Eighteen

I really should blog more.

Okay so I just turned 18 a week ago, right in the midst of my 'A' Level papers. Fortunately, the saving grace was that my birthday happened to be on the first day of the 8 continuous days in which I do not have any papers. Lucky.

In the morning I went to school to study I always did. I studied briefly for a few hours before leaving for Tampines, where I met up with Mr Cha. I remembered his birthday -- calling him that day and also passing him gifts -- and I made it a point for him to know that my birthday was nearing through very obvious hinting. So the day before my birthday he called me and asked me if I had any birthday plans, then he asked to meet up for lunch on my birthday. I gave a little 'wow' over the phone, considering him always not free to meet up. Of course I had to agree to meeting up; we don't have many opportunities to meet. At first he asked me if there's anything at East Point, but no, I don't know of any eateries there. So we ended up just deciding to eat somewhere in Tampines Mall.

So we met up and I just didn't want to make a choice as to where we should eat (although I'm the birthday boy) so we ended up at Swensens. I vague remember ordering a bolognaise which he ordered crayfish pasta? Yah. Just nice to meet up and chat lor. Nothing else to blog about here about it other than that I was very full and bloated and couldn't finish the ice-cream.

After that I went back to school and tried to study but I felt super warm and sleepy so I ended up sleeping for quite a while before continuing to study. I originally also planned to meet up with Zenon, Garry and Wei Jie but considering Garry and Wei Jie have Econs paper on Monday I chose to postpone our gathering.

I then went home. The celebration at home was just a cake and nothing much to talk about.

I watched 那些年，我們一起追的女孩 on Tuesday. I regret nothing watching it; it was amazing. I first read the original novel when I was in probably Secondary 2 or 3. That book is one of the reason why I go on reading Mandarin novels -- I love how Giddens gave me that feeling of simple love and its ambiguity. He did not have to resort using big words and complicated structures -- he used easily understandable expressions that allowed everyone to easily follow yet completely feel the emotions lying within. The movie was definitely not a disappointment, rather it added an extra dimension to the original novel -- Details that can never be expressed in words.

I received 1Q84 (Book 1 & 2) as a gift and I love it. I don't know how it started but for a very long time I had been obsessed in wanting to read this latest book by Murakami. I had read all three books in its Chinese translation and I couldn't wait to read the English translation by Jay Rubin. Right now I'm past one-third of the book and almost halfway through, and I love it. I actually prefer the English translation to the Mandarin counterpart. Whenever I read translated books from a foreign language, I would make it a point to read both the English and Mandarin translations. Take French novel Le magasin des suicides by Jean Teulé -- the English translation The Suicide Shop was lackluster and awkward but the Chinese version 找死專賣店 was rich, beautiful and unforgettable. However, it seems that for Murakami's works, I prefer English translations so much more; I wasn't able to even finish reading the Chinese translation of Noruwei no mori (Norwgian Wood).

Okay this is about the length for my blog post. Good bye.