Shitty day. In many senses.

Yesterday I went to buy my Order of the Phoenix as planned.

When I reached TM Times Bookshop. I realized that all the hardcovers were gone (in a week?!) and only a few copies of paperback were left. Not that I mind, but the fact was that only the hardcovers were sold at the special price of $7. Paperbacks were still sold at $19.90.

What the heck?

I saw the paperback of Order of the Phoenix at White Sands popular... at $12.90... sigh, it's not as cheap as $7, but definitely better than $19.90.

I may be getting it today.

Recently I've been learning a few tricks on my calculator... games are not the only programs which have "cheat codes".

One of those "cheats codes" was the power-off function... well, by default, the calculator was auto-power-off. However, because of my habit of switching it off after every calculation, this function proved pretty useful for me.

And I learned the complex numbers "cheat code" on this calculator too! But then, using mental calculation is much quicker than doing the code...

While watching Brainiest Kid on the bus, there was this question about the identity of the animal whose name spelt backwards is a Roald Dahl novel. The answer was tortoise.

So, tortoise spelt backwards was... "esiotrot"...

Esiotrot! Isn't that the user name of one of the TJC Forum members?

Speaking of Roald Dahl, I read one of his novels entitled "Danny the Champion of the World", and I was quite disturbed by the way Danny and his father hunted for pheasants.

Roald Dahl's other novel character, the Big Friendly Giant (BFG for short) was also quite famous, and a few First-Person-Shooting games pay homage to this character by introducing their very own BFGs -- "Big Freakin' Guns"!

Yesterday evening, I had a meal at Ya Kun for the first time, and the cheese toast tasted pretty good! And not to forget the half-boiled eggs with soy sauce which I have not tasted since God knows when.

Yesterday wasn't shitty. Today was.

This morning when I arrived in College, I was greeted by an unusual sight... a few pieces of shit lying on the canteen floor, and you could smell them from even a few metres away.

And hence the few vacant tables near where the shit lay.

Thanks to God and the cleaners, the mess was cleared up by the time flag-raising was over.

And then, after 2 tutorials and a break, I suddenly felt funny in my stomach and went to the loo for you-know-what.

We've finally stepped out of the Food Chem phase of the syllabus (it bored me to tears) and began the first of our last few Inorganic Chem chapters: Transition Metals!

Summary of the lecture: Miss Lee Tun Leng, a few pages of facts, and a sleep which seemed to last a century.

After Computing Coursework, I went to the loo again. Hope it will be the last time for today.

My class will have photo-taking today... thank God I had a haircut only recently, so I can look smarter on camera.

For their salvation

Yesterday there was not much to blog about, except that there was a Maths test which I did quite happily. A good sign.

Except that right after I handed up the script, I discovered that I forgot to do Continuity Correction for one of the questions.

For Mass Civics, we listened to a talk entitled "How to avoid marrying a jerk", and it's quite enriching... and I think the concepts are pretty Biblical as well.

I think my friends are generally turned off by regiosity. Yesterday during lunch period, I was having a fast and I couldn't join them for lunch... and the reactions of some of them were overwhelming...

I was concerned about this too... because in my dealings with friends, my primary concern is that whether it will show God's love for them. What are the things which will turn them off and drive them to shut themselves off from the Good News?

The American invasion of Iraq was, I believe, an attempt to liberate the Iraqis from oppression from their government, but in the process, many other peoples around the world became blinded to God's love...

There was one when I came accross this website called sorryeverybody.com. What I saw there got me quite shaken, and I still remember one message there which says

"Two countries under Bush's God."

You know the rest.

I wish that I can completely follow what the Bible says in 1st Corinthians 10:33...

"I don't just do what I like or what is best for me, but what is best for them so they may be saved."

Anyway, today during Mass PE we had a mock 2.4 km run to prepare us for the actual run which comes next Friday. Due to a lack of training (I've seldom run my 3.6 km course since the beginning of June), my performance was not very satisfactory... 12 minutes 18 seconds. I still remember the time when I could finish the course in 11 minutes...

I think I've got to train my 3.6 km run almost every day for next week.

I went for my post-PE shower so late that I thought I would not make it this time, but eventually I still made it before the girls. Thank God.

Yesterday Kaicheng and Esmond didn't take the test, and during the Maths period today, Mrs Leong almost divulged the question to them unintentionally during a casual class discussion. Kaicheng was the one to stop Mrs Leong... hmm, that's integrity yeah?

During GP lecture today, we still did post-mortem for the JCT essays, and one of the topics discussed today was something about the effect of globalisation on our country.

It's just a stray thought, but I believe that one of the most important impact of globalisation is the standardization of measurements. Without it, things can really be difficult, even within a single country.

During Computing Coursework today, I realized that I overlooked a very important thing in my code, and quickly moved to solve the problem. And my code is almost completed. Almost. A stone's throw away. Or even nearer than that.

I've been doing this year's Coursework at a much relaxed pace... last year's Coursework period was a stressful one for m... I even had to stay up overnight once... and near the end of the coursework, my code wouldn't work... I remember praying very hard that night, and I barely managed to make my code work.

This year, I even look forward to Coursework sessions!

Oh, today I finally saved up enough money for my $7 Order of the Phoenix (and I hope there's still stock at TM Times Bookshop) and I'm going to get it this evening.

Today I took a break from saving money, and had a lavish Wlid Wlid West meal for lunch... Haha Joel didnt get to eat it today because he didn't want to wait in the long queue. The rest of us 10/04 guys managed to get it early, when the canteen was less crowded, you see...

And I only got one piece of chicken cutlet; normally there would be 2 pieces in the set meal...

Getting even

This morning it rained heavily, so the Student Venture people held the daily gathering in the canteen, instead of the Sports Complex.

So I joined them while eating my Wild Wild West breakfast set (yes, Wild Wild West is back after a long period of closure!)... Hannah and Jiansheng were there, and Xiaoyun came shortly after that.

Xiaoyun gave us a pass-it-on card (you know... those with Bible verses on them) each, with some stuff written behind... Jiansheng's card even had a hand-drawn sun behind it!

Later, Xiaoyun let us sign on a birthday card for Jonathan, and since we're really at our wits' end as to what to write, we decided to pray a short prayer first.

After the prayer, I reflected something which I noticed a long time back... that many Christians like to say the word "even", even when it's not really necessary (Xiaoyun had lots of "evens" in her prayers too!), and Xiaoyun sort of agreed. She even added that a lot of Christians like to use the word "indeed".

So at that time when I was even still eating "of" (yes some Christians love to add the word "of" after verbs...) my breakfast set, I decided to even write this sentence before even signing of my name.

"May the LORD even bless you, indeed!"
~Weiquan

Sigh... I should indeed have added an "of" even between the "bless" and "you"...

Today I was happy to even realize that I have gotten the hang of Electrochem, to indeed understand how to even determine which reactions would even just occur at respective electrodes.

Haha... during that time when I could not even grasp Electrolysis concepts, I was, like, my hope of even becoming a Chem teacher in AHS was put into jeopardy. I mean, how can I teach of Chemistry without understanding of Electrochem?

Heh... I'm relieved now. At last. I could even just do of my tutorials without a frown on my face.

We did of Comprehension during GP, and I was quite glad that I even just completed of my Appliication Question (that is, with conclusion), indeed. The question was about the aged and the treatment they are even getting of from the society.

I even just did of my Physics tutorials during Food Chem lecture.

Firstly, it's because I knew I ought to even just prepare tutorials before the tutor goes over them.

Secondly, I was thinking that the recent lectures were actually times when Mr Goh was even just going through the stuff in the notes. So since the stuff were already in the notes, why do we need someone to even just recite of them?

Now an oxymoron is a combination of two words that are completely opposite in meaning. Recently I saw this list of oxynmorons on TJC Forums, and I thought it appropriate to even just share it with you.

Please have the patience to even just read of it until the very end.

---

• 30. Small crowd
• 29. Business ethics
• 28. Soft rock
• 27. Butt head
• 26. Military intelligence
• 25. Software documentation
• 24. New classic
• 23. Sweet sorrow
• 22. Child Proof
• 21. "Now, then ."
• 20. Synthetic natural gas
• 19. Passive aggression
• 18. Taped live
• 17. Clearly misunderstood
• 16. Peace force
• 15. Extinct life
• 14. Temporary tax increase
• 13. Computer jock
• 12. Plastic glasses
• 11. Terribly pleased
• 10. Computer security
• 9. Political science
• 8. Tight slacks
• 7. Definite maybe
• 6. Pretty ugly
• 5. Twelve-ounce pound cake
• 4. Diet ice cream
• 3. Working vacation
• 2. Exact estimate

..And the number 1 oxymoron is..

• 1. Microsoft works

---

This was contributed by a TJC Forums user called ~~M@k@n~~, who indeed seems to have a huge collection of e-mail jokes...

Of Stupid Lifts and Nice Novels.

Last weekend, I observed an irritating behaviour of the lifts in my flat again.

I don't know about the A.I. of these lifts... are they just downright stupid, or are they so smart that they became stupid.

I was on my way home, on the first level, waiting for a the lift. And there were two lifts, one at level 11 and one at level 2.

After I pressed the button, I expected the one at level 2 to come for me, since it's nearer. However, the lifts were stationary for a while, seeming to decide which one would be the best to carry out the honourable job of transporting this particular resident.

In the end, the one at level 11 made its way down.

Meanwhile, the lift at level 2 was biding its (maybe I should use "his") time, and when the one from level 11 had already reached level 3, the one at level 2 quickly started down to fetch me.

When the lift from level 2 arrived first (obviously...), I could imagine "him" shouting "I win, I win!".

So... are they too stupid or too smart? No matter what, they pissed me off.

Now for the happier side of my weekend...

I finally got the time to continue doing a new template for the website for my friend's mother tongue school, and I've already completed quite a huge part of it. I was just wondering if I had to redo the picture gallery all over again... because it had over 40 pictures!

I've covered about half of the Star Wars novel, "Tatooine Ghost"... and it's quite a nice book. It's about Leia coming across a journal made by Shmi Skywalker (Anakin's mother, Leia's grandmother) for her son, Anakin, when he was training as a Jedi apprentice. Leia's view of her father (she could only see her father as the evil fallen Jedi Darth Vader) was changed by the words in Shmi's journal and also by Anakin's childhood friends, Kitster and Wald (whom we get to see in Episode 1), who were inspired by Anakin to work for their own freedom from slavery.

Shmi Skywalker

Young Kitster Banai, who grew up among the upper class, whom he worked for. He later married a Kuati lady, then divorced her (you'll understand if you know Kuati ladies) and married another lady named Tamora.

Young Wald, who raced swoop bikes to win his freedom, not unlike Anakin who raced the Pods. He later opened a hardware shop.

I'm starting to get the hang of Electrochem, or so I hope. At least I can face my tutorials later with less fear.

My calculator had been giving me quite a lot of trouble recently, so I decided that it's time I get a new one. So I bought one today for $20. Some of my classmates are using this model as well, and it's pretty cool!

My friends told me about this blog entry which talked about subtitles in pirated DVDs... see for yourself and you'll know what I mean.

Oh, and do prepare yourself. The subtitles actually contain the F word!

Crazy subtitles

I don't care if mice love grain.

OK, I'm in no place to criticize other people's works.

But seriously, won't you get irritated if you hear the same song in lots of different versions, everywhere?

I mean, the first time I heard "Mouse loves grain" over the radio, the DJ was saying that there're many singers vying for a chance to sing that song.

I was, like, come on... is this song that good? I mean THAT good?

The version I heard was sung by Guo Meimei. It's OK... I think this song has a kiddish theme and the accompaniment suits the song pretty well.

I haven't heard the Twins version yet. Not that I want to anyway...

I got a taste of the dance mix of that song when I was passing by that shop... I thanked God I was merely passing by. For reasons unknown, I was irritated big time by the dance mix... I mean, it's totally no link!

Once when I was having breakfast near College, I heard the version sang by a male... I didn't know whether it's Yang or Wang, but I was, like, OK... OK...

In another optical shop, I heard another infuriating version of that song... sang by a male and a female with sentimental piano accompaniment... this accompaniment is even more no-link than the dance mix... it doesn't fit the theme at all, and when I heard it, I was, like, "Give me a BREAK!!!"

Originally I didn't think this was a blog-worthy issue, but I heard the dance mix again at a night market yesterday. Same as that I heard at another night market a few days ago.

And hence this post.

I, MM

I told you I have nothing to blog about on Fridays...

But there's the IT Club investiture yesterday.

It started at about 5:30 PM, and I attended the investiture with a heavy heart for several reasons.

• I wasn't a skillful project leader and the most significant thing I managed to do was to "inspire" them to revamp the notice board.
• The year Twos who have paid for their IT Club T-shirts would have to get them after handing over. Part of it was my fault and I thank them for being understanding.
• I thought there were only drinks for refreshments (thank God I was wrong).

Melvin's speech was a nice ending speech... he addressed every Year Two member personally... and he didn't forget that I was a Star Wars fan. The address to Junqun was the funniest.

All in all, there were speeches, Flash presentations and photo taking sessions. In one of the photos in the presentation, the way I posed made me look like I was "pregnant"! Oh gosh.

And the new Exco pledge is really funny... "We'll increase our RAM and upgrade our processors..."

What lightened me up a bit was the lavish feast prepared by See Shuen's (our new chairperson) mother, along with the drinks. There were lots of dishes... like fried fishballs (my favourite), sausages, curry puffs, and this mixture of curry, potatoes and bits of hard boiled egg.

Most of us claimed that they could actually skip dinner after that.

I'll really miss the fellow Year Two members... our friendship developed through our Moderator jobs in the College Forums and other activities like DotA-

Oops.

I was surprised that Kuti still hasn't known who the Half-blood Prince was... I reckon that I'm really a spoiler-hardy person... Junqun even told me how...

Dum Dum Dum Dum'd Dum Dum'd Dum...

... was killed. And it was certainly worthy to be called a spoiler!

Nah... I guess spoilers won't really affect me... Star Wars fans already had access to Episode 3 spoilers since year 1983 anyway...

Heh. I've got the title I've been waiting for: Moderator Mentor! It's nice to be an MM.

I was very down this morning; I quarrelled with Mom again yesterday evening... I almost didn't go for the prayer meeting but Max saw me shortly after I arrived in College, so... I went anyway lah.

God is the only constant in my life, among all the changes around me. In times of despair, I'll thank God for... still being God.

I finally completed my 2nd question for Computing Coursework today... which thrusts me into a whole new realm of confusion -- Question 3! Basically I think that the question is very abstract and all my friends say that there're lots of ambiguities in the question too.

But I shall overcome.

No, should be "overcome shall I".

No. "Shall come over, I".

Hmm. Come over, deed-in.

Cutting edge shower technology. In the literal sense.

Shit, I left out stuff from yesterday's entry again.

During the blood donation, I took my own weight... remember the time when I weighed myself on a faulty balance and got a reading of 40 kg? Now I know my true weight. 60 kg.

Junming told me yesterday during WOW that PES C people will not necerrarily be clerks. Which lightened me up a bit. I may be given minor tasks like guard duty... or even driver... and it's better (less boring) than clerk work.

Usually, on Thursday mornings, I only had an apple for breakfast (Mass PE was the first period and I don't want to consume too much proteins and fat) and I had to go buy a decent breakfast after PE.

Today, however, I decided to just buy my sandwich and keep it in my bag until PE was over, so I didn't have to go all the way to the canteen after the tiring PE lesson.

Why didn't I think of that earlier?

PE today was a new challenge for me... 3.2 km with an uphill course. Uphill run was agonizing... reminded me of Christ walking the Via Dolorosa (I think it's an uphill route too...) carrying his cross.

After the run, there's this exercise where I had to lie on my belly, use my upper arm to support my upper body, lift my belly up, and stay in that position for 1 minute. Thruoghout the whole thing I was reciting parts from Psalm 23 (the "your rod and staff protect and comfort me" thing) and tried not to focus on my weariness.

While trying to score a chin-up, Izzat suddenly volunteered to help hold me up and let me stay in chin-up position for 5 seconds, to train my arm muscles.

As usual, I had a shower after PE. Usually I would have my shower in this cubicle with a high-pressure shower, and I had to remove my glasses lest the water jet knocked them off. In fact, the jets were so strong, it felt like Jacuzzi.

No. Today I used another cubicle with a much gentler shower.

I'm still stuck with Electrolysis... and today's tutorial has only touched the first question on that topic... so I've got to wait till I've sat through more tutorials to really figure this topic out.

Computing Coursework today was another step forward for me, even though I was a bit slower than the rest... but a slight change to my code tomorrow and I'll be starting on my 3rd and final question.

After Computing I joined Mr Chua to the EAS (school attandants' room) to borrow 2 drink dispensers for the IT Club investiture. To my utter horror, one of the dispensers actually still contained some fruit punch from eons ago!

Not to mention the stench.

Don't worry, IT Club people, I had that dispenser's interiors scrubbed with dishwashing detergent thoroughly.

After that I went to Tampines Mall to buy the Star Wars novel "Tatooine Ghost". One of the reasons I wanted to buy this book was because it's about Leia coming to terms with her fallen (and redeemed) father's past.

I dropped by Times bookshop and found out that a fellow TJC Forummer's claim was true -- that Order of the Phoenix was being sold at $7 each! According to the cashier, the same price will remain while stocks last!

It will be easy to save $7, right?

I'll be going for IT Club investiture soon. Will blog about that tomorrow.

The Dull boy, the Spoilers and the Blood Drive

Today was racial harmony day celebrations and many of the students arrived in ethnic costumes. A pity I couldn't get any.

And Both Yong Chuan and I decided against trying anything funny (read my previous post).

Junqun, who has already covered most of "HP and the Half-blood Prince", had a very strong urge to provide spoilers. To satisfy his craving, I decided that I could take a spoiler or two. So I asked him who the half-blood prince was.

It was (highlight the red box to read)...

Severus Snape

Oh my goodness! I was stunned, as the answer was one of my least expected ones! But then again, is there any beauty in a totally predictable story?

There were some pretty nice ethnic costumes, like Chunyan's Korean outfit. Xiaoyun came in a sarong which was originally used as a cradle when she was a baby.

Oh, gosh.

We have reached the last chapter in the Maths syllabus -- Complex Numbers! According to Mr Ho (our lecturer), complex numbers are present in almost all remote controlling systems.

Actually, it just involves a constant called i, which is an imaginary number that takes a value of the "square root of -1".

Physics lecture was a typical Mr-Varella lecture... with lots of demonstrations.

To continue on the topic of spoilers, I have a bad habit of going to the end of a book even before reading it, so when I saw the E-book version of Half Blood Prince in one of the computers in the hub, I couldn't help but scroll right to the last few pages.

Junqun told me that some important character would die in this volume, and good grief, when I stopped scrolling, I was staring into the part where they're talking about the funeral of...

Dum Dum Dum Dum'd Dum Dum'd Dum...

I didn't tell you anything.

Maths tutorial, Computing lecture, GP scores analysis, Physics tutorials... typical day.

Then came Mass Civics, which was a celebration programme for Racial harmony day... there was a quiz and I answered one of the questions about Chinese wedding ceremonies and got a packet of Oreo Minis.

Next was lunch (to prepare for my blood donation) and WOW (Worship on Wednesday). We played a game which I last played during the IT Club June camp last year, and had a discussion about Church cultures.

Jonathan brought up a point, that since there are already enough churches in Singapore, we should actually put more effort in planting churches in countries like Thailand (reminds me of Keli), where churches are scarce.

That's quite a valid point... we should really channel our resources on where they're needed the most.

We talked about CCA "withdrawal symptoms" too. As in, after handing over our duties as seniors, we'll tend to feel some kind of emptiness in the time slots and in our minds... I had this feeling when the recent JCT just ended... and talking about Forums, I'll still feel a bit comfortable without going regularly into the sections I monitor to take a peek.

I accompanied Junming and Kee Liang for blood donation after WOW. The finger prick this year was less painful than the one I did last year. And as the needle gets bigger (from pricking finger to drawing blood), it gets less painful.

I was sort of worried that I would have to wait for a long time, but it was actually quite a short wait. In about half an hour I was on the donation chair.

On the chair, however, the waiting (and the anticipation) for the big needle was agonizing. When they finally got the needle in, I was given a card which says something like "You must be having a feeling of great satisfaction now..."

Since the last needle has gotten in, I couldn't agree with the statement more.

In moments the drawing of blood was over, and I got some free Milo, biscuits and a red cap. Not to mention the yellow bandage.

Oh yes, and the iron tablets.

I remember that my church organizes annual blood drives, and we advocate blood donation because it sort of emulates Christ's shedding of blood on the cross to cleanse our sins.

Now that I'm Christian, this was one of my purposes for donating blood as well.

I realized that recently I've become a very dull person. In fact, it's duller and duller (see this post)... and I can't help but feel that almost all the girls in my class have something against me...

Shit, worrying too much again.

Isaiah and the great GP serew-up.

My goodness... I left out on a few things that happened yesterday in my previous post ...

Anyway, they're nothing much. Just some experiments with the Cathode-ray Oscilloscope and some additional Physics knowledge on moving air...

The GP lesson today was a total screw-up for me... firstly, Esmond and I went to present our stuff for an essay question on "Teach Less Learn More" and... our stuff was limited. Too limited.

And then it came to pass, when Joel was presenting his ideas on "Question 10" of the JCT paper, I mistook it as "Question 10" of the Prelim paper (I didn't look at the test name) and I made an idiot of myself asking an obviously-totally-idiotic question.

Today was the day of collection of Project Work files. Thank God they (I don't know who, though...) decided to keep the file of my group (Maoxin's done a great job organizing the file), so we don't have to argue about who should keep the file. Just as well.

Food Chem lecture today (it's the last one, sob...) was... sleep inducing for me. And I really slept.

Computing Coursework is working out fine, and I'm almost at the end of my 2nd question (out of 3 questions!). Almost. Just one more function and my code shall be complete!

Anyway, shortly after posting my previous post yesterday, I came across this article about harry Potter on ChristianityToday.com... it discusses some of the aspects of the story (mostly about the symbolic figures) which (get this) point to the gospel!

Most of the points in the article are pretty valid. Take a look at the article here.

Although I sort of maintain the point that HP will have certain undesirable effects on children (Not adults like us. Heh), if there's proper guidance it can even be used as an evangelistic tool!

Tomorrow we'll be celebrating Racial Harmony day (yes I know it's not the actual day, but Wednesday is a convenient day isn't it?) and we're supposed to turn up in ethnic costumes or College uniform. I'm not sure whether normal home clothes will do, but... no I'll just wear my College uniform.

Yong Chuan (he reads my blog occasionally) who is a big Nazi fan, will turn up with a Nazi arm band (sounds more like a "racist" outfit to me...) tomorrow. So, I've made an agreement with him. If he turns up tomorrow in that Nazi arm band, I'll be at College in smart uniform and a "Star of David" arm band (worn by Jews during the time the Nazi relocated the Jews into ghettoes).

We shall see.

"For me to poop on!"

Last weekend I was busy doing my Computing coursework practice at home. You know... I've got to practice coding the program so that I won't screw up when I get to College for the real Coursework sessions.

Actually our College has quite a good Coursework system... on average, the coursework session each day will not be more than an hour. I heard that in St Andrew's JC, their Computing Coursework sessions take place after school, and each session lasts 4 hours!

Imagine if I got screwed up in the middle of such a session... I'll waste precious time thinking of the solution!

So last weekend I managed to come up with a robust Main Menu for my programme... and my Book Title Search algorithm is almost complete.

During breaks I watched the Star Wars geeks video clip (with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog as the reporter) which I mentioned in one of my recent posts. I've watched it for several times, but the more I watch it, the funnier it gets!

I remember one of Triumph's favourite lines: "For me to poop on!".

I've been thinking to join UNIFEM (one of the GP tutors in my College works for this organization), an organization which campaigns against sex-slavery... I mean, someone's got to do something, right?

I watched the later part of Minority Report yesterday... and was glad that by watching the later part alone, I got to sort of understand the whole movie.

I think the movie shows one major message, that no matter how good a system we implement, there are bound to be people who mess it up. All of us have a sinful nature and tend to use good things for bad purposes.

Just look at Communism. It's supposed to be a very good political system, where everyone shares his/her possessions... I think it's a system based on selflessness. However, in the hands of fallible humans, Communism could never be achieved, and pioneer Communist leaders are now seen as nothing more than power-hungry individuals.

Now for what happened today.

This morning I went with NCC and Jinrong for chin-up practice (sorry Kelvin, if you could not find me at the canteen...). I did 6 assisted chin-ups (if not assisted, I couldn't do even one!). Gotta try harder and do chin-ups everyday. Jiansheng put in quite a lot of effort for that, and I think it paid off.

We're going into our period of revision, so now Bio and Chem (I'm not sure about other subjects) students will have topical diagnostic tests every week.

I screwed up the Thermochem test today. Did it too slowly. Again.

The weekend efforts for my Computing Coursework did pay off... and all of those algorithms which I spent hours coughing up at home were all "regurgitated" into my College workstation now. And everything worked!

Thank God for giving me wisdom for this Coursework.

There was no PE today. So sad.

I went to HollywoodJesus.com today and checked out the section for the coming movies for Narnia and Harry Potter...

So Liam Neeson (who played Oskar Schindler, Qui-gon Jinn etc.) would be the "voice" of Aslan the Lion, the King of the land of Narnia (I suppose so... I have yet to read the novel yet).

Aslan the lion

The White Witch, the villain in the saga

In the movie HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the director decided to ulet the characters wear casual clothes, and in Goblet of Fire, Harry and Ron are even allowed to keep long hair! I have a bad feeling about this... but anyway...

Long-haired Muggers

Hermione (in the Yule Ball), who grows prettier everytime a new episode comes up.

In the Yule Ball, Hermione was supposed to wear a blue cloak (that's from the book...), and I wonder how she'll look that way.

Speaking of HP, it is of course known that the series is opposed by lots of Christians under the reason that witchcraft is a sin...

Well witchcraft is a sin; this I believe. Mom told me a lot of scary tales of people being under spells (we Chinese call it "jiang tou") and I got so freaked out, but God reminded me that he's on the side of those who believe in him, and God is holy.

So I have nothing to fear.

As for the Harry Potter saga, it is a story that involves "wizards"... but I think it's still in a fantasy tale manner... it's not what real witchcraft is like... is it? I mean, those so-called "incantations" are not even incantations at all; they're merely derivatives from Latin words!

One thing I agree about the "Christian" case is that it's bad for children. Children would not know how to discern between what's right and wrong, and would be drawn to other stuff about witchcraft instead of simply appreciating the story, as a story.

But will it have bad effects on those who recognize fact from fiction?

Heavy hearted

Went to LT2 for the Maths extra lesson, but it was totally empty inside.

So I went to browse through the papers put under LT! for public reading, and of course, my attention was drawn to the 2 most talked about sagas: The NKF controversy and the Huang Na trials.

So the Board has resigned... I was personally quite overwhelmed by the response of the public... the 180-degree change of attitude towards the NKF and the sudden withdrawal of donations. But then again, the donors have all donated for the sake of the patients, and I myself was a bit shaken when I heard about the immense salaries of the directors, which present a stark contrast against some of the families of the kidney patients who have to scavenge rubbish dumps for food.

I think that while the NFK is answerable to the public, the group that should be more concerned was to be the kidney patients who still bear immense burdens of dialysis fees.

Greater transparency is of course favourable.

What's more shocking was that Huang's "sexual assault" was just an attempt by Took to mislead the police into thinking that it was a sexual crime, and that the whole "murder" case was simply a hide-and-seek game that went wrong.

Reading the description of the incident was what got me so heavy-hearted now... the girl injured her head badly and was having spasms... Took claimed that he, who was alone with her at that time, was confused and tried to "put her out of her misery".

An innocent game that turned into such a situation.

At a loss for words, so my phrasing might have been a bit awkward...

The One

I'm the One.

The one and only student in my class that has to go for the Maths extra class for those who scored below45% for Maths JCT.

Never mind. It's for my own good.

Anyway, this morning I went for CHC prayer meeting and saw Kee Liang there... so he actually became a Christian this Easter! Well, I actually saw him at the Easter service anyway...

We did essay peer marking for GP today... those who do the same question exchanged essays mong each other for marking... the 2 essays I got were relatively easier to mark compared to those I got in the past.

Food Chem lecture was not as hilarious as the previous ones, but when Mr Goh was citing examples of bread shops in Singapore, he mistook the name (Four Leaves) as "Four Loaves".

Computing coursework today was OK, except that I forgot to set pointers to NULL before deleting them, causing errors (and that caused me to stone for about half an hour).

Our school bookshop will no longer sell candies and tidbits... neither will the snack shop (which actually demanded a monopoly over curry puffs against one of the Muslim food stalls). They said that the College does not want to compromise our health...

I sure have a bad feeling about this...

Talk about health and fitness... I was surprised to find out that my weight is now 40 kg...unless the weighing machine was spoilt when I weighed myself yesterday...

Not very good at telling stories

W31-QV4N and C3PO have a similarity. They're not very good at telling stories.

C3PO, protocol droid

On that fateful day when W31 and K30N went for some drifting, K30N was saying that W31 somehow lacked stories to share, while K30N himself had tons of it. W31 seemed to agree.

On another day when W31 went for lunch (you mean droids do eat?) with C-MX, C00L-K41 and J14N-YV4N, C-MX was sharing tons of stories about executions (what the heck?!) and W31 did notice that he did not have much to share.

W31 thinks that perhaps his talent lies not in verbal crapping, but in Cyber-crapping. That is, crapping on cyberspace. Ah, that. That's his destiny. Cybercrap.

Hello, I'm W31-QV4N, Cyba-crappa-droid at your service.

---

Yesterday Mom mopped the floor again (she does it every month) and I didn't realize how clean it had become until this morning... the floor was squeaky clean! Yes, so to show my appreciation, I delibrately rubbed the soles of my feet hard on the floor when I walked around the house so as to make a squeak in each step.

The mass PE was as strenous as any PE session which aims to prepare the guys for National Service. And, as usual, a shower refreshes the weary body like nothing else. What I know was that I did sweat a lot. I did wring my shirt dry after PE, but after hours in air-con rooms, it was still wet with perspiration. Can you imagine that?

I got A level pass for Chemistry. For which I am glad. But still, my overall grades are... B, C, E, O, C5. E for Chem, O for Maths. I knew I would get B for Computing since the top guy got 70 and I got 64 and there're only 6 students in the cohort.

Joel told me something today that reminded me of something which happened to me in Sec 4...

I was called up to the board to write down my solutions for an A. Maths question... I fumbled and sort of got it wrong a few times... and I was stuck up there for, like, 5 minutes. Worse still, I was damn pissed because I felt that I was disgracing myself in front of the class. I knew at that time that there were some in my class who didn't like me very much, and a voice in my head was telling me that those individuals were looking upon me scornfully.

I was still a new Christian at that time and I was very bothered with such issues. I may still get caught up in such things now, but it got much better. Still, I know that even if the whole world hates me, there will still be one who loves me -- God.

For Computing coursework today I almost completed the first question... except that I forgot about how to deal with static functions... so I started on my second question first. Really got to practice for that, as I realized that it's not as easy as I imagined.

How can it be easy to think like a machine? But that's what sums up the job of a programmer.

Xiaoyun and I took a survey for Julian's group that's doing Project Work on... blogging. Through that survey I got to know that actually Xiaoyun does blog! I've added her blog into my list of friends' links.

Added this Website that features a Star Wars comic with a Singaporean twist. Some parts are really funny, and the whole thing kind of made sense as well.

Imperial sketch

Yesterday I went for Electone lesson alone again, as Mom had not recovered from her cough yet.

Mom did go to Tampines Mall with me... on the way I complained to her that she "pang seh" me , and to my surprise, Mom told me that "pang seh" actually translates to "fang sheng" (the ceremonious "letting go" of an animal back into the wild) in Chinese!

To think that we all (the youth of this generation) say "pang seh" all the time when we refer to "abandon"! Who cares anyway...

Yamaha added 2 STAGEA (the latest model) Electones in the studio I have my lessons in, so I got to try it out for the first time.

Yamaha STAGEA Electone

It was way cool! Touch screen... wide range of instrument voices to choose from... there were even instruments like the Pipa and the Sitar, so I tried playing Chinese and Indian versions of Imperial March!

Talk about Imperial March...

Today during Physics Lecture, I was doing random drawings on my notes as usual, and I realized that what I was drawing seemed to look like an old man's face, so I added some touches to it and...

Dum Dum Dum Dum'd Dum Dum'd Dum

None of my friends could tell that I was trying to draw Emperor Palpatine... sigh.

Mrs Leong was upset over my results, and she said that I've got to pay more attention in class... from tomorrow onwards I'll be sitting at the front row during Maths lessons.

Come on, congratulate me.

My class did Civics with 04/04 today and we talked about dating and stuff like that. We're asked to share some of the qualities we'll look for in our partners, and I did write some down, though I left out quite a lot. So here's a more complete version...

• Christian.
• Someone who can let me feel at ease.
• Loves children. Heh.
• Accepts me for who I am (I'm a pretty flawed individual you see...).
• Filial. To her parents and mine.

I was quite surprised (I know I shouldn't) to see that it is widely accepted that people see "life partners" differently from they see "dating partners". For me, I wouldn't date someone whom I know I won't marry.

Many view marriage as the "tomb of love", but I don't think so. I believe that marriage will take the love between a couple to a whole new level, a place where cohabitation will never help me reach.

The Bible says that "he who finds a wife finds treasure". How true it is.

I heard recently that the food court at Tampines Mall will be owned by a new company soon, and I actually feared that the whole place will be renovated. I have tons of memories in that place, and I do wish to see those memories intact.

Now I can feel for those who oppose the reconstruction of certain historic places.

But then again, one should be comfortable with change.

I have a long day ahead. Got to mug for Physics and Maths.

Enriching lecture

Today was not very eventful, but I sat for one of the most informative Chem lectures so far.

More of that later.

This morning I finally found my Electrochem tutorial book (it's in my house after all), and thank God I've done most of the first electrochem exercise (I've done it up to the MCQ section), so I could still be prepared for today's Chem tutorial.

We wrote essays for GP today, and I chose this relatively easy topic: "Should character development be the sole aim of education?". All I had to do was to challenge the absolute word "sole" and list out some other aims of education... hope my points were valid, of course.

Saw something about AHS in the forums thread for my alma mater... I pray hard for AHS that things will be alright, because it doesn't seem to be the case now. I'll not elaborate more about it, since most of it was hearsay anyway.

I changed my College Forums signature to the Quasi-chicken animation which you'll see in my previous post.

Now for the lecture. As the lecturer was still Mr Goh the "leng mian xiao jiang", I expected some lame stuff to come up.

When he came to the part when he was about to say "mushroom", he sort of forgot what to call it... so he just said something like the "edible version of the toadstool". Oh my goodness, he remembered "toadstool" but he forgot "mushroom"? Heh.

Lame as it was, today's lecture taught me lots of new stuff. For example...

Botulism (a severe case of food poisoning) is caused by a kind of microbe which produces a toxin called "botox" (sounds familiar?) which is used to remove wrinkles by paralysing skin nerves. I think this is what the Chinese call "rou du gan jun" (which I heard of last year).

Next time when you have diarrhoea, tell your doctor you have Gastroenteritis.

To make cheese, a kind of enzyme is needed, and this enzyme is found in a substance called Rennet, which could only be obtained from the stomachs of newborn calves during the time when it could not be chemically synthesized... you know the rest.

Egg-machine: Yet another "quality" animation by Isaiah Incorporated

Last weekend I made a big mistake.

During the weekdays I thought my Electrochem tutorials were at home, and I decided to do it over the weekends.

On Saturday, I searched for the tutorial book but couldn't find it in my house drawer, so I reckoned I must have left it in my College locker without knowing it.

What the heck?

So I only did my Maths tutorials (very little of it) and summarised my Protein notes. During the lecture, we're taught that there're 8 kinds of "essential" amino acids that we're supposed to memorise, and Mrs Lim gave us a mnemonic. She's well meaning, of course, but the mnemonic was kind of no-link... so it was a bit difficult to apply.

The 8 amino acids were:

Isoleucine, Leucine, Methionine, Lysine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Tryptophan and Valine.

So I thought of a clearer mnemonic.

"I Let My Lover Purchase The T.V."

Hope it helps you too.

Stuff cropped up yesterday when I was doing my computing... not regarding my Coursework, but regarding my house internet. Thank God the problem was solved after I reformatted my computer.

Yes I reformatted it again.

This morning I expected to find my Chem tutorial book in my College locker, but it wasn't there. So it's still in my house? How can it be?

Gotta search more thoroughly.

Today Ms Fong continued going through the Chem JCT paper and I felt that I still have much to learn. I think that Ms Fong really believes in us... even though our collective scores were not very desirable. She actually maintained that I was improving in my Chem when Mom called her up... for which I am grateful.

Actually I think all our tutors believe in us. Mrs Leong, Mr Desai, Mr Chua... yeah. Can't let them down. Can't let God down as well.

Got to sit with Jiansheng today during Maths and Physics lecture. All of a sudden, I felt like I was a 15/04 student again (whom I was in the first 3 months). Heh.

Computing coursework for today was... OK. Did what I was supposed to do for the day, so it was good enough. Weekend preparation practice does help.

PE session was... strenous. Got to jog quite a distance (which lightened me up a bit) and did stuff like dip and several variations of push-ups.

Recently Geoffrey mentioned about LEGO in his blog... and that reminded me of some of my LEGO Star Wars constructions...

LEGO X-wing, which I published in one of my older entries.

LEGO Slave 1 (Boba Fett's ship).

Slave 1 side view

Compare with the original LEGO Slave 1 (Empire Strikes back edition).

Those were stuff that I did in my Sec 3 years. Slave 1 was "constructed" by accident... I was just mixing and matching blocks, trying to make a ship on my own, when I realized that my hybrid ship had the basic shape of Slave 1. So I did a few modifications and... Tah-Dah!

OK in case you are wondering about my entry's title...

I read in one of my GP handouts (oh I got 48% for GP JCT, by the way) on Medical ethics that in Europe (Spain, if I'm not wrong), genetic researchers came up with this thing which some people call "quasi-chicken". Basicaly it's just a lump of chicken flesh with only the genetic input for laying eggs. It makes me feel funny to just imagine what it would be like.

Is there a better way than to put my imagination on animated gif image?

Enjoy your next meal.

Computer Chemistry

Yesterday I read Jiemin's blog about people saying that they've no time for God... I think I've made myself too busy recently as well... and I sort of gave God little of my time in prayer... didn't come into his presence that often... yeah.

At times I may feel a bit bored and may need some "entertainment"... but in the end, without God, even the most amusing books couldn't amuse me much.

Nothing can really satisfy all the needs of the individual except God. When I went after other things to satisfy my needs, those things will eventually "fail" me, and God will simply ask...

"Why didn't you come to me first?"

So yesterday evening I came before God and asked for his help in reminding me that he is the only one who can meet all my needs. Other stuff are just "wants" and I can leave the provision of those things to God.

This morning my church prayer group could finally decide on a common free time... 6:50 am! So I was there with them... yeah. I arrived a bit late but I got the prayer list anyway... and God sort of gave me a vision (well I didn't "see" it but I sort of had this in my mind...) and I decided to pledge for the Arise and Build campaign for my church

Anyway...

Today, during the break after the first 2 periods, I accompanied Maoxin to hand in the Youth Day donation envelopes to Ms Fong. According to Maoxin, Ms Fong said that she would be in Com Lab 3. Yeah.

We made our way up and saw Mrs Lam inside with 35/04.

As we plotted our next move, I suggested that he (or Ms Fong, for that matter) would have confused "Com Lab" with "Chem Lab". We decided to give it a try.

On our way there we saw Mrs Leong.

Now every Friday (before the holidays), Mrs Leong would have Maths remedial sessions with my class right after the break. So to play safe, we asked Mrs Leong whether there would be a remedial today.

Somehow we could tell that Mrs Leong did not intend to conduct such a session today (neither was the class), but since we asked... Mrs Leong then told us to inform the remedial people that there would be a session today.

Not to sound bad, but in a joking sense, we sort of "pulled the trigger", yeah?

As we approached Chem Lab 4, we could hear a female voice (I've got a bad feeling about this) and it turned out to be... Ms Fong.

My, my, my... she even got the number wrong!

I slept during Maths lecture today.

Mr Goh took over then Food Chem lecture today. He was my Chem tutor in the first 3 months and I had a pretty good impression of him, except that during the tutorials in my first 3 months, he was never as funny as he was during lectures (especially the one on Carbonyl compounds). I called him the "stoic comedian" (an attempt to translate what we Chinese call "leng mian xiao jiang").

Today was no exception.

When he was talking about microbes, he would suddenly talk about this air-con commercial with bacteria partying on the air-con slits... heh. Then he was talking about the curdling of milk which is caused by a slight pH change... and he said we could actually curdle fresh milk on ourselves... by adding vinegar.

Ugh.

By the way, curdling means the formation of soft putty solids... in the dairy sense, I think. Yoghurt, yes. Yoghurt. And now you know how the word "beancurd" came about.

Talk about beancurds, during the earlier part of the lecture, Joel was sitting beside me in this "Jay-Chou-driving-his-AE86" pose. Heh. Act cool or what.

Computing coursework on Object-Oriented Programming reminded me of my need for a revision on C++ syntax. I even forgot to include the header file in my class functions implementation code! What the heck?

Today I had a heart-to-heart talk with Joel. He's one of my closest brothers in Christ.

After that I joined my Student venture friends for Bible study (haven't went for BS a long long time...) and had a good time there.

So... this weekend shall be Maths tutorial on Estimation, Maths 2003 A level Paper 1 (on my Ten-year series), C++ syntax revision (probably a heavy one) and the website which I took as a project.

God help me.

Back to running

This morning was mass PE (they swing back to the usual time table real fast!) and we did running again.

I haven't been running (or rather "jogging" since "running" sounds a bit funny here...) for a month. Spent it on mugging. And other things of course.

OK. So the guys were supposed to run 2 rounds of the "Gate to gate" route, i.e. from PE gate to main gate through outside route, then reach College through main gate and run along the school main road to the PE gate again. About 1.8 km, according to Mr Ng.

So it's half of my usual 3.6 km training route.

I'm a bit sorry I didn't follow my class, as I decided that since it's my first time running after so long, I've got to give it my best shot.

Finished the 2 rounds in 8 minutes 6 seconds. Quite satisfactory for me, as my usual time for 3.6 km was about 16 to 17 minutes anyway.

I learnt an important lesson today for Maths... use short forms for different "cases" in probability questions. Then, instead of using...

"Get head (from throwing coin), draw from sack X, get blue ball"

I can just write

"HXB"

Yeah.

Watched a video about outsourcing for GP today... there's this group in India called the "RSS" which is committed in its so-called "fight" against Westernisation. Nothing to do with outsourcing, I know... but the show also discussed the effects of outsourcing and "globalisation".

While some people (I myself included) would sometimes agree that "globalisation" is merely "Americanisation", today it came to my mind that one of the reasons for this was that the Western world achieved technological advancements first. Hence, when other cultures adopted the technology of "the West", naturally they would adopt some aspects of the Western culture as well.

In that sense, if technological advancement was first acheved in the East...

Initials

G: Grounded

The last "long" weekend was not a good one for me. Or at least not an entertaining one. Except that I finished 2 of my novels: the junior novelisation of "Revenge of the Sith" and "Star Warped".

I found "Star Warped" a bit crappy... but then again, a parody wasn't supposed to make sense... ROTS was better (at least it made sense) and as usual, the story was quite saddening... yeah. The author of the junior novelisation (Patricia C. Wrede) accounted for some of the background stories, and that made the story flow much more smoothly.

Heh... wait till November, when I can read Matthew Stover's novelisation of ROTS!

Nothing much during the weekends, otherwise.

Monday and Tuesday were boring days too (I couldn't go for class outing and IT Club outing because I was grounded!)... but I still went out with Mom for dinner, and I bought a new bottle on Monday! The same kind of "Neon" bottle... with this holed cap which enabled me to secure it to my bag using a carabiner (my bottle tends to "fly" out of my side pocket during my... erm... "high speed travels", you see...).

On Tuesday, I went for Electone lesson alone because Mom was unwell... my teacher taught me Jazz styles of melody faking... it was quite cool!

D: Drifting

Yeah, that's what Initial D means. I didn't know the meaning of this wierd title until now.

Ever since I saw the posters of the Initial D movie (there're plenty of them in Tampines Mall!), I had decided to catch it after my June Common Tests. One of the reasons was pure curiosity (Jay Chou's debut performance, you see) and the other reason was my love for racing.

And since Kelvin said he didn't mind watching twice, I went to watch the film with him yesterday.

OK let me sidetrack first...

On the way there (we went to TM on bus), we met Esther, an old friend from the Kindergarten years. I remembered her until now because I only had a few close friends at that time, and she was one of them.

Actually Kelvin wasn't a very close friend of mine at that time, except that I recognized him as "the boy who lived upstairs of the kindergarten" (and he still lives there). It was on the first day of secondary school when Kelvin approached me... and we became close friends because of Harmonica Orchestra.

Fast forward back to yesterday afternoon... we're at TM having lunch and talking about blogging styles. After lunch, I went to watch this guy playing Star Wars Trilogy Arcade... the guy was damn pro... he went through the later part of Yavin (Episode 4) and Hoth (Episode 5) with just one dollar!

I remembered my Sec 3 years, when I had to spend $8 to complete the whole dang game...

OK the film now... I think Jay had done quite well in his part (since it suited his shy mannerism anyway) and the races were very exciting to watch indeed. I just didn't like the fairly sad ending... I like happy endings. Only.

R: Results

Yeah... I got back my JCT results yesterday (except for Chemistry which I got today).

• Physics: 60%
• Computing: 64%
• Maths: 42% (lowest in my class, and I'm not proud of it)
• Chemistry: 37% (What the heck?!)

I wasn't surprised at my results actually... they're directly proportional to the amount of time I spent on each subject (2 weeks for Computing!). I was just a bit shaken by my Chemistry... I thought I could get beyond 40% (my marks for last year's Promotional Exams).

I think Mrs Leong sort of expected me to be the lowest in class for Maths (since I failed all my maths tests this year)...but in retrospect, I think i would have gotten at least 60% for Maths if I did the paper in reverse order (from Qn 14 to Qn 1), since the last few questions were about Random Variables which I could actually score at if I was given more time.

I should say "if I gave myself more time".

The Chem paper was a washout... I think a lot of people in my class got OWNED by the paper... me included. Miss Fong didn't seem to be disappointed, though... and it warmed my heart a bit.

The best adventure film this "summer": The June Common Tests.

Indeed, an adventure it was!

The June common test was over, like, in a flash. Not exactly a flash lah, but... when it came to an end with the collection of Maths papers yesterday, I have a feeling of... uneasiness. That kind of feeling when you... arrgh what's the word?

To say it in Mandarin would be "she bu de".

I think some of you are ready to bash me up... can't bear to see the JCTs end? Crazy or what?

I don't understand myself, in this sense. I suppose it matters not, now that the "Tests" are over.

Anyway...

Day One

Physics paper and General Paper. Yeah. PP and GP.

Huh? Whatever...

I was generally quite prepared for the Physics test. Besides Computing, it's the subject which I covered the most during the holidays. Probably because it's in Day One.

So I think I could score well for Physics.

One of the disturbing trends I observed about Physics was that for Essay Questions, the 3rd question was always about Ideal Gas. They did this for the past 3 years (this year included). It might have been the same case in the earlier years, except that I only bought the JCT papers for 2003 and 2004.

After the Physics paper I joined the IT Club dudes for a nice break in IT Clubroom. No games, though. Just sitting around...

General Paper. I wrote crap for my Essay. It's doomed I think. After a short break (and a mournful one for me) though, it turned out that I did my Comprehension quite happily. It's the first time in this year when I finished my Application Question (meaning that I wrote my conclusion).

Fall and redemption do come in chronological order.

Day Two

I had no papers on that day, so it's muigging for me. Not much I did, for I had not finished summarising my Computing notes (Computing paper was to be on Day 3) yet. So I spent the whole morning completing the summaries and the later part of the afternoon studying them.

The evening was much more enjoyable. I went to Tampines Mall to buy the junior novelisation of Revenge of the Sith. At first I was a bit worried that it would be sold out (I discovered them at Popular Bookstore a week ago), but a more sensible thing to do was to pray and stop worrying. Which I did. So I thanked God I managed to get that book. Yeah.

After that I joined Mom for dinner at Century Square. Had knife-shreeded noodles with beef. It was really a sumptuous meal (it's been a long time since I blogged about "last dinners")... delicious soup, chunky beef... chunks.

Day Three

Computing paper was OK for me (thanks to the 2 weeks of summarising and memorising of notes). It was held in a classroom (didn't expect them to give a hall to 6 students anyway...).

Near the end of the paper, there were these 2 cleaners (who apparently didn't know that we're having a paper inside) talking quite loudly outside our classroom. And worse still, they were walking at a slow pace, so they took about a minute to walk past our room. Heh.

Never mind. I was done with the answering anyway...

After the paper, I had no other paper for the day, so I went to the Computer lab to surf the Net until lunch time.

There was to be a lot of "digesting" to be done after lunch.

With the painful realization that I had not touched my Food Chemistry notes during the holidays, my whole afteroon was spent summarising the notes (thank God it's only Carbohydrates). Never in my life did I have such a hard time "digesting" starch.

Day Four

Last day for the JCT (for us who aren't taking Chinese, heh heh).

An quick end to this Common Test thing also meant that I'd have to get slapped in the face twice in a single day -- by Maths and Chemistry.

No Multiple Choice Questions for Chem paper... they said it's to let us have a feel of the A level paper 3.

I could manage the Structured Questions part. At the expense of the Essay Questions part.

For the Structured part, I was gently (it was only written on the cover sheet) instructed to finish it in 1 hour and 20 minutes. I took about 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Couldn't reach the end of the Essays part.

Chilled out at the IT Clubroom after the test with the same guys again... watched some "Triump the insult dog" videos. Kuti showed me the graph paper which we were given during the Chem paper, and it took me a while to realize that this meant that he didn't do the graph question on Chem Kinetics.

Maths paper. Poor time management was my undoing. Would be my worst paper this time round.

Aftermath (which was really "after Math")

After the paper was over, I joined my class for dinner at Tampines Mall. Had beef noodles.

Oh, I could finally get my Star Warped out of my locker. Began reading it today.

I think that the "Prequels" part was done in haste... so it might not be as entertaining (and content-rich, for that matter) as the "Sequels". So I might as well read the "prequels" first.

It was so short, I finished Episodes 1 and 2 in less than an hour.

Kelvin watched Initial D yesterday... I could have actually watched it with my class yesterday as well, except that I thought I would be watching with Kelvin today.

But he watched yesterday. So...

Well, he said that he didn't mind watching it for a second time, so I'm gonna call him later.

By the way, you might not notice (this time the probablity of missing it is close to 100%) that the Recent Entries section had been replaced by "Milestones 2005". I dont' have to explain what it is about. It's obvious.

I originally wanted to name the section "Classics", but on second thoughts, only bloggers like Xiaxue have the right to call their posts "classics", so commoners like us should not use too pompous names.

Jesus once said that one should not go sit at a place that's of honour which is higher than what one deserves. Otherwise that person would be brought down to his "rightful" place and it would be even more embarassing.

I wonder what's up with Cbox. The tagging section of the tagboard can't load. Looks like we shall be "silenced" for quite a while...