monologues.

this week, has been really hectic. with the stress of mps, the astronaut diva, slow sales of screwed up badges, monthly tests and life in general, i could barely breathe. thank goodness today, i took a break from all of this and came home at 1.05pm, the time when everyone else gets to go home. after coming back from addmath tuition, i came here, in front of my computer, satisfied that i have enough time to blog tonight. (:

i shall start off with the astronaut/ cosmonaut. okay, so he was the first malaysian to ever go up in to space. he spent 18 days there after about a year of training in russia. he now speaks fluent russian, as a result of staying in russia for that amount of time, and all this attention has bloated his ego to maximum. in short, he's a frickin hypocritic diva.

during his speech, he told us indirectly, not to smoke, but came in smelling like cigarettes with black stains on his fingers. on the stage, he was this nice, charming, captivating character, but once he was off stage and the scheduled time for him to leave arrived, he did anything he could to get out of the school as fast as he could. we librarians, sort of heard the whole thing about him being a diva, talking rudely to his driver and bodyguard. heck, why does he even need a bodyguard?

from having no respect for him, i've come to dislike him for being so hypocritical. i guess, fame really can do things to people, making their minds twist and distort in weird ways. and the funny thing is, he takes pride in his mental strength. i guess you would need more mental strength than that to wrap your mind around fame.

next, mps in general is going okay. the money's not flowing in as much as we'd hope it would, but i guess by the end of this we SHOULD be able to cover our cost price. i feel really bad for making such horrid badges. if the librarians go into debt again, it'll be my fault, completely. i say sorry in advance for doing this to you all. ): the exhibits and the form 6's games however are doing great. they've become the centre of attention, and we really owe it to them for creating such attention grabbing activities. (:

even so, im already drained. promoting the badges is becoming a pain. i can't wait for the doors to close tomorrow, for that will symbolise the last librarian event i will ever co-handle, ever. it'll also mean that it's time to get serious in my studies, as the only thing im actually confident with now is my add math and modern math. the rest, especially my science subjects, are pretty bad. argh busy busy busy forever.

the monthly tests weren't as stressful as i thought they would be. although i bullshitted 99.9% of my bio paper, im quite happy that i actually wrote something on it. i finished my modern math paper, which was a big relief, since it wasn't too hard. and, i wrote my BM essay. no comments on my deteriorating BM. (: add math tomorrow and chem on monday. aww shucks. :/

elephant trrip on saturday. mildly excited about it, but i won't expect too much from this. i think we'll probably just take many many pictures of ourselves and forget about the trip. at least we didn't have to pay for it. :P

i think, i've deciphered my thoughts now. you are, a treasured friend of mine who has the capability to influence me more than others, but that's only because i have a deep profound respect for you, although i am constantly making fun of your guts. :P

*

on another note, a few days ago, i discovered that amy winehouse passed away. i haven't been a crazy fan of hers, and i have never paid much attention to the negative press she's been getting for the past few months. even so, i've enjoyed her blues-y, jazzy style of music, and her unique voice. it's quite sad when talents like her get devoured by drug abuse. with this, i end my post with a piece, penned out the the infamous russel brand (which i quite frankly had no idea could write such a piece). i find it quite an interesting read. (:

*

"I've known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool Indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma," Brand writes. "Carl Barrat told me that 'Winehouse' (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it's kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me, with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance; 'Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric,' I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable."

"I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they're not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un

"From time to time I'd bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was 'a character' but that world was riddled with half cut, doped up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn’t especially register."

I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie [Holiday] and Ella [Fitzgerald], from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened," he writes. "Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I'd only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound. So now I knew. She wasn't just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a f**king genius."

"Shallow fool that I am, I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that YouTube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition," he continues.

"Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre, Focus12, I found recovery. Through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts which are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive."

"Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticized at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease."

"Not all addicts have Amy's incredible talent. Or Kurt [Cobain]'s or Jimi [Hendrix]'s or Janis [Joplin]'s. Some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalization doesn't even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call."