Intoxicated

Total Recall

2006-08-06T13:15:00.000+08:00

Wow, time for another one of my really rare blog entries. Ow, recapping Weeks 1-6 is not going to be easy.

Week 1:
Feeling blah having to go back to school. Rushing whatever homework that I missed out in the hols. Did EL biography trailer at Bernard's house (I think it was this week).

Week 2:
RV Concert, we went a bit hyper at the Circle area. Gave standing ovation, shouted a lot, but didn't do the Julian electrocuted-chicken. Maybe next time.

Week 3:
Youth day celebration day, also day for DMP selections. Stayed up till like 2 the day before that with Yichen, Julian, Joshua, Lester to agonize over my choices. (My finalized DMP courses are printed below) Can't take ceramic glazes course 'cos of HCL, aw. Nvm, at least can do (A)LGP with Ms Kuo, and a few other things which I wanted to do. Translation Competition on Friday with QC and Wentao, almost thought we were eliminated in the preliminary round but it was a mistake, and we made it to second place. Open House on Saturday, second time after the GEP one. At least didn't have to handle annoying P6ers like last time.

Week 4:
RE first draft of final report due, and the night before Joshua and Julian went crazy at each other (well actually mostly Joshua, especially with his chicken rice / hor fun analogies that don't really make sense). Had to mediate between the two because Joshua refused to be in the same convo as Julian, and we had to complete our RE report from scratch. But we did it anyway. Late nights throughout this week for tests and projects, very emotional for me. Stayed up till 3 am on Wednseday night to study for Differentiation CCT, then I felt really really frustrated at myself because I just couldn't understand WS3. At that point I felt so crappy that I finally made up my mind that I wouldn't take math in JC anymore. I hate it, hate it. Decided to go easy on myself and sleep for 2 hours, waking up at 5 to resume revision, and it was weird, because I magically understood everything that I didn't. But still messed up the test anyway. Ironically, not the question about rates of change.

Week 5:
RInspire meeting the previous weekend. Decided the winner for the RInspire essay competition, did editing, wrote some articles, ate lunch, had a bit of fun photoshopping Ms Kuo's face, etc. Had to miss watching the erhu exchange programme but I guess it can't be helped, eh? Spent my whole Saturday like that, but somehow I really did enjoy myself, and it was worth it. Is this what it feels like to really enjoy CCA?

Week 6:
A pretty exhausting, but fulfilling week. Mrs D'Cruz came back, and I think our whole English class was very happy. Mr Ho left, and he gave me a book; now I know why he asked me whether I had read Wuthering Heights or Disgrace. I enjoyed Lit a lot with Ms Kuang too. (Did our Laputa Peer Teaching on Monday with her, I think our content was good, and it was worth working with Jeremy, QC and Sean Tan till so late the previous night for the presentation and the essay.) Will try to appeal for biography remarking, since the overall scores for everyone are really, really low.
Physics test, made some careless mistakes. Walked for X-Country, heh. Before that Lester, Boyi and I went to pick rambutans; some didn't look very ripe but very sweet. Bayley second for X-Country.
Friday was the killer day, with a test for each period. HCL CCT was generally easy especially the zonghe, with one really tough question in the compre. Bio a lot of bonus marks but the problem was I thought we absolutely had to use the diagram format given for the last bonus question, so I ran out of time, ugh. Chem made one silly mistake, other than that I think it's okay. But the nutty part was NAPFA, I was uber psyched to do my best for 2.4, considering that I had already done the impossible by passing pull-ups and standing-broad-jump, and yay I did it! Now that I think, it's totally psychological. Anyway, finished the week by watching 'What's Up Doc?' for ComedyFeste in LT3 and had a short discussion about it afterwards with Ms Kuang, Ms Yong and Ms Tang. Dazu after that, and the week was over. Attended RJC Scholarship Day yesterday but it was quite badly planned and I didn't really learn a lot. Did some discussion and filming for SS, then went to binge on a super large plate of fries at J8 foodcourt with Jeremy and Bor Ray and gossiped a lot.

This coming week will be great; DMP tomorrow, National Day celebrations, two days holiday, then DMP again for Friday. Can report at 10.25am tomorrow; man I love to sleep in! Will only have Immunology with Mrs Low and (A)LGP with Ms Kuo tomorrow. The only thing is sectionals tomorrow (and the impending deadlines for Chem and SS), but hey, life isn't perfect.

Ice Banana

2006-06-04T19:56:00.000+08:00

Holidays have been enjoyable so far. I'm trying desperately to recall everything that has happened since hols ended, to blog about it.

First day of official hols I was excused from Founder's Day to attend Singapore Youth & Media Conference at Ngee Ann Poly. Not bad, sure beats stoning at F. Day Ceremony in school any day. Started off with an opening forum with guests including Ken Lim (Bor Ray was commenting on how 'emo' he was acting; honestly yeah he did seem brooding all the while). After that branched into workshops. For the first workshop I won some silly poetry contest and won 2 tickets to Poetry Slam at Zouk. Uh, and the lady said she would allow me to enter despite being underage. Haha, but I ended up not going. After that went for some Media Violence talk conducted by the NAP students and they showed us a clip of Battle Royale, lol. Went for the closing forum, sat at the back of the conference hall and then at 6pm Joshua, Christine (from HPPS) and I exited and went home before the thing was over, hehe.

On Wednesday (the one before last) was our interview with Mr. Subash Anandan. Met at Raffles Place MRT (when I was boarding at Buona Vista found out that my card couldn't work), and went Republic Plaza for the interview. He was very nice, and handled all the questions well. Got what we wanted, except that the video cam ran out of battery halfway, but at least we have the audio recording. Ended up walking around for ages with Norman and Jeremy looking for a fast food place, and couldn't settle on anything. After walking a loooooooong time we finally found a Subway and I went to buy ice cream nearby. Was going to return by MRT, enquired at Raffles Place MRT again regarding my card, and they told me I had to go to Tiong Bahru to get it replaced. They gave me a free ride there (a pre-paid card with $3 value inside, along with the one given to me at Buona Vista). Got my card fixed (or rather, replaced) at Tiong Bahru, and cashed in my $6 worth in the cards (they even gave me the balance that I didn't use, lol). In the end, minusing the $3.20 ice cream and the MRT fare, I actually made 20 cents that day! Lol! (Well apart from the fact that I did top-up my ezlink to $10...)

Yesterday returned from our one-night RICO camp. Not bad, quite fun. We had been to IMM Giant 2 days ago to shop for stuff and spent more than $100. Not to mention that we totally messed up Giant (somewhere out there, a bitter gourd is rotting at the back of a shelf full of Pringles, lol). Boyi saw an energy drink called "4-Play" and we were laughing about it. Then Jason was going around yelling at us "What's Foreplay?" We were so embarrassed we didn't answer him, but he just continued shouting that same question. -_-" Anyway, for the camp we started out with a scavenger hunt around RI and RJCO (thanks to one of the trivia questions, it seems like the whole orchestra knows that I'm scared of spiders now, thanks a lot), then had lunch, a break (went to RJC library with Lester and then took a lift up to the seventh floor of RJC to look at clouds), dazu (and a secret I am desperate to know about), teachers' briefing, dinner, then went to hide puzzle pieces for War Games at Senior and Science Blocks. Then we walked past the BK Phantom (I'm avoiding the full name right now for personal reasons), then Lester and I decided to end every sentence with BK's name, and ended up infecting everyone. Anyway we didn't sleep much, spent our time playing our version of Snap, then Mafia with 2 new roles - BK and Ice Banana (long story, heehee). Then played Speed a bit, then Bluff, Cheat, then Bridge. Walked around at night, went to sleep. Woke up the next morning realizing that both Boyi and I lost our phones. Hmm... Actually I don't really feel like talking about it. Initially I thought it was carelessness but now that I really really think about it, I'm quite sure that someone took them.

Completed the Altador plot today, still deciding on who to sign up with for the Altador Cup.

And if you're from 4T and reading this, tomorrow LT2 1.45 pm, CIP course. Compulsory.

Au Naturel

2006-05-26T22:07:00.000+08:00

Yay I finally get to blog because it's the end of the term! Officially, at least, it's the last day (despite this one being a hectic weekend), so I have some time to kick back and blog.

Past few days quite interesting, with the 'Service to Nature' Sec 4 GE camp. Good timing, because I was in the post-exam mood and I really didn't pay attention in any of the lessons then. I wonder if I'll remain seated at the back of the class. Norman and Bernard bully me. :( *sobs*

Visited places like Bt. Timah Nature Reserve (saw an uber-long monitor lizard right in front of me and walked right under a giant spider web), Pulau Ubin, Clementi (to do surveys) and Science Centre (dino exhibit). Not bad on the whole, sure beats regular class any day.

Today was the last day of the 'camp', and we went bowling. Omg I played my first actual game like ever! 67 points for a first timer, not too bad I guess. Cheered a lot for the class in the bowling tourny, before that we were like SO SURE we were going to get owned, but our Team A ended up 3rd and our overall score was 1st! ^.^ Unbelievable. Although ET jumping up and down happily when she saw the results before it was announced was a bit obvious, right? =P While waiting for our tables at the steamboat restaurant we went arcade for awhile then at the end I decided to get off my butt and do something instead of only watching. So I played Puzzle Bobble (hehe, I'm such a dork) which I played practically ALLTHETIME at arcades when I was in pri sch, as well as Soul Calibur, hehe. ET and the other 4Ters watching me play, so scary. Missed a lot, but got quite lucky. Aced the high scores then I accidentally pressed the button twice by accident and my name turned out ASS. Whoops.

Anyway had our dinner, was a lot of fun. The prawns are like still alive so they jump around wildly so you must hold it by the feelers. We tried to dip it in halfway and let it cook that way, then when we took it out it was half red half black, hehe. I think Quek was quite disturbed, lol. Very fun day, and I think my face got cramp 'cuz somehow I found myself smiling for the entire day, dunno why.

Tomorrow got S'pore Youth Media Conference so maybe I should sleep a bit earlier. Or not. :)

Natasha Bedingfield

2006-05-22T00:41:00.000+08:00

In an effort to revive this blog from the depths of hell, here is a new skin featuring Natasha Bedingfield. <3 Love it?

Plus, I figured that the main reason most of you visit this blog is Battle Royale, so per your requests, it's going to be revived too. :) Once the holidays start, of course. In order to tie up loose ends and to refresh your memory without you having to read the whole thing again (if you want to, nobody's stopping you!), I'll first be releasing a special "recap-esque" episode that they have in most big-scale TV shows.

Oh, and I've never really had a chance to release a disclaimer for Battle Royale, so here it is.

Disclaimer: This is not affiliated with the original Battle Royale production, or its sequel. All characters in the story are entirely fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons alive and dead is purely coincidental. You'd think that people would have enough common sense to realize that such zany characters could not possibly exist in reality. Should you feel uncomfortable about any character or role, you may request to be removed from the story. That is to say, you will be killed off in the most horrific way possible. Take your pick.

I'm Blogging...

2006-05-14T14:10:00.000+08:00

For the sake of it.

Unwritten

2006-03-21T23:08:00.000+08:00

The March hols end in approximately... 30 minutes. School in the first term has been nothing out of the ordinary, and I don't expect the second term to be significantly different.

I'm grateful for the two-day reprieve (although I had to go to school on both days anyway), so I won't complain about the abolishment of i-Learning week (they give a whole lot more homework on i-Learning week anyway). Completed all the stuff I have to hand in tomorrow (except for Chinese, which I can't get someone to hand in for me because it's hand-written, but got excuse so should be okay).

I'm surprised how I did so little work this holiday. Slacked off until the very end then everything worked out fine. Intended on watching a few movies (The Fog, Brokeback Mountain, Rumor Has It, Walk the Line) but ended up only watching Big Momma's House 2, which had certain gross puke-worthy moments. Could have watched Date Movie yesterday if not for a certain someone stupidly taking out his student pass when I already showed mine when the girl asked for it. ("But I didn't think she would check!" Right.) Oh, and my 2 A-Idol girls Clarkson and Underwood's videos ("Walk Away" and "Don't Forget to Remember Me") were released, but it's Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" that truly has me hooked. I think I've watched it 20 times now?

And I think I'm going to watch it again. Until next time. :)

2006

2006-01-23T21:48:00.000+08:00

Now has never been a better time to blog. It's been more than a month, I can't believe I'm procrastinating on blogging. Then again, blogging is supposed to be an enjoyable thing to do. But only when I'm free.

And lately, I really haven't been. But now I have time, and I will fill you in very briefly on everything that happened from 2005 end til' now.

2 note-worthy events in the holidays since my last blog; one being the SPH newspaper competition and the other being the Ren Ci performance for RICO. The newspaper competition thing was a 24 hour "reality challenge" type of thing where we had to produce a newspaper complete with articles within that timespan. We didn't get a wink of sleep, mainly because our team of 5 (Jeremy, Joshua, Jeremiah, Bor Ray, myself) were fighting 24/7 (literally) and we were never satisfied with our work so we kept redoing and redoing and redoing until we were borderline satisfied. Which was probably a good thing, because we won $3300 total by getting runners-up. In one of the assignments I had to go to Orchard Road and survey people on the X'mas lighting and there were one or two people who were ultra rude and 'dao'. One guy just stared at me and coldly said 'I. Do. Not. Wish. To. Participate. In. This. Survey.' Gosh, it was just a one question survey. Although I couldn't physically abuse him, I had enough fun picturing slapping him in my brain... Omg, vengeful psycho alert. Oh, and for our teen sex education article, we wanted to take a photograph of a pack of condoms but it was too late to get any, so we took a picture of Bor Ray with his pants off, holding a sign in front of his vitals that said "Sex Education". And our caption was "Sex education - Does it cover the bare essentials?" Heh, and it got posted in the Straits Times too. Thank god for Bor Ray that he can't be identified.

As for the Renci thing, you might have caught it on television. The best part about the whole thing was during the middle of the holidays when the Project Superstar people (Kelly being the most important one for me, of course) came to RI to practice with us. At the rehearsals and the actual thing we got to see all the other celebs and people like SHE, which was quite cool. The only downside was the fugly costumes. Seriously. Some of you saw us on TV and said it wasn't so bad, but that's only because you couldn't really see the costumes close enough. I think everyone had synchronized seizures in the changing rooms when we saw the costumes. At least I know I did.

Anyway, the highlight of starting the Sec 4 year is definitely being a PSL. It's really cool having a bunch of Sec 1s that you can sort of mentor and guide. My Sec 1 class is 1F and I just found out yesterday that they are Bayley too. (I wonder if any of them will ever find my blog, but I doubt it.) The other PSLs in my class are Weiyuan, Zou Long, Bennett, Yewei, Jevon, Shi Hao and Jun Han, and I suppose we're quite a fun bunch, with a couple of us stricter ones to enforce discipline. I'm not the type to yell so I really can't bring myself to scold them, hehe, so I'm mostly friendly, and it's nice seeing them around outside of class and say hello to you. :)

I think I'm done for now. Oh, and welcome 2006. Um, 23 days ago.

Marshmallow Dreams

2005-11-19T19:48:00.000+08:00

Class chalet was quite okay, even if it only lasted 1 night in the end. Occupied 2 chalets in Costa Sands Pasir Ris, a short walk away from the 3MPQ class chalets at Aloha. Met everyone at Pasir Ris MRT and walked to the resort. Surprisingly good turnout. In the end I think everyone came except Jeremy who had IBM attachment. Anyway, played Crash Team Racing, went out to buy stuff with Norman, had BBQ, lazed around, played bluff (with my warped strategy, lol) and Mafia later. Went to sleep after that. Woke up with everyone already awake and playing FIFA on the bed. Went for breakfast at Burger King then had to go for my PSL Registration Comm meeting, then finally went home.

Anyway the food was quite good and everyone was the usual. The teachers didn't come though... I still don't know what happened to the booked rooms on the second night. Oh well.

Anyway, here is Chapter 6.

Chapter 5

2005-11-12T17:14:00.000+08:00

Now that I've blogged to my heart's content, the wait is over...

Chapter 5 up here. :)

The Unknown Peak

2005-11-12T16:51:00.000+08:00

Immediately after my RICO trip was the CCAL/ACCAL Camp. Woke up early, went to school, checked in. My group was Rivendell - me, Yichen, Juan He, Kia Liang, Ronald Kong, Stuart, Tian Zhi, Jian Yang, Eugene Neo, Alex. First attended a series of talks, etc. then we had to get together in groups and decide our values and draw a flag. Our values were Respect, Leadership and Teamwork, and they wanted me to do the flag because they thought I was pro at art. I'm sure...

Anyway after that the team split up to go to different briefings. Yichen and I went to the navigating one where we learnt how to navigate, use the compass, find map coordinates, etc. Not that hard, but I was a bit scared because I knew that if we screwed up then the group would be super lost, so there was a lot of responsibility there. Anyway met back up with the group to eat lunch and plot the checkpoints with the given coordinates. Two people went to buy food at NTUC. We were given $70 to buy food for our dinner, breakfast and lunch.

We worked on our proposal, then we submitted it in quite confidently and then realized that we only got on the 3rd bus. Wtf? Some groups left stuff blank or wrote skimpy skimpy stuff and they got on the 1st and 2nd bus. We were all quite pissed, but we couldn't do anything. We decided to empty as much stuff out of our bags as possible so we could lighten our backpacks a lot. Boarded the bus and we took ages to leave. In the end, the 4th bus ended up getting to the jetty faster than the 3rd bus, so we were last. :|

At P. Ubin we met our teacher instructor Mr. Romi (my PE teacher) and we quickly started our journey. We covered 3 checkpoints. We only took a wrong turn once and then Mr. Romi and the GIs Kenneth and William were quite nice, 'cuz they asked us if we were sure. Then we realized we were wrong then we turned back, hehe. We got back to the campsite just in time. Some teams came back late and got penalized. Actually hiking wasn't as shitty as trying to do things around the campsite. After building our tents we couldn't get fire to boil water for our cup noodles. Tried to use matches to build a fire, but didn't work. Ended up having to smash my cup noodles and eating it. The GIs tell us that there's a lot of wax in uncooked cup noodles. Eek. And when I poured the seasoning everything got stuck on top, so my first bite was ultra salty. Phooey. And it's super hard to sleep because it's so bloody hot in the tent. I was sweating like a horse in there. Couldn't sleep. Woke up every hour and tried to sleep again. Woke everyone up at 6. Ate a bun in the tent for breakfast and we were the first tent to begin unpitching. Then we had to hunt for a missing tent peg. Eh...

It was already past 7 and we had our next mission - build a tall stable structure with the trash on the beach. We did that quite fast and quickly left. Took 2 shortcuts to checkpoint 2. One was a nature trail and another one was an unmarked path which Ronald Kong uses when he cycles in Ubin. I think that saved us a lot a lot of time. Couldn't complete the tube task, but we used 1 of our Precious (a lifeline) to get the clue at that station. Continued moving on. More puzzles and checkpoints along the way. Managed to solve the puzzles quite fast. Some checkpoints were quite hard but we managed to get them.

We finally got all the clues and we tried to find the location on the map. I turned all the pieces around and we arranged them according to the way they were cut, and I got the coordinates to the jetty. Spent quite long trying to convince people that we should take a gamble and go to the jetty. Then Mr. Andrew Lim came cycling along and we asked him if it was the jetty. Then he said "I dunno" and gave us some cryptic smile, so everyone was finally convinced it was the jetty, haha. Walked back, saw Mr. Eric Lee. Had to find something in common with all the clues. Tried to crap out some philosophical stuff about leadership. Took us quite long, but we ended up Team Number 4 out of 12. Not bad at all, considering we were in the last bus. Took the ferry back, assembled, and we got ice cream. ^.^ Headed back to RI to wash our camp gear and took a nice long shower.

After that we ate dinner, had a debrief (where we got our compass back, GIs took it, lol) and went to sleep in the AHH. Not bad, got air con. Woke up the next morning to horrible PT (ugh), and more debriefing. Had to perform a short skit (we parodied Eugene Neo's election speech a bit, hehe, but he was quite sporting about it) and Alex was our wild boar in the skit, heh. Got lollipops as a prize for one of the 3 best performances, lol. Anyway we hadn't had lunch so Lester, Yichen and I went to eat at S11, had bubble tea, and we went home.

And the busy week was over. :)

RICO Malaysia Trip 2005

2005-11-12T16:36:00.000+08:00

Last day of school RICO left for our Malaysia trip. Ate at Long John's with Boyi and Lester before leaving. Throughout the bus ride Lester and I were playing Speed and Snap. Hehe, quite fun playing with someone spastic like that, lol. I think the final tally of scores was 14-6. For Snap, we invented a lot new combos, like Ace + 10,J,Q,K you shout Blackjack, 2 Royals you shout the missing one (i.e. K+Q, you shout Jack), if the 2 cards add up to 11 you shout Vibrator, if one card is double the other you shout Protrusion, etc. etc. Hehe, quite fun. We were doing that for almost all the time in the bus.

First stop was Desaru fruit farm where I really felt very full and couldn't finish my fruits. Then dinner, then short time for shopping. There was a pet shop with snakes and scorpions. I saw the snakes twisting in their tank and I totally freaked out and ran away. Ugh. Anyway we went back to the hotel and flipped the channels until we got Survivor. Brandon out.

Anyway Lester and I got playful and decided to boil water... not before throwing in tea bags and creamer (we also added coffee the next time). Then it really looked like shit. So we poured it into the toilet bowl and called Boyi and Jason over. And told them Lester had diarrhoea and couldn't flush. Then we lifted up the lid and they freaked out. Lmao... Played Snap with Lester some more and went to sleep.

The next day after breakfast we had a short city tour then we had our exchange program with Foon Yew, a school in Johor. When they played their piece for us we were so scared because they were very pro and we were uber unprepared. Took us like 10 minutes to finally sit down and decide what we were going to play. Yikes, the whole exchange program was so embarrassing lah. We were playing some funny game with them with penalties. Long story, but there was this person who was doing this crazy 'rosin dance'. It's totally hilarious 'cuz it looks so spastic. Anyway once we were done we got on the bus and moved up to Malacca.

Ate dinner and then returned to the hotel. After bathing Lester and I were too tired to do anything. So we just lazed around a bit then we went to sleep. After that everyone asked us why we were so 'good-boy' - sleep so early. I also dunno, I just felt like going to sleep early. Usually we would be playing with the others. Oh well.

A few more tours the next morning, then we started heading back to Singapore. On the bus ride we played a bit of Bridge and then Mafia. Lester's win rate at Bridge was 0%. If you're his partner it's pretty much confirmed defeat. =P Mafia was quite fun, because we introduced a new role called Prostitute. Prostitute negates Mafia's attacks and Doctor's healings depending on who they point at. Everyone wanted to be a Prostitute. So did I. :(

I think it was very fun overall. Maybe we can go somewhere further next time...

Chapter Four

2005-10-26T22:08:00.000+08:00

Got all my results back.

Main reason for this entry is to upload Chapter 4. Download it here. I hope you like it.

Spinning On Glass

2005-10-23T16:18:00.000+08:00

Mass Swim on Friday was really sad. The whole day was super 'stone'. So many people "forgot to bring" their swimming gear. Stone during recess until the Power 98 and Ronin thing. They were finding excuses to give away their prizes, lmao. And the music was so bloody loud I think the front row people turned deaf for an hour after that. Hopefully the rest of the post-CT schedule won't be this sad.

Finished writing Chapters 2 & 3 pretty quickly. Download them here.

Mmm, I really do like my 'Lost' blog layout. XD Anyway, I'm going to leave in a few hours for my cousin's wedding. Must remind myself to tape Apprentice for tonight.

Refresh

2005-10-22T23:27:00.000+08:00

W00t! I changed my blog layout once again! Wonder how many of you remember my first layout. The original started out with 'Intoxicated' by Britney (which is how the blog address came about), then it changed to 'Lost Inside' when Channel 5 started airing 'Lost', and the last one was 'Last of Illusions' from Marion Raven's 'End of Me', and now I'm back to 'Lost' again, with this one called 'Lost Without You', also a really awesome song by Delta Goodrem.

I'm still sad because Brian got voted out of Survivor: Guatemala. :( And I watched Boone die in Lost. :( This is depressing. Anyway, I'll try to post Chapter 2 of my fic tomorrow. Good night!

Trapped

2005-10-21T20:44:00.000+08:00

I've probably told most of you that I want to write a Battle Royale fanfic about the class. Yup, in light of recent events (chocolate, anyone?), no teachers etc. are going to be included. Sad, right? Haha... Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. It's a lot more fun if you're in 3T, 'cuz all 25 of us are inside. Plus, there's a 96% chance that you're going to be watching yourself die at some point in the fic.

Foreword

First, I want to thank the inspirational Mr. Jared Tong for his awe-inspiring 'Classroom' fic posted on his blog. If you haven't read it by now, you're probably living in a gutter in Somalia (if they have gutters there). Anyway, this fic is based on the violent horror movie series Battle Royale, which was in turn based on a book by Koushun Takami.

Here's the Amazon.com editorial synpopsis.
"Battle Royale, a high-octane thriller about senseless youth violence, is one of Japan's best-selling - and most controversial - novels. As part of a ruthless program by the totalitarian government, ninth-grade students are taken to a small isolated island with a map, food, and various weapons. Forced to wear special collars that explode when they break a rule, they must fight each other for three days until only one "winner" remains. The elimination contest becomes the ultimate in must-see reality television. A Japanese pulp classic available in English for the first time, Battle Royale is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today's dog-eat-dog world. The first novel by small-town journalist Koushun Takami, it went on to become an even more notorious film by 70-year-old gangster director Kinji Fukusaku."

This story is not meant to offend, nor was it intended as a literary piece. Purely for entertainment. Things will get gory past Chapter 2. Let the games begin. :)

Click here to download the .doc file of the story.

Halfway

2005-10-18T22:21:00.000+08:00

Halfway through mugging for Physics, I have decided to take a break and make the shortest blog entry ever...

And folks, it's back to the show.

When September Ends

2005-10-01T19:41:00.000+08:00

I hadn't realized it was October already until a few minutes ago. The chimes at noon didn't register in my head that it was a new month already. We're getting closer and closer to the end of the year...

Yesterday was the last time the canteen would be open so I had my last lunch there. I can't see how the dining hall is going to be able to hold so many people. Wednesday Boyi dragged me to walk with him around the area - like one final walk around the place before stuff was demolished, lol. Had dinner with HL and him at J8 and went to buy Lester's birthday present. Finished eating and we walked out of the food court and before I knew it HL quickly dragged me into the next-door gift shop. I was confused until he and Boyi explained that they saw Ms. Lim right outside, haha. Then we went further into the gift shop and then guess who we ran into - Ms. Sung. Lmao. Anyway we told Ms. Lim that we wanted to buy a birthday present for Lester and then she said she wanted to chip in. Okay... Anyway we got some practical stuff for Lester - albeit one week late (on purpose, to 'surprise' him, but knowing me I couldn't stand it and told him anyway). Anyway, back to yesterday - right after my final lunch at the canteen I went up to class to mug a bit more for French and then left for the exam. Not as hard as I expected but still made some stupid mistakes in the cloze passage like depuis/pendant which I know I'm going to get killed for, lah. Comp ecrite about reality TV (ha) and I wrote about participating in a roadside reality program with my sister 'Amber'. :)

Some people say that my blog has too much reality TV junk so if you don't want to you can just skip this paragraph, lol. Why is Yaxha losing? *cries* Maybe Steph really is a jinx. : I was about to die/cry/roll-over-in-agony when Yaxha screwed up their RC and IC. This is so not happening. :( The 2 young Yaxha girls Morgan and Brianna gone in back-to-back episodes? :( Looks like a switch next episode. I hope Brian is safe because it sucks to go into merge/twist with less numbers. By the way, Amazing Race: Family Edition sucks. Annoying bratty little kids - I can't say I didn't expect it though. And the race will only be in America. What was funny though, was that the African American family name is Black, so at the bottom of the screen it writes Black Family, lol. And when they were eliminated, Phil says "Black Family, you're the last to arrive", lmao. As for America's Next Top Model, Brittany really needs to stop talking. Kahlen still rocks. They're in South Africa! And Tyra is crizazy but fun, lol. At the judging panel Tyra told Janice to show what passion meant and Janice suddenly jumped on her and starting kissing her and both judges were rolling on the floor over each other, lol. And Kahlen was just standing there with that shocked look on her face, lol. Stephanie is out of The Apprentice 3 now. :( I want to see what happens tomorrow - Chris really needs to be fired.

Anyway, goodbye September. See you in 11 months.

Don't Phunk With My Brain

2005-09-21T20:32:00.000+08:00

Wow, I haven't blogged in more than 2 weeks. Time to start flipping back those pages etched at the back of my mind.

I don't know why I feel obliged to write a recountal of everything noteworthy that happens. It doesn't matter or not if I leave out like a week or two, right? I dunno if it's some kind of perfectionist impulse or something, but I just have to make sure that I blog without leaving gaps, even if it's only a brief summary. Pointless, right? Then again, that's life in a nutshell. Pointless. So if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Here we go.

Let's start with the holidays. Eh, I can't really think of anything that happened in the holidays. Hm, 15 years old is a little too young for senility. I really, really don't remember much. I vaguely remember going to IMM with HL and Lester to buy prizes for RICO Fun Day camp which was held on Friday. We set a scavenger hunt for them and we had an auction later on where they could buy stuff for points and sometimes the prizes were mystery prizes. Needless to say, some people got jacked. Shorray! That's all I recall of the holidays. Sad, right? I'm sure there was more stuff that happened, even though the majority of the time was spent at home n00bing around at Maple Story which I just started playing. Urgh, this is what I get for not blogging regularly. *sobs*

Returning to school is painful as usual, but Week 1 was quite a quick blur. Again, I don't remember much. Had a swap of teachers for Chem. Guess who's teaching us now? The highlight of the week was Survivor: Guatemala's premiere on Friday. Yes, the information about Steph and BJ was right. This season's probably the most physically demanding one so far, with the immediate 11-mile hike Reward Challenge. If you missed it, Nakúm won Reward, Yaxhá won Immunity, and Jim Lynch was voted off. Good, because I never root for the old people. I definitely prefer Yaxhá a lot more - there's Stephenie, Brian Corridan, Morgan McDevitt, my Top 3, and also Brianna Varela and Jamie Newton who are okay too.

SS Salad Assignment was fun. Got to hear all the groups present their lame connections, explanations and analogies as to why each ingredient was included. Some of it ended up quite racist, lol. Today there was Physics practical test too (I was the first to break the boiling tube! Oops! Not completely my fault though, because the cork suddenly dropped the ruler and the whole thing just smashed on the table >.<) and watched a redox reaction in Chem (the big flask becomes like a silvery mirror surface). Some confusion regarding some period swaps, etc. led to a free last period so we were dismissed at 1.35 instead of 3.15 so went to PastaMania to eat with Lester, Joshua, Julian and Yichen.

Listening to 2 unreleased Ashlee Simpson songs now [link here]. Oddly, there hasn't been a lot of homework in the past week. Then again, who's complaining?

Sec 3 GE Malaysia Trip

2005-09-01T12:06:00.000+08:00

Hooray! We're back from the Malaysia trip! Brace yourself for a long blog entry about the last 4 days. Overall it was very, very fun, despite the long bus rides and a flu bug going around. Quite hard to go around in a big group, but it's also very fun to have a lot of people around.

[ Day 1 ]
Woke up around 5 in order to reach school at 6. Felt a bit of a sore throat coming along. A lot of other people around me were sick, like Joshua Ang, Julian, HL and Jared (and his 'sexy' raspy voice, haha). Boarded the first bus and sat with Norman and on this stupid seat that was spoilt, so once I leaned slightly on the seat it would recline and when it got up it'd spring up really hard, so whenever the bus hit a hump it would smack me damn hard. Was relieved when we changed buses after Malaysian customs. Sat with Ngiam, Joshua Toh, Norman and Kern at the back. Long journey, so listened with Ngiam to Gabriel Ling's CD player (with Ngiam and Joshua Toh's CDs). Stopped at some dunnowhat Lucky Garden place where there was like a supermarket so I just bought Mentos and mineral water since my throat wasn't feeling well. What is up with people comparing prices like nuts in the supermarket? It's like they don't care about what they're buying, as long as they buy the cheapest thing in the store. And when we got to the cashier we saw this poster advertising some dunnowhat medicine or liniment or whatever, and saw some sick looking pictures. And when we read the caption it said 'cracked anus' and 'bloody stool'. Wtf? Aren't these horribly graphic images supposed to be banned from the viewing of the general public? Especially little impressionable and innocent school kiddies like us? Sick. Boarded the bus once again then stopped for lunch at a restaurant in Negri Sembilan. After the meal Lester saw the toilet and recognized that we'd been to the same restaurant before during the CO Penang trip, lol. And he could only tell from looking at the toilet. Bloody Maxis and their SMS spam. Nobody wants to receive 4 different messages saying 'Welcome to Maxis', 'Maxis says Welcome to Malaysia!' and various useless details about your voice mail services. Realized that we were way off from our schedule (like a few hours). Some people went off at Tesco to buy stuff for the CIP thing. Reached Hannah Home at like 7 (when we were supposed to at 3). Played with the kids there, performed 'Breakaway' and 'You and Me'. All of the kids were really young, so all the games they planned didn't work so we had to think of some new stuff on the spot like AEIOU, Simon Says, Musical Chairs and distracting them with balloon animals. The pastor there shared some stories about the lives of some of the orphans there - one was abused with hot oil by his grandmother, another had his head hacked by a parang... Was really sad and like I said during that night's debrief, it really made us realize how fortunate we are. =( We were given coconuts and then we went for dinner, and finally to the hotel Excelsior. Went for supper immediately after that (Ipoh hor fun). Not bad, but I just couldn't eat anymore so close after dinner so I wasted like half of it. Went to 7 Eleven after that to buy more mineral water then went back to the hotel. Room 917 with Bernard and Li Jian, both of whom were watching soccer all night. Slept at midnight after the debrief with Mr. Tan and my group B6 in Ngiam's room (argh, Bowen and his spoon rant).

[ Day 2 ]
Woke up at 6, washed up, got changed, went for breakfast, packed up, checked out, boarded bus. Sat with Lester this time. Tried to play Upwords with Joshua, Julian and Lester. Yay, on my first turn I used my entire rack of letters. In the middle of the game the bus jerked and all the pieces just fell and we decided not to play anymore. Played Go Fish! amongst ourselves then asshole dai di with ET and Mr. Yuen who were right in front of us. First stop was a charcoal kiln (People kept pronouncing it 'klin', and the guy there said it was pronounced 'klin' and spelt it 'k-l-i-n', but we realized that he was probably wrong when he said 'flim' when he meant 'film'. Anyway, there is no such word as klin in the English language, only kiln. Back on the bus (with all the soot on the bus floor) and went to some mangrove reserve. Brought us into this room to show us a super boring powerpoint presentation with 98 slides and everyone was falling asleep, especially because the presenters and the tour guides were at one corner arguing about what they wanted to tell us and translating what each other was saying because not all of them could speak English. That was the only thing I recalled from that presentation, lol. Went for the walk, which we also already did during the CO Penang trip, and nobody was there to guide us or give us information. It was just a boring mindless walk with Yichen annoying me by trying to trick me into believing that there was a spider on my back. -_-" Lunchtime after that. Woke up and we were told that the restaurant was on Level 1. So we walked up the stairs. After climbing 2 flights we realized that we were only on B2! So we walked up until G, and realized that Level 1 was not ground floor. So in total we walked up 5 flights of stairs, when we could have taken the elevator. -_-" After lunch we went to a limestone cave. The tour guide told us that there'd be crystal snakes (snakes that have transparent, crystal-like skin, not crystals cut into snake shapes) inside but didn't see anything, except the sound of bats. Walked with ET up the steps in the cave 'cuz she's scared of heights. We were supposed to see sculptures formed by the limestone, but I didn't really see anything. It's supposed to be all up to your imagination. In other words you're seeing things that aren't really there. Just another way to con tourists out of their money. Quite thankful that we didn't go for the 'Wet route' that last year's batch went to, because it'd mean getting all your clothes and shoes and belongings wet. After quite a short walk (and quite a lot of squeezing), we got back on the bus. Played games of musical charades where Lester and I would listen to a song on his MP3 player and we would act out the lyrics (according to literal meaning) to Joshua and Julian and they had to try to guess what song it was. Reached KL's Cititel Hotel around 7. Checked into our rooms (Room 1106 with Lester) and realized that our room was not done. Called Housekeeping, waited around in the room, and suddenly Lester screamed from the toilet because he saw a cockroach nymph on the rim of the trashbin in the toilet. Both of us are afraid of cockroaches so we both freaked out until Lester entered his 'pissed-mode' and grabbed some newspaper and walked into the toilet and smacked it. (Lester: "Yay! I smacked a cockroach with a Malay newspaper!") Waited a long time for someone to make up our room, but nobody came. So we went down to the lobby to meet the others who were going for dinner/shopping. Walked around for awhile with Felicia Kuo, ET, Julian, Joshua Ang and Lester, and finally decided to go eat at Sushi King since we were quite sick of the typical Chinese restaurant food. Waited awhile for the food then realized that we were really running out of time. As usual Joshua inhaled his food and waited for the rest of us normal people to finish, haha. Walked around Mid-Valley mall for awhile after that then split up. Went with Joshua to shop around for clothes. Bought a pair of jeans. Wanted to go back but we got lost and we were walking around aimlessly until we found our way. Went back up to the room and met Lester. Then Lester yelled from the bathroom again. Another cockroach. ET said that the family of the cockroach we killed earlier would be coming back to seek revenge and she was right. >.< Gave Lester a roll of foolscap paper and he tried smacking it but this time it didn't work. Got freaked out again and quickly went for debrief first. Met the group and ET at the lobby, then we moved to the function rooms on level 5 for debrief there. After we went back ET came and helped us call Housekeeping again to fix our kettle and to spray our toilet with insecticide. Someone came in and just had to press one button and the water started boiling. Turns out Lester got on and off mixed up, and the kettle wasn't malfunctioning at all. -_-" Then someone came to spray our toilet. While waiting for the insecticide smell to die off Lester and I did the activities inside the booklet. Then we bathed and slept at 2 am.

[ Day 3 ]
We were told that we didn't have to travel so much since all the locations were around KL, but didn't turn out that way. Woke up at 6, did the usual morning routine and went down for breakfast. Sat in the bus with the usual Day 1 arrangement and went to FRIM. Sat down in the room for a talk by this guy called Mr. Jaffar who's really funny so it was quite a fun talk. Went around to look at museum exhibits and then went on the forest trail. It was very long and tiring. Walked with HL and tried our psychological tests/games. The one which we call the Up Syndrome (opposite of Down Syndrome, lol) is when we looked up and stared and pointed, and everyone would look up to see what was going on too, even when there was nothing there, lol. Then there's the Trap Syndrome where you look on the ground suspiciously and everyone behind you on the trail will just stop and wonder what's going on. We didn't try the Air Raid Syndrome one, lol. That would have been fun. Anyway it was a very long hike up, and HL was trying to hold his pee all the way. At the halfway point I think Jasper took a picture of us. (Ms. Kuo: "Caption it 'We don't wanna go up anymore!'") When we finally got to the top we found out Christopher Koay is afraid of heights so he wanted to walk with ET on the canopy walk, lol. Mr. Tan had to walk slowly behind ET on the canopy walk and kept trying to psych her into moving forward because she was trembling and crying on the thing, haha. Went after both of them because I was afraid I would make the canopy thing shake by walking too fast. Sometimes it got quite freaky because you wonder if the thing is secure. (HL: "They tell us it's German technology. Germany started both world wars and lost both.") Decided to run on the last bridge. Crizazy! =P Had to walk back down the same long path we came from. HL ran down so fast 'cuz he really needed to pee, haha. ET treated us to ice cream, and when we reached the bottom where the toilet was, HL said that when he got down he didn't really want to pee anymore, lol. Bought mineral water and boarded the bus again. After lunch at yet another Chinese restaurant with little variation of dishes served, we went to Royal Selangor (so many jokes about Royal Elangor, lol). We were broken into smaller groups and they had proper tour guides to bring us around. I think they left out a lot of stuff because they thought we were in a hurry, so Mr. Tan went to tell them to redo the exhibits we missed out. Actually everything was quite boring (the teachers said that last year's batch's tour was a lot more fun), and there was nothing to buy because things were all overpriced. So many people bought the coin pendant for 10 ringgit. HL and I kept going up to people who bought the pendant and made them regret their decision. ("Do you know how you look with the pendant? Put it on. 1... 2... 3... FUGLY!") Really, it's fugly. Left Royal Selangor for a 2 hour bus trip to some ulu village where we had a seafood dinner. Then down some rocky road on the bus to watch fireflies. ET, Norman, Gabriel Quek and I were the in the last boat. Actually the fireflies weren't much. The mosquitoes were so irritating, and the fireflies got a bit boring after awhile. We could only watch from afar, and we couldn't even see the firefly up close. (ET: "Maybe when the fireflies go on strike they will switch on the christmas lights and trick us.") On the bus ride back we played Truth or Dare with Jasper, Seth, Nigel, Li Jian, Joshua Toh, Yong Han, Ngiam, Kern and Norman. The dares were more funny. Seth I think had to go sit down on Kah Hou's lap and Jasper walked to the middle of the bus and sprayed deoderant into his pants. Yong Han was trying to wave out of the window to get the drivers outside to notice him and wave back. I think they thought he was crazy. Norman went to Mr. Tan and told him "You're the best Chem teacher I've ever had" when he doesn't even teach him, lol. I had to hold Li Qian's hand and ask him to be my boyfriend (after that he said 'Yes', lol), tell Roger that I love him (lol) and lie down on Shida and Kah Hou on the bus. Ack, and on Ngiam's dare I got deoderant sprayed in my hair. =P At the lobby Li Jian was supposed to go up to Ms. Kuo and say "Ms. Kuo can I have some sugar? I want to bake some cookies." I dunno why it was so funny but it was. XD Went to level 5 for debrief with the whole class and both our FTs.

[ Day 4 ] (It was past midnight!)

For the last night there was no lights out. After bathing Lester and I went down to Julian/Joshua's room where we played Boom-O with them, ET, Felicia Kuo, Jerome, Chang Xing and Yichen. ET, Chang Xing, Yichen and Jerome went off leaving Ms. Kuo, Lester, Joshua Ang and Julian playing Go Fish and Bluff, with penalties. By around 3 am all of us had incurred 1 forfeit, except Lester who had 2. Then was the most fun part (probably of the entire trip). Felicia Kuo taught us how to play Indian poker. Loser of each game had to drink a lot of water. There was a lot of crazy random laughing - so loud that people from other rooms complained and a security guard was sent to our room to tell us to keep quiet, lol. After drinking a lot of water you will feel like puking and peeing. Played until about 5 am then we had a final round. Joshua poured out the water - 1 cup for each person, totalling 6 cups. Joshua lost the final round and had to drink all 6 full glasses of water which he poured out himself, haha. Retribution. XD Thinking about it still makes me laugh. Joshua kept wanting to pee and he couldn't stand it when all of us kept trying to make him laugh and pee (Felicia Kuo kept making these "shhhhhshhh" noises, haha) and he finally gave up and went to the toilet (supposed to be out of bounds during the game) and took a forfeit. Discussed the forfeits too. There was something about rolling on the hotel lobby floor ("I'm a sausage roll!") and something about Joshua dancing "I'm a Slave 4 U" on the breakfast table, both suggested by Ms. Kuo. (What Ms. Kuo suggested about a dare: "Mr. Koh, I have something very serious to tell you. I think... I'm smarter than you.") XD Anyway we didn't do any of the forfeits (but nobody's going to forget) and we didn't sleep a wink. Made up for that in the bus. Lester and I were the first ones down for breakfast at like 6.15. Then we had a mini-Teachers' Day celebration which was quite a flop. =P After that we checked out and took a bus ride back to Singapore, stopping for a last meal at yet another Chinese restaurant and reaching school at 5 pm.

Overall it was really really fun, with its share of funny moments and fun experiences. Glad it wasn't cancelled again by the haze or whatever. And it's nice that today's a holiday, which gives us time to sleep in, finish homework and study for physics. And tomorrow will be the end of Term 3. Waiting for someone to upload pics of the trip so that I can put them in.

Quality

2005-08-27T21:59:00.000+08:00

One short, short blog entry for Wednesday - Saturday, before leaving for Malaysia.

An entire battery of tests this week. Social Studies was harder than I expected for source-based. Didn't know what kind of question 1b was. I thought the questions were just restricted to 3 types - inference, realibility and utility, but it asked about believability. Screwed up a bit for math in Question 3 (graph sketching, transformation of graphs) because I forgot to include the '-1' in the original f(x) graph. Entire give-away question is worth 8 marks. Hopefully I didn't lose all 8 marks with that stupid stupid mistake.

Finished my English letter to editor and Chem creative assignment. On Saturday I realized that my forum letter was published. :) Dunno how many bonus marks that gives me, but it's quite fun to see your letter being published. Some quick last minute packing on Saturday night.

Split Ends

2005-08-23T20:42:00.000+08:00

Back to school... Missing school for 3 days last week means that there are mucho loose ends for me to tie up. I have so much work due I really don't feel like doing anything. The more work you have to do, the less you feel like doing it. Ugh. I suppose I have no choice but to slowly work it off. I will fight until the end I guess. =)

Monday the major worrying thing was RE presentation. Quite frankly it went pretty well and we are so happy that RE is finally over. Went to Pastamania with my RE team Sean and Don for a 'celebration'. Well it wasn't really a celebration, it was more like... lunch.

Today we started off with Biology in the lab. Mr. Court took in this goat lung and stuck a tube deep down into its windpipe and started blowing into it to inflate it. Haha, someone said 'deep throat!' when DC was inserting the tube in, lol. Then he let some of us put on a glove to touch the goat lungs and heart. I don't know what came over me, I decided to just grab the glove and play with the bloody (literally) lung. It's squishy, soft and clammy, but you'll get used to it after you meddle with it for awhile. I stuck my fingers down every single crevice, vein and hole I could find in the heart, haha. Funny, I'm supposed to be super grossed out by this. : And when we cut out a cube of lung flesh I just stuck my fingers in and plucked out the cube of lung, woohoo. OMG, am I still Ashley?

Watched Of Mice & Men (movie) for Lit. Bell rung right at the most exciting part - when Lennie was talking to Curley's wife. Noticed that the Crooks scene was slightly adapted, and it seems to me that Curley's wife has more of a positive portrayal in the movie. It's actually quite fun to come back from Lit class and look through the glass pane on the door and see everyone sleeping in History.

After that we had Math and I was desperately trying to get answers and understand what the class had covered in Functions in my absence, only to find out that there was going to be a Pop Quiz - on a topic that I completely/more-than-partially did not understand! I passed though, haha. And for the French controle I think I screwed up quite a lot. Can't believe DChan points out (his class') people's mistakes during the test - so unfair! (Actually I shouldn't be commenting on this because similar situations have happened to me in other subjects, haha, on several occasions...) And we don't even get any hints on what exactly to mug for. =(

No more 3rd lang for the rest of the term - that's the plus side for sure. Got back Bio test and SS source-based assignment too. =) Tomorrow is Wednesday - there will be SS source-based test (must mug a bit about Ireland 'cos I know nuts about it) and we can go home after that at 3.15, 'cos no CCA. Oh, and we must sing our Malaysia trip CIP performance pieces (Kelly Clarkson 'Breakaway' [chosen by moi] and Lifehouse 'You and Me' [chosen by Joshua Toh]) to Mr. Tan.

IMCB

2005-08-19T16:38:00.000+08:00

It's over! Overall it was very fun, got to meet some new people and learn some new stuff. And escape mundanity of school, although I know I will be piled with homework and the need to catch back up (especially in 3rd lang and maths) when I come back.

Day 1 we were supposed to reach at 8.15. It only started at like 8.40, then we were given a safety briefing and some talk about other stuff. Briefed on our experiment - we were to grow protein (lysozyme) crystals, so we had to assemble all the reagants, apparatus, etc. It's not just biology - there's chem too (calculate molarity, etc.) One of the guys in charge of us, Jin Ngee, split us into pairs, each person from different school. Was the first one assigned, and my lab partner was Michelle, some Sec 3 MGS girl. She's crazy - she laughs at the most random times (like Lester) and is always clueless about everything. =P Learnt a new way of titration (with an actual machine that accurately reads pH). Which makes me wonder why we're learning how to titrate with burette/pipette for SPA, if there are machines that can help us. (*is still annoyed at chem SPA test*)

Had only one hour for lunch (by the time we exited the building there was only about 45 minutes left), so I went to Holland V Burger King with Michelle, her friend Meijin and a NJC guy Wen Hao. The girls ended up like wasting 1 whole packet of fries 'cuz they couldn't finish. And we were late so we couldn't wait for the shuttle bus, so we took a taxi instead - 70 cents each, haha. When we got back to the lab we had to pipette our lysozyme and reagants and culture a tray of protein crystals. Had to leave it to crystallize overnight. Dismissed at 5. Went home, just wrote half of my RT article (took forever) and went to sleep.

Day 2 we only needed to reach there at 9. Bernard told me to come to school in the morning so I could have the first lesson. Which is PE. Yeah right. Anyway we spent like the whole day in the com lab. Second day was comparatively boring/slack. Built basic DNA phosphate groups, an ice lattice and a fullerene ball with model kits with Jie Min (TJC), Wen Hao and Yuan Chang (HCI) who were in my group. Went for lunch halfway. Brought everyone to Holland V Windmill food court to eat, by shuttle bus. HCI guys tell really, really lame jokes (comparable to Wen Tao's lame monkey or stick jokes). Squashed ourselves on the very crowded bus and had to withstand their lame jokes at the same time. Gawd.

Huang Pei (HCI), who Meijin calls 'Chinaman' (cuz he's a PRC, lol) doing this lame ABCD thing. Like you have to guess the answer, and any answer is right as long as you say 'D is...'. Played that game before? Then Wen Hao did a coffee/tea version. That one took ages. Michelle and Meijin are always the last 2 to get it, even if you tlel them the answer. No surprise. =P

When we returned to the com lab we basically didn't have much to do. Just download structures of DNA, RNA and lysozyme from the protein database and view them. Pretty cool, but got boring after awhile. Ended up visiting Quizilla and the girls forced Wen Hao to do all the girly quizzes, like 'What Type of Guy Do You Like?'. Went to peoples' blogs. (Michelle, Wen Hao) I think they realized that we were bored and had nothing to do, so they dismissed us at 4, after we visited the xenopus (transgenic frog) and zebrafish facilities, and we had a look at our protein crystals under the microscope.

Day 3 at IMCB began at 9 again. Took out protein crystal trays and went to the basement of Centros block where the X-ray room is. We were supposed to see some refractive rays on the protein crystals on the computer, I think. Spent our time in some small cold microscope room with this heavy door. Did I forget to mention that the girls are weirdly fascinated/obsessed with the automatic doors? Every time we return to the lab they would run to be the first one there, so they can swipe their hand over the sensor and the door 'magically' opens. : Even the heavy door (not even automatic) was fun for them to open/close. Trying to isolate one single protein crystal with a tiny loop under a microscope was quite fruitless. Dismissed for a 2 hour lunch break... not before Jin Ngee 'entertained' us with another lame joke about a dolphin orgy.

By the way, biggest question of Day 1: what are organic bars? Never mind. Didn't know where to go for lunch so we were walking around aimlessly until Angela and Swee Chin (both AJC) decided to go to MOE cafeteria for lunch so we followed them. The girls were again fascinated by the glass elevator so they decided to go up and down the building. I think the security guards thought we were crazy. Wen Hao, Swee Chin and I were lucky and bought normal food, while Angela's fish wasn't fried properly - inside was still full of starch, but she ate it anyway. Michelle and Meijin didn't even touch their food because the chicken tasted weird. Ended up distributing to the rest of us but we didn't eat it either.

Went back to the lab where Jin Ngee made us clean up. Wrote in the lab journal for the last time. Wonder who's going to be the next owners. Wrote a list of 8 things I didn't understand inside, which included why girls are so fascinated with automatic doors and glass elevators, and why HCI guys are so lame. Once we were done cleaning up, we were given photographs and everyone started going around asking for autographs. Charlotte (RJC) told me I looked familiar. I told her she looked familiar to me too. I noticed that at the beginning but didn't really pay much attention. She's 2 years older than me and she's from HPPS too, haha. That's probably why we recognize each other but couldn't put our fingers on it. Anyway, after I was done collecting autographs we were dismissed at 3 (1 hour earlier each day, lol).

Overall IMCB was really fun, so much better than school. I don't think I missed a lot, considering that there was Moot Parliament for many people on Thursday and Friday. Although the programme was titled Translation Termination & Nonsense-Mediated mRNA Decay, and what we did had nothing to do with that at all, lol. I think I will edit some photos in later on. (Edited to say that I just did)

Trigger Happy

2005-08-19T16:13:00.000+08:00

It's Friday once again - time to blog! Will talk only about Monday and Tuesday here. IMCB in separate post (look above). =)

Going back to school on Monday was a bit different because we weren't even supposed to be there in the first place. Teachers explained to us that Malaysia trip simply cannot be held this month. (Apparently, it's now going to be on the 28th. If you are living in KL/Ipoh and you are reading this post before any major disaster has happened, I'd advise you to buyall sorts of insurance because well, every place we want to go to will be jinxed by something. SARS, bird flu, haze... what's next?) Some people are being super lame and they insist that this is a conspiracy by the school and HM (i.e. the dark side). Right.

So back to normal school life means RE on Mondays. Went to Yoshinoya to eat (got students' discount, but the chicken teriyaki bowl sucked). Must finish powerpoint presentation by next week, sigh. Can't wait for RE to finally end. *makes mental note to self to pick a slack RE for next year*

Went to get erhus from CO Room. Lester and Sean were there and we found a piece of red cloth. Lester decided to hide in the curtains and dress up as 'The Maid'. Then there was RICO interviews. Mine was held right at the end so until then we didn't have anything to do. Just hang around lah. HL and Boyi chased me with a jar containing a spider and I ran damn fast and got really tired, then found out that it was just a leaf inside. -_-"

HL and I sent Lester to go to RJC to buy tau huey for us. Ended up getting shaken (probably because of Lester's spastic hands). No choice, must eat. Doesn't it look delicious? I think I've gone crazy with taking pictures. Just decided that my blog was too wordy. And a picture's worth a thousand words. ;)

After that just hung around, playing around with trick chem questions and also teaching the Sec 1s and 2s. Taught this new Sec 2 guy called Klaxton who happened to be Kovan Kok's younger brother. Hm, I see the resemblance. Anyway, HL and I were the last ones for the interview, so they just decided to send us in together. Turned out to be quite a grilling session for HL. Don't think I can comment on it here. But I wish he had told the truth about how he really felt.

Tuesday there was 2.4. I died, thank you very much. =) 3rd lang you get to study about bitchy French women called Estelle and Sabine who get into catfights. Contemplated not going for IMCB tomorrow because I was scared of missing too many lessons. But never mind, I thought it'd be a nice and fun experience. Yup, it was. =)

The Presence of Absence

2005-08-12T23:10:00.000+08:00

Argh, so ridiculous. Malaysia trip cancelled at the very last minute. Sucks. There'll be regular school on Monday. :( Damn forest fires. Grr... It's sort of like people who smoke. They puff their cigarettes and everyone around them gets the second-hand smoke and suffers with them, even though it's their personal decision to gas their own lungs. Hopefully it'll just be postponed to next week? Sigh, I was already getting into holiday-ish mode.

These 2 days were English Fest, which is quite fun. Get to watch movies (Pleasantville - very, very nice... especially since there's Reese Witherspoon my Legally Blonde girl <3) and play games. Today we had a Lit test while the others were having Renaissance Faire... so unfair. And we weren't even told about it, so we didn't even bring along pen and paper to the room, or get to prepare at all, while the other class already knew. :

RICO move to RJC was crazy. Walk back and forth like 4, 5 times in total carrying stuff. And practice quite screwed up as usual, until Chen Wei stepped in (obviously under the orders of a certain someone, lol). They sell sweets at RJ! Bought some nice grape gummies and during the break, HL, Lester, MQ and I went to eat at the canteen and ordered tau huey. Lester and HL ate 2 bowls, and Lester burped about 25 times on the way back. Disgusting pig. =P Went for dinner with HL at Macs and tried out their 4 new sauces with a 9 pc Chicken McNugget meal. In reverse order of preference, the Thai Curry sauce is really nasty. Doesn't taste like anything normal at all. HL said it tasted expired. I'm not going to disagree with that. The Wasabi one is weird. Doesn't taste like wasabi either. In case you're wondering, it's not hot AT ALL, and this is coming from someone with low spiciness threshold - I don't eat chilli or chilli sauce at all. It tastes a little cooling but the weirdness offsets it - I'd say it tastes more like mint than wasabi. Either way, it completely does not match the taste of McDonald's food. Perhaps alien food? The second best was the Lemon Tango which I had originally expected to be the best. A letdown too - completely no lemon taste. It's just like pepper in tartar, and I expected it to be completely different. The only one that was alright was the Barbecue one, but it was nothing spectacular either. I mostly reverted back to ketchup. Look McDonalds', here are 4 random ideas that would have probably worked better than those wild ideas: Pizza Paste (sauce that tastes like pizza?), Cheescapades (cheese fondue-ish dip?), Black Pepper (self explanatory), Citrus Blast (non-creamy lemony-orangey-limey sauce?). Hm, I'd die to try the Cheescapades one.

Anyway, most of us will be really sad if the trip is cancelled. Always happens to us - like we're jinxed or something. Couldn't go Chiang Mai Chapter because of bird flu, then bird flu spread to Malaysia stopping us from going for Malaysia Experience. Now cannot go again? Please, please, please, I can't take another full week of school...

At The End Of The Day

2005-08-05T22:33:00.000+08:00

Wow, so long never blog already. First things first though... YAY! UBER LONG WEEKEND/HOLIDAY BREAK! Despite only 4 days it's been a rough week (screwed up certain quizzes/tests/practicals that I would rather not talk about). Glad that's off my chest.

CCA is also less fun around this time because everyone is scheming for positions. Nothing new with the RICO rift, but for RT there are despo people like Sean Ong and Jeremy. Meeting/Interviews for RT today. Told them I wanted to be design chief. Don't think anyone else will ask for that. Actually we weren't even supposed to go for the meeting. Wrong message (thanks so much Sean). But they decided to involve us anyway, so Lester and I couldn't go eat lunch with ET, Joshua and Julian.

Ehh, my life revolves around TV so much and there is practically nothing to watch. Which is why I have to channel my energy/time somewhere else (other than homework, thank you very much). Riviera is really really very fun - great graphics, storyline, characters, intermingling of game genres and battling methods. In my other window I have Revelation. At Level 43 now (Wizard). Taking forever to level. I think I might be a n00b at this for the rest of my life.

Still euphoric over the fact that it's Friday night with a long break ahead of us. Weekend... National Day... English Fest... Malaysia Trip... That makes 2 weeks until our next proper lesson! Yahoo!

Someday I Will Understand

2005-07-24T15:27:00.000+08:00

Listening to 'Someday (I Will Understand)' by Britney Spears as I type... I love it. I prefer the non-R&B type of Britney songs. Perfect distraction from the fact that I have work to do. I just finished my Chinese project (did a website, since the instructions said that anything was okay). English portfolio is hell as usual.

Our RE project is so screwed. Technically it's categorized as a math project, but our subject focus deviates it from mathematics. But we will be graded on mathematical components, which is quite unfair. Ah... At least next Monday (not tomorrow) will be a holiday as declared by HM, which gives us one more day of rest on RE day. This Wednesday (I think?) will be RI Lecture, so sort of a day off as well, except for 1 period English as extra class to round up the presentations. My presentation went, er, better than I expected. I really thought it would suck because I really didn't know what to talk about at first, but I think it turned out okay. ^_^

RICO Interviews for Sec 3s on Wednesday. Sad how nearly everyone wants to fight for power positions and it leads to hurt feelings and bigger rifts and fights like the Shida vs. Boyi/HL issue... Found out a lot of new surprising things on Friday at lunch with Joshua, Lester, ET. Like, bet you can't guess who Lester's best friend in primary school used to be. Played our memory match game after CO again. Was supposed to go to Esplanade to watch Hsing Hai CO performance but decided with Lester that there was too much homework so we didn't go. Which is also why I have to get started on my portfolio before it's too late...

Enchanted

2005-07-17T18:43:00.000+08:00

Ahh, it's Sunday and a week has passed since I last blogged. There wasn't a lot to blog about, so I'll just simply round up the week now.

RE is so hell, we have to get our second draft done by tomorrow. A lot of work! I think I'll be more or less done by 9. Whoever said RE is slack is so wrong. I'd rather have a different subject instead of RE - and dealing with Sean and Don sometimes is super annoying. Bad week for math - screwed up some questions in NSW and didn't have enough time to complete Friday's Linear Laws quiz, so I will fail even though I knew all the answers. :*(

There was NE Lunch Talk on Wednesday (someone said it should be NE Talk Lunch because the lunch is after the talk, er...). Nothing is ever different - you listen to only a few parts of the speech and you zone out for the rest of it, your neighbour (cough cough Bor Ray) complaining about how it is propaganda and how it is racist, allegedly-synthetic fish and rice, everyone complaining about the food (except for the dessert, which was incidentally not done by Continental Delight but bought from QBite), etc. Sat near ET so everyone around her fed her a lot of gossip that was at certain times exaggerated. They will complain about certain teachers and some people like Joshua, while Joshua and Lester will tell her about other people -- both sides are just poisoning each others' wells, lol. I think she knows they're exaggerating sometimes, so she always asks me to verify it, haha. Nice to know that I have no enemies. ^_^ (I hope) Sadly for the class, they did not get to miss Math which they so badly wanted to skip. And some stuff was stolen from 3Q, including Joshua's handphone and some class money collected for Chinese. Apparently Joshua isn't upset about his phone being gone, rather he's angry that the thief got his grimy paws on his belongings, lol.

Thursday we had CLE. First year that I actually enjoy and look forward to CLE. Everyone says that they want to be in our class just for the CLE, lol. Both our FTs came in and talked to us about various sex-related stuff like pre-marital sex, BGRs, porn, masturbation, homosexuality, sexual confusion, strap-ons (haha), etc. There was this part about ET mentioning MSM (male sex male or something like that) then Bowen said P2P (think sick, please), lmao. So much other funny stuff was said but I won't go into it. Aw. =P

Friday during RICO dazu we practiced until 4 then our conductor Mr. Yeo said he needed only the Open House performers to practice their pieces 'cos he was worried that they wouldn't be able to get it ready in time. So the rest of us could just take a break, so Lester and I went to play with the Tumbleweed (the smell has died down) and we went to CO room and we did random things like play with balls, etc. then we started to play checkers. It was really boring so until it was down to a few pieces we decided to play Battleships with the chess pieces (don't ask). Then we invented a memory/Battleships game with a twist -- very fun! And after that we played doubles (me and HL vs. Lester and Boyi) until about 7.

Yesterday was the Open House and all CEC members were on duty. -_-" I was the only Sec 3 in Registration, but I got to know my partner at the counter I was at, and he was nice. Most of the people walked straight to the other counters (shortest way), so we had very little 'business' unless the other counters were crowded. We had like 47 forms while the others had about 100. They saw the Feedback Form box at our table and thought we weren't handling Registrations. Most of the people that came to 0ur counter came for the sweets, haha.

I downloaded Revelation and I got really confused. I don't understand the appeal to this game. But I decided to try it out anyway, so that I can understand what my class is talking about. It's really, really, confusing. I usually don't know where to walk and the battle system is so confusing. To top it all off I picked the hardest class (Enchanter) when a noob like me should've picked Warrior or something. Gabriel Ling helped me gain a few levels lol, but I'm still confused now. You can only get until Level 100, then you have to AA or something like that (no cue what it stands for). Maybe I'll get used to it.

Harry Potter 6 released yesterday, but I don't intend on buying it. Have all of the previous ones except GoF (which incidentally turned out to be my favorite, lol). I think I'll wait for someone fast to finish reading then lend it to me. :)

Give Me A Break

2005-07-09T23:28:00.000+08:00

I'm once again thankful that the week is over. Even with Monday a holiday, and no 3rd lang (teacher went to KL to check out some DELF stuff) for the week, it's still tough to get through.

We have a new PE teacher. He has this weird Australian-ish accent and yet sometimes it sounds local... I dunno, but he's nice. Mostly because he hasn't made us run 2.4 yet, hehe. New module on hockey and floorball. Hard to get used to the stick, but the floorballl one is a lot easier than the wooden hockey one.

Adlibbed our MPP presentation for SS. Most of the groups did that too, any way. So many more presentations coming up. There's the English one about Change & Conflict, the Chinese one about anything, and the Lit one - my topic is the American Dream. And on Friday we were supposed to each make a speech to the class as to why we deserve a bar of chocolate over the others in our group. I won mine through bribery of the judges, hehe. :-P

Halfway through my math assignment, but stuck at the bonus question, so I thought I'd clear my brain up by a bit of relaxing blogging. Few more things I have to do by the end of the weekend, and they are Lit presentation, RE report draft, RICO resume. Zzz...

(Edited to add 'cuz I forgot:
Thursday,Lester and I went to 'support' Joshua (and laugh at Zei) at the Chinese Karaoke competition. Most (if not all) of them were really bad, but we were expecting it anyway. KB and JJ were there too to support their friend as well. Zei was number 8 to sing and everyone was laughing at him - poor thing. Joshua was 16th to sing and you know how he sings right? All of the 'airyness' (as Lester calls it) added to the microphone sounded really weird. KB said he was having a heart-attack because he seemed to just be breathing heavily into the mic, lol.)

In Between The Gaps

2005-07-04T21:25:00.000+08:00

Today we went to celebrate Boyi's birthday (actual date 2nd July, which is same as Daryl's). Because KB and JJ had some project thing they had to rush there so they made it near KB's house, which is in Yishun. And that's godknowshowfar for me. Took me an hour to reach there? At least I had company. Met MQ at Jurong East (he was waiting outside the station, I was waiting inside the station, and it was like a spastic clap...). And then Lester got on at Bukit Gombak (told him to go to the front of the train, he entered at the back, and he complained about walking 'such a long distance' to the front).

Anyway we reached Northpoint and I tried to call JJ and suddenly I hear someone shout "ASHLEY ONG!" from behind me, lol. So we had 5 people there (me, MQ, Lester, KB, JJ) and 3 more to come (Jason, Boyi, HL), and Lester tried calling HL and we heard the funniest thing ever...

Okay, it starts like this, HL and his brother each have a pair of house keys, and somehow his brother took his by accident, and went out. So HL was locked inside his house, lol, and his brother didn't have a handphone and HL didn't even know where he's going or when he'd be back. HL lives on the 4th storey, so no, he can't jump.

Anyway, I wanted to find a present for Daryl so KB led me around along with Lester, and we dumped JJ along the way. Then we saw Boyi and Jason and we ran away from them too. I dunno why we did that -- KB's idea. It was like some stupid hide and seek around Northpoint, and we wouldn't return their calls, haha. Yay, nothing's better than some stupid childish fun. Anyway I got a shirt for Daryl (and 1 for myself too) from Hang Ten and by that time it was 3 already so we went to Sakae to meet them, and we blamed it all on Lester.

We ate for a bit and Lester called HL again. HL said he didn't dare to climb out of the window onto the corridor because he was afraid his neighbours would think he was a thief. Dots. So we took it as he wasn't coming. But he had Boyi's present, lol. Anyway we played zhong ji mi ma with rewards and forfeit. Loser would eat things like messed up cucumber, tofu, capsicum, scallop, chili pepper mixes, etc.

It's past 5, we're talking and guessing stories and playing I Spy, then surprise, surprise, HL comes. His brother came back from his friend's house and he rushed here, also not realizing Yishun was so far... We gave Boyi a Mickey Mouse plushie with the words "It's A Boy!" on it and one of those letter-bead strings with the words "Boyi *heart* Yijie" (Um, don't ask me to explain this if you don't understand, k). Poor Boyi, got suaned for his birthday gift. He's thinking of how to take out the "Yijie" part but it's permanent unless he cuts it, and he doesn't want his mom to see.

Nearing the end they got us to make our final orders before they closed the buffet orders. And I don't know what Lester did on the, but he ended up ordering 4 chawanmushis and fruit for everyone. Obviously we couldn't finish, most of them were already stuffed (not me, because I was eating reaaaaaally slow, okay) so Lester had to think of ways to resolve it himself. As well as Boyi's fried mixed vegetables crap which nobody wanted. So we took all the ice cream cups (without the lid), put a bit of stuff into each one, then stacked them all on top of each other (squashing it) and put it to one side, lol. We got rid of quite a lot of stuff there (all of the vegetables) and I don't think they'll ever notice. Lester tried to squash the watermelon under the miso soup bowl lid (Mr. Bean, anyone?) then made a mess. So he had to clean it up with tissue, pack the watermelon mess into the tissue, hide it under his shirt and run to the toilet, lol. As for the chawanmushis, I put some into my mouth and spit it out in the toilet, lol. Probably one of the most undignified things I've done in my life. At least there was no more wastage surcharge.

HL tried to force us to go to KB's house to play mahjong but it was already quite late so Lester, Jason, MQ and I just ran away, lol. Anyway, I want to watch Desperate Housewives now, so ta ta. And tomorrow there's... ugh... school.

The Young and the Restless

2005-07-03T15:08:00.000+08:00

Yay, the first week is finally over. Now for a long, relaxing weekend, that really isn't that long, but the teachers will keep telling us that it's long as an excuse to give us homework. I'm not sure what to talk about, really. School's just like the same old things happening again and again and again.

2 of our math periods became free periods 'cos she wasn't here. (Enough to make them cheer like lunatics) And on our first Bio lesson, DC said he would finish rounding off the chapter on Respiration. Which he hasn't begun teaching yet, except for the pre-test thing. Maybe he's been coming to the classroom everyday to teach during the holidays not realizing that nobody was there. To top it all off, the rest of the Bio lessons in the week were all enrichment lessons, featuring super gross videos of heart/lung operations (you could actually see the heart beating, okay... whole class was so freaked out).

ET picked the group leaders for the Malaysia trip thing and it was Ngiam and Bor Ray (and everyone was being super sarcastic about it... Bowen: "Bor Ray?" / ET: "Ya, what's wrong?" / Bowen: "But it's... Bor Ray!", lol). Sakhar took over English this week 'cos the new teacher Felicia Kuo had to go back to NIE for something. Had health check also, and my eyesight is still perfect. ^_^ (Har, har... bespectacled n00bs...)

Watched Truman Show for Philo, but there was a lot of fast-forwarding so it was just the important segments left. Had our French mid-year Controle, and they gave this picture of some people lining up, and you have to write a news article about it. I wrote something about the government offering monetary assistance to the people affected by earthquakes in India, Lester wrote something about collecting water after a forest fire, and Joshua wrote about er, the crappiness that is X-tina Aguilera. The listening comprehension was so hard, I think I'm going to get only about 1~2 marks for that section, and I think nearly everyone else will too...

This week was Youth week, and they have some super lame activities like designing t-shirts, breaking records for fastest backward recital of the alphabet or containing the most water in your mouth... And Friday was mufti day (dictionary definition of mufti: civilian dress, especially when worn by one who normally wears a uniform). Sec 3 theme was black, but I wore dark blue cuz' it was the closest visible thing, lol.

Lit dramatization thing is over, finally. I played Cordelia in Act 1, Scene 1, and for costumes, I wore this yellow crepe paper dress/mess, and an aluminium foil tiara with attached long brown hair (string). I had to play a dead Cordelia for Qian Chen's group also. I'm glad it's over now - there was a lot of worry regarding costumes. The Bayley website is more or less complete too. Still have the Moot Parliament Proposal for SS and the Bio file (with the ridiculously hard Martian gas and Respiration worksheet).

Paradise Lost

2005-06-27T19:53:00.000+08:00

Did I forget to say that I redecorated my blog to show my love for Lost?

Today was the first day at school. One day was enough to make me go bonkers. Waking up in the morning, well, sucks. Why do they have to make school so early in the morning? Is it worth having a class full of sleepy, grouchy students just to make way for more CCA time? Monday morning is a horrible thing (well, all weekday mornings are a horrible thing, but anyway), but I'm thankful that the assembly wasn't as long as I expected. Had a short briefing for the Malaysia trip in week 8. Everyone was laughing when the word Selangor appeared on the projector, lol (Do you get it? S-elangor?). And there was this nasty scene with a leech. But anything is better than school, and it really does sound like fun, so that's something to look forward to in Term 3.

The first actual lesson of the day was SS and I can tell that Mr. Yuen knows how we feel. Have to work on MPP by the end of the week and my group is just not functioning. I think we're going to ban prostitution. Anyway, we were talking about gay rights and then when Bor Ray was complaining to YKM about how Kah Hou likes to touch him in class (yes, in a gay way), YKM told him "If you can't beat them, join them." Lol.

After that was Chem, mostly revision. Then RE. Our RE is pretty much screwed up, mainly because RF really thinks we can get into the semi-finals. But in order to do so we have to build a golden ratio house and devise a new golden ratio theorem, both of which are extremely hard. So many other worries to add onto my plate, so I'm glad CO practice wasn't stressful. Um, I have the Bayley website to take care of (a lot of stuff that I'm trying for the first time), as well as my 2 Chinese Shaonian Wenzhai reviews. And our group is completely not ready for the Lear dramatisation, which means we're dead tomorrow, unless everyone begs for an extension. Work, work, work. Better get crackin'

Summer Sunshine

2005-06-23T20:12:00.000+08:00

I'm blogging. OMG! I'm blogging! I haven't blogged in more than a month since the end of the school term. Not much during the holidays, but one month of nothing is still quite a lot to cover. Before I go on any further, I will have to write a contents list because I will forget if my ultima-blondness decides to set in now.

1. Carrie wins Idol/Lost premiere
2. Dae Jang Geum
3. Fire Emblem
4. Class gathering
5. Gathering @ ET's house
6. Leadership Challenge
7. Short trip
8. Holiday homework

It's been so long since Carrie Underwood won American Idol (yay), I can't believe I'm only blogging about it now. 'Independence Day' on the AI4 CD really rocks (so does Lindsey's 'Knock On Wood'), and I can't wait for Carrie's single/album. Although I won't buy the single, because singles are rip-off, and I'm going to buy the album anyway. With the end of so many reality TV shows by June, I have to revert to non-reality shows like Desperate Housewives, Las Vegas, Charmed and Lost, which is not at all bad! The Lost premiere was really, really good. So many back stories and hidden mysteries, including the chilling tranceiver message. If you're a Lost fan you should go check out i-am-lost.com and see what you can find!

Other than regular television, my mom got the DVD set for Dae Jang Geum. I'm so hooked onto it. It's a Korean drama (based on a true story) about this palace girl who becomes the imperial doctor and the first Korean woman to be a high-grade officer. Lee Young Ae plays the lead Jang Geum who overcomes palace politics, evil schemes of her mother's murderer, love and sexual discrimination. Don't judge it until you've watched it - it's really good.

I've also completed the GBA game Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones on the VBA (emulator). It's awesome too - as good as the other FE prequel I've played. The characters are done really well and it took awhile to finish it. (But I play with Turbo on so I can get it done twice as fast, lol) I'm actually starting to play Gunbound again too, with Lester, Sean Ong and Julian. To spice things up Lester and I added a Survivor element. First time we played with FE: SS characters (Natasha won) and the second time all 4 of us played Survivor: RI (with teachers) and the winner was ET (runner-up OCJ thanks to Lester).

There was a class gathering at Aaron Tan's house during the holidays. Not a lot of people went, though. Mostly was playing mahjong (check out the pic courtesy of Weizhong and Mervyn Chng) and ET tried to play Star Wars Battlefront (pic), lol. Hey, she did better than Jeremy. But I guess that doesn't say a lot, lol. After ET came back from Japan, Joshua, Lester, Julian and I went to her house (very close, Pandan Valley). Heard that Joshua's dad's car got broken into (and stuff stolen) when they were in Malaysia (where?, lol). Anyway we played a bit of mahjong, and carrom with 2 of ET's kids too.

TLC (The Leadership Challenge, not Tender Loving Care or Thin Layer Chromatography, lol) on 16, 17. It was quite okay, although a bit on the boring side because there weren't enough activities. Wanted to watch a movie after the first day's course with Boyi, MQ, HL and Lester but it would only show at 9, so we just walked around in the basement eating stuff, and then proceeded to the food court to eat even more, lol. Discussed our CO PACES fund concert and we thought of ideas and themes for the concert. Most of it was just stupid jokes and uncontrollable laughter - idyllic fun can be so enjoyable sometimes. Went for short trip on cruise on 17th after TLC finished so I couldn't watch a movie with them. Boyi didn't go either because he didn't want to watch a ghost movie (they watched Ghost Train, FYI, lol). Hopefully I'll get to watch Madagascar sometime soon (I miss David Schwimmer on Friends...). I watched The Incredibles and National Treasure onboard on Saturday, and they were quite good. To tell you the truth for me The Incredibles didn' t really live up to its hype, but National Treasure was quite good.

The holidays are going to end and all that's left is homework:
1. Chinese poetry project (due Wk5...)
2. Chinese shaonian wenzhai review (didn't bring the book back)
3. Math practice paper (I forgot all my math already... how?)
4. Lit dramatization (we have to rehearse in a group so I just have to memorize my lines first)
5. SS Moot Parliament proposal (group work... can't do it alone...)
6. Bayley website (tough... I wonder why I accepted in the first place...)

The End of the Road

2005-05-20T13:51:00.000+08:00

Changed the icons up there... Now it shows Lindsey, Carrie, Rob and Amber. It's really sad that all my shows are ending, especially when the June hols are almost here. What will I watch? Another second place for my favorites in TAR7. Romber totally deserved it more - best racing record in the race ever. Tom won Survivor: Palau. I didn't really like this season because I was supporting Ulong and I didn't really like anyone on Koror. Carrie and Bo are the Final 2 in American Idol. Go Carrie!

My CT results aren't the best. I was expecting my GPA to rise from last year but it's not going to happen. 4.0s in English (85, highest in class ^_^) and Chem (83 I think). 3.6s for Chinese (79, boohoo), Physics (78 or 79, double boohoo) and SS (72, I think). Lit (toss-up between 3.6 and 4.0) and Bio (probably 3.6) I don't know yet. *purposely ignores maths*

(Edited to add: Upon release of report books, my results are quite a lot better than expected, due to moderation and rounding up)

Still counting the days down to the holidays. 1 more week! At least today's a semi-holiday because of Founder's Day. Will have to go to school at 3.30 but at least I don't have to wake up early - sleeping till 11 is a wonderful thing. Other than a Lit dramatization of King Lear and my English research proposal, there isn't anything else to do. So bored that I've decided to play Neopets and Gunbound again.

Tomorrow's GE Open House - I really don't want to memorize that load of school history they gave in the notes for the Parents' Tour so I guess I'll just adlib along the way. I should really get started on my English research proposal. Or not.

Shattered Glass

2005-05-11T20:37:00.000+08:00

Ha, I'm loving the post-CTs type of life... Go home early, no homework, slack, slack, slack! :) Minus the stress of getting your results back, of course. Got so low for Physics, making my 87 CA score drop to a 79 (which means I did really badly for CT). Argh... I dunno, I just really hope that I don't get too low. I know I'm dead for Maths, and I think that's double weightage, so unfair. Can you believe it: I got 74 for my CA and it's highest amongst the E-Math people in my class, lol. Too bad my CT will probably pull me way, way down...

Enough of the depressing things - let's talk about the things that make me happy! (i.e. reality TV) Watching American Idol right now (I forgot to watch the afternoon telecast), and yay, Jasmine's in the audience! *lurv* Carrie's first performance was great - a lot of personality although too country-ish for me. The judges didn't like Carrie's second performance, but I thought it was good that she screwed up a bit - makes her fans call for her to keep her in. Bo was okay, he sang the Apprentice theme song for his second choice, lol. I liked Vonzell's song choices tonight, both of them, even if the judges didn't like the first one. I don't know why she was so emotional - but it's a good thing: when you turn on the waterworks, America definitely will vote to keep you in (Jasmine!). I actually hope Anthony gets through. I hope Bo will go, but I think it will be Anthony and Vonzell in the Bottom 2, with Anthony eliminated. Anyway, I can't wait for The Amazing Race! I hate that it's shown so late. Still debating on whether I should watch or tape.

Along a Broken Road

2005-05-07T13:42:00.000+08:00

Common Tests almost over - all that's left is Lit. Just have to memorize some useful quotes and remember which scenes the major events happen in. The last week went pretty fast - the good thing about CTs is that you can go home sooo early. For the first time, being able to catch American Idol (1st telecast) in the afternoon is pretty cool. (Side note: I'm so glad that arrogant, fat, annoying ass Scott is off!) Went to Sakae Sushi for the buffet with HL, Boyi, Sean Ong, Weizhong, MQ, Jason and Lester yesterday. (Another side note: After Stephenie and Gregg have been booted from Survivor the last 2 weeks, it's been the worst Final 5 since Thailand's. The only one I like left is probably Jennifer and Katie is still decent. The rest can burn.) P.S. I think I may be re-decorating my blog soon. Right now I think it'll be of Romber.

My Happy Ending

2005-04-21T21:23:00.000+08:00

My Happy Ending (Avril Lavigne)
Penned on 21st April 2005 by Lester Juay and Ashley Ong

Oh oh, oh oh
So much for our silver ranking
Oh oh, oh oh
So much for our happy ending
Oh oh, oh oh
Ohhh

Let's talk this over
It's not like we're dead
Was it something we did?
Was it something she said?

Don't leave me hangin'
We're positively dead
The pressure's so high
Did we really play that bad?

Gold with honours - what we thought we knew
And we thought it could be

Gold was everything, everything that we wanted
It was meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
And all of our practices, so close to me, just fade away
All this time we were deluding
So much for our silver ranking
Oh oh, oh oh
So much for our happy ending
Oh oh, oh oh
Ohhh

We've got our dumb friends
We know what they'll say
They told us it's difficult
But so are they
But they just mock us
But is it really true?
All the crap we put up with
All the shit that you do

Gold with honours - what we thought we knew
And we thought it could be

Gold was everything, everything that we wanted
It was meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
And all of our practices, so close to me, just fade away
All this time we were deluding
So much for our happy ending

It's nice to know that you were there
Thanks for acting like you cared
And when we're crying, you are poking fun
Does it matter above it all?
Thanks for watching as we fall
And letting me know we were done

Gold was everything, everything that we wanted
It was meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
And all of our practices, so close to me, just fade away
All this time we were deluding
So much for our happy ending

Gold was everything, everything that we wanted
It was meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
And all of our practices, so close to me, just fade away
All this time we were deluding
So much for our silver ranking
Oh oh, oh oh
So much for our happy ending
Oh oh, oh oh
Ohhh

Oh oh, oh oh
So much for our happy ending
Oh oh, oh oh
So much for my happy ending
Oh oh, oh oh
Ohhh
Oh oh, oh oh
Ohhh

Ohh, It's Lovely

2005-04-19T19:33:00.000+08:00

Someone really needs to padlock my legs in front of the computer and force me to blog at least once a week. I don't know why I've suddenly decided to blog, but now that I've begun, I can't bring myself to stop and waste these one and a half sentences I've typed so far. Heard some PRC scholar got himself into trouble by being racist on his blog. Right. Let's arrest the whole world now. I'd really like to see what he wrote myself. Maybe everyone could pick up a phrase or two - the same old "transparent", "I can't see!" jokes are getting old.

I love Survivor. I love Rob and Amber. I love The Amazing Race. I love Stephanie. I love The Apprentice. I love Sandy and Ivana. I love Desperate Housewives. What's new?

I'm racking my brains on what to discuss next. Last Saturday was the PTM - so incredibly boring. We had dazu practice after that, and everyone seems to believe that Gold with Honours is not impossible. Okay fine, I think so too. I really don't want to get anything under a Gold though. Otherwise we may be the only musical group to not even get a Gold, except for... (resists racist urges) MCC.

Ooh and I got a new phone - Nokia 7260 in black (no, I'm not being racist, you oversensitive turd). Pretty cool, and I'm still getting used to it. I still can't activate my GPRS connection for some reason, though. Not bad, I get rewarded for my carelessness. (For those of you who don't know the full story, I left my handphone and wallet in the hall during CO practice, and I forgot to bring it home. By the next day, it wasn't there, but Ronald Kong found me my empty wallet, so my handphone and money inside was missing, but at least my IC was still there)

I am so. relieved. that tomorrow is Learning Journeys (which I don't have to attend because LSH got us excuses for 1.30 - 4 pm practice). And on Thursday I can skip class because of SYF. *ecstacy* I just realized today that I'm quite stressed out. I don't know exactly why. I have yet to complete: 1 poem and 1 article for English Reading Portfolio, the stupid Chinese newspaper project and French commentary on a sports game (ugh, not like I'm really going to watch, right?). If you've watched a good game on TV recently, tell me about it. I will additonally congratulate you on having wasted your time on nothingness, not that you would've utilized it well otherwise anyway.

I'm Still Standing

2005-04-08T23:56:00.000+08:00

A bag of chips... $3. A music CD... $20. A weekend break... Priceless.

I am so tired after a week of school (wait, why am I still up past midnight then?). I hate it. Especially waking up early in the morning - why can't they make school later? Argh! Every week is a painful countdown. It gets more and more tiring with each passing day, but as you approach the weekend, you get encouraged to pull through it... It's like 2.4? Just that one is physical torture and one is mental torture. Speaking of NAPFA, I couldn't even do a single pull-up. I hate it. IPU is so much easier - I know I can get at least a B for that. The age by month system is completely screwed up - it's so unfair. 2.4 not included (although I'll probably fail that one too, because what's the point in passing that anyway?), I have 0+4+3+0+5=12. At least I beat Lester, who is doing IPU too. I guess that's what spastic people like him are there for... to make people feel a bit better about themselves.

Which brings me to Survivor: Palau. Poor Ulong. Wait, no more Ulong. Poor Stephenie (and the people voted out/eliminated before... Ashlee... Kim... Jeff... Bobby Jon...). It's so sad. I really, really hopes she pulls a 'Chris' and wins. It was actually quite fun watching after reading the spoiler about the fire-building competition, because there were so many references made to fire preluding the final face-off. Well, I suppose what's past is past. I wonder if the cameramen will be allowed to talk a lot to Steph - she might really go bonkers if she has no company, lol. As for Koror, I side with Jenn on the water issue. Tom is such a crackhead - he needs to get off his high horse and start thinking about other people. The reward was supposed to be a shower anyway, so why can't Jenn just shower if she wants to? They still have water to drink. At least it shows that Jenn is being smart by stepping down, unlike Tom who's still dictating. I presume they merge next week, beginning the Jury phase of the game.

Okay... Here's the rest of the random ramblings that don't really fit into a proper paragraph so I shall just put them all together. Rob and Amber rock! First place again! SYF drawing closer and closer. At least now we won't be the only group not to get gold if we don't. Screwed up Math quiz, thank god it doesn't count, and only the first one does! I didn't know how to do the first question for Physics. I suspect we're driving ET crazy... actually, I'm pretty sure we are. Nikko is back out of American Idol, yahey. Scott needs to go next! Carrie will win, yay. I just realized that she looks like Reese Witherspoon. I hope to see Vonzell and Anthony go far. That's it, I think. I need my sleep.

Eternal Peace

2005-04-03T21:18:00.000+08:00

Saying that I haven't blogged in a long time is an understatement. I'm struggling to even recall where I last left off. The holidays. Right. Anyway, the holiday week was mainly about the stupid English Portfolio. It's like, why is there suddenly so much work for English? And I'm not even sure it helps. It's probably just there to show that look, the teachers are actually doing something for English for a change! Ugh. And iLearning was brutal as usual, but I've managed to complete everything on the deadline, unlike most people *cough cough*. All I have left is Chem, which was sort of beyond my control because we didn't know the groupings.

My grandfather passed away on iLearning Tuesday, so I was going back and forth from the wake until his cremation on Good Friday. I didn't know the crematorium looked so nice. I counted the sunflower seed spirals for RE during the wake, in all the wreaths, lol. By the way, I screwed up the French test. I didn't know what the Redaction (composition) was asking for, so I hope I didn't go off-topic. I messed up the Comprehension Orale and Ecrite (listening and reading comprehension) as well, and I carelessly left out a lot of the Double Pronominaux. Worst French test ever. I don't even want to get the results back. On a better note, the Chinese and Math tests were okay. I hope I get full marks for Math - that would be like a first for me, lol!

American Idol, I don't know, I just don't get excited anymore. We all know the obvious reason - no Lindsey! Boohoo! But Carrie is doing superbly, she's garnering about 34% of West Coast votes with Vonzell and Bo right behind her, around 10% each. Carrie is obviously going to win this. I hate how the girls are going one by one. Scott and Nikko need to go! Did you know Scott was once jailed for assaulting someone? Ugh. I hope the producers 'Cory' him and make him leave.

On the other hand, there's still lots of hope in Survivor and The Amazing Race. It sucks that Ulong keeps losing, because I really like nearly everyone on Ulong since the beginning, but Stephenie keeps surviving! I hope Bobby Jon and her can pull through, but I think that's only wishful thinking. :( I don't like Koror, except maybe for Gregg and Jennifer and their "Romber"-esque alliance. I'll post a spoiler: Ulong loses Immunity next, sending BJ and Steph to a face-off in a fire-starting challenge. Steph wins and Bobby Jon is out.

Rob and Amber are dominating The Amazing Race! They keep pissing off the other teams by doing so damn well. It's so delicious, I love it! Rob was pretty evil by not giving money to Meredith/Gretchen and not stopping for Brian/Greg, but I don't think other teams (especially Lynn/Alex) would've done the same for them. But it's so funny! Rob's comment about Meredith bashing Gretchen to gain sympathy and donations with her injury was hilarious. And Amber is so pretty. *sigh* Anyway, I won $1 from Lester because he said they wouldn't make it past halfway, and they have! Ha! My other bet with him (also $1) is that they will not divorce by the time we're in JC. He didn't even know that they're not even married yet. I guess I have that bet won too.

Other shows are getting nicer and nicer too. The Apprentice, I was rooting for Elizabeth, but she got fired. :( So I guess I'm rooting for Ivana now. I thought I'd be supporting Jen M. too, but I think she's pretty nasty and argumentative, and I hate that. Desperate Housewives is so cool. The plot is so much more amazing than I had originally thought. I love all 4 of the main characters, and Mike, John, Lynette's husband and Susan's daughter too. I love to hate Edie! ;) And finally Mrs. Huber is dead. I couldn't stand her after she wanted to blackmail Susan. Everytime I see Susan in an awkward situation I always feel so bad for her. And Bree is the most complex character on television, ever.

This weekend there wasn't much work, so it's been a great break. I'm back to playing GBA games after a dang long hiatus, and I just scammed spastic Lester!

iLearning Week

2005-03-28T21:03:00.000+08:00

Gawd, when was the last time I blogged? I-learning is the best thing ever and the worst thing ever at the same time. I think everyone knows what I mean. First thing was the struggle with the English Portfolio - I still don't see the point of it. It's not like it's improving our language prowess or writing skill, I think it's just something for the teachers to at least give us a grade on and to show the school, 'look, we're actually doing something for English for a change!'

I screwed up my French test badly. I didn't understand what the Redaction (composition) question was (neither did a lot of people), so I hope what I wrote was accepted. I've also realized that I was interrupted by the Comprehension Orale (listening compre.) during the Double Pronominaux section, and I skipped it, but forgot to go back to it! I feel so wretched, and I didn't even remember that I left it out until two days after the test. I hope I hit 70 at least - this has been the worst French test yet.

My grandfather died on Tuesday. It wasn't sudden - He was hospitalized first. I've been going to the wake at the church every day, until his cremation on Friday. I didn't know the crematorium looked so nice. And I counted the sunflower seeds on the wreaths as a case study research for my RE, lol. Recently went through what my grandfather gave me. There's a set of millenium silver coins, an album of notes from the bird series and some from the ship series with nice numbers, and one last thing that nobody knows who it's from, but me. RIP.

American Idol isn't really worth watching anymore, without Lindsey. I find myself using the computer with the television on in the background, only turning around when the performances are good, it's a song I know, or it's Carrie. Carrie will win this. Mikalah was eliminated after singing the cursed song 'Love Will Lead You Back' (Jeassea Thyidor SI1, Carmen Rasmusen AI2). Even more ironic is that it begins with "Saying goodbye is never an easy thing". I wish Scott would leave ASAP! I can't stand him - fugly douchebag with a sucky personality to boot. Bring back Lindsey! Boohoo :(

Ulong is totally being decimated on Survivor: Palau. Before you know it they'll be down to a tribe of 2. James was annoying - I'm glad he's out. It's down to Stephenie, Bobby Jon and Ibrehem. Theoretically, they're strong enough to defeat Koror. And I wonder how the "no sitting out in consecutive challenges" rule is going to play out, now that it's become impossible. I have spoilers on what happens next. Read at your own risk: Ulong goes to Tribal Council again and becomes reduced to 2 members. Stephenie however, survives the merge and outlasts a few members of Koror to make at least Final 7. Yay.

Rob and Amber are totally owning The Amazing Race. "Two trips, two first places down, more to come," quoth Amber. I love how we'll they're working together. They are officially my favorite The Amazing Race team in all 7 seasons to date, and probably for all future seasons too.

Anyway, we were talking about i-Learning? I'm still doing it right now. I have yet to complete CLE and PE (no-brainer work), and SS and Chem. (group work). That's it. I intend to finish CLE and PE tonight. I don't know why I got so stressed out about it - so many people have done so much less than I have. Well, I'd better get cracking on the rest of it... while I watch Desperate Housewives, that is!

Back to the '60s

2005-03-16T23:30:00.000+08:00

Well, I've just watched American Idol and The Amazing Race. American Idol first. It's Top 12 tonight and it's '60s week. First up was Jessica Sierra with 'Shop Around'. I liked it, but not Simon. Then was Anwar Robinson, who was very boring. I actually like Mikalah Gordon's new look - I think she looks a lot better, and I also liked her song choice of 'Son of a Preacher Man' (although Julia DeMato of the second season did a lot better). But listening to what the judges said and what's being said online, it doesn't look good for Mikalah. It doesn't matter - I don't like her anyway. But I have a funny feeling that she might grow on me. Oh well. Next was (drum roll, please!) Lindsey Cardinale with 'Knock on Wood'! As usual, the judges are deaf/blind/stupid/lame/spastic/all of the above (circle what you deem appropriate) and didn't like it... BUT I DID! Moving on, um... I was so distracted by the awesome Lindsey that I don't remember the exact order after that, but there was Anthony Federov (the judges didn't like it), Nadia Turner (the judges thought it was the best of the night), Constantine Maroulis (the judges liked it but I thought it was crap), Bo Bice (the judges liked it but I wasn't paying attention), Vonzell Solomon (the judges thought it was average, and I thought it was okay), Scott Savol (the judges liked it, and I think he should be eliminated right now), Carrie Underwood (the judges didn't really like it, but I like her and she's going to stay anyway) and Nikko Smith (who doesn't deserve to be here, and I agree with Simon). Whew! Other than Lindsey, nobody else is really worth mentioning. I've downloaded the audios and videos from all of Lindsey's semi-final performances so far. Very satisfying. :) Now, a lot of people think that Lindsey will be gone tomorrow, but hell I hope not! However, after much consideration, here are my predictions for tomorrow. My brain says: Bottom 3 - Nikko, Lindsey, Mikalah, with Nikko exiting. My heart says: Bottom 3 - Scott, Nikko, Constantine, with Scott exiting. My gut says: Bottom 3 - Jessica, Scott, Lindsey, with Scott exiting. We'll see. Lindsey better stay in!

Rob and Amber totally rock The Amazing Race. Because of them, it's been such a great season. Otherwise, it'd probably be a snoozefest. (No, not a fallacy) I thought Kris and Jon from last season were the best racers so far - it looks like someone else is reigning the top now. Everyone is out to beat Rob and Amber. They're the first team to ever incorporate so much strategy and planning into the race. Rob is really streetsmart. I really hope they do win. Until the Detour, they held onto first place. Amber was so funny when she said that she was paddling so hard only because she wanted to burn more calories. In the Roadblock, Rob was really decisive in wanting to take the penalty, and they finished with a decent 5th. Phil commented on it pretty aptly - "You're the first team to ever make all the other teams stop at a Roadblock!" It looks like the fags Lynn and Alex are onto the Rob and Amber hunt too, now that Debbie and Bianca are out (when I really started to like them too!). As long as Rob and Amber keep blazing ahead, they're going to avoid being Yielded. Rob and Amber clearly deserve to win this race.

Wild Goose Chase

2005-03-15T22:40:00.000+08:00

Our 'CO intensive training camp for SYF' is over. It wasn't really 'intensive', nor was it really a 'camp' to begin with. I wish it were overnight, but it was only 9-6. Yesterday, we began by watching a bit of Finding Nemo in one of the classrooms. Boyi, MQ and I were supposed to plan games but we were told the games were scheduled on Tuesday. So, oh well. Not like the human table-soccer idea was really going to work out anyway, lol. Today, we watched Sister Act in the Seminar Room and we were supposed to discuss the lessons learnt and relevance to RICO in SYF. We were hoping that we could watch Dollmaster (what we gave HL for his birthday), but the teachers were in the classroom all the while so we couldn't try to get away. At least I won't have nightmares tonight. Before today's lunch we played a very short round of badminton in the hall, and KB, JJ and HL decided to keep playing, so we bought lunch for them, and told JJ and KB to share the Passion Ice bubble tea (we wanted to get Loverfruit but no more) we got for them (Buy 4 get 1 free, so we might as well give them to share... with 2 straws lah). But after KB drank from it JJ didn't dare to touch anymore (no prizes for guessing why, lol). Got blown a few times myself because of offensive remarks. Had dazu practice for the last 2 afternoons. We're getting better. Now at least there is hope for Gold. Had a Comm. meeting after practice, when we realized that the keys were missing, so everyone was running helter-skelter around the CO Room and some of us went to the hall to look too. We didn't dare to tell the teachers that we didn't have the keys because we were afraid they would come and scold us, lol. So, after a loooong time, and a wild goose chase, someone discovered that the keys were in the cupboard - where they're always supposed to be. Dots. So clever. The irony was that we were talking about effective communication amidst the committee before we realized that the keys were gone.

Powerpoint

2005-03-13T12:33:00.000+08:00

Life is like a Powerpoint presentation. Seriously. Think about it. Next. Had discussions with Boyi on Friday and yesterday about pereception of life and afterlife. Do you ever get the feeling, that you're the only one alive in this world, and everything revolves around you? Don't call me a selfish bi-atch, but I'm sure everyone's entertained that thought before. If even Lester's thought about it before, I'm sure, so have you. And what happens to us after we die? Boyi is so afraid of death. Are we reincarnated? Into human beings again or some other stuff? Do we just sleep forever? Or do we float around as ghosts, invisible to humans? Do we just become a mess of material and carbon, and resurface on the earth as grass and trees? Or my new theory, where with each life/death, we move onto the next planet closer to the sun (in this case, from Earth to Venus), and we don't know about life on other planets, until we reach the sun and become happy innocent little light particles? Next.

School is finally out! I'm so happy! I know there's a mess of holiday/i-Learning homework, but that doesn't stop me from celebrating. At least I don't have to wake up so early anymore. Yahoo! I've waited too long for this. I should start on my work soon, though. Next. Jeremy keeps saying that I'm a Care Bear. What? Is that true? It's supposed to be a compliment. Ehh. I took a ' Which Care Bear Are You?' quiz and I'm Cheer Bear! Okay, this is getting pretty spastic. Next.

Kim is out of Survivor: Palau. Boohoo. I pretty much knew her time was up, so I guess that softened the blow. It's so sad how Ulong keeps losing. The only worse tribe so far is Maraamu (Season 4: Marquesas), losing every single challenge in the first 4 episodes. But the winner was from Maraamu (Vecepia... ugh), so does that bode well for Stephenie? I read somewhere that in Episode 1, a clue was edited in pointing to Stephenie as winner. When Stephenie jumped off the boat too early, she shouted in the water "Bad idea I guess?". After the challenge when Koror's boat capsized, Katie says: "This wave came, and I don't know what the deal was with who was leaning what way or what, but I think it was just a combination of all forces and we just went down." Hmm? And the catch is, when Koror's boat overturned, the same sound clip from earlier was used with Stephenie saying "Bad idea I guess?" amidst all the Koror shouting. Could Stephenie be the one who topples Koror? Next.

Had CIP yesterday. Boyi, Benjamin and I were supposed be the 'Liaison Officers' (what the heck) for Metta School. It was very disorganized, and we didn't know what to do, and there wasn't even enough food for lunch. So the most of it was just slacking in the hall. Very boring. Went for dinner with HL, Boyi, Auyong, Aaron Chee and Fu Ginn after that at S11. Next.

Wait, that's it. That concludes my presentation. Thanks for your time.

Like, Totally

2005-03-11T21:59:00.000+08:00

Like, oh my god, Bayley won. And that's like, for the first time in 16 years. Buckley's still last. Like, I wonder why. I can totally think of one good, spastic reason though. Like, don't we all know it?

Yesterday, Lindsey Cardinale made it to the top 12! That's right! So when Ryan Seacrest called out Lindsey and Vonzell and said that they were safe, I was like 'Oh. My. God.' - no way! I am so happy right now. I hope Lindsey lasts very long. Power to Aquarians and hot people! Like, totally! Also marking a high point on my reality TV calendar was Rob and Amber like, getting first place in the last leg of The Amazing Race 7. Rob is hella sneaky, and you've totally got to like, give him credit for that. I love Amber! They're totally the strongest team right now.

Oh, and yesterday (or rather, in the wee hours of today), I completed my English Research Project Lit Review. Like, guess what I did on? (Hint: Observe the like, linguistic patterns and stuff in this post, and you'll like, totally see it.)

Star-Crossed

2005-03-05T12:45:00.000+08:00

Finally, the weekend is here. To add to that, Monday will be a half day ("eternal vacation, anyone?" Only around 4 people will understand what I mean). And it'll be the last day of the term! So before that happens, we'll have to slog it out a little more in the penultimate week. (List for self: Maths Performance Task, Assignment 1, Philo Journal, English Lit Review, Portfolio.)

Went for Romeo & Juliet play at the Waterfront yesterday. Got there quite late (lost) with Bernard, Shida and Shaun. If you're going tonight I strongly recommend that you read a summary of the play before going, otherwise it's not going to mean very much.

Lindsey is still in Idol! Janay will probably go next week - I think she's overstayed her welcome. Celena and Joseph were eliminated - I liked them. Also leaving were Aloha (a bit of a surprise) and the black guy with dreadlocks - no loss, I didn't like either of them. My favorites are still Lindsey, Carrie and Amanda. As for Survivor, the Reward Challenge was very cool. But Ulong seems to win all the Rewards and Koror seems to win all the Immunities. Jeff W. injured his ankle and offered to be voted out, which means that Kim is saved for another week! Next week it looks like there will be a twist, and I hope that meanst Kim lasts for a bit longer. Stephenie is the strongest girl out there. I'm rooting for Kim, Stephenie, Jennifer and Gregg, now that Ashlee is gone.

You Thought Wrong

2005-03-03T20:57:00.000+08:00

It seems like I thought I was back to blogging regularly, but apparently not. I can finally blog after watching the 'The Amazing Race 7' premiere, which was amazing. I taped it yesterday night and watched it today. Here's my opinions on the teams:

Rob/Amber ~ The best! They're amazing - and apart from messing up in the beginning with the car trunk, they did very well, using everything to their advantage. I really expect them to rock this. :) So nice to have them back on my TV screen.

Megan/Heidi, Brian/Greg, Ron/Kelly ~ Right after Rob/Amber in my list. They all seem like great people. I hope they survive a little longer too.

Debbie/Bianca ~ From what I've seen this episode, they are a very strong team, propelled by the fact that they know Spanish. But they've gotten on the bad side of a few teams, which could come back to bite them. I can't believe they got $20,000! Those are damn high stakes!

Meredith/Gretchen ~ I really expected them to be the bottom feeders for sure, but they managed to scrape up a decent 6th. But as with TAR tradition, they're most likely going to be eliminated soon.

Susan/Patrick ~ I think it's ridiculous that they're so out against Rob/Amber. I hope they fail, and compromise their own race doing it. I thought I'd like the first mother/son team a lot, but they're nowhere close to what I had in mind.

Lynn/Alex ~ They're so annoying, faggy and queeny. I don't see them going very far either, and they're not really entertaining, just weird. Not being homophobic or anything, because I way preferred Reichen/Chip from TAR4.

Uchenna/Joyce - Nothing. Very zZz. They're so invisible! (Joke intended, if you got it)

Ray/Deana ~ They give me a Jonathan/Victoria vibe. I don't know why.

Ryan/Chuck were eliminated, which was the team I hated the most.

I'm sitting here waiting for American Idol results. I really hope Lindsey stays! I like Lindsey, Carrie, Amanda and Vonzell (in that order), and their performances last night were great.

Restrained

2005-02-27T12:07:00.000+08:00

It looks like I'm back to blogging regularly. Let's see how long this lasts. There is quite a lot of homework, and it all stems down to English: the Literature Review for the Research Project and the killer Portfolio. I still have to study for Biology and Social Studies, so I'll try to get down to that once I end this post.

I can't believe Ashlee was voted out. Stupid Ulong people. Looks like whoever I root for in my blog will be cursed the following week. So, I won't say who I like. But given the type of people who I usually root for, I'm sure you can pinpoint 3 of my favorite people.

Yesterday we went for a performance at Tampines MINDS. How do I phrase what I'm about to say into being politically correct? Anyway, we were sort of afraid we'd be insensitive so we made an agreement within our section - whoever laughs will get a slap from the rest of us. HL was one of the first victims when someone came right up to his face and did a spaz-clap. No penalties for me - I guess it's because I practice being looking at Lester's spastic face. Nobody was really listening during our performance although HL was fascinated by this person who was nodding his head to the precise rhythm. After that we went to 'interact', and there was this woman who kept wanting us to swing her hands around. And if she got to grip onto you hard, she'd try to pull off your fingers - so our strategy was to have 2 people shake her hands at the same time and keep changing people... Speaking of this, Sean (Ong) joined Interact Club. Does anyone else find this amusing?

Eyes Wide Shut

2005-02-24T23:55:00.000+08:00

Looking at the last post, it's been ages since I last blogged. I probably wouldn't be blogging right now if not for Sean Ong who keeps bugging me to blog. Oh well, at least I know that people are actually reading this. I haven't blogged since the first day of CNY, and that's more than 2 weeks ago, so I'm struggling to recall everything. It seems as if the only thing of note in my life are TV programmes. I give up. Let's talk about TV then.

I can't believe Freddy and Kendra won The Amazing Race (gawd, how long ago was that?). Kris and Jon = So. Ripped. Off. I'd better stop writing down my Predictions on the blog, it seems to curse my favorite team/player in the finale. Survivor: Palau has started. My pre-show favorite was Ashlee (because of the name, duh), and I was really scared for her because some of the spoilers said that Wanda and Ashlee don't get picked in the tribal pick-'em, and I'm glad she's still in it. I hope she'll go far - she's not the weakest on Ulong, voted in the majority at the last Tribal Council and she's only had a 1-second confessional so far, so hopefully that means that she will last longer into the game. I'm definitely rooting for Ulong over Koror (why do you think my MSN nick says 'Ulong'-ated?), because they have most of my favorites (the girls: Ashlee, Kim and Stephanie on Ulong, and Jennifer on Koror; the guys not-so-much as usual: Bobby Jon and Jeff on Ulong, and Gregg on Koror; as usual, opting to be shallow and rooting for the young, hot people. So, what's new?) Overall a very solid premiere, although it was only 1 hour. I liked it a lot and I only hope that tomorrow's episode can rival this one.

American Idol 4 is finally in its elimination stage after the boring auditions (some people find the bad auditions the best part, but that is so not the case for me). My favorite right now is Lindsey Cardinale (OMG she's so pretty) and the other people I like are Carrie, Amanda, Vonzell and Joseph. I can't stand the histrionic people, i.e. the rockers, Mikalah, Aloha, etc.

Well, um, okay. That's it I guess. I'm just glad that tomorrow is Friday (although I have to get up early on Saturday for CO performance at Lester's house, and I'm sure some of you will know what I mean). I have to find a new picture for the class tree because Britney's hands are touching her chest which is supposed to be a no-no... And it's 5 minutes to midnight and my eyelids are half shut... So why am I still blogging? Bye bye.

Eve

2005-02-08T16:41:00.000+08:00

Today's CNY Eve, the start of a long (and much-needed) break. Monday was quite boring - CCA Day (since when did this come about?), Philo (Dennis Au forgot it was even week and came in very late), Chem, Bio (did super hard quiz and then got to watch Supersize Me!) and finally RE. Boring.

But today wasn't boring... Started off by reaching school early to prepare for RICO CNY concert performance (Jing1 She2 Kuang2 Wu3 and Feng1 Nian2 Ji4). After that was the Bayley one, and I was supposed to go up there and sight-read the score because there wasn't any more time (wtf) but thankfully they forgot to bring, so I escaped that. HL 'extra' - go and play pipa, but it was so obvious he was faking it - kept asking Yiliang 'where are we now?', lol. Went back to HPPS to see the teachers, and the whole bunch of us went to Pizza Hut for lunch. 8 of us (HL, Daryl, Vera, Xinlei, Jonathan, Teren, Woon Hian) went back to my house to play mahjong for fun. Teren was making sick jokes about the tiles, like the 'bird' was the dick and the 'bai2ban3' was the vagina and the '2 balls' were the boobs/testicles. Hah, Daryl was the most pathetic - played almost all the rounds and only won once... under intense supervision. They just went back, and now I'm almost done blogging, so um... Happy CNY! *insert all the 4-word sayings here*

I'm Already Gone

2005-02-06T21:32:00.000+08:00

My illness is clearing up - all that's left of it now is an occasional cough or two, but I still have to lay off the fried and oily stuff, which is sad because there's a pile of bak kwa waiting for me on the table... Entirely spent the weekend in the house and it got pretty boring, because I've finished quite a lot of homework (only Lit essay, French letter and Math crossword left), so yeah, a lot of 'stoning'. My horoscope week tells me that I will be very busy, working overtime, and healthwise, I need to build up my energy instead of burning it up - which is what I've been guilty of recently. I don't know why I've become such a 'workaholic', using every bit of my time to do my homework ASAP. I need to relax badly, so thank god for the CNY break.

On Friday, we had 'ting1 seh3 [xie3]' again during Chinese (screwed up 1 word) and she kept telling us about how some angel from 3M returned her markers when she left them in the class, and then she's blur enough to do it again in our class so I had to go return them... I bet she was testing us to see if we would return them, unless she's really that blur (which wouldn't be so surprising). Lit, we were supposed to do our presentation but we only had a thumb drive (which the computer didn't support), so nobody got to present in the end. Maths was replaced by English, which was discussion about an article saying that the holocaust didn't occur and pointing out loopholes in the argument. The last lesson was Physics and we begged E.T. not to give us homework (and she complied) so we decided to take it one step further and beg her to let us off early - and she released us almost 10 mins early - Yay! Which gave me time to eat lunch before meeting HL for the Bayley CNY rehearsal. Hadn't seen the scores yet, then in the end we discover that it's impossible to play on erhu (possible but excruciatingly hard), so... I dunno. Still waiting for instructions.

Flu Away

2005-02-03T20:37:00.000+08:00

I'm sick now but a lot better after a day of rest. Haven't blogged since the end of January, so this shall be my first February post. On Tuesday we had Bio and we did food tests (I like those), Lit where we discussed more about Greek theater (and there were a bunch of MOE people observing our lesson), Maths (our first lesson with 'Lala', which was barely 15 minutes at the end of the lesson - very strict, and I can tell the class is quite scared of her, but once the class ended nobody had anything good to say about her), Chem (lab experiment, with DataLogger) and then Chinese (I don't really remember what happened because every lesson with her is so similar, and similar is putting it lightly...). Petit Test for 3rd Lang (screwed up 1 question because I didn't notice 'vous vous' was prenominal) and Joshua and I were both going nuts in class because we were so stupidly bored. The end of the day was such a release!

Yesterday I woke up with a sore throat and that escalated into a runny nose as well. Philo was fallacies - I love it! Following that was English (more group work with more Gandhi articles), Chinese (zZz), Bio (did review mindmap on Biological Molecules while Mr. Court told us the story about how his finger got caught in the door), and finally Physics (lab experiment involving light and candles, so it was pretty fun because all the lights were turned out and people were playing with wax). I felt really, really terrible after that because I almost finished 3 packets of tissue blowing my nose (now I know how Roger feels like all the time) so I stayed in class during lunchtime to rest. For Math we were (pleasantly) surprised to see Ms Cai come back for her last day (the whole class was so happy that some people like Jeremy were going bonkers). Thank god she didn't write a 0 for my Diagnostic Test, she just wrote 'work harder' because so many people got such low (or non-existent) scores too. After that I was entirely way too sick to go for RICO so I went home. Saw the doctor today and I feel much better - I actually completed the Philo and Bio homework due after CNY.

Flight of the Phoenix

2005-01-31T21:55:00.000+08:00

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I went to the Flight of the Phoenix movie premiere with my parents on Friday (done by some JC for some organization about ex-convicts, yeah, the yellow ribbon cause...). Quite nice - a plane crashes in the middle of the desert then they have to rebuild the plane to get out. Very 'Survivor', so I enjoyed it, lol. The only thing noteworthy on Sunday was The Apprentice 2 - I can't believe Bradford was fired because he gave up his exemption (he was one of the better players in the cast). Apex doesn't look too good now. Right now I like on Mosaic: Pamela and John, and most people on Apex except Stacie J who really deserved to be fired last round. Quoth Ivana, she really does need "adult supervision".

Today was back to school. I'm glad that Mondays aren't too tough so there's easier transition back into the week. Last period RE switched with Assembly, so we started off with RE and we finally decided on the topic of the Golden Ratio. SS was interesting - discussing mistakes of the PAP and being anti-government for once... For the last few minutes of Chem, Mr Tan showed us more of his funny clips (like the ninja ad or the 30s bunny re-enactment of Titanic). More RE afterwards (2 periods before lunch), so we re-did the topic exploration form (Mr Fong sounded really relieved that we settled down on a topic) and finalized all our workload schedules etc. This project actually sounds pretty exciting - we can go around Singapore looking for examples with the Golden Ratio and compile a report and scrapbook. Afterwards was Prefects' Investiture - quite lame; for some reason it was so hot (dunno if it was the tie or what). HL will finally be able to book people from now on. Watch out Lester!

I Spy

2005-01-29T18:32:00.000+08:00

I'm home, tired after a long day and there's only Sunday left for rest - depressing. Friday was the usual - HCL (what else?), Maths (last day with Ms Cai, then Mrs. Priscilla Lim will come back and everyone says she's very fierce, which is scary because she will have to return my 0 mark diagnostic test), Physics (did worksheets) and then English (group work, and the majority of the class including me is going to some "Romeo & Juliet play thingy" in March, on a Friday night). Everyone got a hell of a scolding at CO (never seen Ms Sung so angry before, she must have really been fuming - she said that if we get CoP for SYF she would sack the conductor, sack the instructors then sack herself, and there were a few times she said other funny things that weren't meant to be funny, I couldn't control my giggles, especially at the most inappropriate moments).

Moot Parliament briefing at NYGH today (so boring; wasn't even paying attention - was playing "I Spy With My Spastic Eye" with Lester about guessing things in the auditorium) then went back by 156 to school for CO practice but it ended just as I reached the hall. So we went for lunch and actually had the comm. meeting at S11 (bet with Boyi how long it would take - I guessed 1h 49min, he guessed 1h and I won). Ended around 4, and I had to take 156 back home again. Returned home to find out that my tuition teacher was already waiting in my room for nearly an hour, so I had to endure that last bit for the day. Now that I'm here comfortably nestled in front of my computer I have to get up again and start doing my homework. Sucks, doesn't it?

Have You Ever Been Low?

2005-01-27T21:52:00.000+08:00

The last 2 days Wednesday has got to be one of the worse days of my life. Started off okay with English (listening to other people present), SS (divided into 2 groups based on type of housing then did skit on HDB vs. landed property and discussed stereotypes, etc.), HCL (same old story) then Chem (did paper chromatography and someone put the toothpick for 'Ag' the wrong way so now I have black marks on some of my fingertips and the silver is impossible to wash off), Physics (lab again, oscillations of bob). Then was the killer - Math diagnostic test. Some horrible questions about indices (which I forgot COMPLETELY) and I just drew a complete blank and I started freaking out. Will surely get a 0, and I feel absolutely horrible about it. I know it's not counted but I just hate the fact that... I don't know what to say, really. I think I've gotten over but still disappointed with myself. After that was CO practice and another test - for SYF. Yeah, and screwed up again - I knew very well that my rhythm was off but it's like so hard to do it without the orchestra or someone to tap/conduct... Forget it, the day was complete hell - and these silver stains on my fingers will painfully serve as memory.

Today (Joshua A's birthday) it started with PE (basketball). Then we had the dreaded HCL lesson - first she said that when you do 'chang2 wen2 suo1 duan3' you must 'xi1 du2 (take drugs)' but actually she meant 'xi4 du2' (read carefully). Then ting1 seh3 (actually ting1 xie3, but now everyone calls it ting1 seh3 to mock her). Started on the yucky topic of Indices for Maths, sometimes still a bit blurry to me. Lit test (which everyone forgot about, including me) about Greek theater - so incredibly hard! I read the notes, but how would I remember all the small trivial things? CLE with Mrs. Tay (she said her students call her E.T., her initials) and we had to decide the class theme (everything beginning with the letter 'T') so the class brainstormed then I just wrote everything down on the board; all sorts of funny stuff - I wonder how it's all going to turn out. 3rd Lang afterwards and we had to do a roleplay so I paired with Joshua and our scenario was set in a travel agency - I'm the guy who wants to go to Singapore for a holiday and Joshua was the nasty woman in the agency. The scene starts with Joshua painting his nails with his highlighter then I come in and ask about Singapore, and I bargain for the price and she (Joshua) chases me out and I'll be like "Quelle femme!', lol. Petit Test next week Tuesday.

Yeah, and that's it. Watching baaad American Idol auditions right now. Quite a slew of shows coming to Ch5 around this time - Desperate Housewives, The Apprentice 2, American Idol 4, Survivor 10: Palau... Plan on watching all of them of course! Also, Kris and Jon 1st again on The Amazing Race - I really think they can win this thing, and they will really deserve it if they do. Also, Amber and Rob M will be on The Amazing Race 7! So excited to see Amber on her 3rd reality show!

Merde

2005-01-25T20:17:00.000+08:00

I've finished my weekend homework (except for some of my French and my English speech). Watched HsingHai concert on Sunday night (met Lester, Jason, Ronald and Shida at Lau Par Sat for dinner, then walked there and nearly got lost on the way to SCH). Lester did like a ton of homework during the concert (Boyi is pissed, lol) and he filled in a bogus response slip (rather not reveal details here) and actually submitted it.

So it's back to school (our first ever even-week of the year 'cos of OBS) and it is pretty sucky to go back after 3 days of rest. It started off with House Meeting (lamest cheer ever and HL's horrified expression to that was so priceless). Philo, we had to write a short paragraph about competition using the ideas of premises/conclusions. Chem and Bio were mainly powerpoint slides (and Mr. Court telling us that he used to run marathons). Lit was today's first period (must present something about Greek theatre by next week, argh). English diagnostic speech - and (surprise, surprise) I'm first (and really mentally unprepared). You know sometimes when you have a funny feeling that you're going to be the one chosen (like when the teacher wants to ask a question or doing a presentation) and I totally felt it before English period - very creepy. Horrible 2.4 today (so hot), SS discussion on social behaviour in groups and then Maths when we 'suan' Miss Cai like mad (especially Bowen). Bought 2 more pairs of long pants and then was a couple of minutes late for 3rd Lang. Very boring lesson at first about comparing artworks but when Lester said that the painting was 'merde' (sh*t), Mme Au was quite shocked, and everyone started telling her all the swearwords that Monsieur Quenot taught their Sec 2 class - turns out he gave them the wrong definitions and the actual ones were really sick (Mme Au told us the actual meanings).

Fair amount of homework today, but I predict that the Lit presentation is going to be quite a killer. Downloaded (shh!) quite a lot of Kelly Clarkson songs - still debating whether I should buy Kelly's 'Breakaway' or Diana DeGarmo's 'Blue Skies'.

Born Free

2005-01-21T13:24:00.000+08:00

Woohoo, holiday! I was getting really sick of waking up so early in the morning. Our first "normal" school week is now officially over. On Wednesday, we had our first Philo lesson where we just did exercises on conclusions and and premises (quite dry). Our teacher is Mr. Dennis Au - he's very 'on-task' so he only spends classtime on the syllabus, so no digressions (cough, cough... last year's Philo... cough, cough). We did a diagnostic comprehension for English and I couldn't finish the summary in time so I just wrote some nonsense for that - I didn't know there was so little time left. Next was HCL. Click here (HL's blog) to read the (what appears to be) universal opinion about the teacher. Biology afterwards... I actually don't really remember what happened - it's all a blank, for some reason. Physics was just checking answers from the measurements worksheet 1.2. After lunch was Math, and we have to do an assignment (I'm still stuck on the Q3 working). She went around writing down everyone's name who didn't do the assignment (umm... whatever) and I thought we were only supposed to "try" it because she'd go through in class. KB scolded us because Boyi, Lester, MQ and I went to RJ to see their CO Room (and more importantly the canteen for Lester, but I'm kind enough not to expose Lester's backstabbing lies... cough, cough again). So Boyi is still mad at the Sec 2's (by the way, 2 Sec 1's came to watch our practice, which was horrible), KB and JJ and I must hurry up to find him the password code for his blog, but I'm not sure if there's one for Blogger. Taped TAR6 because I wanted to sleep, very tired.

We started off with a period of Chinese (which seemed more like CLE), she doesn't explain the words and the 'gou ci' so that is very annoying - like, what are you teaching us in the first place? Have to write some stupid compo for homework, and that's a hell lot of work to be passed up on Tuesday. Since Mr. Eng is on reservist, we have a relief teacher for PE and we convinced him to postpone 2.4 time trial since it was so hot. So we played basketball (our current module) - just passing in pairs, then shooting games. Biology, we checked our mindmap worksheets (the Protista one was so hard, I got so many wrong and so did a lot of people since everyone was copying, lol). Have to remember to get those photos (mine looks terrible) to Mr. Court's e-mail. CLE with Mrs. Tay - very fun (reflect on OBS)! She told us the story about her middle-finger habit and the true meaning, and we told her everything about OBS (like Bor Ray peeping at RG change, the bags, the cooking, the snake thing...) - she's very open with us and vice versa. At the last minute she said she forgot to give us the OBS survey but we were counting down to the bell and purposely ignoring her she was like screaming for us not to go and we just kept counting down louder and louder, but in the end we still did the survey anyway (just circle quickly randomly and then write Nil for the additional response, lol). 3rd Lang followed - so incredibly bored during the second part of the lesson (post-break), I was nearly powernapping and coutning down the time... And when the bell rang, the week was over.

Slept till around 11 this morning - so satisfying! Too bad we have so much homework for this weekend.

Adjustments

2005-01-18T22:31:00.000+08:00

School is back to normal, although Sec 3 will take a bit of getting used to because we have to move around a bit more. Monday we had YH Assembly, which is as usual nonsense - it's like he has a weird fetish (!) for acronyms and all that FFF, STING stuff (when he told us to add a Y to STING I dumbly said 'sting-y' and I completely missed out that the word was 'stingy'). He has so many nicknames from the batch, and personally I go 'beep' everytime I pass by him because of the 'barcode' nickname he has. First period after Assembly was SS with a new teacher called Mr. Yuen, who kept saying that girls were neater and more meticulous than boys, and I was like, 'how sexist is that', lol. Admittedly, I've been rather OTT neat so far in 2005, considering that now I draw a line and write my name, class, reg. no. and date. Mr. Tan was late for Chem so about half our lesson was gone and I wanted to go call him but people kept saying no, so I waited. I've noticed he uses a PDA 24/7 and hardly puts it down - I think he has everything inside there (notes, class lists, syllabus, information). RE choices talk after that by Mr. Teo then immediate dismissal, so I joined up with Sean and Don as a group, then went with them to McDonalds' for lunch (with Ari) and tried the beef prosperity burger thing (nothing so special, but the curly fries are nice; got my 2nd neopet toy which is the cloud Aisha to match my blue Uni). Went to the library to register our RE group then for RICO practice. Yeah, that's it. 3 periods of RE in a day is freaky - will have to get used to that too.

Today we had Bio and still a bit more confusion because nobody knew whether we should stay in 3T or go to 3Q (we stayed in 3T in the end) and Mr. Court was going on and on about probes in outer space (umm, ok). Lit, KBH was talking about 'the ACS lifestyle' then continued with the introductions about holiday reading diet (not my turn yet, wait till next week then I'm first). Math, the teacher insisted we call her Miss Cai (and for some reason everyone started laughing, and I'm not sure why, although I laughed too) and there wasn't enough worksheets so I got the short end of the stick and had to go photocopy so many pages with Lester (and recess afterwards). Mr. Tan brought us to the Chem lab and he showed us some cool stuff, like the rainbow tube (really nice, my fav.), the black caramel redox (it stunk but Lester would've loved it) and the ash-spraying volcano one (sodium dichromate burning, if I remember correctly). New HCL teacher (maternity leave) for 2 months and the way she speaks is so funny it cracks everyone up and sadly I don't think she realizes. French, we had to present a celebrity to the class and I chose Britney and very few people even remembered to do it.

Yeah, I guess that's it. I don't look forward to waking up tomorrow; that's always the worst part of my day - starting it. I have only a couple of pairs of long pants and I guess that's it for me, so I'm going to wear shorts tomorrow.

Outward Bound

2005-01-14T19:20:00.000+08:00

Yay! I'm back from OBS - it was dang fun. The seniors were always telling us how fun it was, but we always thought they were being sarcastic, and the current Sec 2's don't believe me when I told them it was fun either, but I guess they'll find out for themselves next year. I imagined it to be a lot tougher than it was. On the first day we took the bus to the jetty then a boat to Pulau Ubin where Camp 2 was. First thing we had to do was attend a short briefing and introductions, then settle the camp equipment and food rations. We had a belaying exercise and I got my first taste of rock climbing - I was the climber for 3 out of 4 times (fun!) and I got to belay Ngiam (he really freaked me out when he was going up then suddenly yelled 'Leg cramp!'). Our first instructor Jon taught us how to pitch tents, tie ropes and we set up the tents for the night. We had heckalotta free time, more than enough for showering, talking, eating dinner (hard, uncooked rice, sausages, baked beans), idling, brushing teeth... A very simple day. After the first day, surprisingly, it didn't rain a drop, whereas the previous batch had rain nearly every day (lucky!).

The second day morning we had breakfast then we went to kayak. It was very fun - my second time kayaking, and Jon made us capsize. After we had the basics down pat, we rowed a bit further and we sang the Institution Anthem with half of the watch balanced on the kayaks. Then we did kayak-tag ("catching") where in 2-person kayaks, someone must stand up and balance on the kayak and catch the people on another kayak. I was paired up with Norman and we tried to catch Ngiam and Bernard, then Jon secretly told us to capsize, so we did, and Ngiam and Bernard rescued us and we did the whole drill and got back into our kayak safely. Jetty Jump was next after us (a plank on the jetty where you have to "walk the plank" and jump in) and nearly everyone shouted 'Ngiam' before we jumped in one-by-one (and soon after the whole 'Ngiam'-shouting became a trend). Water activities were very fun, but luckily we stopped before the sun got too hot, and for the Land Expedition (Land-Ex) watches like Tenzing (us), it was our last chance to kayak. We left before Hillary on our hike with all our bags and met them at the Ubin Rescue (a log course where you have to carry a stretcher to the other side). Abtzy couldn't get past the second obstacle and they were stuck there for the entire 1 hour limit and their futile attempts to help him by building a pathetic rope handrail was really amusing for us. We got through everything but then Hillary was blocking us at the end, so even though they gave way to us, we couldn't succeed because we wasted too much time in moving Hillary out of our way. We carried on with our torturous hike - torturous because of our crazily heavy bags (it was so difficult to even get it on), but we eventually met up with Armstrong and got to the quarry. A lot of free time and sleep after instant noodles (dinner) and everyone sat by the beach and enjoyed the sea breeze and all the 'Ngiam' yelling. I also heard that there was loud karaoke music booming from the nearby kelong, but I didn't hear it because I slept really soon, and everyone was laughing about it the next morning.

Third day was our first morning with our 2nd instructor Steven (Jon went back to the mainland for some sort of operation - he told us some rubbish stuff when we asked about the op but it's not like we're really going to believe that). After some trash clean-up, we left for a freshwater reserve where the water was really clear and cool (but not cold). We were supposed to build a raft with 7 poles, 4 barrels and 13 ropes that would hold all of us in the water. We did well (with a lot of help from our 'pro' scout Quek) and we definitely did a better job than Hillary (although ours came apart later, Hillary didn't even survive the 'kick' test) and we named the raft N914M. Friendly match of captain's ball in the water where we lost our first, last and only defeat to Hillary by 1 point. Had lunch and saw the RG girls there and everyone thought they were really pathetic (spreading out their ground sheet for lunch and drying it first with tissue!). We continued our hike to the heaven that is Camp 1 through 5 cunningly-hidden check-points. We stopped just outside Camp 1 because Steven made us solve some puzzle thing, and the hint was a princess' name. We tried listing out girl names, only to be told that it wasn't a conventional English name. Finally he told us it started with 'J' (we guessed Janki and Jee Nee!) but we finally got 'Junko', the name of one of the watches. (Till now, I don't understand how the check-point quotations added up to 'Junko'...) Finally, we had a proper dinner at the Camp 1 canteen, which was especially a blessing at that time (for me, especially the cordial drink - I really needed a sugar high to lift my spirits). Camp 1 is really nice - they have all the facilities, so I finally got to bathe and nearly everybody did their business there. We met Steven at the hall around 9 and we did this hula-hoop game where the watch had to lower the hoop with 1 finger each on the hoop - it was surprising how hard it was, and there were 'no strings attached', but we worked as a team and succeded. Then it was Philo all over again with the Sailor and the Girl dilemma where we have to pick the character we support, and I defended the Girl character group which was easily more than half the watch (and we made fun of Wen Tao and his 'like's and 'right's). I made myself content with a cup of hot water and lemon biscuits for supper (I really began to miss tea, considering that I don't like Milo-type drinks). Jared, Bernard, Norman and I (in our tent) talked for a bit before dozing off and at some point, someone was shining a torch into our tent and Bernard got really angry (he thought it was Mervyn Tan) and he shouted (F*** your mother!) really loudly only to find out that it was Steven. (He didn't really scold him, and I like how the instructors are cool like that, they want us to address them by first name instead of 'Sir' or 'Mr. X' - if it was an RI teacher that Bernard had shouted at, he'd be real screwed. Of course, not all the instructors are liked, especially the notorious 'SSB' that everyone loved to hate.)

Day 4 was inspiring, considering that it was nearly the end but not quite there yet. Had breakfast in the Camp 1 cafeteria then went rock-climbing. I was really nervous and targeted 7 metres but I guess things sorted themselves out and I went up with the help of the belayers' instructions and got to the second last panel (11 m). We had lunch, then the psychological rollercoaster peaked back up again at the Tripod - a 3-leg mid-air course of a tightrope with two ropes as handholds above, another tightrope with only a manila rope to hold onto and it's only attached on one side, and a moving log. I did all 3 without falling, although at some times, I was really afraid that I was going to fall. I'm not afraid of heights per se, but I just didn't want to fall. And then, a hike back to Camp 2 (by then, with so much less water, food and trash, our bags were lighter in comparison) where we started counting and assembling our equipment and washing them and doing stock-check for the whole night with dinner (instant noodles again) and tent-pitching slotted in-between, followed by our last night in a tent.

On the final day, we tried our best to replace the missing/damaged equipment (a helmet strap was broken but it was rusted through so we didn't need to pay). Before we left, our watch did beach clean-up where we found around 12 pegs (9 to replace our missing ones and 3 to trade with another watch for a campstick which Bernard broke, putting us at nil debt). Had the appropriate closure at Camp 2 (survey, reflections, certificates, souvenir shopping) and took a speedboat to Camp 1 for the pretty lame finale. Overall, I got to know most of my 3T classmates a lot better and there'll be a lot more to talk about from now on. I'm really happy that OBS was such a fun and enriching experience - I truly did learn a lot, and it has been one of the best, if not the best camps, considering that it was interesting, well-planned, challenging (to some extent), allowed us to do things we hadn't done before and taught us a lot of skills. Now that I'm back home, I want to enjoy everything that I didn't have at the camp to the max (TV, music, computer, hot shower, soft bed and pillows, tea). Final thing to complete the transition - long pants!

Trailblazer

2005-01-08T14:55:00.000+08:00

The first week of school has come and gone. On Thursday there was a whole lot of confusion regarding the time table because of all the Bio/Lit/Geog/Hist/Advanced/Enriched options but we got it sorted out in the end. We had to run during our first PE lesson but it wasn't too bad (1.6, not 2.4). Bought the stupidly expensive Panorama 2 set with the CD for >$100. Friday was Raffles Trail (the brochure turned out pretty nice) and we performed outside the Music Lab until past 8 pm. We (I, Boyi, Lester) bought dinner at J8 (some Japanese Corokke set thing) and brought it back to school to eat. 2 days to OBS, and I've yet to buy solid fuel tablets. That's the last thing on my list, I think.

Back to School

2005-01-05T21:02:00.000+08:00

And so it's back to school - how depressing. I was late on the first day of school because of the long line of cars (dang RJC) but I wasn't booked or anything, because I got my way to the hall just in time. Our first assembly of the year and the first with our new HM - he talks so. slowly. it's. so. annoying. We were waiting for the much-anticipated teacher introductions but it wasn't done, so that was quite a disappointment since we were all dying to find out who our FTs were. For the first 3 days, it was a slew of briefings and assemblies. So far as proper lessons are concerned, we've only had Physics (but it wasn't a proper lesson) and Math (and French too, I'm in F3D and the teacher speaks French completely!). BTW, I'm now in the class CEC (Secretary) , which was quite a shock, because I wasn't expecting anyone to vote for me. Still undecided about my RE, and now the India one might not be available anymore. I just hope tomorrow will be smooth too, although I'm dreading PE period.

Happy 2005

2005-01-01T13:18:00.000+08:00

Wow, I haven't blogged since... last year. Hehe, anyway, happy 2005! I suppose I should start by revisiting the last week of December 2004. The 27th (Mon) was sectional practices, but we ended up spoofing the Tian Cai Go! Go! Go! variety show instead, and it was a lot of fun. I think I will start watching that show, and I think it starts today on Ch U (I hope they don't cancel Ch U even after the MediaCorp-MediaWorks merger). The 29th (Wed) had everyone going back to school and we were supposed to stand by the main road and welcome the RJCers to their new campus. Had comm. meeting after that and I was supposed to do the Raffles Trail brochure. Raffles Trail will be held on the first Friday of 2005, which is real soon, and the Sec 2 Express won't be there because of OBS, so RICO (esp. tanbo section) will be pretty crippled. I was supposed to watch a movie with Boyi after the meeting but he got sick and started getting chills in the CO Room, so we told him to go home (He's probably going to skip OBS too, so unfair).

The whole tsunami thing is really a huge deal, its constantly on the news 24/7 for the past few days, and they even cancelled the live telecast of the Sentosa countdown which is sad because I can't see Maia and Jeassea perform... No, no New Year Resolutions this year. It's like we're not allowed to be happy anymore even though it's the New Year's, and my aunt says that nobody dares to say 'Happy New Year' anymore, instead they just hug and say 'Have a Blessed New Year'. IMO, WTF, to hell with political correctness... I hereby order everyone who reads this blog to have a HAPPY New Year... Or else!

Christmas

2004-12-26T14:35:00.000+08:00

I'm back, and Merry Christmas, Chanukah and Boxing Day. On the day of Christmas Eve, we (KB, HL, MQ, Boyi) went to Lester's house. We finally got to exchange our gifts for the Secret Santa thing we organized - I got a The Dog file (and he wrote in the letter that he will watch a movie with me, but the ticket exceeds our $5 limit; by the way Boyi, you spelt 'surprise' as 'suprise') from Boyi (thanks again!) and I gave Lester a big bar of Cadbury's 'black'forest chocolate. HL got a tube of Clean & Clear face wash from Lester. MQ got a duck plushie from HL and Boyi got a can of carrot juice and a stick of celery from MQ - talk about rubbing it in. We went swimming and we tried our best to teach HL how to swim (nope, did you actually think we'd succeed?) and Boyi and I started a water splashing war against KB. Then we played tag in the water only walking on the network of dark blue lines on the pool floor. Once we were ready we went to the jacuzzi and then the (S)team Room (the 'S' was scraped off) - pretty hot inside and misty (HL kept commenting how I looked naked and Halitosis kept blowing at me). We had lunch then we came back to play pool (I scored the winning 8 shot for the first game, yay - and it's my first proper game of pool).

I left around 5 pm, and for some reason I slept really early that night. Yesterday I got to watch Patricia Mok, Koh Chieng Mun, Hossan Leong, Irene Ang and of course, Abigail Chay at some matinee show thing. Most of them were pretty funny - I was sitting right at the back where Abigail was dressed in her wedding gown ready to walk down the 'aisle'. I felt that most of them were trying to fake bad English onstage for humor (Irene Ang referred to 'Iraqis' as 'Iraqians' but I don't think she realized) and Abigail was pretty slapstick. Patricia and Irene were funniest - they were poking fun at stuff like the Star Awards, Jacelyn Tay's fall, Malaysians, Eunice Olsen, MPs, etc.

Today is the 26th and it's hard to get used to the fact that school is starting soon. I have yet to complete my ERP or my CAP portfolio. Better get cracking.

The Best Bet

2004-12-23T23:15:00.000+08:00

This week passed really quickly, and I didn't stick with my promise to complete the ERP - I guess it will have to wait until I return from my trip then. There wasn't anything noteworthy on Tuesday (except for nearly finishing Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, of which I have 3 final consecutive boss fights left to complete). Wednesday was practice again, without WST, so it was a bit boring at first... But not until the bet was made! Boyi, HL and I went to the Gryphons' Lair and got drinks, and Boyi bet that HL couldn't answer a riddle and HL made it a bet - if he can get the answer in 1 hour, Boyi must tell Hu Ching he loves him, and if he doesn't get it, HL will do it. HL didn't get it within the 1 hour, but got a 15 minute extension, and he got it right in the end, but a different answer than what we were expecting, but it worked too (at first Boyi and I didn't think it worked and we were trying to act it out). Oh well, 1 lone Smurf is no match for the evil Gargamel (a few Gargamells at that) and Boyi did hold his end of the deal...

Today I met Boyi at City Hall MRT and we went to JiaXin to buy strings and qianjin, then stopped at McDonalds' for lunch (because of the Neopets, duh!) At first I couldn't decide between Uni and Lupe (Uni is my favorite Neopet but the Lupe looked really nice), but I got the Uni anyway - its mane is really messy, but at least I can play with it. I got a sucky Raindorf promo TCG card along with it that I can assure you is probably the worst Neopet card there is. Also, after reading the nutritional information on the lining of the tray, I regretted my McWings decision and now, I swear off it because out of the EVM choices, it has the most fat, saturated fat and calorie content. So I gave up half of my fries and two-thirdths of my coke. We returned to school for dazu practice, and after that I bet with HL about Secret Shanta, but in the middle I realized that Lester and Boyi were lying to me all along - there goes one dollar for surrendering!

Secret Shanta

2004-12-21T15:53:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was our last private lesson with WST and after that, the 5 of us decided to play Secret Santa (Secret Shanta?) for Christmas. The first time I got MQ but that didn't count because Hwee Leong drew his own name. The second time I got my own name, so everyone had to re-draw. The third time was the charm, and everyone got a different name, so we stuck with it. I suspect Lester got mine, because he was barking away, but MQ said something that made me doubt it. As for me, I got *********. It's like one of those Neopets and Clue mysteries where you have to solve who had what dish, etc.

Snapped

2004-12-20T13:02:00.000+08:00

I didn't blog at all this weekend, so it's time to make up for it. Friday there was dazu practice and Z broke my strings during the break so JJ lent me his. Some other trouble that I didn't bother involving myself in - like the 'ball' thing and quarrelling with the coconuts. The weekend was mostly spent on Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. I resolve to complete my ERP (hopefully) by Wednesday. If that works out, then all I have left are my Chinese summaries (plan to do on holiday) and my CAP portfolio, which shouldn't be due immediately.

By the way, I got my hands on a transcript of Eliza's Jury statement. Here you go!
"Before I address my question to you, I have a couple comments. Twila, I'll start with you. Congratulations, you achieved what you set out to do. You came into this game saying you would do whatever it took to get to the Final 2, and that you did.You were a deceptive, lying bitch throughout this game. You never treated me with an ounce of respect. You didn't even speak to me like I deserved your breath. I may envy your position in the Final 2, but I do not envy your life. Now, with that being said... I do think you played a good game and you were outright about it. Chris, you on the other hand... you shocked me... you shocked me. Where I knew Twila was going to be a deceptive bitch, I did not know that you were a deceptive lying bitch too. You pretended to be my friend. I mean you stabbed me in the back with the Julie thing, and you stabbed me in the back again and rubbed salt in the wound. Unnecessary. Blatant lies. My request from the two of you is: I would like an apology."

Aimless

2004-12-16T01:21:00.000+08:00

There was practice today (I nearly forgot). We got our exam certificates back and we learnt 2 new songs (very hard!) - I thought we could finally have a break and slack off for a couple of weeks, but it looks like I'm wrong. Even worse, we're back to the "3 times a week" schedule because 'dazu' practices are back. I intended to stay for dinner but HL refused to lend us his mahjong cards to play with, so Lester and I got hungry (and Lester got pissed off) and left to eat dinner. (Lester commented that he was behaving like Twila, burying the bananas and refusing to let Eliza eat them for no reason at all) Lester's dad gave me a lift home and I reached home at 9-plus, after walking around in J8 looking for a birthday card (for the maid I've had since I was born to P6 and is no longer working for us). Not a very exciting episode of TAR6, Kris and Jon got a new low (4th place, which also isn't bad at all - Hey, isn't that what Eliza got in Survivor?) and they could have been first had they taken a taxi instead of a train. It's okay, because I know they'll bounce back and win this whole thing. As for homework, I've accomplished my goal of finishing the Commonwealth Essay today.

Disappointment

2004-12-14T13:07:00.000+08:00

Utterly disappointing. The Final 3 were the 3 that I hated the most since the beginning of the show (like what happened in Singapore Idol). Poor Eliza. Then again, she wins my prize for Best Jury Speech ever in Survivor history. In the end, I was actually rooting for Scout but I knew her time was up when Chris won Immunity. I still hate Twila - I still think she's a dumbass and I actually agree with Scout about Chris being full of sh*t. What a sucky ending to Vanuatu. Still, I'm anticipating Survivor 10: Palau - 20 castaways, oh my heck! Now that the fogeys dominated this season (lowering ratings), I hope and think Burnett will cast a majority of younger, stronger castaways - hopefully redeeming the disappointment that is Vanuatu.

Now that Survivor 9 (and ANTM2) is over, I still have The Amazing Race 6 (and AI3 reruns at 6pm every weekday). I hear Rob and Amber are going to be on TAR7, which would be really awesome! I wish The Apprentice 2 would start in Singapore already. So, it's time for holiday homework. I've just completed my 10 Chinese news thingies. Here are the remaining things I have to do: ERP, Commonwealth Essay, CAP Portfolio and 2 Chinese Summaries. I'd better get back started on my Commonwealth Essay - I'm only on my second paragraph and I'm stuck. And Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories is distracting me! (Edit (14/12 11:05 pm): I have 929 words written and I'm stopping for the day!)

Predictive Power

2004-12-12T22:38:00.000+08:00

The Star Awards 2004 are over. Let's see how many I got right... Best Actor and Actress I got right, but not Supporting. Best Drama actually went to A Child's Hope 2 instead of Double Happiness 1. As for Top 10, there were a few surprises but overall predictable - The guys I got right were Chris Lee, Edmund Chen, XSG, Tay Ping Hui, Mark Lee, 715, Vincent Ng and Terence Cao. I thought Gurmit would get it because of Singapore Idol. For the girls, I got Fann, Jeanette Aw, Vivian Lai, Sharon Au, Huang Biren, Jace Tay, Xiang Yun - really shocking that Best Actress winner Ivy Lee didn't get it - while Joanne Peh gets 2 awards (Newcomer Award that I wanted Rui En to win). "Boing Boing" Fiona didn't get it either. Poor Fann and Chris are always being made fun of - but I really think and hope that they are together.

While predicting for the Star Awards was fun, I'm channeling most of my psychic energy towards the finale of Survivor 9: Vanuatu - Islands of Fire tomorrow, where there might be a chance of my favorite of the season winning twice in a row (Amber in All Stars, Eliza now in Vanuatu). I'm very excited, and for once the spoilers are completely clueless - anything is possible right now. The CBS website states that the winner is shocking - and frankly, at this point, anything could be surprising. It also says that the final Tribal Council is emotional, probably pointing to Twila in the Final 2 where an outburst from Ami is due. I'm expecting Ami to steal the Jury speech limelight. Eliza is the biggest threat in the Final 4 both physically and also most well-liked by the Jury (3 confirmed votes in Ami, Julie and Leann, plus Lea who had a lot of good things to say about her), but also in the most dangerous position. She hurt her hand (wasn't shown in the last episode) which could in turn hurt her Immunity chances, especially at a rope-gripping or ladder-climbing Final 4 Immunity Challenge, but I'm sure her advantage in running, agility and brainpower will beat the other 3, or actually 2 competitors (because Scout doesn't stand a chance). I'm predicting Eliza's expectations in the last episode hold true and she wins the last two Immunity Challenges - causing a Chris boot in the Final 4 and a Scout boot in the Final 3, with a 6-1 victory for Miss Orlins herself. '

Edit (13/12 10:40 am) : Disappointment. Eliza 4 Life.

Too Much Excitement

2004-12-11T18:22:00.000+08:00

Well, my life is pretty "routined" right now - boring in a way, but I'll take it. A reason is probably because my erhu exam is finally over, which is a huge load off my back. On Wednesday, I reached the NAFA building late because my dad and I got lost (we got confused amongst the 3 different campuses which looked the same - Thanks Lester and MQ for waiting for me downstairs!) I had about 5 to 10 minutes to tune and prepare before I went into examination room. I just went in there and did my best (hopefully it was). Regardless of the result, I'm relieved.

So, for the last 3 days, there hasn't been much to do. Usually it's just computer in the morning, television in the late afternoon at night. Exciting.

The Night Before

2004-12-07T22:31:00.000+08:00

It's getting close. It's tomorrow morning! The erhu examination, I mean. Actually, I wouldn't freak out so much if the others weren't so nervous about it, and they've got to me too - I can't help but worry that I'll screw up really badly tomorrow. You never know. I can only hope for the best.

I'm still sort of sick - my throat is still sore. If my throat worsens, I will go to the doctor's after my exam. If my throat stays like this, I'll see the doctor the day after when my my mom comes back from Australia. I can't live like this anymore and eat the bland food I've been having for the past few days - I need to get myself some fried food and air-con before I go stark, raving mad!

Anyway, quick flashback. On Sunday I went to watch the SCO X'mas Concert with the others minus MQ (JLPT) then for dinner together. I missed watching The Incredibles with them because I got sick. I was surprised my dad allowed me to go - I thought he'd stop me for sure, but he agreed so easily.

Sickening

2004-12-04T18:58:00.000+08:00

Guess what? I fell sick again. I woke up a few days ago with an itchy throat and it gradually became sore and it came with flu and fever. Went to the doctor and now, a few days, many pills, a lot of vitamins and countess glasses of water later, I feel better but my throat is still a problem. I hope it clears up soon - there was once when I coughed out two globules of blood coated with phlegm... At first I freaked out because I thought they were my tonsils! I'm giving it 1 more day to completely get well, otherwise I'm going back to the doctor once my antibiotics run out.

How depressing... My second favorites are out of both Amazing Race and Survivor. Namely Lena/Kristy Jensen and Ami Cusack. Lena and Kristy's elimination was really sad and unfair - poor Lena was fighting and she kept going on but luck prevented her from completing the Roadblock. And Ami is queen! She is amazing and hilarious at the same time. I loved it how she tells people off.

And of course, Taufik wins Singapore Idol! But then again, it's such an outrage that he doesn't get to participate in World Idol and represent us. I'm so peeved.

Edited to add: The opening performance was like a dream come true. Britney's "Stronger" sung by the finalists, started off by Maia. I was going crazy. I heard that they also sang "My Prerogative" but it wasn't shown on television.

Sacrifice

2004-11-29T22:53:00.000+08:00

We're nearing the end of November. There are no flights leaving to Melbourne available on the 16th, so the only date I can make is from 1 - 6 Dec because of my stupid erhu exams. I wish I hadn't signed up for it in the first place. I don't want to go 1 - 6 Dec because I need to practice for my exams. Yesterday I asked Lester about today's practice and he told me that it was 11.30 am, but it's actually 2 pm. Urgh... So we had to wait for the guitar people to vacate the room and then practice ourselves.

I was seriously considering opting out of the exams and I told myself and Boyi that if WST makes a comment about me not being able to pass (which he has made quite a lot of!) during his lesson, I would drop out of the exams. But he actually said I improved a lot and he thought I could pass if my "Guang Ming Xing" was as good as my other practice piece (after all, my practice distribution for the 2 songs weren't even at all). So I can't quit the exams, and I can't go on holiday and that's quite a sacrifice. :( I want to pass the exams though. I don't want to be "minor-boy" anymore.

Waterlogged

2004-11-25T13:42:00.000+08:00

After a long hiatus from this blog, I'm finally back! And yup, I will fill you in on everything that went on. Okay, okay, let's take a quick rewind back to Sunday. Rush, rush, rush like crazy to get ready, and of course soak up my last bit of computer time. Nothing much to talk about onboard, especially when everything's all "been there, done that". Day 2 was when the ship stopped in Penang, and we met my aunt there and her friend and they brought us around to eat (mostly stuff that I can't eat, i.e. spicy/gross stuff like laksa and chendol) and also to shop at Gurney Plaza (ahh, I still remember when I went during the CO trip). Bought quite a lot of gum - one roll of gum that is 6 feet long!

Day 3 was the ultimate pits. The first part of the day went okay when the ship anchored at Phuket, and we again went shopping and had seafood. But once we went back onboard I started feeling really sick (I don't know if it was motion sickness or gastric flu or food poisoning) and I didn't get a wink of sleep the entire night, so my mom brought me to see the nurse and got some medicine. Felt a bit better after that, but the whole night was horrible - I puked twice and didn't eat anything more than a spoonful of porridge and a bite of bread the next day. Ugh! This is why you should not detach me from my computer! Boohoo!

I'm feeling a lot better today now that I'm back on land and finally at home. Woke up and went to check my class postings on AsknLearn and I'm in 3T. I got the subject choices I wanted. By the way, I missed quite a lot of television shows - like a good episode of TAR6, boohoo. I missed out on watching Shutter (a blessing in disguise, maybe?) but I read the review/synopsis on 8-Days.

(H)Oli Crap!

2004-11-20T16:33:00.000+08:00

(H)Oli crap! If you told me 10 weeks ago to imagine my reaction at Olinda being eliminated, I'd think I would be jumping for joy. Funny. I'm not. And it's not because I like Olinda. It's because Sylvester is in the final 2. Well, it's time to whip out the phone and finally cast a vote for Taufik, just to prevent Sylvester from winning. The finale is still pretty far away -- a long wait before Taufik Batisah is crowned the first Singapore Idol.

Enough about Singapore Idol trash. It seems as if nothing ever happens on days when I stay home (i.e. no CO practice) and it can get pretty boring. Finished a game in 1 day (Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue, lmao). The graphics were cute, but gameplay can get boring after awhile. Now I can finally move on to the newly-released and much-anticipated Urbz: Sims in the City! Sadly, there aren't any walkthroughs available, so I guess since I don't want to wait, I'll have to do it on my own.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the previous episode of Survivor. Eliza (yay), Ami (yay), Chad and Chris (ugh) win reward. My mom was watching the challenge with me and commented that Eliza and Julie's boobs were spilling all over the place. Twila wins Immunity... Ugh! Stupid old hag Scout tries to get Eliza out, but Ami protects her! I'm beginning to really love Ami and Eliza together. So we're back to the obvious conclusion. Ciao, Chad.

Singapore Idol - Movies, Film, Musicals, Opera!

2004-11-18T20:35:00.000+08:00

First up is Olinda with 'Holding Out for a Hero' (Fantasia... Ugh!). Powerful voice. Then it's Taufik's turn with 'Ain't No Sunshine'. Leandra's in the Taufik-supporter crowd! Way to bash those rumours, Leandra! I didn't really pay attention to it but the judges said he was good. Sylvester is next and he is pure crap. What the hell was he thinking singing that 'Phantom of the Opera' song? Honestly, the worst performance ever on the show - Even the Careless Whisperer was better - At least you couldn't hear anything so it wasn't excruciating. At least his favorite movie is 'Rock Star', which stars Jennifer Aniston too. Props to Ch5 for showing Jen's pretty face to soften the blow that is Sylvester.

Second round! A second chance to redeem themselves or screw up further! Olinda sang 'Hopelessly Devoted to You'... No! No! No! That song is not for you to sing! It's for my Carmen Rasmusen! Boohoo... I still like Carmen's performance better, duh. I didn't pay attention to Taufik's performance - Argh... How come I never do? Sylvester sang Boyzone's 'Picture of You' - I actually like that song too but not anymore. He wore the same shirt as he did during Wildcard. And it's not even nice - it's fugly!

Well, this is the last round of performances. The final nail in the coffin. It's beddy-bye-time as Olinda performs 'Don't Cry For Me, Argentina'. More like 'Don't Put Me to Sleep, Olinda'. Major zZz's... I just noticed that Ken makes so many grammar mistakes (Gurmit too) and it's irritating me. (No Ken, you still rock because you like Maia) Taufik sang a song from 'Mulan'... Uh... Aren't you 10 years too old for that? Sylvester again was horrible. Which is awesome. Get out! Ken hit the nail on the head - "You'd better hope that a lot of ah beng and ah lian will vote for you" - the same nail which will be the final one in his coffin.

Stranded

2004-11-18T20:15:00.000+08:00

Today was quite an eventful day. Woke up early to attend the RT EXCO meeting and very few people were present. Immediately following that was CO practice (self-practice in the CO Room), then lunch. I realized that I forgot my wallet then I go drop money in the drain... Ugh. Dazu practice after that and I helped to fix a guzheng string! After practice, I called my dad and he said he couldn't fetch me and told me to come home myself. On a day when I forget my wallet, meaning I have no money and no ezlink card! Ahh! And my phone battery nearly went flat! Luckily my mom thought of calling a cab for me and go downstairs to pay the driver.

Oh and yup, that's me on TV for Ch8's Star of All Trades. Thank god nobody watches it because it's on the same time as Singapore Idol! Um, well, my tuition teacher called to say that she watched it. Aw man. I'll be back with my Singapore Idol review. Watching as I type.

The Amazing Race 6

2004-11-17T23:26:00.000+08:00

Not a bad TAR6 premiere. This leg had the teams racing to Iceland ("Is it cold in Iceland?" "No, it's cold in Greenland! It's warm in Iceland."). There are already a few teams I hate, a few I like and the rest I'm just neutral about. There were a few pretty funny moments in the race - one of them being "Dude, you look like a Smurf!" (because that's what Daryl said about Boy!), lol.

Hayden/Aaron (1st) are cool, and they're one of my favorites. It's sweet that he allows her to do the driving and she massages his feet - She treats him like a king! Kris/Jon (2nd) are my favorites too. They are awesome people and good racers, and I see them going far too. Third place was Lena/Kristy... ("How does my butt look in this, Lena") And guess what? The top 3 teams are my 3 favorites! Now if only Singapore Idol was like that.

Freddy/Kendra (4th) were cooler than I expected them to be. Jonathan/Victoria (5th) are at the bottom of my list. Jonathan is the most annoying racer ever. He's so full of himself and overconfident and he treats Victoria like dirt - he probably has an EQ of 0. I pity her so much. Lori/Bolo (6th) are rounding up the bottom of my list as well. Lori is a redneck and Bolo is plain stupid - and I expected it.

It came down to a rocky footrace amongst Adam/Rebecca (7th), Meredith/Maria (8th) and Don/Mary Jean (9th). Adam is really weird ("Hellboy") and Meredith talks like Heidi Bressler from The Apprentice 1 - but it was really sweet that both teams hugged each other so happily at the pitstop after hearing their placings when all were assuming the worst.

Gus/Hera (10th) escaped elimination. Hera is okay, but I don't like Gus much. That leaves the nerds Avi/Joe in last place, who were near the bottom of my list anyway. To think I was so paranoid about my favorites going first (a la Dennis and Erika!) but it's all good.

Tomorrow there'll be an RT EXCO meeting at 9! Ugh! I'll have to wake up early (difficult, considering it's already past midnight right now) and since CO practice starts at 11.30 am, the meeting will have to last for 2 and a half hours otherwise I'll be bored out of my wits.

Nihility

2004-11-17T23:07:00.000+08:00

Hey, hey! Sorry I didn't get to blog yesterday, but nothing happened. I was sort of in a daze for the whole of yesterday, and I'm not sure why.

But today is a brand new day and there was CO practice at 11.30 am. I spent some of self-practice on the stairs outside the CO Room because we couldn't disturb RIGE and it was sweltering. Boy!, MQ, Lester and I had originally wanted to go to KFC for lunch, but upon seeing "Paedo156" / "S11Pervert" there (and there were no vacant tables anyway), we went to S11 with KB and HL. What's creepy is that MQ was just talking about him before we saw him there. After sectionals, the rest of us made fun at Lester and how spastic he is.

The Amazing Race 6 debut is on now, and it's it a 2-hour premiere! Hooray! Will watch it and update you on what I thought. My pre-show favorites are Lena/Kristy and Kris/Jon.

You Gotta Be

2004-11-15T22:04:00.000+08:00

Selamat Hari Raya to those who celebrate it! Again, I woke up very late but I didn't miss breakfast this time - I wonder what's going on... I usually never sleep past 10 in the morning, but I've slept till 11 for two mornings in a row... Guess it's the holiday laziness setting in. CO practice at 2 pm, and from 4 pm onwards we started playing songs we haven't touched in a long time.

I'm listening to Daphne Khoo's "You Gotta Be" performance right now. 'Listen as your day unfolds /Challenge what the future holds / Try and keep your head up to the sky / Lovers they may cause you tears / Go ahead release your tears / Stand up and be counted don't be ashamed to cry'

The Chopsticks

2004-11-14T20:12:00.000+08:00

I woke up so late today that I skipped breakfast and just had lunch by the computer while I finished the final boss battle of Lunar Legend on the VBA. Great game, nice characters (you can't change the names though), cute sprites, awesome storyline, simple battle scheme... I liked it a lot.

Finished it just in time to meet Boy! at City Hall and we went to JiaXin to buy guzheng fingernails and Boy! bought a CD, and then accompanied him to visit his ex-piano teacher. Then we returned to the MRT station to meet the others and proceed to the Esplanade for the CSCO concert. It was a full house (it was free, duh) and some English songs like Colors of the Wind (joy for HL, I suppose). Ended around 4 pm, so we decided to walk around first and grab a bite at the Marina Square food court. I didn't want to eat my dinner so early, so I just sat down, sipped my peach tea and nibbled on my Sour Power sticks while the others had their (early) dinner. After that they dragged me to the "chopsticks" war memorial (I still don't understand why they wanted to go there in the first place) and we saw some sick stuff (that I don't want to talk about) and got our fingers black drawing things on the glass...

Went home by MRT (2 days in a row! MQ and Lester were testing me about the MRT and LRT stations on the way) and now I'm looking for another RPG game to play on the VBA.

IRS Exhibition 2004

2004-11-13T16:57:00.000+08:00

It's been a long day, and it's only 5 o'clock. Went for the IRS Exhibition first thing in the morning at ITE MacPherson and got so lost, my dad was literally driving around in circles. But I eventually helped to find it - which shows that my map reading skills aren't bad, just that my dad doesn't trust what I tell him. Mao and myself were in charge of food distribution... and guess who was in charge? Ms Julie See (Or rather Mrs Lee, whatever). Quoth: "It's fate." It really is. Didn't really get to talk much, but she asked me about my subjects next year. It's like so coincidental. I still don't know why HL appears to detest her so much. I wonder if she remembers HL. I bet she finds him familiar but can't tell it's him because of all the weight he's lost and of course, the pimples. (Sorry HL but the truth hurts! Now let's get back on track before my blog turns into something like Lester's with all the HL insults...) Basically our job seemed quite simple: Arrange food boxes, collect lunch coupons, direct them to get food, drinks, spoons and fruit and just wait for the next person to arrive. We were so bored we decided to count the spoons and serviettes! There were these 2 girls that were really annoying that Mao agreed was "a disaster waiting to happen". Forget them. After we were almost done, some guy came and told us to clear all the trash cans in the canteen. Believe me, it's really gross. The bags were like wet and heavy and dripping with orange gook it wasn't even funny. Mao and I couldn't stop washing our hands after that. What a great way to spend our Saturday morning and noon.

Took the bus and MRT back from Paya Lebar (thank god it's on the EW line). Yes, you see, I do take public transport. It's so annoying how Lester, HL and company make jokes about me when I meet them at MRT stations. Because I don't take the MRT every day doesn't mean I'm socially retarded about Singapore or the ezLink card.

Came back in time for a long, boring one-and-a-half hours of tuition and I'm beat now. I'm too tired (lazy?) to do anything else now, so I think I'll just chill out in front of the computer for now.

No More Daph-Factor

2004-11-12T23:31:00.000+08:00

As everyone tried to tell me today and yesterday, and as hard as I tried to deny it, Daphne Khoo has been eliminated from Singapore Idol - leaving my 3 most deeply disliked (or hated) Singapore Idol finalists. What luck. I don't care about the stupid show anymore. I only want to see Sylvester be eliminated - I don't mind if Taufik or (gasp) Olinda wins. Well, actually I do, but in the current Final 3, if Sylvester gets into the Final 2, it'll be the lesser of two evils. My mom says that if Taufik gets into the Final 2, he probably won't win because of race difference. In fact, I'm contemplating voting for Olinda just so that Sylvester won't earn the title. Which means that strategically I'll be giving my second-to-bottom contestant the victory so that the one I hate the most won't get it. It's so annoying. I can't wait for this to end. Unless you bring back Jeassea or Maia of course.

Next up is Survivor! The spoilers again said that Julie was going. They were wrong last time, and they're wrong again. Poor Eliza was the first girl eliminated in the Reward Challenge - it seems like Twila and Scout - the 2 older women are so against her. Old jealous shrews. Leann won and brought Julie and they got really close (hey, what happened to the Ami + Leann pair?). Eliza answered the trivia questions the best though. I was really happy to see another mental challenge for Immunity but Eliza was a bit careless and Ami ended up winning. Spoilers said that Eliza won Immunity because it was a "word-smithing" challenge like Boggle and Eliza loves word games. Yay! Chalk down another point! Eliza is so cool! Anyway, Lea is out - smart choice girls. Chris is such a dirty backstabber! He's so disgusting I can't even look at him - I've hated him since Episode 1. My Eliza got 1 vote, but it's okay. Bye bye Chad. You're next!

I'm watching The Twilight Zone right now. It's so freaky, but at least this time around I can use something I've learnt from my Philo lessons. Five friends get trapped in a cave and they find out that the only way to get out is to sacrifice one of them to the Aztec gods. Apt show to follow Survivor, but it was so painful because the sweet blonde girl that I liked drew the shortest stick. She was begging for time so that she could write a letter to her mother but her friend knocked her out with a rock behind her back, stabbed her and drained her blood. It was so gory and depressing!

Tomorrow at 10:30 I have to go to the IRS Exhibition to help distribute food. I can't believe I was suckered by HL into volunteering! Whatever, karma works in mysterious ways. I'll get what I deserve (a lot, considering my pure little heart of gold, lol) and who knows? Maybe next week, Sylvester will get the boot!

The Princess Diaries II: The Royal Engagement

2004-11-12T23:16:00.000+08:00

I watched The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement this morning with Boy!, JJ, KB, HL and Jason. It was nice; I'd give it 4 out of 5, but I still liked the original one better because this one had a very cliched plot. After that we had practice, and we added insulting lyrics about HL into the songs. He was so moody today - it's so freaky how he's nice on some days and just refuses to talk to anyone on other days. I think our chalet plan for next week is cancelled... Sad. I don't know why everyone couldn't make up their minds and didn't want to think of ways to circumvent problems.

Singapore Idol: Asian Pop Week Part II

2004-11-11T21:24:00.000+08:00

Well, all 8 songs are over. Not a very good week. (Of course not, Maia isn't here anymore! Boohoo!)

If you haven't read Part I of my review of Singapore Idol: Asian Pop Week, scroll down to my last post, then read this one.

I'm not going to go into detail for the second round of performances. I liked Daphne's performance of the Penny Tai song, although I don't think the judges did. Olinda picked a very safe song by Coco Lee that anyone could pull off. I didn't really pay attention to Sylvester's nor Taufik's second performance, which I believe has saved me a ton of grief.

All in all, Sylvester must go! Sylvester fans are complete idiots that are incapable of logical thinking nor identifying poor English. I hope Daphne stays, and I doubt Taufik and Olinda are going anywhere yet. Just hoping that the Shitvester fans will be over confident.

Singapore Idol: Asian Pop Week

2004-11-11T20:56:00.000+08:00

I'm watching Singapore Idol as I type. This week is Asian Pop week... Horrendous. One reason being that it probably will be Shitvester's night; but then again, it doesn't guarantee him into the next round (and I hope it doesn't)! I don't want anybody left to win, actually. I hate Olinda. Daphne and Taufik, I don't think they'll shine in World Idol, let alone Sylvester who I believe will be a complete disgrace through and through.

Anyway, Daphne is on first tonight... And thankfully chooses an English pop number by Tata Young! Sadly, it isn't "Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy Me" but it's the next best song - "I Believe". I liked Daphne's rendition, although the beginning parts before the chorus was shaky. That growl thing she did twice throughout the performance was pretty cool, and proves that she does have talent.

Olinda sang some slow oldie in Mandarin that was so "zZz". Hello? This is Singapore Idol and the voters are mainly teenage kids like myself. She claimed Faye Wong sang it too, but then again, Faye Wong will sing anything. And that black feather boa? Haven't you learnt from your past similar encounter with feather boas in Disco Week?

Sylvester was utter crap. His enunciation is the same week in week out.

I didn't really hear Taufik but I obviously don't understand. The judges liked it, so it was okay I suppose.

Waiting for the second round! Taking advantage of commercial breaks!

Intoxicate Me Now

2004-11-11T19:31:00.000+08:00

Well, this is it. I've finally finished decorating the blog and it looks good to go.