Reminiscent

"Poor boy. Who punched up your face?"

It was during Monday assembly, when something hit me, hard. Something other than the usual pangs of gastric pains I suffer, week after week, as I try my best to stand upright and keep an eye out for misbehaving students. The librarians were doing their promotion thing, you know, promoting new books that students wouldn't actually be able to take out of the library anyway. They were promoting encyclopedias.

I used to read encyclopedias. Yeah, when I was younger. Page by page, like I would a story book, albeit a v. v. thick one. I used to love them. And then on that Monday, I realised that I might still actually do.

And now I wish I had an encyclopedia to read. Probably one on geography or history, or global cultures, or just general knowledge. Even on the evolution of science, but nothing too deep, due to my distaste for that particular branch of knowledge. But now I see the main reason why I stopped - encyclopedias that are not for children are just far too expensive for me to afford. Or my mom. She doesn't really appreciate my being a bookworm, methinks.

I don't know who I am.

I think that's the first time I've said that here. Usually I avoid talking about this kind of thing, because this is the real world, and not a storybook - we aren't beings that can be summed up using any known words.

I think, though, that I used to be smart.

I love Chen Xin You.

Really.

He finished Fire. And loves it. He deserves this. :D

I love Ho Hui Jan.
Really.

[Insert cuss word here]

I forgot about English oral. I shit damn ass keep forgetting about it because my mind wants me to. I hate Pn. Manjeet. I'd kill her if I could, if I could get away with it, and if I weren't afraid of burning in the eternal fires of hell. Never in my life have I hated to do English oral this much. It's Pn. Manjeet, I swear it is. And I have a feeling I've to do it tomorrow.

Shit. I've not prepared anything. I have a feeling I have to talk about the only thing on my mind right now - Fire.

Oh, to associate Fire with the vileness of Pn. Manjeet. It's cruel, too cruel.

Addiction

I've finished reading Fire for the second time and am planning to start on the third. I'm experiencing the normal symptoms of addiction, like I do to any book I love or movie. I'm reading Fire obsessively, careful not to miss a word, repeating sentences over and over sometimes just to memorise them. I'm scrutinising the writing style, the tenses, until I would recognise this writer's flair anywhere. I have Fire, and Brigan, in my head, and they're real to me now - I could predict what they would say, how they would sound, what they would do - I know them so well now, they could grow in my head by themselves.

I get attached, obsessed, whatever you call it, so easily. I'm listless now when I'm not reading Fire. (Doesn't this post sound listless to you?) This always happens to me. Which gives me a new reason to remind myself to never try drugs. There's no saying that I only get addicted to books and movies.

So now, another familiar part of this process I have reached. Unable to contain my fixation with the book, I now begin to plague the poor souls who have the misfortune of being my friends to share in my fever.

Going through the Fire, I come across parts that I think my friends would love reading - parts that I think are really good, that have such a message in them that would be very good to be spread to the world. Fire is no bimbotic book - it's full of morale, and the characters put into words ideals and beliefs I've been subconsciously holding on to myself. And I always think to myself that I would post the excerpts here. But then, after a while I come to realise that I would be typing out the whole book here sooner or later.

It's a girl's book, actually, but if you're an open-minded guy you can still read it. Xin You must, definitely. Hui Jan too, and Chalystha should give it a try. Joey dear, you want to borrow Fire when I'm done with it, but if you want to read it before you die in an armoured car robbery you should download it HERE. But I already have it on my computer, so I can give it to you via msn.

By the way, I am such a hap for romance - the ones that appeal to me. The parts I re-read the most are the parts which have Fire and her soulmate in them.

Stupid

This is why at the beginning of the World Cup, I wasn't really supporting anybody. I knew it was smart. And then I got stupid. If I'd stayed smart I wouldn't have cried for the first time in my life over a game, just a game. Because you don't support the team that's going to win, you support the team that you want to win.

Fire

I finally bought this book, after I finished reading it in Borders. I knew the minute I saw it, or rather, the minute I read the back, that I would love it, and that I would buy it. Because it is the closest thing I've seen to a Tamora Pierce book. Tamora Pierce is my favourite author - I have 22 of her books and am anxiously awaiting the twenty-third in paperback. I love them all because they have heroines as remarkable people, warriors, who make a difference in the world by their own journeys in life, and altogether are such people as I would want to be. And they're all set in worlds that are medieval, with swords and armies and kingdoms and monarchs and knights and archers and horses and magic and romance, but in fictional worlds, so no worrying about history here. These type of books, are my kind of books. It's not that I hate all other books, though.

Hey. 4 Adilians. This was my English oral in F2.

But I finished reading Fire before buying it because I have OCD when it comes to buying books. If I buy a book it means I have to be able to re-read it to the end of time. If I buy a book and I find I can't re-read it more than at least 4 times, I'll get depressed for weeks.

Anyway, Fire. Fire, in Thayaalan's words, is the name of the hot chick on the cover. (I brought the book to school.) She lives in a kingdom called the Dells, which have monsters living in them. Monsters are like any normal species of animal in the Dells, but are vastly different - they are brightly-coloured beautiful enough to capture your mind. Fire is a human monster, devastatingly beautiful. She is the daughter to the monster whose tendency to control minds for his own destructive fun turned the kingdom to ruin. And Fire, at seventeen, is going to overcome her fear of her powers and help the royal family fix it.

And surprisingly, Kristin Cashore does not follow the trend of the books nowadays which come out in series. Fire is the second book she's written, but it's not the sequel to her first, Graceling. Graceling is set in a neighbouring kingdom, about 30 years after Fire, and only has one crossover character. So the books aren't really connected.

This is Graceling.

I want this too.