life journal

Fire Drill

2006-07-17T21:51:00.000+08:00

Halfway through PE today, there was this sudden fire drill which made everybody pretty upset as we were just going to begin a soccer match. But still we followed procedures and made our way to the destination, and sat down under the hot morning sun and waiting for something to happen.

We were entertained by ungood feedback and some other stuff, and for those classes whose breaks have been affected were given a half hour break. And it resulted in a terrible congestion in the canteen.

How unlucky. We missed our soccer, and have to endure long queues to buy food.

Contrary to popular belief, we did a comprehesion today for English, and there were no presentations, as Mrs Tan was afraid that another fire drill will crop up while we are doing our comprehension.

After school we had to stay back for our GCE "O" Level Chinese Listening Comprehension thing, and at 13:45 (too early) I reached the appropiate classroom for the exam. And indeed, it was way too early. I ended up spending my time doing nothing there.

We were led to believe that it was to begin at 14:15, but damn, no teacher appeared until 15 minutes later, who brought in a radio (which didn't need to be plugged in) and stated that the exam will only start at 15:00. So meanwhile, we were given our papers and unwillingly entertained by music from Symphony 92.4 FM. And yes, the exam was to be broadcasted over the radio, to ensure that all students will start at the same time. Smart idea, actually, but I truly pity the station fans who happen to be tuning in to their favourite classical music channel at that time.

I slept a bit, and when the time came, the exam began and we just listened and selected our answers. Some questions (okay, it was only one) weren't very easy, so I had to make a difficult choice, and everything ended 30 minutes later. Once we were dismissed there was a usual discussion over the answers. Ping Lin even wrote his answers on the back of his hand for comparison. Smart.

One important thing down. Now there's a Geography Test on Wednesday. And some English thing tomorrow.

Speech Day

2006-07-15T20:34:00.000+08:00

I skipped (unwillingly) yesterday's Physics Practical because I had to attend a Speech Day rehearsal, and it's pretty bad, since I've to stay back on Monday to make up for the lesson.

Despite starting earlier (way earlier) and only two rehearsals planned, everybody ended up going home even later (19:40), and it's frustrating. The rehersals started a lot a lot later, and it seemed like I really had the time to go for a bit of activity. Rehearsals are way too boring.

The second rehearsal was cut short due to the extreme lack of time, and I vanished immediately after that.

Today was the real thing, and I had to show up at 08:00 despite the thing starting only at like 10:00. So for most of the time I really really did nothing. The first part of the real event was dominated by horrendously lengthy speeches (about 1.5 hours, bloody hell), and it was only after a long time before we really could do our job and move some chairs.

When the Concert Band was performing, we could go for erm lunch, which was ready packet food. Then it was the end, we packed all the chairs, had a debrief or whatever, and were dismissed. So much for spending so much time for what, six rehearsals?

They had better give me some CIP hours.

After that I went to have lunch with some 3G boys (the packet food wasn't enough), went home, and came out an hour later to meet Xiang Yi to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. It was very nice, though it was very long (2.5 hours). Still, I recommend watching it. Not bad for a show which I thought was lame a long time ago.

Crystals

2006-07-13T21:36:00.000+08:00

Early morning's Maths Test was deadly, though I still sort of managed to finish it. But yeah, a tricky paper it was. Late in the day was Chemistry Practical, and there was no titration (yay). Instead we had to prepare a salt by following a long list of procedures and wasting a lot of time to wait for stuff to happen. Waiting for crystals to form, and they never did.

In the afternoon there was the Speech Day rehearsal again, and there were two planned for today. The first one started early, and we thought we would go home earlier than before, but it turned out that we left even much later.

More stuff were changed today, causing more confusion, and we caught a glimpse of the (honestly, very ugly) Time Capsule for the school which allegedly costs $10000. Five zeroes, yeah, and it looked like it wasn't worth $10000 at all. Maybe it's because of the amount of marble used.

The rehearsals were yet again boring, and we just did our jobs, moving chairs and tiers and slacking away. There's yet another a series of rehearsals tomorrow, and I guess it's going to be three of them.

But I get to get out of class at 13:00. Skip Physics, skip Physics! But it's a Practical, so I have to make up for it someday. Argh.

And Zidane explains why he headbutted the Italian defender. Go Zizou!

My House

2006-07-12T23:40:00.000+08:00

After school today, Xiang Yi, Peng Jie, and Weiyuan came to my house to finish up our English project. It wasn't very finished, but we made significant progress. We did play, but only played after we had finished our work. Two computers offered pure entertainment for us. After some time, they left. Quite late then.

Back to school stuff. There wasn't anything much today, except that Assembly was erm WTF. We were shown this 1% funny documentary, Singapore GaGa, which succeeded in boring the hell of out of us.

Oh well.

pwnt

2006-07-11T21:28:00.000+08:00

During English today, I wasn't paying much attention with most of the class, and unluckily got called by Mrs Tan to answer a question. She promptly scolded me as I didn't have my dictionary on my table (instead it was under the desk), and was always "flicking your pen" (I consider this as an achievement. Finally my effort for learning how to spin pens is noticed, though in a bad way). I answered the question anyway, and I had thought all troubles were over.

After the lesson, I went to the toilet with Xiang Yi and Peng Jie, with the teacher still in class. Once I was in the toilet and washing my hands, I heard a horrible call of my name. I was WTF, and went out to face trouble. Then I got scolded for "leaving the classroom without permission", and "you cannot leave when I'm still in class".

Well, even the Chairperson got out too, but I'm the only person getting pwned in the face. Yeah, maybe I do really have a problem, but it wasn't really fair that out of the ten or more people who broke the same rule, I was the only person getting whacked, and to get an invitation to a talk with her after school. pwnt!

To sum it up, the teacher's conclusion is that I have an attitude problem, and should see her after school. Xiang Yi tried to persuade me not to go, but Peng Jie (who was hiding in the toilet then LOL) claimed that I'd die a horrible death if I didn't do so.

A trip to the Staff Room was wasted, as she wasn't around, so I just went for NCC. Realised that now my post is err Head of the Discipline Committee (and still haven't any idea of what I'm supposed to do), and for the rest of the afternoon, it was another Speech Day rehearsal.

And rehearsals on Thursday and Friday. WTF. pwnt.

Headbutt

2006-07-10T23:06:00.000+08:00

Miss Yew began today's Maths lesson by talking about Zinedine Zidane's super headbutt move at an Italian defender, and indeed, it was a stupid move. She also got Boon Hean and I to act out WTF happened, which was quite WTF. Then we did normal Maths stuff.

Mr Tan didn't show up for PE today, and some female teacher took over. Ran two rounds around the track, and for the rest of the time we were stuck in the Hall playing badminton. It was alright, and sometimes quite funny.

After recess was two very boring language lessons, then an absolutely fatally boring Geography lesson (almost slept). Went to play a bit of soccer after school, after which I became a spectator with Peng Jie, watching them play. We were waiting for them, and after they were done, we went home. Mr Chua appeared too, and walked slowly around and pwned everyone who were playing in school uniform.

Italy Wins

2006-07-10T05:20:00.000+08:00

I've finished watching the final round of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, and it's a bit disappointing to see the game won by penalties. I expected France to win, but then slowly Henry and Ribery disappeared, and Zidane headbutted Materazzi to earn himself a red card. Yikes.

So Italy wins, and pwns all predictions that either Brazil or Germany will win. And yes, I drank coffee and cannot sleep.

Stuff

2006-07-09T12:32:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I went to Weiyuan's house with Xiang Yi and Peng Jie for a final attempt to complete our English project, but for most of the time we were either playing the computer, watching televison, playing football (penalty shootouts in the house), or playing with the dog. Yeah, we did do some stuff, but it wasn't very fantastic.

Now we just have to rush the project somehow, before we go and present. And I'm troubled by a lot of stuff lately. I feel terrible.

Battleships

2006-07-07T23:19:00.000+08:00

Maths was the first lesson of the day, and we just went through and did some questions. Half of English was handled by Mr Guo, who went through the quiz we took yesterday with us, and then Mrs Tan instantly took over and we got into our groups. And "discussed".

Chinese was boring, and cheated the teacher and resulted in doing absolutely nothing useful at all. Had some stuff to do for the next few days, which I think I won't bother to do.

During recess I tried the food at the new Western food stall for bucks, and for some strange reason I got bouts of flu after that. Whether to attribute it to the food or not, I have no idea.

Mr Goh, the new Chemistry teacher, took over today and began teaching. Well the lesson was boring (he was teaching mostly what we had learnt before), and during recess we got this pad of papers with grids, and therefore Boon Hean and I sought out entertainment by playing Battleships.

I think Mr Goh sort of suspected both of us, but he didn't really found out what we were exactly doing. Boon Hean won anyway, and it was quite LOL.

15 minutes of Social Studies next, we got worksheets and watched videos, especially about the (irrelevant) one about this person eating a live frog. Mr Lim really knows how to find gross videos.

At 12:00 we were promptly dismissed, just like all other students of the country, because teachers have to attend this thing held by the Ministry. Yay.

But it was quite a bad thing, because almost everywhere was packed with students. I went with some boys to Lot 1 to have lunch, and had a terrible time finding seats. Terrible time. Went home after that.

I'm going to Weiyuan's house tomorrow with the others to really finish up our English project, but I foresee hours of pure entertainment for us.

Coffee

2006-07-06T22:41:00.000+08:00

Apparently I woke up at around 03:00 again today morning, in order to watch France fight Portgual to enter the finals. I gulped down a can of coffee to keep myself awake, and the effect was incredible: I felt energetic even when I went to school.

Anyway, Zidane kicked in a penalty, and now France are now in the finals. Yay.

It rained heavily in the morning, and Boon Hean and I had to bring the report books to the Staff Room, and also had to get extra chairs for visitors later. After Maths was Social Studies, when two visitors (very important ones) came to "spectate " the lesson. We did group work, which I don't even think we'd be doing anytime soon.

Following recess was a boring English lesson, a very long Chinese lesson (prepared for the oral exam later in the day), a slightly better Chemistry Practical (my titration is wonderful), and lastly Physics. Went through a bunch of stuff without learning anything new and we were dismissed early because we had our oral exam.

At 14:15 I made my way with the others to the 3I classroom to wait for our turn, and we sat accordingly, followed some instructions, and bloody waited.

After what it seemed like 50 minutes, it was finally my turn, and I finished the exam in a few minutes, before leaving. It wasn't too bad, but I paused quite a lot of times. The examiners didn't prompt me or anything, so I assume I'm fine.

I changed into my PT kit next and went to the Hall for the Speech Day rehearsal, and met the backstage crew and then for the next few hours, we did two rehearsals. Sometimes we got out and chatted with the other Part Cs who were trying to clean the NCC Room, and everything ended quite late. Left quickly, and went home with some difficulty. Stupid public transport.

Germany Gone (Almost)

2006-07-05T18:38:00.000+08:00

Italy pwned Germany today morning, and I really woke up at 03:00 to watch the match, though in a worse state. But Germany still can play to get third place.

Today's Chemistry lesson was swapped for an hour of Physics, as Miss Tan wanted to do some uhh, revision. After enduring through Maths and Geography, PE was horrible, as the only activity we did was to run around the track five times.

After recess was a very boring PDP which I used to revise for the Physics Test at the last minute. During Assembly, Mrs Look briefed us on emergency evacuation procedures, and then this filmmaker came to show off his (IMO) unentertaining short films. It certainly seemed that most weren't very interested. Especially those who were sitting around me.

Physics Test started shortly after in class: it lasted for an hour, and was far simpler than I thought, though there were some strange questions.

Yet another World Cup match to catch early tomorrow morning, and a bunch of stuff tomorrow: an exam, plus a Speech Day rehearsal.

Backstage Again

2006-07-04T21:34:00.000+08:00

History and Chinese were the first two (sort of boring) lessons of the day, and we had an earlier recess because the school realised that the canteen situation was fatal.

Group work for English was pointless, and then there were three hours of lessons, no matter how great the subject is, which were boring. At least the Physics Practical was decent (pendulum bob kept dropping on the table, however), but Geography with our new teacher is arghhh.

NCC was okay, but for most of the time I was (unwillingly, very very unwillingly) dispatched to the Hall to be part of the backstage crew for Speech Day. I really didn't like my job, and to think I've got to show for up for a lot of rehearsals.

Today's rehearsal was the first, so there wasn't anything much to do except to move stuff around very slowly. The space in the Hall was terribly small, and most of the time when the Part Cs had absolutely nothing to do, we slacked. Actually I was supposed to fill in for some people who didn't show up today, but Mr Ong stated that I'm now part of the crew. Never!

At the end of the day, the Part Cs ended up sitting in a cooled classroom with Mr Ong to discuss some stuff (um, workplan), and we went off at 18:30. Made me reach home an hour and a half later, damn it.

I don't want to be part of the backstage crew! How the hell did I got myself into this anyway? And there's a Physics Test tomorrow, with an oral exam the day after. WTF?

Youth Day

2006-07-03T18:43:00.000+08:00

Today is supposedly Youth Day, which isn't any bit significant to me other than the fact that students don't have to attend school for one more day.

On Saturday, I went to the library to do my English project with my group. We did a bit of the project by borrowing three books, but wasted the remaining time at the LAN shop and arcade. How very productive.

Unpredictable Results

2006-07-02T12:21:00.000+08:00

I watched England play Portugal yesterday night, and saw England lose (again) on penalties. Rooney's sent off for misbehaviour, but at least England defended all shots with one less person (they got Crouch in for striker, but it was sort of useless). But why screw up on penalties?

For the second match (France and Brazil), I only watched the first 15 minutes before going to sleep, and then today morning I woke up to discover that something horrible has happened to Brazil: they got thrashed. Unpredictable stuff.

Now the semi-finals are also unpredictable, but I hope France kills Portugal. And Italy beat Germany. And then we'd all have good entertainment.

NCC Day

2006-06-30T21:18:00.000+08:00

I went to school early in the morning because it was NCC Day today, and had to form up early. Arrived in my No. 4 with some badges, and after some waiting in the canteen, the platoon went to fall in, sized, and waited for the stuff to begin.

The parade thing soon started and I just stood at my place, followed procedures and stayed still. The usual stuff, yeah. After that we took some photos, and went back to class. Staff Zaviar was suggesting an unrealistic but funny plan to delay time to skip lessons.

Miss Yew began on a new topic for Maths, which was pretty uninteresting. For English, Mr Guo (finally) took over the lesson for today, and he began calling people out to present their comments on an article they've read in the given issue of TIME.

I was the first person to be called out.

I didn't prepare, but I had read an article about the World Cup yesterday, so I was sort of "ready" and uttered a few minutes of rubbish and nonsense and I think Mr Guo watches the World Cup too. Mrs Tan, who was sitting at back, on the other hand, appeared to catch no ball.

A lot a lot of people were called out next, and most of the time they talked about the same article about learning Chinese. The boring lesson quickly ended, and Chinese was next.

We had to do this comprehension thing, and Boon Hean and I "collaborated" and (almost) completed our work quickly, leaving the last question undone since we had no idea how to do it.

After recess was Chemistry, but Mrs Tan didn't come today, and so we had a new Mr Goh taking over the lesson. And for the whole hour, we did introductions and introductions and spent the last quarter doing nothing. Well, he looks like a friendly teacher, but we'll have to see how it goes. Perhaps he has a dark side.

After Social Studies was umm Physics, went through worksheets, and we were off. NCC today was mostly in the hands of the Part Cs, with the Part Ds at the field playing soccer, but we also couldn't do much. The Part Bs were off for shooting, and we were only left with the Part As. Worst of all, the number of Specialists were more than that of the Part As.

Some people went to handle the cadets, while some went to do nothing, and I was one of the few who went down to the NCC Room to clean it up. We found a lot of interesting items there, tried out best to pack everything nicely, but we left it mostly unchanged in the end. Can't really be cleaned.

For the rest of the time I looked through the nominal rolls, read some stuff I found in the room, and emerged into the open to take a section of three Part A cadets for drills, along with some other Specialists, who appeared to be quite fed up.

Anyway, it wasn't fun, but I was with them nevertheless, occasionally teaching them some stuff, correcthing their mistakes, and eventually they were dismissed. Had a talk by the seniors, and then we were off too.

Monday's Youth Day, a holiday, yay. And I've time to watch the World Cup, finally.

Lab "Shower"

2006-06-29T20:04:00.000+08:00

I didn't bring my paper for Maths today, but it didn't matter since we didn't have to hand it up. And for the whole lesson, we went through the paper. For History, Mr Lim told us that two teachers would come to class next week like what Certain Physics Teacher did to our Physics lesson last time, and I think I know who they are. Anyway, the lesson was mainly about Singapore's merger with Malaysia and stuff.

After recess was English, and that Mr Guo came again. I think we did nothing useful at all; we spent most of the time underlining useless keywords. Chinese next was more interesting, but the group work thing was ugh. From what I saw, 3H's new Chinese teacher is way more entertaining than our new one, though both a lot better than the first Chinese teacher of the year.

Chemistry Practical next, and I found out that there was really a bigger space in the school to contain all the laboratories (yes I n00b). From the lab I could see the field, but they weren't anybody kicking a ball.

The new laboraties were also equipped with this fascinating yellow shower thing, and my brother told me (back at home) that it's to wash off all the acid or other fatal substances if somebody is unlucky enough to get contact with them. It was very funny, and it wasn't something I expected to find in that place. Wash your body in the open?

Today we were supposed to do a simple titration, which wasn't very simple at all. We had to learn how to use all the apparatus, wash everything thoroughly, and take way too much steps to finish a round. Due to the lack of time we didn't complete the whole experiment, and left 15 minutes later than we should have.

Physics next, and we went through an assignment for which I got an almost balanced amount of ticks and crosses (along with some question marks), and (I think) to compensate for us being 15 minutes late, we were dismissed 15 minutes later.

Tomorrow's the deadly deadline for the Maths project thing. Argh.

Foiled Plan

2006-06-28T18:55:00.000+08:00

I intended to watch Brazil play with Ghana last night at 23:00, but I was so tired that I couldn't wake up when the match started. You see, I wanted to have a short nap from 22:00, but it turned into a standard sleeping session in the end. A foiled plan. At least there aren't any matches for today and tomorrow.

The first lesson of the day was the first Chemistry lesson of the week, and we settled homework stuff and went through a bit of them. Then for Maths we went through some questions, Geography was boring, and PE sucked. Had to run (I shouldn't complain; it was only three rounds), and then do a bunch of exercises. The exercises weren't very terrible, but it was a bad and boring way to spend half an hour.

The usual Wednesday canteen congestion appeared today again, and it was made worse when I saw Secondary 2 students streaming in. Took me a long long time to buy my damn food.

PDP was boring, but the class discussed WTF we should do for various upcoming events, the Be Yourself Day (!!!) and Racial Harmony Day, so it wasn't very bad.

The class was divided into two groups, with one discussing one event each, and I was part of the Racial Harmony Day thing. Still, for most of the time I was suggesting unrealistic stuff and nonsense, but some of my ideas were accepted anyway. Funny.

Next and last thing of the day was Assembly, and we were "entertained" by a Malay male a cappella group. They weren't too bad, but I was still bored throughout, like others. The overhead project was pwned, so Mrs Look couldn't share with us the emergency evacuation prodecures (phew), and we could go off. Assembly's the last lesson/thing of the day.

And I haven't finished my projects.

Taking Over, Sort Of

2006-06-27T21:13:00.000+08:00

Morning stuff was held in the Hall, and there were a bunch of announcements made before we could go off. First lesson was Social Studies, and it wasn't any different from History. Also means that my results wouldn't be any different too.

After a boring Chinese lesson, we got into our groups for English and were supposed to discuss our project. Since my group hasn't given a damn about it, we made up a report which was alright, I think. Then we had to write a poem, WTF, to describe our process in doing the project.

Following recess was Geography, and I felt terribly sleepy. I only felt a bit "energised" when I had to stand up and help to turn up the volume for the speakers, but then I was sleepy again.

Physics next wasn't any better. Went through a bunch of questions (and I tried to sleep), and we went through some homework for Maths later.

NCC today was different, and the Part Cs partially took over. We got temporary, unconfirmed posts for today, and I was supposed to be one of the five PCs for Part B, but in the end I couldn't do anything much because there was PT (handled by the PTIs), which in turn was cut short because we had a rehearsal for NCC Day again.

It was essential actually, because for this year once again, we'll be having an event with another uniformed group (just like last year), but thank goodness there wasn't much conflict this year.

We did two rehearsals, one outdoors (terribly hot), one indoors, then we got the hell out, went to fall in, and after a session of talking and some fun, we were dismissed. Fast enough.

Friday's NCC Day, and I guess the Part Cs would be taking over real soon. On the other hand, I hate to wait for buses.

School

2006-06-26T19:54:00.000+08:00

It's back to bloody school, and it was an expected sight to see people copying homework, me included. But I got bored of copying, and decided to do nothing.

In the morning we assembled at the track, and we had visitors from Thailand (doesn't make any difference to me), and there was this sound/tune/melody/noise played very very loudly every hour. It was terribly loud, and I'd be better off with my watch.

I didn't know the schedule for the day, but I knew roughly what lessons there were. Maths was first, there was some homework stuff to be settled (including the stupid project due on Friday), some nonsense talk, a bit about the World Cup, and then we got this worksheet to do for the lesson.

PE next, and we had new teachers, but they only took measurements for our height and weight, and we were thrown into the hands of Mr Tan.

We were then told to run 1.6 km, four rounds, and after that the 3H boys joined us, Mr Tan told us what we were going to do in the future and it was recess. Peng Jie and I went to do pull-ups, again.

After recess was English with Mrs Tan and a new Mr Guo (who was sitting at the back watching us most of the time), and we just went through a worksheet.

Our Chinese teacher has been replaced (the day has come) by yet another Malaysian one, a certain Miss Yu, and we simply did some introductions and stuff for the whole lesson.

Mdm Lalitha has also replaced Mr Phoon for Geography, and there's no damn chance now we'll get another McDonald's treat. After a short (requested) introduction, she began her lesson, and really, I felt like sleeping.

After school there was a problem on how to go home (dumb buses), and eventually some 3G and 3H boys and I had a long bus ride to West Mall, had lunch there, and I left from there. Certainly sucks not to have a MRT station near your school.

Now I just have to finish up whatever homework I have.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I found an awesome water tap just outside the D&T workshop (or Design Studio, and it's now called). Basically it sprays a huge blast of water when turned on. Legendary.

School Warming Day

2006-06-23T21:16:00.000+08:00

It's School Warming Day today, apparently to get us into the new campus, and deprive us a few hours of time. I ended up with an extra cap, not much impression of the new school, and broken spectacles.

My father drove me to school in the morning, and it was raining quite badly. I went to the Hall (found my way), and discovered that it wasn't as big as I expected it to be. It didn't look as big, but it could amazingly accomodate the whole school with plenty of extra space.

I waited for some time before the standard ceremonial stuff and a bunch of announcements. The upper secondary pupils then had a tour around the school, along with a map.

The map showed that the school layout was complexly complex, with 20 blocks altogether. It also seems that the elevation in the area was uneven, and it made things sort of worse. One corner of the school was arguably the most confusing of the lot.

The canteen's bigger, the library's better (the space outside it is huge), but the D∓T workshop was well, pathetic. Apparently they just found a room and dumped everything inside. You can't expect a junior college to have workshops. And kitchens too.

The chapel, was converted into a dance studio and whatever else, the "stadium" was smaller than I expected (they wiped off the holy message too), but the track is alright.

The NCC and NPCC Rooms are essentially one room and it/they stinks/stink. Partially sunk underground, I had to bend down to get in (yes maybe because I'm tall but the entrance is still freaking small), and inside was like an underground secret base or whatever. Seriously horrible. I bet it was a junk storeroom in its previous life.

Soon we got into our classrooms, and 3G's wasn't a container classroom. It was surprisingly very very clean and uncluttered, with two whiteboards, and I went with Ernest to get the projector from some funny place, and went on a task to find extra tables and chairs because there aren't enough.

For this event, the school treated us to McDonald's breakfast items, which were decent but nothing much also. I came back to find food on my table, and finished it twice as fast as those who had already got it before I was back with a table.

Went to the Hall next, and we got a cap each, for the event. Then everybody went to the wet and slightly muddy field for the what, "RV Challenge". Just to make everyone stand in a formation to form some words and a photo of the resulting product would be taken by a "professional photographer", who made his way up to the roof to carry out his job.

White dots were painted all over, and everyone was to stand on a dot each. I found one, and spent the rest of the time talking (while they were still getting people in to stand on the white dots), until I was exiled to the stands to sit because I wasn't needed in the end. Yay. Definitely better than standing under the hot sun.

Water rockets were launched after that to quite a considerable height, but the display wasn't very spectacular, and we all sat on the wet track (which imprinted red markings on my pants, WTF) and got dismissed.

Dumped my bag in the canteen, and ate some stuff after managing to endure a long queue. Only two or three stalls were open today, so there were very long queues. Changed into my PT kit and the platoon went to fall in in front of the underground barrack at 13:30.

We were treated quite nicely today, and there was considerable laughter (most of the time about Best Cadet Edwin). Staff Forgel handled us for some time in the end, and it was a little PT. Did pull-ups first (12. I thought I could only sustain eight), parallel bars next (quite alright), followed by monkey bars (pain, pain), finally a low wall to climb over. Easy enough.

We went to fall in next, sort of lagged around, and had a rehearsal for what we were going to do on NCC Day. The standard annual procedure. We did two rehearsals, and were dismissed eventually. Most of us stayed back to play, and most of the most went to play soccer with the Part Ds (it was a promise) at the netball court.

It was quite fun, and we were getting owned all the time, and I was finally pwned when a ball came flying into my face, breaking my spectacles into two. One lens broke, and it had to be replaced. I got out of the game and watched them play, when Kah Sing joined later because he was hit by the ball at his leg injury.

Xiang Hui, Kah Sing, and I went home in the end, because we didn't want to play anymore. I could go home with my pwned spectacles anyway. Wasn't much of a problem, and I have a spare one at home. Still, I have to make a new one.

Specialists' Course

2006-06-22T22:13:00.000+08:00

I have endured four days of boredom and tests and a little bit of fun to end up as a Specialist, finally, after a lot of months. I have returned home worse than ever, having missed a significant lot of World Cup matches, as well as having an epaulette torn off, reason unknown.

But I got my new rank, a new badge, certificates, and very little time left to finish up my work for the holidays.

Day One: My parents dumped me at Amoy Quee Camp, along with my stuff, and I walked towards the gate when I was stopped by a CLT. He wanted to me to put on my beret, as well as to fill in a form. I met Xiang Hui, and both of us, or in fact, everyone was looking lost. Bing Yang arrived shortly after, and three of us were led by another CLT to sit down somewhere and wait. Saw the rest (who came later) march past us, and we joined them.

It drizzled soon, and the bunch of us boarded a bus with other cadets from other schools and the bus took us to Pasir Laba Camp, or specifically, School of Infantry Specialists (SISPEC). When we reached there, everything was in a mess, but soon we were divided into six platoons, two companies, strangely called Kilo and Lima. Anyway.

I was in the last platoon, which didn't make any difference, and the first two days of the "course" was actually a tour (and partially an effective waste of time) around SISPEC and friends. Everyone found a bunk to live in, and my platoon also included Janson and Kenneth. Adequate company, yeah.

Did a lot of administrative stuff, and then we went to the Auditorium at the School of Military Intelligence (I haven't an idea what the hell they do there), and uhh, had a welcome speech by someone, were briefed on WTF is SISPEC (the speaker was funny. Made jokes every few seconds), but almost died of boredom sitting there anyway.

All of us had to march, if we moved around from the place, and we did this for the next few hours and the next day. And it's not a short distance, mind you. Had to march a long way just to end up outside the cookhouse.

So that's what we did, and we were served Muslim food for lunch. The serving process was efficient, but the food was bad. It's actually not so bad, but worse than I had expected. Ate like half of it, and then threw the rest away.

After lunch, we were introduced to three weapons used by the infantry, mainly the SAR21, a grenade launcher, and a bigger gun. Following a very boring briefing in a room, we were sent to training sheds to be introduced to each individual weapon, and after the soldiers demonstrated the stuff, everyone could try out the unloaded weapon. It was sort of interesting, but I felt bored anyway. The SAR21, with its plastic magazine and kevlar body, seriously looks like a toy gun.

We had a break in our bunks next, and simply slacked around. Also laid our bedsheets and stuff, and next was dinner. The outcome wasn't any different from lunch. Some people also went for a haircut because their hair was too long (and maximising their chances of getting kicked out), and the session next was at Rocky Hill Mess, a pub-like place above the canteen. Some funny talk session with SAF personnel. All Master Sergeants.

Anyway, we sat down inside, and listened to an introduction, and watched a short clip from the movie A Few Good Men, and it became the topic of the session. Boring. We got out into the open, and different groups interacted with different personnel in their No. 3.

The talk session thing ended, and everyone went back inside to be welcomed by a funny Master Sergeant with a turban, who made a lot of jokes which were really funny. There was something about his turban as his parachute, but that's not the point. All of us had a break after that, and Yan Wen got me to tag along with him to the nearby equipment shop to buy a pair of shoes because he didn't bring one for the course. There was PT the next day, so it was essential.

So he got his new pair of shoes, and the RV platoon gathered and talked about the funny incidents which had happened, and then we went to fall in and marched back to our residence for night snack.

Night snack was decent, which consisted of a quite cold cake, an apple pie, and very hot Milo. Then we could get to our bunks and do whatever we want until 23:00, when we would go to sleep.

I bathed, slacked around, found others to chat with, and finally slept when the lights were switched off.

Day Two: The next day, I woke up at 05:00, washed up, and got ready to fall in in my PT kit. Boys were separated from the girls for some unknown reason, and it was weird because we did PT together anyway.

At the Parade Square, we formed up, spread, and had PT. The PTIs had sound amplifiers and a platform to stand on to aid in showing us how to do PT, which included the SAF way of warming up. To my horror, shock, surprise, and disbelief, it was nothing compared to what we do at school, though I understand that the soldiers run extremely long distances.

Wind blew hard, then it rained, and we were ordered to run to the cookhouse as fast as possible because the rain was getting heavier. With this, we missed a 1.5 km run. Yes, 1.5 km. 0.9 km short of what I do in PE.

Breakfast was alright, and then we marched back again to our residence, where we changed into our No. 4, and put all our bags into one single bunk. Cleaned up, went to fall in, and everyone marched a long distance to the Warrant Officer School, easily abbreviated as SAFWOS, and the stupid "Star Wars" joke by the guy there in the room wasn't funny at all.

The guy gave us an introduction/overview to the school, which was mainly uninteresting stuff. The tour next was more interesting, but still very boring.

At the Auditorium of the School of Military Intelligence, we were given an Army Recruitment Talk, and watched a very weird video promoting the Army. Well certainly, the talk didn't make me love the SAF. After the talk, the RSM of NCC talked to us, and told us "rules". Master Sergeants were to be called their rank instead of the usual "Encik", any CSM was to be called "Sergeant Major" (four syllables, yikes), and any cadet has the right to put his/her beret under his/her left epaulette, something which everybody did for the whole course, and something I thought was "illegal" previously. Additionally, there's no need to wax/starch uniforms to make collars and epaulettes thick as rock (practically wastes my previous efforts to please the Specialists), and polishing boots is no longer compulsory, though it sure adds to have a little shine on your footwear.

Lots of changes, and they are significant changes.

Lunch at the cookhouse was horrendous, and there was another weapon session thing like the previous afternoon. Held at the School of Infantry Weapons, we were introduced to heavier, deadlier, and cooler weapons like tank destroyers (right, that's not the proper name), snipers, and machine guns firing at 1200 RPM.

As usual, there was a boring introduction talk in a room, after which we were divided into groups to visit different stations. Lima 6, my platoon, was shredded into five, each of which would join the others. Five stations altogether, you see.

My group consisted of all RV cadets, and we happily joined Zhi Ler's and Jonathan's platoon. As a result, we kept talking, and didn't bother much about the stations. Sze Kiat also came over for a while and we had happy conversations.

After all the stations, I was back with Lima 6, and soon we had dinner, unfortunately. I didn't really want a dinner at that place, but had a meal eventually.

Bunk cleaning next, and we couldn't really find anything to clean. So we slacked and talked and it was pretty funny. Janson got along well with the others, and we talked a lot of nonsense.

And soon enough there was an inspection which lasted for last than ten seconds (which involved a SAF person popping his head in and scanning the area only), and we got our stuff back down. Went to fall in, had a briefing for the next day, and two buses were beside us waiting to ferry cadets to Jurong Point.

Cadets could either choose to take the bus (only two available) or get out of the camp themselves. I was one of the lucky ones who could get onto a bus, and off it went, and I alighted at Boon Lay MRT station. Took the train with Stefan and I reached home. And after a few hours, I would be back at Amoy Quee Camp.

Day Three: Woke up at home, and my father drove me to Amoy Quee Camp for the second part of the course. Went in to fall in, had a new PC (who looked severely strict and unfriendly). Then all of us dumped our bags in one bunk, took a waterbottle and writing materials, and marched to the Multi-Purpose Hall (MPH).

All tests were to be conducted on the day itself, and Trainfire was first. Essentially what was tested was just the same lame stuff: stripping, assembling, loading, unloading, and all the funny drills which I forgot hours later.

My APCs were pretty much slackish, and I went through the test nicely, though I screwed up a few times. There was a break, when we could go to the canteen to buy food, and after some stuff there was a sucky lunch there.

For the first half of the afternoon we were tested on IFC, and we found a shady spot far far away under a tree. There, we did "revision" and one by one we were called out to do the test.

The test was well, simple, and I just did whatever the CLT told me to do. After about two minutes I went to sit with those who had finished the test. And after everything, we went to fall in at the road and marched to the canteen further away for our General Specialists' Knowledge Test.

I thought it was to be held at night.

Anyway it was sort of an examination, with a bunch of papers and such, and we just had to select an answer for all the questions. Kind of alright, the test, and we were told to put our heads down once we were done.

A break was given after that, and it was back to MPH. My platoon had the horrible task to bring back the rifles initially (two for one person, and we would march to the store like this), but then they got a vehicle to our rescue and we were saved.

Some people were selected to go and oil the guns, while the rest could sort of slack, and fold up sleeves. I went to the toilet to fold mine with others.

At the Parade Square, the course gathered there to realise that there was this kind of Flag Day thing on Friday, and we were encouraged to go. Sad to say, there's School Warming Day, but even if there wasn't any School Warming Day, I wouldn't subject myself to another Flag Day either.

Dinner in the MPH followed, and at night, there was this leadership talk thing which also had us get into groups for discussion. It was actually a bunch of nonsense, and it seemed that every group wanted to do a role play, and almost every role play was generally the same.

Night snack at the blocks later on, away from the MPH, and by the next day we had to write appraisals for the CLTs. My PC set additional rules, and we had to write our names (it was initially anonymous, damn it), as well as write a minimum of 150 words for every person.

Finally we went to take our stuff from the small room, and took them to our allocated bunks. Did the usual bunk stuff, and slept a while after 23:00.

Day Four: I woke up at 05:00 the next day, changed into my No. 4, rushed to finish my appraisals, and went down to fall in for breakfast. And the most unlucky and weirdest thing happened. Just before breakfast, my left epaulette was torn off. At that moment I was WTF, reported the incident to my APCs (not the PC, definitely), but they didn't help at all. So I just left that thing hanging alone which looked quite amusing throughout the day. I guess I put too much strain on it, but HTF?

And so for the day, I survived with a torn off epaulette, sometimes sneaking around trying to take cover.

After breakfast we went to the MPH, then we took photos outdoors (we even had to size up). There was an After Action Review next by the big people, and most of the time I whiled my time away sitting down (hey, there were chairs!) and listening to what others have to say.

A Graduation Ceremony rehearsal commenced after that, and we were told of what to do for the real thing. Boring. There was lunch next, but my platoon was the last to eat because we had to arrange all the chairs and pick up litter while the rest of the course could sit down and stare at their styrofoam box.

And after lunch, we had to clean up the area, after which we could sit down and wait for yet another leadership talk by a Warrant Officer. It was interesting at times, boring at times, and I don't really know what to say about it.

Yet another rehearsal after that, and every cadet got this piece of paper with the Specialists' Creed printed on it. Winners of awards were called out for their part of the rehearsal, and msot of the time I was sitting on my chair doing nothing, except maybe to clap for a while.

The real thing began quite some time later, and then it finished (the speech was incredibly long and boring). The first company went to fall in at the Parade Square and in their platoons, they were given big brown envelopes containing their results of the course. And my company had to stay in the canteen for refreshments.

Our turn came soon enough, and there was a lot of talk before the CLTs were willing to give out the envelopes one by one. I got my one eventually, found a Second Sergeant rank inside, heard some talk by the CLTs, and we marched back to the blocks for dismissal.

The RV platoon waited for the others who weren't dimissed yet, and in the end we got together and went for lunch at JEC.

The end of the Specialists' Course.

Update

2006-06-17T14:51:00.000+08:00

I've been watching some World Cup matches everyday, maybe one or two, but never the full three. It's overkill, and I need to sleep. And speaking of the tournament, Argentina thrashed Serbia and Montenegro by a six goals. Classic.

On the other hand my homework is going on very badly as ever, and I have my Specialist Course for four days next week, which effectively denies me four days of doing homework (and watching the World Cup). And Friday is uh, School Warming Day. I haven't been to the new school yet, so I have to explore around that day.

And I feel like switching blog hosting services, but I'm still on a search for a good alternative.

I Can Watch the World Cup

2006-06-13T11:44:00.000+08:00

Legally on my telly. Apparently last night at 23:30, I asked my mother if I could subscribe to the World Cup channels, and then she called up StarHub and after 50 minutes, I got my four channels. Well, she was quite disappointed because she can't watch her favourite television shows for a few weeks.

I might be late, but I still have more than 40 matches in my way. At least I have more stuff to do now for the holidays (no such thing called homework).

World Cup Coverage

2006-06-12T19:30:00.000+08:00

The World Cup has begun, and the only way I'm getting live coverage is by text. I open multiple websites at a time and check every few minutes. The next day I'd just grab the newspaper and read WTF happened.

Could have subscribed to StarHub's World Cup premium channels, but thinking again, I'm not going to watch all the matches. But thinking yet again, this only happens every four years, and for the next Cup, I bet I'm stuck in an army camp deprived of everything.

I could go to someone else's home (like how Xiang Yi went to Kenneth's. Amazing, but it was worth it, 'cause it was England. But Paraguay dumped a WTF own goal), or go to McDonald's, or survive with the Malaysian channel's horrible quality. I tried once, and realised that it wouldn't show all the matches.

Meanwhile, I'm going to survive with miserable text coverage. BBC offers a "Virtual Replay" which is totally nothing, only showing the shots and goals and nothing else. I expected moving dots, but then, technology isn't that advanced yet.

Meeting

2006-06-10T21:03:00.000+08:00

I supposedly had a "meeting" today with my group for the two projects for the holidays at the library. Before that I went to McDonald's at JEC to have lunch, and only realised that they were broadcasting a World Cup match when I found a seat. And so I watched the final part of that match. Weird, Ecuador thrashed Poland.

I met Weiyuan, Peng Jie, and Xiang Yi next, and we all went to the library and got the hell out of there after "discussing" for 20 minutes. And a few minutes later, we were in a LAN shop. Played for two hours, and went to the arcade. Met Kah Sing and Sze Kiat there, and the only nice thing about the session was that we saw this man playing Daytona USA like a l33t. He was breaking records all the way.

And therefore as usual, a group of boys can never discuss projects in a proper manner. If we had travelled to someone's home, we would be in front of the computer 70% of the time.

2006 FIFA World Cup Germany

2006-06-09T22:32:00.000+08:00

The World Cup, obviously is the hottest event of the year. It begins tonight/tomorrow (somewhere in the middle), and for a month would arrive soccer fans or simply interested watchers watching the matches on television. Well, I didn't subscribe to the World Cup premium channels, but who cares. If I'm interested in a certain match I can just pull a recorded version with BitTorrent. Just missing out the "live" part.

Anyway, it's the World Cup. Off to watch the first match later on. And something interesting.

Imran Fanaswala and Yashar Fasihnia, both 22, say they know exactly who is going to win the World Cup, thanks to their artificial intelligence World Cup predictor FIFI.

"We think Brazil and Italy will be in the final and Brazil will win," said Fasihnia, who will be nevertheless be supporting his native Iran during the tournament.

"One semifinal will feature the Netherlands and Italy and the other England and Brazil."

And one of the quarterfinals will see England beat old rivals, Argentina.

Let's just see.

Kayaking Course

2006-06-07T22:18:00.000+08:00

Today was the second day of the Kayaking Course, and the beginning was the same: waited at the MRT station for the others, and we were joking about Edwin the Sergeant (yes he is, he's gone for the Course, and he is the only one among us for today). Oh well.

As usual, we walked to the the damn place, kept our stuff, and took out all the necessary equipment, and rowed towards that shore. Until lunch, what we did was essentially paddling around, learning a bit new stuff and doing the (terrible) capsize drills. Lunch was at the normal place, and Alan had to walk around with bare feet because he had lost his footwear in the water. Kah Sing dubbed him the "barbarian", and the "barbarian" wanted us to cover him for him to "blend in" with us. Not surprisingly he was hopping on the road.

After lunch, we were introduced how to execute rescues. Got into groups of three, and at each point of time, one person had to be the victim who had capsized. I knew the victim's job was the easiest, so I volunteered/requested to be the first victim of my group. We had to take turns anyway, so it didn't really matter who went first. But hey, it's fun to be the first victim.

The rescuers were intentionally sent far far away and the victims had to capsize. I "stood" in the water and instantly regretted my decision when I felt slimy stuff around my leg. Didn't try that for the rest of the day. Meanwhile the others rowed towards us poor victims who were stranded in the water beside a capsized kayak and floating paddle.

And this went on and went on, each person taking turn to float in the water shouting for help. We also had a little test, and then it was (supposedly) the end of the lesson. We had to row back, but before we could reach the centre, all of us had to capsize and rescue ourselves. I guess it was sort of a task thing, and soon everybody started to drop into the water.

We found a way to get back on our craft (still surviving with that vest on), and it took some time for everyone to get into an emptied kayak. Somebody took my kayak, and I had to get into one which was pretty uncomfortable (earned me a scratch on the knee) because of the unadjusted footrest. An instructor fixed it for me and I was good to go.

Everybody returned, and as usual we cleaned and kept all of the stuff. Had a debrief ("what you can do with your certificate", but we didn't get it today), and we could disappear.

Kayaking's fun, but feeling gross slimy stuff from under the sea plain sucks.

I haven't completed much homework yet, and I'm beginning to worry because I'm almost fully occupied for the last week (on a quest for four days to become a Specialist). Worst of all there are the projects, and no, I haven't started on any of them yet.

Funny Podcast

2006-06-03T22:00:00.000+08:00

I just heard the latest episode of the mrbrown show and really ROFLed. To really enjoy it all, you need knowledge of National Service and must have watched the new X-Men movie.

It's damn funny.

"IAIA!"

"Who return the plastic weapon never oil?"

"Mutant power: verbal assault specialist."

"Fill up this form and sit over there,"

"Mutant power: ability to kena arrow to do area cleaning and other random shit."

"Lieutenant eyepower."

"White horse. Mutant power: genetically inherited aura of protection. No one can touch him; he's so classified, no one can confirm he even exists."

Yes, I do know what a white horse is.

Kayaking Course

2006-06-02T22:55:00.000+08:00

In the morning I had this Kayaking Course thing at Kallang Water Sports Centre. Reached Kallang MRT station to meet up with the others at first, and after some long time of waiting, we walked to the damn place.

Did boring administrative stuff at first, and then we had to carry out the kayaks and paddles and vests and dump them somewhere, as well as keeping our bags and such. After a short briefing, we brought the kayaks down, and I was the first (lucky/unlucky) person to get into the water in a kayak.

I had expected them to teach us how to paddle first like during the Adventure Camp, but no, we had to DIY. More people entered the water, and I just tried to utilise anything I learnt previously (which isn't very useful). Edwin and Kah Sing were to first to capsize, and the latter lost his spectacles, but he could still see anyway. LOL. One moment Edwin was on his kayak, and a few seconds later he was floating on the water beside a capsized kayak.

When everybody was in we were told to paddle to somewhere and I couldn't paddle very straight at first, so I was sort of the last few to reach the place. Ended up there anyway. There we were taught some stuff, and we parked our kayaks at the small beach or whatever and walked to a nearby hawker centre for lunch.

After lunch we walked back to the place again, and for the next few hours we learnt a bunch of skills and had time to practice. Capsize drills were next, and everybody was shocked at how the instructor rolled into the water, tapped the kayak's hull, and emerged again. It looked awfully scary.

We went back to the shore, and one by one we could go and perform our drill in front of the instructors, and I was one of the first few. Indeed it was creepy, and I slowly turned into the water and for an instant I saw nothing, heard gurgling, tapped the damn hull, slid my legs out of the cockpit and got my head the hell out of the water as fast as I could. The instructor said I was good, but I came up from the wrong side. Funny.

After emptying the water out of my kayak, I went to "relax" at the dirty water by floating around and looking at others performing the drill. A swimming test was next, and what we were supposed to do was the swim across the water and tap the kayak of an instructor who had paddled away, and swim back.

With a buoyancy vest, it was apparent that even those who knew nothing about swimming could at least pass the test, and if we were tired or lazy (no time limit) we could just float in the water and rest before continuing. Like what I did. Took occasion "breaks" and still passed.

Finally we paddled back to the Centre, cleaned all the equipment (including the bunch of kayaks) and returned them to their original locations. Alan said, "I wouldn't mind paying more if they did all this for us,"

I heartily agree. It was the end of the lesson, I changed into a new set of clothes and we all went off. I went with a group of boys to JEC to have dinner, and then went to the arcade for a while to watch Kah Sing play Dance Dance Revolution.

Cold

2006-06-01T20:00:00.000+08:00

Arrived at school at noon for Physics Remedial and realised that almost half the class wouldn't show up. Being quite lonely I strolled around the school a couple of times (and even had a teacher asking WTF I was doing), and was glad to see more people come.

The lesson at AVA 1 was boring and it was unbelievably cold inside. When we were given a break, I rushed out of the room and enjoyed the warmer air outside before creeping in and switching off the fans (yes, the fans were switched on) and increasing the temperature of the air conditioner. The lesson felt better after that, but there was the standard boredom of doom.

This week's packed; there's even kayaking tomorrow. But the good thing is that I'll be virtually free for the next two weeks.

Flag Day

2006-05-31T19:25:00.000+08:00

In the late morning, there was a CIP activity by the school, and it's yet another Flag Day. I reached Tanjong Pagar MRT station on time, and met Jia Qiang and some others who directed me to the place to get my stuff for the activity. I signed the forms, and got this bag and a bunch of stickers.

More boys came, and eventually we set off to work. All of us planned to walk around first, and I drew "First Blood" by earning a dollar first (in the end, however, my collections were atrocious). Then we planned to walk to Chinatown and really walked there.

After we found the MRT station, we stationed ourselves at the entrances/exits and Jia Qiang grew wealthy within a short amount of time. I got few donations (wrong place), but I saw Chia Hong, who happily came over and dropped in a dollar. Yay.

For lunch, the bunch of boys went to eat at McDonald's and we decided to slack a while before continuing, and after some time we surrendered and went to return the stuff.

Kenneth, Xiang Yi, Frank, Jia Qiang, and I decided to go to Lot 1 to watch X-Men: The Last Stand, even though Jia Qiang had watched it already. Almost froze during the movie, which was alright, but not that great. And there were the annoying little boys sitting behind us, who were absolutely irritating. They laughed and giggled at everything.

Shooting

2006-05-30T23:23:00.000+08:00

In the morning I decided to go for the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad at school. I didn't register at first, but students could just come and register on the spot. Not sure why I didn't register at first, but I showed up anyway.

Waited until 09:30, went to the 1C classroom, and had to fill in this form and stuff and took a seat and got the papers. As usual, most of the questions were no doubt challenging, but I could do some. The remaining questions were either too difficult, too complex to understand, or I was just lazy to think.

At 11:30 I walked out (I'm the first!) because I had to report at 12:00 for NCC. Apparently we were going for shooting today, with live "killable" rounds. Changed into my No. 4, got some stuff to eat, and after a while we got on the bus and left for Amoy Quee Camp. On the bus we were briefed, and there wasn't anything else.

Once again, the bus was "lost" at the camp (it happens all the time), and it took some time before we found the place we wanted to end up at. After all the administrative stuff and briefings the first three details went off. I was in the third, and while the first was firing I was at a corner with my magazines, waiting for my turn. And hearing how loud the shots were. Verdict: damn loud.

As assistant for the second detail I had to collect the empty catridges flying all over, as well as looking at where the shots landed (one person managed to shoot the string holding the target board, therefore resulting in pure pwnage). My turn was next, and being left-handed I got this deflector thing attached to the rifle.

The shooting was quite easy (but I missed one, damn), and finally felt the real feeling of shooting. The recoil wasn't much, I was used to the noise, but there was the smell of the gunpowder and "shock waves" coming from others' weapons when they snapped off.

After all the shooting, we just had an inspection of any funny things and then walked to the outside of the camp, waited for the bus, and boarded it when it finally arrived. Then we were just simply sent back to school and we went off from there.

Extra Lessons

2006-05-29T19:17:00.000+08:00

It's unfortunate that I had History and Physics extra lessons today, and it meant that I had to return to school. History was supposed to begin at 08:00, but I reached there half an hour earlier and found myself darn bored. Xiang Yi came some time later and we both "scavenged" a ball from a dustbin. Better than nothing.

History was umm boring, and we were shown the weird video I watched during the previous History Remedial. After two hours of looking at slides and words and pictures, we could go. Finished up my homework in the canteen, and went to play an hour of soccer with the other 3G boys. Actually, only four of them.

But we had the whole tennis court to ourselves, and we played for a long time before we went to McDonald's for lunch.

Physics next was dreadful, and I unwillingly got the seats in front (which no one would ever want), and I was stuck there for the next three hours. Argh.

Miss Tan essentially finished a whole topic within the next few hours (with a break), and after that we were pleased to leave as fast as possible.

This vacation, I have an immense number of homework, and I can't be bothered to post a homework list thing like I did last time, because there's simply too much, and also probably because I'm lazy to do so.

Last Day

2006-05-26T22:29:00.000+08:00

Today's the last day of school before the start of the vacation, but it didn't really seem like it anyway. Especially when we were constantly given homework throughout of the day. Now I have homework for all subjects, and the homework is not just a single piece of worksheet that can be pwned in five minutes. There are two projects which I can't be bothered to do for five days.

After (boring) History was (boring) Chemistry and a slightly better Maths after that. For an hour, we discussed our project, but in reality my group was chatting away, and no words were relevant to the project.

Recess was a disaster: had to queue for like 15 minutes because there's only one person serving (instead of the usual two. Where the hell is that boy!?). Then Chinese, which was uninteresting, English, with no Mrs Tan (but we had to do this stupid worksheet), and received a list of bad news during Physics. Extra lessons during the holidays, plus a horde of homework waiting to be done/copied.

After school, Mrs Tan had to check the cleanliness of the class (we're moving), and every class had to dump their projectors in a classroom. Stupid job, and it took me a long time to squeeze through the crowd that was blocking my way.

NCC wasn't bad, except that we were punished a lot (we were late after all). Received new pieces of paper of information, also had an entertaining talk by CLT Pei Tsung, who was also collaborating with Staff Zaviar to give advice of what to do and what not during the Specialist Course. Extremely LOL.

Had PT for a while, then went to change into our No. 4. Then we got news that we had to end up with a T-shirt, so we changed, and then we were offered a chance to change whatever was wrong with our uniform. Had to write down the items we wanted to change, and I really need a bigger beret and jockey cap. They're way way way too tiny.

A shitty job was waiting for us at the end of the day, and basically we had to move chairs to the various Secondary 1 classrooms in order to provide for the Secondary 4 students when they return next week for extra lessons. Did it anyway, and we could go home.

The Treat

2006-05-25T21:48:00.000+08:00

Lessons as usual: Chinese, Chemistry, History, and PE (played soccer at the field). During recess Ernest and I went to take the DVD player again for Mr Phoon, and set it up in the classroom way too early, for Mr Phoon came like ten minutes later.

Anyway we continued watching the Final Fantasy movie (and it's quite short), and then Maths was ordinary, and English was boring. Oral stuff again, which means that we got into groups and looked at a meaningless photo.

After school we were supposed to have a treat at McDonald's by Mr Phoon, and we had already wrote down our orders, and soon enough we were walking to the restaurant and presented the staff with that piece of foolscap paper full of orders. I guessed some of them were stunned. Nevertheless one lady was busily tapping her PDA screen and a few minutes later she was still doing the same thing. All we could do was wait.

Soon enough the first tray of a lot a lot of food arrived, and we basically got whatever we ordered eventually. I still don't know why Mr Phoon wants to treat us, and honestly I feel pretty bad about it. We didn't reach expected targets, but he gave us a free lunch anyway. The class got him a bunch of presents, but that doesn't add up to the few hundred bucks spent on fast food.

I don't know; I just feel quite horrible. Oh well. Mr Phoon is an awesome teacher. After eating I went back to school horribly, because it was raining heavily and I was drenched, despite having an umbrella (I don't know why). Then went home, drenched, but slightly drier, yeah.

Report Book

2006-05-24T19:52:00.000+08:00

After Maths was Geography, and Ernest and I had to grab a DVD player from AVA 1 for Mr Phoon to play Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (apparently he's not cheated of his money), and we made a number of trips to get all the stuff. And spent a few minutes trying to get that plug in.

I'm not a fan, but I watched the movie anyway, which also put me off from finishing my homework. Half of it went by and we'd continue tomorrow.

Only bought a drink for recess (and ended up being hungry for the next few hours. Damn the long queues), and after that was some class time thing. Almost completed my Maths homework, and we got our Report Books. L1R5 hasn't changed a bit, but I'm satisfied anyway. Then we could do our own stuff (and I did nothing).

Assembly was sort of interesting ("for once"), and we got to see a "results analysis". Numbers all over, but it looked like 3A pwned and thrashed everything in its way. Then Student Councillors briefed the lot of us one what's going to happen on School Warming Day. Uhhh.

History next, (we're going to have extra lessons during the holidays), did normal stuff, and there was supposedly Physics Remedial after school. But due to Mr Lim's information that our teacher wasn't around, and our teacher didn't arrive minutes later, we left.

The Visit

2006-05-23T21:13:00.000+08:00

In the morning there was a mad rush to complete our Physics homework (just a few questions, but), because Certain Physics Teacher was going to be in class for Physics. The thought was scary, and was made even more frightening when we were reminded of how she roared at 3H.

After Chemistry (acids and alkalis) was the most important lesson of the day. It seemed that everyone had done their work ("for once"), and 1/3 through the lesson our visitor came and sat at the back of the lesson. Like a metre away from me.

And so I just listened to Miss Tan talk about moments, and the visitor not doing anything much except to sit and watch. It was towards the end of the lesson when she tapped my chair and wanted my notes. After a few minutes, my notes returned with red marks all over, especially crosses and long lines striking all over. LOL

At the end of the lesson she gave some comments ("you're not copiers"), and then left without much word. It was a considerably better treatment than she unleashed on 3H.

Maths was after recess, and we continued on matrices once again. During English we had to get into groups for our project, and so I stuck with the same group I had for Maths. This way, doing both projects would be simpler. Chinese was boring, and we had no visitors for the second Physics lesson of the day.

During NCC, the Part Cs got forms for the Kayaking Course during the June holidays, then we had PT (one of the worst), and finally some drills. Nothing much, really (well we did have a bit of laughter and fun here and there).

Boring Day

2006-05-22T20:14:00.000+08:00

Today's PE was slightly more interesting. We got into very small mixed groups of either three or four, and played against other groups. Then we also decided that we'd play touch rugby for the next lessons. I still remember I had a written test on touch rugby last year for PE. Totally unrealistic.

Had to write a composition for Chinese, after recess Maths and Physics were ordinary, and we got a relief teacher for English again. We had to do this worksheet again, and also received details on our project on music genres, WTF.

Didn't have Chinese Remedial after school, and went to eat at Lot 1 with Weiyuan. Boring day.

The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-20T22:57:00.000+08:00

My brother and I went off to watch The Da Vinci Code in the evening, and it wasn't a bad show, just that it's rated NC16. Despite this dumb rating and being two years younger, however, I still managed to take a seat in the cinema and watch the movie.

The Da Vinci Code sticks very closely the original controversial book, and it's a pretty good movie. There are some minor changes to the plot, however. Some stuff have been changed, some parts have been omitted, but they've included flashbacks which was pwnage.

Almost half of the movie was in French (shocking at first), which wasn't really a problem because English (as well as the usual Chinese) subtitles were included. The "nudity" stuff of the movie are very very little; they only show the ass of Silas (I admit, the cilice was gross), and the sex scene was reduced to a blurry view of the grandpa and grandma covered partially with a blanket shaking around with the dudes in masks around 'em. Maybe that's why it was NC16, but WTF, nonetheless.

The film also includes additional humour besides including those from the book. Generally it's a wonderful movie (the actress was quite unconvincing, but it works anyway), and thank goodness it wasn't banned.

UPDATE: I remember I also saw the DVD of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children at LaserFlair, and it was only $27.90, a far cry to the almost $50 Mr Phoon said.

I bet that he bought the Code 1 version instead of the cheaper Code 3 (they are generally most expensive). Makes it more expensive, and makes it unplayable on his computer too.

More Swaps

2006-05-19T22:06:00.000+08:00

Since Mrs Tan and Mr Lim had made an agreement to swap lessons, there was no History today, but two hours of Chemistry (!). Did some worksheets, watched very very short videos, and that was it. Started on matrices for Maths, and it wasn't too bad. Multiplying matrices is sort of confusing, that's all.

Chinese after recess, and I didn't do work, so I had to finish it by the next lesson. English was about music, and I think our project which is coming soon is about music. Anyway we were "entertained" to different songs from somewhere of all sorts and had to do this music survey thing.

Another swap today. Physics was changed with Geography, and initially we could watch Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (not that I like Final Fantasy), but the DVD just wouldn't play. So we did our own stuff, and got dismissed 15 minutes earlier.

Being dismissed earlier felt really awkward. I'm used to being ten minutes late, now it's 15 minutes earlier. NCC was very ordinary once again. Had PT again, then changed into our No. 4 (some didn't have to change. They went for the IFC mutuals thing), then Stefan and I went to take the Part Bs. Just drilled them around the Parade Square.

Last Parade after that, and everybody in the platoon could go for the Specialist Course now. Got a notice on the activities during the vacation, and a consent form for our shooting on the 30th.

History Remedial

2006-05-18T20:54:00.000+08:00

Chinese was first lesson in the morning, but what happened in class is totally irrelevant. What was absolutely relevant was what happened next door.

3H had Physics, and towards to end of Chinese, the people at the back began to hear familiar shouts, scoldings, yells, and it was undoubtedly the Certain Physics Teacher (CPT). Shaun emerged a few minutes later to tell me that she was observing their Physics lesson, and then practically ignored the teacher and pwned the class.

It's certain that she'd visit 3G someday, and 3H has provided tips to please.

Subsequently, it was Chemistry, which was quite boring, and during History I discovered with no surprise that I had to go for History Remedial (expected, expected). Ended up in AVA 1 for PE, where we watched a video of us playing floorball. Nothing much.

After recess (learnt more about CPT's 3H visit, and Yan Kang also dislocated his arm. Finally he has a valid reason not to for NCC activities) was Geography, and Mr Phoon initially played a video about Earth and then stopped it after a few minutes because he knew we weren't going to watch anyway. Then he let us to do our own stuff. Watched Peng Jie spinning books and beside him was Xiang Yi trying his best to have a book spin on his finger.

Got into groups for Maths for this year's Statistical Poster Competition. Received some stuff, got some information and used the remaining to discuss. Nothing much, again. My group ended up with a list of topics to consider.

Mrs Tan didn't come for English so another teacher came and we just had to do two worksheets. At 14:30 I had History Remedial with a bunch of students from other classes (as well as some from mine, yeah). Mr Lim showed us this extremely weird video, and after writing some stuff I could leave.

Thrill Ride

2006-05-17T21:57:00.000+08:00

Had this umm "pop quiz" for Maths in the morning, and Geography was a fully slack lesson. Mr Phoon taught a bit of stuff, and then declared that it was the end of everything he's going to teach. Half an hour left, so he told us stuff again. And I think it's going to be like this for the next four lessons.

During recess I was subjected to having a "thrill ride" on the swing, with Shaun happily pushing me and Wei Shuen away. Devastating and scary.

PDP was boring: it was about the Australian drug trafficker being sentenced to death. At 11:00, all Secondary 3 students had to be in the canteen to listening to students campaigning to enter the next Student Council. Assembly was interesting (about STDs), and we had to fill in survey forms. The boys around me basically wrote rubbish, and no harm done, since it was anonymous anyway.

History was sort of ordinary, and after school I went with the sort of usual group of boys to Lot 1 to have lunch.

Swaps and Nonsense

2006-05-16T21:48:00.000+08:00

Chemistry was swapped with History, so we faced Mr Lim and finished going through the exam paper. Learnt about plate stuff for Geography, which was quite interesting, but I was lazy to copy down the table we were told to copy down.

Finally bought foolscap paper during recess (I intended to buy yesterday, but I only remembered when I was at the MRT station, WTF), and did Maths questions on the spot as usual, read Newsweek for English (and refused to answer the questions in the given worksheet), went through the boring comprehension for Chinese, and learnt turning effects of forces for Physics.

NCC was alright. I was picked with Xian Wen and Sze Kiat to follow CSM and observe today, since we had done our mutuals. Ended up hiding from the rest of the company to talk, and soon CSM was explaining stuff to us. And since there was way lot of time left, we ended up doing PT with the others.

Last bit of PT was a run at the field (haven't done so for a long time), then while the rest of the platoon went to for mutuals, the three of us had to do a task. Can't say it was fun (can't say about it too): it was sometimes frustrating, but sometimes extremely ROFL, really.

At the end of the activity we got consent forms for our Specialist Course. I'm going with the Land unit, and during the process of giving out forms they got us to put out our hands, close our eyes, and wait for a piece of paper to enter our grasp.

Went to do pull-ups with Kah Sing and went home, while discussing a bit about Scientology. If you don't know what that is, I wouldn't encourage you to know anyway. It's a bunch of nonsense favoured very much by Tom Cruise.

"Missing" Notes

2006-05-15T22:17:00.000+08:00

For PE today, we played the usual floorball. It wasn't exciting at all, and we were umm assessed by peers, while also being filmed by the teacher on higher ground. For Chinese, most of the class didn't bring the Chinese textbook today, so we had to do a comprehension instead.

Maths was the usual stuff, except that Miss Yew told another story today. Wasn't too bad.

We were supposed to have a visitor for Physics today, to monitor the lesson and whatever, and minutes before the lesson I realised that I had dumped all work related to Physics at home (supposedly). Which meant that I didn't have the notes required for the lesson.

The chair for the visitor was placed like 1.5 m away from me, and I had to have a copy of the frigging notes. So I sought the help from Peng Jie (who was sitting far far away, very unlikely to be discovered), got his copy, and returned to my seat with the notes.

But apparently there was no visitor for today, and my "scheme" was unfortunately discovered, LOL. After the lesson I returned the notes to Peng Jie, and then searched for my Physics Paper 1 in my file (to read a certain question).

WTF. I found my own copy of the notes. So, I didn't dump all my Physics work at home after all.

English Paper 1 was finally returned, and my results were better than expected. For this exam my overall score is an A2, a far cry away from the previous C5 I achieved, but when mixed with that C5, my grade sinks to a B3, but it's better than that stupid C5 anyway.

Went home after school, for I had no Chinese Remedial.

A Decision

2006-05-14T20:31:00.000+08:00

Breaking from "customs", I've decided that I will only post if necessary. There's absolutely no point, posting Standard Weekend Mostly Nonsense Posts which are short, unentertaining, basically about one or more of the following points.

"I did most of my homework today. Homework sucks."

"I played today. w00tz."

"I had a haircut. Same thing."

In fact, all of these points are applicable for today. It's probably better skipping posting for the day, than publishing something slipshod, wasting time, and enjoying the fact that people are disappointed when they come over and discover that there's no new content for the day.

I didn't post yesterday, that's one thing.

Explosions

2006-05-12T23:01:00.000+08:00

Played today, and also attempted to do my Maths homework. I sure did, but I ran out of foolscap paper when I had two questions left. Really no foolscap paper.

So I wasted an afternoon playing and playing, and occasionally handing the computer over to my brother. Essentially, we swap computers.

For fun: big boom from alkali metals and water. I just remembered I haven't done my soda explosion experiment yet.

Outdoors

2006-05-11T21:30:00.000+08:00

In the morning, the class was awarded a laminated piece of paper, also called a certificate/notice/thing, giving us the title of the Filthiest Class. Mrs Tan (Chemistry) knew about it, and LOL. The next problem was not to let the other Mrs Tan know.

Read newspapers for Chinese and had to write some stuff, initially to be handed in by the end of the lesson, but eventually we could hand it up on Monday. Went through Chemistry Exam for Chemistry, and really got 50% for History Exam. I expected at least some moderation, but I should be glad that I had 20 at first, and would have vanished into outer space if not for the extra five marks to pass.

Unexpectedly we had to play floorball for PE, instead of "free things to do" like the lesson last Thursday. The lesson was indeed boring. No fun. Geography after recess was sort of slack. Apparently we had half the lesson to do our own stuff, and I spent time with Ivan Lee and Xiang Yi discussing about the Need for Speed series of games.

Theorem stuff for Maths; I did the questions on the spot (had no idea that we were supposed to do the questions), and just listened. For English we were sent outdoors to do some oral practice. Had to form mixed groups of three, and each group would just practise somewhere. Most of the time my group did not bother, and talked instead, also occassionally listening to Peng Jie nearby, who was entertaining his group.

Then went home, after patiently waiting for Xiang Yi to return from playing soccer.

Election Holiday

2006-05-10T21:42:00.000+08:00

I still can't figure out why today is a school holiday (they say it's due to some election stuff, but why?), but who cares, there's no school. So today as usual I whiled hours away playing and playing and sleeping and reading and playing and playing.

Pointless minor change to blog template: monthly archives for now. Weekly archives are way too scary.

Tuesday

2006-05-09T21:15:00.000+08:00

Got back papers for Chemistry, knew that I got an A1, and was awarded extra two marks for Geography in the next lesson. Mr Phoon, having a lot of spare time, dedicated a few minutes to telling us some stories. Funny, as always.

After recess was Maths, which was used to go through the remaining of the Additional Maths paper, and polynomial stuff for the next few minutes. Following English (don't bother to write about it) was Chinese, and the only main bit of the lesson was that I failed my Paper 1, but not overall, phew. I guess now I have to depend on English as my L1 to count in my L1R5.

Miss Tan went through Physics Paper 1 for today, and I guess she really thought too much, writing down complex equations to solve a simple question which is overkill. Besides, I didn't understand what she was really writing at all, so I guess I'm sticking to my way of doing that question, and hey, I got it correct, you know.

NCC after school as usual. Had PT, followed by a talk by Mr Ong (intel regarding a bunch of events going to happen), and finally a test on IFC. Basically we just have to give a lesson on the IFC topic we were assigned to (last Friday), with the help of the teaching aids we made. I was one of the first few to present, and there's an advantage because I don't have to bring the big teaching aid home. It's a pain.

Tomorrow's a damn holiday, and it's sucky that we have to go to school on Thursday, and Friday is yet another holiday. I might have said this a lot of times, but I don't care.

Campaign

2006-05-08T21:37:00.000+08:00

Campaigns for Student-Councillors-to-be for this year began this morning, and most of us were sitting and facing the floor, half-awake. PE next was quite alright, and we played floorball once again. Went through Chinese Paper 2 the next lesson while I was really finishing a bit of Chemistry homework.

Maths after recess, got back the Additonal Maths paper, got a 96 for it, and it sucks to have your Additional Maths results better than your Maths results. My brother constantly defined these sort of people "weird", and I initially agreed, and now I have to accept the truth that I am indeed weird.

Physics was no different (no, I didn't get 96 for it), considering that we just went through the paper. I found myself half a mark, and it's better than nothing. Worst lesson of the day was English. Expected our Paper 1 to be returned, but the teacher insisted on doing error analysis. Argh.

There goes, of what happens during a Monday with five long lessons plus a break. Maybe including a boring first part of a long campaign.

Elections Aftermath

2006-05-07T20:19:00.000+08:00

I watched television for the elections until midnight yesterday (it's until 02:00), then I went to sleep, knowing that PAP would win. Actually it seems that all elections aren't so exciting after all; PAP always wins. Give the opposition some chances, damn it.

Early in the morning I was disturbed by the PAP dudes blaring outside at the main road, and could still hear them despite having the windows shut. Guess they really want to declare their expected-and-unsurprising victory.

Seems that I've got work to do too.

Elections

2006-05-06T23:38:00.000+08:00

Today's Election Day, and currently a bunch of results are showing on television. Very interesting and hilarious, I might say, but I guess the Bush versus Kerry one two years ago was more intense.

Nevertheless, I'd continue to watch the television and see who would pwn the other. Kevin's funny, updating everybody through his MSN Messenger display name.

Some More

2006-05-05T21:21:00.000+08:00

History wasn't spectacular, but Mr Lim mentioned stuff about extraterritorial rights which was quite interesting. Finally, something quite interesting, but it was sort of irrelevant to China's history.

Disappointingly Mrs Tan didn't return the papers to us, and we ended up going through the Chemistry Practical worksheet from yesterday, while we began on a new topic for Maths. I really think the later part of the topic is very unmathematical (solve a cubic equation through trial and error?), but oh well.

Chinese after recess was also quite boring, English wasn't too bad (34/50 for that comprehension, far better than I had expected. Can't believe that I actually "achieved" 21/50 months ago), and Physics was scary. I got an A2 for the paper, and almost wanted to strangle Cao Wei (again) because he hit an A1 for Physics, LOL.

Looking through the paper I realised that there were lots of inevitable careless mistakes, and some lame answers written in the end hastily. Reading them again made me laugh.

Had to change into my No. 4 before NCC started, instead of the usual PT kit, and just changed. Did usual stuff at first, but then there was little promotion parade, and one IFC session with Sergeant Edmund with his funny jokes ("if you want to kamikaze..."). Revised stuff, but mostly laughed at the funny jokes. Then our topics for our mutuals were allocated, and I didn't get a horribly complex one.

Drills next, I was the IC for a while, didn't have a tough time, and after another person took over and after a while we were dismissed. Went home only after doing some pull-ups at the pull-up bar with some of the Part Cs.

Wednesday's a holiday, Friday's a holiday, and it's frustrating to know that Thursday's not a holiday. I'd prefer enjoying a full free time from Thursday to Sunday; that'd be awesome.

On the other hand, it's known that the school's gonna shift to the new place (according to my brother, and perhaps to the delight to soccer players, there's a street soccer court down there. Now we'd have to pray that it's true, and the school doesn't demolish it), and there's this School Warming Day.

Warming enough.

Even More Papers Return

2006-05-04T20:26:00.000+08:00

Got back Chinese Paper 2, and initially the teacher didn't want to return to us as we would not pay attention after we know our marks, but she was convinced, returned the papers, and I guess most of the class didn't pay any attention after that. 68/110 is good enough. Strangle Cao Wei, the boy who got 82 (but failed his History).

Chemistry Practical was next. Basically all we did was just to do some simple experiments, do some questions, and hand the worksheet up tomorrow. Nothing much, except that we were late for History.

Mr Lim taught for a while before allowing us to queue up to ask for our marks, since he won't return the papers until next week. But for now, we could just do a query, and it turned out that I just passed. Crazy, but at least it's better than the failing grade I had expected.

PE was sort of a free session; we could do whatever we wanted. Some people chose to play basketball, some like me preferred soccer, while some went to run. Anyway soccer was alright, except when Edison kicked the ball out of the school compound and ran out by the field route, kicked the ball back in, and came back. Incredible.

Geography after recess, received Paper 1, got A1 overall (though it's not a nice A1, but heck), and only bothered about some disputable questions which were very very disputable. Even the teacher was pwned at some points, but it's definite that we won't get the McDonald's treat.

Maths Paper 1 received next, and the results weren't too good either (total is 85, darn it). Careless mistakes all over, happily deducted, but the A1 remains. Went through the paper and Mrs Tan didn't appear for English.

Instead, she was replaced by this Miss Choong, very familiar, and again she spoke with me having some difficulty understanding WTF she's saying. We were supposed to do the lame cards thing, but we opted for something else. So she "entertained" us with more refined versions of those dumb personality tests. Not too bad.

We were dismissed like 15 minutes earlier, and after staying in the canteen for a while, I went home with Antonio and Ernest. Xiang Yi had went to play soccer and I bet he was totally hooked.

Mission: Impossible III

2006-05-03T20:50:00.000+08:00

Got back Maths Paper 2 today and the result was disgusting. Dumb careless mistakes, and I knew that I wasn't perfect at probability. Went through the paper and that was about it.

Mr Phoon continued to go through Paper 2 with us, and after everything we could get more marks. I got myself 2.5 marks more, which is more than enough to get 60 and above. Despite being released later than usual, the canteen wasn't packed that badly, and I managed to buy food before having to endure long queues.

PDP, was about bird flu and stuff, which I'd say is quite boring. We could do our own stuff next, and I found the boys at the other corner playing Battleships, LOL. The boys there were looking at Peng Jie and Ivan leading over their grids, the atmosphere sort of tense. I think they didn't manage to finish the game.

Assembly was a session with the Principal, who talked about the recent bunch of people who had a little chat with the Minister Mentor. I wasn't really paying attention anyway, and she called for volunteers to speak some stuff. Interestingly she didn't want to pick numbers and instead chose to wait. Anyway, in short, the Assembly was a bore.

Watched a video about the Qing Dynasty for the first half (should be half) of History, discussed about the elections next (though Mr Lim was mostly the only one speaking), and finally looked at one slide, listened, and got the hell out.

Some 3G and 3H boys wanted to watch Mission: Impossible III, and honestly I wasn't interested at first. Ended up at Jurong Point a few minutes later, rushing to purchase tickets for the next movie which was ten minutes later, then buying food and drinks and finally entering the cinema.

The movie was fantastic, and sometimes funny ("maybe it's really some expensive bunny appendage"), and well, I sort of liked the "secret agent" tactics used. But hell, the sound was loud. Maybe it was attributed to the fact that we were sitting in front. In fact, no other person sat in front of us.

The story was quite complex however, and I didn't get much sense out of it in the end. But the movie's still cool anyway, so it's good to watch it someday. For me, I feel it's quite weird because I haven't watched the first two movies before. Still, it doesn't matter, as there's no link between the movies. I mean, there's no full story.

After that we went home, with me taking a bus with Kenneth and Xiang Yi and Ernest because we thought taking a MRT would take a longer time.

Always feel like playing these few days.

Some Papers Return

2006-05-02T22:24:00.000+08:00

We didn't receive any papers during Chemistry, and got a crossword puzzle (!!) and orders to get back into our normal seating arrangement instead. Slacked.

Geography Paper 2 was returned and the results were quite horrible than expected, but at least, I passed the paper, and hope that Paper 1 can maintain my A1. If not, my L1R5 will rise like a piece of styrofoam in water.

The class spent ten minutes of recess to listen to Mr Phoon's weekend adventure at Ipoh (was worth listening to), and after recess we had a free period (supposed to be Maths) at the Library, but it was changed later on and we all went back to class and did our own stuff while the teacher marked papers.

English and Chinese followed with no papers returned, but at least I got back Physics Paper 1. Terrible mark achieved, very disappointing, though Weiyuan and I would be happy to push the blame of losing one mark to the wrong answer key for the worksheets given to us before the exam.

There wasn't any NCC after school, though Kah Sing tried to scare me by wearing his NCC T-shirt and calling out at me, but there wasn't any activity at all, so I went off.

I expect more papers to be returned tomorrow, along with some worse-than-usual results.

Search

2006-05-01T21:14:00.000+08:00

According to my statistics (StatCounter), I've been receiving visits from some unknown via a Yahoo! search of a certain name. It's unlucky that I should deserve a result on the search page, but nevertheless I've noticed visits via that particular engine through that certain search term. I bet the dude doesn't trust Google a single bit.

Initially I was freaked out because I didn't expect one to be able to reach here by just typing in his own name (or maybe, that person's name), but he has quite some posts dedicated to him, for one. No, it's not good, it's horribly bad, bad beyond bad, and it could cause a lot of trouble for me.

I thought the searcher would just search once and stop, but it seems that he's always searching, and always lands here. Either he's damn lazy to bookmark my blog, or, well, there's no other reason.

I'm not mentioning the search term, maybe one can possibly discover it for himself, but I think that requires an immense amount of luck.

Statistics aside (other than this, I can see that I'm always receiving way too much hits from Jia Qiang's blog, don't know why), today's still a day to play.

I thank the one who created Labour/May Day.

Change

2006-04-30T23:55:00.000+08:00

Nothing much today, except that I rewrote this.

As usual, I played much today, and there's one more day left before school begins again.

The Gym

2006-04-29T23:57:00.000+08:00

In an attempt to pwn his NAPFA test, my brother wanted to go to the gym at Choa Chu Kang Sports Complex this morning and he pulled me along. Ruined my plan of waking up at noon.

Anyway, both of us went there, and played with most of the machines there. Ended up in a painful state, but I guess this is normal (it has always been). Nice thing down there is that I could watch television while trying to lift those damn weights. The gym there is definitely much much better than the gym at school with rusty metal all around. Besides, it's air-conditioned. More like a playground, I think.

That's basically all about it, and after we had lunch we got home and I started to play a bit and do my normal stuff as usual. Feels sort of good to have at least visited a gym after a long time, but I remember those horrifying side effects of lifting weights in that stuffy enclosed area full of almost rusty metal.

On the tech side I have started to learn a new programming language, Python, and it seems to be going well for me, but I'm still not seeing what I can do with it.

On the gaming side I have started playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, which seems like a good choice, as I've completed the first game, and now I'm on the sequel. Additionally I'm close to thrashing the Naughty Sorceress in this, but it's hard.

On the lame side I've been learning how to spin pens (actually it started like two weeks ago) and I have dropped a marker on the floor so many times from about a metre high that it has began to leak. Have to constantly wipe off the ink, or just take a new marker. Markers aplenty.

End

2006-04-28T20:35:00.000+08:00

Additional Maths Exam was the last to go for today, and well, it was sort of harder than I expected. Some questions were really WTF, but I did them all, with no certainty that I will get all correct. In fact, I already got the first question wrong, continuing my streak of losing marks at any question on sets during every test or exam. If there's a question on sets, marks will fly. So far it has happened on every test.

As per normal the usual group of boys plus Kenneth went to Lot 1 to eat, and then we changed and went into the arcade and already got pwned before going in. In the end we decided that we'd go to Kenneth's house to play. After all, he has games, a new computer, and the pull-up bar.

So we went there, and for the next few hours we played the standard shooters including Kenneth's pirated copy of Battlefield 2, and when I had nothing to do I played on his Game Boy Color. Still fun enough to play those old games.

At about 16:00 Ernest and I left, with Xiang Yi staying behind wanting to play Battlefield 2. Exams are over (results, the next big thing), Monday's a holiday, and I have three days to use. Yay.

Physics

2006-04-27T19:54:00.000+08:00

Physics Exam was awful. Paper 1 was alright, and comparatively easier to Chemistry Paper 1, but Paper 2 made things horrible.

For one, we weren't informed that we'd be tested on lenses, but I remember a bit to at least do some questions. Almost left a diagram blank, but I anyhow drew some lines in the end.

Some questions were WTF, the vector question was nothing, and I screwed here and there for the paper. Says everything. At least, it's over now.

Additional Maths tomorrow. Then it's the end for this period of suffering. And I forgot to mention that during Paper 1, Certain Physics Teacher came and sort of shocked me, but she came for the purpose to telling us a mistake (not exactly a mistake. They just forgot to dump in an extra sentence).

Anyway, I saw this, and realised that it would be a nice idea if students could pay attention to their teachers just to hear that word to win the game.

Fun if I were to be in class ticking off "common words" that teachers usually say, but I don't think it'd probably happen.

Pointless

2006-04-26T18:20:00.000+08:00

Took temperature readings in the morning, "as part of measures to maintain schools' preparedness to resume temperature-taking regime", which was sort of pointless. Mr Chng invigilated us for Maths Paper 1, and he was funny. Anyway, the paper.

Easier than I thought, but there was one construction question which pwned me, and I only knew of the solution after the paper. Two marks away. The rest of the paper was alright, though.

Stayed in class most of the time during the break to wait for Paper 2 to start while occasionally walking around to revise from others' notes and books and such. Mr Tong invigilated us (as if millions of voices cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced), and luckily nothing out of the ordinary happened. First two questions required construction and plotting a graph (I hate), but the subsequent questions were once again, alright. Was very surprised when Mr Tong said that we would only need two pieces of foolscap paper.

The last question was quite strange, as the kid walked at 300 m per minute. Even his friend cycles at 250 m per minute, damn it. At this rate, he'd be walking 2.4 km in eight minutes and be famous as a legendary walker.

During the next break I went to eat, and lagged around while waiting for Geography Paper 1 to start (result of the many exams per day). Some boys went to play soccer, and when it was time the stupid paper started. Doesn't make any sense for Paper 1 to begin after Paper 2, ever.

Since we could take back the question paper, normal reaction of everybody was to compare their answers in the classroom, walking down the stairs, out of the gate, and even travelling to the MRT station. Satisfying when you have same answers, but depressing if you don't.

Physics tomorrow, and I don't think it's going to be very easy at all. Even Chemistry had that awful slimy disgusting crossword puzzle, and I haven't thought of the answers for the two blanks I left.

Crossword

2006-04-25T16:30:00.000+08:00

I didn't post yesterday because Blogger had problems. Actually it was posted, but it couldn't damn publish.

Chinese Paper 2 was long and terrible. I managed to complete the paper, but my answers were sort of short. Still, I completed the paper. Decided to have something to eat during the following break before returning to class to do my preparations of Chemistry.

I had not memorised the whole damn thing on how to identify stuff. Equates to doom, obviously. Eventually I still decided that reading through the notes would do good enough, and then Paper 1 started.

I finished the paper in 15 minutes (I thought there was 40 questions, damn it), and after that I returned to some questions which posed quite a challenge. After the paper I found that I had made one careless mistake, and I guess it's not the only one.

There was a short break, followed by a deadlier Paper 2. Apparently the identification thing only took up like six marks, but I left three marks worth of questions blank because I had no bloody idea how to do it.

The first question was the most unexpected type of question ever: a crossword puzzle, WTFOMG. And yes, it wasn't easy, and I left two blank. That's one mark, but hey, one mark is a lot.

The crossword puzzle was designed in such a way (a similar one is in the textbook. I think the teachers copied it) that if you pwn it, you get a "hidden" word thingy. Without finishing the thing I identified the word, but I better hope that they won't mark it wrong just because I didn't finish the puzzle.

Who placed the puzzle in there anyway?

Then came some questions, out of which some were quite simple. The essay questions weren't very nice, but I still finished them anyway. Overall, I did not finish the paper, due to laziness which leads to absolutely no knowledge on what oxides are black in colour, and because of a stupid crossword puzzle. What's for Maths tomorrow, Sudoku?

Conclusion: this has got to be the most horrible Chemistry paper I've ever done, and I'm not surprised if I don't get an A1 for this.

Maths tomorrow.

Three Papers

2006-04-24T21:35:00.000+08:00

Generally, three papers weren't much, and it's sort of good, considering that we had two long breaks to study for History. Last minute panic.

The school song played early in the morning was unbelievably slow, and I don't know what they'd done to it. Anyway it sucked listening to the song playing so damn slow, and I was happy when it ended.

English Paper 2 consisted just a comprehension and a summary, and I've a very bad feeling about it. Couldn't buy any food during recess due to the long queues, and then Chinese Paper 3 was just listening and shading ovals. I still remember how I sucked at this paper for the past two years, and I must have been incredibly stupid to score 5/10 for last year. Or 6/10, still not desirable.

Ate during the next break, since there wasn't much people (yay), and returned to class to do last minute revision.

The paper then started, I finished the paper, and when the (fat) teacher was collecting our stuff I realised that I had forgotten to tie one piece of paper. Anyway I didn't bother to untie it (although it's easy to), so I cut it, and took out a piece of string from my pencil box. Apparently during the English Paper today the teacher had given me two strings instead of one. WTF.

Discussed the paper after the paper and was totally aware of the high probability that I will fail the paper and went to Lot 1 with the usual group to eat, but Yan Kang joined us today. On the train to Choa Chu Kang, though, Xiang Yi and Yan Kang were suddenly confronted by this primary school kid (LOL) who wanted to give them something (I think it was a sticker from the boy's packet of Mamee noodles, and I bet he hates the sticker). The two students rose and tried to escape, but the boy followed and eventually he was with us on the train. Still promoting his sticker.

We got him off after we alighted, and the two victims who were undoubtedly much much older than the boy described what had happened as scary.

Studying for Chemistry this time round is honestly very torturous. The worst bit of it is the requirement to memorise how to identify ions and friends through various tests, as well as remembering their darn colour and whatever. I think I'm not going to bother about this. Way too horrible.

I've never attempted to remember such a whole lot of things, and even the solubility of various ions from last year was killer enough. Now a few pages of tests?

Burger

2006-04-23T18:56:00.000+08:00

Read the newspapers today and they mentioned about Uberburger's $101 offering of a gourmet burger.

180 grams of prime wagyu beef, marble grade 5-7, cut perfectly + hidden foie gras surprise, truffle cream sauce + slices + gourmet salad + champagne dressing

I'd rather spend that money to bribe the school to give me an A1 for my History Exam. And speaking of it, I'm sort of having a horrible time studying for it.

Three papers tomorrow, one minor, one normal, one killer.

Utilisation

2006-04-22T20:21:00.000+08:00

Attempted to utilise the History guide I purchased on Thursday today, and it's actually not so useful, but it's better than nothing.

I played yesterday night (and maybe tonight too) and didn't study a single bit, and was murdering terrorists in Counter-Strike before playing some online games from nowhere.

It's just another week before the current troubles vanish, but now I've to figure out how to study History. Currently my worst subject.

Meanwhile, I think I'd take a break from studying and go play. Sort of unhealthy, but heck.

Geography Exam

2006-04-21T20:38:00.000+08:00

Despite Chinese Paper 1 being the first paper today, everybody was fervently studying Geography, as it's no easy task memorising most of the stuff. I didn't bother to memorise, and was reading through and through my notes and would once again depend on some luck. People like Weiyuan could mutter out all the points, and I was sort of stunned for a while.

Chinese Paper 1 wasn't too difficult, although I found the context of the complaint letter quite difficult to write about: it was about a horrible radio station. I wrote what I thought would be suitable, and I'm prepared to score badly for it. The second piece of writing was about the lack of interest in the arts among students. Slightly better, this one.

Went to eat during the break, and returned to class to study again. Mr Phoon came in the end to provide us with quite useless tips (no direct hints). Then a very tall Mr Tan came and the paper started.

The first question was deadly enough: draw a rain gauge. I hadn't seen a diagram of a rain gauge since when I was Secondary 1, and finally drew what I thought it would look like.

The following questions were alright except for the stuff on the case studies of the floods, droughts, and the Amazon Basin. I wrote what I thought was suitable again, and I think they don't answer the question. Arghh.

Everybody started to discuss about the paper after it ended, and there was Physics Remedial at 13:30. So we first had a break, and then came three hours of Physics. Not continuous, but ungood nonetheless.

After some time we shifted to the Special Room with 3C, and then moved out, back to our classroom because the Room was going to be used by another teacher. Shouldn't have moved to the Special Room in the first place.

Anyway back in class the row of boys sitting next to the window (in fact, all the boys except for one) could watch people playing soccer at the tennis courts just outside, and it was entertainment to experience while waiting for the session to be over. Miss Tan apparently noticed the phenomenon of the boys turning their heads to the right, but we still continued to do so anyway.

For the whole three hours or so what we did was just to go through answers and nothing else, which could also have been done with an answer sheet distributed to all of us. Rushed out of the classroom when it ended, and on the MRT as usual, the boys were trying to get hold of Antonio's handphone to do something very disapproved by him. We did it anyway, and in fact, we do it everyday.

Antonio would first reveal that he has his handphone that day, and at that time it would be in his pocket. Someone would then grab hold of him, accompanied by more helpers, while a person would slowly and nicely take out the handphone of a helpless Antonio's pocket. That's when the fun begins.

Guess he shouldn't even have said that he had his handphone with him.

Holy Guide(s)

2006-04-20T21:22:00.000+08:00

English Paper 1, first exam of the season, and I anyhow chose a topic and wrote whatever I could. I think it's alright, but I guess it might return with a bad mark. Anyway it's over, and usually I've no comments about this paper.

The paper ended at 09:45, and our health checkup was supposed to be at 10:00. Changed into my PE attire and the class went somewhere for the checkup. And only some people were selected; the others could go and do their own stuff, until the end of the break at 11:15. That's like an hour.

The checkup was amazingly short, and only thing I did was to measure my height and weight, no eye test thing, no going behind the curtains. I went to the canteen to eat, and realised that I had half an hour to spare before the next lesson.

Since I was in my PE attire I went to the tennis court to play soccer for a while, before going for Geography. Mr Phoon finally came today, and he sort of went through stuff with us and clarified some questions. The rest depends on us.

Maths was also sort of a "going through stuff" session, and Mrs Tan came half an hour late for English. In the end we were reduced to doing some lame vocabulary thing, and then we could go.

Went to Lot 1 with Xiang Yi and Ernest and Weiyuan and Antonio to eat, and then Xiang Yi went with me to Popular to seek the holy guides for exams. The rest vanished.

Anyway down there we found this History guide, effective or not, I don't know yet, but it looks good enough, maybe good enough to improve my History. I bought it, and Xiang Yi bought it along with a Physics and a Chemistry guide. Saviours of his life, he claims. So I bought one, he bought three. I've inherited my brother's stuff, though I find his Biology guide useless.

Geography Exam tomorrow, though it's only Paper 2, but Paper 2 is harder than Paper 1, damn it. I only started fully today, and I don't know if I'd last.

Double History

2006-04-19T16:36:00.000+08:00

Got back test papers for Maths, 48/50 for me, and I got pwned by rejecting a valid answer. Careless. Mr Phoon, of all times, didn't come today, and it's supposed to be revision for Geograpy for this week. And he's absent.

Mr Paul Lim came surprisingly, and wanted to dedicate the whole 75 minutes to teach History. Horror, considering that we also have another lesson with him after Assembly. We had the lesson anyway, no Geography, but simply going through assignments and answers. At least this is only for today, and it can't be compared to the dreaded Double Chinese last year. That, was real horror.

I had expected PDP to be sort of a study session, and it turned out that Mrs Tan transformed it into a Chemistry lesson for some time before letting us do our own stuff.

There was this English debate thing by the ELDDS for Assembly, and it's sort of an English version of the Chinese debate last week, which also means that it was quite dull. Besides, it wasn't as "exciting" as the Chinese one. At least we were entertained by heated arguments last week.

The only thing worth mentioning about this debate was Shaun's appearance to ask a team a question, and I think he was pwned, but he gave an answer anyway. I like the fact that he watches Saving Private Ryan. Lots of profanities, that movie, but it's a great film anyways.

As expected, continued History after that, and had some stuff near the end to do some of our stuff. I went to squeeze my books into my bag, since we have to bring home all our books chucked under the table. Glad that I had already brought some home last time, so today's load wasn't too bad. Heavier than usual though.

Exams start tomorrow. Can't say I'm prepared.

Spotcheck

2006-04-18T21:21:00.000+08:00

There was a spotcheck for Secondary 3 students in the morning, to much surprise, and I wasn't marked for anything. Guessed they consider my fingernails' length to be average. Got back a lot of papers during Chemistry which made my table quite messy. Mrs Tan then finished teaching us all we were supposed to know to sit for the exam.

Mr Phoon didn't come today for some reason, so a relief teacher came and told us to do some questions (I thought we were supposed to revise today). Nothing much else. After recess was Maths, and most of the class was late for like five minutes. And during the five minutes, some boys including me were watching people playing soccer at the tennis courts. Sure is a nice way to pass the time. Miss Yew then finished up the probable topic, and gave us work to do as usual.

Felt very sleepy for the next two language lessons (consecutive lessons, argh), and took total advantage of the short break before Physics to take a nap. Physics then, and it was still assumed for simplicity that the car slides along the road.

Nearing the end of the lesson Frank and Ni Hao were outside at the door shouting nonsensical remarks which Ernest and I heard, and it was quite funny, and the teacher didn't seem to notice. Still, I was sort of fed up and shut the door and gained some peace.

After school there wasn't any CCA, so I left with some 3G and 3H boys as usual.

Gold

2006-04-17T21:28:00.000+08:00

Same floorball for PE, and at least it was better than the previous lesson. Had a match against another team, and it was decent enough. Received stuff we had wrote during Chinese, didn't fail any, and then had to do this simpler comprehension during the lesson. Being lazy I didn't really bother about it.

Since today's a Monday, long lessons are promised, and Maths was very long, apparently. Miss Yew began on Probability, which probably IMO isn't much of a fun topic either (it's actually combined with statistics. Explains how dull the whole part is).

Anyway the questions were either about playing cards or a bunch of dice, and that's actually all about it.

Physics: another long lesson. Most significant bit was that Miss Tan assumed that cars slide around, without rolling their wheels. Makes things easier to solve, but makes things nonsensical. Besides, if the back wheels are stationary, they wouldn't have put the back wheels, would they.

Won't talk about English. After school we were supposed to have our NAPFA test at 15:00, but it was early, so I went to the tennis court to play soccer for a while before going to the canteen and then to the Hall.

First item was sit-ups, cleared easily, followed by standing broad jump, which I almost screwed. Apparently I'm lousy at this this year, and I swear that I did better last year. C anyway.

Sit and reach was almost screwed too, but inclined pull-ups was pretty easy. The whole group then accompanied a devastated Peng Jie for him to do pull-ups (he's the only one), and last bit was the shuttle run. Almost got pwned by that too, but running one more time secured a Gold for me.

Hey, first time in my life getting a Gold. Last time I always got Silver, if not, ugly Bronze. After that I went home, walking through the rain to the MRT station with some boys with my pathetic PE T-shirt as an useless umbrella.

Replay

2006-04-16T21:53:00.000+08:00

In addition to replaying the DOOM 3 demo in broad daylight and at a higher difficulty without any damn cheats (look, Frank), the other significant thing I did for yet another Sunday is studying for Geography, and reading game guides. I have the sudden idea of replaying some games I have, and it's so unfortunate that I get this thought before the exams.

Something worth mentioning about is tomorrow's NAPFA test, and having cleared the run, I just need to be able to clear the other components for a Gold.

Well that's all about it.

Demos

2006-04-15T21:40:00.000+08:00

Recently I've downloaded game demos to play, effectively breaking a rule I had set a long time ago.

"Do not download demos; just buy the game."

Problem is, I can't buy the game, and since I've nothing much to play these days, I thought I'd might as well thrill myself with games I've never played before.

First is DOOM 3. Just the first level, but just that is enough to scare anyone out of their skin. Yeah, I've played it at Frank's house before, but that involved some cheats (thanks to Frank).

For this demo, I played without cheats, and practically saved the game after murdering a monster. It's very scary, having to switch between the flashlight and shotgun quickly to stop that lame zombie and blast its head off. Add the dark environment, demons, and disturbing environment noises, you get a scary and thrilling game. Words from my brother:

"You're braver than I thought."

Second on the list is Call of Duty 2. I have Call of Duty, bought by my brother two to three years ago, and he was sort of excited when I announced that I was going to install the demo of the sequel to his most favourite game ever. I went out in the afternoon, and came back to find that he had beat the demo three times.

Anyway, the game's like any World War II shooter, but some elements have been changed. It really does feel like a battlefield, and sniping off Germans' heads are sure fun.

I don't know what's next for me, but perhaps I'd return to the old time RPGs for some fun.

Good Friday

2006-04-14T22:08:00.000+08:00

Good Friday, to me, is just an extra day without school, but with the coming of exams, it's sort of a day to finish up some work or collapse under more work the next few days.

But mostly I still played games, as it has been way way too long since I shot a virtual enemy. So I played for some time before reverting to actual work.

Still, I'm dumping most of the work for the weekend, and thank goodness there's Good Friday.

Sudden Run

2006-04-13T21:20:00.000+08:00

Second half of the Chinese lesson in the morning was used mainly for "discussion", and the teacher was discussing about relationship issues. Funny. Yeah, and the class had also bought two cakes to celebrate Mrs Tan's (Chemistry) birthday today, and I don't know what they did with them until recess.

Still, the intentions to scream and yell and sing a song was quite "ruined" by another teacher who was with us for today to watch the lesson, and for some reason, the teacher (Mr Lee) managed to get out of the classroom for a while and the class sang a song. And the lesson resumed.

Got back test papers for History, and I failed once again. Additionally Miss Loh came for a moment to inform us that we'd be running the 2.4 km later on, which was very very sudden and I swear that we were stunned and unprepared. After all, they had said that it would be on Monday.

Anyway after History was the run, and 3H would record our timings for us. The run started quickly, and proceeded just like any other run. And ended up with an alright timing, which is one step for a Gold for me. Yay, finally. Always thought that I'd screw it up with a D.

Bronze for Secondary 1, Silver for Secondary 3, and Gold is appropiate for this damn year.

Rested for a while, and went for recess. The class had prepared the cakes, Mrs Tan came shortly after, we sang a song, and the cakes were cut. Peng Jie gave himself the job of cutting cake number two, and I think he was extremely impatient to eat it and eventually ate a lot of it. Xiang Yi says he loves chocolates, and they were chocolate cakes.

Mr Phoon promised us a big treat if 3G were to pwn the level in Geography, and if we really do, we'd be sucking a lot of money out of him. Next he sort of revised with us some stuff and let us do some work. Maths was dull except that Miss Yew revealed the schools she studied in (as claimed, it's quite unexpected).

Uhh then English was all about error analysis again, lame, dull, boring, and perhaps useless, and after school everybody strived to complete their NYAA booklets for submission. Had to wait until 15:15 for the Chinese Oral Exam.

So for that time interval, I ate ice-cream, watched people play soccer, walked around aimlessly, and finally went with the boys outside 3C to wait for the teacher, since the venue's supposed to be in the 3C classroom.

Unfortunately it wasn't the least vacant, so the venue was shifted to our classroom instead, and we'd wait in the 3H one. And so we did.

One by one people went out, summoned by Weiyuan (yes, he had the unfortunate task of calling people out, since he's the last to be tested), and I had to wait for some time before I could get the hell out. Still, it's considerable compared to the two hours I waited last year like an idiot because I was the second last one to speak to the teacher.

Like an oral exam, I read the passage softly, got into the classroom when Ren Bin emerged, and did the usual stuff. Didn't really do nicely during the conversation, but I was glad everything was over when I got out.

At the canteen, I realised that no one bothered to wait for the other boys. Almost all of them had disappeared, but at least Ren Bin stayed around. More and more people came and we waited for the last person, Weiyuan, to get out before we went home together.

Tomorrow's Good Friday, quite good because it gives all an extra day to rest.

Pointless

2006-04-12T21:35:00.000+08:00

Drew circles and lines and friends for Maths (it's getting boring), then followed by a test on maps for Geography. Got this map of Victoria Falls and it's kind of relevant to the English comprehension we did, riding down the Zambezi, but that's totally out of point.

Mr Phoon told us some little stories about university life once again due to popular demand, and he let us earlier for recess, just in time for most of us to buy food before the typical Wednesday horde of hungry students storms in.

PDP was uumm untypical, considering that we had the chance to contribute something (designs) for the new school campus that we won't be able to enjoy, and I guess it's quite pointless. Still, it was still interesting to hear others' opinions on this junkyard we're residing and how bad the flush systems in the toilets are. Could do our own stuff next.

There was this unexpected Chinese debate thing (unexpected, at least, for me) and it promised an hour of boredom for us. The only funny part was when a debater utilised a dictionary by his side to his usage, and it was a classic. Then it was boredom again.

Mr Lim was late for his History lesson, and didn't return us our test papers too, but we got back an assignment, went through a bit of it, and end of lesson.

Since we had Physics Remedial at 14:15 (correct term is "extra lesson", but I still prefer "remedial"), it was required to stay back to listen to stuff on dynamics, and sure enough it wasn't very exciting. Resultant: returned home with even more notes and worksheets than ever.

Waves And Dragons

2006-04-11T21:28:00.000+08:00

Class Leaders' Investiture in the morning, and the Student Councillor speaking was quite humorous, to say the least, with an extremely funny pronunciation. She stopped speaking the funny stuff soon after; bet she had realised that everybody were just attentively waiting for the next words of "Chairperson".

Anyway the event was still boring, with the people with yellow rings mumbling their pledge.

Geography was after Chemistry and Mr Phoon, to everybody's delight, said that he'd postpone the test to some other day (most likely tomorow) since he thought it would be unfair to us as he had revised with the other classes and not with us. So today, he revised with it, and spent the last minutes telling us how to watch the weather.

After recess was Maths, and we had sort of a "practical" for it for the new topic (loci and friends). The class went outdoors with a bunch of rulers and we just formed a set of "points" which satisfied a certain funny condition. It wasn't too bad, and attracted much attention from passers-by. I think they were WTF.

Anyway back in class Miss Yew hurriedly taught finished the topic and left us with work to do. For English I passed my summary this time (which means I've passed the whole damn thing, yay), but we had to do the uhh lame error analysis thing again.

The Chinese teacher took the whole hour just to go through with us a 长文缩短, apparently considered remarkable by Boon Hean, and it also gave the class an hour to do almost nothing too.

It was supposed to be Physics after that, but the class had to go take photos. It's quite strange that the school's taking photos so early, and it's even stranger considering that the photos are taken outdoors and not in the Hall.

Eventually, we skipped a Physics lesson, waited under a light drizzle for our turn, and I had to stand on this very very dirty bench which I think had been stepped too many times. Besides, it was quite unstable, and Peng Jie was making everything scary by shaking the bench. Didn't topple anyway.

An hour passed before CCA started, and today, it was just as normal. I was picked to be the PTI-for-the-day with some others, and took the Part Cs for PT in the carpark. Same old exercises, but after that we went indoors and started a very wonderful activity which I think is very fun. Basically we were in a single file, got into pumping position, and one by one each of us would pump once, shouting the number, and it would be sort of a wavy thing. The limit was 650, but we ended at 400+ quite happily.

People shouted their numbers normally at first, but then it got weirder and weirder (different "tones", different languages, added precision of decimal places, and dialects). Fun enough.

The boss PTI then decided that we'd try out the heard-of-but-never-done-before "dragon pumping". I wouldn't bother to describe it, but I almost smashed my face into the ground and everybody was lying on the ground groaning because most weights couldn't be supported on the shoulders and we just collapsed. The Specialists also tried it out with some difficulty.

Drills next were made more exciting with "high level thinking" challenges posed by Sergeant Edmund. Basically we had to complete some feats. Most significant moment was when Zhi Ler accidentally hit Mr Tan's (PE teacher) car and set an alarm ringing for a few seconds.

Makes Zhi Ler (probably) the second NCC cadet ever to initiate the alarm. First dude was Jerone who was running (happened a long time ago) and he accidentally touched the car or something and it was quite LOL.

Anyway we were talked to next, and apparently (together with shockingly, unknowingly) we would be handling everything after the exams. Very early, if you ask me.

Then we were simply dismissed. I still like the wavy pumping thing. Pity we didn't reach 650.

No Run

2006-04-10T19:18:00.000+08:00

The class was expecting the 2.4 km run test today, but Miss Lee (our new PE teacher) said that it's shifted to next Monday, one week later. Most people cheered, while Antonio was claiming that he had already prepared for it, and Ivan was even prepared by wearing a pair of red sports shoes which weren't put to much use in the end.

So we played floorball, with this stick and ball and we just hit the ball around. It was quite fun, and picking up the ball wasn't that much of a problem compared to flying tennis balls.

Had to write a 公函 today, and I observed that the teacher was much fiercer than she was on Friday. She claims she picked it up from another teacher, yikes. Spent much of the time spinning my pen.

It's unpleasant to draw graphs (it's always unplesant), especially for data, and it just happens that cumulative frequency distribution fits in. I've never been a fan of statistics, and I guess I'll never be. We had to do this worksheet for the lesson, and drawing the curves were a pain. Added to the pain were drawing and completing tables, plus finding a bunch of values.

Unwilling amassed a huge pile of paper on my table when Miss Tan gave out a lot of assignments (I think there were three), and some other stuff. Still contributed to the mess.

Failed my English comprehension again by 0.5 marks, but overall, it's a two mark improvement over the previous one I had, so I was quite glad anyway. Mrs Tan then gave out answer schemes to everyone and started to go through the answers. She was quite wise enough to call out a (sort of) random person to point out why a certain answer was wrong, and usually it shocked the person. I know, because I was called once, and spent quite some time thinking of what to say next, since I hadn't been paying attention.

Once again, nothing incredible for today, but it's important to mention that Yan Kang sported a new hairstyle today which was apparently laughed at for the whole day. Bet he's going to curse the Malay barber who snipped the hair for him.

Null

2006-04-09T21:42:00.000+08:00

It's correct to mention that I did no homework for today, and basically slacked like anytime during a Sunday. My mother forced me to go cut my hair (that's something to mention), I removed the tape from my keyboard because they're irritating (smooth stuff), and other than these, I'm just sitting here waiting for Kevin's next post.

Which is claimed to be in progress, and he had better make it worth reading because I've waited for a long long time.

Madness

2006-04-08T20:43:00.000+08:00

In the afternoon (nothing much happened in the morning), I tried to recreate the experience of typing with this keyboard, by effectively taking some tape and taping over the keys. Of course the tape isn't transparent, otherwise there's not much purpose in doing it.

It's actually quite exciting and challenging, and I find it quite normal, except for some times when I really don't know WTF a certain key is. But for the daily typing work, I'm alright. In fact, I'm typing this post with my "modified" keyboard.

If you are as lame as me, you can try it yourself, but don't find me if you scream in terror that you can't find a certain key.

Trash Bag

2006-04-07T21:00:00.000+08:00

In the morning it was announced that the Thailand students who had visited our school would be leaving soon, and they promptly gave out certificates to them one by one. Those students at the end of the day, however, didn't look like they had left, and were still buying ice-cream from the dude outside the school.

And so we continued watching the video about the Soviet Union and received the ultimate stack of assignments on China's business. Apparently it contains all the assignments, and I'm also happy that we have notes now. Don't have to copy much stuff anymore.

Mrs Tan really looked like she was wearing a black trash bag today (said Ting Yi), and then we just listened to her about stuff and had a little quiz at the end of the lesson. Boring.

Miss Yew began her goal of one topic per lesson today, since we have three more topics to rush through for the next nine days. So today was about cumulative frequency distribution, very dull, but she spiced the topic up by showing a graph of the heights of students. She had collected the data yesterday, and everybody was excited about which percentile they were in. Nice move.

Once again for Chinese we were slacking around, but the main point of the lesson was at its end. Suddenly Mdm Lim Kim Choo stormed in, put down her bag, we greeted her, and explained that she was here because she wanted to tell us about our oral exam next week. I haven't been "lectured" by her before, but she can speak real fast and sensibly at the same time. She made some little jokes, and then disappeared at the end. Never knew that she was like this, or it's just I haven't encountered her dark side for Chinese lessons.

For English the class just listenend to some recordings of people taking an oral exam and we've to grade them. That really took up the whole hour, and it's quite effective to waste time.

Nothing much about Physics today except for the fact that Miss Tan offered chocolates to anyone who would bother to answer her question correctly. No one did.

NCC today was pretty much unique: PT in half-uniform. Got whacked a lot, but we only did a set of exercises before the Specialists challenged to us a pumping game. Basically just pump. Then it was drills. Cheered at some points, and shouted the Charlie Cheer before going home after Last Parade.

We had PT in half-uniform for NCC, which was very extraordinary, and after a set of exercises, CSM played with us a pumping game which didn't resemble a game at all. Anyway it was still a challenge sort of thing.

Drills next turned nasty, especially during the uniform check, but after that we just marched around as usual, cheered, and went off. The Specialists also added that we'd soon forget everything about the camp, except maybe for the T-shirt. I'm convinced.

Back To School

2006-04-06T21:17:00.000+08:00

Went to school as usual, and much talk among the Seconday 3 pupils was mainly about the camp. Especially the inadequate horrible food, the rain which ruined everything, and climbers who can make belayers fly.

We have a new Chinese teacher whom I think goes by the name of Miss Mo (莫老师), and I'll just call her that. It's not the Biology teacher, but a new one who has a really high pitched voice.

Anyway the class kind of bullied her, wasting much time and letting us slack. In the end, still, we had to do some work, but it was all just to underline some stuff. Went through a test for Chemistry, along with instructions for homework, and we watched a video on Russia (documentary again) during History. I attempted not to fall asleep while watching, but I constantly closed my eyes and almost really slept.

PE was lame. We were to try our standing broad jumps, but it turned into some sort of jumping session to train us. At the end of the lesson we jumped and jumped and did not even try the stupid standing broad jump.

Mr Phoon let us talk about the camp for Geography, as we didn't really want to do any work (I didn't bring my atlas too). He also shared some of his experiences in camps, and they do sound more fun that the time I had the past four days.

Miss Yew also talked a bit about the camp, and also about how very fortunate we were to have a new place to have the camp. Based on her description, I think if we were to have the camp at that junk place at Lim Chu Kang, it'd be much better, except for the stopping of the water supply at some points, and the old facilities. Nevertheless, there's definitely no damn planes flying above us.

Corrections for a letter we wrote for English, and when I was done I just sat at my place and did absolutely nothing. Then Mrs Tan called people out to talk about the camp, and mostly they gave bad comments, and I'd do the same if I was called. The food, the food, and the planes.

Secondary 3 Adventure Camp

2006-04-05T19:26:00.000+08:00

I'm finally back from a camp using five days and three nights of my life, and despite being in front of the computer on Saturday night, I didn't give a damn to post because there were spoilers. Spoils everything. This post begins from last Saturday, which I define as the first day.

This has also got to be the longest post ever, covering five whole damn days. Yikes.

Day One: Leaders had to attend a training session during the weekend. We'd go on Saturday, go back home during the evening, and return on Sunday to stay until Wednesday.

I'm one of the bunch of the camp leaders, or student leaders as they call us in the camp, but they're the same. I brought my stuff to school, and walked around until we assembled in the Parade Square. Then we just boarded the buses to Changi Coast Adventure Centre.

Unstrategically located beside an airport, the place is constantly disrupted by planes flying past and making a hell lot of noise, but "guess the airplane of this damn place" is quite a hobby at the camp.

The leaders carried their stuff, looked around, and assembled on a road and there was this Camp Chief, named Polar (I guess it's for fun), and he gave us a briefing and the set of rules we should follow. Like tucking in our shirt, that's one.

There were four groups in total, sorted out quite easily, and I was in Group 3. The instructor was one called Razi, and it seemed as if every instructor there were extremely hyper and happy. They were shouting and cheering all the way.

Our dormitories were known, we knew where the hell were the restricted places, and most importantly, the toilets. We put our bags in the bunks, and went for a briefing. It was the standard orientation thing; sitting in a circle and listening to the boss talk.

The instructor, or Razi, was humorous and friendly, and he soon got to know our names. Everyone also had a programme sheet (explains everything). After that we took our waterbottles, put on track pants and went for Belay School.

The objective of the session was essentially just to teach us the basics of rope fun, how to put on the safety equipment, and how to belay. After that we tried out belaying, and it wasn't that bad.

Next was some group management by this very weird guy who can really speak for a long time and put everyone listening to him to sleep. The main point of his talk (which lasted for like a bloody hour) was just the objectives of the camp, and I was feeling horribly hungry at that time. Practically stuffed myself when I could have my food.

Most people didn't birng utensils, let alone a plate, but we were forgiven and they supplied us with those brown paper (found in hawker centres) and plastic spoons.

Like a camp, no one can eat even when the food is just centimetres away from him, because everybody had to eat at the same time. When the order was given to eat, I ate everything, including the beans which most claim to be uncooked.

And after lunch, our activities were mainly water activities (pwns): rafting and kayaking. Changed into our wet attire, and it was quite a problem because everyone didn't bring all the stuff. Like extra shoes for dipping into the water, which leaves you returning to your bunk with sand in your shoes.

I had to survive with my only pair of shoes at the session, and went to the area in a T-shirt, shorts, my only pair of shoes, and a waterbottle and realised minutes later that we had to build raft on our own with the given stuff.

Being quite useless at that point of time (I'm not good at ropes), I just stood there watching others franctically trying to put together a raft with four black floats (conducts heat very well), a bunch of pipes, and ropes. In the end we got a decent raft and only four people could try it out. I wasn't one of them, and didn't miss any chance of getting wet since kayaking was next.

For kayaking, a funny instructor (all instructors are funny anyway) taught us how to use the paddle how to wear a Personal Flotation Device (PFD), how to move around and then we had a kayak for two and set off. The waves were quite strong, and me and Jeromy had difficulties trying to ride on.

I didn't manage to capsize in the middle of the sea (only at the coast later on), paddled to this white spherical thing, and we held all our kayaks together. For some reason we were steered towards the coast, and the waves shook everything. Still fun anyway.

Had to park our kayaks at the beach, and a bunch of tree branches was just in front of me when I was rowing to the beach. Couldn't bear to strike the branches and end up badly, and eventually capsized. If you include the waves pushing everything ashore, it's quite painful.

Nevertheless, it was definitely the best activity of the day. Even the flying fox (or zipline) couldn't match it. Had to do with wet and sandy shoes. Deming and I chose to go to the toilet and wash up, especially the damn sand in our shoes, and thus also making us the first few people to dirty the toilet with sand.

The zipline next was initially scary, but riding it down was awesome except for some inconveniences. I tried to be happy while waiting for my turn, and even waved to the other group members (plus saying goodbye). Was glad that I didn't tremble though. Moving against the wind at high speed is cool. Grabbed a rope thrown up by Razi, got pulled to this huge trolley and got off.

I was actually the last person to ride the thing, due to bad weather. It was going to rain, yeah. I forgot what happened next, but ultimately we packed up, and a bus dropped us at Commonwealth (WTF they said they'd dump us at Dover!!!11), and Yan Kang convinced me to go to West Mall with him and Deming to have dinner. Then I went home with the pair of wet shoes, slightly drier than before.

Overall, I had some fun, knew the environment for the next four days, learned new cheers, and got my shoes wet.

Day Two: Today was the beginning of the real thing, and I ended up at Dover early in the morning with bags and waited for the buses. Once most people arrived, we gathered at a spot, took attendance, and waited for the bus. The first two groups left first, and despite the fact that the bus for the remaining groups had arrived, we couldn't board because someone hadn't arrived. Yet. She was late, apparently.

A bunch of boys were around talking about MapleStory, and they still continued this on the bus, while I slowly ate bread to prevent anything like the previous day. Can't risk sitting down and feeling like a hungry ghost again.

Reaching the place we put our stuff in our dormitories, and had a debrief about the previous day's stuff. Next activity was rock climbing, a thing I hadn't done for a year since Camp FEAST.

Revised the procedures once more, and I was one of the first people to climb. It wasn't too bad, but I slipped a couple of times. That's rock climbing for me. We also thought of a group name, named after our instructor. The name's Raziputin, in honour of the old time Russian womaniser we know of in History.

At the canteen we were entertained by the weirdo guy again, but for just a short while this time. Group by group, we collected our food (there's a roster for serving food and area cleaning too) and ate. Abseiling next. Just another name for rappelling.

This time, there wasn't such a thing called a lack of time like Camp FEAST, and I happily chose to be the first few to try. At the top, it was terrible to look down, even with all the safety stuff. I tried to be happy once again, didn't tremble a bit, and lowered myself until the instructor was happy. The position lasted for a few seconds before I couldn't take it and I just abseiled down. Then I was on the ground. It's not that scary as I had thought it to be.

After the fun, we proceeded to the General Stations, basically some small mini challenges. Anyway each group of four were assigned to a station (one station was called Tyre and Pole, jokingly renamed as the 11th Finger by the instructors. Razi immediately tried to brainwash us to forget about anything related to a finger).

I was assigned to this thing with a rope and the objective is just to swing across and don't die. Lightning was observed, a siren was blared and we went indoors to continue. Just to continue on our explanation on what to do, because that's what we'd have to do when the rest of the students arrive. Explain to them WTF is this obstacle all about.

We also learned a cheer about a bumble bee, which was quickly adopted by the other groups (and spread throughout madly the next few days). It's funny, but now as I'm typing the amusement level of it has decreased.

The bad weather made us miss not only the General Stations, but also the Challenge Rope Course (CRC, which sounds like a washing detergent or something). We were then told to get our NYAA booklets, scribble a paragraph in it, and Instructor Jane also came to talk to us, mainly about Stefan (called Siberian) who was screaming his head off while being lowered to the ground at the rock wall, and kayaking to nowhere during the activity. And we learned some cheers, I think. Not easy recalling what happened three days ago.

Anyway, we had a shower session, group by group, and the dumb challenge was for every group to finish showering within five minutes. It was big problem for the girls but nothing much to the boys (we can shower fast). Anyway, when it was my turn, I bathed as fast as I could and came out quite happily.

It's just a challenge to see whether if we could shower within such a short time, and it's be deadly when the next bunch of students go and shower (20 groups in all). Additionally we also got our T-shirt, apparently orange for the leaders. Something like a jersey, fair enough, though I'm still not delighted with the colour.

After dinner, the most "memorable" thing was a speech by the weirdo guy again, and this time, he spoke for two damn hours and a bit more, leaving most people doodling on paper (Deming suggested playing Bingo, but I refused).

Gu Zheng and I formed what we called the Slacker Association of the group, but it wasn't much. Simply consists of people who don't really want to listen to that weirdo and slack.

The guy even talked about this strange learning cycle thing, and actually the only way to keep awake was to copy whatever he wrote on the board, no matter how strange the content appeared to be.

Suddenly (or somehow; I wasn't paying attention) he talked about trust falls, and every group had a couple of volunteers to try out and the remainder to support the falling person. Made everything quite exciting, but it grew dull when he went to his lecture again. Supper was given out too (a piece of cake), and then we could go sleep. The next day, we would have a morning exercise.

Day Three: Slept quite well during the night, except for that fact that the planes kept whirring past, and mosquitoes were flying around. Sucks not to use a sleeping bag the right way.

There was also an expected fire drill at like 01:30, and we ended up searching for some missing people whom were revealed to be taken away purposely by the instructors to test us. I didn't really concentrate and bother, and was darn sleepy.

When I woke up in the morning, I went to brush my teeth, the normal stuff, and prepared for the uhh morning exercise. Held by the PE teachers, the task was just to run to the nearby park and back, finishing the whole thing. Had orders to wear our new T-shirts next, to welcome the students arriving, and I just remember that we sang the National Anthem, ate our breakfast, and took photos before the students arrived.

And so they did, with my class coming quite later than the others. Indeed, the situation was messy and a bit chaotic, and they were told their dormitories (also applies to me), and some instructions.

Soon they ended up in their proper groups, and I was with three other girls to lead the group. One boy and three girls as leaders for a group is definitely common for the camp. Took them indoors, and did what Razi did to us a few days ago. Speaking of Razi, he's in charge of my group and another group. Essentially the last two groups of the lot.

I'm in charge of my group while Sharry's in charge of the other, and we had to synchronise our watches with his time. For obvious purposes.

Briefed the group about everything else, rules, locations, and stuff, and they had Belay School next. In fact, almost half of the lot had Belay School, and they squeezed into the tiny area facing the rock wall. Leaders were behind listening to what they had heard on Saturday, with new jokes added in.

Stefan was also a demonstrator, and after the instructor had finished his words and turned their attention to Stefan, he had already taken apart his harness, and it was LOL. I guess the instructor was stunned.

The whole thing ended early, and so the people had instructors to entertain them and us too, and next was umm "Personal and Team Goal Setting" according to my list.

Basically the group had a piece of paper on which they wrote their group name, objectives of the camp, and what they would like to achieve during the camp. I was quite glad that they could actually think of something and present something decent enough, and Razi was particularly pleased with the points, especially the one on enthusiasm.

Abseiling or the zipline was next, and the people could choose which one they wanted to do. I was basically in charge of "crowd control" and simply directed people to where they should go to abseil, and how to wear their equipment. Watched people abseil down for the whole time.

After that was nearby rock climbing, and same thing happened. I watched people climb, but also became a belayer for once. I retired after that because I was exhausting from shock, almost-leaving-the-ground, and fatigue as I struggled to keep myself from flying away and impatiently waiting for the climber to finish off his task. The instructor beside me even thought of pulling the rope with me to lift the climber up for him to grab the higher rocks.

Bad weather ruined the day, doing away with CRC and General Stations, and eventually we were indoors trying to cheer and doing pointless stuff like playing games. During the evening they had a shower (leaders didn't, if I remember correctly), followed by a dinner, and at night, the leaders took their groups for a trust night walk. Whatever it is.

It reminded me of the time I had at the camp during March, being blindfolded and having to crawl through and cross a lot of obstacles, but this time I wasn't the blind one. I just had to bring them around, and let others have fun with them. Spray water, tickle, whatever. Fun.

Jay and Yan Wen who were in the very front were constantly yelling out where they thought they should probably be ("I think the sea is to my right!"). It was quite funny, actually, and then we brought them back and had quite a debrief.

At night, the students could go off to sleep, while the leaders had a debrief by Razi. Mostly guessed the airlines of the planes flying past, and the problems faced today. The girls also discussed about the state of the girls' toilets and it continued and continued and then it was decided that action had to be taken (well, obviously).

After that we could go, and I found out that the dormitory had practically no more space for me and the other leaders to sleep comfortably. In the end I squeezed between Kevin and Alan, and slept without any fire drills, but yes, there were still planes flying to the airport.

Day Four: Breakfast, debrief, and next was First Aid. I was WTF when I knew of this, and Razi had prepared a bunch of equipment and a manual to teach us. However for most of the time he asked the SJAB people of the group to demonstrate and teach.

Razi stopped teaching halfway, and then we did cheers. I had to entertain the groups (Razi thought I was funny) with cheers, and next session was even more boring than First Aid. Knots.

The instructor went off (to slack, I think) while the NPCC people taught everyone how to tie some knots, hitches, and lashings. I was sitting down there as usual, watching Haozhan, Hong Kuang, and Kenneth murdering a millipede. LOL. The millipede, once attacked with Haozhan's rope, immediately initiated a protective mode and curled up, but eventually the creature was smashed and buried under the sand.

Yan Kang and I then took over (told to) and simply told 'em to change into their wet attire for the upcoming water activities. After lunch we had rafting, and the groups set off to construct their raft. As usual, the raft was deployed, and now everyone could have a try, including the leaders, and I was very happy because I hadn't tried it before.

I guess everybody was looking forward to kayaking, but it was hopelessly pwned by the bad weather. Everything was cancelled just after we learned how to use the paddles, and we had to keep lots of stuff. The boys had to move a boat up, and some had to keep the PFDs and everything else. I took my socks (went into the water with it, but took them off after rafting) and threw them away, since they were totally useless, being wet, stinky, and full of sand. In the end the two groups ended up indoors, doing nothing once again, just like yesterday. Damn.

A Centaur group joined us and we played around for a while, and then we did nothing much else too. The girl leaders took the groups for cheers, while the rain still continued.

Instructors Po and Elf demonstrated a game, which looks mystical, complex, unbelievable, but there's a certain principle behind it. After that we had a cheer war. Major Group A with Groups 1 to 10 were dubbed Alpha, while Major Group B with Groups 11 to 20 were dubbed Bravo. Both sides were facing each other under different dormitories, and there was a cheer war, essentially having both sides screaming at each other, led by the instructors. Entertaining enough.

Some funny orders followed, which stated that the boys toilet were to be used by the girls for showering. The girl leaders were disgusted at the smell ("Welcome to the world", said one boy camp leader, I forgot who) as they had to stand outside the toilets, but soon the toilets were used and unused, to be used by the boys.

I took the time to change my pair of wet shoes into my original pair, and I placed each shoe in a plastic bag and dumped them into my shoe bag. There's a consequence definitely, considering that I was welcomed by a stench when I opened my shoe bag this morning. Sand plus water plus other stinko stuff.

The students also received their camp T-shirt, actually identical to the leaders' except for the colour, and that's actually about it. Strangely, 3E's class T-shirt has the same actual design as the camp T-shirt. After a while, everybody emerged in either orange or blue. Compulsory for the campfire at night.

Ren Bin didn't bring his class T-shirt for the class item, but he managed to get one because Chai Ying had brought extras. Being one who also didn't stuff my T-shirt into my bag, I went to the canteen to find Chai Ying and managed to get one of my size. It fits.

I was put in charge for area cleaning for dinner, which was quite unpleasant, and then all classes were allocated a place to rehearse their class item. The instructors kept calling for the camp leaders regarding the campfire, and after some tries of the dance, everybody sat according to their classes.

The camp leaders had a job to do. Only the canteen was a suitable place for the event, so we had to move out the tables and benches.

I spotted the students from Thailand while the classes went in, and then the leaders were called again, and we were told to pwn the campfire. Sat in front of my class, and the event started.

One by one, each class performed their class item, and halfway through the instructors also had an item of their own (once again, funny). There was a lot of noise and screams and yells for the thing, and I was sitting with Ellis, an instructor, who squeezed through the small space on my left and constantly tried to use his elbow to press on my leg.

3G's class item wasn't too bad, and we just wore the class T-shirt over, and the boys immediately took it off once everything was done. Yeah, and I returned the extra T-shirt to Chai Ying.

Cheers at the end, also with a ranking of performance of class items. The catch was LOL: there were areas needed for cleaning the next day, and a class with a better performance could choose the area they wanted to clean. Conversely, the class with the lowest performance has no bloody choice.

I also forgot to say that there was also a mini guess the airline session during the campfire. Singapore Airlines all the way. Also, the teachers gave a slide presentation full of photos taken during the past few days. Nice enough.

Everybody went off, once again leaving the leaders behind, and this time we had to move back the tables and stuff. Tried to do the job but somehow there were missing benches or extra tables. Weirdly enough, we could go and let the instructors handle the situation.

Buns were given out as supper, and the leaders again had a briefing by Razi under the bicycle shed. We ate our buns there, talked for a while and could go and sleep.

Kevin had left with some other students for some History thing, leaving an extra space for me to sleep in the dormitory. I took advantage of this, and slept at the area after having a shower. Shoe bag and a pair of track pants equates to a pillow.

Day Five: I was constantly troubled by the now-very-common noise of the planes during the night, but I still managed to wake up and not feel that sleepy in the morning. Took our bags down, had breakfast, kept our utensils in our bags, and when everybody had their breakfast we sat in our classes on the road, while the instructor repeated our locations/duties for area cleaning.

3G had one of the best jobs around, simply just to load and unload equipment. That's all about it, and while other classes were cleaning we were playing and taking photos.

Soon enough we still had a job, and moved stuff to the bicycle shed, and finally everybody took their stuff to the Parade Square thing, whatever it is called. Sat in our groups and waited, again. Leaders were once again called to be talked to, and we stood there and watched the instructors doing an auction of items found around the area, from PE T-shirts to shorts and socks, heh.

We also got a feedback form each, and I guess everyone would state that the food was insufficient and seriously bad. Returned the forms, and there were prizes for the best group of each Major Group.

I don't know why, but for some reason, my group managed to win something, and everybody in the group got this inflatable and deflatable waterbottle thing. Fair enough.

3G boarded the bus first because we had to unload equipment, but sadly we weren't the first to leave. On the bus, the people at the back cheered, and most of the Secondary 3 students continued cheering when they reached the school. Happy mood, I guess.

Left with Ernest and Weiyuan to Lot 1 to stuff ourselves with food due to extreme hunger (the breakfast was simply not enough), and then we went home.

The camp is actually quite a disaster in terms of the activities (curse the fucking rain), and mainly the horrible food supplied. Still, it's quite an experience, though I think a lot of people are still pissed at the fact that the rain ruined a lot of things. My skin has got darker too, and I got a shock when I faced a darker self in the mirror today morning when I wanted to brush my teeth.

The instructors are very very friendly, especially Razi and Po, the former who just loved my bumble bee cheer actions, and the latter who was massaging me and talking about how tall was I compared to him. And Ellis who tried to squash my leg with an elbow, LOL. Plus the cheers. The cheers made me quite happy.

I don't think I regret being a leader at all.

When Lightning Strikes

2006-03-31T21:10:00.000+08:00

Every class received a list of what group each of us was going to be dumped in for the camp, and I'm in Unicorn C, and during recess Kenneth Lim told me that he's in that too. At least there's some familiar company.

Boon Hean had to get out of the class with his table and chair to do his History Test as he vanished yesterday afternoon for a competition, making him the only dude in the lot who has not taken the test. Then Mr Lim went through an assignment and taught China stuff.

We received a great deal of Chemistry work to do but the class argued for the deadline to be set on the Monday after the camp. Yay. But still, it's a hell lot of questions. I think Mrs Tan has taught finished the chapter.

Surprisingly Mr Chng came for Maths and we had our test. His presence wasn't permanent, as Miss Yew took over after a few minutes, and the paper was what Mr Tong had described to be: all from the March vacation worksheet, except for a couple of new questions.

We got our class T-shirts at the end of recess, some 莫老师 (young Chinese teacher, apparently and mostly to teach us from next week onwards until Jiang Li returns) came in. Jiang Li also entered, and I initially thought that she'd monitor the new teacher, but it was the reverse.

Received our situational writing rubbish and once again Mrs Tan commented on my handwriting. "Particularly worried", she seems to be, and I had to rewrite my reflections because I did not mention my atrocious handwriting as my first point. Wasted Ernest's two pieces of foolscap paper.

Miss Tan began on yet another new topic today, very dull, and received homework too. Leaders can hand it up on Friday, while the rest will hand it up on Monday, though I'm sceptical about how many people would actually do so.

It seems that some people did not receive the message that there was NCC today (some didn't bring their No. 4), but all was forgiven somehow and everything just continued normally. PT today was different from others (I requested to a PTI) since we did a partial mock NAPFA test, partial because they're some components we didn't do.

The first damn thing we had to do was the 2.4 km run, followed by the other items. We were split into groups and one group did something, another did another, and sit-ups were first for my group (the only other Part C was Edwin. Rest were Bs), followed by inclined pull-ups (this is the last year I'd be doing this), and finally the old time standing broad jump. Had seven minutes to emerge in our No. 4, and very unluckily the toilet floor was wet. Besides, I found out that my school shorts were missing, but I didn't really bother about it as the changing was more important.

After changing, Kenneth helped me find my shorts, and it was actually just under the table (couldn't see it). Sometimes things can be so dumb. Had an alright uniform check, followed by drills, drills, and more drills. Marched around for some time, had a go-to-this-place-in-three-seconds challenge by CSM, who constantly told us to run to this place and fall in within three seconds. Fun.

The sky was beginning to grow dark (the Sergeants taught us what to do if lightning ever wants you as your next victim: do a weird pose that's supposed to reduce surface area and earth/ground yourself so you wouldn't end up so badly. Bet it's just a joke), and we were dismissed.

Leaders' training tomorrow. I'll still be back during the evening to post before I leave the computer for four days or so.

Printing Error

2006-03-30T21:58:00.000+08:00

Chinese was as normal, did the usual Thursday stuff, and another teacher would take over next week because Jiang Li's pregnant and she's got to do something about it. Had a SPA during Chemistry which didn't resemble one at all: we could talk and chat and even bring the worksheet back to class to complete and hand it up by the end of the lesson.

The experiment was quite boring actually, having to wait long times for the crucible to heat and cool just to obtain a certain result. Went through a question for History, ran 2.4 km for PE (deadly), had no appetite during recess (because of the run), wrote a lot of stuff on a piece of foolscap paper about the climate of this stupid island for Geography, I'll skip the part about Maths, and discussed about cheating in exams for English. It wasn't too bad actually, but I guess the question-and-write-the-long-long-answer thing could be eliminated.

Next came two hours of boredom and the first half hour was spent at McDonald's eating, and the remaining time was used in class to study for the test. Meanwhile the stock of class T-shirts had arrived and the outcome was shocking.

Pink and black on white is certainly not very pleasant, especially when the pink is indeed a very bright shade of pink. The front design was dubbed as a "printing error" by Cao Wei or Ernest, I forgot who, but it's quite an accurate description. Everybody who saw it (except maybe those who designed the shirt) was stunned, and even the 3H people who came to look at it yelled and screamed.

History Test was invigilated by Sir (unexpectedly), who arrived with a lot of comments as usual, and the test itself was quite alright, but I guess I'd barely pass. My History is never excellent.

It was raining, and it continued even after the test, which left most of us (erm, me) thinking of way to get to the MRT station in the rain, through the flooded route. I shared an umbrella with Ping Lin which was absolutely unwise due to difference in height, but I think I'd be off worse without the umbrella.

International Friendship Day (Nonsense)

2006-03-29T20:37:00.000+08:00

Since the Secondary 1 and 2 students were having their version of Common Tests, it's required to get down to the Parade Square every morning for this week. Kind of ended the whole ruddy topic for Maths, while we did some work for Geography and Mr Phoon told us his stories again. Today he talked about how he lost weight and gained height by skipping. Ermmm.

For a Wednesday, I was quite lucky to buy food early, or face the long queues once others students stream into the canteen. After all, Mr Phoon released us a bit earlier, and it makes all the difference. PDP was all about International Friendship Day, which IMO is rubbish, and then we had free time, used up to learn the dance for the Adventure Camp. Our class item, essentially.

We had performances by students for Assembly to "commemorate" the event, and it was observed that everything was dominated by the students from China. Total domination. Next we had a fashion parade thing (ambassadors from every class wearing the costume of some country). Some costumes were funny, like the DIY revealing costume donned by Ivan, some were clearly impromptu (Egyptian mummies are equivalent to boys wrapped in toilet paper), and everything just got more and more absurd by the classes. The first half was ordinary enough, but 3G made a huge difference/transition.

Mr Lim wasn't around, so a certain Miss Heng took us for the lesson and just told us to finish up a worksheet which was to be handed in by the end of the lesson. I was busy doing Physics and had no time for History (and I had already done a bit of it), and we convinced the teacher that we wouldn't have to hand it in by the end of the lesson.

Physics Remedial started at 14:15 or later, and Miss Tan just continued on vectors, vectors, and more vectors. Apparently she can't tell where's west and where's east, and it turned out to be a big joke. She also followed Miss Yew's "Yew Teach Session" by giving transparencies to lucky dudes to write their solutions on, and have them present the next lesson. Suspicious, suspicious.

Mole

2006-03-28T21:05:00.000+08:00

Chemistry was all about the mole, and I think it's very confusing. In the end I got the bloody hang of it, but I'm still quite puzzled. Test papers were also returned, and I got 40 despite being thrashed in the final section of the paper (curse boron nitride).

We had our final map for Geography, and I just rushed through it and slowly waited for recess. After recess was Maths, the topic hadn't shifted a bit, but I got two small chocolate bars from Miss Yew because I "derived" the quadratic formula yesterday. At the end of the day, however, I sold the bars to a hungry Dorcas for a dollar. Xiang Yi dubbed it as "a quick buck".

Chinese was ordinary, did a summary during English, and had a break of 15 minutes. After all, it's stated on the timetable, and that was the time when I completed the chocolate bar transaction.

We moved to a much better topic for Physics, apparently vectors. Despite it being quite bland, it's still more decent than the previous topic.

Since there wasn't any CCA today (for some funny reason), I stayed at the pull-up bar area with the other Part C boys who were either having a thrill ride on the swing or thrilling people on the swing, and finally left with Kenneth and Jun Hao, who still has his arm in a cast.

Escape

2006-03-27T17:37:00.000+08:00

Due to rain, PE was held at the corridor outside the Physics Laboratories, and it risked offending a Certain Physics Teacher if she ever emerges, but for the whole thing, no teachers appeared except for the PE ones.

Anyway, the horrible thing was that our place to play was the small narrow corridor, and after some running around we got a racket and a ball and played with the wall. There was the danger of smashing the fire alarm (which would cause devastation) or hitting the ball so hard that it'd rebound and find its way out of the window.

Then we were told to have a rally, which made the probability of balls flying out of the place even higher, and it wasn't much fun. Finally we had sort of a match, which was worse, since we had to use the breadth of the corridor.

Chinese was all about the textbook, so it wasn't fascinating (it shouldn't ever be), after recess was Maths on the same topic again (I managed to survive it because I was finishing up my Physics homework, hidden beneath the Maths notes. The worksheet was totally blank when I came to school this morning), then Physics.

During the lesson, 3H boys were going back to their classroom, the back door was open, and one of them (I suspect is Ni Hao) made a loud comment and everyone in class laughed. It always happens, especially once the boys are free from the classroom.

Mrs Tan wanted Ernest and I to hook up her new computer just to display some slides, and it was the problem of the lesson as she made a very big fuss out of the minor matter. It's the old problem: no display input. Both of us tried all means of getting the problem solved, but to no avail. We were back in our seats later, while Tan went to summon quite a lot of people while we had to do a comprehension.

In the end the hero (or heroine) was Mrs Phua, but she cheated because she offered her own computer for use, since she also couldn't fix the problem with Tan's new computer. Eventually, Phua left with Tan's computer, while the former's system was used to show the slides.

Since the comprehension passage was about Victoria Falls, so the slides were relevant in one way, and irrelevant in much much more ways.

They contained images of the waterfall, and dudes riding the rapids and the class spent 3.5 minutes (claimed Tan. She said she had timed it) watching the presentation of pictures of the people on the raft surfing around the river. Might be useful for the first question, but it didn't help for the other questions.

I handed up my work in the end, only to be rejected a few minutes later due to (most probably) horrible handwriting. I had to rewrite the crap, and it was accepted. After school it was said that the class had to stay back to learn a dance for the camp, and after a few minutes of hesitation and consideration, I escaped with Peng Jie, but he got pulled back by Chai Ying.

Once Chai Ying was occupied with Peng Jie, however, Weiyuan sneaked past and both of us fled while Peng Jie sacrificed himself.

I Play, I Play, And I Play

2006-03-26T20:54:00.000+08:00

Today has been basically a play day, with me tackling almost every game I have, except for doing a bit of homework and reading 20% of the book I bought yesterday.

It's not exciting to have school tomorrow, and yesterday's waste of time at school makes the situation worse. It equates to less time for the weekend, but I'm assured that next weekend would prove to be even deadly. Hope the teachers do see that we going to have a camp and give us lesser homework, or better, none at all.

"Pre-Camp Training"

2006-03-25T22:52:00.000+08:00

Had to go to school early in the morning for what pre-camp training and it was horrible. We assembled, retrieved our mess tins and solid fuel, and classes 3A to 3F could go and cook their meals first, while the rest went to discuss class items.

My class ended up in the 4A classroom and the boys played around inside for a while before getting the hell out of there (danger fumes from the spray), and next was the cooking thing.

Our stoves, apparently, were the drain covers (I thought they would supply us with decent stoves), but it was still good enough for cooking. Collected water, heated the water, and then cooked whatever we had. My group members all cooked instant noodles, only.

And contrary to the piece of paper given yesterday to the Chairperson, no teacher gave a damn to grade our meals. I knew it.

After eating my plain noodles I went to wash up, and the basins were awfully choked and the water level was so high that I think it's suitable to fill a big fish tank.

I went back and did nothing much, and then I went to Jia Jun's group consisting of his 3I friends and they offered me luncheon meat. Apparently they have lots of luncheon meat. Yu Jun also offered to cook sausages; he had three cans of them.

So we opened a can, cooked the stuff, and ate the sausages. I ate four and felt very full later on, and declined to open the third can.

Time was running short and so we cleaned up and went to the Hall for a briefing on the camp itself, heard a bunch of information, received a equipment list, and realised that today's pre-camp training nonsense wasn't really what it was cracked up to be. We won't cook a single thing during the camp, argh.

NYAA briefing next, and we just have to do some stuff to earn that award. After everything there was a short briefing for the leaders, and I sat there listening to what Loh had to say. Finally we could leave.

In the afternoon I went out to buy some stuff, and it included a vist to the new renovated Popular at Bras Basah (haven't been there for a long time) and the change is drastic. Saw a damn lot of books there (new ones), and more games stocked on the shelves. Kind of awesome.

I intended to buy what's left of my The Lord of the Rings collection, but it was protested against by my brother. In the end we agreed to buy The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (for the confused), one book which we both like, and it includes all the five books of the series squeezed into one volume. Fair enough.

Now I just have to find time to read that book.

Water's No Gas

2006-03-24T20:58:00.000+08:00

At room temperature. There was supposed to be a Chemistry Test today, so notes and textbooks were out on tables. Think the whole level's having it.

Anyway it wasn't the time for it yet, since first lesson was History and I could answer Mr Lim's question of WTF that opium addict was doing. I could answer, mostly because I attended the lame course last June. All about drug abuse. Mr Lim still continued his slightly bilingual way of teaching, which is fine. Then he left 30 minutes earlier for some funny reason.

Had that test next for Chemistry and it was definitely easier than the previous deadly test, though it's not that easy too. It's still easier, yes. I screwed my answers in some questions, but overall the paper was generally fine. I totally forgot that tritium oxide was bloody hell water. Water!! I wrote that it would exist as a gas at room temperature. Got carried off by the fact that most covalent compounds float around us as gases.

Miss Yew came late for Maths because of timetable conflicts, so people went up to present solutions to some questions. Aftter recess was Chinese, and I'm quite happy because I'm not the unlucky one who has to make a speech one day (soon enough) during the morning and speak to the whole school. Yay. Everybody, except for the one who was chosen (I think), was quite delighted.

Got back some work we did and I failed all of them, heh, and I guess my overall Chinese grade at the end would be totally pwned. Wrote an informal letter to an imaginary friend for English about the greatness of River Valley High School, and why she and her brother should enrol in this place. Last lesson was Physics: boring as ever, homework as usual.

NCC was decent (I don't know why we don't need to bring our No. 4 today), but it turned quite nasty for PT since we did lots of them. And before PT even began we did more than a 100 push-ups already (according to some people who really went to count).

We had PT at the carpark at first, but the location was moved to that block opposite the D&T workshop, and initially we took up the whole block, which means both levels. Part Cs above and the others below. PTIs were at the grass shouting instructions at us. I guess if I were the PTI, the scene would definitely look funny.

Anyway our privilege above was removed soon as it was virtually impossible to co-ordinate with the others below, so we migrated to lower ground. Then we shifted again to that grassy area beside the field and behind the workshop. Nature!

There's definitely a clear advantage having the NCC T-shirt as a dark colour: lying down on that area wouldn't make much of a visible difference when you get up and run off. The Part As in white had their backs brown, and it wasn't nice.

The PT there was fine except for the environment, that is, and soon we went off to run around the school, cheering away, and for our weird antics (I think) a bunch of us got pumped, including me. Guess the hand gestures weren't effective after all.

After a break we ended up in the carpark and saw Mr Lee monitoring the some of the Part Ds having drills, while we were standing and constantly looking towards the right to see what's really happening. The platoon was then split into three, and we just did drills. Nothing much about that, except that the cheering made everything noisy.

Finale was next (I thought they had abandoned it ever since I noticed its absence from previous activities, but now it's back to kill), deadly enough, had a cheer and were dismissed.

There's "pre-camp training" tomorrow for all Secondary 3 pupils and what we would do (I expect) is to sit down and watch our food cook over the fire. The list given says that we have to cook a balanced meal (I'll defy) and the meal would be graded. Imagine the shock on the teacher's face (especially Mrs Chew, if she ever comes by) when he/she realises that we're going to survive totally on instant noodles.

And part of the programme is rehearsing our class item for the event, and I have no idea what they are going to do.

Thursday

2006-03-23T18:27:00.000+08:00

We had to write a 演讲词 for Chinese, and since it was our first time writing such a thing, we were allowed to bring it back home to complete it and hand it up tomorrow. Fair enough.

No Chemistry Practical, but "revised" all the formula stuff from Secondary 2. I had intended to finish my Physics, but the number of Chemistry worksheets given were too much for me to execute the operation. Argh. Mrs Tan was really wise to leave blanks in the notes.

Finally started on China's history today, and Mr Lim taught (he claimed) in both English and Chinese, though most of the time he only wrote down the Chinese version of a certain English term. He still spoke in English all the time except when explaining the definitions, of course.

Expected to run for PE, but it was good enough that we just had to do pull-ups. Miss Loh (or Mrs Chan now) called out people to do pull-ups and she'd record the score, and in the end, those who did more than three could go and play. Being lazy to go to the field to play soccer with the other more-than-threes, I just stood at one corner watching the rest. Assisted pull-ups all the way.

After recess was slacking Geography with a new sickening map again. I finally could do my Physics, and then for the last 15 minutes I just sat down and didn't do much. Listened to what Mr Phoon had to say. Apparently he was in the police when serving National Service. How good.

Quadratic equations for Maths, enough said, followed by English. Had quite a discussion, then after some stuff Mrs Tan complained about our cleanliness grade, and all about changing our seating arrangement. Yikes.

I only realised today that dismissal time for Thursday's now at 14:00 instead of 15 minutes earlier (and I thought I only needed to endure 45 minutes of English), and after school I went home, only after eating at Lot 1 with Xiang Yi, Kenneth, and Ernest.

Good Old Days

2006-03-22T20:13:00.000+08:00

More quadratic equation stuff for Maths today, and my sketches are never symmetrical, no matter how hard I try. Maps for Geography, but Mr Phoon told little stories, including one stating that yawning is contagious. Funny.

Mr Phoon, unlike last time, released us at the wrong time such that when I reached the canteen, it was packed with people, so I walked around with the old 2I boys instead. Did pull-ups with them. Ah, the good old days of doing pull-ups during almost every recess, but now I can barely manage five.

PDP was hopelessly boring, and we got into groups and had to draw something to do describe holistic development. Ting Yi, who was in my group, suggested to draw a zebra (with a purpose), and everybody contribued two lines to draw the zebra, I think. Next we did a crossword puzzle about the school which was difficult. Still, it's not something important to bother aboout.

Assembly was dreadful by listening to a lot of school information; a lot of people were sleeping, or just drooped their heads. We were supposed to start on China's history today, but Mr Lim was convinced to go through an assignment instead.

I've to redo that assignment, since Mr Lim had already said that it's very important. Well it was supposed to be handed in today, but we also convinced him that we wanted to redo.

The Delta Cheer

2006-03-21T22:08:00.000+08:00

Mrs Look announced that she had received intelligence about this sneaky LAN shop nearby that does all its best to conceal students' identities when they arrive in their school uniforms. She claimed that she has done something about it, most likely implying that it would be raided by men in blue soon enough. I haven't visited that place before.

Timetable has changed and so the first lesson was Physics, very boring, followed by Chemistry, very dull too, and we just learned how to write new stuff for Chinese. After recess was Maths at a Special Room.

Apparently Miss Yew wanted to unleash the power of her Tablet PC and used it as some sort of whiteboard, and the display was projected onto a screen. I guess her other reason of this peculiar arrangement is because she wanted to Graphmatica to plot graphs with no damn difficulty.

We had to do map stuff for Geography, something I've never done since the Secondary 1 days (it was quite bad, really), and since we didn't have much time, we could continue tomorrow.

Next 15 minutes was a free period as stated in the new timetable, after which was English. Main thing was minor changes to the seating arrangement, but eventually, the boys weren't affected ("Too tall," said Mrs Tan). Yay.

Like any other Tuesday, there was an hour before CCA would start, and when it did, the IC was changed (so fast), and three of us were picked as PTIs to take us for PT today. Moved somewhere else and had PT.

Honestly it was quite fun, and we did some hand gestures while running and cheering (started by Alan, I think), but it's the first time of the year that we did three sets for a PT session. Previously we just got off with two or one.

After PT we had drills, drills, and drills, got pumped quite a bit, almost wanted to report sick because my left arm was in acute pain (don't know how it even originated), and we had umm a debrief for the camp last week. Basically a rest session, we talked quite a bit, and after that we got up and were dismissed.

Throughout today's activity the Part Ds began what I call the "Delta Cheer" (initiating it whenver possible), which basically has them shouting off their code word. Kind of funny, and the Part Cs tried it once before leaving.

Speaking of the code words, they are not just nonsense words picked out of nowhere, but apparently used almost worldwide. It's quite sensible until it reaches number seven, which is very strange. If we had a Golf platoon, I don't know what to say.

Leaders

2006-03-20T20:01:00.000+08:00

In the morning we realised that it was the time of the year again when students from the sister school in Thailand would come over. This year, the programme's only for the Secondary 1 and 2 pupils, and I don't know whether it's good or bad.

Tennis for PE was same as usual; holding the racket and hitting the ball. Cao Wei also found a chance to smack my face with a flying tennis ball and I haven't got the chance to take revenge yet.

Wrote a composition for Chinese (happens on Mondays), and the teacher was quite "automatic" to get out and tell the people outside making a lot of noise to keep quiet.

After recess we had this funny quiz for Maths, and I finished it decently, though in the end I got the last question wrong. Anyway those who were done could do their other stuff and so I rushed to complete my Physics homework.

We went through some questions for History, not starting anything relevant to the Chinese yet, and I alternated between copying down stuff on the whiteboard and doing Physics.

Next lesson was a long session of Physics, the worksheet's to be handed in tomorrow (phew), and we got more pieces of paper to utilise today. And yes, it was boring, though the lesson was quite funny at times. After school, I had to stay back for this uhh Secondary 3 Adventure Camp briefing thing for the leaders (apparently I'm in, one out of the 80).

Bad thing was that it would only start at 15:00, so effectively I had a lot of time to spare and ended up doing Physics in the canteen with Ren Bin. Not that I like to do that worksheet, but it has to be handed in tomorrow. Miss Tan wouldn't want us to give it by Wednesday.

Finally it was time, and I went into the Special Room with a couple of others and found myself a seat, waited for Mr Teo, who came and gave quite a briefing. It wasn't worth it, I'd say, because the details were minor (nothing cool), except for the fact that all students would have to come for training this Saturday. Strange.

Then everything ended and I went home with Wei Chang.

Delicious del.icio.us

2006-03-19T20:09:00.000+08:00

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking service which I've just recently willing to use instead of keeping this.

Other than that, I'd just say that I finished all History homework, leaving no Physics homework done (and I'm not intending to do it either), and practised my skillz in Quake III: Team Arena and ended up sweating quite badly after the match. Really.

School tomorrow!

Library

2006-03-18T21:56:00.000+08:00

In the afternoon I went to the Jurong East Regional Library with Winifred, apparently to teach her Maths, or more appropiately, help her do her Maths questions. Just in case I really had nothing to do, I brought some of my homework along.

We were shortly joined by Xiang Hui who was complaining that he was extremely bored, and attempted to do his Physics worksheet while I was doing History. After a long while we left the place and decided to go somewhere else because Xiang Hui said that he wanted to go somewhere except for the library.

Initially he wanted to travel to Causeway Point to get a Maths worksheet from his friend to copy, but then he faced resistance and we ended up at Lot 1 instead. There, for most of the time we were in the arcade, and I was playing racing games all the time. Spent a considerable amount of money.

Next I went to Popular to buy some books, then all of us went home. At least today, I finished some homework. Wouldn't be happy if I came home with nothing done.

Handwriting

2006-03-17T22:46:00.000+08:00

Today was yet another meaningless day, though I guess I'd hate it if I had to go to school. Finished the second History assignment with my very horrible handwriting. I guess it's a miracle that most teachers can read my sentences without leaving any comments, or either they just squint and spent ages figuring out what the line is and don't speak a word about it.

Sure, there are teachers who have commented on my very bad writing, and there's always the one who was the pot calling the kettle black (took me a while to figure out that he was writing "handwriting illegible!"). Other than him and maybe a few others, the rest of teachers don't seem to have any problems, strangely. I had always thought my handwriting looked like a screwed version of Comic Sans.

So that's all for today. Little talk on my handwriting (which is not going to change soon), and Kevin's pulled down the list, and has visited that Star Wars exhibition (hatredhatred).

No Exception

2006-03-16T23:18:00.000+08:00

Holidays mean boring days, and today's not much of an exception. Simply played some games and watched television and reluctantly did one of my three History worksheet. 25% of it.

It can be simply concluded that I'm bored.

Aftermath

2006-03-15T20:13:00.000+08:00

Chemistry Remedial today was quit redundant as we just went through a bunch of worksheets for an hour or so. I thought Mrs Tan would be teaching, but at the corner Xiang Yi was looking at my Maths worksheet, Peng Jie was doing his, Weiyuan and Boon Hean were talking about Defence of the Ancients, Ernest was quite bored, and I was talking to Jun Hao and Yan Wen who were both in front of me. Knew a bit of what happened after I left the camp yesterday.

After the whole damn thing I asked Chia Hong what happened yesterday and he gave a totally contrasting perspective of what exactly happened. Turns out that Yan Wen had reported sick and spent an hour in the Ops Room resting, while the other Part Cs were busy marching away and getting punished.

Aftermath of camp: fatigue. Despite the early escape from camp to somewhere even more boring, I'm still quite tired, and my limbs ache.

For some strange reason, now I think that the midnight fun time was actually quite fun. Maybe it's because I'm at home now feeling more refreshed, when actually a day and a few hours ago, I was running about to change into No. 4 within a minute.

And that time, I didn't even think it was fun at all.