2/3s there, and expanding your horizon

I've just passed the 2/3 mark on my attachment in IMCB, only 4 more months to go. A week was infinity in primary school, a blink now. What a shame that time passes faster the older we get and the more we learn to appreciate it, but I guess it would be a greater one if kids were forced to reckon with time. Ah well.

And I've just gotten confirmation of my place in Harvard, whew! Mail (carrying my acceptance form) notoriously disappears over the ocean; what chance does one puny sheet of A4 have against the gigantic vastness of the Atlantic, which swallows whales and oceanic ridges with ease? But it's arrived nonetheless, setting into motion events which will eventually settle into a place to harbour me for the next leg of my life.

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I went to the Miss Singapore finals LIVE last weekend! =D thanks to having a friend in the finals; think I should have taken a picture of the ticket, but forgot to =\ The finals was held at the local national tv station Mediacorp, at Caldecott Hill. Incidentally, I have a friend staying opposite the tv station, a former roommate from ACS(I) who I've not seen since secondary two. Relying on old and fuzzy memories I found his house, but apparently he's overseas in Tasmania studying architecture (what a coincidence, I've another friend in Tazmania doing her undergrad as well, is Tazmania a popular destination?)

He told me years ago that schoolgirls would line up in front of the entrance, in wait for their favourite actor or actress to drive out, then run after the car screaming. It's always seemed a little bizarre to me; that each small country would have local celebrities that have crazed up fans like that...Nigeria probably has those, which we will never hear of, but who young Nigerian girls worship, and vice versa they'll never know who Zoe Tay or Adrian Pang are. How globalized are out thoughts, really?

I'm sidetracking a little here. My housemates are I were talking one day; I mentioned how before coming to Singapore at the age of 13, I thought live my entire life in Klang (my hometown, some small obscure place half an hour away from the capital...we're famous for one thing...check out the Wikipedia travel guide's entry on us, in particular noting the "Get Around" "See" "Do" "Buy" and "Drink" sections....http://wikitravel.org/en/Klang....but really, come and drop by Klang one day if I'm there!!) ....yeah anyways I thought I'd do my primary and secondary schooling there, maybe do a twinning program where I spend 3 years in college in Klang and 1 year overseas, then come back to Klang to get a job, raise a family, retire in some house, maybe my parent's, in Klang.

And therein lies the issue, that it seemed to me most Klangites, and maybe a significant portion of Malaysians, had the horizons of their minds stretching only to encompass Malaysia. They were aware of there being 'a world' out there, but it didn't intersect our lives personally (in the sense that it seemed like that; trade and diplomacy were definitely there, but it just seemed like this Other thing not affiliated with our ordinary lives). Most telling to me then was that our national English broadsheet The New Straits Times devoted 25 pages on average to local news, including "Pothole found on road in obscure district", whereas world news was granted 3. Before 13 I didn't know what was going on with the world, and more critically didn't know that there WAS a world for things to go on in.

Fast forward to the present, and all that has changed. I've done 6 years of schooling in Singapore, 3 years of undergrad in the UK, and am waiting to start 5 years in the USA. All in all, I've actually spent more years of my life out of Malaysia than in (0.4-5 in New Zealand, 13-19 in Singapore, 21-23 in the UK) I'm living a life 12-year-old me would never have dreamed of, and I'm defintely ensuring that my kids (if I get them) grow up true citizens of the world.

Tall leggy girls in bikinis. Haha caught your eye! Ok back to the topic, Miss Singapore Universe finals. Haha 16 of us , 4 family members downstairs with VIP tickets, while the rest of us headed for the balcony. Apparently the place holds 700 ppl.

First time in a tv studio during a live recording, and it was interesting. You know the commercial breaks? When you're sitting at home watching tv the host bids you "brb" just before the commercial cuts in, and when the commercial ends he's there smiling like an old friend with a 'welcome back to the show'. In actual fact during the commercial break they just ignore the studio audience...well I actually didn't really expect anything else, but thought maybe they'd give a little light-hearted banter or chat with the audience...just thought it was an interesting fact to note...not too bad during a beauty pageant when the focus isn't on the host, but I wonder what David Letterman or Oprah do during a commercial break..do they just sit there ruffling through their notes while the audience stares at them in awkward silence?

Apparently David Letterman studio tickets must be requested a year in advance...I'm getting me some when I'm over in the states!

Yup yup so the event wasn't too different compared to watching it at home I think, but it was good to be able to shout your support and know that the people you're supporting might be able to hear you...a friend watching at home just told me she thought she recognized my voice over the tv shouting *blush*....

And congrats again to Juliana for making top ten! =D