Books, or my lack thereof

Copied this from my senior, ex-ex-ex (correct right?) astro pres. I figure I should have some reflection on what I've been doing. Or what I've been reading that is.
So to follow the guidelines, in bold are those I've read for at least 50%, and in italics are those I've planned to read. After 'A' level I mean.

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 Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler'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 Hitchhiker'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 - CS Lewis
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

Count: 22 read, 18 planned to read. Damn! Not even half T_T

I suppose Singapore is not a conducive place for my reading pleasure, for I'm reading much less than I used to.

I would pick a random book off the shelf intending to bring myself to sleep faster at 10pm. Then some time later I would see mum coming into my room asking me why I woke up so early in the morning. A glance at the clock told me it was 5am. Then afternoon naps were even more easily skipped.
Those times were easy. Homework was not so overwhelming and demanding. Tests were not so challenging as to require you to have a good night's sleep. I wonder why I didn't suffer from sleep deprivation last time.
My plan was to finish my family's whole collection of books before I graduate from university. I don't think I will reach that goal, because goals and plans are never my things, but reaching as close as possible is nevertheless a justified pursuit.

The other day during GP paper, after being stumped by the fact that there wasn't even a single question on environment and technology, I picked the one on whether books will have a future. I bet my arguments were all awfully faulty and I will probably get a bad grade this time, but I still stand that books are irreplaceable.

Books were and are always my good friends (:

Random updates after a long time

I don't know whether this is gonna be a long post.

1. Promos is over.
I know I don't sound as excited as I should be. My MSN display message has already done me the favor.

2. 2 days ago (26/9) was my 3 year anniversary since I came to Singapore. Whatever happened and will happen, I still insist that it was the correct decision under such circumstances.

3. To hell with shopping therapy. Right after promos. Now I'm gonna starve.

4. Almost forgot to mention my commendable effort in not going on MSN for 3 whole weeks.

5. Some 1 week before the start of GP paper, Hi-chan and I helped CLDDS with a moon-gazing session in their annual Mid Autumn celebration. A waxing gibbous Moon (eww) and Jupiter went on display. The college's guests were happy, the principal and VPs were happy, the CLDDS members and participants were happy. Therefore I'm happy.
Then I was again asked how much an observatory would cost. I just hope she won't faint when hearing the real figures the next time I see her. Or she'd better faint after signing her approval.
I just couldn't help feeling a bit irritated with some prior to the event. I know it was the rational thing to do. Just that when THIS is concerned, my rationality is overidden, and it was a false dilemma.

6a. Pam asked me to install a new tagboard.
In the process of recovering my account, I glanced through my old tagboard. The messages from last time were still there, and nostalgia came rushing back. It was a pity things happened that way, really. What you casually said really came true (albeit partially), didn't it? But who am I to do anything?
No no no don't go emo over this!!!

6b. Okay I'm still wondering whether to install a new tagboard because I don't like seeing the same messages for weeks just because some/all are too lazy to tag ):
Oh well I'm just installing it then. And you all better tag AT LEAST ONCE!
It's not the old tagboard though.

7. "The Illusionist" was nice. "The girl who leapt through time" wasn't quite, being typically Japanese. Now I've got a few more to go. And a series that someone (I forgot who it was D: ) should pass me next week. Pam, pass me something too!!!

8. Went to CIP appreciation day today to find out that the elderly can be so damn on. And the people there are unbelievably friendly and totally not stage-shy. Interesting.
And yet again I was told that I turned out to be chattier than I looked. Should I change my look to match my personality or change my personality to match my look? Now don't get me wrong. Let me tell you that I'm not going emo over this in case you all come running in offering consolation as if I were some emotionally unstable psychopath ._.
Just that it'd be sad if next time I fail to befriend someone who thought I'm like blah blah blah while I'm actualy blah blah just because I look blah. (sorry I know I sound dumb =.=)

9. The school cut down on ALL my post-exam Fridays! Now what am I gonna do?

The post should end here because I'm going back to watching Christian Siriano and swooning over ruffles and sleeves.
Just a gentle reminder: Tag. So that I know my blog=me is loved/liked/hated/read (:

Random sinful quiz

Woo what's this! I didn't know I'm this sinful! lmao

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Fifth Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Extreme
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Extreme
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Very High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

What's with the highs and very-highs and extremes, and only falling to level 5 still. Some must be awesomely devilish to be able to reach level 9.

The good news is, I'm not a christian (or any other religion), and as a matter of fact, I can't be going to hell.

How fallacious the world can be.

<3 Project Runway

I LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE Project Runway. haha
Because each and every season, there'd be guys like...

Santino Rice

or Jeffrey Sebelia

or Christian Siriano

And. 2 of them are gay :D

What makes them attractive? Hmm, I don't know. Maybe...

Awesome sarcastic sense of humour? Santino. Just go watch season 2.

Loving father? Watch the last part of this clip from season 3. Awwww


Or maybe take a look at this closeup of his neck tattoo which says "Harrison Detroit l’amor de la mia vita" ("Harrison Detroi is the love of my life" in broken Italian). Sweet.


And, er, cool hair? XD

And of course, them being talented designers certainly helps. Stunning dresses like this cannot be found just anywhere.

This is by Santino

And these are by Jeffrey.
This one is my 2nd favourite


And my favourite XDDD *the one on the left lah*

*Secretly wishing for a dress like that for prom night =X *

Just started on season 4, so Christian's designs are for later.


Daniel Vosovic (1st runner up for season 2) is hot as well :D But yours truly would prefer Santino's bad boy image. Oh how I love bad boys :D

Er, and Daniel V is also gay :P Hmm...

So much for cute (and talented and loving and adorable and stylish. and bad) guys. Heh.

Some emoness and some randomness

Anne, you are never going to get how all this works.

18 years and 9 months, how much of it has potentially taught you about all this? About 0.01%.
Standing outside of a situation looking in always proves so wise, that you never get it if you're not the person herself.
Now you are clear and calmed enough to recall the reason why you have been buried in books for the past 18 years. Books are absolutely good friends ALL the time. Eternity and unchanging-ness are always of your favour. Something so unpredictable and dynamic as those not-so-book-like things do not suit you afterall.
There are things that are sacred, untouchable, sensitive, and basically hard to deal with. This is not your forte, not something you should have involved yourself in. Being the clumsy person you are, especially with this aspect of life, you should know better. Because it's yourself, and no one else.
18 year old is still quite young. But not young enough to be allowed to make mistakes like this.

Incidentally, Wikipedia says that there's some correlation between your INTP personality type and Schizoid personality disorder. Maybe that explains it.
On second note, you should not be exactly glad Isaac Newton is also an INTP. And Albert Einstein. Brilliant individuals indeed, but making controversial debates over the invention of calculus, or having 2 marriages is not quite the way to go.


And oh yeah, this sounds interesting. At least to myself.

"The INTJ resembles a chess player, ruminating on the possibilites and then making decisive accurate moves. If the INTP played life as chess, he would keep wishing to modify the allowed-move-properties of his various pieces to optimise his strategy, find that that isn't allowed, and ask to start the game afresh! The ENTP chess player would indeed modify the rules to his advantage and complain that the standard rules were inadequate! The ENTJ would play by the standard rules but insist on making the moves for his opponent as well!"

"INTPs make very poor leaders, for they depend too much on the attitudes of others". Ahaha. Ha.

Anne, you really should go back to books.