Never, ever, EVER give up!

I was listening to Sy Rogers' sermon on my church's website.

He opened the sermon with this quote from... erm was it Winston Churchill? Well anyway, (OK I think it's Churchill) was once asked to speak to a group of University students, and he merely gave these few words.

"Never give up. Never ever give up. Never ever ever give up!!"

I heard from some other source that the crowd gave a standing ovation to that.

Well I was thinking that if I, a nobody, went up on stage to say just these words, the crowd would just deem me as an unprepared speaker.

But that's not the point.

I just want to encourage the HO people (sorry for not being there with you all) not to give up. You all don't know the school's decision yet. I mean, they're not gonna close us down just because we got silver.

I freaked out when I saw Yulan's post. Seriously, Yulan, I think you're worrying too much.

Actually, in light of the fact that we got Bronze for 2003 SYF, I thought I was going to be happy for you all.

Before I saw in the entries that you all actually "screwed up" the songs.

Never mind, I tell you what. These days I've been failing all my tests. It's not that I didn't study; I did. What happened was that during the tests I seemed to switch to "idiot mode" (as I call it). I forgot the basic stuff and so on.

And I haven't passed a Physics test for this year yet.

Maybe what mentioned above wasn't relevant, but I know what you guys need -- someone to believe in you all. When I told Mum about my plans for studying, I got scolded for not doing it (the plans) earlier. What the heck?

I'm not gonna give a damn for people who don't believe that I can do it. I think I told you guys before in my blog that my Chem teacher did not scold me for failing the tests but kept telling me I am improving and that I can do it.

I say again, I am grateful for that.

HO, you all may think that you've let people down. But I tell you this. If you think you let them down, it's because you know they believed in you first.

But if they believed in you then, they would still do so now.

Got any negative examples you can show me? No right? You said the Guitar people believed in you all. Did this change after you got the results?

Your other friends from other CCAs, your teachers... did their attitude towards you change?

I hope not.

As for those who, like Yulan said, called you all an "ulu ulu CCA", they did not believe in you all in the first place. And they didn't change after you all got the results.

Nothing was lost.

Why do I always have nothing to blog on Fridays?

Really lor... it's like Fridays are so uneventful... don't know why.

Except for the fact that we (the computing Year Twos) got our personal accounts in the CS lab PCs again!

Oh... TJC Guitar Club got Gold with Honour! Congrats!

How will AHS HO fare? The competition must be over by now... but I don't know the results yet. Hmmm.

Anyway, here's my new College Forums signature!

And here's a comic spoof of the first part of A New Hope, with a Singaporean twist!

Click to view comic

Oh, one more thing. Jiemin, I don't think you have to put music files in your blog... that rendered me unable to read your recent blog entries.

Seeya!

Tancuj Tancuj

OK the first Flash lesson by IT Club is over.

Nice lesson, it was.

I did this animation which I want to specially dedicate to the HO juniors.

Tancuj Tancuj!

I love the water. Below me and above me.

Today when I woke up, I heard something that almost freaked me out.

Rain. A downpour, to be precise.

My first concern was, of course, the possibility that swimming would be cancelled. I prayed that the rain would stop lah, of course.

Thank God, when my dad's car reached Bedok (I live in Tampines) there wasn't any rain. I supposed the rain stopped in the Bedok area at an earlier time.

So, I didn't have to arrive at the pool drenched to the skin.

Well, today for swimming we did long distance laps... we even swam 2 laps across the length of the whole pool! It was damn tiring, I tell you. Even breaststroke (which I was pretty comfortanle with) got me gasping for air.

So you know how I did for front crawl today.

Anyway, at the pool, there was a drizzle while we're doing the final laps... I couldn't stand up in the pool because if I did, the raindrops (which were cooler than the pool water) would hit my back like bits of ice. Bhrrr!

After our session ended, it started to rain quite heavily (not a downpour yet, thank God). I didn't have an umbrella so I arrived in College with clothes drenched and my hair pretty messed up.

Ms Fong was absent today, so I went to CS lab to try out something I wanted to do using Flash MX while the class went on with homework and card games. Lol.

It's quite difficult to do an animation of me sweating, so you may still be seeing me opening and closing my mouth repeatedly (for my blog photo, I mean) for the time being. Also, the "masking" part in Flash MX got me quite puzzled.

Oh, the hub was exceptionally cold today.

During GP lesson we watched a video on organ transplant. There are many who think that it's wrong to sell organs for transplant. They may just be disturbed by all the capitalism behind it, I think. Otherwise, I think organ donation is not wrong.

There are some who think that it is not good if a person is not buried whole (quite a lot among the Chinese people). Hence they do not want to donate organs after they die.

I think that's a superstitious and very selfish thinking. After death, the body is just an empty shell. Those who want to "safeguard" their dead bodies in this way are withholding life from others while gaining nothing for themselves.

Jesus said "Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead". Only the spiritually dead will place so much importance in their dead bodies.

Today during computing we finally comlpeted the web-based coursework. My site banner was originally a static image, but since Mr Chua said that Flash animation is a technology for which marks will be given, I did an animated GIF image for my banner and it turned out fine! Haha remember my morning attempt on the "masking" part?

Practice pays off.

Today I went running at 3 p.m. and my timing was 17 minutes. After the running and the shower, I went to CS lab to (literally) chill down. During my computer time there (watching Ken playing Metal Slug 3, moderating College Forums, checking E-mail...) I saw this E-mail which said that there's an IT Club Exco meeting at 3 p.m..

You know the rest.

We'll be having Flash lesson for IT Club meeting today. The Exco meeting I missed was regarding the June camp, I think. I want urban hike for the camp, that's for sure!

Tekong!

Today during Computing I completed most of my website. And I'm the one lagging furthest behind.

Ten minutes left tomorrow. I'm gonna die!!!

Well, not much about school to blog today because at 11:45 a.m. I joined some of the guys in my class and a lot of people from the Year 2 cohort for a visit to the BMTC in Pulau Tekong! I was damn excited about the trip since the beginning of the week!

So, yeah, we set off at about 12 p.m.. After the bus and ferry trip we reached Tekong and headed straight for the BMTC auditorium.

During the waiting time (we're the first JC group to reach there!) there was music from Perfect Ten 98.7 (I love Maroon 5's songs!) and some short videos from Malaysia Idol (yes there's the "Killing Me Softly" part) and MTV Awards advertisements adapted from LOTR and Spiderman. Damn funny stuff.

Later was a short talk on BMT life, followed by a tour around the Centre.

First we visited the Combat Rations station where they introduced to us the combat ration "menus" for Muslims, Vegetatians, and "None-of-the-aboves" (my own term for it). The combat rations food were actually quite delicious (we have Curry rice, Pasta, Mee Goreng etc) and some of my friends even say it's better than their home food!

Later we visited the place where their do physical training. Their fitness test is conducted using machines with sensors. The chin-up and sit-up stations can even shout out the counts for you (except that it does so in a very mechanic and "un-motivating" voice, lol).

Then, we visited the shooting simulation range. They call it the IMT, which means Individual Marksmanship T... t... Eh, what does the T stand for? "Training" or "test"?

Aww, who cares, as long as we had a whole lot of fun there? Really, the program will give you a very detailed analysis about your shooting style and so on... I think I would love that thing when I go into BMT. Hmm.

Following this was a visit to their living quarters and a brief introduction of the combat suit.

At last was the reception, after which I discovered that TJC students have an affinity for fruit tarts.

That's about all, I think.

Animated me.

I may sound like a country bumpkin again, but...

I've finally learnt how to create animated gif images!

So from now on, you all will find me using a lot of animated images... heh heh.

Anyway, go check out my photo on top of the sidebar! See the difference?

Oh yeah, I heard that Sok Shin became the chairperson of AHS Student Council! Haha congrats!

Today I got back two of my lecture tests: The Physics test (on AC, Analog and Data Analysis) and the Chemistry test (up till carboxylic acid derivatives).

I didn't pass any of them.

Somehow I am thankful that Ms Fong didn't give me any pressure... even yesterday (after she marked the above mentioned test paper) she still said that I was improving in my Chem. I'm thankful that she's not judging me by my test results.

She said that if I work very hard now, the result may not come even during the June Common Test, but it will come eventually.

Of course not during June Common test lah, given the fact that I have all the lecture tests I need to pull my scores down.

Mr Desai was talking about a few of us who have not gotten any "blue ink" scores yet. One of them is me lah.

Gotta go study now. Bye.

Misuse of short forms.

Oh, please do not use short forms all the time.

There was once when my friend used the word "testi" as the short form of "testimonial" (quite a common practice among Friendster users, I think). That was okay if used in singular form.

However, I saw her using this short form for the word's plural form, too. What do you get?

"Testis".

So please, for your good and mine, do not use short forms inappropriately!

Academic stability

Last Friday evening was the parent-tutor dialogue session.

After seeing all my subject tutors, Mum was... erm... appalled at my performance. I think she sort of lost her senses as well, maintaining that I didn't tell her I failed all my Maths tests even when I clearly did.

She even asked me to drop Physics on that day. You may be thinking that I should be happy for that, but recently I felt like continuing doing Physics and trying to understand it more, instead of giving up so soon.

---

On Saturday morning, Mum kept on scolding me for underperforming in my academics, and I retaliated in some instances, for example when she said that the summaries I did for my notes were worthless.

I was thinking, "Well, as long as I failed my tests, all I've done was just shit."

Things got better come late afternoon, but she was still angry with me.

Oh yeah, I met Jiansheng that evening while having dinner with Mum at Eastpoint. He was with his cell group members.

---

On Sunday morning I did my tutorial for Charged Particle Dynamics, and while revisiting the notes for the topic, I almost thought of dropping the subject again. I was feeling very insecure about this subject because I'm not very good at deciding which formula to use at a given time.

After doing a few questions on that topic later, I felt much better again. Fickle me.

I did, however, decide to take practical steps to salvage the situation. I decided that I should not play computer games again in school (so the previous entry is going to be my last entry about games until the end of A levels). I decided to keep my home PC game CDs in my College locker.

I've got to continue in my "Island-hopping" (doing short questions on a few chapters every day) which I did last year.

I've got to leave the computer lab after blogging and moderating the College Forums.

I've got to pray more for self discipline and wisdom.

And pray more for patience too, because I'm about to whack that tortoise-slow computer in my house. YARRGH!

---

Today during Chemistry practical, we did thermochem again. This time we're to burn a candle, use it to heat water in a calorimeter, and determine the heat generated during the combustion by measuring the temperature rise in the water. I was a bit clumsy with the lighter and nearly burned my fingers!

The whole experiment went on fine, and I could come up with some pretty solid sources of error and improvements. I even had time to "kiao kah" at my bench and read the ST forums!

Meanwhile, long after the candle had been removed, my water was still at a temperature of 35 degrees Celcius! The calorimeter had real good lagging, I would say.

But, of course, I had to say that the lagging was not good enough, for "academic" reasons.

Just when I thought everything was fine and I was one of the fastest to finish the experiment, Ms Fong came to check my work, and she told me my format of presenting the answer was wrong! I should do my evaluation in essay format, not in point form!

So in the end, it was a whole lot of rewriting which I had to do...

Later during Physics lecture, we were taught this "De Broglie wavelength". De Broglie was a scientist (also a prince) who proposed that particles exhibit wave properties at a certain wavelength.

So even a human does exhibit wave properties! However the "wavelength" was about 6.3 x 10 to the power of -38, so it was hardly noticeable. Phew.

Imagine seeing me running through a slit and being "diffracted"! I'd have freaked out!

While going through the "gound state" and "excited state" stuff, Yong Chuan asked a very lame question:

Qn: "What do you get if you add all the various states together?"

Ans: "United States."

Oh my goodness...

Later was computing during which I saw more hope for my coursework. I used some gradient tool in Photoshop to create gradient-coloured bars used for my title backgrounds... which enhanced my site's visual appeal a bit.

The coursework was to be completed by the end of this week.

Contrasting Signatures.

Haha... I was going through TJC Forums just now and came across this user with this signature...

Haha... I was particularly amused as my current signature is a picture of Darth Sidious... Lol.

Reminds me of the battle between the 2 masters in the Senate building (which will be featured in SW Ep. 3)...

---

I made a trip to the Living Room section and found some evangelistic threads... which got rebutted pretty severely... we sure have lots of atheists in our forum...

Kimchi, Maths, and lots of gunfire.

Yesterday, Mum and I went for a Korean dinner in Century Square... I had Ra-meon (noodles) and Mum had Bi-bim-bap (some Korean mixed veggie rice). And lots of Kimchi. Mum's Bi-bim-bap (which she had some difficulty pronouncing) had this kind of beansprout which had very large seed leaves! I wouldn't want to try it although Mum said it tasted good. I was contented with my Ra-meon. And Kimchi.

---

Today during the Maths remedial, we did integration. Mrs Leong gave us this question which befaddled many of us (we all have "returned the integration skills to the teacher", lol). Finally Alex got the answer -- do it through Partial Fractions!

And it wowed all of us there.

Sigh... looks like our CG's Maths standard can use some great improvement! Mug more lah!

Later during the same remedial, Joel asked some question about Trapezium Formula (which I suppose the whole class forgot about), amd some of the girls there gave, in unison, an answer as to what to do -- "CRY!"

ROFLMAO.

Later during Maths lecture, I found this stunningly complicated table used for Normal Distribution. When I showed my friend, he was (literally) "stunned". Well, it was, according to what the lecturer said, the result of the "hard work of our ancestors". Haha... I really admire them for the patience to do that thing. It's a monster, I tell you what.

---

Today, after Computing period (I was still on my Enrolment Form), I played Metal Slug 5 which was installed in a particular computer in CS lab. And if you see me playing games on a computer, you know immediately that you're gonna see screenshots.

The first heavy-weapon vehicle is this bike which was quite manouverable:

There was also this cute little submarine...

Then, a super clumsy mobile suit -- it took a few seconds just to turn around! What the heck?

There was also an airplane which uses a type of seeker bomb which looks too cute for it's power. Below is a shot of my plane going against the big green plane in the background.

In the railway station stage, I piloted this globe with 4 spidery appendages. It looked quite awesome!

Finally, there was this car which... erm... had a laser gun. It worked fine against the red helicopter shown below, though.

There were several awesome weapons, like the long laser.

In one of the stages, there was so much food I could eat that I became bloated!

In another stage, there's this pile of shit for me to collect!

Some of the stuff that I had to go up against:

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Oh, regarding yesterday's post about the... erm... tagboard issue: Sorry everyone. I was just worrying too much.

I don't know.

I feel like I'm losing friends...

I feel so dry these days... I know it doesn't matter much, but honestly, the fact that nobody tags my blog worries me... I know it's selfish of me to think that way, but... but... I don't know where this is gonna go.

Kelvin said my blog is lacking someting these days... what is it?

I don't know...

Aye Aye Aye I'm your little Butterfly...

There goes another Thursday. Swimming day. IT Club day. Slack-from-2:15 pm-to-5:15 pm day.

Oh well...

So there's swimming in the morning. Today the swimming complex was open super early, so I was able to enter the complex the moment I reached there. In the past I had to wait for, like, 5 minutes lah.

Sitting at the gallery, I was again the first to change into my trunks. And thank God, there's no lecture about punctuality today since the cohort was fast enough in changing.

I think the College Swim Team's training today was more strenous than usual. Haha I saw all of them doing that "Butterfly" across the pool (Alex from my class was the fastest!) and I thought... "Eh? It sure looks easy, doesn't it?"

Yeah right.

Down in the pool, when I tried imitating the back kick and the hand movements in the Butterfly stroke, I couldn't move forward an inch. Or maybe I did move forward, but only an inch. Don't know lah. And my front crawl was still at the cannot-make-it level.

Back to College.

We were told to complete the tutorial for Poisson distribution and start on the next tutorial on Continuous Random Variables. I did finish my Poisson tutorial yesterday, but I had no time to start on the CRV one.

That's why, after Chem tutorial, I went along with some classmates to ask Ms Fong some questions. Firstly because I really had doubts to be cleared. Secondly because I wanted to avoid Mrs Leong who could have caught me for not doing my CRV tutorial. Lol.

Thank God, Mrs Leong only had time to finish going through the Poisson tutorial, and there's no Maths tutorial tomorrow. Muahahaha! Can postpone my CRV tutorial to the weekends lah.

For your information, the Year Two students were grouped into Bands (1 to 4, I think) according to last year's results in the Promotional exam. So we're having these "Band-oriented" lessons every Thursday.

Today, the Band 1 and Band 2 GP students were supposed to hand in an introduction to an essay about crime and punishment. Most of us in my class (including me) have not done the introduction yet, so during the lunch period we had to write turbo-intros. Managed to finish mine. Phew.

In the end, the tutor mentioned nothing about the intro. We went through the ways of writing an introduction, but no submission of homeworks! Never mind, I found the lesson quite relaxing anyway.

Which makes me love Thursdays even more.

Then it was Computing (which I really wasn't looking forward to, because of the stress involved in doing coursework). Today I finished the online enrolment form for my imaginary childcare centre. A great breakthrough for me.

During the free period before lunch today, I was doing this test to classify various types of bloggers. Here's my result!

What kind of blogger are you?

Haha... I think it's quite accurate! The reason why I blog is to relate to my friends.

And I have something to say (which I left out yesterday) about Xiaxue's post on Christianity.

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Posted by Xiaxue:
"It was said that Jesus understands our grief, for he too lived as a human, and he knows we all have heavy hearts. He however urges us not to feel upset, for the deceased as gone to a better, sunshiny place called heaven. So ... Does this Jesus guy expect us to feel upset, or not??? (If you don't get the contradiction, I am not going to bother explaining)"

---

Jesus made this statement during his Sermon on the Mount, that "God blesses those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). His telling us not to be sad can be explained like this:

He understands our being sad, but if we can get out of our grief eventually, he'll be happy for us.

Is that contradiction? No, that's common sense!

---

Near the end of today's IT Club meeting, we found the 1977 (founding year) College Yearbook. And we saw Mr Francis Tong's photo, taken in his JC days! Haha his look didn't change these 28 years... still the broad face, lol.

To the world (as it means in the Bible).

Sigh... today was the Physics test on Alternating current, Analog electronics, and Data analysis. Thank God I could do the AC and Analog questions (mugging does pay off!) but I had difficulties with the Data analysis questions... sigh.

Kelvin told me about Xiaxue's post about Christianity again. About how a pastor was being insensitive for trying to evangelise during her friend's funeral. She said her friend might not want to have his faith spread during his funeral.

Well, I don't think a Christian would strongly object to having his faith being spread even on a funeral. For me, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say something like "This is MY funeral done in MY remembrance. It's not about God, but about ME!"

No. We all know that "It's not about me". Christians, I mean.

Of course, a little sensitivity would help.

Talk about evangelism, I would of course pray that I'll say the right stuff at the right time. There's another point I want to make about evangelism...

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Before the Judgement seat of God, many would stand bewildered, asking "What's going on? Who's this person pronouncing judgements on us?"

Those who did not accept Christ's sacrifice would not have the curse of sin washed away. When judged for this, they would surely say things to Christians, like "Why did you not tell us earlier about this salvation?"

---

Surely there would be people doing that! But I tell you in advance, it's because YOU DIDN'T WANT TO LISTEN WHEN WE WANTED TO TELL YOU!

You think I don't care about your salvation? I've been praying that I can have the boldness to speak up and that you'll at least lend a ear to me. I want to tell you about God's love and salvation, and not resort to "heaven-and-hell" scares like you've seen some people do. Because then you would start complaining that we're threatening you all to believe in Christ. Well, I myself didn't know about heaven and hell when I became a believer!

P.S.

Whatever you do to my body after I'm dead, I don't care. Give me a Bhuddist or Taoist funeral or whatever. If my heart is right with God, I would be with Christ in heaven anyway. The heart is what matters.

I did do my tutorials okay?

Well, today Ms Fong gave out our progress reports which would of course be shown to our parents. Haha. I'm quite happy with the accuracy of the report and... well, particularly happy with the fact that Mrs Leong remembers that I've been doing my tutorials all the time.

During GP we had comprehension, whose topic was euthanasia (how timely for me. Refer to my "Blue Friday" post.). Well, what those passages say about euthanasia are quite true... I remember one of the authors saying that a doctor is to "save a suffering soul from the ravages of a failing body, and not to ravage a healthy body in the service of a self-destructive soul". Profound but true.

I had a sumptuous lunch today. Fish fillet fried rice (with coleslaw and mashed potato!) from Wild Wild West. With Joel.

During today's Computing period, I had better progress in terms of my content, but on average I was still too slow. Gotta hurry.

One session of Physics remedial just now let me understand all about the smoothing of an Alternating Current. Gotta mug for Physics test, which is the 2nd period tomorrow.

Oh yeah, my cell group MSN forums suddenly became so full of activity and discussion, it freaked me out! Haha... time for me to get more involved with my cell group online!

A racket's test.

This morning our class had our first practical for thermochem. It's adding sodium carbonate into hydrochloric acid. Haha when I added in the solid into the acid (it's supposed to be exothermic)... "Effervescence was observed" was an understatement. The whole thing was fizzing like crazy! You know... about as fizzy as a can of coke you've just shaken!

But then again, the gas is carbon dioxide. Go read your Chem textbook or your notes or whatever you study with.

I didn't know Ms Fong was in Air-rifle club when she was in JC!

Anyway, followed by 2 lectures was coputing lesson. Mr Chua planned to let us finish the coursework this week, so it's intense web-coding for all of us this week. FOr me, I have a disadvantage because I have not prepared my layout in the first 3 hours (during which I could do at hoe and bring to school). Now I have to do all the designing in school only. I know it's my fault.

Never mind. I should overcome all odds. At least I finished the basic template for the site.

During Physics practical today we went through Skill A (planning an experiment) and this time we were to come up with an experiment to test a chosen factor which affects the bounce of a tennis ball off the racket.

Mr Desai allowed us to refer to the notes we've been given last... year. Yeah. It's about doing the same thing with a ping pong ball.

A lot of my classmates copied wholesale, you can even find the "ping pong ball" mentioned in their answers which clearly should not involve ping pong but tennis. Aww whatever...

That's why I chose to do it on my own. Easier to learn that way. Must think long term waht.

When Mr Desai reminded us to state some safety precautions which are unique to the use of tennis ball, I suggested that the doer should...

"Remember to return the tennis ball to the PE office."

*cold*

After that was PE lesson when we started on our sports elective lessons. I miss the Roller blading elective I had last year. Aww... the adrenaline rush... the falls... aww...

This year, it's floorball for me. It's not that I don't like floorball, but there's an alternative called "Badminton Elective" (which I lurrrve) but they have no vacancies already. So... I've got to comproise lah.

Floorball was quite fun, actually. I enjoyed dribbling the ball! The "hockey" sticks we used were plastic ones, so they were light and wieldable. Haha.

Still, Badminton rocks more. Arrgh whatever!

More Starwars.com captions entries.

"Revenge of the Seth"

Blue Friday and Restoration Sunday

Friday was a busy day. So I've got absolutely no time to even go on Forums, much less blogging. Hence you see me blogging about Friday on Sunday.

On Friday morning, during the GP lesson, we started discussions on the Terri Schiavo case and then Euthanasia in general. Throughtout the lesson I'd been thinking of this matter. I don't know... many Christians would of course give a strong "NO!!!" towards "removing the feeding tube" from Schiavo... but for me, all I can say is that I feel miserable watching her being kept alive "artificially" and, as my GP tutor said, being "effectively brain-dead". Many would say "No" from a "pro-life" point of view, but I just have a question -- What kind of "life" was that anyway? Could it be called "life" in the first place?

On Euthanasia... well basically I don't approve that kind of cases where the person simply "lost hope" for life and wanted to die (That's quite a lame excuse, I think) but what about those in incurable suffering? Asking myself the classical question "What would Jesus do?", my answer was that Jesus would heal the person in pain. But I'm not Jesus as in I can't really lay hands on a person and heal him/her instantly...

I'm in a dilemma concerning that issue, because nobody is supposed to remain neutral.

Deliverence came, however, when we got to know the PW results we'd been waiting for. My whole group got Band 2, which was quite good considering the fact that no one in my class got Band 1. I thank my groups members for being understanding when I screwed up some PW stuff more than once.

Did I say "deliverance"?

Then it was sports day in which I was not very involved. You know... after screwing up the 4 x 100 relay last year, I really didn't want to act "seh" in front of the cohort again. So... haha I went for a relaxing shower (in College lah!) while the enthusiasts were cheering away.

Oh yes, talking about cheering, I was there during the cheerleading match (my shower was rather fast, you know) and seriously I thought Alpha house would win. They had the best costumes. Or maybe I was biased towards blue colour. Oh well...

Delta house won. It wasn't what I expected.

Near the end of the sports meet, Maoxin was giving me a crash course on Olympics shooting and on the various types of weapons, with the kind of enthusiasm I would have when giving a summary of Star Wars. You get the point. Well, now I can say I know the difference between semi-automatic and automatic guns.

Actually, on Wednesday, my class decided to have an outing after the sports meet. I expected the sports meet to end at 5 pm, so I thought I could have dinner with the class on Friday.

In the end, the stupid sports meet ended at 6:30 pm.

So, while we originally decided to go to Marina Steamboat (whatever it's called), we couldn't go there now because there would probably be no more seats for us. So, we went to Suntec City in the end. Without knowing where to spend the evening. K-box? Foodcourt? Hmm... never mind, board the MRT first.

On the MRT, we played this finger game (I really don't know how to explain the rules, but it was quite easy to get the hang of the game) which kept us entertained all the way to City Hall. After reaching there, we decided to try K-box first.

After asking for possible options at K-box, however, we decided that it's not worth it. Because they said we could only stay there from 8 to 10 pm (there were reservations, you see...) and worse still, no food. And we're starving.

In the end, they decided to go Kenny Rogers, and we reached there, it was near 8:30 pm. The waiter said we had to wait for 30 minutes.

As I had to leave Suntec at 9 pm, I decided I couldn't do much staying with my class throughout the 30 minutes, so... bye bye people... *sobx*. I had to go get some miserable *sniff* dinner and leave for the East *sniff*.

Everything seemed to happen in an instant after that. I went to Carrefour and bought a box of Sushi to (literally) stuff my mouth with. Then I passed by MPH (it was not 9 pm yet) so I wet in to browse through the newly-released novel of SW E3 -- Revenge of the Sith. After that, I was on my way home, lamenting on the MRT about the unfairness of life. Poor me.

OK you may be wondering why I could blog at home. This is because I ran a spyware scan just now and removed a whole lot of spyware stuff. That made my internet speed OK again.

City Hunters

Yesterday...

First period was a Math lecture test. I remember last Sunday when I was studying my Differential equations... I was so frustrated because I couldn't do a single question. During the test I was relieved that the Differential equation question was relatively easy. I could obtain its general formula, at least.

However, I did not have enough time to finish the whole paper. After passing it up, I was so depressed as I was thinking... "Why do I always have to fail my tests?"

Upon further reflection, however, I think I would manage a pass after all.

There was this learning journey on that day... it started at 3 pm. We went to URA Centre's City Gallery and participated in some activities.

Firstly it was a simulated quiz about urban development ("hosted" by Gurmit Singh!) in which we get to choose MCQ answers using voting machines. Halfway during the quiz, some of us decided that we all should not press the answering buttons and see if the frequency table which tabulates the results would respond.

The table still responded. Hard-coded, was it not?

We went on to play with lots of features in the Gallery, like this touch screen city guide whose screen will send a shock through one's fingers... the screen must have malfunctioned!

*Bzzzt!*

After that we discovered this real-time camera which gives the viewer a view of the Central area of SIngapore. Some of my classmates tried to zoom in the camera to view through windows of private residence. In vain.

I was glad to see that Tampines central had special mention in the Gallery as a "model" town with lots of "firsts". Tampines rawks!

Then we passed by this quite detailed model of the Central area... places like Kallang, Orchard, the CBD, etc. Haha... I saw the model of this suspension bridge I first saw at the Indoor Stadium during the Easter service.

Finally we went by a not-so-detailed model of the whole of Singapore. I located the models of AHS and City Harvest church (I know it's beside NTU).

Earlier in the day, one of my friends said that I do exhibit some Christian virtues in me... I felt encouraged. And then, a few hours later, while I was discussing about the coming CG outing with my classmate, I was reminded about the importance of honesty -- my classmate was asking whether I would tell my mum about the outing. Earlier in the day I almost decided not to, but... well, through my classmate's question, God reminded me how important it is to consistently be a good testimony for him.

Later that evening when I was running an errand for my mum I went by Metro in Century Square and saw an array of Star Wars Episode 3 merchandise... what impressed me was the series of titanium models of Star Wars classical vehicles and starships. And Palpatine's wicked sneer on the figurine package.

"Heh heh, the Galaxy is mine!"

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Today ...

During swimming something bizarre happened. I usually couldn't do my front crawl well, but in the deep pool I suddenly could do it like a pro. What's even more puzzling was that I could only do it temporarily; after that I couldn't keep my feet straight in the water again!

What mattered was whether I was relaxed or not. when I was very tense, I could not do front crawl well. Sigh... breaststroke rocks, though.

During GP today I learned that in the US they do not execute a criminal on Sabbath day (I suppose it's Sunday for them since it's a Christian nation).

For Computing coursework today, I only managed to finish my rollover navigation menu. And one hour out of six was gone. No mood to do it lah, since I have to take Chem SPA right after the session.

Chem SPA? I didn't know the state and phase of HBr, as in whether it's solid or in aqueous form, or in pure liquid form. Sigh... pray I won't flop it, huh? During the last moments of the test, I was almost hyperventilating!

Made in China

OK I'm gonna make this short. I have my computing assignment waiting for me to complete.

During the last Easter service the church bookshop "Attributes" was promoting a series of hand bands (you know... those rubber ones which are very popular these days) with messages on them such as "Keep walking" and "What would Jesus do?"

Whatever is hip and cool and morally sound, you can find it in my church.

So last week I decided to ask my friend to help me get one of those hand bands (I still can't go there presonally, you know...) and I got to collect it from him this morning. It's a blue hand band with the "Keep walking" message on it.

One thing I observed recently was that most of the Christian gifts I recieved from my friends (namely a pass-it-on cards set and this hand band) had this classic phrase on them: Made in China.

Haha... nothing negative about it, it's just that China is, as you all know, a highly secular country which does not really agree with most of the tenets of the Christian faith. So, I was quite surprised to see "Made in China" on Christian artefacts... haha.

Now, what describes my situation more will be -- "Keep typing".

Pray for me, brothers and sisters.

No free lunch? Think again.

Sigh... I still can't blog on weekends, so here's a crash course on last Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday morning I was mugging as usual. The good news is that I could actually do my Binomial expansion tutorial independently! And I sort of gained understanding about Discrete Random Variables too! So it was all mugging for me before going with my mum on a recee trip to Tiong Bahru in the evening. We had to ascertain the location of one of my mum's future electone students (yes she's serious about teaching electone).

Now you know why I wasn't free for the Beta House function. When I heard that "only 7 people" were going for the function, I was shocked! I almost thought that not going would really be too cruel to the House Committee, given the expected turnout. I was relieved when I heard later that it was 7 people from my class who were going -- not 7 from the cohort. Phew.

Anyway, after the recee trip, Mum and I went to Tiong Bahru Plaza for dinner. I can't really say that I'm impressed with the foodcourt there. There was something which caught my attention though -- the big fish (longer than my arm!) displayed in the freezer at a fish soup stall.

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On Sunday I was at home studying Differential Equations for the coming Maths test on Wednesday. The topic's killing me, I tell you what! I had difficulty with almost all the questions I chose from my Ten-year Series! Arrgh!

Oh, I did my Computing assignment besides Math, and I've finally come up with my creative brief and the name of my imaginary "childcare centre" -- BigPlus! When I was using my logo design software I came across this very beautiful Plus sign, and it reminded me of the Easter sermon when my pastor said "When Jesus died for you on the cross, he turned your 'minus' into a big 'plus' ". Also, BigPlus does sound suitable for a place for children, don't you think?

Haha I don't know if there's a childcare centre in Singapore with a similar name... any similarities are purely coincidential.

As for the NKF show yesterday, I didn't watch the first part (mugging then prayer) and I didn't watch the last part (I had to sleep early). One thing I watched and considered crazy was what Jack Neo did -- using his tongue to stop a fan by the blades. Ugh.

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Yesterday I was thinking about an issue -- Whether I'm "ashamed of the Gospel" or not. It's like this... I'm sort of afraid to declare my faith openly to some people, afraid that they would have a bad impression of Christians because of me (I can't say I have been perfect in my dealings with others, you know...). I'm afraid that people would keep pointing at my imperfect areas and then say "Hmph, call yourself a Christian!". I was afraid because I know that I'm not veing a very good testimony for God in some areas of my life.

I'm not ashamed of the Gospel. I'm ashamed of myself.

I know of some people who would love to pounce on a stumbled Christian and try to shatter him/her with hurting words. Try to attack both the person and the faith. Try to vent their hatred on a faith they already dislike.

The Bible says "They hated me without cause".

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Yesterday's date was 10/04 (10th April). According to my friend, some Civics Groups have been using such dates to celebrate their "CG birthdays", hence my CG 10/04 decided to declare 10th April our CG day. Since yesterday was a Sunday, we could only push our celebration till today.

Haha... we decided to order pizza during lunch period for our celebration.

So after all the waiting... it's pizza time! The girls were there first to prepare the drinks and to collect the pizzas (Ms Fong's treating us!). So I arrived with the Computing dudes to a line of tables with almost the whole of 10/04 there. Wow... then we were each given a cup of Coke (which we could not drink before the arrival of Ms Fong... haha).

OK here comes Ms Fong.

We originally wanted to say "Yam Seng" for the toasting session but some girls complained that "Yam Seng" was too "low class" (oh do get a life!) so in the end we just said cheers.

"Cheers" could not give the atmosphere "Yam Seng" could generate. That dampened my mood a whole notch.

But then again, all problems were solved when the food came! Each of us was entitled to 2 slices of pizzas (it was filling enough!) and so we had a hearty CG pizza lunch! And lots of photo taking. Some of my classmates poured almost a whole packet of chilli powder on the slices they were eating. Hot hot hot!

After the pizza I had an apple. Eat healthy huh?

My Physics tutor lamented about a particular thing that happened during the Physics lecture eariler in the day. When our lecturer used red and blue (yes, blue!) beans to demonstrate the theory of photons, some of the students' immediate concern was "Where did he get the blue beans from?".

Confession: Actually that was one of the first questions in my mind too...

I wet my pants.

I'll explain.

Firstly, today I was very lethargic. So morning went by without any blog-worthy events except for...

Hmm...

Oh yeah, today in Electrochemistry Mr Cheng introduced a term "Electrode Potential" and I'm not gonna define the term here. This quantity is measured with respect to the Standard Hydrogen Electrode (its Electrode Potential is zero). What made it so funny was that the Standard Hydrogen Electrode was referred to as S.H.E.

Then it was Computing period, where lots of uncertainties lie.

Then I went for the run, which was different from all the past runs.

This time I decided to start from the PE gate and end at the school gate. Haha... the route is the same but... it's still something "new" to me. And change my mood it did! This time my timing was 16 min 33 sec!

Then I went for the shower (Duh!) and after everything was over, I put my shampoo into the plastic bag together with my College pants (without capping up my shampoo properly).

And it came to pass, when I took out my pants, there was some shampoo spilled on my pants near the... erm... the upper right thigh area.

The only thing I could do was to wash it!

And so the upper right thigh area of my pants was wet! At first I was afraid that if I wore it out just as it was, people would think I peed in my pants! However, later when I really wore it I realised that it didn't look so bad after all.

Thank God.

Jiah Kentang

Yesterday I had a potato feast at Delifrance... Haha the Deli-potato rawks, man! I learnt some French at Delifrance as well, like Croissant is pronounced as "kwa-zon". Also, I finally understood the meaning of A-la-carte.

OK I know I'm a country bumpkin...

Anyway, last week during swimming (I was there even though I didn't swim) Mr Sim said that we have to get ready earlier and not wait for orders to change.

So, today I got changed into swimming trunks and T-shirt the moment I reached the assembly point in the complex. For a crowd to take initiative, there's gonna be a person taking the initiative first. So I decided to do it, and let Mr Sim know that there are some who actually give a damn about swimming in the Thursday swimming batch. My classmates changed too.

So in the end, 10/04 was the first class which was ready. Haha.

And there are rewards -- today Mr Sim commended the cohort for punctuality and he let us go to our various pools without a 10-minute lecture (first time for the Thursday batch!)

No I'm not trying to show off or whatever, I 'm just saying that this was a lesson I learnt today. Haha reminds me of what Shihui said about... influencing others.

Today my group finally moved to the deep pool for practices! Thank God!

As usual, being the swimming lover I was, I swam a bit ore after the session was over.

Which caused me to forget the time and eventually arrive late for Chemistry tutorial for about 15 minutes!

Ms Fong sent me out.

...

And I had a wonderful time in CS lab! Lol. Talk about looking on the bright side of life!

OK but next time I shall not be late again. Must be good testimony for God eh?

Then it's all the Thursday routines again...

Today during quiet time I read Paul's 2nd letter the the Corinthian church; the part where he got sort of... pissed with many of the teachers who loved to boast about themselves too much. He went on to say that even though they had so much to brag about, he himself had more!

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"Such bragging is not something the Lord wants, but I am acting like a fool."
2 Corinthians 11:17

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In a lot of occasions where we get very pissed, we know our reaction would be irrational, but at the heat of the moment... YARRGH! I myself have, during quarrels, grumbled about others to God in my heat-of-the-moment prayers. Couldn't help it lah!

But after that I would of course feel bad about it (refer to the beginning of my Tuesday entry).

During the Computing period today, I managed to make my competitive analysis look decent.

Yeah I said decent.

Then I vroom'ed (on a cab lah!) straight to CMPB for an eye checkup. The thing started at 3 pm, and when I went there they put this eyedrop into my eye "to let my pupils dilate".

The first round didn't work, so it's another drop, and another wait.

The first time round the wait was 20 minutes. The second wait was 40 minutes, and it went on way beyond the time my pupils dilated (I knew it because my vision became blurred). I supposed it was because the optician wasn't there yet.

And in the end, the real checkup only took about 10 minutes. So it was 1 hour of waiting and 10 minutes of checkup for dear me.

What made my day later was a sausage + bacon stick I bought at NTUC in Tiong Bahru Plaza. I've always loved sausage products!

Then, MRT and Bus 12 back to College for the IT Club meeting (I'll join those guys right after making this entry!).

Go prepare a piece of A4 sized paper before reading this entry.

I'll tell you why later.

OK anyway, this morning I saw Tuan shouting at the IP council nominees who were standing at attention (you know... the "sediya" position). Wow... looks like the IP council is under very strict discipline!

My class started the day in the very cold LT1. I wondered if the air-con was left running overnight... bhrrr...

Today marked my second day in my Tour de Random Variables. Haha... I'm starting to pick up the essentials of Discrete Random Variables through the tutorials! Sigh... hope it's not too late.

By the way, my lack of understanding of this topic could be attributed to my sleeping during its opening lecture :P...

Then it was Civics. Ms Fong messaged MX that he should go collect Civics notes. Right before the Civics lesson. So, me and MX rushed to Zap (our "oh-so-hard-on-you-guys-these-days" photocopyng shop) to collect the notes. Only to be greeted by a queue of enthusiastic year ones and a few other Civics Reps. Sigh we can't blame Zap; the year one notes were "selling like hot cakes"! So we waited for our Civics notes (which had to be photocopied on the spot) until... Ms Fong dismissed the rest of the class.

So basically we recieved the notes only to see our classmates approach the canteen. The rest was... understood.

Anyway, today's worship meeting was a bit different from the rest of the sessions. We were taught this trick which involves a sheet of A4 paper (remember the sheet I told you to prepare?). Now let the pictures do the talking!

Step 1.

Step 2.

Step 3.

Step 4.

Step 5.

Step 6.

Leave the cross aside. Try to make the following arrangement using the paper bits.

Add the cross in and rearrange the aper bits to form...

Sinners are destinied for Hell, but if they accept Christ's sacrifice on the cross, they find light.

That's not all! This trick can even work with Chinese words!

Now leave the cross aside again. Try to put the paper bits into the following arrangement.

Add in the cross and see a miracle!

Accept Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and you'll recieve eternal life instead of death!

Busy Tuesday.

Yesterday I had a quarrel with my mum over some disagreements. I didn't say anything hurting to my mum, but I was full of grudge and hatred in my mind.

This morning I couldn't even start talking to God because my mind was still a bit shaken.

Today was the day I go for Student Venture morning fellowships... and Jonathan (a very "traditional" Christian) prepared hymns for us. Haha. One of them was entitled "What a friend we have in Jesus."

1. What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer.

2. Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged;
take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful
who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
take it to the Lord in prayer.

3. Are we weak and heavy laden,
cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge;
take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In his arms he'll take and shield thee;
thou wilt find a solace there.

I was reminded to take whatever problems I face "to the Lord in prayer".

Haha... today during GP lesson I was more "switched off" than during any part of the day... too engrossed in my Left-Behind novel, I was. Last book of the series, about the return (finally!) of Christ and the judgement of the Lawless Man.

Haha during lunch Poh Woon saw Kaicheng holding a few styrofoam cups and he was reminded of something his GP tutor told him -- that in this Yangtze Cinema (which screens a lot of erm... pornographic shows), old men who watched *those* shows would each bring a styrofoam cup along.

We all were laughing like mad! You don't get the joke?

OK then it was Computing, when my tutor said that we'll have our personal accounts in the lab's terminals after the coursework (not unlike the case before the coursework). It's just that I chose to continue using my high-risk terminal (high-risk as in... the monitor is facing the tutor...) because I've got an affinity for it already. Haha CS lab is my home!

Wow... quite a handful of stuff!

I was thinking... I would surely have a lot of things to blog, but when I'm now sitting before my monitor, everything's a blank!

Well, surely I can blog about how I mourned for my Computing grade for term one. OK it's like that. My Grades were FOOE, so if my Computing could go up one grade, I would have FOOD.

Come to think of it, there are surely lots of grade combinations which can form vocabulary words, like...

4 subjects:

FACE, FADE, FOOD, FEED, BEAD, BODE, CODE

3 subjects:

BED, ACE, FOE, CAB, COD, FEE, DOE

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Aww... can't think of anything else!

Let's talk about yesterday. I was playing a lot of computer games.

"Huh? I thought there's Chemistry test on Monday?!"

Anyway, yesterday night I was thinking about this question which was on my mind for quite a long time -- was King Saul treated unfairly? Why was God plotting everything against him?

Saul was the first King of the Israelite nation. There was once when he set aside the enemies' lifestock for a ceremonious sacrifice instead of killing them as God commanded. Ever since then everything was going against him. The Bible said that the Lord sent a "tormenting spirit" on Saul and caused Saul to rave about like a madman. Then there was Saul becoming jealous of David (he feared that David would wrench power from him) and other stuff. He died in a battle in the end.(All of the above can be found in 1 Samuel)

I was thinking, why did God sent that tormenting spirit in the first place? Was it not that tormenting spirit which made Saul jealous and frustrated and whatever...

Then I recalled the part of Apostle Paul's letter to the Corinthians where he said that he had been given a "thorn in his flesh, a messenger from Satan to keep him from getting puffed up". (2 Corinthians 12:7) Paul was a close friend (I chose to use this term) of God, yet he got that so-called "tormenting spirit" too! But the way he reacted was not frustration towards others; he sought help from God, who replied "My grace is all you need".

I concluded that God can send anything upon us (and we have no choice) anytime he wants to. However, where we end up with the things God sent upon us really depends on how we respond.

Many people think that when Paul mentioned that "thorn in the flesh" he meant some kind of disease or infirmities. I can only say that I believe that the "messenger from Satan" meant more than just some simple disease. I'm able to relate to that verse quite well because of personal experience.

I recalled the time when I actually had a "tormenting spirit" sent upon me as well during my Sec 4 prelim days (now I have not told anyone about this before, so don't be surprised you don't know about it). Whenever I pray or when I just began thinking about God, obscenities and vulgar words will charge into my mind (against my will, of course) like a flood. In short, my mind was always commiting "blasphemy" against my will.

For weeks, I really was thinking that these "sins of blasphemy" were too much for me to bear and I wanted to end my life more than once. I told no one, except telling my cell group leader that I kept on having "strange things" in my mind. For many times I cried out to God (alone in my bed) for deliverance from that. I came across that "Paul's thorn in the flesh" passage in that period of time, and I couldn't forget it until now. It was as if God was saying it directly into my heart, that "his grace was all I needed".

Truly, whatever God plans to happen to us, it's our reaction that determines our future. I can safely say that the incident has brought me closer to God. Oh, as for my prelims, I got 9 for L1R5. Blessed right?

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Today was the Chem test. Yeah, I was actually very prepared for it (especially the Halogeno-alkanes chapter) despite the heavy gaming yeaterday. All smlies!

To think that I was so dumb to forget the fact that ketones do not react with Tollen's reagent.

Arrgh! After that the immediate concern was Physics SPA. Everything was just fine, and I handed in my scripts thinking I'm the happiest guy in the room.

Just before my friend reminded me that I had to take the timing twice and obtain the mean (I took only one set of timings).

Arrgh!

Nvm. Haha Yulan said that one of her friends is now yearning to know God more... hmm...

In our process of knowing God more, we'll definitely go through a lot of doubts. My advice: Face them! There are people who may give you the impression that God wants you to think all the politically correct stuff, but I've learnt in the book "Purpose Driven Life" that God wants you to be honest with him. If you doubt, will he not see your heart and know about it anyway? But through the bouts with doubt and questioning we can really get to know God more.

Fry day.

Haha... random title.

Today Joe asked me a lot of questions about my faith, like how I accepted Christ etc. For me, the reason why I turned to Christ (the very first reason) was because of his invitation of friendship.

Many said that we believe because of fear of Hell. I know it plays a part in the faith of some (including me sometimes :P) but that time when I answered the call to turn to Christ I knew nuts about Heaven and Hell (I read the Bible much later!)

Basically I myself have a lot of unanswered questions myself and if people ask me such questions I really can't answer them. But I wanna have faith in God because I know him to be true.

Anyway, today I had 2 uneventful lectures.

Went for prayer meeting after school... today only the Year Twos were there because the Year One members probably pon'ed school today. In light of the fact that today they have only one lecture, I suppose.

Anyway, today's prayer meeting was... erm interactive. Haha we talked about all sorts of stuff (church-related, duh!).

Evangelism.

Oh yeah, today I'm back to running 3.6 km again (cheers!). And this time my timing was... 16 min 57 sec! Hallelujah!