changed my blogskin after how many zillion years of it being the same. love the colours on the the different headers in this skin, which was the only reason why i chose it. well, that plus the fact that it is simple and clear cut. i ain't no genius when it comes to decoding all the weird codes they use to write the skin.

down with history p3 and math p1. whew. and just a totally random thought: most of the HLs have an additional paper 3, unlike SLs which only have two papers. BUT FOR MATH, THE HL PPL HAVE ONLY 2 PAPERS TOO:O they're totally shortchanging the SL people:( but i suppose HL's really alot alot harder, so it does make sense to shorten the paper. i mean, less pain for the people who do it, less pain for the people who have to mark it, right?:)

did practically nothing today after the exams, except for the fact that i went to lunch at swenson's with the guys. we got cheated. as in, not conned out of our money or what not, but by the fact that there is NO coffee connoisseur at holland v, only coffee club. rawr!!! so much for our one for one lunch deal. and for walking under the hot hot sun between noon to 1pm. then we ended up walking some more and ended up at swenson's. one whole entire round, can you believe it? but well, at least we had so much fun talking at swenson's. and laughed at people, well, more specifically, girls, in ginormous sunglasses which were sliding off their noses as we looked down on them, literally, from the second floor. oh well. plus, i came up with this superb theory on how to achieve two things at one go-ridding the world of snakes and cats.

Step 1: Make the snake eat the cat.

Step 2: While the snake is halfway through digesting the cat (therefore ensuring that the cat is properly dead), kill the snake.

TADAA. ingenious isn't it? couldn't have come up with something better if i tried. and the best thing is i won't be labelled as a cold hearted murderer of cats- because theoretically the snake ate (and therefore, killed) the cat. and i only killed the snake, which is normal, because people kill snakes all the time. and indeed, my suggestion was seconded by treye.

and the whole reason why i wrote about that is so that when i look back at my archives, i will remember this episode which is firmly etched in my mind, and then i can laugh at it again. the things we talk about during lunch... the range of it:)

but on a serious note, there are several things that are more important that had been whizzing through my head all this while, especially in the state of between consciousness and unconsciousness. one of which i would want to share it today, simply because i want to get it off my chest. why is there so much pain in this world? so much struggle to survive, so much effort put into living for just one more day, yet here we are, people who struggle in a lesser sense, and complaining about little what-nots that we've been dealt with.

i'll admit that i'm no saint, and that i am guilty of that. many times over, despite the many reminders i gave myself. and when i watched the show about stars volunteering overseas in different countries for different purposes, the episode about helping orphans in mumbai touched me alot, especially the story of this boy. he was orphaned at the young age of about fourteen/fifteen, an age where kids easily go astray. he was left to scour the streets for his next meal, and became addicted to drugs. he contracted a disease on the streets, which cost him his right leg, amputated from below the knee. yet when he was found by the volunteers of this

catholic orphanage, his life changed. at sixteen, he learnt how to read and write in english, as well as how to do math. he went of drugs, after two bouts of unsuccessful trying. now he is actively playing soccer with his friends at the orphanage with his prosthetic leg, and studying hard so that he can become a doctor. the dream might seem far away, but he inches closer each day. all the possessions he ever owned in his life was in one old and battered suitcase stored in the orphanage, yet he never did once mention how unfortunate he was in the interview, but said that he was going to do his best and study hard to give himself a better life, a brighter future.

i look back, and catch myself complaining about having to cram one hundred years of chinese history in a day, all of which was my fault because i chose to procrastinate and not study earlier. i catch myself not wanting to get out of bed to go to school, and i feel guilt because those kids would give anything to go to school for a proper education. i catch myself ordering food that i cannot finish, and i remember those children who only have rice and gravy for lunch and sometimes dinner, who were lucky to even get one meal a day. i tell myself that i had to be more appreciative and tolerant, and i think i am slightly better, though i can do more.

don't tell me that sometimes we cannot prevent all these, and that each person has a place and a role in this world. i don't believe in someone's designated place being as on the streets, and the role to scour the streets for food and drugs to get high. but people always say, well, if the people we define as poor now get richer and are no longer poor, then what will happen is that the poor class will not vanish, just that the definition of 'poor' changes, and we get another classification, that's it. without poor, how do you know what's rich? just like without good, how do you know what's evil?

some things are just meant to go hand in hand. some things aren't. and we can't change that no matter how hard we try. what is meant to be always finds a way back to each other, be it good or bad.

stumbled upon this picture and i love it:)