Vertically challenged - not a crime!

I'm probably not very tall. In fact, being only 5'3'', I guess I'm somewhat vertically challenged. My friends even call me Shorty. Shorty Lim. I've tried pointing out to them that I'm so not the shortest one in the group (what happened to Zihui huh?) but their excuse? That 'Shorty' suits me too well to be used on other people.

So I live with it. And they've been calling me that ever since. They even do it in large crowds. I could still remember sometime last year, we were on this sort of roller coaster ride in an amusement park. And instead of screaming the way other people do, they were going "Shorteeeeee! SHORTEEEE!!" Surprisingly, it wasn't as embarrassing as I thought it'd be.

I've probably gotten too used to that nickname that I don't realize it when they use it. So here's something which happened a week ago that I didn't notice until now.

Zihui and I were at Sunway Pyramid. The mall? Zihui's phone was at home. Her mom wanted to contact her. So she dialed my cellphone number. Guess what she called me? "Eh, Shorty arh, Zihui leh?" I wouldn't mind if my friends called me Shorty, but my friend's mom?! And I didn't even realize it until much, MUCH later.

Zihui had weird names for everybody on her phonebook. I was Shorty (that explains why her mom called me that). Ling was 'SaPo' (crazy woman). Funny ones were Jin ('Down Syndrome Kid') and Ivan ('Olay Spokesperson'). Then there were weird ones like 'Monkey' and 'MiaoMiao'.

It'll all be very amusing, until one day when she forgets who is who. Now that, I'd like to see!

Phone withdrawal symptoms?

I've gotten a few sms-es both last night and this morning. Guess people don't quite remember I don't have my phone with me anymore.

Three asked me to bring the portable cd player to school for practice.

Two asked if I was going for practice.

Another one, nah, petty stuff, not worth mentioning.

Grr. I had to sneak the Nokia 3310 out to check for smses. Yes, they gave me back my SIM card, but come to think of it, I should've asked for the batteries and memory card from them, too.

1. I don't want people messing with my phone.
2. That memory card could still be used, instead of being left lying idly there.

Looking on the brighter side, at least I know my phone bill for the upcoming month wouldn't be much. My bill for the past month was double of what it had been all along. That was a shock. I know I've been using it a little more than usual lately, but that much? It's probably because of me having to organize all that stuff, which meant there were a lot of calls to make. Especially the English Literature class we're about to have. Eeek, sometimes I wished people'd just hurry when on the phone. I wouldn't give two hoots if they were the ones paying for the call, but if they made ME call THEM, then the least they could do is SPEAK FASTER.

I don't have an alarm clock. For the past few years, I've been relying on the phone's alarm to wake me up in the morning.

Too bad, guess I'd just have to sleep right through school then.

A dose of bad luck

Michelle's birthday today. We didn't want the usual sing-birthday-song - eat-cake routine, but couldn't think of a different way to celebrate, so we decided on singing a couple of Michelle's favourite songs to spice things up.

And her favourite song happen to be This I Swear by Nick Lache.

No one knew how to sing it, so we agreed upon me transfering the song into my cellphone, and them learning to sing it after school. But who would've thought, bad luck had a little ambush in store for us.

Surprise spot-checks! Darned prefects.

I've been really careful not to bring my phone to school for the past week or so, but today I decided to make an exception. It was Michelle's birthday, dammit! I even brought the stereo earphones. So we could listen to the song better. Keep in mind that I've never brought that thing to school before. Urgh, of all days, why today?

And so, both of them got confiscated. Geramnya. Even the box of matches I brought (for lighting the candles on the cake) weren't excepted. What, they think I'm going to burn the school down or something lah? And what's a birthday without the customary blowing of the candles?

Again, say it together now - Darned prefects!

I'm probably going to get my phone back after a month or so, but as for the earphones, guess it's a permanent goodbye. It may not be expensive, but I'm extremely short of cash right now. Oh yeah. Correction fluid. See, almost nobody else bothers to bring it, they use mine when they need it, and now that it's gone I'm the one who's suffering the loss. Eek.

Funny though. People think I'm that traumatized. Just because my stuff got confiscated by prefects, does NOT mean it traumatizes me that much. One guy came and asked, "Eh, you okay or not?" like I was about to break down any minute. A girl went, "It's okay girl, it's just a phone you're gonna get it back anyway.." Another repeatedly asked me not to worry so much. "Don't worry lah, I can see you so worried..." No no no I'm fine. Worse still, my friend from a DIFFERENT CLASS said she heard that Lei and I went to the Red Cross room and cried. Lei was sick, so it wouldn't be such a surprise if she cried, but ME, cry over a phone? Nah-uh. Besides, I didn't have to run all the way to the Red Cross room to cry, did I? I'm fine.

In fact, an hour later I was back to grinning widely and having laughing cramps. Not hard to do when Fui's around!

Still, the day ended on a happy note. Birthday celebration after school. We went ahead and sang This I Swear, eventhough none of us knew how to sing it. Spontaneous singing never sounded this bad! Some were singing fast, some slow, some sang high and some sang low. It was that bad. I could tell Michelle was touched though. It was then followed by our very own rendition of Truly Madly Deeply, another one of Midge's favourite. That wasn't so bad. Lastly, the birthday song.

By the time we finished singing, the candles had almost finished burning. In fact, two of them had already melted into puddles on the cake.

Fed, full and contented. And then we went home.

Wizards and witches and brooms, Oh My!

Ahh, almost EVERYBODY is caught up in the Harry Potter hype. All of them are in a race to finish the book. I'm no longer a Harry Potter fan (the added few hundred pages are a BORE) but if I were, I sure as hell wouldn't want to rush and finish the whole book within a week. I'd rather savour it for as long as I can. Take my own sweet time. Especially since the next Harry Potter book wouldn't be out very soon. A year or two, maybe. But people literally are in a race to finish the book.

In fact, I have a friend who was threatened by another friend to read the book to a certain chapter by a certain time, or else that friend of hers would spoil her fun. By revealing the important parts of the plot! Hah, how evil can a person get?

Anyway, I was digging deep into one of our bookshelves the other day and found this really old print of Wind in the Willows. Gosh it's good. Too unfortunate though - it doesn't have illustrations. But its use of metaphors is amazing! Yeah it's a children's tale, but really, modern-day children's stories like Harry Potter are nothing compared to it.

Layout you gotta (not) love

I am lazy. I have a lazy person's layout.

I know it looks nothing like the oh-so-chun blog layouts of all my peers, but you gotta know, I made this from scratch (except for the garlic picture which I got off Google image).
You also gotta know, I have not been using Photoshop for a year now, and I have problems re-installing it.

I made this entirely using stupid Paint. Under half an hour.
And I didn't want to get a layout off the web that someone else has made.

Now you know!

It looks positively moronic.

Bah, I really can't be bothered.

DownDownDownDown, makes me so!

CHINESE HERSHEY'S KISSES

Bad photo quality. Oh well.

Or
Sugar Gem Biscuits.

Or
Pasar Malam One-Ringgit per Bag I-Used-To-Eat-Them-When-I-Was-Young Biscuits.

They're basically biscuits with a dollop of coloured sugar on them. Green, pink, yellow, orange, white, you name it!

Some people bite off the biscuits first, then savour the sugar drops. Others don't ever bother with the biscuits.

Me, I like to eat them whole! Pop 'em in and enjoy! Most (all?) of my friends have not been eating them since they were 10, but I buy them every other week! They are the ultimate Comfort Food, after chocolates of course.
How can enjoying a whole bag of them not lift your spirits?

Which was why I needed them so badly today. I dunno why, I had the extreme blues. Shucks, it was so bad, I didn't want to go home after school's annual Sports Day. So Yun and I went to Ling's place instead.
(Oh and here I take the opportunity to thank the both of them, because going to Ling's house was MY decision, and they really didn't have to oblige!)

So we left for her house. All of us got comfy on her bed, with the air-conditioning on, and there were snacks, and the room dimly lit, and music in the background. Obviously, a gathering of friends with such an atmosphere, heart-to-heart talks are unavoidable!
'Twas nice, especially since it has been months since the three of us had REAL heart-to-heart talks.

Unfortunately though, I was still in my House March uniform. I'm in the blue house, and this year our theme was the sky, and the girls dressed up as air stewardess while the guys donned blazers and berets. Flight captain, get it? The girls' uniform were a torture! The knee-length skirts were tight! In fact, we couldn't even sit on the ground properly! For a non-skirt person like me (I admit I've not worn an actual skirt since I was 6) it definitely was hell. But like what they say, beauty and comfort don't go together. At least people thought our costumes were nice! Most said nicest, in fact. Uh-huh!

Ahh but I digress.

I had an extremely hard time sitting on Ling's bed. The darned skirt! It was too short. But in the end, I couldn't bother with it that much anymore. Hey they were all girls anyway!

Got home in the evening. Felt so much better. Who wouldn't feel better after pillow talks?