Firestorm

Looking around, I realize that many people around me are losing. Many expectations are not met, things that they bet on doesn’t turn out well. All these end up in one word - Loss.

We seem to be living in an age of turbulence. Many ask themselves whether the time, effort and heart invested in their dreams, aspirations, and goals, have been returned in full. In their respective special programmes, there have been certain happenings that affected them psychologically, mentally and physically. I, for one, do not know what lies under the smiles that they put on, to face the new day ahead of them, to deal with the present, and to confront the things left behind from the past.

I do not know what the future holds. Being weak in the humanities and maths, I am uncertain of how I will fare in JC. True, EP is not as taxing as the other SPs. After 2 years in EP, I might not have underwent the necessary training to deal with JC. Truth be told, studying nowadays have become more than just a training of the mind. The competitive society has perhaps, forced certain students to face problems they shouldn’t have to. This is a blessing, in a way.

Perhaps I’ve been too pampered by my SP. Why am I facebooking while people are chionging IDS? Never-ending essays? CCA commitments? Competitions? I don’t have to. Simple as that. However, given the time that I have, I’m able to observe and think, and not get caught in the whirlpool of work that needs to be done. Hopefully. By reflecting on things that happened to me days, weeks, years ago, perhaps I can figure out how I will live my life.

To those out there, remember: A new day is a new possibility. As long as you have learnt something out of it, the cost will never be too high. Look at life in the eye, and KEEP SMILING while doing so. Laugh, if that is possible. Just laugh.

Yesterday I went to J8 to watch “The Dark Knight” with Nick, Cui, ZQ and Foong Wai. Got the 3rd row, 5.40 show. Ate at Long John Silver before going.

The movie was indeed an excellent one, in fact it is one of the best I’ve ever seen. It explores the darkest side of humanity, conflicting ideas, topped with a little psychology. I couldn’t help but get sucked into the plot with the Joker’s performance, together with the face of Harvey Two-face and Batman’s cool suit.

Lucky Heath Ledger, he ended his life on such a high note.

Plus. The Batpod is so damn cool.

Ha ha HA ha ha HA HA ha ha HA Ha hA HA ha hA Ha hA Ha hA Ha hA ah AH Ah Ha ha HA Ha Ha ha HA ha ha HA HA ha ha HA Ha hA HA ha hA Ha hA Ha hA Ha hA ah AH Ah Ha ha HA Ha

To the emos out there: STOP EMO-ING!!! (Let’s put a smile on that face!)

Yesterday was Bluesky Enterprise day finals, and our school was co-hosting. I was selected to join the Exoro game workshop. Basically it is a rather realistic “card”-buying game. You can set which “cards” your company wants to buy and sell, set the demand and stuff.
We originally set out to control the “red card” market, but another group loaned 4 mil at early game, and patented it, so we changed to green at late game. However, the interest for loans is 30% per round. So in the end they were indebted for 12 mil. After paying all their debt their company valuation is -8.2 mil!
Our company, Jing wei, Jon, Shao jie, Jason, Wen Shen and me, won 1st with 8.9 mil, the second place is only 5 mil! So fun.
During the finals Hossan Leong came to our school! He was so funny, with all his “crap” style comedy. Eg
“The French are very intelligent. Even their kids can speak French!”

Quite a nice day, I must say.

Just read up some chem stuff for my chem ACE, which I seriously don’t feel like doing…

Then I stumbled upon a type of rubber made of vege oil and something from urine that can be cut and stuck back. Imba. Only need a few minutes to heal back. Even if they throw it overnight it still can be stuck back. Some comments:

“So much for the phrase ‘all the tea in China.’ If this takes off, you will start to hear about the mass production requirements for ‘all the urine in Europe.’ “

“Depending on the eventual properties of the rubber it could also have applications in dangerous environments. This system within a scuba, hazard or spacesuit might be able to repair tiny, dangerous breaches. Perhaps it could be used between hulls in spacecraft to repair microbreaches.”

“This invention will revolutionise the sex toy industry!”

Wow. Some people still say about accident comdom breakage… ;P

It is actually possible because they replace the ionic and covalent bonds in rubber with hydrogen bonds that can reconnect. Spontaneous regenerating rubber… humans next?

(Anyway this thing is so pro, in fact too pro that there is no molecular diagram about rubber online… so I think my ACE will 泡汤.)

Just now was an innocent expression of unfiltered and disorganized thoughts. Didn’t like it though. I’d better stick to the usual goal-oriented style next time.

Next up is a song that I really like, “Its all coming back to me now”, sung by Meat Loaf. Another version is sung by Celine Dion, and I think both versions are nice.

It’s all coming back to me now

Finally felt like posting.

I got double-promoted in karate!! After going through the 2 hour training yesterday shihan dubbed me pass. So now I’m in green belt.

I also found out that the Huge Pwnage American from Penns in my karate class is studying in Singapore Bible College and is studying Greek. Random stuff.

Nowadays school is still pretty much the same. We got into finals for Pday. So I have to do the Financial Projection. Cause I’m Chief Financial Officer…

Then Evelyn Teo gave us loads of time to prepare for Bio Test. Postponed from today till next Tuesday.

This week we don’t get to see Mdm Neo at all coz Monday morn is APYLS opening, and Friday got Bluesky Day. So sad… No chinese for 1 week.

Counting on Half day off tomorrow. But it is quite unlikely.

Hmm… The Rambler rambling about the Rambler for 2 lessons. Drowning here and there. So xian. You guys can try reading it. Gid Y P can do it. It is The Rambler by Samuel Johnson.

Oh and now ZQ wants to learn the oboe. He is double reed and flute SL… so he thinks he should learn.

And a (belated) very happy birthday to Eng Keat, who was woken up by a birthday song yesterday.

Today Andrew Kuan, CEO of Pastamania, came to speak about Pastamania. I asked him a question about funding, successfully grabbing him for the CEO interview Jasmine Tey wants us to do.

This is the style of writing adopted by someone who is bored (like me) and doesn’t want to organize his thoughts (like me). Don’t you agree?

I realised that describing the exchange day-by-day, in detail, is too lengthy, time-consuming, and I simply do not have the patience to blog it down. Plus, my computer SUCKS. I will sometimes use firefox for a while, then it will overheat. Laptop cooler fans does not have any effect. I even tried putting a cold pack on it while playing GTA and it still overheated. I have to resort to putting my computer on a dictionary on a chair, placing the chair under the fan and sit on the floor while using.

P.S. Overheating means auto-shutdown, in the case of my computer. I am seriously thinking of getting a replacement graphics card and RAM.

Specs:

HP Compaq Presario V2000, 128 MB Intel GMA, 512 MB RAM (after upgrading), 1.70 GHz Intel Pentium M processor.

The graphics card is the main problem…

***

Day 2:

Took classes with them. They only have grades 1,2,3,7,and 10. They are spilt into 5 classes, Armstrong, Beethoven, Confucius, Davinci, Einstein. I took classes with 10D. They are very bonded, like 2B last year (before CSE was implemented.) It feels really good to immerse in such a bonded class, where everyone is so friendly and open to visitors.

We had lunch in the canteen, then we went for Indonesian studies. Mr Reynolds taught us baisc conversational Bahasa Indonesia, then asked us to go around asking school staff and workers their name, where they stay, about their family, etc. So fun.

After school and the 1 hour futsal (I was goalkeeper and needless to say I didn’t even save a goal), we went to Ancol Art Academy. The traffic was quite jammed, and we were quite late. We watched a few performances, then were invited with all the male hosts and buddies to dance a Kecak dance. Basically we just need to say stuff like “Cak!” and “Buk Sirrr” repeatedly while jumping on the spot like monkeys (Well, kecak is a type of monkey…) We were extremely tired, but to think that we are supposed to learn it and perform it the next day!!!

Dinner at Jimbaran Cafe was very nice… but there were lots of VERY spicy food. Luckily I spammed all my Fanta pink in one go after drinking the spicy fish soup… Reached home at 11, then slept at around 11.40.

Day 3:

Overslept a little because I slept late… The usual in school. After lunch the councillors wanted to interview us, but EK went missing and the Sec 1s were off practicing dancing, which we were supposed to do, BTW. Anyway TREX and I were interviewed for their magazine and were late for dance… It was Kecak dance, as mentioned earlier. I was the loudest so I had to be COMMANDER…. Aargh! I had to remember the whole dance and stuff… Sore throat after every practice… Nice experience anyways.

After making tofu and tempe for CCA, I realized that we were supposed to bring extra clothes, so I borrowed a set from EK. His buddy’s house was the nearest. The performances were nice, we screwed up a lot, blah blah blah. We got a wayang kulit doll each as souvenirs. So nice. Then it was farewell.

Day 4:

Arrived at Simprug. Their school was so huge, like an office building. So nice too. Air conditioned fully.

We were greeted by Mr Peters, the Australian principal. EK guai lan-ed him a little. After a thorough intro to the key management people in their school we started lessons. CSE style, but their facilities are so much better than our school’s. Eg, lifts (a neccessity, obviously) and BIG LOCKERS FOR EVERYONE… My buddy is Filza from Grade 10. They bring us around since we don’t know where the classes are.

An assembly was held (specially for us I think) and Mr Peters introduced us. He got my name wrong. LOL. Then they sang their new school song (very nicely, I think) and he asked us for our opinion… Like VIPs we were treated… So malu. After school we played badminton, probably the only sport I cannot screwed up :-S

My host is Aditya and Yonathan, his brother. He has Xbox and GTA 4!!! I played a few missions, tried out Xbox. I still prefer PC though. Then they have a Golden Retriever that is very playful. Kept licking my face. At night their mother brought us out to eat at Te sate @ Senayang Plaza or something. Before that we played at the arcade

Day 5:

Lessons… We made plastic from milk during Chem lesson.

Then we went to Lubang Buaya, a town. 6 generals and a bodyguard were killed and dumped into a well there. The PKI treachery museum is also there. After that we went to the Monument Nasional, or phallus statue as paraphrased from the wikipedia handout given to us. Another example of wikipedia abuse. So sad.

We played GTA till 12 that night.

Day 6:

Taman Mini visit before home sweet home. Taman Mini is a miniature model of Indonesia culture… all the tradisional houses are there. We also visited the Science Centre. Quite cheap, but a lot of stuff inside is broken. Probably explains the price. That took up most of the day. Bought souvenirs through Ms Vita, as she can haggle the price. Keychains for grabs! Ask me for it if you want. Not for some people a person unfortunately.

On the way back I watched a large part of the Jumper before experiencing a serious headache due to air pressure. That sucks.

END OF MY RAMBLINGS!

PS: I do not feel like posting much at the moment. So long, until I feel like posting again!

I’m writing this in Changi Airport. There are computer terminals that allow us to use for 15 minutes. So I facebooked a while. Lol. Waiting for the plane to Jakarta. Around 4 minutes to boarding time. Bye.

***
I just woke up from a very long sleep after coming back yesterday (which means today is sunday). My cough got a little bit worse today. Loads of phlegm stuck in my throat. My bags are unpacked. My com overheated more than 8 times this morning, I got fed up and slept the whole afternoon away.

By the way, sorry for not being able to use standard english in my blog, for those who wish to know there are a few reasons. Firstly, normally I use imperfect english when I wish to exercise censorship. There are also occasions where I use Singlish, but I’ll try to reduce it. Secondly, when I write what I feel (which is what I do most of the time) it often results in lots of words. Trying to put everything in perfect english will simply consume too much space (and time, for a frequent blogger like me). Thirdly, WordPress themes have wonderfully small fonts. I doubt you would like the idea of “Ctrl +”ing everytime you visit my blog. So I try to KISS.

Thanks for visiting anyways.

The trip was wonderful, although there isn’t much to see in Jakarta (it wasn’t meant to be a sightseeing trip anyway). I spent most of the time in school (both BiNus schools in Serpong and Simprug are very nice) and there are activities like sports or tours in the afternoon till late at night for most of the week. So I wasn’t able to go online often, as I didn’t want to intrude into my hosts’ late night privacy. They had been so kind to me, with all the time and effort they spent hosting me.

Now I shall continue my long journal of these six wonderful days, but, again, I shall try to Keep It Short and Sweet.

***

Con’td

I reached the airport right on time. Jakarta airport has nice designs. We were greeted by Ms Devi, the HCI-BiNus Serpong exchange coordinator, Mr Murhadi, Math teacher that looks like Eng Keat, and Mr Nordi (or naughty as he says), Christianity teacher.

Upon reaching the school we had all the high ranking people greeting us like the coordinators, student council, principal Ms Lily (from Singapore) and Mr Greg, who is from the BiNus board. After introducing ourselves and getting to know our host families (my host is Ais) we had lunch. It was slightly spicy for me, but I’m used to it.

After that we had Indonesian studies. Geography was taught by Ms Ayu, and she introduced us to Indonesia wildlife. Then it was puisi by Mr Reynold. I don’t think the sec 1s understand. Then Ms Yuli and Ms Devi explained to us Pancasila, known as Rukun negara in Malaysia. It is rather similar to Rukun Negara and the Singapore pledge. 1, Religion. 2, Human Rights. 3, Unity. 4, Democracy. 5, Social Equality. (I don’t think I saw the 2nd and 5th one in Rukun negara… forget what I said.) Ms Devi’s explanation was quite detailed.

Ais’s house was quite nice. He went to lots of places, the fridge was stuck full of magnets from different places. He has a Wii in his house, and his house was rather big. His younger brother Afis lent me his bed, so I shared a room with Ais. His folks are quite friendly. I didn’t have anything to do, so I slept at 8pm, waking up at 3am (I think) and stoning for Buddha knows how long.

*****

Reflection time:

It is mutually agreed within the six of us who went there (Me, Eng Keat, Run Xian, Jarel, Patrick, Darren) that Indonesians are really friendly guys. The people at BiNus are really enthusiastic as we are the 1st to visit their 9-month-old school. The school has a quite modern design, but it is quite easy to lose your way as it looks pretty much the same (purple, orange, grey and white).

The people here are still rich in culture as it is at the city side, in the middle of a village. The teachers also stressed their emphasis on manners, that the Malaysia-Singapore way of “Seeeelaaamaaat Paaagi blah blah blah” is NA here. We just wait for the teacher to say Selamat Pagi/Siang/Sore before replying the same. The same applies for Terima Kasih. BTW they don’t use Cikgu, they just say Mr or Ms.

I also found out that the Chinese pronunciation of my name is NA too. Instead of Zzz Kang they pronounce Zii Kang easier as Malay names like Fahrizi is pronounced this way.

Some common Bahasa Indonesia:

Boleh (Can) - Bisa

Cakap (Say, Talk) - Bicara

Seronok (fun) - Mengasyikkan (HEK’s favourite word)

I couldn’t post all these in one day so I decided to split into 5 posts. Easier to read too.

*Update: I changed the theme. Hopefully it is better…

Celebrating the return of cold water to cluster A2R.

I will not be responsible for any severe nervous breakdowns, uncontrollable sobbing, or frostbite due to overdrinking of cold water from the dispenser.

Cold water is fun

Killed Freddy two nights ago, and completed the OG Loc dancing mission. Now attempting Mad Dogg’s rhymes.

Bio Test tomorrow. Yay.

Firstly, I will clarify some things for people who are unfamiliar with the workings of wordpress.

1: WordPress does not allow custom html. Meaning: No embedded youtube videos, no tagboards, etc. FYI, I do have a tagboard, it is on the right side bar, under the “About Me”, “CLICK HERE TO TAG” in red. Click on it for a link to the tagboard. Please leave a note for me for those who are seeing my blog for the first time, or has any suggestions and comments.

2. However, for the youtube video links, you can put your cursor over the link. A “Snapshot” dialog box should pop up, and if you have flash installed you can see the video.

Now I shall start with the rather unpleasant happenings around me.

1. Both my language teachers, Ms Lim and Mdm Neo, are rather pissed with our L1 class. I could see why. Our class is made up of mainly HP and EP people, and only Foong Wai and I are Malaysians in this class. Naturally PRC scholars will not choose HP or EP due to the level of English required for HP, and they being unfamiliar with EP. This could probably explain why Chinese classes were always so rowdy. Thanks to all the “香蕉皮”s in the class. They do not understand the Mandarin Mdm Neo uses, and resort to their private chit chatting sessions behind, infringing on many other people’s right to learn.

Regarding the English classes, I think this is because Ms Lim is quite tolerant to noise, but lately it is getting worse, and Ms Lim has started to raise her voice quite frequently. Plus, that SC1 room is simply not conducive. It is so echoey, perhaps people should put a layer of padding on the walls to absorb the noise (and making the place look like MPH :S unfortunately).

Not blaming that it is entirely their fault, I’ve talked on a few occasions, but if the majority keeps quiet maybe L1’s standard will raise. We are like the worst among all the classes. Especially Chinese, but there are a few individuals (like me!) who try to raise the mean class grade (and failed, because of that guy who got 28% for Chinese test). Thanks a lot. Its all about attitude.

2. Yesterday was Open House. We started doing prep on Friday, and then 老李 came and ordered us to go back before 5:30. We must take down the structure if we cannot complete it by then. At around 5 we sent Xxxx Xx to delay him, and he asked him stuff like “I don’t think I know why I joined scouts…” and something like that. Quite effective, since he didn’t come at 5:30. BUT. Greg was right. Ms BOY is seriously damn stupid. 5:30 go find 老李 say “Want to tell them to take down the structure? It is so unstable.” THANKS FOR ENCOURAGING US SIA. TMD. Still ask him to come some more. We hid all the spars, ropes, etc, made the structure seem as if it won’t fall, and luckily Lee didn’t screw us.

2nd day. Open house. BOY still brooding about the shaky structure, even though it is quite stable by now. She keep on saying “Eh, don’t climb, I scared it topple.” During camp also like that. Still remember. “Eh… why you let the sec 1s solo nite at science block? During daytime there oso quite scary leh.” Scared scared scared. Skali she scared of her own shadow. Then 老李 come and tell us to blow bugle. Wah lan, so damn inconsiderate. Doesn’t he know that the choir is singing, DSA people are having briefing, and the bugle could be heard from my room when blown at the scout den? After people complain liao still want us to blow. SMART.

3. I have a stupid PRC living in my cluster. He is barbaric. Everytime cook dunno what shit in the pantry, our pantry perma smelly you know. That day he go cook sausages in the microwave. AND BURNT IT. How the hell could you screw up sausages?? WTF. The pantry smelt terrible till now. Then his room everytime lock their door during cleanliness inspection. Already 3 times like that, and got 0 marks. We could’ve got an A. Still get Outstanding Student Award wo…

Xianz. So pissed off, also dunno why leh… BB.