Happy like bird - complete euphoria!

Army life got me thinking

2011-06-26T19:42:00.000+08:00

Haven't blogged in a while, and thought I'd come back to this little "shrine" of mine to keep this blog going. It's been dead for almost 3 months, partly because of laziness and lack of discipline to maintain it, while at the same time serving National Service.

Blogging in the bunk. A lot of things have gone on, some good, some bad, but tough times don't last - tough men do. I just hope I can last through the last week of Basic Military Training, so I can live to tell the tale. That being said, our training is so much easier as compared to the previous generations of military conscripts training in the very facility we are in right now. Still, there's always a story to tell, and I've finally got one I can call mine.

Going to take over guard duty shift soon. Signing out.

April - The Month of Physical Stress and Mental Boredom

2011-04-03T20:26:00.001+08:00

So, I've quite my previous job already, and it's getting mighty tiring just sitting at home and doing nothing but playing computer games. Uncle Yiye's pushing for me to get shaped up to prepare for National Service, but I reckon - so many people don't train up for National Service before enlistment anyway, why should I? After all that's what being enlisted as recruits and Basic Military Training (BMT) is all about anyway...

Or maybe I'm just plain lazy and can't get my ass off my hot seat in front of the computer.

In any case, I'm still getting myself to jog and cycle regularly - I hope all these stuff works out in the end. Meanwhile, I thought I'd start making things a little bit more interesting for my blog. Seeing as the blog looks pretty dead by now, having nothing much other than little snippets of my life added to it every now and then, I thought I'd post up some of the interesting stuff and videos I have encountered in my spare time surfing the Net and doing almost nothing else productive. Yeah, like doing such stuff is even productive in the first place...

For starters, here's a nice little masculine song performed by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (UOGB) - Theme from "Shaft"

Cute ukuleles - and I was taken aback, and before I knew it, I was laughing along with the audience at the racy lyrics! Go on, hit the play button - you'll like it. But even more amazing is the next video medley the UOGB did up. It's pretty awesome, check this one out too:

Pretty nice - it's rare to get all these stuff these days... This one is easily one of my favourite medleys. Well, at least for now, until I get to see more better ones. Somehow, some of the junk today's media generates aren't half as good as such stuff. Or am I being pessimistic about today's pop stars or it's just my taste?

Last day in BT

2011-04-01T23:55:00.000+08:00

Well, I've been out there working, and being a busy man. Or busy kid, whichever you like.

Or at least I tried. Lately there wasn't that much stuff for us to do in office anymore, and being around there for some time, I've seen people come and go. Different and interesting people as well, and there most definitely are some weird out-of-the-norm stuff happening out there as well - wow, they sure help make our days interesting, and sometimes even funny as well.

Met a lot of people as well - this blog entry wouldn't be here if the my work experience out there at BT wasn't good. All those work-rushing with people like Marcus and Olivia, all the slack times we had with people like Iris, Estee and many others, with them it's much easier to forget the stress that comes with the heavy workload (which isn't very heavy to begin with...).

Where we used to be really busy doing a lot of computer stuff in the beginning, we gradually ended up surfing the Net on Rob's wireless dongle for some well-deserved entertainment to keep our morale up during the tough assignments, and I'd say it was a pretty good work-play balance even within the Spirit room - which was one of the warmest meeting rooms (and coincidentally, our work quarters). People came and went at the same time.

Well I must say, working at BT has taught me a helluva lot of things that books wouldn't teach me - that there are tough days and there are slack days as well. Always clouds with silver linings. Telecommunications systems - I could never figure out what all the stuff means until I had first-hand experience doing some of the things involving them. Telephone numbers? Access to stuff? First hand experience. And best of all - we get paid for doing such stuff - and the time was more productive when spent down there rather than staying at home and doing nothing...

It's been a while since I've left these guys (almost a week, I think), but somehow there's this feeling that wants me to go back there and work again. Probably it's because I feel I've achieved something and am recognised for it. Well, if my going back there can help the company achieve something more positive, then why not? Alas, but there isn't enough time for me right now before National Service, and too long a time to wait till I get a university degree to land myself a proper full-time job down there. Oh well, good things sometimes can be rare and so near, yet so far...

Blogging on state-of-the-art technology pretty cool!

2011-02-18T22:20:00.000+08:00

Well, I'm experimenting how to use the iPad to write this blog post. As to how I got this gadget, it's borrowed stuff, courtesy of Uncle Steven, who got it through a lucky draw. Lucky fella he is, being able to get such a cool gadget after the previous two winners for this prize left the lucky draw early before the top prize was announced...

The touchscreen function is really cool here man, just that I'm not used to the typing because of the fact that it doesn't have the feel of an actual keyboard, and you know it's hard to adapt to such marvel technology when we've been using the good old button keyboard for many years already... Talk about being Neanderthals in the 21st Century.

As for work life in office, things have never been better. We've been paid to do work, now we're now paid to do nothing. So, the PSP has never been more welcome in my life now than it ever did in the past!

Also, things have gotten more interesting, with a lot of talk going on in office about gossip and stuff, the way of life in the office and corporate world from the seniors, and I suppose, what the hell would we stay in the office with no work for, if not for the funny tidbits we experience everyday?

Corporate life is always "nice and interesting."

2011-02-02T00:05:00.000+08:00

Well, after about three weeks into the corporate lifestyle, I dare say that I'm putting on a lot of weight. Or at least, I appear to be. For one, there's hardly any more exercise, and I'm not practicising enough self-discipline to go for a jog these days since the college days... But that's not really the point, is it? Sooner or later I'll get myself up and running, for there's tough training that awaits ahead after I head into Pulau Tekong on that day, anyway.

So, there's all sorts of things happening around the office, despite the bore of doing the same thing over and over again all the time. Yeah, as Lia put it, "You are born, taken care of by your parents, educated to get a degree, then when you have it you sit in the office all day long just to look at Excel spreadsheets, spreadsheet by spreadsheet, by spreadsheet, by spreadsheet, by spreadsheet..."
Well, I wouldn't agree with that. More often than not, everyday always brings about new situations to handle all the time. It's been rocky since the day I got here in office - the first day, you start out with corrupt data, and when you're told to redo it. The third day the formula was applied wrongly, redo. By the end of the week it was finally ready.

Phase two. Work to create new data templates to input data in. Sounds cool, but the data needed new formatting, again. Redo. Cool, I haven't even got to start with the data. Wonderful. Then after all of those are done, we proceed on to do more data entry. Almost done with 9 out of 11 countries, cell by cell, spreadsheet by spreadsheet, and Lia was told the work needed to be redone because the goddamned source file wasn't the updated one to begin with. Brilliant eggheads. Hmm.

Along the way, some of the other guys working under the same department were coming in every now and then to discuss about the stuff that was going on in our work. "Well, why don't you just automate the changes to the values?" Brilliant, they wouldn't have had to hire us interns to work on the file otherwise. Very smart question.

So you see, everyday at the office, money talks and bullshit walks. Sometimes, though, funny things happen every now and then. You sometimes would be lucky enough to hear stomachs growling in the middle of your work at about 11am, and by 12 everyone rushes out to have their lunch and overcrowd the food and hawker centres all over the vicinity. I guess it's because of the hard work that even small things that happen around us amuse us sometimes.

Jobs and School - the big difference

2011-01-27T23:04:00.000+08:00

Well, I've been out there, and believe me, the transition from school to work life is definitely something that caught me off-guard.

The work at Shop n Save was definitely an enriching experience, for the most part. Maybe it's just got to do with perspective after all. For one, I got to work side by side with many people of different backgrounds, different personalities, and the like. And working down there, cleaning the shelves and replacing the items according to planograms is hard work. Brutal, if your body is not used to tough labour.

But along the way I saw many different perspectives as well. For one, one of my colleagues there has been working ever since he was 14, and that's pretty impressive, considering that I began my first job only this year. I don't know how I'd manage both work and study at such a young age - I was still playing a fool back then in secondary school.

Of course, there's so many interesting stuff happening everyday, that despite all that physical fatigue, I still drag my feet to the place voluntarily. Partly because of some screwed-up contract terms that should we stop working, we have to compensate a sum of money for every day we don't turn up for work during the two weeks. Pretty nifty way to make people stay for work, though I'd still have turned up even without this outrageous contract term.

And so, the days passed by, and I was already searching for more office jobs every night when I got back home. What should I do after this job? Sit down and rot at home as usual? No, that'd get my brains rusty. Not that I need them that much anymore since after the A Levels, but there's just got to be a better way to invest that time in than just rotting at home, "enjoying life" as many people would call it. Nope, I went on searching, and many times I second-guess myself, "Do I really have to work?" for every job offer that seemed kinda attractive. But deep down inside, I wanted to work.

And God's providence decreed that I get an opportunity call from Derek. "Eh, you want job?" he asked. I answered that call of opportunity immediately, knowing that this temporary job is exactly what it is - temporary and really short-term. At long last, I have the first office job of my life. Two weeks at the supermarket doing slave labour is more than enough to make me appreciate the comforts of corporate jobs like this one I currently am holding now.

To be honest, in this respect I am really grateful to God. A friendly gesture like this being offered to me in this time of self-discovery definitely calls for something to repay back in gratitude. The trouble is, what do I offer my friend in return for this job? And what do I offer back in gratitude for His blessings upon my life?

But things just weren't about to stay like that. Not this way, anyhow. There was more stuff waiting for me the moment I stepped into BT, where I now work in.

First day I got there, the job seemed really daunting. Data entry by the large volumes, dealing with figures, understanding telecommunications concepts, sure got my adrenaline pumping, and I didn't need coffee that day at all. As the days went by, we did have slack days, and hardworking days. But there was a better part of the week that we didn't place much importance in back in the school days...

THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY!

The big difference was that while we used to bring homework home on Fridays to slog through the pile of academic information through the weekend, which accomplishes almost did nothing other than to just bring back some certification that can at least allow us to carve out a living for ourselves, the very same concept of slogging through the weekend became obsolete in work life. Let's get real, man. We ain't paid to work on weekends! And this simply means...

...that we are free to be ourselves during weekends! I can't say I really hate studying, but I really hated the idea of working through the weekends. This most certainly made weekends very precious indeed. What better feeling is that, being able to completely enjoy yourself without being tied down to strangling stress that we get in school and work everyday?

Better still, there is always this subtle sense of accomplishment whenever you finish a job well and ahead of schedule, that sometimes in school we never get to enjoy at all, instead worrying about the grades that we get after completing every exam or lecture test paper. When a job is done, it's done, and we move on with the next.

And it pays!

But then, as with what many people say, there's always job stress and pressure to perform better everyday, especially when you're dealing with multi-million dollar contract deals for a particular service! For one, my senior de facto mentor Lia is always around to pass us work and sometimes, her presence alone is "punishment" enough to make myself maintain concentration while working with so much data all at once. But I suppose that's good - at least it improves our efficiency anyway, and it makes us look good too, in terms of the progress we're making in this current project that we're involved in.

I could go on and on more about the little office tidbits that happen around every so often that makes an seemingly monotonous job sitting in front of a computer keying in stuff so much more enjoyable, but that will have to wait. Stay tuned for the next post!

A cruise, a rest, and a job.

2010-12-29T23:02:00.000+08:00

The GCE A Levels is over, but let's just say that I've got too much time on my hands right now since the 2nd December.

Shortly after the prom night, a couple of outings and all that, I flew off to Mars via a vessel to the Bermuda Triangle.

...Alright, I'm bullshitting. Actually I just went with my family out on a cruise getting stuck in limbo out at sea while the cruise is sailing towards nowhere for two days before returning back to Singapore. Food was good, no doubt, and there was pretty good entertainment down there, from jugglers to riskful acrobat acts, and freezing swimming pool water to comfortably warm jacuzzi pools, and of course, the average Singaporean's favourite - the Mediterranean buffet. How could we miss such good stuff?

Uh. Maybe that one wasn't the best after all - there was supposedly better food out at the Chinese restaurant and the Bella Vista fine diners'. Anally strict rules on footwear at the diners' caught Uncles Steven and Kelvin and I off guard, and we ended up eating at Blue Lagoon, which served coffee-shop fare for extraorbitant prices for dinner on the second day. Tch.

Chocolate party sent us off on a chocolate wastage spree - I thought I was grabbing for the entire table of 9 when I came back to see another 3 plates filled with chocolate mudpies, cheese cakes and more chocolate stuff. It grew quite nauseating after we were downing about an entire plate of chocolate pastries and still having more where those came from. And finally, I'm hearing new upbeat music on this Christmas voyage party onboard the cruise. Nice!

After the trip, I thought I'd get myself a job, and a few days later I got what I wanted. Though it isn't much, and I'm doing shit work for shit pay, the people are quite nice - a good 3 of them were A Level students as well, waiting for results just like me, and the full-time workers weren't the barbarian cargo shifters we were led to believe from all the culture of academic excellence and being out there in a world of good mommy's pampered boy. Screw those - it's the real friggin' world out there, and I like what's going on out there. Finally, something to cut me loose from the chains of having to be obedient to the elders and all that bullshit and start exercising some good common sense - if I stayed in that state any longer I'd be rotting away sooner or later.

Work life is definitely better than that in the house, anyhow. Except for the fact that I am still doing shit work for shit pay when I could be getting better pay and more employee benefits at the current qualification I have right now. Ah well, at least I've got a place to start somewhere... Keeping positivity a priority for now, let's hope it stays that way for now.

This blog was dead, is alive, and will be more alive from now on.

2010-12-07T00:20:00.000+08:00

God, it's been a helluva time since I've been back in this blog. And everything seems so... different. Things have been happening, got myself into some mess every now and then, and for some reason I just seem to crawl outta that heap of junk unscathed. Sometimes.

Well anyways, finally I'm outta the A Level monster that's biting everyone and giving them a big pain in the ass. A brand new lease of life awaits - no more disturbing college mumbo-jumbo, and no more examinations. How good is that? Priceless experience, really.

It's time to give this blog a revamp. It looks old and rusty, people'll think someone threw this blog out there in the rain for several years to rot. Until then, there's so much more things to do, yet just too much time to do them. Yeah, you heard me right. Too much damn time to do some useless but enjoyable stuff that I'd otherwise be unable to enjoy. Finally, I get a taste of true freedom.

Road to A Levels Part IV: The Final Push

2010-09-19T19:19:00.001+08:00

Just went to OCReMix website and downloaded the Humans + Gears: Xenogears album. And boy, is it orgasmic to the ears, man. I think that album really made my day - they really should come up with more of such quality music anytime.

Stuff is really hectic since the beginning of Term 4. The results were rather terrible, and it is just pure luck that I managed to scrape through with 71 points. Even then, that is after the heavy moderation that the school has done just to make our lousy grades look more presentable. My friends had worse fates though, most scored between 40 to 50 points after the moderation. A whopping mad massacre, I reckon.

School is gonna get so hectic, I doubt I'll escape the school system for the next 2 months, at least. Until then, it's going to be all that study-till-you-drop rat race. Oh, and help me change "drop" to "drop dead" - it would probably sound better, I guess. The amount of stress is strangling, if you could even call it stress in the first place. This is pure evil.

Youth Olympics Really Made My Day

2010-09-02T00:00:00.000+08:00

It's always nice to have a bit of hoo-hah in your town, especially when it's the Youth Olympic Games. It's over for quite some time, yet the craze is still out there. For one, I actually managed to get hold of one of them DBS Visa Prepaid Cards, which could potentially spell the doom of much of the not-enough-money woes whenever I could not produce that much cash on the spot to pay for a Pastamania or Pizza Hut meal. And wait, does RuneScape Membership count towards the potential use of such a card too?

And as I looked at the YOG website online store, almost everything was sold out, except the friggin' postage stamps. I guess email technology has rendered such stuff redundant altogether, huh?

Uhhh... Yeah, whatever. Thanks for the reminder to start hitting the books for the 17th time again, smartass. Cut me some slack, will'ya?

Road to A Levels Part III: End of Prelims - 10 weeks to A Levels!

2010-08-26T11:26:00.001+08:00

After the last paper tomorrow, it's the big mad rush all over again. I'm kinda sick of this running after grades, but I know I have to press on. It just doesn't make sense to study for so long and hard to achieve nothing in the end.

But this blog seems to be a little dead, so I thought I'd inject some life into it by creating another 2 pages above, so that anyone who bothers would have a clearer picture of what I say when I refer to certain events in my life. I mean, there's nothing shameful about what's inside, I've come to terms with them.

More new stuff will come soon, so stay tuned. But right now, I've got my Biology to study for.

Of Life and Heroes

2010-08-07T00:34:00.000+08:00

I'm disillusioned about the things going on in life today.

Just look at all the mess in today's world. Terrorism, war, nuclear bombs. Economic disparity between the developing countries and the developed ones. Marriages and divorces, all the vices you can name of - greed, jealousy, lust, pride, and all that. Violence in media and its effects are further exemplified by the James Bulger murder case that happened in the last decade. Chernobyl, 23 years ago.

I don't have to spell most of the things out - you can observe those for yourself if you really tried. Whatever happened to society that these stuff are happening in such unprecedented frequency? It's just crazy.

In the past, people would tell me not to be trusting of the people around you, for the very people whom you trust would betray you. In the past, people would tell me to rely on myself and not on others. People would tell me to do the good, help those in need, and not expect anything in return. But as I move on with life, all these values and the teachings taught by the elders and peers just seem to contradict whatever is going on around the world. Are what the values they have been teaching all for naught?

However, as I learned more, I began to realise how beautiful life can be.

Even within this hysterical pandemonia of morality and unconventional ethics problems faced by the 21st Century citizen today, there's still encouraging stories about how against all these odds of human error, there are numerous heroes who stand out against the norm. Heroes, because they do what most people are afraid or are unable to do. Take Bill Gates - he's a hero in his own right. Tell me, who in their right mind would be willing to donate more than a few billion dollars to the poor and needy? Yet what he does is right, crazy as it might sound.

Take the firefighters and liquidators who sacrificed their lives to stop the radiation leakage into the atmosphere in Chernobyl. They weren't heroes just for fighting a war as we know it - if they didn't do what they did we would have all been suffering worse than what we would have been today. Think of all these poor children afflicted with thyroid cancer, and other birth defects resulting from the radiation leakage of Chernobyl.

Take people who have committed heinous crimes and have turned themselves in voluntarily, without the police or other law-keeping organisations on their heels. They're also heroes in their own right. They had the courage to face their own wrongdoings and accept the punishment due to them, so that their conscience would no longer plague them for the rest of their lives.

It's ironic how in the midst of these human dilemmas there needs to be evil shown before the good side of human nature can surface. Yet even then, inspired by these people, I would choose to be a hero someday. Even with all this mess, I will live on. Life is worth living, even if it hurts you. However disillusioned I may get, I'm telling myself, as long as I see hope in people, I will press on. Even if it means giving your life to something of a good cause...

Road to A Levels Part II

2010-07-24T18:22:00.001+08:00

It's 3 weeks left to the Prelims. Wow, I didn't even know that time went that fast.

The Mid Year Results weren't that good - and the constant pressure is getting into everyone in college. What happened to all the smiling faces? What happened to all the lame jokes? Gone to study.

Well, it's no wonder. 13 weeks to the A Levels. It just makes me shudder just thinking about it. Seriously. It's all or nothing. This morning's message from the school came in the form of a postcard: "Success demands singleness of purpose." And it's personalised - everyone has their own name and different quote for them in their own postcards given out in the morning.

I guess nothing comes free then - there needs to be sacrifice for success to come your way then...

Road to A Level - Part I

2010-07-15T22:56:00.000+08:00

It just doesn't make sense at all. It's been quite a lot of hard work, yet it is still not paying off. And I'm fast losing sleep and confidence that I'll ever hit 90 points at all. Everyday, there's just so much stuff to do, my time is no longer my own. Neither is my own body either.

These days, we keep getting hammered by so much motivational talk from teachers, from the Principal, from even outside speakers that the college has invited to speak with us during CT period. It's starting to make me feel much worse than the message that they're trying to across to us.

Do well in your A Levels! Don't give up! Don't stop! Don't slack! Don't waste anymore time! As if we didn't know this by this time already... The others can waste their time away by making noise during lectures, but the noise certainly didn't come from my class - everyone is so damn uptight about the exams that would ultimately determine which career path we go. Well, that's good news, for one, I guess.

Apparently, some, like me, have started to wake up and start the ball rolling to catch up on what we missed during the past semester, as well as JC1 work. It's tough, it's gruelling, and it certainly is emotionally draining. No more complaining - only frowning faces along the corridor, short tempers and sometimes even silence. Moreover, PE is physically draining - just yesterday we got sent into the gym, and having weak hands, I'm suffering from tricep aches every now and then. So much for all these people cheering when the lightning alarm sounded just before our timed 5km run.

As for all these motivational talk, frankly, I think it's starting to get counterproductive. Imagine the pressure to do well with more than 300 eyes(or pairs of eyes, go figure. It doesn't make a difference anyway.) fixed on your Mid Year, and later, the Prelims, result slip. Too much such motivation probably would get us somewhere, but it's certainly not right now. About high time they used reverse psychology, eh?

I think Mr Anuar's right. We're too pampered by the system.

It's draining on all levels however you look at it. Even with these, I've gotta stay strong for her sake...

I don't want to go 6 feet under. Help!

2010-07-02T22:39:00.000+08:00

Okay, so the results have shown some statistics - we certainly aren't doing as well as expected, and it's worrying the teachers. C'mon let's face it - how good would the Mid-Year results get with that little time? And there's even less of it now...

It's hard to maintain concentration in class, especially since the school mood is getting more and more hostile as the A levels start to get nearer and nearer. First, Prelims, and the verdict that if we continue at the current pace, about only 30% would make it to the local universities. It used to be suffocating, now it's grabbing us in the neck.

Quite honestly, I don't quite seem to get any more motivation outta what I'm doing anymore. And there's no time to seek it at all, so to put it simply, I could very well fail the A levels. Unless there's something that can spur me on... Usually I'd be the one that's encouraging people around me, but let's bite the bullet of reality - who actually gives a shit about you when you yourself are down and out?

However, deep down inside, I know I can't get myself to fail myself during this time. But how do I pick myself up psychologically, apart from just working harder like a robot without finding any meaning in what I'm doing?

Yearnings for the Wind, Waves and the Sea

2010-05-24T23:27:00.001+08:00

Yeah, that's about the closest thing that's hanging in my mind right now. Friggin' weather.

Isn't it just wonderful, getting hit by another bout of the same flu that just won't go away? And during the examination period, at the worst possible time? About high time Murphy's Law kicked in - never seen such rotten luck of mine in quite a long time already.

I really need a break off all these studying - and the pressure just won't let go! If I study anymore after the Mid Year exams without at least a week of break, I'm gonna crumble anytime soon. Been facing the books for the past few months non-stop - and missing quite a few of the nicest episodes on TV. At least Friday was good for the beginning of as exam weekend - if you could even call it a weekend in the first place.

Looks like it's high time I dragged this sorry ass of mine into Bukit Timah or just lie down at the beach doing nothing and just enjoying the weather... Oh wait, did I just mention the weather? It's bloody hot down here, even the fan's just blowing hot air into my hot insides already. Hmm, how about hot dogs for breakfast then? With this kind of weather you don't even need an oven to bake marshmallows - just throw it on top of the nearest piece of metal and you get black ones.

Maybe I'm just exaggerating, but yeah, that's the heat of the exams and global warming.

Mid Year Exam Fever - chew on nuts!

2010-05-20T22:47:00.000+08:00

Okay... so it's the Mid Year Examinations now. Everyone's slogged their guts out, and that includes the studying that everyone's doing in college everyday. Hmm, it's like a literal slave labour camp - everyone slogs it out down here in college. Sometimes I need that little nudge to get myself going.

And I'm starting to question whether actually studying in school is more conducive. Oh well, let the results prove it. If it works, I'm gonna continue my study in school. Heck, I'll might as well just do most of my studying in school instead - been studying at home during the O levels and look at the sheer disparity between those that study at Starbucks or other places and those who study at home. I'm not gonna make the same mistake again.

And Chemistry is so mind-boggling. It's like, the deeper you dwell into it, the worse it gets. In fact, I've just snored my way through earlier today from 3pm to 8pm - a whopping 5 hours of sleep time. I guess you could call it self-indulgence, but these days I haven't been able to sleep well - what's with the stupid goat that appears next to my bedside during these few nights of dreams? Been having this dream occasionally - the first 2 times being close to the previous Common Tests, and another 3 times during this Mid Years. Seriously, I think I'm going bonkers anytime soon from all this studying...

Especially since it's so friggin' critical to what would decide my future career path. Madness. And I keep getting this feeling that I never study enough of my chapters, even though I spend like, hours and days and weeks on the same topic that just never gets into my head. Aaahh. If only the A level questions aren't so unpredictable...

A passion withheld

2010-04-30T16:53:00.000+08:00

It's been a long time since my last post. And it's tough, no doubt. I can't even begin to describe how tough things are going.

For one, studying has taken quite a toll on my body - I had to take a MC today to get away from that stress in school. And it's a bad and undesirable way - it accompanies flu-like symptoms, incessant sneezing and many other things that impede you from concentrating on what you're supposed to study. It sucks.

That being said, it's CIP tomorrow, and it's Labour Day. Yeah, literally labour day, and I can't afford to stay sick until tomorrow - there's the entire ensemble there, and probably the last time we get to do things together as an ensemble anymore. Really looking forward to watching Iron Man 2 with those folks, and hopefully I can get away with chewing popcorn without falling even more sick than what I am right now.

Maybe I should focus more on the positive side of things - I've been finding myself grumbling over the little negativities of school life so often, it's starting to becone jarring inside my head. ARGH, and there's where probably that nasty unwarranted flu bug came from.

And I can't keep up with Ionic Equilibria. Nuts - if only we were paid $10 an hour to subject our brain to pKa calculation abuse - it's driving me nuts.

Work aside, it's the fact that we're mostly scoring As for PW. Great - that effort finally paid off. No more burning midnight oil for so long anymore - w00tz! Alright, time to study for Econs...

Upward Pressure in a Steam Cooker

2010-04-10T00:15:00.001+08:00

If you're talking about guitar playing, yeah I'll agree. But clearing homework clearly isn't.

Source: http://www.mistfall.com/bbs/freetime.jpg

The Guitar Ensemble competition is round the corner, and it's really tough grit this time round.

I mean, there's just so much to do - catching up on JC1 work and trying to catch what the lectures on the new topics are about. And missing lectures is not a good thing at all, to say the least. Especially for Maths, which falls on the same day as our competition - good April 17th. I really hope that all these effort does get us somewhere on par with some of the better JC Guitar Ensembles. After all, we sacrificed our own study and leisure time to perfect on the three pieces we're gonna play during the competition.

Moreover, with that big a Guitar Ensemble now (it is currently the biggest CCA group in SRJC), it gets all the more tougher to choose the next batch of Executive Committee (Exco) members. Sigh, shouldn't have been so happy about having a big group after all - there comes the usual bureaucratic standard operating procedures (SOP) and many complaints. It sure isn't easy running a organisation of such magnitude.

And my school work is getting a bit out of hand - I do a lot on one, and miss out a lot on the other. And for this week, I've been sleeping at nuts-timing - 2-3am sleeptimes aren't that uncommon anymore, and heavy eyelids are the norm. No wonder people can't really think that well in JC, with all that sleep deprivation!

Just the other day, the vice principal's address was pretty uncomfortable just hearing of it. I mean, yeah, who in the world doesn't know that keeping life in school simple is key to doing well in the A level Exams? Yet there's still so much mumbo-jumbo which we can't just simply throw out of the window. Take this coming competition, for instance. It's the critical period of our JC2 lectures, and here we are, being plucked outta our study schedules to feed some competitive energy drain.

Well, I can't really say anything bad about this competition we're gonna participate in. I mean, we've got all that nice looking ties, entirely cool black apparel, even guitar playing and team bonding. It gives us pressure to catch up with school work as well to keep up with some of the best scorers in our classes, and sometimes other classes. And what about that nice SGC that's gonna pop up after the competition?

All I can hope for right now, is for this tough period to be over soon - and surviving it through - so that all of us can focus entirely on our books in time to score those As.

No pain, no gain. Pure grit.

2010-03-31T01:04:00.000+08:00

So, it seems that I've scored rather badly for my Common Tests... That simply means one thing - much less time left to do blogging and keeping you guys entertained from this nice ol' fool's writing. So here's pretty much a summary of my bad report card when it comes back:

General Paper: C
H2 Mathematics: U
H2 Economics: S
H2 Biology: C
H2 Chemistry: C
H1 Chinese(from A level results): A
Project Work: ???

Which reminds me of the common anxiety shared by everyone - when the hell would they release the PW results?

Anyways, we've been told we've only got 7 weeks left to work for the Mid Year Examinations, which can either make or break us. I just hope that I'm physically fit enough to take abuse from midnight study, and not get myself sick or into the Early Bird Programme... I was late for school today, and it was only then that I was told that it was no longer counted by the term, but by the semester. Late for the 4th time this semester, and there'd be great trouble to my study career in college, if you could even call it a "full-time career" in the first place.

Nasty shock this morning. And it REALLY is high time to start on the A level revision on the Year 1 topics. Never seen me bite grit before? This is it. I hope.

Studying or working?

2010-03-14T19:18:00.001+08:00

Just a little while ago, we were done with all the Common Test mumbo-jumbo, and then came the Guitar Camp 2010 proposal as well as the competition uniform problems... A lot of stuff was going on, it almost knocked me senseless.

For one, we were told that we were going to share our barbecue pits with the Shooting club. As is always with such stuff, the fight is still going on over who should get both barbecue pits, since a barbecue to feed more than 80 people would definitely call for a minimum of 2 barbecue pits...

Yeah, at least the chef here agrees with me - good food should come with good music, and good musicians need good food.

Source: http://barbecue-tips.com/tag/bbq/

That aside, after Saturday's trip to VivoCity to settle the uniform problems, I was thinking to myself about the reason why men don't go shopping with women. Probably now, I could better understand why men groan at every single chance of getting home early being eaten into by the prying open every single flaw of the clothing details... Not being sexist, by the way, don't get me wrong - it's just pretty annoying for such situations to occur, that's all.

And again, the work demon within me was roaring out loud since 2 nights before, and we quickly produced the proposal. Hopefully that'll stuff their mouths shut about all the paperwork nonsense, haha!

Work aside, there has to be some time set aside for family time, eh? So we went to Tampines Mall for a random window shopping session. And it was there and then that I took notice of my mom's spending habits.

What surprised me was that she wasn't spending money on clothes and other stuff that's typical of women, but rather, what she was splurging on was all those foodstuffs like Famous Amos biscuits, Japanese rice takeaways and other food.

"Ah-aah, Ma, don't buy that," I shook my head and pressured her. "That ja-jang myeon I had earlier needs time to digest leh!" It was only just 5 minutes ago that I had that shoved into that deep pit of mine...

She bought that box of Japanese rice takeaway anyway. She smiled, "Aiyah nevermind one lah, like I ever get to go out and spend like this everyday."

"But look at how much you're spending on these stuff leh," I jabbed my finger gingerly at the plastic bags she's carrying. "Your son's gonna go into the army soon leh, you wouldn't want him to get enlisted 2 months earlier, would you?"

"Aiyah, this kind of thing nevermind one lah, must spend money on the right things, mah! Like these!" Raising those plastic bags like trophies in triumph, we moved on home after that. So along the way, we were talking about how the furniture shop was, as is the norm to ask her about work and stuff. I haven't been spending much time with her since two weeks before the common tests, so it was high time for mother and son to reconnect, I reckon.

By some random switch of topic or some other thing that led to it, we were soon talking about whether study or work life is better. "If you could choose between work and study, which would you choose?"

"No need to say one lah, study lah!" She then talked about all the work stress and stuff that everyone has to face, just that in her instance, my aunt was her boss so she's having an easier time at work since the boss was family. Funny, why is it that so many people prefer to study than work?

Hm. Food for thought for the week, again. And a fierce holiday week is waiting to pounce on me soon, how's that sound to you?

Sneaking a blog entry in the middle of the night

2010-03-09T23:52:00.000+08:00

It's halfway through the Common Test period, and I'm not supposed to be blogging, but ah well...

Day in, day out. It's the same old thing all the time - you start and end an exam, you ask around to compare answers to questions. And that's pretty much the boring stuff you see before and after an exam. And it'll probably go on and on until the end of time. Or at least, until I start vomitting blood and my guts out on the exam paper instead of the stuff I memorised just the other day.

It's so irritating - whenever you finish studying for something, you have this urge to slack. It's well deserved at times - the trouble is not knowing when. You rush back home to finish up your revision - and suddenly panic about what the hell you've missed out during revision... In any case I'm just hoping that I make it past that stage of learning by the time the Prelims come.

And oh, the GCE A Level results came out recently. I wonder how my secondary school seniors fared in this major exam, but knowing them, they could be high-flyers for all I know. Big birds, them high flyers. Most surprising was that the top student of year 2009 was actually one of us - from SR Guitar Ensemble. And the gay-looking results were unbelievable. How the hell did Jack and Zhen Yong do it?

Ah well, maybe I'll worry about that after this Common Test period, first of all. And perhaps I should be content with my A for Chinese at the moment while waiting for that dreaded Project Work results to be released. Dammit, the sort of effort we pumped into this project rubbish had better be worth it...

Common Test Study Fever

2010-02-26T23:40:00.000+08:00

It's nearing the Common Tests, and it's a big study fever. I mean it.

For one, we were told that we were going to be tested on all the JC1 topics as well as the supplementary lectures' content, as well as having the Paper 3 component compounded into that heap of mess to study for H2 Biology. It's really tough and tough, I'll repeat that. It's tough and tough.

That being said, it was such a waste... I could've hit that Silver if not for the 2.4km run - there practically wasn't any time to jog at all, considering that the Common Test period was so near. And even though I scraped through with an E timing, in SRJC it's considered a Fail and everyone having Bronze or Fail means doing all the 6 stations again in one sitting. Talk about wasting time when everything else goes bad.

Anyways, to the positive side of things. I've been able to concentrate much better with the study groups than I could doing everything alone at home. It's just too overwhelming, but in school when one person knowledge complements the other, we get a full map of ideas to play around with. It's made learning much more fun (with inside jokes included, hah!) and productive. But argh! Homework rears its ugly head, but I must persevere!

Things are looking good, I guess. I just hope that my Econs grade can improve, or stagnate at worst. Just don't let it go down, it's such a waste of effort when it really does happen. So far, my Chemistry is doing good, so I'll probably do something to maintain that. It's really competitive especially when things like that happen as the days start to crawl, and suddenly sprint nearer to the A Level Examinations, duh!

...Seems like it.

2010-02-16T19:34:00.000+08:00

Okay, the post title was so...random.

Well anyways, how's having tests and homework thrown at you in the face before the Chinese New Year sound to you? Terrible timing, I'd say. Still, work has to be done anyway, and it isn't everyday that you get your nice hot Vietnamese instant coffee in front of the computer while you blog and worry about what's coming out for the next Chemistry test...

And if that wasn't dampening enough, half the class got dragged into the SRJC Orientation hoo-hah, so half the class is lagging behind and catching up. Add a Econs test and another half the class got a cautioning talk to drop Econs and focus on 3 H2s instead. Makes sense, depending on your priorities.

As for me, I never believed in changing choices when things go bad. I mean, in the first place I wouldn't have taken 4 H2s if I were intent on dropping one subject later on. That'd be wasting unnecessary time for the past one full year of study. I did something, might as well finish it instead of giving up halfway.

Yeah, you've seen it for yourself. Red Bull doesn't fucking cure mental fatigue... Somebody help!

Source: http://amyking.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/end-of-semester-student-studying-finals-week-grading-essays.jpg

That being said though, time is really tight. I gotta study for the next two tests coming up. Signing off.

SRJC Guitar Ensemble 2010 CCA Recruitment - A controversial blast

2010-02-01T00:37:00.000+08:00

Wow, I never imagined that there'd be so many people signing up for Guitar Ensemble this year.

Let's look at past recruitments by our seniors so far - there's like, say, maybe an average of 30-40 people per year, but we've broken past that barrier. We've got 60+ members signing up for Guitar Ensemble - how cool is that?

Perhaps it's the electric guitar goodness that attracted them, or that we're simply too good. I don't know.

Now check this out - Guitar Ensemble has become a niche CCA, I was told. During our discussion someone said it could be a typo error or something that made Guitar niche, so the first thing I thought was: "Okay... even if it was a typo, just remove the "h" outta "niche", duh!" It's still a nice CCA to be in anyway.

Guitar pwnage - SRPowerhouse4Life!

Picture courtesy of http://www.wired.com/

Yeah, probably that was what they had in mind when they signed up for Guitar. And it was no wonder anyway - Jonathan and Mustaqim brought their electric guitars, amplifiers, and all the other neat Megavolt-Rock-Energy mumbo-jumbo that practically rocked the entire college silly, man. The best spot was actually the concourse - but the band members were whacking their drums so hard, the guitar couldn't be heard at all. Onward to action plan B - turn the master volume to the max, and feel the mini-Haiti underneath your feet.

It still wasn't enough to grab the JC1 freshmen's attention. And for God's sake, nobody was actually shouting for people to join Guitar at all - so we took the initiative. "JOIN GUITAR~!" we shouted. Additional tag lines included: "Bring music to your life!" "We rock the house!" "You won't regret it!" etc.

It did the trick - within the first hour or so I was told that already 48 people signed up. More came later, and despite the high appeal for sports CCAs, we managed to exceed our target of 50 people signing up. Marvellous.

Except that probably what they didn't realise that it wasn't all about electric guitar and stuff like that - it's more classical. However, they still gotta start from scratch first before learning all those cool finger-swiping moves on the guitar at lightning speed, isn't it?

Severe lack of sleep

2010-01-28T01:23:00.000+08:00

Shit, it's just crazy. I mean, Economics is good and all that but why 3 hours straight of non-stop Economics tutorials and lecture for every Thursday?

Life here is hectic - you try to catch up with various tutorials, and find that the homework comes faster than you can finish them. It's burning many of my Saturdays away for no good reason... So much for the government's 5-day work week policy, I guess it certainly doesn't apply for school at all...

But then again, that's the price we gotta pay to get where we want to get to, anyway. Were it so simple, you'd hit a university graduate for every piece of spittle you spew outta your mouth upwards into the sky. Sometimes you just need some time-out from studies - even a full 24 hour rest from all school and household work would suffice. Yet we aren't granted that at all - what's happening?

We aren't workaholics, we don't craft research papers or create theories like Newton do. I don't see the point of having severe lack of sleep while studying for tests and exams. Work and sleep have to come together in equal proportions (but some just push for more time sleeping than actually doing homework). Sure, mental flexibility can be trained, but in the long run I don't think that's gonna work while everyone of us is deprived of the basic need to sleep and rest the cognitive mind into thinking better than what we actually are doing.

Beginning of the school term - I used to have a life of my own!

2010-01-19T21:45:00.000+08:00

Finally, the holidays are over, and I'm back to my study self again - only this time, with a twist.

For one, the holiday homework is never-ending, and it snowballs and gets worse as each day goes by. Looks like the pain is starting to kick in. In addition to all that, the tests are coming up next week, even as I write this now.

That aside, looks like I'm starting another caffeine-drinking year again. "Uncle, iced coffee, no sweet syrup!" And yeah, that's among the things I consume in school all the time, without fail. Sugar inside that coffee is good, but it defeats the purpose of coffee - it's supposed to keep you awake, not bring you to a sugar rush and make you sleep again!

As for adapting myself to yet another hectic school year again, maybe I should count myself lucky, having quite nice people for classmates this year. Maybe this year, I should appreciate my class more than what I did for my previous class. That being said, I do miss people like Joey and Mus, since they downgraded their H2 into H1 Economics and got into a different class. Well, to each his own, if it leads to their personal goals...

And speaking of goals, our new Economics tutor was fantastic. At least it's no longer a drag to discuss Economics questions during tutorial, since everyone has at least some background information off-hand to put into essay discussions. A far cry from what was class 1S02 last year...

Homework is piling up, and I've managed to revive most of the "dead skills of studying". Let's just say that everyone has to work hard from now on, myself included. Still, sometimes I don't have that discipline to stay on task and eventually I drift off from work to play. It's tough, but almost every bit of time is squeezed tight from the start of the year.

Sometimes, you've just gotta give yourself some space and time to reflect upon things, like that valuable time during Lao Cai last year. It's never gonna come back again, and trying to get this kind of time is tough because the work sometimes keeps a stranglehold onto your work.

But anyways, I shall try.

My quote for the month:

"If you're gonna achieve something, keep it simple and just do it."

Yeah, random shit. hope it'll make sense at some critical point in time...

~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 10 - Epilogue ~

2010-01-09T00:15:00.008+08:00

The next day came, and it was time to say goodbye to Hanoi, to Vietnam, and all the good times we have been while on this school trip.

I couldn't say a proper goodbye to Khnah, neither do I have anything with me to remember him by, except for that brief but impactful brush across each other's lives that taught me things no textbook can ever teach. So I decided within myself - it's not going to happen to Xny again.

Throughout the journey from the day we landed in Hanoi and stepped into Sapa Town and Ban Ho Village (except for the Mt Fansipan hike), he was there for us - telling us about the history of the place, sometimes even reading out the menu for us, and teaching us of the things that revolve a Vietnamese's life.

It's not going to happen again. So, during the bus ride, I felt a strong inner nudge to do so.

If I can't guarantee I'll ever see Xny again for the rest of my life, at least there'll be a picture of us to remember him - and the entire Lao Cai experience by.

It still happened again, though. By the time we went past the check-in, we were walking into the departure hall. And I didn't know that Xny wasn't going to walk past that place to see us off after check-in. That's two goodbyes I never got to say properly - and will never get to do so again for the rest of my life.

It's kind of funny, though, to say the least. Initially through the trainings, I have been thinking to myself: "Why the hell are you trying to do all these? You have asthma, and God knows when it'll act up. You aren't the sporty kind of person, so what makes you think you can scale a mountain?" And at the end of all that training, the fruits of your labour come so lavishly that you don't want it to end. I mean, seriously.

In fact, it's just psychological warfare that we're up and against, every single day.

Looking at the things we've been doing in Lao Cai, attempting to ease their burden that life throws at them hard in the face, however little or much, I can't help but think of the entire trip from start to end, over and over again. It's like a film replaying itself as and when it wants to, and it's outta your own control. Even little events like having dinner with my family at the coffee shop and looking at the leftovers left at the table next to us can trigger that image. Yes, that image of us "one-day farmers" actually doing the ploughing and working on the land to grow food back at Lao Cai, just to name an example.

Or things like looking at primary school children running around like nobody's business when school ends. I myself have a sister who's in primary school, so I get to see these kids often. They remind me of the kids we taught, played with, and observed and hung around with back in Ban Ho Village School.

These kids' endless and spontaneous loud laughter, where once I saw as annoying when walking past a busy street in the morning, now seemed to be much contagious than it once was to me. Well, I guess things will never be looked on the same way as I did back then before the trip, ever again.

"Breaking barriers, changing mindsets." Yep, I think they achieved their mission well. I mean, look at these negative stuff about myself.

"...without much muscle power, kind of weak in the mind, easily gives up, is shy and easily embarrassed like a sissy, has lots of problems and secrets that he refuses to share with others around him, for fear of being laughed at..." (quoted from Chapter 1)

After this trip, I've begun to throw these away. At least some of what I initially thought of myself as, stated above. It isn't wrong to have all these negative thoughts (there will definitely be some at some point in time), but what's the use of holding onto these stuff, if it does you no good? I remember somewhere along the lines of what Mr Teng has said:

"Look at these villagers, so happy with the simple pleasures in life."

Yeah. I can't say I understand that kind of joy that these people have, but at least I can finally say to myself I'm starting somewhere. In fact, if things were that simple, there wouldn't be a need for the concept of having a utopia, anyway.

However, just take a good, long, hard look at what we see around us in Singapore today. People having family problems, job stress that can sometimes involve high-stake investments as large as million-dollar projects, the risk of getting evicted when you cannot pay your rent to your landlord, the problem of not being able to enrol in some of the top national schools, et cetera. You get the idea - the things get more complicated as the list goes on, ad infinitum.

Just how happy can we get? Probably not very, given that almost everywhere in Singapore it's a rat race for happiness. Rat race to enrol in the top national school so that one can impress the employer with one's resume, for a secure rice bowl (good wages and a secure job) that equates happiness. Rat race to become the nation's number one richest man so that he can buy all the things that can keep him happy. And the messier it gets, the harder it is for one to be happy for the moment, if at all...

Perhaps it's just that key of simplicity that makes us happy. In fact, the simple it is, the harder it is to waste time to find fault at it. Perhaps it is time to just sit down and think about what will actually truly make you happy in life. It's a simple task, and I believe it eventually will end up with a simple answer.

When that simple answer is found, keep it simple.

Yes, simple.

~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 9 - Back to the City ~

2009-12-31T17:16:00.006+08:00

It was Hanoi that we were heading off to. We were finally heading back to the city where we would no longer be as travellers but tourists. The relaxing days were over at Ban Ho - now the pressure came with keeping together as a group in a crowded city in a foreign land.

By then I've grown tired of all the hustle and bustle of city life, and my heart was still in Ban Ho Village. I didn't want to sleep, because I was leaving the place I fell in love with, the moment when I jumped into the hot spring just days ago. In the end, I fell asleep for the next 3 hours before someone kicked up a big morning ruckus for us to pack up and go immediately.

I felt like a zombie right after taking all the luggage and without coffee - damn, the coffee they served on board was nice! - so I was quite unreceptive to what was happening around me. Next thing I knew I was on board the coach already, and getting out to the marketplace to have a look at what the Vietnamese have for sale each day.

They had fish, meat, lots of vegetables - that's their produce anyways - and oh! They have durian too. I didn't expect them to have durians around this part of the world! It's a shame I didn't manage to take any pictures of what went on from here onwards, so, just make do with my text, I guess...

Well, anyways. Later on we went to a Phở restaurant for breakfast. Quite nice for a morning meal, but certainly not really doing anything to my stomach except fill it just that tiny bit. But anyways, that day I didn't really want to eat, so one bowl was enough.

Later on, we were dispatched to the city commercial centre, so we could get whatever we wanted home. As I was told not to get anything back home, I just hung around with Ms Ng and Mr Lim with Jiaxian around, us 4 in a group. Nothing else better to do anyway.

And so, we shopped around, trying to find the Adidas shop. After some walking and hunting around for sights, it seemed like there wasn't anything different from the rest of the cities around the world, somewhat not even different from Singapore. It got boring until at last, we found some shops that truly had Vietnamese flavour.

Yep, I'm talking about the dried fruit and spice shop. The only thing that made me want to get out of that shop quickly was the heat inside the shop as compared to the cold air outside. In fact, it was different in Singapore - we would rush into shops because of the heat of the outside.

Although I didn't get anything at Hanoi, I did get a taste of local Phở with orange chilli sauce. Guys, don't even try the chicken one - the beef one tastes better when eaten in a roadside stall. And oh, they serve honey-coated doughballs that sometimes can take a toll on teeth... I got a tired jaw after biting off several pieces off the pack Ms Ng shared with us.

After that nice meal of Phở, we needed something to wash it down with, so again, Ms Ng was so nice to treat me to what I had originally intended to pay with my own pocket money - carrot juice. No, I should call it carrot milkshake - their local carrot drink consisted of 2 fresh big carrots ground into pulp, and they add in sweetened condensed milk, fresh milk and coconut milk. It's creamy, and wow, it's only US$1 for both her coffee and my drink. Marvellous.

Someday I might just reproduce this recipe in Singapore, but probably it might cost a bit, due to things like milk all coming in cans and paper cartons, and the like. Still, they way they made it in quite good quality taste as well, considering it's just a roadside stall...

It's almost as if the Vietnamese food's telling us straight in the face: "Eat this!" to tell us of their perseverance and optimism to live day by day, being a united and forward-looking people.

We were done for the day. Time to finish the presentation once and for all.

After being done and over with it, we settled for the last dinner we'd ever have in Vietnam, and a helluva good place it is, too. It's some grand restaurant, but wait - where's the other customers? Seems like nobody actually went there that night, except for us. So, as usual, we ate our fill, but this time there was a much bigger spread than all our previous dinners. Wow.

Even then, we weren't spared from post-midnight torture after dinner either. A tough and long debrief soon ensued and I assure you, I was damned tired after all that. Some people from the previous batch actually drank and smoked inside the hotel on the last night after a quick debrief that ended much earlier got us sabotaged. In the end, it got so late that Jeremy and I thought it was pretty silly to go back to sleep, since it was already almost 2am and we were to get ready at 6am the next day.

And it was then that home-brought hazelnut coffee powder came into good use. I was just about to finish my first cup when out of the blue, the door flew open and a few others flew in as well. Turned out that there was a ghost sighting in Yao Yang's room, or something close to that. In the end the frightened folks turned the room into a refugee camp - though I didn't mind either. I was alone in that room drinking coffee anyway.

So, it turned out that that nice bed wasn't there for me after all. I stayed vigil for the night before being knocked out by pure fatigue for 2 and a half hours into the next day.

~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 8 - Time Waits for No Man ~

2009-12-24T22:15:00.021+08:00

After a brief stay, it was time to leave.

How weird - we've only been there for a mere stay of 5 days in Ban Ho Village, but the mere thought of leaving that kind of serenity for city life, where we belong, is just plain profound. For once, I truly felt the kind of bitterness when people leave a certain place where the best memories took place. It's like being torn apart in two - Singapore or Vietnam?

If I had a choice, I'd go back there. However, we didn't have a choice back then. We had to leave under Mr Teng's orders, since it was after all, a school trip.

Before we went off to Lao Cai city, we went to help out at the terraced fields. Same thing - plough the land thoroughly before leaving the place. It was much easier now, because the soil is wet. At the same time, the load was heavier because for one, the soil now comes out in chunks with the hoe, and is heavier. Moreover, since our group was assigned an easy plot of land the day before, we were working on the biggest plot that day.

Gym class is important, and so was the entire training process we had back in Singapore. This time, we were made to put in whatever we had. Soon everyone was muddy and dirty, so there wasn't much of a difference anyway - mud wars started out. Hard work, but everyone did have fun whilst getting the job done.

That was the last I saw of the peaceful days in Ban Ho Village, where time stood still...

Soon after the cleaning up, we had to leave that place. I wouldn't say much about the leaving - it rakes up much mixed emotions.

Before we left after lunch, I handed Khnah my green origami plane that all of us were supposed to prepare to give to our tour guides.

"Here, Khnah. Thanks for all the things you've helped us with during our stay here."

"Oh! Thank you very much!" he replied, as he looked a bit... skeptical about the shape of the plane. I folded it the Japanese way, without a tip.

"When I get to medical school, I'll return. I promise."

With that, and all the thank-you notes written down, as well as the appreciation that we showed to the villagers, we set off on our way back to Hanoi. Before that, we went to a minority Dao village.

Setting off to walk the remaining path that big vehicles like buses cannot go through.

Last trek of the entire trip to Vietnam. I like that. And it was here that I took the most pictures with ease and travelling light.

"One shot, one kill." Nice timing, I got a water buffalo looking right at me when I shot this picture.

Crossing the bridge of two completely different lifes - that of the citizen and villager.

This river flow represents the harsh realities of life - one minute your life flows smoothly, and the next moment you crash into endless rocks.

One of the minority Dao villagers' houses, with tourists and travellers like us crossing by.

The houses are old. And I mean, really old. After the brief introduction to the Dao households, we were told that these houses could get as old as 300 years old, passing on from one generation to the next. And, the houses have 3 fireplaces - one for cooking food, the other for cooking animal feed, and the last one for warming purposes. Very nice.

Although the trip was brief, we got to see quite a few things that seemed to invoke a somewhat reflective part of my mind along the way. Just look at the below pictures.

Hmm... We have the luxury of not doing this.

Wow, even tyres can give kids so much fun.

Funny, even as I write this, I can remember vividly what actually happened over there as though it were yesterday. And as we walked on, we saw many more sights of our brief stay at the Dao village area. Priceless sightseeing for a school trip, I'd say.

I mean, just look at this. It's just a bamboo stick cut lengthwise in half, used to transport water.

Wobbly bridge, anyone dare to cross this?

Kids playing on a rocky patch of land.

Well, I'd say it's quite a quiet ending to our trip to Lao Cai, even as we came and went.

Later on, we went into Sapa Town to get our goodies - aka souvenirs. They sell things like lighters, some even bigger than a typical cigarette, and lots of brocades and the like. Man, they even have 4-foot long pipes for tobacco. Cool stuff.

After a while of shopping, unfortunately, I found little things worthwhile buying, and oh. Those kids will try all ways and means to get you to buy their stuff. Irritating, when they start overdoing it despite you telling them you don't want their goods. Well, anyways, can't blame either. It's quite hard for children to make a living out there, especially since they are still at schooling age...

We then set off for Lao Cai Station. Ugh. Pumpkin soup tasted nice when I tasted it for the first time in Ban Ho Village, but the taste grew more and more disgusting by the day, mainly because we've been eating the same thing for a couple of days in a row. Funny, but nobody ever said they find rice, bread or other staple foodstuffs disgusting despite eating it for decades...

Perhaps it's just us.

After that, we set off for our bunks in the train. It's tough penning this down, because everything was in a mess. For example, we were carrying a whole lot more stuff from what we bought for home from Sapa Town, and there was increased specificity about the ticketing - who goes into which bunk, and so on. As for me, I couldn't get out in time to thank Khnah again for seeing us off all the way from Ban Ho to Lao Cai city.

I couldn't thank him enough for what he has done. Bringing us up Mt Fansipan, teaching us the ways of the villager, and even sending us all the way back to Lao Cai train station. It's a real pity I couldn't tell him that before he was gone. Just, poof! Gone.

Even as the train set off, we didn't have time for all that. We still had to prepare for a presentation that we would be presenting to 5 Singaporean entrepreneurs when we got back to Hanoi on the last night.

~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 7 - Overcoming the Self Within ~

2009-12-23T11:47:00.015+08:00

Living the days of a farmer. That was what we did, at least for 2 days.

After the fun fair night, everyone was dead tired by then, so only a couple of us actually went to take a shower. And a bad time at that too... try showering in cold water at, say, less than 10 degrees Centigrade? And some actually showered in it, I don't know. Luckily for me it was blasting cold water at first, then it turned warm. Even then it made little difference - I'm still having that cold I caught down there after the shower.

And if Fansipan was something fresh, so was the interacting with the kids, and actually farming off a given plot of land that belongs to the villagers our group was attached to. Well, it definitely is something that we wouldn't be able to do in Singapore. And oh, those kids were still playing with the balloon sculptures we made last night. Wow, these kids must've really enjoyed it to the full from last night's fair.

We had to cross a bridge to reach the other side of Ban Ho, so here's a view of the left side of the bridge.

Let's start work!

We grabbed our hoes and started working. First, we had to clear and rip off those remainder sweet potato leaves off the ground, before we could start ploughing the land and getting it ready for the farmers' next batch of food. The ploughing is seriously tough - I sure could use some help of a couple of gym classes before doing that again. Blisters formed quite quickly - I suffered one that didn't burst right out, luckily for me.

It still did hurt, somehow. When I showed Khnah my hand, he showed me his - he was pointing to the many other worse blister scars he had previously. Wow, perhaps I shouldn't be complaining anymore...

We carried on hoeing, until the entire plot of land was ploughed. There were a few instances where the land wasn't ploughed deep enough, so we had to do it again and again on the same spot until it was done. Not to mention that there were a couple of rocks that we hit under the ground while ploughing - ouch!

Anyway, it was lucky that we got a small plot of land - the others were working on bigger plots, and some were even told to collect dung from the heap. And that was only the preparatory part. When we got back after working under the sun for an entire morning (which wasn't quite as hot as it would be in Singapore), we could see some sleepy faces already.

See what I mean? Sleepy faces!

It was kinda understandable, I reckon. I mean, everyone slept an average of about only 4-5 hours, considering that people slept as late as 2am and woke up at 7am, some even earlier. Anyways, we had luxury of a 2-hour lunch, since the farmers said the seeds couldn't be sown while the sun is so hot, which might make the plants unable to grow properly.

And that was only 2 hours away from getting your hands dirty for food's sake. Because they didn't have artificial fertiliser like we do, so they do it the old traditional way: using cow dung. It was really damned funny watching the others have a dung competition - who's gonna dig the biggest piece of dung today?

"More shit! We need more shit over here!"

"Phwroar!" goes the load.

We had loads of fun down there, getting ourselves dirty. Good ol' organic vegetables fresh from the farm. I mean, where in Singapore can you get such a good chance to actually be planting vegetables in the backyard? Here, you don't even have a backyard to talk about, let alone planting your own food, as opposed to the villages in Vietnam.

Okay... Using a face mask for such a task is kinda far-fetched... The dung doesn't smell as bad, now that we've been into that serious shit.

Now that's serious shit. Phwroah!

Our finished plot. There aren't enough baby vegetable plants to go around, so we sowed seeds in the remaining plot instead.

After doing all the planting, we were told that the effort of 10 of us for an entire half-day was equivalent to that of 2 local women working for 2 hours. Whoa, simply amazing. I guess skill comes with practice, huh, considering that these people work the same plot of land for much of their lives...

It was tough, but it was fun. Imagine ourselves planting our own food - would you bear to waste your own effort that goes into your own mouth to feed yourselves? Lesson learnt on wasting food: you put their work down the drain - do their profession some justice by finishing your food today.

And oh, dealing with buffalo shit has never been so fun before.

That being said though, the workload wasn't finished. We had to saw the big chunks of firewood and chop them up. Feng the Woodcutter seems to be very proficient at it - after a couple of successful chops with the axe he was running it like a machine. Give him the wood and it gets split in no time. Ah, the smell of bamboo wood is getting more and more familiar - been smelling it since Mount Fansipan.

Soon after all the chores were done, we went back to the homestay again. This time, it was a different new experience, even though we've walked that same path back to our homestay many times. For we know that the next day, we would be leaving Ban Ho Village right after the ploughing of the terraced fields...

For some reason, I just can't make myself leave. Look at the scenery, the hospitality of the villagers, those kids, the life down there... It's hard to let all these go, but ultimately, we still have to go back to where we belong to. Still, that being said, that sense of attachment to that place of serenity and escape from highly-urban stress is still something I struggle with till today.

~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 6 - Mirrors for Our Own Lives ~

2009-12-20T14:32:00.020+08:00

Time stood still down there. It was all in Ban Ho Village...

After the first night, we had to start with our CIP at the village school. Well, something's gotta start somewhere, right?

I started the day with this photo snap. Beautiful sunrise - would you get it elsewhere?

Một Con Vịt ! Reminder of the song we're gonna include for our school performance, specially and sincerely for the kids only!

The local breakfast fare. Don't waste food, guys - give those farmers their due respect!

Anyways, the breakfast was a simple local meal of sticky glutinous rice with crushed peanuts and some cucumber and tomato. Ah, vegetarian breakfast doesn't seem that unappealing after all, considering that you didn't eat well the day before, eh...

Let's be honest - who'd be seriously eating their fill in any sort of buffet dinner?

Anyways, after the breakfast everyone was gearing up while Mr Lim was talking to me about school, and about my 4-H2 class. Not very streetsmart, as compared to many others, I said. Yeah, I know that isn't very true, but what first came to my mind was that ever since we entered the 4H2 bandwagon, we haven't got a life since...

"Yeah, so that means you've gotta start somewhere right?" he said.
"Yeah, I suppose so."
"Well then, lemme give you one useful advice. You've gotta start learning how to read people like an open book."

I didn't know what that means, but I'm still trying to figure out what he meant by that.

Well, anyways, things went on and we went to Ban Ho Village School for a visit to interact with the local kids. Come to think of it, children can really upset the entire order of how your heart and mind works. In this case, it was for the good, especially after the entire experience with them while at the village school and the fun fair, which I'll be talking about later in this chapter.

How nice, a welcome dance for us. These Vietnamese really know how to treat people well...

When we got into the village, the kids were playing tag, so Yong Qin took the first step. And the rest of the playing activities soon followed - the kids started running into the school and taking whatever they've got for playtime. It was as though they already prepared for our coming - how comforting!

It didn't take long for us to be immersed in that momentary childhood, where everyone of us was enjoying ourselves the way we would be easily labelled as extreme nutcases if we did the same thing in Singapore. Kinda reminds us of that bitter truth that we weren't children anymore once we get back to Singapore - we are now expected to be adults. Society's pressure in Singapore just plain sucks, now that I think of it...

It was as if we, the city kids, were the ones who were really deprived of our childhood, as Singaporeans in a foreign land.

Without a care of the pressures of life.

Award-winning picture, courtesy of Joel Yee of Group 4 (my group!).

Happiest girl of the day - she's holding her own picture!

"Childhood innocence under the bougainvillea tree."

So endearing, these little children... Sad you couldn't bring him back from Vietnam, huh Mirjam?

Haha... well anyways. It's such a joy to be around with them, thus the irony. Last time I heard, Lao Cai was struck by a recent typhoon before we went there, so probably some of these kids are orphans or have lost a loved one to that. Yet they can still be so happy with what they have right now. So shouldn't be we likewise?

Let's go to the classroom now, English class time. It's amazing, these Vietnamese kids.

Never seen such enthusiasm in the classroom. At least, not in Singapore...

...and it's miraculous where all these were taking place in. Check out this chipped-off piece of the school history on the floor.

Look at these kids, they're adorable. Along the way, a couple of us noticed their colouring in the colouring books we gave them. It's stunning - they take so much effort to colour the pictures, and it turns out 10 times better than what we city kids do with our colouring books. It was so nice and fun teaching them English, yet quite ironic at the same time. They were still learning basic English alphabet even though these kids are close to 10 years old already...

Maybe I should be keeping such thoughts for myself. Oh well, shit.

I mean, at that point in time, I just felt I didn't do enough for these kids. Something else has to be done for them instead of just being just there and playing around and teaching the kids English and things like that... But the events that happened later on answered my doubts that were roaming inside my head at that point in time.

And after teaching them, it was the school performance time. We didn't have a defined stage, so we made use of the central clearing of the school. It was perfect for their skit, for Jia Xian was acting as the wolf in The Little Red Riding Hood, and Eugene was the woodcutter. They had a tree at the side which gave both the "wolf" a place to hide, as well as a tree to "gather firewood" at.

Overall, it was a big success - everyone was over the moon. And better was to come.

It was good and all that, but what was that? People living in such conditions, yet we could do so little to help them out, other than what our hands can do at that moment in time. It's that air of heaviness hitting me again. Perhaps I shouldn't be so negative after all, I thought, seeing all those kids having fun.

It's the present that we live in, and there's a reason why the past is called "the past". It's the present that makes the future, right? With that thought in mind, we went back to the village homestay.

After all that, I guess they figured that after a good long hard day on our part out there, they had to treat us well as a trade-off, eh? And they sure as hell did a damned good job at it too - look at these food!

And if this salad wasn't good enough...

...look at this chicken chop with broccoli and mushroom sauce...

...and this. This bloody rich dark chocolate tart easily became the hottest topic for the year among us SRGCE Lao Cai '09 members.

Food aside, we had a helluva good lunch, because what came next was kind of labour-intensive. We went on to give the school building a new coat of paint. repair its windows and doors, as well as entertaining the kids as we went along. Finally, something constructive and not that one-off, one that can at least last the kids some time after we leave that place...

More was to follow. We had a mad rush right after cleaning up from painting the school building, and my group was assigned the first-go. It's tough being operationally ready every time, so right after dinner I skipped the fruits and went straight to bite dirt - set up the projector, play the Tom and Jerry movie on the opaque canvas. It went quite well, much better than we expected.

After the projector was set up, I went on to help the rest of my team with balloon sculpturing. That being said though, they told me to get the balloon pump off a lady who was getting it for a kid to blow up a balloon like how the rest of us did. There was also a male villager who tried blowing up the long balloon meant for sculpturing, with his mouth, laughing as he did so. When I got back the pump, this lady asked me for a long balloon, and so I blew it up with the pump.

Yeah, those villagers would probably be saying "Cool! We don't have this kind of plaything around this parts!" I mean, yeah, that's why we're here for - to bring these kinds of interesting stuff to them and making them happy with them. The lady asked for another one, so I blew another.

By now there was a crowd of children starting to form as they saw the balloon from the distance. I was called back to help out somewhere, so I couldn't tie the long balloon properly. "I'm sorry, I gotta rush off somewhere..."

"It's ok, no need to tie. Here, take the pump back."

I looked back at the children. "Ah, it's nothing much actually. Why don't I finish this one first before going there then. Here look - your kid's wanting it so badly." I did up the balloon and finished it. "Would you like me to make a dog out of it?"

"Oh, thank you, thank you. Ok, ok." She meant it wasn't necessary - the kid already was playing around with it before I could do anything. Sigh, just seeing these kids...

I couldn't resist putting in my all for these kids, and I hope I could do so everyday. I'm dead serious about this - I'm drawing my strength to push on for medical school from these people who need help from us.

Anyways, back to the chain of events. Despite slight technical errors in the controls, the kids that night were simply so adorable, you couldn't resist that smile on your face when they started watching the cartoon movie screening and were yearning for more. That one hour sure made that difference in their lives, I hope.

Besides the movie screening, many of us were also involved in the balloon sculpturing - too many, I figured. Before the movie screening, we blew a couple of balloons for the kids to play with. And there was a large crowd trying to snatch a balloon off me before I was even done with tying the balloon. My group members probably would've known this by now - I suck at tying balloons up.

And so, this particular blue balloon deflated, and there was this little cute girl who picked it up and ran with it. When I ran after her to get back the balloon to inflate it again, she held it on for dear life. She started to cry as though her life depended on it. Somehow, I knew within myself I had to relent. After I let go, she was running around, so happy with her little new piece of rubber.

It struck me thinking. And it wasn't anything about the fair itself. I spaced out, really.

When I got back I looked at my watch. 8pm!? And nobody was cooking anything when it 8pm!? What the hell?

Oh, oh, oh! Those guys finally came setting up all that gas stove and pot, minutes later. Finally time to get cracking. Feng started cooking and serving the noodles, when halfway Mr Tan volunteered to do the serving while Feng, Mirjam and I set up a human chain behind our stall. Feng provided the bowls and held them ready for Mr Tan to put them in, while I held the light and brought the serving to Mirjam for seasoning before giving them the noodles.

It was a blast. People just came like river flow - they never stop coming! Soon it was getting tough trying to keep the orders coming smoothly without them having to wait too long for the noodles. The workload became so heavy that I had to get Mr Lim to take over while I was told to dismantle and pack the movie screening equipment.

Something that just came to mind. The noodles were instant noodles. Noodles that easily go soggy after an additional 10 minutes of cooking in boiling water, and it was left inside the pot continuously boiling for more than 30 minutes. Just how terribly soggy (and now becoming disgusting to the taste, for us city folks) did those noodles get? And these children kept coming like nobody's business. Some even cut the queue and grabbed the noodles without the seasoning. Just plain bland noodles that fragment so much, you'd have trouble even eating them with a spoon.

In the end, we couldn't handle such a large order, we cooked 75 packets and gave the remainding 5 away.

And that wasn't all. To be honest, I think my team's items rock. First, the movie screening, next was the high demand for instant noodles. And the last item on the list was the balloon sculpturing. I suppose without doing any of these I couldn't even imagine myself reflecting so much about ourselves right there, right then. I suppose those other guys wouldn't, too, without this sort of service learning experience.

During the debrief after the entire fun fair, we were told that the village chief was drinking 5-6 cups of Milo, and he was wanting for more! It was an instant hit among the villagers, and it's likely they'd be welcoming more of such activities from us in the future.

However, many of us had our hands tied to the things of the fair, so there's hardly any pictures of the fair in my digital photo album... What a shame! I wish I could put them up here, so... Any picture contributions to this chapter, anyone?

~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 5: Welcoming Committee ~

2009-12-19T09:37:00.009+08:00

Here came the much awaited third day of our trek - the final push. The morning wasn't as cold compared to the day before, so everyone had a little bit more energy to finish the climb. It was cool, it was fun camping out there in overall, and nobody really had much to complain about.

Except that my food supply was running out. I'm down to my last pack of Tiger biscuits and Campbell soup. Ahh, might as well finish them, I thought, as I brought them out while everyone was drinking coffee and tea to get their morning warmth. Campbell soup never tasted that good before - it was the perfect solution for having a growling stomach before breakfast was served.

Finally, the people got smarter - they didn't know there was a campfire the night before.

Don't mess with the bamboo for firewood - I saw firsthand the bamboo bursting and popping against the fire. May burn someone's butt if it flies in a certain direction. Pressure build-up due to water in the bamboo stem boiling under the heat. Something to take note - when you're down and out, with no water, consider bamboo for survival. Just cut the stem and drink the water inside it, even if it means diarrhoea or something more serious than that.

Well anyways, we moved on from there, to where we first began our trek up Mt Fansipan. Towards the end of the journey, there was a flatland campsite, where we could take off our extra layers due to the heat building up along the way as we went down back to Heaven Gate.

Almost there... The clothes are soon turning us into steamed buns already!

Reached the empty campsite. Picture time! And this is where Yao Yang shot his "terrorist" video...

An unforgettable moment. We've been through the worst together - now's the time to commemorate the time we spent up the mountains, having rare moments of reflection time to be honest with each other about what we learned from Mt Fansipan, small things and big things alike. I mean, the moment is there, why not just take a few pictures to commemorate our brotherhood and sisterhood?

Camaraderie that transcends beyond the flow of time itself... *sniff*

Survivor shot! From left to right: Me, Jeremy and Shan Ying

Many thanks to our porters - who carry an average of 25kg of provisions and tents, as well as things like live chickens and dried fruit snacks!

Our camaraderie, again. From left: Khnah, me, Tania, Shan Ying, Jeremy, Joel and Feng

With the end of our trek, we went down to Ban Ho Village while passing by Sapa Town again. It's a beautiful sight from start to end - there's so many opportunities for photos but most of them became blurred due to the rocky movement of the coaches we were in. Guess you couldn't have everything good all at once...

Halfway during the journey, we came across a path that cut across a waterfall, of which our coach was really damned near the edge of the road. The coach was almost falling towards one side, but the sight was so beautiful, I took a gung-ho shot at it. It was the most daring one I ever took in my entire life.

Most daring shot I ever took, as mentioned previously.

After reaching Ban Ho Village homestay, the first pleasant thing that rings in my ear to this day was the question whether we wanted a dip in the hot spring. Let's be honest - where the hell in Singapore can you get a friggin' hot spring? The majority raised hands, so we split in 2 groups, one to go right after the other was done.

Of course, we couldn't expect 100% cleanliness in the hot spring, but at least after the hot spring bath we felt many times fresher. C'mon, man - how couldn't we, after 4 days and 3 nights of powder bath and without a change in clothes in that kind of freezing weather?

After seeing this picture I quickly knew why they told me to get a camera to the hot springs. Beautiful horses, walking along the opposite path to the hot springs.

It was a reward. "Oh my God, I love Vietnam," I said, as I dipped my entire head down the hot spring pool to wash off the soap in my hair.

And I still do. The people, their hospitality, the children's innocence, actions and emotions, really can hit people's hearts really deep. Which I'll come to that in the later chapters of the trip.

In the hot springs, something happening really did happen. Joel was enjoying the goodness of the hot spring in its entirety when he got attacked by the soccer boys who were with us and got stripped stark naked inside the pool. Oh yeah, men of big balls' idea of fun.

Anyways, what they didn't realise was that there were women around the pool observing what was going on, so Mr Anuar went on to scold the entire group - Jia Xian and myself included. "You all seriously need a kick in the balls for this." I totally agree, considering how the villagers value personal privacy.

After that, we went back to the village homestay for our much-awaited campfire dinner. It was a village celebration of sorts, and the campfire brightened up our spirits after that treacherous climb at Mt Fansipan. There was this much-deserved aura of pride over this group achievement going around - I don't know if the rest felt it.

It felt good.

What's there to see? A campfire is only a campfire - the village dance is more interesting.

They sure were so damned welcoming - we had a spread ready for us. Talk about beef, pork, chicken, fish, and even prawns. Oh wait - fish and prawns! How the hell did they get the prawns from around that area, and succulent and juicy ones at that?

And the pork was different too, not the way you'd see it in Singapore - chopped up in bits and pieces, in soup or stir-fried. They roasted that stupid little porker on a charcoal spit, and after it's done, they simply carve the pieces out for us, according to the amount we want. Mmm... Delicious!

And oh, bamboo rice. They came up with a way to put in rice inside bamboo. After seeing how the bamboo leaked water, I figured they cooked the rice using that same water found inside the bamboo stalk. "It's kinda popular around here - so easy to cook! Put the rice inside bamboo and just cook," I was told by one of the villagers around. Haha, when people are put into high-stress situations, they always come up with creative ways to get around things, huh. Nice and enterprising one at that, I have to admit!

It was a night of celebration, no doubt. And oh, the chocolate cake they served was fantastic. After digging out some information on where those food came from, it seemed that the cream they used for the cake was made locally in the village using fresh milk. Explains the richness of the cake despite its small size!

An air of glory accompanies the welcoming committee from the village, that celebrates our achievement much better than how our Singaporean parents would have done so. How marvellous.

~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 4 - Facing Death in Its Face ~

2009-12-18T13:07:00.012+08:00

Mount Fansipan, That's what we've been training for.

Yeah, I know this picture isn't Mt Fansipan, but it'll do for now...

That treacherous monster that we all have to face and overcome. Throughout the training sessions I've always made myself carry more than what is required - 10kg when I was only needed to bring in 5kg, 15kg when they were only carrying 7 to 8kg of stuff for a 24km hike from MacRitchie Reservoir to Bukit Timah Hill. It was tough, it was endurance. It was sweat, it was blood. It was despair, and it was determination.

Now, which dumbass would carry 15kg for a 24km hike? The same guy who needed extra training to make it through the mountains with easy. Even then, it wasn't easy for me down at Mt Fansipan.

Sapa Town, Lao Cai, Vietnam.

Sapa Town, in the distance, with all that countryside view. Beautiful sight.

We made it to Sapa Town via a night train from Hanoi to Lao Cai, and the bunks were nicely done up for us (expected this kind of good service anyway). The only problem with those bunks was that it was too damned crammed for 4 backpacks and luggage bags. Even so, it was fun sleeping in that bunk with 3 others, namely Joel, Feng and Jeremy in the same bunk, one bed each (You think? I'm damned straight, in case you're wondering.).

Anyways, we then had breakfast at Sapa. Tania - keep quiet when reading this! I did cause quite a ruckus in the cafe because I ordered a croissant, which apparently someone told me the wrong information that it was a side order, and a breakfast set. As a result, I had to cancel the previous order because I couldn't manage the food and the others already ordered theirs. Sorry guys!

Mirjam and Mr Chong couldn't join us for the climb. I thought, "What the...? Our leader is out even before going up Mt Fansipan!" Turned out that she had a sore throat and was running a fever at the same time - why didn't anyone ask for medicine? (I had paracetamol and Dequadin lozenges with me, just in case.)

I couldn't get a proper shot of Heaven Gate, the start of our hike up there, so well... Make do with this.

Bloody cold weather, so there!

In any case, we reached Heaven Gate, and we went, 9.5kg on my bag when the rest of them carred about 7-8kg up the mountains. It was heavy because I was carrying rations - Tiger energy biscuits, Lexus crackers, McVities Digestive Biscuits and Campbell soup powder mix. In addition, I still had mosquito coils with me, which didn't prove to be actually practical, given the bloody cold weather.

Fansipan Warriors. From left to right: Joel, Jay, Linus, Feng

Off to conquer Mt Fansipan - the end justifies the means!

Oh yeah, we see them now. And so, we went off for the hike. The first night was bloody freezing - I lost my heat packs inside my sleeping bag for quite a couple of times halfway through my sleep. It got so bad that many of us couldn't really sleep down there - at most you get only 2-3 hours of uninterrupted sleep before the wind starts blowing against the tent and makes you freeze.

The food was nice, and they served hot noodle soup every lunch and breakfast. It's good food, considering that I was expecting only bread and water up the mountain trek, and the weather conditions made noodle soup ideal. Heck, they even have proper rice meals during dinner which added on to my delight - I do eat quite a lot, but in such a situation I ate much less than normally.

The second day came, and we continued up our hike up the Fansipan summit. Halfway through, Ping See wasn't feeling well - we were told later that it was altitude sickness. One casualty. Despite that, we reached the summit, after lots of hard effort and winds blowing right into our faces. Victory for all! And that was when the trouble started. Descent was worst than the ascending part. Fonteyn hurt her old injury, and couldn't proceed on anymore, so the porters carried her down to base camp. Another casualty. I almost became the next casualty - I got myself hammered 2 times on the same knee by the rocks, and it sure was numbing to my right leg.

"Bloody hell, we've reached the friggin' summit, finally!"

I didn't care, I moved on. And we reached the summit. Ah finally, the end justifies the means. All that training just to reach the summit. It was kinda disappointing up there at the summit though - the entire area was cloudy and misty so you couldn't see the bottom. Might as well it remained that way though, since I'm altophobic.

Cheers to everyone - we've achieved what we came here for!

Signs of severe fatigue - push on, Joel!

And the trouble came again. Mrs Tan became our next casualty due to a ankle sprain - and nobody actually spotted! We were too busy trying to follow the rest back to base camp for fear of being left behind. In the end, after all that rat race, only Shan Ying, Jeremy and I was left at the 2200m campsite...

...while the rest had already continued on to the 2100m campsite. What the hell...? There wasn't anyone familiar in sight by the time we reached there. Where the hell was everyone else?

I touched my water bottle, thank God it was there. But where the hell were they? Cell phone - I swiped it outta my pocket. No signal. Checked the surroundings to hear for people. Nobody around, except for some Vietnamese at the camp site, which clearly wasn't ours - there wasn't anyone pitching any tents. How were we gonna get help?

I used my whistle. It got the nearby Vietnamese's attention. We asked for directions, and he pointed towards a road up ahead. But how were we supposed to be sure that was the correct path? Jeremy put his bag down for us to look after, while he followed down that trail to see whether what he said was true. Shan Ying and I stayed behind, in case there were more of us right behind trying to look for us.

A while passed, and I didn't feel safe. I blew it again. This time, more of them came up towards us, and they beckoned us to go forward, which I mistook to be asking us to call Jeremy back there. In the end, we moved together with them as a group.

"Base camp at where?" a female trekker who was with us, asked the two other accompanying trekkers. "About half an hour to 2 hours' walk to base camp." It was getting dark, and the people seemed to resemble like bandits more and more. What if they led us to somewhere off the beaten path and rob us of our belongings?

I continued walking. My bottle dropped off the strap. Clonk! It was a terrifying noise at that point in time - NO WATER! Anything but having no water, for Christ's sake! I didn't drink much water throughout the trip, and here I was facing such a situation. How are we gonna survive this?

I cannot die here. I won't die here. I mustn't die here. There's so many things waiting for me to do - I cannot afford to die there. I cannot afford to die there. I cannot afford to die there.

I kept on walking with the rest. By then fatigue had already caught up with me, and it was turning dark. I had to continue. How are the others gonna explain to our parents if we couldn't make it back there in time, if at all? I have to make it back there.

"Ah, me no like dark, sun is my friend," I heard one of the trekkers say. We had our flashlights, so it became less of a problem. Then I realised why the other trekkers also were rushing together with us - we had our lights, and that was what they needed too. Nice, people who don't know each other sharing lights to go back to their camp - or at least to ours at best. I hope their camp is nearby ours, for they didn't have their lights anymore when we reached base camp.

Most beautiful sight ever. God took me outta Death's face. My time wasn't up, yet.

It turned out that those people weren't bandits after all. Phew. And God took us back to where we were supposed to be in. And better still, some groups split and arrived at the base camp only just 5 minutes before we reached. It was rather good pacing, from 2800m to summit and down to 2100m ASL (above sea level).

Though that taught me several hard lessons as well, pretty self-explanatory:

Don't wait for things to happen. Pre-empt it and think much ahead.
No point arguing over why the situation goes awry - think of how to solve it first.
Teamwork is of utmost importance - especially when it involves death risk.

~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 3 - An Air of Heaviness ~

2009-12-18T10:23:00.006+08:00

We reached Hanoi, Vietnam. From there, we had to take a train ride to Lao Cai, before starting our Fansipan climb. But before all that, we had to visit the Friendship Village there. Along the way there were a lot of things to see, and I witnessed the stark contrast of Vietnam and Singapore.

I mean, just look at this. Building differences, and motorcycles all over.

A couple of pictures here and there, but that would be missing the point of this blog entry, wouldn't it? Here's what I could dig out of the photos I have with me, so this is Friendship Village. This picture below is the best I could take outta that place... Wished I had taken pictures of those kids affected by Agent Orange, then I could've made that difference by waking you guys up to the horrors of war and making you understand the value of peace, by which this place got its name.

Friendship Village. Symbol of peace after the scars of war.

Ah, here it is, one of the rare pictures with people on it.

Kids who would have deserved a better life if not for Agent Orange. Courtesy of Barry Choo, one of our Lao Cai expedition team mates.

Take my word for it. Dioxins are not to be fooled around with it. The kids down there affected by Agent Orange are born with deformities, some become mentally challenged, others become physically disabled. These people live down here, to learn a trade that can help them survive out there in Vietnam on their own. Depending on the seriousness of their condition, some can get out to make a living for themselves after a year at best, sometimes a decade to do so, and sometimes they can simply spend their lives here, doing the same thing over and over again like a robot. Yet they can take joy in what they are doing, so why shouldn't we do so, instead of complaining about bad school grades, school bullying, having trouble understanding school authority, and the like?

Actually, their architecture isn't that bad after all. Funded by several

nations, it seems to be better than the rest of the surrounding buildings.

Joy in their work brings beautiful yields. These flowers are made of crepe paper.

Another beauty of children under God's embrace.

Well, these children shouldn't have been like that in the first place, and honestly, while interacting with the kids, I never felt so helpless in my entire life before. Not knowing Vietnamese is the big barrier which all of us had to break via body language, and I interacted with a Vietnamese boy whom, I was told, was "untalkable", meaning that he can't really articulate his words properly, which I learned later. Hmm, how then do I put my ideas across to this kid then?

It may seem weird, but this entire time, I was thinking about fishing. Patience, just like fishing. I made it through with that thought in my mind, and the kid was finally responding. Yes!

This trip made me realise how there's only so much that one person alone can do. Imagine if you had to take care of all that bunch of kids with this condition. It is not an easy task, and I salute these teachers who have to double up as caretakers. Kudos to you!

The idea of peace, fantastic. Friendship Village - a bittersweet peace that the Vietnamese have. Appreciate it, guys: it's valuable and precious.

~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 2 - Virgin Flight ~

2009-12-18T09:50:00.005+08:00

It didn't take us long enough to reach the airport. It was a morning rush - I forgot my MP3 player that I left to charge the night before, so I thought "Shucks!" No more airplane enjoyment.

We reached the airport, where I kept telling myself, the old me is going to die in Vietnam, and the new me being born within me when I get back to Singapore. It should, it will, and it must show.

To be honest, I was both ready to die both physically and mentally when I sat on the plane. I mean, shit happens all the time. No more problems plagueing me anymore, no more pressure to get into medical school, no more threats of being chased out of the house if I took my water baptism, no more homework, no more negativities of life anymore...

But what the hell, that only happens if I die. There's a whole lot more things to do in life, and I wasn't about to kick my own bucket just like that before I start doing the Lord's work. There's no way anyone's gonna convince me to die just like that willingly, wasting 17 years of my life down the drain by some misadventure or some sort. Everyone has to face all these problems anyway, and the cowardly way to deal with it is to die, commit suicide, end your life, etc. I ain't about to do just that - it's just such a friggin' waste.

Enough about all that morbid thought, I'll come back to that later. There's a whole lot of things left for me to learn about Vietnam. The question of being the tourist or traveller. The question of the meaning of life. The question of which one reigns supreme - the mind or the physical ability?

You get the idea - there's just lots of questions which would have been left unanswered if I didn't go down that trip to Vietnam. I had to answer all these questions myself - or leave myself hanging in the air without a clue why I chose to go to Vietnam, defeating its purpose of self-discovery.

Now, back to the main story. I reached the airport at 7am, mainly because my father still had to rush off to pick up his customers in his Limo2000 taxi, which was perfectly understandable, considering the financial situation of my family. We weren't that well-off, we didn't have iPhones, we didn't have a PlayStation 3 to talk about. At least he had the thought of sending me to the airport, and leaving the rest of the sending off to my mother and my sister, Brenda.

It was my virgin flight - don't laugh! It sure isn't funny to have rest of my peers in the Lao Cai expedition group laugh at not having sat inside an airplane before in my entire life. Try living in poverty, and see why I'm against laughing at this fact.

And I thought this was poverty in Singapore. The trip challenged everything that I thought was going to be my life philosophy from then on.

That aside, I had to leave my beloved mother who has always been the major breadwinner of the family, and my sister who has yet to mature and think of the things around her. I can't die there - I've got a family to protect, a family to teach, and a family to bring pride to. I have to survive that, come what may.

And boy, I treasure family time a lot. At that same, familiar McDonald's at Terminal 2, I told my mom about the stuff that I'd be facing - lots of villager lifestyle, no Internet, not even a call back home at worst. I told both my sister and her to take care while I was away. I made that promise to them - I had to come back, dead or alive.

With them leaving the airport before I went inside the departure hall, undeniably I was quite sad. Other parents sent them all the way into the departure hall, while I was left alone down there. There must be a purpose to this, I thought, as I went in alone anyway.

No, I wasn't alone. I was with my friends, whom I would start calling brothers and sisters after the entire trip with all its experiences through thick and thin.

~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 1 - Boot-Camp ~

2009-12-18T09:19:00.006+08:00

It's kinda weird just typing this - there's an air of suspense, a whole lot of emotions rushing in all at the same time, before, during and after the flight to Lao Cai, Vietnam and back to Singapore.

"You've just gotta have to experience things for yourself before you can begin to appreciate things."
- By my mom, or whoever the hell said that to me within the family...

Trust me, it's true. Lemme attempt to tell you why. This is gonna span the longest blog entry ever in this blog. It's a true story from the eyes of a traveller who's just your average Joe, without much muscle power, kind of weak in the mind, easily gives up, is shy and easily embarrassed like a sissy, has lots of problems and secrets that he refuses to share with others around him, for fear of being laughed at...

Oh wait, that was what I thought of myself earlier on before the trip. I mean, how can anyone like me, having considered all these above mentioned qualities, be fit enough for such a trip? Not to mention that my last asthma attack was when I was nine, though I didn't suffer any more attacks after that...

After months of physical and mental training down at Serangoon Junior College, affectionally known among us as SRJC, we finally made it through the series of events that caught us on a rat race. The Promotional Exams were considered the killer exams - there were quite a couple of us who failed it and had to repeat the next school year. Next came Project Work - nobody was ever fully prepared for what came next. Then, the holiday lecture demon caught us, as well as the re-exams coming at the same time, leaving us with almost no more breath to draw from our so-called "battered bodies". I thought to myself, how on earth did I survive all those before the SR Global Classroom Experience (SRGCE) programme trip to Lao Cai, Vietnam?

Things like being late for school for more than 3 times didn't seem as scary after all. Things like ridicule from friends didn't seem that painful anymore. Homework didn't seem as devastating anymore at that point in time. We continued on with our intense but minimal training for our intended destination, to conquer that "demon of Mount Fansipan, the roof of Indochina." If not now, then when? If we couldn't handle all that urban stress, what more that physical and mental torture that is to come when scaling that monstrous hike up that range of mountains to get to the top?

Finally, the holiday lectures ended, and many other events soon followed. My paternal grandmother suffered a heart attack, mainly due to the paternal uncles' financial matters and uncalled-for stress at her age, with diabetes and high blood pressure plagueing her body that was worn out and weathered over the years. With much worry, I had to take my worries of homework and family matters aside. It's a tough choice - I could've told the teachers I can't go, right at Singapore, but then it wouldn't do justice to whatever I've been doing since the day I set out to do. It's all or nothing.

**This is kinda long, so I'd rather have it split into chapters to make it easier and more interesting. That's how the trip was, for me.

SRGCE - Lao Cai, Vietnam 2009 Countdown: 9 days to flight

2009-11-28T21:19:00.003+08:00

I'm getting really excited over this trip. All that we've done so far in school, those intense steps training, Bukit Timah trips, spending of petty cash on food, balloons and shoes, etc... These was all for this mountain-climbing trip to Mount Fan Si Pan - "the Roof of Indochina", as it is called.

We've ended the last of our Bukit Timah climb trainings. Lagi best. Today's was one of the toughest climbs we've had in Bukit Timah, followed by last week's and the first ever. I'll list them one by one down here - see the difference.

Bukit Timah - First Trip (August 23, 2009)

I've forgotten some stuff about this, since I'm typing it like, since when? Anyways, there were monkeys, the do-not-feed-monkeys signboard, and the virgin climb to Bukit Timah. It was hard, even without a load. Hell, it's a virgin climb, how easy could it get back then? It was tough, mainly because we weren't used to climbing even the stairs. After about, say, 10-odd years of urban comfort, it was the first time hitting the rough edges as well as getting used to the humidity inside the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Time for Mr Lazybones to start working out, and the amount of exercise's been compounding more and more ever since that time.

Perhaps a review wouldn't hurt, since it was blogged down for this very purpose?

Bukit Timah Trek from MacRitchie Reservoir Park on 21st November 2009: Hitting the Roof (a friggin' 24km)

It was much worse than willRun. Worse than the Nike+ Human Race on 24th October 2009. Here's why - we weren't walking on paved concrete, and we had "blister casualties". Not to mention that it was 24km for goodness' sake. Walked all the way, and fatigue got me pwned. Jeremy and Tania got wasted down the trail - we had to borrow an extra eye-patch to patch their torn Achilles' tendon skin area up, mainly because their shoes weren't seasoned yet.

In any case, there was full attendance on that day. Bad part was that I was lugging twice the weight of the others - imagine trekking for a 6.5hour trip of total distance of 24km, with 15kg of load on your shoulders. I wanted to finish the entire trip but Mrs Tan wouldn't have it - she got Feng to carry it for me instead on the return trip. Boy, such a big difference his bag was, compared to mine. At the entire thing, he said it was a tough trip. "How you manage to carry it so far up there ah?" he asked.

"Just carry lor." I replied, as we finished the entire trail.

Bukit Timah - Last trip today!

Definitely not something you'd like to have on your timetable. I mean, seriously. The trip was physically sapping because of the flight of steps you had to take while going to the summit via the Dairy Farm Path. But other than that, the trip was fun, I'll admit. No pain, no gain right?

That being said, let's talk about the climb itself. This time I've learnt to be smarter - less weight to bear. I've decided to treat my back better this time round. How about, say, 10kg this time? Actually, I carried less than that - Shan Ying took a dumbbell off my pack to add on to her load(it was too light before the addition of that dumbbell), so I'm good with 8.5kg. Shiokness on the extreme.

First trip for the day did not look good. Sky was almost spelling a thunderstorm, but it didn't after all - thank God for that! Apart from the fact that two of us were out of action - one was sick and the other was recovering from abrasion wounds to the Achilles' tendon region, well... It was still a memorable experience up there in that blasted hill.

A couple of stuff that came to mind was someone making mooing noises when we started trekking up the Dairy Farm Path back to the hill foot, "killer pee", "bawu sedap", and well, the reward of a nice can of 100 Plus at the end of the first climb. The second one was easier - we didn't have to wind down all the way back to the Dairy Farm Path, unlike Mr Anuar's power-packed group, who came back down at one when everyone else was "picnicking" on ice cream since 12pm.

Lagi best sia.

OctoNov Madness

2009-11-12T23:56:00.002+08:00

Cool name for a blogpost that brings about the message real fast.

It's just darned crazy - but at least we made it this far without losing our sanity. Here's a sum-up of what I've done so far in the entire year:

Got back GCE "O" Level Results much earlier this year, was lamenting when I couldn't get into a good JC(but at least I got into one)
Got into SRJC - Orientation for 2 weeks before school starts - a little holiday mood and school caught up with us. Madness everlasting - and it's still going on today.
PW Insanity Part I: PI - we've rummaged through PI without knowing what the hell was going on.
PW Insanity Part II: WR - took up much of our stamina for the rest of the year.
PW Insanity Part III: EoM - took up much of the last bits of our holiday life.
PW Insanity Part IV: OP - took up much of whatever was left of our sleeping time.
PW Insanity Part V: I&R - took up much of what was left of our patience for PW.
willRun - Ran for charity. It's actually 13km distance for me, not the much bragged-about 16km. Unintended mistake in reporting the distance run, sorry guys!
Nike Human Race - ran 10km, again. This time it didn't get into the SGC because we didn't know any better how to actually go about obtaining the timesheet.
Guitar Exco chosen - I took up the Quartermaster post, the one who does all the slave work. Cool, though - there's still some authority of getting a couple of "peons" to do the slave work while on duty, hehe...
MidYear Exam Insanity - first wave of official examinations was enough to kill a lot of people. What more the Promotional Exams?
Promotional Exam Insanity - second wave of official examinations. How's being slaughtered sound like? Almost half the school got less than 35 ranking points, totally not enough to promote into the next year.
Holiday lessons, holiday lessons, holiday lessons. Again, again and again.
Chinese A Level examination - I hope this doesn't appear in my school timetable next year. It'd better not.
International Biology Olympiad(IBO) - Singapore. Madness, 200 MCQs within 3.5 hours. 1.5 hours for Parts A and B, 1.5 hours for Parts C and D. Half the time I didn't know what the hell was going on, and there were scribbled type all over the paper - they managed to squeeze up to 7 questions on one single sheet of A4 paper, miraculously. Talk about being ridiculous.
SRGCE Lao Cai Physical Training - this one is madness, it includes the imba training we have at Bukit Timah Hill.

Well, this sums up whatever we did this school year. Check this out - more helltime.

Chronophobic bottleneck - I can't breathe!

2009-10-29T00:59:00.003+08:00

Important things are just around the corner. And at a very bad pace too - my Oral Presentation script hasn't been done yet! With however bad(or good) results for the Promotional Examinations, it still isn't a trade-off: there's more stress where those came from...

For one, the class is going to be separated to the ends of the SRJC building for next year. Some may end up together - others may stay in 4H2. A shame, really. after 8 months of being together, we still gotta separate. But enough about this for now - let us move on.

The Promotional Results will be released later on in the day, even as I type this down on my blog. It's an emotional event - some call it the Judgement Day. In other words, the serious day where everyone has got no mood to really sit down and do Oral Presentation. The doctor told us to pack up our feelings after the results release, put it in a "bag" and "throw that bag one side" for now, and leaving the sobbing - or celebration - for personal time at home.

That may be right by reason, but let's be honest - who'd be giving a heck about it once everyone gets their Promotional Results? Possibly a handful would continue - but even then I foresee people being in their bad mood mode. Guess I gotta watch out now...

Bad idea to talk about other colleges having ~45 points for their Promotional Examination criteria at this point in time - there's a large portion of us having less than 35 points - the minimum criteria in SRJC.

Not only that, the Chinese A Level is next Monday. And I haven't really got time to sit down and do my study properly. OP is right there running at our heels, and two Olympiads which I haven't studied for at all. Not to mention I&R two weeks after OP too - but apparently some have already handed in the I&Rs already.

Ok, I guess that's enough updates for a midnight post. Will continue updating often - the only thing optimistic about getting your ass stuck in this situation is that the more time passes, the more time you find yourself free to do more stuff. But how long will this continue? There's not even a breather to talk about.

Madness after Promotional Examinations - it isn't any different!

2009-10-13T00:04:00.007+08:00

After the much dreaded Promotional Examination rites, there's another big list of things to do until the end of the year... And trust me, it's inhumane! How can anyone finish up so many things at one go?

Don't believe me? Look at this list.

Disclaimer: Do not view the bottom list if you have faint of heart, or can suffer from epilaptic seizures at any time while using the computer, or are in any way complaining that your current schedule is very tight, in which case you should look at mine. Period.

1) H1 Chinese A Level Examination (2 Nov 2009)

This stuff is hard to swallow, especially when Chinese isn't my cup of tea. In fact, I'm deciding whether to just give this subject up to some crappy standard and be happy with it, or just go and do all out for this. Wait till you see the below stuff. Just wait and scroll down.

2) Project Work at A Level - Written Report(20th October) and Oral Presentation(6th November, tentative)

This stuff is even harder to swallow, given the weird and often unsatisfactory insanely long hours of work at PW in school. Ah, aah. No such thing as leaving early - whenever there's free time it's chucked into PW and pretty much nothing else other than Chinese. And with absurd planning and negotiations with certain people, we didn't get what we want either. Oh well, just make sure we don't die of mental breakdown due to overexhaustion. Just one month to go!

3) SRGCE Lao Cai, Vietnam Physical Fitness Training & Vietnamese Language Examination

Paid for this, gotta swallow this. No turning back now. Trouble is that the Vietnamese Exam is next week, and let's be honest - I haven't been touching those revision notes at all, not since the Promotional Exams preparation started. Time to hit the books again... or maybe I should start eating those words back again when I start peering down the list.

4) Biology Olympiad(10th November 2009)

Crazy mugging(studying), no different from studying for Promotional Exams, except that the difficulty has stepped up 10 times higher, and the odds are pretty much stacking up higher and higher against me...

5) Chemistry Olympiad

See what I mean? The ODDS are stacking up against me! And for this one, I didn't ask for it - I couldn't finish H2 Chemistry Paper II on the day of the Promo paper itself, and on the exact same day, right after dismissal I was called back with Bani for this Chem Olympiad thingie. Again, intensive mugging again.

6) Nike+ Human Race(24th October!)

"This is the age where your body can take the most abuse and recover quickly," I've heard a certain PE teacher say. Crazy madness - add in the training with only 12 days to prepare for this race. Indeed, a big challenge. willRun isn't gonna help anyway - how long has it been since August the 1st? How long have we been actually training?

7) Guitar Ensemble Christmas Performance 2009(25th December)

Add in irregular hours, I think it's time for 3 hours of sleep time everyday just for such work. Disgusting. Not that I don't want any part of this anyway, but just that if there is a time when I want to put in all my best for this, it's definitely not now. Expect lots of goof-ups during these periods of guitar practice. That being said though, I'll minimise cock-ups.

8) Church Christmas Variety Show Performance(19th December)

As always, why does this have to be the last thing on the list? It's an high-priority item! It's coming from within - I want to serve God. I've done it before, and now I wanna do it again. The only thing that's holding me back from doing all these is ~300 hours of hard work without rest, and another 20 hours of practice for the performance item.

9) SRGCE Lao Cai, Vietnam - Trip to Ban Ho Village and Mount Fan Xi Phan(9 days, 8 nights)

This is what I've signed up for, and it takes up majority of my December time. This year is heavy! There's a lot to prepare, and it seems more and more impossible to get my own private time. One where I can just retreat to the beach, breathing in that cool salty air, with a fishing rod and equipment waiting for a catch. Fat hope, looking at the tough list of hard and fast facts resting on my shoulders.

With all these stuff lying around still waiting to be accomplished, I have only my 4 limbs and a battered body lacking lots of sleep since secondary school. I don't want to end up dying, nor do I want to end up coming back from Vietnam in a box. That's the last thing on my mind. God be willing, I am depending on His strength for all these - there's no way any human can do this without God!

Back on my two feet

2009-10-10T00:33:00.003+08:00

Ah, finally the Promotional Exams is over...

To hell with whether I score or underperform, as long as I stay above that 35 points mark to promote to JC2. It seems like forever down before the examination hall, and when you get there there's no longer that sense of urgency. No sense of importance of examinations anymore... Why is that happening?

Probably I'm getting tired from exam stress. I mean, who wouldn't, after 10 whole years of study and examinations non-stop, year after year? Anyways, I try not to think about Promos as much as possible. After all, worry doesn't make anything better or worse - it just scares you out more than what is needed to motivate you to study hard for something anyway. Fear paralyses, and I ain't gonna get my ass trapped in that self-perpetuating fear, then.

Amidst all that mess

2009-09-19T00:21:00.002+08:00

Studying like nobody's business isn't healthy.

For one, I have a sore back to complain about, but maybe not. And when you have too much caffeine coursing through your body, you go a bit odd. You can't sleep. And with the Promotional Exams starting next week, all the more you cannot sleep. And it's wearing me out. It's real tough.

What to do? At least you get to relax a little, which is probably little. Yes, little. At least it's better than nothing. We were told, just getting 2 As for the Promotional Exams would guarantee a promotion into JC2, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. It's risky. And for GP, marks do fluctuate - and I'm pretty sure it will, this time round. It takes a miracle to score for Promotional Exams, given the fact that there are quite a number of SP students (Year 1 retainees). Hopefully I get through this one.

And oh, if I'm scoring less than a D for Economics for overall results I think it's time for me to drop it. Wouldn't want to take anymore risks at that. I mean, 4 H2s is good, but all the A levels count is 3 H2 subjects and one H1 subject, plus GP, Chinese and PW (compulsory subjects). I need time.

2 more weeks to the Promotional Examinations

2009-09-11T00:39:00.003+08:00

Time is running out. And I'm still blogging. There's good reason for this though - it's called maintenance and keeping your sanity amidst lots of books that drive you nuts in such a hostile environment that puts terrorism to utter shame.

The September holidays were supposed to be a period of rest-and-recover. Whatever happened to all that rest period? All the stuff had to be crammed into the holidays, within view of the critical period where it's a sink-or-swim event that changes lives. Looking forward to the day where I'd no longer require caffeine to keep my engines running in the morning.

Towers of papers. That's what I'd see after 2 years of college. But even then, the towering piles of JC Year 1 notes is bad enough already - now's drill-and-practice. Nevertheless,

Win and live. Lose and die. Rule of life. No change rule.
- Ayla, Chrono Trigger

Maybe applicable to study, but nowhere as morbid as this, I guess.

Back on my feet, revitalised, ready to take on the rest

2009-08-31T20:40:00.003+08:00

I didn't realise how much of a emotional boost returning to my secondary school can get, until I actually did return, hang around with my old chums, and come back, sitting on the bed blogging at this very moment. Sometimes, one has to still return to his roots, familiar people and emotional support from the very people you call family and friends.

There was celebration in college. Hell, there's celebration in every school, so that wasn't very interesting anyway. Except that in that day, you show appreciation for your teachers who build ignorant fools into wise, useful and productive members of society. Hard to come by, those days where you truly sit down and think about the significance of all these days of rememberance for people who contribute to the way you behave and think, and sometimes, that kind of impact that sticks with you for life.

In Chinese, this is how they put it:

一日为师，终生为父。

which simply means "A teacher for a day, a father for life." Amazing and neat.

Neat day for going back to Anglican High as well, to find a certain teacher that sparked off my interest in biology. One whom I saw the qualities of Christ in. However, she wasn't there - though she might still be there next year when I go back there again in the Chinese New Year period, I guess. Met old classmates, brought out some nolstagia here and there (silent nolstagia, of course. They might think I'd be still stuck in the past when I start blabbering all the flurry of old events in front of them...)

And, you settle for the entire day and end it with a meal. How fitting a place to do so too - at Popeye's at Terminal 3. After a good meal, laughs and sharing of different experiences at the same education system, we went back home, some realising their fortune and where they stand.

Possibly it's because of this that I'm now possibly re-motivated to do my best for the Promotional Examinations. I must do well. I was part of those who went to those top JCs at a time - doesn't mean that I can't do as well as them now, even though I'm in one of lower standards than theirs. Disadvantaged, but I'll press on.

And oh, after that bout of disease, I'm back on my feet thanks to God's grace allowing the medicine to course through my body effectively alleviating me of the symptoms. Praise be to God - I don't have to take medicine anymore! Whoohoo!

It sucks being on MC

2009-08-28T17:13:00.002+08:00

And no, it isn't about Economics, in case you're wondering.

It just sucks being under medication and not being able to move around. It's been lingering around for more than a week already, with a runny nose and cough. If I didn't get this treated before next week I wouldn't be able to enjoy Teacher's Day anyway, so here goes nothing.

Maybe I should call it M-inefficiency, following some funny Schumpeter quote. Or maybe stuff a Greenwash Ball into the laundry - that'd do some help watching the stupid ball tumble around for some comic relief. Or maybe just roar and go around cursing and swearing at random people for no rhyme or reason. At least it beats being sick and not being able to do anything when you want to - the cursed medicine knocks you out completely, and doesn't care who it's dealing with, be it government officials, common people or animals.

But at least at home, you don't get someone scolding "Fuck you!" in your face without knowing why the hell he or she did that, and in the process spoiling the rest of the day. Or gloomy faces spelling enmity, and the like.

Bukit Timah Hill trek

2009-08-23T16:37:00.002+08:00

Definitely not my cup of tea, but it'll do. At least it's an escape from urban stress, the way I see it.

The night before, everyone was making noise over why I wasn't sleeping by 12am. Hell, you've got a backload of homework, you wanna tackle them all? I want my sleep, I want my rest, I want SILENCE. Can't even go about my own business without getting disturbed, even for a minute. Project work woes - the references page were terribly done - I had to mark out dead links and do all the grunt work for them. Blame it on speed over accuracy - more haste less speed.

Now after all of this is solved, what now?

The trek-day has come. Usual stuff happens, sending morning greetings to a certain someone, rushing for school in time to catch the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve coach ferrying 30+ greenhorns there, including myself. Ah, finally a day just for chatting, bonding and doing almost anything apart from schoolwork. Whoohoo - a day of escape from all that sink-or-swim crap.

It was being at one with nature. No more smell of liquid paper - just leaves, fresh dew and bird chirps. And an occasional sight of monkeys...? A welcome sight - except that the law says not to feed these little fellas. Earlier, Jeremy was talking about some monkey-butt asshole running away with his spectacles after a monkey troop assault for peanuts in Malaysia. Cool as nuts - probably that's why they don't feed monkeys in Singapore.

The climb was nice and smooth for the first part, and we got to learn a lot of things on the first trip. For one, you had to bend forward while climbing uphill in steep areas to keep your balance, and that you had to keep your hands free all the time for convenience in grabbing stuff in case you slip and fall. Rocks are dangerous - watch out for those with moss. And oh, when climbing the steps do so sidewards if it is too steep to walk normally.

Sadly halfway during the climb my entire day was spoiled by some random phone call about Mission X-trepreneurs - change of topic. Nothing to do with it itself, but the fact that the call was made while going downhill. Did cause some distress halfway down, because it got harder to catch up while talking and holding onto the phone at the same time in a slopy area full of rocks. Got an extra hand? Not me. Lesson learnt - always inform people beforehand whenever you are doing any activity that may turn dangerous in an instant.

Ate lunch, and got lost. How to go back? I had to hunt the bus stop that could bring me back to Tampines. Cool thing I found a direct bus 67 back home, but the drawback was that it took me one and a half hour to reach home. Better that than not reaching home at all, but it screwed up my entire timetable. And there's still tests and the Promotional Exams to catch up before all hell breaks loose on 28th September...

Looks like I'll never get my peace and quiet until the Promos are over... For the first time in my entire life I'm appreciating the times where I don't get put down by others for no rhyme or reason...

Maybe it's time to take my mind off studies for a while.

2009-08-09T13:19:00.004+08:00

Maybe I shouldn't put too much of my attention towards my studies after all.

I mean, yes, I've heard of successful people being hardworking and stuff, but I find that focusing all my energy on it is far too strenuous than what I'm able to take. Let's be honest - how long would you be able to spend sit down there and finish your revision without getting out of the seat? My highest record is only 1 or 2 hours. No more than that.

Also, I thank God for this testimony that I've heard off one of the church sisters whose sister went to take 120 sleeping pills just because she failed one subject. Now THAT's taking studies a little bit too far, but she's still fine, alive and kicking, though I bet she spent a bomb on hospital fees which she could've saved in the first place.

Ah, maybe He's telling me from this incident not to take my studies too far. Balance IS important.

National Day - much awaited holiday amidst desperation

2009-08-08T23:19:00.002+08:00

Finally, it's National Day - which means a long weekend, to rest and recover from all the all-work-and-no-play curriculum time. It's affecting my mood and temper a lot - never before have I used so much vulgar language and aggressive words within such a short period of time.

Maybe I should attend some stress management courses or something to get my mind off all this stuff.

Anyways, that aside, I've got back my new laptop, which means that I'm now more active in project work matters now - and it allows for more mobility at school. Again, I now can enjoy "economies of time management" as and when I like! At this rate, more stuff can be finished within a short period of time, then I'd start having time freed for studying for the Promotional Exams. Of course, that's provided that the Exco responsibilities don't prove too hard to handle along with schoolwork...

Still, where things have to be done, it shall be done. This is Aaron here, signing off.

willRun trial run - first time running 10km in one single event

2009-07-22T23:43:00.003+08:00

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends.
-John 15:13

How very true. It's really a learnable experience, now that I think of it. Even though this isn't the real willRun event - the actual day is 1st August - at least I put myself into the field and tested the waters. It is tough, I'll admit. It is tough, even with regular training.

Wan Teng and Tricia couldn't run, so we had an extra 20km to make up for - and today was the only day available before the actual run to do so. Also, a couple few of us went ahead to challenge themselves - as much as I did. The results were amazing - Dominic ran 17km, Linus ran 19km, Julia ran 15km, and many others ran beyond the 10km milestone! As for me, heheh... Nothing to boast about - I only just managed to touch the 10km milestone before reporting the distance ran to contribute to the additional 20km that our class had to run.

Before the run, I was actually reluctant to run - why make yourself suffer so much, and having the fruits of your run distance go to someone else who cannot? I told myself - is such altruism going to be appreciated anyway? People run and people cheer - when the results are gotten everyone forgets all that trouble taken to run for someone - and you waste your own time for the benefit of someone else.

But then again, if everyone did that - why, there'd be no more real heroes' stories in the papers anymore, such altruists would completely disappear from the face of the earth! "Aiyah heck lah, might as well just go for it..." And there I was, down there in that red track, amongst confusion, feeling contradictory from within, and I was thinking, why on earth did I agree to running 6km? Time didn't side with me - I didn't have enough time to reflect on it before the run began and everyone went berserk running circles around the school.

As I was running, certain thoughts came to mind. As expected, the "Are you crazy?" that came got ignored - I kept running. After a little while - "Why are you doing this?" A personal challenge was what I was preparing myself for. Being able to take on such an arduous task and still manage homework well requires great finesse and skill with time management. Also, it made me think of why others could run so much without stopping beyond 10km.

Past the 6km that I promised to run, I was starting to go out of breath, and dropped 2 rubber bands which I later had to run back to pick them up. It was intense - really. It's really a personal battle down there - either get your own ego defeated by your own slack mentality, or surpass it and run all the way. Come to think of it, so many low income families struggle with their expenses trying to make ends meet, their daily financial burden becomes something close to what we're running today. Now, if they could overcome that and still manage to survive and thrive day by day with a job, why not make their lives easier a bit by running for them? After all, willRun IS for fundraising for charity anyway.

The secret to running this far, I found, is the thought that you're still fresh and ready to run. This, being kept in your head and continually provoking yourself from within, "Is that all that is to your own lousy flesh and meat? Is that all your body is able to take?" Couple that with all the competition along the way - people being overtaken and overtaking each other, and you get a winning formula that makes you run.

On the actual run, I'm going to push myself to run better. I won't have 10km - it's fast becoming child's play when you think of running further than that. Dream big.

I miss my Lord

2009-07-19T15:42:00.002+08:00

The devil must be gloating - the circumstances are all going haywire. Project work takes up so much time, the constant pressure for better grades, even church commitments. And now CCA responsibilities. And another diarrhoea bout, obviously uncalled for, ruined this week's trip to church.

When will all this bullshit end? Homework takes up so much of my time that I hardly get time to go back to the basics of what I'm learning. And school propaganda works like some mental poison - instead of putting the Lord first in my life, homework has become more attention-grabbing than ever. The deadlines are so tight, I hardly have sleep. Lord, have mercy on me!

Signs of academic paranoia

2009-07-16T00:55:00.003+08:00

Wow. talk about sleep. I don't even get more than 4 hours of sleep a day. And I slog with the rest of them folks out there. School curriculum sucks the most down here. There isn't enough time for concentrated study - I never perform with consistent study!

Forget about consistent study - let's talk about something else. I find myself to be MORE IMPULSIVE when the school teaches us to HANDLE IMPULSIVITY. I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing now, other than just to get to university and getting a degree and then a doctorate. I mean, so what if I become a certified doctor? Would that make me any happier than what I am now? Probably yes, but that's not the point.

It's sickening, this entire term. For once in my entire life, I find myself being forced by the school to bite off more homework than I could chew. Force-fed homework, rather. Physical training followed by willRun. Run 5km per session, 1 session on Wednesday, 2 sessions on Friday(total of 15km), and add on to the work schedule. There's more stuff to complain about, but my body isn't obeying my mind - it's feeling sleepy and lethargic...

Back to studying like a psychopath - may be out of action for the rest of the school year

2009-07-09T23:36:00.003+08:00

Finally, after so many things, I'm finally doing what I usually do the most - blogging. This blog seriously needs time to maintain, and with time being eaten up by almost everything school-related, it's hard to maintain. Seriously.

I mean, try squeezing time within 10 weeks with extreme amounts of homework to tackle, content-heavy subjects to study for, the Promotional Exams being 60% of the score of the entire year, a Written Report to be completed by this August, willRun on 1st August, coming back to school on Saturdays, and the constant pressure you get from your own family members. It's totally stifling - how can anyone hope to study well with that kind of stress that is uncalled for - especially when they offer no practical help at all other than nag, nag and nag.

Wh00h00~ Let's see here... "You've been spending the whole day playing computer games."

Oh yeah? Just because I don't open the door doesn't mean I'm not doing my schoolwork inside. Want to lend a hand at my work? If not, SHUT UP and let me do my stuff in peace.

"You've been sleeping too late everyday - how can anyone have enough sleep like that?"

Try helping me finish my work. If not, shut up.

"The results are appalling. Buck up, for Christ's sake!"

Try studying for the paper, and doing the actual paper yourself. Or just shut up for once and let me do my stuff in peace... I'm not asking for anything much - just practical support rather than moral. As if I didn't know my schedule's so friggin' tight... Here I am, trying to buy time to study at home, and people down here have to eat into my midnight hours of study, breaking my chain of thought and nagging nonstop.

I can't breathe normally, just thinking about these stuff. I need a break.

How do I get around? Public transport, by default!

2009-06-20T19:04:00.001+08:00

Assuming that from Point A to Point B lies a distance where walking is way too exhausting, of course I'd take public transport. What the heck, how else do I get around, like, from home to school or to Parkway Parade, Plaza Singapura or to Bedok Jetty?

I am not rich, I don't own a car, neither do I own a motorcycle(though I'm dying for one) nor a bicycle. Blame it on the government down here for raising the age limit for acquiring a driver's licence.

But then again, we should actually blame the reckless young drivers for drink-driving and speed monkeys - they're quite the reason why this is happening around here. Perhaps practice on a little more social responsibility could solve the problem, and perhaps the Land Transport Authority(LTA) would reconsider this ruling.

Basketball Bash

2009-06-18T23:51:00.002+08:00

W00t. It was nice knowing people like Kenny, Yong Cheng and Dominic, especially if you've seen, you've heard, and experienced the intense action at Potong Pasir Community Club.

It was yet another day to worry about homework and not do anything about it due to lack of time of the day, and Yong Cheng, Dominic and I met up with Bani to finish up what was required of our parts of the PW. Earlier, Kenny asked me out for a jog in the evening, but it seemed that basketball seemed more enjoyable and less exhausting than if we took a jog and did so. What the heck, we hung around in school doing Maths for a while before setting off.

When we reached there we didn't have any basketball, so we went to borrow one off some guy who was fiddling around throwing some shots. Boy, that guy's skilled - but tends to goof off a lot. Still, he's good at it and I had trouble dealing with him in the basketball court, trying to block off some of his shots. This one's not so bad - worse was to come.

After Kenny came other players came too. One was in black - an obvious gangster - and one of small size, but pretty quick, and another in red's quite silent but persistent. Oh boy, the small one was really fast - not something one can pull off without regular training. Simply put, it was hard, and I mean HARD, to hinder his shots. Okay, time to get serious - I wasn't sure what was what initially, and it usually takes quite some time to get used to the court, hoop and ball(they changed it later on when the boy left and another came to take his place, and I scored 2 shots).

Pepperoni pizzas and lightning-fast action was a bit unsettling - even more so to someone who skipped lunch today. Psychological warfare, if you could call it one. I'm not about to leave the court having people look upon me as a softie, so the marking was aggressive, I'll admit. We played on, and though we lost, it was a good comeback while the red guy was marking me heavily, because I could easily use that to "disable" him from the court, letting Yong Cheng finish the shot along with Kenny and Dominic.

Nice game. Wished I could carry on, but the distance between Tampines and Potong Pasir didn't seem to agree with the time on the watch, so we went home. Of course, I'm more than willing for another game.

Changing of layout

2009-06-09T22:52:00.002+08:00

Just found the old blog template system too irritating and hard to maintain all the time, so I've decided to stick to the default ones that look way much better in terms of functionality and crap. So, no more fancy stuff on my blog, gah! Still, in return I get a cleaner blog for better maintenance, so I guess it's a good trade-off anyway.

So, as usual, piles of homework are waiting for me to do during the holidays, and with CCA kicking in, my life is no longer mine, in a sense that all available time is gonna be used for studying to make up for the goof-ups(and possibly more) made during the Mid-Year Exams. Just thought I'd post, so that this blog doesn't look so dead.

Things all come at one go - it's hard to breathe.

2009-06-02T22:05:00.002+08:00

Yep, like what the title says, it's hard to breathe.

For one, I got a nasty shock this morning when I was told that the entire class was underperforming. In fact, I wasn't expecting anything less than a A or B for Mathematics. It was indeed a nasty shock - I got an S grade. Simply put, I didn't even get a decent pass for this subject. And it wasn't last minute studying either - I have been starting my practice since like three weeks before, and the results still don't reflect that amount of effort at all. Couple this along with the previous Economics exam cock-up, I guess I'm pretty much screwed for the Mid-Years, and possibly even for the upcoming Promo Exams, if I don't do something about it right here, right now.

In fact, our entire class got bombarded when Mr Lee started talking about him discussing the issue with the other tutors that we are indeed underperforming for our grades. I gotta agree, but given such a tight schedule, being able to get a pass already is in itself a miracle.

That aside, I got selected for the SRGCE(SR Global Classroom Experience) trip to Lao Cai, Vietnam, for a trekking trip at the end of the year. Even though the talk was all nice and all, even the PowerPoint slides, I wasn't concentrating during the talk about this trip much. The only concern was how to get past the problem of not screwing up my academics so that I can go for this trip without any hindrances.

Give us a good lot of homework and PW that's sitting there for us to do work, and we're not going anywhere this entire June holidays. It's estimated that out of 4 weeks of holiday, 3 weeks are going to be taken up for PW and college whatnot. It's suffocating - I intended to dedicate the whole holiday to God but seemingly, Satan has come to take what precious time I have for Him away via all these schoolstuff. In fact, I find that the more I come to go against the devil and drawing closer to God, hell breaks loose in almost everything I do.

Still I won't give up Jesus. That's my promise to Him, and I'm not breaking it. By God's grace, He will honour that, I'm sure of it.

Add the good news of being told that I've been appointed as an Exco member in SR Guitar Ensemble, and I don't even know whether to lament over my underperforming results or to rejoice over the responsibilities given. And how is it that I perform best in stuff that isn't academic at all, but suffer academically all the time? God, what the hell is happening to things around me now?

Chrono Trigger Blog Entry Tribute

2009-05-26T21:26:00.006+08:00

Guys, you really should hear this one out.

Chrono Trigger ~Orchestra Version~ - Yasunori Mitsuda

(PS: If you can't load this one, try this link - it's for Youtube. Go check it out, I'll wait right here until you're done. (^^,))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mQQTQ8Ur2g&feature=PlayList&p=0EF9FF316C188761&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=34

Amazing work. I can't even begin to describe the nolstagia when I hear this main theme piece. I wonder where else in the world would you get a RPG so loved by the people and became an instant classic for more than 13 over years. Trust me - you guys REALLY SHOULD GET A FRIGGIN' COPY OF CHRONO TRIGGER - it has a lot of story behind it that can impact you for life. As for me, I'm gonna get a Nintendo DS just for the sake of Chrono Trigger - and am willing to pay for it. Highly recommended.

For those cheapskates who want a free game, there's another alternative too. Go get a SNES emulator, download a Chrono Trigger SNES ROM and start playing. It's still nice, except that you don't get a helluva extra stuff like animated scenes and the slightly improved gameplay. But then again, you can do without those - it doesn't affect the storyline anyway, which was what made this game stand the test of time anyway...

For a small synopsis, here's a little bit of what's in store for you when you dive into the world of Chrono Trigger:

Grandfather Paradox

What would it be like, to travel back to 400 years before your own time, watching your royal ancestors fight an army of Mystics to save their own kingdom, which would decide the fate of your existence in time to come? Who would save your great-grandmother from kidnap and if she dies, would it mean the end of your existence, cast into the void?

Apocalypse

Ever heard of worst-case scenarios where the whole world ends with a nuclear armageddon? Maybe even more unexpected - a large parasital being emerging from the core of the Earth having embedded within it for ages, across millenia, destroying everything of civilisation on the planet and resulting in extinction of mankind? Right before your eyes when you dwell into the world of 2300 AD in an accidental trip into the future.

Cavemen and Reptites

An age where humans and dinosaurs existed with one another - the struggle for survival of the fittest. Witness the origins of humankind, and the arrival of Lavos to the Earth and the abrupt extinction of a race of demi-human, demi-dinosaur creatures called Reptites...

Kingdom of Zeal
Get zapped into the Dark Ages, where human segregation of the Enlightened and Earthbound Ones happens amidst the largely advanced magical Kingdom of Zeal floating amongst the clouds, clusters of islands once part of the frozen wastes of the land. Get mesmerised by the sheer strength of the nexus of magical energies - but only to discover something sinister behind the scenes...

OK, maybe I should stop spoiling the game by giving any more details beyond this point...

Apart from all that, there's strong back-stories behind the main characters of this game, making it a solid team of 6(or 7) members travelling across time, righting the wrong, and setting things right that could resonate through the ages... Oh, but for the sake of not putting in spoilers, nah. I gotta resist telling you guys about it anymore - just go get the game and explore for yourself.

Even some of the people working behind the scenes for this game has a backstory too, like Yasunori Mitsuda, the main composer for the scores used for this game. You can check it out here - his path to success. Enjoy the music as well as the visuals for the game. As a matter of fact, I do respect his determination to get things done and perserverance. Producing works of such quality and finesse from days of working with a stomach ulcer sure makes a bold statement somewhere along the lines of striving for the best of one's ability - thought it's highly not recommended to skip meals.

So much has been said about this game, so much of the aspects of this game has been loved, to the extent that people have been trying to do remakes of such a game - a few well-known ones are Chrono Trigger Resurrection Project, CT: Crimson Echoes and CT: Prophet's Guile. Unfortunately Square Enix slammed down on them Cease and Desist letters, so you won't be seeing such efforts for quite a while. What a waste.

Mid Year Post Mortem Report

2009-05-23T23:08:00.003+08:00

Finally, after 3 months of mugging and crap, I'm done with PI, the Mid Year Exams, and some nitty-gritty work here and there. So many things have happened during this period of time, I don't know where to begin...

Let's talk about the mid year exams first, since it's the first major thing finished for now...

Basically, I was expecting the examinations to be a lot harder than the normal tests that they were giving us from the start, but it didn't turn out so. That's one incentive to push for the highest grade possible for all the subjects, considering all the studying late into the night since the month of April. Not really bragging, but at least the effort paid off during the class and lecture tests.

However, things were different during this Mid-Years. For one, I completely screwed up my Economics essay question 1b, which means I'm, by default, am likely to fail the entire paper because of one careless mistake of not reading the question carefully. The question said "maximum retail price" which meant government-set price ceiling. And I answered the question as the price floor. How careless can one get? I ain't gonna make the same mistake ever again - it's as humiliating as being a Mas Selamat running away from Singapore without his underpants. As for Chemistry and GP, I did my best - so I'm expecting my results to justify all that studying.

And right after Bio paper, I went to explore Tampines 1("explore", because it's my first time there). And boy, did I get a pleasant surprise - it looked far better than VivoCity. Cruised around the places, and their price tags were, should I say, not as affordable as what I've been expecting. As for the makan places, nah. I didn't bring enough money yesterday, so the standard answer would be "ah-aah." That being said though, the food they sell down here looks so appealing, I swore I'd write a journal entry on such stuff down there should I ever bring enough money for a gourmet trail around Tampines 1.

So now, the studying's over. Awaiting the Promotional Exams - not! It's time to relax for a week. If not, I'm still going to be happy with just one weekend...

Sense of achievement

2009-05-14T13:17:00.003+08:00

Finished up more work in the college study corner. Found it more productive - there's a lot more indirect motivation from the other people around the college study because everyone's practically studying and doing nothing else. Except for a few oddballs like me, blogging in the college study, haha!

The biggest obstacle, I think, is the idea of studying at home. At home, you can sleep as long as you want, and I'd grab the best possible opportunity to sleep rather than do something productive like studying for Biology and Chemistry, and the like. Oh, and there's PW too, so I shall keep this post short.

Simplified - I finished a bit more Chemistry than I thought I'd be able to finish. Biology is boring once you already know what's going on in the lecture notes, and there's like hardly any more extra practice questions. As for Mathematics, I'm not gonna do anything about it today. Maybe tomorrow?

Studying like there's no tomorrow

2009-05-11T11:59:00.003+08:00

I'm getting used to this lifestyle, I hope.

Get up in the wee hours of the morning, and you find an Eiffel Tower of Notes & Homework standing on your table. The next thing you know it, coffee stains appear on your homework that you did last night with much effort. Sometimes Soyjoy's advertising serves as comic relief, in times of such high-stress levels from studying for the Mid Year Exams, that likely will put Mas Selamat's meticulous but futile efforts to escape from re-capture to immediate shame.

Along with a disappearing donation card that is likely to cost me $200, you feel the pain in your wallet. No more eating at Good News Cafe - I'm broke, "Pok Gai*"! Sometimes even I feel a bit ashamed about this, but why is it that I look for the Lord only when I'm down and out on every side of life? Sharing the painful moments with Him, but keeping only the joy of the good ones to myself instead? What is this, a relationship with the true God of the universe that goes only one-sided?

Perhaps it's really high time I've spent time reflecting on this.

*Pok Gai = bankrupt.

Taking a day off from school due to sickening virus

2009-05-04T22:07:00.002+08:00

The title explains it - I've got an official MC. This means terrible news for me.

Missing lectures in JC ain't a good thing, especially when it's your worst subject ever. And when you take your medicine and feel groggy and drugged, it's worse news - you can't do your homework at all! All I did was sleep, sleep and sleep even when I'm fully mentally awake. And check this out - tomorrow's going to be a super-long day, so taking medicine in school means waking up early in the morning when your body's still barely recovering from the side-effects of flu medicine. Trust me, you wouldn't even want to eat anything because of the stupid cough that just won't go away.

As perfectly put as Kenny's catchphrase, "Whalau, madness!" These few weeks were definitely madness. I mean, look at the workload that we have here - stringent PI grilling and editing, grilling and editing. Last week was worse - I stayed back both on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday until as late as 9pm in school, just to make sure that my PI is done properly. You know the stuff - original ideas, strategies on how to solve similar situations happening in Singapore... you get the drill.

As for some friendship matters - it's better left unsaid. If you guys insist on knowing what happened, let's just say that misunderstandings can be fatal, unless resolved early. And of course, it just goes to show that some people can't be trusted to keep secrets...?

My father and I - quite an uncomfortable topic, but...

2009-04-19T15:29:00.002+08:00

Just began to recall a conversation with Wan Teng, Kenny and I on our way out of the school gate. I forgot what we were talking about, but it somehow strayed into me talking about my father. Definitely not a person I'm comfortable talking about...

As we talked, maybe I seemed a lot like a materialistic jerk or something, but the fact that my father doesn't bring money home from work should be able to tell us something - he isn't putting any effort into the family at all. Surely any taxi driver should be able to contribute something to the family, but no. I haven't been receiving pocket money from him since like a couple of months ago. Surviving on just $10 a week is almost impossible nowadays - and apparently he doesn't realise that. Any more money off from him is like asking for a miracle to happen.

Living in an area next to the marketplace isn't simple either. And my neighbour's father is also a taxi driver. However, his son still gets enough to get by - around $20-30 a week, the last time I heard. Life sure is unfair sometimes, so you've gotta grit your teeth through whatever you do...

My own pocket money aside, the last time I heard, my mom only gets $20 a day off from him, and that's just for family expenses. Without my mom having to work, I think we'll starve.

Assuming that he only gets enough from his rounds to pay off the taxi rent due to some "rubbish-ed" reason, he should be changing jobs already, but every once in a while I see him with a new handphone or some other weird gadget, so he should be quite well off. In fact, I did see what he'd pull out - a stack of cash, and he says it's for the taxi rent so we cannot touch it. Nice excuse, torn down hard when I saw him take out money out of the same stack for Mom's allowance.

In fact, I once contemplated taking some out of that stack that appears every now and then just to supplement my allowance, but then that'd be stealing from my own family. I don't want this kind of money. I want legitimate cash. I just want enough to get by in school. Fortunately, my grandparents decided quite some time ago to offer to give me pocket money every now and then, so I can get by, with some extra money for emergencies.

Money aside, I don't even see him much of the time. Only when I go home on Sundays after church service do I see him, and even then it's just for a few hours and he's back to running his rounds. I hardly have time to talk to him. Making matters worse, because my entire family is non-Christian and he being strongly anti-Christian, we hardly ever talk anymore ever since I first attended church.

Not too long ago, he chased out our long-time tenant whose rental made life easier for family expenses while he was still with us. Add all of this on to the fact that my father has a history of owing my grandparents, uncles and aunts a large sum of money used to clear his gambling debts. He's real lucky my mom still stuck to him after all these years. Needless to say I don't like my own father, but what can I do? He's still my father.

I used to hear one of my uncles who's very close to my father say this about him: "This piece of cow dung, you can do without, seriously. The real victim is the rose stuck to it. That's why you're here - to support your mom when you have the ability to."

And so, that's what I'm doing. Or at least, that's what I think I'm going to do.

Mid Year Exam Blues

2009-04-16T21:58:00.002+08:00

"Ah, never a dull moment..." Ms Koh was saying during Econs lecture last Tuesday...

Yeah, right.

How the hell do you stop studying for a while to take a breather before going on for more? Cramming isn't working. Neither is there enough time for a full concentrated revision period before the Mid Year Exams come. Add in Logistics work, a PI report fully annotated with red ink, and a good D in the last Chemistry test ruining a straight A record, and you get low morale. Thus the irony.

...Great. Another piece of homework undone yet. I shall update soon.

Get a life, Aaron!

2009-04-12T00:24:00.002+08:00

It isn't pleasant at all. I wish there was ample time for everything. But things, being things, have to get done anyways, so no point complaining. Or, maybe you can complain as much as you like, provided things get done.

It's all coming at one fell swoop again: Biology Test on Monday, Economics Essay test right on the day after, and on Wednesday I have to go for Logistics training for this coming Friday's Performing Arts Nite, in which Mustaqim and I are going to play Radical Dreamers: Unstolen Jewel for pre-programme entertainment. In other words, care-lair-fare playing that isn't part of the whole item after all...

Ah well... This coming week IS going to be super-stressful, so don't be surprised when you guys see me cursing and swearing in school! Add the cough that just doesn't go away despite heavy doses of medicine, and you get an irate student who wants to already give up hope on this semester's overall academic performance. Of course, couple that with a few personal problems and feelings of confusion over who's what and who's who in my heart, and grr. You'd think it'd be a miracle if just about anyone could've just survived that.

The College Migraine, mixed feelings and tough nuts

2009-04-04T21:11:00.003+08:00

Needless to say, losing hours of sleep to Project Work, homework and tests means that most of us in college are starting to feel its detrimental effects. People in my left, right and centre are all getting ill. First, Juan previously recovered from the flu, then Reymond lost his voice and had frequent nose bleeds due to overblowing his nose. Dominic had a sore throat. Julia had a splitting headache. Add all these together, add in a bit of honey drink and you get a complete cough with flu combo, plus additional phlegm that shouldn't be there in the first place. Add in another 4km run, with 1.6km interval training. If these don't kill me then nothing else will. I guess.

In short, I fell sick.

"Give me homework and I'll do it." Yeah, right. Who am I gonna lie to with this statement? Look at the amount of homework on my plate, and you'd wonder why people call Mount Everest the tallest mountain in the world.

I ain't Superman. I ain't a homework-completing machine. I need a good week's rest. I don't want medicine - I want to stay healthy and alert. I don't want to produce sarcasm without knowing it. I want to joke - I want to entertain my friends. I don't want this amount of stress all at one go. I want to be myself again.

These days I don't really have common topics to share with my classmates - I reckon the stress has hit me too much that I think I don't even know how to relax by relaxing. Somebody help!

Angsts of Agony

2009-03-31T23:35:00.002+08:00

Shit, it's just plain crazy.

The lack of sleep has just been spilled over from last week, and fatigue rears its ugly head. In fact, I'm struggling to just finish this entry, just to maintain it.

For one, Mustaqim, Derek and I were stuck in SRJC-GE Camp '09, which was supposed to be a bonding camp for all of us Guitar members. It did its job well, yes, and we've exchanged our contacts with many others.

No time for juicy details because of school work, so here I have it: yet another sum-up of what has been going on.

I was sabotaged - I got put into the Cool Chikus group(the name sounds goofy) and I was the only boy, again, in the group.
I was used as the guinea pig for the cross-dressing station game - people might think I am a transvestite from Thailand after looking at the photos which were taken and uncalled for.
Mr Koh told us of the LT5 ghost and the mysterious lights in the 4th floor, A-block of the college. Now that's what I call nice juicy details.
Went to bed at 3-plus am. The "bed" wasn't a bed after all - I slept on the tables, then the chair and on the floor, due to extreme discomfort and lack of space leading me to shift around the classroom "bunk"
Planned for entertainment item in the afternoon.

How nice of them, buying us January to April birthday people one big cookies'n'creme cake to celebrate for us, despite us barely joining the ensemble for more than 2 months.

And if that wasn't enough, there was Project Work: Preliminary Idea to hand in as the first draft by this coming Friday. Mistaking the deadline as Monday, I slept at 2am on Sunday to finish up the remnants of my homework and crap. By the next morning, I couldn't get up on time, so I had to take a taxi to avoid smearing a good school record by being marked as late for assembly yesterday.

With all the homework done in advance, it bought me ample time to study for today's Mathematics lecture test, and I'm good to go. Yawn. At least the agony is gone for a while...

Homework heartburn

2009-03-25T00:24:00.002+08:00

Sometimes, we are forced to bite off more than we can chew, and this leads to indigestion, both literally and metaphorically...

March holidays wasn't holiday at all - we had to go back for two days to attend make-up lectures! As if that wasn't enough, the General Paper homework was enough to make anyone stand on the pile of homework and notebook file stacked together, and curse and swear for the next 24 hours without realising that noise doesn't get you anywhere near finishing what is expected of us in a 4H2 class. After all, in Serangoon JC almost everyone takes 3H2 combinations and we're considered the elite of the school simply because we chose this arduous path that sometimes makes me regret in complaint.

I question myself - Why the hell am I doing this? There's like, no time to leave to myself and doing leisure stuff? Where have all my lame jokes gone? What is becoming of me - turning back into nerd-school style? Why am I even here in a JC?

The answer is obvious - to get that stupid piece of weighted and laminated paper that declares that you are eligible for studying medicine at university level. But enough of this - academic stuff makes a life blog boring to the core, so I'll just skip to the juicy stuff of what has been going on in school lately.

Firstly, Rong Kai has left us, leaving us with 19 people in class 09-1S02, in order to pursue what he thinks he clearly wants, and taking up a Business Management course of some sort. Being a broker ain't really that bad a career choice either, so all the best to his future endeavours!

...and damn, I lost a good buddy just like that.

And there's a few of our classmates who went ahead and presented their speeches to win votes for positions in the Student Council Exco(Executive Committee), of which Julia's is certainly one that I, for one, really take my hat off too. After hearing her speech, I was expecting her to end with cliched expressions when here she shot off "I wish the other Exco elects good luck and all the best in winning votes..." Magnamity - maybe that's what most of us would forget after learning it. Still, it's one thing to learn off a classmate...

The Project Work question paper just got released today, and like the rest of the college, we were completely clueless as to what question to choose, mainly because they are so generic that we have trouble deciding what to put as the project focus! Hopefully we get over this momentary shock fast, so that we might be able to move closer to our As in PW.

And kudos to Reymond, for passing me my lost file, which his friend Alfred(apologies for spelling error) had stumbled upon during Podium CCA time, and helping me retrieve all the important documents inside it. Thanks again!

Who would you prefer to sit with during a daylong bus ride? A talkative person with a irritating voice, or a quiet person who keeps staring at you?

2009-03-17T22:52:00.002+08:00

The irritating talker, of course!

One more friend(or enemy-though I'd prefer the former) beats having silent and possibly dangerous suspense all the time.

At least, there's someone to talk to. Given my nosy nature it's easy for me to find out the latest gossip off the irritating talker, and have a good laugh at his idiocy of talking nonsense all the time and not realising that nobody is actually paying any attention to him. Who knows, though the voice can be irritating, but at least I get to know a new acquaintance, and maybe be friends along the way. After all, it's better to have one more friend than having a extra enemy, right?

As for getting someone who keeps staring at me and is very quiet, sometimes it gives me the spooks. If that quiet fella turns out to be a homosexual, I'm in trouble.

Self-discovery

2009-03-15T19:31:00.003+08:00

Just thought I'd take a little quiz out of boredom, so I went to this website.
http://www.quizbox.com/personality/test82.aspx
How accurate this is, to me! Here are the results, for curious folks out there:

Your view on yourself:
You are down-to-earth and people like you because you are so straightforward. You are an efficient problem solver because you will listen to both sides of an argument before making a decision that usually appeals to both parties.
The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:
You like serious, smart and determined people. You don't judge a book by its cover, so good-looking people aren't necessarily your style. This makes you an attractive person in many people's eyes.
Your readiness to commit to a relationship:
You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person.
The seriousness of your love:
You are very serious about relationships and aren't interested in wasting time with people you don't really like. If you meet the right person, you will fall deeply and beautifully in love.
Your views on education
Education is less important than the real world out there, away from the classroom. Deep inside you want to start working, earning money and living on your own.
The right job for you:
You're a practical person and will choose a secure job with a steady income. Knowing what you like to do is important. Find a regular job doing just that and you'll be set for life.
How do you view success:
You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don't succeed. Don't give up when you haven't yet even started! Be courageous.
What are you most afraid of:
You are concerned about your image and the way others see you. This means that you try very hard to be accepted by other people. It's time for you to believe in who you are, not what you wear.
Who is your true self:
You are full of energy and confidence. You are unpredictable, with moods changing as quickly as an ocean. You might occasionally be calm and still, but never for long.

Pricey Items and Economics Galore

2009-03-09T20:39:00.002+08:00

Just a sum-up of what's been going on recently in school. Firstly there was just too many things to do at one go, mainly because you don't get much sleep at all during the weekdays. Lectures and tutorials went on as per normal, only that there has been quite a few events happening around me during the past 2 weeks.

We witnessed Tricia throwing Dominic's wallet down 3(or maybe 4) whole storeys
Reymond was called "laughing gas" by Huijuan - I totally agree without reservations, because his laughter is REALLY contagious.
I drove Reymond and Huijuan crazy laughing at me whilst trying to drive a point of Chemistry concept into their minds in a truly Singlish way.
Some goondu 'makeshift couple' disrupted the entire Chemistry lecture because the lecturer had to tell them off in front of the whole hall just because of removing one of the victims' shoe and playing a fool. Tough luck, suckers!
I'm feeling the weird vibes of studying a super thick Biology textbook that cost me $64 and is gonna last me 2 whole years. Talk about investment in studies...
Derek wore the wrong colour uniform pants - he mixed Anglican High's up with Serangoon JC's and ended up being the only oddball wearing white pants and college polo to school! Talk about loyalty to one's secondary school... Haha!
Managed to get on Isobel's nerves for once with lame jokes ^^, during CCA time.

That being said, this week is going to be really fast AND draggy, mainly because there's going to be an Economics test coming right up this Thursday, and school is so boring now that the stress is hitting everybody hard. Someone come and brighten my day, please!

Rice, veg and good home cooked food

2009-03-02T19:01:00.001+08:00

Just one month in SRJC and I'm already feeling the pinch both wallet-wise and physically. My brain's still working well, thanks to many late night overdrives during the 'O' level period, so in a sense I'm quite used to sleeping late and waking up early and still mentally fit, apart from my usual dose of caffeine and utter lameness in the classroom.

In fact, I'm actually blogging from school, in the middle of a heavy downpour. The food here is really expensive at the cafes, so like I mentioned earlier, my wallet is being hit hard. Apart from that, you could say I had tough luck. After studying at the study just now, the rain came and because I forgot to pack my umbrella and windbreaker, I'm stuck here, until the rain stops.

Well, I guess it's another day gone, spent in SRJC in its completeness. Shit happens all the time, so I've learned to take things easy... That said, I don't blame ya for not turning up at the study anyway. :)

Lord have mercy

2009-03-01T00:10:00.003+08:00

It's tough, and it's hitting hard on all of us JC students.

First of all, they changed the timetable so that we could go home at 4.30pm every Monday. That's a good thing, because we need our much-needed rest. Now if you would just imagine yourself sleeping at one-plus every night, and waking up at 5am every morning to prepare going to school, and only just reaching the house door at around 8 at night, and doing homework until one-plus. The cycle is going on and on and on, and this week's gonna be the most stressful week ever.

Thank God I have people like Hui Juan, Tricia and Daniel to bring in some comic relief during this stressful "period"(no pun intended, it's an inside joke) where I had to stay up real late at night just to practice for SYF 2009. Severe lack of sleep, of course, is detrimental to homework as well, because today I can't really find enough reason to do homework when in fact, I have piles of homework waiting for me to do. Adding on to this is the Meet-the-Parents session with the CT tutors and a dialogue session with the school principal which ended at around 8 to 9 pm, and to make things worse, we SYF candidates were to report to school at 8am for ensemble playing and a trial to complete, one that would have us play all 3 pieces of SYF songs by today, and the score was given only like, 2 to 3 days ago...?

Needless to say, I flunked this trial, so I'll not be going for SYF. At least I know that I'm spared from all these last-minute training after failing this test, haha. More free time to devote to homework, I guess...

First week of formal lesson

2009-02-22T00:27:00.003+08:00

JC life has taken quite a toll on my overall energy use.

Simply put, I'm just tired due to lack of sleep and after 3 months of non-study time... Still, JC is fun during all the free periods and travelling to different venues for classes. For once, I'm really feeling the weird vibes of studying that I've never had before. For once I'm being psycho-ed into studying and am beginning to enjoy it.

Take for instance, the Economics teacher was the centre of the joke, but it has got nothing to do with her profession, by the way. "Kari-parfsssssssss" is how she pronounces "curry puffs" when talking fast, and apparently it stirred up an laughing uproar among ourselves in 1S02. Ticklish to Hui Juan, I guess, from the way she was both laughing whenever someone said it, and begging us not to mention about it...

Still... that was only the first day. The subsequent days are becoming more crazy as we got to know each other better day by day - we have Tricia putting the lecture notes and study materials at the bench for orderly distribution and collecting the costs for the rest of the class, which earned her the right to being the class treasurer and the reputation of being "Bookshop Auntie Tricia." In short, everyone had something funny to say about each other and I, unfortunately, got my own reputation as being the lamest fella in 09-1S02.

Things are getting more fun in JC, but the responsibilities are getting heavier, definitely. With more freedom comes more responsibility, so I'll just have to strike a balance between having fun and doing what the important stuff requires of me then...

Geek lifestyle

2009-02-16T22:29:00.002+08:00

Right... this is what I've been up to these few days. After the games orientation ended, we started all proper lectures and study times as stated on the timetable that we were allocated today. We should've expected this long before we came into a JC anyway - school hours in JC are lasting as long as forever, and today the day ended at 5.30pm, and this was just one of the earliest days listed on the timetable.

In any case we started the ball rolling today with Bio lesson in the lab, in which I was feeling quite tense due to the sheer small size of our class - only 7 of us taking Biology in 1S02. Perfect, now I stand a higher chance of getting sabo-ed to do stuff for the teacher during Bio lessons. For some reason or another, Yong Cheng sabo-ed himself by picking a random card, and whoever the card belongs to will be the Bio rep, and it just happened to be his. Tough luck buddy!

Right after an early release by kind Mr Chen from Bio lesson, Reymond and I got changed and went to the canteen to meet up with the rest of the Bio girls, when Hui Juan handed me a dud phone, asking me for my number. "Eh, didn't you send that Valentine's Day well-wish message to me just last Saturday?" I was getting suspicious already until she lied that she got a new phone, and I fell for it. "Eh! No screen!" and she started laughing already.

Right... So I learnt that I am gullible to stuff like that, huh.

Anyways to sum things up due to lack of blogging time, we had PE, and was made to run 3 rounds around the stadium before taking height and weight. Chem lecture was heaven because there was air-con right after resting our hot and sweaty bodies. After that was lunchtime and we made fun of Tricia as the bookshop auntie because she took charge of the money and materials collection. After that was GP and Economics. During Economics tutorial I couldn't understand the part of macroeconomics and microeconomics that differentiated each other, and the teacher was blabbering away crap about curry-puff and Old Chang Kee. I just hope I can survive her tutorials, I guess...

And oh, Derek lost his Maths notes and homework, so I guess he's in for some tough shit tomorrow during Maths, both tutorial and lecture. Still, I'll lend a hand somehow, yea?

Many days of coffee from now on...

2009-02-15T10:29:00.003+08:00

SRJC is great, despite its high cut-off point. For one, the people are friendly and warm, especially my civics group. And I mean WARM, literally. After only one week of gathering as a class, we have Linus giving flowers for all the 6 girls for Valentine's Day, Mustaqim cracking jokes that shook the floor, Raymond being misinterpreted as a gay, and the forming of a ''bisexual club'', which only served as comic relief and never really bisexual, and many other stuff going on.

Interesting shit's always going on in JC life, that's what I learned during my first two weeks down here, and the cheering during the games orientation was powerful, literally causing me to make another trip to the clinic today, due to sore throat and dry cough. No more cheering competitions for me!

Again, the people down here are really nice - I received 2 Valentine's Day SMSes yesterday from my new classmates already!

Still, JC is going to be difficult and arduous, I know it. For one, just look at the timetable they gave us. Days end at around 6-plus in the evening, and that excludes extra CCA time. Coffee everyday again to get more hours without falling asleep, I guess.

SRJC Days 6 and 7

2009-02-10T20:18:00.003+08:00

To sum it up - tiring.

For one, on Monday I got up at 5am to get ready to school, and the activities of the Amazing Race item the OGLs put up for us were energy-sapping for people who don't really travel on foot much. It was high time for us to burn up some Chinese New Year fat, eh?

To start it off, we found out which classes we were to report in, based on our subject combinations that we were posted into. There, we quickly started getting to know each other's names, and to be honest, I'm still having some trouble getting to know some of their names for now. But, with a class of 19 people, it shouldn't be too hard - half the size of my secondary school, for crying out loud!

Bonding was fast and furious - we got to know each other, our secondary school backgrounds, activities, and the thing that made mingling with each other much easier was through the activities that we did together as a class during these two days, no doubt. In short, there was a common topic that all of us could talk about, make fun out of, and bond as a class.

Of course there'd be more college stuff and mumbo-jumbo coming soon, but I can't predict the future, that's for sure...

SRJC Day 5

2009-02-08T21:24:00.002+08:00

To sum it up, there wasn't anything eventful after Thursday, except for the 7am bus ride to school on bus 81. Usually I would wake up at 5am, get out of the house at 5.30, and get onboard the bus by 6, and from there it would take like 45 minutes to reach school. But there was a hard lesson learnt - never take the 7am bus. You'd find yourself struggling to get to school along with the others squeezing each other in the tightly packed bus in the peak hours of morning.

When school started, everyone went around to attend the intro lectures, and because I was taking neither Physics nor Geography, I had one hour to spare before the Chemistry lecture. Hung around at the library, trying to login to the Tampines JC Online Appeal website to check for results, then I headed to LT5, and it was also there that I met Min San and his friends who were also chilling out at the cafe outside LT5. Friendly fellas are always nice to be around with, and these guys definitely fall into that category, no doubt.

Disaster struck at the Chemistry lecture. The lecturer was talking for half an hour, while the rest of us either struggled to keep up, or are completely lost, ie 'catch no ball'.

"Eh what is the lecturer saying ah?"
"Why need to find out the order of the rate law ah?"
"Don't understand this leh - why lai dat?"

That was how bad the lecture went for most of us, but at least the lecturer could have some consolation over the "enthusiasm" that we had over the subject from the questioning that was going on about the topic on the rate equations.

Other than that, school consisted of pretty much nothing else except for the showcasing of the Performing Arts groups in anticipation of the CCA recruitment that would be going on next Thursday. After school I received news that my appeal for TPJC failed and since I had long given up hope of going into Meridian JC, it was high time for buying uniform sets. Shame really, I brought only enough money to buy one set of uniform and PE attire for now, so I gotta get more during the next uniform sale day.

Then it was the moment everything expected. The release of the subject combination results. I got into the 4H2 course - Biology, Chemistry, Economics and Mathematics. If I had gone to TPJC they wouldn't have allowed me to take such an ambitious course - with an L1R5 of 15, TPJC would've shunned me away from this chance because their prerequisite was a minimum score of 12, so in a way I thank God for putting me in SRJC.

That being said though, the news that I was now to stick to SRJC came as a "duh!" thing to me way beforehand already - I just felt the peace of God in my heart where I was supposed to be naturally disappointed over not being able to go into a well-recognised JC.

Yes indeed, that inner peace was what I still cannot understand yet, and probably never will.

SRJC Orientation - Day 3 and 4

2009-02-05T21:20:00.003+08:00

Missed out one day of blogging, so here goes.

Day 3: Orientation today consisted of handing in the verification slips for the subject combinations, as well as an early release for breaktime, so there were we, OG D6 being the first group to be released to break at 8.30am, whereas everyone else went out at 9am. After breaktime, everyone was to go back to the hall for the college dance. Before that, we received a tip-off that we were to dance with a partner of the opposite gender, and I got quite a rude shock as well as rumbling guts - I never danced with girls before! What if I did the wrong step and made the other fella fall? What if I didn't dance as well as my partner? What if...

Hell, everyone was dancing, so after the dance I found that my fears were uncalled for - everyone was at least making minor mistakes during the dance, and everyone was freshmen. Freshmen who didn't know shit about dance as well as professional-looking dancer freshmen, still freshmen. Heck, I had a hard time getting over myself before I could set myself dancing at ease. Still, Jane was quite a sport and we danced for the first round before switching partners with other people. Danced with Renee, and halfway through the dance with her I actually stepped over her bag without knowing it, which explained her sudden change in expression during the dance. Nasty feeling came all over - I felt helpless and embarrassed. But then again there wasn't enough bag room for everyone at the side of the hall, so her bag just happened to be put near the dancing area, and in doing so this thing happened, so...

Well, I'm just glad it's over and done with - no more embarrassment for me today.

Day 4 - today. Introductory lectures throughout the day, starting from the morning till afternoon. Had General Paper(GP) lecture, and we were all made to write an argumentative essay as a diagnostic test on our grammatical abilities. After GP was Economics, which the lecturer, Mr Tan, spoke really loud over the mike. The only relief for the Economics lecture was that his lectures contained a bit of jokes here and there to spice it up, unlike the Maths lecture we had, during which everyone was already doing the fundamentals of some short-cut methods of solving partial fractions in the first introductory lecture. Looks like college life's gonna be full of tough shit from now on - but then again, whoever said that life would be a bed of roses?

After being dismissed, we were told to stay back for an OG lunch but what the heck, everyone went about their own businesses so I decided to leave too, because later on we were told that our OG Leaders couldn't make it for the lunch. Having a tough day at college meant that everyone was sapped dry of their energy use and thus naturally, everyone called the OG lunch off and postponed it to tomorrow. Yawn...

SRJC Orientation - Day 2

2009-02-03T22:28:00.002+08:00

So, how was it for the second day? Things are getting a little bit warmer, but still - the air-conditioning is probably malfunctioning because it's way too cold for me to take it today. Hey, take a morning shower in the midst of cold dawn air, get blown in the face on your journey to the bus interchange and sit on a seat with blasting air-con at your head in the bus. Right now I've got a mild blast of flu thanks to maximum exposure to air-con. Lesson learnt - appreciate the sun whenever you have it!

Things are getting warmer not because of the air-con, but mainly because of what's going on among my OG. Finally, I overcame my own insecurity barrier - I stood out and started mingling with the seniors, as well as the boys in my OG, where previously yesterday I was sitting there at the corner "stoning" and nobody was actually talking to each other except for those around Rachel. The one hour passed by quickly, and with a newfound friend, Adam, I ended the day at college.

Even when reaching home I had my fair share of woes as well - which subject combinations to choose? I had a tough time choosing, but at the back of my mind I told myself "No, enough of Physics for me." So, I took all the combinations with Economics, Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics, which was easier for me to choose, rather than wasting the time trying to decide between Physics and Biology, since Chemistry was the prerequisite for going into university for a Medicine course.

Serangoon JC - Day 1

2009-02-02T20:49:00.003+08:00

So, what's all this hoo-hah about? I got into Serangoon JC, so that's a fact. At first glance Serangoon JC might not sound good, but after attending today's orientation I find it hard to make a choice over whether to continue with my appeals for Meridian JC and Tampines JC, or to stick with Serangoon JC.

Not wanting to be late for the first day of college, I got up at 5am, washed up and ate breakfast. Got out of the house at 5.30am, got on bus 81 at 6. I was one of the early birds - I reached school at around 6.30am - way before the usual time I usually report to Anglican High at. Went around to look for this thing called House D6, only to realise later upon asking a senior that there wasn't a literal house D6, but just another name for an orientation group(OG), which I was assigned to be in. After all the admin mumbo-jumbo, they proceeded on to talk about the Serangoon JC's GCE(Global Classroom Experience), which took up most of the day.

Met a couple of Anglican High people who suffer similar fates as me, ending up in Serangoon JC as well. To my surprise I saw Roy at Serangoon JC as well. Hell, all along I thought Roy was much better in studies than me, so however he came here, I don't know. Later on, I met Young Yee and Derrick(I hope I spelt their names correctly), as well as Frederick, and we gathered together for the one-hour break before they continued in their GCE talk.

Now, few would allow for a second lunch break right after the first, but the GCE presentation ended and the whole cohort was to take a college tour to find various places, and for logistical convenience they sent a whole bunch of us to have lunch, at 11-plus, right after our previous break which ended at 10.45am. Now, anyone in their right mind wouldn't have enough room to stomach another meal, yea? So I didn't eat. Not until 5-plus when I wolfed down a Subway Italian BMT.

Orientation went on, straight into the lecture theatres, where various festivities are being showcased. Yun Jie(pardon for any spelling error), a new acquaintance in the same OG, later told me that Serangoon JC seemed like a party school, which probably meant the people don't really put much effort in studying. The impression indeed seemed that way for me too, but still, I have to take my hat off to them for advertising their college so well.

Facilities-wise, I think that Tampines JC might lose out to Serangoon JC, but still I'm keeping my appeals until one of them calls up to call me to report to their college. Even if they don't call up, I'll still be content to be in Serangoon JC. After all, why not?

Happy New Year 2009

2009-01-25T13:25:00.002+08:00

To start off a blog entry it's always appropriate to start with a greeting, eh? I wish you guys a Happy Lunar New Year 2009!

It's just crazy this season. We started off 2009 on 1st January with an economic downturn, and now people are complaining about the high prices set during the Chinese New Year season. Still, monetary crises aren't gonna stop us from celebrating - life still has to go on. At the very most, we don't celebrate New Year with that much goodies this year.

But for us Christians we have much more reason to celebrate, amen? Pastor Bennett made a very good point over why the streets are red in colour - the red signifies the blood of Jesus shed for all mankind, bringing a new meaning of which it means Christians ought to celebrate more during this New Year season - we rejoice over this gift of salvation that God has given to us, the same thing that money cannot buy, nor can be earned by any means of human effort.

Then again, if salvation could be earned through human merit, Christ wouldn't have had to die on the cross for us(Galatians 2:21)!

Slept at 2.30am last night, why? Mom came home at 10pm, and went to the night market to grab whatever's left of the freshest choice meat, veg and other quality food, getting ready for a reunion steamboat today, and I was to be there to lend my hands for that. By that time, I was dead tired, but thank God I'm doing this for Him - wasting no time in waking up early and going to church with one sole purpose of singing praises and thanks to my Lord and receiving His word of the day.

Of course, I can't please everyone by going to church during this season, so I'd rather please my God than please men. Makes things more convenient - pleasing one God with one complete and wonderful purpose for my life versus pleasing many people with many conflicting ideas.

About high time

2009-01-18T22:59:00.002+08:00

So, it's been a long time since I last wrote anything on this blog. A lot of things have been going on recently, such as trying to get over the natural disappointment and the occasional chide of me getting bad O Level results. Well, at least I've made it to a junior college(JC) - that's what everyone is trying to tell me.

So, how badly did I do? An L1R5 score of 15, how's that for a start? It ain't bad, but it ain't good either, so I'm stuck on no-man's land: Out of all the JCs of choice, only 6 are available for me, and only Meridian JC and Tampines JC are at East Singapore, nearer to where I live. To be honest, the only problem that stands before me is the problem of transportation.

They say that taxi drivers' children get free transport to school everyday. I think not - Dad's always too busy out there at work, trying to make ends meet. Thing is, I think he's only trying to make HIS OWN ends meet instead of contributing money for family expenses. So far, only Mom's giving me pocket money because he's always not at home - see the problem there?

Not that I'm deprived of fatherly love or some sort of mumbo-jumbo - I have learnt to draw strength from my Heavenly Father, so who's to say that I'm not having a Father who cares for my every need in my life?

Results and family matters aside, it's finally good to go back to school again - no more crappy lifestyle of being a couch potato, and freedom to roam around Singapore as and when I have the time. Meanwhile, things that the Lord have taught me during this few months of free time have begun to make a lot more sense by the day, and someday I might just share them right here - my blog - so stay tuned!

Greenhorn fisherman

2009-01-07T00:37:00.005+08:00

Been taking up time trying to figure how to fish since the January 2nd. It's a really cool thing, I tell you. As for how I took up this new sport, it's quite peculiar actually.

Since last year I have been hearing Uncle Daniel and his two kids Theudas and Thaddeus talking about the big fish they caught at a kelong(offshore fishing village) and the details were enticing. After that I was telling Uncle Kelvin whether we should join them and take up fishing. To make things better - the new fishing equipment store that took up residence beside my mom's workplace - the furniture shop - sparked my uncle's interest. Along with Uncle Steven's fishing history, we had a 3-man team among us. One with money, one with experience and one with brains, so to speak.

Then on 2nd January, Uncle Kelvin woke me up in my 12-hour slumber to tell me of his plans to go fishing that day. At first I thought he wasn't serious: normally he would try to find some excuse to get me excited about the day and get out of bed whenever he could help it. So, I went along and saw them going to Changi Village to get the equipment. We got fishing lines, rod and things like floats and weights, and so we set off.

"I'm still waiting for the fish!"

After buying the fishing equipment, we went ahead to fish, first at the nearest known place possible - Pasir Ris beach. Bought large earthworms for bait, only to find that there wasn't anything there at all. Except for this little bugger below.

I don't know what kind of fish is this bugger over here, but it's my first catch. In fact, the only catch that I got on 2nd January. Wasted a whole load of bait just to catch this bugger that was less than a handspan. Don't get tricked by the zoom - this is just a small fish.

It soon dawned on us that the fishing hooks that we got off the fella at Changi Village was too big to fish such small fry in Singapore. After that we went ahead to try our luck on Sunday, 4th January.

"Fisherman's Paradise. Quick, get me the camera so I can take this down."

And so we went for the Bedok jetty, near Carpark F1, East Coast Park. See the crowd - there must be some big fish or pretty good catch that day, so we settled for a whole of 5 hours. And sure enough, God made sure our patience didn't go to waste - we caught a dozen fish, without any bait, just some fluorescent nylon string tied onto the hooks so that it looks like small fry for the fish to take the bite.

As for how we got the small baitless hooks, we saw an old man beside us shaking his fishing rod up and down. For a while we thought he was trying to be funny, doing such rigorous movement. After we saw him dragging a big catch of 2 to 3 small fish at a time we went ahead to ask him what kind of bait he used. Interestingly enough he showed us his small fishing hooks, so of course we asked him where he got the hooks from. Kind, respectable uncle sold us 2 sets of fishing lines, ready-made with nylon "bait" and small hooks, with weights.

So, just as we were trying to use mealworms instead of earthworms for deep-sea fishing, we found that we needed no bait - and boy, the catch was exciting every time there was a big tug. To keep a long story short, we got to keep our good catch.

"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime."

Count it, there's 12, no doubt.

Of course, God was with us the whole of 4th January. First it was the Covenant service that we had in the morning to renew our covenant with God for the new year, and in the afternoon, we went fishing, which of course beats wasting their money on tombola trips periodically every week, which I reckon is technically gambling. At least fishing gives experience and fish - it's a win-win situation everytime.

And did I mention that after fishing, we couldn't find a seat at all at the nearby hawker centre? God gave us a seat at one of the barbecue pits within sight of the hawker centre, so we were able to settle down there and eat. With char-siew noodles, sliced fruit and quietness beside the shore for a decent dinnerplace, what more can we ask for?

New Year resolutions, anyone?

2009-01-01T18:14:00.002+08:00

Well, we can't run away from it. It's already here, so might as well decide for ourselves what we want to be accomplished this year while it's still new eh? So, I've come up with a list of what I want accomplished this year:

1) Keep up with entertainment news.
2) Spread God's word to the ends of the earth - or at least to the ends of whatever school I end up in this year.
3) Learn the art of diplomacy.
4) Learn better time management as I go along.
5) Write a few songs.

New Year - Somehow, this year's feeling is different

2008-12-31T00:27:00.002+08:00

This coming new year is going to be different from all the other years of my life that I've lived past, so to speak. For one, it doesn't seem much like the new year at all. Take for example, there's no more looking forward to going back to school - at least NOT YET - because JC school term doesn't start until 1st February, I was told. Also, there's other people telling me that Polytechnic students start school a lot later, which makes it all the more draggggggggyyyyyyyyyy...

Guess when the world is about to experience a second economic Great Depression, life for me follows suit - it gets ever more boring every day I stay at home waiting for my GCE O Level results to come out. To hell with the suspense of the results - just tell us the date of release, for Christ's sake. I just want to get out of the house, go to school and break this monotomy of sitting at home rotting at the sofa, being a couch potato. Can't time just past more quickly?

That being said though, I'll just worry about the grades when I receive my O Level cert. After all, each day has enough trouble of its own, so what's the point worrying about what you cannot have any control upon?

And another thing - this coming new year is what perhaps nobody is actually looking forward to, throughout the globe. Look at the economic mess that everyone has got into - shareholders, Leyman Brothers' mini-bond victims, everyone fighting tooth and nail to preserve their rice bowls, and no more splurging on "necessities" like PSPs, Nintendo DSes, even MP3 players.

Even the thrifty people aren't spared at all. Just when I was about to make plans to buy myself some expensive gadget like a DS or just a cheap and decent MP3 player, the economic crisis struck - and sometimes I wonder why I went about so much effort to save money when I can't even spend it on my own stuff in the end after all. Maybe God wants me to start saving for the many more rainy days to come, I guess...

Simply put - the moving on to 2009 isn't anything grand after all, it's just a continuation of the troubles we are currently facing in 2008. Therefore, I don't see much reason to celebrate after all, apart from the hope that when worse situations come, we see more of Christ's glory made manifest in carrying us through those tougher circumstances.

Hence, a short message to those fortunate enough to read this entry - I urge you to place your hopes, aspirations, pain, worries, everything on Jesus this year, for he is saying today, "Come to me, all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."(Matthew 11:28)

Uncle Daniel's House Party - a Christmas party before Christmas Eve

2008-12-29T15:46:00.008+08:00

Yep, I gotta catch my breath these few days after Christmas events, so I haven't been updating this blog lately, so it appears dead - but not anymore. Fresh new content coming up next year, so stay tuned.

Or maybe you guys wouldn't have to wait for so long after all...

Anyways, on 23rd December 2008 Uncles Kelvin and Steven and I went to Uncle Daniel's house for a celebration for the successful performance at the Peerless Name Jesus Christmas Dinner '08. We waited until around 9.30pm for everyone to reach there so that we can start the "debriefing" and comment on our performance. The consensus was this: we couldn't have done it without Jesus Christ, our common Lord and Saviour, helping us behind the scenes and putting everything in order with our common prayers. Now THAT's one spirit, one mind, and one common faith being manifest in us, namely:

Jesus Christ - the one keeping us together in one piece and one mind, making miracles out of situations that seemed impossible beforehand, and teaching us along the practice periods and holding our hands throughout the stage fright period.
Uncle Daniel and Auntie Norines - for organising our group for the dance item.
Uncles Kelvin and Steven, Brothers Maran and Chris as well as Theudas - for being the ones out there doing the meat of the dance
Sisters Osheana and Shirleen - for endless behind-the-scenes moral support, and providing invaluable suggestions throughout the dance practices.
Thaddeus, Malcolm and Brother Maran's new daughter, born during the crisis of the group, when our group was about to buckle under the pressure and hiccups here and there - for providing comic relief when everyone was stressed up about the performance and being endlessly attacked by Satan via problems and circumstances that came out of the blue.
Any other people who helped behind the scenes that I forgot to mention in this list of credits.

So, with all the problems that happened beforehand, and the startling comeback that we did in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, this was no doubt reason enough of celebration because of His grace and faithfulness to see us through till the very end and beyond. And boy, did we enjoy this party, of course!

Just look at the spread, haha.

From top left to right: roti jala, mutton curry, roast turkey, sliced-'n'-spiced chicken franks.
From bottom left to right: chocolate pastry(I don't know what's that thing-a-ma-jig called), pork knuckle, and steamed butter rice.
As for the milk bottle, I don't know how it ended up there - probably it's meant for Brother Maran's new baby daughter(I still haven't asked what's her name).

Of course, we wouldn't possibly forget starting the whole party singing praises and worshipping Him, right? So we sprang into action and had a great time indeed.

Brother Chris and me, holding the guitar, posing for a photo impromptu.

And just after dinner Uncle Steven's birthday was announced - on 23rd December 2008 - perfect timing! Uncle Daniel got us a Christmas log cake for us to share, which doubled as a celebration for Uncle Steven's birthday, and boy, that was truly Christmas, considering that God made the events fall onto place: Celebration and debriefing of the Christmas Dinner'08 dance item, celebration of Uncle Steven's birthday, and early celebration for Christmas at Uncle Daniel's house.

Christmas Log Cake, aka Uncle Steven's Birthday Cake. Good stuff!

Sweet stuff for a Sweet and Merry Christmas. Perfect. I was told to eat a whopping three thick slices just after eating a whole lot of stuff, so I did - and being the first to eat the Christmas turkey stuffing, which nobody in the house ever noticed until I told them, I was fully stuffed like the turkey I ate. I hope they're not thinking of using ME as next year's Christmas TURKEY? Haha...

A barbecue, again

2008-12-20T23:20:00.004+08:00

Had a barbecue today at Uncle Yiye's place, so we were to leave the house at 1.45pm to set off to his house. Before going there, we went to Shop 'n' Save because Aunt Wanyin had to buy diapers for baby Claira, so along the way we bought a bag of chips to prepare for the barbecue. Unfortunately there was just so much food for the barbecue that we left the chips alone. Ha, so much for wanting us to try wasabi-flavoured chips...

After hanging around at Uncle Yiye's condominium abode we went downstairs for a swim. Boy, that swim was dangerous even though it's still a 1.2m flat pool - we found a stray orange plastic container meant for a Super Soaker floating on the pool out of nowhere, and I almost slipped into the water because of a dumb transparent glass marble at the pool floor!

Anyways, we hung around the pool for a while more until the barbecue started, since for the rest of the day we had nothing else to do. Then we had this problem here: the delivery for the barbecue food didn't arrive until 6pm, when the scheduled time was supposed to be 5.30pm. So, we started behind time and the fire was started. While trying to dispose of the excess burning material, we accidentally burnt a hole through the dustbin bag - luckily for us, that bin was made of fireproof plastic so we didn't damage any property. Wow, even soft drinks can put out fires, man...

Despite that, it was still worthwhile the trip anyway - we went back with full stomachs, and excess food to take home too.

Blog wipe - getting ready for the new year!

2008-12-18T01:16:00.002+08:00

New skin, new look, and new stuff coming right up!

As all of you may have already noticed by now, this new skin looks more posh than the previous template I used, but there are sacrifices for this. For example, where once I put in the Anglican High School logo, and stuff like little write-ups at the side are no longer there. In its place is something more, should I say, empty space.

But there's the juice of this entire new blogskin there - I get to customise more of this blog and make it more personal than just rigid computer-generated layouts. No more plain designs anymore - life's just about to get more colourful with the modifications made on this blog!

Visitors, do tag a lot more - it seems a little empty so far, so help me bring some life into this blog, thanks in advance!

Glycemic Index - a clue to healthier eating

2008-12-15T20:54:00.002+08:00

As always, I get stuck at home due to the bad weather outside, and because there ain't anywhere worthwhile to go without spending big money, I'm bored stiff, apart from whatever Playstation 2 and computer games are available to me while I'm still killing time during this long waiting period after the O Level major examinations.

So, I just did a little Net-surfing and found this familiar topic that appeared in the Biology textbook - the glycemic index. Basically, glycemic index isn't some complicated topic after all.

Simply put, glycemic index is a measure of how fast the carbohydrates in food are released into the bloodstream. The higher the index of a particular food, the faster the glucose derived from the digested food gets absorbed into the bloodstream. So, to quote a few examples,

Foods with high glycemic index(GI): potatoes, bread, corn flakes, sweets, cereal, etc.
Foods with low GI: foods like nuts, milk, fruit and veg., chicken and fish.

So, to ensure your blood glucose stays steady I'd suggest you eat more fruit and veg, and nuts are a good thing to snack on if you're gonna burn midnight oil. For a quick fix just grab the nearest chocolate bar. However, that doesn't mean eating nuts despite food allergies, so don't use this information provided against me when stuff like that happens, okay?

Still trying to kill time after sharing this to Netizens reading this entry.

Random doodle

2008-12-11T16:55:00.001+08:00

Just bored over what to do, so I came up with this sketch. It looked pretty good on pencil, so I decided to improve on it by ink, and here's what I'm ending up with.

Of course there's imperfections here and there, but I guess this will have to do for now...

The hidden story behind the AHS Guitar Ensemble Farewell Chalet 2008

2008-12-11T01:25:00.003+08:00

Just thought that if I kept this any longer in my heart I might burst anytime, so time for some serious ranting, yea? That being said though, if I have offended anyone by name or reference, I apologise in advance. So yeah, I'll go ahead with this...

When I was told of this Guitar Ensemble Farewell Chalet meant for the Secondary Fours, I already knew who was gonna come and who wasn't. Daniel and Jonathan were feeling really down and dejected because they were rejected for the Harmony 2008 Concert, so I knew what they were going through. However, I still tried to persuade them to come and join the rest of the Ensemble, to no avail, obviously. Knowing Benedict's couldn't-care-less attitude, he wouldn't even bother to come even if I tried to get him to, and he didn't come.

Great, I've been with them bass boys for the past 3 years, being looked down by Mrs NC Koh, being seen as the boys who couldn't do anything of substance within the CCA group. I was the one down there doing their dirty job of annotating the scores so they could play the bass section of the pieces, and many times I fork out their lunches and snacks out of my own pockets. This is what I got for 4 years of service in the CCA.

Thank God He sent Jacob to come for this chalet - at least I know there's someone out there who still cares for this socially-challenged senior of his.

During the first day of that farewell chalet, I was told that there wasn't any barbecue on that day itself, but rather on the next day. Of course, I was really angry at that time because it meant that I couldn't attend that barbecue due to my hip-hop dance item training and practice for the Christmas Dinner 2008 starting at 8pm the day after. The "today no barbecue" quote was already turning my stomach upside down the moment I heard it.

I was just recovering from this disappointment as the day went on, until the rest of the Secondary Four batch went for the movies without me. Hell, nobody even told me that they were wearing the batch tees and they just up and went for the movie marathon without asking me along at all! So naturally, being the only Secondary Four boy among the entire girl-dominated batch there, I felt left out. What to do while they were out at the movies? I stayed with the juniors, playing cards and behaving immaturely just to fit in.

The next day, after hitting Li Pin's mouth with the "ball", which was actually a soap bar, by mistake due to some rough Captain's Ball playing, I felt really bad. I actually injured a girl, and the guilt made the day worse, and after being told off by her I stayed my distance from Li Pin, just so that she might feel better with my brief absence. Hell, if you guys performed friendly fire in the middle of a rough game, you'd understand why I did that.

After buying drinks for a parched Guitar Ensemble, a familiar voice shouted out from the crowd: "Aaron, I forgive you!" That forgiveness made me ponder about some things much later. However at that moment I dared not look back at her. I just didn't dare to - I didn't, and still don't know why.

Despite being forgiven I still felt lousy for the day - and the rain had to spoil early barbecue. Two ladies were cooking at our pit just before the rains came - I wrote about this before in the previous posts. And I was later called back to the Secondary Fours' room in the chalet and told about some admin issues the Secondary Three committee were lacking on and mistakes they made, and I was to be there for a, supposedly, Secondary Four batch photo.

Apparently I don't think I was supposed to be part of it from the start. I was about to join in the photo-taking, but one of them said it was only for the girls, so what was I to do, being the sole minority there? I stood as I watched them take some photos and decided this wasn't getting anywhere, so I got out of that place.

Good riddance, I thought. I didn't belong there anyway. Uncle Steven came at the right time - at 7.30pm. The rain was so heavy that day that the barbecue failed anyway, so in a way I was delivered from a situation whereby everything looked really bad and hopeless, to a community who was working towards one common goal - to spread His name to the rest of a portion of the Singaporean community and to raise funds for the church building in the name of Jesus, via doing our part in preparing an English Congregation dance item for "Peerless Name Jesus" Christmas Dinner 2008.

After all of that was over, I sat back in the room to think about why all that happened, still bearing hidden grudges and things. She might have said that just to make me feel better at that moment, but if she can forgive me for what I did to her, why can't I do the same to those around me, just like how Christ has forgiven those who believe in Him?

Yeah, maybe it's time to just put aside all that ostracism and get on with life, as it is with Jesus around.

To put it in a dramatic sense, God delivered me out of all that anger and frustration and changed all that into devotion and concentration in the item. And there I found my solace - no more loneliness in Him, no more need for needless explosions of anger. And I'm still holding onto His promise that He will never leave nor forsake me. come hell or high water.

Let Christ be the Lord of your life and everything within

2008-12-09T22:31:00.003+08:00

Just a few months after I first got into church, I was introduced to a cell group which I now attend, and the members of this cell group are very fervent for the Lord, and these are the same people I have come to see as exemplary models of what a life with Jesus Christ should be like. It was also in this cell group that I've first heard of this story that Brother Arulkumar has shared with me earlier this year. Pondering about random stuff, this story came abruptly into my mind, and therefore, learning that blessings are to be shared with everyone else, I've decided to retell this short story in this blog entry.

A man once bought a house, and decided to dedicate a room for Jesus, where he could be alone and free to be with the Lord. "This room is yours, Lord, and bless this house and my family," the man said. Jesus accepted this offer.
The first night that the man spent in the house, he could not sleep in peace because there was a figure that was knocking on the door and making a din. Looking out of the window in his room, he realised that it was the devil at the door, making such a din at the door that the whole family was woken up by the immense noise. The man, in his desperation, went to call upon Jesus in His room. No matter how much he tried to beg and ask Him to get the devil out of his doorstep, nothing happened throughout the whole night. Fortunately for him, the devil walked away by dawn.
The next day, everyone was not in their best condition for work and school, so together, they took an afternoon nap. Who would've known that the devil came knocking and making a din at the doorstep again just as they were about to fall asleep? Soon, they were getting desperate again and the man went into Jesus' room and pleaded with Him to get the devil out of the doorstep. Still, nothing happened and after the devil got tired of disturbing the household, he went away, only to came back at night again. This went on for several days.
Finally, angered and fatigued by all the days of noise and lack of sleep, the man went to ask Jesus why He wouldn't do anything to stop the devil. However, all He replied was, "You dedicated this room to me, but what about the rest of the house?" At that very moment the man realised his folly, and declared that He be free to move around the house as and when He likes, and that He be part of the family too. Hearing this, Jesus went to the living room, rebuked the devil, and the devil cowered in fear of His voice and scampered out of sight.
From then on, Jesus was the VIP of the household, and the man and his family went on to dedicate their lives to Him more than ever since this incident, serving His ministry and furthering the gospel to many more people and bring them to Him for their salvation, sometimes even performing miracles in His name, such as healing the sick and occasionally even raising the dead back to life in His power and glory.

Moral of the story: If you get stingy with Jesus and try to limit His place in your life, He won't perform miracles nor help you much in your life. Knowing that human effort alone cannot accomplish anything of substance, and that in the flesh dwells nothing good within our spirit, it is mandatory that we should let Christ help us in every aspect of our life, to ensure our success in life in Him. After all, what greater blessing is there for every man than to have a loving and gracious God to help him succeed in everything he does?

That being said though, we must set our hearts right before God first before you ask anything of Him first, then He will send His Holy Spirit to help us.

Looking back at my past...

2008-12-08T18:24:00.004+08:00

Just a quick review of what big events that I could take note in my life so far in Anglican High, since there's pretty much little nonsense to do except think and talk of nonsense.

It's in Anglican High where:

I soiled my first uniform because I puked out of carsickness while travelling in bus 17 to school on the first day - and was granted permission to skip the first day of school to clean up the mess.

The first friend I made in Anglican High actually broke wind real loud in front of the whole class in just the 3rd day of school - and of course, it was a stink bomb.

I was put into the 4th out of the 5 CCA choices I made - and so I joined the AHS Guitar Ensemble.

I was the first person in history to bring frogs into the Guitar Room for "horrifying entertainment on the loose".

I was the first person in history of the Guitar Ensemble to bring a live tortoise into the Guitar Room - and attracted a lot more attention whilst Mr Shi, the instructor, seemed to be insensitive to its presence.

I became one of the four who got ostracized in class 2L'06 - but gave ample time for us four to bond with each other, being the "losers of the class".

I became the "babe of the class" in class 3B-4B from '07 to '08 due to some joker trying to ruin my reputation in the new class - and the title stuck with me among my classmates to this very day.

I became the smart-aleck in the class - getting the answers wrong most of the time.

I attracted a lot of attention - both voluntarily and involuntarily.

I was made fun of by my classmates because of a rumour spreading that mentioned about me being a potential FHM model - see (4) to know why.

I was the butt of the joke in many places - like walking into the glass panel in public places, and playing guitar to an audience who wouldn't even bother whether there was music being made or not.

I was St Bernard's irritant fly buzzing at his ears.
I pushed myself to the limits and sat for the GCE O Level Examinations.
I had to shit in my pants in the middle of a major O Level paper. I repeat - a MAJOR paper where if I didn't, I would lose time and not be able to finish the paper.
I gradually learned to differentiate assholes from true friends, and to cherish the good ones.
I learned major lessons on money management - many times, I overspent my pocket money on food in the school canteen alone, not to mention spending it on fast food.
I learned that a loud voice isn't everything - anger doesn't accomplish anything at the end of the day but instead makes your blood boil faster.

There are just too many more things to list down about the stuff I did in the secondary school years, but there is just one thing that I can't deny - it is in Anglican High where I got to truly accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour.

Swimming phenomena

2008-12-07T18:23:00.001+08:00

Just a little thing I've noticed while I'm accompanying my sister to the public swimming pool for her swimming lessons. Some of the kids swim with their pyjamas on, I wonder why?

At first glance I thought it's just them, trying to do some free laundry after their afternoon naps. Driven by curiosity, I went ahead to disturb Shang Bo over the phone to ask why. I was told that the pyjamas were there for training for Silver and Gold swimming courses, and they tie the ends up and blow it up so that it doubles as a float.

Wow, interesting discovery for the day...

Long hair gives long irritation

2008-12-06T23:05:00.003+08:00

Well, I guess it makes sense. Hair grown too long covers the tip of the ears, and spectacle rims pressing the sideburns against the head definitely isn't a good idea. In short, you just feel irritated and sleepy most of the time when there's long hair.

Just look at this sleepy picture of mine above, and you get the idea. My God - it's like, just two months since my last haircut, and already it's feeling irritating for quite an eternity already. Maybe I'll have my haircut tomorrow - finally salvation has come for my head. Much as I'd like to keep the hair there, the irritation gets worse for every day I leave my hair long.

It's easy to turn into a sleepyhead with this kind of length of hair, man. Time for a haircut!

December Woes

2008-12-06T14:31:00.002+08:00

After the farewell chalet I reckon there's pretty much nothing of substance to do, except perhaps paint the house this coming Monday, walking around aimlessly at the mall, or just visiting the library to read some random crap. As for looking for a job to earn my keep, I'm having second thoughts about it. Perhaps, yeah, Uncle Kelvin does make sense. Why not just chill and relax and enjoy life while it lasts.

Or maybe I'll just find time to catch up with some of the Primary 6/9 folks while the holiday lasts.

AHS Guitar Ensemble Farewell Chalet 2008 Day 2

2008-12-04T01:23:00.006+08:00

It was a short chalet time for me, because I had to set off for practice for the hip-hop dance item for Christmas Nite 2008 fundraising dinner for My Saviour's Church. In other words, I didn't have time to stay for the barbecue.

First things first, I overslept while at the same time telling the juniors that I'd be there at around 7am in the morning. In the end I reached Aranda at around 9.30am. Along the way, I was thinking, since I hadn't had any breakfast yet, I might as well drop by the Mr Bean store and grab some pancakes there before the activities, namely an Amazing Race, was to begin at 10.30am. Along the way I bumped into the rest of the Sec 4s who stayed overnight, and they were heading for McDonalds anyway, so I just tagged along. Yay, good chance for me to use Wi-Fi in public places.

It turned out that before you could use Wi-Fi service provided by McDonalds and other fast-food chains, you had to register for a Wireless@SG account and log in. Having 2 sets of wireless Internet access, one being the Wireless@SG one and another provided by Downtown East, I used the Downtown East one instead, since there wasn't any prerequisite required to use it anyway. It worked, obviously. Yay, another job done to ensure continual Internet access outdoors.

Ate a simple breakfast of tea and Sausage McMuffin, while the others ate stuff like Big Breakfast. Nothing against McDonalds food, but it's a tried-and-tested experience that when you eat Big Breakfast, especially the scrambled eggs, you begin to start to want to go to the toilet for the big business. Not a good idea to start the day when you're in a hurry to let the games begin. Anyways, we continued on, with the rest of the girls making beelines to the toilets while I headed off to the chalet to unpack entertainment machinery there.

Alas, nobody was opening the door despite button-mashing the doorbell button and smacking the door like nobody's business. It can't possibly mean they're all outside the chalet - the slippers were all outside the door. Fruitless banging and the building up of steam meant that I waited outside like some desperate guy. Ah, but at least Wei Xiang came just at the right moment and, man, she is literally EXPLOSIVE and blew the door open with her brief rant and smacking of the door.

Um, I guess that's girl power, so to speak?

After getting in, I hung around with the juniors who were there, playing poker cards, a couple of rounds of Tai Ti, got acquainted to this game called Bridge, and the games started. It was Captain's Ball, but with a little rough twist - they used apples and Lux soap dipped in a Softlan laundry softener and flour mixture so that it's very slippery and hard to catch. It didn't turn out to be a good idea - the right lens of my spectacles dropped off the frame, some people got hit hard by the hard soap, and I accidentally hit Li Pin's mouth with the soap during the game. Of course, that made her pissed at me - who wouldn't, when her mouth is bleeding at the lip?

We decided to leave the games alone, and check on Li Pin, to make sure no tooth damage has been done. It didn't hit the teeth out of position, I reckon, so phew for me.
Lessons to learn from this rough and dirty game:

NEVER use hard stuff like soap or apples for Captain's Ball, Monkey, or any other game that involves throwing the stuff to a teammate, to avoid friendly fire.
NEVER use Lux soap or Softlan laundry softener - Alicia's arm turned red after washing the stuff off with tap water, and it's probably because she has sensitive skin and does not really know it until it turned red.
ALWAYS play dirty games in an area near the toilets. We had to take a walk for 5 minutes before we could reach the nearest toilet, which pissed a good lot of us off as we went there to wash up.

Terrible experience. Apart from some other clichéd games, we were exposed to the sun for quite long, and had an eating competition for 2 teams. The other team won, mainly because they had Zhi Tao, who's a big eater. And wow, Wanting sure can eat, and she apparently gorged herself full of the food, and I was told that she threw up later at the chalet.

We ended up not having the Amazing Race that we used to have every year, because there was just too little people attending this Farewell Chalet. Even so, the weather wasn't very good to us - we went indoors at around 2 plus, and there we stayed and hung around until 5 when it rained. Just before it rained, someone was using our barbecue pit just when we were about to start the barbecue. Thanks ladies, whoever you are, for using our barbecue pit just when we were about to use it... (sarcasm)

"Hey, that's our barbecue pit," someone yelled out to the ladies from the balcony. It just didn't make sense. We tried to get her to use some other barbecue pit, but we all we got was this answer: "Aiyah, it's only the numbers, what... Go use the other pits, lah."

Ahem. Barbecue pit 2313 is the one we paid for, not the others. And what's up with that lame excuse of the other barbecue pits being "too hot" when there's no burning charcoal put in the grills yet? "Whatever you are cooking, make it quick. We're gonna use the barbecue pits soon. Hurry up," I answered them. Of course, everyone was pissed when the rains came just when the inconsiderate ladies left with their pot of inedible crap half-cooked.

It rained, and stopped. And it rained again. How are we to barbecue? We waited and waited. By 6-plus the people were grumbling and becoming desperate for barbecue, so someone started the idea of starting the barbecue at the BALCONY, of all places. Nice place to have a barbecue, but what about the smoke signals? Luckily for us, we managed to stop them in time just before they opened the pack of firestarters.

The alumni seniors came to join us, all drenched in the rain and stuff, and still they lent us hands to start the fire at the pit, but it still ended up being a failure anyway - there was no fire, only more rain soaking through their clothes and wet umbrellas. I wished I could stay longer, but by 7.30pm I really had to go for practice because the next day's the full-dress rehearsal for the hip-hop dance. So, much to my own personal dismay I just "disappeared" from the chalet hungry until 10.30pm when the practice ended.

Ate a lot on the first day, starved on the second day, both emotionally and physically.

AHS Guitar Ensemble Farewell Chalet 2008 Day 1

2008-12-02T00:18:00.002+08:00

Back, as usual, after a day out at the chalet that's meant for us Secondary Fours. After all the slogging, grilling at murderous guitar pieces for the performance at Harmony 2008 Concert at Victoria JC Auditorium, it is finally time to relax, have fun and, um, eat till your belly's gonna burst...?

When I got to Aranda Country Club lobby at 2.15pm, I had this hunch that that was definitely the wrong place to go to, because I didn't even know which chalet room we were to meet in. I checked the phone message sent by Wai Ping earlier yesterday, which confirmed that I was to go to Pasir Ris MRT Station instead, which proved my hunch right. Took a 10-minute walk back from Aranda to Pasir Ris MRT, and met Shawn, Zhi Tao and Genevieve, and later some more Sec 1s, before walking back to Aranda. Heh, talk about a little exercise of the feet, sand and mud...

Went to the lobby to wait for Yannis and some adult to check in for us before we could get into a chalet where we could unpack and play around in. After getting in, there was practically nothing much to do except some self-entertainment by playing poker cards and Uno, though of course, there weren't any monetary wagers involved at all.

A while later we ate instant noodles for late lunch. Soon after, they planned to go outdoors to play some messy games, those that involve putting chocolate into flour so that it looks like you-know-what, and probably either making you step and squish it or throwing them around, etc. Quite terribly, it began to rain, so we were stuck indoors and the games were cancelled. Instead, we went for dinner.

Wow, oookay... look at this, fellas. I just ate instant noodles at 5pm, ate some chocolate at 6pm, and now we're out for dinner at 7pm. Still, I ate sliced fish soup with rice, and a bowl of cheng tng
and surprisingly, I still managed to stomach them down. Dropped by KFC to buy a large box of popcorn chicken to munch on in the chalet, then later we resumed self-entertainment among ourselves - Shawn, Zhi Tao, some of the girls and I playing cards and occasionally, the PSP that I borrowed off Shang Bo but still have yet to return to him, and the girls playing tau pok(human pile) in their room, making such a din that for a while, we thought they were doing gang-rape inside.

Anyways, after an awful long time of boredom and joking around, Hai Long finally managed to come, with me meeting him on the way to the lobby and directing him back to the chalet. After his arrival, things soon became different - in a good way, of course. For one, he asked me to go hang around downtown so that he can explore around in this corner of Singapore, and also for him to withdraw some money from the ATM and buy Subway sandwiches for the girls upstairs at Aranda.

Look at this, people, LOOK AT THIS. Instant noodles at 5pm, 2 packs of chocolate at 6pm, sliced fish soup with rice and a bowl of cheng tng at 7pm, popcorn chicken at around 8pm, and now Subway at 9pm. Thanks, Hai Long, for bringing me to such a place to get tempted to eat like nobody's business out here...

In the end by 10pm I was stuffed. I just couldn't eat anymore for the day. After the heavy supper, I hung around for a while more before Uncle Kelvin called up and I had to leave the chalet to come back home, to keep everyone else updated about the happenings during this chalet.

Harmony 2008 Concert

2008-11-28T23:41:00.002+08:00

It's always like this - all the tough work first, then the actual thing just breezes us through like nobody's business. This performance is the last of us Secondary 4s under the name of Anglican High School Guitar Ensemble, which is kinda significant to us. Call it a farewell gift to the school - we helped our school raise some funds for the new indoor stadium.

Anyways, I reached school at 8-plus. It was such a bore at first, with only the few of us waiting for the rest of the Secondary 4 group. The usual stuff - get your stuff ready to go to Victoria Junior College to last yourselves one whole day until dismissal at 10pm.

Crapping around and talking nonsense among the juniors was common, and it always happens whenever there's events that we participate. This bus trip from Anglican High to Victoria Junior College was no exception. I guess by the time we reached VJC everyone had a common topic to talk about - we were put inside Lecture Theatre 4, and boy, the entrance stank like rotten cheese left there for years!

There we stayed, there we crapped, until the dry run session. Sean and Jiayu was performing a guitar solo and dance duet - something that probably those Renaissance art enthusiasts would consider "class". Meanwhile the rest of us Sec 4s were preparing for Lovers' Theme and El Vito, as well as Walk in the Woods by the whole ensemble as one. After the dry run, lunchtime was what all of us were waiting for.

Due to Wei Jie's stature, he was nicknamed Marcus Khoo, after one of the teachers in Anglican High, who is both fat and knows how to play guitar. He soon became the centre of our attention, being made fun of by us during lunchtime and throughout the rest of the waiting period before the performance, though of course, there were no hard feelings at the end of the day.

Thanks to the air con valve blowing directly down from one end of the elevated lecture theatre to the bottom end, I managed to turn my hair into a semi-permanent mess with the help of some hair wax to bring my fringe up. Finally, after years of hair length control by the school, I can finally whip up a presentable hairdo while still leaving my hair long and heaped at the top! At least now, the school authorities have less power over what we do to our hair, as long as we give them what they wish for.

Despite rehearsals and dry runs, and endless practices, we still messed up at some point in our limelight. Lovers' Theme was alright, and the beginning of El Vito was okay too, but at the transition part of the song to the second half, some of us were playing too fast and the rest, too slow to catch up. Luckily for us, there was another pause within the music score, so we managed to come back as one again at the ending, and with a "Ooh!" and multiple hand-poses we caught the audiences' attention and received roaring applause, despite the fact that most of the top-deck seats are empty and that most of the audience are at the bottom deck.

After the performance, I got my bird whistle from the backstage, saw Sean, and gave him well-wishes before his duet, then went back to the stinkin' Lecture Theatre 4 to start boring myself until the interval was up. Meanwhile I was telling about Jacob and Benedict of our screw-up on stage and they were like, "Whalau, you guys suck lah. Look at us, we only Sec 3 nia, can perform much better than you guys leh. Summore, we Lambada people go first leh."

Well, okay... Wait till one day you screw up, and tell that to your juniors. Most likely you guys'd probably get a similar answer.

After the whole performance, we went back to the Lecture Theatre 4, only to find more of our seniors coming back as alumni members of Anglican High! People like Song Han, Wan Ling, Xin Lin, Xinyi, Si Hui, etc etc... Heartwarming sight, to have people who were once part of us coming back for moral support and chatting about life after Anglican High graduation. Thanks, guys!

Of course, good stuff always has to end at some point in time, and so we parted ways at Victoria JC. Some of us went back home by public transport, while some of us came back to Anglican High in order not to waste the money paid for 2 chartered coaches to bring us back to school.

To keep things short, Harmony 2008 Concert was a blast!