The Seventh Chapter Of Twilight

Page 29

2008-04-28T21:22:00.002+08:00

Just finished Army Daze on Saturday... And I already miss it. It was really great there, a reprieve from reality, even if it was only temporal.

I miss the cast, the crew, the Arts House, the blue soccer ball, Sasi's PSP, the set, the props, the bullshit and crap and nonsense, the fun, the experience... everything...

o.o

It sounds a bit emo, but I really treasure this period... I think it has taught me a lot more than all my academic lessons combined. And I sure can remember it better than them.

Now it's back to the boredom and monotone of daily life... The only thing I have to look forward to is Drama Feste on 25th and 26th July, which is still a long ways away.

Oh yea, I still have Chinese project, Physics CCT, Biology CCT... Goddamit.

Page 28

2008-04-23T22:13:00.002+08:00

Ok.. just great. It's late, I have tons of shit to do, I'm itchy, the music's a little repetitive (serves me right) and the com has just got to go off and screw the pages.

Anyway, before you do anything, watch this awesome rendition of Creep by 林宥嘉.

Can't seem to find the track anywhere, so yea. That's that.

Ok. My sis is back, so I have keep this short. And she just got accepted into NTU.

Beautiful falsetto.

So I'm damned apprehensive about Army Daze, which, if you didn't already know about, it's probably too late to now. The tickets are all but sold out... what an amazing response.

But that only adds even more pressure to it, doesn't it? Full houses for all 3 shows.. which is like holy crap.

And even now, 2 days from production
Rewind.
SMS. And Falsetto again.
and we're still nowhere near that level. Goddammit.

I'm really afraid that we'll just fall flat on our face, like so many I've done before:
Rewind again.
BuckeyDF'07, last year's Drama Challenge... all scars along the skin of my life. Like hell. Shit.

So you can see I'm quite pissed. Had to do RE stuff that Derek hadn't done for shit,
Falsetto again. Oh my god.
And screwy italics.
and lots of Chinese I haven't done too. There's CCTs coming up. My life is unravelling at too fast a pace.

I should just relax. Such angst.
Applause.

Oh yea, and my hair is too freaking short. But it's still just hair. And I'm screwed up anyway. Hair won't change a bull.

I'm really tired. Thinking of going to sleep?

Page 28

2008-04-23T22:10:00.000+08:00

Page 27

2008-04-17T21:14:00.003+08:00

Ah screw it. Life sucks.

I'm getting more and more tardy. I don't know why. I mean... I don't have the conviction, courage nor the motivation to start writing random stuff. I got all these random trains of thought running all around my head, and for one or two lucid moments, I'm able to organise them, even weave it into a decent looking essay framework. But then, after a while, without writing nor typing it down, it gets lost. Dammit.

So I was in the shower (getting screamed at by my sister, no less) when I was thinking about these stuff, you know. Like, how I, as a general asshole, don't have enough conviction and motivation to actually overcome my nature of procrastination (which, as Leeni points out, exists). I can probably think of about a thousand separate examples of things that I've thought about while in the shower, on the bus, in class, in bed, on the stairs... I don't know. It's just super random, but I think, at least at that point in time, that they are at least worth some thought and reflection.

Now, I was never one for serious reflection on my soul, or whatever. It's like, when people chide me or chastise (or was it chasten? I never remember) me, I have like three moments of acceptance before I detach myself from the emotion of guilt. It's always like that. But.. that's a separate story altogether.

Back to the point. Stuff like a hospital, Community Day, how the society is degenerating morally, how Singaporean Chinese shows suck, how the world is pathetic, stuff like that.. I've always been wanting to pelt it all out, but I've never actually gotten around much to doing it. Only very rarely.

There's like, no motivation and conviction, which by themselves are really abstract too. Are they mindsets? Random electro-signal-thingys bouncing around in your brain? Actual, tangible chemicals that flow in your blood? What is motivation? The environment? The people around you? And how can you have conviction? Is it when you grit your teeth to pass through the baptism of fire? How do you control them, how do you create them, how do you grasp them?

Is that just me? Or is it just a thing that infects all the people who are filtered through the screen of society, that once you pass over the threshold between the world of childhood into the galaxy of adulthood, you just become a loser? I wonder, though I'll probably never know, how many suffer from a lack of conviction and motivation as well.

I know this sounds really angsty, but I guess it's just a way life transforms you, from a carefree butterfly into a troubled... okay, I can't find a metaphor for this, so just an angsty boy. I guess very few break away from this shitty cycle of being force-moulded into the system by the people who are products of the system themselves.

Sorry if this sounds a bit incoherent, but it's just where my brain leads me to think next. It's just like an monkey swinging around in the forest: grabbing onto the next available vine without giving thought. I just poured out a whole chunk of my brain into here. Wait, not really. Sounds like a Pensieve.

Page 25

2008-03-27T16:29:00.002+08:00

Woo. Should stop slacking around so much already. Even the rain has finished its descent.

Ok. 1st on my list.. Last Thursday's Community Day.

"RI Community Day. CIP in a different way." Quite the propaganda. CIP is CIP, involuntary volunteerism (which is already a paradox unto itself) whichever way you put it. I remember.. wearing that fugly stripy green-and-black shirt screaming 185 at the back, which was totally uncalled for. Plus, it stank like hell, cos they gave it to us only the day before.

Anyway. It was really good actually. For me, at least (and not for people like Nellie who had to dig mud)(lols). Made the trip to Tampines Primary School (thankfully by MRT), conducted the workshop for the bunch of Primary 5/6s? I don't know how old they were, but they were old enough to have fun during the thing and I think that's the main point.

Although I think this may not have been totally CIP per se, I feel that it was really beneficial, not only for the primary school students, but also for me, and probably for the others as well. It was really fun interacting with them and... I don't know how to put it.. but yeah. And I probably wanna do this again. If only we could do this for RE-SL (which, by the way, is a really useless subject)(but that's another ball game altogether). Which reminds me, I've gotta do RE and CIP tomorrow and on Saturday. Dammit.

And after that, spent 5 hours trotting around the Lavender/Arab St/Bugis area getting costumes and all that (unthankfully by car). But there's some really cool places like the masquerade shop (other than the wigs) and some not so cool places like Army Market (where over-enthusiastic shop owners peddle to you their goods). And of course, SakuraNana and Kampong Glam.

Page 24

2008-03-19T21:11:00.004+08:00

I've just watched a whole slew of 超级星光大道 videos on YouTube and I'm awed.

(By the way, 星光 is the Taiwanese version of the Singapore 绝对 Superstar, which in turn is a rip off from American Idol)

The Chinese pop music industry has always revolved around Taiwan, and hence Taiwanese artists have always been the forerunners of Chinese pop music since my existence, or at least since I started gaining brains.

Just take a look around. 周杰伦, 蔡依林, 王力宏 are the prime examples of pop icons which hail from the mighty island of Taiwan and rule the mighty continent of Asia with Chinese music. Anyone who wants to make it big throughout Asia with Chinese pop would flock to Taiwan to further their non-existent careers.

As much as we in Singapore strive to encourage S-Pop right now, I reckon that it is impossible for Singapore to produce music or artists at the level of Taiwan, China or even Hong Kong (where the language is predominantly Cantonese and Chinese). Let's just face it, no matter how much we try to delude ourselves, we have a small population of 4 million, as compared to Taiwan's 23 million and HK's 7 million.

Moreover, our society is gradually shifting towards an English-speaking society as opposed to the Chinese-dialect-speaking society of the earlier years. Obviously, there's going to be an even smaller Chinese music industry in Singapore, so how on earth can we even hope to move forward in this area? Call me pessimistic, call me negative, call me whatever you want (except Maniam), but this is what I think is happening now, and we'll be lucky to even keep the slice of pie we currently occupy.

The very nature of our education also deters the production of artists. When you have such a rigid education system and such (lambasting it would take another whole post), where studying is the only thing that's actively advocated by the goverment (alongside no drugs, no sex and no smoking), I think people rarely have time or the motivation to do stuff that are culturally enlightening. And hence, I think there is no such thing as a Singaporean culture, unless you count endless hours of studying for stuff which are never ever going to be used when you work.

JJ and Stephanie Sun are two very distinguished Singapore artists which I admit have had tremendous success, but to mass-replicate this success with the above in consideration is... not very possible.

超级星光大道 vs. 绝对 Superstar. It doesn't take half a brain to figure out which one is better. I'm not demeaning our Singaporean Superstars or anything, but imagine like 陈伟联 against the 林宥嘉, 杨宗玮 and 萧敬藤... you get the picture.

So yeah. I guess Singapore is not such a sunny little island after all.

林宥嘉 which my sister absolutely adores

杨宗纬 whom my sister absolutely hates.

萧敬藤

Page 23

2008-02-29T20:46:00.008+08:00

Wow. How much difference one week can make.

One week ago, I had not taken the Maths CCT. One week later, I have taken the Maths CCT and I'm damn sad.
I don't know my marks yet, unlike most of my class. Is that a good thing or bad thing?
Totally died for the surds-square-both-sides equation cos I forgot to put 2ab in (a+b)squared=a-squared+b-squared+2ab. And after that, I was like "shit man, gonna fail this crap" and forgot all my distance formula, midpoint formula, finding a square formula, all the shit.
Exam nerves?

According to the Shien's Theory of Subjects, subjects offered in secondary schools, or RI in particular, can be broadly classified into 2 categories, as follows:

The Bullshit Subjects: Subjects which require massive amounts of bullshitting. Generally, a good grasp of language and high ability to bullshit is necessary to achieve proficiency in subjects which fall into this category. As such, bulls educated in Spanish may do well here.
A typical sentence used by practitioners of this designation of subjects should only contain one point, have a large arsenal of bombastic words, be as verbose as possible, beat around the bush, use ostentatious adjectives intended to impress and avert the subject matter while pretending to be doing so, not unlike this sentence, which is actually a whole paragraph on its own.
Essays are the favoured mode of assessment, and it is not beyond the executioners of this subject to overload the hunched acolytes. Case study knowledge, while beneficial, is not imperative for one to be accomplished in this area. English, Social Studies and History best epitomize this category.

The Mugging Subjects: Subjects which require massive amounts of mugging. In general, quantitative results are desired as opposed to qualitative results, and as such, absurd calculations and long-winded formulas which may or may not have a bearing on our future lives as potential non-mathematicians have to be memorised. Computers and calculators are hence best suited to take examinations pertaining to subjects of this nature.
Through even more extensive and intensive observations, one can conclude that rote learning and grinding the books in the middle of the night, or more popularly known as "mugging", is the best learning, or rather drilling, style for stuff which fall into this category. Memorisers of these subjects must learn "The Art Of Mug", which is to memorise as much as possible, to succeed here. Maths and Physics are representative of this classification.

But enough of that. I've got lots of crap to do, which include SS Utopia, English Blog, Filing. I'm really messy, and I don't know what to do.

Now time for comic relief! A real ownage performance by Jeff Dunham and Ac-phlegm-hmed the Dead Terrorist.

Interlude

2008-02-19T16:39:00.002+08:00

背影 - 林宥嘉
作词：蓝小邪
作曲：关大州

三公分阳光
三公分空气
堵在眼前像一面玻璃
挡住了你表情
剩下只有脚印

一直向前走
走不完距离
一直向后退不出回忆
很高兴有心事
帮我捆住自己

你头发上淡淡青草香气
变成了风才能和我相遇
你的目光蒸发成云
再下成雨我才能够靠近

感谢我不可以住进你的眼睛
所以才能拥抱你的背影
有太多的遗憾用来牢牢记住
不完美的所有美丽

感谢我不可以拥抱你的背影
所以才能边城你的背影
多在安静角落不用你回头看
不用珍惜

我怀里所有温暖的空气
变成风也不敢和你相遇
我的心事蒸发成云
再下成雨却舍不得淋湿你

感谢我不可以住进你的眼睛
所以才能拥抱你的背影
有太多的遗憾用来牢牢记住
不完美的所有美丽

感谢我不可以拥抱你的背影
所以才能边城你的背影
多在安静角落不用你回头看
不用珍惜

感谢我不可以拥抱你的背影
所以才能边城你的背影
多在安静角落不用你回头看
不用在意

Page 22

2008-02-19T16:11:00.007+08:00

Ouch. So many CCTs. I think I did quite well for the ones so far (English, Chinese, Bio quiz). But then again, I had thought I did well last year too.
I'm especially proud of my English, because I've gotten quite good remarks on the two tasks done so far... the personal recount and the Commonwealth Essay, which I got an A!
But maybe it's cos of Jennifer Koh's excessive emphasis on imagery? I don't remember having spammed so much before.
But I think that for yesterday, I may have written a tad out of point... Oh well. What the hell.
My Chinese is still quite okay, but they have a whole bunch of words we won't even use twice in our lives. Come on, something like 颟顸 isn't exactly your average Chinese conversation vocabulary.

I feel so bored. I know I should go study or do some homework, but the TV is on, there's a book to be read and music to be listened to, the computer's calling me, I should really go feed the dog, the newspaper's out, the neighbour's crying and the TV's still on.

Procrastination's a really sweet thing. It's the perfect reason by which one can honestly and sincerely not attempt even a poke at the task at hand, and yet not even fell an ounce of guilt. Isn't that just a little of what everyone needs once in a while?

Bleh. Not that I procrastinate at everything I do. Only those stuff I don't like, or useless things, which happen to encompass homework, study, mug, file. Give me something like my MP3 or a nice book and I won't procrastinate, no sir I won't. When it comes to stuff like that, it's like woohoo!

Now for a bit of fun!

The Michael Complex: A state of mind in which one is filled with win and is invigorated. Hence, one can solve a Rubik's cube faster and carry a Crumpler. Side effects include being short and having a weird smile.
It is still unknown as of yet how the Michael Complex could affect physical and/or mental developments, but specimens of the Michael are thought to be rare. As of the time of writing, only 1 such Michael specimen has been discovered and located. Researchers, in the good name of science, have tried valiantly over the past 14 years, although to no avail, trying to procure the specimen to dissect and analyse in great detail. The researchers apparently lack the capacity to grab a guy and chop him up with a knife.
Projects have been planned to carry out the study of the Michael Complex through the capture of a Michael. Events such as the Prefects' Investiture have been earmarked as a good opportunity to do so.

Page 21

2008-02-13T21:39:00.003+08:00

Woops. Better stop lagging so much and leaving the blog in such a despairing state of neglect.

The so-called 双周对决 over the Chinese New year period culminated in me going to watch the two movies in question, Kungfu Dunk 功夫灌蓝 and CJ7 长江七号.
In case you've been living under a rock, Dunk is the show which combines basketball and kungfu, whereas CJ7 is the one where an alien dog (?) invades a poor guy's humble abode.

Dunk was good in that there was enough action sequences in the basketball and kungfu scenes to match the Rush Hours. Apart from the glamour and the blitz surrounding this, Jay Chou also attempted something else other than emokid (emo racer in Initial D, emo son cum prince in 满城尽带黄金甲, emo pianist in 不能说的秘密). Also liked 曾志伟's role of mildly greedy but still very nice agent, and 刘耕宏's portrayal of the general asshole.
What I didn't like was that several parts of the story was very disjointed, possibly because the scope of the movie is very large, from kungfu to basketball to kinship to love to humour, and it all couldn't be squeezed into one single movie. 乾坤大挪移 was totally random, taking up all of 3 scenes in the show, and the relationship between Jay and 蔡卓研 wasn't sufficiently expanded either.
Overall, worth a watch, and although nothing fantastic, it provides a good avenue for slacking and taking a well-deserved break.
And no, Leeni, I'm not being too biased in this.

CJ7 was honestly a great change for 周星驰, since his previous movies were stuff like 功夫 and 少林足球. The disparity was very great, from humour and action to simple kinship stuff. But he stilled pulled it off quite well. The story was simple, but drove home the point. Did not lack humour as well, although there was significantly lesser humour.
There was little action to match the Rush Hours, but once in a while, you should just slow down from the breakneck pace of life. Action junkies shouldn't watch this. I liked this more than Dunk though. o.o

Didn't watch Jack Neo's Ah Long Pte Ltd, but from what I heard, it doesn't sound very appealing at all, so no loss.

Wow. What a long post. I'm so proud of myself! ^^

In other news, Man City beat Man Utd 2-1! ^^

Page 20

2008-01-29T20:39:00.000+08:00

The CEC Investiture. An annual reminder of everything good gone bad.
Got my 3rd flashy piece of metal.
It's my day, remember?
So hush.

I have absolutely no inspiration whatsoever. Other than possibly lambasting (is there such a word?) teacher/s, which I shouldn't, won't and can't do on here, life's been pretty smooth. Or plain and dull. Just like the cup that's half empty.

Thanks to everyone for your support for Jasdeep jokes.

1984

Page 19

2008-01-22T21:44:00.001+08:00

Yay! Another nice song to endear my pages!

少年 - 光良，曹格
作词：管啟源
作曲：光良

你又想起某个夏天
热闹海岸线
记忆中的那个少年
骄傲的宣言

伸出双手就能拥抱全世界
相信所有的梦想一定会实现
一切看起来都不会太遥远
转眼之间过了几年

轻浮的语言都已经慢慢沉淀
即使难免会变得更加洗练
我们不曾妥协

那是我们都回不去的从前
幸好还可以坚持当时的信念
世界尝试改变
当初的那个少年

那是我们都回不去的从前
当你站在那个夏天的海岸线
我们还是心里面
那个偏执的少年

Page 18

2008-01-22T21:30:00.000+08:00

Woohoo! Dead blog revived!

According to ye olde endearinge Ms. Jennifer Koh the Eenglish teacher, there's a blog component in this year's Eenglish. Or I could be wrong. Whatever.

The bottom line is, there's no bottom line.

Nah. Just joking.

The bottom line is that my blog is revived once again! Woohoo!

BTW. My computer web HTML stuff aren't very good. 2 years with Ms. Sharon Xu and The Old and Venerable Aileen Chor of the Computer Labs has taught me absolutely nothing. And the image up there is screwy. So I'm just throwing a random picture up there as an interim measure until something better turns up. Stay tuned to this space.

So concludes my first post after 1 year and 3 days.

Thaksin City

Epilogue

2007-01-19T17:43:00.001+08:00

黄金甲 - 周杰伦
词：方文山
曲：周杰伦

旗帜如虹山堆叠如峰
这军队婉廷如龙
杀气如风血色如酒红
将军我傲气如冲神色悍如凶
黄金甲如忠铁骑彪悍我行如轰

景色如冬
萧瑟如枫
攻势如弓
魂断犹如梦中
一静一动如松
千年不变如空如空如空

血染盔甲我挥泪杀
满城菊花谁的天下
宫廷之上狼烟风沙
生死不过一刀的疤

仇恨绵延如火
愁入眉头如锁
情感漂泊漂泊
漂泊一时如我
今生繁华如昨
兵戎相见如破
千军万马万马
万马奔腾那骨肉相残如错

陈年战事如酒
成败转眼成秋
遍地烽火烽火
烽火回忆如锈
（那烽火回忆如锈）
杀戮过重如否
（那杀戮过重如否）
烽火回忆如锈
（那烽火回忆如锈）
皇室血脉如断流
（皇室血脉如断流）

血染盔甲我挥泪杀
满城菊花谁的天下
宫廷之上狼烟风沙
生死不过一刀的疤
血染盔甲我挥泪杀
横刀立马看谁倒下
爱恨悲欢历史留下
谁在乱箭之中潇洒

Page 17

2007-01-19T17:30:00.000+08:00

Didn't watch PSS2 SF4, but Daren and Diya obviously deserved it. Kudos to them!

Kao, not the singles again... just heard the news over 933. Like PSS1, where they put out some crappy overpriced single to make a big buck. Nevermind, I don't care... much.

School started (long ago), another year of shit started. Getting bored and tired ler... like Pek screaming for WoW. Sian.

Did Raffles Players auditions, hope to get in. Gonna cling onto it like a 救生圈, a lifeline in a sea of hopelessness... sigh. Had to drama-mama a passage from Narnia, and I say I did quite well. Gonna hang myself if I don't get in.
Only joking.

"What else is there to do at VivoCity other than dining and shopping?"
"Besides shopping? What a strange concept!"

Page 16

2007-01-19T17:19:00.000+08:00

In the past tense - 15th ~ 28th December 2006

My auntie and family from Melbourne arrived! Looked forward to good food and more good food, went to eat lots of good food around S'pore. Ok, maybe not all around, and some were good, some were shit, but I still enjoyed their stay here.

Malacca Trip, 19th to 23rd December 2006. A'Famosa Resort. Crappy place. Remind me never to go there again. Rained like hell and M'sia's crapped when it's wet. Nothing to do, except 4 trashy cable channels and 4 walls of elite boredom. On the 2nd day, it let up a bit so we went to Malacca City and shopped a bit. Shitty place. Bleh.

Gah, no inspiration! Spent loads of time slacking. Finished The Testament, wasn't bloody at all. In fact, it was quite ok, so I went on to read The Broker and Bleachers. Did half a book report for my sis who was too frigging lazy to read the book and do it herself. Zzz...

Basically everything exciting that happened to me during the holidays.

Park Villas Green

Page 15

2006-12-10T23:52:00.000+08:00

Watched 红星大奖 with my crazy sister screaming and taping every moment that 5566 appeared in. She is hopelessly obsessed.

Not many surprises, except for 陈伟联 (Never liked using his Engrish name) getting Newcomer and Top Ten. Thought he didn't deserve it, 'cos he only acted in 梦拼图 and basically left his acting stuff to rot. Dawn Yeoh should have gotten Newcomer, and prob Terence Cao in Top Ten...

Don't call me bias.

Curse of the Golden Flower 满城尽带黄金甲 is gonna come out. Saw and heard several positive reviews about it, seems very interesting. The whole "皇宫 betrayal, king vs. prince, empress dying and with Crown Prince" thing... Quite intriguing.
Also heard 黄金甲 on 933 a few days ago. Sounds like the same style as 霍元甲, 'cos they're of the whole "Ancient Chinese History" genre thing. Guess I'd go and watch this movie.

Being forced to read "The Testament", crying tears of blood.

Only being figurative.

Paris Saint-Germain

Page 14

2006-12-07T09:48:00.000+08:00

Only 3-and-a-half weeks left till 2007. Sobs.

My aunt and her family in Melbourne are going to come next Friday. We're gonna eat lots of nice food! Yeh, I'm looking forward to a Malacca trip soon.

On Friday, there was this advert on Channel 5 that really caught my eye... "Harry Potter latest trailer blah blah blah..." Finally got there, have we? Well, the HP finished filming so it is about time they gave us a trailer.

But... the whole damn trailer was only about 10 seconds long. It was like a whoosh of random frames and whatnot. The movie's slated to come out on 13 July 2007, and now they're going through "Post-Production", which obviously is CG and editing and all that. A movie like HP is clearly going to need lots and lots and lots and lots of CG, so we're gonna have to 等到花儿也谢了~~~

See the poster? It's from imdb.com. The date at the bottom says 07/13/07, but I guess this whole poster is only tentative and may change.

I've got a sudden craving for a bowl of ramen.

Sun Wu Kong

Edit: After watching the trailer on the Net, I guess it wasn't 10 secs, and I was expecting too much. And since it's from Warner Bros., sister kept screaming with glee again...

Page 13 - Fish Bone

2006-11-30T10:11:00.000+08:00

Ow... Last night, my grandma got a fish bone stuck down her throat. Tia leh... she tried to cough it out but no use. Went to clinic, doctor say got to go to hospital to take it out (yikes!) so went to hospital.
Spent about $100 in all... just to get out a fish bone. Luckily, my grandma didn't have to be hospitalised and all that.
But... I think the clinic doctor is like... ugh. Pure idiocy. Charged $15 just to peek down the throat and tell us the hospital is needed.

I've set a new goal! (Fanfare) That is to get a new laptop by the end of Sec 4! (More fanfare) I'm gonna save up for it, inspired by Nikolai.
40 school weeks a year, makes it 120 weeks for saving. If I'm getting a $2k one, I'll have to save about $16 every week. Which is quite... stupid, really, 'cos I'm only getting $15 a week (probably) next year.
Seems like I have to rely on my ang pow money.

Sorry everyone, I'm too bored to add links and all that. I know they're on the tagboard, but I'm too blah to put them in.

I wanna sleep.

Shepherds

Page 12 - Boredom Part 2

2006-11-09T15:59:00.000+08:00

I'm still feeling bored. My brain is shriveling up like a fig. Gah...

Yesterday, I went to my grandma's house in Toa Payoh. It's near one of those new 40-storey blocks but it's a bit older and only 30 storeys high. But that's not the point. There's this new market there (Lor 1 Block 126 Market) which is about 3 or 4 years old... uh, I guess not that new after all. There's this Hokkien Mee stall at the second floor, which received quite good acclaim from foodies. It was featured in the Ch8 foodshow "Where The Queue Starts" recently. So It's super tasty, 5 bucks is enough for me and my sister, it smells good, and the sauce/soup/gravy that it's cooked in is excellent. The only bad thing is that it's a bit slimy-like and can be a bit messy. But it's worth it. Damn nice. I love it. You should try it (if you haven't already).

2006 is ending in a bit over one month's time! I'm looking forward to 2007, 'cos it's another brand new year and after one year of unsettling Sec 1 life, a year of Sec 2 life is gonna be nothing (I think). I'm thinking of joining Players next year... 'cos to tell the truth, I slacked a lot this year. Let's face it. Life just isn't as interesting as before, so I've gotta find some stuff to do.

Kage Bunshin No Jutsu

Page 11 - Boredom

2006-11-09T15:14:00.000+08:00

A very hearfelt thanks to all who have been reading my blog... I know I haven't updated much, 'cos to tell the truth, I really am slacking lots. I don't catch up much on a lot of things, and spend immensely large periods of time on... useless shit. There's been so much I wanna write about, but there's so little commitment. I find no interest in a lot of things I used to be passionate about. And even less with those I didn't even like to begin with.

...

Ok, fine, I won't take on such a serious tone... I admit I've been eating too much jagung... But I think this'll be a long post, so bear with my incessant ramblings. Well, actually, after thinking about it, this might not be a long post after all. Contradiction. Damn, I've gotta avoid those.

Well, a few days ago... er... I mean, last Friday, Adil, Nic Quah, Marvin (that's a Sec 3 ex-Rosythian), Arund (is that how you spell his name?)(Sec 4 ex-Rosythian) and me revisited the old place. Nothing much has changed since we left... I guess that's the way it is, isn't it? Some places never change. That's one of those places.
Hang on. I'm getting sentimental...
Never mind.
So we gave a crash course to the P5s who are taking part in the RI primary school debate thing. It's not so much "we" as opposed to "them", 'cos they're in the whole debate club thing and I'm just a poor kid tagging along who happened to have knowledge of a few morsels of debating... so anyway, the abovementioned P5s are all girls. Ok, picture one girl. Take the giggling girlfriend of Cho Chang's in the Harry Potter series. Multiply that by five and you get a super giggly group who is extremely attention-deficit. Fine, not extremely, but they do go all "hee hee hee" whenever we do anything. Like say something wrongly (who doesn't?) or raise a hand or drop a bottle. You name it, they giggle it. Unbelievable. And the whole point of the primary school debate thing is to recruit potential primary school students into the RI debate club. Obviously, these potential primary school students would have to be going to RI. And more obviously, only boys go to RI. And even more obviously, these 5 girls are not going to be going to RI anytime in the near future. That's the catch of this whole thing. We give a crash course to these 5 girls (a super-condensed one, mind you. They missed a four hour session so we gave them this one hour one.), they take part in the primary school debate thing, and they are not even going to have the slimmest chance, never in a blue moon, to come to RI. That's the catch of the whole thing.

So that's that for the first part of my post. Don't groan! Nah, I know you won't groan, 'cos you're reading the blog of a [inflated ego] super mega genius! [/inflated ego] Now for the second part.

Author's note: After typing a whole chunk of the second part, I have decided to relay that to another post, probably to be published tomorrow or sometime soon.

page.7 target

Page 10 - Pizza Hut

2006-11-02T18:23:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow's the end of this school year, so let's celebrate! Er... not quite, I still got Rugby during the holidays, and a match against ACS(I) on 14th Nov.

Anyway, apart from this depressing stuff, the end of the year is something I've been looking forward to since... June? Now that it's finally here, I guess it's time to... er... let our hair down and savour the joyous moments before it slips away right under those overlarge noses of ours.

Today, there was this Sec 1 soccer tournament. So I went, even though I wasn't playing 'cos I was just too friggin' bored. And we cheered some teams on, but strangely, every team we cheered for went down against the opposition. One of the matches was the 1P (full of Ex-Rosythians) and 1K (also GE but only got Daniel and Russell Lim) one. My class cheered for 1K 'cos 1P is stronger and we would face the winner if we won our next match. So they booed whenever a 1P member got the ball, especially Giff (poor Giff), and cheered when a 1K member got the ball. But 1K lost anyway, 0-2 in penalty shootout.
Next match, 1L vs. 1D. We (those who didn't play: me, Mok, Matty and Dewin (who later went on as a sub)) cheered for our own class, naturally. But Wuzzy conceded one goal because of carelessness and one from a penalty awarded because of a disputable handball from Yoda in the penalty box. So we went down 0-2. And got kicked out.

After we got kicked out, there was not bloody much to see, so we (this time meaning me and 7 other people) went to celebrate at the Pizza Hut in Ang Mo Kio. Nothing much happened, unless you count Wuzzy having extreme class while we were there. Um... maybe if you ask nicely, I'll tell you what happened... ok fine, I'm just plain lazy to write it out. So we were sitting there, swapping sordid stories and wolfing down the food, when I offered to finish Titrolls' meatball for him. Out of the kindness of my pure heart, of course. And then the worst started. Cal and Wuzzy started pouring out the cheese powder onto the meatball. The result was a very cheesy meatball, apparently. But, no, they had to go on and add all the extra condiments, namely cheese powder, chilli powder, tabasco sauce, pepper, tartar sauce, chilli sauce and a piece of ice. The result was a very cheesy, spicy, sour, sweet, cold, peppery and icy meatball, again apparently. Like you see on those TV shows, except that we know that TV shows are all fake (well, some of them) and real life is real. Duh. Those bully kia promised me 20 cents each, and Zac put 1 dollar down for the second meatball. But they never pay up...

Ok, in case you were wondering about my results, I'm not gonna reveal such top classified secrets, but it suffices to comment that I deproved from Semester 1. Boo hoo hoo.

Leontopodium alpinum

Page 9 - Slack School Day

2006-10-25T20:17:00.000+08:00

Yippee. It's 25th October 2006 and only about a week's time before we get released from our eternal prison of boredom commonly known as a school, or institute of higher education, or whatever shit. Can you feel the enthusiasm from my words? You surely can, 'cos I know you're not a dumbass... right?

They call it 'Post-CT Programs'. They think these are fun. And apparently, they want us to feel that way as well. I know some of them really do it out of goodwill, but these 'programs' really bored the socks off me. I... would not wish to delve deeper into the details of these devious conspiracies to take over our brains when we are bored to hell like zombies, in case they come after me. Ok, maybe that was an exaggeration... but only a slight one.

This afternoon, after lunch, I went with Nic Quah to Chevy's house. Dunno why I went, but because I had nothing on... well actually... I had something on, but that's an entirely different story that would probably tarnish your established image of me as an exemplary model student... obviously. Anyway, I went there to slack further, playing two FPS (were they FPS? Chev said they were RTS (Real-time Shooting)) games on his PS. Sian like hell. Now I know how Guan Lin felt when he was slacking that other afternoon, in the middle of the exams. Now this is the part where all you readers who know Guan Lin are supposed to go "Or-hor, Guan Lin slack in the middle of the exam" and then point your fingers at him. Yup, right now.

So Nic Quah told me the story of Death Note the manga. Turns out there are 17 books, Light is actually Raito, who is gonna throw away Death Note, become a disciple of "L" in Kira-hunting, gets Death Note back and kills "L" with it. Misa, the bimbotic TV host is gonna get Death God eyes and become one of the major characters. The second movie, slated to be released in November, is called "Death Note: The Last Name". Nic says Misa'll be Ara (Kira's counterpart) and it'll be Misa vs. Raito. Ooh... I can't wait.

Well, now I (im)patiently await my exam results, which are due to come tomorrow. Maths, MT, EL, History... there's one more but I can't remember. Heck. So, wish me all the luck in the world that I would get only 1 or 2 GPA 3.6s, 'cos I'd get murdered otherwise. Oh ya, and also that I won't deprove from Semester 1.

Now, Friends of Guan Lin, I know you haven't gone "Or-hor, Guan Lin slack in the middle of the exam" or pointed your fingers at him. C'mon, you know you wanna do it. Go on. Just Do It.

Dammit. I can't think of a concluding statement again, like one of the other earlier posts. Never mind, I'll just leave this post hanging unconcluded.

Fishball Noodles

Page 8 - Hari Raya

2006-10-24T19:46:00.000+08:00

Selamat Hari Raya to all the Muslims out there!

Today, I went to watch Death Note. You know, that movie about some genius that picks up the notebook where the person whose name is written in the book will be killed, with the title written in cool Gothic words. Anyway, the movie was damn cool. The genius guy, Light Yagami, used Death Note to kill some bad people but ended up being hunted by the police himself. There was also this other genius guy opposite of him, called "L" Ryusaki. Yup, that's the brief summary.
The movie was brilliant, I tell you. The story was superb, although that might be because it was based on a manga, but it was still superb nonetheless. I didn't read the manga, so I don't know the actual story. The battle of wits between "L" and Light was amazing, with so much planning and cunning at every turn. I just love the part where "L" holds a packet of "Consomme" flavour chips, challenging Light.
The theme of what one would do when one holds the power to kill was also predominant throughout the whole story, but I think they didn't exactly explain clearly why it is wrong to do so. They just went like "Ok, everyone's been dying all around the world, and we've gotta stop the madman who's doing this." Even though Light did end up killing some good guys, that was also because they started the chase in the first place. And even though Shiori (Light's girlfriend) did attempt to talk to Light about why these killings are wrong, I feel that it was not sufficient. So, I say "Go Kira!"
However, I didn't like the God Of Death. Although he plays the part of a third-party voice who knows what's going on, he was horribly animated, and the part could have been played by something else, maybe Death Note itself. But those are about the only blemishes in the movie. Death Note is good. Go watch it.

Ok, gotta finish this post fast. My sister also lent me Tuesdays with Morrie, a story about Morrie, an old professor suffering from a terminal disease and attempts to teach the author about life and such. It seems a touching story, from what I have read of the introduction and the first few chapters, but my oldest obnoxious sister has to return the book to her friend whom she borrowed it from tomorrow, so I can't finish reading it (I only started yesterday).

Spare me for the lack of sarcasm, for I am purely lacking in brain juice today. I mean, how much more could I crap about a book and a movie? Seriously?

Actually, I was prepared to crap about yesterday's tough Rugby session, but I decided to spare you the agony of reading it.

cruzteng

Page 7 - Post Exams

2006-10-20T15:07:00.000+08:00

The exams are over. Full stop. No more about exams. I just wanna shut myself in the room beside a computer (with Internet access), 'cos my obnoxious sisters have outdone themselves by banning me from the com (as you would have gleamed from the post made by my sister on the tagboard).

Er... ok, maybe just a bit about the exams (which I keep typing exmas)

Jey-sng came up with this theory, that is they put the hardest papers in front and the easiest one last. Codswallop, in my opinion. Chinese and English were fairly ok (except that there's too many points to write for the English; I was rushing out the last 2 points in the last 15 minutes, 'cos I spent 1 hour on the first 2). History was a bit harder ('cos I didn't memorise the examples... Might have cost me 1 of that level-thingamajigs), and Geog was also hard (same, I didn't mug a lot). Science was quite easy (but these are the papers that are laden with trick questions. People ask me "Trick question? Which one?" and I say "If you knew which ones were trick questions then they wouldn't be trick questions."). Maths... I might have died at the last 2 questions (exlcuding bonus) and I'm very unsure how much I'll get, what with all the method marks, I may have well gotten as much as 45. Others (e.g. Brandon) say the paper was quite easy, but that's the Maths Club members for you. Anyway, my Maths has plummeted in Semester 2. I'm gonna dieee...

Strange isn't it? I say I wasn't gonna talk about exams, then I say one whole paragraph about it, and now I forgot what I wanted to say initially.

Oh ya. Now I remember. I was going to say something about today's Rugby session and the Mass Swim on Monday, but I figured that that would be too boring to post. (I already typed it out, but upon seeing it, I guessed there wasn't anything interesting in that waffle) So, I'll just go back and wallow in boredom. I thought it would be much less boring with a computer, and... well, I was right (to a certain extent), but the computer just seems less appealing now. Strange, isn't it?

I'll just go back and mellow in self-despair.

"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi."

Page 6 - Mooncake Festival

2006-10-06T18:39:00.000+08:00

Happy Mooncake Festival!

My two obnoxious sisters found my blog address, and by typing 'obnoxious' in the last clause, I have effectively brought about my own death through a horrible strangling. Tomorrow's headlines will read "Brother strangled to death by sisters". Yippee.

Ok, yesterday, we moved into the new teaching block, called the S. Rajaratnam Block. Cool name, huh? Isn't it just the easiest thing to say "S. Rajaratnam Block (6 syllables)"? I mean, what could be less tongue-twisting than S. Rajaratnam Block in everyday speech?

Anyway, although this teaching block is new and the classroom is very big, I prefer the old Admin Block classroom over this one.
Firstly, there are windows on both sides of the classroom, and one is facing the corridor. Hurray, that means we can't change in class anymore. Isn't that just the best thing that the school could do for us?
Secondly, the classroom has not been used at all before, so the floor is the horrible rough cement, the kind which you can't even shift your table without having it jerk up and down. Plus, it smells of the new-building-linoleum-cement kind of smell. You know, just go visit some new HDB flat and that smell is roughly the same.
Lastly, since everyone is squeezed into one block, and there are only two staircases, they are usually flooded with students during morning assembly and after recess and lunch. But having everyone squeezed into one block is good, 'cos we can ambush Hwee Hwee when he comes to school and demand a recording.

I guess that's everything exciting that has happened to me, unless you count chionging Geog wet rice and English newspaper project super exhilarating. Finally finished my projects (at least those that are due today), so I can slack for the weekend... or at least relax a bit more. Got my cousins' (not the one mentioned in the earlier post) birthday coming up tomorrow so my auntie treating us to dinner... at the Swissotel (I think).

And, I've got a cough and flu from the bad air. And that sucks, I hate cough. And flu. And people who try to explore your handphone while you are not noticing. And obnoxious sisters who are reading this post somewhere in the near future. And thinking of some more lame additions to this already long paragraph where sentences start with "and".

So I look at my post thinking of a conclusion statement. Actually I got one on my mind already, which reads "Sorry for being sarcastic and using proper English and being lame by using lots of "and"s in a blog", but that kinda doesn't link properly. So I'll just say bye.

Still Fantasy

Page 5 - The Week

2006-09-29T20:22:00.000+08:00

Hiya... This past week has been a... boring one, as all weeks go. Damn tired of school, 'cos they teach us stuff that isn't even remotely important. Only thing worth going for is...

Ok, the week has gone by and yet I haven't made any progress on my projects (other than the English newspaper project). Sighz... I think they expect us to be wet rice farmers, Pythagorean mathematicians and tabloid writers all at the same time. I don't understand why they're forcing these stuffs on us, I mean, what use is it if we know how rice is grown? Ok, maybe we get sympathetic with those farmers but that's about it. Unless anyone wants to be one of those traditional wet rice farmers or even those farmers which use high-tech greenhouses and stuff. I know I don't want to be one of those guys, for sure.

Well, lastly, if either Yoda, Dewin or Fei is reading this, I am not going to email you the... stuff...

Ok, tomorrow's PTM, got to bring tie and reach school by 7:45am. Sian, now I can't watch those gay Saturday morning cartoons... er... not that I watch them regularly, of course... you do believe that, right?

Page 4 - Sighz...

2006-09-25T19:52:00.000+08:00

Sigh... suddenly I feel so out of touch with the world. I guess I've been stuck too long on shit like sleeping and listening to crap radio to notice the silent threads of communication woven while I slept in a deep slumber. Oh well, even the snoozing sloths will wake up some day, and today is the day I am awoken! Er... awaken? Awakened? Awoke? ... Never mind...
Henceforth I decided to move out of my previous shenanigans to embrace a whole new world waiting for me.
["1 Life, Live it!" - Some damn commercial from M1]

Anyway, yesterday I got an awful haircut... now my hair looks damn fugly. It's like, ... some kind of obiang and outdated hairstyle... I got to stick it out until my hair grows back again to it's long, flowing and silky state... Ok, maybe not. Maybe I could go for Beijing 101... yeah, excellent suggestion, no?

Ok, CTs soon, still haven't revise, 4 projects and haven't started on a single one, so why the hell am I still blogging?!

Alter-Ego: 'Lax lah pal. Must procrastinate so as to get optimum results... slack while you can and mug when exams are like one week away or something. 6 subjects to revise in one week is chicken feet lah...

- ALL OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY ALTER-EGOS DO NOT REPRESENT AUTHOR'S OWN OPINIONS -

Ok, last bit before I sign off. Just as I was walking to the bus stop after Rugby from RJC towards RI at the Junior Block, I saw Ms. Yong and about seven other teachers, including Ms. Dee and Mr. Janus (Yaaarnus?) Lim. That's not the point. The point is that she (Ms. Yong not Ms. Dee) questioned me about something to do with my phone. I suspect that one of my so-called (idiotic) friends snuck my phone and messaged/called her while poor old me took the rap 'cos it was my phone. [Suddenly, Kaiwen's and Pek's name appears, and Feifei's one appears in big bold underlined and capitalised letters] Hm... who could the culprit be...

Page 3 - TMZ

2006-09-23T20:12:00.000+08:00

Today I went out for lunch with my auntie, sister and cousin, at Jack's Place in Ang Mo Kio and Cafe Cartel in J8. My cousin's in NS serving as a Navy medic, went out to sea for 42 days to Indonesia, Malaysia and Perth, Australia, and just came back last week.

My cousin, he's a very deep thinker. He is like, funny most of the times (I think of Bryan Wong when I see him), jokes around a lot and generally humourous, but when he does work or discusses something, he's damn philosophical kind of guy. At Cafe Cartel, he was discussing with my auntie about being a businessman and all that stuff, 'cause he read this book called "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", which talked about being a successful businessman and all that. It's like, he wants to be planning proposals and selling his ideas. So he told me, being a businessman is all about making a kind of general proposal, then modifying it by bits to suit the company's marketing needs and target audience. He's like, even when on the street, he comments on other people's marketing strategies and stuff, like a flyer or a banner. He told me to read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" as well, as he thought I should start planning my future from young. His exact words [in Chinese] were "You should start planning from young, unlike me, see, I'm so old already." (He's 20) I dunno, I don't feel like a great planner or anything cut out for business. I'm more vivacious and quick to make comments rather than that kind of people who got a lot of depth. It's like a comparison 'twixt Snowball and Napoleon from Animal Farm.

Oh ya, and I'll dedicate "Si Mian Chu Ge" to Cal, GL, Dewin, Lingfei and all...

Page 2 - Blogskin

2006-09-22T21:51:00.000+08:00

My blogskin up there, it looks kind of Gregorian mystery kind of thing right? Well, just now, I tried to put a table into the blogskin to stop my posts from stretching the page too much... but I screwed it up (somehow the 1st post got mixed up with the other post).

I went to get the original code from the web (see credits), so I glanced at the description (which I didn't see earlier in my haste and excitement in creating a new blog). Apparently, the Gregorian Mystery Twilight thingy which I mentioned earlier is the intended feel and effect of the picture. I wanted this blog to have that kind of mysterious, intriguing and dark kind of feel, like in Jay Chou's "Ye De Di Qi Zhang", "Yi Fu Zhi Ming" and "Ye Qu", and the author meant this picture to have that kind of stuff. What's more, the author got the inspiration for this blogskin when he was listening to "Ye De Di Qi Zhang". Wow, me and the designer person... as the saying goes, "Great minds think alike".

Anyway this song tells a story of the detective and mystery and stuff, making several references to stuff like Barker Street, Victoria and Scotland Yard. In the MV, Jay Chou even acted as a detective and shot the MV in London. He's damn stinking rich.

Page 1 - 93.3 Songs

2006-09-22T20:22:00.000+08:00

Ah... a blog. I have been wanting one since a long long long long time ago, and now, finally, that faraway dream has been realised!
...
...
...
-.-

Ok, never mind... cut the drama.
I just want a blog 'cause everyday things happen and I say "Hey, if I had a blog, I'd probably put that in" and "That would make an interesting post" and stuff like that. And, of course, to report the daily bitchings of the class in case I get Alzheimer's the next day or go on a one-way trip to Siberia...

Anyway, as I am typing this right now, it is about 8:43 p.m. The radio, tuned to 93.3 FM, just broadcasted "We are the world" by Michael Jackson. Uh... other than the fact that it's a Chinese radio station and the current programme now almost NEVER airs English songs... I once did an ERP (English Reading Portfolio) assignment on it. For some Ray Bradbury book called "Quicker Than The Eye". It's essentially a book of collection of short stories written by Ray Bradbury... (but I didn't finish the book, I just took 2 random stories and did the assignment)
Anyway, the song is meant to be a fundraiser song for African kids, 'cause the African kids were starving then, I think. Also, the Chinese song people also adapted this song and wrote Chinese lyrics for it, to help the victims of the Boxing Day Tsunami 2004. The Taiwanese were spearheading the campaign, and the Chinese version also goes by the name of "We are the World".

Ok, the radio just broadcasted another damn nice song "Ting Ma Ma De Hua". Nice song, rhythm quite pleasant and lyrics are fantastic. Jay Chou wrote it himself... somehow I get the feel that he likes to lament random stuff that he thinks are important... er... maybe they really are important, but not like super serious like Fang Wen Shan's or surrealistic like Huang Jun Lang's. So anyway, this song is super nice, and my sister just proclaimed it the nicest song on Jay Chou's latest album "Still Fantasy". It talks about the relationship between mother and son from the son's POV, and Jay Chou wrote it 'cause his mother single-handedly (I think) brought him up. His mother's name is Ye Hui Mei, which he also named one of his albums in honour of her.

Forgive a first-time blogger, I just feel the need to offload some of my insignificant and stray thoughts somewhere, and I'm too lazy to write. Come on, this is the Nth century already, who still writes a diary? Thank you, random reader, whoever you may be.

Prologue

2006-09-22T18:55:00.000+08:00

The skies darken, but why now?
The wind blows, but why does it?
The trees dance, but what for?
Twilight occurs, but why though?

Man changes, but why now?
Man desires, but what for?
Man kills, but why does it?
Twilight occurs, but why though?

What is the purpose of life?
What are we meant to do?

Why are we here?