That time of the year

It's that time of the year again, and by that I mean the end of it. Time to look back on 2010 before it slips through our fingers for good.

I went into 2010 with high spirits: 2009 had been good to me, so I assumed that the next couldn't be off by much. Well, it did start off quite well, with orientation being an absolute blast to have gone through, but that soon gave way to a harsher reality that would be the predominant atmosphere for the rest of the year. If I had to describe the year in one word, it would be "inadequacy". I started off the year pretty much already under scrutiny from everyone: fellow students, teachers, even the principal to a certain extent. I had to regain my footing after being thrown into the whole new world of SH2 while meeting their expectations as if nothing had changed from SH1, and it was all the more pressurising when all I could do was stumble around in the dark just like everyone else. More than ever, the thought that lingered continuously in my head was simply to fade back into obscurity, to be able to screw up without catching anyone's attention.

Still, it's during tough times like that when you really learn to cherish what you've got. I feel that I've gotten that much closer with my friends since last year, supporting each other through this truly trying year. All the stupid nonsense that we did together really helped make each day livable and even enjoyable. It was definitely a tough year, but I wouldn't change one bit of it if given the chance.

And this being my 18th year, I definitely felt the growing responsibilities that came with transitioning from an adolescent to an adult. When once I had my futures neatly planned out for me every step of the way, along the course of the year I increasingly had to take matters into my own hands. It's like I've become the captain of a ship I've boarded as a passenger for 18 years, and I've only just begun to comprehend the vastness of the ocean around me. This feeling of openness will definitely only grow stronger in future, a prospect which is both liberating and frightening to me. I still feel like I'm not ready to be an adult, but there's no option to defer life, and if there is one then I'm not aware of it.

I'm going into 2011 with memories, regrets, fears and hope

Elephants, barracudas, fleas and me

It's pretty ironic, really. Force someone to do the same thing over and over every day and he'll scream for freedom at the top of lungs, but once he actually gets his freedom he'll be too used to his daily routine to make any actual use of it. "Look at me, I could sign up for sky-diving lessons right now if I wanted to!", he yells triumphantly, as he continues to sit in front of the computer watching stupid youtube videos the whole day, just like how he has done so every day so far. And in case you didn't get the hint from this being my blog and this being me typing, "someone" here refers to me *dramatic plot twist gasp*

I'm really not getting the hang of the fact that there's absolutely nothing stopping me from going out of the house every day and having the time of my life doing anything that isn't illegal, so every day I end up going about my usual routine like nothing's changed. I guess this is pretty much like that story where you chain a baby elephant to a tree for so long that when it grows up it won't even attempt to budge as long as you tie a rope to it's foot and attach the other end to pretty much nothing. Well sometimes it's elephants and chains and sometimes it's barracudas and glass walls and sometimes it's fleas and jar lids, but the overarching idea of conditioning oneself to self-impose restrictions is, well, overarching (and so is the theme of animal suffering, but I don't think that's what the storytellers had in mind).

So going back on topic, the reason why I realised this is because a bunch of 28s came over to my house today to play Wii games and generally do stupid things, and they kept saying how they haven't seen me out in quite a long time, which I have to admit is pretty true. And sadly, with the internship starting soon it will mean even less of seeing friends and doing cool shit, but if being a "greater mind" is all that it's cracked up to be then I should have a blast at DSTA too, right?

Which brings me to the idea I've been pondering over, planted into my mind by you'en: maybe I could just stay over at the chalet anyway, then just wake up at 7am to get to DSTA on time. Of course, that would mean having to get a decent amount of actual sleep at the chalet, which would be a pretty tall order under normal circumstances, but nigh impossible seeing how it's a 09SH25/09SH27 combined chalet.

Also, a few days ago I decided, on a whim, to listen to The Dillinger Escape Plan's latest album released sometime this year, Option Paralysis. While I still dare not say that I'm a hardcore fan of TDEP, there's something about them in general and this album in particular, the unique mix of technicality and brutality, genius and chaos, that not only makes it sound like frightening noise, but frightening noise which is actually intriguing and addictive and enjoyable to listen to, and which sounds more and more like a masterpiece the more you listen to it. It's like Leonardo da Vinci superimposed all his most famous works on top of each other to form a blob of ink and colour and showed it to someone and he said "What's with this chaotic mess of sh-HOLY CRAP I SEE THE MONA LISA." And in case you were expecting me to embed a sample of TDEP's work below, I'm sorry to disappoint you for now because I really want to listen to them a few more times through before I decide which song to put down here.

If you're familiar with the game-reviewing comedic genius that is Zero Punctuation, it might be apparent to you that I've been watching a lot of his videos recently because my blogging is starting to seem slightly reminiscent of his style. Just need to sprinkle a few expletives here and there, change half of my full stops to exclamation marks and do away with commas entirely.

Apathy

The new year is in 3 days, and work will start soon after. Surprisingly I don't feel nervous right now, but then again I haven't exactly been doing anything these past few days so there isn't much of a trade-off anyway. Well, there is the class chalet that I'll unfortunately be missing a large part of, and the 90min commute from DSTA to NSRCC to join them for dinner for those three days doesn't sound very appealing either, but nonetheless I'm looking forward to it :) There're also the outings with OG10 and 4A, which up to this point are still unconfirmed, but it seems most likely that once again I'll have to join up with them later if they do come to fruition. And it might come as surprising for me to say this, but despite all the calendar clashes that have occurred because of it, I am looking forward to this internship. I really want to know more about what will (hopefully!) be my future employer, and about engineering in general. Plus I'm definitely not complaining about the $55 a day ( :D ), though I don't think I'll be spending it anytime soon, seeing how I'll very soon be going off for my all-expenses-paid island resort getaway.

I've given up trying to care about the whole university thing. Heck, I've got two more years to think about it, and no one else is even bothering, so why should I? Drifting along and doing nothing has always been my forte anyway. Does that make me lazy and underachieving? Probably, but I never denied any of that anyway. Seeing friends and acquaintances planning and mapping out their oh-so-bright futures while you're at home rotting away can get rather depressing at times, but mediocrity is something you get accustomed to eventually.

I know that there are so many things that I could and should be doing, but I just don't know what they are, and I've given up trying to find out.

What now?

I have a confessions to make: I haven't sent my DSTA scholarship acceptance form yet. After all, they didn't mention a specific date, though I have to imagine that I'm pushing "ASAP" a bit far. The reason, I'm afraid, is that I have no idea how to fill it up. I'm referring specifically to the part asking which universities I have applied to or am applying to, and application results for the former. Firstly, I still don't know which universities to choose. My mom has a preference for UK universities, though I question the validity of her reasoning ("When I think of US universities, I think of men with glib tongues and business suits."). Secondly, and more worryingly for myself, I have no idea when or how I should go about applying at the moment, if at all. Do I just let everything slide for the moment, or is there something I should be actively doing? My distress is twofold, because I'm afraid that I might miss a life-changing junction if I do nothing, and because I know that this should be something that I'm familiar with and it reminds me yet again of what a lousy student I am (at least admin-wise).

I have to say that I really regret not clarifying all this stuff back in NJ, and I miss having approachable teachers who will listen to my queries. I'm browsing through Brightsparks forums and university websites right now, but honestly I can't bring myself to believe anything until it's been backed up by a teacher.

Yes, I'm gonna say it: I miss school.

On a lighter note, I just learned today that the treadmill in my house displays distances in miles instead of kilometres, so my stamina hasn't dropped like a rock since post-NAPFA days :D And here I was panicking because I couldn't maintain a 12kph pace (which would give a 2.4km timing of 12min) when I was actually running at 12mph (which is a whopping 19.3kph O.O ). In hindsight I guess it was kind of a himbo moment for me, but I'm so used to being disappointed by my physical capabilities that I'll believe that I can't even finish half of a 2.4km run with a 12min pace.

To-do list:
Read up on universities and applications (maybe I'll make a trip back to NJ to ask the teachers one of these days)
Submit DSTA form ASAP (like, for realz, before they get pissed off :X )
Use the treadmill again (regained confidence w00t!!!)
Practise commuting to DSTA (don't want my phobia of missing bus stops to get the better of me on my first day of work. And yes, it's not enough to get directions there; I need to physically travel along the route or I'll seriously freak out)

And before I forget, this picture kind of struck a chord with me (and I'm not even a Christian). Is this the summary of modern Christmas?

 (I guess people without some background knowledge of the Bible won't get it)

Cracked snowglobe

OK, so I guess Christmas morning started off on a rather ugly note.

Random fact of the day about my life: my mom still sneaks into our (my brothers and I) bedroom on Christmas eve, puts presents on our beds and insists that it was Santa Claus, and we just humour her every year. This year, "Santa Claus" got me a hat, anticipating my lack of hair in the near future (hurr hurr -.-), my younger brother got a Zinc bag (I've never had one of those fancy schmancy Zinc bags :O ) and my youngest brother got a 15-book Road Dahl collection, which would have made me seriously happy when I was 12 (I've only read maybe half of the books in the collection). The problem (there's always a problem, isn't there, or there wouldn't be a point in this post) was that my brother didn't share my enthusiasm over the gift. Bluntly put, he was not happy at all with it. When my mom asked him about the gift, he forced a smile which obviously didn't fool her. During breakfast, she whispered to me "You know, Santa Claus told me that the book collection was the most expensive gift, over a hundred dollars."

The thing is, there were times in the past when the economy was shaky and all we would get was a packet of sweets or chocolates, so the books definitely weren't the "worst" present he ever got by a long shot, but he seemed to react more strongly to this year than before. Is it because he's become pampered with "cooler" presents the previous few years running up to this year? Was I like that when I was his age? Am I still like that now?

Well, maybe I'm reading too much into too little (happens quite frequently with me). He seems to be completely cool with it now, and has even started reading some of the books. Now about my own present, it's not that I don't appreciate the thought, but I don't think I can muster the self-confidence to wear a hat out in the public outside of a walk-in/prom setting. So yeah.. probably won't see me wearing it before I lose my hair. Sorry, Santa.

Going off on a tangent here, I think it must be kinda sad to have your birthday fall on a major holiday like Christmas. Everyone is probably too busy with their festive activities to make a big deal out of your birthday, and if your parents are cheapskates they'll probably try to weasel their way into giving you one present for two occasions (I can completely imagine my mom doing that, haha). Now that I think about it, my birthday is pretty close to Halloween. Maybe if I lived in a country where Halloween is a huge event every year, I would grow up to become a Jack Skellington-style goth kid XD

I have just gotten hold of the complete Tron: Legacy OST, and I have to say that Daft Punk are absolutely amazing. I'm sure the Twitterverse is tired of hearing me say this, but they are seriously talented to be able to create such beautiful blends between orchestral and electronic music that not only doesn't sound forced, but perfectly complements the movie. I sat down to listen to the album and decide which songs to transfer to my MP3, until I realised that I just had to transfer the entire album over. Here's but a small taste:


It starts of purely with strings, and when they introduce the electronic parts it doesn't jar with the music, but rather creates a "digital" atmosphere for it. See now why it's perfect for the movie?

Holy crap, 2011 is only a week away.

Christmas-y thoughts

Idealism is something that gets laughed at a lot after you reach a certain age. As Christmas comes just around the corner and you see Christmas specials of old cartoons playing on TV, the corny dialogue about the joys of giving and sharing can give goosebumps or excessive eye-rolling syndrome to anyone above the age of 10.

Must it be that we lose our faith in simple innocent goodwill as we age? Is this really what maturity means - a disillusionment of our view of the world? Taking of our rose-tinted glasses?

Or maybe it means just the opposite. Maybe it means being able to see the sparkling hints of good around us even without the rose-tinted glasses.  Maybe it means acknowledging that our world is far from idealistic and perfect, but despite all that there is still some genuine good in the world worth cherishing and spreading.

There comes a point in time when every parent will have to look their child in the eye and admit that Santa Claus doesn't exist, but what many people fail to add on is that although magical reindeer-rearing, North Pole-residing Santa Claus doesn't exist, there was once a certain St. Nicholas who gave presents to the children in his town once a year, and whose charity was commemorated as the legend of Santa Claus. Maybe that way, the first thing that will come to the children's minds will be to respect the spirit of giving, and not "So nobody got my letter about my Xbox 360 Kinect set?"

Christmas-themed song! :D


Merry Christmas everyone :)

Not now

Can't stop thinking about it. Literally, when I have nothing else to think about, it comes to mind on its own. It's trying to persuade me to take action. Maybe it's the body, maybe it's the mind, maybe it's both. What I do know for sure is that its cries are getting harder to ignore, and that it pays no heed to reason or circumstance.

Not now, not for a while. Perhaps not ever, but hopefully not.

It's all just a matter of finding good distractions. Of course, it would probably help too if I spent my 2.45am nights sleeping instead of being awake and susceptible to sudden attacks of introspection.

Enter The Grid

I watched Tron: Legacy in 3D today (random note: the GV 3D glasses are quite bulky and uncomfortable compared to the Cathay ones, just sayin'), but before I go into my thoughts about the movie, I want to talk a bit first about the general critical reception for the movie.

When I first went on Wikipedia to look up the movie and saw that reviews were "mixed", I just thought that one or two people couldn't make up their minds about it. When I went to search individual reviews on Google, I saw a very clear divide between two camps, one trashing the movie with 20-30% and the other praising it with 70-80%. Depending on who you asked, the plot was either decent enough or non-existent; Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde and Micheal Sheen either portrayed their roles convincingly or horribly; the faithfully adhered-to neon-lines-on-black design style is either mesmerising and beautiful or repetitive and dull. It's no wonder the average rating for this movie is around 50%. I've never seen such a divided opinion on a single movie before.

Personally speaking, I thought it was great. People who complain that Tron's visual style is dull compared to Avatar's lush tropical landscape have got it all wrong - while Pandora boasted vibrant colours which emphasised its inherent chaos, The Grid was created to be a digital, logical world ruled by an iron fist, hence the sleek glossy neon lines and the dark background with gloomy skies. And while I'm no Oscar judge, I have to say that personally I found the acting to be good enough. Finally, I enjoyed the plot quite a bit, to be honest. Of course there weren't any amazing game-changing plot twists, but for an action movie it serves its role pretty well. And when you walk out of the cinema and think back, you realise that there are actually some questions to ponder over, even if the movie didn't have time to elaborate on them amidst all the amazing CGI parading.

Also, the music is all from Daft Punk, and who can hate on them? One universal fact agreed upon by all the reviewers (and myself) is that the music played an integral role in enhancing the movie. The techno elements blend in so well with the orchestra that you'd think that this was classical music from The Grid, which of course is the whole point of it. This is one of the extremely rare times when a movie's soundtrack is so greatly lauded (discounting musicals of course). And now, I can't stop listening to this song:



Here's a couple of pictures too, to make this post even more multimedia:

Look at them, they were practically made for The Grid.

Yeah, cos she looks amazing in the movie.

The iconic light cycle. I love how the rider's body fits seamlessly with the bike.

The light jet looks simply amazing.

As a sort of closing statement, the original Tron was also frequently criticised for having amazing graphics but a weak plot, and went on to become a cult classic, so who knows what will happen to its sequel?

There is only one step

I'm about to use my poetic license of owning this blog to not make sense (you have been warned).

I'm in that kind of mood right now where the slightest oddity is hilarious. Which is why right now I find this the funniest thing in the world:

Also, I have discovered QWOP, often billed as the most difficult game ever created. And after spending a ridiculous amount of time on it (and consequently wasting a good part of my life away):

I would like to point out that above and beyond my 'O' levels, promos and scholarship application success, this is the crowning achievement of my life. Yes, the fact that after about two hours of figuring how to hop on one knee to the finish line I managed to become a national hero overshadows all that, and probably anything else I might accomplish in the future. This is the peak of my life.

Also, here's another game I discovered called Robot Unicorn Attack (it's also available on Facebook by the way). It's so absurdly feminine (read: GAY), and yet crazily addictive that I can't stop laughing whenever I play it (and then I can't stop playing it). And it has the awesomest soundtrack EVAR:

AND WE'LL LIVE IN HARMONY HARMONY OH LOVE

Old man

Yes, that is what I am: an old man. At least, that's what I felt I was after going for the hockey friendly. The sore thighs and calves, the aching of that muscle that runs across the palm; yup, it's definitely hockey again. And with my swollen knee fresh from the pitch, I now walk like an old man too -.- But in spite of all of that, I must say that it was fun finally getting back on the pitch again :) I'll probably try to go at least one more time after my knee heals and before my internship starts.

And I'm finally posting a song again! Not my usual genre (so all you metal-haters can remove your earplugs now >.> ) It's a techno remix of Still Alive, that ingenious theme song for Portal with the darkest of dark humour interwoven cleverly in its lyrics, and it's just pretty darn catchy in my opinion:


I STILL DON'T HAVE MY IC BACK

Plans

Finally went out of the house and did something today. Went for LAN with a bunch of 25s plus chin to celebrate panyu's birthday. As usual, I was completely pwned (don't even know why I bother trying, really. I guess for me it's all about the company), and to top things off the LAN shop owner accidentally gave my IC to another person -.- They'll contact me when the other person goes back to the shop to switch his IC, but the thought of having to make a trip all the way to dhoby gaut  just to get back one plastic card seriously irritates me. I am officially put off playing LAN, at least for the next few days or so.

So it turns out that as a DSTA scholarship applicant, I have been automatically offered an internship with them, which kind of assuages some of my thoughts and worries from before. It starts from 3rd January and pays $55 a day, but because I'm enlisting in early February I can't experience the full internship all the way to March, which means I'm missing out on a month's worth of salary and experience (and SALARY!!!), but I guess it can't be helped. Short internship is better than no internship, right?

After nearly a year without hockey, I'm going onto the pitch tomorrow to join the juniors for a friendly. Frankly, I'm pretty afraid that I'm gonna screw up terribly due the rustiness of my skills and physique (and also my lack of those things to begin with), but it's my duty as a senior to help them out whenever I can, especially seeing how I more or less abandoned them during the school year due to my H3s.

I should get out of the house more often. After all, I only have less than two months left to spend.

I still have no clue about university admissions.

I WANT MY IC BACK.

I am sinking into incoherence. It is a sign that I should sleep now.

No path

Still wandering aimlessly. Do the university applications start before, during or after NS? Do I accept the scholarship now or later? Do I try for more or settle with what I've got? Or do I just leave everything for another day?

Yes, I do like that last idea very much.

I really, really, really really really cannot find any motivation whatsoever to start working out again. Not that my mom fails to remind me every few minutes that I shouldn't be enjoying the holiday at the end of the roughest two years of education I've had so far.

There is no path; there is no crossroads; there is only empty space as far as the eye can see.

Steps towards a future

OK, I'm back from Penang, and the trip turned out to be quite a bit more enjoyable then I initially predicted it to be :) Most of the credit for that belongs to our tour guide, who managed to be approachable, informative and entertaining all at once. it's true, that Chinese saying "行行出状元": he's most definitely the best tour guide I've ever been under. Goes to show the wonders that 13 years of experience can do for you, doesn't it? Maybe this academic rat race of ours isn't the only way to go.

So anyway, more about the trip. Mostly it was about touring the cultural attractions of Penang such as religious and heritage sites. Because they were all half-day tours, in the spare time the tour group would go looking for hawker centers to sample local cuisine, so it was much like a culinary trail too. Oh, and for some inexplicable reason I was rather lethargic for most of the trip, so I was sleeping in between all of that. So basically, the trip can be summarised as temples, food and sleep. I know I sound kind of bitter right now, and I don't know how to explain this, but it genuinely was still pretty enjoyable :)

When I came back home from the airport, my sixth sense told me to check my mailbox before going into the house, and... DSTA finally replied!!! :D I had more or less lost hope already because they said that it would take a month at most to reply, and that was in October, but in any case I now have a provisional scholarship!

But even though I know that I'm really lucky to get this, I need to ask myself if I want to just accept this readily or see if I can get any other provisional offers, because DSTA has a $1000 penalty for refusing a scholarship after accepting the provisional offer. Of course my parents are willing to pay the fine if worse comes to worse, but still money doesn't grow on freakin' trees. And of course, there's also the matter of where I want to enroll. Japan and Germany are definitely out of the question because I'm definitely not a multi-linguist (just look at my Chinese grades), so that leaves a collection of universities in Singapore, the US and UK. Why am I even talking about all this now, when I still don't have a clue how I'm supposed to go about applying anyway? I kinda feel guilty now because I have friends who have made sure to take steps towards securing a better academic future while I, for the most part, have been doing little more than drifting about and waiting for stuff to happen. I guess if you look at it this way, I sort of deserve to not do as well academically? I don't really know what to think, but I do know that I want to change all this. i need to take steps towards a future. I need to.

Underwhelming

OK, so more about the BBQ yesterday. It was at victor's house and it was the standard fare of fried rice, hotdogs and chickens. Of course, most of it was undercooked or overcooked (note to self: ensure that at least one person at every BBQ actually knows fully what he's doing). And of course, it eventually degenerated into a pyromania session. Everything from matches and firestarters to cheese tofu (dofu!) and marshmallows were burnt to ashes :D Then we presented junjie with his cake, but not before doing something stupid: we put it on a paper plate and actually got it to float on the swimming pool! :D No birthday cake can ever be as cool as the one that floats on water.

After we cleaned up the mess we created, we went up to victor's house where I had my first taste of liquor (which was disgusting by the way; I still don't see the appeal of alcohol), then it was talking cock, taking photos and playing monopoly deal until we went home. I said this before, and I know it's too late for you to see this, but good luck in there junjie! :D

I more or less forgot that I'm leaving for Penang in the morning and I'll only be back on Monday. Can't really say that I'm looking forward to this trip though, there just isn't the same anticipation as with other trips I've had (come on, I even forgot about it). Oh well, in any case I'll be off tomorrow no matter what, so bye guys.

We part ways, but we won't part company

I know this post has been long overdue since I left a cliffhanger in the previous post about grad night, but now's my holiday, which I intend to spend as decadently and with as little activities requiring basic mental activity (i.e. writing) as possible. Childish and irresponsible? Yes. Beneath me? Hell no.

Grad night was awesome! The food was great, the entertainment was quite good too, and it was the first time I saw so many of my classmates and friends decked out in the classiest of attire. We're finally starting to look like the refined NJCian ladies and gentlemen we're supposed to be, eh? But even if prom was held in a hawker centre zichar stall and we all came in t-shirts and bermudas, I still think I would have enjoyed it. Really, prom is not about the glitz or the glamour or the food; what else could it be about besides the company? It's a celebration alright, but not one for the best-dressed or the most popular, but for the simple fact that we are all NJCians who have survived the arduous two years and have found companionship in each other. I find that people who didn't enjoy prom because it was " not good" have simply missed the point completely. I'm starting to have a bit of regret over not having brought a camera, since that was probably the last time I'll see many of these people, but with the wonders of modern technology (when you mention "modern technology" in a GP essay it's nearly always Facebook, isn't it?) I think it's still possible to keep in touch with friends :)

After prom, the 28 gang minus OAC people went to play LAN at *scape (it's spelled with the "*" right?). First up the dota noobs played CS, where I got completely owned by jaron and zhongxi, whoever happened to be on the opposing team at the time, while the dota pros played dota (like duh). After a few rounds, the dota noobs played dota and the dota pros played CS... and then switched back to dota anyway. It's comforting to know that at least among the dota noobs I can hold my own in dota :D

When we were done with LAN (approximately 2.5 hours later), someone had a delusional fatigue-inspired idea and we actually walked nearly all the way back to bryan's house, which took an hour or so. And when we finally relented and hailed cabs, it turned out that his house was only another 15 minutes on foot T_T Definitely a lesson in perseverance. So we reached bryan's house and the first thing we did, out of all the stuff we could have done, including going for either of two post-prom parties, was watch a pirated copy of Snakes On A Plane, but hey, it was a fair trade for me. It's one of those movies that's so bad and campy that the dial spins all the way around and it becomes awesome. If I haven't mentioned it here before, here it is: I have a weird liking for so-bad-it's-good movies like this.

The rest of the sleepover was pretty much talking nonsense and being retarded (AKA the usual routine) (notice how "sleep" was not mentioned; "sleepover" is the greatest misnomer in human history), and then we went back home. Awesome time guys, and I'm sure the chalet will be even better.

I just came back from a birthday/farewell party for junjie since he's leaving for NS later today, but it's 4am right now which is the latest I've ever stayed up to since the start of the holidays (excluding the all-nighter during the sleepover of course), so I think I'd better sleep now. I'll fill in with the details later today.

All the best junjie! :D

Big Crunch

Just like how the big bang is what got the universe started, the big crunch is what will end it by the same theory. And the big crunch of this crazy, hectic, draining, amazing two-year JC journey will be graduation night.

Since it's 6 minutes past 12 at the time of writing, it means that grad night is tonight! Looking forward to a great dinner and talk-cock session with the 28 gang, followed by a sleepover movie marathon at Bryan's house :D (I apologise to the guys who prepared the post-prom party at the Butter Factory, but I just don't think that I'm the clubbing type :P ) A pity that so little people are going for prom though; this is one of those events that gets better the more people attend it. Nevertheless, I'm sure that it will be an awesome time for those of us who do attend it :) Then again, I guess it's to each his own; not everyone will like the prom concept I guess. I just envisioned that group to be, you know, smaller than what it's proven to be from the weak prom attendance.

It seems that just about all the guys are wearing the standard blazer-shirt-tie get-up, so I'm a bit worried about being the odd one out. I wasn't expecting literally 99% of the guys to wear the same thing, and now it's too late to conform :( Oh well, considering the mess that my dear friends have gotten me into, there's very little chance of me blending into the background regardless. Up till now, I have no idea who voted me into this nonsense. Just gotta thicken my skin and rush past it.

I've got absolutely no motivation to exercise these days. The degradation of my physical condition is not as worrying as the degradation of my mental willpower.

It's hard to keep this place updated. When you're busy and have lots of stuff happening in your life, you can't find time to blog. When you finally have nothing on and can focus on the blog, you find that there's nothing happening in your life worth blogging about. Nevertheless, I'll make a commitment not to let this place die. Not yet, anyway; it's definitely going down once I go off for NS, whether I like it or not :(

Oh, and before I forget: who comes here anyway? Like, seriously, who are you guys? Ever since I figured out how to view my blog traffic stats (yes I'm fully aware that I'm a technological noob for having to take so long to figure it out) I realised that I'm getting far more views than I thought, and coming from sources which suggest that the viewers are at least somewhat acquainted with me. I'm just really curious to find out who actually bothers coming here at all. I've always had the impression that my blog was a lone cactus on a warm summer night (song lyrics; guess where they came from :) ) So anyway, feel free to leave something in the comment box to the right; don't think that I put it there solely for the enjoyment of spambots. Or not, of course. Who am I kidding; if y'all haven't been commenting since forever, there's no reason to start now, right? I'll be content with the mild ego boost from seeing my page view line graph go up and down ^^

Why am I using so many emoticons nowadays? I don't really know why :/ (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)

Decadence

The past few days have been the epitome of decadence (not like it's a bad thing). I spent the last few days playing this MMORPG called Fantasy Earth Zero. I joined at the same time as Lionel and J.Tan and now we're all about the same level. I think it's quite cool that we're playing together. The game's good too, except it tends to lag on my computer (usually to my disadvantage :( ). It would be awesome if we could get the whole 28 gang to play at the same time, then it would be like having gatherings in the virtual world.

Today, I went out with Edmund, Jacob and Lionel with the intent of buying prom clothes, but... Moral of the story: never go clothes-shopping with 4 guys who are easily distracted by Gundam, Digimon and Tron toy exhibits. So... yeah, we didn't buy anything in the end.

I'm seriously contemplating inviting friends over to my house or bringing the Wii to other people's houses so that I can find new opponents for SSBB (OK admittedly that would be pretty unfair since they wouldn't have any experience whatsoever). I'm looking forward to my long awaited, one-year-in-the-making SSBB DEATHMATCH with Nigel now that his WiFi is set up, but still he's only one person. I wish more of my friends play SSBB. And don't even get me started on random WiFi, because nobody is ever online when it's daytime in this part of the globe. On a random note, I wonder how I would fare if there was an SSBB tournament here in Singapore (which will never happen); I think I'm an above average player, but definitely not as good as the gods you see on youtube.

TL;DR: I've been slacking since 'A' levels ended, and I'm damn happy about it :D

Zero

I've been waiting forever to type that as the title of my post. Yes, it's finally over. That was definitely a very long twenty days, but it's all over and that's all that matters to me right now.

There was a class movie outing, which was sort of successful I guess. In any case it's the best we've ever been capable of. Watched Rapunzel in 3D on Jacob's suggestion ( >.> ) but it turned out to be quite an enjoyable movie: standard "Disney princess" movie with song and dance and cute animal sidekicks and love-conquers-all plots, but Disney has a brilliant track record of making all their movies entertaining and heartwarming at the least (them and Pixar will be the reasons why I never grow old of animated films). Interesting to note is that this is the first Disney princess movie in CGI (even The Princess and the Frog was purposely made in the more traditional sketched style). I don't know if I'm glad for their technological progress or sad for the abandonment of what I've always considered to be a Disney trademark. In any case, I'll always be impressed by Snow White and how the art style of the entire movie was more "blurry" and "washed-out" to fit the theme that Snow White was the fairest of them all. I just don't know if that kind of nuance is possible to pull of in a generation of movie-goers who demand crisp and flashy colours above all else.

After that, we had dinner at this place called the Music Cafe. Sadly, we missed Live Band Night on Wednesdays and DJ Night on Fridays, so there really wasn't much to the namesake while we were there. Of course, that didn't cause the restaurant to lower their prices T_T The guys were planning to LAN after that, but the LAN shop only had 7 computers left for 11 people, so I guess LAN will have to wait.

While at the Music Cafe, they were playing MTV on the TV there, and My Super Sweet 16 was airing, which caused many of us to start criticising the extreme decadence and self-indulgence of American youth, which of course is an over-generalisation given our current level of information. Still, it really makes you wonder if all that talk is really just sour grapes and not an actual display of maturity. After all, it's so much easier to get angry at a person if she's 16 and complains that her parents bought her a Nissan instead of a Mercedes for her birthday.

The storm is finally over, the open sea awaits, and I shall raise the sails and take the wheel... later. For the next feel days I just want to wallow in self-indulgent sloth

See no colour

Tomorrow is the last paper; tomorrow it all ends.

I have seas of paper covering my desk, all scrawled with rough workings from my revision. To my right, I've stacked up all the 'A' level question papers I could bring home. Every time I look at them, I think back to those few hours where I sat in that plastic chair and scribbled furiously on foolscap paper, and what I could have and should have done better. Yes, a lot of thinking, but ultimately it's all useless without action, like a barking dog without teeth. I know that the best way to move on from all this is to take action and learn from my mistakes, but this is, at least for the next two years, the end; where can I apply anything now? It makes my mistakes feel even more costly, because nothing useful can be gleaned from them. Regret is a useless emotion, and I'll definitely have my ways and means to suppress it in the coming months. I just hope that about 5 months from now, when we get back our results, I can eradicate this feeling for real.

I wish my rational and emotional halves can be separated. When I try and think rationally, my emotions cloud my judgement and cause me to focus on the favoured conclusion rather than the logical one; I try to make the evidence fit the conclusion rather than the other way round. And then when I try to think emotionally, my rationality steps in and points out all the holes in my dreams, reminding me why they will forever be nothing but dreams and making me plummet back to reality. I'd much rather never experience flying than have to endure the pain of falling after every sojourn in the skies; rather be born blind than have my sight robbed from me before I've had my fill of colour.

When I woke up this morning, I had the strange urge to discover some non-metal music. And so I discovered Little Boots. Granted, junjie introduced her to me quite a while back, but this is the first time I really went to listen to all of her work. In particular, I like this song:

It's not metal, but it's still not very mainstream either. It's kind of like indie electropop? (indie pop has always been an oxymoron for me) Personally I still can't bring myself to truly enjoy mainstream pop like so many masses in today's world do. Maybe I'm just weird. (who am I kidding, maybe?)

There's a class outing tomorrow :) I guess that's all fine and good, but we're watching that Rapunzel movie (what's the name again?) in 3D for $11 *heart breaks* I guess a last-ditch effort at class bonding takes precedence over a crying wallet. I can't decide personally if I still have hope that our class will find its spirit. I guess I've become used to a zombie class: half alive, half dead.

Maybe it's because I've never actually seen colour before.

Holiday mode

Every once in a while I get a revelation of how lucky I am to be living my life. I've been doing a bit of blog-hopping and read stories of friends who felt like misfits during their entire time in NJ, or never had anything go right for them. And then I look at my own NJ experience, with the most random, most retarded and all-round most awesome classmates ever, together with other like-minded friends around school who not only tolerate my nonsense but even contribute to it. When you think about it, what are the chances that you will be able to meet so many people who can click with you?

So I guess the moral of the story is to rely on your friends in the worst of times and cherish them in the best of times? I don't know, I've never been a very "moral" person (OK that came out the wrong way, now I seem like a cold-blooded serial killer).

I definitely need to start studying for physics soon, but I sure as hell don't want to. What I want to do is to hurry and get A/S ranking for all the acts in Sonic Colours and get all the red rings to unlock Super Sonic (you know I've never played a Sonic game where you can use Super Sonic in normal levels :( )! I'd rather keep my holiday mode turned on all the way than turn it off just for Monday :(

One

For the first time ever, I'm hoping that my graph theory pulls up my combinatorics. That's like saying "I hope my Chinese and econs pull up my maths." But anyway, what's done is done.

The first thing I did after the H3 paper was complete my Spider-Man game (finally! :D ), then went to watch Harry Potter with a bunch of 28s at Plaza Sing. I'm not really a hardcore fan of the series, but it was a nice movie overall. And I love the special effects of the death eaters flying through the skies :) Afterwards was dinner, then LAN. Got another taste of dota, starting to get the hang of it but still far from able to survive on my own without hand-holding from teammates haha.

Now that 'A' levels are nearly over, the stress and pressure is subsiding, which also frees up space for other thoughts to enter my mind. I guess these are thoughts that I've always had. Maybe I've been suppressing them for quite a while, but now without the distraction of exams they've all started coming back: things I wished I did, things I wish were so, but things that ultimately never occurred and I'm painfully aware will never happen. Well, the only way I've ever known to deal with stuff like this is to bury it and wait to become numb. Besides, now is definitely not the time for action.

Looking forward to a relaxing holiday filled with mindless distractions after 'A' levels.

Two

Physics was alright, but oh so many careless mistakes... Please please please don't let physics prelims repeat... I've lost all the confidence I used to have in this subject.

Econs was... oh wait I DON'T GIVE A CRAP ANYMORE BECAUSE IT'S OVER!!! :D At first I was still kind of bummed out for seemingly screwing up econs yet again, but right now I realise I simply couldn't care less. So yeah.

Tomorrow is H3 maths. Frankly there's not much point in mugging for a subject like that (believe me, I've tried with previous papers in vain), especially the night before, so I'm just gonna go in with a clear head and start spamming. And after that, liberation. I don't care of I still have a physics MCQ on Monday, my priority will be to finally complete Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions after sporadic plays here and there during the 'A' levels.

It's been a rough journey through this dark tunnel, complete with falls and scrapes and bruises, but when you can see the light, when you can smell the fresh air, everything in the past just melts away.

Four

The problem with MCQs is that if you think that the answer is different from the majority opinion and you believe that you can convince the markers to accept your idea if you had the chance, you won't get the chance, because all you're allowed to do is shade one measly rectangle out of four. For example, for question 5 of today's chem MCQ, many people will probably put 107 degrees, because that is the correct bond angle for PH3. However, what I zoomed in on was that the question didn't ask for the correct bond angle,  but the bond angle predicted by the VSEPR theory. In VSEPR, bond pair electrons and lone pair electrons are assumed to have the same repulsion, so the predicted bond angle would be the tetrahedral bond angle of 109.5 degrees, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that mean that the answer is C instead of B? Even here, it's mentioned that the VSEPR predictions may not be the same as the actual bond angles. If the question wanted the actual bond angle it would just ask for it instead of asking for what the theory would predict, right? Doesn't the weird phrasing of the question suggest that there's more than meets the eye? But it seems that absolutely nobody is convinced, and unless Cambridge and I think on the same wavelength this will end up as yet another case of me thinking too much.

Other than that, paper 1 was easier than papers 2 and 3, though that's actually not saying much. In fact I'd say that this year's paper 1 was still harder than that of previous years. Just hope that it'll be enough to tide me through the other horrendous papers to get a good overall grade.

OK, tomorrow is the dreaded physics + econs day, and I still have H3 maths the day after to prepare for while all the other people get to have a breather T_T So that's three papers and basically two days to prepare for them (since I'll be totally drained to the bone after tomorrow). I guess we'll see how it goes.

We Come Out At Night

Disappointed in myself.

Never mind the inability to perform academically, whatever happened to my basic duties as a student? Rotting away in my seat, hoping for the best while not preparing for it. I actually disgust myself right now.

I feel like I've alienated myself from my goals and dreams through my own actions and inactions, and now I'm paying the price: no aspirations for company, just my lone ambition. It's not really sadness or anger anymore. It's more of resignation. So I guess this doesn't count as a whiny emo post, right?

We Come Out At Night by Avenged Sevenfold. I think I can really relate to the lyrics right now:



Black and gray clouds willow in the balance as the sun falls.
Rain plays a heart warming tune, on the pavement.
Emotions stir.
A feeling of warmness, compassion; I feel at home.
Disguised by surroundings.
As the torn and left in the gutter seek vengeance on their mistreated lives.
The torn, left in the cold, seek vengeance on mistreated lives.
The torn, left in the cold, seek vengeance, mistreated lives.
A silhouette stands still; lone cactus on a warm summer night.
But the rain falls cold, and the moon shines bright.
Black as night; cold as ice; warm as home; ready to live.
Stars they shoot.; in a clear; across the sky; as does my time.
Waiting, wanting, feeling, emotion.
Crying, breaking, loving, nothing.
Clouds swallow the moon, and I'm alone.
Thinking good times, and why'd they go?
Falling down, breaking away from me.
Falling down, breaking away from me.
Fuck. 
I need this place to get away from you.
Clouds swallow the moon, and I'm alone.
Thinking good times, and why'd they go?

Wax wings

Lost control of emotions again. Sorry for the depressing outburst guys.

I guess in a way I'm just a "toad lusting for swan flesh", to quote a Chinese saying (that frankly looks disturbing when translated to English). Like how Icarus grew too arrogant and flew too close to the sun, now I must endure the punishment of having my wings melt off and plunge to the ocean below. Come Tuesday, I think I'll just stick to the ground.

On a random note, I don't get indie rock at all.

Five

I was trying to figure out why I'm so affected by the econs paper today. I don't think it's because I screwed up, even though I did, because I screw up all the time and it's never been this depressing. I guess it's because this time I made the mistake of thinking that after all the studying and preparation, I actually had an inkling of a chance at it. That, of course, was untrue. What am I angry at? Cambridge maybe? Not really, I think I'm just angry at myself.

Six

Physics was... alright? I hope so? It was, in Bryan's words, "scarily straightforward" for the most part, but DRQ and planning were completely alien, not unlike the dofu and bromobutane questions from chem. The DRQ was on sticking one end of a rod into a tank of hot water, and until now we haven't been able to come to a consensus as to whether or not the gradient of the graph for the wooden rod will be gentler or steeper than the metal rod, and anyway it should totally be gentler! (Yes, I'm asserting my opinion as fact on my blog, go on and sue me) Planning was equally weird, with a solar panel that doesn't generate electricity. I only noticed it ten minutes into starting the DRQ, after happily drawing my solar panel connected to a voltmeter and ammeter, that the solar panel has pipes sticking out of it. Turns out it's a solar panel meant to heat water and not generate electricity (I'm pretty sure those things have a proper name, but I'm also pretty sure I'm not going to argue with the people giving me my grades).

My modem absolutely refuses to remain connected to the internet for longer than 30 minutes at a time, which is seriously pissing me off because I'm using KM for last-minute econs revision and having to go downstairs, hit the modem and hope it does something every once in a while is not doing any favours for my revision or blood pressure *refrains from using vulgarities on his blog*. Now I'm imagining the millions of people all over the world who don't even have computers to begin with, and I feel kind of guilty over being pissed off about this... I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, but I very rarely have FML moments nowadays because I always end up guilt-tripping myself whenever I complain about my life. After all, what use is a blog if you can't rant all day over insignificant personal issues, right? Maybe one day I'll suffer from high blood pressure for bottling up my rage.

I've never been one to plan any goals, and now this is starting to worry me a bit. I have friends aiming for their AABB, AAAB, even AAAA for the 'A' levels, and quite honestly I still don't know what I want even at this stage. I guess when everyone else has such high expectations of you, you feel obliged to align your expectations of yourself with theirs, and then you become afraid that you can't pole-vault over that bar you set looming sky-high above you and simply choose to ignore it.

Damn it, econs is tomorrow. I'll report back if I survive.

Deja Vu?

First of all, this:

THA is now higher on my "awesome list" than ever before. If the rest of the album is as good as this (and judging from the album teaser, i think so) then Digital Veil will be their breakout album, just like what Fortress did for PTH.

Physics tomorrow. Truthfully speaking, I still can't keep my mind off econs even now, but I know I need to focus for this first. Priorities... Hopefully I won't get a repeat of prelim physics...

Sometimes I wonder if they're overconfident, I'm underconfident, or they're just plain better than me.

See, Blogger can totally look like tumblr if you keep your post short and squeeze your entire post in the title. Of course you'd also need 10 pictures taken from other tumblrs for every line of text.
(now just imagine that this block of text doesn't exist and marvel at the tumblr-ness of my blogger blog)

Seven

Obviously, two years ago someone was seriously pissed.
Then "someone" was put in charge of chem P2 Q2.

I think everyone was taken aback by that question. 22 marks out of 72 is more than 30% of the paper; that means that if you can't do question 2 at all, you literally cannot get an A grade for the paper anymore, even if you score full marks for everything else. To top it off, question 2 was an organic question, which together with the other organic questions in the two papers so far means that organic actually is an overwhelming component in our chem marks this year. Which, of course, sucks. Another thing I'm afraid of is that because there have been so many organic questions so far (and consequently little to no calculation), all the calculations will be crammed into the one-hour paper 1. I already have time management issues for "normal" MCQ papers, so one laden with calculations will be bound to crush me.

The Human Abstract recently released a teaser for their upcoming album "Digital Veil", and it's freakin' awesome:

It's so nice to see THA finally going back to their original Nocturne style (sorry Midheaven, but you were nowhere as good in my opinion. Except for A Violent Strike), with a mix of classical guitar and metalcore. And while I'll definitely be missing Nathan's voice on this album, the new guy (Travis, I believe his name is) brings the more traditional guttural kind of screaming that you find in other bands. It's not as unique, but it might not be worse. We'll see when the album comes out (25th Jan! That's before I enlist! :D ).

Another day's respite, then back into the battle again for physics and econs, two giants in a row. Even though physics is chronologically first, I think my focus will be on econs. Because econs is my weakest subject and I have to spend the most time on it even though, you know, it's the least likely subject I'll be taking in university.

Inefficient? Yes. Illogical? Yes. But the cogwheel doesn't protest against the failings of the machine; it cannot.

The battle rages on

I find it quite interesting that my blog hits skyrocketed because of people googling "4chan vs tumblr". And on that subject, I'm very, very surprised that 4chan didn't win. To fill in those who haven't caught wind of the results, tumblr pushed their attack forward a day early, resulting in both 4chan and tumblr going down for several minutes, but nothing devastating to either website and definitely nothing that could be considered an outright victory. Having said that, it still remains to be seen if 4chan will decide to make a revenge strike (which is well within the behaviour of /b/tards).

And by the way:

Heck yeah! Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions plays just as awesome as it looks man. Unfortunately, it also distracted me from revising chem for tomorrow's exam. But seriously man, this game is awesome.

The short weekend rest has passed. The battle shall rage on at daybreak.

4chan VS tumblr

So I mug for a few weeks, and apparently 4chan has declared war on tumblr. Damn, I'm getting out of touch with the Internet.

But seriously guys, 4chan is not to be taken lightly. I'm talking to all those tumblr guys with "Trust in David Karp" or "U MAD 4CHAN?" posted there and thinking that that little jpeg is going to do anything at all. The thing about 4chan is that it only has one user, and that user is Anon. He's anonymous, he's everywhere at once, and I'm not exaggerating in the least. 4chan successfully hacked into Sarah Palin's email for goodness' sake. They managed to identify a girl throwing dogs into a river from a low-res youtube video which didn't even capture her face properly, track down her home address and contact numbers, and constantly harass her in real life until she gave herself in for animal abuse.

All of you guys saying that 4chan is no match for tumblr obviously do not know enough about 4chan. Let's get this straight: if tumblr survives Operation Overlord, it's only because Anon got bored or showed mercy (the latter is highly unlikely, honestly). It's true that 4chan has initiated some failed attacks before, but that's only because they couldn't sustain their interest long enough to organise the attack. Now, there are ignorant little people saying that 4chan doesn't have the power to bring down tumblr, or worse still trying to counter-attack by trolling 4chan. Well let me tell you now, Anon is most dangerous when enraged; the ones who get trolled hardest are those who don't play dead (or outright die) after the first attack. And tumblr, unfortunately, has done loads to piss him off.

As for my thoughts on the actual attack, I have a very strong feeling that it's much much more than what they're revealing. Come on, do you seriously think that they would simply fit their entire master plan in a convenient little jpeg to circulate round the Internet? /b/tards are juvenile and immature, but they are certainly not stupid.

Eight

Now that the weekend is here, I can finally put up a proper post. I guess I'll elaborate a bit on the 'A' levels so far.

Chemistry was a bloodfest. Apparently it's not just me - the general consensus is that Cambridge really threw us a curveball this time. I don't really feel very good about how it went. I had to skip maybe 7 marks because of some stupid mathematical oversight, and I probably lost another 10 marks or so scattered around as careless mistakes or "I thought that was the answer" moments. In hindsight, I'm really starting to regret choosing question 2 (the infamous dofu question) instead of question 5, but I just panicked the moment I saw electrolysis used to purify metals. Oh well.

GP... I don't know what to think, really. As usual, I went in and gave it the best I could, but then again as usual you never know which way a GP paper might swing. All I know is that my essay only had 2 points, my AQ is woefully short, and judging by conversations with friends it seems I screwed up my vocab. All I can do now is cross my fingers and pray for a "quality over quantity" form of marking. Of course, that's assuming my answers have some sort of quality associated with them, which is yet another towering hurdle.

Maths, remarkably, was relatively easy compared to the other papers so far. Unfortunately, that brings its own set of problems, namely the bell curve working against you. There's already talk going on that this year's A grade cut-off may be raised higher. Thinking back to the careless mistakes made during paper 2 (forgot to root the variance before putting it in the GC! T_T ), I can't help but feel a pinch of worry.

Eight papers are left, but fate has saved the worst for last. Judging from paper 3, chemistry will probably not relent in the coming papers. To make things worse, physics, econs and H3 maths will make their debuts (especially worried for the latter 2) in the coming weeks.

But I have to stop whining; I have to stop worrying. The end is 16 days and 8 papers away, and there's so much to look forward to afterwards: grad night, pre-NS workouts (my enthusiasm surprises myself), Sonic Colours (released in Europe today!), playing Maplestory with the 28s for the heck of it (haha), new albums from Protest The Hero, The Human Abstract and Last Chance To Reason (hopefully at least one of them before I enlist), and of course the freedom of being momentarily unplugged from Singapore's education, at least for two years.

Come on, it's only two weeks and a weekend.

Nine

I couldn't sleep last night. Must have been because of the afternoon nap. And consequently, maths was quite the roller coaster ride.

Question 9. I did it three times. That's 40 minutes. Because I misinterpreted it twice. And I was stuck at question  10 for another 15 minutes or so, on a problem that can be solved by a quick look at MF15 (something I only found out after the paper).

This is one of those papers that I really cannot afford to screw up. If I don't have this, I really don't know what I have.

Have to ensure my eight hours of sleep for tomorrow's paper. Counter-intuitively, Paper 2 is my weaker of the two.

After a conversation with friends today, I now feel very pessimistic about GP. I sincerely don't want to let Ms Chua down, but what can I do now?

Econs paper next week. Damn it.

Ten

I can't really tell how I did for GP today. You never can for essay and language-based subjects (read: GP and econs).

My essay and AQ were shorter than I would've liked, but you can't always have what you want, can you (in fact, in GP that rarely happens)?

In any case, the important thing is that GP is over. For good. I'm sure there's something worth celebrating about that.

Tomorrow is maths. Finally a paper that I have some confidence in, but I mustn't get complacent. Don't want to have a repeat of physics prelims.

And now I'm reliving memories of physics prelims. Damn it.

I feel really drained right now; all I can think of is sleep. Sleep now, then maybe some maths later.

I type in one-sentence paragraphs to make my posts seem longer than they actually are.

Is it working?

Twelve

Chem today was... quite bad, honestly. Don't quite know what to make of it.

Dofu is trending amongst 'A' level candidates right now (chem 'A' levels insider joke haha).

Tomorrow is GP. Very little confidence, frankly, but as a consolation it will be the very last time I have to write an essay, summary or AQ ever again :D

OK I guess I don't hate GP that much. It's a sort of love-hate relationship. Hate being the majority, though.

I'll put up longer posts and elaborate on all the 'A' level proceedings after all this is over.

Maybe.

Thirteen

And so it begins.

Thirteen papers. I never really saw it that way. It makes it seem so much less daunting. Daunting nonetheless, don't get me wrong, but it's a much faster countdown than 21 days (or at least it seems to be).

Part of "A Violent Strike" is looping in my head right now: "Where's your bravery? What will bravery do for you now?" I guess to a certain extent it is true in this case. The time for plucking courage and beating down our inner fears has passed, and now is the time to charge into battle, oblivious to the risks but always conscious of the knowledge that we have acquired over the past grueling two years. Bravery, we should have plenty by now; now is the time to close your eyes and take the leap of faith.

Good luck guys :)

Thinking without acting

Well, it's November 8th: the start of the 'A' levels. Well, for the geography and history students, anyway. Best of luck guys! :)

When I finished revision for the day, when I settled down and am typing these words now, one thought came to my head:
My 'A' levels start tomorrow.


And then I start to tense up, and my heart beats faster, and I can feel just a hint of a cold sweat forming. I keep thinking to myself: have I done enough? Am I ready? What if I'm not? I can see myself grabbing and clawing at the ground as I'm being dragged towards the fateful day by the hands of the clock. My mind acknowledges that this day must come, but my heart, my animal instincts even, are telling me to run away from what is obviously a threat.

As bad as acting without thinking, is thinking without acting. I've done two years worth of thinking; now's the time to start acting out.

9 before 29

3 more days. 2 more days actually, if you don't count today (after all it's already close to 11pm). Every bone in my body wants to go into overdrive, to deprive myself of food and rest just to squeeze in those precious few more minutes of revision, but the mind must resist. As counterintuitive as it may seem, I think the important thing now are to clam the mind and quieten the heart. Oh, and reset the biological clock too. Can't be sleeping at 2am during the exam period, can we?

It's 3 days to the beginning, and 23 days to the end. Something deep in the back of my mind is already looking forward to November 29th, but the realistic part of me just keeps reminding it that November 9th has to come first. It's not the time for despair, but it's also definitely not time for celebration yet.

Recently, I started listening to The Human Abstract again, and I have to say that they're a much better band than I used to give them credit for; Nocturne is a really good album. And while the general consensus is that Midheaven isn't as good, I have to say that this particular song, A Violent Strike, is the song that is currently playing and replaying on my iTunes:



I think I shall sleep now, in an effort to reset my biological clock before the first paper. 11.10pm, what an early night. There was a time when "early night" meant about 10pm.

If you don't have hope, you have nothing

It's all happening too fast. The 'A' levels are literally the very next Tuesday, and I still feel very unprepared for it. But still, I think at this point, the psychological battle is the most crucial to win. All the countless hours of studies painstakingly given away these past few weeks will all be wasted away if you get crushed by the weight of your own self-doubt on the big day. Let's face it: the 'A' levels is a fight that is skewed very much against the student, and we walk in without much to cling on to but optimism, so it's the most important thing we have to safeguard the next few weeks. Really, if you don't have hope, you have nothing.

THE NUMBER WAS 69 D:

Yup, it's November the third sooo...

Why thank you, Grey Worldwide! :D

OK you probably guessed that I have no idea who or what is Grey Worldwide and I found this clip on youtube in under a minute. So anyway, I went out with a bunch of 28s to the plaza sing Carl's Junior to celebrate my birthday early. Last year on that exact same day (2nd November) we celebrated my birthday at that same exact place, immediately after Chinese A levels, and this year we were back there again. It's quite cool to have an annual birthday meal place haha. After we finished eating we played zhong ji mi ma (to those who don't know, take turns guessing a number between 1 and 1000, and the "winner" gets a "treat") with whatever condiments and free-flow drinks we could get our hands on (read: a LOT), which culminated in me eating a lemon wedge marinated in ketchup, chili sauce, barbeque sauce, mayonnaise, coffee, salsa sauce, salt, pepper and sugar syrup (to the best of my memory). At first it tasted like a horrible combination of thousand-island cream, celery, coffee and sugar, but (erm, thankfully?) after the first few seconds I couldn't taste anything but the stinging acidity of lemon juice. What an awesome way to celebrate a birthday man; and they haven't even started the taupoks yet :) So anyway, thanks to Bryan, Lionel, JP, Jaron, Chin, Nigel and You'en for the birthday treat man, I really appreciate that you guys bothered to celebrate with me despite the coming exams. And thanks to all the people who wished me (and are still wishing me :D ) on Facebook and Twitter man, I'll reply to them ASAP but I just feel like sleeping right now -_-

Anyway, I recently got hooked onto this awesome meme called troll science, where you come up with fringe science ideas that are so blatantly unscientific that they become funny. Example:
1. Cats always lands on its feet.
2. Toast always lands butter side down.
3. Tape a piece of buttered toast onto a cat.
4. Anti-gravity! :D
Yes, troll science is very epic and everyone should go check it out. Just remember that you need to differentiate between troll science and actual science, especially with exams looming so close.
(You can guess how much studying I must have done to have found this in the first place)

It's not you; it's me

OK, I feel quite guilty right now for more or less wasting my entire weekend away. That's 2 days gone. Or to put it in perspective, that was 2 days out of what was originally 11 at the start of the weekend, so I have basically wasted away 18.2% of my remaining time before the 'A' levels. 

That is not a comforting thought.

The worry that keeps swimming around in the back of my head right now is econs. I am absolutely horrible at it, I swear. Starting to have feelings of regret. Should I have taken geog instead? Or even (I can't believe I'm saying this) gone back to those frightfully unpredictable days of lit? There is not a a single drop of humanities blood in me at all, not one drop, but even discounting the "contrasting subject" syllabus requirement I don't have much of a choice (Me? Biology?) so there's really nothing for me to complain about. It just so happens that I'm a guy who can only do three subjects with any level of competency, in a syllabus that requires four. Nothing to blame but my own inadequacy. Which means I now have 9 more days to make myself adequate.

"Two more minutes, and then the lads are in for a surprise."

Had another GP consultation with Ms Chua today, and it was just as insightful as the first with regard to how to tackle essay questions. I think I finally see why they (whoever "they" are) decided to include it in our syllabus: the skills needed to do well in GP really are important logical thinking skills which I expect will go far in preparing us for future obstacles. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that GP would actually be enjoyable if it wasn't for the fact that it's graded. Actually, that kind of applies to everything, doesn't it? Do we really need the threat of examinations to push ourselves to fulfill our own potential? The best-case scenario, of course, would be that we are more than willing to give our all for a subject out of sheer passion, but obviously that doesn't happen a lot. If education was purely passion-based, then on the one hand it would result in truly self-driven experts in a diverse range of fields, but on the other hand there would also be a large group of free-floaters who end up wasting their lives away doing nothing or, arguably even worse, specialise in something which they love but cannot apply anywhere in real life. And what if someone is gifted in a field but not interested in it? Would it be right to force him down a path he doesn't want to take?

So anyway, sometime during the consultation Ms Chua said something along the lines of "I think we could all sit for the 'A' levels tomorrow, can't we? The waiting time now is only a matter of sharpening the skills we already have." Frankly, I'm saddened by the truth I see in that statement. Yes, ten days (yes, we only have ten days left at the time of posting) is a very short time with which to actually learn anything new, and maybe the most we can cram into our heads in the next week and a half will be refinements of what we already know. True or not, it hurts to think that the deadline for changing the future has passed us and that we're now more or less locked onto our respective paths like trains on rails. Having said all that, nothing is absolute in life, and I'll continue to cling on to success stories of people who have risen from the ashes between prelims and 'A' levels for what little help it will do. In this fight, every little bit will help, and you never know if that one mark you picked up from revision will be the one mark to clinch your grade. And of course, I can get through the 'A' levels without regret if I know that I fought till my last breath.

On Thursday, there was much buzz and discussion from the guys of NJ as we all received our NS enlistment notices. Unfortunately, I was sorted into the first intake and will be going off on my exotic tropical island getaway on 9th February 2011. I was really hoping to get sorted into the second intake. There are so many things I want to do after 'A' levels! Now I'm getting a break that's even shorter than the one between 'O' levels and JC, and I'll have to spend a good part of it preparing for NS. It seems I won't be able to catch the release of Protest The Hero's new album :(

Speaking of which, there's been a PTH revival of sorts in my playlist; I'm suddenly listening to their songs as often as when I first discovered them and was totally raving (not that I'm not still obsessed with their amazing music \m/ ), especially Palms Read. I swear I've played that song at least ten times in the past 24 hours. So even though I know this is a repost (and probably no the first repost at that), here's Palms Read by Protest The Hero, a song of epic proportions from an equally epic band:

Reach For The Stars

Nothing much to talk about here. I'm just quite surprised by who actually reads my blog. On the one hand, blog traffic is very nice for the ego ( :D ) but on the other hand it also means that I can't be as loose-lipped as I currently am when voicing out my opinions here. Maybe we have to treat blogs like hipsters treat music: the more underground and indie it is, the better.

There are some people I wish I knew better, or at least kept in closer touch with. I did that Facebook status thing circulating around, where you answer 8 questions about anyone who "like" your status, and I realised that I really don't know what to write for some people. For some of them it's because I haven't talked to them in ages, and for others it's because I really just added them on Facebook and left the "friendship" at that. "Social networking gives us more acquaintances but less friends"... Sounds like it might be a GP essay question.

Although I'm only posting this now, I've actually been raving over this game for more than a week now. It's called Sonic Colours, it's coming out on November 16th, and it looks like the first actually decent Sonic game in 3D :D I'm not saying that Sonic Heroes wasn't fun, but it had some awkward camera control and simply couldn't match up to 2D Sonic games in terms of sheer speed. Colours, however, seems set to change all that:



Also, although the game's theme song is completely not my usual genre, I can't help but have it stuck in my head :D After-'A's goal!

Myopia

No matter how many test papers I do, no matter how much revision I manage to cram into every day, it always seems to be that the moment I come back and reflect upon my day, I realise that in spite of all that I have done, there's still so much that I have yet to do, and now there is one less day to do it. There are never enough hours in a day, never enough days in a week, never enough weeks until the 'A' levels. I keep finding myself wishing for more time.

If given enough time, do we all have limitless potential? Is our ability limited only by time? Could it be that the ones who get ahead in life are not the ones with the greatest capability, but the ones who most quickly realise what little latent skills they have?

Of course, none of that matters now. The only thing that matters now is that I make the most use of the next day. It's a bit like how a soldier forces himself to think only up to the next day; if he ever thought long enough about how low his chances of survival are, how he's pretty much waiting to die, how none of his actions would be able to change his fate,I'm sure he'd go crazy. Short-sightedness is the only thing that will keep me sane.

Beautifully flawed

Imperfections have been a common running theme in many post-graduation reflection notes popping up all over Facebook (they were almost a fad for a few days), which got me thinking a bit. As with many other topics, my stand is that absolute perfection in every aspect of our lives would be meaningless if we don't have imperfections to contrast with. Without that dose of realism, we would just take perfection for granted. More importantly though, if life was perfect, then there wouldn't be any reason for it to shift from perfection; hence, a perfect world would stagnate by necessity. As quoted from that maths video from months ago, "A timeless and perfect world never changes, but it is dead." If NJ life was perfect, every day would be a mindless routine; a comfortable and enjoyable routine, but a routine nonetheless. In other words, a dead life. If NJ life was cushy all year round, would we still remember so fondly those short respites from studying and mugging?

Funny how I can write paragraph upon paragraph while blogging, but I can never seem to fill up two pages when doing GP or econs. I think the loathing of essay/paragraph writing is the distinction between the science and arts streams :/

How do you differentiate between a natural diamond and an artificial one? Only natural diamonds will have flaws within them.

Proud to be

Yesterday was our farewell assembly. After all the admin stuff was done with, they invited an ex-NJCian to give us a motivational speech. It's life stories like hers that really put your own into perspective, and while I've always been aware that I live a blessed life, it's really a strong dose of reality to know of someone whom you are sort of related to (in the NJC family? haha) having had such a trying 'A' level. Still, inspirational speech was inspirational, and I really do feel motivated to give it my all for the coming exams.

The video was very nostalgic; I'm not gonna act macho and lie about it. Although I wasn't exactly on the verge of tearing, I could feel my heartstrings being tugged as it recapped the ups and downs of NJ life and conveyed all our teachers' heartfelt wishes and motivating words. My heart literally jumped when I saw caifan uncle and tehbing auntie featured in the video too XD The final scene, with the camera view slowly moving along the narrow sheltered path that leads to the side gate and out of NJ, was definitely an emotional climax for me, as I looked upon the path that I have taken out of school every day for the past two years from a totally new perspective.

After the assembly, the OG10 OGLs received cards made by the OG! :D I'm really happy that they actually still remember us even though it's been nearly a year since Genesis. Very glad that we managed to have such a deep impact on all of your lives :) Since you guys wished us good luck for the 'A' levels, I'll return the favour and wish all of you good luck for your PW!

There was chem consolidation, so unfortunately we didn't have much time for photo-taking and general fooling around after the assembly, but we still managed to act crazy for a bit. I got owned twice by the class, first when we were taking a "formal class photo" and ended with lionel grabbing onto my leg while the rest pointed at me and posed for the photo, and second on the field when chin tricked me into trying to taupok j.gan and I ended up getting taupoked instead (my chest still hurts a bit when I breathe in deeply haha). Afterwards, we managed to have a class lunch afterwards, with quite a good attendance. We went to a nearby Domino's Pizza for lunch (I didn't even know that Domino's existed in Singapore, much less that there is a branch near NJ) and afterwards signed each other's class photos. It was a pity that I had GP consolidation at 3.30pm so I couldn't stay and get messages from everyone, but the gesture itself was meaningful enough :)

I'll definitely miss NJC; heck it, I'm missing NJ life already and it's only been a matter of hours. After thinking about it, I realised that I really owe the great times I had in the school to many amazing people. In particular:

OG17 for an amazing start to an amazing two years, and for convincing me that NJ life doesn't necessarily have to be mugger life.
09SH27 for being the last but not least class, and for tolerating all my nonsense (making weird noises, acting half my age etc.).
NJ136 for making a year-long proposal draft and presentation on something as abstract as "conservation" bearable.
The hockey team (seniors, teammates and juniors all included (: ) for pushing through tough times on the pitch with me even though I'm one of the physically weakest on the team, and for all the stupid conversations at the grandstand after training.
The term 3 boarders for making those three months awesome despite the shaky internet and "unique" food. Oh, and for introducing me to PvZ :D
The Ignis OGLs for making the tiring pre-orientation preparations as fun as the actual thing.
OG10 for being an awesome OG \m/ (OG10, can we own them? OH MY GOD, CONFIRM CAN!).
09SH25 for being the closest I've ever been to a class that wasn't my own (in fact, I should thank them for merging with us to form 09SH28).
Xiao Lan for being my H3 physics buddy and for being just as blur as I was during all the lectures XD
Darrell and Joy for being my H3 maths gang together.
The Chinese class people (for both years!) for making the lessons survivable.
The GP back row warriors, for being the GP back row warriors.
The Crossroads mugging group, especially Joshua Goh and his girl-gang for all the biscuits :D
The Bishan Library gang for turning "pink slip collection" into a competitive sport.
The Oreo Prata/Rubber Band/Metal Prata guys for having to endure my failed screamo and my constant suggestions for them to play A7X and Metallica songs
And everyone, I literally mean EVERYONE else I've ever met in NJ who has had some impact on my experience in one way or another. Even if you were just a friend of a friend whom I happened to exchange a few words with, I want to thank you :)

I don't know if my time in NJ will be the best time of my life, or if my life will only get awesomer from here on, but I do know that it has been a uniquely awesome two years spent here, and nothing could ever replace it.
Proud to be? Hell yeah I am.

Pictorial journal

Well, I went for the interview. Honestly, I can't tell how well it went. All I know is that DSTA very strongly encourages all the applicants to take EEE. Literally half the interview was the interviewer talking about the versatility and utility of EEE in the defense science field. Admittedly, although I did state before that I've always wanted to do science instead of engineering, I also have to concede that I find the idea of engineering to be rather appealing as well. It brings me back to the old days in Cat High robotics, where we tried various means to complete the inane mission objectives of various competitions. On a side note, I met the SJI church gang minus Lionel at the Macritchie bus stop on the way home from the interview, which resulted in epic reactions from them ("What's with the jeans? And COLLARED SHIRT?!").

Tomorrow is our last day as students of NJC. Looking through some of my pictures on Facebook, I realised that since I only created my account at the start of last year (yes, I am a technological n00b), all of my current photos basically form a pictorial journal of my life in NJ. That's 536 pictures plotting the course of my two-year journey:

OG17

09SH27

Hockey

NJ136

Boarding School

OGL Camp

OG10

Hockey juniors

'A' divs

09SH28

Looking through the photos, nostalgia was inevitable. I don't care what anyone else says about NJ or JC life in general; tough as it may be, stressful as it may be, I can truthfully say that I thoroughly enjoyed my two years here, and life in NJ will be fondly remembered when it ends for good. Even though I know that the odds are against it, I genuinely hope that all of us can keep in contact after the 'A' levels.

We have to move on, but we don't have to move away.