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The strange house I went thrice a week.

The oddly traditional Chinese building stood there for many years and probably, in years to come. The house looked clean and done up for its age. It seemed ensured that it belonged to a wealthy family. The land it covered was huge and there were some traditional Chinese mechanics within the home holding about 9 people, not including the frequent visitors. The furniture within was updated and modern, the tiles were clean and sparkled without a single hint of dust. Two levels were perfectly kept, but, not the third.

The third floor had two rooms, and a long curved staircase to it from the second storey. All were left to collect dust; no one came to clean it up. The room on the left was the storeroom, open but empty. The other room had a grand wooden door with a classic doorknob. It was forever locked. The earliest time I could remember seeing it was when I was five or six, back then I loved exploring, discovering new things. I had opened every door, seen all there was to be seen. All but the mysterious, dark and seemingly haunted room. I still remembered knocking on the door and yelling in Chinese, “Anyone? Is there anyone? Is anyone inside?” then I started banging and shaking the knob, getting myself more and more cooped with curiosity. Nani, one of the maids who worked there, grabbed me and carried me down to the kitchen without a word. She was the oldest. There were two other maids, but still I liked Nani best.

All visitors who came to the mansion would always see a large, oversized photograph. Old, yellow but framed. It remained there for all I could remember. The somewhat still detailed faces were not familiar, but once my mom carried me and asked me to point out where she was. My third answer was right. She then told me who was who in the photo. However, while she went through her siblings, she skipped the one nearest to her parents. Being young yet observant, I blurted out, “Mommy, who is this?” pointing to the happy-go-lucky looking face. She then whispered, “I do not know…” till today, I knew, she lied.

It was my tenth Chinese New Year, I scurried around with my young sister and my cousins playing hide and seek and whatnot. On that day, I hid myself next to the door. Suddenly, out of curiosity, I stood up and tried to twist the knob again. As expected, it barely barged. I made up my mind to get behind the locked door. As it went while eating at the long dinner table, I broke out loudly, “Can someone please let me see the room on the third floor? Please? I will finish all my food! Please?”

Time in the mansion seemed to stop. All the jibber jabber about business and family news halted mid-sentence. Small, insignificant crickets could be heard. As abrupt as it had started, the noise returned. The ten year old, curious boy was ignored for the entire night.

Something I noticed two years back was that my senile grandmother frequently sang a short song while on her rocking chair slumped and weak. After some time, I managed to decipher a few vague words:

“Man and… fell in love

Sat… swing in the garden…

One…flower petals…fell…to the wind

Never to be seen again…

The other…pain…own life…

When…returned… anger burned

Reunited…one…in heaven…

I…see you…again…

Wait for me… …”

Last year, on one faithful, lucky day, I sat studying when someone gripped me. It was Nani. She briefly said, “Follow” and I did. She brought me out into the garden, where we sat on stone seats before a stone table. 54 year old Nani began to cry. Tears flowed like rivers. I got up and asked her what was wrong. And she began with words I did not expect. “Today is the anniversary” I took some time to think and said, “Anniversary of what?”

She broke out into a million tears, when she stopped she replied me,

“Before you were born Benjamin, there was another, another maid. I and she were good friends, we were young and looking for love. Her name was Lisa. After working for a year in the mansion, she and Lee fell in love with one another. Lee was the now forgotten son of grandma. He was a sweet and handsome man, very funny too, they loved one another with pure intentions.”

“Is Lee my uncle? The one in the picture?”

“Yes, but their love was kept a secret, one day grandma saw him proposing to Lisa. Lisa accepted with smiles and laughter, but grandma was very angry that Lee would marry someone not Chinese so she made an immediate appointment with a client of their family business overseas so Lee is forced to go to Europe and not come back in a month. Enough time to fire Lisa so that Lee would never see her again.”

She wiped her tears and continued,

“Lisa heard about the plan on the day of the flight and since she was getting fired that day she became so filled with pain she scurried to her room with a bottle of beer to flush her sorrows. She had too much…and my best friend took her own life, on the third floor, in the locked room.”

“I am so sorry Nani, is that why it is locked? Is the body still there?”

“No, I am not done, Lee received a call from his mother who strangely sounded happy saying, “Lisa killed herself” in cold blood. Lee cancelled his flight and rushed back. When he returned to see a knife stuck through his love one’s chest, he did the same and died bleeding. When his mother saw this, she went into a long coma and when she recovered her mental became too scrambled up to speak. Now all she sings is that song. Today, 6^th of September was the day they took their lives.”

“Why do you tell me this? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“You are 16 now, mature enough to know. And I needed someone who hadn’t known to pay respects to them with me. Back then the police did not care so they never knew about the suicides. To keep the evidence away the room was locked and the only key into it was burnt. The burial of the bodies was left for me so I buried them under the swing they sat on secretly laughing and giggling to each other. It was also the place where Lee popped the question. I need you to pay respects with me, to them there.”

I agreed and proceeded to the wide old fashion swing we bowed our heads. And then Nani began to sing,

“Man and maid fell in love

Sat happily on the swing in the garden

One of the flower petals fell into to the wind

Thought to be never to be seen again

The other petal had too much pain and took her own life…

When he returned rage and anger burned

Reunited one and one both in heaven

I would see you again my friend

Wait for me man and maid”

People of the world, have you ever heard of Murphy's law? It is something my father told me about during the holiday. It is the occurrence of when you want something to be there and it will persist not to be there, yet when you do not want it to happen it will. In other words, what ever you want, you'll get the direct opposite.

My oh my, did that screw me up yesterday.

I woke up early at 6 yesterday morning, saying to myself, "Oh yea, I am gonna be so early today". I grinned from cheek to cheek and suddenly my mom came up to me and said briefly and gently, "Today we are fetching Caleb (my cousin) cause his mom is in China so be quick." I arrived in school at 7 20, just in time to get to the hall. *Sarcastic tone* Thanks a lot Murphy's law!

While getting back to class, my buddy Tze Yang hinted me, "Did you do your Math homework?" My eyes widened in bewilderment, "Gack! I'm screwed!". Math was the first lesson and I was 100% sure I did not do it...BUT...Murphy's annoying law kicked in. When I got back to class, I said with a low tone, "Oh...THAT homework...I did it..." Tze yang just stared.

When the my Math teacher came in, I felt an urge to think it was going to be a sleepy lesson, cause I was tired and I usually anticipated the math topics (I like math lots). Right after that thought she said, " Alright boys, let's go and see the Victoria School Crest on the giant wall so we can get on with our project.

I HAD A WONDERFUL TIME! So much for a sleepy lesson! HAH!

After P.E, during recess I was famished so I decided to have a feast of WANTON MEE! Then, I touched my pocket...I told myself, "No...no...NO!!! My wallet!!! It's upstairs!!! Curse you Murphy! And your stupid LAW!"

"Hey Clive you left your wallet in the parade square..." my friend suddenly revealed.

"This is getting on my nerves." I told myself.

After school I ran to the gate happily, my dad was picking me up today so did'nt have to take 135 bus all over back to Serangoon which takes like 35 miserable minutes. I took out my Nokia phone and switched it on.

"Beep beep"

It was a SMS from dad saying,

"Dad has a meeting, take the bus home dear..."

I started twitching and stared at my phone for 10 seconds straight.

I then cursed, "Curse you Murphy! Curse you and your stupid law! Do you hate me or something?"

"Hey Clive need a lift to Paya Lebar MRT?", my friend asked, not knowing of what I was going through...

I am so happy my father decided to do this yesterday after dinner.
We were full and although most of the time we are scattered like seeds, (I will be in my room with my brother fiddling with our collected things and toys, my sister outside talking to my maid and my mom and dad minding their business) that night we were together watching Seinfeld in Star World channel. This felt strange and unusual but is not the real deal I'm talking about. This is what life changing thing my dad said after the Seinfeld episode ended:

"Let's take Shunka for a night walk shall we?"

I bet you have no idea who Shunka is, he is...this cute face:



















Is'nt he PRECIOUS!? Yea yea okay I should continue the story.
Well the thing is we have only done this once and that was 2 years ago and MAN it was so memorable that I still can remember what me and family talk about.

The main idea is not to just bring cute old Shunka out, it was for my family to bond as well. And since my father suggested it last night I was so excited I was the one to run without a word to grab the leash, holding it with a grin, my family bursted out in laughter. Such...beauty...

Anyway...me and my family took the longest route of the neighborhood, Shunka looked so excited prancing around like a deranged monkey but somehow he looked cute too. Me and mom got to bond and the big idea is that I really got to know her better, so did my brother. We enjoyed ourselves so much when we were reaching home, me and my siblings tried every way possible to slow them down, but of course that was for joking only.

Gosh... last night I felt our family come together closer and I am happy for that.

Somethings last forever, one of them is a happy family.

Yes...the title sort of sounds a little wrong but yesterday night I did something I have not done,for a VERY long time.

I love to do STOP MOTION ANIMATIONS, big and interesting word with a big and interesting meaning. Stop motion animation is the art of taking frame by frame images of objects moving. Like the first picture I take maybe a still ball and the next one is the ball 1cm from its original position and so on. Thus there will be a movement of that ball when the animator compiles the pictures together. Something like this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0JaV2O-IY4

I enjoy doing stop motion cause, I am a relatively creative person and I like making comedies without acting so I use toys to do it FOR ME. I usually use LEGO FIGURINES for stop motion like in the video I made. (the above URL)

Yesterday I tried to make a video using LEGO illustrating a guy being teleported into the future to fullfill his destiny, jampacked with funny moments and lightsaber fights, I predict that it may take more than 1200 frames,thus 7minutes long. Yesterday I did 200 frames only. This also shows any form of animation takes a patient and creative animator for it can take weeks to just make 10 minutes of moving objects.

Today, precisely at 12:00, me and my fellow NCC land cadets were granted permission to leave and put on our gargantuan uniform and have lunch before we took a bus to Amoy Qwee Camp. It was already 1:20 when we reached there, we had to retrieve a rifle from the armory, freshly oiled and ready.

This is Train-fire.

A tiring but interactive way of allowing all NCC cadets to gain knowledge of the gas ignition weapons they would hold out in the fray of war. By knowing this in Train-fire, we will have a great advantage in national service (Great for us!).

However the entire program is sometimes tiring and draggy, I personally find that the rifles were not in their best condition and also some of the training seniors were incompetent and draggy. Mine was quite good and was straightforward but another platoon got this guy who sounded boring and like he has just lifted a monolith.

Also, due to my blood test, I was unable to hold my rifle well, currently my hand feels tired and heavy and both the spots that were used to draw blood are especially painful.

Although I have my complaints, I have to say it was quite informative and enjoyable cause at the end we had a competition on who could dismantle their rifle the fastest, I got 3rd among the 5, not bad...I think...

Feels weird writing a blog with certain sense of fear that I would make a grammatical mistake because once I am on the computer, I am really used to typing improper English. Well, anyway today is strangely typical, I have no idea why but a day is typical only when something strange or special happens. If I have a day that consisted of only old ordinary events, well that is truly strange.

Anyway... today we (as in my class) got used to the idea of having a blog as a assignment, I helped myself to find a "blogskin", something you, nowadays, cannot neglect doing when you create a blog.

After school today, I had a medical appointment at the Ministry of Health (a place where I never liked going). I need to measure my height as it has been monitored the last 2 years, I need to visit them annually. Unfortunately for me, my growth is slowing down. Why? Doctor says it probably hormones. So when you need hormones, you need blood. How do people get blood? A blood test! I screamed inside when I heard the news. I hated (and hate is a strong word) syringes, I am down right terrified of those pointy things. The pain was agonizing and never got use to the idea that I could stay alive after a blood test...

When the needle-like horror was inserted to my skin, while I was looking away with eyes wide open and even tearing, my vein deflated.

That means I had to go through the pain all over again! What is wrong with my vein, making me go through that psychological war again. Fortunately, "attempt two" was a success and I will be finding out the reason of my...shortness...