hongking's Diaryland Diary

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hkandhisphysicss

and so it was claimed tt if H were to be the random variable representing the number of physics s questions hk has done out of all the questions given (129), it would follow the poisson distribution. but haha i'm not quite tt bad:

H ~ B (129, 0.1628)
since np>5 (yay!!!!), H ~ N (21, 17.58) approximately...

which simply says this. there could have been a 0.05% chance that i could have done sth like 35 questions. perhaps as a consolation it's also a 0.05% chance that i could have done only 7 questions. so at least i'm not tt pathetic. heh

anyhow i think my math result really sucks. shall have to sleep more.

9:11 p.m. - 2004-07-15

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interestingday

pretty interesting day =)

ok actually school itself wasnt tt interesting. luckily i made gd use of my time during bio lect to do my gp essay (while at the same time listening to his lect well, thanks to our class' strategic position in the last row. actually i think the 1st row is really the worst. there hasnt been too many chem lectures tt i havent fallen asleep for. while i cant remember a single physics lect tt causes me to doze off). saw st peter's basilica in the gp video! haha lol

so there was swimming finals. glad i needed the chop, cos i did enjoy the experience. felt rather old again looking at ri/rg kids. errr. interesting to note tt swimmers are put in the lanes according to their seed time in this order lane 4,5,3,6, tt's y u always see a V shape. last thing. tried cheering but my goodness there's sth wrong with me. i havent cheered for so long, i realized tt 1. once the sound i produce goes beyond a certain amplitude, there's a protective mechanism tt removes my vocal cord from the path of airflow 2. the pitch at which cheers are done is not within my comfortable range!!! i had to use falsetto :S

finally fort canning. started raining b4 the movie even started! urgh. haha sigh. interesting movie though must watch it again. "amelie". havent understood most of it actually but yeah hopefully next time i watch it i can notice more details...

11:06 p.m. - 2004-07-14

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2secblackout

cool there was like a blackout for 2 seconds! street lamps actually went off when i went to look lamps were slowly being turned back on, one by one (they need time to warm up u c u think what 2 sec i had time to go to the window look out and see them turning off/on? in fact i was still staring at my screen when it came back on). bet they're not going to report it on the news haha. or maybe it's like a weekly thing who knows haha

12:59 a.m. - 2004-07-14

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tragicendtoschoolinglife

just realized the biggest significance of farewell. it has ended my j2 life. tragic.

11:46 p.m. - 2004-07-13

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determination

i'm so tired of reporting abt the nitty gritty details of my life suddenly. heh used to love doing it. oh well.

one thing i'm sure of, i've become more determined than b4.

oh and somehow life seems easier now. like it's actually possible to cope. compared to pre-retirement time. really makes a big diff huh. feels empty though. really.

9:53 p.m. - 2004-07-13

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lefthandandrighthand

when do i use my left hand as much as my right hand? 1. piano, 2. typing, 3. cutting nails. anymore? haha dun think so.

10:54 p.m. - 2004-07-12

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selftorture

sigh. self-torture

anyway jc is perhaps really too short. 3 years would be good. for ccas i feel. oh well.

8:47 p.m. - 2004-07-12

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singaporeartmuseum

and so i ended up in orchard. had a good (good enough anyway) chat with ee sang and honlyn on the bus there... i mean how often do ppl get to sit down and have a nice chat nowadays. v seldom heh. watched mean girls. wunt exactly expect this in our school (but who knows?), but it's interesting anyway. no matter what i'm glad i have genuine friends.

mm so i went to funan to redeem my optical wireless (useless to me) mouse. on the way it kinda started raining so i decided to go into the art museum. and guess what it's free for RJ students. haha. err rather interesting though my conclusion was neh i wunt appreciate art for now. there were quite a number of bronze sculptures by the same artist, some paintings done using fingers (instead of brushes. sad to say tt was the only thing special abt the paintings), some photo-paintings (done by a gay couple -according to the curator, married- in paris, one takes the photograph and the other paints on it). err there was some virtual reality stuff too but ah well it's really beyond me. too abstract. hope tt these stuff remain as art oh pls i dun want the world to bcum tt abstract.

one thing interesting though. there was this music based on amino acid sequences of proteins. sounded rather pleasant, though it's probably cos they used some soothing instrument (flute-like woodwind).

6:42 p.m. - 2004-07-12

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asimplehk

somehow i like my blue water bottle a lot. the more i think abt it the better. no picture. just a " hk. "

why do i like it? is it a feeling of wow they really know me? perhaps but heh maybe not. it's just tt i find it really appropriate for me.

3:00 p.m. - 2004-07-11

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sleepandwork

ooh. slept half the day away. and err the other half. shall use it properly haha. yes i will! :)

12:39 p.m. - 2004-07-11

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vtired

i just know tt i'm v tired. *collapses* ~needs sleep badly. so tired i'm getting high. *nods*

oh but today is a happy day. feel rather shi-a-wa-se

7:57 p.m. - 2004-07-10

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farewell2004

went into denise's hse, and i guess it was really too lush for me to feel at home haha. so then i decided to give up on writing notes after getting bitten by mosquitoes and decided to talk to clar instead. then when more ppl came i bcame an individual again, did talk to ppl, but didnt feel quite in the right mood. so i thought. argh. lousy farewell for me.

heh but things changed. when i got my bottle with notes, i just started crying. somehow. havent figured out why yet. probably the notes. exactly why? dunno. terence sang solo and i cried also. to see him come soooo far. just so touched. and when i watched reginald talk, i laughed so much i cried. +probably felt tt he was really being sincere. will miss so many ppl. yeah tenors are really sth. a weird bunch but hey a really really really nice bunch of ppl.

the italy trip video did bring back lots of memories too. i seriously want all of them. when they're written into cds. i want both raw and editted actually haha (so greedy).

it's really fast. really really still remember preparing for farewell 2003. just so near. and yet so much has happened already. wow. amazing. time flies. i'm so glad to say i put in effort for each event, and glad for everyone who did their best in doing whatever they had to. well done :)

12:53 a.m. - 2004-07-10

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lovelyweatherforhotbath

weather's a bit cold yar at ard 25 or 26�C so i went to take a shower at an average of 44�C (highest 46�C). and when i came out i dun sweat at all! reminds me of loreto totally. (tt's cos this is the last cool place i've been to i guess. hong kong's kinda different somehow maybe it's the bathroom) haha lovely weather.

9:37 p.m. - 2004-07-08

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buyinggifts

so i ended up trying to shop for gifts when i got off at city hall. haha hopeless. citylink-suntec-esplanade-rafflescity. and guess what. too tired in the end haha din buy anyth useful. ah well. haha but now at least almost everyone gets sth... oh anyway at olio suntec (where the food court was) the glass is rather interesting. the moment u stand right in front of it u cant see thru but if u look in from an oblique angle u can. wonder what they did to the glass. paste sth on it? or what. hm

6:05 p.m. - 2004-07-08

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andrewchat

had a chat with andrew. v interesting one :)

8:17 p.m. - 2004-07-07

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1stdayofschafter6wks

heh sch is actually quite terrible. i seriously gain little from it academically per unit time. but tt's cos 1/4 of the time is spent dreaming, and the other 3/4 is spent listening but not copying so within 24 hrs only 1/8 of the stuff tt goes in remains. my own fault. oh well.

it's just like "the best thing in the world is not having to work for a living". --> "the best thing in the world is not having to go to school" heh. well perhaps not. u need interactions with friends. mm. and perhaps school does make your life more routine, and encourages u to do academic stuff. yup.

pe was terrible for the first 1 hr. first pe lecture / tutorial haha. the lesson was quite interesting if u want to say tt hey at least it's not a practical! uh-huh. *nods head* (cos hk's falling asleep) the floorball after tt was good though. haha enjoyed myself lots. let a lot of balls in but hey who cares. count the number of balls i blocked instead! (heh die it's so much more countable then those which entered)

oh and got fetched home today by bing rui... found out a bit more abt him yup. really hope to hear him play his piano one day heh but he'll b nervous. and talked to tianyi also jia you ok!

one thing i like abt life now is tt i somehow seem to have found passion in doing whatever i do. heh.

7:41 p.m. - 2004-07-06

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surreality

2004 has been a rather surreal year for me. esp from march onwards. lots and lots of things happening, really transforming me into a part-time student.

jun hols were esp wonderful, it's totally unlike any jun hols i've ever had. so many things happening to me, and u know what i've been to orchard this year more times than i've ever been to orchard in my life. *hears laughter* actually this "jun hols" technically lasted sth like 6 weeks. mm yar. and i actually picked up reading, and i errr realized tt i'm really interested in trekking and cycling and going to weird places. i mean it's sth tt i actually want to do.

i just cant bear to tell myself tt from tml onwards things will HAVE to go back to normal again. they really have to sooner or later. sigh i hate telling myself all this. cos 1. i really want to stay in rome 2. i know i probably wont do what i tell myself to do.

face it. the world is more real than it has been for u for the past few months

11:54 p.m. - 2004-07-05

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contemplativehahanolar

the weekend has been a wonderful one thanks a lot to all who made it so for me. (i'm one of them of course haha)

utilized every hour of it i guess and i've not done so for a long time. so it's a really gd feeling.

yesterday was a complete fun day.

morning sungei punggol with conrad. saw lots. brown bird with red tail, black butterfly with blue wing borders/orange eyespots. some thai graffiti under TPE (the sound of cars passing from above was rather scary actually). we got attacked by red ants which was quite scary. and then got caught by NS men saying tt we trespassed protected/restricted territory. hm how am i to know tt tt place is seletar camp? haha. so turned back, got ourselves into the tributary, waded quite a bit, saw lots and lots of mudskippers skipping on the water. v cute little things with big eyes. lots of fish too though i couldnt be sure of the number of species. quite a lot actually maybe 4?

then got stuck in really really sticky mud and started sinking. err my right foot was stuck for at least 3 minutes i think. left foot tried to prop my body up but it started sinking too cos of newton's stupid 3rd law. how to expect tt soft mud to provide a significant reaction force haha. by then mud had covered by right foot completely so had to use my hands to uncover my foot as well as my sandals. and of course as u can guess by then i was drenched as well. continued walking and haha got into another patch of sticky mud cos we din heed the warning of a previous adventurer. haha. stupid us. and to end it all when we went back on shore we needed to cross this really tall mimosa shrub to reach the path. haha. but anyway v fun to have non-fatal incidents. spices up ur life doesn it. :D

walked back along the north part of the west loop of the lrt and the road was devoid of cars. so out of singapore. everything's new, the lrt track, the road, the streetlights, yet there isnt a single soul in sight. what a waste of money man haha.

went back to j8 for a rushed lunch with parents, then watched eternal sunshine of the spotless mind with grace. good show. gelato!! quite good :P. really enjoyable company, it was my first time not feeling awkward after the entire episode. good friends yar? :) *smiles* then ensemble dinner. lots and lots of laughter. thanks adeline/denise/terence/reggie/grace for the joy. haha practically din talk to the other side at all but i suppose krishna provided enough entertainment there. mm took neoprint, then walked towards newton mrt while singing. oh really really miss singing. and i could reach notes properly last night. was v v happy.

have been watching wimbledon / euro. ehh. wimbledon women's singles was good. euro finals wasnt fantastic. tennis is still better to watch than soccer.

lastly. was thinking of how to wrap up the entire rome episode, the entire chorale experience, and to start being a mugger. v hard still. but ok in retrospect, which was the most enjoyable part of rome? i bet many will say the company. or the place. sure they were wonderful. seriously they were. who can deny tt rome is such a beautiful place. but really what i treasured the most, was the freedom in a foreign land. it's everything tt i could ask for. the freedom, to do anything i like, without having to think abt what i'm supposed to be doing with my life (momentarily at least) to do things as hk, the individual. would have loved it more if everything was free and easy, and i was really on my own. heh. antisocial creature. but yeah. it's in solitude tt u're least alone. so so true. anyway. will i go back to rome ever again? definitely.

4:06 p.m. - 2004-07-05

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vtiring

had really quite a gd time yest. [walk bishan - jln seaview: bishan rd, toa payoh lor 2, balestier rd, kallang rd, mountbatten rd. (2 hrs)] [cycle jln seaview - (loop at changi naval base) (3 hrs)] [walk jln seaview - orchard mrt (1.5 hrs)]

first trip was the most exciting. saw many shops along balestier rd, selling dumplings, pastries, coffee. interior design, lighting shops. ah yes bird shop. cheapest $15 most ex $150 each, small little yellowish bird. then kallang rd so many dragonflies!!! there was a bp petrol station run on solar power.

bicycle trip: saw the changi part of the sewerage project. very humongous, reminds me of rome. very dusty along the way, lots of trucks passing by the 1-lane road, kinda dangerous for us to ride there. changi naval base was inaccessible but we saw 2 battleships from far anyway. tanah merah ferry terminal. for a moment i thought i was in malaysia cos the prices were double tt of things sold elsewhere. heh. oh yes when the mud dried, bcos of inertia and loss of adhesiveness i started experiencing being in the path of particles undergoing projectile motion. haha. some landed on my shoe some on my shirt? heh. oh yes met brenda (bio o) at ecp.

trip to orchard: met weizhen. sg art museum bcums pavement for bras basah haha.

random thoughts:

suddenly i'm very rome sick. i so want to go back there for like at least half a month. sigh. it's sth to do with all those photos yesterday, just tt it took one day to take effect cos all tt was on my mind yest was the trip itself.

is singapore on the decline? why's there so much happening suddenly. collapse of roads, cranes, construction sites. so many blackouts. i mean it's really funny in all my years in sg nothing of this sort has happened at such high frequency. sth wrong with the year 2004 huh.

i like the new benz class c advertisement. the music and the slight accelerando. v nice.

i've a very high threshold of many things. tt's y i cant be truely happy easily. or satisfied. or v interested. makes me seem like a pretty pathetic person. but then sometimes if u have a buffer zone it means u're more stable. heh plus if i were to look at the other stuff which i also have a high threshold of: like concept of safety, i would "risk my life" (in other ppls' pov) to "do silly things" (in other ppls' pov as well of course) but actually i enjoy being adventurous. yup.

10:40 p.m. - 2004-07-03

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ilovesolitude

in solitude, when we are least alone. love this quote (from zhiyin's blog).

12:41 a.m. - 2004-07-02

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j2ct2over

last day. watched spiderman, quite a good show. i like "with great power comes great responsibility". anyway met jing jing (again!) and damien. yup. then watched shrek 2 at bena's hse. lousy show for me cos i dun see most of the parodies. mahjong one round rather slow. v tired.

10:02 p.m. - 2004-07-01

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gamedesigner

math. heh. 3 hrs is quite a torture. was pretty happy with myself until q11. the foot of the perpendicular. went one big round. and then things started going wrong (esp since the remaining 3 questions were the new topics whose tutorials i've yet to do) i was trying to let X be the random variable representing ____*mind block*. cancelled the whole line, started doing the question anyway. then rewrote the line and actually started thinking who cares abt the definition anyway just write down the formula! and cancelled the whole line again.

so i started getting frustrated huh. haha. and then the last question. read reread and reread. kept wondering why the maths department cant use better english and put in a "s" behind the word "ball" when they mean it to be in the plural form. well ok they didnt mean it but somehow my idea of the game is each person chooses his ball from the bag without replacement. how very smart. i like designing games u c.

8:52 p.m. - 2004-06-30

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blackoutphoto

heh so apparently bishan only had 9 min of blackout. sadness. who's so important in bishan tt they've to restore power to us first. sigh. really wanted to take some photos heh but din have the chance :(

8:47 a.m. - 2004-06-30

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blackout

heh biotech. thuringiensis. apart from tt i dun really have much complaints. not like i know what to complain abt anyway. then went to punggol (which has a pretty nice mrt/lrt station btw i quite like it), on the way seeing some baked clay on the ground (really really quite nicely baked in my opinion actually), felt thirsty. heh and was wondering why after walking for so long i was still on sengkang east ave. i mean the sun cant be setting in the east right. was kinda relieved when i saw the road sign "sengkang west ave". sungei punggol. as conrad puts it "river with grassy banks" (now i'm not tt surprised by tt haha, but i guess if i lived there i'd be happier with tt than with kallang river which has concrete banks. or rather. let's call it kallang canal) saw jumping fish. a few birds. but heh din stop long enough to appreciate. not tt fantastic though compared to say sungei buloh so nvm. ended at yio chu kang rd after jln kayu. (5.1km route)

blackout just now! climbed all the way up to 18th floor, saw tt amk and toa payoh were unaffected. a bit scary actually (i mean what if someone decides to walk out from his hse to see what's happening and then i just bump into them) climbing up so many floors without any light save for the pathetic light from my hp. but exciting haha. ppl took out their torches, shining out of their windows. as though it was some sort of a celebration or sth. when everything came back on it looked somewhat like tt thing tt channel u tried to do on the ren-ci show...

10:50 p.m. - 2004-06-29

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24kbemails

getting fed up with the 24kb emails tt i get daily like up to 20 a day? argh

11:48 p.m. - 2004-06-28

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uniqueppl

heh i realized i love this world.

each person is so unique. interacting with each is fun. oh yes. really. not like i'm treating ppl as play objects haha of course not. it's just exciting. haha. oh well i'm a bit mad now but yeah.

and there's so much to discover in this world! nature. history. art. (lit?) music. architecture. (transport - this is my personal interest).

heh suddenly i have a passion for life huh, i wonder where it came from...

10:57 p.m. - 2004-06-28

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sengkang

physics was ok i guess. but until now i dunno whats the weightage of each qn and how i shud have distributed my time haha. so cunning of the physics department.

went jelita, then took 156 back (not home) to seng kang. haha. just decided to since i havent been there. mmm quite like the place actually. i think last time i said i dun like the neatness of the town. oh well opinions do change haha. compass point was quite decent too. bought pencil lead at popular, borrowed books from library (quite amazing i managed to actually find books at the right call number), and then.

met jing jing!!! the impossible has happened so tml bio should be fine too haha. i mean of all days i chose today to go to seng kang and i nearly left the place 5 min earlier but i made a detour to the m1 service centre. haha and just days ago i smsed her. ok anyway it's quite nice to know tt most j3 chorale ppl are doing rather well now. great!! this one scholarship tt one medicine. wow. just wish i'll see all my gd friends getting this and tt as well. tt day will come very soon actually hk, remember tt the j3's farewell was not too long ago and now it's urs. heh. *sobsob* rj life is really v short sigh.

anyway took lrt to get an overview of sengkang first b4 taking northeast line down. (sklrt is much more convenient than bplrt. 1. smaller loop 2. shorter waiting time per station 3. stations closer together) (saw the empty buangkok and woodleigh stations haha. and noticed tt the tunnels were clearly by different contractors. 1 made the tunnels rectangular in cross section, 1 left them roundish.) walked from bishan mrt, ooooooooooh the sky was so beautiful with flats in the foregrd. at tt time i was thinking, i dun mind doing anything at all now it's such a nice world.

(except bio) haha i've nver been so bo-chup in my life abt a test which i have not studied for but i guess really who cares? enjoy life man.

9:25 p.m. - 2004-06-28

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netherlandssweden

heh watched netherlands-sweden match just now. was quite nice. made me laugh and cry. sigh nowadays i cry so easily :(:( haha but this time it wasnt really crying duh not unless i bet like $20040627551 on one team.

btw i'm unbelievably calm. i still have bio and chem (totally untouched) to cover. wow.

5:51 p.m. - 2004-06-27

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mugtrip

exciting mug-trip i had for the past 2 hrs or so. v much more productive than time at home i must say (like the past 20 or so minutes). climbed 4 tall blocks of flats (while reading notes or else i'll stop halfway to read).

1. blk 213 (my blk!), 18 floors. ok view of the south (a bit too far away though). ppl are nice! i was coming down from the top floor and then someone in the lift waited for me... thanks! tt's the way to go singaporeans! (though i din take the lift in the end)

2. blk 224, 25 floors. good view of AMK town, AMK Ave 1 (v nice to see the road from far, with car-flow tt nver seems to stop), bishan MRT depot. palm trees that were 7-floors tall looked quite nice from the top too!

(in bet 224 and 286 i walked through this maze of slopes and stairs. pretty nice landscaping actually though it wasnt intentional. u can see tt they were built at 2 different times. the older one has white graphite as support with blue/yellow tiles on top, while the newer one has steel pillars painted black, with reddish-brown bricks covering the top. evidence of bad planning / higher demands from residents.)

3. blk 286, 25 floors. no view. wondering if 25th floor is haunted. rather scary. the common area (serving 4 units) has nothing but a bench and a bit of dust. gates look rusty, no unit numbers. heh. and i thought i heard some sounds from one of them. *shudders* anyway i figured out, perhaps it's cos of the upgrading, every floor is now served by lifts, except for the 25th, so maybe ppl moved out? who knows. anyway the stairs are much cleaner cos ppl dun use them any more.

4. blk 291, 30 floors. splendid view of the south, and of bishan town. wow. wow. i was imagining putting a study table in the stairway. brightly lit, wonderful view, windy. started wondering y ppl dun do it and realized heh their hse is like tt... sigh. envious. the stairs by the way is v v narrow n relatively steep, cos there's practically no use for it except for during emergencies (which i guess can only be a fire huh). [in comparison to those at blk 286 which on the contrary are very wide cos it used to be the only means of getting to each non-lift floor serving 4 units each]

ok enough. another 20 min spent typing this out. heh. wasting my time. :( but it was good exercise heh. climbed 96 floors in all. assuming each floor is erm 4m high. current weight ~finds the weighing scale~ 53.5kg. i have done 201.5kJ of work. hm. ok a can of coke gives u 42kcal or 175.7kJ of energy. heh at least i burnt 1.15 cans of coke. anyone interested in joining me next time? lol

9:29 p.m. - 2004-06-26

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jokes

response to a joke depends on the teller. a person who usu has a good sense of humour might tell a lousy, meaningless joke but might actually be mocking at sth else. he has added meaning to the joke. now isnt tt meaningful?

3:36 p.m. - 2004-06-26

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alleway

hm dreamt of my piano teacher last night, she was complaining abt how one of her best students (a girl) was given an unfair grade or sth. think it's cos i was practising a bit yesterday (with an aim kinda, to learn certain pieces).

anyway. jing jing says "All e best for ct! it's e final bend, can almost go all e way. Jia you! :) " if she says so, and she's a j3, and she has the experience, i should listen to her. i remember in her xmas card last year she told me to take sat2 early heh and i din heed her advice. stupid hk will not repeat his mistakes... :)

3:04 p.m. - 2004-06-26

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underachievement

perhaps i really am underachieving.

i've spent the past few months, or the past year even, pushing the fraction [time spent on doing nothing or things non-academic e.g. CCA] / [time spent on studies] towards infinity. rather hard for teachers who once taught me to believe tt. or maybe even teachers teaching me.

not just me probably. many ppl i guess. but i'm like prob the best (worst?) case study heh. i must learn to be like those who are fulfilling their potential... most importantly, nver be satisfied with myself for too long...

10:11 p.m. - 2004-06-25

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toomanyperspectives

final conclusion: i've been overly confused by the many many perspectives u can look at things. and yet (or perhaps therefore would be better) u cant come to a decision.

12:14 a.m. - 2004-06-25

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stopcontradicting

conclusion: stop contradicting myself and i'll head somewhere.

9:47 p.m. - 2004-06-24

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savememememe

(shocked at the sudden reflection. in fact very)

i miss myself. in a way i've changed since 2 months back. i've become v true (perhaps too true) to myself and v real. so much so tt i feel tt i'm losing myself, i'm losing my character. totally unadorned hk.

starting to like it and dislike it at the same time. seeing many hks at work at the same time, leading to numerous internal struggles. encouraging the splitting of my personality by recognizing them perhaps? it's getting so irritating i dunno which to listen to (which then introduces a third hk huh who has the final decision). complicated stuff. just like "the seven selves" in the book kathrina (on the hkg-fmc flight) lent me. ahh irritating.

feel like i'm really losing myself.... where's the once determined hk.

arrghhh.

n hm is it bcos of e stress tt i'm suddenly thinking of this? (the few selves start arguing perhaps yes perhaps not.) i tell u what hk. NO. it's bcos u're really changed! argh.

someone save me.

9:03 p.m. - 2004-06-24

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sososodead

u nver know when some ppl r cunning. those innocuous-looking ones esp. (hm the more i read it the more it seems like i'm talking abt myself hehe *ROAR* beWARE!!)

haha anyway. i'm so dead. nver have i been so dead b4. from worrying abt gp, to worrying abt s papers, to worrying abt common tests, to worrying abt physics, and would have proceeded to worry abt the next thing had there been a next thing. (tt's in order of urgency btw if u still dun understand) but it's ok. reality will hit me soon. not totally stressed yet. all i've to do is wait till sunday.

sadistic :(

8:52 p.m. - 2004-06-24

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singaporean66

read a few random blogs (diaryland). all americans' haha. but rather interesting.

anyway. today's a special day. erm my ( 365 x 9 + 366 x 3 = ) 4018th day in singapore (cos 2000 was a leap year too! heh. k = leap year for { k: k=4n, n�Z k=100n } U { k: k=400n, n�Z } ) mmhm. i spent 2069 days in hk b4 coming here. (xcluding trips back to hk cos i go back as a singaporean yar) that makes me 66.01% singaporean. impressive.

4:00 p.m. - 2004-06-24

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missionimpossible

v short entries huh. inversely proportional to stress levels. heh. i'm doing the impossible.

12:21 p.m. - 2004-06-24

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momentumquick

haha no mood change since two days ago, but gaining momentum. great.

10:23 a.m. - 2004-06-23

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cuthair

realized its been a long time (at least a year) since i last stayed awake throughout the hair-cutting process. basically: close eyes, open eyes, done.

6:46 p.m. - 2004-06-22

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takeabreak

have a break. have a kit kat.

3:42 p.m. - 2004-06-22

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theend

tenor outing. movie (80 days. quite funny, laughed so much). dinner. neoprint. came home. finish. fullstop.

11:02 p.m. - 2004-06-21

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sec3hk

suddenly dug up many emails from 3 years back. 2001 emails. my goodness. i was so different then. so many internal struggles, being afraid of not being in the mainstream, not knowing what hk is, being so immature in my thinking (and probably 3 years down the road i'll think abt how immature i am now), apparently worried over these weaknesses/flaws of mine: [[ xing4 zai1 le4 huo4 (now definitely not haha), complaining and pushing responsibilities/blame a lot (well i still push blames ard a bit sigh). ]]haha but some things similar... "Over-analysis" - i still do overanalyse stuff, esp what ppl say to / abt me, but definitely to a lower extent than b4... "fidgeting" - heh guess i can nver stop fidgeting lar. apparently i thought it was a terrible thing. haha now i dun think so.

actually 3 years ago was the first time tt i put my brain to use and start reflecting. now i look at it i dun dare to say start maturing haha. but i guess it's all part of the process, the journey of life. in a way, i've grown a lot. and i'm sure many ppl have grown a lot too! why dun u try reflect and see what u were a few years back and notice what has changed abt urself? :)

heh this entry sounds a bit strange actually. must be bcos hk is in a zombified state.

2:07 a.m. - 2004-06-20

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nobodyknowswhatimtalkingabt

well i actually got up after my mum told me to haha :P ard 8 o clock. then went to school to collect bio lecture test scripts, went to botanical gardens. by right to mug haha. oh well din open the files at all. anyway time passed v fast heh din even eat lunch *appalled* but heh it was good wasnt it? :D

haha king of vague entries :P

6:41 p.m. - 2004-06-19

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cycad

oh and i saw a cycad (Cycas revoluta) for the first time in my life at NIE... :)

12:18 a.m. - 2004-06-19

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biooendsfinally

so tt was the end of my bio o. haha. nope not disappointed at all. in fact i've achieved so much in these few days i'm already pretty happy with myself.

to give a brief overview. and it is v brief in fact. this routine is followed every day: wake up, wash up, breakfast, lab, lunch, lab, dinner, lab, (bridge), bathe/business, ventilate room, phone, supper, sleep. i got so used to it haha.

many transitions. from homesick to feeling at home. from feeling terribly inferior to feeling confident and cool (even if i might still be not as competent and skillful). from wondering whether it'd be a waste of time to thinking tt yes i'll try my best and gain sth out of this. i'm pretty proud of myself for the latter 2. it's an internal struggle kinda. and i overcame the challenge. gd boy hk! :)

(the other transition is the change of emotions of the entire grp throughout the week. it's pretty scary. day 1 everyone happy, at night everyone high, day 2 less so, day 3 suddenly everyone starts realizing tt there's selection, day 4 start getting really quite/stressed, day 5 totally stressed. and heh guess what hk was nver stressed :P)

anyway meals were generally good. went out to jurong point actually (shhhhh). had this triple scoop *licks*.

training was interesting, basically 3.5 days of dissections (almost all invertebrates) without gloves [luckily hk's nose was blocked throughout so he din really have to smell much of the eeky stuff], some lectures (biostats, animal devlpmt, ethology video). yup overall enriching. and the entire 3/4 months of training was good too, allowing me to truly appreciate biology. thankyou for the opportunity.

interestingly ms lee appeared to stay with us one day. haha

alright back to my usual life.

wait actually. while i've been pretty happy, i must say sorry to ppl whom i've disappointed. like say ms lee she probably hoped tt i could get in. or any of my friends for tt matter. at least i can say tt i did put in my effort for this last lap. before tt, haha perhaps not i guess.

6:11 p.m. - 2004-06-18

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nie5daycamp

next 5 days at nie. kinda scary, but sounds kinda fun. yeah yeah finally i mean it's the last thing after all after the whole journey.

unless there's a comp there haha. then i'll be really excited. haha :):)

(apparently i'm a bit too psyched up now cant really think/talk properly)

11:01 p.m. - 2004-06-13

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weirdfeeling

heh somehow. feeling weird. like. disgusted, confident, frustrated(impatient), looking-forward-to-sth, worried, dunno what else.

11:03 a.m. - 2004-06-13

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gddaytoolazytoblog

havent had a good day in such a long time. ate a lot, and saw ms quah / mr ong / ms chiang / rafflesvoices (with all the teeny little sec 2s now leading the choir hm)...

11:22 p.m. - 2004-06-12

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stupidlackofconfidence

i dun understand why i've lacked confidence in myself for so long. i mean why do ppl in the team know more than me? bcos they read. they're not born with it!!! so. i just laze ard and expect knowledge to somehow accumulate in my brains? stupid right. haha. tt's y i'm inspired to really mug now. looking back at the journey, which started all the way back, sep/oct last year? my goodness i've already gone through so much might as well try my best.

this feels just like my o lvls. cant believe it. and even if it's too late and i cant make it for the team, it's my own fault. well, remember tt it's my last year in school. hk, dun let ur a lvls be like ur o lvls!

9:31 p.m. - 2004-06-11

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savemyself

i'm really bcuming a role model for all modernized pigs of the world. to qualify as one, you must meet the min lifestyle requirements:

-(sleep-eat-chat)n- , where n > 3 per day.

someone save me. alright alright i will.

3:43 p.m. - 2004-06-11

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weirddreamsagain

just woke up half an hr ago. had this really weird dream. was at some airport buying some stuff, and i only had euros on my hands. somehow the cashier thought i wanted to change my euros to hk dollar b4 i pay (?? ridiculous!), and i got pretty pissed cos such shops usually give very bad exchange rates. funny thing is, i suddenly decided ok, nvm, cos i thought i saw some rare notes: a 50-cent note, 5-dollar note (fyi note of smallest denomination now is actually 10 dollars, issued by hk govmt), and 235-dollar note!!! (e 235-dollar definitely doesnt exist haha).

slept so late last night again!~ haha. finally finished reading my rome book. feels like a final closure to the whole chapter. so sad right, now it's back to work...

11:33 a.m. - 2004-06-11

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mingzemygoodness

long conversation with mingze last night. shockings discoveries. haha.

11:29 a.m. - 2004-06-10

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alrightthenletswait

ok so things are back to normal haha, it was a bit stressful over the past few days... well things dun seem to work out with me heh. but no lar i think it's just too rushed, right? *expects a nod* ok wait now i sound like sth actually happened though nothing has. *expects another nod* lol alright enough of cryptic stuff.

anyway so i went home by bus 11, and it was a 10+km route (i just found out). Not tt far, but considering tt singapore is only abt 45km at her widest, tt's already not bad in less than 2 hrs. the most interesting parts of the trip were:
1. bought cookie at nydc which is still as delicious as ever
2. bought this lemon-pineapple juice for $2 at farrer rd food centre. first of all it tastes only of lemon, and after half of it i felt like my tongue would have been totally corroded away (by the enzymes in the pineapple i believe) by the time i finish the entire cup (but i finished it anyway)
3. crossing the PIE exits were no easy matter, there're no traffic lights of course and i felt like i was playing frogger (not too good heh)
4. heard the sound of nature (macritchie) again as i walked down lornie rd. just tt there was this irritating sound of vehicles passing by. stupid humans and their inventions. sigh.
5. thought i saw sth interesting inside e macritchie reservoir park, so i went in. the fountain together with the lighting (red+yellow/red+green/yellow/blue+yellow) is quite pretty, esp with its reflection on the water surface.
6. somehow was pretty tired by the time i reached bishan, maybe cos it's so familiar, or maybe just bcos usu i dun feel tired when i walk home from ri and it felt comparatively difficult to move my legs.

8:16 p.m. - 2004-06-09

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straythoughtsasusual

a few stray thoughts.

i need to learn not to be punctual, but to be early. cos when i intend to be punctual, i end up 5 min late.

why do kiwis look the way they do? nver saw it this way. their skin is extremely thin and so actually u can see the green from within. hm stupid hk huh.

i tend to see opportunities and links between things very well, but to investigate deeply into sth, no tt's not my forte.

4:17 p.m. - 2004-06-08

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troubled

bio o. a very "hands-on" microscopy session (why was it named plant histo anyway), with our hands doing only a few things: turning the handle to slice stuff, smearing albumin on the slides, transfering slides from container to container. how exciting.

feeling troubled.

10:35 p.m. - 2004-06-07

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yayfinallyiunderstand

ooooh. another late night. but yeah. kinda sorted things out. kinda feeling good now and optimistic.

let's do it! even educated fleas, lazy jellyfish do it... *smiles*

3:42 a.m. - 2004-06-07

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photoshere

access photos here

just woke up went to eat lunch. my goodness only $4 or �2!!! haha and i bet it's good. now u know tt asia's still the best huh... :)

1:29 p.m. - 2004-06-06

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thankyougrace

it's only abt 2 or 3 days ago tt i finally told myself tt i'm in italy. time passes so fast... it's almost like a dream now.

finally altered my instinct to go to the right side of the road to board buses, yet found it weird when i was in my dad's car this afternoon and we were driving on the left. every time i use the tap i cautiously turn it to the warm side, and get ready to pull my hand away in case it's too hot / cold, only to realize tt even cold tap water is no longer cold.

wish i could stay in italy for a much longer period of time.

realized tt the computer (blog) kinda lets me keep track of my life. as in blogging's like a time marker. lets me see time passing day by day. but in rome it was just one entire week gone v quickly. and when i started blog surfing, realized tt ppl have mugged for a week already. my goodness scary. i'm so glad the trip ate up one week of the hols.

wish i had taken more photos actually, to keep the memories.

just thinking abt how diff the trip would have been like, if i had decided to just get more sleep, either in the hotels, in the buses, or on the planes. my bio clock was (and still is actually) all screwed up but it's worth it. the experience was really one of a lifetime. grazie!! the future has nver been blurrer. but i know tt things will go somewhere if we try. shall see how things develop...

1:08 a.m. - 2004-06-06

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italyover

just went for a 4 hr nap haha. my goodness just b4 i woke up my parents were feeding me dinner with me still lying on the sofa. wonder how i swallowed everything.

anyway, i've so much so much to say i cant ever start. so enjoyable and memorable.

place
it's simply fantastic to immerse in the italian atmosphere. (1) slow and relaxed, (2) creative and funky, (3) old and historical, (4) romantic. (5) humongous things grand, (6) small,narrow stuff cosy.
(1) cashiers, restaurants
(2) fashion, graffiti on anything
(3) whole city of rome
(4) piazzas with fountains
(5) columns / cupolas - st peter's, colosseum, etc
(6) alleys, esp in the towns in the hills: recanati, loreto, castelfidardo
much ruins and recycling, traffic rather complicated.

weather
observed temp extremes (from pharmacies / other thermometers) lowest 11� highest 27� rained on 2 days (1st and last day) wind makes it cold but nice. (i believe it reached sub 10 back in loreto...)

food
expensive, either too bland or salty, vege always too soft, yet breakfast almost always too hard (tt toast thingie and the bread in rome). drinkable tap water looks suspicious (who knows if they reached the tap through lead pipes). idea of a full meal in italy: antipasti & sth else (appetizer?), primi piatti (first course i.e. starchy stuff), secondo piatti (second course i.e. meaty stuff), wine (aka italian water / grape juice). i ate lots of ice cream / gelato (really loved the gelato they were so good)

accomodation
not too bad actually. had a terribly small room in loreto, was quite sour abt how the world is unfair at first haha but i told myself let's look at it optimistically, and indeed it turned out to be quite cosy. darryl was a great room-mate. guesthouse at roma was fine too, shen ting, conrad, alex. we were lucky to have a big toilet. yup. though by the time alex came out from the toilet each morning i always had only exactly 10 min to do my stuff.

trips
always be cautious on public buses / metro. coach trips were spent either singing or talking. generally more well-survived than the terrible hkg-fmc flight during which i had little sleep. (though i must still say tt i did get to know the 2 ppl next to me better. one an indonesia, one an australian - kathrina - who has hongkonger parents, an italian boyfriend, worked at "Space" interior design in Sydney, and wishes to stay in italy for 1 year or get married). return trip was much easier, much talking, plus much fatigue, so time passed really quickly.

log
2705 - singapore/hong kong/rome
flight
2805 - rome/loreto
forum, colosseum, festival opening ceremony in loreto basilica
2905 - loreto
festival at courtyard in recanati, lunch at small little restaurant, festival at small little theatre (too grand for its size in my opinion)
3005 - castelfidardo/porto recanati/loreto
festival at chapel in castelfidardo (with ensemble), accordion museum, lunch at beach, closing ceremony at loreto basilica with torchlight procession)
3105 - loreto/rome -
send ppl off, vatican unguided
0106 - rome
piazza navona, pantheon (sang non vos), piazza di spagna, trevi fountain, (lunch at) vatican museum + st peter cupola
0206 - rome/naples/pompei/rome
naples (beautiful but newer town), lunch at hotel w teachers, mt vesuvius visible. ruins of roman town buried under ashes but now excavated. (sang dravidian)
0306 - rome/tivoli/rome
villa d'este with many many fountains. piazza della repubblica (20-euro lunch, walked back to piazza di spagna), dinner at piazza navona
0406 - rome/hong kong/singapore
flight

music
festival on the whole was quite a failure (oops). only like 2 or 3 ppl in the organizing team? or so it seems anyway. not enough audience cos all towns involved are small, not sufficient choirs to participate so more than half the time we were listening to stuff we couldnt possibly enjoy. not being arrogant heh. but still got the chance to listen to great choirs like non silentium. esp for us, we were too tired to perform well, and things were too hectic.
but anyhow some singing was ok. i liked the performance in recanati the best. a lot of weird entrances and ppl overshooting, e.g. krishna haha. plus rock ard the clock on slippery ground with me slipping and moss collecting on my sole. then ensemble performed in the small enclosed space and everyone was staring at us but it was fun all the same!! :)
one thing though. singaporeans must really learn how to applaud. when i came back and i listened to our ve recording and realized how half-hearted the applause was i was quite disgusted actually.

small little events
1. went one big round trying to look for clar who was trying to look for the bus at fiumicino. ended up being passive smokers.
2. hit my head a few times while loading luggage (how dumb can i get)
3. got free beer from autogrill instead of the paper bag which i requested for my chocolate muffin. got drunk, turned red.
4. party at audrey's room with some italian water, grape juice, and a platter (ate bony fish without getting rid of bones *chokes*)
5. taking timer photos which all turn out nice
6. taking cool photos with tenors
7. poor darryl with his camera formatted, pizza dropped into his glass of water, we tried pointing to the glass to ask for a new one but got a bottle of water instead.
8. one, two, three, terence smiles.
9. ? singers guy with his really wide smile, perfect for darlie advertisement
10. loreto windows opening automatically to knock into me on my bed
11. using the lift as a driverless luggage transport system.
12. using a screwdriver to puncture the tyres of a car parked illegally, and lifting up another of such cars on its side.
13. getting a wife called sumaporna.
14. going to piazza di spagna though we were supposed to be shopping along via nazionale
15. always meeting Mrs Toh at the top of a flight of steps e.g. pompei hotel toilet (just as in school haha :D:D)

small observations
1. there are road signs on highways stating how long the upcoming bridge/tunnel is.
2. weather was cold enough to allow condensation to take place. no way u can mouth the words if u dunno the lyrics cos ppl will know.
3. u can hear the doppler's effect in action cos the police makes their appearance on the streets of rome rather frequently, quite unlike their fellow colleagues in singapore.

feeling?
miserable (flight/room). high (alcohol). v happy (recanati). guilty, force smile (did not sleep). scared/cold? (ensemble in theatre, shiver). unbelievably-coincidental (pri sch choir singing raffles voices songs). tickled (sara ho falling asleep repeatedly). zonked out/pensive (castefidardo). comfortable (night convo). worried and scared (simple lunch). traumatized (pickpocket). normal (finally! naples). loved. skeptical (pompei). confused. accomplished (after the photog soc + john's mission to YSL at spanish steps). relaxed (finally! piazza navona dinner). super confused. comfortable.

i miss singing so much now.

lastly, to thank the teachers. GRAZIE! ms hor was esp cute, just imagine her "erm chorale... blah blah". ms low had to do so much work and showed us so much concern... mr toh, broke all barriers to play with us, though tt was unfortunately only during the extension... mr raufie, for taking photos for us, and teaching the few of us how to take decent photos

8:49 p.m. - 2004-06-05

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preitaly

finally finished packing haha. was playing the piano for the past 90 minutes or so and it was quite decent playing so i culdnt bear to stop haha. yesterday's playing was really terrible though, perhaps bcos i hadnt touched the piano for ages.

anyway was wondering haha how come the rest of the chorale din appear online this morning. dun tell me all of them went to school?

ah die just found out tt i've to go for the residential training camp for bio o whether or not i'm selected... urgh so i've until then to pia or decide. but chances are prof lim will say tt bio o is not my priority and not let me into the team. hmmm. waste of time?

2:18 p.m. - 2004-05-27

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gonetoromesoon

finally i'm starting to pack haha. dun have much time... exciting. already have an overview of the places [rome, loreto, recanati, naples] (and when i'm going to which place). very well. havent gone on a big grp tour since sec 2 so this is quite exciting haha. well.. though i think i'd prefer it if it were like wyf, small grp of us :)... yupyup. if i shall be able to find internet cafes there tt dont charge exorbitant prices i might just blog...

10:57 a.m. - 2004-05-27

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italyinadaystime

ok so i finished more than 45 minutes ago... haha amazing. most productive 3hrs in my hse ever.

so the excitement is finally kicking in. it had been released since last week but has been suppressed since i found out tt i had to take gp tonight. and so, finally, yay!!!! haha.

italy. 27th may to erm actually i dunno when. (it's good not to know in a way then i wunt be counting down during the trip.) yar just in case some ppl still think tt i'm 1. going to ireland for competition (absurd huh) 2. going to australia for bio o (no tt's in july and i might not get into the team btw) 3. going back to hk with my parents (well yes technically, cos we'll be on the same flight tml to hk, but from there we go our separate ways) 4. ponning school (actually since when did i pon school)

12:09 a.m. - 2004-05-27

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ontothecompre

ok took a short break. shall last another 5 more minutes. after tt on to the compre.

9:41 p.m. - 2004-05-26

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4minmore

4 minutes to gp paper 1. wish me good luck.

7:56 p.m. - 2004-05-26

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hongkongasmyhome

was discussing with andy abt our identity. how much do i identify myself with being a hong konger, and how much a singaporean. and just how fundamentally different we (hong kongers, or at least hong kongers in singapore) might be from singaporeans. yeah. again, it's the qn of whether i want to go back to hong kong. frankly i think the possibility is growing every day. and i mean every single day. for all u know i'll be gone b4 i even take the a lvls. who knows.

what's pulling me back to hk? i dunno for sure. but i'm almost sure, tt if i were to return to hk to just stay there for a month or so, i'll choose to stay there forever. tt's abt how unattractive singapore is to me i believe. singapore can be my home, i've grown to like it, i grew up here, i've used so much of the resources here, that there doesnt seem to be any reason for me to have any desire to leave. this is definitely how i used to think in the past. but no sometimes there's just nothing tt can make up for the feeling of true home. it's funny i'm saying this cos i was in hk for only 6 whole years of my life + occasional visits. but yeah.

this is not to say tt singaporeans on seeing this entry of mine will all go migrating to other countries. no. it wunt happen. majority of singaporeans are satisfied with themselves in singapore, think tt singapore is the best (which could very well be the truth much of the time, i dont doubt it, at least in name). and even if they do migrate they want to come back one day, bcos it's home sweet home back here.

and so tt applies to me as well? hk, my home.

and u know i could very well imagine myself in hong kong 10 years down the road, recalling tt 12-year chapter of my life in some foreign land. sad thing is if i'm in hong kong 10 years down the road it'd mean tt i cant come back to this place where i grew up in...

8:56 p.m. - 2004-05-25

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gptmliscrazy

diarrhoea, ulcer, slight fever. wow right. haha. have to sleep a lot.

tml shall have to do my gp paper from 8pm to 9.30pm, 10pm to 11.30pm? cant imagine... crazy. i think it's really crazy. crazy!!! oh right. crazy.

so. i shall sleep early tonight. going ard in circles.

8:10 p.m. - 2004-05-25

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lastpracsad

last prac in lt4, kinda sad. realized too late. this was the last night-prac huh. last day-prac was so long ago for me... yeah i always find the last of anything sad. like when i went for my last piano lesson, i still remember so vividly, gave her this letter tt i wrote in a hurry, which, till now, she still keeps safely.

anyhow, i'm tired, drank no more than 3 cups of water today, and am falling sick soon. so. rest.

10:33 p.m. - 2004-05-24

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collectionofthoughts

so i just came back from chinatown. been ages since i've been in tt (wet/flea) market, and i really enjoy this type of trips so much now. there's just so much to see. all the fish and vege and whatever not, it's just thousands of times better than poisson distribution or physics of fluids or biotechnology or transition metals. i mean these (stuff in school) are interesting stuff but it just gets too far away from real life.

and the ppl in the wet market are so nice, it's so much more personal, as opposed to a supermarket where everything is organized, prices are digitized, where the environment is unpleasant (i mean so what if it is speckless and has aircon), where the ppl dont have tt passion for what they're doing (i think this is the most important - imagine each stall owner, going to the wholesale market, or at least going to the delivery truck, and choosing what they want to sell bcos they think they can sell it, and do themselves proud at the end of the day if their "taste" was good and customers are happy. ok now imagine the ntuc manager who just knows tt the delivery guy will bring everything in and the staff will just pick out whatever is rotten. it's just so assembly-line like). every big corporation risks losing tt personal touch nowadays i guess...

ok then sth abt cars. realize tt nowadays even car designs are going "zen". e.g. the nissan cefiro. the make things simple again concept (haha tt's what i thought it was. read below for what it actually is). or even the new bmw. it's interesting cos car design is like one of the latest to join the trend. interior design, computer (web) design, design of electrical products have all gone "zen" for quite long... anyway so i just read up on "zen" and realized tt it has its origins in zen buddhism, "the school of buddhism which asserts that enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation, and intuition rather than through faith and devotion and that is practiced mainly in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam" (dictionary.com) and apparently, "the principles of Zen Buddhism are increasingly reflected in interior design today, as people look for ways to create havens of calm and relaxation within their own homes." (amazon.com) hm cool huh i nver knew haha.

next thing is recent civil engineering projects. road projects like the "braddell rd - bishan rd junction", the "jln anak bukit - upp bkt timah rd congestion-easing project : new underpass + conversion of 4-lane upp bkt timah rd to 2-lane 2-way". i find the designs extremely ridiculous. i dunno if anyone living in this areas would agree, and perhaps there are more of such absurd projects around. but really, instead of simple designs, they come up with really weird things tt simply confuse drivers. is it bcos they're working with existing developed areas and thus because of various constraints they cannot come up with a normal design, or is this a trend tt the construction industry is moving towards, to complicate matters (though i do not doubt tt eventually it will help ease congestion). if u dun understand, just get ur parents to drive there and i'm rather sure u'll understand what i mean, provided u've been there b4 the projects existed.

studies. it's only recently, after all our basics have been taught, tt i start to really understand each subject (ok lar it's not as though i've not understood a single thing b4 this, just tt now everything has bcum crystal clear and logical), to use knowledge (usu fundamental) from one to understand stuff in another topic/subject. v simple examples. [quantum physics and photoemission. applies to chem and bio. transition metals/nmr and photosynthesis.] [binomial theorem and estimation applies to physics. uncertainty calculation.] it just proves tt there are no clear boundaries between each "science". the emphasis on making things interdisciplinary (e.g. pw) in school is really helping us. don't complain abt how stupid it is cos though it seems to be i guess in the end it isnt.

finally. singaporeans. i find tt singaporeans are satisfied with food rather easily, they find food ultra-delicious even though it might not be really all tt splendid. or maybe it's just me who's hard to please. but singapore as a food heaven? no i dun really think so, i mean there is a large variety but really most of the time the quality isnt fantastic, unless u're willing to pay lots (which by the way i usu dunt so heh i dun get to experience tt).

5:08 p.m. - 2004-05-23

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notchronicdiseaseihope

n sth is just making me tired. i mean no i dun do work so tt's not the source of fatigue. but every time sam sees me she'll be like "are u ok u look stressed", and truth is i still fall asleep during tutorials (despite probably sleeping more than pre-VE days, in fact i'm sleeping so much, i'm positive i'm growing taller). what is the problem? i hope it's not some chronic disease.

i've been wasting a lot of time the past week and i suppose the next week as well, cos i know this is the only time i can afford to waste (esp since i've been exempted from gp common test), and once i come back from italy, i've to really pia like hell. it's gonna be a case of do or die. so yar i'm gonna be relaxed now... why make myself stressed b4 the trip?

10:25 a.m. - 2004-05-23

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needadirection

o yes the bio o prof was asking us what we want to take up in uni and as usual after such qns i'm at a loss. i mean yes currently it's medicine but what's the real reason? do i really want to do it?

and perhaps, what's the meaning of life? he (e prof) said "3 things, God, family, friends". i dun have the first. family, well could have much more interactions i guess, esp nowadays when i'm home so rarely. friends, i'm grateful for all my friends, really really am, to ALL of u, thankyou very much for enriching my life, and helping me mature in this one year in some way or another. i have no doubt sacrificed my hw time this entire term haha but i'm glad tt at least some of the time went to friends. (the rest probably went to VE / daydreaming).
[so anyway yup interestingly i've to admit tt there are parts of me which are really pretty girl-like (no dun worry i'm not gay), but i guess tt makes my interactions with girls easier. ]

and then the psc thing tt started me thinking abt hmm-do-i-want-to-be-a-teacher, and do-i-want-a-scholarship.

maybe it's all these tt made me go into tt aimless (lost) mood again. i guess there's some peer pressure. when i know tt some ppl really know what they want by now, yet i'm still, "mm, ok lar, wait-and-see" which just means tt i'll probably end up drifting along.

really need a direction.

9:43 a.m. - 2004-05-23

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psctest

bio o started off well, the prof was v v excited and kept me awake for an hr plus. the way he taught the concept was very new as well. to me anyway haha. but after tt he lost me and he was like "looks like some ppl are getting tired let's take a break" and the rest all directed their stares at me one by one. oops. haha.

anyway psychometric test. no comments on the first half cos well only thing i can say is the "gahment" aint v creative, they administer similar tests for ns checkups and psc scholarship screenings? haha. personality test. very interesting how i kept thinking of ppl when i saw certain statements, like the "tend to get embarrassed if I suddenly become the centre of attention" and "more interesting if their views are different from most peoples'" and "somewhat of a perfectionist, like to have things done just right" and "can easily go a whole morning without wanting to speak to anyone". haha ok mix and match yourself (could be true or false) val, clar, candice, hon

some things which i found rather interesting abt myself. i actually achieve many of my long term goals (unless hw-related), am polite and pleasant but if it doesnt work can be tough and sharp, am interested in mechanical things and am good at fixing them, have learnt to be patient with all kinds of people. somehow i want my child to be good in the arts.

went back with shen ting and grace, then ended up at macs, had a good chat, took mrt to yio chu kang, walked all the way home. v interesting to see the night life of amk, to see nyp at night, to see the cycling track / children play-stuff underneath the mrt track along amk ave 8. was another nice walk! :D

11:00 p.m. - 2004-05-22

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myinterests

was just clearing stuff from my comp, and chanced upon my jap oral script for last year. so zannen!! i mean, it's really 5 years after all, and i do like the language and want to learn abt their culture, pity tt i've been to japan only once. (well at least i'm still keeping in touch with my okaasan she just sent me a postcard again!)

or piano for tt matter. do i have the potential to go further? why not? perhaps...

(and on typing this out i decided let's call my teacher. which i just did, had a nice chat, feels kinda normal - now tt i look at it my piano lessons are just like mr toh's choir sessions, jokes/anecdotes interspersed with musical training - but hm i feel older somehow, i have grown much since i last met her... so so much has happened. the good old days of innocent, in-his-own-world andy going to her hse once a week and seeing her mum grow alfafa in nescafe glass jars [and being offered some every now and then actually {hm, how do they survive without sunlight??} ]. it's really quite a different life now, but i think the best part is, i enjoyed tt, AND i enjoy what i'm going through now as well.)

i think i probably wont give up stuff tt i've grown attached to tt easily... will probably take it up again some time in my life. hopefully. meaning tt one day i'll sing again too! yay... =)

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh dun want to grow up!!! stay j2 forever. then there'll nver b 'a' lvls and i can go to italy for any number of times i want (hm i sound like i've already gone and i enjoyed myself there huh) yet keep my life reasonably bz without having to do hw [alright alright take this last part out]

9:34 p.m. - 2004-05-21

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21stmayfri

ended up carrying photocopiers for pe (and getting a cut across my fingers haha din realize until i saw a few red blobs. kinda proved tt pressure's high when area's small) impossibly slack to cancel bio tut!! other tuts were useless, but hey gp is really getting better! well, perhaps cos it's getting less content-based, and the lessons are getting shorter (guess why). chem prac fun but confusing.

over lunch weili was telling me abt how he thinks the class has changed. indeed. loud ones becoming quieter (heh me inclusive?), quiet ones (or used-to-be-quiet ones) becoming louder. ppl think we are united. neh i dun think so. ok but it's not as though we're tt divided. ok maybe we are. haha.

lester's really quite a super-infecter. his sniff-sniff-cough-cough-sniff is spreading quite rapidly, it seems tt u get it after prolonged exposure (1hr20min?) within 1m radius, so it seems i was wise to run away the other day lol. but seriously it's quite infectious.

let's see. i've been keeping the following updated / organized: blog, friends (chats), bag (bring only the necessary stuff). tt's basically what i do when i get home each day. so erm where does work come in? no concept of hw apparently. so today i shall add on to my list of routine to-dos: clear the thousands of stacks of paper ard my hse, and do hw. yup, will succeed in this new mission.

anyway this morning on the way to school, was waiting at a junction and was thinking to myself what the probability of two cars with the same license plate number passing by was. it was just half a minute and i saw two cars with "3406"!!!! amazing.

scents/odours help me recall things very very vividly. there was this smell this morning which reminded me of the first few days of school last year.

6:58 p.m. - 2004-05-21

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thumay20th

physics prac test came as a surprise but was pretty fun (could actually hear the wire resonating) math lecture test was well, a pretty gd time to learn to do some qns lol. math tutorial as usual was terribly boring, we shud really tell her tt there's no need to go through every single qn. it's not helping us in any way.

was trying to do physics s (or rather sunny was trying to do and i joined much later after a good nap in the terribly hot canteen), and then ended up wondering abt how a transformer works haha. just goes to show how bad our foundation is.

thought the singing today was rather decent (apart from the fact tt i was totally surrounded by basses...) was satisfying but at times there were slight splits (bass/tenor disagreement). loved if i can help somebody simply bcos i culd reach it so comfortably for the first time in my life haha.

10:24 p.m. - 2004-05-20

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veryniceday

chem tut we got a gd video of mr chan, physics was a quick revision, bio lecture was actually helpful, gp tutorial was fast and enjoyable, what else to ask for? nver had a day like tt!

and bio o was so fun!!! saw spores (exciting stuff), endodermis with u-shape thickening (in the stem), trichomes. and of course the millions of stomata and chloroplasts. definitely got better at stem sectioning, and learnt to section leaves (oh man tt was really tiring, hard to get a thin slice in the first place, and if u cant u have to try and lay it flat down to see the T.S., but yay!!! i told myself nver to give up, and finally got it after many many tries. i could very well have given up cos nobody was monitoring, but felt so good after overcoming challenge i set for myself). staining with phloroglucinol was awesome too (ok fine it's so standard for some ppl but it's totally novel to me), seeing the lignin turn red. plus, prof shaun lum is really the nicest guy i've seen on earth. so so pleasant. i mean i knew tt i was really terrible at it but he was so encouraging. and he offered us drinks, and talked to us, and fetched me back to school, and told me to apologize to the choir master for his sending me back so late. my goodness, cant be a singaporean. (true enough, he's been in hawaii for some time, and just now when we were driving out of ntu, it was as though we were in the US or sth, cos of his accent and the environment)

so back in rj we sang for a while, well the singing wasnt quite tt bad either, and it's gd to sing finally, after almost 2 wks. had a pleasant dinner at pizza hut. (which reminds me, had a pleasant andersen ice cream for lunch too oh yummy yum yum)

oh yeah, a fantastic day indeed. sleeping would have sounded like a gd way to end this day but heh dun think i'll get to end this day. will definitely be sleeping after 12 considering tt i'll start my math prep only at 10.30 at the earliest? still need to bathe and stuff.

oh plus when i told my dad he din need to fetch me today, he went "i am smart not to wait for you" hilarious...

9:52 p.m. - 2004-05-19

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nearasthma

heh shudnt have pushed myself so hard, it's kinda dangerous, nearly got an attack. (din know it was tt bad until reginald was saying i looked pale) i guess now i know why they (cmpb) say i've no asthma. it's really just me and my pushing too hard beyond my limits (which would have caused me, with or without asthma, to have breathing difficulties). so yup shall hafta learn to run slowly. otherwise one day i might just die on the track.

body was totally out of control just b4 physics test. whether it's bcos of the temperature, or bcos i'm nervous (whatever for? it's just a small test) my whole body was trembling nonstop, just like my first attempt at SAT at LT4. pretty scary. the test was pretty ok i thought, or rather, v. easy provided u mugged ur stuff (i.e. non-formula-related) well [looks like i've to learn to do tt next test]

was sleeping during gp like nobody's business, (taking turns with ying heng?). our bio prac turned out to be a "learn-e-security-features-of-our-banknotes" session after we saw tt e ampicillin got more powerful overnight to kill everything (ok lar the real reason was probably sth to do with the agar in the small dishes)

ok really pretty tired, now tt i gave my legs a pretty thorough workout (walking yesterday and running today. fly tml?)

7:39 p.m. - 2004-05-18

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cameralessman

only thing i regret abt today. had no camera with me.

8:55 p.m. - 2004-05-17

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longdaybotanical

so haha it was a long day despite it being short.

the first talk was slightly awkward though i thought e content wasnt, but haha doesnt matter... terrible lecture, such terrible seats (+ mr chan was walking in and out of the LT). but i was off after tt!!!

so it was jelita again, this time i took 75, saw this person getting off at gleneagles so i decided ok botanical gardens here i come. spent 2 hrs there, walking ard (entered orchid gardens as well), saw many many many things.
fauna: butterflies, huge-beetle, bees, damselflies, swans, birds (others), salamanders, lizards, squirrels, fishes (red, black, silver with black spots), terapins, homo sapiens (from korea, hong kong, india, and other unidentified european countries)
flora: palms (no cycads :( ), tree ferns (yay!), very nice bunch of mosses with their sporophytes looking very nicely moist (in the cool hse), pitcher plant, desert plants, lots and lots of orchids (vanda ms joaquim's petals were pretty pretty, though some precious orchids had pretty weird colours - like green sepals ok wait maybe tt isnt so strange but for an orchid yes, brown sepals)

okok enough after tt took 105 to toa payoh, walked back to bishan through ri (quite a long walk), met xu xu there (and what was she doing there at 6+ if she takes math s haha) oh yes nver realized tt there was such a large variety of flora within ri!!

ok time to eat.

6:37 p.m. - 2004-05-17

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lifegoeson

disappointed? yeah haha perhaps but life goes on! :)

10:57 p.m. - 2004-05-16

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returnfrombangkok

parents just came back from bangkok. missed them quite a bit haha. (now tt's abnormal cos usu i dun miss them quite as much) my life has been quite out of control since they left, meals have been quite terrible (yes i must really learn to cook properly), but at least it's better than the other time when i was home alone for a week? and i had to do my own laundry, and keept the hse clean, etc.

heh but this time i did quite a bit tt i suspect might not have been possible, or at least, i would have had to do these things secretly if parents had been ard. now tt makes it even weirder tt i actually missed them right haha. (cos basically they'll check my comp periodically and will definitely not allow me to sleep late - they seem to have accepted 12.30 as my new sleeping time though, but technically tt's allowed only if i'm doing sch work lol)

quite a gd break from routine life, and suddenly quite a lot of colour as well...

*eating mangosteens (from bangkok) now... havent eaten them in a long while, mm delicious! haha. the last time i had to come into contact with them quite frequently was in sec 2 (4 years have already passed!!!) when we (chang mou and i) unsuccessfully tried to create hair dye out of the maroonish pericarp (exocarp?) of mangosteens.

just spent the past 2 hrs or so making 3 v pretty lamps tt parents brought back. [paper (not totally opaque, looks sth like e recycled paper tt geog soc makes for a living) with some orange/pink/blue flower petals and grass blades, stretched over a wooden frame ] x 4, light bulb in the middle at the bottom.

ok finally i think i shall start on work :S

6:50 p.m. - 2004-05-16

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workworkandwork

oh man my clock is seriously screwed up. slept at 1.15 last night, and just woke up?!? i woke up expecting it to be 10+/11, and was looking at my clock and i thought hm probably dint adjust the time properly when i plugged the clock in. went out to the living room to see the battery-operated clock, and it took me a whole 30 seconds to finally accept tt it's already 1pm?

haha sigh. ok hafta do lots of work toady...

12:57 p.m. - 2004-05-16

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canjustwait

heh i'm kinda in a mess now. dun really know what to think. or rather perhaps i know what to think. it's ok i can wait.

11:13 p.m. - 2004-05-15

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fragmentedsleep

think my body is v confused by me now. 3 hours and 2.5 hours of sleep here and there, i think it doesnt know when it's day or night. meals are not when they should be either. haha ok look where should i find my dinner now? have to cook? maybe. and i think i shall be sleeping in another 3 more hours, maybe for another 6 or more hours again.

what a weird master i have, the sleep department says.

9:09 p.m. - 2004-05-15

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whatacompletechat

heh. chatting marathon huh 5hr40min. simply wow. if i were to go to ntu i'd have to wake up after sleeping for another like 2 hours, if it is rj it'd be 3 hrs heh not much of a difference... lol

this is one of the most complete chats i'd ever had. thanks for listening evelyn haha.

just a remark. thursday math tutorial. p&c / probability qn:

it was like this silent consensus
this sudden thinking of mr ho
almost as though she could chant on about her "o lvl method" while we were observing our minute of silence kinda thing

4:37 a.m. - 2004-05-15

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hehthedayafter

so i lost my wallet after changing for pe, luckily nicholas tan found it straight away and could pass it to me. then xuxu stole my wallet when i was unaware in the physics lab haha on thursday. must be more careful next time heh...

first bio o session in a long time and it was interesting. ethology. bird behaviour, observed through a video. had a good time but heh the discussion after tt was really torturous. oh n perhaps it wuld have been interesting to observe my behaviour then haha i was fidgeting so much.

comm meetings have actually been either very useless / quite nice cos u get to see ppl open up. and oops sorry for making val turn red haha.

realized tt interest really plays such a big part in motivating me. organic chem was so fun (both a / s lvl) and now tt it's inorganic chem i dun exactly love it (ok i dun hate it yet haha). it's really powerful cos i did every single organic s tutorial! u know nowadays if i hand in anything the teachers should really appreciate it cos tt's the only thing i'm doing...

alright time to sleep.

12:34 a.m. - 2004-05-15

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happinesscantbeexplained

feeling happy.

11:38 p.m. - 2004-05-13

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recoveryafterve

back to dormancy for at least another week for recovery.

6:13 p.m. - 2004-05-10

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reasonwhyorchardwasrelaxing

now i recall, was furious all the way till jelita. jelita was wonderful as usual, and got me calmed down. the magic of jelita. i'll just get into cold storage, get a drink (+ buy sth interesting), sit on one of the few benches on the second storey, take a look ard the place, absorb the non-hectic atmosphere (and therefore perhaps the out-of-singapore feel - a way of retreating from reality?) perhaps go down to delifrance for a chocolate eclair (if they have any), and then over to the bus stop. and then i'll be normal again. nice nice place.

reason why it was relaxing yesterday (the stroll down orchard and mrt trip), i was with nobody, i could do anything i like. i was not being judged (and even if i were i'd nver see these ppl again). i just looked ard, and was absorbing everything. just taking in things i see without thinking. and i din stop walking at all (except at traffic lights) so my body kinda was kept bz, which kept me more focused in my observations.

12:20 p.m. - 2004-05-10

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peacewow

my first and last ora. yar i cant believe i havent ever gone for the previous ones. anyway. it was great fun on the whole, with fringe concert, talentime, (missed the brainiest rafflesian haha would have wanted to support shenting), sale of food with my class / adeline (who was selling cheese puffs). guess it was quite fun walking ard the school and begging ppl to buy. it's not very often tt u get to do such things without ppl thinking tt u're crazy. (ok maybe some did think i was crazy today).

then the ridiculous happened (at least it was ridiculous to me) and so i ended up walking down orchard rd. (which sounds even more ridiculous heh) interesting experience. and the mrt trip too. i love it when i dunno where i'm going exactly. like the other time when i went to the chinatown heritage museum on the way to my dad's office. singapore is so small tt i can always get to the intended destination through endless number of pathways. tt's really nice.

i've learnt to convert annoyance/loneliness to peace. cool.

8:52 p.m. - 2004-05-09

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amusicalpiece

just 24 hrs ago i was thinking i've grown up, and i genuinely believed tt i've learnt to let go of things. (i suspect it's a result of chats with encouraging ppl / ppl with similar views e.g. reginald, andrew. i thank u guys for providing me with confidence)

yes i have perhaps but tonight after a chat with jason i do realize tt while i might have learnt to let go, i'm still vulnerable to these stuff which i have supposedly learnt to let go of. i'm still struck by petty little facts presented to me, at least for a while after tt, b4 logical thinking sets in and tells me "so what could have happened to make me less upset? what was i expecting? and in the first place why am i even feeling upset?".

yes i've learnt to lift myself out of self-pity tt's for sure. i dun stay in bad moods for v long nowadays, i recover fast, and just carry on with life. which perhaps is what many ppl do most of the time. ppl probably arent as sensitive / into the details as me. i'm looking forward to the day when i can perhaps totally detach myself. or am i? does tt make me a non-human?
---- [fine]----

in a way it's as though there's this new department called "diplomatic relations" in my brain tt just handles my social interactions. it's been working fine as far as i'm concerned cos it's a pretty new department set up when i came into rj (it wasnt totally non-existent in ri but i guess it wasnt active, and it seemed to me tt if this department hadnt been revived, rj life would have turned out to be another 2 more boring years of my life), and for such an inexperienced department its achievements are worth being proud of. anyway its job is kinda to make small adjustments all the time to keep things in balance. [hm maybe i dun need it, maybe there's a natural negative feedback system?] but at times i realize tt i really look too much into things, and it gets tiring. i find myself having to make efforts to show concern for friends.

[ok but really everything is sincere and genuine, there isnt a need to doubt tt. i really really treasure my friends. i think by now more or less i've had chances to tell these ppl tt i treasure the friendships. i believe in telling ppl such stuff, cos of the "what if u nver had a chance to talk to this person again" scenario - no it wasnt bcos of mr ho]

anw. frequently, in my laziness, i just decide ok i'm a frank person. by taking risks, by taking shortcuts, i hope tt after tipping the balance so so much it will bounce back up. experience tells me tt it does bounce up, but relying on this "reaction force" means tt there's nver a guarantee tt it'll go back to the equilibrium position. this results in unpredictability, and also accounts for whatever mood swings i might have. so after a period of suffering due to these mood swings which i create for myself, i've learnt to come up with solutions for myself. to lift myself out of these disasters i land myself in quickly.
---- [D.S. al fine] ----

2:15 a.m. - 2004-05-09

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lettinggo

oh yes and one more thing to add to the list of "how this concert was different":

4. i wasnt feeling high at the end of the concert. the highest point was probably 30 seconds after the school song. maybe cos of how i was preoccupied with how we're paying overtime and how we should clear out of the place, trying to consult authority to see if we should stop further entry of ppl into the backstage. was still settling accounts with mr chan / qui jun. and trying to find ms chiang to get the money. and wasnt really with the rest of the choir at the end of it, cos we decided to go to city hall, and the ppl were there were generally not high.

actually i think this has happened many many times, e.g. even during last yr's ve when i was taking down the curtains and so on, and during this yr's chalet when i was clearing up the place with jason & co. i've asked myself whether i am "penalising myself" by doing this, but my conclusion is, someone has to do it anyway, whether it's conrad, jason & co, or the teachers.

BUT

the best part of last night is tt i wasnt really feeling sad abt my lack of highness cos i was thinking more abt (1) and (2) in the entry last night. the sense of achievement after all the planning, as well as in musical performance. others were clearly high (e.g. candice who was "high but dead tired") and i wasnt "jealous" either.

think i've learnt to let go of many things nowadays, and just be satisifed with whatever i have. ask yourself, why not? why compare?

4:59 p.m. - 2004-05-08

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veselfdebrief

hk debriefs himself for ve.

learnt to manage stress.
learnt to be confident
learnt the importance of early preparation

must learn to be stricter and less flexible
must learn to be more organized and systematic
must learn to be more professional and do things properly

haha if this makes it look as though ve was merely an instrument to learn stuff through no i dun mean tt, it's just tt apart from the music this is what i gained, or at least gain the knowledge of what i can do to improve.

1:05 p.m. - 2004-05-08

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misschoir

think i must also say tt the tenors have been great, we're one bunch of interesting ppl indeed.

thanks also to all the rest in choir whom i know. well, only you can decide whether i know you... :)

seriously, i'll miss choir... was feeling sad kinda during if i can help cos tt was going to be the last song. hai... sighh...

1:15 a.m. - 2004-05-08

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ve14

was a great concert after all.

after all tt prep (and actually there's still gonna be work after this.) it's nice to see tt ppl enjoyed the concert. i must say it was (at least i think it was) a well planned programme, kept most of the audience attentive throughout...

really really wanted to cry just b4 the concert. was totally stressed. wanted to complain to someone but everyone was just bzily getting changed (i was still in my sch u). ppl refunding tickets here and there, new orders every now and then. and then an ever increasing number of tickets to be placed at the counter. plus some more complications from the admin regarding the ticketing. managed to remain calm, but deep inside me i was really quite stressed. like mr toh says i take things too seriously and look into too many details i guess. oh well.

anyway so went on stage, not knowing one quarter of the lyrics (really really bad of me yar), not even knowing the order of the songs at all, had to wait for ppl to start most of the time or get hints from the direction mr toh is facing to try and figure out what to prepare myself for. still felt stressed at first, plus reginald wasnt there. the first 3 songs were fine, but solfeggio. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewww. tenors. oh my goodness. help. totally sucked. even my father told me tt we sounded exceptionally weak. yucks. just cant express my disgust sufficiently.

well luckily after festival sanctus actually i was already pretty into the music so i forgot abt everything else, which allowed me to enjoy myself quite a bit. competition grp din sing fantastically but i thought it was ok. i liked dravidian the best, followed by pok pok which i thought was pretty tidy (esp the last part). non vos and io son la were pretty non-exciting. suite de lorca was better but i think like wui ming said the SATB position might have been better for it.

ensemble. first 4 were quite well done i thought (sorry abt the lonesome rd "shining high" couldnt reach / not enough breath so i sounded like i was gargling or sth). short ppl. haha hilarious. oh well at least we continued, and they seemed to enjoy it so ok not bad... :D

rock ard the clock was quite nice i guess i hope they enjoyed it. the remaining songs were fine, i liked just the way u look, and the school song was the best. really loved it. tt feeling. ooooooh. wonderful.

cleared out of backstage rather quickly actually, and then went to starbucks and raffles city, ate this huge slice of cake + had a cup of tea, compensates for my extremely small dinner.

thanks to all who came to watch... esp to those supporting me! haha :D first time receiving so many flowers haha usu only 1 or 2? lol. truth is i guess i've gotten to know more ppl since last year i guess... yup..

anyway

this concert was different from all the rest tt i've performed in. for various reasons.

1. i involved myself quite a bit for the prep, and there's really a sense of achievement at the end of it.

2. i was definitely more confident, knowing what to sing (just dunno the exact order of stuff lar yar haha), singing it to the best of my ability, enjoying the singing (though i must confess at times i was not following mr toh tt closely, a bit carried away) so so much.

3. it's my last! dun think i'm join any choir any time soon. luckily we're still going to italy, we're still going to have pracs. think i'll b pretty sad if i stop singing. oh well... i'll miss choir :(

12:11 a.m. - 2004-05-08

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tiucketsales

it was a nice dinner at delifrance again, just at the right time. after too much routine kinda it's nice to talk abt stuff, life, friends, yourself. reflect a bit. just nice. reginald's a nice person to talk to. for me at least. we can say what we really feel abt some things, and when our views are the same, we just have tt "yes yes precisely" feeling... i like it the way it is now.

of course as usual after it i can be totally relaxed. can just walk home in tt really aimless manner, looking at flowers and cars and trees, unlike when i'm usu just late for stuff and have to rush and walk with a purpose.

no more trouble with ticket sales any more! cant have any more anyway right...

9:49 p.m. - 2004-05-06

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fatigue

hm so i've been this tired for the past month. i.e. ever since the common tests. sleeping late, doing chorale stuff, not talking to ppl in class (well actually i still do lar, but it's true tt i detach myself more. in a way i talk to only certain ppl more, instead of talking to everyone). anyone knowing me for the first time this month probably think tt i'm this guy who looks tired and sian all the time. haha.

anyway, ppl in my class have the impression tt it's gonna be over after ve. personally i dunt think it will. but let's just hope they're right. somehow.

time to sleep soon.

10:10 p.m. - 2004-05-05

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vchrehearsal1

had such a splitting headache just now i told myself i cant last byond whatever song i was singing. in the end i decided to just stand there and close my eyes and sing when i can. which wasnt a lot cos each note caused my head to hurt. ouch. i suspect it's the body's inflammatory response. lots of vasodilation. could feel my hands swollen. i must thank alvin for his panadol, helped so so much. anyway now it's bcum a fever, so i'm sleeping soon.

ensemble is sounding better. gd. we shall strive for better singing no? :D

fantastic. no problems with today's accounts. the sudden decrease in amt of time i have to spend on it (from more than an hr to a mere half an hr) makes me SO happy :):):)

8:05 p.m. - 2004-05-03

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ensemble

so they left abt half an hr ago. stupid air con wasnt working too well so it was rather hot haha. and the low ceiling made everything sound extraordinarily loud. hm. can we make it? hmm.

10:50 p.m. - 2004-05-02

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justhinking

was just thinking, how many of us will actually continue blogging as we grow older. there are always those who started blogging to follow the trend, and these ppl are, (to quote john) well, more or less gone by now. just like class blogs.

just find the idea of grown adults sharing their thoughts with others rather interesting.

i must bcum a more determined person. without determination i can go nowhere. and so determined i shall be, in whatever i do.

4:09 p.m. - 2004-05-02

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spammmmmm

ah i've been spammed non-stop since the start of last month i think. it's crazy. and i thought it's just a random thing. like some idiot on the net used my email.

but today i got this thing from "[email protected]" hell it cant be so coincidental can it. has to be some virus working on someone in rj now.

3:48 p.m. - 2004-05-02

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bloginoneweek

emergency or not i'm really too too tired. just woke up from a gd nap. an hr ago ago i just decided to lie down on the floor to sleep, without bothering to make myself comfortable or change out of uniform. and erm math tutorial today, mrs lim was looking at me every time i woke up (or at least i thought she was), chem lecture yesterday i was just nodding off every now and then (apparently for much more than 10 times and weili culd see me kinda vibrating each time i woke up, nearly died of shock when dr chan suddenly pointed to me saying tt i was his companion-atom after his "wear-yellow-shirt-to-look-like-chlorine-atom" joke. opened my eyes just as his fingers pointed towards me). and i actually made a trip to the library to sleep today. wow.

well. apart from being tired, i've been picked on many many times during lectures. like today's fee-six (i bet she remembers tt i'm the physics rep of 3f, the moment she said "3f, class rep" she was directing tt smile of hers towards me). gp. no need to find an inconspicuous corner of the lt to hide during gp videos, he'll call me anyway. lol

sometimes u get tired of stuff when u do it too much, too often. and u're so happy when u take a break from the routine. this wed's missing of bio o somehow made me enjoy choir a lot. not tt i hate it (bio o) but the whole process of going there and sometimes not understanding stuff (i am willing to challenge myself but) requires quite a bit of effort.

there was elections, i thought i made a rash decision personally kinda, but well up till now i dont regret it. and oh well this comm just doesnt really work well heh. wonder if anyone wuld like to agree.

quite a number of power trips in school these few days. monday ts repeated trips causing everything to go off, made me wonder why the lighting circuit was connected to the normal power circuit. comm meeting lt4 trips (wasnt a precautionary trip there was really a short circuit the switchboard was so hot). just wonder how nus high school's gonna survive in this campus.

must really do sth abt my pracs. dunno what on earth is wrong with me, apart from the slow rate at which i do things.

band concert on monday. fell asleep only twice or thrice so it must have been rather entertaining. haha seriously. overall rather good, and kah chun was v impressive, but i thought tt zaqaedor was trying to be special yet was kinda normal, so unpredictable yet predictable. actually i din really hear everything cos i kinda fell asleep but of course it's still a v commendable effort.

met mr lam nam soon, talked to him though he nver taught me. saw some j3s, and interestingly gerald actually lives so so close to me!

gp has started me thinking, why not believe in a god? why believe in science? i'm not quite as skeptical as i was b4 this term. gp has enriched me in lots of ways, though it remains my most hated subject lol.

well, i've kinda survived this week havent i. or have i? haha. well yar things did seem to improve, actually did physics s for the first time since the second session (i think, how am i to remember?) nxt wk will be worse, but hey this is gonna be the last time... enjoy it! yeah i'm sure the whole ensemble enjoys each others' company at least...

well of course the rest of the world is v tired as well... rest well do work rest well eat rest well do work. rest well. no no pls dun fall sick. rest well, yes pls do.

i'm going mad! :D

12:07 a.m. - 2004-05-01

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stateofemergency

things arent tt bad i guess, he's still surviving without actually getting too too stressed.

but hk's declaring a state of emergency anyway. he realizes the limited abilities of a human being who has only 24 hours a day. tt if he continues like this, even superman cant help him. sth within him is sending out SOS signals. and so. first drastic measure. no internet at all unless doing research for bio o / chem s. no blogging at all.

hk remains in a state of emergency until things look better.

12:38 a.m. - 2004-04-26

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ensembleaudition

auditions for talentime haha. oh well looks like i'm not born to be a performer. cant move properly and probably look weird on stage. but hey i hope at least my singing's fine haha.

mm went back to bishan via yishun after tt, like grace says, perhaps we'll improve if we really see each other every day.

ended up at crystal jade. had high tea (decided it could possibly be cheaper than delifrance) [which actually by the way was my brunch-tea] and yar almost finished my chem s there. not bcos i'm efficient though. more bcos it was relatively easy this time round, esp the synthesis question...

5:43 p.m. - 2004-04-25

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shortrandomentry

i have to say this. whenever i read shifeng's blog it's as though she's helping me say some things.

i'm pretty burnt out but i will survive. considering i survived tt torture last night haha. i tried going to sleep. somehow the reaction moved into my intestines. put my hand on them and i could feel bubbles forming.

it's definitely an enzymatic reaction. lol. and now instead of coming out from the top it's coming out from the bottom. if it's really caffeine tt's causing this i shall nver drink tea again.

i think one thing abt our class is tt it's really too stressful an environment. not tt it's bad actually cos if u end up in a really slack class u'll just slack away. our class average for common tests is 9 to 10 marks above the level average for all subjects except gp (hm i wonder why? lol) i guess we'll just have to bear in mind tt no matter how badly u do within the class u're still quite ok. but of course nobody will feel tt way, cos expectations of ourselves just keep rising, it's nver good enough to be average.

but anyway somehow over these few weeks / perhaps this month i've bcum a more confident person (except during anything related to gp haha)

so anyway here are some interesting facts abt caffeine: it resembles adenine in structure, so it can:
1. act as a competitive inhibitor to
(a) prevent the breakdown of cAMP used in msging pathways. i.e. higher duration of cAMP existence, producing adverse effects esp in the heart (prolonged increased heart rate / irregular)
(b) block adenosine receptors in the brain. (normally adenosine [zero-phosphate] accumulates in the body over time and induces drowsiness/sleepiness when bound to these receptors in the brain) i.e. ingestion keeps u awake
2. act as a base analog when phosphorylated i.e. cause mutation (but only when at v high amounts)

10:24 a.m. - 2004-04-25

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torturepuke

this is really torturing me. how to sleep?

1:35 a.m. - 2004-04-25

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swallowsaliva

just swallowed i think 20 mouthfuls of saliva. nearly nearly puked. *swallows* went to the toilet but tried to suppress it.

what on earth is wrong with me.

1:07 a.m. - 2004-04-25

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pukealreadylar

help. have a feeling i might puke some time. ahhhh

12:48 a.m. - 2004-04-25

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imdeadthisburpingisirritating

help!!!!! this burping is killing me.

12:32 a.m. - 2004-04-25

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belching

i think it's more or less confirmed. it's an adverse reaction to caffeine. cos the burping (belching) tt's happening now is exactly like last time after i tried studying at mos burger and drank one whole big cup of ice tea.

HELP!!!! i'm dying....

12:11 a.m. - 2004-04-25

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burppppppp

i've been burping non-stop for i think almost 45 minutes now. not exactly full burps, just air flow accompanied by the sound of a short burp. at peak rate there were 1 every 3 seconds. average abt once every 5 - 10 seconds. it's just like us counting the number of bubbles evolving during bio pracs.

urgh. this is getting me real sick. the after-effects of laughing? or is it the pineapple fried rice and teh bing i had for dinner. either way i hope this nver happens to me again.

11:29 p.m. - 2004-04-24

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laughingiscontagious

went to nus only to find out tt the training was cancelled. 2nd time! haha. raining days are cursed.

nth really special abt today's singing. but the laughing. haha. hahaha. contagious!!! sorry to all the sops / altos whom we pissed, but really it was so so uncontrollable. the threshold for laughter was reduced by so so much tt laughter returns at the slightest hint of any laughter. the whole bass section / part of the tenor section was affected, so much so tt at one point in time so many of us had to leave the lt. the last time i had such a gd laugh was last year with sicheng (i'll always remember tt one, just like i'll remember this one... :D ), just tt today was even better, cos i really cried. anyway read more abt laughter here

some interesting extracts:
Mutual playfulness, in-group feeling and positive emotional tone�not comedy�mark the social settings of most naturally occurring laughter.
Males are the leading humor producers and females are the leading laughers. These differences are already present by the time that joking first appears around six years of age.

in case anyone's wondering why we started laughing. well. some of the basses were laughing at a dirty joke apparently. and so poor aaron was already in the laughing mode. and then during pok pok. both darryl and terence sang the wrong thing. (bar 56 should have been pok-pok a-lim-pa-ko pok, but they sang lim-pa-ko-pi-ko ma-la-la which is supposed to be sung at bar 60). i started laughing, and darryl / terence got infected. but they continued singing with their voices shaking. so i culdnt stop laughing. i started vibrating so much tt aaron culdnt help but start laughing again. from then on the rest of the basses caught it at one time or another.

and i nver did sing again after tt. tried to but simply culdnt. we must have sounded abnormally soft cos of the large number of us laughing. but i just culdnt understand why it was contained within only a few tenors. maybe the rest got irritated with us and the basses and culdnt possibly bring themselves to laugh.

but hey it was good therapy for stress. :D

8:42 p.m. - 2004-04-24

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solubilize

think there's sth wrong with dr chan's english?

read this!!

12:20 a.m. - 2004-04-24

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dancenight2004

physics was slightly better than expected, cos he was sitting down on the table and tt's when i assume blood reaches his brains normally and he isnt cranky as he is when he stands up. but i guess he's still a pretty good lecturer in the end. to be fair, he really has all the pretty difficult / new topics. and his steering thingie was quite interesting too. tt's just my opinion of course, perhaps many might want to disagree.

used the burette for the first time in half a year? or more? haha. my prac-work-rate is still as slow as ever. must really work on it. will get mr chan to look at me work next week, to find out what exactly goes wrong.

ensemble prac, i guess we really need to do the details, but seriously our notes arent even there all the time yet! see how?

dance night. was really enjoyable on the whole. rock ard the clock was really impressive, the colours thingie was quite nice too. gym item was good too. and erm i actually quite liked the 2guy-1girl chinese thingie. anyway i guess the lighting was good too.

10:35 p.m. - 2004-04-23

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april222004

did absolutely nth within the official school hours today. the talk lasted for so long tt i fell asleep at least 10? times, and each time i had a different dream (now tt's the exciting part). actually chem lecture was sufficiently interesting to prevent me from dozing off for more than 5 times. but nothing too exciting otherwise. all this inorganic chem just reminds me of chem s. u just look at the data and u try to explain... in tt sense we're not really learning anything new.

ah but after dismissal things got better. weili and i did the physics prac with 3L and it turned out to be pretty fun. and then after tt went for the A*star talk and found the speaker rather impressive. yup. research isnt tt bad after all.

ate a huge dinner (din eat lunch mar). ensemble. haha wasnt productive at all but enjoyed it anyway. 5 at the back of a car sounds really cramp but it aint tt bad lar...

9:49 p.m. - 2004-04-22

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mmanotherhongkonger

b4 i 4get, yesterday, during math lecture, i was listening to e lecture (ok more likely to be doing chem s / sleeping actually). suddenly there was this really loud thud on my table, and i was thinking, perhaps sth dropped from the ceiling. but haha turned out to be the head of the person in front of me (alex from band)! he dozed off and his head somehow knocked onto my table. poor guy, it was so painful he was rubbing it for quite long after tt. so shifeng and i started laughing. and then lol my head knocked the table behind as well (not even a quarter as loud though). meanwhile the rest of the LT was laughing at something tt mr kan said. tt was really interesting, cos me / shifeng were laughing at alex, while some apparently laughed when i knocked my head, and the rest were laughing bcos of mr kan. v v nice to know tt ppl are laughing bcos of a few funny things happening at once.

anyway. today's bio o was conducted by another hong konger. heh. he sorta inspired me to perhaps bcum a researcher one day.

very very very cool to see brendon and find out his connections with ppl i know: alex chia (bcos of dunman gep), kaochin (taonan classmate). and then when i got out at raffles place, saw sarah!!!! just finished work apparently.

was just telling andy this morning. life now is like the bio prac test we just had. if u do everything tt's supposed to be done, there cant possibly be enough time. instead of taking 3 readings, perhaps 1 would do, though u might feel insecure.

8:31 p.m. - 2004-04-21

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proudofmyself

recently i've felt pretty proud of being hk. just tt heh hk must learn to be a better student by doing his work.

11:55 p.m. - 2004-04-20

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itsunbelievable

unbelievable tt nicoll highway actually collapsed. unbelievable also tt there were no cars (!!?!?). was there just abt half a yr ago during the big walk, remember walking on the merdeka bridge itself. heh. the bridge din collapse fortunately. but the inconvenience tt it'll cause... unimaginable.

anyway interestingly i've been to almost all the major govmt hospitals ard singapore except cgh. (cos the casualties were sent to the sgh a&e department which well i sorta had fond memories of lol)
ttsh for job attachment, sgh for my burn, nuh for visits to jason / tiong hwee, kkh for my varicosele. familiar with all 5 of these hospitals. getting familiar with them for my own future? haha. dunno if i want to be a doctor lar, dun even dare to donate blood.

until now, tml is still thursday. dunno for how many days already. each time there is choir, it is programmed within my brain tt the next day must be thursday. perhaps the reason why i'm looking forward to thursdays all the time is the lack of a gp lesson on tt day lol.

lectures were all pretty boring so i was doing my chem s. YAY!!!!! managed to do the synthesis question~~!! woohoo. first time getting everything right. ha. so proud of myself. haha. ok stop laughing. yes you. you the person who can do it all the time and find it amusing tt hk's so happy just bcos of 1 successful attempt. (haha evidently i'm going bonkers.)

mm choir was pretty satisfying. sang quite well personally. and apparently the guys sounded better today! haha not trying to make any link here. anyway i thought the basses still dun sound fantastic in io son la primavera's end-of-each-phrase perfect-cadence (?).

so. ticket sales are still going pretty slow... s l o w

11:09 p.m. - 2004-04-20

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flyingtime

by the way, to all j2s:

although common tests seems to have just ended, well, truth is we're into term 2 week 5.

time really really flies.

10:46 p.m. - 2004-04-19

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copingwithensemble

what a long day. a very successful bio prac lol. smart hk used his scalpel to cut his potato discs, and wondered why other ppls' discs looked so round. at least he realized. but haha of course had no time to finish it. oh well...

spent the rest of the day at the booth. was so terribly hot tt i was forced to drink water (cos well i din have a single cent to buy any drink). was pretty pretty high when i finally managed to finish selling one booklet! yay!!! haha.

ensemble started off really bad. i wasnt really singing. residual phlegm from yesterday's trachea constriction. much laughter (the uncontrolled type present only when everybody gets tired), (grace lim's stomach haha). thought dieu was still ok and the singing on the way to macs was better. yup we listen more to each other when we sing like tt heh.

mm. tt's it. if i continue like tt, even if i were still a j1, dont think i can cope... haha

10:32 p.m. - 2004-04-19

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gonenomorenettonight

and. it seems tt i really am not disciplined enough. one whole day of doing nothing again. just slacking and resting after 6 days of work i guess. but tt isnt going to help me last through the next few weeks haha. sigh.

and besides, my gp needs lots of work. which i've probably said for at least 100 times.

so. off i go. no more net for the night. and surprisingly hk keeps to his promise.

7:58 p.m. - 2004-04-18

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vladimirrebikov

anyone heard of vladimir rebikov? i happened to play two of his pieces from 2 different books today. liked both (actually i've always loved one of them since i learnt it many years back but being the lousy musician tt i am i usu dunt know who composed the pieces i play). somehow today decided to find out who the composer was, and, wow! i thought tt there was sth similar abt the 2 pieces i was playing haha. simple to play (really simple) yet it seems to be the best thing for me to play now when perhaps i feel directionless or stressed or i-dunno-what. haha.

7:52 p.m. - 2004-04-18

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losttemper

"wouldn't it be wonderful if you lost your temper and never found it again?"

10:54 a.m. - 2004-04-18

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lessinteractionswithparents

interestingly, i thought tml was thursday. until reggie told me tt well u dun exactly stay for choir pracs on wednesdays do u.

i've no more than 11 hours at home each day out of which i can reserve up to 8 hrs for sleep. which i don't of course, sad thing is for the remaining 3 hrs or so i dun really interact with my parents either. this has to be the worst ever in my whole schooling life. almost neglecting my parents. but what can i do? go watch tv with them? impossible right...

11:45 p.m. - 2004-04-17

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shortsummarysweet

summary of today.

bio o. had a better idea of plant dvlpmt, but of course as usual was stuck in the dozeoff-wakeup-dozeoff cycle. went back to have lunch (think i wunt eat beef hor fun any more it's getting tasteless)

(which reminds me. on my way to nus ms singapore universe 2004 was sitting in front of me on the train. was wondering why she looked so familiar at first)

choir i thought was terrible. it's either my ears or someone's pitching. there was a split note for almost every single note we sang for solfeggio. really dunno what happened. arh but i was surprisingly quite happy abt our what sweeter music today (a song which i thought i had gotten pretty sian of). i was v tired and was really really falling asleep standing. and besides, being prone to varicose veins, i decided tt i really needed to sit every now and then.

what an embarassment it was heh. esp when during mamayog basses were completely out by the last page. for the whole of the second last page. should nver perform sth u're not sure of haha.

as usual, had dinner with reginald at jelita. turned out to be another nice one. wish i had the luxury to do this regularly with every single person whom i consider to be a friend. but haha look at nxt week. will i even be home for dinner at all?!? this is really killing me.

10:06 p.m. - 2004-04-17

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verytiredvery

napfa is nxt wk. can only do 2 pull ups? nvm there's time. till ns tt is. tutorial blk was boring, and each lesson ate into the next by abt 10 minutes. i really thought tt we shud just stop talking abt the physics bhind the bioreactors, esp when we know (or at least i've come to accept the fact) tt u cant get any answer. u dun think so? ok then.

chem prac wasnt exciting, esp since i realized tt i was practically the only person talking in the lab. terribly quiet with just a few ppl gone.

gym concert at rgs. 1. makes me feel rather old seeing sec 1s / 2s. 2. havent really gone to a concert with so many girls in the same uniform in the audience for a long long time. went to bk at orchard and chatted for a while. was v tired. but not-surprisingly, it was extremely comfortable walking at the pace of others. usu it is kinda tiring to run a negative feedback system to regulate my walking pace (and the sys usually doesnt have a mechanism for a smoothing effect so it's like simple harmonic motion).

anyway. tired. really.

12:20 a.m. - 2004-04-17

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humblingexperience

had a fun physics comp lab session, blowing diodes, resistors, switches, and everything else. haha. looked at feng's trip photos, pretty impressed, promised myself to take gd photos in rome too.

took a short break during physics s to buy food, and tt kept me awake for the rest of it. guess i've been getting into bed after 1am for the past 2 weeks or more. so much so tt 12.30 is really so early.

today's accounting is fine!! great! haha really like running a business this morning. ticket sales on the left, on the right, soper (2 chapters only haha) on sale for $2.65, $0.10 surcharge if u take math s, free gift for all (bio tutorial). quite fun.

anyway. din do well at all for this common tests, it's really time to buck up. (feeling effects of healthy competition. so many ppl ard me getting the same or better results than me. feel this obligation within me to rise up the ranks nxt major test) problem is i dunno where the problem lies. so many variables this term. not doing tutorials? not studying sufficiently? or what? so i must change what i can as soon as possible.

these 2 weeks (wow time passes really quickly now) have been a challenge for myself. think i'm managing it fine (perhaps by adding 2 awake-hours to each of my days). now tt i've reached a state of equilibrium shall add in the other reactants. school work, s papers, bio o. nver a complete reaction i guess, but i can encourage the forward reaction. it's not abt surviving, it's abt overcoming the challenge and achieving the goals i set myself.

i can do it.

also, i've bcum much more humble. bio o, humbled by brains. ensemble (stay back till rather late, and still see so many ppl in school, just wonder how they do their work and cope), humbled by their time management skills, looking at all other ppl bz with their own stuff but not showing it very much (cca, council), humbled by their good stress management and composure, looking at the prc scholars (as well as other scholars), humbled by their determination to learn, their ability to adapt quickly to this new language.

alright time to start work.

12:37 a.m. - 2004-04-16

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highlysleepy

and so i slept nothing more than 3.5 hrs last night. *faints*

dozed off a few times during gp video, was trying very very hard to stay awake during bio o training (i was really wondering when it'll end), but it turned out to be quite understandable.

only exciting (sad) thing today is i thought I got an A for my bio but actually i didn't. stupid question paper... was picked by mr khoo to answer the qn and seriously i answered the first one rather softly (a myth?) then yar i really din know how to answer her next question. my mind is totally blank. u wanna ask me why methanol is not acidic no problem i can tell u lots of crap, but when it comes to gp... *shudders*

6:53 p.m. - 2004-04-14

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mrhoreincarnated

yeah one thing abt the eye 2 tt i thought was really good. the idea of how dead ppl are waiting for pregnant women to give birth. makes me think tt perhaps mr ho has somehow already returned to our world.

i dunno, it's not as though i believe in reincarnation. (it seems he used to) but i dun mind just taking it to be true if it means tt i dun have to force myself to accept tt he's gone forever.

and so perhaps this is where religion comes in? to explain after-life? to comfort ppl?

interesting

1:13 a.m. - 2004-04-14

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manymanycomments

some comments:

1. buangkok's development has been highly catalysed by the presence of the unopened mrt station. perhaps this is the way to go for future town developments? haha well of course it'd be better if town and transport development could be done in tandem with each other.

2. chinese being kidnapped in iraq. so it seems tt to the iraqis chinese look no different from japanese heh. so nxt time a jap gets kidnapped he just needs to pretend to be able to speak chinese... haha

3. there was this hoo-ha over ang moh men not being accepted as part of singapore. right. what makes them think that they have the privilege to be assimilated into the society when ppl in their own countries probably don't accept asians to be part of them either.

4. music is really the best language... :D (haha i've said this b4 yes)

5. ppl were rather disrespectful of the malaysian scholar this morning when he was making his speech in malay. fine many dunt understand the language but dont ppl have the decency to just keep quiet? apparently not.

6. sometimes emotions can race ahead of logical thinking. it's quite interesting how the brain can bypass all the logical steps to come to the same conclusion tt u'll reach after thinking abt the same thing for quite some time. intuition.

future print came down, and sorta still cheated me heh. tried charging us $200 and i was like no way. realized tt he sorta made me lose my train of thought after talking to me on the phone. i was actually saying sth like EVEN IF u're charging the same unit price, it should be $180. but... he made me forget my second half of the statement so I kinda agreed on $180. but now come to think of it, i was going to say, the more we print, the cheaper the unit price!!

hm so advice for everyone, always write down what you want to say. but then again perhaps it's only me and my memory. but anyhow it still wasnt too bad a deal cos he kinda did print extras which are of course of no use to us but i guess he still spent some money on them.

need to improve my gp presentation skills of course, i really admire the way wang ning can do such things. chem s was fine actually, but i need to be more careful when doing synthesis questions (always consider all possibilities and perhaps arrive at the final compound using one deceivingly-unimportant statement to eliminate the rest - so cunning)

10:17 p.m. - 2004-04-13

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bznessimpression

and yes the other thing.

it's interesting how a number of ppl have told me tt they think i've been bz all the time, as in like for the whole of last year and this year. dunno how ppl get this impression, but i really dunt think so. my bz-ness is usually short-term.

11:07 p.m. - 2004-04-12

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nicedaydespitelength

it's just amazing how the conversations just keep rolling in these few days. i find it really relaxing and fulfilling when it happens. taking away all my time of course, but hey i treasure them.

nxt thing. very weird dream this morning, was trying to point out a cycad growing in the midst of many palms to my classmates, and actually saw the coralloid roots and strobili. interesting heh. sth abt mr ho also (another dream) but forgot by the time i tried writing it down.

went to jelita delifrance for a short hw-doing session, turned out to be productive. had a very good choc eclair, then culdnt resist a croissant. then needed a drink and decided maybe i shudnt go to cold storage so i ordered coffee (eeeeeew this is the last cup of coffee i'm ever going to drink). think my body has sth against caffeine, makes me feel really uncomfortable.

took 165 - 410 back. talked to sang on the way which was pretty good. mm saw spencer on 410 (it's really interesting how i can just start talking to any rj person i see on 410. sth to do with my getting on only at the last stop, so ppl sorta are surprised to see me so it's easy to initiate conversations)

so i felt like singing after the conversation. walk down tt lonesome rd. and i realized (after i got off the bus), i was walking down this lonesome road all by myself. and i really turned my head over my shoulder (to see if there was a car coming). and so when it came to "only stop to rest when the silver moon is shining high above the trees" i decided to look up and there were really trees, but there was no moon. hm. i was pretty amazed. i mean u dun really take the lyrics at face value all the time of course but it was just happening as i walked back home.

10:11 p.m. - 2004-04-12

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wowtenorbass

oh man this is amazing. and scary too.

that lonesome road. was recording ttbb. then. i let it play for a while (no more than 5 minutes?) so tt wuld be ard 5 cycles, then i stopped it.

started singing, and i could hear the bass when i was singing tenor!! !!! !!!

oh beautiful if only this culd happen all the time.

8:51 p.m. - 2004-04-11

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technologymonth

using the telecom services very much this first third of the month, hp (both call/sms), home phone, internet. v connected heh. *shudders thinking abt the bills*

just burnt the syf recording onto a cd. those who want pls look for me. i've a phobia of cd burning actually. everytime i try it i kill at least 1 perfectly new cd, cos the process will somehow be interrupted.

am now wondering why i do certain things. i mean when it really benefits nobody. the amount of work, which u put into sth (say for a big organization e.g. class, cca in the context of a student) but ends up doing no productive work at all, is simply amazing. energy is expended to create order. so as organizations get larger and more complex, more productive work is lost? hm. sounds like ecological pyramids. so organizations should remain simple? haha dunno lar. (i hope i make sense in some way)

mm perhaps why the amount of productivity lost seems huge is bcos one person is doing this useless work for the whole hierarchical level (most of the time).

and so andrew reminds me tt this is bureaucracy.

6:24 p.m. - 2004-04-11

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syf

sing-along with the syf recordings, so nice!!! just sad tt my range has decreased... but nvm it'll increase soon :D no actually it shifted downwards, cos i can reach the E for mate saule pretty comfortably, but the middle C/C#/D is getting a bit unmanageable. and it's very rough somehow.

mate saule.. oooooh crucifixus.. iddem dem.. les fleurs (ok this one wasnt particularly fantastic)

11:29 a.m. - 2004-04-11

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reflectivemoodindeed

bio o was good (oh yes hugh tan was good for the other 2 sessions too), esp since prof ong lifted the curse from the seminar room. the room used to be a really boring room, which u enter and just sit down and start thinking of qns (which of cos i have none) and the prof stares back at u and attempts to answer with reference to his/her text (if he/she has any).

anyway chorale was great too i thought, at least i was pretty happy with the music. perhaps has sth to do with e fact tt nobody was behind me so i could hear myself properly. and besides, my range sorta improved temporarily :D

well, just read eve's and shifeng's blog and tt got me thinking quite a bit. shifeng's one in particular was interesting bcos it was the first time i saw it, and i sorta got to know her better just like tt. to know parts of her tt i'll nver know if i nver did went to her blog. (makes me actually want to have a conversation with her to really just know her better than just a pw mate)

just wonder how many ppl know me through my blog. or maybe i'm so easy to know tt they just need to come into contact with me in school for a while to know me pretty well.

i dunno i feel pretty pretty shallow all of a sudden. happens whenever i find a new blog to read actually. when i sorta compare my own life to others' then i start thinking mine really sucks. (this comparison is of course unhealthy heh but i did it all the same) all i know is to study (i mean come on i dun even do tt), and perhaps besides tt, stay at home. really. sth to do with my social activities (or perhaps the serious lack of them) and recreation.

ahhh, shant be too pensive.

perhaps one way to console myself, is to remind myself tt what i am now is already way better than what i was in ri...

as always, i wish i had lived my ri days better, perhaps as the rj-hk. ah then maybe i'd have done much more in ri.

i always wonder, whether the rj-hk is being unfair to the ri-hk, by blaming him for not having a life perhaps. and whether the rj-hk is simply exaggerating how rj has been kind to him, and reducing what ri gave to him to nothingness.

no actually ri still gave me a lot. but seriously, i've forgotten so much.

i better not forget the rest of my life just like tt.

and of course i'm also wondering why i'm even writing all these on this blog... i mean, sometimes it's good to keep things to yourself.

ah but since i decided to write them, i shall leave them here...

10:15 p.m. - 2004-04-10

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funfairfood

interestingly, much of the "traditional" food tt u eat at fun-fairs / amusement parks are just bags of air. (cotton candy, popcorn)

12:42 p.m. - 2004-04-09

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wonderfulfruitfulconversations

cant believe my luck. such a fruitful fruitful week with so many wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful conversations, sometimes one after another, sometimes two at a go. and if u're one of those ppl whom i had these conversations with, i sincerely thank you, really really very much.

together with
- overcoming the challenge of managing myself under stress
- the buzy-ness itself
- the solitude tt i get along with the buzy-ness.
- (and really academic results dun matter at all),

i've had such a great week.

it's just such a fine balance of everything.

to show tt in this world, ppl are concerned abt others.
to organize my own thoughts, of how i actually perceive ppl, and myself. and perhaps how ppl perceive me.

12:46 a.m. - 2004-04-09

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fruitfulweek

amazing how i had a really gd time cycling no more than 2 weeks ago. (yup wunt forget tt)

since then quite a bit has happened. emotional stress, had to resort to sorting notes (for e class) to detach myself from my emotions (twice...), to just believe in doing whatever is meant to be (and not do whatever isnt)

physical fatigue / stress, increased ensemble prac + all the ticketing / printing stuff. ok and manageable at first (e.g. invitation letters last wk), but gradually ate into my sleep (whole of this week). it was really a gd learning experience though.


1. anything u're unsure of, clarify.
2. be prepared to respond to sudden changes in instructions.
3. when u're stressed stay calm. worsens matters exponentially if u get irritated and start irritating ppl.
4. in the event tt u cant stay calm, go explode to someone, helps a lot...

now for the interesting stuff happening these few days. been trying to race ahead of mrs lim during the tutorial itself just in case she picks me to continue the working. scary. stupid reginald stole my handphone for a while haha. he thought he could trick me but he didnt. mm chat with reginald abt choir in general (we seem to agree on many things).

didnt quite like myself during physics prac today, i mean it was quite me but i felt it was a bit too strong.

it's been a fruitful week.

8:29 p.m. - 2004-04-08

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physicallimits

think i'm reaching my physical limits. any less sleep and i'll collapse...

trying out to see whether i can be a houseman during my medical course? haha i think they're really quite pitiful wonder how they make sound judgments if they're so tired... probably seeing things (circles), hearing things, feeling dizzy... mm scary...

11:42 p.m. - 2004-04-08

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lotshappeninshortperiodsoftime

amazing how i had a really gd time cycling no more than 2 weeks ago. (yup wunt forget tt)

since then quite a bit has happened. emotional stress, had to resort to sorting notes (for e class) to detach myself from my emotions (twice...), to just believe in doing whatever is meant to be (and not do whatever isnt)
physical fatigue / stress, increased ensemble prac + all the ticketing / printing stuff. ok and manageable at first (e.g. invitation letters last wk), but gradually ate into my sleep (whole of this week). it was really a gd learning experience though.

1. anything u're unsure of, clarify.
2. be prepared to respond to sudden changes in instructions.
3. when u're stressed stay calm. worsens matters exponentially if u get irritated and start irritating ppl.
4. in the event tt u cant stay calm, go explode to someone, helps a lot...

now for the interesting stuff happening these few days. been trying to race ahead of mrs lim during the tutorial itself just in case she picks me to continue the working. scary. stupid reginald stole my handphone for a while haha. he thought he could trick me but he didnt. mm chat with reginald abt choir in general (we seem to agree on many things).

didnt quite like myself during physics prac today, i mean it was quite me but i felt it was a bit too strong.

it's been a fruitful week.

8:00 p.m. - 2004-04-08

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dieliao

stressful oh yes. and i'm gonna collapse soon man.

the whole world is already sleeping... wahhhhhh

12:54 a.m. - 2004-04-08

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thingsgetbetter

things do get better with time.

12:49 a.m. - 2004-04-07

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turnsouttobeagdday

today is a nice day.

really felt like i learnt sth during gp today, i thanked mr khoo sincerely. (hope he feels it). now come to think of it maybe i didnt really learn tt much but hey he tried explaining stuff to me! it's great.

bio oh well was just discussing with hon abt how i used not to be able to stand bio tutorials but how i know nothing can be done anyway so i just let things be.

received both math and physics papers today, and i'm v happy with my pretty decent marks. but i'll work harder for maths :P i'll make sure tt mr ho will forever be proud of us.

really afraid tt i'll just tell myself tt i can survive being a slacker. there's bound to be this voice saying this somewhere within me. and i'll have to fight against it the next common test.

there was the break, and i was really touched by bao rong's concern. thanks lots. i dunno if u noticed but i was trying to hold back my tears. i just went on sorting the notes to just keep myself occupied, and i had to pass the sorted-out stuff to christine to give out, cos i had to control myself.

why? touched, and also cos i realize i treasure the friendship. and yet.. sigh. i'd like to say. sorry abt whatever i said last night, for it was out of frustration, when all i wanted was to settle everything quickly. i guess friendships are maintained by both parties. and besides, i think it's sth to do with the disney on ice day, when everything was sorta at a peak, and we'll have to accept i guess tt things rise and fall...

lunch was good with weili.

pretty happy with myself for doing weights for as long as i could. when i finished and i wanted to wash my face i couldnt really control my hands. but it was fine after tt. just hope tt this pays off. not tt i'm putting lots of extra effort but still i hope i can get a silver...

chem s was quite gd, and i felt clever cos of my alpha-halogenation. yar i guess all ppl need to feel clever once in a while (or is it just me haha). anyway it's nice sitting next to andy cos well we think pretty alike (when solving problems tt is) and we take each others' criticisms well. and the highlight of today was when we looked at the transparency (offering a different solution from ours - not tt ours were the same), and then we analyzed each other's solutions, and we said (in cantonese of course) "wo3 men2 liang3 ge4 dou1 bu2 cuo4 ah!" with bu2 cuo4 meaning both not wrong and not bad. had a gd laugh :D

i'm glad i'm not so bz today, in fact it seems like today is a day to compensate for friendships. or to get a chance to know others better.

10:43 p.m. - 2004-04-06

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ensemble

i guess i'm gonna get a white slip for talking on the phone in the library. whatever. it's the most impossible place to get caught for using a phone yet she appeared there oh well just my luck. and am i repentant? oh yes i shall be. no more risk taking.

and no i wasnt even sad or anything it's just another one of those i-cant-believe-it things. but had dinner after tt with terence / reginald which was really funny. terence's really funny. tt's all i can say. the innocent type of funny.

so was so full tt by the time i went back culdnt really take deep-enough breaths to sing. was burping as well. haha sigh. i already have so many breathing problems without all tt food in the stomach haha.

well really wish i had much more air in my lungs... then perhaps i can sound better and sing better. i wish.

11:04 p.m. - 2004-04-05

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productivemonday

first time using the library coms this year i think.

ve stuff has been going smooth (though apparently somehow they havent according to some ppl) at least for what i can see within my comm.

after clar told me tt she got an A for physics with a big beam on her face i decided to ask mr wong and he said i did ok. well i hope it is haha. irritating to have tutorials starting only on wednesdays. 1. everybody gets back their tests b4 they do. 2. cant force myself to do my work until tuesday by which time the stack has grown so big tt i wunt start. lousy excuse. haha

ok shall do lots today and i will. cos last monday i did a lot too. in the library as well!

2:37 p.m. - 2004-04-05

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longsundayout

went out for lunch at novena sq, quite like the place actually though it's a pity tt so many shops have closed down. united square's slightly better... cute little rabbits in the learning lab. anyway tt place made me feel like i shud learn sth outside school. some time soon. when i have the time.

havent seen toys for quite some time. cos my bishan hse is pretty functional. notes, books, clothes. (and just those tt i use, not all) and of course i havent been buying toys for ages... when i went to toysrus realized there are some new types of toys but actually many classics are still there... not too much creativity in the toys-manufacturing industry heh.

went back to cashew. played table tennis. someone was holding a bday party. havent had a bday party since i think 8 years ago.

hey this is the dunno-how-many-eth time i've said it this year but yes let's just be kids again.

8:25 p.m. - 2004-04-04

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disappearingtagboard

i was just wondering why ppl started using the comments link (which i've already forgotten abt actually).

*panick* tagboard gone!!!!

actually, just click refresh and it shud appear.

1:01 p.m. - 2004-04-04

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timeformyself

what an unproductive morning. ok fine woke up pretty late but still. spent it trying to 1. find a printing company to print the tickets 2. find out how singapore fixed lines are numbered (for geog soc).

i think i shud save some time for myself, to do my own work and stuff.

12:37 p.m. - 2004-04-04

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rejuvenated

today is 04-04-04 cool huh.

gd tt i got myself rejuvenated last night, thanks.

on to ticketing matters

10:43 a.m. - 2004-04-04

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survivalskills

yup so actually my wk is a 6-day one, with just 1 day for rest. sunday. the traditional rest day.

"but nver nver on a sunday a sunday a sunday cos tt's my day of rest" haha the rest of the song is irrelevant though...

tired. really dunno how long i can survive for. yes survive.

the most unfortunate part is, this is making me lose most if not all of my energy, and i dun want to expend any energy to socialize at all. not at the current moment. dunno if anybody has noticed. at this rate, i'll be happy without friends. no not happy. survive.

this is life.

11:13 p.m. - 2004-04-03

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choirdaylongagain

bio o was quite fun since we did some prac. plant anatomy. oh well. feel stupid again. normal :D

quite a number of seniors were back. ate lunch at back of lt, and heard a pretty impressive solfeggio. generally i liked the singing today. BUT. sth wrong with our pitch, had quite some problems with keeping to the right key heh.

ensemble prac with mr toh wasnt quite as disastrous as the one we had ourselves, but i thought in the end our mini-performance (ok let's just make it practise-in-front-of-others) was quite ok, based on our abilities now. there's ROOM for improvement of course.

8:25 p.m. - 2004-04-03

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nicetogetlifthome

i cant stand it. the attitude. i wonder if it's just (to) me. perhaps. or probably.

had a pretty relaxing run with a decent timing. and. tried training for pull-ups! i told myself not to give up so i lasted till 15 min b4 the break ended, and by the time i started eating my arms were sorta trembling. but they recovered after some time.

nothing particularly spectacular during the tutorial block, apart from perhaps mr chan proving himself to be better than a chimpanzee. he was drawing abstractly on the board in an attempt to show the structure of PVC. then he started drawing a smiley face (just like the children do) haha.

chem prac test was interesting. esp the design. for 2 reasons: 1. it's really quite interesting to do, esp when i can trust my skin to tell me whether it has touched soap-like substances 2. there was sth wrong with my qn paper and i din have the last page so i was wondering why ppl were playing ard with FA7-10.

and so i'm convinced tt there's a curse on me in tt chem lab. burnt hand, exploding waste bottles, screwed up test papers. what else? dun want to know :P

then thought i'll be wasting time so borrowed tys from mr chan but realized i had geog soc which turned out to be a rare, productive meeting (and not rubbish collection phew had enough of tt). rushed out to get my dinner then prac started. until 9++. oh well we do sound better but no i bet we still sound terrible. i mean. we're talking abt competition here. see how lar.

9:59 p.m. - 2004-04-02

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lousyaprilfools

what a LOUSY april's fool. last year's was a much better one...

poor mr kan was really going to explode. it's lucky tt he dint. but it was terrible dangerous. risky game.

today was a gd day cos: no gp, no physics s, what else could i ask for.

printed the invitation letters (26) to other choirs, in the process of which we wasted some 5 more pieces of paper (double-side see we are environmentally friendly) testing the alignment so that the address could fit nicely in the window. which made it look more pro. but poor mr chan got scolded again. hmmmmmm poor thing.

5:30 p.m. - 2004-04-01

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nicewednotbad

presented the question tt i got wrong for physics mcq but apparently i still got it wrong so i guess i deserve it. (careless mistake twice sigh) had ultra high efficiency for chem tut. bio lect was much better than the first (perhaps cos i was reading the notes and listening when i felt like it)

gp video was pretty interesting. the question: why humans go to such great lengths to decorate themselves. and i was like thinking no i dont. and the very next moment desmond morris went "you think you don't? you're wrong?" sorta got a shock haha. hm do i really not bother? dunno...

and so i din fall asleep during gp. thought i will for math, but it turned out mrs cheang took over our lesson! was so so excited. my favourite math teacher ok!! terribly fast (her writing speed on the board seems to be the speed at which i type) but pretty clear. and she tells us all the essential stuff. which is great. she got me so excited tt up till half an hour after the lesson my talking / walking speed was still rather fast. haha while poor candice seemed (was) rather tired esp after chem prac. 2 extremes.

bio o was quite clear and easily understood. but was tired by then (effect of adrenaline gone) so nearly fell asleep a few times.

8:55 p.m. - 2004-03-31

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bzbzbzbzbzbz

nver occurred to me how urgent stuff was. after all it's like 30th march yar. concert's on 7th may.

but har. numbers trick ppl. 30th march 7th may. 2 months? 30+ days!!!! panick!!! haha

right. it's gonna be real bz... + all the academic stuff. feel like i'm going to collapse soon lol

10:45 p.m. - 2004-03-30

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survivedyay

was a terrible day. but then again i'm ready to accept anything. but yar resorted to sorting out the latest products from the photocopying shop as fast as possible (an amazing variety of 24 diff types) which got me all tired [luckily had christine's help] and forget abt my not-so-good mood.

but turned much better as i stayed longer, after school. got the ticketing sorta settled, and then was reading in the library. pretty happy and felt rather productive by then. like more productive than b4 common tests. great.

was on the way home then heard this really loud skid and i was like "look at the skid marks". turned out tt it was actually quite a bad crash... culdnt tell until the driver came out.. so my dad decided to drive safely after tt. haha not tt he doesnt do tt normally.

alright anyway i'm fine now. glad/proud i survived today.

9:05 p.m. - 2004-03-29

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familyplanning

my goodness. hilarious. someone got to my blog from searching "better to have a small family rather than a large one". tt poor guy must have been doing some research on family planning. prob thinking "wth does this guy think he's doing tricking me to his site"

10:27 p.m. - 2004-03-28

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friendshipsinsecsch

a few entries back i was saying tt it was nice seeing conrad, alvins, thomas at nuh, tt it was different. u look ard (as in blog surf) and all the 412 ppl are saying the same.

what is it abt jc tt makes everything so different. is it cos u're surrounded by all ur "new-found" friends, or perhaps the presence of the opp sex.

or is it just a matter of time, friendships in sec sch have matured like wine does.

8:42 p.m. - 2004-03-28

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timetorelax

hm so i went to cut my hair.

and school starts again tml. sad. wish i had more time to relax.

6:28 p.m. - 2004-03-28

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2thingsbeginning2004

so at the beginning of the year, i told myself 2 things.

1. to meet deadlines to meet expectations.
apparently this dint happen. dun think it'll happen throughout the year, will have to choose to do the more important stuff. the unimportant tutorials, only if i have the time.

2. why am i convincing myself?
realized at the beginning of e year tt i was trying to convince myself quite a lot. e.g.? haha. cant find any tt is not tt personal. but it's sth to do with me being myself. had some problems with tt for quite a while, but it's fine now.. perhaps explains why i'm happier now, why i can enjoy myself more easily.

10:21 a.m. - 2004-03-28

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shortchorale

today wasnt too bad a day either. actually met regi at the 165 bus stop haha. so hot tt i was sweating non-stop when ms low was speaking.

one thing i realized, is tt i really dun miss much from not going for sat morning sectionals. for wed combined i seem to miss quite a lot though.

it was fun reaching the 'A'. yup. thought today's music was quite gd. not sian, apart from what sweeter music, cos all the Cs and Ds are damn irritating. at my *dunno-how-to-spell* passegio. yes breaking point of voice.

8:58 p.m. - 2004-03-27

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gdcyclingday

wonderful day. enjoyed myself so much. (hm. forgot tt there was a physics paper in the morning already)

well actually the movie and ps part wasnt all tt exciting, i mean, really, such stuff isnt what i enjoy. at least i dun find them torturous, so i shall be satisfied with how things are now. dun look forward to them but at least am not repelled by them. as a teenager (wait we're not going to be teenagers soon), i must be really weird not to like all these. oh well perhaps. but who cares. i wasnt brought up to like them and it's too late to learn to like them anyway.

went to weili's hse where we sat ard for a while, and sat ard for a while. tried reading his bro's medical txt but failed miserably. then evelyn came (ok realize i make it sound like u came very quickly haha) and we set off to ros's hse, where the security guard was really of top-quality. haha. so we din set foot into her hse but just took her bike and left.

started raining soon after, so we sought shelter by buying a can of 100-plus, taking the time to also pump the tyres of poor eve's bike which were unbelievably flat (impressed with her for surviving so long. i'd have complained, definitely) after tt we went over to macs where we saw the band ppl. always very impressed by their unity. which i later thought was due to the fact tt everybody's sufficiently different from each other to be together. unlike when there's an obvious divide and u prob get 2 grps which dun mix well. -- as kindly pointed out by conrad what i see is not everyone. yeah din realize haha. oh yes saw my mum's friend as well who sells viking hotdog there.

the whole cycling process was gd (4 hrs?). perfect weather. we cycled through the whole of the east coast park. towards the east sun was setting, back west moon was already up. highly relaxing. lightning accompanied us too, and was especially frightening when we were out at the jetty, where we also saw how terrible light pollution due to the CBD was. but of course we were safe and sound. (really love the ships with all their mystical sources of light in the night)

wet puddles everywhere, but i din care by the time we were going back. not as much as at the beginning anyway. and pretty happy i culd balance quite well on the way back. prob cos i set my eyes much further down the road instead of on what's immediately in front.

really really enjoyed myself, glad it turned out this way. 3 was a gd number i thought. 4 wuld be ok but any more i thought it'll be too many. anyway such things cant really be planned. when it's not sth u planned ahead for u dun really have high expectations, so u perceive what u usu consider to be good as very good. which is good.

yeah. i've given up. why bother.

when i really enjoy myself like today and last saturday, i just wonder, why i do what i do normally during school time. but since we have to go to school, i shall just survive it knowing tt there are probably better days ahead. some day.

12:14 a.m. - 2004-03-27

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weilishse

mmhm so physics i thought was the easiest paper so far. apparently ppl dun think so. so whatever i find hard ppl find easy, and vice versa. hm.

went to watch the eye 2 just now at plaza sing. turns out tt i'm not really scared by scary movies, apart from by the sudden sounds produced. probably too detached.

now at weili's hse. waiting for ms evelyn to come here so tt we can start biking. or at least go to rosalynn's hse to play ps...

HOT!!!

4:33 p.m. - 2004-03-26

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dvdday

well if my mum were at home she'd think it was the dec hols or sth.

watched the last castle (yeah tt's from 3 years back) and found nemo too. haha well this time i found more than just nemo.
1. the sharks were discussing who took nemo away and one of them added "must be the americans"
2. when mr ray sang at the beginning, he was in fact singing the names of phylums and classes!!
P/coelenterata (aka cnidaria) with C/hydrozoa e.g. hydras, C/scyphozoa e.g. jellyfish, C/anthozoa e.g. sea anemone. P/arthropoda C/crustacea e.g. crabs etc. not sure whether he went on with P/mollusca C/cephalopoda e.g. squids. there was P/echinodermata as well (C/asteroidea e.g. starfish, C/echinoidea e.g. sea urchin)

anyhow. start doing work :D

i've been happy for the whole of this week. great!

3:29 p.m. - 2004-03-25

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commontestweird

usu i'll be rejoicing now cos it's the common tests and common tests is the time to slack. like promos last year. but this common test does feel different from the rest. mainly the effect of not doing tutorials during school term. and no attempt to actually catch up and do everything.

not totally disastrous (maybe too early to say), but i think, it'd be a wiser choice if i start doing everything again this term.

12:41 a.m. - 2004-03-25

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tionghweeleukemia

dun know how many ppl were slacking yesterday knowing, or rather, thinking tt they'll have the morning to mug... i was definitely one of them.

met evelyn on the train. and this morning sunny was saying tt she culdnt force herself to mug. and rosalynn was saying tt she cant tonight. sth wrong with us huh. apparently the rest of the world is, however, bzily mugging.

well i shall see tt i put in work for my physics tml, i've learnt my lesson sorta, everyone seems to be finding the papers easy; i dunt. probably cos i havent had enough (did i say enough? hm) practice. cant expect a newcomer to be good right haha. today's paper shud have been ok but i spent 20++ minutes on the 1st question? haha cos i realized i've nver touched trapezium rule b4...

but anyhow turned out to be a good day... :D

had a great brunch at delifrance, really delicious. math: apart from coming out of the hall really hot i've no other complaints. bio o: wasnt extraordinarily interesting either, but prob cos i started the day well it was ok. and besides, i had a chocolate eclair from delifrance and i ate it during the break. haha. sounds like i'm gonna eat at delifrance every day from now on huh.

went to nuh, reminded me of jason. anyway nice to see the 2 alvins together, thomas, conrad, me. it's. different. made me want to go back to ri again somehow. now tt was a nice feeling. bcos sometimes i do get tired of rj. maybe not so much of the school itself. more the environment and lifestyle. i want my innocence returned to me.

tiong hwee looked fine. but like i'm telling conrad, i think it's being overly optimistic. it is leukemia after all. but oh well if everything's gd, then.. gd! anyway yar am growing up, no longer as shielded as i was in ri, when death and disease meant nothing. perhaps i'd have understood it then but nothing happened (thankfully). mr ho's sudden passing away has prepared me more than adequately to hear any more of such news without getting too big a shock. maybe this isnt the real world yet, but yeah i'm getting a glimpse of it at least.

anyway. my first time going to marina bay station today haha. so tt thomas and i culd get seats. pretty small station, not nice at all, with bad lighting, bad air-conditioning, 2 ticket-selling machines not in use. saving money huh.

10:26 p.m. - 2004-03-24

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nicesongbirds

woke up to the voice of songbirds. they were singing and making sure they were in C major! haha they have perfect pitch. just tt when they get a bit excited they lose it i think. and the tune they were chirping to, it was part of a song! erm. dunno the title or artist (someone do tell me). an oldie tt goes sth like "it's a holiday"

9:34 a.m. - 2004-03-24

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improvement

sometimes i wonder, if there are many ppl who are constantly improving themselves, being nver satisifed with their achievements. while perhaps many ppl are satisfied once they reach a certain level which they deem as decent, and are stuck there forever.

i guess. we've to (*quotes the physics department*) strike a balance. conclusion: dunno.

and this conclusion is not limited to this question. seems like everything in the world's abt striking a balance. aha. tt's what i find hard. the abstract stuff. wuld have been happier if someone culd tell me where the cg and the fulcrum is. but of course tt cant happen.

5:49 p.m. - 2004-03-23

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somersaultfun

hm it's interesting what kids love. i'm still wondering why i used to love somersaulting so much. i'll just go to my parents' bed and start somersaulting up and down. weird huh. was i trying to pretend tt i was going on a roller coaster ride or sth hm.

taiwan's ridiculous. all sorts of predictions based on horoscope, zodiac, well at least these still seem normal. now they grp ppl according to the last digit of the IC as well.

2:46 p.m. - 2004-03-23

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biocommontst

what does it mean if u plunge into a 20 mark essay knowing tt u cant do 10 marks of it. haha craziness? desperate? in a way yes, in a way no. culdnt do some parts of the other questions, but wanted to do the nitrogen cycle real badly (well yesterday at 11 i was still worried over not knowing who was involved in what in the cycle haha).

was pretty satisfied with my nervous essay. the 10 mark sub-question asking how an impulse is transmitted. actual reasons are probably (1. din mug the exact wording 2. din do tutorial), but yar for once i understood why u need to do an essay. i enjoyed writing it, discussing it, explaining it. it wasnt urgh-how-do-i-add-in-more-points-to-get-more-marks. if the teachers dun like the way i wrote so be it. i enjoyed myself :D if bio s is abt this, then arh maybe i shud go apply for it. see how.

so the reason why i dun do well for gp: i dun really have any opinions of my own. no strong opinions for what they're discussing anyway. just adding-in-more-stuff-to-meet-the-minimum-word-limit. no reason for such essays to be passable (not even talking abt being good)

i'm happy :D somehow..

1:37 p.m. - 2004-03-23

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biotml

sigh it's 10.40 i'm not done with nervous. and i still have ecology.

all the same. i am not stressed. or rather was not. cos upon typing what i did i realized how little time i have left haha.

oh well at least i go to school in a slightly more interesting way tml. MRT! hope it stimulates my brain or sth.

10:40 p.m. - 2004-03-22

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chemcommontest04

haha feel quite stupid abt chem common test. but it's fine hk... haha.

met kah hua (tt's how u spell it?) on 410 haha quite interesting how we managed to just start talking like tt. so i sorta have another transport-friend. haha no lar but since i take my dad's car most of the time nowadays dun think so...

12:41 p.m. - 2004-03-22

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veryscarydream

well. due to
1. 3 armed robbers entering p. tekong
2. chen shui-bian being shot in the tummy
3. the pianist
(possibly elections in m'sia?)
i had a v weird, v scary dream last night. chinese in sg were being exterminated, i was stuck in this room with a few other ppl (whom i dunno), i was smsing ppl (yes hps exist), i was afraid of being shot in my stomach.

luckily i tried to wake up and got out of it

10:24 a.m. - 2004-03-21

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verygdday

just got home. was out the entire day. wow right. but it was a really enjoyable day. thanks to dr benito tan, bena, sang (&cf), weili. bio o training i dare say is the most interesting so far... due to the fact tt there's much hands-on i guess. disney on ice was ok, the horse was quite cute yes haha i pity the guy at the back, somehow din like the way gaston dressed and acted, felt that the real person really has such a personality, and his "voice" wasnt fantastic either. i loved the end of first half, thought it was really grand, with all the ribbons adding to the grandeur somehow. the other thing tt left a deep impression was the guy who was bending backwards, almost touching the ice surface... oh and haha saw v=r(omega) at work. and the 18-dollars, want-to-buy-a-book?-come-and-take-a-look guy. (bought my ticket there so it was a single seat but using my diplomatic skills haha lol managed to persuade one family to shift) dinner at sizzler was rather rather filling haha. one thing different abt my experience this time, was tt i tried to put myself in their shoes, and see how they were enjoying themselves performing. and how they din want to make mistakes, and how at least some of them want to make the show good. anyway i reminded myself at least twice throughout the day tt the common tests were nxt week haha. alright tt's all for now. really need to start mugging.

10:58 p.m. - 2004-03-20

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freedomfromschedule

realized tt i enjoyed myself this hols. not much happening actually. it's just how i'm not forcing myself to follow a schedule, to move towards a goal. some sort of freedom i'm experiencing? makes life so much more pleasant. just doing things as and when i like. result? havent touched anything but chem. usu, just thinking of the consequences will force me back on track but somehow it's not happening now. so let me enjoy my freedom for a few more days... :D

and so what has happened to my time? sleeping, eating, tv, quite a bit of piano, enrichment stuff (like bio o which i'm doing now). not being totally unproductive either! who says tt the definition of being productive is to do stuff related to the a lvl syllabus, worse still, limited to the few topics for this common tests.

doesnt tt make everyone feel much more productive than they were feeling? good.

12:00 a.m. - 2004-03-20

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jiayouforct12004

it's just another few days! everyone jia you!!

10:15 p.m. - 2004-03-19

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choicesschool

another thing i was thinking of. must i always be doing things tt i'm capable of. e fact tt we are told not to settle for second best just makes me wonder whether we must fulfil our potential. perhaps my potential now is to be some scientist but what if it's not sth tt i really want? again i ask, how many ppl are doing what they are doing simply bcos they have the potential to do so and not entirely out of passion / interest.

really, what am i going to school for? 1. interactions / friends 2. some basic knowledge / skills... but what's the final goal..

12:53 a.m. - 2004-03-19

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flexibilityandchange

china apparently is censoring more and more of the web from its citizens. i sorta cant believe tt it's still doing it bcos of small (ok i cant be sure abt this) amts of criticisms against the govmt.

notice tt meanwhile the sg gov has been loosening many of its regulations recently. all part of the remaking singapore effort i bet. flexibility. changing all the existing policies. (i must say i feel threatened. bcos i've been manufactured under these policies, and i guess under the current system i sorta am thriving.)

talking abt the edu system yes. all this lowered emphasis on academic results (both on the microlevel and macrolevel - no more ranking), more emphasis on cca and whatever nots (cip). this doing away with SAT and chinese. this flexible admission criteria. i dun see what problems (if any) these measures solve.

apart from the edu system, other things also seem to be changing. this sudden suggestion of a means test for hospitalization subsidies. (again i will lose from this cos i guess i'll get less subsidies under the new system. not tt i want to get hospitalized of course.) [my argument would be. if u pay more for ur taxes (income) u are in every right as eligible for the SAME (it's not even more you know) amount of subsidy]

everything is getting so flexible i dun understand how they can be fair any more. it's so tough.

i think there are other examples but i cant remember them offhand, or perhaps there will be more examples to come in the future.

i just have a feeling tt we're really just blindly following the west again. and everything is just going bcos everything else is going. i dun see anything particularly wrong with the current models. they aren't entirely one-size-fits-all (there has probably been quite a bit of criticism on this). seems to be working fine for singapore. how many ppl actually suffer under the current model in singapore, compared to in the west (particularly e US)? compare what stimulated / propelled the changes.

while it is true tt u shudnt wait till problems emerge to implement changes, i believe tt there isnt really a need to change yet.

but anyway haha it was just a stray thought it's not as though i'm suddenly very affected by it...

10:43 p.m. - 2004-03-18

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defenCe

i feel pretty stupid. for the past 5 minutes i've been trying to figure out whether i've been spelling "fang2 wei4" wrongly for all 17 years of my life, and ms word seemed to tell me so. try spelling defen-e. total defen-e day. then go check ur campbell (if you take bio tt is) chapter 43. i was just in a state of disbelief just now haha. totally stunned. until i realized tt it's the stupid americans and their english.

9:05 p.m. - 2004-03-18

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shortdayout

hm went to lavendar to get my passport extended. but it'll expire in 2005 20th jan anyway cos my passport will celebrate its 10th birthday then. being the forgetful person tt i am i din bring my ic and they have detained my passport. so sad. well at least i got my jlpt cert. still feeling quite happy over passing it with a decent score :D

4:15 p.m. - 2004-03-18

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changedtemplate

yup changed template. was getting a bit sick of the star ferry though i must say tt i thought it was really quite a gd photo. and yes all my templates are designed by me. proud of myself =)

finished my organic chem notes today anybody who wants feel free to ask me for it if u think it'll b useful.

was late for bio o i'm so sorry they actually waited for me though i told them to go ahead. looks like i better make sure i'm early for future trainings.

10:49 p.m. - 2004-03-17

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nanmoolitofo

just heard the "nan~~ mo o~ li~ to~~~ fo~~~" and reminded me of mr ho instantly. quite peaceful though.

11:37 a.m. - 2004-03-16

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timetobuckup

i feel terribly guilty actually and it's abt time too. one whole term already. i think it's time to buck up. it's the a lvl year after all... 3 months? more like 3 weeks hm..

this term saw so many things happening. quite a bit of happiness, a fair bit of sadness, mr ho's unfortunate passing, my burning of my hand, chem prac explosion, auditioning, initiation camp, skyla dinner at holland v, a class outing at bena's hse, class outing at east coast, bena's concert, band concert, moved hse (yes how can i forget), ns checkup, SAT, 'AO' results, bio o, s papers, small grp singing, decision against going back to hk.

it's been just another half a month (since 28th feb apparently) but i feel so detached from choir suddenly. oh well...

and apparently i've been sleeping at 12.30 / 1 for almost a month now... it's gonna be bzier nxt term i suppose so it's gd to take a break but...

anyway was watching "daylight" on channel 5 and i thought it was quite nice. at the end of it, as a sign tt everything was fine and safe (i suppose) they showed new york's skyline, with the wtc twin towers. so ironic.

so as i was saying buck up hk buck up =) no point feeling guilty abt the past yar...

9:35 p.m. - 2004-03-15

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permanentscar

i think i've finally accepted the fact tt the scar on my right hand will be permanent. somehow i've always thought tt it'll disappear in due time.

8:30 a.m. - 2004-03-15

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verycrowdedsuntec

went to suntec for the uk uni fair. not very useful as usual cos i dun even know what i want. only info i got from it: a 6-month gp course by the british council for $855. wonder if i should go for it. anyway the place was unbelieveably crowded, cos of the food fair in the next hall and the IT fair 3 floors down. zhen1 de shi4 shui3 xie4 bu4 tong1.

very tired somehow despite having slept 9 hrs and then taking another 1 hr nap. maybe tt's the reason why i'm feeling dizzy hm.

6:26 p.m. - 2004-03-14

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nuswholeday

so there was genetics for a morning. wasnt too bad... at least i sorta knew some stuff.. was very cold though *shivers*

then stayed on for open hse. met so many ppl. yup. the world is small. nus is small. haha hm... siti! from bpps yup she recognized me but i culdnt really recognize her. jason with jessie and yong ping. sing yong with mum. and nicholas zepeng dunno who else. thomas in the multipurpose hall. yao zong, lu sien, aaron.

6:51 p.m. - 2004-03-13

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lastfridayterm104

finished quite a number of tutorials today. wish i culd add a "I" to the front haha. nope it's a "we". there was no chem prac / gp so we managed to do many questions. gd.

geog soc was interesting. but i hated the smell of rubbish / rotting stuff. eeeew.

i thought our singing sounded much better than the first time. of course there's always room for improvement...

10:21 p.m. - 2004-03-12

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determinednottodohw

was just telling andy on the way back just now. i'm not a very determined person usually. so what does it mean if i'm quite determined not to do any homework. haha.

9:17 p.m. - 2004-03-11

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ponmathlecture

oh yes b4 i 4get. yesterday when i ran to the toilet during the break between the 2 gp papers (or perhaps slightly after they started telling ppl to hurry up settle down) the floor was so dangerously slippery. luckily i bumped into the wall with my whole body so i din fall down even though i felt like i was ice-skating uncontrollably.

it was scary how mr wong said "you all are 20 minutes late. where did you go?" i got a shock sorta cos i thought he was pissed. well he ought to be. i must have sounded rather apologetic cos he said he wasnt scolding me after tt. but oh well still scary.

was trying to stay awake during lectures but oh well... haha. anyway. very interesting. i went to the library and met zhafri there who thought i was ponning lecture. so i was like har? have lecture meh? then he was like yar so3 having math now. so blur :S

took 156 home back but ended up in ri. din manage to see any teacher, got chased out of the library, so decided to go home. was kinda a sad visit.

5:48 p.m. - 2004-03-11

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2cabstoday

stupid bio o training was cancelled. got me into this -cannot believe this is happening- mood. i said i was pissed but i wasnt. but i did feel like strangling someone i did.

gp was ok i guess i suppose it'd be another b4/3 for me. physics rep meeting was quite pointless, cos for almost everything tt we discussed we came to the conclusion that we "must strike a balance" (euphemism for "we are not implementing any changes")

always am more aware of the productivity (or perhaps lack of productivity) of sth when u have two things happening at the same time. when this happens i'm usually not happy, thinking tt it'd have been more productive if i had gone for the other thing.

the 1st cab driver got inspired by me to try for the o lvls again after he quits driving (he was telling me tt he earned $2000 in jan but only $1200 in feb, and tt nobody wanted to employ him cos he failed all his subjects for o lvls except chinese). the 2nd was complaining abt the huge number of competing companies (and how each of them apparently have 1000 cabs in their warehse), so i helped him by telling him to drop me off at the backgate where he very fortunately found another customer. (he was complaining tt nobody goes out when it rains) and so perhaps this is what the $7 i paid was for. a round trip from rj to nus to rj with 2 interesting conversations.

anyway, i realized tt if there's anything tt i look forward to now, it's chem s and bio o... even if i'm bad at them, at least i really learn sth, and it's actually interesting.

6:55 p.m. - 2004-03-10

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doublelectureblock

ok so as andrew has corrected me not every class has a break b4 the double lecture block.

what to do? doesnt look like there's a solution huh..

10:30 p.m. - 2004-03-09

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justsomeranting

think i've grown a layer of hair for insulation or sth cos i dun freeze in the lt any more even on days like this, when it had been raining for the past day.

like weili said, i really shudnt have told him to come to school today, bcos there's really nothing much tt u learn. hm. but then again when i miss a day of school i feel insecure. hm. but not like i listen much when i go to school anyway. haha ok.

the s03 grp is getting really overboard, "it's 15 minutes into lecture time", and we are "young and lively", yet ppl still stroll in slowly as though there was really a break bet the math and physics lectures. in case you forgot, yes there is NO BREAK between the 2 lectures. get tt fact in and perhaps u'll start wondering what u're doing. simply time wasting. we dun have a break b4 this double-lecture block for no reason u know.

had 2 beep tests (till lvl 9) for pe which got us all sweaty and smelly. very tired, but luckily chem s wasnt tt terrible. except the synthesis qn which i "left blank to copy" (in lee chee keong's words).

i feel excited for the band ppl who are leaving so soon... our trip is like one whole term away. and hopefully we dun get too bz then.

9:21 p.m. - 2004-03-09

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stupidscope

hmm. so i stayed up till 2.30 for no reason last night. anyway. today was the first day when i can go home at 1.10 (cos it was either ns checkup or appointment at sgh for my hand the weeks b4). well of course it was (still is) raining so i was stuck in school. and i basically went to read morrison and boyd. went for math s thinking tt my dad will fetch me home. only to find out tt he lost his phone and din know tt i asked him to fetch me. haha so i stayed back for nothing.

anyway. bio prac was interesting. why? cos i found out tt u see the same thing under the 40x and 100x lens. so now the question is how did i survive the past few weeks using this scope without finding out. think i've been using the new scope quite frequently, and when it's my turn to use the old one i either use the teacher's scope, or use no scope (when my hand was burnt). yup haha.

i'm feeling worried for gp.

8:58 p.m. - 2004-03-08

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wondersofexercise

realised i gained some 2 kg from not doing one month of pe.

and i lost close to 1 kg from not eating a very good dinner / cycling for an hour plus in all today.

so i declare tt exercise really does help keep ur weight down... haha but of course i want to my weight to go up. an ideas?

11:22 p.m. - 2004-03-07

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cyclingalone

this evening feels absolutely weird. went for the senior-junior class outing and it seems like it was everything but a class outing for me. spoke to only 3? juniors and ard 6 of my own classmates.

spent my time on weili's bike most of the time. perhaps all i did was go to 7-11 to buy one bag of charcoal. no cooking for me this time. saw ppl playing bridge but was somehow uninterested. so took the bike again and went all the way to this ulu end of the trail. which was a really relaxing experience. there was nobody at this part of the trail, i only had the company of really tall tress (or rather the silhouette - there were no lamps anywhere nearby). got hooked to cycling there while singing, and i went up and down that trail thrice. the sky was getting darker and darker until it got a bit scary. considering tt there was this dog near the end and it walked out to 1. welcome me? 2. check whether there's another stranger? 3. mark its territories? dunno. but it was nice nonetheless and i was tempted to go another time but decided tt it was already 8 o clock and i shud make my way back.

there was this green metal bridge which i had to cross, which was especially nice. have no idea why, but it was really nice.

one thing bad abt today though. weili's bike is pretty hard to balance so i culdnt release both my hands. but all the same it was really enjoyable.

and when i went back to the pit i ate some marshmallow. got fetched back to j8 where i ate my dinner (delifrance).

so it seems tt today i really just wanted to be alone. havent felt this way for so long. tt's why it's a weird night.

perhaps i'm looking forward to another night like this.

9:40 p.m. - 2004-03-07

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kinoorchard

oh yes did i mention. i finally used my kino vouchers. haha. to buy halliday which used up 90% of my vouchers. and then the remaining 10% was used to buy my own copy of brave new world haha.

11:41 p.m. - 2004-03-06

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finallypiano

let me declare. i'm tired. so tired tt these few days i've had to find motivation (e.g. release of results for yesterday and bio o/choir for today) to wake up and get out of bed. this hasnt happened to me b4 as far as i can remember.

tired but i'll continue trying to cope haha. promise myself. wake up no earlier than 9 tml.

i realized tt i've learnt to appreciate music more. i've grown musically over these 2 years. finally played on my piano. it's been a month since i last touched it.

bio o was good today cos the prof was asking us questions, stimulating our thinking. i like the fact tt he wants to impart knowledge to us, and not merely "train us for the ibo". he made me reconsider again whether i really really want to give up research. one thing he said tt kept me thinking for a while. who were watson and crick? an ex-ornithologist and an ex-physicist. so perhaps i still have a chance haha. but oh well really if i dun make it, i'll nver be disappointed cos i know the rest deserve to be in the team.

i have to say tt i'm generally in good spirits.

10:37 p.m. - 2004-03-06

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longlongdaydisastrouschemprac

just got home. a brief description of today's events. went for pe (touch rug), got an extra bruise tt blends in with the burn scar on my index finger haha. got back jap results, good. happy. sth i ought to be proud of. gp was the most interesting of the whole block of 5 tutorials, with us using the ceiling as the screen for the OHP. sure helped in keeping us awake, dunno if it helped in helping us absorb though haha.

chem prac accident again. no NOT ME!!! the organic waste bottle somehow exploded. it was below the front side-bench where u usu take ur reagents from. and i was right in front of it waiting for my 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine. the sound seemed like a broken test tube which dropped from the table, so i turned ard to look at the teacher's bench, only to be pulled away the next moment by mr chan. the bottle was leaking. and the organic waste (including all sorts of hydroxy, carbonyl compounds) was reaching my shoes!!! what a shock i got. traumatizing.

anyway then went for the career fair after tt, which turned out to be not-tt-useful. but i guess i get an idea of what the not-so-good unis are like so i have some basis of comparison? went to crystal jade for dinner, we (xuxu, shulin, sunny) ordered 3 dishes.. not bad.. shulin was feeling guilty for eating the brinjal though cos apparently she has this brinjal soft toy at home haha. lol.

so walked back to rib with xuxu, went to ms low's hse to practise. haha yup in moor hse. it definitely sounded better than the very first time, but i guess there's still a long way to go. i hope. was getting tired, and was able to reach lower notes... haha gd.

reached home, finally saw my piano here (it's been at bkt panjang for the past month). did reasonably well for jlpt, 296/400... and oh yar i think our pw had quite a number of 'e-e's

alright time to take a rest. 8.30 tml!!! urgh.

10:37 p.m. - 2004-03-05

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overalldesires

i slept during chem and math lectures, but it was fine cos i was following haha. anyway for chem lect, it was really unbelievable. ppl were so desperate for seats they actually took our omnimax seats. NOT EVEN A SINGLE ROW LEFT FOR US!!! i'm just going to scream at the ppl the next time they take our seats AGAIN.

anyway i just know tt i'm pretty tired and want a break. well. physics s seems to be giving us a break. great.

but hey i'm actually looking forward to bio o trainings and choir. as i said i miss singing. not actually looking forward to going to school otherwise.

oh yes my piano should be here by the time i reach home. finally get to play again... yay!

perhaps i still want to go to endau rompin, but the desire is not as strong as last year, when i really really just wanted to leave singapore...

8:29 p.m. - 2004-03-04

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wed030304

ms lee seemed to be referring to our class this morning (particularly me haha) abt eating explicitly during tutorials. hmmm better be careful haha.

the day was otherwise pretty boring. mrs lim seems reasonably good a math tutor... though she seemed fierce during the lecture test, she's quite nice to us. and somehow she knows my name already...

celebrated mr toh's bday in a way. and i left almost immediately after. doesnt feel right. but anyway. today's training session was on macromolecules. not tough.

i feel like i'm being pushed to my limits, but tt's really (i believe) cos i am lazy, slacking my time away. not trying at all. so i shall have to do it to see what my true limits are. see i'm not even saying "i will try now" cos tt phrase seems to be a curse. doesnt ever work if you say it...

8:44 p.m. - 2004-03-03

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2testsonthesameday

mr chris tan's lectures are all pretty clear. gd. double period gp actually passed without me knowing (wait does tt mean i was dreaming? haha)

math test was luckily still ok. though i obviously din study for it cos i didnt sub x = 0 to find the maclaurin series and ended up with this bunch of rubbish numbers with root-3s in them. but still corrected it in the end. then physics was worse. first question. stare. "huh?" and then just go on to the next page. how very smart of me. again evidence tt i dint take a close-enough look at the notes. Work done = Force x distance !!!! even a primary school student can tell you that (i think). haha well lesson learnt.

8:46 p.m. - 2004-03-02

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handscabsgone

i've to declare. today is a happy day!!! the last of the ugly scabs disappeared, and my family doctor (i.e. my mum) helped me cut away all the disgusting-looking dead, white, skin that was getting really disgusting. yes they are all gone and now my hand looks normal. well. at least no loose skin / scabs. there's still the intense redness which i hope will disappear some day.

8:40 p.m. - 2004-03-01

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nsregistration

nothing particularly interesting in school (apart from being poked on the butt twice by ms lee for hiding bhind the screen). bio prac was manageable i thought, the time given was just right. (tt's after i realized tt i need to speed up of course haha) i was rather restless during gp, and then i just left for ns medical checkup...

... which was ten times more interesting. well at first i was wondering why the rest of the ppl in rj dun seem to have gone for their checkup (and still am wondering actually), and was sorta freaking out when everyone ard me was either 'n' lvl or 'n' lvl. but anyway it was interesting to see these ppl whom i'll see in the near future. so there was a urine test (they din even bother giving us cups, told us to just pee onto the strip of paper), a blood test (he said "right hand pls" but reconsidered after seeing the condition it's in), a dental checkup, a chest x-ray, height and weight, blood pressure, ecg, ask for medical history (as well as pull down undies, cough cough), measurement of uniform size.

then finally this 2-hour academic test. testing: SAT-style analogies, iq questions (+number patterns), simple math (but including stuff like differentiation), 3d-visualizing skills, response-speed test, can-you-follow-instructions test, physics principles test. i was getting ready to retrieve my bio and chem knowledge when they told me tt's the end. very tiring cos u're supposed to do as quickly as possible. i wonder how i did haha. it'd better be better than last wk's chem prac haha.

6:08 p.m. - 2004-03-01

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29thfebhaha

yay 29th feb haha...

i thought my hand was getting well hm but it'll take another month at least. as in the wound is closed and all but i still have to apply this anti-scar cream. let's just hope that it works.

somehow i feel very efficient today. feels like i can be productive today. but yar it's 2.30 now and i havent done anything since i woke up. haha.

2:26 p.m. - 2004-02-29

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omissionofSAT

thinking of taking the SAT again this May? STOP! read this and reconsider

9:28 p.m. - 2004-02-28

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appreciate

how many times have u wished tt u'll recover when u're sick (say with a nver-ending running nose) or when u have an ulcer (or perhaps many ulcers. they dun usually come one by one), or in my case when i had a burnt hand.

and when u slowly recover, u dun actually seem thankful for it. u dun appreciate things when everything is working fine. u take things for granted.

perhaps i shud really learn to appreciate things. even as everything is going well.

and in case anyone was wondering whether this post came from me thinking abt mr ho, it wasnt.

8:55 p.m. - 2004-02-28

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ibotrainingno2

alarm clock (handphone) went off at 7.20, snoozed it, woke up at 7.40 with handphone still in hand, realizing. shit. late. left my hse at 7.46, ran ran ran (usu a 10-minute walk - my pace) and got into the train at 7.51, reached raffles place 8.08, reached buona vista 8.25 (not late!!!) to find tt tian yi overslept also. haha. but no lar i wasnt pissed or anything. we managed to reach there on time. or so we thought. cos apparently the workshop was supposed to start at 8.30 not 9. haha and we got lost too. luckily i was in a gd mood so i culdnt possibly get pissed haha. was pretty happy in fact.

the workshop was very enriching. well. cos of the "hands-on". actually more of the presence of specimens i guess. the "lecture" wasnt useful though. but i think i'm enjoying this ibo training (it's definitely enriching and there is a large variety of activities), and i'm going to look forward to the next one.

dunno if i can say the same abt choir. somehow. i suddenly feel distant from the ppl. doesnt help tt i'm not going on wednesdays any more (i mean i do but there's virtually no chance for interaction, and even on saturday there isnt any chance either). luckily i'm still enjoying the music tt we produce. enough to keep me happy. and the fact tt i no longer get overdosages (esp on saturdays) of singing makes singing more enjoyable too.

i'm still thinking of mr ho, whenever i'm not thinking abt anything else. but yar i'm accepting tt he's gone soon. after reading all the stuff on the web abt him. ppl (esp bikers) sending condolences to his family. tt somehow seemed more final than attending the wake or the funeral. we still miss you of course, but really my greatest greatest regret is not getting to know you well (speaking for the whole of 3f?).

6:46 p.m. - 2004-02-28

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atempo15

pretty decent concert... liked the inn of the sixth happiness the most. made me want to sing properly tml haha.

din even finish the chem prac test but haha quite normal lar... just hope i did fine for the parts which i actually did.

there was this interesting dream yesterday i had during physics lecture. so in this dream i was sleeping at the very same seat i was on, and bena / ee sang were sitting next to me in the actual way they were sitting. and so bena went to the toilet, and i had to wake up in the dream cos i was blocking the way. then she came back. and i realized i was dreaming. interesting huh. read again if confused.

10:49 p.m. - 2004-02-27

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mybiggestweakness

you know sometimes i really hate myself. the way i cant ever decide on things. the way i just wait for the deadlines to pass and just stay on with the existing option. or the way i just try and see if i can make it. i dunt seem to have any strong opinion that can allow me to follow through my decisions.

this is probably my biggest weakness. and it's bound to destroy me somehow in the future if i dun get rid of it.

10:05 p.m. - 2004-02-26

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firstbiootraining

mr ho's funeral was fast, it's a pity i couldnt see him again. he was pushed into the cremator and ppl started crying...

went back to school, mr tai took over for the moment. our new tutor's gonna be mrs lim swee lian. yup the math s tutorial 1 one. hmmm... dunno how many ppl have actually accepted tt mr ho's gone forever, but for me, he still still isnt. in fact, i was still expecting him to walk into ts14 when i opened the door, and even after mr tai came in, it's as though mr ho's on mc or sth...

anyway there was bio o training which was highly interesting. lots of nice photos to look at. hm but unfortunately i feel asleep once (and when i woke up he was looking at me). really tired lar. so he kept hinting "shall we have a break"... but it was just the first part (tt was when my eyelids felt so so heavy, the best i could do was let them go through an open-close cycle of period abt 10 seconds...)

6:31 p.m. - 2004-02-25

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mrhohasnotleftus

i did cry when mr hodge was describing mr ho, and i thought at tt time, tt i will let it all out. i din stop myself from crying. but i seemed really unaffected after tt, i tried switching to the back-to-business mood. i din know how to handle it actually. this is the first time tt someone i knew died young.

i'm still seeing his photo everywhere, still imagining him at the whiteboard, writing with his left hand. him checking our tutorials, but i'll make him skip checking mine. him confusing wang ning with bao luo. him expecting 100% As from our class, and yes the P&C quiz which we anyhow guessed to get the candy. and the latest numerical method quiz, the one which i sat at the teacher's desk to do and he was looking at my paper and he was saying there's a shorter way. and he's so worthy of respect. imagine. he went for his bike competition the week b4 as well, and when he came back he still taught properly. perhaps it's a weekly thing for him, and our class doesnt even know abt it. he has definitely fulfilled his responsibility as a teacher.

no mr ho, you have not left us yet. you are slowly migrating to our memory, but no, you are still not part of history. and until then i'll perhaps still imagine you coming into the ts any time.

9:45 p.m. - 2004-02-24

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touchinghands

this morning b4 i woke up, my right hand tried to search for sth under my pillow, and it felt sth rather long and thin. it adjusted its position slightly and it felt sth similar. and i was thinking hm tt feels like a hand. whose hand is under my pillow? started waking up, and then i realized. it was my left hand! sounds really stupid yar but when i woke up my left hand had totally lost its sense of touch. insufficient blood supply apparently cos my head had been sleeping on it throughout the night without any motion. had to warm up the hand under my blanket (the air con's pretty cold) can u imagine how interesting it is, to feel your own hand but not know tt it's ur own hand. as though you're touching someone's hand. eerie perhaps.

10:24 p.m. - 2004-02-23

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cyclingmanmrho

if anybody wants to know more abt how it happened, go here.

and look at this. he came in first in the experts category. and he owned a bike shop as well..

it's good that u had so much fun with cycling...

5:57 p.m. - 2004-02-23

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sadlymrhohasleftus

i guess we werent tt close to him, so our class seemed relatively unaffected. think our class is full of ppl who are indifferent-emotional-indifferent. guess the other classes have more emotional-emotional-emotional ppl.

he was a great man. went for his wake, he had a cut above his right eye. but otherwise he looked ok. heard tt his lungs were punctured. mr ho, you're one person who i'll remember, as the person who did what you liked, and who left this world because of doing what you liked. we'll miss you.

it was such shocking news, and it nver did set in until i saw you. i (and i believe many others in the class) could still imagine you coming into ts 14 / ts 12, writing all the integration formula on the board, waiting for us to come in. explaining to us patiently. asking us to listen, but perhaps some of us would still be doing our own stuff. trying to explain to us the iterative process. or last year. coming into our class at 2-10, with chalk all over your favourite shirt (well we figured that the shiny greenish one was your favourite) after teaching at A03B. writing on your transparencies which came in this thick A4 box-file at ts 6. we nicknamed you shuai4 ge1, and we drew you on the board. you went for the defence day race, and your team got 1st. you were such a healthy and fun loving person.

the second last time you told me sth, was when i asked you whether you had seen the late assignment which i put onto your table. you said you saw it, and you seemed to be hinting tt it was terrible handwriting (tt was done when my hand just got burnt).

i usu do my tutorials during/immediately after you go through them and seldom had questions for you, but tt last lesson, friday, i asked you abt how many chapters we had left for our core syllabus. abt how many chapters we have in our option. you told me that complex numbers was the last, and that they had forgotten to change the chapter number (you'd always use "they" instead of "we" when referring to our batch's lecturers). you showed me the math tys and counted out to me how many chapters there were in statistics (i remember u omitting "probability" and i added "and probability right"). you told me that the lecturers will combine some of the chapters so we'd have sth like 8 chapters. and you walked out of the ts after tt.

you left us young, and it's really a pity. i thought tt you had so much tt u wanted to do.

i dun like the idea of how the school is just going to find tutors for the 4 classes that you taught. it's as though u just left the school temporarily. but we know it isnt so. for all those who are affected, i guess it's time to move on. we cant be mourning forever. perhaps we can promise to do our best for math, to get our As, to make him proud of us.

on a separate note, it's been a long time since so many of us actually went out of school together. and well it was quite an interesting trip with ppl trying to learn cantonese (baoluo's really good at it. though he starts chanting like a robot after a while). and yes tt place totally doesnt feel like singapore. strong wind tt feels cool in the hot sun. big road but not with too many cars. not many buildings nearby either. a mrt station tt isnt open for use. so deserted, so unlike singapore. so nice and peaceful.

5:08 p.m. - 2004-02-23

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excited

feeling pretty excited. but shant say y lest nothing happens in the end.

and erm i wish the bad news i heard werent real but i've a feeling it is. sigh. r.i.p.

11:27 p.m. - 2004-02-22

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pianistover

feel so guilty. just watched the pianist. hm... amazing guy.. more work. at most 1.5 hours more?

3:34 p.m. - 2004-02-22

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clashesibo

i've been sleeping at 12+++ / 1 these few days and it seems like i'm surviving? without any naps so far u know. i always say i want to take naps but somehow dont ever manage to do it. have to eat / bathe and by the time i finish it's 9+ so its sorta a weird time to start taking a nap.

anyway yup got into the ibo training team. clashes clashes clashes. but i'll just try to the best of my ability... yup

hope bena's performance tonight will be a success..

11:31 a.m. - 2004-02-22

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nonencouragingsmallgrpprac

was yawning away at first cos was really tired. but the dravidian piece and the other one (scream ?) were quite interesting. enough to keep me happy. small grp practice wasnt very encouraging. how to quit? gd decision? well i thought my singing was still relatively (*impt word*) ok.

was krishna's bday and we gave him a mini cake. lunch at macs saw the tenor and bass sections trying out all the sauces tt macs has. pretty filling lunch.

more work ahead

7:13 p.m. - 2004-02-21

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chemlabcareful

went into lab today warning everyone abt broken chairs and "safety first" haha, but got some Cr3+ on my shirt in the end. haha at least not damaging. oh but haha my pimple burst and there was quite some blood and ppl were getting worried. and i said "shou2 yang3" and they thought my burn was getting itchy. had to repeat myself 3 times? b4 they understood me... haha.

alright work again. not too late this time though. slept at 1 last night!

7:30 p.m. - 2004-02-20

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flattenedflesh

i'm just somehow accident prone. and it's not even my fault this time. all i did was to sit down on the chair in the physics lab and the next moment i jumped out of it and limped a few more steps. the instant sensation of pain was worse than what i felt for my hand. so i went to the toilet to inspect damage. this 2+ cm by 0.3cm(?)piece of flesh from the back of my left thigh was totally red (it still is now). i'm cursed.

7:54 p.m. - 2004-02-19

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withshrillcommand

before the switch was open, the switch was... *drumroll* ... closed ! and before the switch was closed, the switch was... *drumroll* open ! ~laughter~

sat nxt to sunny, christelle, xu xu and shu-lin today. pretty fun sitting nxt to them. gd to have a change in sitting partners every now and then. ee sang and bena are a bit quiet haha. not so dramatic.

we went out for lunch at crystal jade (bena, sang, sunny, weili, hon, eric). had wonderful gan1 chao3 niu2 he2, and then xiao3 long2 bao1, cha1 shao1 chang2 fen3. then nydc 1/3 a mudpie and a cookie (it's really great!) met serene thain who i think was eating her mudpie...

back for colours which was surprisingly short, during which i was trying to calculate how much the medical expenses total up to. $185.85 after tt sectionals werent very productive. but as usual quite fun lar, with krishna the mentally retarded and me the disabled talking to each other in tt funny language we use. then reginald and i were trying to learn the songs for the 12 member thingie, was very fun haha when we finally got it (though prob by now we cant do it). yup. left at 7pm. waited 20 odd minutes for a 30-minute trip. this is the 156 experience.

8:08 p.m. - 2004-02-18

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longasinlongday

air con wasnt working in lt1. wasnt feeling hot but the poor lecturers were sweating so much... must be heat from the ohp. then ts14 also din have a functional air con either. what a cursed day.

gp was interesting (for me) cos we had this not-so-abstract discussion abt the usage of the atomic bomb to end ww2, and it was interesting to see eric's agitated response. sat nxt to honlyn during math / physics lecture and she found me highly boring cos i din really talk / move much.

chem s was extraordinarily long, lasted till 8pm. hope this doesnt happen again.

ah yes anyway my hand seemed to have healed! somehow the scab has formed overnight? cos yesterday the wound was still wet. will still take some more time definitely but at least i see progress. this morning i woke up cos i felt sth on the back of my right hand. wait. feel sth on the back??? bandage fell off!! bad news!!! so i jumped out of bed, and then wow! scab! haha was practically jumping up and down when i found out.

but u c my index finger is trembling uncontrollably. not bcos of damaged nerves no i dun think so. it's cos i've been using it to write and the finger is trying to convince me to let it rest. so rest it shall. for another 5 minutes at least.

10:06 p.m. - 2004-02-17

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knowingj1s

some of us were saying we rather just keep to our own batch and not bother knowing the j1s (chorale / 3f). suddenly i feel like knowing ppl again. i've no idea y. perhaps cos ros and i met this girl from 1so3f who is from hong kong too and she migrated here when she was 5 (i.e. we both migrated in 1992).

anyway just found out last night tt i had a virus in my comp since 14th dec last yr and it has been creating this 172kb big file each time i log on (apparently i used the comp 200++ times since then) in windows emp. culdnt delete these files at first. then i decided to rename the folder to "hi" and i managed to delete them. haha how smart. lol. actually it tried to infect my antivirus program too but i dunno what happened. hope it's gone for good.

9:52 p.m. - 2004-02-16

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sghagain

if i decide not to bcum a doctor in the future, it's really bcos doctors i've met are really not impressive. yes they may be inexperienced (m.o.s) but still not forgivable. look at today's one. $28 for a "ok can stop antibiotics. looks ok. come back again in 1 week." maybe there's really nothing else to say but at least dun make it so short. all the waiting and travelling for a less-than-2-minutes consultation. wow.

but of course there are always the good ones. whom i've met b4 as well. if i am to bcum a doctor i promise i'll do well.

nothing special in school. perhaps i find mr chan's lectures a bit more useful now, cos i'm getting used to such lectures. after going to sgh i walked to dad's office again, this time stopping by a gui1 lin2 gao1 stall to eat it. not very gd in my opinion, not worth the $5. met dad's colleagues who havent seen me in years and they were wondering who i was haha.

6:50 p.m. - 2004-02-16

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nappingiscontagious

wow another nap. 2-hours. hm haha. lazy pig indeed. ah but feel very refreshed. math bored me to sleep this time...

ate my 3rd last dose of antibiotics (2 each: penicillin and cloxacillin - interesting etymology: c(h)l(oro)� + ox(o)� + a(zo)� + (peni)cillin). happy bcos i dun have to eat 4 pills at one go, dun have to eat them 4 times a day, dun have to get dehydrated (they're highly dehydrating weirdly). but there's now a risk of infection. dunno if the doctor will give me another course. i hope not.

8:20 p.m. - 2004-02-15

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auditionsforsmallgrp

went for auditions in e end. haha only what i knew was heard, din have to expose e fact tt i din put in any effort to learn the songs.

pls dun think i'm crazy though. it's an either or. in the event tt the bio o team decides to pick me as a reserve, then i wunt join this, and chances are i'll join fringe? (tt is if they're fine with me joining). if i dun get into bio o (which is pretty likely) then i'll join the small grp but sigh actually still want to join fringe haha. poor reginald made the decision to try for the small grp.

anyway, missing my piano. it's not here with me in bishan u c...

3:55 p.m. - 2004-02-15

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lovethegamewithlotsaspinning

oh yes i really loved the last game when i spun round and round.

anyway was reading old entries (accidentally) and it's pretty interesting apparently by june last year i still wasnt very comfortable in tenor. and actually i've changed a bit. so has the choir of course.

realized i havent gone out with my parents say to suntec for a long time... maybe i'll really go overseas again after coming back from italy on a family trip.

8:41 p.m. - 2004-02-14

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raceandcamp

tired, but fun.

during physics tutorial mr wong just kept eating tt cheesecake tt ee sang and bena baked. haha. anyway race. fun! well... depends on how u view it, but i thought it was ok. most memorable is definitely the 1.5 litre which i had to gulp down (it's really a torture. wanted to puke, was salivating ), and the 910 windows tt we counted at the MITA building (actual number is 911) i guess cos we put in effort it was enjoyable.. chinatown station wasnt tt fun, and too much time was spent trying to look for the station. arab st wasnt tt interesting either, cos we basically just followed the teams b4 us. esplanade station was so-so i guess, wasnt tt big a challenge.. mr chan (ter yue) was quite gd as our teacher-in-charge, he was enthu enough to try and keep up, and tt's cos we were nice to him as well (haha i hope...)

after tt was the chalet. which is really ulu beyond imagination. but a nice place i'd say. and the entire camp was a success. achieved its aims of bonding definitely... din have too many games, but i thought the ones we organized were just right. they made most if not all of the ppl involved, and perhaps warmed them up for the night (bridge/mahjong/etc). i thought it was fun, beyond my expectations. perhaps next time we should buy less of stuff like cups, ice cream sticks, food. and perhaps we should have brought more sanitary stuff like garbage bags, toilet paper, detergent. but overall it was a good balance of planned and unplanned activities which i thought made the camp a pleasant one... expensive as it was for only 19 or so hours i would say it was worth it...

6:18 p.m. - 2004-02-14

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stealfood

oh yes did i mention i stole some food there? haha (shhhhhhhhhhh)

10:44 p.m. - 2004-02-12

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ibointerview

haha after reading xin quan's blog, i feel a bit better (though i wasnt feeling bad to begin with haha)

ok anyway. same mistakes. i said i know who they are and the next question was what's their names. right. as though i would recall. i thought i did the worst for the ecology prac as well but apparently everyone did their cell bio badly. then the guy asked whether i can read txtbks for long periods of time. i said yes, and added if it's interesting. then he asked what do u consider dry. i said ecology. why. cos i think it's abstract. tt's it. got scolded like hell. she went. "u know the dispute bet singapore and m'sia now? u think the molecular biologists (cos i put cell/molecular bio as my interest) will go and settle the dispute? har?! it's the ecologists! ecology's so applied!"

i seemed to explain my rmp pretty well though, she seemed satisfied. she culdnt really find anything to scold me abt. or perhaps by then she had given up on me. haha. yes they identified me as a gep but somehow perhaps cos i wasnt in pri gep (therefore not a full gep) they din ask me abt EQ of geps haha.

oh yes they started off asking abt my hand and said how are u going to represent singapore like tt if u're so clumsy (after asking abt my hand). i culd only say. accidents do happen!

conclusion. more or less gone unless other ppl screwed up more than i did. quite hard to do tt yar... haha :D

9:33 p.m. - 2004-02-12

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badatinterviews

seems like i'm really terrible at interviews haha. nvm then. nothing else exciting besides physics prac test which wasnt tt exciting either actually.

7:58 p.m. - 2004-02-12

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stuffandmorestuffandmore

time's flying. b4 long the whole of feb would be gone and so will the the rest of j2 life. sad huh.

had a really really good and long laugh during gp/civics when we played polar bear. really really coincidental. :D was really funny lar i'm glad i opened my eyes when i wasnt supposed to which made me commit suicide and allowed me to see what's going on.

was pretty sick. lack of sleep is one factor i think. was so pissed with my nose last night haha. got slightly better today. hand is getting better i guess. or shall i say at least not getting worse. cos i dun seem to be able to tell what has changed since the last time i saw my hand apart from another blister which has burst (which i already saw when i peeped under the bandage). wounds still look white-yellow-red. hm.

ah yes. realised tt the only thing tt i din feel awkward doing was the cutting of my right hand finger nails... tt's abt the only thing which lets me feel like nothing ever happened to my hand.

7:03 p.m. - 2004-02-11

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usingrighthandnow

sick. even though i'm like on antibiotics. conclusion. it's the influenza virus! sigh. tiring.

today's chem s was encouraging cos i din really have to feel too stupid this time. promised myself i will write out my working properly nxt wk. haha. sitting nxt to wang ning helps too, at least he doesnt know some stuff... haha.

started using my right hand today (thumb and index finger rather) blisters gettting more bao2 man3, just hope they dun burst too soon.

somehow there are less and less ppl online. well i think putting my comp away from my table helps me in joining these ppl in their abstinence from comp usage

9:54 p.m. - 2004-02-10

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2xtrathings

2 things i forgot.

i did well for my sat this time yay!

and yesterday there was some reaction between me and the cream so there was reddening of sth along my whole arm which i found out later is actually my lymph vessels. and my wounds are getting more painful...

10:12 p.m. - 2004-02-09

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toomanythingshappeningatonce

so. after tt fall-into-the-drain accident there was another one in the chem lab with me spilling molten sodium nitrite (melting pt 281�C) on my right hand. most of the chem department came down and took a look. mr tan (arenes) drove while mr chan accompanied. first to ghim moh clinic then to sgh. not traumatising cos i guess there wasnt blood. not tt painful either. maybe i can tolerate pain but i might have at least screamed if it were really tt painful. according to shu-lin who sits in front of me, i was repeating "bu4 hao3 le" while flushing my hand with water. pretty proud of myself for staying calm.

so anyway the next day i went for choir as usual. ended up going to sgh again cos finger started swelling. e nurse remembered me, so she tokked to me for a while... was told i had to pay $80 again (!!!!) cos the time then was 5.27, 22 min more than the 24-hour-period after 5.05 for which a revisit would be free of charge. and so i was going to leave the place when i decided to ask the doctor who then waived the charges. haha how nice of her.

moved hse on sunday. everything done pretty quickly, even i helped with my one hand. went for a bbq at night. it was simply wow. two of my dad's friends turned into cooks (one brought down this thick piece of stainless steel for teppan-yaki). so there was turkey-style slice(a)-and-then-continue-bbqing(b)-and-then-(a)(b)(a)(b)(a)(b) beef, 4 types of fish: stingray, salmon, saba and this fish which he coated with salt. and there were prawns and sausages (3 different types), chicken wings. then there was fried rice, bee hoon, porridge, salad, some hk-style dessert, home-made lemonade and ice lemon tea. wow right. and there was a yoghurt cake. my goodness so full after tt.

used the teacher's microscope for bio prac today. simply wonderful. had ppl feeding me during the break. decided tt i preferred to eat using a fork instead haha. mr chan was hilarious he said they did 2 min of cip each. lol. then i went to sgh -again-. this time to the hand specialist. he said it will recover in 2 weeks (a reduction from the 4 and 3 wks which the 1st and 2nd A&E doctor said respectively) and gave me 108 pills (antibiotics). supposed to swallow 4 each time 4 times a day... crazy.

anyway chun hui's compo which she was so proud of has been published. it suddenly seems relevant. i dunno. different from when i read it (or perhaps when she read it haha - tt was 2/3 years back yar). it's as though she really just wrote it. anyway.. do work! using my left hand? haha

10:07 p.m. - 2004-02-09

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somanythingshappening

so many things happened in these 2 days (in fact tml as well...) but now too bz / inconvenient to type too much.. moving tml

9:53 p.m. - 2004-02-07

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walkingintodrainsismytalent

decided to go collect registered mail from the smart locker downstairs, and within tt short trip, i managed to walk into a drain (so dangerous. insufficient lighting. and the drain cover which used to be there is gone) i guess i'm lucky enough not to get myself injured apart from two scratches cos:
1. i wasnt wearing shoes / i was wearing slippers 2. the drain is knee-deep (how would i know? haha i have a cut there as evidence)

i just have this talent for walking into drains and walking out of them relatively unscathed all the time. the previous time was just nov last year b4 pw in school.

9:06 p.m. - 2004-02-05

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sleeptiredhuhdie

really tired from last night. slept whenever i culd haha.

so i shall sleep now. after i bathe tt is... and see when i wake up. then i'll start doing work then.

8:14 p.m. - 2004-02-05

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chorale3f

well it's quite interesting i was blog surfing and i found my own blog! haha wow right. as in http://hkextracts.diaryland.com haha i extracted the reflective ones apparently. like a time capsule.. anyway. it's really interesting. another decision making time. and look what i wrote last year: "chances are (i say chances) tt i wunt really get tt much out of chorale ppl, the ppl in chorale are simply just so diff from those in odac whom i'm comfortable wif."

how wrong i was...

haha but wait b4 the 3f ppl start wondering abt why i dun ever mention 3f in my blog. (well not really) i love u guys too!!! haha about 1% probability tt my future life would be similar to what i have now in 3f haha... well. perhaps we're too civilized. hmmm. considering how indignant i got (and how shocked the rest were as well) when qi qiong drew her pretty pig on my pencil box (triple alliteration! haha).

sometimes (like now) i wonder. what it wuld be like if i had a cca mate in my class... cos i sorta am not exactly the same i guess. quite normal isnt it.

1:25 a.m. - 2004-02-05

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anotherlatenighthaha

haha another late night... my mum does a gd job usually forcing me to sleep some time ard midnight. perhaps tt's y i'm pretty healthy (well unless anyone begs to differ) apart from asthma, and i've grown quite a lot over the years (vertically tt is. not horizontally. perhaps i need to sleep later for tt to happen)

anyway more or less decided. i'll go ahead with the thursday chit-chat session which has a 74% chance of becoming an interview (it's at MOE HQ after all). erm and then decide again then. but for now, i'll just take it tt i'll proceed with the bio o training, though hopefully i'll be able to negotiate and see what i can do abt the wednesday training. it's fun after all. could be worth it even if i dun get selected in the end. or perhaps if i want to drop out in the end. after all it's not a lot of extra time (as in the trainings. the reading up is another matter of course). but i'll try.

anyway nice chat =) wouldnt have been possible if my mum was ard lol.

1:10 a.m. - 2004-02-05

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viewinghwdifferently

in rj, i realized tt i dun view hw with as much importance any more. really not. there are so many things which deserve to be thought abt, so many other things which need to be done.

ah. just a thought. dun think it's just me. perhaps there are quite a number of ppl feeling this way.

8:08 p.m. - 2004-02-04

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biooornot

bio o. choir. choir. bio o.

i dunno really. i dun think i'm tt smart to actually excel in an elite grp, budden again who knows if i dun try. i havent ever tried. but choir. sigh. concert and trip. i really love choir if this is the first time i'm say it. up till now i havent actually put anything much above choir. really. tt's how my priorities have been. quite rare for me to put sth so high in my priorities. which is why this is a tough decision. it's a changing of priorities if i decide to go for bio o training.

but actually why do i even place so much importance in chorale. *wonders*

i'd have to put in lots of effort for bio o of course. it seems to promise lots of fun too.

perhaps my life would be different too.

i just dun wanna make a decision and decide tt the perhaps the other option would have made me happier, and given me more satisfaction.

a voice seems to be questioning why i'm even considering in the first place. why i dun choose choir straight away.

sigh.

11:08 p.m. - 2004-02-03

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longtiringdaycosofpe

such a tiring day. already slept so late this morning. and then had to wake up early some more. none of the lectures were esp interesting. after all i was doing my chem s tutorial. (oops shhh) din do anything for bio tutorial, but haha bao rong dug out this ancient transparency from april last year (it was my presentation of how glucose hydrogen bonds with water!! haha). went out to ghim moh for lunch.

pe was SO tiring. ran 2.5 (yes not 2.4) in abt 10min 22s (+- 5s) managed better last year i guess but haha what do u expect from a person who doesnt run at all apart from during pe. sure to deprove. shows tt odac really helped a lot last year. anyway. then there was this 9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 assisted chin-ups to be done. was really dying, think abt 10 were not pull-ups but rather leg-pushes. but still! i wuldnt have done it myself. gd to encouragement from ppl ard u. and erm thanks to mr low as well for massaging me haha it removed some lactic acid...

and so i was still slightly dizzy / breathless and it was time for chem s. doesnt help tt i din finish tutorial, and i din attempt all questions. nov 98 made me feel stupid immediately, but as time went by i thought i grew smarter (luckily). i guess kinetics isnt exactly my forte. i need to revise my kinetics even for a lvl syllabus. i guess i shall do just tt.

anyway. i declare tt i'm lag free. the big leap was gp essay (which mr khoo was trying to hint wasnt well written at all cos it wasnt exactly an argumentative, and i was like yar i know but i wanted to get over with it - what bad attitude... :( ) i'm basically left with math and physics to catch up for. i shall depend on my faithful sharp EL546L to help me clear this stack :):) finishing soon!!!

7:44 p.m. - 2004-02-03

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occamsrazor

Woke up 11+ this morning. haha what a bum. anyway. nothing extraordinarily exciting. dismantled a closet/cabinet. doing hw pretty quickly so tt's great. look at this:

Occam's Razor: "one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything" (this underlies all scientific modelling and theory building.)

8:20 p.m. - 2004-02-01

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looooooooooooongchat

just had a loooooong chat with conrad. was great. exploded. haha. yup. yeah but obviously i'm in a much better mood now. :D yippppeeeeeeeeee! ok lar not actually tt happy but at least there's nothing much stored in me. anyway i've been online for 4 hours (!!!) yup so must do work later today...

of course i'll still be vulnerable. dun want to have tt terrible feeling again but there's no way i can avoid it. simply too bad for me. i guess i'd have to live with it.

2:23 a.m. - 2004-02-01

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removal

shall remove the previous few entries. whoever wants to read can always ask me for more details.

7:55 p.m. - 2004-01-31

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toostronginvoicingout

after rereading the entry haha well the reaction was a bit violent. in fact. i dun really feel as left out as i sound. it's always like tt. once i voice out my opinions it turns out to be much stronger than what i actually feel. cos i am actually quite a mild person.

//removed

7:28 p.m. - 2004-01-31

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leftout

was left out. and yet not feel left out. confusing. in a way pretty weird. i'm not complaining.

yesterday took mrt back to bishan. the trip home made me feel like i nver did leave bishan. the way my legs automatically bring me through a specific route weaving in and out of buildings / car parks.

watched the last part of sister act 2 last night. the "waiting for announcement of results" (in the movie) reminded me of sec 1 syf, as well as makes me wonder abt italy.

6:27 p.m. - 2004-01-31

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movinghse

will be moving next sunday. tt's pretty sudden yar. there's no excitement tt usu comes with hse moving. in fact i feel frustration. i may be worried abt my mum but i simply cant believe tt it's actually happening. it's almost as though we came to cashew heights for a one year holiday hm. which is my old hse? haha getting confused already.

perhaps it'd be good, perhaps it'd be bad. i've just gotten used to bkt panjang, gotten used to the convenient transport (not being sarcastic at all). in fact i've nver really left bkt panjang cos when i was at bishan i still came back once a week. well. just when the renovation works for the swimming pool is completed. hm.

bishan was where i passed 3/4 of my ri life, and the place comes with memories, perhaps many bad, though no fewer good memories. but it sure seems tt i have much less bad memories at cashew heights... anyway gonna have to change my lifestyle again. will prob go to school / go home by mrt. will not get to see some transport friends as often (ppl like zhini, belinda) but perhaps i'll use bishan in a different way. perhaps i'll explore the place and the surroundings more. who knows.

11:24 p.m. - 2004-01-29

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yayay

sigh. i'm really going to fail my pracs at this rate. look. i got resistance (internal resistance of cell + ammeter) that is negative. ah but i am trying to improve. time management has improved at least. and anyway it's unfair. mr wong said the resistor could be 10% off i.e. the 2ohm resistor could have been only 1.8ohm. !!! how very unfair.

after school i was doing work above the hall. sooooooooooooooo cold!!!!! totally unlike singapore. anyway i'm off to do more work! very motivated.. i wunt say i'm lagging yet but yeah i'll prevent tt from happening..

8:43 p.m. - 2004-01-29

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mdminge

just b4 bio lecture started i told bao rong, "aiyah dun want to sit right along the aisle leh inge will ask me to answer her questions..." and indeed. second time being picked by her. how very lucky. :S but anyway *disclaimer dun kill me for saying this* i think she's actually a pretty good lecturer. let me explain why. she includes questions in her lecture and stimulates our thinking. she goes at a reasonable pace, and DOESNT elaborate on everything. she gives an overview as well as general examples.

anyway the point is. we complain tt her lecture doesnt follow her notes. but must lectures follow notes? esp for bio, i dun think so. things tt are on the notes, we can really just go home and read, just like what we do nowadays for organic chem.. somehow we've gotten used to having lecture plans as our notes. tt in my opinion is actually rather useless.

fine i havent heard a uni lecturer b4 and wunt know how they lecture but still in my opinion inge is good.

8:21 p.m. - 2004-01-28

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homealone

parents not at home again. funny feeling. i'm not the type who'd miss my parents when i'm overseas alone. yet now when they're not at home every night from 10+ onwards, it feels really weird. probably cos of the reason why they're not at home in the first place.

10:51 p.m. - 2004-01-27

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graphofyequalstolnx

a very long day. bcos i was watching omnimax for all 3 lectures it was really tiring. slept through half the physics lecture i think. math lecture was the most interesting. cos i saw a strand of my hair on my notes, decided it looked like a ln graph (NATURAL logarithm indeed), and drew my axes. showed those sitting in my row and their first reaction was all "huh what so special", which changed into a small smile/moderate laughter after i used my pencil to poke the curve to show tt it culd move. time for work. istIargctCbtd

8:18 p.m. - 2004-01-27

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longblogentrybutcometothinkofitmaybenot

i'm getting more and more tired.

anyway. the last emperor was really enjoyable. first time watching a ballet. i just wonder how it'd have been like if we had paid abt twice the amt. then perhaps u dun need binoculars any more. but being the critical person tt i've always been, i was commenting tt u can actually see them preparing for every movement. i just dunt find the transitions smooth enough i guess. anyway we were lucky we werent late haha.

tt was saturday wasnt it. saw yong ping at whitley taking sat as well! actually i saw winnie as well i think. dunno if she saw me. sat was ok i just hope i get sth higher. i'd be happy as long as it's above 1500. yup. then went to ee sang's hse for lunch / mahjong. first time actually seeing caifong (if tt's how u spell it) and talking to him. pretty interesting guy. oh the 73 i took went into serangoon gardens. so nice now tt it's been renovated.

woke up very late on sunday and ended up going to bena's hse like 2 hrs after getting out of bed. and den had 2 meals of steamboat. mahjong again. some organ. yup. there was badminton too just tt i think next time i go to bena's hse i'm going to give them new badminton rackets as gifts. (after all their family has been so kind. they have treated me to i think 4 meals or sth.)

i was late some days back right. was feeling very guilty at tt time. the wait-for-the-teacher-to-come-and-book-you feeling was unbearable. realized i havent felt it in RJ until then. the same feeling when u forgot to bring ur hw (in sec sch or perhaps pri sch for some ppl). but jc is really so different. in a way we're really treated as young adults, treated with more respect, given more rights. while we (ok shudnt generalize but i guess it's quite a valid generalization) sorta abuse it.

anyway some time back in my dreams i was doing auditions with candice clar val, then just last night mr toh dropped me to bass. looks like i'm really looking forward to a chorale prac huh..

anyway. some small facts i picked up while i was at mac's this morning. (haha what was i doing there b4 12.30? shhhh)
1. the taxi tt was driven into the swimming pool has yet to be removed. (sounds too hilarious to be true. i bet even taiwan hasnt had such an absurd incident, YET.)
2. marina bay's gonna be sealed from the sea (ok fine this first part aint exactly news. it's been known for at least a year i think) so clifford pier will be moving.
3. eiffel tower had red lights shining on it as part of the welcoming ceremony for chinese officials.
4. bill gates is going to be knighted.
5. there are 25 fire stations in singapore.

10:09 p.m. - 2004-01-26

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bz

doesnt feel like school at all. after so many days of intensive mugging / playing. dun even have time to blog. anyway. will tok abt my cny experiences tml or sth.

10:54 p.m. - 2004-01-25

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hahainterestingcomp

interesting things happen when i use the comp on the 23rd of jan.

first at yahoo i typed in "search!" and an advanced interface loaded.

and the scariest. using ms word to mug SAT. typing in the vocab. and then i pressed sth and the comp started reading the words one by one!!! like through my speakers. still trying to figure out how to do it again (like what shortcut key) ok found it windows key + S.

try both out!

7:17 p.m. - 2004-01-23

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junction8

i must say tt junction 8 is really amazing. things keep changing there. if all shopping centres were to close down except one, i shud think tt junction 8 will stay. not tt it actually has a good variety of shops, but rather 1. its continuous drive towards meeting customer's needs 2. its central location.

the most laudable part is tt it makes changes even though the existing tenants / customers (us) are happy. tt's really rare i think. have u actually seen suntec change? or taka for tt matter. they've always been like tt havent they. kudos to the team at j8.

2:16 p.m. - 2004-01-22

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familimportance

haha 1-22 1:22. ok anyway. quite nice haha going over to bishan. but erm i had to step on some egestory material last night. was really disgusting and the worst thing is i found out only this morning. kept thinking tt i can still smell it even though i already washed it off. luckily i wasnt wearing my new shoes whose soles have so many small "trenches".

i think i'm realizing the importance of family. for some time i took my parents as just ppl-at-home. go home every day, dun even help with housework, just go to my room and perhaps start chatting or doing hw. i do speak to them, it's not as though i treat them as robots, but i treat them just like any ordinary friend. but now bcos of this "crisis" (?) it feels just so different. i really feel helpless looking at my mum in her condition now. sigh. and i keep thinking to myself this is when we need family support, in fact she needs family support, not just from me and my dad, but also from her sisters and brother. the importance of family. sometimes i guess friends just cant help.

yes was talking to tiff last night on msn and she let me realize tt really my cousins are the closest things i have to sibilings. it's a pity tt they've to be so far away.

perhaps apart from being a bird, it'll be nice if i could be a child again, in fact, an innocent child forever.. to just wake up every day, laugh when playing (or being played), cry when hungry, when diapers are soiled, when i injure myself at my knee/head/whatever for the ?th time the same day.

budden again perhaps it's good to have grown up.

1:22 p.m. - 2004-01-22

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lnyeve2004

was on the way to jurong point. saw many many migratory birds flying. nice. one day i'll be a bird. i'll pass through so many countries, see the ppl, the architecture, the culture. taste the different food (hm who knows maybe bcos of the different soil berries taste different). and it's like a biannual (not biennial) event. yeah i shall be a bird.

it's cny eve and everybody's like at their reunion dinners. so it was easy to get a parking space (like right in front of the lift. wow) then realized tt almost everyone in the shopping centre were non-chinese. either tt or chinese with no families (at least not with them). saw tt guy (the "chairperson" of dunno-who-fan-club which he set up himself who asked me to join when i was kettling at dhoby ghaut) looking rather miserable.

anyway the toilet at jurong point is really cold. dunno why they feed all their cold air there. but quite cool. feels like i'm not in sg.

alright alright i'm leaving. not sleeping here tonight.

9:25 p.m. - 2004-01-21

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chinesenewyear

quite an ok cny celebration i thought. short enough to keep ppl in school. interesting start as well. great. our class had our annual yusheng lao-ing. at ri i met all the teachers. mrs eunice tay remembered me as the one who went to the bbq one. haha lol. mrs cheah's gone i think. mrs yap's son is growing fast. ms quah is perhaps getting married in the near future (she refused to say a thing). felt quite old actually cos most of the ppl there were j1s. mdm wei ling gave me something made of beans. she's still as boastful as ever but tt's her yar. ms tang's birthday today. mr johari complained i was taller than him. mrs selvan saw me but was bz talking on the phone. mr krishnan somehow disappeared without me saying much to him. mr paul lim seems to have shrunken slightly. mrs d cruz said she did pass by on the 24th and din c me (cos we moved to the zebra crossing). mrs jasmine chong was speaking to her 4q. mr david court seemed as hm-are-you-one-of-my-students (i did irs under him and he still owes me the report) as ever.

2:06 p.m. - 2004-01-21

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urgh01202004

oh did i mention i'm appealing for chem 's' instead of math 's'. but somehow i feel like i'm running away from math. so even if it isnt approved so be it.

i'm sick. sigh. what a great time to get sick.

and yes today i was late for school for the first time since i entered rj 2nd jan 2003.

9:25 p.m. - 2004-01-20

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alongjan192004

just hope we get new microscopes for the 'a's otherwise i'll kill myself looking at blood smears haha.

gp was quite ok, we were comparing the French constitution (written after French Revolution) with tt of Singapore and realized how much freedom there really is in Singapore. blah blah blah BUT blah blah. cant singapore just have less 'BUT's.

was ultra blur during bio lect and din even realize tt mdm inge was referring to me, and upon realizing somehow vasodilation took place. i wonder if i can ever learn to control tt.

went to body world after school. nothing exciting actually. perhaps i expected too much. cos after some time everything's the same. nice to see the different organs i guess. i pity the deformed fetii (is there such a word haha. fetuses then). either the brain or the intestines leaking out of the body. sad. the smaller fetii were not at all impressive bcos i've seen better ones at chicago's museums.

rushed across the island to NUS for the medical career seminar. which i think did help me in some ways. most imptly it has more or less allowed me to confirm tt i wanna study medicine. yar perhaps a surgeon with occasional trips to less developed countries, then later be part of the public health administration. budden again if i do tt i'll probably not get to any senior position. but there's variety i guess.

met elina there. havent seen her for ages. she sorta bluffed me at first by saying tt she wasnt elina and got me all confused. but yar seems like she's doing fine. ay 3f we should contact her more, maybe for the nxt class outing? met joshua as well of cos (last time i met him was the dec concert). then on the way back met hui fang (whom i havent met in ages as well. probably 3 to 4 months)

10:42 p.m. - 2004-01-19

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fatethroughrj

perhaps i really should leave things up to fate. fate seems to have brought me along in the best possible way i can get through rj so far.

in such a pensive mood. there were so many conversations i was trying to handle simultaneously just now..

12:19 a.m. - 2004-01-19

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thinks

in fact i suddenly stumbled upon odac blog and started thinking abt last year again.

10:29 p.m. - 2004-01-18

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beyoung

i smell the haze. my eyes feel the haze. much as it isnt good for health (esp for my asthma) i wish it would come again. i love it. the smell itself. the memories it brings.

my sleeping in my parents' room. when i was in p5/p6, my whole family would pass the evening (eating dinner as well) in one room cos we only have air con in the bedrooms and we'll suffocate if we stay in the living room/dining room. perhaps i miss being a child. the going to school with a wet towel in sec 2 with mr johari (somehow i link the haze to him). oh mr johari how r u? and mrs cheah. those who saw us grow up.

let's go back to sarimbun, let's go back.. the ulu place where i first got to know some of whom are to become my good friends. my going for japanese lessons at the moelc. eating sushi b4 tt. the limu. the first day at raffles voices in the music room. in fact, any other day in the music room. the keeping of keyboards in tt small pathetic cabinet. the chiangmai trip. the endau rompin trip. the prague trip (which i din go for). many many other things of cos but these are some of the things tt came to my mind straight away.

let's all be young again..

9:42 p.m. - 2004-01-18

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shockingnews18thjan

news coming as a shock to me:
NASA to stop servicing Hubble telescope
(Body World) German anatomist used executed Chinese prisoners' bodies: report

5:48 p.m. - 2004-01-18

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latenightblog

reached sch at 9 to audition a few more ppl. and den. there was sectionals which werent successful (prob cos it was combined with basses though it's also possible tt we just werent warmed up enough). there was lunch at pizza hut. very bloated after tt. and then there was auditions. very long and tiring process.. boring too to sit behind and just wait.

and so we decided to go over to lt5 and wow it was great singing our syf pieces. we din really care much abt anything (not even the notes), but it was fun. i could actually feel the energy, the joy, the enthusiasm and the sense of relief (though the j1s din seem too impressed actually).

so what's the problem now, what's the reason for dessert pieces? i've come to a temporary conclusion tt the following will help us:
1. Better response to Mr Toh (more effective sectionals and faster response during combined prac, so tt we dun get bored listening to him say the same few things again and again. we only have ourselves to blame actually)
2. More challenging / interesting pieces. (mr toh probably wants us to sing what sweeter music bcos we can use it to work purely on our technique. but perhaps we look forward more to the pieces which are hard to learn - say in terms of notes and rhythm - rather than those tt are hard to master. perhaps we can have a mixture of these 2 types)
3. Higher turnover rate of pieces. (we're human. we get sick of stuff if we do it repeatedly)

ok anyway after choir ended up at queensway with sing yong. well perhaps my first time shopping with a friend and buying sth. a pair of new shoes! haha my current shoes have soles so smooth that i cant even walk sometimes on flat ground. and den went over to ikea to eat dinner and just sit ard and talk. oh there was this really nice sofa bed. fits my sitting posture (when i'm resting) i guess when i do work i'll sit upright.

went home by bus. (took 61 to bugis and changed to 960.) the 960 was initially in front of the 61 which i was on, but we overtook the 960. to my horror however 61 doesnt stop at the same stop as 960 (bus stop A). and so it went on to bus stop C. but 960 turns into rochor rd u c. so i got off at bus stop C, with my specs all misty, i started running towards bus stop B. thanks to the traffic light which stopped the 960, and a nice cyclist who somehow realized i culdnt see and decided not to bang into me (it was quite a close shave actually), i managed to get on my bus

............|*B |
............|.....|
............|.....| <-- rochor rd
............|.....|
______|.....|____________
*A.............. *C victoria st
_______________________

parents not at home now, at bishan. tt explains y i'm still blogging at this time.

12:34am - 2004-01-18

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newsfromtoday

in case anyone is as unconnected to the world as me, here are two things i found out from the news today..

price of newspapers has gone up! straits times: 60 cents --> 80 cents!! shocked. *in a state of disbelief*

much poultry has been culled in the prevention of the spread of the bird flu. saw the cute little chicks meeting their doom, but i realized tt this happens all the time actually. quite sad yar. poor animals. bred just to be killed.

10:16 p.m. - 2004-01-16

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worryingabtthings

there are things which i can do nothing abt. i used to worry abt them, but now tt i realize tt these are out of my control, i can choose not to bother abt them.

but there are those things, which i can choose to do nothing abt, but which i can do sth abt. which i can choose not to worry abt, but which i can choose to worry abt. a worry tt comes from the bottom of my heart.

and the funny things is, it feels great to know tt i'm worrying abt these things.

9:15 p.m. - 2004-01-16

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fridaydunnneeedmuchwords

5-tutorial-block was tiring esp after pe. but haha i got quite high during chem tutorial. in fact it was alfie who got high first haha. chem prac turned out ok as well, (yay!). and geog soc treasure hunt seemed like a success. auditions.

7:19 p.m. - 2004-01-16

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the15thofjan

perhaps our batch is more honest than the j3 batch. results from the survey done last year show tt all our percentages were less than those of the j3 batch. hm.

thought tt perhaps i culd do a prac properly at last, well yar i did finish with abt 10 seconds to spare. why? cos i drew the wrong graph. (sigh cant i just stop making mistakes). y against x became x against y. but i managed to redeem myself haha. i shall promise to read my pracs carefully from now on.

i present here-in-this-case with a good progress award. her favourite phrase was heard only 159 times during the lecture (vs 300+ same time last year).

auditions. erm. slightly sad should i say. i dun feel very bad, but it was a stark contrast from the first day.

6:54 p.m. - 2004-01-15

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aimforquality

i suddenly realized tt i've been trying to aim for quantity for whatever i do. maybe it's time to aim for some depth as well. quality.

11:09 p.m. - 2004-01-14

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14thjan2004

gp made me think. are we solitary creatures? or do we really have to belong to "tribe"s? i think i view myself pretty much as an individual even though i belong to "tribe"s.

thought ms teh was going at bio o speed but haha otherwise she wuldnt have finished in time.

chorale was ok i guess, time passed very quickly, perhaps bcos i was really paying attention to singing? then there was auditions. hopefully more ppl sign up. i mean ok lar the ppl who came are all quite good. but we could do with more ppl.

7:27 p.m. - 2004-01-14

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longtiringdayactually

first there was bio tutorial during which my hp rang and i decided tt since ms lee wanted to answer might as well let her answer (actually on second thoughts what if it were my mum or sth tt wuld be scary) turned out tt the person got the wrong number. happens every now and then.

there was gp. presentation was ok i guess. ok lar not thaaat boring. but we (the anarchism grp) figured tt gp is bad for health cos the whole grp was so tired and was falling asleep during lecture.

during lecture i suddenly told sang tt we havent seen here-in-this-case for a long time, and the next second and i mean the very very next second she appeared at the front of the lt. scary.

then there was 10 rounds around the track at a pretty fast pace. was crazy. erm actually by the 9th round i wanted to drop out, could feel tt there wasnt enough blood going to my face. but when mr loh said one last round i decided to just finish it. by the time i stopped. the blood in my feet was boiling (really!!), and i was feeling cold when the wind blew. like my blood probably went to the vital organs or sth. this is the furthest i've pushed myself for running. quite proud of myself. considering tt i havent run 2.4 for at least 3 months.

went to choir board and was sorta surprised actually tt so many ppl were still ard. thought my treble clefs were quite ok though i was a bit slow haha.

8:36 p.m. - 2004-01-13

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interestingfirstdayofauditions

get another butcher nxt year for the nxt batch. perhaps the butcher has a liking for atria, and keeps them for himself. who knows. all our hearts did not have both atria intact.

auditions today. was quite fast. erm pretty good overall haha. tried playing duet with alex but din really work cos of the cross rhythm.

then started pasting posters all over the school, at quite a number of weird places... haha. came home with zhini on 75 and i was bzily translating the stuff she brought back from japan. got myself quite dizzy hm.

6:38 p.m. - 2004-01-12

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clarsaysworryless

i shall learn to worry less abt things i cant control.

i love the way i can use the piano to dig out all my sadness / get myself into a worse mood and then recover from it. haha erm is this abusing music? i dunno but it's effective for me.

11:06 p.m. - 2004-01-11

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renci

i think the renci show is going a bit too far. too dangerous. why risk a life to save others. there are (i hope) safety devices but still. what is the point of risking the lives or well-being of the actors / actresses.

8:46 p.m. - 2004-01-11

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passssssssion

the situation tt the choir is in now (ok look it's not in a terrible condition but we all agree we culd do better) is a very good lesson to show tt really we should do everything in life with passion.

12:00 a.m. - 2004-01-11

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badchoraleday

thought the 1.5 hour lunch-break was too long. erm sectionals were still not useful. i mean seriously. it's like just trying to get us to remember the song haha. anyway. had pretty interesting discussions with krishna and wui ming over lunch. discussing food and stuff. had this soya sauce chicken + wanton + dumplings noodle. ex but good. oh yes chorister of the week. actually it's interesting how krishna, wui ming, conrad (sometimes), and i (actually basically most of the tenor section lar yar) can talk abt things which others would have dismissed as rubbish.

scoldings from mr toh, which i thought was long overdue. i mean. at least the contents. i wuld have expected it to be said sooner or later, preferably by ourselves / our teachers. exactly the thing in the last comm meeting (as in the one in the canteen where "dessert pieces" was first mentioned) which made me feel out of place. like clar said on the bus which i felt was true, a choir is for classical music. not exactly "dessert pieces". and if we want to make full use of mr toh we should really head tt way. yup.

9:37 p.m. - 2004-01-10

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skyladayohwaitouting

when we found out mr khoo wasnt here, i was just SO happy. i was sleeping on the teacher's table, but i sat upright immediately. cant describe the joy i felt. much more than tt i've felt during new year celebrations. sounds really bad but seriously i was dreading gp lesson today tt much. i guess pe made me tired, and the 3 tutorials b4 tt already made me sian enough. it's a type of relief tt i havent felt for a long time. is it mr khoo's fault? not really. i just dun like gp. i'll nver do it if it werent compulsory.

had a small 10-min quiz for chem, which was ok. then prac was ok too (YAY!!!). yar i finished on time. shall keep it up. oh today's bio tutorial reminded me of the fact in bio, u end up dumping in what u know on ur answer sheet more than writing in the actual answer to the question. i hate this, really.

there was geog soc. haha hm. hm haha. yup. then we went ard the school taking photos for treasure hunt. after which xh, shifeng, me walked to holland v. skyla dinner (at thai express). sarah, jian an, xh, shifeng, dominique, danny, leqi, shuang ning, me! quite a good turnout rate i would say. again i din have too high expectations so i thought it was ok. tom yam noodles i had looked innocently white (like erm fish soup) but oh my god was it spicy. cool. just as we were leaving buddy og walked past.

11:01 p.m. - 2004-01-09

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interestingdayatchinatown

we started our day with "Perspectives (new)", "Patience", "Potential". then there was Physics Prac. (tt's many many 'p's huh) which i din finish cos there was sth wrong with my set up. image of screw simply refused to be sharp. simply cos my light source wasnt parallel to the table. sigh. and then i counted 4 pitches instead of 5. and for the first value in the table i computed u/v instead of v/u. i better do all my pracs properly from now on... i realized why i fall asleep during chem lectures. cos it's really tiring trying to watch an omnimax movie tt is really quite boring.

supposed to have gone home but i rushed into the east-bound train. ended up at outram park, went for a dental checkup. dentist told me i had no decaying teeth (yay) but there were stains (blame it on my toothbrush). then walked up eu tong sen street, soaked up the cny atmosphere, went to chinatown heritage centre. not worth the $4 i paid but oh well at least sth different. after tt walked up to my dad's office. i shall explore singapore more.

what's at the heritage centre? a 3-storey-museum.

some interesting facts:
- the origin of the name "niu2 che1 shui4". b4 piped water was available, bullock carts were used to transport buckets of water.
- much land in the CBD was reclaimed (tian fu gong was by the sea).
- opium dens present in chinatown even up till the 1950s (!!!)
- ppl employ professional mourners for funerals. imagine. experts at crying loudly. hm.

interesting displays.
- a lion dance performance by this real lion head moving automatically.
- the shophouse itself in its original state (cramp and dark

i guess the whole experience was ok for me cos i know cantonese. many videos (interview of migrants) were in cantonese. yup.

6:45 p.m. - 2004-01-08

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gpequaltofood

yes i forgot to mention this in my previous few entries. gp lesson = food break. we've been eating during all gp lessons so far. amazing huh. the whole row of us. all capable of opening store number 0 in the canteen considering the amt of food we have in our bags.

10:30 p.m. - 2004-01-07

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anothernotveryinterestingday

let's see. bio lecture was at omnimax theatre for me. anyway thought ms teh's a pretty gd lecturer. as in doesnt everyone think so? haha. ah and gp very good it was a pretty interesting session with us deciphering (or perhaps trying to decipher) extracts from the communist manifesto.

lunch at ghim moh not with the food club. weili, eric, sunni. pretty nice wantons. chorale culd have been ok but i really was tooooooo sleepy. like yawning once every 2 minutes. and it was cold *shivers*. festival sanctus sorta woke me up, i had to blast the last few notes (i can reach F!!! lol). osama... haha. hm.

thanks to clar and zhini for their souvenirs.

stayed back and den watched the storyline (din stay back TO watch storyline). due to technical problems it sorta wasnt successful. but i guess they still did quite well. anyway all the cheerings from individual ogs reminded me of: what's tt? what's tt? what's tt? skyLA!!! haha it's so so near...

6:49 p.m. - 2004-01-07

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sighboringdunnowhattotypehere

had beep test for pe. deproved a lot from last year i think. but expected lar har. for gp we were coming up with a list of "goods" but most ended up starting with "h". oh ms lee brought a tree frog to class.

had dinner with xiaohui christine christine (oops din realize) at ghim moh. talked a bit, feels a bit like j1 i guess. all 3 ex-odacians haha. well i guess i made a pretty good choice. just experience odac and not make it my life.

8:33 p.m. - 2004-01-06

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interestingbenahse

am inspired by all teachers who have come in for tutorials so far. to pay attention in class. bcos some of them are trying to improve the way they teach. must support them.

went to bena's hse (which has infinitely more tidbits than my hse) after sch for mahjong party. well out of 6 games which we played, i won 3. (yay). and 2 were qing1 yi1 se4.

on my way back decided to walk towards whitley rd to take 960. after boarding i saw my dad's car (!!!!) and in the end he picked me up at the next bus stop (at the end of the expressway stretches). how very coincidental

does anybody else have the same problem of being redirected to new.blogger.com every time u click on a blogspot blog?

6:49 p.m. - 2004-01-05

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indolence

i'm appalled by my indolence. i just finished filing stuff which have been left lying around in my shelf since the promos ended (ok look to be fair i was really fairly bz after promos so). and i just discovered tt i've nver actually done any bio tutorial properly. i better do them this year.

5:00 p.m. - 2004-01-04

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auditionsourselves

1st round of us auditioning ppl. haha hm as usual i was more nervous than them. reason being my range has decreased again haha. well yar pretty bad so cant sing w/o warmups. (oops)

apparently my parents want to go see the firecrackers. i think i shud stay at home.

3:05 p.m. - 2004-01-03

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1stdayofsch04

less-than-ideal timetable, cos of s papers. shall enjoy staying in school. would like to walk ard the school but looks like we'll be stuck in ts 14. hopefully lessons will be more effective.

i shall start planning for this academic year and stop believing tt it's ok not to do hw.

thanks eve for the duet book. shall photocopy it maybe we can play every now and then in school. anyone wants to play with me? (i think i'm the most enthusiastic of the ppl who dun play well. as in u know compared to those holding diplomas / who intend to further music as a career)

5:38 p.m. - 2004-01-02

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200411

my shoe sole is getting so smooth, i suddenly realize why roads are as rough as they are.

and i thought i culd finish my hw today. maybe not. din sleep enuff, or perhaps bcos of the change in sleeping pattern, and feeling weak now.

6:03 p.m. - 2004-01-01

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2004

in the year 2004. a confident hk shall maximize everything (esp time), and learn to respond not react. he will look ahead to plan, and motivate, improve, and push himself.

1:00 p.m. - 2004-01-01

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