-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-06-21T13:37:00.000+08:00

I woke up, brushed my teeth, changed, and then set off for school. Then it HIT ME. There was no more SLC. It's over.

Still, I had to report back to school for training. Nice, rainy day. Reflects my innermost feelings exactly the way I want it to. So we had to go to the weights training room to work out. I entered the school and...

An ENTIRE WAVE of nostalgia washed over me. That very road I was walking in by was where we 7 of us Colombians (Han Yang, Yam Huo, Becky, Cheryl, Hatiqah, Minglyanna and Chu Yi) were walking out on the last day together to KAP. We were so down then. It was the very last day we would see each other as Colombians.

Then just down the road, I saw Cheng Yi Block. That was where Cheryl got lost on the 3rd day of SLC. She was wandering around the block for half an hour before she called me for help. =) I still can remember the desperate and relieved look on her face when I finally found her at the street soccer court. It just seems all so bittersweet now. I feel like an old man.

On the field, I saw our dear old Yam training his shot putt! He was doing horribly and seemed rather perturbed, but cheered up when he saw me. Wonder what's becoming of us all.

Then I walked to the terraces. Mass games. The water bomb fights. It's all ovveerr.

Clock tower. Where the SLC photos were taken! Our formal photo is, well, formal, but I still can remember the reluctance the guys bore when sheryl made us frame our faces with our hands. And when the girls posing with a one arm out! I wished we had really carried sheryl up on our hands then. We were intending to do so but sheryl simply refused. I would do it all over again.

Concourse. Registration took place right there! I was lamenting about the large number of stuff we were given; a newspaper, name tag, mineral water, and our readings booklet. How I miss those moments. And who can ever forget lunch together? It was a fun activity sitting down together and doing nothing but eat. I still see hatiqah's cheeky face when they (she especially) came up with some weird excuses to get me to sit beside Rebecca; with our equally strange excuses not to sit together (they still forced us to anyway). And Cheryl taking so much food she was passing to the poor guys (that's us). Those only remain as memories now.

2N classroom. Where all our memories lay deep buried in it. National assembly, ice breakers, debrief. All our emotions. The happy birthday songs. The rehearsals for the play. Everything we all shall always treasure.

And last of all, the canteen. Yam and Han Yang went there with the girls while Jonathon and I were busy serving lunch. They were so sweet to buy food for all of the girls for free (somehow I got one too!). I really wished I had gone down with all of them together. Oh well. Helping out is kind of... better.

Happy for these memories, yet, sad that there are merely memories after all.

But wait. ORCHARD OUTING in 4 HRS! THAT HAS GOT MY SPIRITS WAAAAY UP!

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-06-17T10:22:00.000+08:00

SLC is officially over. It was one of the best experiences that I would ever dream to have. I made great friends, learnt a lot about the UN's system (okay, maybe I wasn't paying attention half the time) and most of all, had GREAT FUN with COLOMBIA AND SOUTH AMERICA! Just thinking of this makes me so emotionally unstable... =') I'll go through it again even if that would mean paying it off with my life!

The first day started off with registration and the chairperson's address. I had been looking foward to SLC for the whole half a year and nothing was going to deter me from being super enthu in it! So I actually paid attention to the whole thing! I made the very first good friends, JONATHON!

"Eh, are you a Colombian?" - ME!

"YEAH! HI-5! ARE YOU ONE TOO?" - SHERYL, the GREATEST facillitator of them ALL!

Jonathon was slightly shocked, but he replied with a great "YEAH!"!

And so the conversation started! He's a really great person, and the very first feature of him that struck me was his grass-like hair! His gravity-defying hair was simply cool! Turns out that he's from Chai Chee Sec. He's a great person to get along with, and I LOVE HIM!

Next, Hatiqah sat beside me and I immediately went:

"HEY! ARE YOU A COLOMBIAN?"

"YEAH!!!! YOU ARE ONE TOO?"

Another great new friend! I didn't really talk to her that much as she seemed really hyper and jump up and bite me any moment. Turns out that she's a great person from West Spring Sec, I LOVE HER! She's a great person to get along with!

1 not-so agonising hour later, ICE BREAKERS!

I was still feeling HIGHLY ENTHU! We started off with double whacko! I went up to Yam Huo (who shall thereby be known as YAM MAN!) and paired up with him! He's from Track and Field TOO! I didn't realise that I had a great senior with me all along, he looks really shy at first, but when you get to know him well enough, he's COOL! I LOVE HIM!

We did a short self-introduction and I soon picked up the names of Han Yang, Cheryl, Jodi, Rebecca (who shall thereby be know by the ultra cute name of BECKY, which I learnt that on the 2nd day!) and Chu Yi as we kept repeating these few names over and over again. Then came a really funny part.

"Hi, I'm Minglyanna Gaku Surodai..." There're still 3 words in her name after the first 3 which were translated from Chinese! Sorry Ming, I never really caught on to your full name! Oh, yeah, we shortened her name to Ming, and even though she was mildly irritated, we all were grinning ear to ear after the Double Wacko! I LOVE HER!

"Honey, do you love me?"

The next game was a really hilarious one! A person had to say "Honey, do you love me?" to another and try to get that person in giggles or just simply laugh! The receiving end had to go "I love you with all my heart... But I WILL NOT LAUGH!" Sheryl started off, and went to each of us and would smile sweetly, saying, "Honey, do you LOVE me?" in a sickly sweet voice! But everyone didn't really know each other so well yet and was absolutely stony.

"I love you with all my heart but I will not laugh."

The basic monotonous reply that almost all of us gave! Our dear Head Facillitator for South America, BEIRU, then came in at the right moment! Sheryl forced her to try and make us laugh! She went to the girls first, knelt down and held their hands, but no one laughed at all! Then she decided to pick on poor mr yam! He was really shy and nervous, but he managed to pull it off by stifling his laughs! Then she came to me, and in that familiar sweet manner, asked me the same question. I decided to do something about the stoniness, and knelt down at the same time she did.

"I love you with all my heart..."

"BUT I WILL NOT LAUGH!", abruptly standing up!

Beiru was so tickled by this, she burst into giggles herself! Haha, things went just fine after that. It was a fun ice breaking activity!

Next was the amazing first-ever student role-playing game that I attended, X-SISTANCE!

The rules were simple enough. You will be dropped off at Sembawang with nothing but a map and a facillitator with your own group. Your facillitator will give you clues to a station in a part of Sembawang. Once there, you have to complete a task which presented world problems in a very small (think really small) scale. There would be 4 X-factors, tasks you have to complete whenever the facillitators deem fit. There are 4 factors that could affect your score. Politcal, Economic, Social and Technological status, and we had to pull it up as high as possible! And so it BEGAN!

First stop, Eagles' Club, political task! We were to play 'ji-ko-pa', and the political group (consisting of me, Ming and Sheryl) had to win more than half of the games! Someone (I think it was either Becky or Cheryl, I can't remember) came up with a great strategy and it was simple yet effective! We searched the map futilely for at least 15 minutes for it, thinking it was some sort of grand clubbing location. It eluded us all! Our FANTASTIC coach stephen gave us a few hints, then we decided to approach passers-by and the MRT station for help. We reached Sun Plaza and found out soon enough that all other teams were taking bus no. 167, and we decided to give chase! But first... X-FACTOR!

Find 5 passers-by and shake hands with them and then say things which will make them say "thank-you"! The 4 of us guys decided to step back, and the girls charmed 5 male passers-by right off their feet! Cheryl and Becky were absolute geniuses in doing so! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

We reached Eagles Club at last after 1 hr, a bus ride and a long hike! Cheryl was amazing, she kept the entire group alive with her Commonwealthen cheers, and don't judge her by her size, she's got a huge voice and a lot of bravery, I LOVE HER!

Coach Stephen was a great tour guide, telling us of Eagles' Club wondrous past! On the way, I get to know our dear Han Yang. He's a really funny guy, coming up with weird and sometimes vulgar jokes, but I STILL LOVE HIM! 5 minutes later, TASK COMPLETE!

Next X-factor: LUNCH! We were to buy food from a nearby hawker center and clear everything up in 20 mins. Jonathon and I shared a plate of chicken rice, which we cleared up rather easily! But our FP (foreign participants) Jodi and Maanvi, accidentally ordered too much food, which they couldn't finish! All of us had to gobble down the food, making it 19mins and 52secs! THREE CHEERS FOR COLOMBIA!

Next stop, Sembawang CC, technological task! We were to fill up a really huge plastic bag with water using only straws, balloons and a string. Water must be transported through the straw into another container whatsoever. A short bus ride later, we were there! We looked everywhere for a water source and found the toilets. 5 minutes later, the bag was filled with water, mixed with plenty of saliva! MISSION COMPLETE!

Next, X-FACTOR! We were to arrange ourselves in order of age first, then shoe size! I made another GREAT friend, Becky, when I found out that she was also a sec 2 after that activity! She's the BEST person I could talk to, friendly, sarcastic, funny and interesting all at the same time! I LOVE HER!

Alas, there were some communication errors, and it turned out that the age order was wrong. :( We lost quite a few points, but not to worry, we could still catch up!

The economic task! We were to buy 3 drinks and resell them at the higher price at the Jetty! Becky, Hatiqah, Han Yang and I went beachcombing for potential victims. Hatiqah homed in on a Malay lady and managed to persuade her to buy SIX drinks! We ran back together, only to find out that the others have got the task COMPLETE! Coach Stephen advised us not to care about the Malay lady, but I guess you could say we defied him. I ran to her and sold it to her! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Next, economic task! We were to visit an ancient mosque, throw our shoes in the middle of a circle, grab two of them which are not yours, find the owner, and put them on! After consulting a friendly uncle at the jetty, we set off for a trek to the mosque! It was a long trek, winding through bungalows and small roads, ending up in a secluded forest! There was this weird sign at a fork, which pointed to both directions as the mosque! It was really funny!

When we had finally reached there, X-FACTOR! We were given a garbage bag, and all of us were to remain on it for 30 seconds. After a hard and HOT 30 secs, we had to fold the bag into half! We decided to piggyback each other to save space, but that idea didn't really work out as it actually occupied more space. So, we got our shoes, placed it at the side for support, and SUCCESS!

SOCIAL TASK, the LAST ONE! We devised a great strategy, and it worked out great! COMPLETE! We had around 20 minutes to rush back to the starting point to make it on time and avoid a penalty! We ran to the bus stop, and waited for the bus.

And waited.

And waited.

We were late. Our chances of becoming a superpower was gone. ='( Nevertheless, it was absolutely FUN!

MASS GAMES! We had a really grand-scale water bomb war. As our bloc was stationed at the side, our team sustained the least fire. Not that it mattered, hitting is better than getting hit! So I basically ran out and shot a few people, some of the lucky ones got back at me! Cheryl threw a water bomb at my back out of fun, and I rashly exploded one over her head! SORRY CHERYL! I DIDN'T MEAN TO DO IT! NO HARD FEELINGS? Anyway, it was incredibly childish and fun...

Debrief! For some reason, I accused Cheryl of backstabbing me and she looked really hurt. I'm REALLY SORRY, I didn't mean to! It was meant as a joke! Went home and felt a sudden wave of exhaustion. I was just starting to LOVE SLC!

End of Day 1. People not talked to: Chu Yi, Xiu Min, Kah En

Day 2. First CONVENTION day! We were chatting away when we were supposed to read our newspapers. I got to know Chu Yi when Jonathon forced me to sit beside her (Um... Is he allergic to girls?). She's really soft spoken, but still a great person, and we get along okay. I LOVE HER!

Then came a really boring talk by two people; one Danish and one Malay. Um... something about globalisation and islamic politics.

And finally on to serious stuff! (of course I wasn't looking forward to these, but looking back now, it's so meaningful, the time spent together. If only I could turn back time.) I remember the very first National Assembly as vividly as it happened an hour ago. Becky, Cheryl, Sheryl, Han Yang and I were practically the only ones speaking! Jodi and Maanvi did contribute quite a bit, but their accent masked each of their words up. Those poor people! They kept quiet after that... Not long after did we get our unofficial charter settled! There was a strange thing going on though. Han Yang and I were all taking one side, while the 3 of the girls speaking always tries to argue with us! Maybe it's just coincidence? :P

LUNCH TIME! We all sat around in a circle and ate from a wondrous buffet! Cheryl took way too much food and ended up pushing all the food to Han Yang, who tried to give it to me. Of course he failed! =)

Next, BLOC ASSEMBLY! I was dreading this one as I've heard tons of horror stories from my seniors, namely Bryan. It went alright after all! Cheryl, Han Yang, Becky and I were again the only ones who went up to speak! We've really got to be more enthu!

"DELEGATES! Decorum PLEASE!"

Melvin. He's the Director of our Bloc Assembly, and each time we laugh or talk a little too loudly, he goes 'DING!' "DELEGATES! Decorum PLEASE!". He did that once when I was presenting halfway and I was really shocked and forgot what I wanted to say =P Becky and Cheryl were shocked too; only lucky Han Yang got off without any interruptions!

And so the 2nd day ended. People not yet talked to: Xiu Min, Kah En.

I LOVE SLC!!! Now, in the future, always will.

Day 3! 2nd convention day! This, I was DEFINITELY NOT LOOKING FORWARD to it. It brings tears to my eyes as I reminicse (I'm feeling old already...) about the wonderful times Colombia shared together. I SHOULD HAVE treasure it! Day 3 was of all 3 assemblies! National, Bloc and General! The weather matched our moods very well; it was raining. Maybe that was a sign for us to treasure these times after all...

National Assembly! Yam and Chu Yi have started speaking up! I was suffering from bouts of headaches as we settled quite a lot of things the night before till it was around 12am. I kept quiet throughout, except for one or two comments. By the time we had Bloc Assembly, I was feeling sooo much better after a short period of rest. Han Yang wanted me to show him to the toilet, and we rushed down the narrow stairs of the Clock Tower. I slipped, fell, and ended up with a few abrasions on my knuckles! It must have been a ruse to get me injured so Han Yang could speak!

Nah, just kidding. It looked like a really small wound, but just wouldn't stop bleeding. That away, the four of us (Yam & Cheryl, Becky & I), decided to take up only the caucuses to let the others have a chance to speak. Becky then offered me at least 4 tissues from Han Yang to wipe up the little blood. THANKS BECKY AND HANYANG! I really LOVE you guys!

And so we went only for caucuses. Becky was absolutely fantastic, she swayed the entire bloc towards our charter! I only had to add in a few sentences of elaboration :P Cheryl and Yam did super well too! I didn't know what was going outside, but much of it went our way!

LUNCH AGAIN! The usual spot, outside KKH. We exchanged a few jokes, a few words, that was the BEST moment of COLOMBIA being TOGETHER! Well I think the girls were mildly irritated at our (Yam and I) constant offering of taking food & drinks and our policy of 'Ladies First'. Well it isn't really our fault!

General Assembly! It was the largest gathering of all 8 blocs to come up with a charter! Becky, Han Yang and I were chosen to be the speakers for South America! But Becky just won't accept it...

"Come on, Becky, you can do it!"

"No. I will freak out."

"No you won't!"

"Yes I will. I can't speak in front of so many people!"

And so it went on and on. I just couldn't persuade her to speak. =(

In the end, she was replaced by Chu Yi. Han Yang was freaking out even before the assembly even started. He actually vomitted out his lunch! The poor guy. In the end, we were seperated from the rest of Colombia to facillitate the entire thing. We received a ton of notes from Colombia! Namely, from Becky, Cheryl and Yam! I have them tucked safely in my drawer now. It just brings a tear to my eyes when I think of all of them again...

All in all, I went up to speak 3 times. After the first time, I received another ton of notes from the same people, encouraging me! THANK YOU BECKY, YAM AND CHERYL! The caucuses of General Assemblies were absolutely atrocious! I experienced it first, first hand.

"Hello, I'm from South America."

"Okay, my point of view is that the veto rights..."

"Yes, they should be abolished..."

"Nono, you see, this is..."

In the whole caucus, the same 2 or 3 people dominated the field! Nobody changed their decisions, nobody got swayed, and it came down to a vote. It was a horrendous 5 minutes. And caucus was called after caucus. Jonathon then came up with the idea of betting on the number at the end of the assembly! The winner will be treated to a meal!

Everyone got a number, and I remember vividly that Becky and Cheryl changed theirs at the last minute! In the end, Becky won with 8, the result being 7! Whoops. I still owe her 2 dollars.

I LOVE SLC WITH ALL MY HEART! I LOVE COLOMBIA! I LOVE SHERYL! I LOVE MELVIN! I LOVE ASHLEY, I LOVE EVERYONE!

After the day's debrief by Sheryl, Colombia and Venezuela got together to discuss about the next day's finale concert item. We had came up with 3 choices.

1) Romeo and Juliet
2) Titanic
3) Spiderman

In the end, all three didn't have enough roles for everyone! So we came up with the idea of adding commercial breaks to our play! And Spiderman was decided upon! Becky remembered maaany great scenes and acted them out to perfection! Han Yang was busy finding all the spiderman music he could get, while Yam and Cheryl wrote our a script! Nobody wanted to act as spidey as they had jobs to do, and I guess I'm the only one left! As it was getting very late, we decided to continue discussing the next day.

Yam, Cheryl, Ming and I went to the bus stop together. Ming went in 157, Yam in 67, and Cheryl and I took 66. Cheryl was once again irritated by me letting them up the bus first, and not sitting down till she had sat. Apparently she had to threaten to stand up before I sat down. Really sorry; it's just the proper decorum!

SLC ROCKS! End of day 3; Everything that has a beginning has an end... It shall all end soon.

Day 4: Keynote Address, GRAND FINALE!

We all arrived in formal wear at 7.30! Complete with belt, tie, black socks, leather shoes and long sleeved shirt. We had to settle the grand finale item in about an hour! I suddenly stoned out. I didn't know how to act as spiderman at all! I received the scenes,

1) Spiderman meets Jane/ Bitten
2) Climbing wall
3) Commerical Break
4) Saving the train
5) FINALE!

just a few hours ago! Han Yang brought in great spiderman music and a Superstar Mp3. Still, I was stoning out, not knowing what to do. Becky noticed me and came over, pulled me to one side and said,

"Okay, I'll teach you."

I was SAVED! She did a perfect demostration yesterday right in front of us; why didn't I think of asking her?

But that had to wait. The keynote address was about to begin. Mr Ho came in and delivered an extremely inspiring speech, whereby I was doing some very enriching note-passing. :P

We had tea-reception, or rather, lunch, after that. Out of instinct, once again, Yam and I proceeded to dominate the food stands and giving out food and plates to the ladies in our group. This time, Jonathon and Han Yang caught on too! YES! Now the ladies were looking even more irritated.

During General Assembly, Becky was finally added to the speakers panel after I requested Sheryl to do so! However, she didn't want to speak at all. I tried persuading her time and time again, but it didn't work out. She IS the best actress/speaker in our group after all, why isn't she going out? In the end, she remained fixed in her seat. Cheryl should also be added on too! She's a wonderful speaker as well! Seeing that nobody from Colombia was about to speak, that including Han Yang (who freaked out yesterday and didn't speak) and Chu Yi (just soft-spoken), I didn't as well. But, the GA dragged on for an overtime of 1 1/2 hours! We were only left with 1/2 hour to prepare for the item!

Scene 1:

I had to be fixated at Mary Jane. :/

I didn't know how to look like I was really mesmerised by a girl, and my acting was definitely unwatchable as I tried the first few times. Becky told me to stop, drop my book, turn back slowly, and adjust my glasses for the umpteen time, but I just couldn't get it. 5 minutes of encouragement from her later, I didn't improve, rigid and all. She then tried doing the actions together with me, dropping encouragement every now and then. It was then I finally snapped. I GOT IT!

Next was the bitten part. I was to be bitten by Becky the Spider. I really don't understand why she didn't take up the role of spiderman/woman altogether! She's a complete natural at acting; She proceeded to show me a perfect rendition of getting bitten by a radioactive spider! I just couldn't do it. No matter how hard I tried, something was wrong. Then she pulled me aside again, and muttered a whole lot of encouragement. I tried again, failed. Out of pure frustration, I resorted to punching the notice board. Bad idea. My knuckles were already injured! Somehow, she got me calmed down, and I GOT IT AT LAST!

Scene 2:

The wall climbing part! I had to stare at my right palm first, then left, then raise them up (I'VE GOT THE POWER!), then proceed to climbing the wall! Evidently I was looking half-disgusted, half-surprised, not what we wanted! And Becky pointed out that my arms were extremely rigid. Once again, she did it perfectly herself! Tries and tries together later, I IMPROVED DRAMATICALLY!

Thanks A LOT Becky!

Time was running out, we just had enough time to rehearse the last two scenes once. I think I had got the hang of it from Becky, and did it quite well, if I say so myself. She was of course, still improving on my horrendous acting! I just don't know how to thank her enough. We all changed into our black T-shirts and jeans, only me with my long sleeved shirt to perform the stipping scene!

GRAND FINALE. Just before it started, Honorary Mention certificates were given out to 3 delegates from each region! Many of my friends got them, as i watched them go up the stage one by one.

"From South America... (Sorry I don't know your name)!"

"Also from SAM... WOO HAN YANG!"

WOOHOOOO! Han Yang got it! YESYESYES! We were so happy from him we all stood up and cheered our heads off!

"Also from SAM... WONG QI HAN!"

Who? Me? Seriously? Me? WOOHOOOOO!!! All my fellow Colombians were also screaming their heads off! I got a few hi-5s before running up the stage! Then I shook hands and hugged people (especially with Han Yang, Cheryl and Becky out of sheer relief and happiness! =D

The Grand Finale was a BOOMING SUCCESS! I was actually feeling rather jittery at first, but all the performances had SUPER HYPER DANCES! We were all on our feet, cheering and dancing, feeling ULTRA HYPED! People started running around the entire auditorium with hands on each other's shoulders! We jumped right in without hesitation! After running around a few times, we Colombia decided to go down to the empty spot very near the stage and copy their dance moves! After a while, it got rather boring and we invented our own! We were HYPER!! Jonathon and Yam were super frigid at first, but they loosened up after a while and joined all of us! We even did the weird Indian tree dances!

It was soon our turn for our item! Becky was still trying to encourage me, and I think I did perfectly fine! Once again, THANKS BECKY! Couldn't have done anything without you! You have made a difference, a huge difference, in my life.

We ended off with the funky chicken dance! 2 guys from Venezuela were leading us in that, and we were even more HYPER than before! At the end, the 2 guys and I slid out onto the front of the stage!

Alas... All good things must come to an end... :'(

The finale of the finale was a very emotional one. Tears flowed as the swung to the lyrics of 3 really sad songs. I was on the verge of tears but something stopped me from letting the floodgates open. Han Yang's nose was red and eyes watery. All the ladies sobbed quietly.

We exchanged tearful hugs and handshakes.

It was time to leave.

We had an even more emotional debrief by Sheryl. She was crying really pitifully, and we decided to sing her a birthday song (her bdae was on tuesday), which, unfortunately, made her cry even more. :'( It was to be a sad parting. We exchanged words on what we felt. When it was my turn, my tongue went dry and I was lost for words. All the mixed emotions welled up inside of me and the long speech that I had prepared dissipated. I shouted the very thing right from the bottom of my heart.

"I LOVE YOU GUYS!"

It was a sad night.

On the way to the regional debrief, I exchanged more hugs with Colombians. SLC was ending. Melvin was exceptionally emotional when he gave out the certs the OBS way. I got Wen Hui's (a stranger to me) and passed it to her, and gave her a hug out of sadness. (Don't get me wrong. The reason why I didn't do it again to the person who passed me my cert was because the rest of the Colombians were jeering at me for upsetting someone)

An emotional parting. That what it was.

After completing our evaluation forms in a very saddened atmosphere, the remaining 7 of us Colombians who could go for dinner at King Albert Park set off in bus 66. Goodbye for now, my 5 friends.

We had dinner, where I exchanged few words with my fellow Colombians. For one, it was going to be a very reluctant parting. Besides, they have not ceased their teasing even though it was the last time we would come together as Colombians.

The beginning of the end thus begins...

We emerged from Mcdonalds', sad and all. Han Yang was strangely still hyper.

Becky then went off in her mom's car. I said at least 5 'byes' to her before she left. We will miss you.

Chu Yi, Hatiqah and Han Yang then went off to the other side of the road for a bus. Farewell, my fellow delegates.

Minglyanna and Yam soon also went off in their buses. Cheryl and I took 66 back again where we had a very solemn discussion.

Goodbye.

Goodbye, my friends.

We will miss you.

We shall forever be friends.

Only the memories are here to stay...

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-06-10T19:40:00.000+08:00

A small yellow tag.

Yep, that's exactly what I got from yesterday's Mizuno-Wings Track and Field Championships. When I first heard the name of the competition, COOL! was my first reaction. Seriously.

Mizuno-Wings
Track and Field Championships

You see, Mizuno-Wings is supposed to be the next prestigious competition in which they (who knows who they are anyway?) select participants for Nationals. And it has that mystical aura around it; a perfect integration of Japanese and English! Well maybe it's because it's in red and bolded AND enlarged, but it seems still cool to me!

Wincoln, Joel, Keef, Bryan, Huan Zi and I arrived there about an hour early. Huan Zi towered over us as usual and it was definitely not a great feeling walking with him. We were overshadowed by his super frame of 190cm! Talk about being short. Now what's your height again, Douglas?

Then we jumped into our not-so-routine warm-ups that Keef suggested. They looked sinisterly (er, sinister?) evil as they led us out of the stadium instead of going out onto the track. Something was going on.

"AHH! My EYES! They burnnnn!"

Of course that wasn't what Wincoln said out loud, he just looked like a bulldog complete with goldfishy eyes, and had that evidently printed across his face.

It was really easy to spot at least 20 Nanyang and Cedar track and field athletes doing their warm ups outside. Perhaps Wincoln's allergic to girls or something? How does he live then? Well, okay, back to me. It's not my fault really; they were wearing bright blue and white track suits with the words printed prominently on them! It's kind of hard not to notice them. Keef hopped over happily (as in literally) and chatted with one of the girls for quite a while. I knew something was wrong! All of us have much to learn from Keef :), that desperate guy. And I am not jealous.

:P

Doesn't it seem funny? That everytime such a mystical thing comes into play, something has to go wrong. Ang just had to drop the bombshell. It's an Under-17s competition.

Under-17s.

UNDER SEVENTEENS!

Under 17s. That would mean competing with anyone below 18 years old in 2005 (Strange how they phrase the whole thing altogether). That would mean competing with anyone possibly from the young age of 13 to the elderly of 17! And the organisers were still smiling happily at us. Did they run out of cash or what?! Who organises under-17s but not under-14s? It's like pitting an ant against an elephant! Perhaps I might have to sacrifice the breaking of my neck to talk to the other competitors too. It is totally unfair.

And so it begins.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, the brotherhood of Hwa Chong Institution High Jump Squad made a four-word solemn pact.

"ZERO fighters galore!"

And so the story ends.

I would have got a tin medal! Well, considering that the gold, silver, bronze medals are arranged in their values, a tin medal would signify an amazing 6th with 163cm! Poor Wincoln and Wayne got unheighted (Failing to cross the very first height, resulting in some sort of disqualification of status)! Ahh I shaltn't elaborate on these, all I have to say that I was tyco. I still have the nationals to keep me occupied.

-- The world is quiet here... --

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

2 weeks? Was it 2 weeks since I last posted? It seemed like an absolute lifetime. Everything that could had possibly happened to me happened!

Since almost everyone has posted their results;

English: 78 (A1)
Chinese: 70 (A2)
Mathematics: 97 (A1)
Lower Secondary Science: 90 (A1)
Computer Studies: 96 (A1)
Integrated Humanities: 88 (A1)
Major Research Paper: 77 (C6)
MSG: 1.17

AHHH! Alfred had called me one day ago (before I got my results) asking for my MSG.

"Eh, hello, Qi Han, what's your msg ah?"

"Erm... 1, I think? What for?"

"*speechless-ness*"

"Eh?"

"Ohohoh. It's for the council mentors. You sure or not?"

And so I told him it was 1. Which is, apparently not true!

It's not my fault really! I only got my results the next day! Besides, I didn't expect my chinese to drop drastically to an A2! So it was an assignment with 51 marks (C6) that pulled my original score of 77 down. I remember ultra clearly that I told Mr Tan I had to go for an APMOPS meeting, and had to hand in a rushed piece of work. He agreed not to add in the marks for that. AHHH!

Alright. So he lied. Sue him. Remember, there are three types of people who exist: those who can count and those who can't.

Then we had the plans rolled out for APMOPS (Asia-Pacific Mathematical Olympiad for Pri Schs). Yeah, Asia-Pacific... I think I'd better just call it APMOPS. So it started off with the briefing for the 40 country and lunch hosts. I spent at least 6hrs preparing for the documents the previous night, and Si Jin (who, given his boarding school privileges of not having internet access, offered little assistance) the OS, used only ONE of them to explain in 5 minutes! Remind me to defenestrate him.

That aside, we then carried boxes of food down into the canteen. It was really good food, with 8 dishes and rice/pasta in it! The drinks were okay, as all packet drinks are. Then the ice cream arrived! After the students' second or even third servings of ice cream, there was a PILE of them left. I only had the time to take only 4 cups of 2 vanillas and 2 strawberries! And soon it all ended up in our stomachs. I would do it again if I could! (for the ice creams!)

School tour was next. It was an utter disaster! That's about all I'm going to say, considering I was supposed to be in charge of the proceedings. :(

The next day, Sunday, we went to a musical by our Chinese Drama Club 'Because of You'. It was like, really COOL! The lightings were perfect, the acting was great, the setting was not so great too. Okay, some of the dances were a little off-topic and all, but it still was GREAT! And the punch line had to be when our dear Jensen stepped out and exclaimed:

"AHEM-EM-EM! Hieeee! What's in a name is in a name, as the rose by any other name will smell as sweet."

I know it doesn't really sound funny, but the way he said it... HAHAHA!

That's that. Then training started on a DAILY basis. At this rate, my body's really going to die of aching! (is that possible? It may be on me) I turn my head sideways to look at my clock, OUCH!
Okay lah, it's not really that bad, but it still doesn't change the fact that I'm aching all over.

I know I'm supposed to be in Cameron Highlands now, but... forget it, something happened so I was FORCED not to go. Yeah.

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-05-26T20:01:00.000+08:00

The horrors of school life - I definitely felt out of place for not going for 3rd lang lessons today. I was so distracted that I actually walked up the overhead bridge to NY before realising that something was missing. Oh yeah, it's Lukuan's twice-a-weekly reviews about manga and his stabs at Min Jun about a certain *ahem* someone. I swear there were at least 5 serious things on my mind at that time: tomorrow's APMOPS's zoo trip, science center trip, tomorrow's physics module exam, MRP, that girl staring at me and next's week Summer Retreat at Cameron Highlands.

Humanities Quest two days ago was an absolute disaster. We were given an entire stack of notes (I reckon about 150 pages, to say the least) to study about a week ago. Then, just right on the spot, the four of us finalists were told to select an understandable comic strip out of five of them. I spotted a really funny and cute strip! It was something about Calvin and Hobbes, where Calvin rants and rants on about media sensationalism, and then is beaten flat when his father comes in and says one sentence.

Besides, I was thinking, "This's gonna be easy!"

I didn't realise how wrong I was till I stood in front of the intimidating 6-judge - 2 teachers, 4 seniors - panel. Amazingly, I had managed to come up with a close to three minute presentation on that comic! Of course, that includes some of the ers and the ahs, but it's still quite long! And then came the Q&A. I was fired (probably to death) by especially the teachers for not using the articles provided to substantiate my points!

"Articles? What articles?"

Then it hit me. THE articles! The 150-pages of horror! All that studying and reading for nothing! At least the seniors weren't that horrible. Even with 3 of them trying to kill me and only 1 of them supporting my stand, I guess it went alright. Except for the part on the articles, apparently. :(

We've finally settled the APMOPS at long last. After it was cut down to 3 days just when we prepared a five-day one, the Maths Trail where my programmes team (I happened to be I/C, so I was inflicted horribly :'() spent hours running around the school and coming up with some rather creative questions being canceled and the 'Welcome' dinner being shifted to the last day (ironically), it's finally settled! Now all that's left for us not to do is to come up with a royal screw-up (Mr Low's words sure come in handy when I need to get this APMOPS thing across).

I've got 5 pages of Tian Xia Zhi Ma's (The horse under the heaven?) notes to digest. The tian xia zhi ma, is, incidentally, a black, short, stubby and less-than-lifelike statue near our track and field. I get the glorious opportunity to introduce it and the history of the track and field as well! Just when I thought Mr Tangc's training (remember the time we had to introduce the school to each other in chinese? I felt so stupid then. Now I must really thank him) would never come into handy.

I don't think I have much problem with explaning it to the Australians, New Zealanders, Indians; all the English speaking cultures, but the Chinese part poses quite a bit of problem for me. For one thing, the notes from Mr Tangc are all in traditional chinese. Yes, I know I take Japanese and its kanji is somewhat like traditional chinese, but it's utterly impossible to even read the history, much less understand it! And how about the Koreans? Do they speak English, Chinese, Japanesse, Freidontwhatish or Korean (which, evidently, I have no idea how to speak)? I'll just find out for myself on that day, eh? :P Wonder how it'll be like when a councillor gets their school history wrong and conveys it to 450 people...

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-05-23T11:16:00.000+08:00

After listening to all the critics blasting a whole bombard of critics at Star Wars: Episode III:

Revenge of the Sith, just like its prequels, I didn't really expect much of it.

I've liked star wars since... ever! It's been a rather uneasy proposition to be known as a star wars fan. First, came great embarrassment of the clownish Jar Jar Binks (you know, the cutesy frog-like, humanoid creature?) and the gut wrenching acting from the muppet otherwise known as Jake Lloyd (small, young cute little padawan Anakin)in the phantom menace. Then came the laughably stilted dialog and the clumsily told love story from attack of the clones.

"I have a bad feeling about this..."

(Warning: Spoiler Alert!)

Mr. Lucas, not all is lost, in fact, all is forgiven! Welcome back. Episode III is the prequel installment where gone is the overly wooden acting and the ridiculously petrified dialog! There's finally a logical and believable storyline. Anakin's transformation is inexorably sensible, where he turned to the dark side in the name of love (Sob. How totally romantic)!

(The love scene! It just brings anyone to tears. Uh-huh, zhong han, don't cry, don't cry)

It is natural and scenes between Anakin and Padme, are heartfelt and honest- a far, far cry from their nearly unwatchable scenes way back! George Lucas goes right for the jugular in this film (the PG rating is not well earned!). It was so real it sent shivers down my spine..

List of people who got killed:
1) Anakin Skywalker (transformed to Darth Vader)

Evil looking eyes. This seriously freaked me out.

2) Mace Windu (killed by Anakin)

Poor guy. Died in his padawan's hands. Funny how he's looking so serious.

3) General Grievious (killed by Obi-Wan, shot to his heart)

The ultimate quad-lightsabre wielding guy! He's really cool looking and all, but pity he's on the dark side.

4) Palpatine (disfigured, transformed into Darth Cidious)

The masterminded monster behind all the attacks! His face still creeps me out.

5) Padme (scroll up, the only female there is her. The most peaceful death of all, died in her sleep. Alas, something to pacify the heart)
6) Many, many Jedis (all except Obi-Wan and Yoda)

A tear will roll down your cheek if you've lived with this series of films as long as I have. Star wars is back. I thought I saw the macho-est guy among the group of friends having his eyes shimmer a little. Or maybe it's just the cinema lighting. It's cool to be a fan again.

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-05-22T09:52:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was the showdown between Arsenal and Manchester United for the FA cup, and arsenal WON! I'll take this as a surprise cue from my favourite team to blog then! Dougy, you can't possibly hunt my head down for blogs now!

You've got it, it's another night at Weijie's grand mansion. When was the last time we went anyway? I can hardly remember... This just goes to show how life-threatening school life can get, yah?

All 20 of us turned up, we could never miss any manchester united vs arsenal matches for the world! I grabbed a drink, found a nice comfy spot on the sofa, and snuggled into it. Ah. I really missed that huge 30-seater sofa, it was definitely so much more comfortable half-lying on it than dreaming of it!

Then there came the kick-off! A nice whack! And so the 1st half ended.

Think girls don't watch soccer? Think again. Some time ago, Kellie told me that she, in fact, her whole class watched soccer, but I didn't really believe her till we were discussing about the 1st half during the half time! She (supporter of Manchester) pointed out how whoever on the pitch was making many mistakes and the tactics of both sides! I did try pay some attention to these, but never really caught on to what they were doing. Haha, I guess she knows soccer much better than I do.

2nd half started with something very much less than a bang. Nice shot! Nice header! Nice... zzz. Yeah, believe it or not, I actually fell asleep even though the huge plasma tv was so big I had to twist my head to view the whole screen, and the home entertainment system was blaring at close to maximum! Maybe they drugged the drinks, or the sofa was too comfy, or the show was too boring? Whatever it was, I guess it's most probable I've just too much of a cowish pig in me. =P

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-05-21T18:57:00.000+08:00

How long has it been since I last posted?

I cannot remember.

Why?

I cannot say.

"Two roads diverge in a wood and I,
I took the one less travelled by."

An eye for an eye they say. An eye for an eye.

But what if it's you that has to make the choice, be the bad guy, let fly, let the blood? What if it's you that has to live with the consequence? Because, what if no-one's right? What if there is no right answer?

There isn't always.

What if all roads, all the roads lead to upset, to sadness, to displacement, to devastation?

What if the choice is so hard that the only option you can see is to let fly on yourself? To forgo the choice. To pass it over. Give it to someone else.

What happens then?

...

Yet, time passes like nothing's ever happened before. A straight face I have to keep.

Really painful.

My body's heavy. Really cold. Really painful.

It flows like ever before.

Blood.

I'm confused... It's like wandering around a foe-riddled maze.

Every turn. Every corner. You get stabbed by some unknown figure.

Alas, you fall at the very last opponent. The stongest of them all.

You can never get to the end. Never.

P.S: For those who have absolutely no idea what is going on, don't bother trying to decipher it. I'm directing at a minority group of people who probably don't even know who I'm directing at.

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-04-23T11:21:00.000+08:00

Perhaps you have seen my ironic nickname on MSN, but it's my honour to yet again reflect it here:

[-The irony of silvers [ ·First 2nd with 135... 2nd (note the irony) with 166--! 2nd again with 158...] ]

Not that I'm proud of it, but still, it's quite ironic, stupid, not well-formed, lacking sturdiness, ironic and very ironic. In case you have no idea what I'm spewing about, (refer to above) it's about me getting 3 second-s in all three of the high jump competition I have taken part in:

First 2nd with 135 cm was attained in Sec 1, where I lost to Daryl fair and square.

Second 2nd (Yes, yes, note the irony) was attained by *cough*, shattering (well, not shattering, but it's still great.) Yuk Choi's B'Div personal record by an amazing single cm at 165! Apparently Wayne won with 175 if you had been reading my posts. At least I have shortened my record from his from a full 35cm to 9cm! Maybe it is time to power up.

Third 2nd's on Monday's Sports Day competition. Daryl won with extreme tyconess. I shall not elaborate further though/as Jun Yang has a full account of it. I returned home to find out that I had been rewarded with a sprained ankle! I actually injured myself during the jumps AND still managed to win a 2nd! Amazing things adrenaline can do to you.

I limped my way through Tuesday, when, to my utter ~~delight~~ horror, I saw the NY people jumping after school! Just when I had to injure my leg and miss training. (I just happen to have some friends in NY's high jump team, don't get me wrong.) Considering that I had to run 16 X 200m and 4 X 100m the next day and the complete un-seriousness of my injury, I happened to walk past the pit and drop them a "hey!". As Junnies vividly described, it turns out that one of them broke her own record with 130cm and won. Watch out, Junnies, just 30cm more and they'll kill you!

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-04-16T18:31:00.000+08:00

I'm finding it hard to even let out a proper breath nowadays, and this past week is definitely one of the wondrous times.

We had our council investiture on Wednesday. It just seems funny why they should hold the investiture 2 whole months after we were crowned councillors. It just doesn't make sense, does it? Anyway, we had to do an impromptu welcoming of other councillors from other schools.

Augustine and I wandered to the entrance and saw Dian Jun there. Apparently, he was overwhelmed by the number of people coming in. As great councillors with plenty of initiative, Augustine and I volunteered to bring the army of Nanyang councillors to the auditorium. (Yes, by "army", I meant at least 20 of them.) That was a tramatizing experience. We tried to talk to some of them, but it didn't go too well.

"Hi! Is it your first time here?"

"No, I came at SLC last year."

"How was it?"

"(Scowling at me for interrupting their animated chatter amomgst themselves)Um... okay." Sensing the aura of impending danger, I decided to shut up.

"Wow, SLC must be nice. I wish I went last year too." Augustine just didn't get the hint. I think he got injured down by their piercing, can't-you-see-we're-talking looks.

A long, agonising, quiet (to me) walk to the auditorium. And back down again to the entrance, without the girls of course. Dian Jun was busily trying to entertain 3 groups of people to not much avail. We went over again, and I was given this group of 5 Cedar girls; Augustine 4 from ACS(I) and Dian Jun leaving 6 RGS girls for himself (I'm not implying anything). Having learnt my lesson, I decided to change my first line.

"Good afternoon, welcome to Hwa Chong. Please follow me... Is it your first time here?"

"Hi! Yup, it's our first time here; I can see you're a new councillor, no need to be so serious lah, you'll scare away all of us!"

That didn't go too bad. The ceremony was soon over, and since I've never really enjoyed the countless times of rehearsals I had to go through, I don't think I would even like to think of it at all. And then we proceeded downstairs for the reception, after which to bring them for guided tours around the school.

Zhong Han was looking really flustered, with "Where is the group of Nanyang girls? They are really cute!" written all over his face. I admire my own skill of reading faces when I read his post @ www.zymosthenic.blogspot.com Apparently I was right. I don't see why he likes cute, pretty girls looking like barbie dolls anyway.

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-04-09T17:36:00.000+08:00

3 weeks of worry has come to a naught. National Juniors' over at last!

We turned up at the stadium at around 12.30, where we spent 1 1/2 hours (I don't believe this) doing warm ups. Jogging, stretching, the usual stuff. Then we found out that there were only 11 jumpers registered for our event (High jump Under-15s, in case you haven't been following my posts)! I got the list and got a good look at it..

Competitors corresponding to each school:
Joel - HCI
"Zam" - MS (Macpersons)
Me! - HCI
Failed to turn up - CH (Catholic High)
Wayne - HCI
Weng - HCI
Junnies - HCI
Name not known - ACS(I) (Well, you should know this)
Daryl - HCI
Zi Keng - HCI
Failed to turn up - SJI (St Joseph's)

7 competitors from HCI and only 4 from other schools! How cool can that get? Then David pointed out that only 2 of them from other schools have turned up! My odds of not getting to the top 8 rose from probably 1 in 5 to 1 in 1! Man, at least it's not as bad as I thought it would be. We first had 2 practice heights, at 135cm and 155cm. We basically sat out the whole thing (except for a jump or two, in the process, scissorsing and niao-ing our Sec 1s with the possible exception of Wayne) until the actual thing started.

140 -
Zi Keng, our Sec 1 jumper, out! He never really got much training anyway.
Crossed it in 1 attempt.
Down to 8 competitors

145 -
ACS(I) guy (Sec 2!) got disqualified! Apparently he didn't really know the rules and ended up in trouble. Poor guy.
Crossed it in 1 attempt.
Down to 7 competitors

150 -
Joel, our Sec 1 jumper, out! He gave it his all, but came down to nothing. But he still did a height higher than mine by 5 cm when I was his age!
Crossed it in 1 attempt.
Down to 6.

155 -
Weng, Daryl, Junnies ALL OUT TOGETHER! No way. Even though David was shouting instructions from the sideline, they failed together!
Crossed it in 1 attempt.
Down to 3.

160 -
"Zam" (as he said "Call me Zam") failed to cross. Poor guy, that was his first competition since he was sick when he was in Sec 1.
Crossed it in 1 attempt.
Down to Me(My name's somehow switched to "Me") and Wayne!

163 -
The pressure's getting to me. With Ang, David, almost everyone looking at me, I failed the first attempt! I got one back when I crossed it the second time.
Crossed it in 2 attemps.
Wayne flew over.

166 -
An exact replica of 163. Refer to that.

169 -
The sacred height. I landed on the pole twice! And at the last jump, I was really motivated by Wayne flying across again. With David shouting, I ALMOST crossed it! Gaaaaah!!! MY LEG HOOKED IT! Not a good sign.
I'm out.
Wayne proceeded to jump 175, then 182, where his reign ended as he almost broke his back like me.

I didn't even come, to say the least, close to beaten Wayne. At least I got my small silver medal. I dunno what happened to Junnies, Weng and Daryl though.

P.S. Maybe only I can understand what I'm talking in this post, so don't worry, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you if you don't understand what I'm blabbering about.

2005-04-09T08:09:00.000+08:00

Oh crap. National Juniors is coming...

In 3 hours actually. Wish me luck... Haha, i'm almost definitely going to get something like last or 2nd last in my heats but never mind, I shall remain as optismistic as Dougy without his knuckles. Or Wayne (the high jumper) without his legs. Or Wayne (the violin player) without a bow. Or Aran without his nice, tanned complex. Or Weng without his arch. Or Junnies WITH his coconut head. Jacky without his pop songs. Jensen without his gestulations. Lukuan without his nice, short hair.

I'm getting tired of listing all the people I know down so, oh well, bye.

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-04-02T09:14:00.000+08:00

If you are expecting something mundane, look no more. I think I have gotten rid of my inferior complex once and for all.

My legs are killing me since yesterday's training. Must be all that adrenaline wearing off... Anyway, Wayne finally arrived at training today. He took off his shoes, then jumped across 155, just like that! Guess he was the inspiration for us after all. Daryl, ex-high jumper, and currently reinstating high jumper, also came back when he saw Wayne over there. This was basically how it all went.

*All drawings are by the great artist junnies, I am merely copying him and placing them here to show my point.

"You sec 1 ar?"

"Yah."

"And you crossed 155 just like that?"

"Yah."

"Okay, I'm so going to cross it."

And there he went, the first jump in weeks. And he did cross it alright... It was seemingly an utterly impossible feat! He jumped 155cm after missing training for so long!

"Watch out Daryl. Now it's my turn." -- Me

"Ha! We'll see if you can do it!"

And I did it.

So we raised the height to 160. Wincoln then crossed very, very relaxly. By now, Daryl was like this:

He crossed too, and then I repeated his feat, tying with my previous record.

We then decided to go for 163cm. Wayne decided to go up first. He failed. He actually failed!! Time to beat Wayne! Daryl failed to, but I did it. I BEAT HIM! Well, so it wasn't really official, but I beat him for once! Time for Wayne beaten Nationals, guys!

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-03-29T19:02:00.000+08:00

Today's probably the slackiest day in school since start of term...

Sitting there for a whole period and listening to Mr Tangc talk about discipline was a great way to pass the first period. Then, Jaya asked for volunteers for a wacky thing she wanted us to do (something involving a brown chair, a son and intellectual banter), which, very much fortunately, I volunteered for. Recess.

Assembly. Assembly. Assembly. The most exciting 3 periods of all. I have absolutely no recollection of any events at this point of time. Next, 2 periods of physics, where we were doing a great experiment with a ball and a hoop and a bunsen burner. I think you get the point...

Slackiness ended here.

Training is still as tough as ever. With no David, no Mr Ang, we were jumping. And jumping. And jumping. (I just like repeating things 3 times today, don't ask me why) Then, IT happened. Nicoll came.

"You know how much Wayne jumped in Walaa?"

"The Australian competition thing? No idea..."

"180."

"Uh-huh..."

"One hundred and eighty."

"WHAT?!"

My inferior complex is coming back all of a sudden now, but it ain't that bad as before. Let's take a look at the statistics as of today:

Wayne (Sec 1) personal best - 180cm
Keef (Sec 3) personal best - 180cm
Nicoll (Sec 4) personal best - 179cm
Bryan (Sec 3) personal best - 172cm
Yuk Choi (Sec 2, 15 this year) personal best - 160cm
Wincoln (Sec 2) personal best - 158cm
Jun Yang (Sec 2) personal best - 155cm
Joel (Sec 1) personal best - 140cm
Zi Keng (Sec 1) personal best - 120cm

This is all getting messed up...

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-03-25T20:55:00.000+08:00

David kills.

No, that is not a question. He kills. Just in case you are not a crazy fan of my blog like those few who are, no, David is not a new brand of cigarettes or beer. He's my coach. A great personal coach for fanatics.

"Hey! I'll be late, something cropped up at home! =)"

Cheery start, and its end was bad. We were totally bruised, battered and most of all, dead.

I guess I'm still dead, not going to post another long, inspiring post when i can't even inspire myself to stand...

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-03-21T19:54:00.000+08:00

Super long, reproachful post. (1193 words) Better grab a coffee or sandwich before reading on.

I got 272 for my PSLE.

"Wah, so clever arh? How do you do it?" THAT is probably the most basic and common reaction I will get with that highly sacred sentence. Of course, like any of you, I sure do like to reply with:

"Pure intelligence. Kidding. (sometimes I forget about the kidding part)"

But I don't. Don't forget, there are so many people out there who has scored in the range of 273 - 282. What's the big deal about PSLE scores anyway? It's just like any other exams, only taken to a much bigger scale than your normal, everyday pop quizzes, tests, blahblah. And, of course, not to forget that piece of paper that decides your fate. Okay, so there was these four A*s on my piece of paper there. And maybe they do matter in which secondary school you go to.

Still, it DOESN'T really gauge how intelligent you are, does it? After all, there might be typos, inaccurate handling of marks, bias, yeah, and the list goes on. Of course, you might be sitting there in front of the computer and cursing at me.

"WHAT THE (please end your sentence here) - !? So clever can hao lian liao lah? CAN LIAO RIGHT? HUH?! HUH?!"

Before that ugly F word comes to your lips (fugly), look. PSLE decides which secondary school you go to, that's it. Yup, end of the line. What's the BIG deal about those "good" secondary schools? We are only students (forgive the cliche-ness). Yeah, we eat, we sleep, we play. And yes, we DO study. If you think your PSLE score decides where you go, you might as well climb to the tallest building in Singapore (that's the UOB plaza, with 108 floors, for your kind reference) and jump down. Or maybe you could try running into a wall and just keep running. I suggest you close your eyes, and don't stop running. That's that.

HKPS. 6 years of solitude from the real world have left me propagandised. (So I've been staying in the Matrix all this while...) 5 out of 6 years I have topped the entire level. In one year, I dropped to a miserable 2nd, due to some... problems (go ahead, let your imagination go wild on this one). Each year came and went. I was 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st all the way. I spent each year filling up my cabinet and polishing the trophies so much you could see your face in it (seriously). Yeah, not to forget best in English, Best in Science, Best in Maths, Best in Chinese (for 3 years before China's Chinese students flocked over). And sports too. I practically dominated the jumps, and did pretty well in sprints. Now that I've counted, I've got 25 trophies for academic performence, 13 for miscelleneous (my spelling is deproving) competitions and 9 for sports. But that's besides the point.

The point is (or question, rather), who am I really now? Evidently a HCI student. HKPS student NO MORE! How many trophies did I get so far? 2. For 1 3/4 years, I have only got a mere 2. TWO! To think, in the 6 years in HKPS, I've got 47! That would mean in 1 3/4 years in HKPS, I've got around about 4 times the figure I have this very minute! Totally f-ing (firing).

"AHHH! NONONO!"

Wait a second....

"AHHHHHHHHH!"

That's me, yelling off my head. Why on earth am I comparing my past with now? Comparing the number of cheap gold-coated metal pieces?! I've had enough of this crap.

I think I'm losing it, talking to my own head.

I left HKPS, proud and confident and all. Ended my first year with a perfect score. And I still didn't fall. Not just. Yet.

Now, my MSG lies at 1.5. A HORRENDOUS ONE POINT FIVE! Slipped all the way from 1st to 10th. And that's only in class ranking. School ranking - 500th. Or at least, that's my guess. With Jensen's taunts repeating in my mind over and over again.

"Aiya, Jie Da Huan Xi so nice to watch leh, heya heya hey ya heya hey"

Eh..., nono, not that one (though it's still ringing in my mind now though, accompanied by his I've-just-became-a-vegetable-my-joints-are-malfunctioning or rather, somebody-drag-him, -no, kill him-AHH!-just-get-him-OFF-the-dance-floor dance moves).

Now's a nice time to list out those niao-ers

1) Top on the list, who else, but the self proclaimed professional niao-er, Douglas.
I met him on the bus to MOELC just yesterday.

"I can do 23 knuckle commandoes."

*Stares blankly into space*
"I'm speechless"

"How many can you do?"

*Stares blankly into space again*

"Poor bleeding knuckles..."

*Stares blankly into space yet again*

I was totally speechless. This lumbering giant had the determination and perseverance and power that completely shattered my own. Today, when I logged on to MSN,

(25 knuckle commmandoes!)

At least this guy doesn't do very well in the academic side. A breather for me... For now, at least.

2) Rui Yong a.k.a Guillame (sorry dude, your name's too hard to spell) It's pronouced as Gee-om, anyway...

A blast of wind, a streaking bullet. What is that? Presenting... Super Rui Yong! Reaching at up to speeds of 18.4km/h for 2.4 runs, he completes a lap in a mere minute and 15 seconds! I got totally trashed by him, with him outlapping me once, and coming close to doing a double feat!

"How's your 2.4?"

"Erm... 10"45."

"Wah, very good, very good, I broke my previous record with 8"30."

Okaaay...

P.S. Yeah, I know I'm behaving like one pessimistic, spoilt brat but I guess it's kinda good to do a little write-up on them. Sarcastically of course.

3) Zhong Han

"How much (for bio module exam)?"

"Same as you."

"So what is same as you? (I only TIED with you?! OH NO!)"

Not (*note the words in brackets) that he said it, but nonetheless, it goes something like that. In fact, his long distance far outruns myself (I got 24th and him, 6th for X-country), BOTH chinese and English compositions ALWAYS scoring higher than mine, and well, he swims so much better.

4) Lukuan

The expert at girls. Always on the look-out for them, he seems to know who likes who and ~~his handsome face always attracts the girls' attention~~ (here's your request, but I guess I better make it LESS prominent).

He always drags me around following Min Jun who he presumes is following a girl he likes, Wan Ping. (I'm not supposed to say this but it slipped. Whoops.) So it's me following Lukuan following Min Jun following Wan Ping. Complex.

And yes, always likes looking at manga drawing of girls and niao-ing me for liking action mangas instead of girly (as in full of girls) mangas. Like it's my fault.

trg

2005-03-16T19:06:00.000+08:00

I'm growing sick of training. All we do is go over there, do some weights and then jump. The end. Of course, that is when no coaches are around. Nevertheless, I am still sick of training today. Ah, I know, I'll try to act like I'm in mental breakdown mode. Here goes...

Sorry lah! So I was too ambitious and set the leg curl weights to 80 pounds, ending up injuring myself! Okay, okay, it's all my fault! I... I thought if I zham weights then I would be able to jump even higher! So it's my fault that I wanted to improve even more!
My juniors... My seniors... My coaches; when they see me, all they do is shout, "Go ahead! Jump higher!" How the hell can I impossibly cross 172cm during the Nationals that easily?! I should be the one who is shocked over my recent improvement to 160cm! (Okay, back to me. Newsflash! I broke my record to 160cm just a week ago. Yeaahaah!) It didn't come easy, and now you all want me to jump even higher?! I don't even remember how I jumped, not even why I liked high jumping before!
And this people... this people around me keep pushing, pushing me across the limit by every passing minute; pushing up the height of the pole!
I feel... Afraid.
I'm really f**** up (fired up). There's no need to waste your energy or your saliva consoling me. Die!

Yup, that was fun.

-- The world is quiet here... --

2005-03-13T21:00:00.000+08:00

Okay, as promised, Douglas, I'm posting after my return from the camp. Your constant reminders are more than sufficient! I still see your desperate face saying "Qi Han... blog leh...". Scary. Well, yeah, I admit that I haven't been dutifully blogging as I should have been, but with the ton of sabbatical homework, my PW (still uncompleted), my MRP (18 days left to deadline...), 2 tests in the first two weeks of term 2, holiday homework, TnF training, 3rd language, Organising Team for 3(+1) events (ProEd Nite, EOYA, APMOPS, Amazing Race for Hutchins), I guess you can't really expect me to blog that much nowadays.

I signed up for the Colors of Photonics sabbatical and got screwed up by my PW team (Yu Teng, Jensen, and Syl) for not joining Tangc's sabbatical and use that time to work on our PW (which is, in other words, camping in ProEd room for 5 days and spending 75% of the time having recess and LAN gaming). Ended up spending 6 hrs a day listening to Lamky ranting on about light, light and more light. Then came the experiments, where I flunked about half of them (like it's my fault, there was something wrong with the apparatus). At least I got a proper hologram back. It is impossible to elaborate this sabbatical to form two paragraphs here; so I think you get the main idea.

Camp turned out to be really great. I was expecting the Exco to be like really harsh, waking us up in the middle of the night and all, but none of that came! Maybe you could include the time where we played passing the parcel and each of us had to do a sickening forfeit if we got the parcel (That includes taking off your clothes, doing the ole dance, dancing the pole dance, etc.)

The first day, or rather night, (it started at 7.00pm) wasn't even like a camp. We mass migrated to KAP's Mcdonald's and had our dinner there. I ordered a Mcspicy Double meal through this weird waitess/attendent, whatever you call it, and I got my meal once I got to the counter without saying a word! Since when did Mcdonald's become so high-tech? I guess I'm really getting outdated. After that, a movie screening. Our sixth sense came into action when we saw the movie title: Two Brothers, and half of us went to hiberation. The irony was, it was really cold in the LT! Basically, the movie was about two tigers (or was it lions?) frolicking about in the open field, and it went on and on about them. Retired at around 1.30am.

Next day, etiqutte class. Reporting in our ever weird Council uniforms (long sleeved shirt, school tie, long pants, belt and leather shoes), we spent about 3 hours listening to a lawyer talking about the power of speech, etc. Then, we went to the SIM for lunch in a restaurant (just what kind of camp is this?)! A nice four course meal on squishy chairs (still in Council uniform). First came the toasted bread, where we had to spend 10 minutes tearing off bit by bit of the bread and spread butter on it with a knife; when Dian Jun, apparently ignorant, just ate it up in a minute! Next came the soup, and it was quite nice. Not many comments on that. Then came the main course, chicken pie, and for dessert, ice cream cake. Delicious.

Then, 15 on 15 soccer. It was a complete mess, the end result being 4-5! The goal keepers, were, to say the least, awful (Zhong Han was one of them). They kept letting in goals that could be stopped easily! Alfred scored the first one with a magnicient tyconess (I forgot how he did it). The whole while, Daryl was ramming the ball around, when I finally got the ball from a ram. I chested it down, spun around at goal, saw Victor Gan, and volleyed it to him! (Un)fortunately, he failed to get it and the ball ole-d the keeper! GOOAAL!! Now that's tyco. Augustine got rammed in the head by a mysterious person, and bleed quite badly from a cut. Poor guy. The next day, lectures and more lectures.

Finally, a camp worth going to.

Bah...

2005-03-11T17:27:00.000+08:00

Deepest apologies for not blogging for 2 weeks. Okay, so I'll be away at camp for three days from now, so, no posts for another 3 days! I hope you'll get over your withdrawal symptoms from qi han's posts, Douglas!

Karaoke

2005-02-26T19:48:00.000+08:00

Woke up, and found every part of my legs aching. The fascia cruris, extensor proprius hallucis, extensor digitorum longus, peronæus tertius, tibialis anterior; everything! Then found an entire schedule of tasks to do during the weekend. Depressing. At least I am going to be forced to go to my ex-schoolmate's birthday party.

Shandy's birthday party. I was very reluctant to go at first, seeing the amount of work that I had. But then, I guess a little fun won't mean any harm. Showed up at Lot 1's K-Box a minute late with all my guy friends. And waited. Waited. Still waited. For 30 minutes, we were staring at each other. Where on earth were the girls? Out of nowhere, they popped out of a neoprint booth. No way! They were over half an hour late and still could take a neoprint? Girls...

Then the karaoke fun started. We were assigned to a gigantic booth, with a huge screen and surrond system! Now that's cool. We were just munching on the snacks while the girls were singing some sort of weird 5566 and Energy songs. Then we finally got our chance to throw our faces away, or rather, sing some stupid songs.

First up, "She bangs! by William Hung". That was sure fun! We were going "SHE BANGS, SHE BANGS!" while the girls just looked on plainly. What happened to their sense of humour? It was supposed to be a nice time to relax!
The highlight had to be Alex Toh's "Tuo diao"! Hong Jie "accidentally" selected that song, together with Britney Spear's "Toxic"! Erm, well, guess we didn't really took to Toxic, but they sure went crazy over Tuo diao. We then decided to go for more weird songs. "鲤鱼！鲤鱼！" was definately my favourite (Yes, Zhong Han and Lu Kuan, that "鲤鱼！鲤鱼！" which 大和 sang) Ended up with a sore throat from screaming the weird choruses over and over again. Well, I guess that's the price to pay.

I should visit there more often.

X-country

2005-02-25T20:27:00.000+08:00

X-Country day! I'm bursting with adrenaline! And oh yeah, finally, finally beat Douglas in arm power. Surprisingly, I actually won a 3rd prize in a poetry competition! A sonnet that I took 5 minutes to write! Just like that, I was $25 richer...

Recess. Douglas (although I remember it was probably not him) suggested to do pull-ups. He went over there, raised his chin, and it went over the lowest bar! (!!!) The lowest bar was my height.
Now that's some giant. Yeah, anyway, I did a certain number of pull-ups (Here's some consolation) and it was +5 of what Douglas could do. At last! Well, so much for my little insignificant victory speech.

Next was Literature, and I was another victim of every teacher's reluctance to reveal the test marks. After an agonising 30 minutes listening to the teacher's analysis, in which i was probably spacing out, we got that sacred piece of paper back. The passport to my dreams. The hate of my life. The... okay, okay, the literature test paper. Turned out I got quite a reasonable mark. To the probable dismay of my classmates, I was forced to regurgiate out whatever I had written on my script. Nice experience.

Spent another agonising 15 minutes squished (yes, squished) into Brandon's car. There were 7 of us in a 4-seater car, and we were sure relieved when we were expelled out of it at Turf City. No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. It is Turf City alright, where all the punters and horses are (or rather, used to be). At least it's a good experience experiencing what horses experienced. Idling around for 2 hours till the start of the race, are of us were going "sian diao!" here and "sian diao!" there.

The race started, and ended. Miraculously, I managed to run the entire 4.5km! I got a really bad start when I didn't realised I had left the pack of sec 2s and was beginning to lag behind. With my untapped reserves of strength (woohoo!), I sped up as Brian overtook me. And I overtook him. And he overtook me again.

Halfway through, a sec one cruised past us! What?! As I turned around, the whole group of them were there... When I suddenly realised that the sec 1s were only running 3.5km and thus had a huuge shortcut they could take. Running, breathing, running, breathing. That was fun alright. Able to see the finishing line for 3/4 of the race, it was really frustrating how the race never really seemed to end. Remind me to kill whoever set the running route. Last stretch of road, with my remaining uptapped reserves of strength (yet again, woohoo!), I sprinted all the way to the finishing line, in the process, unintentionally left Brian quite a bit behind.

When that person (whoever it was, I was too delirious to think) handed me the card with a "24" scribbled on it, I just couldn't believe my eyes. 24th?! I ran all the way! Well, okay, considering the 138 competitors, 24th is quite okay... Well, from 27th last year to 24th is quite an improvement. The thing is, I beat Brian (28th) and Yu Xin (84th) at last! Rui Yong continued with his reign of champion for the second year! Zhong Han got a 6th! If only me and Brian ran just a little faster. We would have won the 2nd team prize then! Instead we won the 3rd prize, getting 6 medals and $30 worth of vouchers. Not bad a haul for a day.

Trg

2005-02-23T19:39:00.000+08:00

Finally blogging after a really, really tiring 3 1/2 days.

Sunday evening - Lifesaving lessons. Again. Yet for the consecutive 5th lesson, we had to revise over the familiar and utterly stupid routine. Wearing a formal shirt (long sleeved) and pants, we had to strip (of course leaving our trunks), then plunge into the water. Completely stressful. After which, swimming 50 meters and towing back your partner with your shirt (yeah, you have to bring along your shirt somehow). Yup. And for a consecutive 3 times before switching over. And then swimming with all your clothes on. Doesn't seem so stupid anymore; or at least our heads are too full with water to think. Looks like it's gonna be a tough ride, hold on to your bones and muscles, men!

Monday - Back to school. That morning when I stepped into class, they were STILL watching these animations on the projector for, like the 3rd consecutive day? It was STILL making fun of Bush, Cheney, Kerry, Clinton and other people. It was funny at first, real funny... If you haven't been listening and watching it for the past 3 days.

I still hate the weights' room. When I went there at 1.30, Ang was actually there! With the sec ones (I still don't remember myself being that short a year ago). No better timing than that! Under his ever watchful eagle eyes (no kidding!), I was forced to work on 220 pounds of leg extension X 10 sets and 60 pounds of single leg curl X 10 too! I'm still feeling the effects of that now.

3rd language is still horrendous. The teacher is going on and on, ranting about something I can't remember. During recess, Zhong Han rushed up to my class to see 'his girlfriend' (as Lukuan mentioned, which, Douglas disagreed with), the 'Celeste' that got Lukuan crazy. She was walking out of the class when Zhong Han accidentally (I'm not that sure about this) bumped into her. With that stupid blank look that he seems to always have:
"Who's that? Looks so pai kia"
Well, okay, basically self-explanatory.

Tuesday - Got back my History paper; not too bad, at least my dreams of being an IH student next year remains uncrushed (yet...). I'm not so sure about Lit, but from recent rumours, I guess I couldn't have done really well.

Current MSG: 1.75

Training has leaped to a whole new level. Our usual slackiness of leaping onto the mattress was interrupted by the sudden arrival of David! Turns out he's got school holidays from the U for a week. Imagine! A WHOLE week with him! How exciting. Forced to mutilate my already-tortured legs as all sorts of leg exercises came out. Jumping over an obstacle course of hurdles for 10 whole times, sprinting 10 X 50m (at least my winning the sec 1s have brought my legs on), hopping on one foot over another series of hurdles before ending with some funny exercise I don't think I can describe. At the end of it, we were like "bubububbububuubububu" (as Junnies described, whatever it is supposed to mean). God save me.

Today: Ms Quah STILL hasn't marked our Lit test papers. Perhaps punching the wall might help... Ouch. Guess not. (Our class has made a dent in the notice board by the incessant punching. Now that's something amazing.)

PE has followed in my training's footsteps. 3 laps around the school! That's a whole 3km! My legs felt like snapping, so decided to slack for the first 2 rounds. Then Han Yang, Shu Yang and Sze Han all cruised past me and sprinted about 200m away from me! In a burst of energy (from seemingly nowhere, or perhaps I've acquired Rui Yong's soul), I sprinted all the way through the last round! Alas, I fell behind Han Yang by a second to acheive 13:42. Okay, I'm going to apply for permanant stay in the Douglish Niaoism Club.

Then I still lugged myself to soccer training AND training! Really, God save me.

Reached home at about 7.45. When suddenly Douglas had a devastated kind of fit. He, well, didn't achieve even a C6 for 3 subjects. Seems he is interested in joining the ranks of me and Zhong Han. Sorry dude, but down here's quite full already. I suggest you work hard for the next test, and, no, you are not a failure.

Okay

2005-02-19T14:43:00.000+08:00

Okay, this is weird. I've just realised that every sentence of mine is laced with sarcasm after going through my posts. Must be all that Ms Wonghs's silent sarcasm (silence...), Douglas' niao-ism sarcasm ("Note: I can do 20 right arm push-ups" (and you can't)), Mrs Jaya's not-very-obvious sarcasm ("How to find a girlfriend is the worse analogy you can get") and Mrs Janey Sim's matter-of-fact sarcasm ((Talking to a student standing 10 meters away) "How many pimples are there on my face?").

Or maybe it's that daily dose of Gohyy's too-little-time tests or bloody sarcasm ("A Bunsen Burner can go up to as high as 500 degrees. "Waaaah..." Dun believe? go burn your hands lah") and Ms Quah's "climb up the highest building and jump off". Rather, I would like to think that "test fest" (here's recognition to you, Douglas) got to my head. Therefore, I hereby announce that I shall try to rid all my sarcasm.

Went on my first blog jumping in weeks. Nicholas posted a post(no sarcasm intended) in Japanese! Well, yeah, we're supposed to have studied Japanese for a year; but I can't even form proper long sentences! All I know is basic Japanese, and my 20GB hard drive, 20GhZ equipped with WinZip capabilities(as Sylvanus mentioned) seemed to have downgraded to nothingness (Do I even have that big a mental storage?). The test fest(Douglas, again) certainly did something to my head. Besides, with Wee-sensei's recent broken Japanese ("Nan de-sii-gaaa?") I probably have 10% left... Never mind, let me disgrace myself with my broken Japanese:

科学教師の完全な馬鹿。30 分だけを私達に40 微細なテストをするために残すこと! 私は本当にのために失敗しようと思っている。ここに科学教師リーグのための私のサポートは反ある!私は私が狂気に行っていることを考える。神は私を助ける。

Wow. This is a miracle. I can actually blog in Japanese. Never mind what it means, or whether it has any meaning! I actually did it! Maybe you can pick out and understand some chinese words and guess the meaning, whatever you want. Now I'm sure I can get a F9 for my Japanese test in two weeks! Haha, I sure am being very optimistic.

Trg

2005-02-19T10:03:00.000+08:00

I had enough! My tests are over. Finally. And a certain someone keeps nagging at me to blog. So far, my results have been pathetic:

CS: 100%
English: 66.66%
Chinese: 88%

I am so going to perform way below standards. God help me. Jesus help me.

Literature test yesterday. All I remember is "The stars are not needed; put them all out. Pack up the moon, dismantle the sun. Pour the ocean on me." and "He is Dead". Perfectly happy poem! Just happy enough to make everyone feel that way! Wrote the usual 2 pages of... (you could call it crap, but i rather use) words. At least I'm sure I'll be able to scrape at least a pass.

It rained yesterday. FINALLY! I sure missed the days of sitting under that tiny umbrella and seeing the throwers continue training despite the really heavy rain trodding in puddles of water! Ha. That was sure fun. Finally some heavenly reaction! "The stars are not needed; put them all out. Pack up the moon, dismantle the sun. Pour the ocean on me." Woohoo!! That finally happened. A chance to niao them again! They were like staring at us (wet, of course, but not their kind of wet) sitting happily there and chatting.

Wheee.

Woah. The eastbay.com people sure are effiecient. Ang sent out an order a week ago and got it back today! And I finally got a new pair of spikes (check it out!) that looks like weird red and ~~horrible~~ not THAT okay(implying something about ang's taste). Well, at least they work.

"Designed for the advanced and competitive high jump athlete who demands anatomical support and adjustable traction in a lightweight jump shoe. Lightweight, tight speed mesh upper. Tuff tech synthetic overlays. TPU-injected sidewalls provide ultimate lateral support. Rigid Phylon™ midsole with arch support. 11 lightweight, aluminum receptacles molded in a rigid full-length plate. Full-length rubber wrap adds traction and support. Wt. 12.2 oz."

Advanced and competitive high jump athlete indeed. Weighing 1kg, lightweight indeed. Well, the rest works alright. At least it's new.

Trg

2005-02-12T12:03:00.000+08:00

Totally beat. Dead tired.

Finally! The sun smiles and shines through brightly as the murky magnolia clouds drift genty away. The sun after the rain! The break of dawn after the long darkness and loneliness of night! The... uh... waitwait... where was I? Oh, yeah, I did 3 right single arm push-ups! Eh, no, not that. I crossed 155.

YAHOOooo!! (hope I'm not infringing yahoo!'s copyright) Today was supposed to be an all-jumping day. I totally screwed the first jump up with Wincoln singing "New year be happy!" well, almost funnily. That would have been funny if I did not land on the pole on my back and break it (my back, not the pole). Yup, you guessed it. I crossed it the second time! Whoop. Big surprise. Junnies failed to turn up for the 27th Saturday! He's gonna get grilled on Monday... To think Wincoln and I were so ~~stupid~~ hardworking to be the only ones training!

Maybe I really am THAT tired. *PLOP*

Weird

2005-02-11T13:06:00.000+08:00

Okay. This is weird. The 4th day into this heavenly chain of 6 days of slacking (as you HCI-ians know), I actually feel like going back to school. Oh yeah. I forgot. Being in school sure is better than being cooped up in the house and getting niao-ed by Douglas through MSN for like... once every hour? Putting it so innocently, "note: i can do 7 knuckle single arm on right", just like that.

More horrors on MSN. Friend of mine (no names, lest I want to find my head on the floor and body in a forest the next day) keeps complaining about how a guy dumped her and she dumped that guy and... woahwoah. What a f***y (funky) time.

Into my 56 1/2 hour on working on a 30 second Flash movie... AND IT'S COMPLETE! Really exciting, full of "beatiful colors" (remember?) about a very... ahem... controversial subject... (go ahead and hack's sylvanus's MB if you really want to find out; that is, if you can find it AND hack it) I'm killing myself with at least 2 drops of eye drops every hour. I think I better get another bottle soon.

Been counting my red packet money and surprise, surprise. I got exactly 288 dollars. How auspicious. My posts ARE getting shorter.

Drowning

2005-02-07T19:28:00.000+08:00

Yeah, I sure am drowning under this pile of homework... Major chinese project left undone! Whoops. I still have no idea why I'm blogging right now. Ah yes, while I can manage it, people, DON'T ask me for C++ solutions.

Get ready to despair (to myself)! After undergoing to rigorous training regime (lasting approximately 300 mins) yesterday, I am ready!! Even though I'm shaq-ed beyond recognition, I think my odds of winning are getting to their lowest lows! Challenged Zhong Han and Douglas to a little friendly swimming match... but he turned up sick! (Note: A sick person still can play chapteh)

Well, never mind... I'll have another week to prepare for the showdown; and I'll make sure I'll at least gain back 1% of my drowned pride (is there even any?) from Douglas! Speaking of Douglas, I finally did 10 right single arm push ups (well, maybe it was because it was 3rd language class)!

Well... yeah, that's that.
Lukuan in action again.(refer to previous post) What's new?
"HEY! LOOK! ZHONG HAN!" No response, that same dreamy look... I think he just better give up... And yes, why doesn't he just call Zhong Han to our class and identify her?! Pfft. Stupidity(I'm not refering to anyone!) can never be cured.

CNY celebration tmr, should I go back?

Homework...

2005-02-05T16:59:00.000+08:00

Tons of homework awaiting my presence, and Douglas doing EIGHTY push ups... so what's new? I can't seem to find another proper blogskin, so, sorry dude. Just hang in there till I get a new one...

Not sure why, but I just can't concentrate on my homework... I keep getting reminded of yesterday's training for no apparent reason. Okay, I may be the highest jumper in Sec 2 now, but there's no telling when I'll drop off form again. And yes, it was a great day...

I BROKE MY PB of 152 AND CLEARED IT 5 TIMES! WOOHOO! Next goal: 160 by end of this mth.

Finally! After being stuck under the 150 barrier for almost entire year, I've cleared in 5 times!!! Months of frog jumps, weights, torture, angs, davids, keefs, injuries and trainings, I CROSSED IT!

Okay. Enough of that. Wayne (current P6 high jump record holder) finally came for training today... Pfft. Usually, he trains with St Nicks ppl (that MUST be his secret)! And guess what he did? Yup, yes... He cleared 160 in a mere two steps. How morale-boosting. Oh yeah, did I mention that he's a sec 1?

At least everything didn't go so bad. The other 3 sec 1s failed miserably in trying to clear 125 *smile smile*. whoosh. Another new victims worthy of boasting abt (well... nothing much to boast about anyway)...

Then got the privilege to do twice the amount of the ever-killer frog jumps than the sec 1s! And this well... completely screwed junior (for some weird reason, hated by all my seniors) didn't do it properly and we forced him to do it again. The beauty of sadism. Ha. Then he muttered the f-word!! God were we angry... Luckily for him we couldn't pump him or we would have probably killed him with a trillion pumps! Now that's a great way of reliving stress. =)

BLOG RESURRECTED!

2005-02-04T01:01:00.000+08:00

Well, blog resurrected!

Finally Dougles invoked me to revive this blog (Self proclaimed professional niao-er, no less)... Wasn't intentional when I accideentaaly picked a Full Metal Alchemist blogskin similiar to that of Zhong Han... Well yeah, that's that.

Douglas has gone into full niao-ing mode, and no thanks to Zhong Han I'm dragged into this... His push-ups have gone godly-crazy (check his blog for details) and so did his bench presses! I had nothing to do with this until HE came... Dragged me into this world of douglish niaoism and I'm feeling zi-bei-er (deciding to submit this for chinese ace so I'm going to include some chinese words... Ha!) than ever... I don't even want to think about that...

And, oh yeah, Lukuan was going crazy about what happened in 3rd language lesson for probably the 6th time in a day... Not that it was really funny but... There was this new RGS girl in our class, and ((un)fortunately) isolated from the class...

"Who wants an orange?" The teacher, duh...
"Not me,"
"Why?"
"They're not sweet..."
"Well..."

And on and on it went... Out of nowhere, Min Jun passed a note to all of us...
"WHAT A *****, that RGS girl!" (Clue: rhymes with witch. Supposed to hand this up for ACE so no more clues) Lukuan wrote something back, got it back again, then laughed his head off!! Forgot what Min Jun wrote back but it was funny alright... Recess, Lukuan decided to test for Celeste's (presumably Zhong Han's and Douglas's ex-classmates, who is in our 3rd language class) reaction...

"CHIA ZHONG HAN! WHERE IS CHIA ZHONG HAN? DID YOU SEE ZHONG HAN?"

Pfft... he screamed like mad; and I so did not know him. Well, no reaction from her... Didn't hear him? Aw, never mind, Lukuan decided to give up (He can be embarrassed?!)... Back to lessons, and the CHIJ St Nick's girls behind us started laughing for no apparent reason whenever the teacher questioned them (the teacher, he, always asks them questions)...

Min Jun passed over another piece of paper and I held it up...
"THOSE TWO BEHIND ARE *******!" (Clue - plural form)
What the...? I quickly threw it over to Lukuan and I think they saw that in his hands, HAHA! Another long note-passing about them... then Min Jun decided to destroy the evidence but cutting it up... when the teacher saw him!!! He almost confiscated it but luckily decided not to...

Longest, most hilarious post yet!

-- Silent Thoughts... --

2004-12-30T18:34:00.000+08:00

Training was fun (probably for the 3rd time this year)! No David, no Keef, and best of all, no Ang! Wincoln and I were the only ones training... Junnies (ha!) skipped training for the 49th time this year... For some weird reason, Zhu Hui was like ogling at us training while playing his trumpet with the band. And I still have the freakin' pole-phobia; I don't even dare to jump 145cm with the pole...

Ugh.

Guan Yu the bully then decided to slaughter the "midget" sec1s in bball after training... It was me and Guan Yu versus the whole 8 of them! It was 6 on 4 at first, but as the scoreboard went waaay our way, it became 7 on 3 then 8 on 2! And they still demanded a 3 point handicap lead! Somehow, I managed to score 3 solo lay-ups and 2 2pt shots! Guan Yu was waaaaay the other side of the court, blocking like well, very much like there was no tomorrow... Then scoring a b-e-a-utiful 3pointer
End score? Us: 13 Them: 3 (The handicapped 3pts!)

Afternoon. Lifesaving course again... Finally we are moving on to CPR... It looked completely idiotic shaking and shouting to a dummy, then blowing air into it (after disinfecting it, of course)... You couldn't guess what happened then. One of my seniors left halfway of CPR-ing the dummy for the toilet and another senior took over. He started with the first chest compression and the head fell off!
Woah... I never thought that would be possible; doing CPR till a person's head fell off! Man; Was that hilarious! The head rolled into the pool and sank right in! Eat that!

Ha.

-- Silent Thoughts... --

2004-12-24T15:57:00.000+08:00

Haven't blogged for quite a bit of time, have I...? Been too tired (well... maybe just a littleee bit lazy) to blog...

Here's me again reporting yet ANOTHER failed jump across +-155cm... David came as early as usual, and he forced us to jump 20 jumps! Really great coaching methods though :) I'll rather keep this short... My frikin' leg HOOKED IT!!
And guess what happened after training?

Ang treated us to KFC!!! All 14 of the jumps group (excluding the don't-want-to-go Jun Yang, got-a-very-important-meeting Guan Yu and the suffering-from-dirt-snow-poisoning Aran) He must have struck lottery or something... A 2pc chicken meal for each of us, a huge family feast, and 3 1.5L soft drinks! Let me try to polish my apparent rusty organ in my skull to do the math if you haven't figured it out already... 14 X $3.95 + 3 X 1.20 + 26.95 = $85++ Woah... And Wincoln was still thinking of swallowing the change...

Everyone seems to be offline nowadays... My days of chatting pointlessly seems to be coming to a quick close... (how optimistic of me)... 2 days of 3rd language and 5 days of track when school reopens! ...

-- Silent Thoughts... --

2004-12-12T20:43:00.000+08:00

I just love opium. Especially war. Get it already? Yeah, I'm working on a opium war project... Which most probably will triple up as my MRP, PW and the national webby design competition. Ha. So much for my "friking cleverness". Eat that, Aran.

Went to JR library two, uh, three days ago? Just to look for books on it. Haven't been to a library for about like... half a year? Somehow I just got lost and was wandering about. Went about the whole library for a full 2 hours and not a single book about the opium war! What a great subject I picked. Rang up the library catalogue, and I found a whole list of books on the war! In Marine Parade library. Greeeaaat... Just what I needed.

At least my efforts didn't go (well, not soooo) in vain. Met up with Weiyu there ~~drool...~~ :) Jkjk... Uh... Problem is, I still don't recognise her. Szewee (remember the seaweed guy? Yeah, that's the same) keeps insisting that we were in the same tuition like... a decade back? I have absolutely no recollection of it though...

Then I played bballwith Shujun from NY, Weiyu and Chang Jiun (a super "siao" guy who can score from half-court) the next morning. Shujun kept insisting on a 1-on-1 match... After much (really much) persuation, gentlemently me :) agreed. In just around 10 secs, with my reverse-spin-crossover fake and then an underarm lay-up, I scored!!! Ha. That ought to keep her quiet for a while.

-- Silent Thoughts... --

2004-12-09T20:30:00.000+08:00

Another one of the greatest day in my life. Not going to say much these few great days...

Started out by doing weights training today; and only about 6-8 ppl turned up! What a complete waste of time. Everyone seems to be deliberately skipping training sessions! Jun Yang keeps insisting that there is something seriously wrong with his legs, while the rest keep going out on holidays... (Aran to ~~Prag~~ eh... no ~~Prage~~ ~~Parg~~ Pargue or something like that, Guan Yu - China, Yuk Choi - HK) After doing weights, we were running like complete lunatics up and down the road on the super-steep side of the hill... WITH ANG WATCHING! This can't get any worse...

Had to go for extra lifesaving lessons again... For once, it was fun (No, as in really fun)! Throwing unweighted ropes, surfboards, then wading, towing, diving... FUN! Finally there was no eeriely life-like manikins for us to practice CPR on; they were borrowed away! :)

My tagboard is rather dead... 'preciate your help for trying to keep it alive, Steph and Weiyu. Cheers!

-- Silent Thoughts... --

2004-12-04T13:54:00.000+08:00

Torn ligament in left palm. Sprained index finger on right hand. Sprained left ankle. Bah... Came down with three stupid injuries within three stupid days. All caused by a bball... How stupid can it get? Being injured by that small orange sphere? Greeeaat... Just great. Now I can hardly even hold something properly... At least I can walk properly now... Feeling really crapped up.

Just a reminder to myself:
To-do list for Dec/04:
1)Find a person as my proposal writer, lit reviewer, oral defencer and CPK-er
2)Find three experimentalistic, project orientated and really qing2 ppl
3)Find the most ACE-d person in class and ~~bribe~~ work with him
4)Cross 155-160cm with the bar
5)~~Lace Wayne's food with arsenic so that one of us stands a chance in beating him at hj~~ Treat our juniors well

-- Silent Thoughts... --

2004-12-01T15:13:00.001+08:00

TCHS track & field VS NY bball team!

They were crazy. Absolutely insane!!! Seriously, I didn't expect them to be so... well, crazy. You should have seen them then... Whenever one of us attempts a shot, the whole bunch of them shout something which seems to me like "shot", and jostle their way to try collect the rebound! Scaring technique? Not really scary though... But... if both one of us and one of them gets to it at the same time, they would really latch onto the ball! Try hugging the ball, and you would definitely be pushed down... Shooting - the whole bunch of them would jump up and try blocking! Passing - Hmm... Not much they could do... BUT, if you push one of them down or their snatching of the ball fails, they sure did look murderous... Now that's scary... However, with Ang's just-push-her-this-ain't-no-time-to-play-gentleman attitude, we WON!!!

Now let's see... A brief overview of the sec 1 players?

Dharyl (Darrel? Dharil? Daril? Errr... forget it...) - Keeps going, "Look at (jersey) number 7! Cute right?" and then, "Whoa... Number 8's! Good right?" (his actual words) He sure has a unusual high level of natural instinct... and pretty good taste! :) Either that he had eaten the wrong medicine that morning, or was really excited, he served up layout after layout! Put in quite a few points for us.

Aran - Can't say much about him; he simply refused to step in, to leave his luxury of sitting on the cool stage... Was watching rather... Excitedly though... ;)

Wincoln - The serious guy. But he totally underestimated the NY bball team! He thought we could win easily; quite true for the first quarter, but then it all went downhill... Probably the next Arsene Wenger; keeps coming up with weird strategies... He always seems to be knocking over people... I'm sure it's very very accidental :P. Great shooting though. Another bucket of points for us!

Jun Yang - The self proclaimed rookie All Star player; but he didn't get a single shot! He was quite nervous and lost the ball a couple of times... That was hilarious. Who can blame him? This "All Star" player just started playing basketball like... 72 hours ago? He's probably the person with the best dribbling tricks in soccer, why can't he do the same in basketball? Try to remember not to use your legs...

Guan Yu - The ultimate blocker machine! Second in blocking shots only to the giant 180cm Hua Zi, (haha...) I think he blocked every shot thrown at him! If I didn't remember wrongly, he stole quite a few balls too! Didn't perform his usual spinning dribbling tricks though... Nice layouts! I think he had played a litttlee weeny bit too much soccer; he actually kicked the ball when I was trying to get to it!

~~Lian Seng~~

That's all!

-- Silent Thoughts... --

2004-11-29T13:01:00.000+08:00

Nice (no sarcasm intended, seriously!) David came the whole of last week! Erm... Yahoo? Maybe not, but he is sure better than (ah-hem) him... Taught us the so-called arching stuff; you know (maybe not), running, exploding upwards, raising your leg and... Wait a moment... You don't understand this do you? Never mind, it was nothing much, just jump and jump and jump...

Until now... the legendary Wayne has arrived! You know, the P6 guy who broke the national record for high jump at 170cm! I'm sure I must have mentioned him somewhere (did I?) Whoa... He's really tall... At least standing at 180cm! With just a slow two steps run-up, he flew across 155cm at training today! No person with the right body would be able to do that!! I am soooo dead... Of course, besides those long legs, amazingly tall stature, ultra fast running, high jumping, determination, record breaking jumps, long hands, cool arch, super agility, superhuman strength and that good spirit, well, he's quite a nice guy...

-- Silent Thoughts... --

2004-11-21T22:42:00.000+08:00

Your Weekly Dose of Sg Idol
Weirdo-itic views from the Man

Sly vs taufik... Sylvester, of course, will win hands down. AND OLINDA'S FINALLY OUT! Adding "insult" to injury, she got voted off just after the week Daphne got voted out!! I mean, finally some justice is served... Didn't really expect Sylvester to pull through though (catchy), but he did. Alas, I hopes he wins. Just goes to show how impossible is nothing :)
Yeah, yeah, I know, this story's a tweeny bit late (by just 2 days after the results show, in case you didn't/couldn't follow) but there is so much EUROPHIA! (wrong spelling?) Olinda's exit!!! Came up with this new template after an she got voted off :)

2 days ago... Prize Giving Day @ my pri sch... Urgh... Went there, gave a very much un-motivational, uninspiration, in-impulsive, un-provocational, in-enthusiatic speech... Guess what I got for my sweat, toil and tears? Precisely. A totally minute, tiny, diminutive, miniature, undersized trophy. Just perfect. Just grrreeaat... Ah, yes, who could forget the very fantassstic concert they had? Go on, read...

1st item: Girls clad in leotards flinging their arms around...
2nd item: More girls clad in leotards flinging their arms around...

Yes, yes, don't adjust your monitor or try to spoil your scrollbar (can it be done?), that's all the "concert" had... What a complete waste of time...

Lifesaving 3 course continued!!! As usual:
For warmups...
1)10 laps of sidestroke
2)20 laps of freestyle
Training...
3)Lugging TWO 55kg (480 pounds!!!) weights around in the water for THIRTY LAPS!
Urgh!

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-11-17T13:35:00.000+08:00

No, I still (?) (Errr... maybe not, but I can't be bothered to remember) don't have much of a mood to blog now... Just read on, a classic Singaporean in action...

Urgh... Some teacher from HKPS (my pri sch) just rang me up and called me to prepare a speech to deliver on Friday, on their Prize Giving Day! This is just so what I needed...
Training is still on everyday, and I STILL have to crawl out of bed at the break of dawn... At least there's a turn for the better though... David from HCJC has come to coach us, taking over (Coach) Ang! WOOOHOOO! There's still one downside though... David keeps coming up with these killer circuits that, well, kill... How on earth am I going to rake up enough brain cells for a motivational speech (not that I want it to be motivational...)?

Sg Idol tonight, just as usual. Praying for the best... Speaking of Sg Idol, was that really Daphne on my tagboard? It's highly unlikely, but she has a unique address though... Still can't believe that Daphne's been booted out...

*Pop* You have recieved a e-mail message from Weiyu. Haha... had a good laugh out of this mail from Weiyu... I thank thou. It was entitled "Let's see how smart you are" (go figure) :P Shou Kee became my first guinea pig and I had a good laugh out of him... Now, since I am rotting anyway, how about seeing how smart YOU are? (P.S: There's a really effective anti-cheating mechanism here, discover it yourself) :D

1)There is a mute who wants to buy a toothbrush.
By imitating the action of brushing one's teeth, he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper
and the purchase is done.

Now if there is a blind man who wishes to buy a pair of sunglasses, how should he express himself?

2)You are participating in a race.
You overtake the second person.
What position are you in?

3)If you overtake the last person, then you are...?

4)Mary's father has five daughters: 1. Nana 2. Nene 3. Nini 4. Nono. What is the name of the fifth daughter?

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-11-12T21:11:00.000+08:00

>One word:
OUTRAGE!
Aw...
Daphne & Syl in the bottom two?!
Okay...
But Daphne OUT?!
ARGH!
That was her best performance yet!

Must agree that Sylvester and Taufik was good.
But Olinda!?
Sang such an old (as in, really ancient) song!
Next out would be herr!! It must be. MUST!

I can't believe it...
Okay, so the judges were always against her,
But what about my $0.50 (not that I mind spending it)?!
Not much of a mood to say much now.
HOW COULD SHE BE OUT?!
All there's left to do watch now is
Sylvester.
Bah.
No more Sg Idol for me if he's out next week (that would NEVER happen)

That's just life, isn't it?
Things never go the way you want them to go
You can't always get the things you want.
You don't expect things.
Things expect you.

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-11-07T19:45:00.000+08:00

Lifesaving 3 course started... Forced not to wear goggles, and I think I shall look like Dracula pretty soon... Gee, bloodshot eyes...

Typing with my jelly now... eh, wait... I meant fingers... Yeowch... Arms and legs really feel like jelly... (Yum!) after today's training:
1)10 laps of sidestroke
2)20 laps of freestyle

Eh, wait, that's only for warm-ups!!! Had to finish ze whole thing in 40 mins! Just in case you can't count, or if you realise that you have not enough fingers, 40mins/30 laps = 1'20/lap!!! Warm up?! What kind of warn up is that?! Next, for the real thing:
1)8 laps of lugging a 55kg weight(aka your "victim") in the water by a tiny piece of sewn-together-thread (aka cloth)
2)Diving into the 1m-side of the pool trying not to break your skull, then swimming 4 laps to your victim and lugging the same 55-kg weight around for another 4 laps
Sounds easy? Try doing that back-to-back, with only your legs to paddle! Urgh...

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-11-05T21:00:00.000+08:00

Oh man... Tomorrow might have training in sch again. I feel so crapped up. Everyone was all still ok(?) jumping like mad on the weekdays but when it comes to this, nobody had anything to say. Finally a life saver emerged while we were jumping today! That all-too-familiar ring of the Nokia handphone's sms alert came to life on (coach) Ang's handphone!!!

"You shuck stoopid a-s-s"
--- (coach) Ang

Those were the exact words that came out of his mouth then... Guessed it already? BUAHAHAHAHA! We were laughing like mad... TCY, who shall remain anonymous as he is a minor (lest you can guess who he is), sent it to him!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (coach) Ang was actually so amused he let us off tmr!!! Woohoooo!!!

Sg Idol results show just ended! LEANDRA IS OUT!!!! WOOHOOOOOO!!! Next would be Taufik (or Oli, though I prefer him to be out)! Daph and Sly BREEZED through! Next stop for them, the grand finals!!!

Daphne and Sylvester GOT THROUGH!!! They rock totally. Olinda is quite good... but she's always using the same vocals... At first, I lyked it but it is geting rather irritating... Bottom line? No creativity.

Taufik is pretty good at r&b... He sang like god on thurs. That wouldn't happen again! Beginner's luck.

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-11-04T21:02:00.000+08:00

Haven't blogged for quite a while now... Can't feel my legs from all that weights training, jumping, running, bah... x( What's the use of the holis when I have to go back to sch 5 days a week?

Sg Idol just ended... YEAH!!! LEANDRA MADE SOOO MANY MISTAKES! I'm sure she's next on the chopping board... Taufik's REALLY high notes are really making me dizzy... ARGH... his squeals still ringing still in my ears... Oli, Sly and Daph were great! Don't let 'em get booted out now...

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-10-30T13:55:00.000+08:00

Training... as usual this morning...

I'm gonna die really quickly if this sort of training continues... As I have mentioned before (I think) somewhere in my previous posts, I have training in the holis from Mon-Fri for 2-4 hrs a day!!! PPFFFT! Had to keep practicing jumping onto that matress for 2 hrs, then do another 2hrs of weights training continuously! Yeowch... Muscle aches all over...

Just found out that I was nominated for Best English Award and Best IH(geog, lit, hist) Award... with 2 others from the mainstream classes 8 others from the GEP (GIFTED!) classes from the English Award and 6 others from the GEP classes for the IH award! Argh... what kind of chance do i stand against these ppl? I'm not sure why my teacher even nominated me in the first place...

Ah yes, forgot to mention the other half of the report bk which is the dreaded non-academic results:
Art:A
Music:B
Civics and Moral education: A
Napfa: Gold
Okay... I missed the perfect straights by that little bit in music... ARGH!!! How can this be??!!?

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-10-29T21:32:00.001+08:00

5 days without blogging... Much has happened, but not much in the camp, though... Bah... the usual same stuff... Not much creativity these ppl have, do they? Nothing much to say about it...

Just received my results today:
English: A1
Higher Chinese: "
Science: "
Mathematics: "
Lit/Geog/Hist: "
Computer Studies: "
Japanese: "
Okay... quite satisfactory, I guess... No comment though

Whoa... Our class's star runner, Rui Yong almost got struck by lightning (really!) while training... Can you believe that? We were doing weights training when there was a power trip (caused by that bolt of lightning, duh) and sparks flew really, really close to RY! That was really scary...
Training in the holis are pushed from Mon, Wed, Fri and Sat all the way to Mon-Fri! Arghhhhhhh... All because of that stupid 5 day work week plan...

At last there is some justice on SG Idol... Just in case you don't watch SG Idol (or that you are TV-illiterate), Christopher is finally out!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Brandon somehow got 6 tickets to SG Idol finals and invited me to go with him!!?? WOOHHOOOO! That is going to be sooooo fun!!

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-10-24T10:27:00.000+08:00

Pffftt... Tired... So tired I couldn't even get up here and type...

Training resumed as USUAL! How much worse could it get... Almost crossed 155cm yesterday! AHHHHH! Urgh. Tried and tried again. No use. Got injured instead. Then got forced by "senior" Keef (rhymes with Beef. Yum.) to hold at push-up position for 30mins. 30 MINS!(Sorry. Too tired to use complete sentences)

Urgh.
Then Maia was voted out of S'pore Idol?! And Sylvester was unsafe?! What on earth is this world coming to? Christopher was not supposed to sing well!

Wheee.
Flunked PESA. Got a horrendous 77 marks. Tsk. Won't be around for the next 3 days. Camp. Sigh...

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-10-20T18:27:00.000+08:00

"Hello and welcome to the 21st(?) TCHS Annual Cross Country Run!

First up is the superheroes of the Sec 1 I-have-a-huuggee-stamina (cross country) club! Carefully jostling behind them for a fantastic spot to start with are the rest in the Sec 1 superheroes, specially hand-picked by their very own sports sec.

"BAAAMMM!!" And they're on their way! Just look at the determination on their faces! They will sure need all that muscle and determination to beat this Men's open track of 4.8km. It is a harsh one, spanning the entire forest and the sides of a whole street. Puff... argh... *plonk* Someone collapsed...

(17 minutes and a few seconds later...)

I see someone racing to the line... who could it be? It's... it's... Our cross-country hero from 1F, Guillame (hope I got your name right)! He's the champion! He has shattered the records by a full minute and even beat the Sec 3s' timing!
What a surprise! Arrran "Hot Legs" (Ms-Quah-the-fake) err... Atsuo Something... wat-eva has been disqualified from the race! One of the "hottest" (Aran) favourites to snitch the prizes, he is an utter letdown (HAHAHAHA) ...

Now for the results... 10th... 9th, Wong Qi Han, 8th...... 1st, Brian Micheal Luminary; There is certainly something wrong here... Ah... they were given wrong prizes... YAHOOO! The 6 runners from the 1F team (including me) has won a team 2nd!!! WOOHHOOO!

That's all we have today, enjoy yourselves! Wong Qi Han, reporting "Live!" from Macritchie Reservior."

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-10-18T21:26:00.000+08:00

Results day... Didn't go too bad, I didn't get back any papers though (well, my classmates know why...)...

Paper check was horrendous though; The supposed "hour" for the English paper check was chaos. "Quiet!" was probably the most resounding quote that rang through our ears. To make matters worst, Kalavathi joined in the "fun"... Didn't make much progress, of course. Maths, I skipped it (Ms Wong forced the selected few not to go)... Science was as usual, Chong was droning on and on about formulas, numbers, values, blah, blah... Chinese was like the rest... not. It was TORTURE! Tangc kept dragging it on and on, from the supposed 1hr to a full 2 1/2hr! I was already half dead by then...

It just wouldn't stop there. Due to the huuuugggee delay, I was getting really late for my 3rd language class. Argh... the whole group of us were rushing like mad, fainting with hunger (okay, not that bad (again) but we didn't even have time for lunch!)... When we finally got there, dripping with sweat, we were approximately 15 minutes late. Everything just had to go wrong. Class was CANCELLED! Can you believe that?! CANCELLED! This is getting to much for me to take...

::: Moment's Peace... :::

2004-10-16T19:31:00.000+08:00

EOY's are over? Just like that? I can't believe it...

Training resumed again... And it was actually just to show off to those coming to TCHS's open house! What is this world coming to?! Torturing us from 8am-3pm, jumping like mad (Okay, we went to play "a little" street soccer) just to entertain the guests? Argh... suffering from sunburns from being in the sun for like 8 whole hours... Can barely walk now; hopping on one leg around the house...

*Plonk* Ow... I can hardly keep my head up now... Totally ENERVATED! zzz...

...

2004-10-14T20:20:00.000+08:00

Haven't got much of a mood to blog... Oral Defense tomorrow...

Been thinking about this MAJOR research paper which has caused me innumerable days of turmoil... What's the whole point of this (well,) pointless torture? It forces us to spend 56hrs (in my case) in the library or on the internet doing research; Research on something that's already done a long time ago. It's controlling us, directing us away from examinations. Isn't it better if we had a choice, a choice to lead our own directions? We should be given our own right to choose what we want. You can bring a horse to a river but not make it drink; Forcing us to do something will never produce results... We are moving around aimlessly, pointlessly. Directions: the management or control of somebody or something by providing instructions, the way in which somebody or something goes, points, or faces. We lead our own ways! Exams, research papers, why isn't there a choice?

Okay, there I go, crapping again... (rolls eyes at myself) So much for a bad mood... I keep thinking about the wrong things... Better get back to my research...

Bah...

2004-10-13T06:39:00.001+08:00

Ah, yet again, the misfortune Santa Claus has given me a nice, huge present...

Swimming test went just fine... If you define fine as "TOTALLY HORRIBLE!!!! AHHHHHH!!! GET OUT OF MY FACE OR I'LL SEND YOU ON A ONE WAY TRIP TO MARS WITH A BLACK EYE!!!" Ah. Much better. I think my brain must has been taking lessons from Stephie lately.

And I CAN'T-GET-THIS-FREAKIN'-WATER-OUT-OF-MY-EAR!!! So much for a demented sense of humour and freakin out...

P.S: Sorry, forgot to tell you to put on some ear muffs...
Disclaimer: Any deafness/daftness caused is none of my business...

Uphill?

2004-10-12T21:40:00.000+08:00

Finally things seem to be taking an uphill turn... I've almost completed my script (for Oral Defence on my Major Research Paper), can read proper Japanese sentences and be able to spell several English words I could not spell a day ago...

Besides, I caught up with two friends I lost contact with recently... Ah... my very own remembered friends Hall of Fame... They are... Firstly,

Sze Wee

Dubbed Habibi or Ali, Sze Wee is also known as SEAWEED! Of course, you can't find him floating around, but he is sure as witty as someone with a (nick)name of seaweed. He is most easily identified by his shocking black, curly dyed hair and his regular use of caps. He spouts insults at the rate of 60 words/minute. Remember to wear ear muffs. His insults could be fatal.

Next,

Wei Yu

Likeable, smart, fish-y (Pun intended); You name it, she's got it. Skilled in languages, she shoots down seaweed(s) (refer to above) like a... a... seaweed! Impressive quotes like "hopeless" and "hahas" killed seaweed(s) in a single, fatal blow. Do not be fooled though. Although she is skilled in killing seaweeds, if you know her, you'll find her really likeable immediately. Her intelligence surpasses your imagination. Beware. You have been warned.

Argh...!!

2004-10-12T13:31:00.001+08:00

ARGH!!! For the 5th time in two days, my attempts to create a custom template for my blog went down the drain... This is getting way too frustrating... Everytime I change a single bit of the code, it explodes in my face...

Guess I'll stick with my old template :) There's my answer for you, Zhong Ning... Btw, for the last time, STOP ACTING AS ME IN MY TAGBOARD!

Swimmin'test l8ter... Hope I don't drown my partner...

Finally!

2004-10-11T19:01:00.000+08:00

Finally! After an hour of struggling with CSS (succeeded in making the bg colour a shocking yellow) and another hour of a CSS tutorial, I finally got all the colours right... Remember, when all else fails, read any manual!

Hahaha... I still can't imagine teocm (the fiercest teacher in my sch) barging into class and shouting for "Sook Kee, Sook Kee!" (this person shall remain unidentified, but i guess some of you can guess who ;) ) Can't believe he actually forgot to submit our forms to her... He's gonna get a real lashing

Enough crapping for now, gotta work on my script... didn't feel like doing it for the whole day...

There's Always a First Time...

2004-10-11T10:02:00.000+08:00

Ah, as usual, the problematic first-post-of-the-blog... What can I say? Well, my best pal (my PC, duh!) here took a full 20 minutes of blood, toil, sweat and tears (okay, maybe not that bad, but it was bad nonetheless) and put together the 594,859th existing blog! 3 days of slacking later, I finally decided to set up one of the not-so-great achievements in my life, this blog...

Have to be busy later though... My not-so-best pal crashed out on me and left my 3 pages of weird word symbols (supposed to be a script) looking like even weirder symbols (squares, triangles, skulls, with huge amts of Unrecognised Floating Objects). Guess I hafta work on it... again!

*Slips away looking for more experienced blogger friends (*hint, hint) for dark and slick templates...*