My uncle was cremated yesterday.

We all said the appropriate prayers the night before, and we knelt on straw mats and burned joss sticks and wore white shirts like we ought to.

Before they closed the coffin, they told us all to take a last good look at him, and we did, and most of us cried.

They moved the coffin into the van, and we walked behind it slowly, and holding to some semblance of tradition, wearing only thin socks that made us only too aware of the noontime asphalt beneath our feet.

Like all corteges, we cried.

And then, at the main road, we stopped to get into an airconditioned bus.

Somehow it only made me sadder-- while we were walking on the hot road it seemed at least fair: the ground burned our feet, but it definitely didn't hurt as much as dying. To follow behind in a comfortable bus seemed rather sacrilegious.

Mandai was strangely high-tech. They had all these machines to transport the coffins and everything. They wheeled the coffin into a service room, where we prayed one last time, and then this guy came and wheeled the coffin out. We watched the coffin move towards its cremation from afar, not carried by human hands but transported along this track, on an automated machine with doors that opened automatically.

It was extremely efficient, but somehow I can't shake this feeling of emptiness; I was already feeling kind of guilty for not getting to know him earlier, but seeing him sent off by machines, not us, made me feel even more guilty.

I don't know; maybe it's just PMS (hopefully).

And I felt totally like a huge idiot because I had to explain to Mr Toh why I needed to take leave of absence, and he was very sympathetic about it and somehow it made me cry :/ And then I think it might have kind of ruined his reputation a little bit, because all these teachers were staring and I think they might have thought that he made me cry by being mean or something.

Sigh.

I have coined a new term: Munslut.

It's pronounced mahn-slaht, not moonsloot or however you might mangle it.

It is basically two words combined: Mun, as in Model United Nations, and slut, which is pretty self explanatory. So that should give you a rough idea of what the munslut is.

Usage is as such: "You're a munslut." "She's such a munslut!" Not very creative, but enough for you to get the idea.

The munslut, as suggested by the "mun" part of it, prowls around MUNs looking for new prey. She (or he) exchanges MSN addresses with them; all done in the name of making alliances, but seriously what goes on in MSN stays in MSN and so no one will ever know if it was an alliance or a date that was made.

During the actual conference, they sit there, trying to look pretty, and may occassionally make an airheaded or stupid comment, something along the lines of "XXX effect is an effect which has an immediate effect." She may not actually understand the issues being discussed, but why let that get in the way of -bimbo laugh- socialising?

Then at the dinner and dance, they unleash their true powers of evil. Cue slinky dresses that are too short to cover-- OH MY GOD IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS!!! and makeup-- by the truckload, please.

They grab a hapless victim, and then drag them into their lair, and start making out with them. But that is by no means a gurantee of their affection, for they might bore and switch targets within any time between 5 seconds to an hour. Some take it a step further and, so I hear, even get laid.

So there you have it. A munslut.