surrealthought

Fresh start for a New Year

2009-01-09T15:59:00.002+08:00

New host, new look, new feel. I chose wordpress over blogger for its clean and user-friendly interface and, more importantly, the great themes the Wordpress community possess for its users. I totally do not wish nor do I have the time to make a new template, as I have to learn xml in order to do so. However wordpress has no support for tagboards, so Im stuck here till I find a way around it :/

Its the start of the year 2009, and its the time where most 16 year olds are stuck waiting for their O level results. Im no different. Not sure how mine will turn out, but lets just hope for the best for all of us :) Also hopefully the chalet would be a success and that the mood wont be spoilt. Its getting more mundane these days. Im wearing out my thumbs on DJMax and Topgear season 2 isnt getting more interesting :/

12 Jan marks the end of our childhood. It is time for us teens to grow up and start looking forwards, and think about what kind of futures we want, and what kinds of paths we should take in order to walk towards our ideal futures. I wish everyone a great year ahead. May we discover what we really want in life and strive towards that dream, so that we make the best out of our lives.

Church Camp

2008-11-20T10:51:00.006+08:00

Had church camp on monday to tuesday. Actually it was more of a overnight project than a church camp, because the camp was supposed to let us do our wall-painting for the Youth classroom. The walls were originally white, blank and plain, thus we decided on a project to decorate the class. We spent two days doing wall-painting and it turned out to be quite professional looking :D

cool black border we painted on impromptu

the white box hadnt been finished when i took this pic

What we did was to use a projector and project the words and images we wanted onto the screen and then trace them out, after which we would paint them. The silhouettes though were tracings of ourselves! The silhouettes are from the left: Kerrhui kneeling in prayer, Anhui reading the bible, my sister Joy playing the piano, Zhi ler playing the guitar, and me drawing the banner LOL
It was a very new experience, because painting on a wall is very different to drawing on a piece of paper. You cannot make mistakes, or the line would be wavy, or the paint would override another colour. In these two days, i can say that the fellowship worked as one, and even the adults couldnt believe how well we executed our own project :D The only sad thing was this project was rather impromptu and not thoroughly planned enough, or we could have painted the walls different colours (eg. neon orange) to look more like a bright ipod commercial. And everyone should watch Passion of Christ! It was a very awesome movie, and it even moved some to tears. Jesus' suffering was so great, all for the sins of man. What a great two days it had been!

O levels

2008-11-13T22:40:00.004+08:00

O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
O levels are over
oo yeah, yippee yippee yeah
*tosses away 4 years of syllabus with wild abandon*

time to find a job

Social Studies....

2008-11-03T21:01:00.007+08:00

...ROCKED!

Was almost late due to a traffic jam and an early entrance of students into the examination hall. But I made it and didnt die. When I was running up the steps of the back gate, I met Sathi and she said in a hearty booming voice " GOOD LUCK FOR YOUR SOCIALSTUDIES JONATHAN!" That brought an immediate smile on my face, however in the next instant I was at the class door, getting ushered in by some girls, while the rest of the people in the room were looking intently at me. Some probably wanted me to be late cough*jo*cough LOL no lah. He gave me a handslap and I sat down, jittery with nerves.

The exam was a breeze! I cannot believe governance came out, which is the first ever chapter Sathi taught us for SS. It kind of sucks to think that you could have studied just one chapter (and the first chapter at that) and score well. Being the stupid mugger that I am to ensure I scored well for SS I studied ALL of sec 3 + iraq-kuwait, so that what Ive studied would for 100% come out. I was freaking scared of chapter 6 coming, which was all about diplomacy and relations with ASEAN and UN. Not to say they are useless, but they do take up a whole lot of space in the brain.

For those who in any case didnt do well in this paper, dont fall into despair. Ive diligently checked Sgforums, and some people who did the Iraq-kuwait SEQ forgot the names of Bubiyan and Warbah. Some didnt complete the paper, while others spent 1 hour on SEQ, leaving a meagre 30 min for SBQ, which is totally too short a period of time to complete such a long question.

Bad news though, it is a general consensus that EM, AM and Chemistry were breeze-throughs. Physics was deemed impossible/hard/crazy. Those who are confident of A1/A2 (not me, im taking biochem) should be happy out of their wits.

SO now ive been slacking for the past 5 hours or so, enjoying my time till tomorrow morning when ill be mugging for HCL. What a chore, that the government had to have bilingualism implemented in 1966. Bah.

OMG im so high

2008-10-31T21:41:00.003+08:00

Im as of now feeling very elated/exuberant/ecstatic/overwhelmed for some reason. I cant keep still to start studying, and even if i settle down on the spot, my legs' skeletal muscles will start undergoing vigorous muscular contractions. Ive been walking around the house for quite some time now and my muscles have started fatiguing so I sat down to type this blog post out. See, even my fingers cant rest. And this is the second post in 3 hours.

Time: 9.44pm. Alleged time to start: 9am. Progress: 0%

I can almost hear Sathi's voice screaming away in my head "Don't you DARE slack, you birdbrains! And how many times must I STRESS, PEE~! Always link back to the issue! Wake up your ideas people!"

A1 FOR SS!

2nd week

2008-10-31T19:05:00.003+08:00

2nd is up! I can finally let off a BIG sigh of relief. Biology was one constant worry in my head, because of its volume and wide variety of questioning style. I jumped right into the essay questions at the start in fear of running out of time, but my worries melted away once I laid my eyes on the first question. An ace subject for sure.

However, I probably wont get higher than a b3 in physics. IM SO GLAD I TAKE TRIPLE SCIENCE MWAHA!

Time to mug SS, time to please Ms Sathi!

Wow

2008-10-25T10:01:00.004+08:00

Ive just gone through the first week of hell-on-earth. It really has been a harrowing experience, what with going to bed without being able to sleep, waking up with headaches and going into the examination hall with your head racked with thoughts of doom. I believe our first week to be the most hectic one among the candidates throughout singapore. 7 papers in 5 days omg

Hopefully ill get an A1 for chem ><, unless jesse was right and i screwed my spa.

Finished Maximum Ride after the AMath paper. The feeling was sooonnnnnnng, to finally get my hands on a book and read it, and not stupid textbooks o level guides pastyearpapers and whatnot.

now its time to mug for bio and physics -.- damn sian

O LEVELS

2008-10-12T15:28:00.004+08:00

lol didnt expect to get 8 points for l1r5, due to moderation and using chinese. the last week to o levels is here, As come unto me! Mugging bio now. Wonder how ill fare for the test that really matters. All the past 3 years of school life are for these three weeks of exams. All the best to everyone

Prelims

2008-09-22T20:17:00.002+08:00

Ah shit i screwed up very sad :( must start mugging everyday

UNINSTALL CS! D:<

LHC

2008-09-13T10:27:00.006+08:00

Cern has created a particle collider, more powerful than any one humans have created before, and this collider is called the Large Hadron Collider. Its job is to collide protons by accelerating them at 99.9999% the speed of light, in hopes of forming smaller sub-elementary particles. Scientists want to test their current theories on sub-atomic particles, and to see if the existence of Higg's Boson, God's particle is true, and if string theory is valid, by observing if gravitons can pass from our universes' brane to others.

Collision:

And it can create black holes! Scientists think that the black holes will be smaller than atoms, and be only a few thousands of atoms' mass, so it would convert its own mass into energy and radiate all its energy (mostly thermal) faster than it would receive energy by e=mc^2, thus disintegrating into nothing. But some scientists think they would be stable and start eating atoms and more massive objects until Earth gets sucked in. I read about this 2 years ago, and I thought, wow, this thing is happening in MY generation, just like how the internet phenomenon occured in our parents'. If the 27km collider makes black holes that eats the earth ill see it! wooo

Cool way to die man, i wont mind :p Its like hey look whats that black spot thereeeeeeeeeeee nooooooooo----- *

Its either this or the Mayan Calender's right. We will all die by 2012 anyway!

And i thought we were supposed to have died in 2000, but the doomsday theory apparently failed then. Well, looks like some people keep trying :/

In any case my O levels are in no way getting disturbed by black holes or ancient mayans, so better get cracking.

Battle Plan

2008-08-30T15:46:00.004+08:00

Ok today's Saturday, the day Im going to start the Revision-for-rest-of-the-prelim-papers-Week. Drawn up a plan to attack!

First up, do a run-through of the content papers (ie Bio first then Geog.), then hit the AMaths and Physics. Not much time left, no, but I suppose with hard work and dedication of time, it is not an impossible feat.

Its such a relief that the social studies and language paper ones are over! Argumentative for english, Chinese news report, and spotted the chapters correctly for SS. Not too shabby a start, I would say.

Hopefully, I will be able to squeeze in some time for Counter striking! If the others dont mind. Haha!

Off for bio. All the best for everyone who is mugging and hitting the books for prelims! May the As be with you

Just Stand Up For Cancer!

2008-08-29T23:44:00.005+08:00

I chanced upon this song while i was trolling the net for Celebration by Kool and Gang. (Celebration time come on!!). Its RnB, but somehow its lyrics attracted me to like it. Sung by an all-star group of artistes including Mariah Carey, Carrie Underwood, Beyonce Leona Lewis and more. The song is supposed to be sold for charity to help cancer patients. Fortunately, it had been leaked onto the net for download. Rather inspirational, it tells you not to give up in the face of adversity but to be resilient! Best two vocals are probably Mariah and Beyonce

Beyoncé:
The heart is stronger
Than you think
It's like it can go
Through anything
And even when you think
It can't it finds a way
To still push on
Though

Carrie underwood:
Sometimes
You want to run away
Ain't got the patience
For the pain
And if you
Don't believe it
Look into
Your heart
The beat goes on

Rihanna:
I'm tellin' you that

Rihanna/miley cyrus:
Things get better
Through whatever

Rihanna:
If you fall
Dust it off
Don't let up

Sheryl crow:
Don't you know
You can go
Be your own miracle

Beyoncé:
You need to know

Chorus (sheryl crow):
If the mind
Keeps thinking
You've had enough
But the heart
Keeps telling you
Don't give up

Sheryl crow/beyoncé:
Who are we to be
Questioning
Wondering what is what
Don't give up
Through it all
Just stand up

Fergie:
It's like
We all have better days
Problems getting all up
In your face

Leona lewis:
Just because
You go through it

Fergie:
Don't mean it got
To take control, no

Leona lewis:
You ain't gotta find
No hiding place

Keyshia cole:
Because the heart
Can beat the hate

Leona lewis:
Don't wanna
Let your mind
Keep playin' you

Keyshia cole:
And sayin' you
Can't go on

Rihanna:
I'm tellin' you that

Miley cyrus:
Things get better
Through whatever

Rihanna:
If you fall

Miley cyrus:
Dust if off
Don't let up

Leann rimes:
Don't you know you

Natasha bedingfield:
Can go

Leann rimes:
Be your own

Natasha bedingfield:
Miracle

Carrie underwood:
You need to know

(chorus-all)

Mary j. blige:
You don't gotta be
A prisoner
In your mind

Ciara:
If you fall
Dust it off

Mary j. blige:
You can live your life

Rihanna/carrie underwood:
Yeah

Mary j. blige:
Let your heart
Be your guide

Rihanna/carrie:
Yeah, yeah, yeah

Mariah carey:
And you will know
That you're good
If you trust in the good

Ashanti:
Everything
Will be alright, yeah
Light up the dark
If you follow your heart

Mary j. blige:
And it will get better

Mariah carey:
Through whatever

(chorus-all)

Fergie:
You got it in you
Find it within
You got in now
Find it within now
You got in you
Find it within
You got in now
Find it within now
You got in you
Ffind it within
Find it within you
Find it within

Jonathan Yap

2008-08-15T22:10:00.005+08:00

Oh no Jonathan Yap has infected me with FO culture! I am now compelled to watch Family Outing! And when Im not watching, ill be playing Counter strike. With just 67 days to O levels how can i be doing such sacrilegious acts?! Am I a glutton for punishment?! Omg lah see its all jyap's fault. Though he is my namesake, he is not anything like me! He listens to dark and metal bands Nightwish and Within Temptation, and always dons black clothing whenever going out - he is evil.

Violent and strongly-built, he isnt one to be messed with, unless you want him to commit some indescribable, with you as the receiving end of the act.

Now how did such evil get named Carebear? Thus, all the more we should be wary of him! For he is wolf coming in sheep's clothing! False prophets!

Scary person yeah? Look at his merciless glare. Evil literally emanates from those two black pupils of infinite depth.

Bah im off to do physics. Hate electro induction. Totally sucks. In addition to that, 410 people have to get up bright and early for physics and chinese remedial. T.T

No FO and CS then. Oh sht, shouldnt be thinking that.

I know JO will silently brand me a loser in his heart after reading this descriptive dedicated to him. And after reading this sentence he will say even more vehemently FUCK loser!! hahahahaa

ok im lame off to physics. Sorta high today after CS. CS with communication owns !

V- tonnnnn

national day

2008-08-07T20:36:00.005+08:00

Wow this 16th birthday has got to be the best birthday in my life! Never received so many presents before: Royce chocs, fake merci chocs(snickers, m&n, mars), pencil case, swensens cake, handphone. Plus, tomorrow we are going to play CS! \m/ pwnzzorxzxz !

Had bio test today, wasnt as bad as i imagined it would be, since i only studied for 3 hours. Probably able to get 30 and above :/

Seriously i think one teacher is getting extremely annoying and fked up. She blew her top two days back, ranting about how she thinks we are more stupid as compared to her.
Please, given her command of english, I am sure Sathi will trash her. Should give up teaching. I swear, once she opened her mouth, her fk-factor went up exponentially like a tangent curve.

when t is 0, mouth is unopened. Mouth becomes fully open, with vocalization at t=5.

I am freaking out

2008-08-03T15:33:00.002+08:00

Freaking hell O levels are like 80 days away!! Prelims a (insert horrific word) 3 weeks away?! WTH lah i havent prepared anything. IM gonng die. Worse still, my study concentration span has reduced to 10 minutes. Anything duration longer than that will cause my mind to drift to sleep mode. And at this time with less than 24 hours before chemistry common test I have not even really started revision. Plus bio plus phy. OH TIME BABY TIMELESS?! no time how.

How?!

How?!

How?!

.
.
.
.

Mugger Transition

2008-06-24T22:22:00.004+08:00

Muggerbot v0.10

exec. muggerbot_0.10...100%
initalizing muggerengine....100%
infiniteloop action [mug].... 100%

loading: TYS, assessments, olevelguides, pastyearpapers

deleting file: my_life.doc
replacing file: no_life.doc
loading: TYS, assessments, olevelguides, pastyearpapers

executesequence end.

IPOD CLASSIC FTW

2008-06-23T20:30:00.006+08:00

I FREAKING IMPULSE-BOUGHT AN IPOD CLASSIC!!

I was like surfing on the singapore classifieds on the guitar forum and 88db. AND then i saw this impossibly cheap deal! "Black ipod classic 80gb mint condition for only $250! Deal at Tanglin. Contact Larry."

When i saw it i was like wtf?! Sure bo Larry?? perhaps the price has dropped? I called up Harvey Norman to check the retail price of the Classic, and they reported letting it off at $388.

Then I called the guy up and asked if he really is letting it off at that dubious price, and he said sure. We then agreed to meet up 2 hours later at Commonwealth.

Freaking impulse! The whole transaction was carried out in less than 4 hours after I saw the ad. Larry was a typical ah beng, skinny scrawny and wears skinny jeans, scratchy voice. About 17, but way shorter than me. Then i asked him, "Eh why are you letting it off at such an outrageous price?" He said he wasnt the seller, it was his boss. So i took a quick check of the ipod's appearance and functions to see if they were as mint as he said. Nothing out of the ordinary, and it even came in a crystal plastic case, so I wouldnt have to spend extra! No scratches at all.

Gave him the moolah and sat there fiddling with it for 10 minutes. Everything was perfect except that it was loaded full of Muslim and Malay songs, all of which I didnt understand. You know those deep droning long songs? Yeah those.

Quickest second hand deal Ive ever made. Not to mention sweet~

Hahaha I bet no one has a cheaper ipod classic than me!

Weary

2008-06-17T00:05:00.003+08:00

This holiday is not fun at all :( The past three weeks have all been preoccupied by homework homework and more homework. I got so much chemistry homework that my typing skill improved. Dont know what got into Jesse's head, she wanted us to complete the whole o level syllabus. Answer all the 'candidates requirement' in front of every chapter. Like 140 questions! wtf. Plus 13 chem papers. Add that to 6 math papers, 1 geog paper, 1 SS sbq, 2 compres, 1 compo and the worst - chinese hw (which im totally not going to do). Then the 4th week of hols Jesse is giving us an online quiz.

The truth finally dawned upon me. I am in love with jesse.

However I did go out many times for LAN sessions! Got pretty much sucked into the whole CS thing. It is fun! Thurs shall probably be the last session (my 5th LOL) before the Os. These four months shall be pretty dull and stressful ones, and I sure hope i dont die of sudden cardiac arrest or something.

Went out with JO today to mug chemistry on laptop in library. Two days back we mugged at Je Library. Je lib is really a hard place to find powerpoints! The library opens at 10 and he went in at 10.15, only to find all seats taken?!! So after having brunch with Sheryl and 409 people at some western restaurant at Bukit Timah plaza. It has the best value for money stuff there! One pasta/baked rice + iced tea = $5.90! This is like 3 -5 bucks cheaper than pasta mania or pizza hut. After the wannabe-DSAers left to cab back to NJC for their test, we slacked around enjoying the ambience before going back to westmall library to mug, which thankfully has less people.

Mugged from like 12 to 4pm. Went home. Rested awhile then went out to jog 4.5km. Did it at leisurely pace this time, so obviously i didnt clock my pb of 22.21 min. Mugged after dinner, and here I am, complaining about chemistry. Left with the last chapter: organic chem!

Mugged.

Fun and ugh

2008-06-02T22:34:00.002+08:00

im currently suffering from a neck sprain which i dont know how i got during the games at sentosa. ugh. icepackkkk. currently typing with my head tilted 45 up against the arm chair with the ice pack at the back of my neck. so my typing is awkward. the games were great, but the forfeit was um. overall, it very much exceeded the expectations of a class outing, because i thought it would be dull: what can we do in sentosa?!

bah....only finished all chem papers. left with loads of hw.

Schools OUT!

2008-05-24T23:14:00.009+08:00

HAHAHA school's finally over! Though its probably not worth a shoutout because its Olevel year - mug year. BUT there is still the consolation of finally being able to wake up when the sun is shining high in the sky, instead of doing so at unearthly wee hours in the morning, when humans are supposed to be asleep!

Wednesday:
Super happy, because I found out that my Social studies topped the class at 42/50. I had totally expected to fail like shit, because I only read like 2.5 chapters(!!), and had totally no confidence after the paper. Kept asking Sathi "I did badly this time right? I didnt do well right???" when its my turn to claim my paper, but she didnt write the freaking score on the paper! It was such a suspenseful 5 seconds, during which she referred back into her score sheet, saying " Nonono you did well. YEAH you dare to not do well for SS?!"

Thursday:
Super happy, because i clinched 3 more marks for total shitty e.geog, scoring 28/50. This pulled my combined humans to A2.

Friday:
Collected results, which were rather good. 28 in express, 2nd in class. If i were a special student, i would have been 72nd. Played my eyes out at LAN with 410 guys. Skills slightly improved during this 3rd session of counterstrike in my life LOL. Clarence owned at AWP, causing counterterrorist to totally dominate in d_dust.

Today:
Went out with my little sister Joy to Takashimaya to buy Godiva chocolate for mama as a belated birthday gift. We are both no lifes! (prolly due to my conservative dad) It was like my 6-7th time along Orchard Road for heaven's sake (her 3-4th time). Besides that, my family members typically dont know how to play Bridge, Blackjack, Mahjong, (insert fun, entertaining, comrade-bonding games) etc etc. My dad revealed to me that he frequently topped his school last time (maris stella i think) and he does not have any hobbies or interests! He always hit the books once he reached home from school when he was a student. Appalling info! Explains largely our incompetence in entertainment. Well, at least im learning -.-

Today's the first time I went out with my sister for leisure, and it was a rather interesting 6 hours outside. Felt thirsty and bought an avocado smoothie at Pass the Juice, which we shared. Wandered around and saw a Coffeebean&Tealeaf outlet, and we felt compelled to buy another drink. So we shared one regular cup of 'The Ultimate' ice blended, costing us 8 bucks. It had chocolate chips, whipped cream and fragrant ice coffee, damn ultimate.

Ate at Carls Junior. As expected, their burgers are REAL burgers, their onion rings are REAL onion rings. We ended up overeating and became extremely bloated.
Shopped at Levis and I bought a new shirt with $80 gift voucher from aunt as early bday gift. Went to Times and read some books together.

After reaching home at 8+ pm, we rested awhile before going out to jog 4.5 km. Great cool night breeze and weather conditions! I did a timing of 24.04 min

Sleep.

Where's my Tea!!

2008-05-19T21:43:00.010+08:00

Im sad now, because i just realised i have finished all the tea bags in the tea jar during the exam week. Must restock on earl gray...Tea is my good friend.

What place wherein do you find such comfort, such warmth, such unconditional care? A Tea Bag.

When you are down, it is there to console you, to tell you that all is not lost, that there is still a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
It gives you the energy to pick yourself up from the pathetic huddle you have been reduced to and spurs you on to run with all your might. It is the patch of blue amidst the gray canopy of clouds, the blanket that wraps around you when you are shivering in the bitter winter cold, and the flaming torch which shines upon the path at your feet, so that you may progress in the harsh battle.

Look at Mr Tea Bag's welcoming smile, his dark cheery eyes and lovely teabagstring. Such a perfect shade of brown too.

I have a scheduled life!

2008-05-17T12:20:00.008+08:00

Gotten all results back other than Combined Humanities.
Eng: 71/100
Chi: 67.5/100
Chem: 71.7/100
Bio: 77.5/100
Phy: 50/100
EMath: 70.1/100
Amath: 64/100

I seriously thought i would fail Physics as I didnt bother revising, except to read up on formulas! Turns out that Im happily sitting on the edge hahaha! Topped english and chem, but wanted a1 for eng :( Fonseka marked down my compo as I didnt focus on the title. Satisfied overall though!

Timetable for today

10am Wake up
10-11am Breakfast and Watch Kidcentral
1130am Run 5 km from Gombak MRT to Teck Whye and back
12pm Rest
Rest-of-the-day Watch the Bourne movies (identity, supremacy and ultimatum)

I realised Pokemon has hit rock bottom in ultimate childish and retarded hell. Advice: never watch diamond and pearl, or the other series for that matter, in which Ash Ketchum and his playmates never grows up like Peter Pan in Neverland.

My stamina dropped horrendously due to the two long weeks of inactivity because of MYEs! Two days ago when i first attempted the route since exams are over, i could barely make half the distance. I managed to complete the whole five clicks today though, clocking 24 minutes. Very satisfied with myself.

Along the way I met a cool blonde-hair ang moh, taller than me, walking in the opposite direction im running, presumably to the supermart for stuff. On my return route I surprisingly met him again, and he smiled and raised his Nescafe Coffee can, as if to cheer me on! I grinned back at him and continued on my way. No wonder no one likes Singaporeans, cos almost all of them are lousy whiners, complainers and go around with an upturned mouth and cold frowns.

Off for leftover-from-last-night-and-todays-breakfast mee fen as lunch (ugh...) Then i shall look at Jason Bourne doing cool stunts and finding his identity.

Freedom!

2008-05-14T17:07:00.003+08:00

Song Bo its finally the end of MYEs! Phy was sort of okay, because its paper 1. Im prepared to scrape through or fail paper 2. Anyway ill be using A Math in L1R5 in MYE so heck.

Bio paper 1 was a giveaway, chem paper 1 was slightly shaky but manageable, prolly able to get 3/4 of the questions right (hopefully).

Went to BOWL at bukit csc with joshua and jason. after not bowling for 3 weeks, the session was pure enjoyment. We reached there at 10, but was stunned by the people in the alley. ALL lanes were taken, by little human beings wearing Hong Kah Link Primary(or secondary, forgot). Apparently their school booked the whole alley until 12.30pm. Now why doesnt nanhua do that?

So we had no choice but to trudge back to westmall for breakfast and reading session at library. Borrowed one of the sequels of Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by douglas adams. Its a great science fiction series - everyone should read it!

Bowled 3 games with a score of 422, high score of 165, averaging 140 per game. Joshua bagged the highest score today though, with high score of 180, but average of 136. Jason's average of 120 was expected: GO BUY A BALL!

Watched iron man (2008) movie! Freaking awesome. It, i swear, is the best action comic-to-movie translation ever! I was initially hesitant to watch the movie as there are too many comic books-movies that were BAD eg. Transformers.
There were scenes oozing with coolness, such as the Jericho Cluster bomb Missile Launch and F-22s fighter jets chasing after iron man. He flies and can shoot repulsor energy beams from his palms. His house possesses windows with touchscreen glass. He is able to drag data out from computers just by pointing a stylus, onto a 'mat' on which data is transformed into 3-d schematics that he can manipulate by touch.
Great graphics - you wont be able to distinguish animations from real pictures. The script was both entertaining and humourous, something that one doesnt frequently see in violence-laden movies (try and catch Tony Stark's lines). All in all, its a decent show with just the right mix of awesome action, seriousness and comedy, and I rate it 8/10.

(at home)
Tony Stark: What are you trying to get rid of me for? You got plans?
Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: As a matter of fact, I do.
Tony Stark: I don't like it when you have plans.
Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: I'm allowed to have plans on my birthday.
Tony Stark: It's your birthday?
Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: Yes.
Tony Stark: I knew that. Already?
Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: Yeah, isn't that strange? It's the same day as last year...
Tony Stark: Well, get yourself something nice for me.
Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: I already did.
Tony Stark: Yeah? Nice?
Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: Oh, it's very nice, yes... very tasteful. Thank you, Mr. Stark.
Tony Stark: You're welcome, Ms. Potts.

(At dinner ball)
Tony Stark: Where'd you get that dress?
Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: It was a birthday present... from you, actually.
Tony Stark: I got great taste, don't I? You, uh, wanna dance?
Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: Oh, no, thank you.
Tony Stark: [leading her to the dance floor] All right, come on.

Off to watch the Bourne identity now, im a busy guy (:

Exam Stress

2008-05-08T20:18:00.005+08:00

Its been a tiring week, so getting on the computer and dishing out a blog post is like a breath of fresh air for me. I have been seriously stressed out, studying everyday for at least 6 hours consecutively without breaks, studying till midnight and being unable to stop because of the frikking long syllabus that I havent been able to complete. The feeling of not being able to be on par with others haunts me, and the race to digest, memorise and understand all the different facts and concepts totally drains me. Many a time I have faltered and my thoughts strayed to the easier way out: giving up. It really seems like a very good deal, you stop and you stop, end of story. No more late nights, no more chasing after every concept to understand, no more self-inflicted pressure. No more stress.

Geography, Social Studies, E and A Math, Physics Chemistry Biology...the onslaught of subjects take their toll on my body after a week of restless nights and horrible dreams.

Thats why i decided not to study for my E Math paper 2 tomorrow, but simply relax and slow down to double over and catch my ragged breath. I seriously feared for my life (yes! really) when there was a day when my heart rate shot up and i had trembling fingers for hours. My heart pounded loudly, creating abnormally great vibrations that I could sense even without a palm. There was this pressing force on my chest, suffocating me. I couldn't breathe. It was an extremely frightening experience, and a first for me. I took my heart pressure with my dad's pressure monitor, and it was 137! A normal person would be 120 and below. I have never, in my whole life, felt as stressed as I do at this moment of time. It was like my mind is willing and pushing me as a whole, mentally and physicaly. But my body just couldnt keep up, getting left behind, dragged further and further away, wearing the rope thin till it eventually snaps. What if the rope snaps? What happens then? I know my rope almost did, until I slowed down and let my other half catch up.

So I shall not stress myself out anymore. To hell with the papers. If i flunk badly, its because of last minute work, which is not your true ability so why bother? What matters is to work hard for all papers and score well. I plan on doing that for all future papers. No last minute work anymore. Its just not worth it scaring yourself, getting drained of energy, working late into the night and waking up early in the morning, fearing for under-preparation, thinking of the possible doom you face when you walk into the exam hall.

Never will I be so foolish again.

Time

2008-04-24T20:11:00.000+08:00

Im racing against time.

And losing.

Sports Day Finals

2008-04-20T22:10:00.004+08:00

410 absolutely owned in Sports Day! The girls and guys clinched many medals, and Kenny got the individual champ. I suppose if there was a champion class trophy, it would have been ours! I finally got the medal I have been training like hell for. Even though it was a bronze, it still represented the hard work all of us have put in. It was sad that Sheryl's dad didnt get to be in our Runner's photo, since he was the guy who gave so much to us.

And the 410 412 girls conspired against me to give a flying kiss to my sister! -.-

My parents were very glad when my sister and I showed them our fruits of labour :)

The competition is over, so now its time for us all to sit down and turn into muggers! All the best for mid years and o levels! Haha yes indeed 410 is pretty damn awesome, and may that awesomeness likewise shine through in our academic results !

Sports day

2008-03-31T22:14:00.003+08:00

Today was sports day, my first ever sports day which i competed in. The feeling was utterly horrible, as ive never been part of any physical competition in my WHOLE FREAKING LIFE! I was like a fat puiba in primary school. No one wanted me to join anything other than shot put. But this year i could run at least somewhat decently, so participating in the track events wasnt a bad idea.

Sheryl's father is great and noble man! He coached us, gave us running strategies and tips, and supplied us with 100 plus and bananas. LOL! He is Mr Nice Guy, giving his precious time to puny students like us. I bet he has flights to catch and destinations to go to in his bluetooth-controlled-silver-lexus-gs300. But he chose to accompany us for two training lessons, teaching us the basics of baton passing and such. I hope his company out-profitises Osim.

Many thanks to sheryl and her dad, cheryl alyssa hannqian amanda jason yonghui zixin junneng keith kenny kian ann plus others(if there are still) for spurring me on during my events. It was my maiden competition (LOL if it can be used like that) and i was having the jitters. in addition to feeling really low after my first 400m, because i thought i did badly as i didnt have any power in my legs during the run. They felt soft and jelly-like. Actually on hindsight it was quite ok, cos i clinched 6th place with a 63 sec time (cited from Sheryls dad).
We owned 4X400m, bagging first place! Jason, kenny and kian ann were all awesome in running. Its a wonder how Kian ann doesnt tire from his 100m and 4X100 and kenny from his 800m event.
Got last place in my 400m finals, but heck, it was back-to-back with the previous 4X400m. I knew i would get last place from the start; i was already tired out.

After all the events, my legs totally malfunctioned and felt like sleeping in the stadium for the night.

The girls also shone in relay, getting 1st due to disqualification of 412. Im sure 412 would have owned 410 due to the insanely fast and long-legged yanling plus jeraldine wee and suxiang.

Lets hope 410 does well in finals on sports day and all the best to kenny for his 1.5km and high jump, both of which are also back-to-back events.

HIATUS BREAK

2008-02-25T16:48:00.012+08:00

Rock concert: Powerhouse @ the Esplanade! Went during Saturday night. Didnt catch my friend's band on Sunday though, band name is Flybar. http://www.myspace.com/flybartheband
Mains in rock/pop. Their rock is rather light, and pop is just nice for them. Their songs are all original and composed by them! You can ask me to send you if you like :) Recommends Beautiful Killer for rock heads, while She's So Lazy for pop lovers

Lovely natural wood finish guitar

Finally a break in my super-long duration hiatus!! Common tests are over, but atmosphere isnt there for celebration as I know I didnt do well. sigh, guess thats what comes after you study only the day before the exam. Had to burn midnight oil several times, especially the weirdly fked up placing of Additional Math and Biology together. Heavy content based subject with calculations?! Nanhua is the only school doing this crap man. Two subs per day, and they say cos the O levels might have such a format. -.- like okay, how often do they have two subs in a day, and how often beyond that do they put AMath with BIO?! whatever lah.. sure get crap shit results

So far:
English: 20/30
topped the class with this grade which isnt even an A2
E Math: 29/40
though its A2, it sucks as its below the class average
Chinese: 41/70
haha great for me, im not scoring below 40s anymore
Chemistry: 30/50
the teacher said i fell below expectations

Not too promising an average...with this i already have 9 points in my L1R3?! LOL at this rate ill never go JC

During the weekend went to a Rock concert with Zhewei, poly friend : Powerhouse @ the Esplanade! From above. Listened to B-Quartet play. People, buy LIME magazine to support local music! They are giving a free CD with 30 compiled tracks from local bands, and if sales turn out well, they will continue supporting locals with more sponsors, events etc. PLEASE buy the magazines!! you can say each track costs 10 cents and the magazine comes free, whichever way you like it.

And it seems that Im finally getting an acoustic guitar! Takamine GS330s, solid cedar top., $500 bucks, mint condition.No electronics or cut-away though, so cant connect to amp. However it comes with a HARD CASING! Songbo, those cases cost like 100+ to 200+ for good ones. Xiaotian spent like duno how much last time buying an Ibanez

Oh and please watch this video. Its a short film about an auntie who frequently goes to the Clementi area. She is alittle mentally unstable, and likes to ramble about how sucky singapore is and how other countries like London or Taiwan are so much greater! She once harrassed me Kian An Kenny and others in Sumo House! These boys in the video decided to disiao her alittle and film her stupid speech

Crazy Macdonald's Aunty

Lastly, I was researching on Satanism and Black/Death Metal music last night. I found out a few things:

1. A black metal band Gorgoroth showed its Satanist support by holding a metal concert with 80 litres of sheeps blood and sheep heads around them, and they even CRUCIFIED 4 MODELS NAKED!!! they got caught and charged by authorities i think, and their video feed was confiscated. OMG!

2. Source: Church of Satan Main Website
This is taken from the "11 Satanic Rules of the Earth"

no. 3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.

no. 4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.

no. 9. Do not harm little children.

no. 11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

OMG man!!! We will be destroyed if we disturb Satanists!!!

And their no. one greatest sin that as Satanists SHOULD NOT commit is:

Stupidity—The top sin on the list for Satanic Sins. The Cardinal Sin of Satanism. It’s too bad that stupidity isn’t painful. Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatever they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable. Satanists must learn to see through the tricks and cannot afford to be stupid.

3. Disclaimer: I am merely posting information found on the web and wikipedia. Muslims or related persons to Islam, please do not be offended or upset in any way. I am not asserting in anyway that Islam is such a religion and these are not my views. Rather, I am only informing the public that there are such controversies online. Any Muslims who chance upon this blog you are welcome to dispute such articles by tagging my board or emailing me at xgamesterz@hotmail.com.

Lastly, i found that islam seems to allow paedophilic actions?! As can be found in Sura chapter 65 of the Quran. Prophet Mohammed also had nine wives.
and even married "Ayesha", a child. Since taking a child bride was so unusual, it seems Mohammed claimed Allah had spoken to him in order to overcome the strong protests of the child's father. Thus, the marriage ceremony occurred when the girl was 6 and finalized through intercourse when she was nine(51 years old) and she had sex when she was nine with him when he was 54 years old)

http://www.wikiislam.com/wiki/Pedophilia_in_the_Qur'an
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/ayesha.htm

Top gear

2007-11-07T01:35:00.001+08:00

i saw this video link through one of my subscribed email newsletters and thought, what the heck lets just watch this before i sleep. seemed to be mildly interesting. it started with hammond as the show's compere and it was a normal startoff for topgear. then halfway through, i think the bit where the plane and car starts off that i became excited (very). i was like omg what will happen next?? who will win etc. when the video ended i realised i had a crazy smile on my lips. i think im mad. or i underestimated topgear :) man i love brits...enjoy! look at the time i posted

BOWLING

2007-10-12T17:47:00.001+08:00

Wah very tired now...just now went to Bukit CSC to bowl with Joshua. It was the best bowling sessions ever since Xiaotian left. We started off striking and sparing like nobody's business but gradually weakened. Its really great without the distraction of other players, and i think that its the best if 2 or 3 people bowl at once. The people next to our lane were the only distraction. They were a group of young adults, maybe 20, and did stupid things with the ball and one guy even fell down on the lane.

Played a 5 game series, Joshua ending with 727 and me with 677, because i didnt have enough stamina. His average per game is 145 while mine 135. At least i won him in his challenge on his last game, i got 140 while he got 131. Really didnt bowl like this for a very long time! Refreshing and very shiok. The people beside us were like 50 60 plus nia. hahaha

EOY Results! I topped English, 2nd for Chem, Topped SS, and topped boys in Bio. WOOOO!

English (compo + compre): 73.7% - A2
Chinese(compo + compre): 61.8% - B4
EMath (p1 +p2): 71.3% - A2
AMath: 47.5% -Fail BAH
Chemistry: 84% - A1
Biology: 77% - A1
Physics: 66% - b3 T.T
Geography: 66% - b3 T.T
Social Studies: 76% - A1

three A1, two A2, two B3, one B4, one FAIL ....
All together average of 69! Very sad i didnt get a 70 average due to my A Math failure :( Maybe next year. BUT if i count my L1R5, it would be 11 points with ave of 73.83! So i consider to have outdone myself very well! Ahh, great bowling, great results

Ok

2007-10-10T22:51:00.001+08:00

FOLKS! wallet found under chiho's comics. i didnt think such a big thing could hide under such a small thing... right under my nose the whole time. happy now :)

Boring...

2007-10-10T15:47:00.000+08:00

Carefree life is getting alittle boring for this long weekend..i cant imagine how i will spend the whole two months of holiday. I cant find my wallet all of a sudden, though i distinctly remember it being in the house. dont know why i cant find it now! Sian can cry.

JO said that Mr ng said that i got A2 for my emath! cool the results are great, but ill kill JO if he is fibbing. JO said he got 74.4 or something that is ridiculously close to A1. HAH SADed

If only i have some tracking device on my belongings, or i could just brandish a wand and shout ACCIO WALLET then my wallet will come flying back :( I read reader's digest and it said that 68% of the world population honestly gave back mobile phones to their owners when they found them lying around. I hope that if my wallet is really lost a kind soul will give it back to me ><

ah crap

Let the Rain Fall Down

2007-10-05T22:47:00.000+08:00

Man, this hilary duff's song is stuck in my head.

EOY is officially OVER! Complete with a super long weekend, from Saturday to Wednesday! wooohooo!

after the whole miserable week of mugging from afternoon to wee hours of morning, i cannot believe that the ordeal is finally over and done with. HAH!

now i am too free...so free that i dont know what to do! no schedule to follow, no goals to accomplish! diedie im wasting away like this :O

i SO killed my A math paper. like 3-4 questions dont know how to do. And i dont know WHY we were given so little time. 2 hours for 12 questions. Hard questions. Past year commonwealth's was easy in comparison lor.

decided to forget math and burn our books so went out with zixin keith vincent jason yonghui jonathanyap that gang. First we wanted to play pool at JEC, zixin's idea. Then the stupid guy at the counter did not let us play cos Zixin ic was under 16 -.-. he gave some gloves to shilei there then we slaughtered him for wasting our time, cos we must then go to SAFRA at bukit merah to play. took mrt and bus then saw that the pool there was practically teeming with people! almost no vacancies, and tables were booked. So we could only play 1 game each, around 30 min.

then since we had nothing to do we moved on to the bowling alley above. had to use a house ball and house shoe, which led to me falling down flat on my first shot. scored pretty pathetic scores, but considering that im out of practice and handicapped without my own equipment, 2 games 116 and 100 was okay i guess.

they had some kind of bowling tournament there so we were likewise chased away after 2 games. sad so we ended having nothing to do and went back home to sleep and play gb.

i played gb yesterday until like 2 am and then read manga (which messr yoon chi ho lent me) till 4am! the manga was drawn by the same artist as Love Hina, so there are some scenes of indecent exposure of girls. really crazy and i woke up at 9am today to watch some taiwan show on vcd that my sisters borrowed. called 恶作剧的清吻 or something.

so now after having lunch i have practically nothing to do.... help

Start of EOY

2007-09-28T20:58:00.000+08:00

Whoo hoo! Great start to the EOYs! Blasted chem right through. Hard work pays off i guess. I hope english will get at least a b3, cos i always screw up in my summary...

Rather worried for the rest of the papers (esp heavy content-based subjects ie. Geo and Bio) as I have not really touched them. :(

EOY GO DIE LARH

2007-09-23T21:29:00.002+08:00

im dead. ive only finished chem and half of amath. geog is killer!! 200 pages. how to finish.

im worried for my eng compo cos i wrote my first argumentative for exam. chinese was unexpectedly easy though, im quite sure i wont go below fourty. great!

why must nanhua be so cruel to us students by putting two exam papers in one day?! sadistic you know. sigh die liao die liao, some more hand still itching to play, of all things, gunbound. good thing is ever since their stupid update for their lame event, my com has been having blue screen of deaths probably due to some glitch in the graphics rendering. so i will be discouraged to play.

wah...think of eoy really wanna die liao. monday blues tomorrow

EOY GO DIE LARH

2007-09-23T21:29:00.001+08:00

Freaking tiring days

2007-09-03T18:44:00.000+08:00

WAH I hate CIP!!!!! I did a full 7.5 hours at Junction8, Bishan, and I had to get up so early in the morning, when most of the student population was still sleeping in their nice warm comfy beds. Two weeks in a row, can you believe it?? Last week was Flag Day, the first and the last for me EVER in my LIFE. yes. I had to like walk on the streets, smile, ask politely for MONEY from people holding a tin can in front of them, as if I am a beggar, and smile even more and give thanks when they shake their head. The disgust is so obvious in their faces. I dont think there is anything in this world more demeaning. In the end I collected like less than half can, the contents which would probably amount to less than $10. And that was from 11am to 5pm, 6 hours. From City hall all the way to somerset and orchard. I could only watch peppy girls in almost-nonexistant FBTs and oversized tshirts prance around asking for donations from people, as if giving to these angels is the most beautiful thing on earth. This is why I hate flag day. Cos im not a girl, and men dont flock to me like lost sheep

So I had to choose this sunday as my CIP project, instead of saturday, which was another flag day. But the job this time round was great. My job was to give out balloons and flyers with jason to little kids and their parents, informing them about the charity fiesta at level 3. Those kids of age 2-4 are super adorable, with their small hands reaching out to grasp the balloon's stick. Then saying thank you! with a super big grin. Wah these people can really melt your heart, so thats why the hours were so worth it. Oh yea i had to walk around with a balloon bent into a shape of a dog on my head.

reached home at around 8 after having dinner with jeremy, Jyap and Charmaine. Yoshinoya is not worth it really. A small bowl of rice, some beef and soup costs $5.80! Ridiculous! But the beef was indeed tender and it tasted great. Crapped some funny stuff to each other in the restaurant and mrt until everyone went off.

Then today was ugh. Some Drug awareness program. So we learnt that drugs are bad, and we were told to tell others that too. Hmm...really nice. I so didnt know that before this? Its such amazing and useful information! Omg, i must really thank Boys Brigade for making me attend this super informative course that will help us greatly in our life's journey! Especially since our holiday is only one week long, and we have our EOYs round the corner. Great timing! I really dont know how our officers work such wonders. Mainly for the course we just sat there and listened to a long lecture, then after that broke into groups to create skits. The skits were funny, but that was the only good part today :\

Shall do some chemistry or math hw today or i wouldnt have enough time for revision due to and equally enthralling geography project about coastal protection and real estate, and chinese remedial tomorrow.

Bye, to watch tv and have dinner!

Mr Jay Chou

2007-09-01T17:10:00.001+08:00

Today i am going to pay homage to jay chou, by dedicating this entire post to him. Have you all watched Secret? Ive not, but Ive seen the piano battle scenes on youtube.

watch here

They (yu hao and Jay) are simply phenomenal! Especially for the third song. So currently im learning all of the battle songs. cant believe that ive recognized his talent only after so many years. his singing isnt the best to say the least, but his piano is awesome! i was like O.O omgwtfbbqkaninacheebyecrazyasshole stunned literally for some time after finishing the video, then proceeding to replay after snapping out. ive watched the piano battle scene for around 10 times now.

here is the link to the score sheets of all music regarding Secret, even those pieces outside the battle scene

ive roughly learnt battle 2 (yuhao version first, cos jay's is a little gay) , which is the improvised chopin waltz. everyone should go try!

this movie was self directed by him and he even acted in it. i wonder how o.O

Things that make you smile

2007-08-22T23:04:00.000+08:00

Went to piano today. My piano teacher has a super cute little daughter around 3 years old, just learnt how to walk and talk. Haha she has a knack for being at the doorstep at 8pm when i arrive, and she will stare at me with her soulful eyes, mouth halfopen, neck craned as if saying why are you so tall?

and she always says buhbye! buhbye! when i leave, like 8 - 10 times. with her beaming and hand waving. just a year ago she was scooting around the house on her knees, and now she can walk! heh it seems nice to watch someone grow.

then when i was on the way home, i cut across through the market area, those places with only one narrow strip of floor in between shops, so that the two way people traffic always congest it. a dog owner was standing at a convenience store looking at something, with his dog next to him. dont know what breed, but it has lots of nice gray fur and some half-covered his eyes. and it was licking every passerby's leg! lol so when i passed by it it licked mine too. cant help but smile at then :)

physics was a disappointment, expected an A, but only got b3. missed a2 by 0.5 marks! omg....31/45

maths sucked, barely passing am and failing horribly for em. entirely below expectations! (for a math)

english was heartbreaking as well, but chinese was great. 35/55, giving me a b4. lol chinese o.o

ok im off the play gb. the other boys are waiting for me

Things that can make you smile

2007-08-22T21:27:00.000+08:00

Yay

2007-08-18T15:02:00.000+08:00

exams are finally over! 9 freaking papers in a week! woo!

quite disappointed with my eng though, i only scored 18/30, and ms elaine chng thinks my summary contains phrases which are not conventional. like how i summarised " lawyers will discard information that will distract the jury"
into "able to zone straight into the crux". so next time i shall use simpler eng. she justified it by saying that she had never heard of such a phrase before....i wonder whats the 'language' section in the summary about??

but im relatively confident for the other papers, probably will do better than prev exam.
so for now I can finally take a well deserved break! pool, guitar, bowling whatever....yesss

Xiaotian's left

2007-08-12T15:02:00.000+08:00

After watching trains pass me by today, I realised that life is just like an MRT train, rushing past the world around it, stopping only at the stations where people board and alight, just like the friends we meet and let go. But ever so often we grow attached enough to alight at one station to be with that person for a moment or two, though I know in the end we'll still have to board the tireless, ever-rushing train. To move on, off to another destination, where new endeavors and friends await. Moving on...always moving on....until the very last stop

Xiaotian has finally gone for HK...im glad we enjoyed our last few days with each other to the fullest, only the two of us. pool, bowling, studio jamming....good food like pizza hut and crystal jade.

i have taken you for granted, that you are always 5 mrt stops and one bus away, but now i have come to realise that it is indeed very easy to lose someone. you are the only person who have ever gotten this close to me and vice versa, spending almost every single moment together, being almost inseparable. i doubt ill be able to find another friend whom i can share so many things with together and learn so much from.

i just hope now that you can live a great life there in HK, and dont forget me and the people youve met in the 5 years in SG.

farewell, and see you someday. if we ever get to do so, promise me you will shout fker the next time we meet in person.

The Best Years of Our Lives - Evan Taubenfeld

2007-08-11T14:46:00.001+08:00

This song truly captures my feelings and its lyrics are so beautiful that I decided to post it up... Enjoy

download here

Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...
Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...
Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...

We had the best years of our lives,
But you and I would never be the same,
September took me by surpise,
And I was left to watch the seasons change,

Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...
Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...
Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...

It's been so quiet since you've gone,
And everyday feels more like a year,
Sometimes I wish I could move on,
The memories would all just disappear.

So many things I should'ah,
Said when I had the chance,
So many times we took it all for granted.

I'd never thought this could ever end,
I'd never thought I'd lose my bestfriend,
Everything is different now,
Can we stop the world from turning.

I'd never thought I'd have to let you go,
I'd never thought I'd ever feel this low,
I wish I could go back,
And we stop the world from turning.

Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...
Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...

Looking back on better days,
When we were young,
We thought we knew so much.
And now it seems so far away,
Of wondering if I was good enough.

So many things I should\'ah,
Said when I had the chance,
So many times we took it all for granted.

I'd never we would ever end,
I'd never thought I'd lose my bestfriend,
Everything is different now,
Can we stop the world from turning.

I'd never thought I'd have to let you go,
I'd never thought I'd ever feel this low,
I wish I could go back,
And we stop the world from turning.

Gone are the days,
When we swore we'd never break,
And now I'm left here alone.

Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...
Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...
Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...
Oh Oh ooo...

I\'d never thought we would ever end,
I'd never thought I'd lose my bestfriend,
Everything is different now,
Can we stop the world from turning.

I'd never thought this could ever end,
I'd never thought I'd lose my bestfriend,
Everything is different now,
Can we stop the world from turning.

I'd never thought I'd have to let you go,
I'd never thought I'd ever feel this low,
I wish I could go back,
And we stop the world from turning.

Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...
Oh Oh oo Oh Oh oo...
Oh Oh ooo...

Hiatus - be back shortly after

2007-08-09T17:37:00.001+08:00

Going away for the next week or so. Nanhua seems to like giving us all the papers in one shot: we have 9 exams for the whole of next week! super kanjiong... so since the school is so super charged, i have no choice but to abandon this blog until i clear my hurdles

all the best for those who are also mugging!

happy national day to you, and birthday to me

goodbye my dear xiaotian. we only have two more days together

ERIC CLAPTON

2007-08-06T21:49:00.000+08:00

WOW ive spent an entire night scouring youtube for eric clapton's music. That guy is a guitar legend! His discography is 4gb worth of songs, styles from classic rock to blues. been playing ever since 1965.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZiOuHnbd8xc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WxTWQD91b5c&mode=related&search=

start listening to real songs! classic rock and blues is the music!

NEWT exams

2007-08-03T19:00:00.000+08:00

You scored as Outstanding, Looks like you know your stuff pretty well! Keep up the good work!

Outstanding

100%

Poor

80%

Acceptable

80%

Troll

60%

Dreadful

60%

Exceeds Expectations

60%

N.E.W.T. Exam (Harry Potter)
created with QuizFarm.com

LOL im outstanding..can be hermione liao

-

2007-07-14T21:56:00.000+08:00

Heart
heavy as stone

Left
Sad and alone

All the times we had
Gone
Like a tide that comes
And goes

Tried to pull you back
But twas in vain
You still packed
Up, vanished into the rain

see the smile
hear the laughter?

Whats left is only the whispering wind
In my ear
Whats left is only a ghost
Whats left is only drear

Goodbye, friend
Time waits for no man

28 days

GUITAR

2007-07-05T20:29:00.000+08:00

Went bowling yesterday...Xiaotian's wrist has recovered and he instantly bowled an AMAZING game of 203, beating his previous best of 202. Damnit, his 3 weeks of sucky bowling must = one game of superb score which defeated joshua and i crushingly. My best game in 4 was 144 points only...quite sad. BUT ive found a line which suited my style! I found out I was starting off too right on the board, so I shall bowl better next session.

Got my guitar and amp last sunday and these are the pictures!! BC Rich Mockingbird bronze series electric guitar, and Vox AD15VT valvetronix amplifier. Taken by my Canon ixus v2, which is at least slightly better than my crap phone.

God

2007-06-16T18:30:00.000+08:00

Charmaine gave me seemingly very pissed off answers to my half-joke of a post "Daydreaming" so im writing this post to answer her, also in a more serious tone

I am unconcerned with hell being enjoyable or not, now or later, because thats not the point. "Daydreaming" actually questions God's will. For why did he create man? Why did he create sinners, or in other words, souls that are destined to perish eternally? What is hell? To the best of my knowledge, He created man out of love, to give his love and make it known. That should be true in a sense. Then comes the question of sinners. Sinners exist because of Adam and Eve's folly in the garden of eden, by accepting the fruit that enabled them to differentiate between good and evil. That was the first sin. And also because of Satan's presence and hold over this physical world. All this can be found in the Bible.

So what about sinners, why do i bring them up? Because Sin separates man from God, and then God created Jesus Christs his son to bring salvation and offer a road to him, if only we believed and have faith in his existence. In other words, sinners or non-believers are sent to hell. Now that is a tad bit extreme, because considering the fact that you have a limited life span therefore have limited sin (you cant sin eternally in like 80 years), how can anyone deserve to have eternal punishment. This can be justified by saying God is perfect and therefore imperfect things cannot stay with him, but it still does not do justice entirely to sinners, since they cannot possibly sin infinitely. Then comes the non-believers. My church or every church in the whole world teach that even if a person with super-morals and live life like monks will not achieve salvation because of them not believing in God. This is unfair in a sense too, since there are lesser believers than non-believers, they tend to stick in their own camps. For example there would be much lesser christians than non-christians in countries like Iran, because of their environment. Your religion will in most cases take after your parents or relatives or close ones, in other words your environment, so people are going to hell just because they dont believe in Christ. Also, the amount of sin you commit is dependable on your environment and your genes too. Genetics and improved DNA understanding have uncovered links between genes and traits such as violence. So if you were an abused child in a troubled and stormy childhood, with genes that make you more violent and rash than normal, and you grow up to become a mass murderer, does that make you worthy of going to hell? Because some people have defined going against God as purposefully doing acts of sin and unholiness without remorse (eg murder, sex crimes, adultery). What if the reason for that was your genes and environment? Mass murderers would not be mass murderers if they had good environments like you and me. Even genes alone would not provoke such extreme lifestyles. At this point the only possible rebukes I can think of is that God's definition of justice is not definable by man, because we have limited understanding, so maybe in God's terms of justice the sins people commit and the disbelief in Christ will warrant them a permanent stay in hell. I have to say that in my opinion that is unfair.

So whats all those roundabout talk about? Its all down to God's will, about why he wanted to create man, sinners in man, the souls that will go to hell. The Bible says he is all-loving and all-seeing, knowing, forever living ---- omnipotent. Why does he create souls he already knows will perish in hell? Because of his omnipotence, he easily knows before even creating them, that they would encounter the unique environments in the physical world and eventually lead them into hell. Why does he allow this to happen, even though he knows what will happen and he loves us? At this point, Satan is not even a factor, so we cannot simply say that he allows sin to propagate on Earth. He can make the decision whether or not to make them. And why he created man in the first place?

Sometimes I really want the Bible to be more detailed and also contain all of the answers to the questions man have for God, though I know its purpose in the first place was to lead the first few christians, that is few thousand years ago in bible terms, into Christ, and not all of the things we thirst for knowing. Just imagine instead of "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ", it would be "at 10^-43 seconds the big bang explosion of very hot and dense matter expanded exponentially at an indescribable rate. Then quarks formed and after the universe cooled due to its even expansion quarks started forming neutrons protons and electrons, then the first element - hydrogen - formed, later on giving rise to heavy metals " ...so on.

And to charmaine, I do not know why she referred to hell as being dark. If it was a king's (one of them in the bible i forgot.) son's wedding banquet, where he threw some people out into the dark and closed the gates as the metaphor for hell being dark, I can equally say that the darkness could be a place in heaven where God places Christians that do not do the acts deemed right by God. Anyway we cannot deem hell as dark or any of the properties I have stated before, because of our limited knowledge of Christianity. We do not truly or fully understand God, and therefore we do not fully understand hell. Maybe darkness is a property of hell? But the bible also states fire as a metaphor for hell, so as our understanding of fire is a chemical reaction (combustion) producing heat and light, I naturally assumed hell to have some form of light. It would be sad though if no one could see each other there. That aside, I know I have said heaven as being boring. I also know that since heaven is perfect, no one would be bored. The reason for my contradicting statement is that since everyone would have a perfect environment that exudes happiness/joy/calm/vitality etcetc, then the perfectness of the environment would in itself be its own failing. Because a perfect environment would cease to be perfect due to the imperfect beings inside, that is the souls of man. Perhaps our form and intelligence and therefore behavior would change once we reach heaven/hell, but if we retain the same behavioral patterns, the perfectness of heaven would cease to be. Unless God makes us perfect, but he have never done so, because that would have taken away free will, which he gave to us, we will be "bored". The bored joke is only made because of the imperfectness of heaven in my eyes, IF the circumstances are what I have described.

That being said, given his omnipotence, he could also make people with nature that perfectly harmonises with his standard, so that everyone goes to heaven, AND at the same time still maintain free will, AND still remain happy in heaven. My logic is that since he gives us free will, and assuming that he wants us to continue having it, we will eventually be bored in heaven, given our retained behavior in our souls. Here you can say that he is omnipotent and can make our souls have free will, retain the same behaviour and still not be bored because of his omnipotence, then of course I wont have anything to say. But like I said, its just a joke...why take it so seriously!

We are imperfect due to how he created us, for the reason of free will, which can actually be circumvented if he tries. Imagine us being perfect. Still with free will. Well I guess he has his reasons

I truly believe in the Bible, and therefore God and Jesus Christ, and have accepted Him as my saviour, but surely a Christian is entitled to his own questions and pondering? :) I will never know the answers to these questions until I ask him myself...

Bowling!

2007-06-11T15:16:00.001+08:00

Went bowling today morning with XT and Joshua. Largely satisfied with my scores today. My highest game was a 160+ and the other three were at least 128 above. Ended with a total score of 561 for 4 games, average score per game is 140.25, woohoo
Xiaotian had a wrist sprain ever since last week's session, so he didnt bowl very well...Joshua was his usual self, incorporating crazy-stupid blends of actions and taunts.

Like "Look Im definitely going to spare this shot", then proceeds to wipe his ball sagely and walk with flair to the line. Too bad his ball went into the drain directly after he released the ball.

After eating Meltz at kfc (ive at least eaten 7 times now) we went to City hall to look at guitars. Wasnt very eventful, but along the way on the MRT we saw a SUPERFAT woman. Seriously Ive never seen anyone so fat in my whole life. Her lower leg can be the size of my thigh. Worse still her face isnt kindly looking like the girl in 200 pounds beauty. It was sort of contorted with little points of black for eyes in her pudgy, semi-solid flesh of a face and her mouth was a thin line shaped into a grimace. Imagine our horror, at the sight of such a being who could sit on 1.8m tall people and crush them.

Anyway after looking at guitars we went home to do pending homework...sigh

Daydreaming

2007-06-02T09:06:00.000+08:00

Have you ever woken up from bed on a weekend and lay there unmoving, not wanting to spoil your comfortable position? Or have you ever started gazing out of your window into the far distance on a golden late afternoon, bored with your homework? It is these times that I begin daydreaming. Thinking through, I daydream of pretty funny stuff when I was young, and hopelessly unrealistic ones in the present.

When I was a child, I thought about heaven and hell, whether I would perish in the fiery depths or go live in the fluffy white clouds with God after my death. I was terrified at the thought of going to hell. Then when I grew a little older I thought about it again (also recently). Everyone is going to live (in hell or heaven) eternally, that is forever or infinite time. Going to hell isnt that bad, I thought. Think, if you went there (which has eternal flame that burns you), wont you eventually get used to it? Seriously, because you wont ever "die" again, so you would just keep burning and burning. Wont people adapt to the temperatures and then start sitting around and playing poker or something. Or sinful stuff since hell is full of those people....hey, no AIDS in hell man.

Then heaven is another thing. Imagine you go to a place wonderfully perfect and joyful that there is not a single blemish of non-goodness. For ever.
I mean, it would be nice at the start, but FOREVER and ETERNAL is a very very long time indeed, so wouldn't anyone start getting bored along the way? And you cant go down to hell to join those people having fun there too. But saying that, the people in hell would also sooner or later become bored. We all have human nature in us = we get bored easily. Sian ah. First words you say when chores are given to you.

So what about God. He is omni-potent, the Alpha and Omega (beginning and the end), the eternal being..........
AINT HE A BORED OLD MAN???
He existed without a start, and is forever, such that the human mind has no capacity to comprehend. To us, everything is simply cause and effect. You jump down the building, you die. No sane person ever said I have always been jumping down buildings, with no starting and no end. Because it simply does not make sense.
Anyway back to God. He has existed far longer than anyone could ever imagine, so I imagine he is pretty bored up there. Ok he has his herald of angels, white kingdom, he could do anything he wanted....but for eternal life that is still boring. So I think he created man out of boredom. That is the only logical reason I could come up with. Standard answers in church say that our purpose in life is to spread God's word to others. Ok this is all very well, since God wants more people in heaven, but it still doesn't explain why he wanted to create us in the first place. I say he is bored. You see, one day he created the universe in the big bang and the many colourful things in it. But that isnt enough. He created sentient beings that he could watch and amuse himself with. He can witness from beginning to the end of man how they lived and constantly upgraded himself, and also be a small part in every person in the form of their conscience. Isn't this familiar? The Sims??
Then I also thought, since he has omni-potency (infinite power) he SHOULD be able to know what would happen in the world and what man would do even before he created it. So I guess it also defeats the purpose of creating us.

Sigh, what a boring life we would have and God has....wonder what he could do to amuse himself, but also knowing fully well that He would still be bored eventually. Eternity, such a lonely word.
Anyway we are doomed one way another, so just live life as extravagantly as possible!

Now all this is simply my daydreaming! It is in fact all rubbish. Dont take it seriously

z

2007-06-01T20:24:00.000+08:00

As I am typing now, the rest of my family is sitting on the couch with their eyes glued to their tv watching crocodile hunter. Amidst all of the shrieks, whoops, suppressed screams followed by sighs of relief that the bad croc/poisonous spider/scorpion/any deadly creature you can name, did not eat up the person/sting/bite/kill him. Sooner or later there will be hysterical laughter and they will start writing memorials to Steve irwin. I am glad im in my sanctuary that protects me from the horrors of the wild, though technically they are just pixels on the tv screen.

Book Recommendation! : A man named dave by Dave pelzer
This book is super bewitching that it kept me totally glued to it for one whole day such that i finished it in one day. 400 pages. Its about a child who was abused by his mother, because the mother was emotionally unstable and was a victim of abuse herself. This is the third book of a series that depict his life (the author's); its all true. This is about his adult life, about his being unable to emotionally accept the woman he loved and totally trust her, eventually leading to divorce, and how he met another amazing woman whom he was totally blown over by, because of her virtues, attitude, understanding of his situation, and her constant encouragement.
This book is as touching as Chinese Cinderella! For those who like to read about people's lives and cry for them, well this is the perfect book! My sister's friend (my sister borrowed the book from her friend, then i borrowed from my sister) actually cried when reading the book, or so my sister claimed.

Of course if you dont like emotion-laden tear-jerkers, there is always Eoin Colfer and artemis fowl waiting for you :)

Hacker Google

2007-05-31T18:39:00.000+08:00

heh check this out: Google for h4xx0rz (hackers)

http://www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/

Camp

2007-05-27T15:16:00.000+08:00

Just came back from BB leadership training camp, which timeslot was extremely convenient to be on the first day of holidays. Imagine something like your friend saying "Hey what have you been doing in the holidays? Ive watched a movie, hanged out with friends, played granado espada.... "

And you reply "Camp." He would be like "..HUH??"

Really its pathetic but glad that its over at last. Its the first camp that is combined with the Girls brigade, though we had different activities. First day straight after school we were whisked away in those yellow buses to Sembawang BB/GB campsite. The sleeping quarters suck totally. The walls were like made of hollow wood so we could punch them and the paint would sort of crumble. Cracks everywhere. Beds were ok, only no bolster, because I like hugging bolsters to sleep at night. Ventilation came in the form of two small KOK ceiling fans that (fortunately) were able to oscillate, and also slitted glass panes like those in school. Allocation: ten boys to one room roughly the size of one-third of a classroom.

After some sian drill and dinner and bath time (we showered in the girl's toilets first cos the GB didnt come until 9pm) we went night cycling at 12am on 21 speed bikes. We covered around 50 km in 3 hours, going across 5 mrt stations and some places i didnt even knew existed in Singapore which looked like some malaysia backstreet. THEN we got chased by stray dogs! Once I cycled past a black dog and then it kept barking at our pack and gave chase, which eventually gave up after awhile. Another time was when we were going back to the camp site and some dogs from the coffeehouses gave chase for no reason. We pedaled like crazy for that one to lose it, and luckily it gave up cos we would have started cycling uphill. Made it back to camp at around 330am then showered and slept.

Second day was pretty much uneventful but we had a night campfire organised together with the GB and BB. We had an icebreaker game that needed two persons to be trees and another to be a squirrel and when the MC shouts something like HUNTER! or FIRE! squirrels had to find other trees or the tree had to find other squirrels. Obviously it wasnt successful cos the boys would group with other guys and girls would group with other girls and there werent enough squirrels to go around. Those left without squirrels (only BB boys) were called up by Mr Ng and we were cursed to meet him after the campfire in FULL UNIFORM. wtf. anyway after that no one really sang the campfire songs with heart (only the officers were singing) and we cant see or hear anything for the skits other than the one that gb and bb performed together. dek guan suxiang and jemimah were the main characters. dek guan was acting a boy who had low grades and joined bb. He insulted the officers there, but the GB people helped pull up his grades by tutoring him as they were one big family. And eventually he liked bb and gb. They were acting hilariously retarded cos the girls were super twit-ish and dek guan was like an idiot. Pity Li wei was sick so he couldnt act.

After the campfire we fell-in in the basketball court in full u for Mr Ng. He told us we didnt cooperate with the GB and made them look stupid and feel like failures, but despite that they even pleaded with him not to punish us, all while we were in push up positions. Following his speech we did 11 push ups. Not very heavy punishment but after that ordeal many people in my bunk (i was the room IC) were all livid and cursing and threatening never to go camps anymore.

For me I sort of envied the girls. They are really united in GB and they have fun. So unlike us, because we go to camp for training instead of relaxing. When parading I hear their laughter and screams coming from their bunks all the time. When I walk around the corridors I see them in groups practicing for skits and other nice stuff. I guess that though their drill totally sucks they sure utilise their time much better than us. What is discipline? What for having discipline? I rather be labeled slack and have thrice as much fun as we are having currently. Isn't bonding more important than the so-called discipline we gain after having those drills and strict regimes (though NCC is much stricter, so I pity them)? Girls have aircon rooms and fun camp schedules. Boys have fan rooms and crazy surprises like fire drills when officers wake boys up in midnight and shout fire, and then later say some one is missing so we have to run around at 2am in the morning. I dont mean that I dont like the discrimination, cos im fine with it. My point is they are allowed to enjoy themselves, and more importantly they really KNOW how to. Like as if they need to care about being 'tough' and 'man' and do stupid things to show that.

Sometimes I really do wish I was born a girl.

wtf

2007-05-18T17:50:00.001+08:00

argh Im SUPER depressed now, cos my results like totally sucked and I really feel as if I have failed myself. I am pathetic.

A math: 28/80 O.O
E math: 52/80 okay..
Chem: 48.5/100 omg
Physics: 51/100 OMG
Biology: 80/100 finally one A
English: 68/100 also happy
Chinese: 57/100 very happy! cos its CHINESE (oh the horror)
Geography: 71/100 not bad but under expectations
SS: 32/50 not bad also under expectations

damnit i know there are some out there with worse results than me and i just sound like some arrogant person but I really had better expectations. Guess i didnt study much this time round thus the results. And many have already heard me whining more than once and maybe i seem moody (or moodier than normal) as observed by amanda.

ah nevermind...

ive been watching this really silly anime called ouran high school recently and it cracks me up. though it gets less funny as you progress down the episodes, cos they consist of mostly the same jokes. it has no plot at all, only jokes so I wouldnt exactly call it a nice anime, but at least it makes me laugh

chiho if you are reading this and smirking to yourself at my stupidity behind that tablet(if you can call it one, its more like some metal jumbled together) please LEND me .Hack volume 2! or ill punch you cos i said please already

! havent updated yesterday's stuff due to me slitting my wrists out of depression in the toilet lol of course not..im actually blasting nice music

Yesterday we had the very BEST assembly ever in whole history of Nanhua high. we had a group of 5 singaporeans to sing chinese songs on stage, and though i do not especially like chinese songs or their vocals (the black guy sucks totally) it 100% beats sitting there and enriching ourselves of the EAGLES award through EXCITING powerpoint slides. isnt listening to strained voices trying to pull off songs much better than listening to ms yo's drone??

no actually on second thought she is much better. i mean, she has that perfect hour glass figure and sweet melodious voice, the chinese pop band simply cant compare!

i like the pianist! she(looks like he) improvised on the melody (albeit with some mistouching) nicely and well. if only there were guitarists there too.

ok thats it i think, cos i didnt really care about things happening around me lately. glad that xt is back; now i have someone to annoy

to sheryl and judith: NO i am not moody (or esp. quiet) because i miss XT!

Spidey 3

2007-05-11T17:30:00.000+08:00

Day two of my long weekend: Went to watch spiderman 3 today with 310 boys at JEC! Sad thing is i lost 10 bucks there. May the person who took it die of a horrible death! People who went:

Keith
JO
Kenny
Jason
Junneng
WenFu
Yonghui
Vincent
Me

Stupid keith didnt tell me they were going to play soccer after the movie so I wore JEANS and a long-sleeved shirt! But anyway I didnt join them after all because Joshua begged me (sms-ed) to go bowling with him. The movie was ok, it is what i expect from a regular superhero movie: powerful bad guys owned by good guys. It lacks the material to really captivate moviegoers and it isn't the kind of movie that will be remembered down the years. I liked the Sandman, because he really is invincible and can shapeshift, almost like terminator. In reality, scientists will never say "oh the silicon mass has changed" and still go ahead with the experiment or whatever. Venom is weak (scared of reverbs) and the green goblin is technologically advanced (cool!). Spiderman is still the old nerd who can shoot webs.Peter cried in this movie though, which is the first for me. I dont think the movie is rushed or anything like that, unlike what some people said. Overall, superb CGI graphics, such as the cute little symbiote (little blob of Venom Parker's lecturer took for experimentation), sandman and the crane scene. Ill give this movie 6.5/10. To know my standard, day after tomorrow is a 7.5 and AI an 8.

Right after the movie we had some time to burn so we went to zoneX in JEC. I topped up 2 bucks in my tapZ and wanted to pit my rusty initial d skills against the regulars there. Mind you, I have been out of service for half a year due to bowling! Initially I wanted to trash a noob Ive been observing (and laughing at), but when I sat down infront of the console, he switched places with another guy! Presumably better (or PRO).

What came afterwards was surprising. I chose the ci4 cheng4 map(or akagi, for ID fans out there :D ) to test waters, since it is a little technical and requires intermediate skill, and I lost to him barely. Haha, this guy is noob. regular vs rusty pro, i thought

Then since i lost I got to choose maps again, so I chose my best map tu2 ban3 (Tsuchisaka), HAHA and i trashed him TOTALLY! Was 200m in front of him when i finished.

Then he challenged me again in (probably his best map), Irohazaka - I dont know the chinese pronunciation cos its all a bunch of swirly jap. Dang and he is using Mitsu Evo IV, which is good on that map, and Im using GC8V (subaru imprezza wrx). Sian and I got pwN3d! he was 200m ahead of me when he finished. -.- if only i had more money....though Im still satisfied, given my skills have deteriorated, I still have the ability t trash noobs and not-so-noob noobs. AND if only XT was there, he would have trashed him (Iro is his best map too) So sad...

But Im glad now, cos I managed to find my Fender pick! It was almost like excavating through a thousand-year-old historical ruins (my desk)! Lots of dust and rubbish and candy/biscuit wrappers that helped me stay awake through the night(!). All the books that were so essential and important to me during the mugging period of midyears suddenly turned from gold to trash.

And it was worse than THIS during the exam period!

ok bye now ive got to go watch hai3 tun2 wan1 (dolphin bay) on channel u

EXAMS OVERR

2007-05-10T18:24:00.000+08:00

wahahahahahah exams are finally OVER! the long week of gruelling torture has ended!

i fear for my a maths though, i think ill fail it again. other papers hopefully will score above 60...

but now with tons of time on my hands i cannot seem to find anything to do other than playing guitar and then super smash bros after my fingers hurt too much.

my favourite smash bros character: kirby. it can suck people in and steal powers, turn into rock and also float

went to xt's house today to play as duet for songs like hotel california and stairway to heaven. it was rather fun but i had to leave at 3 cos his plane to hk is at 5. sian as i type he is in a cathay pacific business class plane, albeit one experiencing technical difficulties (haha). his plane is still grounded now, time is 6pm.

tomorrow i shall go out (first time as group of 310 classmates) with keith JO kenny jason and other boys to watch spiderman 3. though ive heard it sucks and such other spirit-dampening comments on the movie i will still go ahead and splash my 8 dollars (!!) worth to catch the friendly neighbourhood building-leaping, web-slinging, red-turning-black vigilante.

and im so heartbroken! my psp is suffering now with a bricked firmware!! after flashing a new custom firmware for my psp, i action go try and replace default theme files with a mac theme's...it ended up with my psp unable to boot...wtf. super sad, cos i have to do mind-boggling dull and stupid stuff tonight like recovery booting and reflashing of the firmware to save my dead psp. if not it will remain as it is, as useful as a brick :(

hope i will have fun tomorrow, and im glad elaine chng said i did ok for english! hahaha finally a load of my mind! xt called mr ng and he said he is (evil) giving back papers on tues. wtf we know he is a super workmaniac but he dont have to show off his marking abilities now right! cant he spend the long weekend on something meaningful??? like adding a turbocharger to his beat up sunny or test out how long it will take for him to reach terminal velocity by jumping off the madeira (kidding!) or something

hope everyone has a great time before we get back the papers!

LED ZEPPLIN

2007-05-01T11:18:00.000+08:00

I have finally found what Ive been looking for after so long! an acoustic reenactment of Led Zepplin's famous 8 min long classic rock masterpiece. The original song was done with flute, one bass, one lead, and one accompaniment guitar and percussions. This song is like 36 years old?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJ4Gp088hs&mode=related&search=

Avril, avril

2007-04-29T20:25:00.000+08:00

How much can a singer change in two years?

In the case of Avril Lavigne, a lot. Her first album, Let Go (the one and only original music album I own), has a lot of pop rock personality, coupled with a little emo-ness. I kind of like that.. Her second album under my skin was also nice, some songs with a quieter feel. She herself is quite talented as well, possessing the ability to play the guitar and piano. On top of that she has a better than nice (not Mariah Carey or Celion Dion fantastically powerhouse, but still wonderful nevertheless) voice.

That voice is totally wasted on her new album!! zomg black-dressing-bad-girl just turned into pink-pop princess-in-miniskirt! She sounds like all the other female pop singers now (ala hilary duff, britney spears, tata young etc) crapping about bubbly love/stealing boyfriends/nice hair/bitches. argh

Seriously, strictly speaking the only decent songs that retains her original unique style that sets her apart from the other girls are Innocence, Runaway and When You're Gone

Don't get me started on Girlfriend or Best damn thing..

*Hey hey, you you
I don't like your girlfriend/i could be your girlfriend/think you need a new one*

wtfff

----------

Canadian rocker Avril Lavigne will surprise fans with her upcoming album The Best Damn Thing, and admits her new lightweight songs are "very easy" and "not serious". The 22-year-old deliberately wrote a collection of disposable pop songs for 'The Best Damn Thing', which is released later this month.

The Complicated singer says, "My last record (Under My Skin) was kind of like a diary, all the things I was going through, and the lyrics were very personal and serious.

"This record is the opposite lyrically. It's not serious.

"There are a couple of songs that are about where I'm at with that kind of stuff, but it makes this record very light and very easy - easy to perform, easy to listen to."

---------

i sure hope she disposes of them soon, and that her albums get better like last time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ25-glGRzI

ftw

Sad Saturday

2007-04-28T17:01:00.000+08:00

5 more days to MIDYEARS! wah siao liao..

and until now I haven't touched any books for revision, so I don't know what will happen to me. Im still playing guitar as I think of things to blog. Still, its inevitable that I will do my long-due math today..sian

all the best for midyears!

nicest propaganda ever!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1QmonT3zxPg

zz

2007-04-26T21:20:00.000+08:00

the world suddenly seems so lost

when the eyes stopped seeing
the ears stopped hearing
and the people ceased to feel

cant anyone deal
away the pain
or have the ugly monster slain?

i know no one will
because no one cares
just stares

emo sia :D

chemistry sucks. who the hell invented relative mass and stoichiometry?! oh yeah that russian guy. i would kill him if he was alive today!

i wish these things would happen in MRTs of Singapore
http://videovat.com/ug3872/amazing-impromptu-beatbox-on-subway.aspx

Ok fine

2007-04-25T16:10:00.000+08:00

IM UPDATING! what with the jumble of bad weather air pollution and global warming, im suffering while blogging here.

Its nearing the mid year examinations now, the first one I am taking in the premises of nanhua high school and everyone (almost) are already preparing for exams. Im still slacking with a pile of graphs not done for mr ng's e math.. he is going to kill me when he comes back from South Africa.
i kind of miss the last two years when we can really laze for three quarts of the year and then study like some crazy machine for the end of year examinations

it just started raining, and i mean raining as in pouring where you can only see things around 10 meters away, because any further becomes a white impermeable layer. the sun is still turned on. what did i say about horrible weather. its kind of pretty though, because I can see the mass of droplets plummeting towards earth at terminal velocity

Im in deep shit now, because ever since the end of the first common test, my study habits have taken a turn for the worse. Really, I am almost a pig. Eat and sleep and eat. And then maybe some Smash Bros. Then sleep. Ms Chng though she was blabbering and procrastinating about all those stupid issues of our class and behaviour, she hit the nail right on my head; I should really get on with the revising and stop lazing about. Oh yeah, today's physics test was really chicken! I didnt do any serious revising, only looked through the formulas., and it turned out to be SO simple. I expect at the very very least a 21/30.

Ok shall do my piano theory now. Ill try to post at high frequencies! like as if anyone reads this stuff anyway..

Whoopee! A 1000bhp nissan skyline! with an insane intercooler
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/139997/nissan_skyline/

Snow Patrol Chasing Cars

2007-04-02T19:34:00.000+08:00

This crappy emo song has been topping the charts for quite some time now, and I have just gotten a copy (dont ask me how) onto my computer. After listening to it my impression on it worsened greatly. Not only the lyrics suck, the song is super, I mean, SUPER ultramegaultimatedownrightchickenfeedeasy to play on guitar/piano whatever instrument you care to name. Worse song of the century... ae ae ae ae ae ae ae ae g#e g#e g#e g#e g#e g#e g#e g#e etc..... wtf

Average

2007-03-24T21:24:00.000+08:00

English: 19/30 (63.3%)
E Math: 27/35 (77.1%)
A Math: 13/35 (37.1%)
Chemistry: 27/50 (54%)
Physics: 24/45 (53.3%)
Chinese: 39/70 (55.7%)
Biology: 78/100 (78%)
Combined humanities - 81.6% (Geog 11/15, SS 9/10)

Total average: 62.5

sadsadsad but at least ive gotten a b4, so it isnt too bad. and anyway its only a 15% of the total year score, so who cares. wangjun will only get 10/15 and my 62.5 will in the end be 9/15.

one mark diff -.-

anyway after bb training today went with Joshua to meet up with Xiaotian. We took MRT to City Hall and along the way we saw this really interesting toddler. His mother was like playing games with him

"Where are we going?"

"..."

"Cityhall?"

"..."

"Bugis?"

"BUGIS!"

he shouted with a grin

"do you want SWEETS?"

"NO."

he is quite adorable, as he has that constant pout on his face and that curious look in his eyes. I think im going mad because im being like a girl now. Joshua did this to me

Xiaotian and Joshua bought their (expensive) earpieces after about 45 min of going around Simlim. Xiaotian got an EX Sony in ear monitor earpiece ($80), and Joshua got a pretty headphone: Audio technica ATH-ES5 SV with aluminium housing ($98). I've tested both earpieces and both has got very good quality for a below-$100 pricing, though Joshua's ES5 could do with more bass.

Now I shall make a tedious trip to westmall to return my overdue library books or they might kill my cashcard

Sign off

KOSS PORTAPRO!!

2007-03-14T08:41:00.000+08:00

WAHAHAHA Ive finally bought my headphones! After a gruelling week of intense research and internal debate, Ive chosen the Koss Portapro! And bought it yesterday!

Isnt it beautiful? Retro design with just the right amount of simplicity and sophistication. Its not looks only though with this headphone. The sound reproduction is truely awesome! Bass is punchy, not covering the mid tones and treble highs, furthermore its an open-type headphone, meaning sound will not reveberate throughout the internal driver but escape to the surrounding (lesser noise cancellation, but more precise tones). Of course it costs a hefty $90, but I DONT MIND! Really, you guys who havent done so should really stop using the cheap phones that came with your music player and hear some decent music, the way it was meant to be heard.

Also, it can fold neatly into the size of your palm/mouse. True portaprobility! And a free pouch came with the box, made of synthetic leather.

Hope you people out there can also buy better soundgear and hear the difference! Once you do, you are never going back. >:)

To Kenoriga: Owning headphones 100% beat owning kitties. Headphones dont have electric poop.

March holidays

2007-03-10T21:10:00.000+08:00

It is the march holidays! but actually it doesnt feel like one. i have social studies, math, chemistry, chinese homework all piled up, along with two other projects and CCA.

even so, ill still try to enjoy myself. I shall get the slingbag that I have been wanting so long to buy, if i manage to find it. Then ill buy myself a headphone. Also, I must go bowling at least once.

It is a good start of the march holidays; I had a great dinner just now outside with my family. Ate at a nonya restaurant in beauty world which serves damn delicious home dishes. Its called kalalalulu peramakan i think. something like that. ithink its catchphrase is 'dont eat dont regret ah'! Definitely singaporean-style.

Happy holidays to all people out there!

Common test

2007-03-07T18:36:00.000+08:00

Wah...after the initial ecstacy of finally finishing the common tests and ending all of that mugging, I am feeling sad once again. My common tests results are by large disappointing.

Currently I have gotten back my papers for maths, two of my sciences and english. I failed A maths terribly, scoring only 13/35

English: 19/30 (63.3%)
E Math: 27/35 (77.1%)
A Math: 13/35 (37.1%)
Chemistry: 27/50 (54%)
Physics: 24/45 (53.3%)

After averaging my (pathetic) results: 56.9%

OMG this is the worst average I have ever gotten in my 2 years in Nanhua! Im feeling super pathetic and sad now, though bowling has helped me lift up my spirits temporarily just now.

Story!

2007-03-02T19:13:00.000+08:00

Below is my continuation (second chapter) of the story(havent named it) I had written last year. If you haven't read it, or want to read it again, here is the link

Please give your comments, and dear Mr Yoon chiho from class 312 the multi coloured hair anime-manga addict, I have finally posted my story ok!

Dawn

2007-03-02T19:11:00.001+08:00

Central Base

Information Control Tower

A digitized voice emanated from the in-built organic woofers of Ren Junior, indicating that the last section of the probe was completed. Corporal Ren stirred irritably from his uncomfortable position and rubbed sleep away from his eyes. The fluid-cooled swivel chair did not do any good to his back, which ached like a stubborn bruise. He continued his post-waking up rituals for a few seconds and then became immediately alert to the gently pulsating statistics on the plasma screen, vying for his attention.

“Oh my God, this is insane!” his mouth let out a whispered gasp as his analytical brain processed the data.

He typed some quick commands and his proton-dye printer came to life to undergo its task. A few seconds later, a stack of fresh printouts lay at the printer tray. Though terabytes of information is easily transmitted in this modern age, he still preferred to use carbon paper instead of its more advanced digital counterparts. It retained all the qualities of its wood-pulp paper ancestor, but can be entirely broken down into individual carbon strands and reconstructed to make new carbon paper easily. Ren grabbed them roughly and ran off in the direction of Lieutenant Nice’s office.

Nice was admiring his own reflection on his polished table top when Ren barged in wildly clutching a stack of paper as if it was gold. Nice jumped and his forehead impacted rather loudly against the table.

“Damnit Nice, look at these printouts! If these are accurate, which they should be given the fact that I am the one who patented and implemented the system, the S151-12 beings are welding an uncategorized electromagnetic force that isn’t part of the spectrum. And simply render all the past laws of physics seriously flawed!” Ren exclaimed and stared into Nice’s sky-blue eyes with his blood-shot ones.

“Hey quit gazing at me as if I’m your mummy, and how times must I say not to use my first name!” Nice roared, still piffed about getting caught red-handed in his embarrassing moment of vanity.

Ren ignored him, placing the printouts on his table. Nice picked them up, and glared at Ren for his impudence before leafing through them. His eyes bulged more prominently than usual as he read the statistics. By the time he was finished, you could expect from his expression there was a time bomb under him waiting to go off.

“Keep all of the instruments tracking similar energy traces just in case. The instruments that you ‘patented and implemented’” Nice sneered. “Send these to General Headquarters and the Defence Ministry. Heh, whatever happened to phantom images and hardware failure?”

----------

Mountain peak KmpQ-752319,

Northern Hemisphere

(Nadicnish is translated into English for your reference)

“Gandalf would be happy to know the success of our mission and very soon would the Netherreals be able to enjoy the true land of Gaia without any hindrances” Molork’s fingers tingled with excitement at those thoughts. The twelve Neths formed an ellipse at the mountain’s peak at the northern hemisphere, the peak where earth’s magnetic forces were the strongest. As they bathed in the sun’s heat and earth’s attractive forces, they felt truly at one with Nature. After several silent moments with clasped hands, the Neths started glowing and vibrating with increasing agitation, until they turned into a band of pure white light and unleashed gigantic bolts of blue beams into the surroundings.

The Neths felt completely refreshed, with the essence of Gaia melded together with their souls inside them.

Haru, a member with long flowing hair, is the warrior of the group and has techniques of the sword as graceful as his fluid silver mane. “I hope every one here possesses equal will and fighting spirit to overcome these obstacles laid in front of us. Our enemies aren’t simple.”

“Pifle. They are as dense and weak as newborn babies. We will take them down easily. I do wonder why our forefathers did not do this earlier.” Balidnor snorted, eyeing a spark of blue crawling lazily along his forearm.

“No, never should we underestimate. We have already seen the might and power this advanced city has alone. Remember, we are fighting for the whole earth.” Loki cautioned.

“Enough said. Let us return from where we came, and bring our brothers into the coveted land that once belonged to us.” Molork silenced the Neths.

Once again, they joined hands in a pentagram. “Vish, Ree, Zu” the Neths said as one and disappeared in a blinding flash, leaving only an intricate scorch mark to tell of the tale twelve beings who were once there.

----------

to be continued....

Vista: n00b

2007-02-15T18:41:00.001+08:00

The long awaited Vista has finally arrived, with much hype Windows created. What with a breakthrough of interface (Aero) or improved security which even comes with a two-way traffic firewall. Wow. It seems as though Windows has finally woken up and released something that looks and performs as stunningly as its competitors.

See those leaflets in Harvey Norman and Courts? Pure propaganda. And you have got to pay like $400+ to get one of those "Home Premium" packs that "deliver more productivity and entertainment". Yeah right. The Aero even has a cool flip 3d navigation that allows you to leaf through open windows in 3d-real time. Amazing...like totally out of this world.. As if Linux didn't already have a 3d navigation that allows you to toggle between desktops.

Ok enough being cynical. Window Vista's interface is a real development over XP's blue and green. Its more-often-annoying-than-useful security such as antispyware and firewalls arent nearly as good or established third-party ones like NOD32 or ZoneAlarm.
It is a resource monster. If you have 1gb ram on your set and have Vista (trial, whatever) installed on it the CPU usage skips from 40% to 100% everytime you open a document or execute a program. Note, 40% is like when its idling there doing nothing.

Vista has cool wallpapers that make a huge impact when potential buyers leaf through Vista brochures and see them. Personally, The only things I like other than the facelift is the Instant search function for files and the Bitlocker software. The search function should be much more efficient than the current one in XP, which takes from a few seconds to a few minutes just to finish a search completely. The Bitlocker encrypts files to protect data though freeware of this kind is available anywhere on the net from softpedia to download.com, it is indeed useful to have complete integration with the OS itself.

Also, the drastic improvement of startup time in Vista is much appreciated. It typically starts up in around less than 10 secs to the login page and will load the startup progs in the background as you start working. This is a very major change, as previous versions of MS (95, 98, ME, 2000, XP) all startup like just under the time needed for you to eat some cereal or make a short phone call.

All in all, I would very much like to own (not buy) a Vista Ultimate in the near future of 2-3 years when the OS has settled into the industry and when more patches/features/software/exploits/better and cheaper hardware are available for it.

An OEM with Home Basic(totally sucks, really) would be around $1500. Buy a Vista today!

Windows Vista's competitors
Linux with Beryl
Link 2
End of short post

MRT Crapiness

2007-01-27T17:45:00.000+08:00

Today's just another bleak, wet and dismal day. Landslides are still occurring all over Singapore. I was taking the MRT to Dover when at Jurong East the announcement blared, saying there will not be any train service to Clementi onwards. wtfknn. Just when I was thinking "hm so many landslides now, scarly mrt get accident today" too. Sometimes I really am psychic. The poor child who jumped onto the MRT tracks lost a leg, I think. I heard it from Daniel. Seriously, we are having more than our fair shares of track accidents this year. Due to that child(and many other victims)I dont know to what extent it had disrupted life in Singapore. Hundreds of people did not manage to get to their destination on time. Taxi queues were crazily long. I bet all of them were cursing the cause of the accident. Really, can't people be more well-behaved and STAND BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE!

JT picked us (me and chiho. i met up with him)up at the main road near IMM in his nissan sylphy. He drives faster than the normal singaporean, though I would have liked it better if he drove faster. Had swimmming training at his house then went up to his apartment and watched some soccer. It was a match between Thailand and Vietnam. The Thais loved to out a lot, and the Vietnamese liked to push people down. It was almost comedy. Then had lunch with the other bb boys at some ghim moh hawker center. Also bought a RamLY burger in the Pasar Malam there. Mr Ng cut some slack for us this weekend and gave us only 4 questions to do. Song bo.

Finally.

2007-01-18T21:16:00.000+08:00

Finally! I am finally able to blog. Was extremely busy throughout the last two weeks. Mr Ng crazy, gave us so much A maths and E maths that we have almost finished 1 whole A4 exercise book. And we have already learnt up to logarithms, when most of you are still at indices. He is like a bulldozer, drill us till we literally almost died. I have been staying up till midnight almost every day, plus I still got CCA and piano.

And we have a chemistry test and we need to hand in a bio wb, chem wb, physics ws and dont know how many chem exercises to do, with all this due on monday. Schedule packed fully on saturday: morning Boys brigade, afternoon go officer house because of recent webmaster position, night CIP.

On sunday: group project.

So this leaves me with afternoon to finish all my hw + stdy test + do theory + play piano.

Im dying.

NO WALLET!

2006-12-14T17:26:00.000+08:00

continuing on my story next week at the very least, cos i have no mood to. i lost my wallet during the evening of the second day of duty in BB Sharity Gift Box. Damn the needy! Thanks to them I lost my wallet(indirectly). This really sucks, cos it is worth 600+ in total. My initial d cards....T-T

BB

2006-12-10T23:40:00.000+08:00

Had a wonderful dinner at a hawker centre at redhill. Ate two bowls of rice, mixed vegetables, fried tofu, satay and sting ray with chng tng as dessert. Very satisfying.

Now polishing my bb uniform brass components. Don't know why all uniform groups are supplied with oxidizing materials for uniform parts.

I shall continue writing my science fiction story(havent named it yet) after the two day boys brigade sharity giftbox.

Arrival

2006-12-09T10:15:00.000+08:00

February 20, Year A.D. 2513.

All was still, except for a slight disturbance in the night air. The wind now came at queer bursts of current, rather than a smooth and gradual increase, as if anticipating something. Then, a pentagram of white light crackled open in the sky, like a huge mouth of a mystical beast. A dozen hazy figures emerged through, silhouettes at first, but gradually solidifying as they made contact. They succumbed to the reel of gravity for a second, dropping to certain death. But with a second flash, they disappeared as suddenly as their arrival. All was still once more, with only the slightly quivering grass to tell of their existence.

-------------

A proximity sensor beeped red. The dozing guard on night shift jerked awake, knocking over a thermos of coffee onto himself. Swearing, he ran well-practiced eyes over the ancient plasma-crystal screens and sent an immediate report over to the central base. Then he punched a button on the touch-screen and sighed, waiting for the automatic micro-fibrecleaner to activate. The cleaner would search for signatures of dirt and fresh dyes and automatically erase them. His uniform would be spotless in under a minute, though it was still much more inferior as compared to the latest ionizing- dye cleaners. He sighed again, wondering when the federal government would increase the budget on public sector bases. All the technology here is so last century. Then, seeing that there were no more updates from the equipment, he folded himself into his liquid gel-padded chair and settled down to sleep again.

------------

Central Base

Information Control Tower

"Sir, here is another S151-12. 2 second materialization and dematerialization, 12 beings. 3.15 am" Corporal Ren handed the folder over. Lieutenant Nice spat his mouthful of tonic water onto the hard metal-tiled floor, "What? Another one? This is the third one in two weeks! I don't care what the upper ranks say about phantom images and hardware failure. Trace the dematerialization pattern. Use a deep probe. Then report back to me."

"Right away, sir"

Corporal Ren returned to his workstation to start on the task. S151 was the serial number for the public sector base and 12 the coordinates for the place of the inexplicable materializations. He rubbed his tiredness out of his temples. Tracing the leftover ions with a deep probe would mean pulling out surveillance footage from the satellites and sensors input in that area. That would take up the whole night - at the very least. The sensors would already cost him 5 hours, having to run through all kinds of sensors that detect any radiation of the electromagnetic spectrum. He fired up Ren Junior, smiling fondly at the familiar hum. He patted it. His workstation was one of a kind, fully custom-engineered by himself, right down to the motherboard's nano-circuitry. No processing hardware on the planet could beat Ren Junior - of course processing hardware not including the NSA's. They have that 3 million tegaflop beast for cracking stupid email encryptions.

Once the workstation completely booted up, he tapped open the keyboard software to project a hologram of the board. As he began to download data from S151, his fingers worked into a blur on the shimmering golden keys. Ren stifled a yawn. It was going to be a long night.

----------

It was year 2513. Technology had progressed significantly since the start of the 21^st century. Vaccines for most diseases had been developed. The ozone layer and environment were healing gradually, a result of the scrapping of all fossil fuel and nuclear powered technology. Instead, hydrogen was the main source of power of electricity, with solar, wind and hydro for the secondary power grid, should the main grid fail. Devices and machines used hydrogen fuel cells that were as widespread and easily bought as alkaline batteries back in the 2000s. Hovercrafts not unlike the past's vehicles zipped effortlessly on enormous magnetic superhighways, the main mode of land transport, while aviation had evolved into fuel-less flight, powered by superior wing designs and vacuum-lift, with vacuum in rigid cells and helium as a lifting gas backup. All waste produced would be minimized and contained properly for incineration in the sun, transported by small saucer-shaped spacecraft propelled by superheating molecules below the wingblades along their diameters.

Spacecraft were powered by antimatter, the counterpart of every subatomic particle. When antimatter and matter collide, they produce large amounts of energy, much more than chemical reactions would ever provide. The gamma radiation by-product is harmless when contained properly and also does not leave any nuclear residue.

----------

Molork glanced down at the early morning cityscape and marveled at the sight. Back at his home all he ever saw were huts and grasslands. The information his brain was receiving from his eyes was unbelievable. Glittering buildings punctured the sky everywhere, with large black roads snaking in between. People in boxes that flew, large metal birds that did not make any sound. He signaled to the other eleven hovering behind him and they started on their gradual descent. Currently, the Netherreals were invisible to everyone, and if one were to stare directly at them, all they would notice would be a slight shimmer of air.

"Galarsh crai romplu tomhs." Molork summoned from within him the sparks of nature and absorbed the surrounding chemical potential energy. This was why the Netherreals do not need to consume. They could simply absorb pure energy from their surroundings.

Molork and the other eleven Neths were the surveillance party of their attacking force. Their task was to know what kind of enemy they were going against. What Molork had seen so far did not weaken his confidence in claiming this land as their new home. "Zu!" Molork signaled again, and shortly after, they disappeared into thin air, leaving only a lingering smell of sulphur.

----------

to be continued....

Heads up, everyone!

2006-12-08T17:19:00.000+08:00

Finally after a week of planning, designing and working on codes, my new blogskin is UP! Please give your comments on the tagboard, whether they are on the coding or design. I have designed the codes in CSS very sloppily, so some people might not be able to view my website properly. This is best viewed in Mozilla Firefox, 1024-768 and above. The image files are also rather big, so people with slow broadband connections or dial-up might take very long to load. Please try to refrain from giving the half-moon tech design on the top left corner names. To date it has already been called spanner, circle, whats that, extra etc. This blog template is still in beta testing stage, so please bear with some of the more obvious imperfections. They will soon be corrected.

Thanks to all the people who have given comments during the development period of this template! Monsieurs kenoriga, lasercombo, arthasidol92, laughoutfreakingloud, Misses rebeccaloh, junjun321, jocechan92 and of course, my sisters.

I shall now rest.

Schedule

2006-12-01T12:03:00.000+08:00

Nothing much happened in these few days. But after one month into the holidays, I have finally drawn out a holiday schedule(talk about work efficiency).

First things first, I must complete my new blog template, and also the other templates requested by my sisters. Besides that I have decided that I am to go to the gym daily. On the educational side, I would try to read the o level textbooks and also do research on energy.

Thought up a vague plot for a short story depicting a battle in the future, and I might decide to pen it down and develop it. So expect many things within these twenty days to come. (:

New template

2006-11-29T00:28:00.000+08:00

I have scrapped the previous 6j header and came up with a new template. This one is mixed with a simple mech and a grunge style with brushes. Mostly uncompleted. And the picture is compressed, so the diagonal pattern in the background cannot be seen. I am taking this as practice for the new blogskin for my blog. Please click to enlarge

6j template

2006-11-25T13:15:00.000+08:00

This is the newer piece with added machinery parts as a border to give a more rigid feel. Please comment on whether the border should be more opaque or a transparent render is good enough. Current opacity: 65% Thanks for comments on improvement

Another Photoshop showcase

2006-11-25T00:45:00.000+08:00

If you are interested, go to www.photoshoptower.com. I gained quite a lot of my PS knowledge from their tutorials, though I have already exhausted their (14 pages?) supply of tutorials. Enjoy!
Spent quite a number of hours on this mech design I made exclusively for PSP. Res 480X272, perfect fit. I had to create a whole lot of shapes with the polygon tools etc and then style them. I can say this piece is my current best, though it doesnt look much.

This piece is real easy. I just decided to do something abstract for my sister's blogskin so I zoom-blurred a render of clouds and used my old ps design made by brushes to blend in. Chose red this time as the dominant hue as I have been using blue too much. Spent about 30mins.

Photoshop is FUN!

2006-11-19T01:23:00.000+08:00

Was playing around with Photoshop today and spent quite a few hours on these three designs. Please have a look!

This one is my first, a header for a website complete with navigation bar. Spent a lot of time on the Polygon Tool and Layer Styles.

This is an abstract faux-3D studio design. Relatively simple.

In my opinion, this energy ball is the best piece and also the last that I have completed today at 12.54am. Also relatively easy to make, thanks to the very handy Colour Balance Adjustment layer. I tried to mimic as closely as possible to the turquoise of Jue Dui Superstar. Hope you all have enjoyed these. Feel free to save these pictures, but please do not remove the xgamesterz logo. There will be more to come, and eventually, my new template. Good night, or rather, Good Morning.

Vivo City Not So Vivo

2006-11-18T15:54:00.000+08:00

2 days ago I went to the much-talked about Vivo City. I can say that I was utterly disappointed in the selection of shops and overall design and quality. The only shop suitable for me there is Best Denki, though Esprit might be a contender. The architects had probably designed the mall to resemble a ship, evident from the curvatures and floor-to-ceiling windows all over the place, though I'd say the interior was too plain with only a small number of neon light structures on the ceiling and ground. The workmanship isn't too good either. Rough edges can be spotted if you look closely at ceiling lights. Floor tiles appear too cheap and old-fashioned, and the designers gave a flimsy coverup by ordering sparkly tiles. Not my idea of a mall designed with a modernistic approach. Maybe some black/white marble tiling and wall features? I'd say the shops look much better than the mall itself, especially those high-class ones that I know I will never step into. The Promenade seems to be closer to my expectations, with a unique snowman statue and small stretch of ornamental pools.
Obviously, I had spent the greatest amount of time in Best, playing the new thin PS2s on display. Nintendo DS is real cheap-and-plastic-looking, lightweight but does not give a sense of quality.

Dinner was the best, as we ate in Food Republic. It is the coolest(and largest) food court I have ever been to. The theme is fantastic, one that depicted the olden Singapore times in the 1960s. Food was a tad too expensive; my beef horfun cost$5 when I could have gotten a even tastier plate at hawker centres for $2.50. But that is expected from high rentals. Overall Vivo City for me = 6/10
For girls probably 10/10. The adolescent females in this current age all seem to display extraordinary muscle strength and stamina in legs.

Will post pictures as soon as my sister gives the camera back.

Illegal, schmegal

2006-11-16T10:24:00.000+08:00

I am fed up with the recent news on a 17-year old guy in Singapore charged for using an unprotected wireless access point without prior authorization from the owner. I suppose the person who owns the access point has nothing better to do other than to sue people for using his wireless point, when he did not even encrypt or place any protection on his access point in the first place. Article: http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=57512
Btw: this article described that war-driving is another web term for piggy backing, which is incorrect. War-driving means driving a vehicle around a neighborhood to find wireless APs to use. Piggybacking is taking advantage of an unprotected wireless AP. Slightly different.

Piggybacking on an unsecured wireless network is actually rather hard to justify on a legal front. In the owner's perspective, so long as other people are using his wireless without his permission automatically equates to illegal, and therefore he shall sue the person because he has nothing better to do. This judgement is not wrong, but it can be disputed.

First of all, merely using the wireless access point on a technical viewpoint is not wrong, as the technology is merely behaving the way it should: broadcasting a radio signal created from a packet and then being received by a network card or wireless adapter. This can only be deemed illegal if the person in question is doing illegal acts on the network(eg. watching child porn, trading body parts or accessing the owner's computer)

Lets say that I am the person using open wireless points without "authorization". Ethically speaking, the owner would argue with a common metaphor: Accessing my access point can be likened to entering your neighbour's house when the door is open. Also ethically speaking, I can counter-sue by arguing that the electromagnetic waves broadcasted from the wireless router were trespassing on MY property (house) and therefore I have all the rights to use the waves to access internet. According to the metaphor, I can enter my neighbour's house if his house is in my house and his door is open. In addition, the prolonged exposure to electromagnetic waves might also adversely affect my health so I am also risking my own health by using the owner's wireless. I was not hunting down the owner's wireless, I only switched my computer on and found that the owner's network invaded my house so I had to do something about it.

Also technically, the fact the access point being open alone is already enough for me to claim that my access is authorized, as my access was not stopped by any encryption or protection means (WEP, WPA, PUK etc.). This point can be further illustrated by this equation:

If
Access stopped = unauthorized entity
Then
Authorized entity = Access given

And also because the router was setup in "open" authentication, if I had established a connection, it means my adapter had requested permission to use the access point, and the access point had given it authorization.

In addition, the definition of cracking is:

Cracking a wireless network means defeating the encryption so that you can establish a connection without being invited.

In other words, if the encryption is not present, you are invited(technically) to establish a connection. Simple as that.

Have I proven my point?

Even so, users should be aware of the possible dangers in using open APs. Since you are on the same platform(network) as the owner, it would not be too hard for him to access your harddisk by spreading trojans that create backdoors or keyloggers that log your passwords and credentials when users travel across the net. Likewise the user can also perform the same acts against the owner and in addition, slow down connection speeds by hogging up their bandwidth when streaming data (eg. downloading video).

To obtain strongest possible signal strength from access points, one must take note to place the adapter on higher elevation and not near metals or against walls. The best barriers that radio waves can travel through are glass. Try not to stay between solid concrete walls. Of course you can also modify a small satalite dish to take in radio signals to be decrypted by your network card, but that is practically not feasible. In case you are interested, they can be purchased from Simlim or eBay. If your neighbours are all stingy enough to place encryption on their wireless routers, some default passwords can be tried on default SSIDs such as linksys, belkin, motorola, netgear. Try admin, 1234 or guest. For a complete list: http://www.phenoelit.de/dpl/dpl.html

Though I am not entirely sure this is legal, I definitely do not indulge in these evil ways.

Moz is cool!

2006-11-14T21:02:00.000+08:00

Mozilla firefox is cool! I know this is late but I just got around tinkering with Firefox 2.0 and its open source add-ons. The previous 1.5 that I used to use was good enough already but this new(actually rather old) release is totally superb! With added security, smoother GUI and browsing features, this browser really blows IE away to the next dimension in cyberspace. Currently using a iTunes-inspired theme and Greasemonkey script together with Videodownloader. Watch this vid as Firefox pwns IE Netscape and safari http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbqUvZ1Ja84
and also viruses spyware and popups
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwiiU4OEUpM
Haha retarded stuff.

I have been downloading scanlations from the net within these two days. (For the less initated, they are scanned copies of japanese comics - manga, that are translated by the online communities) All this happened because something random that my old friend Ray had said popped up in my mind out of the blue: I went to Borders today and read some comics. Chobits. Its kinda weird with robots and all that.
I couldn't remember when he said that, but it must have been at least 2+ years ago. Anyway I was kind of bored at that time so I decided to go online just to download this manga, all 88 chapters of it.

This manga is a Clamp/xxx-holic series I believe, and its about a world(probably our near future) with mass-produced appliances called persocoms. These are humanoid computers, artificial intelligence, that interact with and serve humans and are also their companions. They are designed to be as human-looking as possible, so much so that some even fall in love or prefer them over humans. Its actually comprised of a lot of crap of one custom-made persocom falling in love with a human and vice versa, though the persocom has a powerful program that could shut down the entire computer systems and networks in the world(impossible) if she does not find her "person just for her", in other words her perfect lover. The plot is lame. What struck me is the purpose of living portrayed in this manga. The possibility of getting too attached to a machine is very real. Imagine one that looks, feels, behaves and speaks exactly like a normal person. Though equipped with the knowledge that the subject is made of semiconductors encased in silicon and plastic, the characters exclaim in the comic that their persocoms are not simply machines. They are simply what they are, and the characters like them for what they are. It seems that persocoms are programmed to assist and bring happiness to their masters. If you look into yourself, you notice that you would do your best to bring happiness to yourself. If not, you also bring happiness to others, indirectly also to yourself.

Our emotional(and indirectly, mental) wellbeing hinges on this chemical reaction alone, or endorphins that control the "blesssed state" you go into. Without joy, a person would either become miserable till he is pushed into mental instability or collapse totally in life. That is why it is only natural for people to seek happiness, even if doing so unconsciously. If, as shown in the manga, persocoms really are able to provide the user happiness, then I think it would be inevitable for users to become encased in the world involving only them and their persocoms. The persocom, in a sense, is the ultimate human, as it never errs or cause a negative impact on the user. That is why it is worse than the worst drug, increasing the dependency of the user on itself day by day, eventually leading the user to cut off from the outside world completely. Society would be restructured and everyone would simply be content staying at home together with the persocom they love. Is this the purpose of life? To be happy? If you say one cannot buy happiness, one can still purchase things that create happiness can they not? Society is what it is today because of interaction, no matter digital or person-to-person. Even now most of us already cannot live without the electronics and digital media we have today. What if one day your computer transforms into your ideal "human"? You will be able to do all that you are able to before and in addition, get to be with an imitation of a human, if not one that is even better.

Have you ever thought of the purpose of life? What is your purpose in life? By common sense, one's purpose in life would never be one that is to intentionally destroy oneself. Would you get up one day and decide that you should sneak into the army base and frag yourself down? Or put in your entire life's savings on sinking stocks and mess your financial status up? One would surely aim for a goal in life that would ultimately give oneself happiness. This statement does not conflict with either religion or business. For religious people (eg. christians), their purpose in life is to follow the Bible and spread the gospel. This is fulfilling God's will and they get satisfied or otherwise, happy. People whose goals are to climb the corporate ladder and gain success in life financially also aim to be happy. Even criminals act without regard of law as they feel that doing so would give them a better life/euphoria (drug trafficking etc)

Isnt the purpose in life tied strongly with personal happiness? So if you ask me the purpose of life, I'd say it is living the best you can.

Camera!

2006-11-10T09:35:00.000+08:00

Yesterday my dad walked back home and handed me an Olympus bag. He had gotten a tradein for our old Olympus with this brand new one! It is an average camera, priced at $400. The u 710 model that has 7.1 mega pixs, 3x optical zoom, anti-shake and brightcapture technology with All weather function. In addition, the lens is a 6.5 - 19.5mm, making it very wide angle. I have tested it out and the pictures were in good resolution(3072X2304) and the colours' richness was real-looking enough. No manual mode though. The only things you can change manually is the ISO, flash(duh) and focus (one point or smart point). 6.5 - 19.5mm would lead me to think that its macro focusing abilities are very good though it didn't turn out very well. I tested the Close up and Super closeup mode and the max it can focus up till is around 10cm away from the object. Not very optimum.

Sleek plastic design that looks like brushed metal from far with some chrome finishings and logo plate. The screen size is average, 2.5 inches across diagonally. Easy to use and weighs around the same as my handphone. Flash isn't so strong so I would prefer to tweak up the ISO and WB rather than flash the room.
Outdoor shots shouldn't be a problem. So folks, don't buy this camera as this isn't one with the best compromise between functionality and pricing and also because I already have it. Get one with manual focus.

I have finally managed to find a great pastime: watching commercials. No, seriously. Go and search Youtube, Metacafe or other video sites for 'commericial'. It will keep you entertained for a long time. I was for 2 hours yesterday. PSP going great. I am now able to play NES(eg.mario), Genesis(eg. Sonic), Neogeo(eg. Metal slug), homebrew(red alert) and normal PSP games. This piece of technology is a real steal, only 500 smackers for such a versatile portable gaming console. Thats around $150 more than my old and beat up iPod Nano.

Adding more stuff later if there are any happenings (I doubt). 2nd week going.

[b]Zzz[/b]

2006-11-09T11:25:00.000+08:00

Didn't join the online community for a couple of days. Not that anyone missed. Previously I was crawling Google, Torrent and IRC for Kim Jung Hoon's past albums for my sister's birthday present. Minimal cost, maximum value. Bet no one can get any of those in Singapore. It took me two damned days to pluck out the 7 albums files from Korean forums and IRC search engines. But at the very least it still served its purpose as a distraction and it was something for me to do. Rested for two days as I really felt that I didn't want to see the google banner in my life ever again. I hardcore-d a series of books. Fearless by Francine pascal Book 1 - 5 and Chiho's Artemis Fowl The Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer. Hardly your dark corporate conglomerate/political novel or How to Hypnotize People self-help but children fiction usually have shaky facts that can be challenged, (eg. the redudancy of liquid metal present in a hand identity biometrics system, or the paradoxes of time travel even with magic involved) and that's fun.

Only started sleeping at 3am this morning after finishing the book. So now dynamic ip address 202.156.8.11 is finally back after all that crazy book reading. And after exhausting my week's worth of reading material into 2 days, I am once more left idling without anything to do.

List of possible activities
1. Search for LuA player so as to play red alert homebrew on PSP
2. More emulators for PSP
3. Lunch
4. MSN
5. Crashing Google and Yahoo

Now which should I do first? Number 5?

In My dreams.

Holidays! or should I say holidays....

2006-11-05T21:51:00.000+08:00

Aren't humans weird creatures? We are forever unable to be satisfied. When we under the stress of examinations and stuff, didn't we wish that the holidays were already there? Then we would start procrastinating and list down all the things we wish we are able to do. And now when finally all the bad mugging is over we start complaining we have nothing to do in the holidays. I am like just staring at the screen and thinking of Hmm what should I do. Option 1. Sleep 2. Stare at the ceiling 3. Watch Pokemon on Kidscentral 4. Play psp 5. Eat 6. Sleep

All of which are so pathetic. Really have nothing to do! You know the feeling, where you feel like doing something, but not too strenous and not too simple at the same time. Wa lao, anything also cannot. Want to watch tv, dont want to lift the remote. Want to sleep, wasting myself away. Die la...
Now only 1/8 of our holidays have passed by, so better start thinking of what to do! Going to church chalet only on the 20th and maybe other countries in December. Some people are so lucky, holidays first week immediately get to go overseas. Sian I want to go China buy cheap stuff eg 1. watch, software, bag, shoes. Malaysia products too lousy in quality. Chinamen are the best! With Audis and BMWscosting only S30k power...
The only good thing to look forward to currently is my damnit cheap 80Gb SATA harddisk! Only for $130! Yeah, finally able to throw the slow and failing IDE 40gb of mine.

In reply to Xiaotian, I shall describe him as a: Amiable, engaging and (very)smartass kind of person, one who talk lots of crap. And also about Sometings especially. XT you know what I mean la.. Smiles alot and also likes posing infront of mirrors. Great in the 3Cs, a very standard boy 1. Car 2. Cam 3. Com, although his priorties somewhat differ from mine. now enter special stream tamade. In contrast with me, if you take his sacred handphone away, it is akin to skinning him alive then dipping him in boiling oil. Oh and the numbers stored in his SIM card are rather valuable too. Likewise, I also felt that Sec 2 has been a very enjoyable year. It is the very last year we can enjoy ourselves. Hope everyone does the best in whatever you all do next year and onwards!

Results!

2006-10-20T22:14:00.000+08:00

Update! Average for mid-year + end of year = 69.9
Class position : 13/39

Though this score is rather disappointing, but it has already met my expectations, so I should be satisfied. The only thing that im pissed off about now is mr ZHU XIAO TIAN!!!

He got a freaking 70.0!!!! WTH, TYCO shit la! 0.9 marks higher than me then 10 place in class. Special stream! I really have nothing to say to that guy. Tell me, how can such a dumb guy be so tyco?! May he burn in the hell of Special stream students. Wahahahaha.

Making a new blog template for this site. Black is getting kind of boring dont you think? It is time for a change!

Wireless adapter

2006-10-10T17:20:00.000+08:00

Went to Jurong Point with XT to check out the prices of a Linksys wireless adapter (not PCI adapter hor). All thanks to my mother. She flung open my window and the wireless adapter thats taped on my window ledge dislodged and flew down 27 storeys. It still works, though the receiving isn't all that good without an antennae.

Only PCI network cards in PK com and Cyberactive but lucked out at Harvey Norman. There wasnt any stock the last time we went there before the exams. Bloddy $79 for one crap wireless adapter! Sian. Anyone knows whether the signal receiving parameters are stronger for PCI cards or external adapters??

EOYs OVER!

2006-10-09T22:03:00.000+08:00

This message is long due:

EOYs are over!

I haven't been blogging cause of EOYs but now followed suit after Wang Jun and Chi Ho has done so. This exam really doesn't only mean that its the final one of the year. It marks the final paper, final time some of us will be in the same class, final time we can enjoy ourselves without serious consequences. That's why the thing of utmost importance now is to enjoy ourselves! Really, starting from next year, it would not be wise to slack anymore due to the preparation of O levels and also the advanced syllabus we are going to study. Sec one and sec two really has been enjoyable, but it is inevitable that some of us will have to part in sec three. Actually I kind of feel a little regretful, of not really trying harder. Do you think that everyone's paths in life would be different from their current one they are walking on, if they had done differently in the past. Our lives have already been determined ever since the day we left P4. The environment that you are in affects you, and that is why those that goes into EM3 are seldom likely to succeed. The paths that we are to walk on have already been paved half-way at this current education level. Future milestones are left with only JC and University. If we had worked that bit harder in P6, we might not have even met each other in Nanhua. If you went for that extra mile and put in a little more effort, who knows, you might be the President's Scholar 4 years later? Everything in this world revolves around cause and effect. The present always has a past, the consequences always come from an action. Likewise, the things we do when we are in Primary school actually runs down a long chain. The phrase: The future is in your hands, really is not overstated. That is why so many people who understand this concept are striving so hard to find the motivation to do the best they can. But, you think, surely all this is rather out-of-reach? Hard goal to strive for? Simply talk? Actually, there is already a perfect real-life living example of the outcome of this concept in front of you: Lim Zhen Yu.

It is really not easy to acheive what he has already done this year. Remember the time when Limzapz was only a small average quiet person who gets average marks? The person who was extremely upset because of his EOY english last year? This very same person has gotten 8th in level in the Midyear and still going on. Now you question the difficult goal which does not seem so difficult anymore. What, you only have to put in more effort? Easy lah. No shit. Now ask yourself, how many times have you made a mental note to allocate 30 min or 1 hour just to study a particular subject on a day? And then how many times have you pushed it back to the next day ? It is because that is unimportant at the moment. Rather, you would spend your time pia-ing Maple, CS, Dota, Kongkong. Even the most mundane of things you would do such as surfing the net for songs or chatting online would preside over the chore of doing your revision of the paper that is one month away. YOU know that the best time is to start already, but even so you would tell yourself that you would simply allocate a bigger timeslot tomorrow to compensate, and so on. This has happened to me many times. It is actually not a question of will, but rather, one that lies on the motivation. Now, for example, your parents agree to give you $10 weekly, or give you allow you to go out with your friends more frequently, if you study half an hour daily. Would you chat your time away and watch TV? Or would you study? I know I would choose the latter. Everyone just needs that right motivation. Because of this, I have decided to reward myself if I worked harder next year. Self-appreciation and rewarding is very important. You would be surprised at how you would feel. Under normal circumstances, I would feel bad, or even guilty, for splurging and indulging myself, but in this case, I would argue that the spending is self-reward and then actually feel good spending. All the matters is the right motivation.

And also, why am I sharing all these to help everyone? Of course it is for the benefit of everyone, but it is also for myself. If the standard of the people around me increase, it is natural for me to strive and keep up with their pace. Competition between peers pressurizes everyone to strive. Always remember the success case of Lim Zhen Yu, but it would help if you did not proclaim to be a loser so much in front of everyone.

Problems that I am facing now

Inability to read off Sandisk Memory Stick Pro Duo 2GB on my laptop's in-built smart card reader slot. Computer detected the card, but the removable drive icon dont appear on My Computer. Buying an external MS-USB converter cardreader did not help. Worse still, it informed me that my card had an I/O error. That means it would be caused by either a software problem or hardware problem. Software is out of the question as I have already reformatted my computer and also reinstalled the drivers for PCMCIA drives. The faulty hardware would either lie on my card reader or memory card. The memory card is fully functioning so the card reader would probably be the faulty one. But, if this was the case, why an external reader could not help? The input/output problem could be caused by a incompatibility with the cardreader due to the storage space of my MS. Maybe 2gb is too huge? Assistance from anyone accepted.

And finally a trashy poem

Man, Im dead
The exams are over
Still I did enjoy myself never
People said

its already Time for joy and celebration
but I still get that sinking feeling
that really is heart-wrenching
Whenever I start straying to recreation

because of the truth that will only gripe
till the day my misgivings assuage
when the confusion the results cage
and the time is ripe

Man, Im dead
I can never enjoy a day
until the results bade
my worrysome brain away

IQ Test

2006-09-29T22:20:00.000+08:00

Your IQ Is 120

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average

Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius

Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius

Your General Knowledge is Above Average

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Wth how can my logical processes are below average. This is a lame IQ test that I just did out of boredom. Try it to relieve some stress from all that mugging!

Timetable once again

2006-09-11T18:34:00.000+08:00

I have uploaded the timetable for the new term. I just realised that the timetables for term 3 and 4 are just 3 posts apart; I have not been blogging.

Please click here for the table. Downloads may fail due to server or bandwidth problems.

Enjoy

Short Live the Blog

2006-09-04T17:27:00.000+08:00

Very sorry for my one month hiatus. I should not be posting till after the End of Year papers.

Didnt do much, except that I got back my (lousy) results.

Art: 65
English: 63
Geography: 100
H. Chinese: 40
History: 60
Literature: 62
Maths: 80
Science: 63

This makes my average a 67. omgwtfbbq. If only my damned Chinese passed. And my history+science sucked like hell; just above 60. I have no idea how I am going to score 70 average for EOY. To heaven those important people (eg MOE Mr Shammu) who say that marks are not important. Our society is so pathetic that the futures of each and every one of us are determined by a piece of paper. In fact, the paths that we are supposed to go were already paved when we were in Primary 4, thanks to the interesting amount of Streaming examinations Singapore students have to undergo. That means innocent little people like us who just want to enjoy our childhood will flunk and go sleep on the streets. And we cant even sleep on the streets because we will get caught and put in jail by some well-dressed blue men. But of course, the system is not there without reason. Given the extreme pressure of examinations, this little pool of potential more or less bloomed and thats how Singapore got its NTU into Top 20+ uni in the world and its successful entrepreneurs that made our well-known local brands.

Oh well, I gotta start mugging to get the nice figures on my little piece of paper.

9 August

2006-08-10T22:11:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was 9 August! Our NDP has ended at long last. To tell you the truth, towards the end of it all, I was sort of hoping this thing to never end. Not sure of why, but it sure seemed nice gathering every week at the old grey Stadium. The fireworks displays were the best of all. We watched it like at least 5 times, through all those practices. And the whole Singapore held a birthday bash for me! I wish. Unusual experience though, performing on my birthday. Its gota be the first time for me.

And I received my first ever presents yesterday!

3-Pack Kinder Bueno and class photo from Fauzi!

Getting presents from people (other than relatives) is a rare treat for me. Im not a girl so we dont go mad and exchange presents for no reason. Anyway, it was a thoughtful gesture from our AI in Guards and Kaiwei probably received the same. Wonder how many other Singaporeans are born on the same day as us, 9 August 1992. Sorry for the lack of updates, but due to the oncoming tests, I shall have to refrain from spending too much time on the comp( my already-deteriorating typing skills is evident to that). Many Thanks for all the birthday wishes/presents! Onward Singapore! and me.

Time Table

2006-07-23T15:37:00.000+08:00

Ok I have uploaded the new class timetable. Please click on this link if you want to download.

Teach Less = Learn More

2006-07-12T18:36:00.000+08:00

Im really sick of Nanhua.

Enough with the NDP; its ending soon in August. Our over-worked sweat glands can finally rest. Whats wrong with NDP? Its doing a service to the country! It builds rapport and teamwork between students. It serves as a extra-curriculum activity to keep students healthy. It is fun!

Well I shake my head at the deluded people who think that way. Not only are we sacrificing our time and energy for this program (free of charge), we are now in danger of not getting anything for all this effort. And anyway, only Mr Foo is benefitting from this NDP, as it might give others the impression that Nanhua has holistic education and should enrol their sons/daughters here. Yeah, we are not performing very well (as pointed out by Mr Loh on several occasions). Face it, enthu people. What can you expect from freebies? We are doing labour with nothing in exchange. If you want to see a good performance, go pay for some concert through Sistic. Their ticketing hotline is 6348 5555.

Nothing? I thought there were 2 CCA points given for our efforts spent from March to August? The so-called 2 CCA points we are going to get are going to be null and void by the time we reach 2008, our sec 4 O levels. Our education system is going through a revision so CCA points would not be counted by the time we do our O levels. This year's Sec 3s are supposedly the last batch that includes CCA points into their O level results. Although this is not 100% confirmed, it is most likely true, and the school will never tell us students to prevent mass-quitting of CCAs. They are virtually useless. The revision is somewhat like the ones on the taxi fare/special school fee/electricity bill rises. And the goverment just can't accept the criticism. Well, if you get so high up there in the clouds you are bound to get a swollen head. Anyway they control the media so we cannot do anything, because the MICA might send us a letter for giving cynical remarks, non-constructive criticism that only hinders the "development" of Singapore. So much for freedom of speech and democracy.

Now lets talk about our Tablet PC programme from Sec 1. Our parents were told that their children are highly encouraged to join, as they will enjoy benefits that other kids don't. This "benefits" basically include enjoying a Tablet PC (which is paid by ourselves). Needless to say, I have also enjoyed other perks such as deteriorating eyesight. We have basically done nothing with the Tablet PC, except for the occasional jotting down of notes and downloading of revision notes from the school's online portal. It is used mainly for gaming in school and/or collecting dust at home. Well, at least the school tried to do something about it.

They introduced this brand new concept of Teach Less = Learn More, Problem Based Learning (PBL). Gosh, it sounds cool doesn't it. And and and then we learn more when the teachers teach less!!

This new concept of teaching was introduced recently in this later half of the year. Wow, it was implemented right when NDP is finishing. What a coincedence. Now we can experience all the new advantages of this cool programme. We have this PBL on Mondays and Tuesdays, the former for Science and latter for Maths. Each session would take up 7 periods (3.5 hours or half of the school day). During this extremely long period of time, the teacher would break us up into designated groups and we would be asked to solve a problem. By the end of the 3.5 hours, we would have to do a group presentation and explain the solution whether on whiteboard or PPT. For example, if we are learning the formula 1+1=2, we would organise information into three areas: What we know, what we don't know and what we need to find out. So if we know what is 1 we put it in its respective colomn. If we are not sure of what + means, we would use our Tablet PC to check it out on the web. Finally, after finding the solution, we would give a presentation to the class. After all presentations, the teacher would explain the solution. This is basically an extended version of Project Work.

This arrangement would give rise to some problems. Firstly, the groups are selected by the teachers to offer all-roundedness, a conducive environment for learning and to build rapport, it might
cause some students to be unable to communicate properly with other members, as they might not be very close or have no idea to break the ice due to different interests. This could lead to a negative attitude towards PBL and the student might not want to participate in the team. If that happens, it would not be very easy to change his thinking. Secondly, this programme takes up a lot of time in the daily curriculum and it would leave lesser time for other important subjects such as languages. Thirdly, this arrangement might not be very effective as some students do not learn as well in a group as compared to the conventional method of teaching, where the student listens to the teacher explain the facts.

In my opinion, this programme is a total waste of time. If I was the head of MOE, I would probably slap you in the face if you suggested this. The reason mainly is due to the undesirable groups. In my case, I have to be with those I am familiar with to be able to exercise peak performance. That aside, I find that teaching us facts and letting us practice is much more efficient than solving only one problem. If you listen in class and practice/revise at home, you would probably have a good understanding of the topic. The areas that you do not understand can be explained again by the teacher. In the PBL case, you simply solve one problem by searching for your own solution. This in itself is very unreliable as the student would not be sure of the solution and would often result in group to group discussion, which is not supposed to happen in the first place. PBL is also impractical as the student might grow to become comfortable with the long period of time given for solving and might perform slower in exams, which the student is given only a short period of time to finish. If you compare side by side, the conventional way of teaching is where the student absorb(2-3 periods) and practice, then ask questions. Whereas in PBL, the student spend a lot more time absorbing through discovery (7 periods), ask questions and then practice. As you can see, the conventional way spends way lesser amount of time for the student to familiarize with the topic than the PBL way. Furthermore in PBL, the student might understand the topic only to a certain extent as the work on finding the solution is splitted up among group members. This shows that PBL is completely inefficient and serves no purpose but to make education more interesting/relaxing, include Tablet PC into curriculum, and most importantly lessen the workload of teachers (they just serve as "invigilators" or "facilitators") for the same pay. Even if they had to test it, they should not test it on us Sec 2s, as we are having streaming this year. Furthermore, they implemented this programme with very bad timing, as it is already the second half of the year and we will never adapt fast enough for the end of years. In my opinion, the best candidates for all the evaluation are the sec 1s. They are free almost everyday and since they have nothing bettter to do, they can waste their time on these evaluations. If their grades drop significantly, they can still catch up on the starting of sec 2.

As you can see, our education system is really lacking. Maybe its just me, or maybe we are just unlucky to tio all these evaluation programmes that give us an "advantage". Seriously, there isnt an education system in the world that puts so much stress on their children at such a young age (previously P4 streaming, p6 PSLE, sec 2 streaming, sec 4 O levels, JC A levels). And knowing all that, they are still trying to cram every single thing they can into our already packed schedule (NDP, SYF) and change the system of teaching (PBL, nulling CCA points). I am almost certain that I have a doomed future. What a sad world.

Disclaimer: This post is absolutely fictitious, and any person or place described above that bears any similarity to that living, dead, demolished, undemolished is pure coincidence. I do not bear any responsibility for any influence of opinions the above has on anyone. Prone to grammar/spelling errors.

SYF

2006-07-01T23:07:00.000+08:00

We had the SYF performance today. It was nothing much actually, seemed like the usual practice. Teresa was slacking. She was lip-synching the theme song which she was supposed to be singing and made up by waving her hands and smiling. And her dress+necklace seemed to be the same from last practice. He lip-synch sucked like hell. It was like she didnt know the lyrics at all. I know because the video cam zoomed straight onto her on the LCD screen. Didnt see Zhiyang at all. Maybe she read the script while singing for the record. And Nanhua really was the worst in all the performances. The whole thing was not in-synch and stuff. Very disgraceful.

Having NDP practice tomorrow.

NDP

2006-06-27T18:30:00.000+08:00

NDP rocks.

Yes, it does. It it taking up the whole life out of us.

What is, in your view, NDP? Does it appeal to you being cheered by the adoring audience, your fellow Singaporeans, shouting "ONWARD SINGAPORE!!"? Well, under all that swaying bright red sea of flags and banners is actually a lot of sweat, blood and flesh. We, the people who are going to perform and entertain you on the big day, are actually almost worked to death during the gruellling practices. The very people about to have their streaming this year.

This damned NDP have taken every Wed or Fri since March and at least 1 week of our holidays. And now even our school curriculum. Every Saturday during June when most of the nation's secondary 2 students can sleep right up to noon, we are at the National Stadium, running to and fro on the green field raising flags high in the air for at least 2 hours. Don't make me talk about the full day rehearsals. Ok, I know that since this is NDP, there will surely be sweat. You might even say that the Army guards, instructors, teachers-in-charge are all sweating it out, helping us to run this program smoothly. Ah, but they are paid. Money is a very big form of inspiration. Dont shit about money being unimportant, and the pride for our country is more important. No money = no you. And earning money is helping Singapore's economy anyway. Now what about us? Two measly CCA points for running and training for 5 months, and then performing for the country twice, once SYF once NDP. What shit is this. And they dont even do much anyway (teachers can slack because they do not need to teach) , aside from the instructors (they are paid a hell lot more than teachers). So why did we even choose to do this in the first place? Oh no, we did not even have a choice. Mr Foo simply decided one day: "Ah! I shall have my school to be in NDP! It will bring glory to the school, country and even give the students a whole new experience!" and then we had to do it. Sort of like God saying "Let there be light!" and there was light.

This is simply taking too much of our time. This starting week of the new term already has Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat all booked up for full day NDP rehearsals. That means we go to school on these days and get chartered to the National Stadium just to practice, from 10am right up to 7pm. Can you imagine? On school days we instead of having classes, go and run about the field to celebrate the country's birthday. And I expect those elite schools like Hwa Chong and Raffles would have enrichment classes while we were training for NDP during the holidays. I suppose the sec 1s shouldnt mind NDP too much. It is both an enriching and fun experience for them, plus they get 2 CCA points. They have too much time on their hands anyway. We, on the other hand, have our streamings to worry about. Ah. Hopefully, just hopefully, we will have enough time for studying. We might just adapt quick enough to balance the activities and our studies at the same time. Yeah, and I might even enjoy performing and quit school to join Tan Ah Kow's Dancing Troupe and eat nothing but tofu everyday.

Disclaimer: This post is absolutely fictitious, and any person or place described above that bears any similarity to that living, dead, demolished, undemolished is pure coincidence. I do not bear any responsibility for any influence of opinions the above has on anyone. Prone to grammar/spelling errors.

Dopod 585

2006-06-24T14:47:00.000+08:00

w00tZzZ! pH34r mY d0p0d 585!! 1t r4xX0RZz and pWnZ!

Wahaha! I finally got my Dopod 585!!

The given accessories in the box consisted of a charger, mini-usb cable, in-ear earphones, a white leather pouch and a small cloth bag which I do not know the reason for it. As promised by Dopod, it is an identical clone of the o2 xPhone IIm, albeit a cheaper one.

The Dopod 585 is clad in white plastic, an ever-growing trend setted by Apple for its iPods. It even has neat buttons dedicated to playing music. I am satisfied with its large 2.2" screen with 65k colours. Switching it on, the red Dopod logo greeted me with its fluttering butterflies and twinkling of sweet music. After around 3 seconds, the important part came in; Windows Mobile booted up with its trademark blue screen and Win Mobile in white. After waiting for 15+ seconds, the main screen appeared. The Menus and everything were quite clear cut and easy to use., though there was not a proper selection screen for apps. There is one screen which appears when you press the first round button on the phone. It shows some commonly used apps, and the 'Album ' file inside is basically a My Documents, but only view image files. If you wanted to search for other docs under my Documents, you had to use the File manager which will then show you all the files in the phone using a tree-branch format. The Bluetooth is a little puzzling, as you will need to switch on your Bluetooth and Beaming function. It does not have any problems receiving but I dont seem to have much success in sending files to my sisters.

The downsides of this phone is that the storage space of the Dopod is miniscule. It has an advertised 64mb, but after adding the Windows Mobile, it is left with around 24 mb. Furthermore Windows Mobile lags at startup just like its PC counterparts. Another badly designed part of Windows Mobile is that its applications dont close down, but gets pushed into the background instead, using up RAM. So the user will have to use the Task Manager to close down the apps. A pity this smartphone does not have Wifi capabilities, as that is the essential part of a smartphone: to be able to surf wireless.

The pros for this is that its sound quality simply rocks. Added with the in-ear earpieces, the music that blasts into your ear is guaranteed 100% good. There was also good support for synchronising files and Outlook information with the PC, through ActiveSync and mini-USB. The beauty of ActiveSync is that it allows you to drag-and-drop files directly into your Dopod. It does the rest of converting them for you. The keypads are soft for this phone, providing comfort when you message, though the T9 is a little slow. Last but not least, the Dopod comes with a 1.3 mp camera with X2 zoom and environment ambience (auto, daylight, flourescent, incadescent, night, grayscale, sepia and cool) and view options. (brightness, hue, saturation and gamma) The video function had the same capabilities. The pictures taken are rather sharp and good looking.

All in all, I have to say that the Dopod 585 is a cheap and good phone, though I would love it better if it had more clear-cut menus and came with WIFI.

It rained while it was sunny today so there was a rainbow.

Church Camp

2006-06-08T08:03:00.000+08:00

Ok. I am back from the Church camp in Malaysia. We went to a place called Kuala Rompin by bus. It was ok, but the trip to and fro takes a lot of time (around 8-9 hours there and back). The facilities at the hotel (Summerset) sucks. They had AVPs which are buggies that have motorbike handles for us to rent. It cost RM40 for one car, 30 mins, RM80, one hour. There were only 5 AVPs, and one had to be taken up for the guide who brings us around the track. And they had a place for canoeing. It is totally run down. The paddles were the only things kept under the shade. The canoes were stacked on a bench outside. They do not wash them at all, so they are all sandy and the paddles were chipped. Furthermore, the 'place' we were supposed to canoe is a lagoon. Basically it is just a small river with an end. The whole stretch of it was filled with floating decaying matter and it was very smelly. The guide explained that since the lagoon had an end, there isn't any outlet for all the dead stuff, so it just accumulated.

But the hotel itself was not bad. They had a nice meeting room (The Duke) and the rooms were well furnished, except for a badly scratched floor. Plus they serve good food. The whole package was RM140 per person, so its very good in fact. Using only $70 and we were able to get this. Try it in Singapore. So based on the economic pricing, I would rate it 7.5/10. When the coach brought us back to Singapore, I felt truly at home. Malaysia looked very run down as compared to Singapore. Im saying the general look of Malaysia, not the big cities. Even the Customs at Tuas look so much more futuristic than Malaysia's. And then I saw the many HDBs in the nucleated settlements, and the shopping malls. Even the busy road junctions were of contrast with Malaysia. At Malaysia, I saw only Proton, Proton and Proton. Thats the worst car we can see in Singapore. But its probably of very good standard there. I think their main mode of transport is on motorbikes.

Its really Home Sweet Home.