That sanity's left us all blind, and dragged us all behind

The problem with reading GP content packages, besides the fact that they are thick enough to kill people with (and you will feel the urge to after reading through those monstrosities), is that they always send your brain into overdrive with all the new facts, and more importantly, all the subtle ideas they try to plant into your head. that's right, even though they are supposed to be neutral, they do sometimes slant towards one side or the other. the science, technology and medicine package, for example, is quite obviously slanted towards pro-science. the way that opponents of genetically-modified organisms are portrayed seems to hint that they like to harp on a minority of failed scientific forays and exaggerate them until it seems like all future research will undoubtedly fail like those few examples have, with the obligatory doomsday message sandwiched somewhere in between. even though it's supposed to a neutral package with the sole aim of providing content with which to base your GP essays, i found myself becoming pro-GMO at the end of the package (i was already pro-GMO before, but it basically cemented my stance).

ok, i digress. the point is, people can believe in completely contrasting views and make sense to themselves while simultaneously appearing absurd to each other. just as how a pro-GMO individual sees all the reason in the world to support further research and laughs at the foolishness of anti-GMO sentiments, so does the anti-GMO advocate assure himself with the simple logic by which he denounces pro-GMO actions. in spite of the fact that either would spit on the logical thought process of the other, we still come to the general consensus that both are sane because, at the very least, they follow some sort of logic. the hallmark of sanity, after all, is logical thinking, even if it's logic that only you can see. it really begs the question, why are crazy people deemed crazy? is it because us sane people cannot see their logic? that seems a bit hypocritical, doesn't it?

ok, here's a random thought i've had in my head for a few days. it's got to do with justin bieber. yup, that guy. some of us love him, most of us hate him. personally, i cannot stand his music at all. notice how i said that i hate his music, not him. i've seen some pretty unflattering things about justin on the internet, ranging from rage-fueled spam comments on his youtube videos to footage of him accidentally walking into a door and whatnot. most recently, someone threw a bottle at his head during one of his concerts. like i've said, i hate his music, but i draw the line at personal attacks. if he was any other 16-year-old, would random strangers really be merciless enough to exaggerate his every mistake on a public medium like youtube or even attack him with a thrown projectile? probably not. but because he is justin bieber, he has to put up with that and more. remember that underneath the pop star wannabe is a 16-year-old kid who's living his dream. if you're not going to support him, at least don't throw bottles at his head.

random: i am addicted to this song right now, Pussyfoot by Sikth. mindblowing everything, including lyrics:

Sheep-ridden country
They pretend that's it's so free
Falling, they're bleeding, never really question
Why they die

Swim in the lake of death
Eaten by crocodiles
So
No one saw, no one cares

Can you see beyond this?
Or does everything swamp your mind?

I don't like the way
Tradition makes people believe
Like a robot saying: "All be happy"
My point exactly

You see,
You're all the same
Dirty, f**kers gone insane
Hope there's an earthquake and it swallows all evil

Open (your mouth)
Maybe
You'll find life
One day
You may see

Listen, these words may well
Teach you (to appreciate)
Yourself
And not to follow (live before dying)
But don't-be-a-lone

This is not life you're living now
Don't let the f**kers make you frown
Look in their eyes, there's nothing true
It's up to you what you're gonna do
This is your life, do not ignore
Look deep within, is there something more?
Think what to do before you act
Bleed on the floor 'til you...

Just try
To think your
Own thoughts

Sheep-ridden country
They pretend it's so free
Falling, they're bleeding
But never really question why they die

So when you fall people watch you as you start to bleed
No pay per view, this show is free

You must ask yourself,
Why am I here and what for..?

And when you die,
People, they will always cry
Only one thing is that you must be
Yourself while you're living

Live life live life now!

To be like all the same
Dammit, there's no use
For you to have a name
Sheep 1 and sheep 2
The 2 of you

You really need to speak
I'll listen to you
Before you bleed
To be untrue
Bleed...

Live life live life...

Stand up
On your two feet
Nobody's piece of meat
Don't listen to the fashion f**kers on TV

So now you spit
Back in the face
Of things that control and dissolve your mind

Why can't you shout out
And why can't you
Be yourself, f**k what others think
To be proud, to be you, must be
You
Don't need to follow

Too lazy to look within yourself
Is there something you don't want to know
Or don't want to see?

Why not let your mind grow?
Why exclude the unknown?
Maybe you also could be...

Sikth

Here's what happened: i woke up at 11am, slept at around 2pm after lunch, and woke up again at 7.30pm. when i wasn't sleeping or eating, mostly i was listening to songs from this band i just discovered today, called Sikth. i think they're classified as progressive/avant garde/mathcore, and personally i find that their style is kind of like The Dillinger Escape Plan + Protest The Hero + Pinkly Smooth. i really don't know what else to say, so have a listen:



i find it quite interesting that even within the metal genre as a whole, there are also certain "mainstream" and "alternative" genres. bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica, and Avenged Sevenfold's modern style are kind of the "mainstream" kind of metal and what people usually first listen to when they get exposed to it. then you have screamo and metalcore bands like old A7X and Bullet For My Valentine, which take a bit of getting used to. beyond that, even the regular tempo of songs gets tweaked with, and you get progressive metalcore and mathcore like Protest The Hero and The Dillinger Escape Plan. and, of course, Sikth. well, now i kind of realise how deep i've gotten myself into, seeing how barely any of my friends can fully appreciate PTH, and absolutely nobody whom i know personally can sit through an entire TDEP song. soooo i have kind of marginalised mysel musically? :O

i'm still a bit disappointed in spending majority of the day sleeping. you'en says that it's probably due to burnout from overworking throughout the weekdays, and i think he's right. or maybe i'm just making myself feel better by blaming it all on "working too hard". oh well.

PS: i was too late; Sikth had already disbanded years before i discovered them :(

Monster

In the face of harsh conditions, we evolve.

A shell protects a fragile heart
Spines keep enemies at bay
Claws strike out in self-defence
Fangs to bare, they gleam for miles

But within the shell we lose the heart
Spines keep even friends away
Claws scratch all held by our hands
And with our fangs we lose our smiles

i think what we all worry about deep inside is that we will evolve into monsters.

200th post

Dare you claim that idealism is wrong?

The academic crunch draws ever closer, and we start becoming more panicky, more desperate. things which we once thought were wrong suddenly seem much less so; after all, desperate times call for desperate measures, don't they? one by one, we start to abandon what we deem to be less important, with the reasoning that we shouldn't even be concerning ourselves with such trivial matters in the first place. after all, what could be more important than the A levels, right? who cares about integrity, or respect, or the fundamental duty of students to attend school and all it's lessons? how could anyone consider for even the slightest moment that any of that could be more important than getting that laminated slip of paper? i mean, come on, it has that logo printed on it. that LOGO!


our lives are interwoven into those around us, and every action we take causes a ripple effect on the people we interact with. don't forget that for every useless lesson we skip, there's a teacher wondering what he or she did wrong to fail to instill a sense of responsibility in us.


call me idealistic, but i still believe that character development is more important than academic development. in a world of people, we don't survive by interacting with numbers or graphs, but by interacting with people. don't forget that no matter what, we are people first and academics second, and the only way to succeed in this world of people is to possess the very same qualities which we demonstrate a complete lack of when we throw all our moral values to the ground and hit the books.

but at the end of the day, when you can see the significant behind the trivial, that is when you have truly opened your eyes. when you see the usefulness of the useless lessons, that is when you know that 12 years in the education system have not been in vain.

call me idealistic, but dare you claim that idealism is wrong?

Legacy

Had a chat with xianzheng and farouq after school today, just to find out how NJ Hockey has been doing since i stepped down, and frankly i'm quite proud of them. i'm fairly confident that they will eventually overtake my batch and become an even better team. with more training coming up from now till the A divs (especially the golden period of december), and perhaps a stroke of luck in the groupings, i think they can go far. of course, there are still some problems left over from my batch that they have still been unable to solve, but those are things which are beyond their control and which i do not blame them for. all in all, i'm simply glad that i played my small part in subtly guiding them to what they are today :)

when it is the circumstances that force the communication, and not the the communication that creates the circumstances: that is how you know there is still much to be done.

and i just realised that it's only a week till prelims.

Stairway to Heaven

You'd think that you'd know best where your limits are, but many people misjudge their true capabilities. there are instances when we are capable of so much more, but our self-confidence falters and we lower our targets to fit our perceived abilities. we may succeed, but personal victory will elude us as we fail to reach our individual zeniths of achievement. complacency creeps into the mind, and soon we find ourselves unable to break through the glass ceiling which we have ironically created for ourselves; a self-fulfilling prophecy of incompetence.

On the other hand, aiming too high could have its own drawbacks if not handled properly. failing to reach our unrealistic targets will only serve to chisel at the tiny fault lines in our resolve; the little whispers of "are you really good enough?" and "do you really think you can do that?" which form hairline cracks all over our minds. eventually, the cracks will deepen and everything will split wide open, leaving our weaknesses exposed to every criticism and insult out there.

which is why you always use a stepladder to reach for the stars: little personal victories, slowly progressing onward and culminating in that final goal that seemed so distant at the bottom of the steps.

now if only i could start adhering to my own words of advice. when everyone looks up to you to achieve the unimaginable, it's easy to look down and succumb to vertigo, wishing that you were back on the ground with both feet planted solidly on earth. when you've climbed to a certain height, it becomes very difficult to simply accept the cheering and support down below. you start to lose faith in words of encouragement and focus more on the ladder rung in front of you which looks set to break at the slightest draft. then the really heavy questions start setting in:

can i even make it to the next step?

isn't this high enough already?

Delaying the inevitable decision

Well, i wouldn't call it a nervous breakdown; no, that would be much too extreme, but something definitely happened this morning. it all started with physics, when i realised that i kept making stupid careless mistakes, mistakes that even a secondary school kid wouldn't be making; in fact, some of those mistakes i made before in secondary school, and thought i had learned from. evidently though, nothing sank in from those juvenile times past. it just got even worse when i tried doing maths maclaurin series, which i have clean forgotten. i just got generally frustrated: frustrated over not being able to do questions from SH1, frustrated over getting arguably the worst maths teacher in the college, frustrated at myself basically. quite predictably, that kind of mindset did nothing to help with the maths, so i kind of spiraled downwards a bit. thanks to lionel and lishang for snapping me out of it :) at this point, mental endurance is really as important, if not more important than intellectual capability. the key is to keep a positive attitude towards everything, because negativity will do nothing to help the situation now.

i went to the NUS talk on admissions, courses and scholarships today. i think i've finally found the course i want to enroll in: engineering science :D it's basically engineering, with side modules to learn the science behind what you're studying. in other words, it's the best of both worlds, for me anyway. now that i have a clear view of what i want to study, there're still the questions of where and how.

and speaking of how, i have to decide by tomorrow whether or not i want to apply for a PSC scholarship or not. i have to admit that through my time in NJC, i've developed some sort of desire to serve and lead, but i'm not sure if i'm willing to compromise on my wish to do research. which do i value more, the prestige of the scholarship and the satisfaction of becoming a leader, or the chance to go into an industry i've always been interested in? and should i factor in that the school might be disappointed if i don't try for the PSC scholarship? of course by right this should be all my decision, but by left there's a lot of stuff i also have to factor in. can't decide can't decide can't decide T_T i think i need to consult mrs hue one more time before i come to my final decision.

it's a fact that we are two very different groups of people; it's precisely because of that that we have to stop expecting them to become more like us. we have to move beyond awareness and tolerance of each other, and eventually learn to appreciate and integrate each other into our lives.

on a more light-hearted note, i'm completely obsessed with these earphones that i read about in Digital Life:

the earphones actually vibrate so that you hear music through bone conduction in addition to air conduction! :D this technology has been used before in "earclips" which are kind of like tiny speakers you clip behind your earlobes which let you hear sound by vibrating your earlobes, but the common drawback is the lack of sound quality in the mid-high frequencies. these earphones get the best of both worlds by transmitting bass notes through bone conduction and mid-high frequencies through air conduction! i was expecting high-tech gizmotry like this to cost hundreds of dollars, but it's actually only $70, which is reasonably higher than what you would pay for mid-range quality earphones. if you were planning to get something for me for some reason, then *hinthint* :D

An Epic of Time Wasted

Really, i barely spent any time doing anything constructive. i spent the entire of friday's study session writing out my 3 CCA write-ups for the SGC, only to find out that the KM administrators literally forgot about us (the drop-down menu for choosing your class only goes to 09SH26 -.- the last class always gets forgotten). then saturday wasn't much more productive anyway, only managed to inch through a bit of chem and econs. and on sunday... about that later.

about the SGC write-up: i have no idea what i'm supposed to do. nobody has any idea what we're supposed and not supposed to include in it. i really wish that the school had gone into greater detail about what is the whole purpose of it. is it supposed to flaunt our CCA achievements? or express our personal qualities? do we include as many achievements as we can or just take one to focus on? it's all so ambiguous and confusing, and the worse part is that any screw-up will be permanently in our SGC D:

have you guys heard of One Moment of Glory? AKA OMG? it's kind of like Singapore's Got Talent, except there's the added element of contestants being able to challenge each other instead of judges or voters having absolute power over who should be sent home. so anyway, my uncle had some friends who were competing, so he got us tickets to watch the recording at Mediacorp on sunday. being at the recording is really nothing like watching the programme at home, and i don't mean it in a good way. there are pauses when they are setting up equipment or the judges are backstage deciding on their vote when there'll be this guy who tries to keep us entertained by playing minigames and giving away prizes, but the novelty wears off really fast. there are some perks to it, i have to say. you get to see the behind-the-scenes interactions between the judges and the hosts, which is quite refreshing. and of course you get to see the outcome of the show a week or so earlier, if you follow it. so if you really like the show or if your friends are competing, then it's a really enjoyable time, otherwise, prepare for stuff like clapping and laughing and oohing and aahing non-stop for a minute so that they can get stock footage.

i can't believe that i actually went to a TV recording when there's only a week left till prelims. stupid me, STUPID ME. it's all coming too fast.

"Hi sir, do you need help?"

"Don't we all?"

I got back my A level chinese results today and lo and behold, it's a B again. well, i'm now fairly convinced that B is my limit, and like i said near the beginning of the year, "wild horses cannot drag me to retake chinese again". so yup, no way i'm gonna take it a third time. i'm concentrating everything i've got on the A levels.

For leadership today, the school called back an old boy to talk about the Senior's Gift programme, which is basically the school asking everyone for a small monetary contribution before they graduate: $2, $5, $10 or higher. i think that it's reasonable enough, considering that the school hadn't really bugged us for donations until now. somehow, i suddenly became quite annoyed by people being cynical about the whole thing. i don't mean the usual poking fun at the school management, i'm talking about people who genuinely plan on brushing their shoulders and leaving the school after two whole years and contributing absolutely nothing. if you're one of those people, i have a few things to say to you.

why should we contribute to the school? the school spirit is so thin, i can barely feel it. i don't even feel a part of this place, so why should i care to donate?
when there's a school event, do you participate? i'm not talking about being a hyper little energizer bunny, i'm just talking about keeping your mind open and basically not putting down every little suggestion and effort that the organisers have made, "just because". if you don't, then can you really blame anyone for not being able to feel the school spirit? school spirit is fostered mainly through school events, so don't expect to suddenly love the school if all you've done thus far is play with your handphone and complain about the lack of air conditioning. the relationship with the school, just like any other relationship, is two-way.

the school is pathetic. the facilities are ridiculously run-down. i hated my stay here. no way i'm gonna give anything for an experience as bad as this.
let's clarify one thing here: NJC's pretty good already. seriously, considering its age and the fact that it's government-funded, it's being kept pretty well already, when compared to other government-funded JCs. of course, most of the time we're comparing with RJC and HCI, since together with VJC and NJC they're supposed to be the "big 4" of JCs in singapore. well, here's a newsflash: RJC and HCI are privately-funded, which basically means "they have loads of money". it's a fact we all should have known before we even came here, and it's a fact that cannot be blamed on the school (being the first JC and all, it would have been pretty hard to not be government-funded, yeah?).

if i give them money, they're just gonna spend it on something useless anyway. since i'm not gonna see the changes i want to see, what's the point of donating?
here's the thing: most of the things on our NJC wishlist (material wishes anyway, since we're talking about money) are big: a new LT, a new study area, renovations, air conditioning installed here and there. of course there's nothing wrong with having big wishes (what's the point of wishing if you can't wish big, right?), but in reality these wishes have to be constructed to fruition, and not magically formulated into existence by a genie. and when there's construction, people will complain. already we complain every day about the construction of the JH library and indoor sports hall, so there's no denying that.
so if the school can't do anything involving construction without significant public resistance, they're confined to refining the small details instead: study benches, canteen tables, clocks, et cetera. so do we have anything to complain about then? of course we do. we complain that the changes are small, insignificant, a waste of our money. so basically, we want to teleport from point A to point B without any sort of transition phase. here's a parallel: according to evolutionary theory, when a species evolves from a less adapted form to a more adapted form, it always has to go through a transition phase where it's less adapted than both the initial and final phases. in short, things have to get worse before they get better.
and of course, how does the school even know what we want in the first place? through feedback, of course. except feedback boxes are basically makeshift rubbish bins, and feedback sessions are essentially extended awkward silences. so not only do they have to transform the school overnight, they also have to read our minds to know what to transform the school into in the first place. we might as well ask them to create perpetual power and world peace while we're at it.

we're all 17, 18-year-olds. soon we'll all be technically adults. it's high time "mocking the school just because it's our school" went out of fashion.




and in case you can't stand listening to metal, here's a short excerpt:


All the way from the east to the west
We've got this high society looking down on this very foundation
Constantly reminding us that our actions are the cause of all their problems
Pointing the fingers in every direction
Blaming their own nation for who wins elections
They've never contributed a fucking thing to the country they love to criticize

Good friend?

When you fall,

A friend will pick you up, so that you won't be lying in the dirt.

An enemy will scold you, so that you won't feel like getting back up.

A true friend will do both, so that you will learn never to trip again.

I hope i'm striking the right balance. i hope i'm being a good friend. but if i'm not, then forgive me and let someone else pick you up, so that my words were not in vain.

A reason

i remember not long ago i was talking about how some songs tend to make you recall forgotten memories. well, today i just discovered another song that has that effect on me. and now that i have such painful memories attached to this song, i hope i won't ever have to listen to it again. yet i know full well that i will hear it again, and again, and again. because nothing is precious if it lasts forever.

the reason why we live is because someday we will die.

Does apathy equate to a loss of humanity?

Supersymmetry

I went for the blood donation drive today, which was something that i've always wanted to do for a very long time. i would have gone last year, except i was in boarding school and forgot to let my parents sign the form T_T so basically, you start off by completing a health questionnaire, then your blood pressure gets checked. after that, they check your blood haemoglobin levels by pricking your finger (honestly i didn't feel anything at all). after you get the all clear, the fear-inducing parts come, and it was even worse for me because me nurse had a very large "trainee" tag. so anyway, you get a local anesthesia jab in your arm, which felt surprisingly non-painful, even less so than those vaccination shots you get with the impossibly thin needles. then the big needle comes in; the biggest needle i've ever seen, even larger than the one used to draw blood samples during the NS checkup. the panic was definitely there for a split second as the needle gleamed in the light, but it was actually less painful than the anesthesia jab. of course it's common sense that the jab after the anesthesia wouldn't hurt, but judging from the sheer size of the needle i thought that it was only supposed to mildly suppress the pain. so anyway, you lie down in the chair for about 15min hooked up to a bag of your own blood, which is actually kinda cool. i couldn't resist prodding the bag just to see what it felt like, until the nurse warned me to stop :P and when it's all over, you get to rest in the refreshment lounge, with free flow of biscuits and drinks :D and you also get two weeks worth of vanilla-flavoured iron supplements! :D all in all, i'd say that the stigma surrounding blood donation really is just a "fear factor" thing; there honestly isn't anything painful about it at all.

i think i might have to make it a ritual to stay back after school to study. as much as i hate to admit it, it has proven to be far more effective than studying at home, and when it comes down to the crunch i think it's safe to say that all of us will be perfectly willing to push far beyond our comfort zones just to survive.

maybe it's not so much a line of separation as it is a line of symmetry. maybe we shaped our own mirror. maybe our mirror can shape us.

Well I think Dudeskull is an awesome name

I am crazy over this right now: it's possibly the most epic pokemon-related argument ever. this is precisely the reason why people think pokemon is childish. there will be no other topic in this post; such is the awesomeness of this link that an entire post has been dedicated to it.

Light at the end of the tunnel

I thought that 5 days seemed long enough, but then i blinked. now, we've just passed day 5 and i've barely moved from where i stood on day 1.

well, i did learn how to ride a swaveboard, which by the way is this thing:

yeah, quite tricky to pick up. i think it would definitely help to have some background in snowboarding, or skateboarding to a lesser extent, to get over the instinctive phobia of leaning into the curves :X but it's also one of the most impractical wheeled thingy ever. the bicycle helps you go faster than running; rollerblades also speed you up to a lesser extent, but at the same time allow for (albeit awkward) walking movements up steps and stuff; even the skateboard helps you go faster on downhill tracks. the swaveboard, however, seems to have only one objective, which is to make getting from A to B that much more difficult. well, looks kind of cool in any case.

ok it's random, but here's a list of things i want to do after A levels (it's definitely incomplete at the moment):

play SSBB with people who are not my brothers (my ultimate showdown with nigel has been pending for close to three quarters of a year now).
get sonic colour (hopefully it will be released before i go into NS :X )
get new rollerblades (the old ones are in terrible shape now; i haven't worn them in forever)
re-learn how to rollerblade (related to previous point; hopefully this won't take too long)
get a swaveboard (?)
re-enter the pokemon metagame (i am so seriously out of touch right now)
sign up for the A*STAR research attachment (this will depend on when i have to enlist)
start preparing for NS (not so much "want to" than "have to")

focusing on the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Giving Tree

i remember my father telling me this story 4 or 5 years ago. back then, i didn't fully understand how remarkably simple and yet powerful and moving it is. well, now i do, and this very simple children's tale is now officially one of the best books i have ever come across, if not the best. the cartoon makes it all the more impactful: a lone man telling his story, with nothing but time and a harmonica. truly amazing.

Elitism

My younger brother is P6 this year, studying in Ai Tong School, which was my primary school too. he was telling my family about his national day celebrations. this year, they had this special programme for the P6s where they could choose one of three secondary schools to go to to join in the festivities, to get a feel of secondary school life. the concept is quite novel and meaningful, but in practice it was butchered. different classes were offered different schools from which the students could choose: 6A to 6C students could choose between RI, HCI and RGS, while 6D to 6J students could only choose from Kuo Chuan Presbyterian, Bishan Park Sec and Peirce Sec. a little background information: classes are streamed alphabetically, such that A is the "best" class and J is the "worst" class. see a pattern now? truly, this is elitism at its worst and ugliest. i wonder how many of the students could see that the school was obviously favouring the top classes, and how many didn't have a clue what was going on. my brother, from 6F, was (mercifully?) oblivious to it all. how could they start labeling children at such a young age? as trained teachers and principals, shouldn't it have occurred to them that kids at this age are sensitive and could be adversely affected by such dismissive behaviour? really, really disappointed. i can't believe that it used to be my primary school.

ok, so anyway the national day parade was also today. quite enjoyable, i must say. the music was also interesting, with many updates of old songs. there was a techno/dance (?) version of Five Stars Arising, and also a rap/classical fusion of another national day song (the name escapes me now). i think i noticed a pattern in the national day songs. in the very early years, the songs were all over-the-top patriotic, then they started toning it down and making the songs more pop-oriented. at the end of the day, however, it's still the horribly cheesy songs from singapore's history that are still the most popular and memorable ones. how many people remember the national day song from maybe 3 or 4 years ago, and how many people can sing classics like Stand Up For Singapore and Home on the spot? i think the situation in which the songs are created matter more than the songs themselves. when there was a genuine need for singaporeans to come together, when it was either stand as one or fall as many, then no matter what the song, people will sing it.

i am currently spending my study time surfing youtube for funny videos, and i don't know whether to type :D or D: so i'll do neither and post this video instead:

BLEACH THE FLOUR TO GET WHITE BREAD

Went to AMK library with bryan, zm and siyun yesterday. 4A reunion! well, sort of; 4/40 of a class is still a start, right? so anyway we were pretty much studying the entire way. first part if the day was rather wasted for me, cos all i could manage to do was stare deeply into my notes but not absorb anything. well, at least looking like you're studying is halfway to actually studying, right? well, actually no, but at least i feel marginally better about myself now. second part of the day was better though. i finally motivated myself to start on the chem revision packs, which i've been putting off in favour of every other scrap of homework up till now. i guess it's partly thanks to panyu forgetting to return my math revision pack that i'm now forced to start on chem, so i guess it's a blessing in disguise?

zm and siyun went back first, so bryan and i stayed back to talk nonsense. what with all the mad rush of exams, it's been so long since i've had a good chat with him. quite refreshing to talk about everything under sun (at night) again :D

i was suddenly thinking about how certain songs have certain special meanings to us. i guess it's like what bryan blogged about: the right song playing at the right time, and suddenly melody and memory become inseparable. a few songs do indeed carry a special place in my heart: for example, Burn It Down always reminds me of 2am days in boarding school last year, because i was hooked on the song at the time. Afterlife is always nostalgic for being the first A7X and general metal song i ever heard (outside the library with bryan and you'en, i still remember). and Dear God holds a much stronger memory, albeit a painful one. for some reason, i have a feeling that So Far Away and Save Me are just waiting to be played at the right time to be sealed in my mind forever. it's probably the lyrics that catch my attention.

oh ok, here's something extremely random that i absolutely must put here. if bryan, zm or siyun see this they'll probably roll their eyes because i was so flabbergasted during our study session, but i feel that it deserves even more attention! so here goes: i read in a chem question that flour actually has to be bleached by Cl2O to be made into white bread? like, seriously? you bleach the flour to make white bread. am i the only one who finds this absurd in it's literal cause-and-effect relationship between bleaching and white bread? it's like someone said "we need to clean up the mexican gulf oil spill" and then starts wiping the ocean surface with a cloth, and it worked. it's... it's ridiculous! and yet it's what's actually happening! i'm sorry for the lack of sanity right now, but my mind has officially exploded.

If you want your life, earn it.

This isn't aimed at anyone in particular. it may seem familiar to you, which might convince you to think otherwise, but i'm just talking about a common trend i've observed in many people. take it as a criticism of our generation (i used "our" because i'm aware that i have also been guilty of such acts), and if you find that you've done all this before then just focus on becoming a better person.

i've seen people thinking and declaring the contrary for so long that i decided that i just had to speak up today: education, no matter how arduous the journey, is a blessing, not a curse. it's what many people across land and time have dreamed of obtaining (our parents and forefathers included). of course, there's no denying that it's a very trying time, but so are many other life transformations. so many times i've seen people blessed with a life comfortable enough to afford the luxury of education and yet complaining about every little setback that they encounter that it's nauseating.

from a purely utilitarian point of view, education puts food on the table. the more time you spend building castles in the sky and fantasizing about dream jobs, the less likely you will be to actually attain them. seriously, when was the last time a wildly successful individual said in an interview that their reason for success was waiting for happiness to be served on a silver platter? success has to be earned. do you realise how arrogant it sounds to want everything to fall into place for you on your command?

then there's the grander view of education as a triumph of humanity. the thing that separates men from the beasts is our constant and enduring search for the truth of the world we live in, rather than simply accepting it blindly. by proclaiming your dislike of school and wishing that you could simply idle your time away every day, what then differentiates you from your pet dog?

no one said that life would be easy. in fact, many people have warned the exact opposite, and i'm going to drill it in again: life will be hard. note the use of an absolute term, which implies certainty. yes, life will be hard; it can be rewarding if you work towards it, but it will definitely be difficult. the true winners in life are those who actually work towards overcoming the obstacles instead of sitting and crying and hoping for some nonexistent mollycoddling higher figure to kiss their boo-boo and give them a lollipop. it's natural and human to occasionally complain about life's little grinds. it's natural to despair and panic, but only if you later resolve to grit your teeth and work harder. but it's absolutely intolerable to make the same complaints day in and day out and then do nothing about it. after all, if you're truly gritting your teeth, then you wouldn't be opening your mouth to whine.

09SH28

The national day celebration had its fair share of ups and downs. ok, maybe more of downs. after all, when the highlight of your performance is a group of aeroplanes flying overhead, you know something's wrong. at times.

but of course, that wasn't the highlight of the day. the highlight, in fact, was the inaugural 09SH28 outing! :D that's right, there's a new class, consisting the guys from 25 and 27. all together we have around 24 people in our class (which is quite standard for a class in NJC, actually), and about 19 of us turned up for the outing, which beats any of the previous 25 or 27 outings hands-down in terms of both absolute numbers and percentages. i can totally imagine life becoming ten times as awesome as it is now if 28 was an actual class, but i guess you just have to make do with what you have. so anyway we went to the cathay to buy inception tickets for the four or five of us who haven't watched it yet (AKA the losers lol) and despicable me tickets for those who have. they were sold out on inception so we split up and the four of them went over to plaza singapura while the rest of us ate/played monopoly deal/taiti at aston's, before watching despicable me.

despicable me is really good! with the voice of the protagonist, Gru, being acted out by steve carell, it doesn't take much to guess that this will be a comedy, and as a comedy it definitely doesn't disappoint, with a very entertaining combination of wisecracks from Gru and slapstick comedy from the minions. and yet under all that, it still manages to be touching near the end. not toy story 3 standards, mind you, but a respectable effort for a movie that is still largely a comedy. if it wasn't for inception, i'd say that this is definitely the summer must-watch.

due to some stuff that happened, panyu now has my maths revision package, meaning that i can't start on maths during this long weekend. pity, and it's during the long weekend too (that i'm sad over this perfectly illustrates that i'm already in my mugger mode).

chin introduced this song to me in the morning. it's a mash-up of Jay-Z's 99 Problems and Linkin Park's Point Of Authority and One Step Closer. really like the matching beat of the rapping with the band in the background; i think rap metal could be my next musical obsession.

New second home

I am so much more productive in school than i am at home. thanks to my handphone's state-of-the-art facebook-filtering software (i.e. the lack of wi-fi capabilities), i am completely shielded from the siren-like temptations of facebook and the rest of the internet. and when all your friends are mugging beside you, it's hard not to get peer-pressured into studying.

the pressure has become really suffocating for some of us. it seems that cries of "FML" are becoming more and more frequent, as well as criticisms of the immense stress in NJC. i can't deny that the stress is at an all-time high, but i hesitate before blaming it all on the school. after all, haven't we been warned that this will be our toughest year yet? haven't we been cautioned that trying times are coming? nostalgia for our simpler, more carefree secondary school days is to be expected, but we can't realistically expect this exam to be the same as the last. after all, there's a reason why that was the Ordinary levels and this is the Advanced levels. most probably this is something that students all over singapore are facing, and pointing the finger at the school is the last thing we should be doing. instead, if there is no way to change the situation to fit you, then change yourself to fit the situation. these few days i've been living by a new motto: whether i like it or not, NJC has become my second home. so i might as well like it.

national day celebrations later today, so we've decided to take a break and have a combined 25/27 movie outing to watch Despicable Me! ok actually it's only 8 of us, but it sounds so much more impressive this way.

by the way, i'm completely re-addicted to Sidewinder again for some reason :D it just has such a unique quality about it; heavy yet melodic, with a very exotic tune, and interesting lyrics.

Criticism where criticism is due

Nothing much worth mentioning happened during school time today, except maybe that i fell asleep during chem lecture and was literally pulled out of my sleep by ms lim. a kick worthy of an Inception sequel (this is meant in sarcasm; i do NOT want to see a sequel. it would just ruin the first movie).

after school i stayed back in the library to study with a bunch of 27s and 25s, until the blaring sound of bollywood music from the parade square forced its way through the glass windows and distracted us enough to abandon our work and take a sneak peek at friday's festivities. most of it was spent hearing bryan, you'en, edmund and darrell discuss the execution of the marching drills; it seems to be the only thing that former UG members can talk about whenever they see people marching. probably because of the very strong emphasis on loyalty, pride and discipline, ex-UG members always seem to be very attached to their CCAs even long after leaving. when MOE said that CCAs would teach students lessons which cannot be learned in a classroom setting, i'm pretty sure that it was referring to UGs in particular. i wonder if i would have turned out a very different person if i joined a UG instead during secondary school. perhaps i would have greater discipline and self-pride? maybe i would be less cynical about such intangible qualities like loyalty and integrity? who knows; as a believer of chaos theory, i'd have to say that literally anything is possible.

i like to think of myself as a pacifist. whenever i meet with some sort of injustice, a potent cocktail of apathy and sloth prevents me from planning and exacting any sort of vengeance. in short, i just like to let it slide. but where is the line that indicates that someone has done too much wrong and simply cannot be left alone without any sort of reprimanding? no matter how much you just want to let bygones be bygones, there will come a time when enough is enough and action needs to be taken. the question then is how much responsibility i have to make sure that this person gets just desserts. do i simply sit back and wait for fate to work its magic, or do i step in to do something and become a hand of fate? no matter how inappropriate it is, no matter how much you think you owe that person, there will come a time where you have to step up and wake that person up. the question is: is it time now?

this is very random, but there's this song that i've been addicted to these past few days which doesn't come from Nightmare. this song is called The Call Of Ktulu by Metallica, and it's an amazing instrumental piece:

Blitzkrieg

To put it very crudely and succinctly, "shit's getting real". as time continues its steady and emotionless march, stress starts to creep into people's minds. some of us fall prey directly, sinking into hopelessness and despair. others get hit by the ricochets, as panic-stricken parents start using desperate measures to counter these very desperate times. to a certain extent, everyone has been burned. all of a sudden, half-forgotten rumours of seniors completely breaking down under the pre-A level pressure become much more convincing than just mere rumours. as a mere student and a fellow cog in the clockwork of the system, i don't have much advice to offer, except maybe to take comfort in the knowledge that you are definitely not alone. no matter how lonely you feel you are, your friends will be somewhere out there fighting the battle with you.

97 days, guys. and that's not yet counting the actual duration of the A levels. it's gonna be a 4-month blitzkrieg, but at the end of it all victory awaits. ready your victory flags, because i don't want to see a single white flag out there.

Random thoughts

Amazing what a nail-clipper can do. i don't think i'll have to wear sandals anymore, and PE probably won't be an issue either. haha, sorry for being melodramatic guys :P still, even though it doesn't hurt much anymore, it looks like another few months before it grows back to a "normal" length i.e. stops looking weird. guess i'll be wearing shoes more often now.

being a rather visual learner personally, i can usually grasp concepts by reading through notes. of course lectures and tutorials help a great deal, but given enough time on my own with the proper reading material (and that could be a lot of time), i think i can probably get most of it eventually. as a result of this, i've always resented doing long tutorials, such as virtually all econs and GP homework, with the thought that i already know all of this somewhere in the recesses of my mind, and that having to physically write it out is just a waste of time and wrist strength. luckily, i grew out of that phase: knowing is not the same as doing. you can have encyclopedia britannica memorised in your mind, but unless you know what and when to draw upon then it's all useless trivia. in this world, intellectual capacity is measured not solely by breadth and depth of knowledge, but also the efficiency with which it can be applied, because the world isn't a timeless intellectual playground to stroll through and await enlightenment, but one where deadlines and due dates stare you down everywhere you go. so what if you can solve the problem in a day? the world demands someone who can solve it in an hour, and as long as people like that do exist, you will be totally ignored if you cannot keep up. for once, i find myself supporting the singapore education system for drilling problem-solving techniques.

a sudden random thought popped into my head about the advancement of technology. i just realised a bit of a similarity between the process of technological development and that of evolution. just like in natural selection, new developments occasionally enter the environment, and only remain if they manage to thrive in it. in the process of converting from one dominant technology to another, there will be much inconvenience for all parties (think of the Blu-Ray VS HD-DVD war just a few years back), just like how a new adaptation is usually a liability before it becomes an asset. but that is where the similarities end. unlike evolution, new developments are the result of deliberate planning and not random mutations, resulting in much faster developments. and unlike in nature, evolutionary stragglers in the world of technology are quickly (perhaps mercilessly?) removed from existence; when was the last time you saw a floppy disc? so if you compare human evolution to advancements in robotics and AI, what does this mean for the technological singularity, that dreaded point in the future where machines become advanced enough to develop better versions of themselves, leaving us humans obsolete? could robotics, in fact, be the next step in evolution? could this step be closer than we thought? i'll end off by explaining a bit about Moore's Law, which (in its simplified version) predicts that technology develops at an exponential rate. so far, not only has technology indeed been improving exponentially, but at times it has even surpassed Moore's predictions. if you think that the technological singularity is far off, think again.

in case you haven't noticed, the music player has been invaded by songs from Nightmare! :D my favourites from the album: Save Me, God Hates Us, Lost It All, Welcome To The Family, Fiction, So Far Away, Buried Alive, Nightmare (haha, that's more than half the album).

100

The nail is now... without bringing in cringe-inducing details, let's just say that the nail is now "hanging out". which means that i'll be wearing sandals to school for the next week or so. which, despite the legitimate reason to wear something not conforming to standard uniform, isn't the most tempting thing right now, what with the freakishly cold and rainy weather. and no floorball during PE now either :(

ok, now for the big changes. due to certain circumstances, my two cousins will now be moving over here. those two have a reputation for completely slacking off after school, so my mom is trying to discipline them by not letting them use the computer after school. guess what? by virtue of being in the same house as them, i too will no longer be able to use the computer until at night. oh well, maybe this will help me concentrate more on schoolwork.

i sure hope he knows what he's doing, but maybe i'm just too doubting; at least he's trying, right? like what was said, maybe failure isn't such a bad thing, if it can shock him to his senses. perhaps even, in a wild dream somewhere, perhaps he may succeed. perhaps, but to a much greater degree, perhaps not.

and that's not the only thing he's trying to do; maybe i'm not trying hard enough. after all, a bridge has to be connected at both ends.

as was pointed out by a few people already, today marks the start of the 100-day countdown to the A levels. i believe i need not explain further.

Inception

I finally watched Inception. and yes, it is as good as everyone says (you can probably guess what the rest of the paragraph will be about). from beginning to end everything is just so revolutionary and mind-blowing: the concept, the plot, the special effects, everything! already it's making waves everywhere. i have a very strong feeling that inception will be one of those movies to enter our everyday pop culture, just like how star wars and jaws have slipped into our everyday lives long after they were screened. expect references to "limbo", "kicks" and "dreams within dreams" in time to come.

after i stepped out of the cinema, my brother accidentally kind of stepped on my toe. previously the nail was already kind of cracked a bit, but about half of it is cracked and barely hanging onto my toe. of course it was weird and kind of painful, but a combination of Inception being awesome and me not giving a crap helped a lot. i wonder if i should wear socks and shoes to school now?

on an unrelated note, i wonder if telling a white lie is justified. of course a person has every right to know what's going on, but what if that person was already going through a lot, or was so frail and weak that the shock might literally be lethal? then should we lie?

in any case, gonna sleep now. live stream A7X concert at 7am! :D