Everything will fall into place

2010-09-21T03:49:00.000-07:00

Prelims have finally ended! Well not exactly, but we only have MCQ left. I guess my Chemistry MCQ is going to go much better this time then it did before since I am going to have more than a measly minute to do all the questions. Of course an expert mugger once told me that MCQ were the hardest to master, but screw it, it is just shading ovals too me.

My handphone also managed to disappear today. I was eating at the Subway in Junction 8 before marching into battle for my last (technically third last) paper. I must have already been on Meditation Mode (which is this state of tranquility I go into right before a paper), because I just left my handphone there, crying for help as I left for the physics paper. Of course when I went back, it was no longer there, and the staff said that they did not see it. So now I have no handphone, and that also means that I lost all my contacts. My mum is going to rage me when she finds out.

The following paragraph is going to be a quick summary of how all my papers went. Chemistry paper 3 was really exciting, as it was the first paper. The elucidation question was disappointingly unchallenging, but I still did not do it as I already decided to skip the elucidation even before reading it. Physics paper 3 involved some confusion about what the first question was all about. I had lots of time afterwards to come back to that question, but unfortunately, the confusion did not clear. Math paper 1 saw a little time crisis where I could not really finish the last question. Time to work on my speed. Economics went pretty well in my opinion, but since I do not write a lot of economics essay, I do not really have any basis of comparison on how well it actually went, so this could be my optimist speaking. Math paper 2 also saw a time crisis, except that instead of having too little time, I had too much time and ending up drawing Pokemon on the question paper instead of checking. Which is just great because I later learnt that I made a pretty idiotic and costly mistake. Oh well, A should still be in the bag for Math. I hope. Chemistry paper 2 was normal. Planning was surprisingly manageable though, I was expecting a little more since I did not really prepare for it. I guess I got lucky that the type of question my group chose during class work came up. And last but not least, Physics 2 was also not too bad, except I did not really know what was going on towards the end of the data analysis part.

Now that we are done with that, I am going to have a couple of days of breaks, before the last 2 prelim papers starts. Hurray for the end of prelims. I do wonder how long I can hide the fact that I lost my phone from my parents though. But I do know for certain that I they read my blog, its not going to stay hidden for very long.

2010-09-13T07:19:00.000-07:00

HELP HELP ITS GOING TO CONSUME US ALL!

2010-09-13T06:52:00.000-07:00

Yay the first science prelim paper is over! Nothing much of it except I think paper 2 is going to be insanely hard. Anyway tomorrow is going to be a Mathematics paper and somehow I am getting the same feeling of doom that I got for CT2. Seeing how badly I scored for the last CT, and making a giant false association, I am guessing that tomorrow is going to be explosive. If you hear about the explosion in the multi purpose hall, it is probably just me.

Oh yea, I decided to rest after doing one paper 3 of Chemistry yesterday, to make sure I am mentally ready for today's paper. Of course I got bored of resting and ended up watching a Pokemon movie. Yes they have movies too. The plot was strangely familiar, involving Team Rocket being stupid and threatening the heroes. The only different was that they had more competent members of Team Rocket instead, and this time they are planning on blowing up the whole town. The rest of the show was about Latios and Latias protecting the town, while there was a little, tiny, minute, morsel of romance in the story too. Of course it was done so badly (probably because this show was meant for kids after all.) that it made me appreciate standard Korean drama love scenes. Please do not watch the Latios and Latias Pokemon movie if you are not below 12. Spoilers: Latios dies. There I ruined it for you. Now you do not have to watch it. (I am really sorry if you are a kid below 12 that really wanted to watch this. I do not think my blog has any kid readers though.)

Okay I guess all there is to do now is to sleep really early (i.e. now) and get ready to do tomorrow's Mathematics paper to the best of my abilities. Please let me be able to do this one properly.

P.S. Does any one know what "i.e." stands for? I am pretty sure it is the short form for something.

2010-09-08T10:26:00.000-07:00

When the most blog worthy thing that happens to you has something to do with a Chemistry paper, you know that your life is exploding.

Today, while I was doing a Chemistry paper 1, I noticed something at about question 20. I realized that they had a little asterisk beside the second option. After doing that question, I was pretty amused that the option with the asterisk was the right answer (Okay fine, it was my answer, which happens to be right). When I moved on to the next question, I was horrified to see that the evil asterisk was still there, except it has moved to the third option. Wonders of wonders, the answer was the third option. I quickly flipped back to see the previous questions. The asterisks of evil were there the whole time! The worse thing was the once you saw the asterisks, you cannot unsee them, so there they were, one for each question, completely ruining my practice. Why would anyone print this, seriously. I am not going to spoil the paper for you guys, so I will not tell you which paper it was. Seeing that I got to question 20 before my blissful innocence was shattered, I think that it is possible for one to finish the entire paper before realizing that the evil asterisks are there.

If I was a philosophical person, I would feel that this event draws a very meaningful parallel to real life. There are some things that are better left unknown, for it might change us and change our lives. Innocence is bliss, and the more you know about this world, the more you wish you know less. But as I am not such a philosophical person, I just feel really annoyed about this event.

Oh yea, I got around this problem by closing my eyes before flipping the pages, and covering up the page with a sheet of paper, then opening my eyes and slowing sliding the paper across the page, such that I can see the questions and options without seeing the asterisks. Ingenious plan, no?

2010-09-07T09:43:00.001-07:00

I lost my ticket for prom. That is right, they give tickets for prom. The worse part of it all is that anything that gets lost in my house will never be found again, until at least 5 years later. This does not bode well for me, taking into account that prom starts right after A levels.

Somehow, I decided that the best thing to do was to try and find the ticket. I know that I am only going to lose it again, but I guess it makes me feel better for the moment. Maybe if I lose and find it enough times before the prom, I will clear a little spot on my desk (Which by the way, is to buried in mess that I cannot even use it to do any work) and keep it there. Under a dice or something, as a paperweight. There. It will never disappear again. But for now, it is still lost in the mysterious mist that shrouds my house.

In my frenzy to try and recover my lost ticket, I discovered something really strange. All the places that I do work at home has a black G2 0.7 pen on it. These where part of the millions of pens that I bought during the days when I still did not know what a refill is. These few lucky pens did not go missing, and would now occasionally be picked up by me and refilled to be used. More often then not, they would just be used to help me unlock my phone. This is the reason why they are scattered so evenly, instead of being packed neatly in one place. The other possible reason could be that I am just to messy to bother putting them aside neatly. Of course I will refuse to believe the latter.

Okay it looks like I am still unable to find my ticket. I guess I will have to pull off some moxie to get in on the day of the prom. Seriously, why the hell am I thinking about prom when the prelims are just a week away. Back to work!

2010-09-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

The first two papers are over, finally. I have to say that the General Paper paper was some disaster. This Oscar Wilde dude came and entice me with his wise sounding quote, something about how making children happy is the best way to make them good. Halfway through the paper, I realize that I had nothing to write about. Nothing at all. Of course I had to choose between writing nonsense for the rest of my time and writing a new essay in 45 minutes. Being a sane person, and equipped with the knowledge that sometimes teachers can be tolerant of nonsense if you smoke well enough, I opted for the former option. It felt horrible, and instead of the usual optimistic outlook that I have after every GP essay I write, I actually know that I have defeated myself this time. Time to get a real specialist subject, specializing on "superstition" just does not make the cut.

The economics case study was much better though. I was actually able to approach the questions and hit all the key points (so I think). I started off at lightning speed. Seriously I have never written this fast in my life. The first word that I penned down was perfect already. It was bordering on illegible, just good enough for the teachers to make out what I am writing, but not neat enough that I need to spend time defining every curve and pointy bits of the alphabets. Okay, I am getting the feeling that no one can understand what I just said, so let me try again. When I started writing the essay, I was already using my "15 minutes left" hand writing. It did not degenerate when there was really 15 minutes left, thankfully. Any worse and the teachers would just throw it into the shredder. However, it was pretty surprising that I still did not make it to the last question. I left 10 marks blank, but I am still pretty confident about this. Come on what is 10 marks huh? I can still get a good grade if I nail all the marks that I attempted right?

2010-09-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

It is here! The prelims are so soon that, well, it is tomorrow. Need I say more? Doom upon us all! Am I going to be able to impress the examiner with my excellent language skills? Only time will tell. I am really starting to melt with a weird mixture of excitement and dread. I guess anticipation would be a good word. If they started with a science paper, I would totally be freaking out now. Oh well, I guess preliminaries are here to get us used to all the weird jitters and stuff. I have to say I am not liking it though.

Anyway, I just came back from my annual Smokey Dinner. It actually pretty good, considering we got a nice little corner, away from all the incense burning and fortunately we were not sitting in front of a speaker like last year. The catch was that we had no one at our table, so it was just the four of us, my mum, my sis, my aunt and I, sitting and eating an eight course dinner for a table of eight. This means effectively twice the amount of food. It was really good at first, not having to share with four other people. We could seriously eat all we wanted, and we did. However, after a little while, I realized that I was not going to make it past the fifth dish at this rate. Heaven knows that I am no eating champion.

It was about the fifth dish when another random family of four came to join us. That really helped us look like we were not wasting food, as we were already beginning to feel full. The auntie tried to teach me how to use a pair of chopsticks. Apparently I was holding it wrong. Perhaps I should have told her about the time when I ate a plate of rice using only a pair of chopsticks (and the power of my awesomeness), down to the last grain (Okay fine I am lying about the last grain part, but I did finish a good portion of it). On a separate (aha, spelled this word right, and will be able to spell it tomorrow too) note, my mother won an auction for two bottles of red wine. I knew bad things were going to happen the moment my mum and sis went off to sign up for the wine appreciation class.

This is the worse of times to be waiting. I should go to sleep now.

2010-08-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

It is that time of the year again. I cannot recall if I posted about this last year, but we went to Smokey Land today yet again. I guess it is an annual thing, where we go to get blessed. Took me long enough to notice that we were actually going back there every year. I am not a very religious or superstitious person, depending on how you look at it, so to me it was not more than an opportunity to catch up with a couple of my cousins, amidst a very bad environment. Oh yea, and I have to return tomorrow for a Smokey Dinner. Way to spend the night before the first prelim paper.

One of my cousins had a few scars on her right leg, and bruises scattered around her arm. I was a little scary, but I looks like it has healed already, so I guess it was worse at one point of time. Anyway, she apparently survived some accident where a female driver (Not being sexist here, just stating the facts) drove into her because she did not see my cousin. I guess that is the disadvantage of riding a motorbike. If some idiot drives into you, she (or he) stands to lose less than you. The idiot driver offered to pay for a cosmetic surgery to fix up my cousin's leg, on top of the damages, but my cousin chose not to go for the surgery because they would have to take some flesh of her butt. I guess it is times like that you find out if you like your butt or your leg more.

The best thing about tonight was that it was also fruitful academically. Surprisingly enough, the same cousin involved in the accident asked me for some help in her architecture tutorial. Of course I could not do the questions that went "State the different characteristics of the following materials.", but she did not expect me to know the answer to that anyway. She wanted me to do the physics questions, where they have pretty scary structures and they required the students to resolve the forces acting on each component of the structure. Basically, it was a mega forces questions, where you have to find about 8 different forces, and state if they were compressions or tensions. I could not attempt either without a graphic calculator (damn those blasted things, I have become completely reliant on them), so I just remembered a couple of questions and did them at home. At the end of it all, my mastery of forces became so solid that I think I am ready to take on any form of forces questions the prelims or A-levels might feel like throwing at me.

For all those physics students out there who feel like doing some questions on forces, here it is.

Find and tabulate the following forces acting on each part (ie each line) of the structure, and state if it is a compression or a tension.

I was going to put both questions in, but this one took me so long to draw I changed my mind.

2010-08-29T06:02:00.000-07:00

I finally went and watched the liar game movie today. Yes I know that it is a little close to the prelims, but I am sure that studying can wait. Oh well, for all those without any prelims getting in your way, I recommend that you watch this show if you are slightly fond of game shows. To summarize this show (really badly), it is about a bunch of people playing in a high stake game that allows cheating. The rules of the game is just a rough outline of how to play the game, and anything else is legal. Oh yea, the protagonist is a pretty easily scammed, which can be a little annoying at times. The underlining themes in the movie, human greed versus human compassion, is also brought up in a nice way. Acting could have been a little better though.

Anyway, while I was on the way the the movie, the weirdest thing happened. So there I was on the MRT platform waiting. When the train arrived, the outer doors opened. The train doors remained closed though, while a whole stretch of people, including myself, stood on the platform with anticipation. Any moment now! We peered through the door windows and saw the commuters inside peering back at us. Then the outer doors closed and the train left, leaving everyone on the platform, looking helplessly as the train took off. I am sure it was a pretty fun experience for the people who wanted to get of a Serangoon too. Singapore has a world class public transport system.

2010-08-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

The prelims are here! Okay actually not really, but I am practicing my dramatic exclamation of panic and fear for next week.

We are going to start the battle with General Paper. Ah, a subject that I am decent at, so I think. However, whenever I think I am going to ace an essay, the marker would swoop in and prove me wrong by, well, not giving me a grade I was looking for. I think this is actually because they think that my language is too bad, so from now on, I am going to be using far more sophisticated language and pretentious words in my posts. Which is going to be a problem since I do not use any such language, nor do I know any such words.

However, I can really feel my revision speed slowing down now. Perhaps I should actually devote more time into sleeping, and less time into trying to stay awake doing ineffective revision. Last night, I was trying my best to complete a whole math prelim paper set in a night, which ended up badly because I am unable to actually think after awhile. I could not even find the asymptote for simple conical graphs. Well, since I was doing my work on the bed, I eventually just fell asleep on my work. I am seriously bad at this late night mugging thing. Tonight, I am going to try sleeping at ten. Maybe I will be all pumped up and ready to take on the world tomorrow!

2010-08-23T06:24:00.001-07:00

What a waste of a Monday. There are only three days a week that I get to wake up later than seven in the morning, and one of them is Monday. This Monday however, was different. The Mathematics department decided that it was a good idea to just plonk a statistics test in the middle of our Monday morning, and as a result, I had to wake up early. What ever happened to protected time huh? What happened to all that magic that used to protect this sacred time of resting? Tell me!

Oh yea, today was also a day of great mystery solving. Firstly, I found out officially that the average time taken to get to school by 156 is the same as the average time taken to get to school by taking the circle line (Of course my sample size was 1, making the results highly inaccurate). While waiting for the traffic light to change, I saw a 156 approaching the bus stop. I was tempted to just run across the road, but I was also tempted to stay alive, so all I did was watch it slowly taunt me as it strolled across to the bus stop. It was then I noticed Across the road girl emerging from the Maze of rich people houses just in time to catch the bus. Seriously, why am I on the wrong side of the road. It always pays to be rich. The traffic light turned green, and the 156 broke into a sprint, just to make sure that I could not catch up. On the bright side, I only needed to wait half a minute before 70 came and pick me up. I guess its circle line today. When I got to school, I saw Across the road girl coming from the councilor's canteen. There, I would never have to wonder again which bus to take when both 70 and 156 arrives at the same time. It does not make a difference.

I also discovered the answer to the mystery of why I could never shoot a basket ball into the basket. Who would have known that the solution is actually to aim before you shoot? Other more insignificant mysteries that I solved includes how a melted non-bake cheese cake tasted like, and the solution to the following math question.

"Let f(x) be the function defined as f : x→ x- (1/x), x>0

Define the inverse function."

Feel free to ask me on the occasion that you cannot solve this, but please refrain from coming up to me and telling me how easy it was and how it fails to qualify as a mystery.

2010-08-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

Triple post! Okay now that I got my long one day overdue post and my urgent message post out of the way, I can get on the what I actually came online to blog about.

It is 3:31 in the morning. I just finished a Math paper. Guilt is arguably the best motivator there is around. I spend the day getting owned by Hwa Chong's Math prelim paper, almost getting killed by flying cars and indulging in a bit of (Shudder) dota. Stupid game. Anyway, this ended up with me not actually having done anything today (Or yesterday. Some people are really particular about how mid night marks a new day. Of course, in my book, a new day starts only when I sleep). As a result, I went ahead and did a paper really late in the night. Finally, I managed to finish it, though my efficiency was clearly declining. The stupid numbers kept dancing in front of me, making it hard for me to actually think.

Here I am, checking my answers. The thing about Math that makes in different from other subjects is how it emphasizes on accuracy. In Physics, a lovely mechanism called Error Carried Forward prevents you from losing too much marks from punching in wrong numbers. Chemistry has this mechanism too, and they hardly require calculations in the first place. And if you lose marks from calculating the change in GDP wrongly in a case study for economics, you only lose one mark (Rest assured, you are still a complete idiot for throwing away such precious Economics marks).

Huh? Where the hell did this "1/3" come from for question 12? I am getting really depressed about how poor my calculus is. Whatever happened to being good at Math? It has been forever since I last topped the class for anything at all. I guess I am just not hardworking enough, but sacrifices has to be made to make sure my other subjects get their As too. I can only hope that I do not overshoot and allow my Math to slip to much. The expectation of my abilities in Math from myself is also too much. Perhaps it is time to just face the fact that I am no longer as good or fast in working out these things as I used to be.

"55.9" says the answer key. "56.5" says my answer sheet. What the heck, its close enough. No one will notice if the volume of this odd shape is 0.6 units cube off.

2010-08-21T12:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, double post time. I had a near death experience today. Okay fine it was not that close, but it was still pretty freaky.

I started the day by deciding to do a little Math. You see, I have this Math test coming up in a few days and I thought that it would be best if I actually got myself into the mood by doing some Math papers. That way, I would be all ready to punch away at my graphic calculator as the ask me to reject hypothesis and arrange families at the dining table. I decided that I wanted a challenge, so I picked the Hwa Chong paper to do. To all you Hwa Chong readers out there (Who am I kidding, I only have 3 readers*), your prelim papers are really sick. The questions have so many death traps, pit fall traps, and time sinks in there that it is not even funny. I gave up at question 9. This is the first time I ever did so poorly for a Math paper. I got so demoralized I almost died.

Of course that was not the near death experience, though I did see my mathematical spirit leave my body to take a retreat to the Himalayas. Anyway, Kenneth and I took a break from the studying and we went out for waffles. Of course the waffle shop was closed, as it has been for like a week. But my brain was still bleeding from the paper that I did not realize it. While crossing the road to the Serangoon Village (Yup, I officially live in a village now), a car stopped right in front of us, possibly to recall which way to turn, or maybe to see what the workers were doing to the man hole at the side of the road. But unfortunately, the taxi driver behind her was not in the mood to wait, to recall which way to turn, or to look at workers doing their man hole thing. So he went ahead and gave her a good bump on the left rear (That sounded a little kinky). The car spun (No such word as spinned? Cool never knew that) a little and I swear I saw some parts flying out of the car. I think she went on panic mode and forgot where the brake pedal or hand breaks were, so she went ahead and pressed down on the accelerator, and drove on to the pavement which we were walking along a few seconds ago, whacked the street lights, and went up the hill a bit. Thank goodness we were not in the way, but I think it is even more fortunate that the workers did not get ran over. I seriously think that she swerved the car sharply to avoid hitting them, but Kenneth says otherwise.

So that is my account of how I almost died. This experience has taught me the importance of not driving in front of kan choing spiders (Kan choing means impatient, for all you non Singaporean readers).

*Based on estimates done by my secret blog agent**

** He is disappoint

2010-08-21T01:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I woke up to a really dark and stormy morning. I did not really notice how dark it actually was till I stepped out of the house and realized that I could not see more than 2 meters in front of me. Apparently, the lighting system for my block works on a time thing, not a light sensor thing. As a result, it just switched of right on time and left me groping my way down the block.

The weirdest thing about that morning was that it was a really dreamy morning. The sky was such a nice shade of grey that it would be the perfect setting for a really emo scene in some drama. I hid under my little foldable umbrella as I made my way to the bus stop. Speaking of bus stops, Across the road girl seemed to have disappeared for a week. Maybe she caught the flu bug that was making its round around school. Or maybe I have been waking up later and later. Okay I think its the latter, considering that I am starting to take the Last Train again. First time in a few weeks where I actually took the Last Train actually.

Oh yea, Leonard was not in school, as he was down with the aforementioned flu. I never realized how difficult it was to go down to the canteen without someone to drag with you. The consequence of being late alone is too great. If you have someone else with you to be late, at least you will not get focus fired if the teacher decides to actually care. Oh well, lucky for me, Friday is the day we have two double breaks. If one day our Chemistry teacher is absent, we would have a five hour break. I would probably hate that.

On a completely separate note, I left my umbrella in school. Nothing I leave in school over the weekend has made it out alive (Save for my H3 notes, which are still in class). Time to see if this umbrella can break the evil curse.

Wow I just read my post. It is really disorganized.

2010-08-18T08:21:00.000-07:00

This marks the beginning of a new era. As I disconnected my games hard disk drive and plugged in the new replacement prelim papers hard disk drive, I knew that it was a symbolic moment. It is a commitment I am making to do more prelim papers than I already am, and spend less time playing anything at all. Help, the future is bleak. I want more time, just a little more time.

Okay, since I have not been doing much of anything today, except for physics, I shall just have to talk about what I have done, which is lots of physics. I noticed something uncanny about the first questions of all the Physics Paper 1 questions. They are all about measurement! (Yea, took me long enough) And even better, they really have nothing much to ask about measurements, so what you get is always the same few questions. Of course, these questions are of varying difficulties and I have arranged them in their level of annoyance.

Possible measurement questions:

Level 1) Uncertainty calculations. Good for building up confidence to face the rest of the paper. The only way you can get this wrong is to misread the question and give them percentage uncertainty instead of absolute uncertainty or something.

Level 2) Estimate this shit questions. Hope like hell your visual sense is good enough to tell you what the radius of a basket ball is.

Level 3) Units balancing. This question can be annoying if they give you many derived units that are derived from other derived units. You can cheat by mugging lots of derived units in SI forms before the test, but this is just for 1 mark that might not even come out, so maybe you should consider spending that time reading some Economics instead.

Level 8) Estimate this four shit questions. This is four times more annoying than a level 2 question. Unless of course option A is the right answer. You will probably still check the rest anyway actually, so I guess this still remains at level 8.

2010-08-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, dreams do come true.

In my case, it sure did. I had a dream about waking up (think inception without the dream in the dream. Just the waking up), and when I looked up at the clock in my room, it was freaking one o'clock. To put things into perspective, that would mean I would have missed half of my Chemistry lecture, which also happens to be the last lecture for that day. Panic! Okay not really panic, because even in my dreams, I am fully aware that I am allowed to be late twice a calender month. Seriously, school life was never so slack. No white slips for long hair, no white slips for being late, I guess we really do have it good. Anyway, I was pretty flustered because of all the lessons I missed, and so close to the prelims too. How knows how many secret hints I would have missed.

Then I was rudely interrupted from my horrible dream, which is a bad thing. I have this theory that I would like to call the '"Holy shit, it is just a dream" theory'. The tone of the "Holy shit" varies. If it is a good dream, it is the disappointed holy shit, and if it is a nightmare, it is more like a "Yes, thank god I still have my limbs" kind of holy shit. Anyhow, the theory is that the longer you are in a particularly good or bad dream, the more emotionally attached to it you become. Hence, when you wake up from a long bad dream, you will feel a unique love for life, while waking from a long pleasant dream will leave you wondering why you are back on this wrenched planet. So basically I was woken up from the dream so quickly I did not really got the chance to feel that unique love for life I was talking about. I looked at the clock (This time for real) and see that it is still seven. Great I have about two and a half hour before school starts. I go back to sleep. It only makes sense.

When I finally woke up again, it was a quarter to ten (9:45AM for all those digital people out there). To put things into perspective again, I had about five minutes to get to school before I was considered late. It is times like this where you do not even bother rush anymore, because you are resigned to being late already. I made it to the lecture theater just in time for the last five minutes of the lecture. Anyway no one was really taking attendance (I think) so I guess I still have my two lives for this month. Brilliant.

2010-08-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

Yay, I got my wallet back. And this time it only took me 1 day before it found its way back to me. I still remember last year's missing wallet fiasco lasted a whole week. Whatever the case, life is good again. Oh yea, and all my money is still intact. Thanks Amanda and Ryan!

I have a toothache. It sucks. All the things I enjoy eating have suddenly became much less enjoyable, with the exception of ice cream. Ice cream is still good because it is soft and creamy. The toothache has not made my gums more sensitive to heat (or lack there of) so I can still enjoy a nice cup of ice cream. But for everything else, I find myself chewing extra carefully, using my tongue to skillfully shepherd all the food to the left side of my mouth. If I accidentally chip my tooth on the left side of my mouth now by biting a stone for whatever reason, I swear I am going to quit eating altogether. Of course I would still be able to stay alive by drinking stuff, and nibbling on sunflower seed with whatever good teeth I have left. Oh yea, lets not forget the ice cream. Ice cream is good too.

On a side note, chemistry mugging madness is over. I am still not the best at the subject, but I do need to assign more time to other subjects (Economics for instance) which I either need to seriously get better at quick (eg. Economics), start practicing how to approach questions (like Economics) or refresh my memory on before I forget everything about it (not Economics). Oh yea, and screw all the faulty and unexplained answers for multiple choice questions for the practice prelim papers. I paid good money for you, the least you could do is to tell me the right answers.

2010-08-12T05:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I took Raleigh out for a spin. You know what they say about never being able to lose skills like riding a bike? Well they are right. But I could tell that Raleigh was a little unfit for these nonsense anymore, not something a bicycle pump could not fix though. I also discovered a new path home from Kovan, cutting through the Maze of Rich People Houses. The thing about the Maze of Rich People Houses is that the walking pavements are so small that I have to actually cycle on the road. This is all well and good, since there is so little traffic, but I did a pretty good job in pissing of every driver that had the misfortune of having to slow down to a crawl behind me while I wobble over to the sidewalk. Seriously, the side walk is actually big enough for me to ride on, but the rich residents of the maze seem to be pretty fond of growing plants all over the place. And rubbish bins too. Everyhouse has their own bin. Ok fine, every house actually has two bins each.

Okay that aside, I can now go on to rant about my horrible week. This week is one of the worst week ever, considering I lost a lot of things. Most notabily, I lost my wallet (again) and all the money that was inside (surprise!). This is incredibily annoying because I like money. It allows me to purchase stuff like food. I am now in great debt, owing tall dude $2.70 and Leonard $2.50. On a separate note, one of my many (Last estimate of this figure stood at 2) readers (Yay, so close to not being able to put the "s" behind that reader) still owes me $1.30. I cannot really remember what for though...

Because of this wallet thing, I am also going to have some problems travelling. My Ez-link was in my wallet, so now I am actually considering taking Raleigh to school. Which does not seem like such a bad idea until I reliaze that would have to mean waking up at some sickeningly early time. It also costs too much to take the circle line now, which throws me back all the way into the dark ages where I can only take 156 to school. I used to hate the frequency of that bus, but I am pretty sure it has changed for the better. An optimist is me.

I also lost my brown jacket. I knew I should not have carried it in my wallet. Or left it in my classroom over the weekends. It mysteriously vanished into nothingness, I really thought that it would still appear under the desk like it always does, but looks like it is really gone for good. Farewell Newbie jacket, you have served me well. The least I could do is to write you a little ode.

Sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne:

Should old brown jacket be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old brown jacket be forgot,
even during the coldest times.

For all the times you saved me dear
when I was about to die.
For all the times of sixteen degrees,
with draft also on high.

2010-08-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Singapore. You are officially 45 years old!

Anyway, guess who has a knack for getting free gifts when shopping at NTUC? When I went down to NTUC to buy some snacks yesterday, I realized that The Natural Confectionery gummies prices have gone up. Okay, it has not exactly gone up, but the discount thingum was only for the month of July. Why did no one tell me that before? I would have so went over on the last day of July to stock up. So there I was, looking at gummies I could no longer afford. And they probably will not even give me a disfigured stuff toy now that there isn't even a discount promotion. While I was walking around looking for something cheaper, I found the prefect thing.

It was Oreo. Not just ordinary Oreo. The researchers working for Oreo has decided to make a new flavour of cream to go with the chocolaty cookie, purple flavour! Okay fine its not really called purple flavour, but it should be. If purple had a taste, it would not taste like grapes, or any other purple food you can think of (I honestly cannot think of anything else that is purple and edible. Is yam purple?), it would taste like THIS. Yup. My secret blog agent made me download a new interactive function to my blog. Go ahead, lick the bolded word. Precisely my point, tastes purple no?

For those of you who have not downloaded the new interactive blog reader operating system and just tasted your computer screen, I am just going to have to describe what this new flavour tastes like. When you first put it in your mouth, you start to taste this weird thing, its a little like toothpaste, but in a nice way. Toothpaste that is organic and perfectly edible, not at all over powering with bacteria killing goodness. After you are done with the cookie, it leaves a minty flavour in your mouth, it actually feels like you just ate a menthol. Okay I just read what I typed and I did a really bad job. So I am going to leave you with two options. So buy it and try it yourself, or come find me on Wednesday and I will let you try one of mine. For those going for the first option, its called Ice Cream Flavour. But if you tell the sales help that you are looking for purple flavour, I am sure that he or she will understand you.

Okay back to my original story, I bought two tubes of purple flavoured Oreo and I was given a free lunch box. Not much of a lunch box, actually, since it is pretty small and in an odd shape where you cannot really put a lot inside. A very inefficient space saving shape actually, more like a space wasting shape. It is in the shape of an Oreo cookie. Normally I would say that it is the shape of a circle, but they gave me an Oreo cookie lunch box. Yay.

On a completely separate note, to all those that needs to check if your Chemistry basics are there, you can try the St. Andrew's Junior College 2009 prelim paper. The questions a nice and simple, you should be able to do at least 90% of the questions.

2010-08-06T04:40:00.000-07:00

Studying too hard can make you sick.

I have been on a pretty tight mugging schedule for quite some time now. It has been so long that I cannot really remember when I started all this nonsense. As a result, I looked forward to a much deserved break, the final school event (besides teacher's day, which I am not even sure if we are allowed to go for) before we get consumed by the horrors of a national examination. A major national examination. As such, I went for the national day celebration at Zouk.

I have no idea which room of Zouk we went to, but I think it was their largest one. It was much larger than the one I went to for poetry slam. However, it still was not nearly as large enough to host an event for 60% of our school population. (I am pretty sure that 80% of the year sixes did not bother turning up) This resulted in great immobility and no place to sit at all. Only those who went early found themselves a place to sit. Me and Joewie ditched our bags in one corner, which actually enabled us to move around. We made it to the heart of the first floor, and the atmosphere there was great. However, there was two row of girls directly in front of us, so any moshing never got to us. Girls make really good mosh blockers.

About 10 minutes into the performances, I decided that I was getting hungry and we made our way out to grab some food and punch. I am thankful that we were able to get free punch, much better than the time when the bouncers took our water bottles at the entrance and they would only sell us some overpriced mocktails. Doughnuts were delicious, pizza squares were tasty and meatballs were... erm... spherical. Anyway, the mass singing which I had been anticipating for a long time did not disappoint. The whole 60% of the school population was singing together and jumping at the chorus. There is really nothing that can come close to mass singing. It never fails to make me fall in love with the country again.

Okay back to my story, this Zouk thing ended with me being tired from the jumping and standing around, and being under the impression that I was full. Eating delicious doughnuts, tasty pizza squares and spherical meat balls do not make you full. It only makes you think you are full. Of course I had no appetite for dinner, so at about 11 o'clock I found myself feeling really hungry. And sitting in front of me was popcorn from the Cornery. (Best popcorn ever, by the way) I was perfectly aware that Cornery popcorn was on my "Things I am allergic to list", but when you are that hungry, you will eat anything edible. Especially if it was the best popcorn in the world. It was totally worth it...

So I thought. About three hours later, I woke up itching all over. Surprisingly enough, I had an allergic reaction from eating all that popcorn which I was allergic to. To think I wrote an essay about self-restraint a couple of days ago. In my second fit of genius, I decided that I could freeze myself. That would surely stop the itch! I then lined myself with ice packs I took from the freezer. Brrrr...

Now, I have a mild cold. And the worst part is that it is affecting my tight mugging schedule. The moral of this story is, do not mug too hard, or you will fall sick.

2010-08-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

I really do not know if it is just me, but I have this strange tendency to assign songs to some people that I know. It is not really like a theme song, but when I hear that song, I would suddenly start thinking about him/her. Am I the only one who does that?

Anyway, the long weekend is coming! I am really looking forward to doing lots of work then. Actually it would be quite a good idea to just relax for a bit, as difficult as that might be at a time like this. Well I cannot say that I know next to nothing about macroeconomics now, but what I know is still hardly enough to get me anywhere above an E, which is pretty disgusting. Someone should really write a book about how to actually answer the questions. It is clear that knowing the content is not nearly sufficient to get you your A. Mayhaps the way to do economics is not to know all the definitions and stuff, but to know what each question is asking for, and accurately hitting those points they are looking for. Seriously, unlike the other subjects, there is only so many type of questions they can ask you. The thing is that if you do enough essays, surely you will start finding questions really familiar. I vaguely remember that happening during my secondary four life, when I still took history...

Screw economics.

2010-07-29T02:28:00.000-07:00

Everyone has their own style of mugging. Which is exactly why I came up with the awesome list of different types of muggers! Collect them all today! (Disclaimer: Any characters in this post are purely fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Or not.)

The ADD mugger: Takes a 5 minute break for every 5 minutes of mugging. Luckily for them, sometimes they takes a break from breaking and goes back to mugging prematurely. The smarter ones gets around this problem by studying for all their subjects at once, moving on to a new subject after they get bored of the last.

The bankai mugger: Cannot stop mugging, and cannot take any breaks! Only 100 more days to A-levels rawr!

The closet mugger: These people hide at home to mug, so that no one sees them mugging. They would then tell all their friends that they are going to fail the exam before walking into the hall, only to slap them in the face a few weeks later with a "Wow, I got deans listed without studying!" Rarely contributes in class either, in order to cover their mugging tracks.

The construction helmet mugger: No one really knows what the helmet is for, but some say that the helmet is there to prevent any brain from exploding. Others hypothesize that maybe the helmet keeps them from falling asleep. Seriously, try sleeping with a helmet.

The group mugger: Some people just cannot study alone for some reason. They have to be sitting in a group before any work can be done. Admittedly, a big advantage to this arrangement is that you can ask people questions. However, people might ask you questions and distract you too. Pick your members carefully!

The legendary mugger: Legend has it that there was once a guy who got UUUUU for the last exam and suddenly goes into a mugging frenzy. The result? Straight As. All muggers hail this mugger, for he have done the ultimate 25 grade jump. His name is carved on the library wall, so all knows about the new legend.

The midnight mugger: Sleeps during class, but still scores very well. What is their secret? They do not sleep at home! Instead, they spend their nights burning the midnight oil. Three cheers for caffeine.

The mugger mugger: These sneaky bastards camp outside the library at night with a baseball bat, ready to knock out the next guy who comes around the corner. This explains the construction helmet mugger!

The mugger mugger: Huh? Did legendary speller Huang just make a mistake? Did he not just educate us about the mugger mugger? No! This mugger mugger is different. They also stand outside the library at night, but they are actually there to take notes about sneaky bastards who camp outside the library at night holding base ball bats.

The musical mugger: Why is that dude wearing headphones while mugging? His head is bobbing up and down to the beat, I guess some people just work better with music. Not to be confused with a silence mugger.

The poor planning mugger: Unfortunately, some of the muggers are just not that good an arranging a mugging schedule. This ends up in them pacing themselves so badly that they spend too much time on one subject and have no time to do anything else. A typical report card of a poor planning mugger would be: A (Mugged for this yo!) C (Can't possibly suck at everything) UUU (But sure can suck for 3 things). Ouch.

The proud mugger: Spams you with tonnes of knowledge that they have committed to memory. When they start mugging for general paper, be sure to hang around them as the spew bits of information that might come in handy. Remember to stroke their egos by telling them how smart they are once in awhile if you want to keep them going. To stop them from annoying you, talk about a subject you know they have not touched.

The silence mugger: Why is that dude wearing headphones while mugging? Cannot possibly be to listening to music right, what sort of weirdo can study with music blasting in their ears. I guess he just does not want anyone talking to him.

The sleepy mugger: Can be found sleeping on their notes in the library. Looks like he is going to be up all night. Feel free to grab any fancy mind-maps you see on the table, just be sure not to wake him up.

2010-07-25T02:34:00.000-07:00

Woohoo, I am finally done with Stats. It is actually quite frustrating relearning something that you once knew how to do inside out, but it still had to be done. I still think that they should have tough pure math first, before they dud any stats. It is not like we need any of this stats knowledge to do our pure math topics.

Oh yea, my aunt was at the market buying salmon. Apparently they were selling it for 99 cents per 100 grams, which is just a tad cheaper than 1 cent per gram. I am not much of a grocery shopper, so I have no idea how cheap that is, but my aunt decided that it was too cheap to only buy one fish. So she went ahead and bought a lot. Alas she bought enough to sell some to my mum too, and now the freezer section of our fridge is full of salmon. Not just any salmon, but perishable salmon, that has to be consumed quick. Actually ya, that is any salmon. Looks like I am going to be eating salmon for quite a few days in a row...

2010-07-21T02:49:00.000-07:00

My secret blog agent (Yes I have a secret blog agent.) has recommended that I value added my blog by adding random information in my post once in awhile. This way, my readers will actually learn something that is not what I did, what I think, what I think about what I did, what I did about what I think... you get the idea. So I decided, instead of scattering useless bits of information everywhere, why not just put them all in one post, so that this useless information can be found easily. Now you know where to find them, the day before GP prelims.

Ten things you need to know (about strawberries) before GP prelims:

People eat them in Asia. Not only Asians, I heard that Europeans eat them too. And pretty much the rest of the world, but I cannot guarantee you that. We Asians definitely eat strawberries though, not a doubt.
They can be pretty huge. And by pretty huge I mean the size of your fist. I have seen and eaten one that big, of course under the assumption that you have pretty small fists.
Strawberry flavored things taste nothing like them. Real strawberries sparkle in your mouth, and makes you feel like you can take on the world!
They are not made from straw. Those are straw berries.
You can eat the seeds too. There are like... a lot of seeds, so do not even try to remove them before eating. Rest assured, a strawberry tree will not grow on your head if you eat their seeds.
Haha, gotcha. Strawberries do not grow on trees, the grow on bushes! Or do they grow on vines? Perhaps Wikipedia will have the answer...
If you peel a strawberry in front of a mirror at midnight, you will not see your future husband in the reflection. You might see an idiot trying to peel a strawberry though. (If it is bright enough.)
They are one of the best fruits to serve with a chocolate fondue, right after bananas. The sparkle puts a tingle into each bite, and yet the strawberry does not have an overwhelming flavor such that the chocolate is overpowered.
Strawberries are red just like how apples are red;sometimes they are green .
The Strawberry Fair has nothing to do with strawberries. Really.

P.S. I do not really have a secret blog agent. No need to thank me when a strawberry question comes out for GP.

2010-07-19T06:03:00.001-07:00

Doom upon us all! A few days ago, a close friend of mine, who shall not be named, was messing with my phone and accidentally plucked off my keyguard switch. Curse you Kenneth. This makes it really hard for me to call anyone, check any messages or look at my background picture. (Which happens to be a really beautiful shot of nature taken by your's truly, by the way...) I knew that the day would come where I would lose the small bit of switch i have left. You see, now whenever I want to switch on my phone, I would have to stick the switch back into the hole, flick it, and then repeat when I want to lock it again. Russel has offered me an elegant solution though, to download this application that would allow my phone to unlock without the stupid switch. Who would think that an application designed to make your Nokia phone look a little more like an iPhone would ever find any use.

Anyway I lost my keygaurd switch today. But then I found it later on so it is okay. Remember to congratulate me when you see me, on my 5th day in keeping the switch with me.

Yensen somehow convinced me to spend 70 cents to get my picture taken with a Polaroid camera. Bryan, Yensen and I each wore this dress thing with an amazingly complicated belt. (The fore-mentioned close friend has still not returned me my belt, on a totally unrelated note.) It was amazingly stuffy in the dress, since I also had my uniform on underneath. Luckily, they had this hand fan around that I could use, since my anti-drug windmill was proving to be a little useless. After years of trying and tying, the Japanese club booth people managed to get the dress thing on me and we took the picture. We then took off the dress only to learn that the picture failed to develop.

I did get my picture in the end, but I was actually holding the belt thing with my right hand. Cannot really be bothered to put that dress back on. Ancient Japanese people sure had it bad.

2010-07-17T05:11:00.000-07:00

Quality control sure is bad when it comes to free gifts.

This month, I went to the NTUC emporium on two occasions. Once was to buy two packets of delicious gummy worms from The Natural Confectionery. The other was two buy two packets of gummy fruits, also from The Natural Confectionery. They chewy texture of the individually hand made gummy, made from the freshly plucked gum from the gummy bush in Unicornopia... Sugar coated, each cube strategically placed to give the consumer maximum satisfaction... And the dipping of each gummy in the rainbow pool, giving it not only its colour, but its natural fruity taste that is almost identical to the fake fruity taste you normally get... Yummy!

However, much less care is taken into making their free stuffed toys for their promotion. If you purchase two packets of gummy, you get to receive a free stuffed toy. These stuffed toys have slanted crossed-eyes, and they cannot even stand up straight. Okay fine snakes do not usually stand up straight, but surely the pink dinomel (cross between a dinosaur and a camel) should be able to? I can also see the stitches on the toys, and the snake has a torn ribbon for a tongue. Poor dinomel and snake, if only I knew how to fix you guys up.

I guess you only get quality for what you pay for.

2010-07-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

I make it a point to like every year's national day song. Last year, I had What do you see playing on replay for quite a bit. Strange enough, a song that I had initially disliked suddenly started sounding better and better. Seriously that song grows on you, it is like an acquired taste. All you people who do not like this song, just put it on replay and listen to it for an hour. You will see exactly what I mean.

This year's song, however, how should I put this... It is a little harder to like than the past year's song. It actually sounds pretty okay at the start, but is ruined by a certain line. I do not think I even need to mention which line it is. Just listen to it for yourself and you probably will notice it immediately. Yup, it is that line which makes you shudder in fear.

But horrid lines aside, it is nice to know that they are going back to the old formula of a slow paced song with meaningful (but somewhat corny) lyrics. This is how national day songs should be, less rock and more soul. Looking forward to hearing a great national day song next year!

This is a safe link. Really. http://www.ndp.org.sg/articles_main.php?article=themeSong&id=show

2010-07-14T06:07:00.000-07:00

You know that feeling you get when you just wake up from a short nap? It is this thing where you still feel a little clumsy from the slumber, and you stop thinking all together. Feels good. Honest.

Anyway, I was planning to do some studying today, but I was faced with an empty Group VII lecture note. I am really starting to dislike these notes that leaves blanks all over the place to punish those that do not stay awake during lectures. It is just not fair. Initially, I could fill in the blanks by reading the next few lines of the paragraph. Then as I moved on, I needed to use a little of my Chemistry knowledge to deduce the correct words for the blanks. Finally, it came to the point where I could no longer make up the sentences because the blanks were so frequent.

"F2 reacts with ___________________ water ______________________"

Huh? Let's see... F2 reacts with liquid water quickly? F2 reacts with boiling water but not cold water? F2 reacts with cold water to form HF? The possibilities are endless! So I did what any sane person would do and took a nap from this madness. (If you do know what goes into the blanks, please tell me.)

When I woke up, I decided that it was a good idea to bring a glass of yogurt drink out of the house while grabbing some dinner. Of course, I eventually finished my drink and was left looking like an idiot carrying an empty glass around. I would like to think that I did not already look foolish when I still had some drink left in my glass, but I might be wrong about that.

2010-03-28T08:06:00.000-07:00

I just had the most enjoyable CIP project yesterday. The best part of it was not that I got more hours than I actually stayed for, it was that all I had to do was to walk around while watching other people do their CIP. That is right. They do the door to door visits and I get the hours for making sure they do not get lost or kidnapped or thrown down the building by raging residents.

I was lucky enough to get a group that only needed to do 3 blocks. The first one was awfully small, with only four floors, so we finished that in no time. Then we moved on to the next two blocks which was each twelve floors high, and twice as wide as the first one. Being smart little secondary two students, my group broke themselves up into 2 groups and each took half the block. The groups then broke up into smaller groups, so it was really efficient. Of course I could no longer see all of them at the same time, so after I bit of tagging along with random groups and walking around looking like I have something to do, I decided to just wait below the block. That way, I can see them if they tried to sneak off or catch them if they get thrown of the building by raging residents! Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

The students were not as annoying as I expected, though they make an awful lot of noise when walking along. Half of them were actually quite enthusiastic about the project, which was surprising. I heard that some of the other groups actually had students who refused to do anything.

Oh yea, this year, I did not take part in Earth Hour. My mother and sister both agreed that they wanted to watch the television, so I got outvoted. Oh well, it is not like me turning off the lights is actually going to help save the planet. Right? Right?

2010-03-21T22:58:00.003-07:00

Hello there my loyal readers! The reason why I have not been updating my blog for the past... 3 weeks is because of the CTs. It is also because I cannot get my self to get the stupid computer fixed.

Economics CTs sucked. Considering that I only studied the multiplier effect for the test, I could only do part (a) of the question. For the second part of the essay question, I was forced to try and reproduce my essay from class test which I somehow managed to pass. Halfway through, I noticed that the question was quite different from the class test. Surprise! Anyway, I did not have time to correct anything, especially since I was already writing paragraphs that were each 4 lines long, each stating nothing more than my point and the implication of my point. Bottom line is, I need to learn how to write faster for economics. Oh yea, and I need to cover the syllabus too.

My team got 4th for the Hwa Chong cup. That is not even a medal position.

2010-03-02T03:56:00.001-08:00

If I was an emo person and this was an emo blog, this post would have started with "My life is falling apart right in front of me...", but since I am a perfectly emotionally stable person, I have decided against doing so. Instead, I have decided to just casually mention that I lost my freaking wallet last Friday. And it looks like I am not going to be able to get it back. To mentally prepare anyone who might decide to lose his or her wallet in the near future, I have done a list of disadvantages of doing so.

1) You lose money - Surprise. You lose money when you lose your wallet. In fact, you lose the amount of money that was in your wallet when you lost it. Exactly.

2) Travelling gets harder - Assuming that you keep your EZ link card in your wallet too, there is a good chance that you have to travel with coins for the next few days. This not only makes you constantly think about getting change to be able to go home, you are also unable to take the MRT train anywhere. Since the bus driver can see that you are in school uniform, at least you only have to pay student price. Trains are so ridiculously expensive that it is no longer an option. Now I can only take 156 to school. And back.

3) Arcade cards - Remember those days where you went to the arcade and watch eagerly as you arcade card accumulate points which would finally give you a little discount per game? (And lets not forget the shiny card.) Well, by losing your wallet, you get to relive that experience.

4) Twinkly pockets - Now that you have nothing to put your money into, you have no choice but to put them into your pockets. The notes are not so bad, except that they are so light I keep putting my hands in my pocket to make sure that they have not magically flown away. Coins are quite the opposite. The jingle in your pockets to constantly remind you that they are there, ready to be used to pay for your wallet-less trip home.

5) Replacement IC - I probably have to go through a lot of hassle when finally stop procrastinating and started filing police reports and stuff about losing my IC. And my EZ link card. This might also cost more money, and almost certainly will cause a hell load of time.

6) Raging mother - Cannot wait to tell mum about this.

2010-02-15T05:46:00.000-08:00

I just came back from a movie with my family. Of course it had to be a random movie, because if it was not random, it would not be fun. That being said, we ended up watching Percy Jackson. The plot was really... Lets just say that the guy in charge of the story line was not getting paid enough. Unless you are excellent at suspending your disbelieve, you are probably going to question a hell lot in this movie. It is one of those movies that you do not have to think at all. You just sit there and accept everything you see as it is. A little like an economics lecture actually.

SPOILER ALERT: The following text contains spoilers that might ruined your already bad movie, making it even worse. If you intend to watch this movie, read the rest of this post at your own risk.

This movie is about a boy, Percy, who is a demi-god. Yes a demi-god. And yes it gets better. His best friend is a satyr, and is supposed to protect him. Percy gets attacked by a monster. A centaur saves him. Satyr guy tells him his real demi-godly identity, and he reacts appropriately, by following him to a camp for demi-gods to train their fighting skills. Why? It was not properly explained (Or I might have slept through that part.) but I figured they needed an outlet to pass time. Oh yea, his mother gets disintegrated by a minotaur. Ouch!

He trains for a day, and found out that he is the son of Poseidon (Which makes him very Powerful and Special.) That night, Hyades visited the camp and offered to trade the lightning Percy stole (He did not by the way, somebody else did and the godly gods somehow all thought that he was the one that stole it. Not very impressive.) for his mother, who was stuck in the underworld. So Percy goes of with ONE WHOLE DAY of training to seek out Hyades. Man, talk about being over prepared.

He goes on the find 3 pearls hidden around the United States that had the power to bring you to anywhere you wanted. These are supposed to get them out of hell. Getting in is easy, you just need to enter it via Hollywood and pay the ferry man to bring you to the heart of hell where Hyades resides. After all that, Percy tells Hyades that he did not have the lightning, but oh no! He does have it hidden in his shield! "You lie!" bellows Hyades before feeding him to the lost souls. But his wife took the lightning and zaps him before our heroes got killed. Yay! And finally, the geniuses realized that they only have 3 pearls, which means that one of them would have to stay in hell. Oh yea, I failed to mention that Percy, satyr dude and love interest of the show were travelling together all this while. You would have thought that they would be thoughtful enough to actually bring an extra pearl to get Percy's mum out of hell. So satyr dude, being an unimportant sidekick, had to stay in hell.

Percy goes on to the gateway to heaven, which is on top of the empire state building. He fights a boss battle with the guy that jacked him by passing him the shield. He wins. He goes to heaven. He passes the bolt of lightning to Zeus. The world is saved!

The end. Oh yea, he was this close to kissing the love interest. How can I forget the important part.

2010-02-14T06:42:00.001-08:00

Take 5 was quite fun. I have problem recalling exactly what happened, but I do know that we got owned by the gameshow. No, not the other gameshow contestants, the gameshow itself. Unfortunately, me and Haiwei were short two points of entering the finals, so we did not get to enjoy the second half of playing weird games.

Squid Dog and Bone:

This is like dog and bone, except with a squid. The best part is that the squid stinks like crazy, and when you squeeze it too hard, it sort of squirts ink on you. I am not too sure if the ink was especially smelly too, because once you smell the squid, you nose gets numb to any stench damage for a good amount of time. Oh yea, how they did the scoring for this game will continue to be out of my understanding.

Listing Game:

You start listing stuff from a given category. When you pause for too long/ list something that has been said already/ list something that does not belong to the category, you get whacked by the other contestants. And you do not get a point. This is by far the most normal game.

Sponge Game:

Thank goodness for me, Haiwei is a pretty good thrower. In this game, I had to hold a bucket over my head, and he would try to throw sponges that have been soaked in yellow juice into the bucket. Well, I was afraid that he might miss at first, because the yellow thing really looked like egg yolk, and I was not fond of being sponged in the face by egg yolk. Not like I would smell any worse than I already did from the squid. Turns out it was just Mama Lemon.

After getting eliminated from the gameshow, we had a class outing. Significantly better than the last one, which was a failure on at least 18 levels, and that is going my the abridged version of "Failures of a Class Outing". I am not sure if I already posted about that last outing, but I am not going to bore (or offend anyone) with details. Anyway, this outing had more people, and more, erm, purpose. Moral of the story, have a proper organizer or get ready for failure.

2010-02-10T05:20:00.001-08:00

What is with all these emo face book groups? Facebook groups with names along the lines of "I wasted a long time liking you", "A tear is 1% water and 99% feelings" and "I don't know what to talk about, but I know I want to talk to you" has been spawning on my Facebook homepage recently. I can imagine the group hosting club meetings where everyone all gathers to tell their sob stories, followed by a short tea break and finally a wrist slashing session. Except for the last group. Those people would just sit around not knowing what to say to each other.

It is that time of the year again. After this long week end, everyone is suddenly going to be significantly wealthier, and a few would be significantly more attached. To someone else. What ever the case, no one can stop the long holidays from coming to relieve some steam from my head after insanely mugging for the first half of the school term. The last day of school before the mini-holidays will be marked with a lecture test, which all my friends happens to think is really easy. Not that I asked them. Honest.

2010-02-08T04:51:00.000-08:00

I recently learnt that walking to Little India station from National Junior College is not a good idea. Oh yea, and if you are planning to do so, remember to ignore what other people tell you to do and not take any turns at all. Not even one. Just walk straight, as any bit of turning might get you to Newton station and you do not want that.

Take 5 Sandsation is approaching quickly. I can hardly wait to see what the gameshow people had planned for us. My only fear is that they might try getting us to eat weird stuff on the show, which would suck because I am a very picky person. I only eat food. It reminds me of the bridge chalet where Junyi's concoction nearly poisoned those who drank a sip of it. Well, we were warned in the email that we might want to wear something dark for "our own modesty", so I am guessing that keeping dry would be a slight problem. Oh well, I have to say that the suspense is a really good way of keeping the contestants from being prepared, both physically and mentally.

To accommodate the juniors, we received a new improved timetable today. It looks the same to me, all the important periods like breaks and physical education did not move at all. Sadly, Yvonne lost her magical Thursday which used to end at what, eleven in the morning? But for the rest of us non-Japanese speaking people, I think no one would be able to tell the difference.

2010-02-07T00:04:00.001-08:00

Today was our block party. Basically, the residents came down to eat lunch together at Lesbian Square, while some member of parliament brought us some good news about estate renovation (Yes, the one I posted about a few weeks back), which was stunningly surprising news, and something about lift renovation. At least if the lift renovation thing goes through, I do not have to drag my bicycle up and down the stairs every time I want to cycle somewhere. Oh yea, and I got to shake hands with the member of parliament. It made me feel all warm inside, and I would give her my vote in the up coming elections if I was suddenly granted the power to vote.

It is getting harder and harder to do work now. I can feel the laziness sneaking back into my life. And now that my computer got over its strike, I have an additional distraction. In fact, I have a half done remedial worksheet in front of me as I am typing this post. Self discipline must be one of the hardest trait to find in a student.

Oh yea, me and Leonard escaped representation. She did tear our presentation apart, but the main point is that she was kind enough to not to give us detention because we were the first group to present. Who said being the benchmark setter did not have its advantages.

2010-02-04T06:43:00.000-08:00

Sorry. It has been a long time since I last posted, some would even say that it has been three weeks. It has something to do with my computer decided not to work, but also partly due to this crazy notion I had that involved purging the computer from my life. What insanity is this.

Unfortunately, my General Paper teacher has decided to make us present on political questions in pairs. We have to talk for 10 minutes each about topics that we know hardly anything about, which is going to fail unless I can pull of a lot of smoking. Of course I did some research prior to my presentation. She did threaten to throw anyone who does a bad job into detention class, something which I happen to be avoiding. Why have the teachers suddenly been granted with the ultimate power of sending anyone to Wednesday detention? Now we actually have to listen to the teachers and do our work before tutorials! Its like they do not trust us to be good teenagers or something. I have no complaints about the new late coming system though. We get to be late twice every calendar month.

Speaking about calendars, many events are going to spring up in the next week. We are going to have a Sandsational time at Take 5, for all those in need for fun, Chinese New Year, for all those in need for cash, and Valentines day, for all those in need for some opposite gender love. Or same gender love. Depending on your preference, which I honestly do not want to know about.

2010-01-12T05:38:00.000-08:00

I just dug up a half written post from the distant past. This was the post I was going to post about a month ago when school just started. However, I gave up half way and did not touch my blog for about a month. Upon reading it again, I have no idea what the hell I was thinking, but I am going to complete the post anyway.

The following italic text is the completed post from the distant past:

Woah, just like that, I am officially a J2. Tomorrow is an important date. It is when the juniors come. The various CCAs have prepared themselves to pique the interest of as many people as possible. Some do it to have choices, especially for the sports. Some do it to keep the club big and healthy. May I compare Bridge Club to a turtle.

Turtle babies are sad little creatures. They have to be born from the sand, as their parents are to lazy to incubate them or something. As a result, immediately after they are borne, the would have to scramble to the sea before all the seagulls eat them up. Or do whatever seagulls do to baby turtles. The solution? Spam baby turtles. That way, at least a few of them are going to make it through to the sea and live a happy gull free turtle life.

Likewise, Bridge Club has a very high member mortality rate. In order to actually have members to continue the club, we are going to have to own open house so bad that a whole lot of J1s joins the club. Following which, they can slowly leave once they realize that they suck at bridge/ do not like thinking/ like to play floating bridge more/ do not have many girl CCA mates, but will be we in trouble then? No! Because we have a freak load of members!

We do not exactly have a "freak load" of members now, but we do have very promising juniors. Some might say that they have both the theory and skills required for this game. The most important thing that they have is enthusiasm, which no bridge player can do without. The steep learning curve will separate the people really interested in bridge from the rest. Anyway, tomorrow is a really special day. It is the day where Enghan and Yensen teaches the juniors how to bid! I am confident that we are going to have very disciplined bidders in our club.

2010-01-10T04:02:00.001-08:00

Ahhh, the new term starts tomorrow. And to welcome us all back into the college, we have a chemistry test waiting for us. Fair enough, the test is not even remotely important (Relatively) but it is still a test either way. It is a good thing that I am feeling fairly prepared for the test. I have been studying quite a bit for the past few days, just to prep myself for a crazy year ahead. Oh well, I really wonder if I am going to enjoy myself in school tomorrow. Hopefully I would be able to get some fun out of the Khong Guan biscuits. Homecoming for the win.

Today, I was in a car with my sister in the driver's seat. It was not too bad, except that she stalled the car a good number of times. Luckily, she was not showing her skills off on the main road, or she might have lost her licence for blocking the traffic.

Anyway, I have a challenge for all my readers! If you ever happen to be in Hougang Mall, you might notice a bubble tea store near the entrance, just opposite the Macdonalds, beside the Pastamania. The interesting thing about this shop is that they have this pearl fetish. They will do their best to force their pearls on you, no matter how many times you tell them not to during your order. So, if you happen to be around Hougang Mall, why don't you try to order a cup of bubble tea that does not have pearl. If you manage to do so successfully, Kenneth will gladly pay for your order. Oh yea, and reminding her that you do not want pearls when she has already got her hands on the bucket of pearls does not count.

2010-01-07T05:52:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to blog more than once over the past few days. However, I had to finish all my General Paper homework. Not only did I have to buy a new pen because it drained all the ink off my first one (Yes, the one I bought a few weeks back when I just started my homework.), I also lost all my will to come out with proper sentences. So the rest of this post is going to be in nice short primary school sentences. Still remember those days when an essay (Composition, they used to call it.) consisted of 8 sentences, each no longer than 8 words. Time to relive those days.

Today, I finished my holiday homework for GP.

It took me all of two weeks.

It was tedious and boring.

But I did it anyway.

I skipped the section on consistent reading.

It is far too late to do it.

I have no time to rest though.

Time to start doing my other subjects.

2010-01-01T08:40:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah! I just finished hard resetting my desktop. I am so proud of myself, second time I have done it this year. Even though I know that it is still going to crash on me just about as often as before, I take comfort in the fact that I can say that I tried. Of course I will not be saying that to myself. I would be telling the distributors when I call them down to tell them my computer is screwed. Customer with warranty for the win!

Desktop-

I changed my desktop quite a few days ago. It used to be some sunflower picture, but I decided that it was way to orange for the new year. So I changed it into a nice dark one with some weird plant, and it kind of grew on me. So yeah, changing my wallpaper back to the plant gets priority.

Weird Icons-

The second thing I did with my factory reseted computer is to delete clean up my desktop. They always have this irritating shortcuts you will never use, because it is not useful. Why would I go and watch my DVDs on my computer. I will just use my television for that. Of course I would need to buy some DVDs first, but that is another point.

Internet-

What good is a computer without internet. It is like having a hand phone with no service provider, or a Wii with no games. I love my wireless adapter, because it has the driver in itself, so I do not have to produce a separate disk to install it. Of course I would have lost the disk by now and I would have no choice but to go online and install the driver. Oh but wait! I cannot do that without installing the driver for my wireless adapter first! You see, it is like one big paradox! (Actually it is just a sad situation to be in.)

Google Chrome!-

The next thing I noticed was that I did not have a proper browser. Sorry Internet Explorer! I know you are the only browser that can view my blog without screwing up the side bar and I respect you for that. But I just like chrome more. And I like Firefox more too. And I would probably like a few other browsers that I have not tried more than you.

Windows Live Messenger-

Oh right... I am going to need this to connect with my friends. Luckily the factory people had the foresight to put a link at the start bar that brought me straight to the MSN website to download the latest version of it. I am horribly impressed! Looks like E-Buddy has ways to go.

Games-

Ahha! I was smart enough to save my games before I wiped my computer. So no problem here. I take pride in the fact that my foresight saved me a lot of time downloading or burning games from my friends.

Invisible folder-

You know that invisible folder that I never figure out how to delete? Apparently a hard reset does the job pretty well. Somehow, it just did not feel the same without it, so I made another one.

2009-12-31T21:01:00.000-08:00

Woohoo. I managed to rush out my reminding essay outlines right before the countdown. Which means I entered the new year without any essay outlines on my back. Sure I do have some journal entries to do, but that is easy right? I am sure she will accept random entries about how I feel Tiger Woods has been a really bad person and deserved losing all his sponsorship and stuff.

For some reason, my MSN refuses to log me in. And it is not because I have no internet access of course. No! I feel so cut off from the rest of the world. Actually screw it. MSN is not that important anyway. Other that the fact that it is my medium to DotA games. I just hope that the MSN satellite did not fall out of orbit and brought all my Hexic high scores along with it. (If you really need to post something telling me that that is not how the internet works, feel free to tag.) Now I am stuck here with nothing to do. Perhaps it is a sign to keep up all my muggery and do all my journal entries today.

Anyway, I would like to say happy new year to all my beloved readers. Happy new year! I really hope you guys can keep to your resolutions for more than 3 days. Here are 10 resolutions for that you lazy people that do not want to come out with your own.

Resolutions!

1) Start sleeping before midnight everyday. It is good for your health.

2) Stop eating expensive food.

3) Be nice to your pets.

4) Be nice to your siblings.

5) Stop cheating on your wife. Maybe people will give you back your sponsorship deals.

6) Start doing your holiday homework. It is due this year now.

7) Stop listening to Lailailai

8) Be punctual for your meetings with your friends.

9) Stop watching so much Youtube videos and spend more time watching real news.

10) Remember your SingPass.

2009-12-29T09:12:00.000-08:00

Wow. I cannot seem to get myself to sleep before midnight anymore. I have transformed into someone I tried so hard not to become. Now here I am, listening to LaiLaiLai on the radio. I should seriously make myself sleep at 10 for a few consecutive days. Surely that would fix my weird sleeping timing. Or of course I could just wait for school to reopen where I would either be forced to reset my biological clock or get expelled for getting too much white slips.

Anyway, me and my dear partner managed to get second for SCBA on Friday. Second baby, we actually win money. The countless lasts that I got seems so worth it now. But I have to commend Yanwei for really throwing himself in the deep end. The first game of contract bridge ever was played in a round of pairs at SCBA. That is almost asking to be banned.

2009-12-26T20:37:00.000-08:00

Holy crap. After a short sharing over MSN, I decided that it might be a good idea to go the the FML site to read about the misfortunes of others. What a sad mistake. Apparently, when I read about other people getting owned, I get all upset for them, especially when it was hardly their fault that they got screwed over. I guess some sites were not made for me to read.

A week ago, I had this excellent idea of turning the air cooler beside my CPU on, and wonders of wonders, it stopped my computer from crashing every other session. However, it failed me yesterday, and my computer hung for the first time in a week. Looks like it is time to turn up the air cooler from Low to Medium. Its just a matter of time before I need to shift in my power fan and have it pointed at the CPU too. Or I could just call the distributor and ask them to fix it for me. But where is the fun in that eh?

2009-12-25T20:32:00.000-08:00

Oh no, Christmas is over. This marks the start of my re-transformation into a real student again. Basically, I have 2 weeks to the start of school, and 4 weeks to my SATs. The best part is, I have yet to see a sample SATs question, or find out if they test any more than Math and English. I have this feeling that they might just ask questions on the sciences too, but have not really bothered to find out. Oh well, I guess I do have more pressing issues at hand.

I really dislike the SingPass system. Somehow, I seem to have forgotten my SingPass. Apparently, I did not bother to change it into my common password when I activated my account. Now I have MinDef asking me to confirm some weird administrative thing and I cannot even log on. This warrants a trip down to the CPF headquarters so I can ask them to change my password in person, since I cannot even answer my own security questions. No seriously, who actually remembers the answer to the security questions. Half the time, they offer you questions like "What is you mother's middle name?", and I am like, "What IS my mother's middle name?" Anyway, in order to prove to the computer that I am indeed Xuewen, I have to tell them my NIRC, my full name, and the date of issue of my IC. Then comes the security question. Are they not convinced by the fact that I know the date of issue? I mean I actually needed to take out my IC to check that one.

"What is your favorite song?"

Holy crap, I cannot possibly know the answer to this question before knowing when I set the answer. And I have no idea when I set the answer. I have changed my favorite song about once a month on average, so it is quite a stupid question that I chose to ask. Seriously, at that time I must have been like, "Surely I will know that my favorite song is blah blah blah!" So much for not thinking things through.

And just for fun, I read the second question even though I knew it was pointless. Come on, if I can answer this, at least I scrape a pass for my own identity test.

"What is your childhood nickname?"

Great. What is my childhood nickname. Sometimes I wished I had a nice nickname. That way, I can actually introduce myself by saying "Hey, my name is Xuewen, but you can call me Mario." Which is a relay to "Mario? What a great name! I love all the Mario games except for Mario Sunshine!" And at that point I know that me and whoever I am talking to would have at least something in common. Too bad the only thing my friends ever called me is either my name or my initials. Or some vulgarity once in awhile.

2009-12-23T02:40:00.000-08:00

You know there is something wrong with you when you lose a pen the same day you bought it. I lose about 2 pens a month, sometimes I even lose the pens I borrow because I... well... lost all my other pens. But for the first time in my history of my life, I seem to have lost a pen on its first day on the job. Sigh, just thinking about all the essays can make me feel sad for the pen. But then I go on to think about the money I wasted and I stop feeling sorry for the pen and start feeling sorry for myself.

On top of that, the other pen I bought today happens to be 0.5. Thats like so fine that I can hardly read it. If there is one thing I cannot write with, I would be a 0.5 pen. Sure, I can even stand a pencil so blunt that the characters smashes together, but I will refuse to use a 0.5 pen. Looks like I am going to get a whole lot of work done today.

Oh yea, can someone please tell me when school reopens. I am really looking forward to organizing my own funeral.

2009-12-22T23:31:00.001-08:00

The new cafe near my house is finally opened. Sure they did not have a big opening ceremony to announce to the neighborhood that they finally managed to open for business, but they did stick a large sign across their glass door that reads "NOW OPEN", which gave me the idea that they are opened. I cannot wait to try out their coffee, although it is so expensive that it scares me to even enter the place. Anyway, if any of my dear readers happens to be interested in grabbing some coffee with me, why don't you just pop by my house with a wallet full of money. However, I have to warn you that I am a horribly busy person (mainly due to poor time management skills) and it might cost you an essay outline or two to get me out of my house.

Speaking of essay outlines, the more I look at the list of General Paper work, the more I know that I am probably not going to be able to complete anything. In fact, things like "Evidence of consistent reading" is going to be hard to fulfill, judging from the fact that I have not read anything since the start of the holidays, save for Missile Gap which I rushed in a couple of hours last night. I am currently printing out 2 comprehension papers which I am expected to complete too. My printer is awfully slow after months of slacking. In fact, I took a good 5 minutes to warm up. What a useless piece of junk. And why on earth does it sit there quietly when it is out of paper. Is it not good sense to make it have some sort of emergency siren when something like that happens? Or at least a little out of paper jingle? Okay a beep. How about a beep? I want my out of paper beep!

2009-12-21T21:02:00.000-08:00

Avatar was a great movie. Seriously, it does not get much better than this. it was the latest movie I have ever watched, ending at 130 in the morning. Coupled with the fact that I watched it all the way at Vivocity, it would have been a sad journey home if we did not take a taxi. Considering that it would have left us the only other option of walking home in the rain. Anyway, the plot of Avatar is quite similar to that of the familiar Pocahontas, except that the whole movie takes place on another planet, with interspecies love and all. The graphics were amazingly good, and it was a pity that I did not watch it in 3D. And if you did watch it in 3D, please do not talk to me about your movie experience. Rawr.

You know what else is a pity? School is starting soon! I keep telling myself that I can easily tear myself away from the computer to do some real work, but its not happening. The more time I spend slacking now, the more time I am going to have to invest later on. Sometimes even knowing the problem and the solution does not mean that you have solved the problem.

2009-12-20T19:16:00.000-08:00

The sky is finally done. After Thomas decided that it was a good idea to help me fix in a lot of pieces of the sky, I suddenly lost my common sense and rushed the rest of it. Yes, at last! It only took me about thirteen months to finish the sky. It was a painful process. I still remember when I was fixing the clouds. All the white pieces looks the same. As in seriously, exactly the same. Then when I finally moved on the the real sky, I realized that all the blue pieces looks exactly the same too. Yay for jiwsaw skies. When I fixed in the last pieces, I breathed out a sigh of relief. It was 130am already, which was a little later then I expected. I stood up to admire my work, and then I saw the spot that the sunflower field is supposed to be. Looks like it is going to take another year or so.

A big thanks to everyone that helped me fix in more than 1 piece, especially those who did so without me having to trick them into.

2009-12-18T07:43:00.000-08:00

The thin fabric of time starts to distort slowly, and suddenly, a blog post emerged from the recent past! And only one week late!

Today, I tested my body with some weird prawn crackers that Kenneth's mother offered me. I have no idea why, but I got this feeling that I was allergic to it. It is like a special ability I have. When I see a food item, I can roughly tell if I am going to get hives if I ate it or not, and the crackers were emitting a lot of evil vibes. Being the adventourous person that I am, I ate it anyway just to complete my list of food items that I am allergic to.

Twisties

This is the first thing that gave me hives. I used to love these nonsense, but one fine day a few years back, I got hives after eating it. Of course I did not suspect anything, so I got it twice more the same month. But luckily, I was smart enough to figure out that it must be the Twisties that I had a sudden allergy for. With a heavy does of self deception, I managed to convince myself that it tasted like crap anyway and I am not missing much.

Honeystars

No! Why do I have to be allergic to the tastiest stars in the universe? Seriously, these things are good with or without milk. At least I can eat 1 or 2 pieces without breaking out with hives.

Generic Chewing Gum from Malaysia

You know, the one with the green wrapper? I have no idea whats the real brand name, but I was chewing on one of these doing my first sia kang warrior job. It did not even look like something I would be allergic to. Come on, who on earth is allergic to chewing gum. Luckily this allergy does not impact my life in anyway at all, necause Singapore's government is kind enough to ban it for me. Victory!

Cheeseballs

I have not actually tried this, but I know that they taste like the original Twisties and I have a really really strong feeling that they will screw me over. Not touching these until I get over this feeling. After which I would probably regret my decision.

And yay, that is the end of the list. I am not allergic to prawn crackers.

2009-12-14T19:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday marked the start of the new era. It was the first time in my holidays that I actually touched my notes. All I accomplished was just 3 topics that I have already done a few months ago, but I guess it is a start. And it is also not my fault that Mr Lim gave us homework which was designed to ensure that we never forget the first 11 topics ever again. I wonder if I can keep up the boredom today.

The internet radio is down again. And on top of that, it is only down for me. Everyone else can assess it, but not me. NOT ME. Now I cannot listen to the radio without having to stick two irritating things into my ears anymore. Looks like it is the end of my music listening life again. Now that did not last too long.

While I am listing down all the horrible things that are happening to me, I might as well mention that one of the coffee shop near my house is down for renovation. Which is great, because now I only have one left, and being human, I do thirst for variety. Time to try every different store of the other coffee shop.

2009-12-12T19:30:00.001-08:00

In preparation for the breaking down of my computer, I took the time to dig through mountains of receipts and invoices to find my extended warranty service contract. It is much like then normal warranty, just that it is no longer with the producer of my computer, but rather the distributer. Having spent all of 10 minutes finding it, it only made sense that I read it before I dumped it into the pile of mess on my desktop. I then realized that they sound like they are really unwilling to help anyone fix their computer. Brilliant. Of course it is really hard to read the whole contract properly, as it is written so carefully to prevent misinterpretation that every sentence looks constipated. So here is a simplified version of the contract.

Coverage

This part of the contract states how long the contract lasts. Fair enough. The last line has a really complicated sentence structure, but I broke it down slowly and figured it meant, "Sometimes, the customer has to pay more." Right...

Product Eligibility

It basically states that I have to be in Singapore. Looks like they are not too willing to fly down to anywhere in the world to help you fix your computer. It also states that they are only going to fix your computer if it is meant for personal use only, so no commercial computers. I cannot really figure out the logic of that part though.

Exclusions

This is the longest part of the contract. Seriously, it seems to go on forever. They will not fix anything that the manufacturer will fix for free. They will not fix your CPU to make it look less ugly. Oh dear, it appears that they will not free your computer from viruses and bugs either. Not like that is very hard to do, those lazy workers. The list goes on and on and on. It touches a little on theft, burglar, accidental or intentional damage (Which means they are not going to fix any damage), neglect and misuse and abuse (Thumbs up), animal or insect infestation, and finally, natural disasters. But I do believe that you have better things to worry about if your computer gets destroyed in an earthquake, like you house. Of course that is just in my opinion.

Limitation of Liability

The opportunity cost of you not having your computer while they fix it will not be compensated.

Termination

If you lose your contract, they terminate the contract. If you lose your CPU, they terminate the contract too.

Entire Agreement

Oh this part is interesting. After they fix your computer, it might not be as good as it once was. Also, if they are unable to fix it, they might decide to replace your computer with "one of a like kind and quality." I hope this does not mean I will get one which blue screens me every other day.

2009-12-11T19:15:00.000-08:00

Woohoo! Me and Yanwei redeemed ourselves yesterday by getting 7th for SCBA last night. Thats like right smack in the middle. It was a good day to have scored decently as it also happened to be the day she threaten not to let us play because we suck too much. My very first competition is in a week, so I guess that leaves us amazingly little time to get our pending "Must Use Conventions" up and working. The worse thing is that new conventions needs time to work. Lets hope all goes well then.

I did not know that thee Ministry of Home Affairs sent people to take surveys about random things. A girl went up to my door yesterday and asked me to help her do a survey. It was about how I felt about other races and religion, and how I though they felt about me. There was also a little bit about terrorism, but that part looked like it was a poor little question that was from another survey and got lost because it wondered to far away from its mother. How sad. Just to try my luck, when when she asked for my age group, I told her 20-24, just too see if I can pass off for it. Apparently not. Maybe I would in a few years time.

2009-12-08T04:57:00.000-08:00

Sigh. My mum is getting really cranky. I think that the thought of A-levels being less than a year away has gotten to her head. Does it really kill her to see me having fun during the holidays? She has been bugging me to file my notes since a month ago, and today, she gave me a book which would supposedly improve my General Paper grades. I guess that it is just a parent thing.

Today was the first time in ages I went for a swim. Of course, by swimming, I mean 5 minutes of complaining how cold the water is, 10 minutes of walking in the water, 2 minutes of actually swimming and 30 minutes of soaking in the sun on the deck chair. Life is good when you have the option to do nothing. I still suck at tennis though. At least I can serve properly about 20% of the time now. That is some pretty decent skills.

2009-12-07T10:18:00.000-08:00

Life sucks when you are an Itallian plumber wearing green. Yup, the colour of your overalls makes a big difference when you are in mushroom kingdom. If you wear red, you get to run off with Princess Peach after your brother jumps over the waves of lava to reach the final platform and miss the giant button to fall to his greasily death while you pop out of your bubble and save the princess. I would like to think that the two little unnamed toads are female at least, so that Mario is not the only one getting rewarded. Oh well, life is never fair.

I have been listening to the radio again recently. 987 finally decided to fix their internet thing, so now I can tune in while doing whatever it is that I do when I use the computer. Well, there are a lot of new songs now, and the old ones have faded into oblivion. But one thing that I noticed is that the songs are still either about love or sex. Is that how you are supposed to make it big if you are a song writer. Actually, come to think of it, it does make sense. The songs about love can be used to target all the foolish people who still believes in love. The songs about sex are for those who gave up on that and just go around screwing everyone who is willing to get screwed by them. Admittedly, there is a pathetic number of songs not about of love or sex, and those do get to the top of the charts when they come.

2009-12-07T00:00:00.001-08:00

I am so ready to study. With a pile of notes, some files to start organizing and the week old Slurpee in front of me, I can finally start to do some work. Unfortunately, I am not that disciplined. So I grab my Slurpee and go off to play some DotA. Computer games - 1, Homework - 0. Tomorrow will be the day I start. Honestly, no more procrastination.

With great skill, I also managed to piece about 4 pieces of my jigsaw puzzle. At last, progress! I can almost see the whole sky now. If anyone is interested in helping me fix my jigsaw puzzle, I warmly welcome you to my house to help me. I will even provide for your meals, so long as you are doing a good job. And if you are enthusiastic enough, I can even accommodate you for a night or two. Thinking back, I has been almost exactly a year since I got the jigsaw puzzle. Maybe I should just spend 5 minutes everyday fitting a couple of pieces in. Surely it would be done by 2013.

2009-12-06T20:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I got reminded once again why I slept through all but the first PE lesson about tennis last year. Yup, I spent one day learning how much I sucked at it, and the rest of the lessons sleeping beside the net. That is the best spot to sleep, because the raging tennis balls never find their way there. Anywhere else and you are vulnerable to those irritating things whizzing past your head every couple of minutes. And if you are lucky enough, one or two might connect during that one hour. I spent some time learning how to serve again, and remembered that I sucked at the game. Looks like its back to Wii Sport's tennis.

2009-12-05T03:14:00.000-08:00

It took me all of 17 years to notice that people act on their own interest. The most harmless of conversations are also driven by motives. Is there anyone out there who is selfless enough to live a day without having a personal agenda, or at least not bothering to do everything on it? But I guess that is how life works. Meet someone with conflicting motives and you found an enemy, meet someone with similar interest and you have found a friend. When you put all this in perspective, you are actually much lonelier than you think.

Anyway, I messed with the coding of the blog a little a spawned an archive! You can now read my older posts, not like there are many of them, but I am sure there is someone out there who would want to read some drivel to kill time. No? And for everyone who is using Chrome and Firefox, you cannot see the sidebar. You need to open my blog using Internet Explorer, if not you only see two arrows. Actually now that I though of it, you can still read the stuff on the sidebar with other browsers. Its like looking through a little slit or something.

2009-12-03T19:56:00.000-08:00

Oh no. My computer seems to be exploding more and more often. It is almost as if it is trying to tell me not to use it so often. Perhaps it is a sign that I should be going out a little more often, or maybe it wants me to actually start on my homework. Nah, can't possibly be the latter. Who would start doing work one week into the holidays.

Today, I managed to oversleep again. By the time I was awake, they were probably already done with drills and doing whatever scrimmage thing they felt like doing. Bleah, I think it would be a good idea if I woke up at 630am everyday. That way, I would not lose so much time. Waking up in the afternoon is just sad. Come to think of it, why has everyone in my family came to ignore the sign on my room door? Could it be because I told them not to wake me up anymore? I guess it is time to get an alarm clock.

The weather is really depressing. If it is not pouring, it is raining, and if it is not raining, its drizzling. Is this what we get in exchange for snow? I want my snow!

2009-12-03T03:08:00.001-08:00

First and foremost, I am going to have to say that I am a ridiculously irresponsible person who cannot keep track of time. I am stating to remind myself of my sister. Oh well, with any luck, I should be able to wake up in time for Ultimate training tomorrow.

Today, I watched my first M18 movie, about 6 months early. It is sure comforting to know I can pull off as someone above 18, especially after the first epic fail at Grand Cathay. Luckily, Bryan assumed "Cathay" to be Cathay Cineleisure, so instead of failing at the Grand Cathay ticket booth again, we got to sneak in an watch Zombieland!

After a couple of minutes into the movie, I realized that it probably got its rating from all the gore. The zombies were like, all drooling blood and stuff. They were also surprisingly fast. Normal zombies usually just crawl their way to you, like in House of the Dead. Zombieland zombies just sprint to you with all their might, and then cling on to you to feast on your flesh. The movie was really funny, though the plot was pretty flimsy. But what the heck, watching a zombie show for the plot is like playing Mario for the storyline.

Anyway, the point is that I managed to sneak into a rated movie. Accomplishment achieved.

2009-12-01T20:11:00.000-08:00

The body is an amazing thing. After 12 hours straight, I can finally start to think again. Sadly, the first thing I think of is the book reviews that I have been assigned. I really feel like just using the books that I have read before, instead of using new ones. In fact, that would probably be the only way I get my work done, seeing that I am the sort that looks forward to pack his holiday schedule with events. Non homework doing events.

Anyway, it was the first time in many nights that I could close my eyes, and just drift off to sleep immediately. This was really strange, because I was expecting to be doing a little bit of angsting and Bear Bear head rip offing. Apparently, exhaustion owns angst, so I guess my bear gets to live for another day.

2009-12-01T04:15:00.000-08:00

That was some chalet. It had a perfect balanced of being both structureless and well planned at the same time. For the first day, we could do anything we wanted, which is what everyone does at a normal chalet. I finally found out what 4 player Mario is like, complete chaos. There is not even enough platform space for most of the time, causing people to bounce off each other into bottomless pits or pools flaming lava. The only difference between the first day of the Bridge chalet and the standard chalet is that hardly any bridge was being played, save a few boards of rubber bridge. Of course there was the bonding session in the middle of the night (Or early in the morning as some might see it), which involved Truth-or-dare and some new pointing game that Renwei introduced us. It is not like we still need to do a lot of bonding, but I still have this fondness for games like that. Except Truth-or-dare.

The second day was much more structured. I really loved the pirate game that the community planned for us. It was really very well designed except, of course, the last part with the mass beach excavation. And the drinking part. Lets not forget the drinking part with the weird mixture that we thought had vinegar which turned out to be curdled milk. Please do not try to poison us, I happen to value my life a lot. Kudos to Ruth for glupping it all down. I had to sip it a little by a little, and even then it is so painful at times I wanted to just vomit. Come on, the white blobs of mayonnaise (Wow, had to check Google for the spelling of that one) looked so disgusting. The mass beach excavation was pretty fun though. We actually managed to dig out 2 of the 3 hidden treasures, though it did take a pretty ridiculous amount of time. It was actually pretty fulfilling just sitting at the beach watching everyone work together to overturn the beach to no avail. Even those who were digging using eye power and those that are there with us in spirit would have this experience that we shared together. Years down the road, we can tell our grandchildren about this experience when they ask us what a beach is.

Second evening was dominated by some Bridge. I did really badly, as did all the sleep deprived people, and lost Prosty Bear. I did get a mug in return. If I can drag myself to Ultimate training tomorrow, I would be able to see what the mug actually looks like, and find out from Jing Xian who won Prosty Bear. Take good care of her please!

The last test of my physical endurance was of course the "class outing" today. Hardly a class, 6 people, and hardly an outing either. To be perfectly honest, it was so bad that I would rather have went back to Pasir Ris Park to dig up the final $5 Burger King voucher alone. I guess I am going to do that some other day. I guess the most important thing to me in these events like chalets and gatherings is that I have to bond with the others. In the "class outing" today, none of the bonding happened. I do have to admit that the merged Minds Cafe part was fun though. Excellent call.

2009-11-28T20:20:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of the Bridge Chalet. I am not too sure if they are going to have internet access there, but I do not have a laptop anyway, and I doubt anyone in his right mind would bring his. So, I will not be able to do anything which involves the internet for a couple of days, which includes posting on the blog. I do not think I will be missed though, because a large portion of my minute group of readers would be there with me. Without internet access either.

Anyway, the next few days promises to be filled with endless fun, and I really do hope that I would be able to find time to rest. I really should have slept a little earlier last night in anticipation for today. By the way, Princess Peach is STILL stuck in Bowser's castle. Of course the only difference is that now there are two Italian plumbers ready to pounce into the castle and get fried by some lava.

2009-11-24T07:34:00.000-08:00

I used to wonder why people disliked the smell of durian. However, after having a couple boxes of durians placed in my refrigerator for a couple of days, I notice that it was not that the durain was smelly, the smell is just so strong that you get sick of it after awhile. The worse part is that my parents do not want to eat them, and I cannot eat them either. On the first day of the invasion of the durains, I went ahead and ate two pieces, only to get unwanted bowel activities on the very same night. It might be coincidence, but I am not taking the chance. This leaves my sister to two boxes of durains, and she is the master of counting calories or whatever unhealthy measurement units they came up with. An advantage of this habit is that I get to eat her chocolates and mooncakes. The disadvantage is that the durian is going to be there for a long, long time. In fact, I will not be too surprised if they were to have already degraded into carbon atoms the next time I open the box, approximately in a few centuries.

Well, there is only a few more days of school left. So few, in fact, that it is that time of the year again. The time where you exhaust all your White Slip tolerance and let of some steam! After a long year of following the rules, here the top three ways to get some white slips.

Warning: Remember, maximum White Slips you can hold without getting owned is 3. So if you already have 2 or more, please do not attempt anything. Especially you Bryan.

3rd Ponning -

Ponning a lecture is not effective. Since no attendance is taken, and there are so many people supposed to attend, your absence will surely not be noticed. Try ponning something with a smaller class size, like a tutorial! If this is still not enough to get you slipped, try running into the teacher and telling her about how you spent her period hiding in another classroom playing DotA.

2nd Playing Cards -

There are two ways to doing this. For those with a friends who insists on going for those lectures even though they are not going to listen anyway, you could make them play in the lecture theater. By this time of the week, there should be so little people that did not skip the lecture that you might be the only people there. That would ensure you get caught. For those who want to play outside lectures, there is still a chance to get yourself slipped. You would need some betting chips, which can be found in any mahjong set. Bidding boxes are a major nono, since that might make the teachers think that you are playing bridge, which means that would just confiscate the cards. No slips gained, one deck lost. Fail.

1st Dress code breaking -

If you are intending to bring home clothes to school on the last day so that you can celebrate the end of the school term, why not just wear it to school? This would not only save you some space in your bag, it will also get you a slip for sure. You might even get booted out of school and get to leave for your LAN session (or whatever) early! How is that for multiple advantages. Shirts with vulgarities on them are sure to get some attention. For the girls, mini-skirts will turn a few heads to, probably half the people who turn up. The guy half.

Whatever method you use, remember to keep in mind that it is going to be a tough process, as the relaxed enforcement of rules are getting even slacker. Good luck maxing out your slips.

2009-11-22T07:11:00.001-08:00

I guess it is human nature for us to act in our own interest. Ahhh, there is my wise statement of the day.

Anyway, I just recovered from a flu. It took me all of one day, such a weak influenza virus. It is probably the type that got laughed at and bullied at influenza school. Tsk tsk. It was however, timely enough to keep me from a probably near last position from SCBA on Friday night. Not that it matters, since the angry SCBA lady was not there to kick us out. I woke up on saturday expecting to be sleeping for the rest of the day, with a fever and all. However, I was only slightly warmish and did not really feel like sleeping all day. I did spend the rest of the morning phasing in and out of consciousness, just like what I do during Chinese lessons. I guess Chinese really do equates to making me sick.

One week ago, Junior Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach on her birthday by putting her into a giant cake. One week later, Mario and Luigi are still slacking around in world 6. At least my Sister's special friend got me a Red Mushroom plush while he was on his holiday. Now I have something to accompany my stuff bear. I wonder if my bear would grow bigger if she collided with the Red Mushroom.

2009-11-17T04:39:00.000-08:00

This post is long over due, but what the heck. I am still a little surprised that our orientation group is still going quite strong. It might actually be the strongest one in school as of now, but it would not be in a few months when all the little kids flood in again, to this nice little college where they will learn to mug and mug to learn, before learning and mugging for their A levels. Anyway, more than half of the OG turned up. Was it half? I cannot even remember how many we started with, but the picture on my table buried in the mess of project work stuff (what the hell are they will doing here) says we had 19 people. Then again it is not an accurate evidence, since I am not even in the picture. It was pretty good food, though I got a numb jaw from chewing all the beef that I cooked, and not to forget that the price tag was pretty heavy too. On hindsight, I should have took some food home, or at least steal some of their cutleries.

New Super Mario Bros Wii was released on time! How ever, my attempt for a no continue cooperative run was destroyed when the only person I know that is capable of not dying like free happens to have an limited tolerance for jumping on Koopas and Goombas and what-nots. Can you imagine that? How can any one get tired of saving Princess Peach, I will never understand.

2009-11-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

Macdonald's has finally done it. It has came up with a promotion so effective that we are all going to become rolly and polly by the time it is over. That little chance (approximated to be just slightly higher than the world exploding into CoCoCrunch tomorrow afternoon) of winning S$50,000 in cash makes it so irresistible to keep going back for more. After all, you can always tell yourself that they are giving away so many apple pies that it might actually be worth it. Now I am going to have a mountain of Marina Bays, waiting for the elusive Sentosa Cove to be collected.

Retardation aside, today happens to be a very special day! It is the day where New Super Mario Bros comes to the Wii in North America! Hopefully the game stores recognizes the huge fan base that Mario commands and have decided to ship it in on the day of release. When an unpopular game like Chocobo's Dungeon get released, they would only have stock about 2 weeks after the release date. Games like Pokemon on the other hand, starts to appear on the shelf a few days before its actual release. Oh well, in a few hours, I am going to see how popular they think Mario is with gamers.

2009-11-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

The class party was really tiring. Who would have thought that having it start at 12 in the afternoon and end at 10:30 pm would be so draining. To think that some of them are actually watching a movie right now. If I had joined them for the movie I would not be surprised if I feel asleep in the middle of it. Even if it was Paranormal Activity, with the screaming and all in the background.

It is nice to see Yuankei again, after such a long time. Hmm, if I were a little closer to her, I would have asked her if she had permanent medical certificate like Clarence. It must really feel good to have one of those. The privilege of having to attend school only when you feel like it is indeed a rare one that is bestowed only upon the Chosen Ones. If I had one, I would probably still come to school really often though. Experience has thought me that ponning is really addictive. Once you start, its hard to stop.

Pig was one of the best games I have ever played. Of course it does not even come close to "big fish small fish" or "polar bear", but it is a really good bonding game. The difference is that unlike other bonding games, this game makes it harder to talk to one another. Maybe the idea is to make everyone appreciate the value of being able to talk to your friends freely, without having everyone laugh at your for becoming a level 4 pig or something. I also noticed that I have completely forgotten how to have fun playing floating bridge. Considering that my partner is to my right, everything he plays is a finesse through me. And when ever Alastair, who was the declarer, ruffed a spades, he could easily find entry back to Yvonne because he was playing through both of his opponents. How he makes 2 dimes with hardly half the points, 7 card fit, and the dimes splitting 5-1 with a KJxxx I will never understand.

I am also starting to notice weird things happening within the class. Maybe its just my imagination. Come to think of it, I do have a very vivid sense of imagination.

2009-11-11T07:43:00.000-08:00

I am free from the clutches of project work. Finally. I can finally breath again, and the November rains suddenly seem much less depressing and more... normal. Anyway, symptoms of freedom are beginning to appear in my life again. I can once again sleep at 2am knowing that nothing will happen to me the next day. I can stone around in a certain cemetery that was mentioned in this year's fairly important Chinese exams. I can find the time to download the driver for my printer. I can even find the time to run my virus scan to see what have been screwing around with my computer lately, besides myself of course.

Oh well, the days ahead are like empty canvasses ready to be filled with colourful memories. Unfortunately, some invisible troll came along a stuffed two weeks full of lectures into our carefree lives. Screw it. Now we would have random lectures in the middle of our relaxation time. At least we can wake up late and leave school early. The school do value our sanity and is aware that holding morning assemblies during the last two extra weeks of school will just demonstrate to them what mass ponning means. Not to suggest that they will not have a chance of seeing that in the lectures, but the chances are significantly less. The lectures only warrants a theater full of inattentive students.

A rare event occurred today. Due to special circumstances, like Bryan risking getting a zero for his insights and reflections, I was granted permission into my sister's room. It is hard to believe that a room like hers and a room like mine could be actually attached to the same living room. The difference is so vast that if you smash the two rooms together, they would both disappear into space and release an infinite amount of energy, possibly even creating a new universe.

The first thing you would notice is the door. Her room's door have a wooden sign which is nailed nicely into the door that says "Closed", accompanied with a teddy bear at the side. It also has a warning sign, which I do believe is necessary to keep guests from wondering into the wrong places and dying for no reason at all. My room however, has a measly piece of foolscap paper attached to the door by one length of tape saying "Wake me up at 6:30". I am going to have to remove this soon.

Our desks are also really different. My desk has mountains of mess on it. In fact, I am waiting for the day it piles so high that I am unable to see the clock. It is a wonder how I manage to find my things half the time. In the case of my sister's desk, you can actually see the desk! I can see the desktop. In fact, I can see most of the desktop. There is only a laptop and a fan, both waiting in position for her arrival. She sure sucks at using her desk space efficiently.

Finally, my bookshelf has books on it. Her's has many products, ranging from nail polishes to bags to nice little boxes that I dare not touch. Enough said. I love my room even more now.

2009-11-08T22:33:00.000-08:00

At long last. After slightly less than a week, I am finally reunited with Raleigh. Well, I would not really have bothered to collect it, but Kenneth left it in front of Hougang Mall. This implied that if I left it there overnight, it would have disappear into bicycle haven, or some junkyard in Thailand.

It was a glorious moment. There it was standing there beckoning me to release it from its shackles. Sigh, will Raleigh never understand that the chain has to be there to protect it from the evil thieves that exists within this cruel world? Many times have I mentioned the tales of another bikes which shall not be mentioned which got stolen. Even their chains have failed to keep them safe.

Wonders of all wonders, I still know how to ride my bike. It is really true that some skills are never forgotten. I have devised a new cycling method to get up Moo Moo Meadows without having to change to gears 1-1 and crawling uphill while the strolling aunties and uncles overtake me. And it worked. Well admittedly, I almost lost balance and killed myself a few times, but it is all worth it in the name of speed. Curse you Moo Moo Meadows. If only you knew the trouble you bring me and Raleigh whenever we scale you. Tricking innocent little cyclists into riding down with no effort at all, only to laugh at them on their return trips. Oh yea, it is also not a good idea to ride through a pasar malam. Apparently, these so called night markets are open in the afternoon too.

In the lift, a little boy and his mother squeezed into whatever little space there is left after I manage to fit Raleigh in. The boy processed to ask me: "You primary what?" Poor boy, I almost hate to tell you that it does not end at Primary school. One day you shall be a day away from your PW presentation, and all you could do is to think back about your carefree days where you could squeeze into lifts all day. Sigh...

2009-11-05T08:43:00.000-08:00

It is a wonder how I can screw up so many times in a single day. In all fairness, I have to declare today as the last day of school. True enough we would actually have to come back for like 2 weeks after the PW week is over, but we had a two hour "civics finale", as Mr. Lim referred it to as, followed by subject feedback. Finale and feedback? If this is not considered the last day of school, I do not know what is.

Well, the finale consisted of two activities. The first involves answering 12 questions about what we learnt and plan to do. Come to think of it, it is actually just 11 questions that help us reflect and be insightful, plus one question about who we care most about. If you are going to spend your final week with the people you love, will you not be reminded about what you are going to lose? Perhaps spending time with people who make you feel like killing yourself would help make the process so much easier. Then came the sharing of the answers. Everyone had standard answers, with the exception of Mr. Ma who talked about spending time with God a week before he dies. The day I understand how he thinks is the day everyone decides to give me a dollar each. Or the day he actually tries to explain how he thinks to me. Whichever comes first.

The second activity required everyone to write notes for everyone else. This works by having people pass their paper clockwise, and when you receive the paper from the person on your left, you would write something good about that person and pass it on. This is a really smart method as it showcases inefficiency. Slowly but surely, there would be a couple of laggers that choke the whole cycle. This also enables everyone else to read the notes that you have written. Damn, why did I not remember that. At the very least, this activity enable me to appreciate my classmates much more, and feel appreciated by them too.

My day was followed by a few more uninteresting events, such as a sudden realization, being 4 hours late, a little bit of PW coupled with a hell load of inefficiency, the losing of my house keys which finally led to me being stuck outside my own house. Until 10PM. Good thing I only came home at 9:45, or I am in for a wait longer than what I put Kenneth through. Sorry again dude.

2009-11-04T07:38:00.000-08:00

The thing that optimist are good at doing is only hearing the things that we want to hear, only seeing the things that we want to see and only understanding the things that we want to understand. Actually, that is exactly what a pessimist would do to, just that what and optimist want to know is different from what a pessimist does. Everything that I do not want to believe, I will block out. Why do I keep focusing on the little arrows pointing in the way I want, the way I need, the way that should have been from the very start? I know that all these are within the backdrop of a giant arrow going the other way, coaxing me to give up, gently, kindly...

If things are the way it should be, I am probably fighting a battle that I should be fighting. Of course I believe that this is the case. I am still fighting after all. But sometimes I just wonder if I am just fighting for nothing, investing my energy, time and spirit into something that is never happening. Wake up slaps after wake up slaps. If they do not even work, why am I even seeking them over and over again. I just cannot get out of my own self-delusion can I?

2009-10-31T07:35:00.000-07:00

Run for your lives. The Chinese A-levels are coming. The good news is that it is not too late to take the easy way out and jump off a building. The bad news is that it is probably too late if you are not nearly done preparing for it. Curse all you people that do not take H1 Chinese. I hope you realize that you are having a holiday at the expense of the rest of the weaker students/ students who insist on taking it again to improve from A2 to a solid A.

This feeling of hopelessness is a familiar one. It is like knowing that you have to do something, but you know that anything you do will probably make it worse, and even doing nothing would not be any good for the situation. A riddle with no answer. Why am I even trying?

2009-10-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Why does my mum keep telling me to pack up my room? I do not think its that messy yet. There are certain advantages in living in a messy room. For one, your things are automatically arranged in chronological "order". The more recent materials would be on top of the pile, and the ancient items would form the base of the pile. Can your neatly arranged bookshelf do that, huh? Huh?

Also, a messy environment is one that promotes calmness. If your room is really neat, you would feel pressured to keep it neat, and thus be constantly on the look out for threats of potential mess, just like a neurotic person would. A messy room on the other hand, promotes carefreeness which would translate into a more well developed person.

Mess promotes privacy. It is a deterrence for any one who might consider invading your room. The mess would hurt the intruder's eyes, allowing you to quickly swoop in a push him out of your room while he is stunned for a couple of seconds. On the chance that he is not really affected by the mess, at least you can hide stuff that you do not want people to see under your mountain of worksheets or whatever. Ninja.

Lastly, a messy room gives you more class. Someone who is not familiar with your room would not be able to find anything. But you on the other hand, would know more or less where to get everything you need. This makes your room exclusive to you, kind of like a club. Classy, no? Of course there is a chance that you get lost in the mess too. That can be quite troublesome at times, but thats the price you have to pay for all the advantages of a messy room.

Ever wondered how your general paper essay would look like if you slept for the first hour and 25 minutes only to find that you have 5 minutes left to complete your paper? Wonder no more! Here are the model answers for your 5 minutes essays that the school have failed to provide.

1. Consider the value of play

Play. It is an important part of all our lives, regardless of our age, race, language of religion. Many would think that play is only for young children, but it is actually proven that adults like to play too. However, how does relaxation translate into value?

When we are young, we play to bond with our friends. It might seem like a pointless activity, and the time might appear to be better spent on studying for your grades to get that paper qualification. Guess what? In the real world, networking is really important, and playing with your friends today, be it DotA, basketball, or Taptap Revolution, is actually an investment for the future.

As we grow older, we also have to play to keep healthy and active. Studies have shown that elderly that plays intellectual games like mahjong actually have less chances of getting senile as they are constantly stimulating their minds.

In conclusion, play is good.

2009-10-28T06:14:00.000-07:00

The days drag on and on. I was expecting an era of slacking once the promos are over. In primary school, we are allowed to bring our board games and play them during school hours after the exams. Sigh, those were the carefree days where major examinations need not be worried over. In secondary school, we did not have anything to study after the end-of-years. It was just a week or so of paper checking and relaxation. Classes would be spent doing whatever we felt like, which includes sprawling on desks and going to sleep. But now, we are faced with normal lectures, normal tutorials, normal everything. It is almost as if we never finished the promos, except that we actually did go through all that agony. I hate the new start late end late system.

Admittedly, the general mood around school has gone from crazy mugging mode (I am excluding all the year twos here) and into an ambiance with a great deal of relaxation, a good amount of apathy, a pinch of contentment and a dash of disappointment. This is the sort of environment where tutorials flop and CCAs thrives. Today, I went for bridge club training to try to get our new improved signals straight. Of course, fate had it that we declared over and over again, and on the few occasions that we are not, the contract was so cold that it was not even funny. After my partner left for some scouts jungle hike thing, the bridge stopped and the "big fish small fish" started. There is something seriously retarded about this game, but there is something else about it that makes it so enjoyable. After about an hour of playing it, I have identified the underlining source of entertainment for the game to be the part where you laugh at someone for screwing up.

Also, it happens to be Leonard's birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday Leonard!

2009-10-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

Life is sad when you are the bringer of bad news.

Today is simply a fantastic day. As planned, I went to Bugis to complete my model for our group item, and as expected, I was faced with many unhappy members when I broke the news to them. What is so surprising about having to go back again when no one wants to go back on the last day? If everyone cannot come/refuses to come/cannot be bothered to come, obviously we have to do it another day. Oh well, I am used to unhappy faces of people and showers of complaints already. A few more on my record will not hurt me.

Results day was mildly sad. Well, I did do pretty well for some subjects, I am actually quite content with my results actually. However, the fun began when I decided to tell my mum my results. Instead of telling her all the subjects but Chinese, I foolishly reminded her I took Chinese. Screw, I was so close to secretly dropping Chinese. She might have even forgotten that I ever took that evil subject. Anyway, she got pretty jumpy that I got a less than remarkable 'S'.

"Huh? You failed Chinese? Do you know when your A-level Chinese is? Next year right?"

"Erm...

"You mean you do not even know when your Chinese test is? It is much closer than you think."

"Well, about that..."

"You better use the next few months to fix up your Chinese before you get rejected by society."

"Actually mum, its next week."

For those people living in Singapore, if you heard a faint explosion at about 11PM, 26th October 2009, it was probably my mum exploding into panic rage mode. Thank goodness it did not last too long.

2009-10-24T08:07:00.000-07:00

The result release date draws near. All fear the impending doom.

Well, it is comforting (for some) to know that there is nothing we can do at this juncture. Instead of going into fury panic mugging mode like we all did during the start of the promos, the prospect of getting our results back does not bring us any of such pain and suffering. For those who are going to go into premature depression tomorrow, try looking at it this way. Either you get depression on Monday or you do not. So why throw yourself into depression one day early, or even worse, go through one day of depression for nothing?

What ever the case, I am finally out of the angry SCBA lady's "Must Improve" list. With great skill, Yanwei and I went through 24 boards with no more than 3 bidding buns and declaring explosions each. This actually got us 6th last, which is like, 12th. Go us!

2009-10-21T06:33:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, we had a expedition to Bras Basah to find materials to make a model on our own. We art not the most artistic bunch of people. Okay, I can only speak for myself and I know that my future does not lie in art, but my group mates all chose a science combination too. Even in my most optimistic attitude, I knew that any attempt to make a model of Matilda House would be doomed to failure. Not just normal failure, but failure so new and groundbreaking that it makes my Chinese grade look like a pass.

However, fate had plans and we ended up in a shop that sells trees. These nice looking model trees are so real that they actually photosynthesize. The store owner offered us help in our modelling attempt and told us to return on Wednesday where he would set up a small workplace for us outside his shop where we can seek his help whenever we got stuck.

So today, we were there with the plans for the model in our hands. Obviously, we knew nuts about what to do, so he taught us the basics; how to use the materials.

Magic wood - You know how ionic compounds are hard and brittle? Well, this magic wood is soft and sturdy! A good slash or two with a trusty pen-knife and you have a nice clean cut across the wood. Slash lightly and you can like, bend the wood along its little hinge. This wood is impossible to break with your bear hands. Fine, it is not really impossible, but we did not try.

Magic water - This weird liquid is like glue, but not quite. When you apply it to your skin, it quickly evaporates. But when you apply it to magic wood, the pieces of wood stick together. They really stick, and it takes effort to take them back apart. You can even drop the "glued" structure and it would not break into its little components. Upon exertion of large force, the wood will come apart, and lose all effects of the magic water. Drinking this may cause death.

Mysterious L-shaped metal - Ever wondered how to make sure you cut something at exactly 90 degrees? Well, this is your answer. Much more effective then your normal set-square. After using this for a day, I wonder why we have never used this in any physics practical sessions.

Perfectly normal vernier caliper - Handy tool. Measures with great accuracy and can even remember lengths for you. Be careful not to stab the person beside you with the pointy end.

As of now, our model is only half done. Surely but steadily it is taking shape. We might even be able to complete it on our next meeting with him...

2009-10-19T08:17:00.001-07:00

If you are intending to have a Project Work meeting at 9am the next day, I strongly suggest that you do no sleep at 4 in the morning. It just does not work that way, and you are doomed to oversleep. Doomed I tell you. When Bryan woke me up today, he told me that it was 9 already. It took me 3 seconds to realize that I am supposed to be in Punggol, 2 more seconds to notice that I am not in Punggol, and 1 second after that to glance at the clock and noticed that it was not 9. It was 9:30. This was followed by mad rushing and confusion, which shall remain a blur in my mind.

Halfway through the day, I noticed that my body was surviving on almost nothing. I have had about 5 hours of sleep, and eaten a burger from Macs and a garlic bread. Nothing else. It is a wonder I am still alive. I am not even sleepy or hungry now, it is almost as if my body is living on tomorrow's food and sleep. Excuse me if I spend the whole of tomorrow sleeping and eating only. Oh well, maybe I should bring some mooncakes to school to prevent that from happening. Go condensed calories! Go forth and do me proud.

On a separate note, I was partnering a friendly guy for SCBA today. The angry lady told me that if I did not improve by 5% today, she would... wait, there was not end to the threat, but I imagine it is a horrible way to end my bridge life. Luckily for me, it all went quite well, very few mistakes and a lot of good playing. Looks like the angry lady cannot kick me out this week. Life is good.

2009-10-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

It is the second day of the long weekend. According to Kenneth, they are bringing both the Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania Machine back to the Hougang Mall arcade. Being as serious about GFDM as he is, Kenneth decided to send an email to the arcade at Hougang Mall telling them how popular the machine actually is and what a big mistake they are making by removing it. Well, apparently they take consumer's opinions very seriously and we have the machine back! No more going down all the way to Yishun, yay!

Now that Hougang Mall promises to reduce the boredom time during the holidays, I might as well finish off the last of it by buying more games for my Wii. That way, when the holidays end, I would not have studied a thing and I would be totally confused and explode at the "Welcome Back to School Exam". I think they are releasing 2D Mario for the Wii. Super Mario Galaxy 2 has also been announced, but there is no release date as of now, and it is highly unlikely it would be here by this year. I am also still in need of a shooter that is fun. If anyone knows of a good shooting game for the Wii, please let me know about it.

Junior College life is the longest thing I have ever experienced. I cannot wait for it to be done, so that I can actually do whatever I want to do, instead of having to think about it and realize that I still have about a good one year to go.

2009-10-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

Dry-run today. Not going to post about it though, it was just a normal dry run. Nothing interesting. In fact, some might even say it is mundane. The only thing remotely special about today was that it ended really early. We had the privilege of presenting before the other half of the class, which means we get to go home really early. Still, I wonder how the presentations of the other three groups went.

Yesterday was the flooding of negative emotions for me. It went downhill after frisbee training and never went back up, until today morning. I was feeling really angry, irritated, stressed, and even a bit jealous. How all these feelings came about I cannot remember, but it was horrible. I think it had something to do with Project Work. Nothing good can come out of Project Work. Nothing at all. This subject is what they teach at school in hell. I can imagine the evil sent by lucifer in the form of Project Work.

"Go forth PW, and bring desperation and dispair to the students on earth. Friends shall become enemies, and there shall be blood and gore during every group discussion. Muahahaha kekeke fufufu!"

Hence, the evils of Project Work scurried through the depths of the earth and came to be. I hope you feel happy lucifer, now that you have brought doom upon all of us.

2009-10-13T06:15:00.000-07:00

5 minutes and 40 seconds. For the third time in a row. After practicing over and over again for my oral presentation, I have came to the realization that no matter how faster you talk, there is simply no way you can cut down the time you talk to cover all your content by more then a pathetic couple of seconds. Of course this is assuming you do not talk as slowly as a politician at a national day rally speech.

Our slides looks pretty good to me, but I know that in days to come, I would see many other powerpoint presentations that are even more ascetically pleasing. I would have to resist the inferiority complex that might come with that. I know that we have all worked really hard for this project, every single group. Not every single person of course, but every group would have about the same aggregate hardworkingness. It is not about how nice the slides look, it is also about how well the presentation goes, and I am really confident that our presentation would be great.

Yanwei and I got last place for SCBA on Monday. He is improving really fast though, no more 5 hearts from the darkness. We had a good chance of coming in second last, but I had my share of buns towards the final few boards. My brain really does not have much stamina. Hopefully the stamina would come with time, just as it does for other sports. Okay maybe bridge is not a sport, but it really is quite demanding to play it through a bad cough.

2009-10-11T05:34:00.000-07:00

After a day of oral presentation rushing, I decided that it would be good to go out for some fresh air. After all, a little time outside the house would remind me of how my estate looks like now, and maybe even do some good to my respiratory system. Curse you dry cough.

Surprises of all surprises, my estate looks almost exactly the same. Almost. Recently, there is some crazy neighborhood renovation going on. They are removing grass where no grass was needed and replacing in with good old concrete. Who needs greenery when you can have expand the pavement so that the occasional passerby would have space to walk. Actually, it is not too bad, it does make the place look much clearer and to a certain extent more modern. I noticed that street lights have spawned too. Not the lamp post for the cars to drive at night without ramming onto the curbs every five seconds. A real street light where detectives can put their hands in the pockets of their brown trench coat while wondering who killed Tim, or where passionate couples could make out in the middle of the night while still being visible enough for everyone to watch.

Besides the extended pavements and street lights, the shops have changed too. A few months ago, the florist disappeared into oblivion. How a florist cum cafe dissipate into darkness I would never understand, but economics tells me that they are unable to even cover their variable cost. That must suck for them. Now the only type of flowers I can buy around here is back to flowers for prayers. And I am not even remotely religious. I guess even the income from selling sandwiches and orange juice is not great enough to cover the loss from growing roses and sunflowers. No wonder flowers are so expensive when they are in demand, it seems like it is really hard to be a florist. The profits you get from Valentines day, Mothers day and Teachers day had better get you through the rest of the year.

As the old shops goes, some new shops comes too. Apparently there is another clinic opening nearby. The third one within 200 meters radius actually, and the fourth one if you are willing to walk down a little more. With four doctors so close to my house, I can get different medical certificates from different clinics if I ever need to feign sickness to skip anything. That means I can skip four days in a row without having them recognise me from before. I still have to pay four times the consultation fees to do that though, not really worth it.

The shop in the Cursed Corner is also finally gearing up for business. This shop is located in a place with the worst Feng Shui in the neighborhood. Many businesses have came and gone, I cannot even remember what it was five years ago. I vaguely remember a Indian restaurant there a few years back, but it was not making enough money. Proof that it is really the location of the store that caused its down fall is that there is currently an Indian coffee shop thriving right beside where it used to be. Hmmm, fishy. Anyway, this space has been up for rent for months now, and now some brave (or uninformed) soul has decided to take up the challenge. The for sale signs has been torn down and some equipment can be seen though the glass panels. It looks like we will be getting another bakery. Any bets on how long the new bakery is going to survive?

I also noticed that construction is happening at the mysterious plot of land between the NTUC and the lemon chicken rice coffee shop (the coffee shop selling lemon chicken rice, for those who are unable to tell from the name). This plot of land has under gone construction works over and over again. The first time it got fenced up, we all wondered what was going to be built. Tada! It was a playground. Not long after that, it was fenced up again and boom, the playground was gone. Every time it underwent construction from then, they were just building paths. Not better paths, different paths. I do not even know what is the point of continuously changing the paths you are going to have there. Just let the humans walk out a path on the grass for goodness sakes, stop inconveniencing us and wasting tax payer's money. This time, it looks a little more promising. They have summoned the big monstrous ground digging machines that would strike fear even in Bob's (the builder) heart. Only time will tell what happens to the plot of land now, since the magic eight ball can only answer yes-no questions.

2009-10-10T01:24:00.000-07:00

Today is a day of great victories. I have defeated the evil virus from Kenneth. Now all we have to do is wait for a couple of days and Yensen would be sick, after which I would be able to laugh at him from close up. Everyone else would have to laugh at him from far. Not that it would make much of a difference anyway.

The rat king has also been defeated today. Somehow it is so much easier to kill it when you know when you can attack without having him gobble up half your army in one fell swoop. Thank goodness the completionist side of me is not really active now, or I would be playing the whole game again on tyrant mode. That would leave me very little time to worry about oral presentation.

Speaking of which, the great organizer that I am have managed to initiate a meeting tomorrow, so that my group can finish preparing the slides, finish deciding who presents what, finish preparing what to say, finish discussing about the group item, and finish preparing the group item. Admittedly, this agenda is a little more than our usual slack and inefficient meeting agendas, but what has to be done will be done. Our school decide to give us so little time to prepare for our dry run that its not even funny. Why do they deny us of our time? It is a ploy be them to trigger panic mode so that we work harder. After the dry run, we would still be in panic mode because we realize how bad it went (due to time constraints) and the frenzy would keep up. All the way up to a few days before the real thing, we would probably have been in panic mode through out. Who would have thought that the institution would have came up with such a sneaky plan. By the time 10th November comes, we would probably all be able to present while doing a handstand juggling 3 bean bags with our feet.

The time has come to hardcore bridge with my regular partner Yanwei. Hopefully, by playing on Bridge Base Online at Singapore Contract Bridge Association repeatedly, we would be able to be so good by next year that we can actually take part in the competitions. Like the real competitions where our honor and glory is at stake. But before any of that can happen, I guess I would have to start learning all the random stuff that I have been putting off. Oh a separate note, me and Yensen got 4th last at SCBA last night. Great achievement. It is almost as if I am starting to steer away from getting last all the time.

2009-10-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

I feel so weak. Throat inflamed and nose runny, who knows what made me decide to drag myself down for a talk on Project Work oral presentation. Just when I was ready to relax, I am reminded that a presentation that weighs about 40% of the importance of Project Work. There is a need to prepare the slides by this weekend. That does not even look nearly like a sufficient amount of time.

On top of a normal standard presentation that we are all familiar with, we are also given five minutes for a group item. From what I gathered while fighting to stay alive in today's briefing, we could do puppet shows, skits or videos. No song and dance? Why do they not like song and dance? From the examples of group items available, it is evident that groups who chose emergency would be having a clearer cut on what their skit/show would be on. Obviously they would have the option of enacting the emergency, followed by the solutions proposed. And if they are really fast actors, they could even throw in what might happen without the implementation of their suggested plans as well, just for contrast.

Every night from now, just before I fall asleep, I would have to assign some time to think creatively. Maybe some ideas will hit me then. Sigh, if this keeps up, I would have so much things to think of before I sleep that I need to go to bed at 11pm. Time to organize another Project Work meeting...

I look at her from a row back, thinking, wondering, speculating. If actions speaks louder than words, why is it that I still cannot hear them clearly? She turns and our eyes met for a split second. My eyes quickly darted back to the speaker.

2009-10-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

The promos ended. The day of the final paper is always the celebration day. After the students get released from the clutches of the last paper, they would regroup into their respective cliques. After which, they would talk briefly about the paper. Really briefly. A paper usually throws the students into a state so receptive to discussions that they could be talking about a question for hours at best. But for the last paper, this discussion time is shortened to minutes, before one wise person from the clique says: "Hey, lets relax! The promos are over!"

Then it is time to celebrate the passing of the examinations. Unlike medieval time, failure to slay the dragon would mean that the dragon still haunts the village. No celebrations for that. But for a modern society, whether we are faced with failure or not, mere passing of a trail warrants a day of relaxation, where everyone tries to remember why life is worth living.

In my case, I went to the nearest arcade known to Kenneth that has a GFDM machine. What happened after we reached there was a blur, but I do recall people getting injured from playing to enthusiastically. I also recall Yensen getting owned in some ancient version of Street Fighter. Amidst all these events, I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if I had made other choices, and went other places. Whatever the case, I am glad that the mugging madness is finally over.

2009-10-06T02:24:00.000-07:00

I had designed to post about the Chemistry paper yesterday, but I was too busy getting owned by the final boss of Little King's Story. Following that, there was a little bit of bridge and it was topped of with some Mario Kart Wii. After that, I was this close to sitting down to type something, but my conscience suddenly spawned in front of me and I was consumed with guilt 2 seconds later.

Preparing for Mathematics examinations always makes me feel insecure. If I decide to practice early, I would feel really confident because I would be under the impression that time is on my side. However, when it comes to the day before the test, I would start getting really stressed. Pressured by my own expectation to perform, I would get a boding feeling that my doom is impending. But surely enough, the Math paper would come and I would be able to answer everything on time. Whether the paper is done accurately or not is another issue.

Anyway, the Chemistry paper was manageable. It was a good thing that I learnt about time issues during the last papers a few months back. This time, I started from section C, and moved down through B to A. What that achieved was that instead of being forced to leave 20 marks blank like I did in the common tests, the time imposed on me only serve to give me a single minute for my multiple choice questions. I did the easiest looking question on the first page in about twenty seconds. The answer was C. Just like I suspected. C is statistically (statistics taken from non-reliable sources) the most frequent answer. With that in mind, I spent the remaining time shading C for all my options. Fingers crossed, but inspection of the question paper shows that I should be getting about five marks. That is not too bad at all.

I would have to hold my comments for the Math paper though. Two things might happen when I get my paper back. I would either attain gloating rights for getting on the deans list, or my exam script could burst into a confetti of angst. Either way, it is going to be an emotional moment. It is a bit like professing your love for someone. Whatever the outcome, you get all the internal drama.

Finally, the final lap. Once tomorrow is over, I can stop thinking about the promotional exams and start working on project work once again. The fun really never stops coming. My sources also tells me that I have a year of tests and examinations waiting for me in 2010. But why destroy the present with problems of the future? It is time to celebrate! Oh wait, I almost forgot. We shall dine with carefree hearts and spirits tomorrow. Except for you humanities students.

2009-10-04T06:46:00.000-07:00

When you are toggling between studying to get promoted and playing fragments of games to find some hope to live again, it is rare that you would be able to find time to look around you. And when I managed to do so today, I was amazed by what a mess my house is in. Surprisingly enough, the places that are messy are that way because of me. I am the maker of mess.

In front of me lies a pile of nonsense which has been there since the computer came. Things that goes on my computer desk never leaves. Unless they happen to drop on the floor of course, in which case they might be picked up and transfered to the table behind me, where they will really never leave. It is like mess heaven. You spawn on the computer desk, as a mortal mess, and when your time has come, you will fall into the unknown, only to find yourself in mess heaven where you can meet your ancestors once again.

Of course these are not the only concentration of mess that I have made. There is one on my sofa, where my bags, files, water bottles and graphic calculator lives. Ever since the exams started, they have invaded the sofa for my convenience, and it shall remain that way until my sister finally complains about not being able to sit on it.

On my desk sits two mountains of stuff from school that I never use, and will probably never use. Some examples of the hermit mess that lives on this pair of mountains includes my Chinese notes and all the Ten-year series that I have bought. One day, when I decide that I need to call upon the help of the hermits, I would move them back to the mess in front of my computer, where they can spend the rest of their lives.

The last area of mess is right beside my bed. Whenever I am doing something right before I sleep, I would just dump it there when I get tired. The sad thing is that they probably get stepped on the next morning. The sadder thing is that I probably will not pick them up. At least I make sure that I do any art and craft thing with a scissors and a pen knife right before I sleep.

2009-10-02T21:36:00.001-07:00

The last of the essays are over. With both Chinese and Economics out of the way, we only have the Sciences ahead of us. From now, when someone asks me how the paper went, I do not have to give some dubious answer on whether I thought the paper was easy or hard, I could actually state if I could answer all the questions or not.

As expected, there was not enough time to do the Economics essay once again. I sure hope that by the time we get to the A-levels, we would have been train to write at some superhuman lightning speed. I looked at the 3 essay questions offered and intermediately chose the first two, them being the most direct questions. Halfway into the test, I realized that I lost half my time already, and was still nowhere near concluding my first essay. With great speed, I quickly wrapped up, moved on to the next essay, and tried my best to finish it properly. Of course I failed, hasty conclusion, and a massive amount of points that I should have mentioned. A sweat formed on my brow from all the work my hand did, but it quickly froze into an ice block and fell on the table with a soft "ping".

The redemption came during the case study. I really think that I actually answered all the questions correctly, with the exception of the one asking you to derive the price elasticity of demand from the graph. I might actually pass Economics for the first time in the history of the world. But it being Economics, no matter how good I feel about the paper, there is a chance that I get back my papers and realized I got about five marks from zero.

Then Chinese came and destroyed me. Not because the paper was hard, it was more like my hatred for the language is so deep that I felt like I was being forced to do something sinister by doing the paper. It rends my soul. This feeling reminded me of how I would have to feel in a few months when the real thing comes, and how I had better pass it so they would allow me to drop Chinese. I will not miss it, and neither will it miss me. It is actually quite surprising that I can still write a proper essay with time to spare, so that I can try to read what I wrote, before realizing that I does not make much sense. I did not even bother to check for spelling errors, those six marks were lost long before the test started. So it was just twenty minutes of stoning for me. One minute from the next paper, Hongrui was still furiously writing his last lines, Yanwei pulled his jacket over his head and sprawled himself all over the desk, and the teachers all lined up neatly in front of each row, equipped with paper 2. What happened after that was just a blur to me, but the passage that I identified would come out really did come out. Not that it made a difference, since I did not do anything about it. I also remember something about doors, foxes and running out of time, but I cannot care less.

Oh well, I guess it is time to do the last preparations for the Sciences. There is no smoking when it comes to them.

2009-10-01T04:10:00.000-07:00

The first of the promos is over. Only a few more to go. It all started at 8am today, where we marched our information cramped brains from the lockers to the multi-purpose hall. I learnt that two purposes of the multi-purpose halls are for examination uses and for freezing students for the heck of it.

The general paper essay was pretty good. I managed to write something that I find somewhat structured, valid and sound, all at the same time. There is a good chance that this essay would be the highest scoring general paper essay I have ever written. I looked through the questions and quickly canceled off the questions that I knew that I could not do. These questions are those the others would specialize in, and be equipped with a whole multitude of relevant examples and information. I cannot risk having the other student's outstanding essay dwarf my own essay can I? After a quick mental elimination of all media, politics, relationship, science, arts and weird questions, I was left with two options. I could try writing about play, or do one about economics. Hmmm, considering that I was studying economics for the past few days, it was not really surprising that I chose the latter.

Then the comprehension paper came. As I was reading through the passages and questions, I could hear the brains of other candidates exploding into thousand pieces, through the silence of the examination hall. I knew it would be my turn to moment I attempted the questions. You know you are screwed when you cannot understand what the questions are looking for, fail to recognize most of the words asked for the vocabulary section and find yourself unable to think of any examples for your application question. Ah, I was so close to scoring a decent mark for general paper finally. I feel like a Mario that have finally cleared all the maps in the first world only to get owned by Bowser at the end of it all.

What is done is done, I shall gear myself up for economics tomorrow. I have really high hopes and must not screw this one up. As for Chinese, hopefully my prayers would be heard tomorrow.

2009-09-29T07:56:00.000-07:00

The promos are so near that I am surprised that I am able to find the time to relax. Of course my day is still padded with lots of cramming, but being able to spend time with my friends to relax between crazy economics notes reading really makes it that much bearable.

I know this is not the first time I am saying it, but I think I finally nailed economics. The last time I had this feeling, it ended with me feeling extremely disappointed that I was still unable to answer the questions properly. Please let this be it, I really could use a deans list to restore my confidence in the subject.

The worse thing about mugging like crazy is that you expect to see the results. In fact, you do not just expect to see it, you look forward to reaping the joy that comes from seeds of your effort watered with your very blood and sweat. I am feeling really optimistic about the promos now, I just know that I must not screw up. I am really sick of being faced with disappointments, all this must not sum up to nothing.

Also, I lost an argument with Kenneth today. It turns out that the animorphs can morph into other humans. How insane is that? They allow you to turn into another human? This is the exact reason why I do not read fiction.

2009-09-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

After a hard day of mugging what ever little bit I might have missed, I decided it was time to find a nice game to clam my shaken nerves. Being a fair person, I played many genres of game just to be sure I am not missing anything while exploring the world of gaming for once in a long time.

Little King's Story

First up, it was a role playing game. Not just any lousy mass multiplayer online role playing game like Maplestory, but a game with a real story line. Little King's Story proved to be really entertaining, but the action gets pretty repetitive after awhile, just like any other role playing game. At least the boss battles here are challenging, such that it is nearly impossible to complete the bosses in one try. One has to carefully pick the citizens with the correct jobs to win the boss with minimal difficulty (Which proves to be rather hard still). It was pretty fun throwing my citizens around, but sadly, the boss i was fighting needed some knowledge of geography which I am lacking. In a fit of angst, I switched the Wii off.

Relax rating: 7/10

Minesweeper

Next, it was everyone's favorite game, minesweeper. This is a harmless puzzle game that is in everyone's computer. Everyone uses Microsoft Windows right? Clicking minute boxes on the screen has never been so fun and addictive. Not at all relaxing though. Whenever I click on a mine, I imagine some Sai Kang Warrior far away blowing up into pieces because he was rushing to break the high score. Ouch.

Relax rating: 3/10

DotA

Defense of the Ancients! This aeon of strife game is so popular that every guy must have played it once or twice in their life. Those who have not probably played it nearly a thousand times. Sadly, a new similar game is coming to take over DotA with a closed beta. Also, the pubs seem to be getting lousier at a faster rate than me. Maybe it is about time I desert DotA for LoL. DotA always ends in you complaining how low the standard of the opponent's team is, or how low the standards of your team mates are.

Relax rating: 0/10

Winterbells

Winterbells is an online flash game in which you control a white bunny. Initially, you might think that the music is really soothing, but as you get higher and higher up, you notice the winterbells are shrinking until they finally become so small you wonder how your bunny can still jump on them. It was then I started to wonder what happens to the bunny when it falls down from such a ridiculous height. In a moment of worry, I broke my concentration and the bunny dropped. Oh look, it looks fine. How could I forget that it is a magical bunny.

Relax rating: 9/10

2009-09-28T01:17:00.000-07:00

Why did I ever though that the Chinese teacher would have patience of steel. As usual, I was feeling really hungry after Physics tutorial, so I went off to get a quick bite. Well, since I would be so near the photocopy shop by then, I might as well take the time to photocopy a revision paper for my classmates. You would think that the teacher will not miss me and Leonard.

How wrong I was. I suddenly received a text message from one of my classmates that the teacher has decided to issue me a white slip. I know of people who skip Chinese classes every other day, and I get white-slipped for being late for class for the third time. Come on, it is not as if we do not turn up. We are just helping her channel some of her period to do something a little more useful than us stoning there trying to figure out what she is saying. Slightly annoyed at the situation, I just skipped the whole damn lesson.

Well, I have been thinking about why I got white-slipped while other people do not, and I finally came up with a theory. I figured that the teacher has categorize her students into 4 distinct categories. The first one would be the good students who turn up for class on time every lesson, except for Tuesdays where they are still late, but earlier than most of the class. In other words, the first category consists of most of the girls and a couple of guys. The second one group of students are those who never skip lessons, but goes there only to sleep/ talk amongst themselves/ play PSP with it hidden stealthily in his bag. Under this falls a lot of the guys. The third group is bordering on hopeless. This happens to be the group I am from. We still turn up for classes, but we are late once in awhile. We do not bring our notes, and have only a few textbooks between all of us. On top of that, we use her lesson to do our work from other subjects. The very last category would be those who only turns up half the time, and when they do, they would stretch their non-interested bodies across the tables, close their eyes of apathy and take a quick one hour nap.

In hope of transferring people from the second group into the first group, she tries to engage her class by asking them questions so often that sometimes I wonder if she knows anything. And in hope of transferring people from the third group into the second group, she issues white slips to deter us from falling into the dark side. This is the only explanation.

2009-09-26T23:38:00.000-07:00

I managed to finish the math revision paper with two minutes to spare. Considering that I ate lunch somewhere during the 3 hours, I guess I will have more than enough time to complete the real paper and check for mistakes. Paper was surprisingly easy, all my marks were lost on carelessness, though the inequality question did throw me off a little. No matter how strictly I mark, I cannot get below an A. Woohoo! That is one subject out of the way.

2009-09-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

I am almost done with my revisions. Tomorrow, I will be taking the past year's math paper, just to ensure myself that I am able to ace the test when it finally comes. 3 hours is a really long time, I am starting to wonder if the paper will be really long, or if they just want to make sure we do not run out of time half way. A minute and forty-eight seconds per mark, this must seriously be the easiest paper that we will have to sit for. Oh well, I shall know tomorrow how long 3 hours really is.

Besides math, I shall be doing a physics and chemistry paper too. But of course, I will not time myself for those, because I know that I will not complete in time and will only scare myself when I realized how slow I am. We all need a fair dose of self-delusion, or we would live in a world where almost nothing that we need to be true is true.

I wonder if I will be contented with my promos marks after studying so hard, but I guess only time will tell. Or the Magic 8-ball. "Not another word" is says, I wonder if that is a positive reply.

2009-09-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

The whole Project Work thing is finally over for now. The written report has been handed in, we are free from hell until promos are over, after which it shall resume. Oral presentation is like a little spin off of Project Work, made just for all the fans who cannot get enough of it. I have no idea what sort of presentation would be expected of us then. Are they looking for something conventional or creative? Will they focus on the content or the mode of presentation? Who cares, all this shall be pondered upon only when I have finished enjoying my break from Project Work, which happens to be packed with exam papers.

Every once in awhile, something hits you and you do not even know where it came from or what it is. Ignorance is bliss, but the truth is necessary. With so many questions and no answers, I cannot help but wonder how I could have been so oblivious.

2009-09-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I will pray my hardest that at the strike of midnight, it would still be 24th September 2009 again. I am not asking for one more day to do make my Project Work report perfect, I just want to relive today, and change all the horrible mistakes I made.

My prayers will probably just go unheard, and I would have to live with this ugly day in my memory. Some of my believes; hasty actions, courage to face judgement, got tested. They proved to be really good guidelines to follow once again, but I failed by not following them. On any other ordinary day, I would have enjoyed today so much that my prayer for 24th September 2009 to come again would be so that I can enjoy my day once more. Why did I not listen to myself?

On a separate note, the instructions for the submission of written report is really clear. Not only do they have instructions for teachers and students, they also have instructions for CD ROMs. Way to go!

2009-09-23T08:51:00.001-07:00

The final version of the Project Work written report is finally done. I opened the CD ROM provided to me by the school and had a look at the contents. Ah, good memories of our first written report draft. It looks like crap to me now. Who would have though that we would decide to do each chapter individually and dump them into one document before declaring it was a report. The link between the chapters were so bad that it was almost as if no one read through the whole report, every single chapter. It was a pretty good start though. At least we had something to work with from then on.

Oh, looks like they saved another document inside the CD ROM. The "Originality Report". This magical report tells us how much of our written report has been taken from the net, or from another student report that has been through "turn it in" too. With an overall similarity index with our sources of 8%, I guess they cannot say that we plagiarised. It appears that we have a 1% similarity index with Wikipedia. How wonderful. On top of that, we have a 1% similarity index with many other student reports from the past too. Maybe they took information from Wikipedia too, hmmm...

My mouse hover above the "Save as" button, as I considered if I should just save the final version of our written report into the CD ROM now. They made the disc a read-only disc, which meant that once we saved our report, there is no way we can remove or edit it. It had to be our real final version. I phased out for a minute, and imagined Gabriel coming up to me tomorrow, waving the printed report in front of my face before proceeding to point out a couple of grammar mistakes, a handful of spelling mistakes, some formatting error that occurred while converting the document from Microsoft Word 2007 to Microsoft Word 2003 and signing off with one huge conceptual error that somehow managed to sneak all the way from the start to the end. Horrors. Luckily, we have one more day. I should just save the document tomorrow.

2009-09-22T07:58:00.001-07:00

I once said that a slow decision is a bad decision. Today, I proved that this statement could not be nearer to the truth.

Kenneth and I passed the MRT gantry of Hougang Station. Sometimes the gantry would not let you pass if it feels unhappy, but luckily for us, today was not the day. We saw a poor woman wearing heels in the distance, struggling to free herself from a hidden ninja trap. I have never worn heels in my life, but I would expect the worse thing that can happen to you while wearing them is to get them stuck in a little hole. Is that worse than breaking your heels? That is something that I would never find out. But whatever the case, she had them stuck. Being the kind soul that I am, I suggested to Kenneth that we should go and offer her some help. As a result, we stood there looking at her and planning our approach. Carefully. We did not want to appear like untactful people since we were wearing our school uniform.

So there we were, standing there looking at her in her plight. We pondered carefully, silently thinking through every word that would come out of our mouths, as the other commuters just walked past the whole thing. It was as if the two of us were locked in time and space, along with her.

In all this time, my mind was formulating the perfect approach. "Madam, may we offer you some assistance?" Wait no, that would make us look like sales assistants. Perhaps we can just cut the crap and go straight to the obvious solution. "You know, you should try taking your heels off first." Hmmm, that is about as rude as it can get. No, rapport is the key. I have to make her feel like we are not there to make fun of her, since she is in a vulnerable position. "Yo missy, you know, that happened to me once..." Bleah. I really do not think she would have bought that. Maybe I have to let her know that we recognise that she is in a bad position. "Hey, looks like you are stuck." Nah, she will take offence to that.

Finally, I looked at Kenneth. I have no idea if he was going through the same thought process as me, but we both agreed that we should just walk pass her as if we did not see a thing. After staring at her for about half a minute. We should have just ignored her from the start, it would have reflected so much better on us than standing there to observe her situation as if she was some exhibit. Oh well, what is done is done. We were genuinely trying to summon enough sense and courage to help, one step further than what the other commuters could offer.

Z is for zest. Zest has the potential to be contagious, but only if the zesty person is really energetic to the extent that he keeps colliding into the people around him. By the conservation of energy, everyone around him will feel energetic too. Sadly, this is an emotion that comes with something new and fresh. On top of that, only people who are not apathetic to everything around them can ever hope of experiencing zest.

2009-09-21T06:29:00.000-07:00

Everyone should be able to count the number of days to the promotional exams using their fingers now. That is not a good sign. Why does time but us through horrors like this? I wish that these 10 days would fly past, so that I can finally stop the mugging madness and have other things on my agenda. Right now. my agenda looks like this:

1) Go through Chemistry term one topics

2) Do some Physics practice

3) Do alot of Math practice

4) Understand Economics to the best of my abilities

5) Read through the Project Work written report again for the billionth time

But at the same time, I want these precious moments that I have with my notes. There is a need to make every second count when time is so short. When I am studying, I look forward to meeting the goals I set myself quickly, so that I can spend some time doing what I want to do. However, when I start having fun, my guilt will creep up being me and start breathing down my neck. Life should not be like this. I have long forgotten what I used to enjoy doing.

Junior College life was never short, but you lose so much time to mugging that it appears like you did not do much else in that two years. I really miss the early part of this year, where we could have fun by organizing BBQs and enjoying a few days at Ubin. Hopefully the upcoming learning journey would remind me what fun it is to just relax as a class.

Y is for yellowness. When someone feels yellow, he might experience a longing for purple. A trigger for yellowness includes red with green when lit along with white, but this emotion can also come unexpectedly as something that is primarily subtractive. This feeling might quickly fade into blue while you search for your purple, but you must keep in mind that indigo is what you want. Just make sure you do not end it by feeling really brown.