Sunday, November 30, 2003
Since I neglected blogging this down on the day itself, I think I've forgotten most of the day's happenings. I'll try my best though.
Took a train down to Orchard MRT and met Gaius Aston and Justin. Learnt from Justin that XZ went for an Eye Operation and couldn't come for the dinner and he wouldn't be attending the chalet.
When we reached the Grand Hyatt, we hung around and took a few group pictures. Some of the guys were dressed real smartly, others looked kinda slack. I especially liked Yiming and his Polo tee fashion statement. =) Oh, and Erman aka. Morpheus, complete with Trench Coat and all.
The food was okay, but the portions weren't large enough. The MCs were good, and the games planned were not bad. However, the atmosphere was rather lacking. People weren't really interested in the games, and there was incessant murmurings as the games and band performances were going on. I thought some of the bands were really quite bad. Some were better off, especially Kopi Susu. The performance was flawed, as we could all hear Andrew's voice above everyone else's. The mike was probabaly louder than the others.
We were playing little games among ourselves. It was fun at first but got a li'l boring after a while. I felt that Pravin should have won that word-game thingy if not for Pradeep, the mc, saboh-ing him.
After the dinner was over we sang a few songs, but again the atmosphere was a little muted. Overall, the dinner was okay.
See you in 10 years! =)
Friday, November 28, 2003
Dusty Blog
My blog's growing mould ... That's what you get when you leave something alone for too long, especially with the horrid weather we get. I'm beginning to think that the sole purpose of the sky is to unleash torrents of rain on us. Damnations.
Oh well, let's just see what I went through the last few days....
Saturday
The finals of the Rugby World Cup. England vs Australia. No. 1 ranked team coming into the World Cup vs Defending Champions and hosts. Efficient, ruthless forward pack vs Flamboyant Rugby League backs. Anyone thinking of predicting who would win the final would have been better off flipping a coin. But there was one factor, which I believe, swung the game England's way. It was raining.
Why so? Rain = slippery turf = difficult to change directions = not suited for fancy running. Equals English forward pack dominance. And that was exactly what happened throughout the match. Although everyone says that Jonny Wilkinson was the one who saved England, anyone who knows his sports knows that ONE man alone cannot make such a difference, especially against the formidable aussies. The English forwards battered and pushed and grafted away for 80 full minutes, and then some. They were the ones who created the space, forced the mistakes, which allowed Jonny the time and luxury to kick for points. By my reckoning, the 15 points wilkinson scored should be split up among him and the 8 forwards who played that day. Ditto for aussie Elton Flatley.
No discredit to the backs too. The overall defence that day was solid by both sides. And I have to say in all fairness, that both sides deserved to win. Alas, the conditions favoured England. Anyways, all's well that end's well. For the first time a Team from the Northern Hemisphere won the World Cup, breaking the Southern Stranglehold. And, the team I supported won. =) I was jumping down like a wallaby itself when Jonny scored the last-gasp dropgoal. I couldn't believe it. After dominating the match and making mistake upon mistake, throwing away chance after chance to win the match, they finally did it! The line break by Matt Dawson just before the dropgoal was the one that won it for England, by my reckoning. Just when the aussies expected him to pop the ball back to Wilkinson for the drop goal, he stunned the onrushing aussie defence and ran straight for the try line, only to be stopped by the fullback. Only after that ensuing ruck did he pop the ball back to Jonny, who scored an easy 3 points to secure the William Webb Ellis Trophy for the English.
Sunday
.... Can't remember what happened. screw it.
Monday
Ooooh. Monday. :(
Went to school to collect PAE stuff in the morning. For some insane reason, went to school in clothes. Got screamed at by CF. Went home, came back to school in uniform, got my stuff. Oh, they gave us our little sji bears too. hahaha. sounds like smth a girl's school would give out, but nvm. The bear can kneel and pray. :D And according to JC, it can do something else, but never mind. After that went to Mat Yeo's house to tide our time away. There was nothng to do at his house. So we played game of life. How sad is that? :)
Yeah, we got there and found some assholes playing on our time. And on our money. Not the way loh. I wanted to just walk in, but noone wanted to go with me. [ please lah, I can't go alone, later they beat me up how? =) ] IN the end gcx went in and I followed him. He not afraid of gettin beaten up, cos he damn barbaric lah. Yah, hardly 10 minutes into the game I got injured. -=( Like wtf man. Gerard was gonna shoot, then I stuck my leg in and poked the ball away, while his leg was swinging down to shoot. Picture this: No ball, but instead in its place my knee. What happens? Gerard kicks my knee. haha. It was accidental lah. But I tell you, it hurt like f***. After that couldn't play properly the rest of the day. Come to think of it I shouldn't have continued playing.
Tuesday
Supposed to go Ubin with Weiqi, Yangwei, Gerard and Gaius. But my knee hurt whenver I planted my left leg down on the floor, so I decided to take a raincheck. [ sorry ah... ] Spent quite a bit of the day stretching my left calf muscle and massaging my knee. As a result, I got better by next morning.
Wednesday
Stupid PAE server was down. @Q&^%!$&^$^@!!#& So I went down to my first choice jc, Njc, and I expected to just hand in my form and shove off. Turns out by that time the server was up already. That means I did not need to go to Njc, and I did not need to curse at the stupid driver who took ages to drive a stinking bus from stinking bukit timah to stinking toa payoh, and I did not need to wait forever to get onto the stinking bus 139, and I did not need to be stinking late for the stinking match vs 401. Grrr. By the time I got there we were losing 5-1 lor.... =( At the end we lost 8-6. GO figure. =D
Haha, okayokay, I am the one most responsible for us losing. But then again, when I had just arrived, and I saw who was playing for them against who were playing for us..... I was like... 'Gone case'. Maybe I shouldn't have missed those millions and millions of scoring chances. damnations. The bday boy scored a hattrick. Armando was superb, hats off to him. Dwayne was irritating. Once I got there he started making sarcastic remarks ... ' wow, gabriel's here, i'm sooo scared.' I mean, he's not some asshole or something, I make those kind of remarks all the time. But not when my team is 5-1 down lor Dwayne... I can't be in a very good mood right? =(
Anyway, after that, I came home, showered, and rushed off to meet the guys at Cuppage centre. We were watching that funny Chinese show on the TV there. Was kinda comical. The guy had an affair in his own house, with his masseuse, while his mother was in the house. How Stupid can you get?
We went on to Swensen's where Kong managed to get his hands on a buy one sundae get one sundae free offer. So I ended up paying $4 for a Swensen's sundae. We were making lots of noise and lame comments. We even ended up singing a loud and rousing Birthday song which had the whole restaurant staring at us like we were loonies. Haha, then later on some guy at the next table did the same thing for his daughter. Then we were like... hmmm. I was thinking ' wah, this guy got balls man. ' Singing on your own is no joke. At least we were in a group, which ensured us a certain measure of anonymity, emboldening us. Yah, so Gareth issued a sort of challenge to that guy. ' eh! 25th Novermber 2004 come again lah! ' . Typical gareth. We concluded that he got his sense of humour from his sister. "I'm sorry." =)
Thursday
Yawn.
Friday .... wait, ain't that today?
Went downstairs for a haircut at this Malay Barber shop. There were pics of football players all around, so I kinda anticipated walking out of the shop looking like Alessandro del Piero. Smarter, of course. :) The guy was really friendly, and typically, they mistook me for a malay. Then at their second guess the two of them accurately guessed that I was Eurasian and that my mom was chinese. Wah, not bad. The two most knowledgable people in Singapore are Barbers and Taxi Drivers. wha... Did I hear someone say teachers? Nuh-uh.
My haircut... hmmm. I don't recognise myself anymore.
Ah. Gotta go and prepare to shove off to the Graduation Dinner @ grand Hyatt.
Just a thought:
" The scariest thing about Humans is that given favourable conditions, we can be angels; Given not-so-favourable conditions, we can easily become Inhuman. "
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Finally, it's OVAH!
WOOHOO! The dreaded O's are finally over! Things are gonna be different from now on! No more mugging, studying, waking up early in the morning...... Bliss! =)
Now that time is no longer a premium[ premium? heck, I think I'll be bored stiff during the hols! ], think of all the things I could do.... .... All the wonderful stuff that I've been putting off 'til after the O's [ which means, NOW!!! =) ]. *drools*
What I can/should/will do in November/December
1) Work out - Run in the evenings/mornings 4 days a week
- Do pushups and situps till my joints wear out ( really! )
2) Read - The tom clancy book that gaius gave me
- Chinese books. [ chinese mechanisms in my brain have rusted to hell ]
3) Play - Computer games!
- football ( every day if possible! )
4) prepare - CCU chalet!
5) Meet up - with old friends ( thinking of organising an outing with pri sch friends)
6) Work? - part-time job to raise the dosh.
7) camp? - Camp thingy organised by central sg CDC, with dicky and keefe
8) Mass - EVERY sunday :]~
9) Most importantly - To do everything I decide to. ( and minimise procrastination )
Yup. There are also many things to look forward to. Chalet, Graduation dinner, Christmas, NO SCHOOL!
Tuesday
Before the paper, we were like ' ooohhh. only two plus hours to freedom'. I heard some ppl really stuck it to shaun sim. Some ppl gave him pencils( kong, wicak ) for the geog mcq paper to remind him that ' it wasn't over'. After the exam, when CF announced that we could leave the hall, there wasn't that roar of relief that I expected. Maybe we were all sincerely feeling pitiful for the geog and 2172 boys.
Went out with the guys straight after the Amaths exam. Played LAN at Emerald ( the comps there really really sucked! ). After a while me aston and gerard got bored, so we decided to get nostalgic and play RA2. Haha. The first round we played I attacked Gerard early but he managed to counter-attack and kill me. Damnations.Meanwhile Aston was slowly building up his army and just overwhelmed gerard.
The second game was much better, managed to capture the main sources of revenue and defeated both of 'em.Haha, I was picking up Gerard's tanks with the Chronosphere and dropping them into the Ocean and thus sinking them. ANd he didn't know until I told him afterwards! (= After that we went to Great World City to watch the Matrix Revolutions on the IMAX screens. Ching had these Buy one get one free tickets. So we only had to pay $5.50 to watch the show. Imagine that! Paying lesser than the normal screen prices to watch it in IMAX! Cool~
The movie was good. Can't compare to the first one, but it kinda tied up the loose ends of Reloaded. As usual, towards the end of the movie I had the overwhelming urge to go to the toilet. After the movie we decided ( as always ) to stay behind while the credits play. No idea why we do that, I think it's because we feel so comfortable in the seats that we don't wanna leave. But eventually we left because most of us had to go to the toilet. Great bladders contract alike. (=
Wednesday
Was woken up in the morning by Peter calling me. He asked me to come along to lunch with JC and the rest. ( ben, gerard, max, daren, yiming, mat) Quickly had a light breakfast, read the newspapers, and then rushed down to Orchard MRT to meet them.
We went to Dan Ryan's [ we were remarking about how 'cool' it was in there ;) ] and I ordered a Spaghetti Bolognese. Yeach. It was really bad. My mom could make one many times better, at less than half the cost. But it was okay, cos' JC gave me half of his fish and chips anyway. =) Guess he wasn't hungry. Had a great time talking with him, getting to know a bit about what goes on among the administration in the school. Ben was quipping about how he could no longer slack in his new job, and kept joking that he was 'slacking the whole day' at his old job. In return, Ben got a few polite 'reminders' about his current unconfirmed state, and that he still needed to attend Cathecism lessons. JC also gave us some advice about subjects in JC too. [ JC ... JC =D ]
Oh yes, btw, JC was a history teacher and Assistant Principal in SJI. He left his post earlier this month to join the Tourism Board. He eventually left at half past Two, despite having a meeting scheduled for Two. Apparently he's found ways to slack at his new job, eh? (= JC graciously paid for all of us. Thanks sir! (=
After the Lunch we went to Far east to play CS. Just one hour to soothe the itch in our fingers. I enjoyed myself more than the previous day, even though my mouse kept jamming. Oh yes, I managed to frag Max while my mouse was jammed! Muahahaha! ( lousy lar, Max! )
Caught the train home with gerard for the second time in two days. Came home and spent the rest of the day rather unfruitfully. But I ate more vegetables though. [ lameeee ]
SJI...
Read the papers today and learnt that SJI will be offering a 6 year Integrated Programme that will ultimately lead to an International Baccalaureate diploma. They intend to eventually take in 1,800 into the IB programme. In order to do this, they will take in girls in the 5th year and will look for a new site for the School. Which is weird, cos they just shifted in to a new campus in 1987.
I think the move is a good one. It is good to change with the times, although the school should be careful not to follow blindly. SJI will not be tying up with CJC. No offence meant, but I think the reason why the SJI board is not doing this, unlike Chinese high and HCJC, is because CJC is a mediocre JC, whereas SJI is an above-average secondary school. However, it is a pity. CJC is on the way up, and under Bro. Paul Rogers, it will continue to improve and come reasonably close to being a top-five JC eventually. I hope that in the not too distant future these two entities could tie up and work together.
RWC!
Rugby World Cup! The 3rd place match between New Zealand and France is on at 5 pm today. As with most sports, the 3rd-place match is almost always an exciting display of reckless attacking. Most teams are thinking, " since we are out of the running, what the heck, let's just have fun." That's good for us spectators. But it looks like NZ is gonna win. They are fielding their full strength side while France is fielding a virtually reserve side. But Allez France anyway! =)
Friday, November 14, 2003
ekjams
Oh man. Talk about uncertainty. The O levels have been slightly easier than I expected ( heehee :P), but since they are marking it on the curve, you never know what grade you will get. So I reallllllly don't know how I will do. aye aye aye.
Emaths was okay, though I made a few careless mistakes (D'oh!). English was as expected, essays titles a bit weird. Social studies was good. Actually managed to do a proper essay question. =0 And Fam correctly spotted that a decontextualised SBQ would come out. Haha, we should give her some credit. History was goooood. I was able to do 5 essay questions! harhar. Great. Some guys are trying to start a whole bonfire thingy where we toss all our history notes in. Wahaha. Just make sure to include me, guys. Phy was good. So was Bio. In fact Bio was great! For the first time in my school life I could do all the section C questions. harhar. Might get more than I previously expected to. Chem was kinda easy today. Even had a crossword puzzle.
But.... it may seem so easy, but you never know how many assholes will get 90 +++ % and push the bar up to frickin' doodahville. damnations.
Muzaq
Whoa. Been listening to quite a few of my favourite songs today. Sometimes listening to these songs give me a real fuzzy feeling. Like... they have become the soundtrack of my life? From barbra streissand and Mandy Moore to Korn and metallica. Talk about extreme tastes. There are these few particular songs, that are real freaky/goosepimply. In a good sort of way. Have you heard a song where the music and the voice of the singer tells more than the actual lyrics of the song? Yup haha. I won't tell you what the title of the song is. It's mine. *maniacal laughter*
" Emptiness is filing me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness taking dawn
I was me, but now He's gone"
Monday, November 03, 2003
Don't get your hopes up!
Since some select indivduals have been asking for an update, I shall oblige. *tips hat and bows*
Well, what I am trying to say is, I won't be blogging until 18th november. Yup, that's the end of the Big 'O'. O levels that is.
Seeya guys in 15!
