DST

Hooray for Daylight Saving Time! Well, the end of it at least. Went to the Melbourne Arts Centre yesterday night with Rach, her mom, Connie and Aditi to watch a play called Cyrano de Bergerac. It was really good! So me and Aditi had a sleepover at Rach's house after that and naturally there wasn't much sleeping involved. =) We woke up this morning at 10+ am thinking we were late as Rach and her family had to leave for church by 10.30am.

After 5 minutes of groggy puzzling, we finally found out it was actually 9am cause it was the exact day that DST ended. Having only ever lost time, I was particularly happy at being able to 'gain' it this once. 25 hours in a day, woohoo!

Oh and before we went to watch the play, Aditi inflicted Dirty Dancing 2 upon us, under the warped logic that since she had to suffer through it, we must too. I wonder where she got that. And it didn't help either that the subtitles were in Thai so every time Diego Luna or his family started yammering away in Spanish, we ad-libbed for them, though the ad-libbing did seem to have a homosexual slant, but that's only because of Rachael. *glares* =)

I'm not writing this in chronological order again. That's why I keep failing my English commentaries. Ugh. Mrs. Pilling (my English teacher) won't be happy.

revisiting the cane

I'm stuck in a rut though I haven't even begun. Aditi will be disappointed in me. :-( *groan* ...ToK. I wish I knew what it really wanted. I'm not even sure what I think anymore. I keep debating the issue with myself but I feel like I'm going round in circles and never really stepping past the scope of personal experience.

Doing a ToK presentation on corporal punishment has generated some rather interesting effects. Every now and then, in between researching and trying to sort out the mess in my head, I'd be suddenly struck by a vivid memory from the times when the cane ruled, leaving me rather shaken at the end of the little video in my head. I'm surprised that I still remember the fear and the events so clearly though they haven't crossed my mind in years. I guess there hasn't been a reason for me to look back on that part of childhood, though doing it now, involuntarily at that, makes me feel uneasy.

I remember screaming as loud as I could even though the pain didn't warrant that level of screaming, with the wild hope in my head that the neighbours will hear and come hurrying to our door demanding to know if there's been child abuse going on. I remember rubbing my legs against the pillows, writhing about and weakly dodging, because usually the warning was the more I dodged the harder I would be caned. I remember sobbing out apologies and begging them to stop. I remember sitting in my room studying, trying to block out the screams that were coming from my brother's room next door, or from the neighbour's house behind. Other people caned their kids too. I remember telling my parents "It's about time you gave her a good caning" when my sister was being rude and impertinent. It wasn't malicious though, it was simply matter-of-fact. But all that, they were so long ago. I don't understand. Despite those...unpleasant memories, why do I still think corporal punishment is right??!

Have I been so strongly conditioned I find it hard to imagine otherwise? I've always been contented with thinking that caning should be a normal part of childhood and now that time has taken the sting away, I believed this meant I could reflect on it objectively, without emotions getting in the way. I've never questioned the authority of it, and was satisfied, even willing, to call it a neccessary part of the disciplining process. Perhaps because I attribute what I am today to the strict disciplining I received when I was younger. But as Aditi says, there is no basis for that attribution, and fine, even if I think it works for me, I cannot explain why others should receive it too, especially since I know people who turned out well without having ever been caned.

On a lighter note though, I've found some amusement from those memories. I could write a hefty volume on the cane, how thinner ones would sting more than thick ones, how we used to cellophane tape the end of the cane so we wouldn't have to deal with split ends, or how we tried to hide the canes from my parents, only it just postponed the act as canes were sold abundantly in shops like Star Enterprise.

...actually, to an unaccustomed ear, this probably sounds rather morbid. XD But it's all right. I don't hate my parents, I'm not emotionally scarred for life, and somehow, stubbornly, I still think a certain degree of corporal punishment under certain conditions can be useful. Now I just need to find valid reasons to justify this view.

Hmm.

I spent all day on a 1236 word Chinese essay on gay adoption rights and I'm finally finished! This must explain the light and floaty feeling I'm having right now... =) It's so close to the holdiays, so close to home, yet...Oh goodness I don't know how I'm going to get past the next two weeks. Two of the biggest 'projects' in the IB course is due and I haven't even begun doing either of them. >_<

And something's bugging me. I think it's my sentence structure. It's strangely incoherent and it doesn't flow as smoothly as I'd like it to. And I'm using 'and' too much and it really shouldn't be used at the start of sentences. Must be all day of writing Chinese and poring over the English/Chinese dictionary taking its toll on my brain. ARHGHGGHGHGHGPPBRDCTDLSPTSPKTBRCMBNTKT!!!!! Even my tongue feels knotted and I'm not even speaking! What the-?!

Anyway. Huh. Boarders' Social was okay...there's only so much dancing and loud music I can take in my life and even the 4 hours of it on Friday night got a tad excessive and repetitive and boring. My decision to dress up a little for once when I haven't ever really bothered in the past (or found an occasion to) has clearly generated much unwonted comment, so much so that I am inclined to start defending myself soon. Either way, it's about what I had expected, the reactions...no one's used to seeing me dressed up, heck I'm hardly used to seeing myself dressed up anyway, but brace yourselves guys, there's still the formal and the valedictory dinner ahead.

That's the thing yannow, there's a gazillion occasions to dress up here (Too much, in fact. I still don't see why the Year 12s need a Formal, a Graduation Dinner Dance AND a Valedictory Dinner and goodness knows what other formalities), and you kinda have to. So you had better start getting used to it. =) It was rather interesting anyway, going off on a tangent fashion-wise. There was a mild commotion in the BH too when I appeared out of the usual baggy, bummy stuff I wear, but they were generally on a more positive note. So much I can say for your reactions...a wee bit dampening, (Really. Lobotomised and all.) but it doesn't really bother me, as I personally thought the clothes and the make up worked rather well in the end. ^^

I'll trip off for a bath now. I'm not gonna put up pictures of the social and I do hope *coughs suggestively* that LYNN will refrain from doing so too, because clearly my friends aren't quite ready for that sort of shock. =)