3 Weeks Late

Yo, readers!!! No, I'm not talking about my period. I'm talking about this post! xP I was supposed to write it 3 weeks ago, but I didn't. Because, obviously, I have such great skills at procrastinating. So if you've been wondering about how my life has been lately, here I am - ready to share it with you! *hugs*

First, allow me to proudly announce that I have carried out a Self-Improvement Plan, and it was a SUCCESS!!! Let me elaborate:

1) For the past 2 months, I have been on a strict diet for promoting height, and I have grown from 152 cm to a stunning 164 cm!!!

2) I have been reading mastery books on chess, practicing up to 3 hours a day, and can now complete a round of lightning chess in just under 2 minutes!!!

3) I've been cycling for the past half year... and after much practice, I can now perform up to 62 DIFFERENT EXTREME BICYCLE STUNTS!!!

...

...

...

Well, as you might have already suspected, none of the above are true. But if you fell for it, GOTCHA!!! =D Haha! I'm still my same old self, buddy. The same old Xing Yii you've always known. *winks*

Anyway, what this post is really going to be about is an experience of something I did (hmm, not really) for the first AND last time. It's... *drumroll* the DISSECTION OF A MOUSE!!

Well, I wouldn't say it was a great experience, nor that it was something I was really enthusiastic about. It was just something that came and passed. You know, like a fly. Uhm... Okay, so let me now tell you about it.

HOW TO DISSECT A MOUSE: 101

First of all, the mouse has to be knocked out with chloroform. This is so that it wouldn't feel anything when you put it into a pot of boiling water. No, I was just kidding. It is so that it would be more humane, duh. Anyway, that was done by the lab assistant several hours before, and by the time we were supposed to carry out the dissection, the mice were all already dead. So that tells you, kids, that you should NEVER overdose on chloroform - whether or not you're a mouse!

So after having checked to make sure that the mouse isn't going to regain consciousness - or come back to life - while you're cutting away at it, the poor critter is supposed to be pinned lying down on its back. And that is done by driving pins through it's palms (well, assuming that the mouse has 4... hands =.=). After that, the real thing begins.

This is where a dissection kit comes into the picture. It's a box with at least 10 sharp things in it - all of which are identical. Or at least, all of them looked identical to me. Clearly, I have no sense of biology! =.= *applause* So the first step... is to cut a hole in the abdominal skin. Then... *groans* It isn't easy to describe. You wouldn't understand what I have to say if you haven't seen the process for yourself. Therefore... it would be a wise decision to just skip the horror story.

Instead, I'll just share related stuff with you.

- Apart from the skin outside... there is actually something else that... uhm, holds us in a package. It's a membrane that holds all the organs together. The mice had it, and as I found out, so do we. I had absolutely no idea about this... uh, wrapper @.@

- Most guys are scary. You know, sick. Throughout the whole week, dissection stories were exchanged from all over. And some of these stories that managed to find their way to my ears... sound like they came out of a Stephen King novel!! There was a guy who mutilated his mouse until there was a whole pool of blood around it. And another one who cut off all the poor creature's feet, along with the HEAD! I mean, is that really necessary? =.= The worst part is that they seem to be really proud of it, taking photos and posting them on Facebook. 'Hey, look - it's the Headless Mouse of Sleepy Hollow!' Enough said.

- I also discovered that Biology is really something I was born to never go into. Actually, I kinda almost cried when my practical teacher asked me to be the one to dissect the mouse. I didn't touch it throughout the practical session, not even once. I just sat down quietly, watching, and wondering with a mild sorrow... about how the mouse would have spent its last day on Earth if it knew it was going to end up here, dead. With its internal organs all exposed. Yikes, the sentence before was really uncalled for.

And I didn't take any photos. There are plenty on Facebook which other people posted, but I don't feel like posting them here... Now, I would like to pay a tribute to all the mice and frogs and all other critters that have been sacrified for the purpose of education. I feel all sorry and sad for them, but I suppose it was for the greater good of mankind.

May they rest in peace >.<

This post is longer than I expected it to be.

I was back in Penang last weekend, to take the ASEAN Scholarship selection test. If you know somebody else who took it too, please let me know!! Thank youuu =D

Anyway . . . the test was held at the Sunway Carnival Convention Centre at Seberang Perai. After they managed to have us assembled properly (Oh, what a feat!) they led us into a vast hall with rows and rows of tables and chairs. There were basically three groups of people there; those who were taking the selection test for Sec 1, Sec 3 and Pre-U (like me!) respectively.

The first paper was Mathematics. People who have taken the test in previous years have warned over and over again through forums that the test will be extremely difficult. After a first glance at the paper, I had a conclusion in mind; these people were NOT joking!! After we were allowed to begin, I frantically flipped through the paper, looking for a single question that I could answer *faints*. I found a few which were easy, but there were a total of 22 questions - and I didn't have to be a maths genius to know that I had to answer more than 2 or 3?!

So as the clock ticked away, I tried to squeeze out every single drop of brain juice (though I doubt there was much left, especially after 6 months of rotting) in order to come up with solutions. Really, the stuff they learn is pretty much the same, but what differs is that they have a much deeper understanding of the concepts than we do. The disparity in the standard of Malaysian maths and Singaporean maths has never been more obvious to me!! Most of the questions were really, really 'chim', and were much less straightfoward than the questions we are so used to answering!

Let me give you an example:

Given that a + b = c. Evaluate abc.

I was like, 'O.o Excuse me??' Okay la, obviously that was not the whole question, but it is essentially the same. They give you unknowns all over the place, some of the tiniest bits of information, and make you work your brain as if you've taken a drug that doubles your IQ. I must've left approximately half of the whole paper blank!!! Salute to all Singaporeans for their non-human cognitive abilities. I surrender *waves white flag* =.=

Apart from having neurons that can send information at the speed of light, Singaporeans have something else most of us don't - the ability to write at machine-like speed. Let me explain. We had to write a 350-word essay within half an hour, for the English paper. Let me repeat. Half an hour!! Gosh. The moment I had my points I began to start writing at top speed, but clearly 'top speed' still wasn't enough. I'm pretty sure I managed to pass the 350-word mark, but I still had to omit one point, because there really wasn't sufficient time at all. A friend told me he saw a girl who managed to fill ALL 3 PAGES of the answer sheet!! That's just . . . really crazy. My essay was only one and a half pages long. To be able to fill 3 pages, I'd have to be really high on candy or something!

Singaporeans clearly also have a much higher standard of English!! I had no trouble with the general meaning of the passage given (based on which we had to answer questions), but when they picked out specific words or phrases and made me explain them . . . it's pretty much, 'Hey, let's play a game of stand-still-and-shoot. I'll stand still, and you'll shoot.' Awful!! Just awful! *shakes head*

Something else I realized is that Malaysian students are far more pampered than Singaporean students are. We are given ample time to answer our SPM English papers - so much that I had taken for granted the amount of time that we were given to answer the English paper during the selection test. I wasted too much time on the comprehension section . . . and almost couldn't finish my summary!

Throughout the whole duration of the test, there was something I really couldn't help noticing - that the hall was getting colder . . . and colder . . . and colder!! Really, what is their problem?? Why do they seem to expect potential ASEAN scholars to be able to withstand extreme cold!? Remind me, when was the last time Singapore was covered in snow??? =.= Couldn't they have turned it down? Sure, we were told that the place would be 'rather cold', and thus it would have been advisable to bring a jacket or something of the sort. Nonsense! They should've said the place would be FREEZING US TO OUR BONES! I would've brought an electric blanket and a polar bear!!

I was out of practice in writing AND thinking, and it REALLY didn't help that it was so extremely cold in there. So not only were my brain juices frozen, but so was my hand. It took an incredible amount of effort to write as quickly as I could. Even after I had stopped writing for awhile, I could still feel my arm screaming out in pain, saying 'WHAT IN THE WORLD are you doing to me??'

There were only 3 papers, and the last one was the General Abilities test. It was basically an IQ test, and although it wasn't half as difficult as the maths paper was, I still didn't manage to complete it, having left 10 questions out of 48 undone.

Seriously speaking, if I do want the scholarship, I would've cried. And would still be crying, considering how it turned out to be. But . . . I don't want it. My father wanted me to apply for it. He really, REALLY likes Singapore. IMO, even if I had flunked the whole test . . . no biggie. The sky is still blue and I'm still happy! Anyways the results will be out sometime in August or September, and until then I will no longer think of this catastrophe!!

Chilli is not my thing.

Let me tell you. I have a very low ‘spice tolerance level’, or whatever you’d like to call it. I can’t take chilli to save my life. Every time I order curry mee, it’s without chilli. Not even the slightest bit. I call it santan mee. Because without the chilli, the soup is basically only santan. And the colour is a pale orange, pretty much like beige. A lot of people may think it’s really weird o.O but that’s the just way I like it XP

Anyway, what happened was . . . I was eating something at home that day, when I suddenly had a very strong urge to try the chilli from McDonald’s. You know, in those little packets. I thought it would be very jinak. I thought it was chilli for, um, beginners like me la. I tried a little, and I loved it!! You know why? Because it’s sweet. I love anything that’s sweet! (Well, as long as it isn’t made from insects or spiders.) So I finished the first packet, and opened a next one, and yet another one. Then I began to realize . . . that it was getting spicier and spicier by the packet. Either that, or it was just my body’s way of saying, ‘No more, no more!!’

I kind of got addicted to it. Within two days, I must have consumed a total of about 10 packets. Which probably isn’t A LOT for most people, but proved to be nearly fatal for me. Why do I say that?? Because now I’ve lost my voice! Almost completely, really. I can’t sing; my pitch range is now all of two tones. But what’s worse is that I have an ulcer on my tongue! I’m having a hard time enjoying anything I eat, and even DRINKING hurts! Terrible, just terrible *shakes head*

Lesson learnt. Take it easy, take it slow. Never ever go on a chilli binge again!! Now I feel a little less than enthusiastic when it comes to answering phone calls. The caller may think they dialed the number to an Egyptian pyramid, and a thousand-year-old mummy picked up =.= THAT's what I sound like, no kidding. But don't give me prank calls just to check! I'm serious!!

Blessing in disguise?

Last night I was halfway bathing when my mother knocked on the bathroom door.
"Girl, come out and see! [My brother] found two dunno-what, look like mouse or rats or something."
I was like, "Hah?? What what? Wait for me, don't throw away yet - I wanna seee...!"

So out I ran, wrapped up in my towel to see what the commotion was all about. True enough, on our big dustbin lid were two furry little brown creatures, about 4 or 5 inches in length. Here's what happened. My mother had asked my brother to fill up a watering can. He was just about to do so when he discovered that it was FILLED WITH LEAVES. So he began to empty the leaves onto our big dustbin lid, and *plop* the two creatures fell out of it!

At first glance I thought they looked like moles, but it couldn't have been possible at all. Because we don't just find moles where we live. Upon further inspection we thought they could be baby squirrels. Newborn squirrels, in fact - haven't even opened their eyes yet! So we were all "How, how, what do we do??" We lined a shoebox with newspaper and tissue and put them in there. (Of course, we DID NOT use bare hands because you know how some fussy mothers will abandon their young if they have foreign scents.)

There was nothing else we could do. We did try feeding them water but they repeatedly shied away from the straw. We left the box as close as possible to the original position of the watering can, in hope that the mother would come back and see them there. Then I went on Yahoo! Answers to see if people could give suggestions as to what we might be able to do. Most people said that the mother will not come back for them anymore because we disturbed the nest and removed the young. What were supposed to do? We simply couldn't put them back into the watering can??

We wished that we never accidentally disturbed the nest. Little did we realize. . . In actual fact, there were some windows installed there earlier this week. My mother was away - and the windows were left closed all along. This means that the mother squirrel could not return to them in the first place. She might've already given up in the first place. Had my brother not emptied the watering can and discovered them there, they would've starved and died. It was a blessing in disguise that we discovered them there after all.

As I said earlier, we left them outside. And prayed against all odds that the mother WOULD come back and take them away and they'd be gone by the morning. Meanwhile, I asked around to see if anybody would they them as pets, or help us bring them to an animal shelter. The next morning it appeared to us that the mother did not come back. My mother decided to take them to RSPCA. But no one was there. So she decided to try pet shops instead. Pet shop after pet shop. At last she did find one that would take them! We were relieved. She wanted to keep them, actually, and so did I - but they were much too young for people with no squirrel-care experience. And I was very afraid that they would die under our care. >.<

That's pretty much the end of the fascinating experience of finding two baby squirrel in a WATERING CAN. We're dropping by the pet shop next weekend to visit them, though. Here're some photos we managed to take.

My favourite. Squirrel says "Hi-5!!"

No actually, it was waving goodbye.

Sigh. Good luck, squirrels!!

DETECTIVE *ahem ahem* XY

Last Saturday around noon we were going to leave my grandmother's place. So we went down to the carpark, and got to our car. Upon approaching it, however, I saw that the rear windscreen (yeah well, what else do you call it) looked white-ish. Or fuzzy or whatever you'd call it. Further inspection gave me an utter shock! You know why?? Here's why. The WHOLE rear windscreen was cracked! Down to every last inch. Like this.

WHAT. THE. ****. Who could've done it?? And why would anybody do something like that to us?? It's not like my mother has some along going after her. Anyway, I begin trying to figure out how it was done. If you'd take a look at the photo, you can see that the, um - cracking is even, like there is no apparent point of impact. You know, the point from which there is a BIG crack then it spreads out like a circle and there are those littler crack lines . . .

Anyway, a few moments after that we noticed something I thought was EVEN STRANGER. Here.

Lidi sticks! On the car hood! If that isn't strange, what is. Like some weird voodoo ritual! Like somebody put them on the car hood with an evil intention or something. It obviously wasn't the cause of the cracking! Strange as it was, I was much more interested in the rear windscreen. So I went back to it. And saw this!

Little impact points at the top left hand corner. Small, yeah - but there. Remember somebody said stones were what caused the windscreen (I'll just say ws from now on, okay) - ws to crack? Those marks looked like they were caused by stones all right! The common ones we see all the time.

WELL, WHADDYA KNOW! Soon after, enough prying around gave us THIS.

Stones. Stones. STONES. Stones that fit within the impact point made on the ws! *gasps* Obviously, we've found the - murder weapon (Yeah - it murdered the rear windscreen didn't it?) but WHO was the murderer??

By then, my grandmother had already managed to attract a decent bunch of people who were either caring or kaypo (very thin line of difference, mind you). No pictures though - didn't want them to think they were on some sort of movie. Ahh, but despite the *Um how do you say lau zuak in English??* OLD HOT - no, that can't be right - okay, hustling and bustling, the criminals decided to reveal themselves! Well, so much for detective work.

Several children were throwing stones down from dunno-what-th floor! In spite of the crowd of adults just right there. Yeah, you'd think I'd have had a bit of sense to look for them and see which floor they were on. Of course, given my wonderful eyesight I didn't even have time to catch the slightest glimpse of them! My wonderful ears did hear kiddy voices, though.

And boy, was I enraged when it simply confirmed that it WAS children after all. What - have they NO BRAINS?? Can't they like, stick to action figures or PlayStations?! I felt like going up there and just throttling all of them. After much ado and investigation, it appeared that these were the same, notorious bunch of kids who have been warned before - for splashing curry and throwing various stuff onto the cars downstairs. To my pleasant surprise, the mother of one of those kids came down to . . . plead guilty. So they talked. And exchanged numbers. And another guy who was the father of another one of the kids came and talked. And exchanged numbers. My grandmother said he looked like a policeman, so yeah, HE HAD BETTER. Or else . . .

So . . . settled! But wait - what about the car?? o.O Here's what we did to temporarily protect it.

Bandaged it, that's what! With two large pieces of plastic! Until it was sent for a rear ws transplant! =D

Close Shave 1

Re: Close Shave 2

If you've noticed, a few posts before this is a post entitled 'Close Shave 2'...which, actually, is a sequel to this. Close Shave 1, however, will be alot shorter and simpler, but more shocking - in the sense that it all happened so abruptly.

(I know - why does Becky have a knack of getting into all this sort of trouble??)

Anyway, this happened a sometime ago. Just so you know, about 2 weeks before PMR last year...So this was what happened.

My stepfather (don't ask) had just picked Becky up from my grandmother's place. On the way home, he decided to stop by to get some hawker food for dinner. He was just going to leave the car really nearby and get out for a short while to get the food. But when he opened the car door, my smart smart doggie JUMPED out of the car! Yes - onto the road.

(From the previous story, you should know by now that Becky is really really irrational. Well, she's a dog after all...)

So she lands on the road and immediately starts running about! And THEN...she runs into the path of a car. And - believe it or not - the driver did NOT see her, and just ran over her. As in  - YES, literally ran OVER her. (No, DUH he did not see her, so it means that he did not stop the car as well.) Well, you see, Becky is a small dog, and VERY LUCKILY FOR HER, SHE WAS SO SHORT, that as the car went over her, she apparently ducked so low, the car didn't touch her at all! (No, I do not know what car it was - it might have been a tall car)

Then, of course she got frightened that a car ran over her, that as soon as the car was gone, off she went as well! So she ran and my stepfather chased her and almost lost her but very luckily managed to chase her into a lorong belakang and cornered her and caught her...

Crazy, right?? As bizarre as it seems, but yes - it really did happen. Can you imagine?? She really could've died! Technically, a car did run over her. Technically, she should no longer be alive! Don't get me wrong - I don't mean for her to have died! Oh yes, believe me - I was so grateful (and stilll am!) that she's so tiny and that the car didn't get her. The driver even doesn't know that he/she almost killed my dog...

Well, obviously I wasn't there when it happened, or I wouldn't be alive because I would've had a fatal cardiac arrest and gone to where dead people go to...Thank her lucky stars she didn't die then, or my PMR results would've died with her as well!!  >.<

*touch wood*

She's just such a silly pooch, isn't she...?

But I love my silly pooch~! XP

Close Shave 2

Okay. Let me tell you something that really happened, which was really frightening for me.

WARNING: It's really unnecessarily LONG! (Now that is a warning EVERYBODY will see! XD)

However, you could skip this if you don't own a dog. Also skip if you've got no patience to run through this long, long post.

Last Sunday, my mum fetched my brother back from camp. However, she forgot to bring her handphones with her earlier. So after dropping my brother, he was supposed to go back out to bring her h/p's for her (after which she would be leaving for KL).

He grabbed her h/p's and summoned the lift. But it was taking too long to arrive, so he decided to take the stairs instead. After he left, I went back into the house to get the keys - to lock the doors. When I came out to get the dogs back into the house, I only saw Misha...Becky was gone. And to my horror, it seemed that my brother had left the door to the stairwell ajar.

Very quickly, I grabbed Misha and shoved her back into the house - and made sure that I shut the door hehind me. (I must have grabbed too hard, because she yelped rather loudly, but I couldn't care less, because I had another dog to save.)

I didn't even bother to put on any footwear - I just left bare-footed; I was hoping like mad that I was wrong (that Becky had gone and ran off by herself) and that my brother took Becky with him when he went down. I ran down the stairwell, hoping that she did run down and not up, and most importantly, that the door out of the stairwell was not open, so that she would be stuck there. And all the way down I was yelling her name and when I passed some cleaner-guy he stared at me as if I were crazy. (And yes, I was almost crazy because I was so panicked it didn't even occur to me that I could've asked him if he saw a furry thing fly by...)

However, when I reached the end of the stairwell, she was nowhere to be found, and the door there was ajar as well. I KICKED the door open and ran out and into the carpark. All I could hope for now was that my brother did take her with him - because if she ran free into the carpark, we might never ever find her again, because - well:

1) she's small and fast and difficult to catch if you couldn't corner her (or even spot her in the first place) - which is something you definitely couldn't do in a big, wide, carpark

2) she's not streetwise at all and is certainly apt to be run over by a car

3) she's going to venture too far away from home before she realizes it, and she'll definitely never find her way back

4) she didn't have a name tag, so nobody would know how to return her, or somebody even might just SELL her to another person

Then...I went all the way down the carpark, to see if my mum was still there, and if my brother was still there talking to her, and most importantly, if Becky was with him. Well, NONE of that was. So I ran back up again. And along the way back I got so scared and frightened and sooo dramatic I started crying and thinking, "WHAT IF I NEVER SAW HER AGAIN??"

All there was left to do was to was that my brother really did take her, but had left and gone back up (with her) before I had arrived, and was safely back in the house (with her). So I went back up again. And when I reached the door my hands (along with my whole body), was shaking so badly because if I opened it and there was no Becky...

However, just as my hand reached for the door...my brother had swung it open. And so I very frantically asked him, 'Where is Bec - ?' and before I finished my sentence - lo and behold - my dear dear darling doggie came running out of the house! And so I scooped her into my arms (and NO I didn't start kissing her all over her snout - well not yet anyway) and the first thing I said to her was YOU FREAK DOG!

...

...

What?? She really did give me a scare! And I called her that a few more times and then I started to hug her and kiss her. I was so relieved! I kept wondering, "What am I supposed to do if she really did get lost??"

And this is funny. My brother had a stick in his hand when he opened the door. And he said: "So THERE you are! Where did you go?? I thought you were kidnapped or something!! You left the grill door open and the keys were still in the keyhole when I came back. And I looked all over the house but I couldn't find you!" And so he was about to bring the stick to come and search for me, thinking that he probably would have to fight off some bad people or something! To save me! Hahahaha priceless!!

But no, I wasn't laughing at that time because, obviously, of what had just happened. So I asked him..."You took Becky with you is it??"

Well, he did not. Apparently, this is what happened. As I mentioned earlier, my brother couldn't wait for the lift, so he took the stairs instead. When I went back into the house (to get the keys), the lift arrived. As the dogs were outside the house, Becky ran into the lift when the doors opened. By herself. (Smart move, eh?? NOT! >.<) Of course, she didn't know how to press any buttons - and had to wait in there, until somebody else summoned the lift. LUCKILY FOR HER, my brother had come back - to take the lift back upstairs - and therefore was the next person to summon the lift. So when the lift arrived...and its doors opened...Becky ran out of the lift, and he caught her! Can you imagine what would've happened IF IT WASN'T HIM WHO HAD SUMMONED THE LIFT??

Becky do you know I love you so much next time if you're going to do something STUPID like that again will you please tell me first so that I won't kill myself with a HEART ATTACK??? 

(NO, no just please don't ever run away or do something else equally stupid like that again!)

And that's all, folks! Thanks, if you've read the whole of this post and stuck with me right through to the end!! I'm sorry if you did not appreciate my, um...story-telling skills, and even more so, if there were CHUNKS of the story which you could not understand; I've really tried to make it as clear as possible, and that's why it's soooo long...and not too long-winded, I hope! And if you own a dog (which you really really love) yourself, you must've understood how I felt! Please show symphathy and offer words of concern/comfort by leaving a comment~

Thanks again!! =P

...

...

...

...

Becky darling how I LOVE YOU~!!