A break.

Phew... taking a breath here.

Now that my sumarries of my topics are all complete, it's time I memorise the stuff now...

I hear you ask "What? Haven't you been doing that for the past exams?"

No... but then, most of the June Common Tests only covered topics from this year, so it's time to refresh my memories of last year topics now.

Yesterday I finally realized the significance of the "equivalence point" in Ionic Equilibrium. I did a bit of Integration revision too, and the Area-Volume application of Integration.

Will do Vectors today. And Maybe Probability (the Venn Diagram part).

Yesterday, Someone borrowed my Initial D memory card and ran a few races which are too high for my level -- and won.

It's not a bad thing (since it boosted my experience points by a lot) but I feel uncomfortable... now I have a very high standard to shoot for, with the stamp on my card which shows that I "won" the Akina Snow Condition race...

Bless you.

Last play day

As mentioned in my previous post, last Friday was my last play day before the Prelims. I enjoyed myself tremendously on that day, so I didn't have the time to blog all about it, but here's what happened on that day...

There was supposed to be Teachers' Day celebrations, so I went to College in orange. Yes... orange shirt, orange berms, orange wristband, orange socks, and partly orange shoes.

The girls have finally completed the photo album for Ms Fong (it was a big album with some photos of class outings and individual photos of 10/04 students with personal messages attatched), and I think Ms Fong would be so touched when she received that gift.

This year, I decided that the Computing cohort should present Mr Chua with a gift as well, so we divided the task... I was to get a card; Kaicheng and Quang Hung were supposed to look for cool wallpapers and software, and burn them into CDs. I think they made a pretty cool gift, since Mr Chua spends a lot of time with his laptop anyway, and IT-related gifts would be most suitable for him.

We were in no mood for lectures, of course, but there were 2 lectures... Maths and Chem. I almost skipped the Chem lecture when I arrived at the lecture theater to find that there were no more seats available. However, Mr Goh wanted me (or us, since more than one person wanted to skip that lecture...) to just stay and listen, so stay we did.

Atfer that was the concert of course, and the video done by the new tutors, entitled "MOE idol", was not bad. Then the Students' Council did some kind of couple dance, and after that I heard the MC saying something like "new mass dance".

My worst fears were confirmed. The new mass dance was a couple dance. I had half a mind not to learn it already.

So during ACES (we'll do mass dance instead of the "flush-flush-putt" workout), I decided to join Darren and his "Initial Gang" for a trip to the arcade in Bedok to play Initial D.

Of course, we were not allowed to leave the College immediately after the concert (we're supposed to stay for ACES you see...) but there were hoardes of eager-to-leave students waiting by the gate. When the guard announced that we're allowed to leave at 11:30 am, I went for a few chin-up practices before joining Darren and company (thank God I could find them in the first place).

On the way there, Darren joked that we could call ourselves the "Blue Suns" (Takahashi's team is called Red Suns), but most of the others found it lame. I found out that most of them had katakana names too (thanks to NCC's knowledge of Japanese).

Darren was called Sora which means "sky" (if I'm not wrong), and NCC was called Risou which means "ideal" (but he sort of entered the wrong katakana character -- the character for "n" looks very much like the one for "so").

Wait up... does that mean I... I'm in a racing team?!

The guys kept on challenging each other at the arcade, and it was fun just to watch them race. When it was my turn (and I wasn't exactly at the level to challenge others), I raced Itsuki (Takumi's friend which I mentioned in the previous post) in the story mode... and won, of course.

I lost to Kenji, though -- we arrived at the finishing line side by side... the forward end of his car was just a few cm (I thought) ahead of mine.

I took over too late, that's why.

Anyway, I could only play for a short while (I didn't want to spend all my money in the morning -- must save some fun for the evening too!), and I had lunch after that (not before going back to College to get my PE shirt which I left in the IT Club room the previous day).

There was supposed to be Bible Study at 2:45 pm, at the Polar Cafe in City Link Mall. I reached there early, so I still had time to go to Suntec city for a little more fun (which means you-know-what).

This time, I changed my setting and toggled on the "paper cup display"... you know... a cup of water for you to bring on your race... and make sure that no water spills from that cup while you speed off in your car...

I wasn't sure about how effective that cup of water was for my training (I rarely looked at the cup anyway) but it was sort of cute.

I raced against Kenji again and won this time... then I did a time attack on the Myogi track, in "night" condition, to prepare for the race with Shingo, a member of the Night Kids (yeah... kids who race at night), and also the last opponent in the Myogi track in the story mode.

Which meant that, if I won him, I would be able to complete the Myogi stage.

I saw Wee Boon for the first time during that Bible Study session (he bacame a Christian recently) and we joked around while Frieda (my Bible Study leader, remember?) went through some stuff with the Year Ones (we're the TJC branch of Campus Crusade Student Venture you see...).

Wongli shared with us about her trip to Australia... about her meeting some small Christian groups in University campuses... and about some small churches... a small group where everybody knows one another (I think that's really cosy!).

And we're given the Crusader Card (which we can use for discounts when we shop for Christian media at the Campus Crusade Mass Media Ministry).

We went tuhrough stuff about prayer for that session, and as usual, I enjoyed BS with the Student Venture folks... my faith was always refreshed after these sessions.

One of our friends had some friends who no longer dared to go near the Sports Complex on mornings. Reason? My church prayer group speaking in tongues.

OK I've got to tell them about this the next time I see them.

Coincidentally, after the BS, the guys and the girls went on separate trains.

One thing I feared the worst came to pass... I tried to join my friends and board the train, but while my friends could squeeze in with the commuters, there was no more space left for me. Before my friends knew it, the train doors have closed and the train departed.

I was left there singing "Mr Lonely".

The trip to Tampines was not so miserable after all. even when I was alone. And it wasn't that long you see...

So I arrived at Tampines for dinner and drifting.

Shingo from the Night Kids was quite tough... I lost to him twice, but I succeeded each time in maintaining the gap between us within 100 metres.

During my second race with him, I tried a different way of attacking corners... normally I was used to stepping on the brake while keeping my foot on the accelerator... then I decided to try doing something I had always done in Need For Speed... I released the accelerator while going through corners and didn't step on the brake at all.

It worked quite well, I think, because I managed to get very close to Shingo when I used this new technique.

So, the third time I raced Shingo, I used this release accelerator thing throughout the track, and overtook Shingo at the last part of the last lap. In short, I won!

Heh heh... I completed the Myogi stage and got a new stamp on my memory card!

By the way, Shingo sounds a bit like the Japanese word for traffic light.

I used the last credit for a time attack on the Usui track.

I could make out the different renges of gear shift already... I should shift to 3rd gear when I reach 80 plus kph, 4th gear at 110 plus kph, and 5th gear at 150 kph.

Hmm... last play day... really thank God for the enjoyable day (and I managed to do a bit of studying as well!).

Mr Desai said, during the Physics lesson today, that it's useless going through all the Prelim papers of the top JCs if we didn't bother to go through our lecture notes and past tutorials.

Which I agree.

I plan to redo my past tutorials for Physics and Chem. But for Maths, I think it's batter if I can do new questions. But I know I have to go through my integration tutorials too.

Won't be blogging often for this period of time... Prelims coming.

I wanna be OR I, wannabe

The past 2 days have not been very eventful (this is becoming quite a kind of cliche... I know...) but yesterday I read through the first few volumes of the Initial D manga.

At first, after watching the movie, I thought the part about Natsuki being "booked" by a rich man was added in by the HK movie makers, but I discovered that the same thing happens in the manga.

It's impossible for me to read all volumes (there are already over 25 volumes!) but I hope that after Takumi discovered about Natsuki's past, he would still acccept her... the HK movie left this part hanging in the air and I'm not sure I liked this.

Anyway, there was also an episode on Itsuki (Takumi's racer-wannabe friend) getting an AE-85 which was deemed useless as a racing car, and while Itsuki laments about that, Takumi took that AE-85 for a drive and did his drifts pretty well too.

I sort of see myself in the character of Itsuki... also a wannabe... heh.

Anyway, this morning's mass PE was still 2.4 km run (won't they take a break?!), but we're allowed to go and play games or go for jogs on our own.

Initially I was a bit reluctant about going out of College (it was about to rain, and also I wasn't sure if the Discipline Master would allow this), but when I was 3 guys from 14/04 going out for a jog, I decided that it was OK after all.

However, since the back gate (they call it the "PE" gate) was closed, I could not run the Upper East Coast Road course, but only to Temasek Primary and back. Took about 16 and a half minutes.

I was surprised to see something like AE-86 in Need For Speed Underground, under the name of Toyota Corolla. But Joel Long told me that this is what Trueno is called in America: Corolla!

Well, since the Initial D series got me so fascinated about this car, I decided to see it in action in Underground 2.

With "suitable" modifications (Joel really knows his way about the game), he claimed to have turned the stock Trueno (I still prefer this name) into a "monster".

Well, it didn't work well in my hands, of course, but Joel Long could take a lead in that car.

But then again, it's the driver that determines the results.

In the "Drag" race, which focuses on gear changing and is mostly about going straight routes at top speeds, I learned the meaning of the term "Over Rev", and other stuff about gear changing.

Crap... I'm thinking of buying a car in the future now... I didn't want one in the past, because I didn't want to add to the conjestion in Singapore...

We're able to (or I should say invited to) wear home clothes and slippers (kind of a "slippers' day") for tomorrow's Teachers' Day celebrations. Since they want brightly-coloured clothes, I decided to wear my orange jersey which I think looks like one of the TJC Swim Team shirts...

I'd have a lot to blog about tomorrow, my last "play day" before Prelims.

Yesterday Once More

Last Friday was the 15th day of the month in the Lunar Calendar. The evening moon was so bright and yellow and big, it reminded me of werewolves.

Anyway, I thank God for one thing... this year the 7th lunar month auctions and "getai" were held during the weekdays, so I could have quiet weekends for me to study.

The 24-hour button (start/stop button in the stopwatch function) of my watch was spoilt. I got a clue of why it couldn't work after opening it up... the button works this way: When I press it, it pushes another metal lead which will touch a point on the inner... what do you call that... mechanism?

A pictorial representation of how my watch button works. Sorry, that's the best I can do.

Whatever. So it seemed that the metal lead of my 24-hour button became too rigid for no apparent reason, so it couldn't touch the inner mechanism (really, please pardon my awkward phrasing) when I push the button. Initially I thought of a way to counter this problem: Putting a small piece of metal in the space between the "lead" and the "connection point" (I used a staple "bullet") so that when I press the button, the lead will at least touch the staple which will then touch the connection point.

But then again, just when I thought my idea could work, yesterday that piece of staple got into a wrong position and my watch started flickering from 24-hour to 12-hour and then 24-hour... and so on. In the end, I got fed up and removed the staple and left that button as it was: Spoilt.

Anyway, Mum and I finally got hold of a floppy disc drive cleaner, which meant that after cleaning the drive in our Electone, we could start playing songs using voice and rhythm data from special floppy discs again.

Listening to Mum playing "Yesterday Once More" happily with all the "correct" voices and rhythm, I couldn't help but have the same feeling... it's "yesterday once more", when I can play beautiful tunes instead of using preset voices (which most people would find pretty boring).

Today we're supposed to have Food Chem test. I don't want to talk about it anymore... I got OWNED big time for the test because I couldn't finish studying over the weekends... and didn't memorise important details of...

Wait, some of my friends haven't taken the test right?

I had 2 dreamy lectures... I didn't know why, but I attended the Maths lecture with the highest level of reluctance... I suddenly had the feeling that I wanted to just stop doing everything, probably because of the grueling Food Chem test which just ended... and I slept throughout the Maths lecture.

Physics lecture was at least OK... Mr Chan pointed out that the cohort talked a lot... he even suggested that we had this illness called "verbal diarrhoea".

My car in Initial D is going to have a carbon fibre bonnet in the tuning course I've chosen (I'll get it if my accumulated points reach a certain level), and while it looked cool, I didn't have the faintest idea as to what it's used for.

Sigh... my Honda Civic Type R is silver-coloured, not the disgusting yellow!!

So I did some light research on the Internet about the use of the carbon fibre bonnet, and came across this article.

Boring... no more group PE for us now... wonder what we'll do for Mass PE this Thursday...

D another day

Yesterday morning was another Mass PE session during which we guys could slack around... because the girls were still doing their 2.4 km run for NAPFA test.

Something quite special which happened yesterday was my practice run. Every Thursday there's this free period at 10:35 am before lunch time for Computing students in my class, so I decided that since I do little study during that period anyway, I might as well go for my run earlier.

So it was the earliest practice run in my JC life (I started jogging in my 2nd JC year anyway...). Due to the rule that students can't go out of College before 12:30 pm, I had to run on the College track.

There's nothing bad about running on the track, except that it's pretty monotonous (you understand) and I'll tend to run only 2.4 km (instead of the 3.6 km for my Upper East Coast Road run).

Never mind that.

After changing into PE clothes and arriving at the track, however, I realized how alone I was. The Sports Complex was literally deserted, and although the classroom block was just beside the track, there's still no one (except for a school attendant who was quite a distance away) in sight.

By the way, my watch strap which was on the verge of breakage snapped during the run.

Yesterday evening was Initial D for me again... I went to the arcade in Bedok (there were only 2 machines there and so you actually have to "book" the machine using your Initial D memory card). I did quite a lot of test runs (that's my term for playing without purchasing a memory card) on different kinds of cars (using manual gear change, of course).

Well... in the end I decided to get a Honda Civic Type R.

Honda Civic Type R

My new card was bought from a machine in the arcade at Century Square. The waiting time was shorter there (there were 4 machines) and the card dispensing machines were OK (the one at the Bedok arcade had problems printing player information on the card).

After doing a Time Attack with my new "car" (and watching a replay of my performance), I saw a boy, barely ten years old, sitting at one of the machines... I thought he was just trying it out of curiosity, but when I saw him holding a memory card, I was starting to think that he knew what he was doing.

After about a minute, he was already racing on the Iroha Slope track (for my level, I still dare not touch that track) with Kyoichi Sudo in the Story mode. For his age, he sure looks like a very seasoned racer.

Sudo Kyoichi in the Initial D anime

Kyoichi in the HK Initial D movie. Ah... now you know who I'm talking about!

In Star Wars terms, the boy reminded me of Anakin Skywalker.

Anyway, the teenage guy beside the boy was clearly very impressed with him too, and he challenged the boy to a race.

The sharing during my church prayer meeting this morning reminded me that you need not be always doing "spiritual" things that are vislble to fellow Christians to be approved of God. God looks at the heart.

During today's GP lesson, we discussed briefly about the shooting of the Brazillian man by the London police...

At the time when this incident had just happened, I was reminded that there is always a possibility that one dies "unnecessarily" (I can't find a better word for it); similar incidents may even happen to me, but my hope is in God, who gives eternal life to those who hope in him.

Today I got back my Maths lecture test (I took the test this Wednesday but forgot to blog about it) and I got 15 marks out of 25. Thank God I passed... it's just that I would have gotten 19 marks or so if I didn't use a wrong formula for estimation of "proportion of success".

Never mind. It's better than forgetting to hand in the first sheet of my answer script (which I almost did during this very test)!

Piece-ful death

This morning during Assembly, Mr Liu, our VP, brought up the point about caring about our valuables... and yeah, most of the TJCians must have known that he mentioned the case where I left my watch lying around (see previous post)...

The 28th Students' Council has started collecting money for the cohort's gift to the College... this year it will be facilities for the coming Students-Lounge-In-A-Couble-Decker-Bus.

Well, at least it's not like what the 2003/2004 batch gave the College: Fans at the Sports Complex, which blow cool mist outwards.

OK I know it wasn't their fault...

Today during Civics, Ms Fong went through the last part of the presentations on BGR, and we discussed a bit about abortion... we were shown the outlines of various kinds of abortions (they generally involve cutting the foetus into pieces) and a foetus that is too old (close to birth) might have to be killed by first puncturing its skull and sucking the brain contents out.

We were then shown the pictures of the "victims" of abortion... like a small foetus whose rib cage looked like cartilage... and also a big one with lots of froth-like substance near its head.

Oh yes, and that Civics period was before our lunch time.

Jesus, now I understand why you're so against abortion.

We also discussed about whether one will accept a spouse who wasn't a virgin... my stand is that I won't mind my spouse's past if she abandoned the promiscuous lifestyle... I believe that loving a person involves accepting his/her past, but my only worry will be that my possibly non-virgin spouse might have contracted AIDS in one of her past... experiences.

And if I have a daughter who... erm... takes a wrong step and got pregnant, I won't ask her to abort her child (because of my faith, and also the stuff I saw today) but I will want her to come to terms with her past, ignore gossips and judgemental remarks, stand up again, and raise her child.

Later, I shall go drifting again.

Crime watch

Yesterday afternoon, I went for a practice jog after being stagnant for weeks.

I had stomachache in the morning (I had to visit the toilet twice), and even though I thought it would not affect my running, I ended up having a horrible (I mean it) stitch even before I completed half the run, and my timing was 18 minutes (usual was 17).

Before running, I left my bag on a bench under the TRC, and my watch on my bag.

After going for a shower, I returned to my bag and realized that my watch was gone! Just when I was very puzzled, I saw a note under my bag.

The Vice Principal left it there... it said that I was supposed to claim my watch from his office.

So he was just worried about my behaviour regarding my protection of my valuables... OK, I had to agree with him... some other person could have stolen it and it's over.

This morning I was discussing about cars with NCC and Jinrong... so Jinrong plays Need For Speed: Underground too! I asked NCC about Honda Civic (Mum drove that car before) and he said that the car has quite a good acceleration.

Hmm... on further thinking, I may change my car tomorrow when I go play Initial D again...

Did Comprehension for GP today, and I was pretty disturbed about one of the passages on personal freedom... the author's reasoning seemed to be devoid of the fact that whatever one does, it will affect the others in some way or another. He actually deemed the notion of passive smoking as "questionable".

Had an economic Bee Hoon lunch today. Only to find myself wasting another 70 cents on a small drumstick.

Mrs Leong was absent today, so we had our Maths period free... Esmond, who was curious as to where Mrs Leong was (that was at the beginning of the period) went to a few of the adjacent classrooms to look, and while he claims to have seen someone in one of the classrooms, there was no one in there.

Which reminded us that it's the 7th month of the Lunar year now.

D-Day

Last Friday, after going to MOELC to settle some Japanese Language stuff and meeting Frieda (my Bible Study group leader) at Junction 8, I set off for Tampines for dinner, and a possible (if there's time) attempt on the Initial D Arcade game.

After playing Need For Speed with the IT Club guys for a period of time, I started to develop an interest in street racing games, and Initial D looked pretty cool to me... it must have been the players' memory card (which enables storage of car upgrades and record timing) that impressed me... but of course, the recent Initial D movie was one of the factors which aroused my interest as well.

So I arrived in the Arcade in Century Square feeling like a noob (I knew I was one), and I ended up asking a few questions about the gameplay, like "What's the Up-Down throttle for?" (it was for changing gear).

Finally, it's time for me to make a headstart (I waited for quite a long time!), and like all noobs, I was quite clumsy regarding the controls of the game, and during the part where I was supposed to choose my car, I took quite a long time, so in the end when the time was up, I was "given" a blue Toyota MR2 G-limited (I was at its page at the moment), and for the tuning course, I was also pretty puzzled as to how it worked, so I just chose Course A (I wanted to get started quickly).

Toyota MR2 G-limited

Well, whether I chose it or not, I'm going to stick with this car and see how things turned out. I liked the blue colour, by the way.

Of course, for a noob, I would prefer to do Time Attack first. I started with the Myogi track (the easiest, I thought), and my first run was a total flop.

Firstly, it was my first try. Secondly, I made quite a lot of mistakes, like turning my car too much... the biggest mistake I made was when I arrived at the end of the 3rd lap... I wasn't looking at the lap counter and when I went through the finishing line, I did a sharp turn so that my car would screech to a stop, facing the opposite direction (I intended to make it my trademark move).

Then I realized that there was still one more lap to go. Sheepishly I turned around and resumed the race, but of course I didn't finish it within the stipulated time.

The second round was much better, I could finish the race, and I was told that I beat my personal best (duh!). I even got an upgrade!

This morning I was discussing Initial D stuff with NCC (he plays the game too), and he told me that the Gear-change mode (Auto/Manual) could not be changed.

Oh Gosh.

I chose Auto mode (for gear change) because I thought it could be changed later when I'm more seasoned. As it turned out, the fact is that it can't be changed... so maybe I have to get another card... but I'll stick to this car. I didn't get it by chance. Heh. But that's for the next time I play.

Hmm... a black car would look pretty nice too.

The official website for Initial D Arcade Stage 3 proved to be very useful as well... lots of information about the game and everything... and I think I'm going to choose Course B for tuning... that Toyota car has a very cool spoiler in Course B!

Nearly Mr Lonely

Maoxin has this Origami book which he bought in his Primary school days (it's in quite a bad shape now)... it teaches you how to do origami dinosaurs. It's pretty cool, and I'm especially curious about the Origami Stegosaurus. I borrowed the book and I'll be trying some of the dinosaurs over the weekend.

And I'll study my Chem Equilibrium, of course!

This morning I finally learnt the Physics behind the mystery which baffled me for years... the reason why water flowing from a tap will become narrower and eventually break up into droplets.

The "narrowing" part is caused by the "equation of continuity", which states that the product of cross-sectional area and flowing speed is always a constant. The speed of the water increases as it streams down, so the cross-sectional area decreases, i.e. it narrows down!

As for the "droplets" part, it's due to "surface tension" which we haven't learnt yet.

All was well during the Maths remedial today (Mrs Leong decided that she might as well go through tutorials instead of Ten-tear-series), and the Complex Number lectures are close to completion.

For Chem lecture, Ms Rita Wong covered one-and-a-half topics (during the first topic, she went through 14 slides of content in about 3 minutes!). They're all on studies on Groups in the periodic table, and were all factual and "dry".

Organic Chem is still the best. I don't know why I think that way, since it's also factual stuff anyway...

For Computing, we're into Language Translation now (programming languages, of course). After the lesson, Mr Chua told us to write down our index numbers on every sheet of our printed submission materials of our Computing Coursework.

Joel's name chop (which saved a lot of name-writing time during exams) led me to think that it would be nice if Cambridge could issue us name and index number chops for use in exam scripts.

Today I was finally going for the Maths remedial for the first time... I skipped my previous 3 sessions because...

• 1st session: Had Japanese language exam stuff to settle.
• 2nd session: Class photo-taking.
• 3rd session: NAPFA test.

So as I stepped into the lecture theater, I thought I would not find anyone I know there (Lonely... I'm Mr Lonely...), but thank God, there's Ankur.

Speaking of Mr Lonely, I liked this song because the baby-voice intro is so cute! Well, there was once when Mom and I passed by a roadshow and heard this song... Mom didn't hear the "I have nobody" part clearly (it sounded like "I have no bah-dee"), so she kept saying that it was "I have no money".

Goodness.

Anyway, I found out that Mr Lonely was originally a war song which talks about the homesick feeling of soldiers fighting wars away from home.

---

Lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely
I have nobody for my own
I am so lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely
Wish I had someone to call on the phone

Now I'm a soldier, a lonely soldier
Away from home through no wish of my own
That's why I'm lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely
I wish that I could go back home

---

Now for the new version of Mr Lonely...

---

Lonely I'm Mr Lonely,
I have nobody,
For my owwnnn
I'm so lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely
I have nobody,
For my owwnnn
I'm so lonely,

Yo this one here goes out to all my playas out there ya kno got that one good girl whose always been there like ya
Kno took all the bullshit then one day she cant take it no more and decides to leave

I woke up in the middle of the night and I noticed my girl wasn't by my side, coulda sworn I was dreamin, for her I was
Feelin, so I hadda take a little ride, back tracking ova these few years, tryna figure out wat I do to make it go bad, cuz
Ever since my girl left me, my whole life came crashin

I'm so lonely (so lonely),
I'm Mr. Lonely (Mr. Lonely)
I have nobody (I have nobody)
To call my own (to call my own) girl

I'm so lonely (so lonely)
I'm Mr. Lonely (Mr. Lonely)
I have nobody (I have nobody)
To call my own (to call my own) girl

Cant belive I hadda girl like you and I just let you walk right outta my life, after all I put u thru u still stuck
Around and stayed by my side, what really hurt me is I broke ur heart, baby you were a good girl and I had no right, I
Really wanna make things right, cuz without u in my life girl

I'm so lonely (so lonely)
I'm Mr. Lonely (Mr. Lonely)
I have nobody (I have nobody)
To call my own (to call my own) girl

I'm so lonely (so lonely)
I'm Mr. Lonely (Mr. Lonely)
I have nobody (I have nobody)
To call my own (to call my own) girl

Been all about the world ain't neva met a girl that can take the things that you been through
Never thought the day would come where you would get up and run and I would be out chasing u
Cuz aint nowhere in the globe id rather be, aint no one in the globe id rather see then the girl of my dreams that made me
Be so happy but now so lonely

So lonely (so lonely)
I'm Mr. Lonely (Mr. Lonely)
I have nobody (I have nobody)
To call my own (to call my own)

I'm so lonely (so lonely)
I'm Mr. Lonely (Mr. Lonely)
I have nobody (I have nobody)
To call my own (to call my own) girrll

Never thought that id be alone, I didnt hope you'd be gone this long, I jus want u to call my phone, so stop playing girl and
Come on home (come on home), baby girl I didn't mean to shout, I want me and you to work it out, I never wished Id ever
Hurt my baby, and its drivin me crazy cuz...

I'm so lonely (so lonely)
I'm Mr. Lonely (Mr. Lonely)
I have nobody (I have nobody)
To call my own (to call my own)

I'm so lonely (so lonely)
I'm Mr. Lonely (Mr. Lonely)
I have nobody (I have nobody)
To call my own (to call my own) girll

Lonely, so lonely
So lonely, (so lonely),
Mr. Lonely, so lonely
So lonely, so lonely, (so lonely), Mr. Lonely

---

Shalom.

Heal the broken

Lust is still the weakest area of my spiritual life. I gave in to a stupid temptation again yesterday, and I'm not sure if I can prevent myself from doing so in the future.

The rest of my day would have been happy if not for that thing I've done in the afternoon.

Pleasure which is not from God, results in emptiness. It may take me forever to understand it.

---

I bought "The Magician's Nephew", the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia. I haven't gotten into the main part of the story, so I can't talk much about it.

Also, I bought this 3M Super Glue Gel at Popular, which is better than those runny super glues in that it's easier to apply... and its binding power is pretty good as well. My sandal's sole came off during my June Holidays and I used that glue to stick it back, and my sandals are still going strong now.

There's always this nagging problem which I think you all will face as well... I don't know what to call it, but I've got 2 secnarios of a similar nature.

One of my new bottles had its cap cracked, so the whole bottle couldn't be used for carrying water, even if the rest of it was OK.

My watch is fully functional, but the watch strap was close to breakage. If the strap was broken, wouldn't this render the watch unusable?

I used my Super Glue Gel to mend my watch strap yesterday. Hope it works. So far, I'm comfortable with the result.

As for that bottle of mine, I'm using it as a saving box. You see, I tend to save only $1 and 50-cent coins if I want to buy something, but suddenly I had this desire to save a bottleful of 10-cent and 20-cent coins, and I've started that a few days ago. Using this leaky-cap bottle.

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Today I tried playing Need For Speed with the ITC dudes again, and this time I'm definitely gaining control of my Mercedes CLK GTR... according to my friends, it has got high acceleration, which is one of the primary factors I consider when looking at racing vehicles.

High top speed is one thing, but you may never reach that top speed anyway. And if you crash, high acceleration may help you recover fast.

Which is why in Star Wars racers, I choose Sebulba's Podracer (acceleration) instead of Anakin's (top speed).

Anyway, talking about CLK GTR... I got its picture on Yahoo search.

On Chem revisions, National day songs and missed fireworks

The Organic Chem notes I mentioned in my previous post... I meant that I was going to study Organic Chem during my National Day holidays.

And study Organic Chem I did.

For the 2 days I did my reaction flow chart for aromatic compounds (my long-time dream) and an improved version of my aliphatic compounds' flow chart (my old version was done eons ago, in pencil).

Also, I did a summary for the tests and identification of organic compounds.

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The National day song for this year, "Reach Out For the Skies", was quite nice, and the dance steps were relatively easy to learn... I got the hang of the dance for the chorus part within a few minutes.

I still remember the National theme song for 1998, "Home". I think that was the first time when they asked a local star to sing a yearly theme song for National Day... I was in Primary 5 at that time. That song was vivid in my memories as it reminded me of my first school excursion: National Day Parade Preview.

Yes... Mom and Dad didn't allow me to go for outings until that year... when my Primary school sort of forced all the pupils to go for the preview in the name of patriotism.

Forced or not, I wanted to go all along, and it was my parents who had to be convinced.

Anyway, that preview was a wonderful experience for me... it was the only time in my life when I have seen fireworks personally. Also, because of the Digimon craze at that time, almost all my classmates brought Digimons with them (mine was at home...), and we had a lot of fun on the excursion bus as well!

The ND theme song for year 1999, "Together We Make a Difference", had an impressive MTV.

"Stars and Crescent", the ND theme song for year 2000, got some of my female Sec 1 classmates crazy over it for reasons unknown to me.

In the following years...

"Where I Belong" -- We still had Music lessons in my Sec 2 years, so I got to learn the song in great detail. I forgot most of the lyrics now, though.

"We will get there" -- No music lesson from Sec 3 onwards, but then again, it was sung by Stef Sun, so I learnt that song (it was in Stef's "Leave" album, which I was a bit crazy about during the period of its release) even before they started teaching it to us during assembly times.

"One United People" -- OK. This is where I started getting used to not knowing the lyrics of the National Day theme song even on the day itself.

"Home" again for last year... I only heard JJ Lin's version once (during the NDP) but I wasn't very impressed. Thankfully, there's a new song this year, even though the lyrics were still fuzzy to me.

Oh, and Singapore has already celebrated her 40th birthday 2 days ago?

Let's see if they'll have patriotic exercises in NS... then I'll be able to sing the new ND theme song next year without having to look at the lyrics.

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On National Day itself, I was... mugging at home... you know, the Organic Chem stuff I mentioned just now... I'm glad that they held a parade in Tampines as well, and it was held near my house.

Except for the fact that I was grounded... and no TV for me either.

Anyway, the summary for the Padang NDP given during the News report was good enough. What I was upset about was that the fireworks for the Tampines parade would have been visible from my study room window if not for that tall block which obstructed my view.

Freaky day

Today, there was supposed to be National Day Celebrations at College, and so I arrived at College in my Bayern Munich jersey (red and white stripes!).

First thing was "See You At The Pole", a Campus Crusade event where we pray for the nation on a day near National Day (we couldn't do it near the pole, though, because of morning parade stuff).

After that was the morning parade, of course. I discovered at that time that for my class, only 4 guys turned up for the day. Including me.

The performance after the parade was pretty good... except that they couldn't play a video which I heard was pretty elaborately done. Poor guys... those who took the trouble to make the video, I mean.

An exchange student from China sang a Chinese song... as in a song which originated from China... one of those you have to sing at a high pitch... that type.

The Taiwanese exchange student's performance was much easier for me to describe. She sang and also played the piano accompaniment of Stefanie Sun's "Tee Orh Orh" (Sky Black Black).

After the performance ended, I joined a crowd made up mostly of Year One enthusiasts for mass dance. It felt like going back to the past for a moment.

And after everything, it wasn't even past 10 am!

So I went to IT Club room to hang out with the guys and played some Need For Speed... I think my racing skills have improved a bit. Yeah.

But after all the racing and watching them race, it was already way past 1 pm.

Had lunch. Went back to College and had a nap.

A nap which lasted for an unexpected 2 hours!

Oh no, my Organic Chemistry notes!!!

Before I end this post, this is a picture of the coloured-rice orchid picture the guys in my class made...

Farewell and Fitness Friday

Last Friday was quite an eventful day for me.

Firstly, I finally completed the website template for my friend's mother tongue school.

Secondly, the 6 of us computing students have finally completed the Computing Coursework, including the printing of source codes and screenshots of our programs.

When one does some big project, there's always this problem which will surface between the completion and submission phases... one will tend to make modifications here and there... just to make sure everything's all right... Kaicheng taught me the way to write double precision floating-point numbers to files, and so I managed to add in this feature at the last minute.

And it was with great reluctance that I submitted the file containing all the printed stuff to Mr Chua... one of the reasons was that it signified the conclusion of my journey with C++ programming.

Another reason was that I forgot to include the filename of my source codes in the printout... although it is easy to identify each source code by reading it, I still fear that the markers would penalise every slight error made.

Never mind... my source codes will fetch enough marks anyway. Heh.

Bye bye, C++...

After Computing (which was the last period for the day), I saw some of the guys from my class doing an Indian Coloured-rice picture (I think it's called Rangoli or something) of an orchid.

This coloured-rice-decoration cum chalk-graffiti activity was an innovative project organized by the Students' Council in conjunction with the coming National Day celebrations which wil take place next Monday.

When I saw them, they were almost done with the orchid picture, and I helped them even out the colours a bit.

After which I went to the new IT Club room for a try on Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. Junqun and Ken could really "drift" (albeit at speeds ranging from only 30 to 40 kph), and I realized that I was a noob at drifting.

At 3 pm, I went for the NAPFA test with Junqun after the gaming break (with my leg still aching from the ordeal on Thursday), and managed to pass my stations except for Standing Broad jump (I only managed 200 cm) and Chin-up (my usual performance -- Zero).

I was surprised, however, that I could actually bend down and touch the ground with my fingertips (it's chickenfeed for some of you but it wasn't for me). I passed Sit-and-reach, by the way.

I mean "by~ the~ way~".

For shuttle run, I got the same timing in both of my attempts... 10.3 seconds. For 2.4 km run, I was happy to be able to finish in 12 minutes and 12 seconds, even though I couldn't help but envy those who managed 8 minutes.

At the end of everything, I realised that my aching leg didn't really affect much of my performance... except maybe in areas like shuttle run and Standing Broad Jump.

After my post-NAPFA refreshing shower, I was supposed to go the Suntec to run an errand for Mom, and since Kaicheng and Alex were also taking the MRT , I joined them for the trip. While waiting for the bus to the Interchange, Ms Fong came by as well, and asked about NAPFA and stuff.

After talking about my NAPFA results, she gave the usual smirk and encouraged me to take the retest, which will take place about 2 weeks later.

Well, if I can train for 5 chin-ups in 2 weeks...

Oh, and in the end, Ms Fong was also taking the MRT home, so she joined us.

As it turned out, I couldn't find the stuff that Mom wanted even at Carrefour... but I didn't leave Suntec empty-handed... I bought deodorant, a new pair of toe-socks and a new water bottle.

I guess the busyness could explain why I could only blog about Friday on Sunday.

Great leap forward

This morning, I was glad to see Kelvin coming with his MP3 player. I thought the repairs would take longer than this...

He was singing praises for Wilber Pan's new song "Bu De Bu Ai" (Can't Help But Love), which didn't impress me that much. But I had to admit that the mysterious girl who sang the song with Pan had a good voice.

During the times when my $2 radio was operational, I heard this song called "Bei Feng Chui Guo De Xia Tian" (A Wind-blown Summer) sung by JJ Lin and a new female singer from China called Jin Sha. I really like that song because of the way Jin Sha sang it... it's what I would call a sweet voice.

Kelvin brought the MP3 of the song "Kong Qi" (Air) in her album which was named after this song. I couldn't hear it clearly (Kelvin's preferred earphone volume was way lower than mine), but I think I still prefer "Bei Feng Chui Guo De Xia Tian" where she sang at a lower pitch.

Today the guys were free from PE because there will be NAPFA test today and tomorrow.

However, most of us tarried around the Sports Complex anyway.

The guys in my class loitered near the Standing Broad jump station and we witnessed a few instances of phenomenal achievement.

A swimmer from 01/04 did a typical good jump, and I think he reached way beyond the passing distance. Just when we were applauding his great performance, one guy from 16/04 came along and did a rather unusual jump.

Most of us would normally bend our legs and lift them off the ground when we jump forward, but this guy jumped with his legs almost straight, so it appeared like he "floated" through the air.

What's more? His distance was almost the same as that of the guy from 01/04!

I was inspired to practice the jump myself, so Maoxin and I went to the back for a study on jumping poses and techniques. Initially, I would stumble forward on landing, but after some practices I could control my landing better.

This would turn out to be both a blessing and a curse for me.

After PE, my class had an Electrochem test which I did with a certain level of comfort, but I wasn't sure if I could pass. Ms Fong distributed this notebook whose theme was on racial harmony, and its back cover was covered by a list of quotes from a few sacred texts from various faiths.

For Christianity, 1 Peter 3:8 was quoted.

We checked the Chinese characters of our names which are to be put into our leaving certificates... I think it's pretty interesting looking at Chinese names... for example, the characters in Maoxin's name didn't turn out to be those I expected.

I sat through the Chem and Maths period, during which the wind was howling very loudly outside the classroom. After Maths ended, I stood up, and was greeted by a sharp pain in my thigh.

I then realised that both of my legs were aching, probably due to the fact that I did not do "warm-down" after the grueling Standing Broad Jump practices. And my NAPFA test will be held tomorrow.

Great gobs of bantha poodoo.

Bantha

During GP today, I was reminded that I have much to learn regarding focus on essay question. I may think that I'm focused while I'm not.

Information overload

Yesterday I finally got to go for Electone lessons again, after a few weeks of absence (due to hectic schedules, Mum wanted me to stop going for lessons for a while), and it's nice playing on STAGEA again.

My Electone's MDR (the floppy disk drive used to store voice and rhythm data) broke down quite some time ago, and recently, Mum called for repairs, so we have our Electone at full working condition once more.

Which means, it's time for me to have more proper Electone practices at home.

All these years, I had been aspiring to write scores for some pop songs for leisure playing, but I didn't have the time... but I have a feeling I'm going to begin soon.

During Computing Coursework today, I'm finally through with the coding phase (after putting in copy constructors, assignment operators and all), and I started on doing screenshots and other relevant documentation for my program.

Had peer marking for GP today (for the essaye we wrote yesterday), and I realized that my essay was not so impressive after all.

During Physics today, we went through Non-viscous Fluid Flow and I learnt about this "spoiler" thing which we see jutting out of the back of some cars...

The spoiler

Fast-flowing air will have low pressure, and during high-speed travel, air will usually flow more quickly above the car's top than under the car's bottom, so air pressure from under the car will be greater than that from the top, causing the car to lift off (and probably fiip over!).

Hence, the spoiler serves to slow down air flow above the top of the car.

Learnt from Esmond that local singer Shi Kang Jun was from Chung Cheng high.

And during Student Council dialogue today, It was announced that the cost for Graduation night will be $85 per person.

My goodness... now I have to wonder whether I'll get to go... I'm not that good at saving, you know... and I still have Arise and Build, Chronicles of Narnia, ROTS novelisation, etc...

But then again, if my close friends will not be going, I won't really want to go for it too.

Not that I have the outfit for such occasions.

I still remember the time when I turned up for Sec 4 grad night with a year 2000 National Day sling bag (I wouldn't say that it's the most fashionable thing to do you know) and... I wasn't really dressed for the occasion.

Besides, I'll have a ton of novels to read after A levels...

Size Crisis

Yesterday after blogging, I went for a shower and then I started on my Physics tutorials... my friend said that for the topic on Non-viscous flow, he did all the tutorials in one single sheet of foolscap.

I finally understood what he meant yesterday. I think I'll finish the topic in one sheet of foolscap too.

I met Sok Shin at century Square yesterday... we talked about HO stuff (duh!) and I asked her one thing which I've been wanting to confirm... and conductor Tang really wrote the score of "Tong Hua" for them!

I wish conductor Tang came to AHS HO before I left, but the change of conductor only took place after I graduated.

Fair, yeah? In my time there I could only submit to that biased conductor who dotes on students from China... Chinese scholars were the "best" players... whatever!

My blood boils when I talk about him. Thank God I rarely come across such people...

And now HO has a conductor who writes scores for current songs. And HO is very united now... and coming from China doesn't equate to being among the best players.

The College library will be open until 7:30 pm daliy now... good news for College muggers like me.

Recently there's a crisis involving Club T-shirts... there seems to be too much Small-sized shirts... which most of our members can't fit in (sounds bad, yeah?)... could it be that the Bookshop uncle made a mistake? I remembered that my order consisted mainly of Medium-size...

We wrote essays for GP today again... I originally wanted to do the question "Can a truly vibrant community exist on Cyberspace today?", but I was a bit lacking in ideas (though my answer would of course be a resounding "YES!"), so I wrote on whether one should look forward to getting old.

I believe that there should be no problem getting old... only if a person take steps to ensure that he will enjoy old age with keen senses, a healthy body and little regrets.

Talked about Christianity and evangelism with Joel during lunch.

Before Physics tutorial today, some of the girls in my class found this kitten which was shivering in the rain and trapped in the bush... they got it out and it ran away, shivering under the drain cover... they originally wanted to get a towel (I had one with me) and wrap it around the poor kitten, but it fled to somewhere safe and sheltered, so they decided to just let it have its way.

During Computing today, Mr Chua distributed past year papers and they weren't sorted out properly, so they're in a very messy state... I think I didn't get all the papers anyway...

I got 17 out of 25 for my Maths Lecture test... good enough.

Nostalgic Sunday

My last weekend was quite eventful.

Firstly, I bought Order of the Phoenix on Friday, and so far I've reached about page 160. And Harry's still not at Hogwarts school yet.

I saw one of the comments about the HP series... saying that it's not so much about magic as it is about humanity... I agree. The part of the story that made me want to read on was my desire to see the Ministry of Magic finally acknowledge the fact that the dark lord Voldemort has returned to power and stop living in their own comfort zones.

I encountered the term "Squib" in "Tatooine Ghost"... Squibs are a species which are well known for their mercenary nature.

A Squib, in the Star Wars context

In Order of the Phoenix, I saw the term "Squib" being used as well... I wonder what it means in the HP context...

On Sunday, while I was tidying up my room, I came across my Game Boy which I stashed away for a long time... and suddenly I was the nostalgic kid playing my... Pokemon Red.

I fought Giovanni in Saffron Silph buliding until I just got tired of it all and turned it off.

In the afternoon I discovered that some of my clothes in my wardrobe had this stinking substance on them... must have been mould...

I can't remember the smell now (thank God) but it was ... not nauseating enough, but it made me giddy.

I revised the first 3 chapters of my Computing topic, System Analysis and Design. That's the only academic thing I've done throughout my weekend.

I'm going to have a hard time catching up with my tutorials afterwards...

Anyway, this morning was my Chem diagnostic test on Chem Bonding... I could have gotten a higher score except that I fell for a tricky part of the question... got to read the instructions more clearly...

I couldn't resist the temptartion to give myself "half marks". but Ms Fong said clearly that half marks won't be awarded -- not even in the course of marking the paper.

Got to learn things the hard way, then.

I know some of the cohort haven't taken the test yet... so I can't talk much.

During the break in the morning, I had my breakfast with Kuan Rei and Kelvin, and we talked about religion.

There's always been a question on my mind... people keep criticising Christians for wanting their non-believing partners to convert. OK. How about Muslims? They make it a rule that non-believers must convert to Islam when they marry Muslims.

And nobody said a word about that. That's about how fair things are.

Had my first Physics diagnostic exercise during lecture today... and I'm quite confident of doing well... I'm picking up on my Physics now... I suppose. My weakest part had been electricity but now I'm OK with it.

I finally added in my Copy Constructor and Assignment Operators to my code during Computing coursework today. Much to my relief.

PE today was the same as the one last Monday... circuit training at the Dance Studio. The teacher placed benches and mattresses around the studio and you got a training ground!

My favourite part was the running part, of course.