Tuesday 31 August 2004

Haven't been online for so long, many things to tidy up...

There's something wrong with Singaporeans and the MRT rail. They seem to have a strong attraction for each other. Maybe before the train arrives at the station, the rail will produce an extra strong gravitational field that exerts a great force on anyone near it and suck him down. 2 people fell into the tracks in 1 day. 3 in the past month. Great attractive force eh?

Some other ridiculous things I've heard in the news.. JB's giving a 50% discount on traffic tickets, as in fines, to encourage people to pay up. That's something like I'll sell you my goods for 50% the original price, you don't want? Don't leave, how about 40%? Who's going to pay fines in the future? Just wait until the market price drops lah, wait for the great Malaysian sale.

I've been screwing up everything lately, my practs, my tests and probably the demo this saturday too. Darn. Somehow I'm not looking forward to the demo, kind of wish I'd never agreed to it, but I know I'll regret if I don't go.

Physics prac, finally found out what's wrong with my L, I connected the switch and galvo in the opp direction, so couldn't get a reading when the switch was open. Stupid me, can't even follow a circuit diagram, if it was a SPA, I would have failed. Chem prac, at the last second, suddenly I was enlightened and realised that the green thing was actually blue ppt in yellow solution. Too late to change though. Anyway still can't figure out why I had this brown ppt thing when I first added alkali, wonder what it is. And still don't understand why Cu(II) can co-exist with CrO4(VII), don't they form a brown ppt?

Had a Physics prac discussion with my mum the other day in Chinese and I felt seriously verbally handicapped. I couldn't find the words for basic things like "plot a graph", "a set of data" and so on. But I could pretty much figure out what 电压 and 电流 are, though it took me quite a while to explain what a galvo is. Apparently it's so ancient that she doesn't remember what it measures.

Thursday 26 August 2004

Last day of formal lessons. So fast, end of JC life...... soon end of education under MOE

Some comments about the Queenstown police dept, inefficient and ineffective. The flasher on East Sussex has been there for so many years and he still hasn't been caught. Now it's the locker burgler, he's been striking every week, almost predictable when he's going to strike, and nobody's been caught, and they actually suspect students who go to sch to study on Sundays. That locker burgler is so untidy, at least he's a burgler not a thief, he doesn't steal, he robs, cuts the frail locks that we use, sweeps everything in the locker onto the ground and takes whatever he thinks is valuable. Jacinth claims that he's trying to make RJ ranking drop by stealing all the jackets and letting students taking exams freeze in the LTs. Haha. Anyway so there's a natural selection thing on the locks that we use nowadays, at least those on the 1st level, where the weak ones are selected against and die out. Then they are replaced by the strong ones when the locker users buy stronger locks. Lucky my locker has survived the attacks so on. Think there'll be another break-in this weekend. Hope the police are prepared.

1st paper tomorrow. All the best to everyone and to myself.

Wednesday 25 August 2004

Great GP lesson!

some ridiculous facts first: price of eggs in Singapore are skyrocketing, $2+ for 10 eggs. Price of eggs in Malaysia is plummeting, going below the cost price of the eggs and they'll going to kill the hens to reduce the number of eggs. So why don't we just let the eggs in? I'm sure they're really careful over testing to see which farm has the avian flu, so if Malaysians can eat their eggs, why can't we? Are we being overly-cautious? Look at the last ban on food imports from Malaysia, pork. It's been almost 5 yrs I think since we've had Malaysian pork. Will the chicken ban last that long? So our egg price will remain high? Inflation is increasing.. we're all getting poorer. What should the new govt do? Lower living costs, lower food prices

yup, back to the gp lesson. Was studying after sch with xh yesterday, and she was having a hard time deciding whether to come to sch today or not. And an impt factor in the decision was whether Mr Khoo will sing in class today. So we decided to go ask him but couldn't find him. So we wrote this note that goes something like this:
"Hello Mr Khoo
Please remember to bring your guitar and lyrics if you wish/need tomorrow.
From your friendly GP class =)
PS It's been one and a half years
We're still waiting... =)"
When we went to quietly put it on his table, he was back at his table. So we panicked and sort of thrusted the note in his hands and ran off. Apparently it worked.

So it was a great GP lesson today, in the Band Room! Fooled around a bit with the percs, then it was a Paul Khoo concert. He has a great voice, and really sounds good when he sings. I think I've been trained to analyse songs when I hear them, normal 933 songs I can pretty much figure out the chords when I hear them, only a few weird chords here and there which I can't, or the songs written by someone weird like Jay Chou. Somehow today I couldn't figure out any chords he played at all. Maybe becaues it's a solo guitar accompaniment, so he had to change chords more often, like on every beat, I couldn't even tell when he returned to the home key. Gosh, maybe I'm losing my "chords recognition" ability. Or maybe or more likely, he's just too pro, and came up with all those great progressions.. Wish I could be that pro one day, and actually write something decent.. just the music part will do, the words part I'll nv make it anyway. So funny when he tried to weave GP in, like talking about his "social issues" song. Haha. Never thought he'll give us a concert, thought he'll just sing 2 songs and then go on to the Arts again.. One of the best GP lessons ever.
Should have brought my video camera

Tuesday 24 August 2004

Athens

this is a really lagging blog cos have been too busy studying to blog

Opening ceremony was fantastic!! It really shows how much culture, how much history Greece has, the entire Western civilisation seemed to have stemmed from there. The scientists and mathematicians, the philosophers and astronomers, the sportsmen... the greek mythologies as well. Really fascinating. The fire Olympic rings thing was really cool, and the "lake" in the stadium was creative and the flying people!! They really look like they are flying, not held by strings. Funny how countries like Iraq and Afghanistan got the most applause during the march in although they sent all males..

On to badminton, Ronald Susilo was everyone's idol for a few days, especially after he beat the Chinese. Everyone in school was and still is playing badminton. Then it was fascination with Li Jiawei and people started playing table tennis. See the power of sports. Li Jiawei shouldn't have lost to the north korean, she was thrashing her, come on, 11-0, then wasted, panicked in the last game and lost 9-11. What a waste! If I were her, I would cry all night too.

On to gym, Khorkina didn't win individuals. She's real good, but she's a stick, only bones and skin. Too tall for a gymnast although she's just 4cm taller than me. So sad she didn't get the gold.

Friday 20 August 2004

diogenesian discourse

quite a cool anti-war, anti-bush site that's easy to read
diogenesian discourse

Tuesday 17 August 2004

Yay, a background finally. Can't believe it, i actually deleted part of the template in the process, so might as well, change the entire thing.. sigh

doing the band evaluation thing, realised that I have nothing to write about, especially the part about the contribution that I'm most proud of, hee hee, didn't contribute much, so nothing to be proud of. Can I write that? Seriously I didn't do much for band except play a weird non-band instrument and add noise.

Some idiot slammed onto my locker, it's now jammed. I can't open it at all. Will get someone to help me open tmr, maybe open from HK's locker.. and the whole column of lockers is standing on its own now, really tall and thin, low stability, if I yank hard enough on my locker door, the whole block will topple.

Thursday 12 August 2004

I'm motivated by everything around suddenly, everybody is boosting my confidence. So nice of everyone. Haha, someone said to me today that "I believe you can do it", woohoo, so I wish I can with all my heart. Ok, a bit duan4 zhang1 qu3 yi4 here, there's an "if" behind that quote. Conditional probability.. Hope I can overcome the "if" part, or rather, convert the "if" to a "because".

Important day today, swearing in ceremony of 3rd PM. But don't feel happy or excited or anything. The 3rd PM didn't look as confident or imposing as the mentor or the SM, maybe he's nervous.. Hope he'll be able to do a good job..

I'm going to get the birthday present that I want this yr, maybe it's a birthday wish granted! Yay! Actually I knew what I wanted since June, haha, just never told anyone. Nevertheless I'm going to get it, though it'll come more than a month late and I actually hesitated before accepting it. Weird me.

Prom, prom, prom, should I go? Waste money and look ugly. Any point in going? Maybe.. but that's the least of my worries now, 15 days to go.

Monday 9 August 2004

recorded sch song on sat. Was tedious but the editing is going to be much more tedious. Wonder who's going to do that.. whether it's the recording people or Kah Chun. Whoever it is, I don't think we'll get to hear it next monday. Anyway, felt different during that prac, maybe because it's a so predominantly J1 prac, (1/3 of the J2 batch went), I felt da pai, like how people felt when they were sec 4s and kings of their CCAs. Oh yeah, and Christelle was in sch, haha, she always seem to be hanging around sch, every time I go somewhere to AS and study, I'll find her. Nice company though.

Then went to the Experiences thing at VJ.. Still can't believe how near that place is from my house, and I have to travel an hour plus every day back from my school. Anyway, the more schs i talk to, the harder it is to cross them off my list. So my list is growing instead of shrinking. sigh.

Watched fireworks yesterday with CB6. Doing stupid things to pass the time while waiting for fireworks like play "animal farm", or the band people will call it "concentration", whatever, it's the same game. Played 7up, boring, and played "terminal password", zhong ji mi ma.. haha. People around us must have thought we were mad, doing stupid animal actions and making weird noises, and shouting weird messages to Singapore. Played some snap game as well, and I have to say that Bao's reaction is so super fast, must be all the goalkeeper training during handball and the carnival games that we throw balls at her.. She's so super fast. Xiaowei was right, that was probably the last time we'll see each other before our 'A's, we should really treasure each other and stay in contact..

Friday 6 August 2004

Glad that I didn't go out with CB6 today cos I managed to have a long long chat with Sunny and Xuxu today. So long. It's been ages since I just sat somewhere and chat for let me see.. 2h? Guess I'm not much of a chatty person. I'm composed? Haha, look at some of the more prominent people in school, they can scream, shout, jump, fly without getting a hair out of place. That's composed, in control. We were talking about people having a positive aura, interesting way to see people. And yes, the girls in our class are really nice, but I think the guys are nice too, even the person that most in the class can't stand. Well, maybe I haven't been interacting with him much, or maybe because I made my stand clear in the beginning, I didn't really have the bad experiences some other people in the class had with him.

I just have to say this again. You'd never know when you'll say something that you think is so insignificant that will impact someone else so much, in both positive and negative ways. So say more, higher probability of affecting someone positively.

Dunno why he have to do it this way, use the word "invited". He must have known that I can't reject it. The dates are really bad, one in the 10th week after the pracs, one after the last day of 'A's, so there's almost no time to practise unless I sacrifice my studying, but I really really want to go. Does he know that I want to go this much? i need a few days to think abt it...

Thursday 5 August 2004

Harvard, Yale, Princeton.. ever wonder why they arrange it this way? Is this some kind of ranking? Or just simply for the HYP? Anyway, these schools are too far out of reach. I'll never make it there. Even if I do, I don't think I'll like it too much, though Yale does sound fun, or maybe it's just the presenters who are good. I'll never know.

How would I ever know what I really want to study? Or want to be? Ans I got was "through mistakes, and hopefully your mistakes are not too serious". I never expected to get that advice, so it came rather as a shock. So the conclusion is "try everything and see what you like and don't like". Makes a whole lot of sense doesn't it? but is that the only way? What if I realise that I made a mistake only in my final year? What if I'm on bond and have to stick with whatever I don't like for another 6 years? But don't think that will happen.. The Warwick woman yesterday claimed that she still don't know what she wants to do when she "grow up", and she's surviving fine, with a great job travelling around the world, getting an overfilling LT of audience. Will I be that lucky and find a job that I really like? Will someone pay me for doing something that I like? What do I like? Glad I asked today, and got a really good answer.. so i didn't waste my afternoon, though effectively I did work for only half an hour.

QQ likes that "funny girl" so much. She's like her kai xin guo, to make her day so much better. But it's true that she's super funny, and disruptive too. haha

Was walking through that underpass leading towards MRT and the guy (the short one) was singing "Stand By Me". Suddenly all the memories flood back, the 8-bars repeat until you think that the song is about to finish, the score that you see for one practice and then can throw it away forever, the evergreen encore piece, the "bye-bye, go back and sleep, audience" piece. Or to a smaller extent, the Takano piece which I accidentally deleted.. Music stores memories definitely.