images by onionhead, RebzxJonasxMoseley
During one of the J-Studies lectures our Prof was talking about Studio Ghibli, and there's this logo of the studio in her slide, with a profile view of our friendly neighbourhood Totoro.
Greatly inspired by Totoro-sama and the movie of the week (I'll just very loosely translate it as the Racoon Dog Wars), I doodled the following.
Day and Night. 2 extremes of the day when light plays with my eyes in different ways.
Tampines Stadium. Literally beams of sunlight made possible by the morning mist.
One night in NUS... it's just the way the base of the street lamp is made, but in a moment of impulse I took a shot anyway.
Did I mention it before? I have a thing for big open landscapes too.
Weeks ago while I was doing some random cycling around my neighbourhood, the oversized field sort of struck me in an odd way. You see, I rarely go for random cycling in the daytime...
Big space. Makes me feel small again.
~
In a desperate bid to shave off transport costs (travelling to NUS everyday is taking its toll), I've began to use my bike when I go to places sufficiently near, like when I go shoppng at Pasir Ris. The latter half of the route I take goes along the MRT Track Between Pasir Ris and Tampines, and I kind of like the feeling of loneliness it exudes.
~
On another note, while taking a peek at the juicy bits of the AHS Student Exchange Programme, I spotted this little catchphrase on the notice board, LOL.
On this lonely Wednesday night, some blogger decided that he had nothing to do, so...
Terrorism is a very real threat.
Even on Keron.
By sheer chance I've come across an uncensored propaganda video on this very touchy subject, done by none other than the Keroro Platoon.
Probably done before their expedition to our planet.
In respect of them, I shall not reveal all of the video's contents, but only screenshots.
Enjoy. Or not.
Phew...
But then again, since it's propaganda, you can't take it in wholesale... like, since when did their ARMY have touchscreen anyway?
Good afternoon.
Decided to do an animation of some guy being shot with an arrow (i was doing practice presentation slides about my job scope) and ended up with this.
Goodness... it seemed that I then went on a blood frenzy!
Oh I almost forgot... I saw this mark on the ground, presumably made by cylindrical containers, at Dhoby Ghaut.
Smile!
Rumaging through the stuff that became a bit messy over these few months during which I was too lazy to keep things in order... I found this piece of Japanese lesson note on which I drew my impression of the sea monster Leviathan.
Grarrrrh!
Then, gazing upon my helmet which I wore during BMT...
Been a long time since I last wore it!
Been doing quite a lot of things last week. Things which caused me to learn how to walk between Bugis, City Hall and Dhoby Ghaut MRT stations.
At first, I went to Bras Basah collect the seal I mentioned in the last post. Well it turned out fine... I got to take a look at all kinds of stones before making a decision as to which stone I wanted to use for my seal. The highly expensive stones were very beautfully patterned... until you hear the price.
So, I used a $4 stone. It's actually quite beautiful also. No regrets lah... what matters most is that it's my very own seal!
Chop!
Ta-dah!
Well since I was already at Bras Basah complex, might as well take a look around. I realised that there were quite a lot of other kinds of shops as well, besides bookshops. There were some shops selling musical instruments. Well for me...
Instrument ==> HARMONICA!
I was hopeful, at least. I've been wanting to buy a chromatic harmonica whose price is neither too cheap (I already have one $8 harmoc given to me when I just joined the orchestra in Sec 1) nor too expensive (I'm an amateur player anyway). Taking a closer look at the available models, sadly I could only find one $12 model and a few others that cost over $100!
*Walks out of the second instrument shop with a semi-elongated face*
Never mind... in one of the instrument shops which also sells sports equipment (?!), I got a pack of wrist towels (I reckon I'll come to need it a lot these days, when I've taken up quite a number of sports). One thing about products from China... the brand name will sometimes remind you of someone you know. A few years ago I saw a pair of shoes branded "Jiansheng". As for now...
My new wrist towels! Yeah I got grey ones.
"Jianyuan"? Exactly the same Chinese characters some more!
On Friday Jianyuan (Haha) and I went to Bernard's house to play this strategic board game called "Settlers of Catan", in which we build settlements and compete to be the first to achieve a certain standard of accomplishment. It was fun. More fun than DotA. (OK Bernard has the right to say this since he does play DotA... for me it's a matter of course since I suck at DotA and hence can't find much fun in that game...). Bernard's Mum later offered us fruits!
After 2 rounds (one of which will take about 2 hours!) we went off to have dinner-that-turned-into-supper at New York Pizza, Century Square. The pizza was actually quite affordable. After getting our stomachs filled, we went off to a corner drinking Shandy and talking about... life as a youth.
The night was enjoyable, except for the haze (it hung so low in the atmosphere you could actually feel it all around you) which ruined the Mooncake festival. The Moon was reduced to a pathetic patch of reluctant white light.
Yesterday at Dhoby Ghaut I met up with few of the fellow key history makers in TJC forums.
In other words, my batch of IT Club members.
We had lunch and... and... just walked around? The Dhoby Ghaut area was actually quite big... we walked to Paradiz to play pool. And then to Sunshine Plaza which I'll call the Otaku's paradise. Anime products, manga and Gundam models (Ah... Gunsou would love this!). I bought more Keroro Gunsou merchandise.
After that I brought them to Mind Cafe (where they provide all kinds of board games, including the SoC I played on the previous day).
But they found the rates a tad too expensive.
So we kept going around... and ended up at Vivocity which was supposed to be opening yesterday. Well it was open, but most of the place was still under renovation, so there weren't much to see. The cineplex was quite nice, and it was there where I learnt what it was like to mix the smell of a newly constructed building with that of hotdogs...
Later in the day I joined a few of my Student Venture mates (namely Tim, Jon and Hannah) for dinner. Jon brought us to this Turkish restaurant called Sofra which is at Shaw Towers. I had an affinity for meat dishes, so naturally I got quite curious about the Kebabs.
One of the Kebab combos which we had.
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...
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.
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.
(God,)You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
- Psalm 139:16
