Eventually

Chemistry was horrible, absolutely horrible. the only other time i ever leave so many blanks in an exam paper is if it's H3 maths. i left about 20 marks blank, 20 out of 120. last time i checked, that's a pretty sizable chunk of marks down the drain. i just hope i can still pass, or mr low will interrogate me every day until the prelims.

and i just found out today that the A level chinese oral exam is next tuesday, which leaves me with 6 days to prepare. i hate having everything all squeezed together like that. 5 major exams in 8 days is no joke.

while nearly everyone else is celebrating, i'm stuck here with my notes. and even tomorrow, when the H3 people can celebrate, i'll still be having emergency chinese oral practice.

but eventually, eventually, it will all be over.

"Deader" is a word! :D

Well, my predictions were spot-on. i copied the integration formula blindly from MF15 without application, and i only realised it right when the invigilator told us to put down the pen. argh, it's so frustrating to have to slowly staple and hand in your script knowing that there's a stupid mistake you know you can fix in literally an extra one minute. and just like how i guessed it, the argand diagram killed me too. i kept on drawing and erasing and redrawing the diagram until the last minute, and i ended up handing in no graph at all T_T

i have very grim expectations of the next two papers, chem and H3 maths. chemistry has always been shaky for me since JC, and this time i barely did any revision for it compared to the other subjects. i was "ambushed" by mr low in the library today; seems he still expects me to get that A for chem. i guess i'm happy (?) that he thinks so highly of me, but he's setting his sights way too high and simply setting himself up for a disappointment. and if that sounded bad, H3 maths is basically the same situation, but ten times worse. while i have rarely scored well for chemistry, i have never scored for H3 maths, period. which kind of sucks, considering H3 maths is the only subject i spent less time on than chemistry. so to sum up the next two days: dead and deader (wow, google chrome spellcheck didn't pick out "deader"; i am surprised).

my aim for the CTs is to slip just under the radar and dodge the missiles from the teachers.
or i could SHOOT THEM DOWN WITH LAZERS!!!
nah, under the radar is more feasible. and probably takes less effort.

Opening act

The physics design question is a failed experiment, in my opinion. a little background info for non-physics students (or if you somehow managed to completely miss it, in which case i think this is the least of your problems). anyway, it's something they just introduced for the new syllabus which takes effect this year. basically, you have to design an experiment based on researching a certain problem, similar to those we do for SPA, except much more detailed and idiot-proof (because the unspoken rule of exams is that the student treats the teacher like an idiot during answering, and the teacher treats the student like an idiot during marking -.- ). we are given an extra 30min for this question, but i think everyone would agree that it requires 40min at least to do properly. not to mention that for that huge chunk of time, we only get 12 marks out of it. come on, you don't have to be a math whiz to sense that there's something wrong with the mark allocation there. i predict a lot of people either forsaking the design question or sacrificing other questions to attempt it (i myself am sadly included :( ). but it wasn't just the design question that pulled me down today; i'm still rather disappointed that i couldn't solve some of the questions because i forgot secondary school geometry.

tomorrow's the maths paper. predictions: integration is a gone case, P&C and probability are (ironically) unpredictable as usual, and any complex number questions involving argand diagrams are hopeless. i would say that the rest are average-ish, though i don't want to get my hopes up. in any case, here's a handy exam tip from the math-iest webcomic i can think of: XKCD! :D if you know the answer but can't remember the derivation, just blindly reverse-engineer until you get something that kind of looks like the formula, then fill in the gaps. example:

anyway, i met laura on the bus today after school. turns out that unknown to either of us, she actually stays just a few bus stops down the road. she told me that she's currently working as a relief teacher in her ex-secondary school, and that her current colleague (and ex-teacher) is lionel's mother, which i imagine is quite epic since lionel and laura were like two polar opposites who were forced to work together XD (and also lionel and van ho, and generally lionel with any half-sane person).

and i think i should stop giving advice to juniors. and juniors should stop coming to me for advice. because honestly i'm not very good at giving it. i tend to either exaggerate the problem and turn it into a horror story of the educational system (your PW grade is determined by luck and not effort!), or trivialise and dismiss it without ever addressing it (relax, CTs are only 20% of your overall grade :D ). i used to have this problem in writing essays in secondary school, where i would either over-dramatise everything in a failed attempt at descriptive writing or understate everything in a failed attempt at tongue-in-cheek humour. i guess it's just difficult to say intelligent things without thinking. wait that sounds kind of... aww crap i did it again -.-

If you can't get out, charge in

After a month of slacking off, it's finally here. tomorrow school starts again, and the opening act is a killer. it's not the first time we've had major exams directly following a holiday, but it's still really hard to shift gears so suddenly, and not something you can easily get used to. as much as i would like to lament my oh-so-terrible fate as a student in academically-focused singapore and wish for a postponement of school's reopening, the logical thing to do now is something that will actually benefit you, like last-minute revision (if your brain absorbs information like that; i'm not sure about my own but i'm willing to try it anyway), or even just an early night if there's nothing else to do. and this time, even after the CTs it'll only be a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire. just like mr low said on the last day of term 2, after CTs the revision will only get more intense, with TYS papers and pop quizzes every other day. if there is any celebration on thursday, it will be short-lived; the real goal is awaiting us in november, and i believe that every SH2 has that thought in the backs of their minds right now, no matter how much they claim to just be "heck care"-ing it all. but i guess it's important to set achievable short-term goals to keep morale up, and this kind of pessimistic long-term worldview (which unfortunately seems to be my default mindset) will likely drive you insane eventually (which it might already have done to me). whatever: i shall now set my sights on getting through CTs and wasting a significant portion of my youth playing transformers: war for cybertron.

"If it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing." ~ Tori Belleci (Mythbusters)

 speaking of which, i wish i hadn't stopped following the series when schoolwork started taking it's toll on my (sacred!!!) TV time. oh well, something to add to my after-'A's to-do list.

The people who try to claw their way out only leave scratches on the door. 
I'd much rather charge in and break a hole in the back wall.

to all of you guys with exams tomorrow, good luck :)

Cries and screams are music to my ears

Now is definitely not the time to do this, but:

where do i start? firstly, i absolutely love the graphics in general and the character design in particular. it's amazing how they merged the original generation 1 designs with futuristic cybertronian elements (i know it's weird to say "futuristic" in the context of a sci-fi game like transformers which is already futuristic, but it really is!) to create characters that are breathtakingly spectacular while still being warmly nostalgic. everyone looks sleeker and cooler now, but one look is still all it takes to distinguish optimus prime, megatron, bumblebee, starscream, and of course (my favourite! :D ) soundwave.

also, it's good to finally see a transformers game that looks good and plays better. honestly, the past few transformers games (mostly the movie spin-offs) have been nothing more than mindless button-mashing hack-and-slashes with transformation added in last-minute only as a gimmick, but this game is completely different. this game is a mecha fan's dream come true: character designs, special abilities, armaments and alternate modes are all customisable to match any playing style or strategy; no more woes of "i love this guy but i wish he had a better melee approach", because now you can just give him an energon sword! :D and not to mention that transformation is no longer just a cheap secondary function that is rarely used in actual gameplay; it now pays to incorporate your alternate mode in your strategy (think driving off a ramp, transforming, then slashing your sword at that irritating jet fighter). this is a game that rewards careful strategic planning and innovative in-game experimentation equally. but definitely the greatest aspect of this game is that you are no longer restricted to unleashing your mechatronic on mindless cpu-controlled drones that fall in one strike, but against other human-controlled characters who can stand toe-to-toe with you; that's right, all that awesomeness and it's PvP!

correction: PvP is the second-awesomest thing about this game. the awesomest thing is being able to use GENERATION 1 SOUNDWAVE!!! finally, a game where soundwave is actually included, and is not some npc or heavily modified poser with the same name. this is G1 soundwave through and through, with the shoulder-mounted cannon and glass chestplate where the cassette-tape decepticons fit in (although he doesn't transform into a cassette player :( but since this game is set when cybertron was still around it wouldn't make sense for him to transform into earth technology). call me a geek if you must, but i do have a favourite transformer who isn't optimus prime, or even an autobot for that matter, and his name is soundwave:

here's the toy soundwave in his cassette player form. the two cassette tapes are actually laserbeak (falcon) and ravage (black panther) and can fit in his chest compartment.

so that's what he looks like, but they completely changed the way he looked for his pathetic 30s appearance in transformers: revenge of the fallen as a communications satellite:

you do NOT give a satellite a 30s cameo, call it "soundwave" and claim that you put soundwave in the movie, micheal, especially when it looks nothing like soundwave. you just don't.

and finally, here's soundwave in transformers: war for cybertron. his alternate mode is now a truck, but his robot mode stays very faithful to the original design. kudos to the character designer for that:

(by the way, the title of the post is a reference to soundwave's motto :D )

of course, all the drooling in the world is not going to let me play this game any sooner. it's gonna have to wait till after CTs. i have found the light at the end of the tunnel; now all that's left is to travel towards it.

ok, now we're finally off the topic of transformers. went to the library again, and we went to visit gabby at the hospital during our lunch break (viral infection... ouch). it's kind of sad to see that even in sickness, people still worry about their studies. goes to show how academic-driven we are, eh? get well soon, gabby :)

and the cafe galilee student meal in the library is extremely awesome! $4.90 student meal for a chicken thigh as big as your face, with sides of pasta and greens as well as a coke. dang, i don't know why we've been going to S11 and eating fried carrot cake that's practically dripping with oil (as quoted from you'en, "you can see your face in the plate"). it was so awesome that we decided to eat there again in the near future.

Vintage or obsolete?

I believe most of us have seen this ad on tv by now, but i'm just gonna put it here for reference anyway:

a touching story about a son's filial piety to his mother, in spite of her repeated and unreasonable demands; a perfect illustration of the brand of unquestioning submission to one's parents that is emphasised so heavily in Confucianism as well as general chinese tradition. however, this sort of blindly giving in to them is being criticised in newspaper forums and, ironically, by my own mother as well (she was the one who first brought my attention to this issue). they argue that although filial piety is important, it should not entail giving in to our parents' every whim and fancy, especially the unreasonable and outlandish ones. according to them, parents should not be able to wield total power and command over their children as that is too much control to have over anyone, not even your own flesh and blood. once a golden rule of the chinese, the Confucian take on filial piety (that is, absolute and unquestioning) is now being attacked, and without (too many) gasps of shock from others over questioning a supposedly absolute mandate.

well, my mom's comment got me thinking. is this a sign of our eroding and crumbling moral values, just like how the hecklers of the previous generation have been criticising modern youths since it was established, or is it simply a case of "new game, new rules"? is it society that is gradually slipping into amorality, or is it the moral code itself that needs to be updated in a modern world that is eons ahead of the world in which they were written? and if the world has changed such that rules like this need to be diluted, then is it a change for better or worse? suddenly i think of parallels in the increasing tolerance of sex and violence. of course, it would seem ludicrous to a modern person not to be able to wear swimming trunks or a swimsuit at the beach, but some of the scrap cloths that pass as clothes today are honestly quite disturbing to say the least. so many questions, so little answers; sometimes i wish would just stop thinking about these dead-end questions.

so anyway, i have just discovered an awesome musical group called E.S. Posthumus. i'm not really sure what this genre of music is called; i think it's supposed to be orchestral music, but i prefer to call it epic music. and believe me, it really is epic. it's something you really need to hear to understand, so here's a song called Ebla:

Dawn has slowly burned away, and Dusk emerges from day

It's shadow grows still bigger, it's breath caresses my back

Be it fear or resignation, I close my eyes and pray

That the killing strike of the midnight beast will be a painless attack

Sleep with one eye open

Well, i abandoned my study plans for the day for something which transcends even that: Toy Story 3! :D i don't want to spoil the plot for those who haven't seen it yet, but i do have to say that it is a MUST-WATCH for anyone who watched 1 and 2. and it's not just the movie which was awesome; although the Pixar shorts before all the movies are often overshadowed by the actual movies, i felt that this particular short, Day and Night, was particularly good. even if it's just a small plus, it's still an extra incentive to go catch this amazing, amazing film. so go catch it.

i mean it. why are you still sitting there? GO WATCH IT NOW. NOW NOW NOW.

so anyway, after the movie we came back home and i attempted the 2009 H3 maths common test as part of my revision, and let's just say it was completely within my expectations. i really need to buck up for H3 maths right now; i'm not even coping at a H2 level, let alone living up to being a H3 student. that feeling when people expect you to achieve greatness, even though you are far from extraordinary, is such a choking sensation. maybe i brought it upon myself by biting off more than i could chew; is it really worth it to choke on ambrosia rather than survive on gruel? this gamble to focus on H3 instead of H2; it's like playing russian roulette with a revolver that's only missing one round.

here's another Metallica song called Enter Sandman. if you think of the sandman as my growing fear and dread of the looming exams, then this song describes me perfectly:

study plans resume later today, but it seems like an exercise in futility.

And the wheel keeps spinning... How I wish it would spin forever...

Balance

Yesterday was library day again. met up with bryan, nigel and you'en at bishan library early in the morning, where i finally finished with organic chem. all that's left to do is to conveniently forget that i haven't revised any of the topics before organic and i haven't read through any of the topics after organic, and i would have officially finished studying chem! :D then we had a 3h lunch break (talk-cock session), before going back to the library, and revision-wise it all went downhill from then. the studying session basically degenerated into a gossip session, all the way till we left.

but seriously speaking, as much as i would like to put in more time and effort into chemistry (especially after all those talks with mr low :X ), i really cannot afford to drag my heels on maths any longer. integration and sampling theory are untouched, probability is unfinished, and there's still H3 maths to worry about. argh dammit dammit dammit, i don't know what to do with H3 maths anymore. i fail when i don't study, and i fail when i do study, but i can't bring myself to brush away that tiny possibility that if i study just that tiny bit more i may be able to scrape a pass. i'm worried that if i put in too much effort into H3 maths and it doesn't pay off, it will take its toll on all the other subjects as well. especially H2 maths, which is the other thing i'm extremely worried about now.

so anyway, i'm announcing that the Daft Punk craze is officially over. i must say that i really didn't like house music as much as i thought i did. of course there are a few songs that i find impossibly catchy and addictive (i still can't get Aerodynamic out of my head), but generally such songs are rather rare in their discography. for some reason, my attention has shifted to Metallica, so here's a really great song from them, Ride The Lightning:

I NEED MOAR SONGS. more specifically, anyone know of any good melodic metalcore bands like old-style A7X? all the other metalcore bands i've heard so far are too heavy and death metal-esque (BFMV's style is kind of between old and new A7X in my opinion). dang, i wish A7X would release maybe one or two old-style songs with every album.

DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON ME, I WON'T BE IGNORED

Well, i guess i accomplished my target for today: organic chem is more or less done with! :D a bit more reading up on the other stuff, then i'll have to go into overdrive with regards to maths. maybe, just maybe, i'll be able to escape the tunnel before it caves in. but in any case it's gonna be a very close call :X

today (well, yesterday) was fathers' day and my uncle's birthday at the same time (he's also a father by the way), so the whole family went out to dinner to celebrate, followed by a trip to the ktv lounge... i'm not really a karaoke sort of person; i can still tolerate being in a ktv lounge as long as it's with friends and stuff, but when people (like my parents) keep bugging me to sing "just one song" then it really starts to piss me off, so i looked through the song list, and sang Faint by Linkin Park. complete with screamo chorus and bridge. after that they kind of stopped asking me :P and i'm also quite surprised that they also had B.Y.O.B. by System of a Down and Fade to Black by Metallica. who knew they actually had metal songs there?

i found this picture on teh internetz. i guess it's common knowledge by now that almost everybody hates the vuvuzelas droning away during world cup matches. but what about the minority that does like the calming lull in the midst of the frenzied footballing action? well, here's a sign made just for them:

ok and here's another song i found during my ongoing Daft Punk craze, called Aerodynamic. pure awesomeness:

and this just occurred to me: first, i took a liking to metal, and that isn't exactly the kind of music that your average joe listens to. so in an attempt to fit in, i began exposing myself to many different genres of music to try and find something more "normal" that i liked. then i found Daft Punk, which is so vastly different from metal that i thought to myself that it had to be more mainstream. and now i realise it isn't really mainstream either. oh well :/

another trip to the library tomorrow. hopefully i'll makr more breakthroughs then! *crosses fingers*

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger I am not

Finally got out of the house today. met bryan, nigel and panyu at the J8 macs where we stoned and watched the public display of some kid playing world cup 2010 on the PS3 (singapore beat brazil 9-5! :D but the kid was playing as brazil...). afterwards, the latter two left, leaving bryan and i in bishan library mugging along. eugene came by a few hours later, and honestly when that happened it became humanly impossible to focus on studying. so finally i left the two of them in the library, heading home for dinner. it's kind of odd to think that i didn't really know eugene very well back in cat high (besides the fact that he was jared's friend from tennis :/ ), and yet through just meeting him a few times at the library through bryan i can say that i've made a new friend :)

i realised that i'm afraid of helping people. well, not really helping per se, but rather the act of helping another person with a task with the reasoning that you would be able to do it better than that person. consider the seemingly harmless question, "do you need help with your homework?" although the asker may genuinely just wish to help, the question already carries connotations that 1. you are incapable of doing your own homework and 2. i am superior to you in doing homework. which are very harsh and demeaning things to imply. which is why i always feel awkward in situations like that. :/

on to another thing. i know that i've earned a reputation as being some kind of metal fanatic who only listens to metal and looks down upon other genres with contempt, which is completely untrue. just because i prefer songs of a certain genre doesn't mean that i'm not open to other genres. i've never said "no" every time someone wants to introduce a pop or rap song to me, and although admittedly many of the songs end up not being to my liking, there are some which i really like, and in any case i can safely say that i have never judged any form of music without listening to it first. and when i do say that i hate a certain band or singer (lookin' at you, bieber >.> ), it's always more than just the music itself that pisses me off. so these few days, after randomly surfing youtube, i have to say that Daft Punk is really starting to sound quite interesting. in case you don't know, Daft Punk are a duo from France who look like this:

Admit it: those helmets are AWESOME

and play a genre called house music, which is basically an off-shoot of dance/techno music. here are two awesome songs from them. the first one is a remix of Queen's We Will Rock You and Daft Punk's Robot Rock which is one of the songs in DJ Hero (and before you complain that it's a remix, it was remixed by Daft Punk themselves):

the second song is a Daft Punk original called Emotion. i love the dreamy tune of the song; even more mysterious and calming than Fireflies, which i previously thought was already very dreamlike. so here it is:

later today i will hopefully finish up on my organic chem revision, briefly read through everything else chem-related (since organic chem is my kryptonite and i seriously do not have the luxury of time to go through everything), maybe do a few more physics questions to make myself feel less guilty, then plunge into integration as well as my completely untouched H3 maths notes.

ah damn it.

Monster in the mirror

My grandmother once told me a joke that went something like this (albeit in mandarin when she said it):

Once upon a time, there was a boy who was so lazy that he absolutely refused to do anything himself. His mother had to help him with everything, from bathing to brushing to even eating. However, one day the mother had to go out of town for a week and she was very worried for her son. She could stand him not bathing or brushing for seven days, but he would die if he didn't eat the entire week. So she thought up a brilliant plan: by baking a huge doughnut and putting it around the boy's neck, he could literally just sit there and eat until she came home. Finally at ease, she went on her way. Yet, seven days later, she returned home to find her son dead, with only a single bite in the doughnut. Why? It's because the boy was so lazy he wouldn't even turn the doughnut after the first bite and thus it was out of reach of his mouth the entire time.

ok, so maybe it's a lame joke, but i was pri 2 then and i thought it was funny. it was funny because the boy was so ridiculously lazy that he wouldn't eat what was practically right in front of him even though he was literally starving to death. it was funny because it seemed humanly impossible for anyone to ever be that lazy. yep, back then it was funny. then today i woke up and realised that i was that boy. i am ruining my own life. i always start off every day intending to study, then i get distracted and lots of weird nonsense happens. sometimes i feel that since it's problem that i caused myself then i don't really have a right to complain about it here, not when other people have other, actual problems to bemoan. it's so easy to spot the mistakes from a third-person POV, but so difficult to correct them in first-person. i think that if i was standing next to myself, watching me act the way i am, i would just punch me. honestly. if i cloned myself, the two of us would probably hate each other.

i'm beginning to hate counting my blessings. every time i do, i always feel that the blessings are wasted on me. like i don't deserve these blessings.

and also, i realise that i'm afraid of smart people :/ i'm talking about stereotypical smartypants who know everything about everything, and speak with weird british accents, and discuss global geopolitics in their spare time. more specifically, i'm scared of meeting people like that at smart-people nonsense like scholarship talks and whatnot (and you actually get to see quite a few of those), because it feels like you are supposed to be like them when in fact you are nothing like that at all. ok that was kind of random, but oh well.

once in a blue moon, dilbert manages to be as funny as it was in the beginning stages. not that it's not funny now, but definitely not as good as the old comics:



:D

edit @ 3:26am: i'm still awake yaaaaaay!!! and anyway, i fiddled around with the new blogger template designer, so the blog has undergone a slight renovation. i think it looks quite nice, especially the pattern by the sides. it's still in keeping with the fire theme, but at the same time the randomly sized and distributed squares give a feeling of order amidst chaos, or logic amidst insanity. nice :)

Announcement

I am going to crash and burn for the CTs. it's as simple and straightforward as that. i've been thinking about it, and given the complete lack of effort and focus in my revision thus far that is the only logical outcome. i'm not even saying this with any hint of bitterness. after all, CTs don't count for anything at the end of the year, do they? so i'm setting it straight right now: don't expect anything spectacular from me. don't try to convince me with the "sure can one lah" nonsense, because neither one of us will believe it. and don't come to me afterwards when we've all gotten our results and say stuff like "i thought you are supposed to be the zai kia one?" because i've already made myself very clear on numerous occasions that i am in no way outstanding. so yes, kindly impose your unrealistic expectations on some other poor sap, cos it sure as hell ain't gonna be me this time.

thank you, that is all.

Cake

The following is a short story that will make no sense.
--------------------
On the plate was the most beautiful, elaborately decorated slice of cake I had ever seen. It was chocolate, adorned with intricate patterns of icing sugar and delicate chocolate - I dare say they deserve to be called chocolate sculptures - on the top. I looked up at the person who handed me the plate, but I couldn't make out any physical features. Man or woman? Young or old? I couldn't tell. It spoke while handing me a silver fork, in a sweet-sounding but slightly electronic voice: "Have some cake. But it's only for you; you can't share it with anyone else."

Can't share it? I looked over at my friends, all huddled in the far corner of the cramped room. They were all weak from malnutrition, and a few of them looked like they were on the brink of starvation. Surely the person wouldn't mind if I gave the cake to them. I walked over to them, and proceeded to feed a piece of cake to the weakest-looking of my friends. But just as his teeth were about to sink into the cake, it turned into a pile of dust and fell through the fork onto the ground.

"It's only for you; you can't share it with anyone else," the person repeated in that saccharine-sweet voice, as I stared dumbfounded at the pile of dust on the ground. Then the same friend I was trying to feed spoke up: "Don't worry about us and just eat the cake. Better for one of us to eat rather than having everyone starve." I looked hesitantly at the slice of cake, feeling the stares of my friends and the mysterious person on me. Finally, I took a bite.

It was horrible. I have no explanation as to why a cake that looked so appetising could in fact taste so disgusting. Before I knew it, that mouthful of cake was already lying on the ground.

"Why did you spit out the cake?" I turned around and saw my friend, with tears in his eyes. The same went for the rest of them huddled in that corner. "You are the only one who gets cake. Why aren't you eating it?" Behind me, he or she or it also started talking: "I prepared the cake specially for you. It is meant only for you, and no one else. Why do you not like it?" They were right. I am the only one who gets cake, while everyone else is starving. What right do I have to complain? I braced myself, and took another bite.

Mouth after mouth I just shoveled it in. It seemed that the more of it I ate, the worse it became. Soon it started to burn in my mouth and sting my tongue. My eyes watered with every bite. But in the presence of my friends and the mysterious It, I continued eating. After what seemed like an eternity, the plate was finally clean. Fighting to keep the tears from flowing, I whispered in a shaky voice: "Delicious."

"Good," the mysterious figure said. "I made more." With that, it held out an enormous cake, out of which a single slice was missing. Struggling to steady my words, I spoke softly: "Great."

But was it sincere?
--------------------
I miss writing stories for english instead of boring argumentative essays. but even back then, i was constrained in the topics i could write about. i still remember one time in sec 4 i wrote a story about an insane person en route to a mental hospital, from the insane person's point of view. the teacher didn't really like that. i told myself that one day i will write a completely nonsensical and unconventional story just for the sake of it. and now i have :D

I traveled 500km sitting down

The hotel yesterday charges for wireless! D:< so no post yesterday. so anyway yesterday we drove over to KL (got lost again...), where mostly we just stayed in the hotel room. we were supposed to go explore the town after dinner, but my father got lost again while buying dinner. he set off at 7pm and got back at 10.30pm. dinner at 10.30pm, then i went to sleep. today we checked out after breakfast, and pretty much spent the entire day on the road, save for short restroom stops and dinner. and finally we're back home! :D truth be told, i didn't really enjoy this trip. a large majority of the time was spent on the road, which was made worse by getting lost numerous times. i think we should just trash the lousy gps to quell my father's ideas to drive to places he knows nothing about. now i'm just really sleepy... i had no idea that just sitting for hours can make you so sle... oh wait, school does that all the time. oh well.

i got scolded by my mom for saying that my brother was camwhoring. the words just came out of my mouth so naturally, having said it so many times with friends already. it only hit me afterwards that camwhore is a portmanteau of camera and whore, the latter of which is actually quite an offensive word once you think about it. it's interesting to note that such a derogatory term can be adapted into a term that is used by the modern generation as a form of friendly teasing and, when used by the camera fanatics themselves, even carries a hint of belonging (and pride? i wouldn't know, i'm a proud anti-camwhore). i just find it interesting.

so now we're into week 3 of the june holidays, and i'm not even halfway through my revision yet. i think i'm royally screwed if i keep this pace. honestly, i'm starting to feel a bit panicky, but is it too late to change anything now? i dunno, hopefully the situation can still be salvaged. and if teachers come looking for me just for not handing up homework, i imagine many talks with many teachers if i screw up the CTs. argh dammit.

this is the ending credits song for Portal. it's awesome because it's the ultimate in passive aggression :D and also it's been stuck in my head for days:

Too little, too late

Hi from Malacca! :D my brother brought along a laptop to our family holiday (so that he can play maplestory private server -.- ) and there's wireless at the hotel, so this is officially the first time i'm accessing the internet during an overseas trip. erm, yay for tech-savvy-ness?

yesterday the night hike group (or the H3 Fatty Bom Boms) finally decided to get together to spend the $50 swensens voucher that we won. earlier that day i went to the library to mug with bryan. got a bit of physics done, but still a far way away from finishing a decent amount of revision. zzz don't really wanna think about it...

so anyway the night hike group met up at the J8 swensens, all except j.tan and rayson (rayson's excuse was quite epic: he forgot that it was the day and was already in the cinema when we called) and we spent about $30 on a giant earthquake. we still have $20 left though, maybe rayson and j.tan can have a romantic candlelight dinner at swensens :D after dinner, tzumi and brenda left, so it was victor, gabby, edmund and myself talking cock at some residents' corner.

they really made me realise just how much of a difference the company can make in any situation; the people you are with can make the difference between one helluva awkward silence and a great time of nonsensical nonsense. are we trying hard enough? the general consensus on this side of the fence seems to be that we have tried more than enough, and that we are tired of trying, but maybe we need to try smart and not just hard (borrowing from that hackneyed motivational phrase). i think we need to start talking their language instead. not that we would know what that language is, seeing as we rarely even communicate at all. or maybe they're right, and it's all too late. to quote:

The time for bonding has come and gone.

the car trip this morning was extremely long, and it was made worse because we got lost (despite the fact that my father had a handy dandy gps -.- ). we reached in time for lunch, and after that was dessert which was chendol. i think chendol is like a national dish or something here, because they have it at literally every other food stall. and typically it's quality over quantity here; it's quite good, but the bowl is really small T_T at night there was a night market, then we went for a spin round town (and got lost again...) and now we're back here again.

many many random thoughts about random things. unfortunately, most of those thoughts are rather depressing. i guess that's what happens when you have to sit in a car for 4 hours. i don't really feel up to sorting them out now, so i think i'll just fit in this quote from the A7X song Gunslinger:

I won't question why so many have died, my friends have made it through

I don't get it; I don't want to get it

Blogger has been giving me problems these few days, hence the brief pause in updates (of course, those who know me well would know that most probably i'm just using this as a convenient scapegoat for my own laziness :P ). luckily, i realised that i can switch back to the old publisher, so i can finally update :D

monday and tuesday was the hockey chalet! i went over with marcus, kianboon and songko just in time for the bbq, where i introduced the valuable skill of eye-power to the juniors :) learn this well: next time you are at a bbq, just stand next to the pit with an empty plate. when people are done cooking, they will naturally load the food onto your plate. you can stand around and do nothing while still claiming to be helping out, and you get food served directly to you! :D nigel seng came later, and i stole some of the (half-cooked) satay he was cooking for himself. afterwards, besides the obligatory taiti sessions, we also watched the MTV movie awards (WTH New Moon got best movie?) and The Da Vinci Code (junqiu and his holy smite -.- ). the next day, we checked out and went to macdonald's for brunch (watching weishen and jianpeng forcing down their mega mcspicys made me feel full already; seriously, those things should be outlawed for presenting a direct and serious threat of stomach-bursting), then we went home. thanks juniors for the awesome chalet! :D

on thursday there was the OG10 outing! i arrived at marina square about 30min late (overslept :P ) but apparently i didn't miss much cos they were all so captivated by the doraemon exhibit -.- there were lionel, aditi, the two sarahs, huiqi and myself, and we were joined by geraldine and ann before watching The Karate Kid. awesome movie, and jaden smith makes me feel emo with his six-packs :( then huiqi had to go, and we went to marina barrage for kite-flying for the guys and camwhoring for the girls (i just don't get it), where aditi had to leave but we were joined by cass and sam. afterwards, geraldine and ann had to go, and we went back to city hall mrt to meet up with john and jason. dinner at carl's junior (which by the way is awesome, and completely eclipses macdonald's, burger king and mos burger as far as fast food chain burgers go), where we were trying to pry out scandals from sarah p and john, but sadly to no avail (next time!). aaand finally we went home. had a great time meeting up again, even if it wasn't the whole OG. OG10 ftw! :D

junjie just showed my the music video for Lady Gaga's song Alejandro, and quite honestly i'm f***ing freaked out by it. Lady Gaga's erratic streak has officially gone far beyond simply her fashion sense. words cannot describe how weird and disturbing this is, so i'm just gonna post it here. be warned though, do not watch this with your parents in the room. it may not technically be pornography, but i would not blame your parents for banning you from the computer if they catch you watching it. and on a related note, this is the first time i wouldn't blame christian fanatics or illuminati conspiracy theorists for lambasting a music video. so here's Alejandro by Lady Gaga. you have been warned:

Ashes to ashes

We scattered the ashes into the ocean today. i guess his wish has been fulfilled.

but honestly, i don't really care what happens to my body when it comes to my turn. after all, it's not like i'll be needing it anyway, even if there does exist an afterlife. whatever is most convenient, i guess.

i've been listening to Dear God a lot lately. awesome song. maybe my music taste is finally mellowing :/


Avenged Sevenfold, "Dear God" from TWENTYFOURCORE Productions on Vimeo.

The other path

For those of you who subscribe to the Straits Times, you'll know that the special report for this saturday is all about autism, and more specifically autism in adults. when i was a toddler, "trouble-maker" would have been the ultimate understatement to describe me. it was so bad that my mom got post-natal depression because of me. back then, everyone highly suspected that i was autistic; even the general practitioner also thought that way. even though i was never properly diagnosed by a psychologist, everyone who had ever met me at the time firmly believed that i was autistic. but seeing as how i'm functioning normally in society today (well, kind of normal), i always took my mom's words with a pinch of salt. but looking through the list of symptoms in today's paper, and comparing it with all the weird things i did back then, i have to say that it really does seem like i was autistic, at least mildly. or should i say "am autistic"? autism has no cure and one never grows out of it. if i was autistic then, doesn't that mean that i am now? i think most of my friends would never guess that about 14 years ago my nursery school teacher suggested to my parents to enroll me in a special school.

looking through the article, looking at what could be my fate if my autism was any worse, i realise just how bright that silver lining is amongst the dark clouds. i shudder to think what might have happened if my parents decided to heed the teacher's advice and send me to a special school. i might never have had the chance to fulfill my academic potential. in today's world, where the youth are constantly being criticised for not cherishing what they have, reflections like this are all the more important and valuable.

so anyway, it's back to the typical, self-centered anecdotes of the typical, self-centered youth now. what little SSBB skills i had are now slipping away T_T i predict that very soon my brother will be miles ahead of me, cos i'm too busy doing homework to properly practice. and speaking of homework, i am progressing with all the haste and speed of a tortoise climbing up an oil-slicked hill. slow and steady only wins the race when it's not a time trial, and the coming few months will be the ultimate trial by fire.

the coming few days will be rather packed compared to the last few days i spent steadily decomposing at home, and while i do feel excited over the hockey chalet and OG10 outing ( :D ), all this will slow down my homework progress even further ( :( ). i frankly cannot picture myself finishing everything before the end of the month, let alone all the stuff left over from term 2.

here's a song from The Dillinger Escape Plan, one of the pioneer mathcore bands (mathcore is basically metalcore with extremely complex and varying rhythms). most of their stuff is way too hardcore for me, but i really like this song, which is one of their most mellow offerings. so here's Black Bubblegum:

Holidays start today?

Today's H3 physics exam went about as well as all the others. in other words, it went horribly. but seriously, i don't give a damn anymore. it's all finally passed me by. H3 physics is over. i think any extra elaboration is unnecessary :D finally got the chance to play SSBB again. i swear i'm addicted to it, but i don't give a damn about that either.

yeah, my mood was kind of down immediately after the test, but after a few hours of SSBB i was finally starting to get in the groove of the actual holidays... until i received an sms about tomorrow's NE Odyssey. i can honestly say that i have completely and utterly forgot all about it, and i would have been unaware of it the entire of tomorrow if not for that sms. blissfully unaware too, i might add. but now they've sent the message and there's no way for me to feign ignorance anymore -.-

and discerning listeners may have noticed that i modified the little music player by the side of the blog there. i decided to update and streamline it to reflect my current top 20 playlist. hopefully in future i'll be able to motivate myself to keep it updated maybe monthly or something. and i've received feedback from friends who read my blog (people read the blog! holy crap! :D )that the song choices are a bit... shall we say non-mainstream? well actually it's not just those who read the blog; just about anyone who's ever heard nearly anything from my mp3 player has commented on my music taste. well, then i might as well rename this "YOUR Blog", shouldn't i, since everything will be based on your suggestions? come on man, i already have an insanity disclaimer (top right, in case you haven't seen it), so you can't really expect very normal music here, can you?

argh and now i have to reach school by 9am tomorrow. and we'll be ending up at the philatelic museum (STAMPS. freaking stamp museum -.- ). ok, i take back what i said: holidays start tomorrow.