Before the new year arrives...

I know most people are likely at Marina Bay waiting to watch the fireworks, but here's my last post for this year.

Erm... dunno how to start.

I guess I tried many new things this year, eg, learnt pool, skating, re-learnt ice-skating, playing bridge/tai tee with classmates and friends... failed my first major exam (Chem got an 'O' for July Common Test, something which I hope shall not repeat EVER again)... took Piano Theory Grade 6 finally after not taking theory exams for 5 years... took an aeroplane to HK in June (something I've not done in 8 years) and hence increased my travel distance further up in Asia (so far I've only visited M'sia and HK)

Now, time really flies, even the juniors who were in Sec 1 when I was Sec 3 taking O Levels next year... then I'd be taking the A Levels also, when just last year I had the O Levels!

Anyway, read this horoscope thingy on U weekly magazine and this fengshui guy said that Dragon year people must work hard next year cos they'll 'ni shui xing zhou' meaning will face quite a lot of difficulties. I mean, next year Dragon babies taking A levels surely the fengshui master will say must work hard right? Then if you read the horoscope for the year of the Horse he says they should not work too hard on CCA, concentrate on studies... like DUH! they taking O Levels next year should be working hard on studies right?

So fengshui is just about reminding yourself of the common sense thing to do.

And CNY's only less than a month away, wooh... There's those Mandarin new year songs on TV liao...

Happy 2006 everyone! I sure hope next year's much better for me, not like this year's rollercoaster ride...

Finally, a new blog template!

After scouting around Blogskins for many many days after X'mas I finally found the perfect blogskin that's simple, uncluttered, cute, nice, etc...

I practically cracked my brain trying to search for a thousand blogskins under the following keywords:

colourful
planes
sweets
chocolate
fruits
apple
orange
trains
cars
jay chou??? and so on...

and finally last night when i typed the word 'leaf' I chanced upon this blogskin. PHEW! XD

I admit, it's a little green, the font is a little small (I enlarged it already) and I edited it slightly so that full sized pics from my cam can be seen without scrolling too much.

Like what Sam Leong of the TV-series about his chef life on Ch U says: Please give comments, but NO COMPLAINS ah!!! :P

New blog template?

Ok ok, following comments like " ur text frame is vv small.... vv difficult to see thwe whole pic. ", "that's why i ask him to change template" and even another one saying pokemon's too unbecoming of me from an anonymous guy, I shall change my blog template before the turn of the year!

And... I think I've sourced out my new blogskin already. May still be quite childish though, and rest assured, no pokemon this time.

X'mas doesn't end till 5 January 2006!

Woah. My godbro says the present I gave him yesterday was 'very nice'... wonder if he's telling me 'zhen xin hua' or not... haha

Anyway, if you haven't noticed the lyrics of the popular 12 Days of X'mas, X'mas actually continues till next year! (thanks to Rachel who helped me source this out from a website)

Here's how the song goes:

On the twelfth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a milking,
Seven swans a swimming,
Six geese a laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French Hens,
Two turtle doves
And a Partridge in a pear tree.

There's even this website that displays jewellery for each present that the 'true love' gave each day!

Unfortunately, I broke a cup today. But fortunately, it was a free gift from Parkway Parade during one of their shop and win lucky draws, so not much of a sentimental value even though I'm a sentimental person...

And... I've been slacking this whole hols. After reading Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, I'm reading John Grisham's The Broker now. I realised I finished Angels and Demons exactly one year after I finished reading The Davinci Code... what a coincidence.

PS: I'm sorry if the previous few posts took a long time to load. Never have I uploaded so many pics onto my blog before ;)

Just desserts?

In return for the prank I played on my godbro, his sisters gave me this:


An eggshell? But it's not easter yet!

Anyway it's beautifully decorated. (they've got some talent in art...) And has their autograph on it too. Reminds me of those you did during art and craft lessons years ago...

In this very special Christmas post, I shall share how to make:
1. A storm in a teacup, and
2. The perfect X'mas gift as a trick to your friends/relatives :P

How to make YOUR OWN :) storm in a teacup:

Ingredients: One cup of tea, 1 packet Equal sweetener, 1 packet sugar, and creamer.

Instructions:
1. Mix the sweetener & sugar into the tea.
2. When ready, add your coffee-mate creamer into the teacup. Voila!
(for picture pls see my previous post if not i've got too many pics to display and may take a hell long time to load...)

How to make the PERFECT X'mas present to trick your friends/relatvies:

Materials: One tissue box, one piece wrapping paper, big piece of card, and the present(s) to be given away. (Optional: Personal note to the recepient of the present!)


Instructions:
1. IF possible, stuff the X'mas present into the tissue box through the main hole where you pull the tissue out. If not, tear apart the two flaps of one side of the tissue box and place your present in it. Then place tape over the flaps to seal the box.


2. The present is well concealed in the tissue box (ok not really perfectly concealed...)


3. Write your personal note to the recepient and stuff it through the tissue box hole.


4. All nice and wrapped up.


5. Pass the gift to the recepient (who in today's case happen to be my godbro, 3rd one from the left)


6. You've got one really happy recipient! (Wait till he knows what's inside... hehhehheh)


PS. I actually bought a handphone pouch and a box of Ferrero Rocher for my godbro. Thinking that I should play a little trick on him I added in a few party poppers and a party mask inside the box, then telling him that the contents of his present was possibly explosive so he shouldn't shake it too much. His first impression of what's inside the box upon shaking it rather violently: LEGO! LOL!!! Hahaha... Hope he's not too disappointed with the present.

Anyway my godbro's been rather sporting :)

Yet another ingenious invention by me hahaha.. ;)

The last few hours of X'mas! Enjoy while you can...

My Christmas Story...

The X'mas tree sits lonely in a corner of the house (not really lonely corner la, it's the mezzanine floor of my flat) How barren it is compared to Xiuyu's X'mas tree:


Let's see what this year's X'mas Eve Dinner got to offer:


Hm... seems like ingredients for an EXOTHERMIC REACTION seem to be on the table (see those Chilli and Ketchup bottles?):


Storm in a teacup? My 'famous' so-called nuclear reaction (I'm sure many people know about it man...):


I attempt a really really dangerous stunt (really dangerous you know!!! Alright, maybe i didn't burn off my finger. haha.):


Is it the Path to Illumination??? (Those who read Dan Brown's 'Angels and Demons' should know what this is):


Found the path to illumation and get rewarded with chocolates by Willy Wonka himself! LOL! (My 2nd attempt to impersonate some movie character):


Let's hope next year's much better! (recognise that Nokia-like squares in the background?)


Merry Christmas everyone! 0-<:D

What I want and don't want for X'mas...

Read the Straits Times yesterday?

Then you should come across this article about the top few things S'poreans want/don't want for X'mas.

Among those that they DON'T WANT are clothes. How true that is. For the past few years I've been receiving clothes from my relatives. Some fit nicely, some too small for me, some colour too o-piang cannot wear out... No wonder others also complain about receiving clothes as presents.

And what's most shocking: 7% of those surveyed want cars as a X'mas present. Did I see wrongly: CARS??? Would you expect a relative to give you some Mercedes/BMW or even a Toyota for X'mas? Hey, too expensive le ba for a X'mas present? (but I guess for those millionaires this is of little value) Perhaps if it was car MODELS then it's more acceptable...

Actually, a present need not be expensive, but it must be practical. And it must be something that the recepient will like. What for give some present that you know (or act dunno) that the recepient won't like? Might as well not give it right?

A cartoon strip under the Life! section says it well: (I can't remember the exact words but the meaning's something like this)

An advert at a shop says: You have 2 days left to buy a meaningless present for someone you don't really wish to give a present to and you know isn't going to appreciate it...

X'mas is 2 days away!

Seems like d/l-ing files using wireless internet is more than 3X slower than using an Ethernet cable. Go try it out yourself.

Yesterday was 'Dong Zhi' aka Eat 'Tang Yuan' day. This year's 'Tang Yuan' ended up much softer and 'exploded' compared to previous years all thanks to an empty cooking gas can, so they had to be cooked using microwave and it happened to be overcooked.

In 2 days time I'll be changing my wallet, so Wenjun, so sorry haha we won't be using the same OP wallet with that blue background and orange trimming at the side liao... (not that it makes a big diff to you anyway lol)

Xiuyu's complaining that her x'mas tree at home looks barren. Wait till she sees mine. (I may post a pic of it tomorrow or on 25th)

Perhaps on 31st this month I'll blog about the year 2005. I'd say it has been a year of ups and downs. Hopefully next year's much much better.

How time can fly...

If you had watched Tuesday afternoon's Super Sunday on Ch U or 8 (I can't really remember), you'd have seen Taiwanese singer David Tao recollecting his primary school days where he always liked to bully his peers. And there's this particular student he liked to bully, but 20 years down the road, he became a singer while the guy that was bullied is now some employee (software designer) of Microsoft!

Who knows, maybe now some sec school classmate who usually reads my blog and more than average in studies and likes computing might become some Microsoft employee 20 years down the road as well, maybe earning tons of salary more than me in a year, haha! (whoever this guy is should know who he is... :P)

Something that I searched on Google Earth on Sunday:



Any AHS student will realise that this overhead photo was taken way before AHS was under the PRIME upgrading scheme. You've still got the two senior blocks of classrooms and the old carpark's still there.

The great hypothalamus screw up...

I woke up yesterday feeling just like any other day. So the morning routine started: have breakfast consisting of cornflakes, read newspaper, clear bowel etc.

Then at about 11am plus while I was sitting down on my study table doing some reading I suddenly felt colder and colder and colder, and the next moment I'm hot. I really had a fever mysteriously... Maybe I've been eating too many heaty stuff for the past few days or slept too late last night watching Chelsea vs Arsenal.

There was supposed to be busking yesterday at Orchard Underpass leading to Scotts Rd. End up I couldn't go and had to spend the afternoon in bed trying to get some rest and eat medicine, drink cooling tea until I had gastric pain cos too much wind in my stomach.

When I woke up in the late afternoon to walk around I took the opportunity to impersonate Professor Dumbledore in his long robes (too bad no time/too tired to look for suitable wizard hat-like object)



Look alike or not? Ok la, maybe not quite similar. Well, I guess that's something you can do if you're feeling bored and sickly and have to be wrapped in layers of blankets.

As for the busking, Yunxuan SMS-ed me to say it was pretty screwed up (like usual). But anyway the donation box was between 1/2 and 3/4 full, according to Nengyang.

Fortunately I felt much much better this morning to be able to join in the busking and try to make sure my group don't screw it up again. But it was not without a fever reaching a peak of 38.3 degrees sometime at 8/9pm.

Harmonica Busking

Firstly, I may have provided misleading info on my nick, cos end up we busked at the underpass between Tangs/Lido and the MRT station, as opposed to the place outside Wisma as previously thought. And because I was sick yesterday, I might have not seen those who tried to come down and support or just happened to pass by.

Somehow I find that underpass too noisy to busk in. Besides the huge volume of human traffic, you've got scrolling billboards with the Creative Neeon & "A Chinese Tall Story" advert that make noise whenever they zoom up and down. All right man.

For the first hour we had to do without speaker cos according to someone our dear president spoilt it or something, I can't be sure about that. But anyway I think he went back to school and brought back another one so in the second hour we managed to project our 'melodious' melodies. haha. Along the underpass there was another busker who played the harmonica as well, but I think after a while he left and another one who played the electric keyboard. Then there was a few Falungong 'aunties' who stood around distributing phamplets and even set up a mini-booth.

Anyway, now's the festive season, should do some good deeds ba? I wonder how the rest of the groups fared, and whether the donation box is full by the end of today. I told Kaichen that we should believe in ourselves that we'll get that donation box full by 6pm today. I hope this came true.



From left: Kenneth, Mingjie (the pres), Kaichen (vice pres), Minkhai. and that irritating billboard that scrolls up and down every 10 secs. (there were 4 of them behind us)

Methods of Advertising II

If you read the sunday times today you'd have noticed a particular car advert that has this tagline:

Stop Dreaming, Start Drooling.

I happened to be reading the newspaper while I was in the toilet today when I noticed a few 'wet patches' on the newspaper exactly right on that advert. I thought I had accidentally splashed some water on the newspaper, so I didn't bother to touch the newspaper to see if it was really wet.

Then, just a few hours ago, I picked up the newspaper again at a relative's house and saw the same advert. When I focused on that seemingly 'wet patch', that was when I saw the tagline.

So... the 'wet patches' are just fake drool. LOL!


There's no sugar, but there's sweetener!

I managed to try Pepsi Max today, the one that you saw on TV with the crazy guy sticking himself to a office building's window while his colleagues tell him there's no sugar in the Pepsi. Yeah that one.

One sip and it reminds me of Coke Light (I don't really remember how it tastes like cos I seldom drink it)

On further thought, it tastes like Luo Han Guo drink (the one you'd drink when you have a cough)

And after looking at the ingredients on the can, there may be no sugar explicitly written on it, but there's definitely ARTIFICIAL SWEETENER!


Googling the Earth

Yesterday one of my uncles was saying how he was fascinated by the power of Google Earth. So I decided to d/l it from Google and try it myself today. Previously I heard from my godbro that the images from GE are not updated. How right he is. But anyway, I managed to find my alma mater, AHS, RJC(which is still under construction on the map) and my house(which was surpringly covered by some clouds). And I thought they'd cover only military sites with clouds to protect international security, but clearly in my vicinity there's no army camp or anything! So what's with that cloud???

Methods of Advertising

When I walked past the shopping alley between CS and TM today I noticed 3 people sitting on the benches holding up big sheets of paper as though they were reading newspapers. On closer look I realised that what was printed on the paper was some sort of Starhub advert which goes something like this:

Visit Starhub Shop @ (this this shop number)
Sign up for Maxonline and get (these and that) free gifts

So, those 3 are possibly just employees of Starhub!

Wanted to catch their 'goondu' advertisement on camera, but just happened that there's no memory left. I think the 3 salespeople are kind of embarassed about doing such a publicity stunt as well, especially when they take up precious seating space for others during the peak hour!

Good service, bad service.

It really makes a difference. Just like the OP store @ TM has really cheerful salespeople.

The Survivor Reunion

Well well well, Rafe definitely looks much more clean shaven during the finale as compared to the final days of Survivor Guatemala. Back then he really looked girly with his long curly hair...

Come to think of it, Ch U's Superhost is somewhat like Survivor don't you think?

CIP at Changi General Hospital...

was somewhat a success.

This morning the ensemble sounded dreadful when we prac-ed 3 old songs, 3 x'mas songs to perform in front of some breast cancer patients/survivors and their family members.

But when we presented our performance at about 2pm it was terrific! (at least better than the previous CIP performance at SILRA which was really totally screwed)

And I guess, as usual, as long as the audience enjoys the performance we enjoy ourselves as well.

Star Awards 2005 and Tong Xin Yuan Finale...

A few hits and misses for some predictions of Star Awards. It's easy for actors/actresses who play the baddies to get best actor/supporting actor award. Just take a look at Chen Hanwei and Calvin Soh.

Anyway, about Calvin Soh, whatever happened to him after he fell down the railings where he killed Shitou? It wasn't even mentioned at all, never see his face at the factory in the last scene, neither at the very last part where almost the main cast of TXY 'hi5'-ed or something.

So what happened to Daqiu???

CCA Gathering

This is the 1st time this year(maybe I remembered wrongly) that Harmoc has a cca outing for all juniors seniors and j3s... However, only the usual few who turned up for prac came and only a handful of j2s joined us. Anyway, it's the holidays so most of them would have disappeared...

There was too much time spent for waiting bus 401 which was really infrequent and the ONLY bus that goes to ECP, what more only on weekends!!! Spent a whole 2 hrs there after which almost everyone complained that their butt and front hurt, lol.

After that we took the same bus 401 in hope of getting back to where we alighted when we switched buses on the way there, but the bus was 15 mins behind schedule. And we thought that the bus would take a long way back to Bedok, so we alighted after Parkway Parade only to realise that if we stayed on the bus a little longer we would have got back to where we came from.

Anyway, we had a BBQ session at Yoke shan's house. There was this j3 jason who assured everyone that whatever he cooks is safe for consumption. I just hope that no one including me has trouble tonight. Touch wood.

After BBQ the time was dominated by the PS II while a few others played mahjong. It is today that I finally played Dance Dance Revolution, for ONCE. Was afraid that I'll end up throwing up after dancing so vigorously. But anyway I just did the beginner mode. I gotta take my hat off to John and Marcus, they're damn pro.

Ha... watched HP 4 a second time today... Although it seems to be getting a little boring. Maybe it's just too long, not like the previous movie.

And did I mention that I actually watched HP 2 3 and 4 within a span of one month between Oct/Nov?

Since Kelvin wants me to mention about the short pool session I had with him today, here goes:

I got thrashed every round by an average of 3 balls left compared to him.

End of story. Now I shall blog about the highlight of the day... haha

AHS HO Farewell 2005

I may have graduated from AHS last year but Kelvin still wanted to pull me along for this year's farewell. Anyway it's a chance to go back and take a look at the juniors.

This year the farewell party was held in some condo function room instead of the usual venue in school. There were no games unlike last year but more performances by the juniors instead. The only seniors who went this year were me, Kelvin, Weiquan and Ningxi.

Well I guess farewell improves year after year. And as usual, Wenjun is more talkative than ever, if not hyperactive...

One year's passed so quickly, and the holidays are half gone too!!

First experience @ Esplanade Concert Hall

I've been to the Esplanade countless times already, but I've yet to enter its concert hall yet, until today.

I've got my godbro to thank though, if not for him I wouldn't have had my first visit to the concert hall today!

Considering that the price of a Circle seat ticket (one with a bird's eye view, which some may think is a lousy view) for students was just a mere $8.25(almost equivalent to that of a movie ticket) I guess watching a performance at the Durian is worth it. Furthermore, both of us managed to get the conductor's autograph after camping outside the stage door for 5 mins when the concert ended!

Congrats to...

Congrats to my senior Kelvin who has completed his JC education today by finishing his A levels. It shall be my turn next year... :(

Also congrats to my godsis who's done excellently in her PSLE... Happens that she's even better than her elder sis and bro who took the same exam one year and 4 years ago respectively. Of course, one's jealous and the other proud for his sister. Haha...

XBOX and Halo 2...

Today was the first time I played on an xbox and Halo2 as well, just that it was at my cousin's house. It can get dizzy after a while. After all, I'm not a fan of FPS games anyway. :P

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Somehow, I'm feeling as though I'm not making full use of my holidays...

Anyway, was supposed to meet Qingwei and Zhenyi at City Hall MRT cos we wanted to catch the 11.20 HP show at Suntec. Thought we should meet at 10.30, but all of us ended up late by over half an hour, and what a coincidence, all 3 of us were on the same train!

This installment of HP is rather summarised I would say, although I have little memory of the actual content of the book since I read it nearly 4 years ago. And I disagree with the critics saying that this movie is 'darker' than the previous few movies. Wait till the 6th movie is released. Or perhaps they were referring to the majority of the scenes that were filmed in the night?

After that we had lunch at Kopitiam, then Qingwei said we should check out the WCG which was held in the Convention Hall since we were already here. Saw the final of DoA:Ultimate. The S'pore guy won the first round then lost the next two rounds to the opponent, a Japanese. How wasted. Some more appear on Ch8 10pm news!

Zhenyi and I went back right after it ended whereas qw stayed back to watch the CS quarter final. Feeling rather tired liao.

Q: What time is it when your table collapses when you move it?
A: It's time to get a new one! :P

Finally, a plane model by LEGO?

Saw this advert on kids central just the other day.

It started with two toddlers playing with a gigantic model of a plane.

On first sight I thought LEGO created some airport model that incorporated the airbus 380.

Turned out that it's just an oversized LEGO Duplo model of a normal plane. Haha.

Made me startle for a while.

At 10.10pm today, I felt like laughing out loud...

Colouring my world...

My house is partially in a mess now, all because I'm painting my house!

Started yesterday afternoon after buying all the paint from a paint dealer at 139. Took 4 hours to paint the kitchen which was supposed to be the easiest place to paint.

Today spent the morning touching up the kitchen and whole afternoon trying to complete the dining room. 6 whole hours!!!

Yesterday I crashed yet another Euroharmony plane. All thanks to info given by the AI ATC. Wow, first time crashing into a mountain. Passengers wouldn't have gotten out alive, only I did. Fortunately this is all virtual.

By demand from wenjun, I hereby post the only airbus 380 pic I managed to take with my phone. It looks caged up though. Don't blame me for the blurriness of the photo as the window panes were partially opaque. :P 

The world's biggest jetliner arrives in S'pore

Met Zhenyi at the airport station at 9.50am yesterday so we could witness the arrival of the Airbus 380. We rushed over to T2 viewing gallery only to find 3 rows of people crowding around the small gallery, with no plane in sight. I then suggested that we go to the bigger T1 viewing gallery instead to see if we could catch it land at the runway. By then it was already 10.20am. Qingwei was also supposed to come along, but he was late cos he brought Yufeng along as well. I actually spotted the Airbus' tail at about 10.30, and since we heard that the plane will taxi around the entire airport, we decided to stay a while longer. Took some photos of planes arriving and departing, of which one was about 3 tiger airways planes parked side by side. At 11am I received a call from Qingwei saying that he saw the plane arrive at gate F31, the only gate with the a380 compatible aerobridge. Amazingly some people actually thought it will stop by T1.

So me and zy rushed all the way back to T2 and finally caught a glimpse of the gigantic plane.

Stoned with qw and yf at the viewing gallery till 12pm. Curious passers-by all started to leave.

At 12pm I joined my classmates who were at the airport recreational clubhouse. Altogether there were 4 guys and 4 girls there, excluding Julia's younger bro and mum. Had a few rounds of badminton (which caused my shoulder joint to ache today) and lunch together. Too bad I couldn't stay for karaoke session and what not that they had planned after lunch as I had to mug my piano theory exam today.

I was surprised to see that the music exam is printed in both English and Chinese(traditional chinese though), and candidates could answer in EITHER ENGLISH OR CHINESE. How cool is that? Anyway, I didn't 'gay kiang', so just sticked to English of course. I spotted a minor error on the cover page though. The instructions in chinese printed 'liang ge xiao shi' (meaning 2 hours) but the number in brackets typed just beside this phrase was the number '3'. Misleading eh! (the paper was supposed to last 3 hrs anyway)

I was wondering if Guo Meimei's newest adaptation of the popular Numa Song featured in Chicken Little is a flop. Surely a boring title like 'Bu Pa Bu Pa'(not scared, not scared) won't attract many people to listen??? The lyrics are ridiculous also, like 'I'm not scared of cockroaches anymore' or 'I'm not afraid of sleeping alone'... -_- I pity O-zone. Haha.

Technical screwups for PW OP...

At the end of the day, I can only say that we can never rely on technology. Old technology especially.

It took our group a whole 30 mins trying to load our powerpoint and video into an old school laptop and failed to do so in the end. Even the group after us encountered this strange error after copying their file to the desktop: Part of the file may be missing. Lol... -_-

We ended up having to let the other group from our class go first as the internal moderator arrived early and was assigned to watch the other group's presentation. All in all I guess the teachers enjoyed our quit smoking video which we told them was 'sure must watch one!'. Fortunately the 2 teachers were patient with us and one of them even offered to bring her laptop from the staff room for us so we could solve the whole freaking problem of the old laptop.

Now that PW OP's almost over, I'm left with I and R. Then I'm left with the results to wait for!

Flightplan

After PW OP I followed some classmates to have lunch at Pastamania. First time there.

Then went back home to slack around first before meeting Zhenyi my ex-classmate for a movie. He suggested watching Doom, I suggested Flightplan, after reading from 8 days that Doom only has a 2-star rating from critics. Anyway, I almost thought I was cheated of my $7 in paying for this movie when Jodie Foster acted as though she really had been hallucinating throughout the flight and that's the main plot of the story. Fortunately it wasn't, if not I would have cursed myself after the show.

I was wondering if the 8474 plane featured in the movie was actually some abandoned prototype of the Airbus 380. Seems quite similar. And I was wondering why wouldn't an airline paint the exterior of the plane rather than leave it looking like a piece of metallic junk? Definitely the fictitious airline featured in the movie couldn't have been some budget airline! Lastly, which plane in reality lands with the nose gear touching the ground before the main gear at the middle of the aircraft???

Technical screwups for PW OP...

At the end of the day, I can only say that we can never rely on technology. Old technology especially.

It took our group a whole 30 mins trying to load our powerpoint and video into an old school laptop and failed to do so in the end. Even the group after us encountered this strange error after copying their file to the desktop: Part of the file may be missing. Lol... -_-

We ended up having to let the other group from our class go first as the internal moderator arrived early and was assigned to watch the other group's presentation. All in all I guess the teachers enjoyed our quit smoking video which we told them was 'sure must watch one!'. Fortunately the 2 teachers were patient with us and one of them even offered to bring her laptop from the staff room for us so we could solve the whole freaking problem of the old laptop.

Now that PW OP's almost over, I'm left with I and R. Then I'm left with the results to wait for!

Flightplan

After PW OP I followed some classmates to have lunch at Pastamania. First time there.

Then went back home to slack around first before meeting Zhenyi my ex-classmate for a movie. He suggested watching Doom, I suggested Flightplan, after reading from 8 days that Doom only has a 2-star rating from critics. Anyway, I almost thought I was cheated of my $7 in paying for this movie when Jodie Foster acted as though she really had been hallucinating throughout the flight and that's the main plot of the story. Fortunately it wasn't, if not I would have cursed myself after the show.

I was wondering if the 8474 plane featured in the movie was actually some abandoned prototype of the Airbus 380. Seems quite similar. And I was wondering why wouldn't an airline paint the exterior of the plane rather than leave it looking like a piece of metallic junk? Definitely the fictitious airline featured in the movie couldn't have been some budget airline! Lastly, which plane in reality lands with the nose gear touching the ground before the main gear at the middle of the aircraft???

5 hours to film a 5 minute video...

I can't believe I spent almost 1/4 of my Hari Raya Holiday filming just a 5 minute video for PW OP. But some parts were hilarious anyway. And best thing the PW tutor approves of it.

Winning streak and coincidences

Went back to sch today to collect result slip and did a survey. Civics was only 45 min long. After that most of us stayed back in the classroom to play cards (bridge & tai-tee), until the security guard came in to lock the classroom. I was losing for 6 consecutive rounds.

So the guys who left the classroom decided to have brunch at BK Thomson Plaza and the girls disappeared somewhere else, only to appear at Thomson Plaza again while we were enjoying Crossian'wich-es and Super big omelette-wich and what not. So they decided to have brunch at Hans' which was just about a few metres away. If I hadn't heard wrongly, someone commented that they have more $ than us so can afford to eat that kind of stuff... :P

After that was PW 2nd Dry Run which went rather smoothly for my group.

On my way back I met Yingying who was from my sec1/2 class. Was telling her that it was rather unlikely that I meet ex-schoolmates on the street. And after I alighted from the train to walk home I met Su hui, yet another of my sec1/2 classmate. How coincidental can it get??? -_-

Wow, for the first time AHS was featured in the Channel 8 talkshow 'You Hua Jiu Shuo'...

If they visited my alma mater a year ago I might be sitting in the audience haha... :P

My fascination with aeroplanes...

Seems like I've got a liking for planes since that June Holiday trip to HK.

Ever since then,

1. I've started playing Flight Sim 02, something which I've never done before and I thought was a waste of money at first after buying it in 2004,

2. I created a plane model out of LEGO bricks, although it's rather ugly looking to some extent,

3. I like to look at aeroplanes more often(at Changi Beach or the airport),

4. I've become a "Virtual Pilot" for Euroharmony.

So who says I don't like flying?

I forgot to mention that on Friday, there was this "Promotional Ceremony Walk" idea by the VP. The J1s thought it was some big event at first, but it turned out to be just a 50m translation from one end of the parade square to the other where the J2s used to stand this year... -_-

Halloween Party

Yesterday went back to school library for some Halloween Party. We invited a few elderly people from Geylang & Toa Payoh elderly healthcare home and a class of students from Si Ling Sec. There were some old folks who were more lively and talkative, others less so because they were sickly. The teenagers were rather enthusiastic though.

The programme ended at 5pm. After that the librarians stayed back to play Risk, Bingo and ate leftover food and caterer food.

Class Camp

We didn't manage to book a chalet, but nonetheless a class camp with BBQ session was no worse than a chalet.

On Friday some classmates had to lug two tents and other BBQ stuff all the way to school and from school to ECP. The campsite was located near to the Laguna food centre, a place which I've never visited for years ever since it was renovated. At least the place is not as run down now. And I now know that a lagoon actually existed behind the food centre for a long time already.

Friday

School ended early at 12pm. Had lunch in school with classmates then went home to pack stuff for camp. Lugged my bag and sleeping bag onto the bus to the bus stop near VS to meet Nengyang who went there on his bike at 4pm. When we finally got to the campsite Chicky and Colin were on their way out to Parkway Parade. What they said was a 'short trip out' ended up as a 3 hour ride and back...

Spent the next hour or two playing Bridge with those who were there namely Kevin Weiqi Nengyang George. The rest had either gone out to buy food for the BBQ or went to Liane's house to marinade the food. It was raining rather heavily for at least 1/2 an hour.

7pm: Getting hungry and no sign of people coming back.

7 plus pm: Finally everyone's back. Some had dinner outside already so they were handed the task of jargar-ing the belongings. The rest of us had dinner at Laguna food centre. I guess we sort of over-ordered with 60 sticks of satay to share among approx 10 of us among other food that we bought...

9pm: Went back to campsite to set up tent. Fortunately the tent was easy to set up and it wasn't the type that's complicated to set up. I had to tie the tent cover and weather sheet to the top of the tent cos I was the tallest aha! :P

10pm: Cycled to Bedok Jetty to admire the view of CBD from ECP. Also spotted the only lighthouse on top of a HDB block in Marine Parade.

11pm: Spotted a changing room kiosk which was about 1 km away from the campsite. As there was a lack of bicycles, Chicky rollerbladed there, Nengyang cycled while I walked.

1am: Settled in for sleep but tossed around for a while. Finally made do with a plastic bag containing clothes that I changed out as a makeshift pillow. A few guys and the girls stayed up late to play scrabble.

2am: Woke up now and then. Others in the tent, which included Weijian, Weiqi and Nengyang were also flipping on the hard ground surface. There were flies and mozzies coming into the tent so we decided to zip up the mosquito net. Was disturbed by the constant humming of aircraft engines as they approached the airport.

I think i slept for only 2 to 3 hours at the most. When I woke up at 5 am on the next day I remembered glancing at my watch for the last time at 3am before I finally conked out.

Saturday

Chicky suggested that we wake up at 5am to watch the sunrise the day before so I set my alarm to ring at that time. However after the alarm rang I went back to sleep again till 5.50pm.

6am: Cycled with Weiqi, Nengyang, Julia whereas Chicky bladed to Bedok Jetty. Couldn't catch the sunrise though, it was way too cloudy and foggy. After that we headed to the end of ECP near the National Service Country Club. Took us almost half an hour to get there cos we were cruising.

7am: Arrived outisde National Service CC. Took a few photos there to commemerate our 'accomplishment'. Aeroplanes were buzzing ahead less than 1 km from where we were standing.

8am: Cycled back to campsite. Initially wanted to eat McDonald's breakfast but lack of bikes and rollerblades meant that it will take us a very long time to get there and back. So we settled on Laguna food centre instead. There weren't many stalls open though. Guys ate Wantan mee while girls had kway chap. There were a few cats loitering around the food centre, so the girls decided to donate some meat and guo tiao to them. Then, Rachel arrived with a plastic bag full of tongs and skewers.

10am: Weiqi and Weijian set off for Henderson food centre which was located near Tiong Bahru. They were interested in searching for some RI western food canteen stall that moved out a few years ago. And they actually found it.

11am: Julia Rachel and Vivian wanted to learn/practise rollerblading and pulled me along after all I was stoning anyway. I thought maybe I should just cycle but then I still ended up blading with them. It's similar to ice skating but I hate the brakes they're just difficult to control for now. Halfway through the hour Qizhao came and joined in the 'fun' as well. The 'fun' of falling and tripping I suppose. Throughout the 1 hr I was skating I fell on my butt at least 4 times. How I wished there were butt-guards besides knee, elbow and hand guards! :(

12pm: Left camp for a few hours. Went home and had a good bath. Thought of staying overnight again so I brought my sleeping bag along as well. Heard that Nengyang Weijian Jiawei and Mok biked to Changi Village.

4pm: Arrived back at camp. Some guys were already preparing to start the BBQ fire and food.

6.30pm: BBQ session starts. Colin and Yiliang were arguing over who's charcoal and fire was set up better.

7.30pm: BBQ items included chicken, sausage, marshmallow and beehoon. When the BBQ was about to end we listened to Jiawei's iPod Shuffle which had a recording of Russell Peters crap talk. Was laughing all the while. Nengyang and Joshua then decided to walk over to some pub which they thought was located somewhere near ECP McDonalds. Ended up not finding the pub at all and walked all the way back. They finally realised that there was football to watch at one of the drink stall in Laguna food centre. Come to think of it they really walked quite some distance!

9pm: Joined the two guys at the food centre. Score was still 1-0 to Tottenham when I got there. But, Pires had to score that Arsenal equaliser when I was ordering sugarcane juice, so I practically watched nothing much...

10pm: The match ends and we went back to camp.

11pm: Seems like few people would like to stay over at the camp. After dinner Weiqi and Colin went to Chicky's house to bathe, then Kaixuan, Christine, Jonathan, Kevin and Hanlong also left quite soon after. By 11pm there were less than 10 people left. Rachel and Yiliang then left at around 11pm while Nengyang had to bike home before it got too late. So in the end only me, Weijian, Julia, Vivian and Sunnie were left to look at each other and stone around... at least until 11.30pm when I myself finally went home as well.

Decided not to stay over because my butt was hurting like crazy and when I reached home I realised I had stiff neck presumably from the sleeping position on Friday night and strained ligaments due to too much cycling. (esp since I don't cycle often)

But this camp has brought me many 'firsts' yet again: 1. I slept over at a camp, 2. I learnt rollerblading, and much more that I can't remember.

Thunderstorms and Bad Weather

Today's thunderstorm was really bad. At first when I was on the MRT back home at Kallang the sky seemed alright, until the train reached Bedok.

That was also when of all places, I happened to meet my ex-junior from AHS HO, qinqin. Haha.

There were streaks of lightning all over the place and constant rumblings of thunder. I guess the train driver was rather worried as well because the track was slippery he had to slow down before reaching Tanah Merah.

Even until I alighted at Tampines the thunder and lightning was still as frequent. Most of the passers-by were covering up their ears and rushing to hide in TM. To my surprise, there was even a Civil Defence Rhino truck(or van or car or whatever) on standby!

Walked around Century Square for a while... Didn't dare to cross the road home for fear of getting struck by lightning! Heh.

Just 2 hours later, all was back to peace and calm again...

Open House

Yesterday's rehearsal was a waste of time...

8am: Reached school and went to the harmoc booth. The display board was almost up already, and we showcased a variety of harmonicas, some of which were for sale. The harmonica supplier even lent us one toy: a fat man in blue suit blowing a harmonica and shaking his butt at the same time(music included), just like your typical X'mas Santa shakes his butt display item.

8.30am: Still no sign of any students... The musical groups seemed to be just entertaining one another, trying to outdrown each other with music that ended up as noise.

9am: Walked over to the library to do tour guiding duty. The RI guys just arrived for their whatever Matriculation day, but no one came up to the library cos they had to sit thru some talks. Throughout the 1 hr I was there I only guided a small group of Zhonghua Sec students round the library.

10.10am: Proceeded back to the harmoc booth. Decided to do some busking around the school with a few 'small group' members but there's no juniors to listen to the music! While performing "Tong Hua" 4 of us were walking in a row like robots, as though we were holding a funeral procession(choi choi choi). So after a while we decided to forget about it, partly because no one was listening to us perform anyway,

12pm: Finished the first mini concert. Our performance was pretty lousy, perhaps because we performed Adios so many times until we were 'sian' of the song. The turnout for the mini concert was not good either, only half the seats were filled and 70% of the filled seats were the Befrienders rather than the Sec 4 juniors.

1.30pm: 2nd performance. This time was much better. After the performance we went back to the booths, and to our horror realised that the Shaking Butt harmonica player isn't shaking his butt anymore!

2.30pm: Left the open house with Neng Yang. Decided to watch Goal! at Orchard Cine. At first Julia approached us asking whether we would like to try our luck at shooting but the air rifle room was half a school distance away and we were rushing for time so... too bad.

5.30pm: The 2 hour show was ok, but as usual like all movies there's that fairytale element. It's one of these rare occasions that you find Shearer, Becks, Zidane and Raul appearing on cinema screens though.

It seems like Orchard is indeed the playground for rgs people... saw loads of them there.

A trip to CPIB

No, no, I'm not saying that I'm corrupted or anything.

But anyway, my class had this learning journey to CPIB on Wednesday. It's located in some remote part of Redhill.

We listened to a talk by the public relations officer there, viewed their exhibition room which was filled with past cases of major figures involved in corruption and finally sabotaged a classmate to try out the lie detector. Too bad we had not enough time to get him to confess whether he embezelled class funds (just kidding of course).

With every class outing I learn something new...

Last time it was ice skating, and what not. This time it's pool.

16 classmates turned up at orchard today. As usual there are people who are early, punctual, and late. So we practically stoned for about 1/2 an hour. Saw many RJ econs people hanging around cos they only finish their exam today while we trip sci and the f math people could celebrate yesterday. Haha. Well I guess one extra day of play doesn't make much difference.

So one of our classmates suggested we go to Sakae Sushi at Taka. But she mistaken Sakae sushi for Sushi tei. But anyway we had lunch there. I was sitting at one table with 4 other classmates. After looking at the menu we were clueless about what to order. Then we flipped to one page and saw a fried rice dish with tow gay and gyoza. Wei jian's immediate reaction: Haiyah let's order like zhu cha, maybe we get one plate of fried rice, one plate tau gay and one plate 'wo tie' lah...

Ended up with one plate of 18 sushi to share among ourselves and one other main course. wj initially suggested that we have 'pot luck', but on second thought, better not.

So after lunch we contemplated on what to do. The guys said there's no nice movie to watch now and came up with the idea of pool. So we all follow them to Orchard Cine. Some of the guys who were pro played amongst themselves, then the girls who were newbies also had a hand at pool. Hence I learnt something new today! Hurrah!

The Promos are done and dusted...

It's been quite some time since I last blogged... Anyway I think the title should answer wj's question and kelvin should know that my com isn't spoilt for this period of time.

The last time I completed my CTs I listed down some things I've learnt. This time I guess it's the same problems: Time management.

No matter how fast you try to do the paper you realise that there's a lack of it. Even for a 3h paper like maths.

Oh well, what's done is done.

How can a skate scooter compare with a mountain bike?

Just yesterday two of my classmates came over to tampines after sch on their mountain bikes. One rode all the way from hougang the other from east coast. Woah.

Well, I don't have a mountain bike so I brought them around in a skate scooter. Naturally I lost out on speed, or maybe they just 'qian jiu' me and pedalled slowly... After spending half an hour at the Tampines bike trail we headed off to a 7 eleven at Telepark to drink Slurpee.

Time really flies. Just cycling around a small part of tampines takes 1 hour.

After slurpee-ing they left. One had to go for some NCC meeting, the other decided to visit some bicycle shop.

Promos are round the corner. Gotta pick up the pace, been slacking too often liao.

A Mini Movie Marathon?

Sadly, the holidays are coming to an end, though it wasn't really a holiday anyway.

Watched Red Eye and 3 ge hao ren with qw sj jl and zy, one after another, one at CS and the other at TM. Phew.

It's too late now so i'll elaborate further tomorrow perhaps.

The Chocolate Fountain...

Doesn't it remind you of the chocolate waterfall in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory?

Happy Teachers' Day

Teacher's Day celebration ended really early today compared to other celebration days. I quite liked the intro video, it had my ex- physics tutor and one student re-enacting that IKEA advert of "Dong xi zai na li, quai na chu lai" just that the 'dong xi' referred to a Physics tutorial.

Rushed back to AHS with yu hui right after that. When we noticed that there weren't any students hanging around the MRT station we thought it's either the whole sch had dismissed long ago or they're still halfway through the Teacher's Day concert.

When we finally got there after yet another tiring climb up Tanah Merah Kechil Rd they had just ended. After that there was the opening ceremony of the revamped PAC now known as "The Eagles Nest" (wow... what a interesting name man, i'm sure) Met the usual teachers and the usual few ex-classmates/friends lah.

Confusing Confucius says...

"If a man runs in front of a car, he gets tired. If he runs behind car, he gets exhausted." -_-'''
"If a man falls off a cliff, he will jump into conclusion." -_-'''
"A silly man buys a grand piano, but a wise man gets an upright organ." -_-'''

It's so darn lame.

~148 posts and counting...~

Finally a CIP after several months...

Today all the j1 harmoc-ers went to the S'pore Leprosy Relief Association to give a performance to the ex-leprosy patients there. I guess this is the first time that I did CIP without having to ask people for donations, nor go around collecting old newspapers and stuff like that.

The place was rather run down though and tucked away from the developed part of Buangkok. There were a few war-time houses on stilts and some recycling factory that greeted us as we made our way there, something that you would not expect to find just next to a housing estate. Fortunately they're going to move to a new place soon with upgraded facilities.

The place was somewhat like an old folks home. There was an open area that doubled as a dining room and entertainment room. Most of the patients there spent their time watching television.

The performance was a success though some parts were rather screwed. At first I thought of conducting but in the end i scrapped the idea cos this was a rather informal performance. Well, at least we got some recognition for the effort we put in when the patients gave us a loud applause. One even said we performed very well and hoped we could visit them again.

Since the place was so 'ulu' I had to follow my friends to get home since there were no buses there that brought me back to tampines. This detour back home actually did some good: I found a new route to get home! Hah!

~GP Essay Qn: Is there a case for animals to be kept in zoos?
Answer: Why not? Animals can be kept in cages what! :P ~

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Guess most of you should have watched it already. So I'm just lagging behind the crowd.

Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire will be out at the end of this year! :)

A National Day less ordinary...

This year's NDP is rather special. For the first time in my life I actually witnessed a mobile column roaring past me just one metre away from where I was. I also saw a complete flypast not just from my window.

No, no, I wasn't that lucky to get tickets to the parade(neither did I bid for them a few months back), but I caught a glimpse of the celebrations at the carnival in Tampines near my home.

In actual fact, if qingwei haven't asked me if I'd like to join him to soak up the atmosphere at the carnival I wouldn't have bothered to watch the mobile column at Ground Zero.

And for the 2nd time in my life, I saw fireworks with my own eyes, although it was really low range and didn't last for long.

The mobile column's arrival really generated a huge crowd. There were a number of SAF personnel standing guard at the junction of Tampines avenue 4 and 5 half an hour before they arrived and seemed to be communicating with a transmitter with an antenna 1.5 metres long.

Some of the army guys in the tanks, on the motorbikes and in the fire engines were friendly, there were a few who were super enthu and shouted Happy Birthday to the crowd which now gathered alongside the pavement. However there was also a handful who looked 'sian' and didn't bother to wave(like what qw described: so rude!). Traffic was at a standstill, and I guess there was a jam that stretched right to the MRT station.

This is a once in 5 years event, I managed to watch it, did you? :)

Happy 40th B'day S'pore!

Coming UP... one weekend for me to relax...

Ah I simply haven't got much to blog about this week. And, readership is dropping to rock bottom.

Anyway, I typed my first post on my class blog today, if kaypoh just click on the link.

I guess what's so funny this week is when the PW teacher predicts that each group will appoint a 'Monday Night Loser' to collate all the group members' sections of the Written Report then sit in front of the com on the night before the submission of WR 1st draft (hence the name Monday night loser cos submission date is on tues) and then this 'loser' will click on the "Merge Documents" button, print the completed doc and hand in to teacher the next day. Of course you don't expect the teacher to approve of such a WR la, she said she'll just throw the WR back to the group within 24 hrs. So better learn lesson first.

If you've just feeling bored and have nothing better to do you can visit Engrish.com. My friends and I had a hell of a time laughing at those pictures of everyday objects in Japan that has ridiculously sounding English.

Class Blog!

Finally, my class has one...

Watching Tian Mi Mi on Ch8 now. What a big diff HK is after 10 years...

AHS Founder's Day

Left school at 9am today just to pick up a prize at my ex-school's Founder's Day. Fortunately I managed to reach there in time with my parents, and it was sort of a mini-gathering with a few classmates and councillors.

There were a few funny/peculiar incidents during the ceremony. Firstly when the students were singing the hymn "Bless this School" there was one particular phrase which went like this, and they stressed on one word: Bless these students bright and GAY. It was so emphasized such that there were a few giggles among the crowd halfway through the song...

Then there was another incident involving our just retired principal. He was up on stage to receive a token of appreciation from the new principal then suddenly there was a loud BOOM. I thought who had fallen off the stage or something but it was just the ex-principal dropping his rather big plague that was given to him. Some of the alumni were muttering: "Aiyoh, bu xiang de zhen zhao eh!" Touch wood.

After the ceremony we were invited to view the newly opened Heritage Centre. Managed to meet a few of my teachers including my sec 2 cme teacher, sec4 chem and chinese teacher etc. And I spotted my sec 2 math teacher's old report card being displayed in the Heritage Centre. (wj when you read this you might laugh, next time must go check it out)

Later I joined the reception, but there wasn't much food left already. Finally I took some photos of the school surroundings and left. Wonder when I'll have time to visit AHS again...

Just about 2 hours ago I received a call from Qingwei and gang saying they were at the void deck of Xiuyu's house, so I went down to join them for a little chat. It's rare to be able to meet up with each other given our busy schedules.

Oh, and I'm still wondering how I could get my first silver for NAPFA in 4 years. Was it all thanks to the "training" I've been doing so far?

The Half Blood Prince

If you guessed that Prof Dumbledore was going to die in the 6th installmet of Harry Potter, congrats. Unfortunately there's no prize for guessing heh.

Went to Times the Bookshop today and saw a number of people crowding round the books. I took one up and flipped to the last chapter titled 'The White Tomb'. Surely some character in the book is going to die in this story, but who?

I got my answer as soon as I saw this sentence:

"Dumbledore was dead, blah blah blah..."

So I guess all that speculation was right then!

How ironic...

Almost all my common tests results are out. I've got no comments.

My mood over the week was something like this:

Monday: Rock bottom.
Tuesday: Started picking up, heave a sigh of relief.
Wednesday, Thursday: Still alright...
Friday: Keeps dipping and dipping and guess what, back to square one again.

So, you can infer how my results were liao la...

Is it a coincidence? Or was it all planned already?

Just a day after the IOC session the terrorists struck London. Like my gp teacher was saying today: Come to think of it, isn't it rather chilling? Imagine if you're in the Londoners shoes...

Was it because of the G8, or was it the IOC? No one knows.

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Yesterday's PE lesson was a special one. There were no physical activities at all. Instead the PE teachers gave us a talk on the Olympics.

After watching the 5 videos presented by the 5 bidding countries I can see why the French were so disappointed. Paris presented themselves as a vibrant and colourful city, while New York was all black and white, with more relevance to music than sports, the Moscow one showed every other city except itself till the final frame of the video which showed the Moscow 2012 mountain logo and some famous Russian landmark in the background, Madrid's one was just mainly "I love Madrid, I love Madrid" being repeated over and over again. What I found was funny about London's video is Beckham doing his crossword puzzle halfway, pondering over one question, until he finally filled in the word UNITED. Was it meant to be a coincidence? But this video is rather creative: a hotel bellboy doing gymnastics on a tourist's baggage, two men fencing against each other using umbrellas, and there were people of all races being portrayed in it.

So no wonder London won.

And yeah, I finally recalled the OTHER correct prediction I made this year. It was regarding Miss S'pore Universe. Let's see if there's a 3rd correct prediction that I'll make in the next few months.

It's LONDON 2012!!!

Heh, I made a bet with my mum that London would win the IOC bid and it did!

This is my 2nd correct prediction this year regarding such 'big' events... the last one was about... argh can't remember liao.

A Day out for 3 guys...

Watched "A Lot Like Love" today (yeah I know it costs a bomb to watch a movie today) with one senior and one junior from AHS HO. It seems like this is a movie for couples but we decided to watch it since Kelvin had watched Initial D and Wen Jun has seen War of the Worlds. The next available show was this one which started at 3.10pm.

And right we were. We were the first to enter the cinema hall and spotted a number of couples streaming in. What surprised us was a pair of guys. Wen jun was quick to think that they were g** but, no one knows for sure of course...

After the show we walked around CS and TM, finally ending the day with two games of carrom at the arcade. Kelvin thrashed Wenjun and me in the first round but in a 1 on 1 between me and him I stole a last minute winner to claim the game 10-9. Hahaha...

~A weekend is almost over...~

Fiddling with LEGO...

When was the last time you touched a LEGO set? 1 year, 5 years or a decade ago?

Managed to fish out one particular LEGO set which was this aeroplane and a spacecraft attached to it. It's at least 5 years old I guess. I shall try to modify it so it looks like a B777, complete with control tower and all the other gadgets you see at an airport... heehee.

That reminds me of wen jun's msn nick some ages ago: just imagine... it's exactly the same as LEGO's slogan.

~Sometimes it's good to feel childish once again.~

JCTs are finally over...

Huge sigh of relief. Just hope results aren't too bad. Hopefully that drop of bird shit which fell on my shoulder after Physics CT on tuesday would bring me some luck (which is quite unlikely).

Yeah. You didn't make a mistake reading the line above. Bird shit.

I was walking under this tree near Bishan MRT station on my way home after the CT then I heard this mynah crowing 'Arrck! Arrrk!' and the next moment I heard a thud. I thought the bird's droppings would have fallen on the ground but I just happened to be its target. Suay? I just hope it's not.

Just finished watching some Nat Geographic documentary about the crash of the concorde. I'm itching to play Flight Sim 2002 again... ha!

Oh. And that Silkair advert at the platform of City hall MRT station reminds me about my HK trip. (It's so realistic, it's as though you've landed at one of those exotic destinations Silkair flights go to) Shucks, I shouldn't be having too much of a hangover.

A youth day holiday up ahead, and it's back to business again.

~Lesson learnt: CTs are designed such that they are never meant to be completed.~
I tried, tried but still to no avail...

Consecutive class outings...

On Friday I had to travel 1hour just to get to Jurong East for 3I's class outing. We intended to ice skate there at first, but the skating ring was rather crowded, so me and 7 other classmates stood outside Fuji Ice Palace wondering whether we should go to Kbox, watch a movie, stone, eat or just go ahead with the ice skating. In the end we went back inside the skating ring. So the 8 of us just stayed there till 6pm before heading off to Rachel's house for dinner: a pizza feast.

In the end a total of 13 people turned up (cos some didn't want to ice skate), and we had a fun time listening to each other playing on the piano and doing other stuff...

By the time I got home it was 11.30pm. The last train to Boon Lay had left already.
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On Saturday it was my ex-class 4J which had a class BBQ session at Charlynn's house. Out of the 4 'caizi' only 2 turned up: Qingwei and Yuhui. This BBQ session was just as fun, as we played table soccer, tennis, a little bit of soccer and ended the night with "Truth or Dare" (well... everyone chose the Truth instead of Dare). Walked home at nearly 11pm with Zhenyi who diverted to the bus interchange.

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It's a pity that the US Grand Prix saw 14 cars pull out in the last minute all thanks to tyre problems. No wonder Zhenyi messaged me early this morning to say it was no use taping the GP as there was barely any action at all. Who would have guessed that Schumacher would be handed such an easy victory?

Surveys, surveys, more surveys...

2 weeks left of the holidays and my group hasn't touched on PW yet... so we had to start doing something quickly.

Today 2 of my group members met at Raffles Place to hand out surveys on smoking. We thought it would be a good place. But it's still up to the people whether they want to participate in your survey... And I guess lots of people mistook us for telemarketers so they try to avoid us also. There were people who completely 'dao-ed' us, some who waved 'no' even before we could finish our sentence: Would you like to take part in a survey on... (they didn't even hear the word 'smoking' and they left)

We stood there for about half an hour before yet another Rafflesian group came and took over our territory. Upon closer inspection, they seemed to get more responses from the office workers there. Curious to know what their project was about, one of my group members went to eavesdrop and there wasn't much to wonder about, as they were doing something related to FINANCIAL PLANNING. -_-'''

After one over hour we decided to head over to Orchard Road instead, and stood there till 3 plus. In the end we only completed... something like nearly only 30 surveys??? (that's one-tenth of the intended survey number)

So actually surveying isn't that easy at all. It's much more difficult than asking for donations or giving out flyers... Bah!

Warm LT... or is it because of the weather?

Yesterday I had CCA prac starting at 11. Seemed like the aircon in the LT wasn't working, it was not cooling at all... Then at 12.30 prac ended and we had a break. But I didn't go down to the canteen/J8/wherever to have lunch till 1pm when some other cca-mates decided to leave the LT.

At first we left the LT thinking that we'd just go down to J8 Macs and da-bao some food back to school. But by the time we got down to J8 it was nearly 1.10 and we thought: heck just finish our lunch there and go back.

When we got to Macs we were rather surprised that even the cleaner was greeting us "good afternoon" with a plastic smile on her face. (usually I only hear that from the cashiers when I go to Macs in the morning) Then when my friend requested for more chilli packets the floor manager gladly gave 4 to him... So we were thinking: is there anything unusual going on here?

Our question was answered just as about we were to finish our lunch. We heard the supervisor/VIP telling the floor managers: "Good job done everyone!"

-_-''' No wonder such good attitude today lah!

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We thought we were late, until we saw a few other female j1s crossing the road leading back to school. They seemed to have gone shopping for presents for the j2s as it was the handover ceremony later that day. I was telling my friend(who happens to be the newly elected 2nd section leader while I was 1st section leader): Errr.... need we get anything for our seniors har? oops.

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When I got back to school the newly elected pres asked me to enquire at the general office whether they could turn down the aircon so that the LT won't become an oven. So I asked the receptionist. And it just so happened that the principal walked in and asked: "hey why is this young man (that's me) perspiring profusely?" The receptionist had to answer: "eh they're having harmonica prac and blah blah the aircon under maintenance so it's very warm" and the principal requested that the operations manager open another LT for us to prac in. Wow. Well but on one hand I was feeling rather paiseh cos I was sweating profusely after rushing back to school from J8. Whoops!

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Evening time was Junior treat Senior session. And it was held at our new pres' favourite spot atop the esplanade roof garden. We ordered pizzas (of course not from Pizza Hut, it's the canadian 241 one since it's buy 1 get 1 free) and bought snacks. On the way there me and that new 2nd section leader whom I was talking about just now passed by this gift shop and we both got a card each to give to our 'superior'... Cheapskate? Nah, it's the thought that counts ok!

Lost?

Argh, thought of watching the Ch5 tv series starting tonight but I was watching some Discovery Channel documentary about engineering against terrorism. So when I finally remembered at about 10.45pm I switched over to Ch5 and realised that the plane in "Lost" has crashed on that deserted island already, so the climax is over.

To me, the climax is the plane-crashing part. I doubt watching another repeat of something between a mix of "Survivor" and Jurassic Park would be appealing.

Nowadays, when I watch those HK programmes on cable tv, I can say "Wow, isn't that some place I visited before?"

I feel I've gained a lot from this holiday trip man. It's really an eye-opener.

Home sweet home...

Touchdown in S'pore at 5.41 pm today.

This HK trip has been an eye opener for me. Never knew they were more advanced than S'pore in quite a number of ways...

Take their buses for eg. They had TV mobile even earlier than us. They even have a electronic passenger notification system that alerts passengers of the next stop (S'pore used to have it on Sentosa buses)

However all these frills come with a price I guess. Bus fares in HK are very expensive. Their road tax is high as well because they don't have enough space to build roads.

But I guess one thing they can be proud of is their airport. It's really bigger and newer than the Changi Airport.

However, in terms of safety, I guess S'pore's still better even in crowded places like Orchard Rd. Comparing HK's Tsim Sha Tsui with S'pore's Orchard, the former is really much more crowded and I have the feeling that any moment someone might just grab your bag/wallet/purse whatever and run off(even though there are a few policemen on patrol)

One thing that amazes me is the height of their residential buildings. As I've said before they're short of space, so many apartments are at least 30 storeys high and can reach 50 or even 70 storeys. The swissotel the Stamford is no match for that man!~

The highlight of HK is it's night scenery. From Victoria Peak on HK Island you can get a bird's eye view of their CBD area (Central) and the opposite Kowloon district.

HK has few amusement parks. The most popular would be Ocean park in Aberdeen. It's somewhat like a Sentosa incorporated into one site: there's the cable car, Atoll reef(like underwater world), Ocean Park Tower(like the Sky Tower) and Ocean Theatre (like the Dolphin Lagoon)

Here's a brief summary of what I did:

1st day: Reached HK at noon. Met tour guide, who brought us to hotel to check in. In the late afternoon we went to The Avenue of Stars, Lei Yun Mun (a fishing district), Victoria Peak and Ladies Street at night.

2nd day: Dimsum breakfast followed by a trip to Repulse bay (qian shui wan) where you can see Jackie Chan's house on top of a hill not far from that area. This was follwed by a water taxi ride at Aberdeen bay(site of the famous Jumbo restaurant), Golden Bauhinia Square, Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree (the one where they throw oranges onto it but was cordorned off after some tourist/local got hit by a falling branch) and Che Kung Temple. These 2 attractions were found in the New Territories. Finished off the day at Temple Street in Kowloon.

3rd day: The young kids in my tour group were excited about today as it was the trip to Ocean Park. Spent 7 full hours there and it's still not enough time to visit all the exhibits.

4th day: My aunt in HK brought us to my mum's birthplace along Nathan Rd, then we had lunch. After that was a ferry ride across to HK island, where we saw the Exchange Square. Then it was a MTR train ride to Sham Shui Po where we met up with my uncle who brought me to this model bus & train shop. Even a model of S'pore's NEL train was on sale but I thought it would be more practical to buy some HK stuff which I can bring back and remember so I got myself a model of their Airport Express Train. (just one carriage only, unfortunately) In the evening we went to his house to have dinner and he brought us back to our hotel. Throughout the day I tried out all of HK's transport: Train (MTR and KCR), bus, ferry but not the taxi.

5th day: Called up my uncle in the morning to say goodbye. Depart back to S'pore in the afternoon. After I reached home my dad said we ought to call my uncle to say we're safely back at home, but my mum refused to call since we already did so in the morning. I thought as long as HK news doesn't report something like: Flight CX 735 runs off runway when taking off from Chek Lap Kok or crashes into the South China sea before landing at Changi Airport then we're fine. But eventually he called us again at night.

Oh yeah. Two funny things happened during this trip. My family left S'pore with a camera tripod and came back with none (as it toppled over and broke into two while taking photos on some overhead bridge in Tsim Sha Tsui) and we departed from S'pore with one luggage bag but returned with two (to put all the old clothes and souvenirs)

Perhaps I'll come back to HK in 10 years time... I hope.

Stooooopid luggage bag...

My father insisted on using the old travel bag which is 20 yrs old and was last used during my parent's honeymoon trip... But the thing is that the lock for this bag can't work properly, and it's only a few moments ago then we realise... So now he has to borrow one from my aunt...

I hope to have a good sleep tonight man...

HK here I come!

Packing my luggage now...

Checking that I've got enough camera batteries and memory sticks...

~30 hours and counting...~

The last week of the term...

Wednesday: gp common test!!!

hm. I've really got nothing to say. Wait till the results come out next term.

There was this essay qn: Do the old still have a place in society?

And a few of my classmates thought of the Mandarin quote: jia you yi lao, ru you yi lao.

Direct translation into English (though it's improper English): Home got old, like got gold.

Doesn't it rhyme? :P

In the afternoon I made a call to the travel agency. Was intending to go to HK after so many years of not going on a overseas trip. The lady who served us at the agency when my parents went down to their office was quite bewildered when she thought my father called the agency in the afternoon when actually it was me.
Father: "Shi wo de er zi da dian hua lai de."
Tour Agency Lady: "Orh, yuan lai she zhe ge Mr Lau..." -_-'''

So after the tour was booked, when I reached home I did yet another incredible thing. Make an overseas call to my uncle.

The only problem was that I forgot to type in the IDD operator code.

So when I first called 852XXXXXXXX there was no tone. It was only after I entered 001 before that string of numbers then I finally got through to my uncle who stays in HK.

I shall ask him where to get the model buses/trains when I get to HK 5 days from now. They've always been one of my favourite items.

Thursday: No harmoc! Yipee!

The new harmoc pres decided to give the j1s a longer break, especially after some protests from the exco members about resuming prac so soon. After all we were tired out from concert preparations. To make things even better, afternoon PE was cancelled because the teachers went for match support. So that means an early dismissal!

Friday: The last day of Term 2!!!

The June Hols are here! But I couldn't go home straight after sch ended all thanks to a harmoc exco meeting and Library Investiture.

For the meeting we talked about plans for next year's concert (yeah it might be fast but it's best to start planning early)

Then for the Investiture which started only at 4pm (and made me wait 3 hrs in sch) the librarians were handed their library badges. The design looks rather cool.

~Can't wait to get on my flight, 102 hrs to go!~

Time to take a breather... then start working for gp common test.

Harmonix VIII is over!

The past week was really hectic and energy consuming, all thanks to Harmonix VIII. Now that it's done and dusted I can finally concentrate on my studies. We had rehearsal on Wednesday till 10pm, and from Monday to Thursday prac was from 4-8... Phew.

The audience was rather amazed when I appeared on stage with umbrellas together with a few other harmocers, Kaichen, Marcus, Cheuk Kai, John and Kenneth. We opened them, placed them over our heads then threw them behind us. Last minute idea it was, but it served it's purpose. After all we were performing "Raindrops keep falling on my head".

Then there was this segment where 4 j2s played the theme song in the popular video game Super Mario. We had this projector screen showing a image of the actual game and it seemed like the one controlling Mario was really lousy. No wonder the audience were laughing away and I doubt they really concentrated on the music. Mario kept on dying even before it was meant to only at the end of the song!

And there was this group which performed a cowboy song, "The good, the bad and the ugly". At first, 3 j2s trying to impersonate the actual group of performers started giving a negative demonstration to the audience. Then suddenly the other 3 j2s who were supposed to be the 'pros' appeared and said "An Jing!" and kicked those impostors away... At the end of the song I think those j2s received the most applause for the night.

After the concert was over we took some photos and the j2s suggested that they tau-pok Wenxian, our president. But they decided not to in the end. Tau-kua perhaps? haha...

A big thank you to those who bought tickets from me, namely Qingwei, Zhenyi, Bowen, Zhiyi and Kelvin. Hope you all enjoyed the concert :)

Then today I went for the Vj harmoc concert together with Qingwei, Kelvin, Wenrong, Wen jun and many other AHS HO juniors. One look at the programme booklet and I thought: oh man, the harmonix VIII prog booklet really CMI. We ought to do better next year. Then, listening to their performances, I knew that we really have much to work on for next year's Harmonix.

Their conductor made a surprise performance with the j2s after they performed excerpts of the musical The Sound of Music. He took out a tiny harmoc from his key wallet and played "Doh a deer a female deer..." Weishan performed two solo pieces as well and at the end of it Wenjun went up on stage to present her with a flower.

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Wedensday was RJ's Student Council Investiture. Met Tiffany there, she was invited to come with a few other HCI councillors. Wow.

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It's a long weekend, but I can only enjoy myself during the beginning of June hols. GP common test is up this Wednesday.

Arsenal won the FA cup! The players were tau-poking Lehmann for having made a fine penalty save!

Quit lame-ing around!

ALL Thanks to my injured HEEL...

1. I was limping around the school for the whole week.
2. I had to skip NAPFA test.
3. I couldn't really walk/run/jump...

I just hope it gets better by this weekend.

Alright, advertisement time. haha.

RJ harmoc will be presenting Harmonix8, our annual performance, @ RJ LT2 on 2oth may at 7.30pm. Tickets priced at $5 ONLY!!! Those interested can contact me.

Today we had intensive rehearsal. All together there will be approx 20 songs that will be played at the concert itself, so it's worth it for just $5!!!

Argh, there's intensive prac everyday next week.

~Number of days to concert: 6. Trying to tell myself: just bear with it.~

Pull, pull, Ow!

Was trying to train for NAPFA pull ups last night on my pull up bar at home.
1st pull, 2nd pull, 3rd pull...
then while I was about to attempt the 5th one, suddenly
SMACK!
and off I went tumbling to the ground.

Ouch!

As a result I suffered slight bruises to my elbows, a very painful heel and butt.

Somehow my 6th sense told me that one fine day, the pull up bar at home would give way or something. And how right I was.


Green and white regions of what? School flag?

During bio tut today my tutor returned back last weeks practicals about counting stomata in a variegated leaf. Somehow, some students had the following title for their recording of the relative abundance of stoma in the different coloured parts of the leaf:

Table showing relative abundance of stoma in green and white sections

So my tutor queried: green and white sections of what???? The school flag???

Remembering the good ol' days of Digimon...

During lunch break yesterday me and my classmates were discussing about crap such as why toilet paper can't be 4-ply like normal tissues, cos it would choke up the toilet bowl, as one of them found out. And it can't be 1-ply as well, if not when you're wiping your backside the next moment you find (yuck!) stuck to your hand. Eeee....

Then we started recounting the days which digimon was so popular among kids and we were so silly to believe all those cheat codes that you can apply during battles with your friends so your digimon will always win.