my discman just breathed its last at i don't know what time, but it just can't read my cds anymore.

it's been with me for let me see, 15 - 8 = 7 long years, but servicing me for about 3 years or so, because there was a period of time when my discman was literally sunken in obscurity in my Drawer That Is Hardly Opened.

anyhow, i mourn the passing of my discman, which was a present to me from my mum when i was in primary 2, having done incredibly and surprisingly well in my exams.

sigh, meritocracy in play here. double sigh, i have gotten into the habit of making weird connections between two things. and triple sigh, my mum is a standard mother the country wants, who rewards according to merit. i should learn from her really, but not like i'm going to be a mother. but if i do, my family life would be headed straight for hell's furnace.

anyway, i remember telling my mother that i liked the discman, but after that, i gradually lost interest in it, because my mum always threatened to confiscate it if i didn't do well for the tests in primary 3. hence also the reason why it was in my Drawer That Is Hardly Opened - so that it'll never be found and thus be saved from destruction - and because of that, i used it less and less, until it decreased from occasionally to a few times to none at all.

4 years of endless burying my nose in assessment books passed, and at the end of the psle, i was free to do anything i liked. liberation was like a fast paced rap song that i can't quite lip synch to, so naturally i looked around the house for something to speed up the passing of the brought-forward holidays.

one fateful day i discovered the discman again and had a good time using it, listening to old songs that my friends didn't find upbeat enough. the beatles, bee gees and all the other oldies that i had grown up to played in my head every day whether i'm doing work or just walking in a shopping centre with my parents. i know it looks absolutely uncool to be plugged into a cd player during the years of slim hip ipods and mp3s, but whatever, it played cds, it worked just fine, it is mine.

now you see, technology was beginning to leave me behind in the dust, so i decided to give techno things a chance. i went mp3 shopping after the june hols and got my very first mp3 player, when everyone else were already sporting stylish ipod nanos. a round, handy little silver piece of microchips and 128MB storage. i was rather apprehensive but eager to try it out, so for the first three weeks of my mp3 ownership, i thoroughly explored all the benefits of an mp3, which, at that time, totally outshone those of my used and worn discman. it could store more songs than a cd. it didn't need me to lug around a couple of cds if i wanted to have more than one artist on the stereo. it was small, portable and stylo mylo. and so many others that i can't count them off my 10 fingers. thus my permanent switch to mp3, and the heartless abandonment of my discman.

wrong move. that's because after playing the beatles for one last time two days ago (when i forgot to charge my mp3), something in my discman quietly retired from service and rendered my discman useless when i tried to use it today during my piano practice to play the exam pieces cd. i slotted the cd on, closed the lid and pressed play. it whined, whirred and whined again, desperately trying to read the cd, like a short-sighted person squinting at something far off, but failing to see anything. and so, i pronounced it dead after 1) trying different cds 2) taking the batteries out and putting new ones in 3) blowing dust out from the cd space 4) wiping the cds before putting them into the player, because nothing worked.

it was a fruit of my labour in primary 2 and i was definitely proud of it. it has been with me for many many years and i am obviously very appreciative of it. but it is a reminder of how now results seem mean everything in this paperchase society. if you serve up the desired results regularly, baby you are a rich man (like the beatles sing so enthusiastically), because the world is yours on a silver platter with gold trimmings and obiang red ribbons.

but just so you know, i still love my discman very much, because it was from my mum; it was a reward, so; it worked and played the greatest songs ever; and haha, wait for it, it is BLUE! i think i'll keep it as a keepsake, though my mum would nag at me and tell me not to keep junk. it ain't junk, it's a memory of great music and also a reminder of the world out there. it keeps me rooted, see. just like music does to me.

OKAY, HAVE TO GO. work to do, and i'm going to have a NICE, SPLENDID TIME staring at the screen willing words out of my head to go onto the reports.

enjoy whatever is left of the hols, yeah.
and i can't wait to be back in school again, though it means i'm sec 4 and thus an old-fogey-to-be.
but that doesn't mean math test is an appealing idea.
it's the worst one ever.
along with the IP.
it's like plugging a microphone blindly into any old socket and going testing testing 1 2 3 hoping that you've got the right one.

before i start grumbling like what i did in my convo with amanda, i shall go and be hardworking.

peace out.

afterthought: i've become a night owl, after this year. doom. i have eyebags.
12:58 AM