In Continuum.

I lost track, I do apologize. We were talking about libraries, so we shall stick to that. Libraries used to be cool, I loved the library while I was in grade school. I have never seen so many books in my life, although my school's library was really pretty small in retrospect. I was a child, everything looked ten times bigger than it really is back then anyway. So there were a lot of books, and the whole class had to go there every month in hopes that a handful of us would turn into book loving students like what the government would hope for us to turn into. It's kind of like throwing a bunch of basketballs at the hoop in hopes that one of them would score, when the player doesn't actually realize how stupid he looks throwing all those balls. Anyway, some of us turned into book lovers, some of us didn't. I loved books so much that I stole a copy of Sherlock Holmes from my primary school library, and I still have it at home as I speak. I suppose I do owe a fine in the vicinity of four hundred dollars by now, and I do apologize for the inconvenience that I have caused. What can I say, I really loved that book. 

However much I love books even now, I've never actually liked libraries. I sincerely appreciate the amount of silence libraries around Singapore provide, I really do. Nowadays you can't really find a spot in Singapore where you won't hear some cars honking in the distance, or crazy children crying somewhere anyway. You won't find a lot of those in libraries, unless you are one of those inconsiderate fools who like to watch online videos without your earphones. However, I get rather irritated at members of the public who cannot take the sound of, say, coughing or someone setting up his or her laptop. I mean, you can't help it if the typing is a little louder than usual or if someone has a bit more phlegm than you in his throat, right? People are too uptight at times, and I particularly hate that sound you make with your tongue when you are irritated, you know that "Psst" sound that you make? It riles me up in every way possible, and it gives me an urge to slice their tongues off with a metal ruler. I know it's too blunt, but that's where the fun is at. Anyway, they are not even half as uptight as librarians though, librarians generally have a cactus up their behinds. They probably have neurological problems and thus, have damaged sensory systems or something. They are hypersensitive to sound, anything more than a leaf drop then becomes a nuisance. 

The librarian in Serangoon Junior College has got to be the most uptight human being that I know of. She doesn't even do much at the counter, because she hangs around the rows and rows of books more often. Her real job is to catch the noisy students, and all you need to do in her job is to know how to put your index finger to your mouth and then go "Shh!" every time a student makes a sound louder than, say, thirty decibels. Who came up with that whole finger-to-mouth thing anyway, and does it really work? I don't think it really works, because I was forced to do that as a kid in primary school a lot. I talked too much, and I still do, and teachers would ask me to put a finger to my mouth as a form of humiliation, and then ask me to stay that way for the rest of the class. However, a finger didn't exactly stopped me from talking, because I just kept on going anyway. Putting a finger to your lips really doesn't work, I wonder how people can fail to realize that. It's kind of like massing up together and then protesting for a cause in Singapore - it works like trying to stab a jelly to a ceiling with a plastic fork. Anyway, a suggestion would be to pace around the library and then threaten to staple children's lips if they talk. Of course, once in a while, actually get down and do it. That'd show them! 

So yes, librarians, they are uptight people all around, and some of them are really racist too. I was at the National Library the other day, sitting in front of an exhibit with Melon when one of them came around and asked me not to put my bag on the floor, and that I should put it on the bench instead. I didn't understand the rationale behind it, and I am still pretty much confused right now as well. But I did it anyway, but I noticed that the girls on the bench just diagonally from me had their bags on the floor too, and she didn't say a single thing when she walked pass that group. OK, first of all, what's up with the whole "bags-cannot-touch-the-floor" anyway, are you afraid that it could turn out to be a bomb? Can you not say "bomb" in a library, like in airports? Why would a terrorist want to bomb library, do they not like people who read? And what's up with asking me, a chinese, to put my bag on the bench when that other girl, an indian, had the contents of her bag sprawled on the ground? Perhaps you, an indian yourself, are racist. You don't like the idea of a chinese bag on the floor, certainly not when it could be mistaken for a bomb. Seriously, though, if I am going to bomb a library by leaving my bag behind, I certain would go for a lousier bag than a Nike one that I bought for nearly two hundred dollars. Thank you very much. 

A confession, mister Timothy Harries (with the "E", if I remember correctly) used to be the king of porn in my class. He had a little book that was smaller than the size of your palm hanging on his bag last time, with various Disney characters printed on the front. But of course, he also had pictures of naked women and people having sex inside that little photo album of his, and he once wanted to set up his own porn site - imagine that. Anyway, he subscribed to a porn site when we were in high school, and the porn site would send him daily dosage of porn in his e-mail - free. And that is what the boys did in the Toa Payoh library, crowd around the computer terminal and see him scroll through picture after picture of naked women. Of course, he'd be there with the window on the screen, three boys would be behind him to block the monitor, while another would stand guard outside the booth, just in case. Librarians never liked that, and they'd always knock on the glass door just to check out what we were doing. Timothy would then switch to an innocent site, like Google or Yahoo or something. That'd happen about four or five times each time until we'd leave the library eventually. I mean, we were in a Catholic school, in an education system that taught zero sex education, save for the mentioning of "uterus" and "penis" during science classes. We had to help ourselves. 

Anyway, I am currently in the school library right now, just killing time and waiting for the next class to happen. It is 12:40 on the clock right now, and I have about three more hours before the next class officially begins. Great, I have a timetable written by a five year old with no idea what boredom can do to a desperate man. The school library is a scary place, in fact any library is a scary place. You walk into a library and you see rows and rows of people doing the exact same thing. They all have their heads bent down low, all writing something, all reading something, with the sam facial expression and in the same position. They all look like robotic drones along an assembly line somehow, and it is scary sometimes if you stand in a crowded place that is completely silent. However, there are interesting things to look out for in the library every once in a while, and I have noticed a couple of things ever since I sat myself down a few minutes after eleven in the morning. For one, it is fun to look into the iTunes library of somebody else in the library and check out their playlist. They suck most of the time, but you can find people with good taste every once in a while. I found a person's library just now, his or her name is "Cedric" or something like that. I found three awesome bands until he or she decided to log off and disappear. Come back, damn it! 

It is also awesome to listen to loud music on your earphones when nobody else can hear what you are rocking out to. I was just listening to Benoît Pioulard just now and head banging away, and everybody else just kinda continued with whatever they were doing. Last week, I had a great time air-drumming to Coldplay and then mouthing every word into an imaginary microphone. Nobody else could hear, and it was rather interesting I must say. A group of overly excited college students just silently approached my desk and handed me this flyer of sorts. I've seen them around school before, always so eager to promote their "Arts In Da Hood" thing happening later this month. They dress up like hip-hoppers when they really aren't anywhere close to hip-hoppers, and they have to pretend to be high and excited when they really look like they just want to stab themselves with screwdrivers. Anyway, this dude in shades just came up to me in the library and gave me a flyer, and kind of bounced off to look for yet another victim. I gave him a cold shoulder, but I couldn't help it. I cannot give too much attention to overly excited or pretentious members of the public, I haven't the ability to zone them in. Thus, I zone them out. 

I used to have the urge to destroy something perfect, kind of like how I'd take pictures of mushrooms and then destroy them afterwards. I see rows and rows of perfectly arranged books sometimes and I'd feel like rearranging them, or burn them with a blowtorch or something. However, a couple of years ago, I filled the shoes of a library for a day and swore off doing any of the above - though I still kick mushrooms. It was for a school CIP thing, and we had to pick a place to volunteer ourselves. We tried the SPCA, and we even went as far as trying the Turf Club, but nobody wanted stupid children with zero experiences. So we decided the national library, where you really need to know your ABCs and 123s. I spent the entire day shuffling books, and I almost died. There is a specific system at arranging those books, and you just cannot mess them up even if you are a temporary librarian. We arranged the books, but I couldn't take the boredom. Four hours in and I had alphabets and numbers swirling in my head uncontrollably, and I still had a cart full of books to arrange. Then the librarian came with a grin on her face and a fresh cart of books - I passed bricks through my anus right then. 

So you see, libraries are evil and librarians are evil-er. I am not a fan of the library, their books don't even smell half as nice as the ones in Kinokuniya! I'd rather buy my books than to borrow when I don't even know who has leafed through the book that I want in the past. The coffee stains and the doggy-ears, the missing page 94 and then the unexplained stains on the page with the sex scene - the horrors. So, I generally dislike libraries, but I haven't a choice in this point in time, I am kind of stuck for the most part. So I have the following: my iPod Touch, my Macbook, my cellphone (in conversation currently with Melon), and an empty stomach. The man next to me just farted, how wonderful the world is in the library! Too bad this is the only place with a ready supply of power sockets. This is evil, it really is.