DDDD for bestowing this once-in-a-lifetime chance upon me XD)
even though i can't call myself a true fan (i haven't read a lot of his stuff and don't own anything that is signable >< not like gecko ... after yesterday, and i'm also FAIL because I FORGOT TO BRING THE CAMERA T.T), neil gaiman is so cool!
everything he says comes out with style and is genuinely funny. and worthy to be put in a book or quoted and framed.
(NEIL GAIMAN at the signing session. sorry about the picture quality, i'm waiting for better photos.)
it felt really weird and surreal to sit there and see him, and think about his books. (somewhere in the recesses of my brain i was going nuts and going "is this really neil gaiman! it's really neil gaiman! omfgomfgomfgomfg!" and such.)
maybe it was surreal because it was so up close and ... down-to-earth and everything.
(remember may'n? =.=) he was just there and there were no mobs and at the signing his girlfriend was wandering around unharassed. so it was a very new experience to just run round the back to get a photo.
it was inspirational, though i don't exactly know how. but i enjoyed every single minute in vt!
(and i liked the crowd, it was a very civilised crowd.)
the signing queue was SO LONG (and misshalle was in it (!)) so i kind of gave up. 900 people! 2 hours for every 200! and i'd feel bad because people were toting their good omens and sandman around. but AHHH THE CHANCE SLIPPED THROUGH MY FINGERS TODAY! T.T
anyway this has made me determined to hunt down every single neil gaiman book in the libraries. (it's quite difficult, i've been trying for a long time.)
... everything i've said above does not do today justice.
i hope he comes back to singapore! and i hope such things happen more often. writers are such great people.
--
by the way gecko got this for me. (and alot of class people too.) go see her post with the bit about the Poetry Proletariat Factory. this was from the word "jelly".
i like it a lot. the theme is interesting.
well, i actually understand it, for one. after experience with a lot of confusing and abstract poems in school.
i like poems with interesting spacing, for another. (haha i'm not a very literary person.)
poems should be used to delight and inspire, not to torture kids in school. /: that's how people lose interest in poems in the first place.
Labels: events, fandom
Sunday, November 1, 2009 4:38 PM
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had a great time.(:
東京だなあ。
i saw different faces of tokyo, made new friends, went places, bought stuff.
the most satisfying part was being able to forge friendships just beyond the surface and being able to talk to someone about each other's dreams, and the country's problems, and history and a whole lot of other stuff in a language i've still got a lot to work towards.
i didn't think i would be involved that far, and that deep. it was like i wasn't just a foreign student sitting in to observe class anymore.
it was quite amazing.
i love autumn. (though it turned into winter halfway through the trip.) the weather when it's not raining (and when it's not becoming winter) is awesome.
the most tokyo-like place i went was probably shibuya.
there's no way to say this in english.
AKIBA!
it's what's inside the shops that matters. :D
it was mind-blowing. XD
after a while nothing surprises you anymore.
have to thank my host and my host parents for bringing me around, even though they were clearly disturbed. XD
had a lot of first-time experiences.
like eating もんじゃ on a boat around tokyo bay.
and juku (cram school).
and starbucks. (yeah i have a sad life in terms of coffee.) actually the main point is warm coffee in the cold.
school was a very very different and wonderful experience. so was 1-5.
revisited a lot of subjects after a very long time. some, like music, were super fun (their music curriculum is DAMN ZAI everyone who comes out from it will be fully literate in everything from writing scores to choral singing to playing all sorts of instruments WHY DON'T THEY LET US DO THIS IN SCHOOOOOL!). but some things like physics aren't subjects you want to see again.
thanks to my buddy i was able to get at least something out of every lesson, even 古文. and it was fun shivering in the cold and running around school together with the class people.
life is hc is very sad. there's more freedom, true, but there's less space to breathe and there's less warmth.
somehow the kids over there still have time to play, even with twice as many lessons as us.
(and of course, i was high-ing in the land of telephone lines XD because singapore decided to bury all of hers underground.)
anyway, i had a really good time with my host and her family and my school buddy (who is a very special person). there's always the awkward times we dao each other but we were able to talk about all sorts of interesting things.
i'm glad i went and things turned out how they did.