Biennale, and promos.

I got my results back today and I’m glad to have been promoted. Calculating the score was easy enough, all I take are four subjects and they’re all H2, so it’s a possible twenty points each, adding up to the eighty total perfectly. I cleared the thirty-five points to promote minimum by a good margin and I’m content. I think it’s interesting that almost two years ago, I was so absolutely fixed on getting into SA, and here I am now! You would think it’d be satisfying to be able to fill in the blank for something you want to know – dog meat tastes ___, or bungee jumping is ___ – but if were to ask me how living out a dream is like I’d probably just say it’s all just a bit too real; the way the fantasy of a beautiful girl at a distance disappears when she comes close. JC life can sometimes be unpleasant and exams are tough, but paradoxically, it’s probably only when one realizes dreams aren’t flawless, but accepts the flaws anyway, that the dream becomes far more beautiful than it was before.

Take the outing with my KI class to the Singapore Biennale just yesterday. You wouldn’t believe the trashing we got for sacrificing PW lesson time to embark on our own little adventure outside, though it was rather inevitable that if we wanted to go at all this month with our busy schedules someone was bound to complain. I think it really was worth going though, and it’s these unpleasant experiences (of risking stuff and getting caught) as well as the good ones that make school life so favourful.


Of the biennale I have only praise for, though I still think that that which evokes disgust cannot be art, like say the framed picture we saw of a bloodied head with drooping eyeballs and jutting teeth. I think art should be noble; appreciate-able. Like this art piece that had hundreds of miniature trees and plants stuck into a bed of sand, all black against the dusty yellow background of the sand grains. It already looked awesome, but when we walked past the exhibit we noticed all those trees and plants had their backs painted with colour, and the view from the back looked even more grand. The piece I thought funniest was this:



an art piece I would have probably missed if I’d been in a hurry, since it was outside in the open while all the other pieces were displayed indoors. All the artist displayed was a few alien figures, but the genius lay in its chosen background, courtesy of the Singapore government – you know how people always say the Supreme Court looks like an alien ship?

Perhaps aliens control the highest levels of our bureaucracy.




Oh, do you know the power of Korean drama serials? All Tim did was to take out his phone and answer in Korean, and look!

& the class.