Memoirs of a recruit (part 1)

It felt like yesterday when I was waiting for my day of enlistment (before which I watched Memoirs of a Geisha on its first day of screening).

And now... it's been a week since I became your friendly neighbourhood recruit-next-bunk!

It's been a very enjoyable week (even with the foot drills) with Leopard Company Platoon 4 Section 1... with a "very funny" platoon commander, sergeants of various degrees of "nice-ness", and of course, nice platoon mates!

First night

Adapting to the new environment was a must, of course. On the first night, I couldn't shit, but the next morning I knew I had to force myself to do so, otherwise it will snowball (or "shit-ball", for that matter) until I get stones in my large intestine.

My first night there was one of the most beautiful memories... the moment I lay on my bed and drew up the blankets was really an "Oh-my-God" moment!

Equipment blues

The water bottles we're given looks cool, but it had this very stubborn layer of substance on the inner side of the bottle which gave the water a bitter taste... so bitter that I couldn't make myself drink it during my first water parade (a platoon-wide drinking exercise).

The problem only disappeared after 2 to 3 days.

Doing the SBO (skeletal battle order) was a problem as well; my water bottle pouches kept dangling outwards unlike those which the others did... I managed to solve the problem only by securing some strap to a hook, a procedure which I forgot to carry out during the initial stages of doing my SBO.

Unlike those who have experience in uniformed groups, for me it's the first time I'm wearing boots. And having to run 4 levels up to my bunk doesn't help either. Because of the size of the boot (my boot is bigger than a step on the stairs), I usually get very clumsy when I go up and down the stairs in boots. I think I nearly fell thrice, and I'm still trying to adjust to that way of walking.

The socks given for physical training were good... with extra padding for areas like the heels and the balls of the feet, but I still miss my good old toe socks! However, maybe because of the good absorbency of the SAF socks, my toes didnt feel that sticky after physical training exercises as I imagined it to be.

Draw Arms!

Getting my rifle was surely an experience (especially with the solemn evening ceremony that marked it), and while I thought it would be hard to strip the rifle (for cleaning and inspection), it was easier than I thought, and being able to learn to strip the rifle greatly boosted my confidence as a soldier (for no apparent reason).

Just when I thought all was well...

When we send arms back to the armskote, we had to oil our rifles to prevent rusting. Most of the time I couldn't apply oil evenly, so I had to use my finger to even out the oil. Never mind, sending arms is usually followed by night snacks and shower.

It's drawing arms that I'm feeling uneasy about... especially when there's little time to clean my rifle before our next activity. I don't want to dirty my cupboard, you see...

And the second time we practised stripping the rifle, I was slower than everyone else.

Laundry

Having to do laundry on my own was, perhaps, one of the greatest changes to my lifestyle BMT made. Since there was no washing machine for us to use, we're to wash our own clothes using pails given to us.

Washing shirts was made easier when I started using the shower instead of just the tap (which really takes damn long).

I was relieved, however, that the clothes were easier to dry than imagined. My No.4 (the long-sleeved shirt with camoflage patterns), which I washed one morning, became completely dry the same afternoon after I hung it out.

And even my towel, which I washed one night (for no reason) just before sleeping, dried up under the fan while I slept.

Time Crisis

It's said that the "personal admin time" will be a time slot (before lights-off time) allocated to us for doing stuff like shower, shitting and laundry, and that the average length of time for that slot is one hour.

However, most of the time, we're given free time for only about 30 minutes... there were days when they only gave us 20 minutes!

Being fast was one of the challenges I had to face there, then. My daily shower, on the average, took no more than 2 minutes, as I usually need more time for laundry. There was one day, of course, I only had time to wash my briefs (which I do daily).

Get shitty

The lack of time means that I couldn't choose the cubicle in the toilet that I wanted to use either.

So for me, a sitting toilet bowl user, it's bad news that the squatting ones outnumber the sitting ones 4 to 2.

To make it worse, in the middle of my week there, one of the sitting toilet bowls got jammed. With the shit still inside. Can you imagine?

And it was left as it was until the day I booked out... which was like 2 to 3 days. I sincerely hope that they called the plumber after we booked out to come remedy the problem before our next book-in (which is this evening).

People

There're quite a few interesting people in my platoon... like Habib and Sufiyan -- the squabbling duo in my bunk (they're in fact buddies who just love to exchange acid-tongued remarks for the fun of it), our very own Kelvin Tan, Nicholas Tse (I'm serious!), JJ Lim (too bad it's not JJ Lin), King Kong (our Malaysian PR who knows little English), King Barry (yeah, that's his name) and... erm... there'll surely be more interesting figures emerging in the future.

Anyway, my bunk mates nicknamed me "Manhunt". Not that I got a very nice bod after only one week of training (unless I'm PES A), but there was one night after the shower when I applied deodorant on my armpits... to allow the deodorant to dry up, I had to keep my arms away from my body for some time... and I was walking around in that pose... you know, I tend to shake my arms around a bit... I don't know lah, but they sort of thought it looked like a comical version of the way guys walk when they take part in manhunts... that's how I got that nickname.

Our sergeants came in various races and attitudes... there was once when we were told to bring down our rifles for sending arms... my bunk mates suggested bringing down our mess-mugs as well (for night snack) even though we're not told to do so.

One of our sergeants was a bit unhappy that we did that, and just when I thought we're going to get scolded, our platoon sergeant merely said that he liked to see us taking the initiative and "knowing what's going to happen next".

Clash of the funnymen

Anyway, I think Habib is the funniest guy in our platoon so far (he, too, said that he's a "very funny man")... he's our armskote in-charge (the one who takes charge of drawing and sending arms). There was once when we were to fall in for physical training and our sergeant wasn't around, we sabo'ed him to conduct our water parade and temperature taking exercise. Halfway through the thing, our platoon commander came by (and was startled by Kong's "41 degrees Celcius" temperature)... the first thing hs said to Habib was...

"Do you know that I'm a very observant man?"

"Yes, sir"

"Do you know you're wearing your socks inside out?"

Meals

The meals were OK there... there were times we got bumper lunches... times when we got beancurd dessert and ice-cream... and times when they gave us worms for breakfast.

No lah... it's just Mee Tai Mak fried in dark sauce... but to me they're just dirty maggots.

Booking in today

Yeah... I'm going back to Tekong today (I'm already starting to miss my bunk!), train for one day, and booking out on Saturday again!

I'll try to cover the stuff that happened in there on this blog... if there's the time.

Hits and misses

Yesterday I went to play Initial D again... I raced with the computer character Takeshi Nakazato, because his way of racing the Akina course is the one I'm used to: Downhill, Day, Dry.

I raced with him 3 times.

First try: I tried playing the game barefooted... and accidentally applied pressure on the brakes while accelerating in the earlier stage of the course... he ended up running ahead of me all the way.

Second try: I forgot to shift to 4th gear so I ran on quite a slow speed on 3rd gear while Nakazato overtook me. I lost again.

Third try: I was myself again... and he couldn't overtake me after I took the lead.

But then... the first 2 dollars were quite wasted huh?

Today I played Rouge Squadron on my PC... I can say I've completed the game, so I yearned for something new other than just completing the missions.

Hmm... dodging guided missiles sounds fun...

Whoa! Incoming!

That was too close!

3 missiles on me!

A hit and a miss

Play too hard and this happens...

Hey... won't you even spare a dying X-wing?

Some thoughts about idol voting competitions.

Yeah, we all know that there are so many idol voting competitons now that they're close to the point of saturation.

Not that I'm complaining.

Anyway, I saw this post on the i-weekly forum made by a reader who is obviously a parent of a heavy supporter of such shows... the parent suggested that such shows be stopped as the voters are mostly teens who are still living on their parents and are wasting their parents' money when they vote via SMS (if they cast multiple votes, of course).

Sigh.

It's not that I'm against that view... it's just that I enjoy watching shows like Campus Superstar and don't wish that these shows will be gone anytime soon.

However, I'm concerned about the issue on voters spending loads on casting multiple votes.

Basically I'm against casting multiple votes... it's wasteful and unfair. From the weekly reports of these competitions, I realized that some of the participants who are kicked out would complain that their fans were not so rich to cast as many SMS votes as they want... people may say that they're making excuses, but who can blame them? Isn't that a very likely reason for their loss?

Some of the participants also state that their families would spend hundreds of dollars on SMS voting to support them...

What I feel is that if there's no control over how many votes a supporter can cast, the competition will be on how rich the supporters of the participants are.

That's one of the reasons I don't participate in voting... I mean, I wouldn't cast 10 votes at one go just to make sure my favourite contestant stays in the game, under the knowledge that a supporter of another contestant would cast 100 votes for his favourite! My 10 votes would then be as useless as no votes at all!

I believe that it's not difficult to impose a one-vote-per-voter scheme... and I believe that such a scheme should be the solution (instead of abolishing the competitions) to the problems faced by both contestants and parents alike.

Journal

Yesterday I went shopping for stuff I may need to bring for NS... and met lots of people... like Sok Shin with some Student Council members, including her "younger sister" (hehe... I'm referring to Sok's SC junior, of no blood relation, who looks almost identical with Sok!). Then I met 4 of the 2C girls (they still go out together!), including Kelly.

Anyway, there's this song called "Journey", sung by Angela Chang.

I came to know about this song when I was watching some entertainment news show n years ago. There was this short part of the music video of this song when she's standing on the beach... and of course I heard that part of the song... it's in B-flat major (I think it's quite a nice key) and from that part, I could tell that it's a nice song.

At that time I was thinking that it's one of the theme songs of an idol drama called "Dolphin Bay Lovers" (which stars Angela Chang)... I don't know if it is actually one of the theme songs even now... anyway, there was a once when I almost got to hear the whole song on the radio (I was on a taxi) but I had to alight before the song was actually played...

Hmm, anyway, I got to hear the song recently, and got to know that it's composed by Corrine May.

My first impression upon hearing the first part was that it didn't sound like a love song. Phrases like "all that I must hide" and "pride fills me up till I can't see my soul" sound like... hmm...

---

It's a long long journey
Till I know where I'm supposed to be
It's a long long journey
And I don't know if I can believe

When shadows fall and block my eyes
I am lost in all that I must hide
It's a long long journey
Till I find my way home to you

Many days I've spent
Drifting on through empty shores
Wondering what's my purpose
Wondering how to make me strong

I know I will falter I know I will cry
I know you'll be standing by my side
It's a long long journey
And I need to be close to you

Sometimes it feels no one understands
I don't even know why I do the things I do
When pride fill me up till I can't see my soul
Will you break down these walls and pull me through

Cause It's a long long journey
Till I feel that I am worth the price
You paid for me on calvary
Beneath those stormy skies

When Satan mocks and friends turn false
It feel like everything is out to make me lose control
It's a long long journey
Till I find my way home to you... to you

---

After hearing the whole song, I realized (from the italized part) that this is actually a song dedicated to God.

New year, new discoveries

First post I'm making in 2006. Heh... I'm doing this at home again. That's just my house computer... it's become fickle these days, sigh...

But I'm not sure whether I'll have the patience to wait for the republishing of my whole blog on this computer...

Anyway, the class barbeque was quite a blast.

After blogging my year-end post at the library, I expected that I would be late... I recieved a message telling me that they'll be at the pit at 5:30 p.m. (after shopping for stuff at Parkway).

I arrived at the pit (after walking for what seemed like a century), only to find that there was no one in sight. And it was about 6:30 p.m..

As it turned out, they're still at Parkway at that time.

One unforgettable thing about that barbeque session was that they managed to heat the charcoal very evenly and almost all of them were glowing orange... there was just something different about the charcoal I saw on that day from those I've seen in my past barbeque sessions... it was magical! There was one point when the charcoal will emit hundreds of sparks when you fan it! Now that's a first time in my entire life!

I was the self-appointed fishball embassador on that day... all I did was to keep cooking the fishballs and bringing it around... haha.

My "new discovery" was that you can make your own starfruit drink (like those bottled ones) without using starfruit.

Boil some soup using wintermelon, carrots and celery... wait for the soup to cool, then add some dry "gou qi zi" (this small red stuff you can buy in chinese medicine halls; known for its benefits for the eyes) into the soup. As for the amount, add until they cover the entire surface of the soup (yes they float).

Wait for at least half an hour. Then try drinking the soup. You'll be surprised... well, at least I was!

One year

Greetings, Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve (yeah I just watched Narnia)...

... ...

...

it...

it's been...

... a year!

I know I still can't compare to some bloggers who've been blogging for years, but... I can't believe it... I generated one year worth of posts? Wow...

Here I am, typing a post in Marine Parade Library -- the place where I started this little blog! Too bad I'm not using the same computer I used last December 30.

I'm not here just for blogging of course! There's a class barbeque at East Coast Park later...

Anyway, in this year I...

• Gave HTML lessons for the first time (and knew that I could be such a boring teacher)
• Began habitual practice jogging
• Went for the super cool AHS HO camp
• Visited Tekong BMTC
• Learned how to play Bridge (but forgot most of it...)
• Bought a $2 radio which lasted till now
• Once got so worried about my blog's readership
• Did specials for Easter and Star Wars (and I'll never do a post that long again!)
• Took up new games like Initial D (which is actually the only new game I took up...)
• Took the A levels (like, the craziest thing of the year)

This had been an enjoyable year (like all school years) and it's also my last year of going to a "uniformed" institution (the name I give to institutions where students wear uniforms... unless they're really called that).

I have to thank my tutors, who are really very nice people... and my close friends in the class. And outside my class, of course.

I have to thank the College for electricity. I know I'm one of the groups of students who contribute a lot to the electricity bills... the computer users. Because the computer in my house has really reached a cannot-make-it state, I had to do all my computer stuff at College. The bulk of my posts here are done in the CS lab.

I have to thank the IT Club people for being great friends and for tolerating such a useless "Project leader".

And I have a few confessions to make...

I almost got myself into the same mess Zoe Tay got herself into during the Star Awards... damn those spoof reports! I was reading some issue of the then U-weekly and saw this section in a spoof report talking about S.H.E. splitting up. One of the reasons I like S.H.E. was that they were a playful and united bunch... so I got very shocked because it said that the reason for the split was some internal disagreements.

And I almost blogged something about it. Thank God I didn't.

And I'm going to buy their latest album... "Shen Qiang Shou" (Sharpshooter) is such a cute song!

Next confession... I broke a promise.

I promised in some post (I can't find it and I'm in a hurry now) that I wasn't going to touch video games before the end of the A Levels... obviously I failed to do so. DotA, Initial D, Pokemon...

And I think I have to come clean about this particular matter here.

It's obvious that I backslided a bit this year, and I cannot afford to be like this next year... I'll face a lot of temptations and my character and principles will be put to the test in the next phase of my life -- National Service.

And I'm supposed to be an soldier for Christ, not a Prisoner of War under the fleshy nature.

National service next year... on January 20 2006, I'll be sleeping without my family at somewhere other than home... for the first time! Even though I've heard stories about NS and I fear that there will be a lot of politics inside there, the next 2 years will probably be full of challenges and I'm looking forward to what lies ahead.

Poolday again

Today I played Pool with Jiansheng again... this time it's a Wednesday, so it's cheaper... we could play for 2 hours. However, by the time we ended, we realised that it's meaningless to play for such a long stretch of time; the fun is lost upon getting tired after a few rounds. Still, there were some memorable instances...

During a game, I started by accidentally helping Jiansheng score 2 balls on his side. Undeterred, I said that if I could still win that round, that says something.

And I won that round eventually.

Ah yes, the theme song for Jackie Chan's "Myth" movie was really nice (even though I could only make out the "Sa Rang Hae" phrase in the part of the chorus in Korean).

There was another round when most of the balls were crowded on one end of the table and the black ball was alone on the other end. I was very tempted to hit in the black ball as the game was dragging for quite a long time. Then Jiansheng had to hit the white ball in some way that it went close to the black ball. I did a Krum and "ended the game on my own terms".

After 2 hours of Pool (I went off-form after the first hour), we separated and I had one single hamburger for lunch. Plus a slice of watermelon. Poor me.

I aranged an eye appointment with the National Eye Research Institute (a continuation to the eye-OWNING study) at 1:30 in the afternoon. Before that, I wanted to let Mom sign the consent form but thee was nowhere she could sign it... the form only asked for the signatures of a "witness" (I think that means a member of the staff at the Institute), the patient (I gave my trademark Mandarin signature) and the investigator. There was only a space for her to write her name.

Upon arriving at the Institute, they checked the consent form and realised that they didn't insert the field for parent's signature; they said I was the first one to notify them of the problem (?!!). And since the ERG part of the study was "not important", I needn't do it since there's no proven consent from parent.

Oh.

So I went away with a clear vision. The thing was that they almost dilated my pupils (rendering me blur-eyed) before realising that the consent form was needed. So if they dilated my pupils earlier...

On my journey back to Tampines (Wo zai hui jia lu shang...), someone was playing Jay Chou's "Yequ" and "Fa Ru Xue" using his handphone on the train... which reminded me of what a YES 933 DJ said about such "inconsiderate" acts.

I normally won't consider such acts as inconsiderate, and since he's playing some of my current favourite songs, complain I shall not.

No Free Lunch

As for today...

Pool with Jiansheng in the morning.

Lunch (Jiansheng ate first... I was waiting for some great feast when we reached Suntec).

But as it turned out, Carl's Junior's burgers were rather expensive... and the coupon I got from the New Paper wasn't one that gave me a chance to try a burger for free (but to try the double what's-it's-name mushroom burger for the price of a single what's-it's-name mushroom burger). And I thought...

Free flow soft drinks come at a price, my friend...

Ended up having a tasty Terriyaki chicken rice at Carrefour. Not too bad huh?

Window-shopped with Jiansheng for a while before he went for some talk in Suntec Tower 3.

Played Initial D and regretted even trying Time Attack on the Happogahara course. My Skill in the Akina course is improving, though... I feel more in control of my car now.

And then I had to see some guy doing a Time Attack on the Akina course and drifting at about 120 km per hour... almost like Takumi. Some other guy raced with this pro and lagged behind by about 700 meters.

After that I did a practise jog again, back at College, after stopping it for months... this time, I did 3.6 km and my timing was about 20 minutes... I'm surely getting rusty...

And I forgot to bring along my shampoo... so I had to resort to using the hand soap in the toilet for my shower... at least it was better than nothing...

HO Chalet (the wet part)

I went on the 3rd day.

I arrived at Downtown East at about half past 8 in the morning (like, who would go there at this hour?) and since there was no one using the computers there, I blogged my last post with it. The keyboard was better than the one last year, but it sort of had some difficulty inputing the letter "A". I reached the chalet at 9.

Way too early, I suppose... I expected everyone to be snoozing there, but it turned out that most of them have not stayed overnight. Only Allen, Tai Man, Shi Lei, Shaojun and Ningxi were there...

Since I have arrived and they could no longer sleep (oops) we all watched TV... Ningxi was right... there're no good shows at such an early hour, but at least there was AFV (America's Funniest home Videos) which kept us entertained with clips like that one with the guy who was freaked out while riding some bungee jump machine; he screamed so much foul language that we heard only bleeps most of the time.

After that there were no shows that could arouse my interest, so I took out my GBA and trained my Heracross till it reached level 53 and learned Megahorn (just an increase of 2 levels... not that hard).

One of them told me that Waysi asked a very funny question to Geoffrey: "What's your CCA in secondary school?". On the 2nd day of the HO chalet. Too bad I wasn't there.

We then played Identity (which I was very bad at) and they kept saying it is easiest to remember whoever got Shi Lei's name. For that round it was Ningxi.

More guys came later, and we're all set to go to Wild Wild Wet... all but one (Dan) went there topless and Jiaming was wearing TJC PE pants (he got it during his first 3 months there before he went to TPJC... it was funny nevertheless). Dan actually hoped to keep his hair dry, and got a very sensible suggestion...

"Shave your hair."

I was shocked by the admission price... $13 for each individual... I think the @C people had some subsidy last year so I didn't pay much to go WWW with them...

Then there were the usual rides... like Shiok River and Ular-lah... I wasn't impressed by this ride last year but I began to like it this time, except that I kept getting positions where my back was facing the camera (that's saying much, considered the fact that we went for the ride for about 5 times!). What's worse, I mistook the surveillance camera for the one which was supposed to take photos of us sliding down on the big hoop...

Oh yes, the Slide-up was still my favourite ride... I can only use 2 words to describe it: Free Fall.

And I was mystified by Dan's claim that he could actually get stuck halfway through the individual slide... later I learned that he got stuck because he sat up.

Huh?

The wave pool was not bad too... I was treading water all the way and sort of sprained my hip joint a bit. And we went to a section which I knew nothing of last year... the Jacuzzi pool. The jet (is it water or air jet?) was quite strong and if you sit in such a position with the jet shooting into your pants, your pants will bluge up with air... it looks quite obscene.

What I got at the end of the day? Fun, Abrasions, Sunburn.

After that (read: About 5 hours of WWW) we went back to the chalet... I was so hungry (I skipped lunch) that I ate 2 cups of instant noodles. Kelvin, who went there late and missed our WWW trip, was playing Identity with the others.

I later joined them for dinner and after being able to solve the mystery behind the 9 boxes game (which they did back at the chalet after dinner), I went off.

The Great Cockraoch Massacre

Last Friday I went to the bank with Mom to set up a new account for me. I was thrilled, of course...I mean, I know there are some who started their own accounts in their primary school days with $1, but I wasn't one of them. I wasn't better off either... my starting amount was $30.

When we went home afterwards, we were greeted by a horrible sight: dead cockroaches strewn all over the corridor near the void deck. There were some that were alive... Mom stepped on one of them but it didn't die. Thank God... otherwise it would have freaked her out.

I read a newspaper article that afternoon about the outsourcing of gamers...

Huh?!

Yes... there are some who wish to have their characters gain levels but had enough of all the boring routines of training, and others who want to unlock secret stages in games but are unsuccessful in the stages required for the unlocking... these people will then outsource.

Hmm... at that time I was training my Heracross so that it would reach level 53 and learn Megahorn... and was very bored with fighting the Elite 4 (maybe it's because the Battle Frontier was so much cooler)... I had 7 Rare Candies (feed one to gain one level) in hand and my Heracross was at level 46.

I was very tempted to feed all 7 of my RC's to it... but thought better than to do it in the end. Doing that would give me no sense of satisfaction as a trainer.

I have now trained my Heracross up to level 51.

That night, while I was having dinner with Mom at a food court, a guy who was sitting behind Mom suddenly had something like fits. We were freaked out, but fortunately someone who had a handphone called for an ambulance and the guy slightly recovered before the ambulance arrived. Mom concluded that it could have been a heart attack.

Initial F

Farewell

Last Thursday evening was HO farewell... and yes, I know this is a rather outdated post... due to circumstances which render me computer-less for the past few days.

Anyway...

I was sick on that day, as you can see from my last post, so I wasn't sure whether I could go for the Farewell... I was already a bit paiseh about going as an alumnus... and would be even more so if I turned up as a sick man. Thank God, my condition improved by a lot by evening.

Played some ("understatement" is an understatement) Pokemon Emerald before going for that thing, just for your information.

The wait at the MRT station for the Sec Twos was already very eventful. When I arrived at Aljunied MRT station, some of them were already there, and there was this cockroach scuttling around... Ningxi (Ex-chairperson from me and Kelvin's batch) wanted someone to chase it away, but before she could finish her request, some guy who was obviously not looking at the ground stepped on half of the cockroach (I forgot whether it was upper or lower half, but it was only half).

OK after the Sec Twos arrived, we're told to board some bus to the condominium called Pebble Bay (The farewell took place in the function room, and as it turned out, the condo had a bus stop right in front of it).

The juniors who were already there at the function room gave the seniors (meaning us) a hero's welcome which made me even more paiseh, but after some time I managed to settle down (how can I not, in the presence of Wenjun's contagious light-hearted attitude?).

Then it started.

The other HO members started streaming in through the "Starlight Path", followed by some Caucasian boy who just happened to be a resident there yearning for some fun.

OK the teachers were not there... and there was no "VCR" of teachers' speech... so we proceeded to dinner rather quickly... the cheesecakes were really nice!

It was the dinner part that took the longest... because it encapsulated photo-taking and cards-playing. Our table, containing me, Kelvin, Ningxi, Wenrong, Wenjun and Geoffrey, was pretty noisy too, because after the table of Sec 2 girls decided to do a "Yum Seng", we followed suit, in a much louder way (we're guys after all), much to Ningxi's dismay.

The Caucasian boy came in again for a brief period of seconds.

Oh yes... after having our fill, we went to have a look at the list of available songs (prepared by the juniors, of course) and there're some familiar ones... for example, when the player was playing Fa Ru Xue (a very literal translation gives "Hair Like Snow"), we guys were following the "lar lar lar lar" part and we're pretty loud.

Come to think of it, if I set up my blog only after the launch of Jay's new album, I may name it "fa-ru-xue.blogspot.com". then if I turn up at Blogger Con, I may approach Xiaxue and go "Hi Xiaxue, I'm Faruxue".

Better not try that... but I digress.

After the getting-along session, there were performances by the juniors. Song and drama. The drama was a bit... erm... but well, it's just an informal occasion anyway...

Keli's outfit for the event reminded Wenjun of Ron Weasley's dress robe in Goblet of Fire. And I agreed with him.

Ron in his dress robes, looking less than happy, or maybe just a little better than suicidal

The Faruxue incident got us (meaning Kelvin, Wenjun, Geoffrey and I) so fired up that the 4 of us decided to go for a K-box outing soon.

After the farewell there were some crappy incidents too... like when one of the abovementioned 4-guys-gang (I forgot which one) switched off the lights when Geoffrey was in the toilet... and when the bus to Aljunied MRT went pass this large billboard with a woman doing a suggestive pose under a message which says "Are you lonely?".

No... I'm in the company of friends. Thank you.

Hmm... guess that's all for the farewell.

Battle Frontier

Great Scott!

After beating the Elite 4 in Pokemon Emerald (I barely won only using type advantage), I was finally able to access the Battle Frontier. A guy named Scott in the game who looked suspicious in the beginning (he was "spotting talented trainers" and I thought he was doing it for Team Aqua before I knew that he was working for the BF) turned out to be one of my "friends" who brought me to the BF... when I first arrived at that place I was, like, awestruck by that place... it's like a huge carnival going on!

The Battle Frontier, set on a solitary island

The battle facilities there proved to be hard for me... I wanted to earn 48 battle points to exchange for a chance of my Heracross (yes I caught one in the Safari Zone) to learn Swords Dance (a non-offensive move which greatly increases attack rate). After a gruelling battle in the Battle Dome (because I couldn't survive anywhere else), I got...

ONE battle point.

Wow... long way ahead yeah?

Frequently used names

Been listening to YES 933 (and Peifen is my favourite female DJ too) these days and I heard the English version of Lee Hom's "Liu Lei Shou Xin" ("Palms In Tears") which was entitled "Mary Says".

I was remotely reminded of David Tao's "Susan Says".

Hmm... but isn't Mary such a cliched name?

Guess if I become a songwriter in the future, I'll write a song entitled "Xiaoming says".

P.S. "Xiaoming" is a name which you'll see in the Sentence Formation section in most Chinese papers.

Eye got OWNED

Yesterday was testimonial day.

So we basically went to the hall to collect our testimonials from Ms Fong... my testimonial opens with a paragraph which says that I'm quick to grasp ideas in Physics... which reminded me painfully of my failure to do justice to my Physics knowledge during the A levels.

Anyway, after the thing, I went with Kaicheng and Joel to Tampines Mall for lunch... we went to the open gallery (I think it's something quite new for them) and talked about stuff, then Kaicheng was telling us about thie RPG he has in his phone, and I lent my Gameboy Advance to Kaicheng so that he could try out some Battle Tent battles.

Then we had lunch at Long John Silvers... I had this Fish Treasure Meal which gave me more reasons to call LJS my favourite fast food restaurant.

But I forgot to eat fruits after the meal... maybe that's because I'm having a fever now. Am I so horribly dependent on fruits, they're like becoming some kind of drug for me?

Yes I have a fever now... I puked this morning and I'm not sure whether I can go for the HO farewell...

Anyway, after lunch, I went to SGH for an eye inspection appointment.

After I reached there, I was told that I had to make one parent sign a consent form before the inspection could begin, so they had to fax the form to Dad. While waiting for the reply, I played a bit of Pokemon Emerald and was challenged (in the game itself) by a triathlete named ISAIAH.

Haha. So it's Isaiah versus ISAIAH.

OK... the whole inspection comprises some small exercises, including the "look at the red house" thing which you normally go through in optical shops, a measurement of the "pressure of the eye" in which a puff of air is being shot at my eye, 3 times for each eye (more than 5 times for my right eye due to reflex blinking which caused inaccuracy in measure).

Then the dilating of pupils which left me waiting for about 30 minutes (shorter than the wait during my CMPB eye inspection, though).

Then there's this numbing agent they applied on my eyes so that some sensor can be placed on the surface of my eye without me feeling it. But it was quite an experience... imagine the eye feeling numb.

The most gruelling exercise was the OCT. I was supposed to look at a red light nearby while they take pictures of my inner eye (without cutting it up) using a super bright flash light which got me tearing all the way throughout the exercise.

That's a torture, man!

After the inspection, I went to Costa Sands East Coast for the Student Venture chalet, during which we sang songs (as usual) and prayed. I helped set up the barbecue pit at the point when Tim and Jonathan were almost done with it... it was quite fun and I learned the correct way to fan a flame. By the end of it, however, my biceps were in pain. I guess the same goes for Tim and Jon as well.

Then there was this part where one of the co-workers called Moses prayed for the graduating Year Twos that they (meaning "we") will be faithful in obeying the Great Commission.

By the way, the sausages were really nice.

Imagine Harry trying to dance. Now imagine me shopping for clothes.

Well...

Yesterday was quite a day for me... I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with Kelvin, Jansen and David, at Tampines Mall.

I was anticipating a lot from the show, since I've read the book for, like, ten times (call me a geek) and can still remember some very tense chapters like "The Egg and the Eye".

The show was quite well done, but I found out that I myself, or any other Harry Potter reader, would end up being too busy trying to list down the stuff in the book that are left out in the movie.

Oops.

I mean... I understand their concerns regarding the length of the book... so they could not put everything into the movie, but still, I was a bit sad that I didn't get to see...

• Krum's Wronski Feint
• "The Egg and the Eye" (Harry's narrow escape from Snape and Filch in the trick staircase)
• Dobby
• The meeting with Sirius during a Hogsmeade weekend
• Weatherby
• "The Madness of Mr Crouch"
• Crouch Junior "demented"
• The refusal of Fudge to accept the fact that Voldemort returned (I think this part is exceptionally important because it paves the way for one of the central themes of Book 5)

Nevertheless, the other parts got me quite impressed, like the underwater episode with Street Shark Krum and the "Bubble-head"-

Hey, isn't the bubble supposed to cover the entire head like an inverted fish tank? (See Order of the Phoenix)

Never mind.

At first when I saw the very widely circulated photo of Cho, I wasn't too impressed, but hey, she does look pretty in the actual film!

Harry: "Wangoballwime?"

I also like the Yule Ball part and Harry's duel with Voldemort, except that according to my imagination while reading the book, the battle would take place at night (the movie did it on an evening) and the cauldron of potion (which glowed when Voldemort emerges) would still be there to bathe Voldemort's face with an eerie whitish glow and-

OK I'll shut up now.

Priori Incantatem, featuring Harry (Darth) Potter

After the movie, we ate lunch at MacDonald's and set off for Orchard. The 23/04 guys were basically shopping for clothes for Grad night, so I felt a bit out of place in the beginning -- my fashion sense is not what anyone in the street would call "good". However, all of them were so friendly to me that I felt much more at ease after some time.

I'm basically going for polo shirts now (not the one in Armani Exchange which costs about $99, of course -- that price sort of removed my guilt over buying Game Boy Advance and Pokemon emerald for $205) and I recently bought one at Giordano (that dry polo which I always wanted) and I think the next polo shirt I want to buy would be a pink one.

Mum suggested pink after seeing a guy in pink shirt pass by -- she greatly regretted it afterwards while I accepted it with much enthusiasm.

2 years in 2 (plus) weeks: An A level special (Part 4)

Part 4 of my post about the A levels season... including the Physics Paper 3 episode which almost made me feel suicidal...

DAY 9

Yes... that was the day of that fateful Physics paper.

I was confident about Physics... I knew the concepts and aimed to get full marks for any question on Electromagnetic induction (where I only needed to regurgitate some Lenz's law stuff).

Also, I decided that I had to do my Options topic first... Physics of Fluids, as I thought that it was very easy to score in that section.

I was right... and I believed that my answers for the Options section were adequate.

The only bad thing about Options? I spent too much time doing it. I was advised to use 40 minutes on that section. I was overdue by about 30 minutes.

So, when I went back to do my Section A, it's expected that I wouldn't have enough time to complete the 4 questions I had to choose from the section.

And right I was again... I had time to complete 2 questions: The Ideal Gas question (lots of calculation and correction of careless mistakes) and the Waves and Superposition question.

The other 2 I decided to do were on Electromagnetic induction (I didn't remember seeing any Lenz's Law regurgitation question inside, though) and Charged Particle Dynamics. They were calculation-dominant questions too, so I had no time to do large chunks of them.

It's like what Esmond said on his blog... "marks lost without even a battle".

That paper left me feeling very down... I went to surf the net alone after the whole thing... listened to some songs, like Stefanie Sun's "Tong Lei (someone of the same kind)" which won the "Song of the Year" title at the YES 933 Hit Awards this year... well, there's this line...

"Is there anyone who needs consolation like I do?"

Sigh... It's like my farewell paper for Physics (I'll go into Chemistry if I get to further my studies) and I still flopped it...

Light papers await for the following days... Japanese listening and Chem Paper 1 (Multiple Choice)... so I took a break from mugging that day-

And got scolded by Mum that night ("Oh my... why is my child so unsensible, unlike other children... who else is surfing the Net during these exam days? Huh?")...

Whatever.

DAY 10

Japanese listening on that day. 2 pm.

I did some Chemistry MCQ practices in the morning (and surfed the Net, of course!) before going off to Bishan after lunch for the listening exam, which turned out to be... well, I think I only screwed up that "True-or-False" (state whether these statements are true or false based on the passage you heard) part.

After the listening exam I went to Junction 8 to do some shopping... and found one of the stuff I had been looking for these days... a Chara-kids Grumpig figure!

Grumpig

DAY 11

Chemistry MCQ.

And how I enjoyed doing MCQ practices... you can do it fast, and do lots of questions in short time... and practice your concepts well.

So I did my Chem MCQ compilation TYS with Melvin at the Auditorium block that morning... from about 8 am to 12 noon.

One problem encountered while I was doing practices on the "Group II Metals" topic was that there were a lot of questions which are either on sulphates or have some of their choices with statements about sulphates... because the trend of Group II sulphates are already out of the syllabus (for who knows why).

Anyway, after lunch, the IT Clu guys came together in the canteen for some crapping, which was catalysed by the arrival of Soo Hern. There was one instance when they're talking about the WCG competition which I knew nothing about.

Now for the paper itself...

Something stupid occured... I was barely punctual for the paper (due to last-minute toilet visitation-ation) and forgot to place my Entry proof on the table... I realized it only halfway through the paper when the invigilator came for checks. Thank God the entry proof was in my pencil case and not my bag (so I could take it out without too much trouble).

Still, it was quite cool to find many questions in the paper being repetitions of regular TYS questions (there're many who say that too)... and I was pretty confident. After everything, the only thought in my mind was that, if I'm going to score A grade for anything it's going to be Chem.

2 years in 2 (plus) weeks: An A level special (Part 3)

Question: Should I vomit out all the other days at one go now that my A levels are... OVER?

Answer: No. I don't have the capacity to do such a long post (I did my Star Wars Special for weeks!) and I don't think you want to read such a long post at one go as well, so... 4 more days first!

DAYS 5 and 6

Weekends. "Weekends" says something. "Weekends-in-exam-season" says something else.

But for me, it's still quite relaxing... I just studied Physics (Papers 1 and 2 next Monday). While studying my Prelims paper for Physics, I realized that a lot of the questions I left out were actually very doable... it was just that I gave up too easily.

Erm... that's all for weekends.

DAY 7

Physics Papers 1 and 2 were on the afternoon, but I arrived at College in the morning (as I always do) and... bought breakfast...

On my way to the food centre, I saw a woman and a girl who might have been mother and daughter... the woman was holding a cigarette and didn't seem to mind the wind blowing the cigarette smoke in her daughter's face... sigh.

After breakfast... did I sleep? Or maybe I slept before going to buy breakfast... anyway, I went to the library after breakfast to mug... and ended up reading the MAD magazine again... haha... it's some crappy magazine available in America (don't ask me why we get them in our College library).

After I finally decided to do some decent mugging, Jansen came along, followed by Jinrong and Ming Hwee. That day I understood Hall Voltage for the first time (Jansen explained it to me); I previously thought that this area of knowledge was sort of unimportant.

Jansen advised me to allocate 30 minutes for the Data Analysis question... looks like it's going to be power-packed!

Paper 1 (Multiple Choice) was OK... I knew that I got 2 questions wrong too... one of which had 2 likely choices... until you realise that there's an error in one of the "likely" choices: Neutron with Mass number 1 and Proton number 1. And I chose that erroneous choice. Stupid me.

Well, I guess that was because I spent lots of time on the question on magnetic fields generated by wires.

For Paper 2 (Structured questions), I was afraid that the symbols I used in my formulae were not well defined, but I think I overdid the "defining" part... I spent a lot of time on that Gravitation question which I knew how to do, because of defining symbols.

Talk about overdoing it... I almost went to define the symbols in "V = IR". Thank God I didn't, otherwise I would look so stupid...

In Paper 2, I got OWNED by the Analogue Electronics (I didn't do a lot of "modify-the-amplifier" questions before) and Data Analysis (of all things, they wanted me to repeat what I do in SPA) question.

DAY 8

Chemistry Paper 2 which I was somehow confident about (I was confident about all my Chem papers this season).

It rained that morning, and they could not have Student Venture gatherings... so Jiansheng came and joined us. As usual, Kelvin and Jansen's presence at the table brought in all the other 23/04 guys too, who sat down and discussed about Tong Xin Yuan.

That paper turned out to be one of my most relaxing of all papers... and it was the only paper which I had time to check after completing it.

The only snag was that electrolysis question... I studied all the applications of electrolysis... all but the electrolysis of brine (concentrated salt solution) to get chlorine.

And the question on Electrolysis was about electrolysis of brine.

Thank God I knew all along that chlorine is one of the products (due to the study of the Halogens topic) and the other product cannot be sodium chloride (that would just be stupid) so it must be sodium hydroxide. The only section in that question which I couldn't answer was on the purpose of the diaphragm.

One of the things I discovered during my A levels season was that I tend to slack a lot after Chemistry papers. The same thing happened that day, even with Physics Paper 3 (essay paper) on the next day.

That day was the day when I discovered that the library computers had this "Smart Filter" that was way too smart... it even forbidden access to my tagboard, classifying it as Chat.

Oh well...

2 years in 2 (plus) weeks: An A level special (Part 2)

Alright... now for Part 2 of the blow-by-blow account...

DAY 3

Maths Paper 2 on that day... so it's the questions on the Options Topic (Probability and Statistics) which will dominate the paper.

Just when I arrived at College, I saw Yvonne and she asked me some stuff about probability distribution curves... and when I was borrowing her pencil to do some illustrations, I accidentally scratched the pencil tip against her arm... Oops!

No blood, no report. Thank God.

Glad that I managed to clear some doubts for her in the end.

I bought Nasi Lemak that morning (yes, I'm used to having it for breakfast instead of one small piece of bread) and had not much time for studying... never mind, I was ready for Prob and Stats; that's one of my better areas in Maths.

And so, from past experiences (I did that during Prelims), I did my Stats questions first (they're supposed to be in the "second" section). Didn't have a very promising start, but it was generally quite smooth.

Back to Section One.

Got blown up by that Complex Numbers question... the area in Complex Numbers which I'm bad at was the one about solving polynomials.

And the only Complex Numbers question in that paper was on that part. No Argand Diagram or whatsoever.

Shit.

Overall, it was still not as bad as Paper 1.

And I managed to realise my dream... to do the question on Iterative Methods (to find roots of equations) which I always had no time to do in my past papers.

After the paper, I went with my friends (can't remember who) to the place outside the library to collect our quesion papers for Chem paper 3... but I didn't write my name on my paper, so in the end I could only take someone else's paper.

I tried to find one which was as empty as possible, as I believed that a question paper with more writings on it would be more meaningful to the original owner. I don't know... it's like that for me...

After a Yong tau Foo lunch, I studied Computing (Computing Paper 1 was on that afternoon) and I was a bit worried about the paper. Not that I didn't study; I studied the subject for a week.

But I was afraid that I forgot everything.

The paper turned out OK for me, in the end. Phew. I couldn't understand the Database question, but neither could the other 5 guys. While doing the question on the implementation of linked lists, I was worried that my answer was too long (a diagrammatic approach... about 3 sides). But in the end, their answers were about as long as mine too, so no worries!

One thing that bothered me (big time) was that halfway through the paper, it rained. Lots of thunder-

No, it's not the thunder that bothered me. It was Joel, who was bothered by the thunder, and kept on making "tsk tsk" sounds... to be precise, one "tsk" per roar of thunder.

It was his "tsk'ing" that bothered me.

Since we'll be having GP Papers 1 and 2 on the next day, I brought some past year essay reports... and my radio. Heh. Got to relax a bit during GP revision, I thought.

I listened to YES 933 FM (like, duh!) and I found Peifen (one of the DJs) to have a very nice voice.

DAY 4

By~ the~ way~

The whole GP subject was there for the quick kill. Which started in the morning.

Paper 1 was the essay paper... which got me muttering "God save me" after the whole bloody thing.

Why did I make that silly mistake? I concluded from experiences this year that philosophical essays were no longer suitable for me... and yet the first question I attempted was...

"There is no such thing as luck. People determine their own lives. Do you agree?"

Oh yes, I started on this question only after thinking for about 30 minutes.

Then, after some time trying to write an introduction with a stand that somehow could not even convince myself, I realized I could not write beyond my first paragraph (after the intro).

And I had only half an hour left. I was in a state of emergency at that time... I was clutching at my pants... I almost had a seizure, if you ask me.

So, at that point when I had 20 minutes dangling before me, beckoning me to make the fullest use of it, I decided on that question on hosting sports events.

I managed to do a complete essay, with Introduction, Body and Conclusion.

Huh?

That means if I decided on that question from the start, I could have an essay with not only ideas, but well developed ideas.

Ah... that's just me. I was thankful enough that I actually could complete an essay in 20 minutes.

Click here to view a scan of my attempt at the "Luck" essay.

For Comprehension, I decided to allocate 40 minutes to the questions, 30 minutes to the Summary part and 20 minutes to the Application Question. I could barely keep to the time slots (in fact I was surprised that I took more than 40 minutes for the questions part!) and could complete an answer for my Appilcation Question with a conclusion (that is, if they'll take my answer for the last section of the question as my conclusion).

The passage used in this comprehension (yes, there's only one passage this time instead of the usual 2) had some parts which I couldn't accept. Well, this passage was on Aggression and it sort of glorifies the whole thing about human conflicts and wars. For example...

It quotes an actor, Orson Welles, who said...

---

"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed- they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The Cuckoo clock."

---

I mean... so? My belief was that the drive for invention can be motivated by other factors besides war. Like, why did Edison invent the light bulb?

Also, there's this...

---

...without conflict, how would the heroic virtues be exercised? Is there no merit in the bravery which meets death without flinching for a good cause or on behalf of others? Or in the compassion for a fellow human being which finds expression on the battlefield and in bombed cities?

---

So??

Yes, war is a time for showing bravery, but on the other hand, what about the ugly side of human nature, like thirst for power, that gave rise to war in the first place? Some brave dude looking death in the face will be coupled by the evil dude who is administering death on the other side. And how good is "showing compassion" for, say, a child on the battlefield, right after bombing his house and killing his family?

I included that last part about the child in my answer for the Application Question.

After that bloody vocabulary battle, I had lunch with Joel and Ming Hwee before going off to buy Volume 16 of the Pokemon Adventures manga and returning to College to accompany Ming Hwee who was mugging at the library.

After sleeping, reading manga and mugging a bit of Physics, we went down and met Wenyuan (one of our IT Club alumni) who gave us some survival tips for NS.

Spook-e-mon

Oh... I took some photos during my mugging times at home... photos of... erm... my Pokemon figurines.

Remember the picture of the cute Spheal I posted? I bought a figurine of it recently!

My translucent Gengar figure... heh heh.

Got scolded by Mom for surfing the Net at College yesterday (instead of doing Chem MCQ practices) so I won't spend time here for long...

I'll just go to CS lab to use the computer to listen to songs... heh.

2 years in 2 (plus) weeks: An A level special (Part 1)

The A levels.

Yeah.

We toiled and strived for, like, 2 years (3 years for some) just for this magical moment... the A levels!

Everything we studied for 2 years... they're going to be used for just this one thing that matters...

Yeah.

Felt like crying when I typed my last sentence... my Physics!!! Oh my Physics!!! I still lost to time!!!

*Pours dust on head*

Now for the whole of my A levels period...

DAY 1

Maths. Paper 1.

OK... that paper wasn't in the morning... so I had time to study a bit of Maths stuff (like past year papers) while my friends were having their Biology paper (heh).

I ended up sleeping for an hour. Never mind... sleeping then was better than feeling sleepy during the paper.

After the Bio paper, Edwin came to mug with me... lunch followed, and we went to the food centre (I was eating Yong Tau Foo for the umpteenth time). I decided to bring my Maths notes along to do some study.

So we ordered our meals and ate... I was enjoying my Yong Tau Foo soup as usual when I turned to look at my notes... I saw some bits of strange stuff that looked like bird droppings.

Ugh.

But then again, it didn't look like bird droppings after all... and there're no birds up there...

Hmm?

Anyway, I decided that it's some dirty stuff and I have to do something to... erm, protect myself from it.

First thing I went back to College? I sealed that mark made by that dirty stuff with my cellophane tape.

I'll never bring my notes out to lunch again!

But I digress.

Maths Paper 1 was OK for me... I did study! So, I did everything and, well, I sort of ran out of time (again?) and didn't finish my Vector (my favourite topic) question. I also didn't have time to touch the 3-D trigonometry question.

Oh and I got stupid and couldn't come up with the way to solve a relatively easy question.

30 marks slipped out between my fingers.

"You call that OK?!"

NEXT!

DAY 2

I thought I was going to miss Nasi Lemak.

But I knew I was going to miss some marks if I didn't do some last minute refreshments for Food Chem.

Yes... Chem Paper 3, the essay paper and (if that's not enough) the one with Options Topic in it.

Food Chem for me, then.

Food Chem was a whole lot of dry stuff that I had to memorise... except for the chemical structures fo sugars and the structures of proteins-

"Hey... you actually think that's "not dry"?"

Well, I like to try understanding the chemistry behind things, not just "things".

Anyway, so that day I just had some bread for breakfast... hotdog, as I remember.

The sacrifice of Nasi Lemak time wasn't enough for me to finish my Food Chem "refreshment"... but then again, that's life.

Never mind... I memorised them beforehand, of course... like Bortrytis Cinerea and Streptococcus Cremoris and other long names. They're some microbes.

We had a seating plan crisis on that day. People didn't remember their seat numbers correctly and the table they gave for the seating plan did not have numbers on it... we had to , like, manually count our seat number... and they said it's all our fault!

"Cool down... cool down."

Then they started writing numbers on the table only after the crisis went for, like, 10 minutes!

Phew.

The paper cheered me up. And that's saying much.

All in all, I was glad that I studied Inorganic Chem... the question was pure regurgitation.

Got OWNED by the deduction question, though. Deductive question with 2 NMR spectra inside. Out to kill me, wasn't it? But I think I could do it... it's just that I left it first to do my Food Chem questions... because time was running out.

In the end I only managed to stick my toe into that question by touching a bit on one of the NMR spectra.

One of the Food Chem questions was on Carbohydrates. I heaved a big sigh of relief because it was the topic which I spent a whole day trying to understand (remember what I said about sugar structures?).

Even the question on irradiation as a food processing method was essentially a data analysis question... and in the end they're just trying to ask you about rancidity of fatty acids and food poisoning. I didn't answer much about food poisoning though... I just said Clostridium Botulinum produces fatal toxins but Salmonella just causes non-fatal gastroentitris (the pro's term for stomach upset).

I got back my Maths paper (they put them out after the exams outside the library) because Joel found mine and gave it to me. Thanks Joel.

I was so relieved about the Chem paper that I actually didn't feel like doing anything on that day. I had the feeling that "everything" was over, you see...

Fat hope. I've got 2 major papers on the next day, including Maths Paper 2 and Computing Paper 1.

Studied Computing and I couldn't understand Quick Sort, but thank God, after coming out of the library (it's closed at 6 pm) with Ming Hwee, I saw Mr Chua (my Computing tutor) and clarified some doubts.

Broken Arrow

Oh.

So this is the Arrow game Wenrong wants me to continue.

I'm supposed to put down 5 special (read: wierd) attributes of myself and pass on the cue to 5 other people.

Here goes!

• I'm so used to sleeping without a pillow that I can't sleep with one.
• I'm still playing Pokemon.
• I wash my socks in the shower. Oh, do continue to read my blog after this stunning disclosure!
• I study in the coffee shop at the street opposite my College during my A levels period.
• I can't think of 5 people to pass this game on to. Hence the title of this post.

Maybe... Kaicheng?

Erm... Esmond? Jianyuan?

Dirty Friday

Hi.

Last Friday was Dirty Friday.

Kelvin asked me twice, during lunch, whether I've eaten shit before.

After lunch, we saw an old man peeing in the grass.

While buying dinner, I dropped my slice of papaya on the floor and to make things worse, it rolled under the tabletop (it's wrapped in plastic bag, fortunately). Thank God it didn't reach the black, shadowy and dusty region.

While eating my papaya later, I had to make sure not to touch the outer surface of my plastic bag.

Then, when I put aside my watch to have my meal, I accidentally put it on some highly viscous creamy liquid on the table which looked like spilled milk coffee which had been there for hours.

Dirty day, indeed.

OK. Thank you. Bye bye.

See, man!

See... this is Anglican High from the eyes of Google Earth...

Hao dang... sheng zhong... qi xiang xiong

Click to see TJC... the picture's too big to be put here.

Damn the clouds... they're covering my house... so I can't take a snapshot of my nice neighbourhood...

OK... finally...

OK Melvin, here's the method Joe taught me about Beta pleated sheets.

Parallel Beta Sheet

Anti-parallel Beta Sheet

Yesterday Joe called my house and told me to call him... I knew what it was about, of course. He is to meet me today to return my Food Chem summaries to me.

I just told Mum that I've got to "collect some Food Chem stuff" from Joe. Which was half-right.

I then told her the "stuff" was actually my "notes" (I was referring to my summaries)... she freaked out and lectured me for a long time (5 minutes of that was long enough!) about the dangers of lending notes to friends during this important season (yeah, right, when I was actually studying Computing these days and didn't need my Food Chem notes or summaries anyway...).

Then when I told her that I was referring to my summaries... she heaved a sigh of relief and said something like "as long as your notes are with you, it's fine. Summaries are not so important".

I felt so insulted. She never trusted my summaries and blamed my reliance on summarising my notes for my downfall (Prelims results, I mean) when I didn't have the time to study even my summaries before Prelims anyway...

I'll prove her wrong and go to mug now.

Why don't we go somewhere...?

Hmm... there's a certain exhibition which will be held in the Science Center... I think it will be like the Lord of the Rings Exhibition...

And this time it's about...

Heh... I'm thinking of inviting Wenrong (a fellow Star Wars fan), the Forums 04/05 moderators clique and some other friends to go with me...

After the A levels, of course... and Wenrong's O levels would have ended by then.

Yeah, provided I have extra money after saving for my Gameboy Advance...

... oh yes, and my Star Wars novels which will be in stores from November 22.

Still... a nice get-together will be nice, right?

Car owners

Hi there.

Been doing food chem (again?) this morning, and I'm not saying that I'm finished with it.

Been figuring out how to draw the Beta-pleated sheet (a protein structure) even after Joe gave me a very good method of doing it.

Still, thanks, Joe. Without your secret method, I would take an even longer time to figure out a way to remember how to draw the shitty sheet.

I know I've said this on my tagboard, but... you know, to make some official records...

I've seen the front view of a car that's been parked at the Bodynits building near Upper Changi Road that resembles the EK-9... One evening I saw the profile of the car more closely on the road and from then on, I was damn sure that it is an EK-9. A yellow one.

OK wait... have I blogged about this before, or did I just mention it on my tagboard?

See what I mean about wanting to keep official records now?

And I got wind from Melvin (that is if the tagger is not an impostor) that Ms Rita Wong drives a Honda Integra...

Yes... it's the Integra... the snow-white Integra parked near the General office, getting me mesmerized everytime I walk with my classmates from the parade square after morning assembly...

It's the Integra!

I'm here for a more noble purpose, though... I'm here to search for a better definition of "Tertiary Structure of Protein"... I find the definition given in my notes to be kind of short.

What the "Fruc"?!

OK... the Chem Mock MCQ papers are over... and I was especially overwhelmed by the 2nd paper...

I was generally relieved, though, that I improved because of the past one-week-plus period studying Inorganic Chem.

Now... I finally finished the Inorganic section and I'm venturing into Food Chem.

And the first chapter got me asking "WTF?!".

"F" for fructose.

I know that I can memorise all the dry stuff from the Carbohydrates chapter... but I don't want to memorise something without understanding the chemistry behind it... so here I am, looking for information on how the straight chains of the monosaccharides actually close up to form the rings.

And I think I found the right website for my stuff.

Got to go.

Class feast

Yesterday was the class dinner at Pastamania.

We met at Somerset MRT at 7 pm and set off for Cineleisure.

There was actually this College sweater designed by Aqil, one of the 04/05 batch Councillors, and it costs $25. It had a TEMASEK word printed on it.

Yong Chuan said he would buy the shirt if there's a "Holdings" below the word.

Anyway, Mrs Ang gave us a treat of about $15 for each person, so I could order stuff that were more expensive than usual (I could only eat the $4.90 Pomodoro pasta everytime I went there, you see...).

But I wouldn't feel so nice if I really ordered this $12.90 crayfish pasta... so I ordered Mussels and Clams Spaghetti in the end.

The clams were a bit bland (I think that's the way it's supposed to be) but the mussels were really delicious!

I was given a bowl along with the pasta (to put aside my empty shells, I suppose), and after finishing my meal, Joel even took a picture of the empty shells!

Talk about taking pictures...

We were there, creating a din (didn't matter much since we're at the end of the dining area) while taking photos in our last gathering (in our academic life, that is). There were really funny moments, like when I was supposed to take a picture for Maoxin and Alex, Maoxin was chewing on a piece of garlic bread and wearing a very funny expression... I laughed so hard that I almost dropped Alex's camera!

I just hope that some kind soul in the class will actually bother to send me the photos taken... I'm counting on Joel to send me his after the A levels.

Otherwise I have to go on Friendster to search for photos taken during gatherings again...

Mrs Ang told us in yet another pep talk, that we've got to study hard so that we will be laughing around when we come back to College next year for our results, instead of sulking while the rest are celebrating.

Well... worse case scenario: We can still laugh at each other.

Farewell

Today is the last official day for us Year Twos... so this morning we attended our very last morning assembly.

Since it's a Tuesday today (quite a strange day for a "last day", to be honest), we did not sing our College Anthem, and I was wondering whether they would make it an exception and let us sing it for the last time today...

No. It was kelua baris straight after the announcements.

Then it was a talk on exam ettiquettes... after which our "once-a-displine-master-always-a-discipline-master" Mr Tong gave his "last announcement to us", and many of the Year Twos (who brought cameras anyway) took photos of him, prompting him to wonder if they're going to use those photos for playing darts at home.

Sigh... today is the last time our class will have Civics with Mrs Ang.

"...hey don't take my photo... must pay money OK?..."

"How much?"

She gave us our result slips (mine was a bit unsightly... DEED, you know...) and her usual you-can-do-it pep talk...

And yes, she will be treating us to a meal at Pastamania tonight... and I think 10/04 can visit her new house for house warming after the A levels.

We even took photos after Civics...

Erm... you're asking... who is Mrs Ang?

Mrs Ang... our Chem tutor! Mrs Ang May Ee, whom I blog about quite often... don't you remember?

Yes, I guess you can recall by now...

Oh, why not just refer to her as Ms Fong?

She'll be Mrs Ang soon anyway... pity that her wedding is on the 2nd day (or is it 1st day?) of our A levels...

Farewell concert at 9:30 am... was quite a blast.

We had performances from Concert Band (the song was much more meaningful to us who took the Maths Mock Test)... the Modern Dance Club... recitation of Ms Kwan and our Drama Mama Mr Rajesh (both of whom are GP tutors)... a rendition of Tong Hua by Mr Chung (another GP tutor)...

... and a skit about what our GP tutors would venture into should they quit their jobs... it was the only time I saw Mr Tong dressing untidily, and Mr Hunter (who is already very entertaining) dressing as Big Bird of Sesame Street!

A sharing session (which dragged longer then any other item)... and they kept forgetting to thank the GP tutors...

A medley of songs by the Science Department (essentially the Chemistry Department plus Bio-tutor Ms Ng) and the Maths Department... with modified lyrics for our encouragement.

And a "Life is Statistics" poem by an F-maths tutor. There were some really funny lines like "Your Proportion of Success is never constant" and something like "Venture into the Critical Region".

Oh... amd the singing of the College Anthem was actually the last part of the Farewell Concert!

Had fun... and will have more fun tonight.

My only fear...

... is that when we rendezvous at Somerset MRT at 7 pm, they all will talk and walk slowly to Pastamania Cineleisure, and the dinner will only start at about 8 pm.

And I have to leave that place by 9 pm. Ask my Mum why.

Why do I keep leaving things out these days?

Why?

Why did I leave out the highly interesting Chemistry lecture when Ms Wong was telling us about transition metal complexes... she mentioned the "free" ions with such zest...

"...that ions are free, FREE!!"

...that she reminded us of some democratic firebrand giving an inspiring speech about freedom...

Why?

And why did I not mention the cool pen that Joel had... an Osim product... it had a battery-operated vibrating end which can be used for massages...

...and when you press it against the back of your head... you get the feeling of euphoria... Ooh...

Why?

Never mind. You heard it now.

Anyway, today I studied... Chem.

Only.

The topic of Periodic table studies... Period 3. Oxides and chlorides.

After which I passed by the Robotics Club booth (it's Open House, remember?) and helped him out with moving some stuff... and got seen by Mrs Leong, who thought we'd been helping out throughout the entire Open House...

Never mind... it was a great exercise.

And yes, Mrs Leong did realize that I only handed in Paper 2 of the Mock Exam...

Just finished my shower... feeling good all over again.

More Chem, please.

And here's a cute Pokemon for you.

Spheal, the "spherical seal".

Earphones and Ice cubes

Today was Melvin's birthday and I actually accompanied Ming Hwee and Jigang to Popular Bookstore to shop for a book as a gift for Melvin earlier in the week (I didn't blog about it since it was to be kept secret).

SInce Melvin is quite an avid reader and he's reading "Angels and Demons" right now, we bought him "Secrets of Anghels and Demons". I supposed Ankur was in charge of wrapping it up.

To my surprise, Joel had something for Melvin too... Taufik's "Blessings" album!

And I too have my fair share of gifts this year. Yang Chenglin's album aside, I got a pair of earphones from Joel as a belated birthday gift.

Just the thing for my Gameboy Advance which I'll pick up after the A levels.

Which reminds me... I don't think I'll be going for Grad Night after all... Jigang and Ming Hwee are already in the 08/04 table and only Joel and I are the only ITC members left who can form an ITC table...

Heh... a table of 2, huh?

Nah... guess I'll just keep my savings and buy my Pokemon Emerald game pak soon!

With my new earphones, I can now listen to stuff even in the computer lab... so I got the famous Russel Peters' video from Mr Chua (he had it in his laptop).

It was basically what Maoxin had been telling me for months... about !xobile (don't try pronouncing it if you don't know how to), about "somebody's gonna get hurt real bad" and about "Anthony".

But what he didn't tell me was the mixed races part, about how you mix French and Greek to get Freaks, how you mix 2 people from Iceland and Cuba to get Ice-cubes, and many more crazy mixed-race names.

And as I blog, I can hear what the band was playing yesterday during our Maths Mock Exam.

It's the TJC Open House! It's when all the Year Ones who have just gone through one of the worst ordeals in the JC life (the Promos) go around painting a vibrant and lively and vivacious and whatever-you-might-call-it TJC community!

Minus the Year Twos who are stressed about the impending A levels.

Yeah, we don't see Year Twos sulking around during Open Houses.

It's called reality, my friend. At least it's not so bad in TJC.

Still, College life is not all play and no work.

Will get to work now.

HB2M

Heh.

Yes... today is my birthday... alright?

I was surprised that many people wished me happy birthday, because I didn't make it a big thing... and I am not very good at remembering other peoples' birthdays, so... I don't really deserve so much for my own birthday.

Still, I got a gift from Kelvin and guys. Yang Chenglin's album.

Hmm... I hadn't listened to mandopop these days... but well, since they got me this CD, I'll give it a try.

The year Ones didn't seem to want to hide the fact that their Promos were over.

Halfway through the Maths Mock Exam Paper 2 today, the Band was suddenly playing songs ranging from "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" to "Star Wars" outside the Lecture theater. How did I know? We all could hear it claerly even in the theater, trying to concentrate on our Maths Paper!

I know I shouldn't blame the band for my undesirable performance for that paper (yes, AGAIN!) but still, I lost some of my concentration because of the music.

And I didn't particularly like their rendition of Dancing Queen.

2 fat months

I just recieved my NS enlistment letter last night.

I was to report on 20 Jan next year... so that means 2 months for me to erm... unwind.

Yeah.

Today Mrs Lim shared with us some of the stuff that the Grad Night organisers plan to do. One of them is to do away with the "rule" for formal dress code.

I don't know whether they got me convinced... IT Club people are thinking of forming a table...

OWNAGE 9233

Got OWNED by the Maths Mock Exam paper 1.

Who to blame? I was doing my Inorganic Chem revision yesterday(which cheered me up a bit) but totally forgot about this Mock Exam.

As I was a "volunteer" candidate (not compulsory but just there to be extra), I didn't hand in my script in the end.

Didn't want to give Mrs Leong the shock of her life.

Mock Paper 2 comes 2 days later. Mrs Leong wants to see our Specimen Paper 2 tomorrow.

Right timing... can do homework and practise at the same time.

Like knocking out 2 Pidgeots with one Rock Slide attack.

On DG, Deduct-a-thon, plastic bags and the largest Pokemon yet

Last Friday morning Joel Long stopped by and we talked about some stuff... and he sort of thanked me for being one of the first seniors who made friends with him... heh, it warmed my heart quite a lot.

Discipleship Group session for that day was supposed to be just a discussion... because Freida (our co-ordinator) couldn't turn up... Xiaoyun was to be the facillitator and she did quite a good job (you'll know why if you know her).

Anyway, they decided to go to Plaza Singapura for that session (much to the discomfort of Jiansheng and I, who wanted a nearer place... heh heh) but it turned out fine. They had lunch at PS... I had my lunch before joining them and I suppose Jiansheng had his lunch too, so we stayed at a spot and helped the others look after their bags. We talked about lots of stuff, including Pokemon.

That spot was a comfortable spot, but Jiansheng said that it wasn't suitable for DG session because...

The "temptation of money" on the left, and the temptation of lust (FHM covers...) on the right. Heh.

At one instance Jonathan saw me looking intently on the right poster and said "I hope you're looking at the right thing".

Don't worry, Jon, I was looking at the cover of the Pokemon issue of Kids' Company.

Oh we had DG in the foodcourt in the end.

This weekend I was supposed to do an Organic Chem deductive questions marathon... questions from 5 JCs, and only ONE question from each JC.

And each JC chem Prelim paper costs about 1 dollar! Burned my pocket big time, I tell you!

I had fun doing them, though. Surprisingly, RJC's deductive question was the easiest! I couldn't even start doing its VJC counterpart.

Those who know me well will know my habit of using plastic bags (those rectangular ones, of course) as folders... and while looking for such plastic bags in my collection (erm... yes, I have a whole lot of plastic bags), I found a surprisingly large number of bags suitable for folder use.

My Collection!

The amount of plastic bags I've got, relative to the size of my pencil case

My rectangular plastic bags which can double as folders. Save money!

Another Pokemon in the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald version which got me interested is the Wailmer-Wailord family.

Wailmer... oh-so-cute!

Wailord (evolves from Walimer at level 40)
Length: 14.5 metres
Mass: 398 kg

Will be having a whale of a time with my Inorganic Chem notes soon!

A Skuruu Appu, in-DEED!

I got to know my grades for Prelims already.

DEED. For Maths, Computing, Chem and Physics respectively.

My AO Japanese Oral exam yesterday turned out quite erm... you can see from the title that it was quite a screw-up... I could memorise my script (I was to do a presentation of a topic of my choice) which was entitled "The Computer and I". The presentation was about how the computer changed my life and I talked about being a College Forums Moderator and studying Computing as an A level subject.

One of the teachers asked me more about my job as a moderator, but I sort of made a mistake in one of my answers (I used a wrong word) and because of that, the next question she asked was totally out of context of what I thought I gave for the answer to my previous question!

The other teacher asked me about Computing... and when she asked me about the mistakes I tend to make when I just started doing this course, I meant to say that I missed out certain important characters in my source code, but I sort of forgot what to say in Japanese for "characters", so in the end I just said "Kyarakutaa" (yes, Japanese is that convenient!)... it was only after the oral when I realized that I should have just said "ji" for "character".

After the Oral Exam I went to the McDonalds outlet at Bishan Interchange to do my Physics and realised that it's quite a nice place to mug.

Oh, and in the Food Junction outlet at Junction 8, there are some spots that are very secluded, I almost wanted to call it a potential mugging paradise... but then again, I thought I would get claustrophobia if I sat there for more than 4 hours.

Nightmare of the Lizard-lover

Yesterday I was too busy to blog. Trying out "something new".

Heh.

Anyway, I heard from Junqun that he's going to be enlisted one week after his A levels... and he's not the only one.

Sigh... maybe it's my turn next... to be given only a week of enjoyment...

Take it easy, man!

When I was buying a cake from the snack stall using my $10 note, the stallholder said that she had no choice but to give me $9.50 in nine $1 coins plus one 50-cent coin because people usually give a lot of big notes on Mondays, causing them to use up the $2 and $5 notes pretty quickly.

Haha... nine $1 coins in my oh-so-heavy wallet... I felt so rich, man!

"Something new" in my 1st paragraph (if you can call it a paragraph...) refers to the Pokemon Emerald (sorry Kelvin) Rom I downloaded to try out before I actually buy the game...

OK I know what you're about to say, so to clarify things, I've deleted the Rom today already, and I'll only be getting the real thing after the A levels. Duh!

But I'm still rambling about yesterday, so...

OK after a few tries and some search over the net, I think I would be using the Grass-type starter, the Treecko (something like Gecko from the Tree). I've never used Grass-type starters before, mind you.

Treecko

However, in Red/Blue or Gold/Silver, there is always one lizard-like Pokemon among the 3 starters, and my favourites were always the lizards (Charmander from Red/Blue and Totodile from Gold/Silver). Guess it's no exception now.

Also, if you remember my Chinese New Year post (bet you don't), I talked about Kecleon (a chameleon-like Pokemon) catching my eye.

Kecleon. The chameleon.

But please don't give me a house lizard for my birthday, for goodness' sake!

Even though I would be a bit sad that there're only few of those "old" Pokemon in Emerald, the new ones turned out to be pretty cool as well, like Wingull, which can be caught in the first few stages of the game and learns Wing Attack at (get this) level 13! It evolves into Pelipper, some kind of a pelican-like Pokemon.

Pelipper. Cute.

Last night I had this nightmare, though. About having to fight some villain in a tall lighthouse. The main thing that scared me so much happened when I was looking out the "window" at the "beach"...

It was a dark night. I saw large, fat, black birds (about 10 of them) flying low around the shore, churning up waves. Their slihouette was scarily lit by a distant lighthouse (which turned out to be the kind of super bright lamp-post you see at stadiums).

OK you might think that's not scary. That's because I wasn't very good at describing it. It just freaked me out; I didn't know why.

Today was a lecture day... erm... yeah.

I had some kind of diarrhea this morning (not again?!) but I think it got better now.

Japanese Oral tomorrow.

Saikin, mettani nihongou de kaiwa shinai node, chotto shinpai shite imasu ne...