No swimming today.

For me only.

Because, yesterday I had a fever and this morning the fever has not recovered yet. What's most mystifying is that when I measured my temperature using a thermometer, I got 36.9 degrees Celcius. Isn't it the optimum body temperature?

Hmm... mystifying...

So, I sat beside the pool watching my friends having all the fun. Haha.

During Chemistry tutorial, Ms Fong told the girls to stand at the back of the classroom because they were late for lesson (it was right after the break after swimming, so it took some time to walk from the swimming complex to College...).

Then it was Math tutorial, during which Mrs Leong told us a shocking fact -- that Discrete Random variables is a topic which is easy to score in the A levels! I mean, after going through n lectures on this topic, I didn't even have a clue what's going on! And she said it's easy?!

Whatever.

Then I went behind Auditorium and slept there for 2 periods (free periods, of course!).

Following that was GP tutorial, and we watched an episode of "Get Real" for today. The topic was on a few ex-convicts and how they find a new lease of life after their release from prison. All of them were repeating offenders who decided to change their lives once and for all.

Sigh... talked to MX about the Criminal Record system... I was a bit uncomfortable thinking that ex-convicts would have their past offences disclosed to companies, and the companies would have to decide whether to employ the ex-convict or not. MX's response was that the companies have the right to know. Otherwise, what if an employee's past offences was discovered just before he's going to be promoted?

That's reality. People have the right to know, and they have the right to say "No". What ex-convicts really need is acceptance. I feel that the motto of the Yellow Ribbon movement is very appropriate -- "Release them from the 2nd prison".

For the employment issue, companies still have to consider meritocracy and hence they cannot be biased towards ex-convicts as well. And vacancies are limited. The good thing is that the "acceptance" they need is not just the willingness of companies to employ them. It is also the love and friendship that we can offer to them. The capacity to love is definitely greater than the number of vacancies in companies, right?

Woe is me.

"Woe is me!" [pours dust on my head]

Flashback...

Well, today is Wednesday (which I love). Full of tutorials, and yet it seems so relaxed. Mysterious, is it not?

So today during Physics lecture Mr Varella came with his plasma crystal ball again, and this time he demo'ed to us how it actually works. What really surprised me was that when he put his thumb on the crystal ball, his thumb became illuminated with a red glow! Ugh, he must have put some fluorescent material on his thumb, I guess.

I'm still unsettled about my Computing coursework. Arrgh, gotta put my interests in the topic out of the issue now and choose a decent topic to work on!

I'm starting to appreciate the Ideal Gas topic in Physics. God help me better appreciate the stuff I'm studying. Amen.

The last period was Civics. Ms Fong gave us our Verification slip for A level registration, and started talking to us about A level issues again... haha she talks like a mother (I mean it in a positive way). She's a nice Civics tutor lah, in conclusion.

And yes I did put in Japanese this time, unlike last year when I was supposed to put it down and I didn't. That "fatal" mistake caused me to postpone my Japanese AO level exam till this year.

Ms Fong continues by telling us that most of us are not really at where we should be in terms of academic results. She concluded by saying that we should be really frustrated with ourselves now. So...

Back to self-pity state.

WOE IS ME!!!!!

O.O.F.E.

Not much today, really.

Except that during the GP tutorial (essay for today) I wrote a "philosophical" essay again. The topic is "There are some things in life that are better than life itself. Comment." Last year my tutor commented that I tend to write philosophical essays. I think it's true. Haha. This time my essay had enough content to last me 2 full pages (instead of the usual one and a half page).

My GP tutor taught us a way to examine essay topic sentences. She said we can look at the sentence and think of the question which the sentencs answers. If the question we come up with is not really close to the essay question, the topic sentence has a problem.

But the problem is that I really can't bring myself to write paragraphs with topic sentences of the same format, keywords and all. Still, I did it today, but I couldn't seem to be sure that my topic sentences were the way they want it. Maybe I'm a bit perfectionist...

Today I had a fabulous lunch. I went to Kampung Delight and saw this squid cooked in a mysterious black sauce, a dish which one would usually see in Nasi Padang stalls. So I ordered it, ad I didn't regret, because I had always loved squids!

Miss Fong announced our grades today, and I got OOFE. E for Computing, and O for Chem and Maths. F for Physics. Sigh... but then I was actually glad that I didn't get straight Fs which I sort of expected... Haha. Thank God for pulling me through, and I'd better work harder next term.

Yesterday I talked to my mother about my academics which she was always worried about, but I sort of assured her that since Computing A levels is stretched throughout the curriculum year (in 3 coursework exams), it's easier for me to score well. Hope so... now that I am to do my webpage coursework, I got sort of scared again... of all the creative brief and stuff... Pray for me. Haha.

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me....
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

T'was Grace that taught...
my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear...
the hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares...
we have already come.
T'was Grace that brought us safe thus far...
and Grace will lead us home.

The Lord has promised good to me...
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be...
as long as life endures.

When we've been here ten thousand years...
bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise...
then when we've first begun.

Thank God it's webbie!

This morning, we had Chem practical (skill A practice) and we're actually released early. Haha.

During Physics lecture later, Mr Varella (who's famous for his "magic tricks") brought a flourescent tube. When he placed one end of the tube on a plasma crystal ball and held the other end with his hand, the part of the tube between the hand and the crystal ball actually lit up!

Electricity is actually something very fascinating, it's just that I find it hard to comprehend. My mom was very upset when I brought up the possibibity of dropping Physics (it's getting a bit too hard for me) and she gave a straight "No!" for that matter. Sigh...

Computing tutorial. We're getting web-page design coursework, and that's what I was thanking God for. You see, the alternative is database management which was pretty boring (an understatement; the boredom can reach such high levels that is kills!).

During Physics practical today (which was far easier than past practicals), I got some funny results. For differing lengths of my wire (interval : 0.200 m) my values for potential difference all differ by 0.21 V. Lol.

The Easter Series Episode 3 -- The Real Deal!

Yesterday I went for my church Easter service and I invited about 10 friends.

In the end, only 2(Kelvin and Wenrong) turned up. Others had metters to attend to, so... Yeah.

I'm glad, though, that yeaterday I could finally join my cell group for a service (haven't seen them for ages, and some of them I don't even know!).

Thank God, the service sort of started on time (7:30 pm) because Wenrong had to leave at 8. However, after the praise and worship session it was already 8 pm, so... bye bye Wenrong and Kelvin. Sigh, they missed the drama and sermon. Never mind, I'm gonna talk about the drama anyway.

The drama began with the battle in Heaven, before the creation of the universe. Lucifer, the angel in charge of music, became proud and decided to rebel against God. He led many angels on his movement, which was of course crushed later, with Lucifer and the angels cast away from Heaven. Lucifer then became Satan, the devil.

Satan continued his rebellion by causing humans, originally created to be God's friends, to rebel against God also.

To reconcile humans to God, Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth as a human himself.

The drama then continued with many famous miracles done by Jesus, as described in the Bible.

There was

• The part where Jesus said "If you think you have no sin, throw the first stone on the adulterous woman"
• The part when Jesus called Lazarus back to life

There were also some raps, like the "Son of G.O.D.", and a Chinese rap adapted from "tuo diao".

Then, of course, there were the religious Pharisees plotting Jesus' death, the crucifixion, and the subsequent resurrection. This year, the resurrection music was a very rousing percussion piece (unlike last year when I think they lifted it from the "Passion of The Christ" soundtrack...) Imagine a heavenly host of drummers!

After that was the Easter sermon which included the story of a Korean woman stripping herself so as to use her clothes to warm her new-born baby. She froze to death, but the child survived. Such was the love of God when he stripped himself of all dignity, allowed himself to be mocked on the cross, just to die for our sins.

Then there was a story of an African couple being sold to America as slaves (in the olden days). The couple didn't want to be sold separately, but the slave driver purposely wanted to go against their wishes. Fortunately a rich landowner saw their plight and decided to buy them and free them. The couple, however, said that if they're freed, they would be kidnapped and sold as slaves again. "Why not we be your slaves from now on so that we won't be legally enslaved by someone else in the future?" The landowner then took them back to his hometown to be his "slaves", but he actually treated them like his family members from then on.

In the same way, Jesus died on the cross to cleanse our past sins and free us from the curse of sin and failure, and prevents us from being under the control of Satan again, if we decide to believe in Jesus and serve him.

The Easter Series Episode 2 -- Crucifixion

As the Easter season is around the corner, some may just dismiss it as another holiday without giving it a second thought.

Easter is really about the resurrection of Jesus Christ after being crucified on (Yep you guessed it) Good Friday.

When I was a kid who didn't know who on Earth Jesus was, I was wondering, as many of you would, why was a day of crucifixion called "good"? One of my friends came up with an answer to this question, that it's because "the death brought life".

Yes, it's that simple.

The reason why Jesus came in the first place is not just to teach us how to live a righteous life (although he did do a lot of that), but also to take our punishment by being crucified on a cross.

We have been created to have friendship with God, but sin (attitude of rebellion towards God) caused us to be separated from him. God wants to forgive us, but his holy nature does not allow sin to go unpunished. The Bible says that the wages (due "payment") of sin is death. Spiritual death, and eternity in hell. Jesus took the crucifixion so that those who trust him can be cleansed from past sins.

Jesus, the Son of God, came as a human, but a sinless one, so that he can really bear our judgement. Otherwise, if it's another sinful human who died, he/she would just be recieving what he/she deserves.

Another reason why Jesus came is to share in all the possible sufferings we'll face. The Bible says that we was bearing our weaknesses and diseases when he was whipped (using lead-tipped whips!) before the crucifixion.

There was once when I was thinking, was the 12 hours of pain enough to share in the pain of some, which will often last long beyond that?

To digress a bit, I think a good way to torture a person is to place him before a toilet bowl and not let him use it when he's having a stomachache.

The fact was that before he was crucified, Jesus said that he actually had thousands of angels who would obey his command if he called them to save him. Of course, since he is the Son of God. I believe the angels would still be there watching Jesus through all the whipping and nailing.

My "toilet analogy" was similar to what Jesus was going through at that time when he was going through all those torture. Most of us, when we face problems and pain, would just lose hope and think that there's no solution to the problems we face. For Jesus, however, he was going through all the torture when the very solution to the "problem" was before his eyes! Angels who could minister to him and bring him comfort were to watch him, their Lord, going through the scourging just to take the punishment we deserved.

All these just to make us able to be his friends.

Swim on, dude!

I love swimming.

So I love this day.

Because we're finally having swimming for mass PE again! Woohoo!

So today I arrived at Bedok swimming complex at about 7 am. That was when I suddenly had a lot of phlegm, hence, with no toilet around and no willingness to swallow my phlegm (of varying viscosity due to my cough and cold), I spit it into the big canal in front the swimming complex. That's my first "public spitting"! Oops. I suppose that doesn't count as an offense...

Thank God. Really thank God, this time Mr Sim didn't give a long lecture about people coming late (otherwise it'll eat into my swimming time. Hmph!), so we began swimming early. My front crawl still "couldn't make it", so I stayed in the beginners group. However, my breaststroke got an A grade! Told you I was better at breaststroke!

Thank God also, that even though I spent quite a lot of time swimming after the session, I still managed to be punctual for my Chemistry tutorial.

Now I have to do operator overloading for my C++ project. It's for writing our top_ten players to text files, but unlike others, I have not planned about the files stuff in the first place... what am I tot do? My computing tutor is out of reach now...

The Easter Series Episode 1 -- The Cross.

Christianity is the faith which has the biggest number of believers all around the world. The Cross (the widely accepted symbol of Christianity) is also very popular and is used by many for... various purposes.

Some wear it for jewellery. Some regard it as an amulet to "ward off evil spirits". we often see in vampire movies that evil beings evaporate at the sight of a Cross. Due to widespread use (and abuse) of the Cross in the society, it has lost its true meaning in the lives of many.

Here I would address some of the common views of the Cross.

The Cross as jewellery.

There are many people who are wearing crosses on necklaces etc, and now it's not a very good way to think that a person is a Christian by seeing a cross worn around his/her neck. I suppose many would think that it looks pretty simple and comes in many designs, hence its popularity as a form of jewellery.

However, the meaning behind the Cross is actually more grave than this. It symbolises death, as it was used as an instrument of death during the time when the Roman Empire controlled the Palestine area. Wearing a cross as jewellery is no different from wearing a replica of an electric chair or a gullotine as an ornament.

The Cross as an amulet

As I mentioned before, due to the influence of modern vampire tales, many are led to believe that a piece of some substance shaped like a cross has the power to ward off evil beings.

When I was in my Primary school days, I didn't know Jesus, and so I viewed the cross in this way too. I remembered there was a rumour that a particular tree in my school was haunted. One day, my friends decided to explore the site, and to keep ourselves "safe", we agreed to make paper crosses and bring them along during our "exploration".

Looking back, I think when God was watching us at that time (as He always is), he would have felt...

--___--'''

Why? Because it's foolishness, and even idolatry, to think that there's such "power" in a created object!

Also, the Bible says that it's faith in God that will help us move even mountains(Matthew 17:20), but if you don't have faith, even the name of Jesus himself will do you no good. The Bible tells of a story of 7 guys (who did not really believe in Jesus) who tried to use the name of "Jesus, whom Paul preaches about", to cast out evil spirits. In the end, the spirit merely replied "I know Jesus and Paul, but who are you?!"(Acts 19:13 to 16)

You see, using the cross as a so-called amulet is a very shallow gesture indeed.

So the Cross actually carries much deeper meanings than those listed above. Jesus, the Son of God, was crucified on a cross despite his innocence, hence the Cross is being remembered until today. Now what about his death that made it so special?

To be continued...

"Do what must be done!"

This morning I only went for the first 2 lectures, because I had to go for the NS IQ test.

The test was... erm, pretty boring at times, but thank God it was over before I gave way (to drowsiness.)

Then I was supposed to go for an eye examination, but the Eye Clinic was cancelled today, so I was "freed" at an earlier time.

= = WARNING = =
The Dark Side is strong in the contents below....

This morning I saw the trailer of Star Wars Episode 3 -- Revenge of the Sith. This trailer was different from the one which was previously available on StarWars.com (which was only a teaser trailer).

Firstly, it was Palpatine indoctrinating young Anakin with stuff like "The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider... unnatural." Then as Palpy gained Anakin's trust and lost the Jedi Council's trust, his true colours began to show, and what happened after all these, was history. Anakin, now under Palpatine (I told you he was Darth Sidious!), was given the order to "do what must be done" to the Jedi.

Padme lost her husband...

Obi-wan lost his apprentice...

Palpatine gained a servant (probably at the expense of the previous one...)

The galactic republic was ripped of democracy altogether.

Now to lighten up your moods a bit, here's a link to StarWars.com captions contest results for a particular week.

Caption contest

Something new!!

Today I'm honoured (Yeah right!) to invite my friend and fellow blogger, Keon!
================

Hi friends of WQ, this is Keon, your guest blogger for the post. Make some noise!!!!!

Well, life isn't all about blogging the blog or walking the walk. It's about being invited(or rather, inviting oneself) as guest blogger. WQ has left to view.. in the process allowing the rou lin of his little space online.

Well, maybe you'd like to learn who this rude intruder is.


Keon is WQ's friend. He often gets pulled aside by females who mistake him for Jay. This gets him pretty infuriated coz what he looks like is Edison Chen. He has a never ending supply of fancy chocolates from adoring fans, which goes into WQ's duodenum.

Fine, I know you want to kick me by now. Actually I'm pretty bored. WQ just won't share his good stuff with me.. HAH!

This is pretty inpromtu. So I have think of a way to hold your attention. Show you my face then, in case you really decide to kick my ass.












Ok, WQ has to go. He's just playing LF2.. Not what you think lah.

Hope you've had as much fun as I did. Until next time!

Keon. Out.

No-bell Prize

The bell system in TJC broke down since this Monday, so our lessons often drag on beyond the due time. Our breaks suffer the most, of course.

So this morning's Maths lesson ate into our break for, like, ten minutes. It was supposed to be GP tutorial after that, at 9 am. Before that I was spending time at the computer lab watching Pasonia play games until 9:02 am (according to my watch).
And my GP tutor is very particular about punctuality.

So, I went there, expecting to be rebuked again. However, when I entered the classroom, I found only 4 guys inside there, and the teacher wasn't there. I was thinking, "Gosh, don't tell me the lack of bells caused even my GP tutor to arrive late?" It was not the case. I found out later that my tutor was having a course, so she couldn't come for the lesson.

Anyway, since the tutor was absent, I might as well follow my group to the library to finish the GP assignment about... Gender differences. we agreed that we shouldn't talk about no-link stuff, but in the end even after we digressed, we also tried to find a "link" to whatever concerns gender, like when my friend was looking at girls, we also said something like... "Males pay more attention to such stuff". Lol.

During the Physics lesson in the afternoon, Mr Desai dragged the lesson until 12:50 (it was supposed to end at 12:45), so when it was 12:49, I set my watch alarm to 12:50 and let it sound. It worked.

During Computing lesson... I don't even want to talk about it now. But that's the truth about being a programmer. You have to produce what THEY want, not what you think is right.

*pissed*

I thank God I went for the HO camp instead of spending time on my computing project last Friday. Otherwise the results would be the same anyway.

During the chemistry tutorial, I tried the same watch alarm trick on Ms Fong again. It wasn't so effective, so what I could do was to set the alarm to the next minute with the passing of every minute, so my watch's alarm sounded every minute from 2:15 pm right up to 2:19 pm.

Finally, it worked.

Heard about a blogging competition from my IT Club friends.

OK I know my blog won't win, but... why should I not give it a try?

Hectic is the word.

Mondays have always been very hectic days for me. Especially today.

Because I had to finish my computing project by the end of today.

Well, the fact that I can be blogging here means that the above job was done.

Phew.

Easter is coming this Sunday. I'm inviting friends for the Saturday service.
I originally wanted to post some Easter-related stuff here, but looks like I can't do it today. Look at the time.

So, I'll start maybe... tomorrow?

Haha... I know it's gonna sound wierd coming out of my "mouth", but...

I miss HO camp. Anyway, Shihui, thanks for the photos.

Oh, I wonder what's to become of alumni HO...

Bond.

Yes I did return to AHS in the evening.

This time, while they were having dinner, I followed WR back to HO room and we were playing the drum there quite madly (Oops!) when Mr Chen (I didn't know he's one of our teacher in charge) came and told us he'd be there to help us lock the room at 8pm. It seems that the last people who lock up the CCA rooms for the day have to be teachers in-charge.

There's something I have to apologize for. Shi and Jiemin approached me and asked for the year AHS HO was set up. Of course I knew. Later they said they're going to ask this question and award a point to whichever group that could answer. Impulsively I went back to WR's clan and told WR about it.

So I did tell him. The only way I could make up for it was to ask him not to answer that question. Sorry.

Then I joined them for the skits presentation. Each clan had to come up with its own skit with the theme as "Bond". Lots of funny stuff, they put up.

First was Keli's clan which did a skit about "bonding" as in... erm... Lesbian cliques. Hmm.

Then it was Sok's clan that did a skit about "What's bond?". Haha they had "bond" as in Chemistry, the violin group BOND, and... "bon bon". Finally the skit ended with the "bond" which exist in CCA groups like... HO! (applause)

Then it was Wenjun's clan and Wenjun played the role of James Bond! A bit no-link, but... whatever. After killing his enemies (in quite an un-elegant fashion), James Bond "bonded" with a "sexy girl" (played by the portrait on their clan flag). It was the last line, "Bond wan le, zhen shuang" that made me ROFLMAO.

Lastly it was Wenrong's clan. They did a skit about 2 cliques "bonding" together to make a fool of their teacher (Yep, you guessed it, it's played by WR) on April Fool's day. WR's "teacher" role was quite a bit... erm, comical, and he was drenched by his "students" near the end of the show. Wow.

Then we were asked to go to the concourse for a "sharing session". Each of us were given a lightstick, and we sat in a circle. The one who wanted to share would put his/her lightstick in the center of the circle before sharing.

The session turned out to be quite emotional, as many brought up the problem that our CCA was looked down upon by fellow AHS students. Even the school was considering winding up HO, given our lack of "achievements" in recent competitions. Some had friends who actually thought there was no Harmonica Orchestra in AHS in the first place.

I was of course upset to hear that the school was actually thinking of closing the Orchestra. I mean, do they have the right to decide for us huh?!

HO people who are reading this, I just wanna say again that you all are really the most united batch I've seen. You all are taking a step upward in terms of group unity, so don't be deterred by what the authorities say. They have no right to decide for us the existence of our Orchestra. Buck up for the coming SYF, but most importantly, no matter what result you all will get, HO is still HO.

H.O. rawks socks!

Yes, today, after Mr Desai's physics lesson (I think I quite grasp the ideas in Analog Physics now), I went for a prata lunch and then rushed straight back to AHS to join the HO people for the HO bonding camp.

And it made my day.

I joined them at the church carpark while they're playing wet games and I was glad that the junoirs (especially WR, Sok, Wenjun, Shi and Jiemin) gave me a warm welcome. And then I got a "cool" welcome when I was caught between the "crossfire" of water guns. Blame my ill timing.

Then they all went back to HO room (with all the air-con comfort) and I recieved another quite embarassing greeting again. Ask Shihui what I'm talking about.

For about half an hour I was sitting at a corner, playing with Wenrong's phone until lunch time. Oh, I discovered a guestbook (which Wenrong jokingly called a "tagboard") near the conductor's seat (and... no, the conductor wasn't there yet) so I went there to sign. Basically what I wrote was just the title of this entry.

During lunch, I actually got my share of food (I was a bit surprised). I chatted with Wenrong about... stuff. the Wenjun joined us. Oh yes, before we started eating, we're actually required to do this cheer...

Are you hungry?!

.

.

"Very very!"

"HUngry hungry!"

"Very Hungry!"

"Hungry very!"

"Chee ge lala pee ah pee ah" (x2)

"Sat!"

Wow.

So yeah, back to the lunch. Oh the lunch ended.

Then we went back to HO room, and that's where all the fun started. We first played this game simillar to chee koh pah, except that our actions involve... erm... milk.

• Squeezing milk
• Showering with milk
• "Lots of mlik"
• "No milk"
• Drink mlik

So... yeah. we went into our previouly designated clans (I'm in Blue Tango) and we started aplaying this game until a winner emerges (on a last-man-standing basis) and I actually won the first round and got to represent my clan. I lost in the finals, of course.

Then another round. My clan didn't win either. Like, who cares?

*Sour grapes*

Then it was the "Where's the peanut" game. Basically it's a casual kind of "debate" like you start with "Where's the peanut?" and you have to give some answer. In the end it bacame a super no-link squabble.

And it was enjoyable. Very fun, but it accelerates loss of voice.

Then we did our clan cheers (Wenjun and Sok's clans do the most qian bian cheers!). Especially Wenjun's clan "Pink Tango". If you get to hear their cheer, you'll... ROFLMAO.

We went on trying to please the Chair and Vice chair (Shi and Jiemin who called themselves the "Da Bian" group. Da bian means shit, by the way.) by singing songs sung by (Kelvin, get this!)Taufik and Jay Chou. Our clan ended up singing "I Dream".

One last thing. Their clan points are awarded in safety pins.

Then >> Fast Forward >> At 3pm I went back to College to help the IT Club guys move the computers. Thank God I left early, because while I assumed that I would be needed at 4:30 pm, they actually started moving stuff at 3:30 pm!

I'm thinking of going back to join HO later. Gotta go.

Sick.

Since this Monday evening, I've been sick. It started with sore throat, then it got to blocked nose, and sometimes I even feel giddy and "feverish".

All was made worse yesterday when I spent n hours before the computer (Behold the computing project, which rendered me no-life for the holiday week!). I used the computer from 10 am right up to 6 pm! I was feeling giddy and... the usual sickness resulted from computer usage.

Kelvin has "hitched" Hitch (as mentioned on his tagboard). He wanted to go back with me to AHS for the HO March camp, but the problem is I've got a medical checkup today (and I still feel sick) and I have to help out at the IT Club I-skills workshop tomorrow. Until 6pm.

Hope I could see the HO juniors again (most of them do blog!)... Oh yeah, I saw Wenrong yesterday at TM when it was pretty late. And the day before, I saw Fatima with... OK names shall not be revealed, but she was kind of embarassed to be seen there and then...

Still, I hope to talk to them more, not just be a hi-bye friend to them.

*sniff*

THAT purple guy.

Why am I here blogging again?! My 3rd blog for the day. My "Adventures in the CS lab" Episode 3. Hope this will be a "trilogy" and I'll stop after this post.

OK get serious lah.

Just now, after doing my rotating wheel in the TIKAM game, I went to the computer beside mine (with Reinforced LF2) for an LF2 break (Duh!). I went on to use this purple guy (an addition by the "reinforcer" of LF2) who travels super fast.

I played stage mode in the same team as this big armoured guy (I'd call him a fortress!) who doesn't seem to be able to be defeated. A nice team we formed.

Really nice, until the time I realised that since he was heavy, he became the biggest slacker in the team.

OK back to my character. The purple guy really has some pretty awesome techniques. First is the whirlwind which, if the time is right, can stay on one spot torturing your trapped enemies until they drop. Otherwise the wind will just move forward after doing some damage.

Then it's the multiple columns. In the image you'll see later, my character is in the middle of the first 2 columns generated. I think I'm able to generate 5 columns to the left and to the right at one go. Of course, it does damage big time, man!

No friendly fire. my dear fortress remained undamaged. A pity I didn't take shots of enemy heroes being expelled sky-high.

Last of all is the purple-flame move. I charge at an enemy and if he gets caught, I'll then emit tongues of purple flame to cook'em all. Below is a picture of my purple guy roasting Firzen. Louis-EX was just trying to steal the limelight. Ignore him.

All in all, this purple guy's nice. Just nice.

Take the first puff, and...

Found this pic on my friend's blog. pretty nice, and straight to the point.

P.S. Wenjun I'm not stealing your bandwidth. I hosted this image on my own photobucket account.

Crash Course on the last few days.

On Saturday, I went to Eastpoint with mom again (we'll go there weekly, I think) and realized that Fei Yu Qing will have an autograph session there at 7pm. So we got to see him in person! Lol.

On Sunday, I reformatted my computer again. It seemed that I grew to love reformatting computers. OK I'm crapping. The good thing was that I could finally install my Visual C++ compiler, so that means I can do my programming at home again! Woohoo!

On Monday, I went to College for IT Club meeting. I thought it was 8:30 am, so when it was 8:20 and no one was at the College, I was about to go off.

That was when Junqun came and showed me the pictures of Lego Star Wars PC game. Looks pretty cool, except that it only covers the prequel(Episodes 1,2 and 3) era. Junqun told me the meeting was at 9am, and I was relieved to hear that.

We moved a lot of computers from Club room, CS lab, etc. Lots of locations. Up to Computer lab 3 (Level 3) for the coming I-skills video editing workshop. Did it all the way until 12 pm.

Then I went with the ITC dudes for lunch, and I continued on my TIKAM game project. Finished all the basic tables already. The hard part comes as I'm gonna do all the "live" parts of the game now, including a turning wheel.

On Tuesday (which was, yeaterday) I went to TM with my mom to buy a (get this!) handphone! Mom said that since she decided to start teaching Electone she had to get a handphone so that she'll be more contactable. I wanted a handphone too, but she had 101 excuses for not letting me own one until NS. We almost quarrelled over that. Later it was decided that she would buy the phone first (As usual, the adults win). So we got a Sony Ericsson T630 phone for $0 under the 2-year plan. Ha, it was a camera phone!

Nevertheless, I can at least use a handphone to contact my friends now. As the phone was registered under my name (so that we could get the student plan), we now have 700 free SMSes and the 3 "SunTalk" numbers -- M1 numbers which I can call for free in the first 6 months!

Today I won't be blogging any further because I'm gonna work hard on my computing project. 4 days left.

Security.

My junior (names have been omitted to ensure security of the parties involved) taught me some cool stuff.

See below. Go figure.




Today was so... nvm. Went back AHS with Kelvin, hoping to see the HO juniors.

It turned out that there was no practice today.

You know the rest.

"A faithful red pen who can find?"

Today during Maths tutorials, Jeremy commented to me that his red pen was quite lousy, and asked me to recommend some good red pens.

The only brand I could think of was : Red Leaf.

Seriously, for all my academic years, my experiences with various brands of red pens were like, sucky. Usually, the red pens' "performances" were not as good as their black and blue counterparts (of the same brand, I mean).

Time: it's everywhere.

One of my favourite games:
Time Crisis 3.

One of my favourite catchphrases:
"You have no chance to survive make your time."

One of my favourite English songs:
Time by Backstreet Boys.

Oh yeah. The C++ Object Oriented programming
assignment I'm working on now:
Time class.

=====

By the way, the "catchphrase" (is that a suitable word?) I used above was actually a result of poor translation of the dialogues in a Japanese game. It's quite a popular internet joke.

Oh. this morning I had 2 sleepy lectures again. The first one was math lecture. The Maths reps of various Classes could be seen rushing in halfway during lecture to distribute the notes of the very lecture we're attending. Mysterious, is it not?

And my class has not touched the above mentioned notes yet. Jee Shiang had better collect it by tomorrow. Ha.

And we're reminded about the importance of GP during mass civics today. Writing does help a bit but... I think it's quite a lame arguement that blogging would help writing. I don't know. perhaps it works for some. For me, blogging is just for leisure, and for letting my friends relate to me better.

Below is the lyrics for Time (the above mentioned song), which i felt is quite meaningful.
Enjoy.

"Time"

I know that I, I can't believe
Just what the past has brought me
To the man I wanna be
I know that we have had some times
That we can't forget the struggle
Cause we have so far to go

I know we've changed but
Change can be so good
So let's not forget why
It's understood that

[Chorus]
Time, look where we are and what we've been through
Time, sharing our dreams
Time, goes on and on everyday
Time is what it is
Come what may

I remember when, mom used to say
That things are getting better
And you'll soon be on your way
Remember those days
When we would sing at the drop of a dime (Oooh)
Way back when nothing mattered

I know we've changed, but
Change can be so good
Oh so let's not forget why it's understood that

--[Chorus]--

So here we are (here we are)
And we'll always stay together
And through it all you know we owe it all to you, you, you , you
Time goes on and on

Procrastinate and DIE!!!

Yes. I procrastinated, so now I'm left without the chance to get my Temasek Idol ticket.

Arrgh!

Today was not much, except that I finally completed my "Date class" computing assignment (while my classmates are way ahead) and also, I got back my Physics test.

5 out of 35.

Of course, man! I didn't study enough waht! Thank God Mr Desai didn't force me to drop for now. Yet.

Found a cool website on Alex's blog. It's about this "endless pool", and definitely a cool thing for me 'coz I simply love swimming!

"Endless pool" website!

"Slave 1" in "Little Fighter"!

No. It's not a feature of the reinforced version.

It's just the change i made to the "sprite" (the pictures of the character in various positions) of the character Julian. So now when I choose "Julian", I will end up using "Slave 1"! Here's a screenshot of "Slave 1" vs Firen!



Cool, huh? Notice the highly "primitive" drawing of a missile. Haha. No time for refining my "missile" lah.

This morning was Chemistry SPA, in which we're doing re-crystallisation. I thought I was gonna screw it up, but thank God I didn't. I managed to get a considerable amount of aspirin (yes, aspirin!) crystals in the end!

After almost a year since Ankur mentioned about the Gunjarati School website project, he and I could finally sit down and discuss the details. If possible, TJC ITC may be able to undertake this project after all.

Thank God for answering my prayers for IT Club. We're no longer slack!

Eh... I just went to Googlism.com , a website which tells you what Google "thinks" of you.

Here's what it thinks of me! Oh no!

http://www.googlism.com/index.htm?ism=isaiah&type=1

Some are like totally no-link. Others probably refer to prophet Isaiah, a messianic prophet in the Old Testament.

Seeing things (and people)

Yeah. After the visit to the Old Folks' Home (which was disaster for me), and after leaving the College just before the Gamma house function started, I went to Century Square to have dinner with my mum.

In late evening that day, while waiting for a cab, my mum and I actually got to watch the Chingay floats pass by the main road... some of them looked quite comical, but then again, it was truly a sight to behold.

Yesterday evening I was at Eastpoint (Yep, you guessed it -- dinner with mum again. When I went to toilet, I saw a guy who rushed into the toilet and started washing his hair frantically. Upon further inspection, the guy turned out to be none other than...

Wenrong.

Lol... I then asked him about stuff happening in HO and he asked me about any of the games I've been playing recently (this resulted from all the games talk I had with him in the olden days)... but I've had no time for games nowadays, except for my age-old Star Wars flight-sim games...

Oh yeah, Wenrong, if you still have not view the score for bei ban qiu yet, I'll put up the link again.

Click here for the score!

Also, yesterday I finally saw someone reach the 3rd stage in Time Crisis 3 -- the stage where you battle the boss (Georgio Zott). I had always wondered why he was using a sword besides his machine gun (I almost thought he was gonna use it to deflect bullets!), but the sword was just another thing to add to the "coolness" of the game. When you're firing away, Zott will suddenly spring at you and slash at you with the sword. Too bad the guy didn't manage to defeat the boss.

"Interrupting Lectures" for Dummies

Today was nothing much. Except for...

This morning I remembered (Thank God) to collect the prayer list and songsheets to photocopy for today's prayer meeting. This week's prayer list is very rich in content, I must say. Well done Max!

During Chemistry lecture, Principal Mrs Lim suddenly made an announcement about the College doing well for A' levels. She went on reporting about different subjects and the speakers in LT1 were very soft, so we actually shushed Mr Foo (lecturer) so we could hear the reports. Lol.

Then the best part came.

Half day for next Monday!!! Haha that's the part we're waiting for, man!

Later as Mr Foo continued teaching using the Powerpoint slides, we suddenly saw this MSN dialog bow appear in the bottom left corner...

"... ... has just signed in"

ROFLMAO. And the same thing happened again a few minutes later. Haha.

There's always an issue I was pondering about... that Christians cannot have non-Christian boy/girlfriends. Basically I just wonder whether non-Christians would doubt we're a loving people if we "reject" them like that. Would we be seen as "despising" them?

No. Christians would not despise non-Christians, despite the attitude of some. The Bible did say, "Do not yoke yourself to unbelievers", but that's for stuff like marriage.

In fact, Paul (one of Jesus' disciples) did say "I try to find common ground with everyone so I can bring them to Christ..." Christians are loving people who want to relate to others too!

We're not out to hate or despise, but to bring a message.

Weaving my dream...

Yeah. Joel taught Dreamveaver. I put the website I made during the course here.

Note: Remember to move the mouse over my photo!

View website

"They Will Run and Not Be Weary" Episode 3 -- Caught Red-footed

No I didn't kick anyone to death.

It was this morning, during mass PE, when we had mock NAPFA, 2.4 km run. I decided to try something new.

Running barefooted.

And so I did. When all were preparing to run, I went up the Grand Stand to take off my shoes then came down to the track barefooted. Many of my friends were, like, WTH?

Then the run began.

When I was in secondary school my 2.4 km run wasn't very impressive. Now, however, since we all do 3.6 km run very often, 2.4 km is now relatively easier for me. So I ran on.

This was the first time I lapped someone else; I even lapped some girls twice!. (I learnt this word "lapped" only today. It means being one lap ahead of someone. ) Most of the girls laughed when they saw me being barefooted (Oops!)... In the end my performance was quite satisfactory for me.

10 minutes 56 seconds.

And to link to the title, the soles of my feet were still red from the paint on the track.

OK later was Chem and Maths (nothing much, really), then quiet time behind Audi. I have 2 free periods on Thursdays so i did read the Bible in the first period and slept in the second. I just lied down there.

And I could remember a teacher walking past me while I was half asleep.

Anyway, today I read 1 John, the part about loving one another. We shouldn't hate because hatred is murder in the heart. I think this is what most of us have committed at least once in our lives. And we often think that we're such good people. When we're not.

---

If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth.-- 1 John 1:8

---

Oh yeah, Easter is coming soon and I may invite some of my friends to City Harvest Church celebrarions.

Anyway, today i've finally completed my first ever Object-Oriented programming assignment. That lifted my spirits a lot.

Today Joel will be teaching Dreamweaver to IT Club year ones. He even prepared notes!

Not a very happy day, but still, life goes on.

I am certain I'll get less than 10 for the Physics test.

I knew about this test only this Monday. I've been told earlier but I forgot.

Hence, the lack of preparation time. Hence, the results.

This afternoon, amidst all the IT Club activity (or maybe after that!), my thumbdrive got screwed up.

I put it in one of the control room computers' USB port. the device wasn't detected, so I removed the thumbdrive, and it actually felt hot!

I saw what was coming.

Surely, my thumbdrive has been spoilt. No use crying over spilt milk, I hear you say. I agree too.

Guess I just have to use my CD-RW until the time I can support myself financially (I don't wanna bug my parents for another thumbdrive. They're not gonna know it's spoilt. Sigh...)

> > About an hour later... > > > > >

Hey.

My thumbdrive worked again. Thank God.

Today I went to the website of Choo Thomas (author of book "Heaven is So Real") and saw some interesting testmonials.

Basically (I think I talked about this book before) this book talks about Choo's visits to Heaven, led by Jesus. Heaven will be a much more beautiful place than Earth, and it consists of more than a throne room for God. Much more. This book also reminds us of how near the end times is (OK non-Christians may not know what I mean by End-times. I'll talk about it later...) and how we should repent of worldly lifestyles we still hold on to, so that we can make ourselves ready for the LORD's return.

The End-times is simply the period of time before the end of the world (Not planet earth though. Jesus will rule the earth for 1000 years after the End-times). A ruler will rise up, promising peace but bringing war. He will eventually call himself a god and make all the world worship him. Of course, Christians and other pockets of people who will not subit to him will be persecuted. This man is called the man of lawlessness.

Of course, in the end the man of lawlessness will face judgement.

cout << shit ;

Not much stuff to talk about today, except that I have yet to study for the Physics lecture test tomorrow.

It's obvious what I'm gonna do after this.

But first, I'll put up the Harmonica score for Gu Dan Bei Ban Qiu for Wenrong (I hope he saw my message). Kelvin and other H.O. bloggers, you may like to take a look too.

Click here for the score!

Oh yeah, for the title, "cout" (pronounced C-out) is the code for outputting something on the monitor in C++ language.

Just before I came to blog, I happened to have had a shit which I'd endured like... 2 hours? Yeah.

I feel so relaxed now... oooh...