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.
