I think I'm going to fail my math test.

Note: No exclamation marks, no question marks - MARKS! I NEED 17 out of 25 MARKS! - just this funny looking detachedness.

I was careless, unprepared, blurred-eyed (all thanks to the stupid chilli sauce in the hokkien mee) and argh. I usually do better off in tests where I hold my breath throughout (not literally). This time I took about 3 breaths. Not good.

I managed to hold my tear ducts until I ran upstairs and confronted Hester and CRIED. I am so very disappointed with myself ): And then I became totally detached from the world.

I went to a local bookstore to get my physics practice papers and found this whole display table of tons and tons of revision guides and assessment papers and TYS. The last time I checked, they sold next to nothing of pointless Geography assignments, puny math books and chinese idiom books the thickness of your thumb. No, not your thumb vertically. Your thumb HORIZONTALLY.

Then Eileen approached me while I was still dipping my toe into the fascinating realm of revision guides to everything-and-anything the GCE O levels test (the rest of my body was still continuing its sink into the dark abyss of math doom) and jabbed a finger at the Longman Additional Mathematics guide I had open.

She asked "What are you doing with this?" And I took about two seconds to look up and say "Hi!" in a happy falsetto before registering her question - wrongly - and asking her "So what are you doing here?" She replied that she came to get a green pen and I must have looked a bit startled, because she returned me a look and rephrased her initial question. I mean, why, when you are about to FAAAAAIL your math test, care about trivial things like buying a green pen? TRIVIAL! This time I attempted to answer her question using a long and loud "oooooooh" before saying "I came here to get my TYS, cos Suria wants us to get it mmm" and proceeded to turn back to the book.

Eileen jabbed her finger at it again, and said rather irritatedly "no, I mean why do you need this? You have math tuition!" Oh great. Now you have to ring another math doom bell. So I said in a very detached and flat tone "Yeah.. isn't Longman good? Yeah yeah Longman is good. So I just look at it loh."

I think she decided that my brain was twisted into a badly shaped lump of grapefruit and quickly bade goodbye.

I moved off to the cashier queue, and hugged the books. Yingying passed by in a brisk walk, I didn't notice her until she was halfway past me and she had an expression on her face that looked like a smile. So I smiled back. I say it looked like a smile because it could have a been a poor attempt at trying to hold back her spit at me, a painful cringe or maybe she was just smiling. Anyhow, I didn't have enough spare brain cells to make this decision.

Maybe people have this affinity with people, like people on the streets. I was at the foot of the hill when this tall Indian man carrying a Crumpler laptop bag (no, I'm still alive enough to notice branded bags) said "Hello there!" in a sunken tone. I turned around 180 degrees before realising that it was directed at me. So I said "Er, hi." And I thought, maybe you failed your math test too. But I clamped my books under my armpit and held my Nalgene bottle steady for defense. Hey my Nalgene is pink and formidable ok. One knock and the rapist K.O.

I swung a mallet into my kneecap (just last week!) so I think I'm actually pretty good at whacking lumps of meat.

Labels: Off Days, Wails