CHAOSULTIMA

Field camps

2009-10-11T09:06:00.002+08:00

I realised I haven't been blogging lately. Somehow, I just don't feel like blogging anymore. Every week is the same old thing over and over again, so theres not much to talk about. What other than army do I have in my life right now? Nothing!. All I can talk about is army.

Anyway, After that block leave 3 weeks ago, Our Field Pioneer course finally started. Training got tougher and more tiring, but at least its in less intensity, so we have time to rest, unlike the Combat Engineer course before this. Our 2 weeks that just passed was quite ok, last week was plain slack, but somehow that was supposed to be rest time to prepare for our next few weeks. Next week is the start of a chain of field camps back to back that stretches all the way to christmas. Not a pleasant thought, rather, it just makes me feel really unmotivated to do anything at all.
However, after that, our field pioneer course will end, followed by another 7 days block leave. I guess thats something to look forward to.

1 week break

2009-09-21T08:43:00.002+08:00

Finally, my first phase of my course is drawing to an end. CEC field camp just ended last week, and I was exhausted like never before. 2 days 2 nights of field camp, which we revised everything we learned in camp through practical, and god, all of them needs lots of brute strength and guts.
The field camp was basically launching of class 30, etc etc, the stuff we learned in training, plus some deployment drills, which, all in all, i found was ok. What was horrible was that the sun was so blazing hot on the first day, I got sent to the MO for high fever (39 degrees). Scary. But my fever went down fast, so I went back to the field camp.
The only other thing that I totally hated was the 2nd morning, when we didnt sleep the whole night and we spent it doing a beach obstacle, setting up constantina wire on low tide in knee deep mud. Yes. KNEE DEEP. We could barely walk man, much less to say double up from place to place. Everyone was tired, everyone didnt feel like moving fast, so we got punished. On top of falling down trying to get our boots unstuck every single step, some were more sway and got pumped. in the mud. - except, they couldnt do push ups cuz the mud were already near to their face even with arms outstretched.
After lots of shouting, punishment, and mud, we finally pulled through the whole event and packed up the whole place to go back to camp. The whole day was dedicated to washing of stores, then keeping them, and finally, dinner and BOOK OUT. it was so unexpected, though I heard rumors from the status personnel who did not go field camp. And so, I got to book out on wednesday night.

I'm booking in this wednesday. 1 week break =)

Busy training

2009-09-05T19:47:00.000+08:00

Gosh, i've been so busy training on the weekdays that catching up with my typical stuff on the weekends made me forget all about my blog.
3rd week of training just ended, i'm halfway through the first stage of my super long course, and damn i'm tired.
week 1 was basically spent mastering the M16; we had lots of technical handling and practice then finally the real live firing on the saturday. Half day bookout followed that, and then week 2 came.
Week 2 was lots of outfield work: Launching of a "mat" called a class 30 to allow tanks to go over muddy roads, building a small bridge with just 6-8 people for tanks to cross rivers, and finally doing camo-ing of vehicles and stationary objects. Ended the week with some constantina wire work - the con wire was damn sharp, so much so that brushing against it give me a huge cut on my thumb.

Early bookout

2009-08-16T20:06:00.000+08:00

Got silver for my IPPT, which won me a extra day off. Booked out thursday afternoon (supposed to be friday), and wow, it did feel good to have multi day bookouts for once in a long long time. What I basically did these few days was:
start playing world of warcraft (on friday)
visit the school + watch GI Joe (the show was quite decent) + attend renee's recital after that. (friday)
Go out shopping with family (saturday)
Run safra bay run (sunday)

The rest of the time was, of course, spent playing WoW. Man its damn addictive =D
I was so damn addicted I forgot the time and now its nearly book in time. blah!

The funpacking finale: NDP

2009-08-10T18:03:00.000+08:00

Finally, days of funpacking are over. like, really, over.
Initially, funpacking was ok, was not boring, since everyone was new to it and all that, but as the days dragged on, and everyone kept doing the same thing everyday, it got pretty draggy. Packing those funpacks is something I won't wanna do again in a hurry, since its pretty useless and tedious. you sit there for the whole day doing assembly line work, end of day, your back is going to ache like mad.

Thursday last week was the last day of packing, and boy, everyone was rushing at 125%! Probably even more. Normal days, we need 4 production lines grinding at full speed to get 7k done by about 4-5pm, and wednesday last week, we did 11k by 10+pm. However, thursday everyone went into "bookout gear" since we were given a half day bookout that night, so everyone packed like mad and finished by 12+pm. That was indeed crazy =D

Anyway, ITS ALL OVER!!! wahahaha!

To the main topic: NDP.
As expected, we had a even crazier crowd this week, with 27k people watching. I missed most of the show, and got to watch only 75% of the fireworks at the end, which was a pity. Anyway, rolling back to the start of the day...
Lucky for me, I was selected to be the "bread party", which is this group of few people who goes down to sunshine bakeries and pack a few thousand sunshine breads (the long one with cream inside, and it is sugar butter this week) into boxes while the rest goes down to marina bay to carry barricades and all that. Since its the last time everyone's doing it (again), we finished 1 hour early and had a long canteen break.
When we reached marina bay, the security there was crazy. We had to bypass 3 security checkpoints before the bus could get into the road beside the stadium. Everyone unloaded about half the boxes (10000 bread in total) and passed them through the scanners before bringing them to each of the sectors. Had lunch, then we loafed around for quite a while before we had to do predumping again.

Predumping this week is just as crazy. Basically it means placing VIP funpacks on the red seats on the stadium in as random an order as possible. At 1pm, this was not a good time to be under the sun too.

Following which, we waited till 3+pm when the crowd finally came, and we gave out the fun packs as usual. AND, as usual, there were quite a number of people who complained on their colour and wanted a change, but we kept firm on the rule and did not change for them.
Ran into Cheryl and her family while giving out the funpacks! ahha. she happened to be wearing our red odac shirt, which i totally forgot about =P

Distribution ended at around 7, we packed up, ate dinner, and cleaned up the area, so we were done at around 8:30. That gave us just enough time to run straight to the end of the stadium just to catch the last of the fireworks, which was better than nothing. Our sector helped the other sector clean up after that, then we got dismissed and booked out at 9+.

Sigh, gonna book back in so soooon. =(

And training's finally gonna start. I really got lots of mixed feelings about it though.

NDP Preview

2009-08-02T16:40:00.000+08:00

First time helping out at an actual NDP show, though its still just the preview. I didn't help out the last few weeks cuz I was doing sentry duty, so I booked out in the morning while everyone else stayed to give out funpacks for the show.

Anyway, this time I didn't get to do sentry duty, so I helped out on the NDP show. After an entire week of really tiresome packing of funpacks, which I am really really very sick of, I finally get to give them out to the public.

Sat morning was spent getting all the tables, barricades, and funpacks ready to be distributed, then we slacked for a bit, and then prepped some NDP stuff for the public to take and go, followed by lunch, and then more slacking. The morning wasn't very interesting; the better parts were in the afternoon.

After lunch, we had to move some of the funpacks to the VIP seats, which are the red ones in the center of the stadium for those who have seen it. I ended up staying there and arranging the bags to make them look more in random order rather than have clusters of the same color. Was under the sun for over an hour, but funnily enough, I wasn't feeling uncomfortably hot. It was hot, yes, but I just felt hot and sweaty and thats it, I didn't mind staying under the sun nor did I feel like taking shelter to take a rest. Guess its just the endurance training army gave me that toughened me up a bit =D.

At around 4+, the crowd started coming, and almost everyone was stationed at the tents outside the stadium to give out the funpacks. And gosh, when the audience come, they come in huge hordes, and there was a super large queue outside the stadium. Those who come early are of course those kiasu ones, and gosh, they make a lot of noise when we don't give them the funpacks they want. We were not supposed to let them choose the colors, but to just pick any and give.
Quite a few kept arguing on why they can't choose the colours they want, and ended up hogging the line. And they can get damn irritating. blah, typical kiasu singaporeans.
After a while, the people that came just took the colors given to them and left. I guess it were just the kiasu ones that make noise when they don't get the colors they want, the rest just say in passing the ones they want, and don't say anything much if they don't get them.

At around 7pm, there were finally no more latecomers, so we all took a break and ate dinner, cleaned up, then slacked. Luckily for everyone, today's crowd stopped early, so my PC came and brought us all up to watch the final part of the show, which was (i think) around the climax. This year's NDP was more unique, and I think many people would agree with me on that. Previous years consisted of mainly showing of army tanks, gun salutes, marching soldiers, formations, flybys, and lots and lots of army stuff. This year they actually gave a live demo of the defusing of a bomb, as well as terrorist threats. Of course, there were still the standard NDP stuff. I had the chance to watch that from the stadium when placing the funpacks in the afternoon; the evening climax we watched had lots of singing of the NDP theme song, tons and tons of awesome fireworks, some nice lightshows, which all mixed well together IMO, and finally ended with the national pledge and anthem.

Booking in

2009-07-19T17:35:00.002+08:00

I realised that life has been so monotonous these few weeks that I'm having less and less to talk about. Its the exact same every week:
Monday: Pack funpacks
Tuesday: Pack funpacks
Wednesday: pack funpacks
Thursday: Pack funpacks
Friday: Do sentry at floating stadium
Saturday: Rest at home, check email, play EVE for a bit, go out.
Sunday: Slack at home, book in.

I have absolutely no commitments, and I don't feel like committing to anything right now. Not until I get through my field pioneer course end of the year.

A few hours left to book in. I just feel so...sick of this. While life in camp is quite ok, its the feeling of booking in and getting back to all that regimentation and discipline that makes me feel all depressed on sundays.

More sentry duty

2009-07-12T09:09:00.002+08:00

I've been funpacking the entire week, and needless to say, everyone is already dead sick about it. Which idiot won't get sick of doing assembly line work for the whole day, 5 days a week?
Sadly for me, while everyone gets the tuesday off, I have to stay in camp to help, cuz I get saturday book out while they work.
The bright side, though, is that I get friday 'off', meaning, while everyone is slogging away at camp, i get to come down to the national stadium and look after the stores, aka slack around the whole day. Not exactly fun, but better than being in camp.
Yesterday's sentry duty was easier, in that there was just one main area to guard, and there were 4 of us.

Gosh, I barely slept for like, 40 hours yesterday. Woke up at 5 on friday morning, and we looked after the stores till 8 the next day, then I went home to game a bit before meeting up with Roy for lunch at new york new york, then we went lan gaming with Mikel the rest of the day.

We were still reluctant to admit that we got thrashed by 3 hard enemies on C&C generals, so we ended up playing that instead of Dawn of war Roy wanted to play so much =D. went on to L4D, Tiberium wars, and finally UT3. Btw the computers at IRC in paradiz is so freaking old, UT3 can hang loading on them. gosh.

Anyway, after that we ate dinner nearby, and the beancurd everyone loved so very much, then went home.

Damn, Gabriel got me addicted to Rev again. Like, after psychoing me for half the day while fun packing and chatting away, he stirred up my love for fantasy MMORPGs. sheeesh. Revved and EVE-ed till like, 11. So yeah, 40+ hours without sleep. Kinda cool I can last so long without falling asleep anywhere in between. hehe.

Funpacking

2009-07-04T11:25:00.003+08:00

Our past week has been dedicated to funpacking. Not that its fun, but its the name of the bag: Funpack, hence packing its funpacking. We wake up, do 5BX, eat breakfast (outrations cuz of the H1N1 danger in our unit), then head over to the gym where there are 4x 10tables in a row for assembly line kind of work.
1st guy takes out bag, puts in the item he's in charge on, and passes it on, and so on goes.
For me, I was in charge of the NDP drums, so i just wait for the bags to come, i put in my item, then pass it on, till all 10+ items are all inside by the end of the line, and they are alll packed and carted off.
We'll be doing that for the next few weeks till NDP, so I guess we'll learn how to really cope with sian-ness to a very large extend =P
Luckily (or perhaps not so luckily), me and 3 others were chosen for sentry duty at the NDP stadium, to look after all the fun packs delivered there. Hence, we get to slack at the staduim while the rest are packing away, and over the night we just wait around and look after the stuff. not that bad =D. AND WE BOOK OUT IN THE MORNING, while the rest at night. We dont get the 1 day compensation though =(

Anyway, last night's sentry duty was kinda ok, I did see a few cool (and weird stuff). There was this HUGE gang that sped past in a large group of like 15+ motorbikes, and they were revving the engine like mad, so it was effing noisy. Then there was this guy who tried to do a wheelie on his bike, but only for a couple of seconds. Then, at like 4am, came some old man on a bike, and he was laughing like a banshee. like, imagine someone laughing out loud, then make that much slower, exaggerated, louder, and higher pitched.

Oh yeah, got a bad stomachache now =(. Apparently coke, coffee and milk tea doesnt mix well. Gotta tell my OC next time he buys us supper =P

Book in

2009-07-01T23:13:00.002+08:00

Alright, quarantine's over, back to booking in.
I've been really thinking a lot these few days, after all, im bored to death at home, so i ended up just sitting and thinking.
Just like BMT, its the first week that gives everyone this mental and cultural shock going to a unit. I hope that is indeed true, and everyone was adjusting. I don't mean to brag or anything, and I really am not trying to, but even if I do my stuff at my own pace, I always finish packing my stuff, getting ready and all that before everyone, and I wake up at the same time as them. I seem to be one of the few with a sense of urgency, while everyone just takes their time. I really hope thats just cuz its adjustment week, and everyone will get used to the rushing. We could've avoided like most of the punishments last week if everyone didnt take their own sweet time.

I don't look forward to booking in, but funnily enough, I don't dread it anymore. Somehow after thinking so much, I became numb to that feeling of fear of booking in. All that discipline and regimentation...fuck it. I'll get used to it.

Hope that we don't get any confinements due to this quarantine.

no mood for anything

2009-06-30T19:39:00.003+08:00

It's a horrible feeling that while I try to enjoy anything, the nagging thought that I have to book in on thursday morning keeps coming back. ALWAYS. I can't help it, but everytime I try to enjoy a game, enjoy timeout with my friends, enjoy chatting on MSN, I get this feeling of misery that I need to book in sometime later. It totally takes my mood out of doing anything at all, play games, read facebook, chat on msn, etc. I used to love playing GTA4, now it doesnt even entertain me.
Damn i'm getting really emo. I hope I can tide through this time well.

Many new games

2009-06-30T18:15:00.003+08:00

Mass effect 2
Bioshock 2
Bayonetta
Diablo III
Starcraft 2
Assassins creed 2

Theres still a lot more. But this year seems to be a hell lot of new games announced, and I'm in NS, so I guess I can't enjoy them just yet.
Oh yea, and Star wars: The Old Republic is the game I'm looking forward to the most. If you saw the trailer, you'd know why too.
I've already have plans to build a new gaming com, and my current one to be my work pc. Looking at those games, I hope my current com can support them till I build the next.

Sigh, i'm bored till tears at home. Quarantine isn't that nice, I wish I can book in, and book out on weekends instead, so I can go out with friends.
Been playing EVE Online all day, and I'm feeling a little bored of it already. shit.

Bloody virus

2009-06-29T17:07:00.002+08:00

Book in is now changed to thursday. How wonderful. That just ate up every drop of leave I get this year. So I can't take leave anymore. efff man.

And I've already got a few friends diagnosed with H1N1 now...both from my company and my ODAC friends (not from school). how positively freakish. I'm fearing I might have gotten H1N1 too...and its my sister's exam period too. I hope nothing goes wrong these few days

H1N1

2009-06-29T00:06:00.002+08:00

I didn't know it was serious till I POP'ed, and then I was even more surprised when world health organisation declared it a Phase 6 pandemic...so the previous one that was that big was in 1958. that does mean some bad news.

SO--- if me and my friends, family and close ones don't get it...its fine, right?
sadly, my platoonmate just got diagnosed with H1N1, and two of my schoolmates got fever too. that's some very bad news to me. Risk of me getting H1N1 is pretty high too. shit.

God, please give me strength to tide through this difficult time.

Unit Life

2009-06-26T10:56:00.003+08:00

One word: Difficult.
While everyone says unit life is slack, ours clearly isn't. Our CO demands that our unit has the best regimentation and discipline in the SAF, which I don't doubt. The level of strictness that they look at our drills, our stand by area, etc, it really shows. And its tough.
My platoon sergeant is by far, the strictest and hardest to please amongst all the sergeants from the company. Our stand by bed lasted about 5 hours, with about 6 checks in between. In the end, we slept really late, and still had to wake at 5:15 the next day.
In the first week, I already got chosen to be the platoon IC, and it is seriously one hell of a job. I'm responsible for the movement of every single platoon-mate, and any changes in our numbers must be known to me - and that is tough, given our hectic days and the diverse schedules of the platoon-mates. Yesterday was the worst, everyone was tired as hell, and we had to have a stand by bed before we booked out, and hardly anyone was trying to clean; we were all dead beat. I got the platoon to fall in late for the stand by, got punished by several sergeants for that, and I still messed up the reporting strength, and got punished again. OC expected me (unofficial company IC) to let the company to know his name, CSM's, and the 2IC's name, but I failed to do it on time, and got more punishment. Whole day was full of punishments for me, and it was mentally torturing.

Everyone says that SCE isn't that tough as we think, but they are looking on the physical training side. That I agree, it isn't as tough. They forgot to look at the discipline and regimentation they impose upon us - That is very tough. Our marching, in 3 days, became better than the BMT drill squads, and the sergeants were still barely satisfied.

Now I know why people say don't compare unit life to BMT life...BMT life is indeed a holiday resort compared to unit life.

I hope life will get much better in the weeks to come.

End of block leave

2009-06-21T20:59:00.002+08:00

Well, block leave is finally over, and its back to military life. To think I have already fully adjusted back being a civilian, so now I have to "re"-get used to being a soldier. That's nothing much actually, but what I don't look forward to isn't going back to being a soldier, or doing those work of a combat engineer. Honestly, when I think about all the physical training, clearing mines, digging trenches, I don't feel anything. Its just that I've gone through so much tough physical (and quite a bit of mental) training, in the end everything just feels so numb.

What makes me feel sad about leaving civilian life, is just one thing, and that one thing most of my friends in NS agree with too: Freedom. Serving national service takes away my freedom to make my own choices, choose my own path, and so on.

Now I truely regret falling out during the field camp. I wished I didn't choose to fall out and get the snowball status after that. It totally ruined everything, my chances at MP, CCI, and most of all, command school.

Combat Engineer

2009-06-19T11:41:00.005+08:00

Okay, so giving me a near heart attack this morning, SAF decided to tell me I'm posted to Field Pioneer Engineers, under combat engineers. How wonderful.
From what most people say, its one of the toughest vocations in the SAF, with everyone carrying very heavy loads into the outfield. What I'm to be doing, I expect, would be to clear minefields, construct command posts and shellscrapes, and build obstacles for the enemies - hardly what I hoped for in NS. WTF MAN!

Dammit, everytime I think about what I'm going to face in the camp, i get all depressed. shoot. Sheesh man, with my back problem, i dunno how the hell they threw me in combat engineers.

Hopefully, I'd be able to down-pes when I go for my medical review next month.

400 a month

2009-06-18T14:01:00.002+08:00

After so long earning quite a satisfactory amount through tuition, I have gotten used to spending without needing to worry so much, but now that I earn only 400 bucks a month, it really makes me very conscious of how I use the little bit of money I got. My usual policy is to spend a max of 10% of my salary per month, which means I can only spend 40 bucks a month, which is obviously quite tough to hit.
Anyway, I do hope i get a 8-5 vocation, so I can continue giving tuition and worry less about money.

POP!

2009-06-10T20:07:00.002+08:00

Just like everyone else around my age, this is the highlight of our early NS life. Block leave just started, and I'm feeling as high as ever.
Looking back, I do feel a lot for what I did during BMT. A little half accomplished, a little regret, quite some happiness, joy, and laughter.
I thoroughly enjoyed BMT, and just like what my sergeants told me, confinement week was the worst. At first, I did not believe them, but in the end it turned out to be true. confinement week sucked ass. Mainly cuz everyone got punished for the things only a few were responsible for. but thats what a platoon is for, sharing the good and bad times together.
I felt good on what I achieved during the time in BMT before I got my permanent status, which happened during field camp:
1. I pushed up all my IPPT standards except for my SBJ
2. I got the really distinct 6 packs I wanted =D
3. I tanned qutie a bit
4. I could do tons of push ups without feeling tired
5. I lowered my running "cruise speed" to 1:50 min per 400m (=11mins for 2.4) for over 20km without feeling exhausted.
6. I made real friends I could trust, and trust me.

In fact, 6 is the most important to me. I have always been keeping a wall around my heart to even my closer friends that i made before, and only confided in the friends i trusted the most, like roy and mikel, but in BMT i totally let everything out, so i have nothing to keep from them. that way, i felt i could trust them, and I felt that they trusted me as well.

After I got my status, things started falling apart. I did not want a status in the first place, cuz it separates me from my platoon, and we cannot bond like that. It got worse after SITEST, and i kinda drifted apart a little.
It wasn't as bad as it would seem though, but i would have preferred not to have status. that way i could stay fit and all that.

Anyway, my 2.4 timing was as crazy as anyone elses. seems like yankee is some super zai company that really pushes their timing down. To all who thought they have pushed their best at ~11min (that someone in ocs better be reading thing) ended up running 9:45 and below. one of them was nuts, napfa timing were 12mins for over the 3 years, down to 11-something in ippt 1, then he really gave his all (until he looked ready to die at the end) and hit below 9:45.
For me, I realised it was my mental that was blocking me still, not my heart condition. My progressive timing was:
ippt1: 10:21
ippt2: 9:51
ippt3: excused
ippt4: 9:27
personal best on weekend: 8:42

I feel quite accomplished.

Anyway, POP today was indeed a very happy event. Everyone was in high spirits all the way, and we were all making lots of noise and were like, super enthu. I felt very emotional at the point where we all threw our caps, it was like a rush of joy in the fact I have completed BMT.
Spammed pictures after that, i shall put it up later.

And of course, I hope I get into either MP (first choice, of course) or CCI (backup)

Bye bye command school

2009-05-24T13:12:00.003+08:00

Apparently I have a heart problem and hypotension that gives me chest pains and makes me feel dizzy whenever i overexert myself. Of course, being in army (and being in Yankee, especially), not overexerting myself would equate to slacking. Of course, my commanders, being paranoid, put me on ATT B all the way till my medical review in july, so i've been slacking away since last week.
Being in ATTB is kind of good, in a way that I get to rest up and all that, and I can escape outfields, which i really really hate, but, I don't get to keep my body fit and train with the rest. Honestly, I would really want to join back in all the tough trainings the company has been putting us through. After all, the OC wants Yankee to have the highest number of golds and silvers for IPPT in BMTC.
I heard that my company is the most siong in terms of training intensity in BMTC-1, and I don't doubt it.

Anyway, missing SITEST means that I have no more chance of going command school, so i guess I'll aim to down PES instead. Nothing is worse than being in a combat unit, going outfield, and listening to commander's instructions all day rather than giving them. At least down pes-ing would most likely mean a 8-5 job, so I can continue giving tuition outside.

Booking out on saturday evenings really makes me miss working at my computer. Since the confinement week bookout, subsequent bookouts have all fallen on saturday evenings, and bookins in afternoon, so I get less than 24hours as a civilian per week. That sucks.

ATTC

2009-05-13T10:39:00.002+08:00

This is supposed to be the field camp week, and im supposed to be in field camp, but sadly, i couldnt even survive the 2nd day. Actually, it was mainly due to the route march, which was beyond my physical capabilities, sadly. The chest pain I always got when i stressed myself past my limits, like when I run the last stretches of the 2.4km run during napfa and IPPT, came back during this route march, except, it was worse. It was probably due to the heavy field pack and LBV, cuz I started having problems with breathing after like, 30mins, which didnt occur during the 6klick route march before. Anyway, I fainted halfway through, but i still continued after that, and nearly fainted again at the end. Was near exhaustion, i guess, cuz my body was so numb i could barely dig a trench or do push ups.
Urban ops gave my a break to rest up my body, which allowed me to endure until day two, when I felt really uncomfortable during the morning, like my whole body was ill at ease. That feeling was horrible, cuz I just felt damn uncomfortable but I couldnt pinpoint where. My PS said it was probably due to exhaustion, which I thought to be as well. Anyway, by lunch time, I could barely walk, so I had to fall out to see the MO. got sent to CGH for the chest problem, and now im back home on ATT C. sigh. that means I have to re-field camp =(

Week 4

2009-05-09T12:37:00.002+08:00

Week 4 (supposedly) of BMT just ended, though it was more like 3 weeks. Anyway, the entire week was pretty slack, with the exception one of the days which had PT the entire day, so much so that i couldnt feel my legs at the end of the day. The company was slightly more disciplined this week, so we didn't get takan'ed much, to my relief.
Ended the week with guard duty, which i volunteered cuz i don't want to have that chance of getting chosen for guard duty next time this month or during block leave. It was kind of fun anyway, so no negative feelings about it.

Field camp next week, followed immediately by SITEST. I really hope i can pull through these two weeks.

Bookout time

2009-05-03T09:08:00.002+08:00

Its good that army gives us weekend bookouts, but honestly, the thought of booking in on sunday is enough to turn me off doing anything productive. Anything that want to do and usually do, like playing games, going out to cycle, etc, I just don't feel like doing them at all. sigh.....

Army life

2009-05-02T20:08:00.004+08:00

I realised i haven't been blogging for very long. Too many things have happened, and I was very distracted from everything. in the past two months, there were so many things that occurred that I still find hard to believe they happened.
Obviously, the main thing that I still cannot accept is that I'm in army, and I'm a soldier now. My sergeants keep telling me that I'm not a civilian anymore, and I'm now a soldier defending the country. I know its easy to say that and tell us, but saying is one thing. Even after 2 weeks in army, I still find it hard to accept that I'm not a civilian anymore, and I'm in a compulsory national service spanning 2 years, two years of unpredictable future, two years that I cannot control.
Two years of national service sounds so daunting to me. To me, as someone who feels comfort in having everything under my control, national service is a big trauma. I have absolutely no control over anything I do, all is decided for me. I don't make decisions, I only obey them. My future in NS is somehow, uncertain. That aspect is what gives me the most pain, and makes me feel really, really negative about serving the country. If only they would tell me, lay out to me what would happen to me over the next two years, then it would be a lot easier for me, but I guess such idealism is very childish of me.
Even being in camp, getting hammered by the commanders, I still did not feel like a soldier. I felt more like someone getting thrown into a nightmare, an inescapable nightmare. Two years would feel so long.
Yes, I know that its only the start of army, and just the start of the torment, and I have yet to see anything, but honestly, I don't want to suffer anymore. I would rather choose an easy path, such as going down PES and doing less intensive trainings. Its a wimpy path to choose, but I know I would not regret it. I an definitely not someone made out for army, made out to defend the country. Its not that I don't want to fight for the country, its just that I have absolutely no motivation to train to be a soldier.
Before entering army, I used to dream of entering OCS, being a officer, commanding men and being able to make decisions and influence the life of those I command, but now that I reflect upon it, I would rather not. Inside, my mental endurance is weak. I cannot be an officer like this. While I am certainly relatively highly educated, and people say I don't deserve to be a common private, the strict discipline and regimentations of OCS steer me clear away from it.
Many of my friends who are mentally stronger than me, whom I respect worthy of OCS, are also struggling through, which means that if I enter, I will certainly suffer greatly.
I might consider going to SISPEC, but everyone I know recommends me against it, for being in the middle is terrible. I do agree to a certain extent, but then, where do I go?

My ideal track in NS, which I really, really hope, with all my heart, to get, is to become a close combat instructor. It is something I would enjoy doing, and rather than going down PES and taking a easy way out, being an instructor is a good path to follow. I would do anything to become a close combat instructor, even if the pay is horrible, and the physical training is tough, I would do it. The incentive is that I don't need to go through such strict regimentations and doing field work and all that of a soldier, yet I still can train my physical self and maximise some of my potential. After all, I'm made out to be a teacher, I love teaching, so being an instructor would be a good path.

2 weeks of 96 has passed. 94 more to go

I pray that whatever that happens to me, I can find the strength to push on through it.

Hmm

2009-03-07T17:17:00.001+08:00

Something I decided to go try. Seems that it's pretty accurate.

http://www.quizbox.com/personality/test82.aspx

Your view on yourself:

You are down-to-earth and people like you because you are so straightforward. You are an efficient problem solver because you will listen to both sides of an argument before making a decision that usually appeals to both parties.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:

You like serious, smart and determined people. You don't judge a book by its cover, so good-looking people aren't necessarily your style. This makes you an attractive person in many people's eyes.

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:

You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person.

The seriousness of your love:

Your have very sensible tactics when approaching the opposite sex. In many ways people find your straightforwardness attractive, so you will find yourself with plenty of dates.

Your views on education

Education is less important than the real world out there, away from the classroom. Deep inside you want to start working, earning money and living on your own.

The right job for you:

You're a practical person and will choose a secure job with a steady income. Knowing what you like to do is important. Find a regular job doing just that and you'll be set for life.

How do you view success:

You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don't succeed. Don't give up when you haven't yet even started! Be courageous.

What are you most afraid of:

You are afraid of having no one to rely on in times of trouble. You don't ever want to be unable to take care of yourself. Independence is important to you.

Who is your true self:

You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart rather than your head needs to solve.

New portable speaker

2009-02-22T22:51:00.004+08:00

Found a really cool speaker online called X-mini. There were a lot of reviews about it talking about its superb sound quality and the rich bass it produces - for something so small. Pretty unbelievable, but there were so many reviews saying the same thing, I decided to go buy it:
Its size is roughly that of a ping pong ball, only slightly bigger (fatter), but there's this cool thing about it: When you twist it, the centre opens up into a accordian thingy, where the bass is supposed to be made deeper in.

I don't quite know how it works, but indeed, it works. Twisting open the speaker does make the bass a lot richer and powerful, and just like what the reviews say, its hard to believe it all comes from a small speaker like this. Pretty ingenious, I would say. The sound quality is comparable to a pair of small desktop speakers, those that come without a subwoofer. The only downside is the the louder the volume, the more noisy the music becomes, but that is expected. After all, its a tiny speaker.
It came for 30bucks, but it was worth the money =D
I'll probably bring it along with me, and perhaps show it to some select people when I visit the school again xD

PIES

2009-02-18T00:01:00.002+08:00

Pie Kia's pies are really tasty! $2 for 1 slightly bigger than the size of an egg tart. but the smell is sooo...overwhelming.

Was at CCK after tuition and every time I walk by the MRT, i'll smell it, cuz the shop's right there. the only thing that prevented me from buying them so many times is the price. hahaha.

Insomnia

2009-02-08T04:02:00.002+08:00

Yep. Been getting insomnia almost everyday since the start of january to now. I barely can sleep at 4am, much less any time before that. My average sleeping time is now 4 am, which i hardly ever get to in school days. AND that is with me in bed by 2am, tossing and turning around and just cannot, just not at all, fall asleep. From 2 am, my mind just whirs on and on and on, and only by around 3:30 (i check the clock once in a while), then do i feel a little sleepy. I guess i doze off around 4-4:30 then.
Luckily, i wake at about 11am everyday, so i don't get mentally tired at all, unless i sleep even later than 4 (which does happen a lot too).
I just DONT know how to get rid of this insomnia. Really will kill me in army man, if this goes on to army. Taking external means of helping to sleep like sleeping pills won't help, so i ain't gonna try those either.

Geee. After so long, I think the reason is pretty simple. During holidays, i always sleep at 12+ with no problem at all, but during school days, i get tired by 12. The main reason should be that I get mentally drained during the school days, so my mind doesnt have any more energy left to go on at night, so i usually doze off pretty fast.
Now that there's no school at all, just, 90% of the daytime, gymming, training up my body, as well as gaming, there's hardly any mental stress on me. I do give tuition, but that is only a few hours a week. Thats why at night, my mind just keep thinking and I just CANNOT stop thinking of stuff. it is just natural to me. most of the time, my mind will latch onto something, then i'll keep thinking about it, how it works, etc.
Like, yesterday was a pretty long night for me. I can still remember part of my thought process: first it just started out with eve online, which i just recently started playing, then on to spaceships, then on to really cool concept spaceships then -> how would my dream spaceship be like -> the factors that i want to put in to make it cool -> my dream car -> dream car to be entire run on solar power -> expences of solar panels -> alternate ways of harnessing solar power like absorbing heat -> what if a material is invented that absorbs heat and generates current like unobtainium (from the movie: the core) -> car entirely covered in heat absorbing metal, powers car, cools down interior at the same time -> how fast can the car go -> speed limits in singapore -> if cars were to be able to float (only special selected cars), it would be much easier, like for ambulances to go to hospital -> how, in the future, can cars float? -> some sort of quantum thing that causes specific elements to repel -> use it against elements found mainly on tar roads -> effects if it repels not only the road, but human beings (like if element is carbon) -> other ways of car floating -> using air jets -> how would my car design look like -> what if my car runs on balls instead of wheels (like will smith's car in I robot -> how to make the wheel so that it can grip on the floor yet has little friction against whatever it is attached to on car -> use perhaps a metallic ball encased in the ball-wheel which is repelled by the car, enabling the car to float, yet the exterior of the ball-wheel is rubber, so it grips -> advantages of ball-wheeled cars (being able to move sideways -> ... ...
I forgot after that what was it, but there was much more. By the time i got to the ball wheeled thing, it was about 1 hr after i got into bed, which was 4am yesterday morning. i think i dozed off about 5am this time.
I know, I know, 99% of the science here in my "thought dreams" are just bullshit. But coming, its dreaming, just, its consciously thought out. hahaha

Wow. its 4:23 am now. shit

Boys with unpopular names more likely to commit crime?

2009-02-03T12:34:00.002+08:00

Hmm, interesting. Someone actually did a study on juvenile delinquents and compared their names based on popularity. Apparently boys with unpopular names are more prone to commit crime.

http://www.livescience.com/culture/090128-names-crime.html

Hmm...Mikel, you reading this? xD

Weirder and weirder MMOs?

2009-02-02T20:24:00.002+08:00

First they announced Star Wars MMO, which proved to be a shock, but quite a pleasant one. Then came Fallout MMO. hmm..
Now a Star Trek MMO?
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/startrekonline/index.html

what's the world of MMO coming to...

On the bright side, I'm giving up on the XBOX 360. Seems that the next generation of consoles are going to be announced soon, judging from the hints that a few recent game preview trailers are giving. I'm definitely going to buy that! when I'm out of army that is. Hopefully an Xbox 3, which can port over older games like halo 3. whee

2009-02-01T01:28:00.003+08:00

Sci-Fi. Space themed. FPS.
Damn, I can't wait.

MMA

2009-01-30T21:38:00.002+08:00

Yeah, another post on MMA. I just finished this month's worth of classes, so the trainers decided to have a sparring session today. Basically we sparred for most of the thing, where we learnt how to move around, avoid and defend attacks, fake attacks and throw decisive jabs (Sadly, we have yet to move on to counter attacking and all that yet). Anyway, just like every other session, we started off with 5 minutes of warm up, which was more like a muscle killing session, and ended off with another one. Those 5 minutes of PT are quite ok for me, since I know I need to prep myself for NS, so i'm trying to enjoy these PT sessions, which turns out to be quite easy to enjoy. The only part of it i DON'T enjoy, is when the instructor decides to be really nuts and make us do 5 sets of 10 push ups (always at the end of the session), but I usually don't go past 30-35 pushups. Those 5 sets are - First set: 1 hand forward, 1 hand back, so it is kind of like a slanted push up; Second set switch those two hand positions, third set is wide arm, fourth set is diamond (thats why I cannot finish) and last set is standard push up.
Well, overall MMA is very fun, since we do get to fight and really exhaust ourselves, and learning all the techniques makes me feel very accomplished.

MMA

2009-01-30T12:37:00.002+08:00

30th of january. That means even those in PES C in school are in NS already too. That leaves just a couple of us left to enlist in March/April. Sigh. Its getting a little boring. I'm done with Mirror's Edge, which was quite cool while it lasted, but had nearly no replayability. I'm sick with scholarship apps, so right now i'm just reading manga. and gymming. and taking classes like MMA, which is actually quite fun.
Right now I'm taking mixed martial arts classes at clarke quay, which is quite fun cuz we do learn how to handle hostile situations, how to defend and attack, and of course, we get to spar. Half the lesson is spent of flat out PT, which is really really crazy, but still quite enjoyable haha. Its probably the main way for me to keep my fitness up till NS, other than gymming.
Gee, I really should have requested to enlist in january though =\

Mirror's edge

2009-01-18T22:27:00.001+08:00

Whoo hoo~
Just got mirror's edge. Just started playing it so I can't give too positive a comment yet, but.. Mirror's edge is really cool. I love the parkour and jumping around and all that, and i'd probably give it a 8/10
see how the game goes first haha

Windows 7

2009-01-18T02:10:00.002+08:00

Went to sign up for Windows 7 Beta and installed it on my laptop.
It took me by surprise - there were many (as in, honestly, a lot) of improvements from Vista. Vista wastes LOTS of memory and processing power on useless stuff; Win7 cuts down on those by quite a bit. There's a few changes I like too, like, the most irritating shit Vista had, the security check thingy, ain't that irritating anymore. Another thing is that gadget sidebar which takes up quite a bit of memory...it has been made a lot better. More stuff like:
1. The menu has been changed a lot. The taskbar tabs looks a lot like OSX - I bet they copied Apple - but I ain't complaining. Anyway I wanted an Apple OS for the interface and it seemed that Microsoft might be trying to kope a bit of that.
2. The whole thing feels more smooth. Perhaps from the more efficient programming (or i was imagining things), definitely, Win7 had much smoother sliding in-outs than Vista, which was quite jerky.
3. Boot time was lowered, something they promised.
4. Desktop feels about the same, but the taskbar feels more friendly now.

Just installed it so I don't have much more to talk about. But right now, all I've found is improvements compared to Vista, so I'm looking forward to upgrading my com to Win7 when it comes.

game reviews

2009-01-16T00:06:00.002+08:00

I used to think that when games don't have a rating in Gamespot, it usually means that the critics don't feel like playing the game, or it is not considered a proper game (e.g. liero)
However, looking at metacritics, there are several proper games that appears on gamespot, but are not reviewed. Coincidentally, those games that are not reviewed on gamespot but done so in metacritics, have such a horrible score that it does not deserve recognition. I guess the critics at gamespot can't find a bad enough rating (since the lowest that can be given is 1/10) that they don't critic it? Anyway looking through those games, they can be really amusing in the sense that the glitches make it look retardedly funny.

Bored

2009-01-14T00:39:00.002+08:00

Gee. Initially I did not wanna take an office job cuz I wanna enjoy my free time before NS more + train at gym + less stress. In the end, I got so much free time =\
Its kinda too late to get a job now, partly cuz there's no one who's gonna hire for just 3 months (freaking financial crisis) and i am giving tuition on monday, wednesday, fridays and saturdays, which mean it conflicts with work.
actually giving tuition is pretty much my "full time job". I've got a decent amount of students and a pretty satisfying amount of pay, so i don't need another job.
And since the total amount of hours i actually work is quite little, i end up playing through all my games at home. shit, i should have bought a Xbox last month. sigh. its a little too late though =\
I've completed almost every game i possessed, and now i'm addicted to world in conflict online, but its not drawing me nearly as well. I'm sick of coding the alumni website (been doing so for the past 1 month) and touching up and all that, so i end up having nothing better to do. I mean, the main hobbies i have at home are: gaming and coding. and I just have had enough of those two at the time being. hahaa
cycling my main option now, so i guess I'll cycle when i'm bored. hahaha

pushing the limits of your com

2009-01-11T01:28:00.002+08:00

haha was looking through articles on tomshardware.com (I go there to look for PC component reviews) and there's this really funny thing one of the authors wrote:

Quote: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-295,2107.html

Having already professed its preference for smaller, more scalable graphics processors, AMD didn’t take long to unveil its Radeon HD 4870 X2, a single board boasting two RV770 chips, 2 GB of GDDR5 memory, and a PCI Express (PCIe) bridge over which to communicate. Suddenly, the tables had turned and AMD was the one with the fastest individual card on the market. Not only that, but it's been a full six months and a full lineup of RV770 derivatives have taken the battle to Nvidia’s once-untouchable mainstream armada, headlined by the G92.
From there, things only get messier, and the hardcore gamer can spend thousands of dollars in an effort to procure the best graphics performance. Want to beat a 4870 X2 with an Nvidia solution? Buy a couple of GeForce GTX 280s. Want to beat that with an AMD solution? Buy another 4870 X2 and run four-way CrossFireX. Want to go faster still? Add a third GTX 280. And now you’re talking about an expensive motherboard and a powerful CPU able to keep up with all of that graphics horsepower. Aye carumba. Where does the madness end?

Yeah. the funny part was that, you start with a GF GTX 280. if you want a better single graphics card, get a 4870 X2. Wanna beat that with a Nvidia solution, get a pair of 280s. Still want better with an AMD, get another 4870 X2. Want to go faster still? Get a third 280.

its like, stacking bricks on both sides. one side is bound to break from all that stress. gee.

Anyway while on this topic, I'm looking fairly positive at Nvidia's side and what they are launching this year. haha. it's gonna affect the computer I'm buying after NS. xD

Wow, 8 years.

2009-01-11T00:25:00.003+08:00

Hmm, thinking back, there were some games I actually waited and waited for a sequel to, and I kind of forgot about it in the midst of all the schoolwork when I got into NUS High.
Lets see....there were quite a few games I did hope very earnestly for a sequel very long time ago.

Diablo II. Funnily enough, today is close to the 8th year anniversary for me having Diablo II. I remember, it was the first ever game that hooked me real bad. Bought it myself with my own savings right after my P4 streaming exams, when I got into band 1. My dad kind of regretted letting me buy it, seeing how I was really addicted. Mum nagged at me quite a bit too. Of course, I only played a few hours a day, unlike what I do now.Addiction lasted for 4 years. While it did cost me a lot, in terms of my studies mainly, I did earn quite a bit from it as well, if you catch my drift. Lucky for me though, the sequel is coming out, and its looking very much not to disappoint

Red Alert 2. Bought it in Sec 1, when I heard it from my classmate. Actually, this one was pirated, cuz I lived near a pirated CD shop at J8. Man, those days, they were good. You can actually walk down to the shop, browse their humongous game collection, and get one at 5 bucks per CD. Since RA2 was a 2 disc pack, I spent 10 bucks for it. This game did not get me addicted as much as Diablo II (Trust me, I was addicted to diablo 2 on a different order of magnitude as this). however, I did hope for a sequel as well, and the sequel was very much like the original RA2, which is partly disappointing, but mostly good news.

Freelancer. God, this game is epic. Read the game in the Digital Times newspaper in Sec 1, and that little 3cm by 4cm (roughly) screenshot was enough excite me to much to get me to the website, download the demo, and play. And obviously, I was so VERY excited that I made my dad go with me the next day to funan to buy the game. This game was the second game ever to get me addicted so bad. Same scale as Diablo II, different scale from Red alert 2.
Sadly, I am not hearing news of a sequel. I know for sure though, if I hear of it, I will be sleeping much much less...

Star Wars: Jedi Academy. I decided to check out star wars games after I watched the first episode, which made me an instant Star Wars fan. (cmon, i'm a sci-fi fan). Bought the game from the same pirated CD shop in sec 2, and it was pretty addictive. Same scale of addiction as RA2 though, but it was indeed fun. I did hope for a short while for a sequel, but I kind of did not really want it anymore though, since I was more focused on freelancer then.

Unreal Tournament 2003. This game was the first game that I actually did go to a game website and checked out top games of the year, and like the name suggests, it was in 2003. (well, it was released somewhere in 2002, but i bought it in sec 1). Another game that I burnt my wallet getting, but it was worth every cent. I was addicted for half a year i think, and it was quite a bit more addictive than RA2 and JA, but still on a lower order of magnitude as Diablo II. UT2004 came out just when I finally got sick of UT 2004, which wasnt really healthy, cuz I got addicted to UT2004 after that. sigh....
UT2004 got boring after a while, so I kinda stopped hoping for a sequel after a year.

Worms armageddon. First windows game I ever touched. interestingly though, it was my elder sister who introduced it to me. got me hooked on it so much she had to uninstall it, but that did not stop me from searching for the game and trying to install. In the end, i failed to install the game though. (I was P3 then, so i knew little about computers). Another game where I kept
hoping for a new release, but after I saw World Party, I didn't like worms anymore.

That was probably it for game addictions last time. No use talking about those now, cuz it keeps changing and theres too many.

So lets see... my list of game addictions: (Nothing to be proud of =P)
P3: Worms Armageddon
P4:Neopets (I didnt put it up cuz, look, i was talking about game sequels. Neopets Sequel? ... )
P5:Neopets, Diablo II
P6: Neopets, Diablo II:LOD
Sec 1: Neopets, Diablo II:LOD, Freelancer, UT 2003, RA2
Sec 2: Neopets, Diablo II: LOD, Freelancer, JA,
Year 3: Diablo II: LOD, Freelancer, Knights of the old republic, Maplestory <- (=.=)
Year 4: Maplestory, Kotor, Kotor II, Freelancer, Halo
Year 5: Maplestory, Need for speed: Most wanted, Starcraft, Crysis, Stepmania, Halo
Year 6: Maplestory, Crysis, Stepmania, CoD4
Now: Fallout 3

Sentosa!

2009-01-06T22:34:00.002+08:00

Today was really fun xD. went out with debz, karyen, lynn and kenwei to sentosa today.
What happened today was:
met with kenwei, lynn, ernest and debz at vivo at 11:50 for lunch. actually it was supposed to be 10+ cuz they were planning to go school and leave for vivo at 10, but debz was late by 1 and a half hours! hahaha. so i ended up hogging one of the xbox 360 demo station with mirror's edge for 1+ hrs cuz i reached at 10:20. haha. (mirrors edge is quite fun, but the tricky jumps and all that makes it not so enjoyable)
so after that, we went to some seafood restaurant for lunch, where i burnt a heck lot of money (again. sigh.) before we hit the beach. ernest had to go home, and karyen joined us at the beach later though.

so yeah, at the beach. that was the craziest part. we first went to the southernmost part of continental asia (quite a handful of words), cuz lynn wanted to go. oh gee, yeah, about that. lynn is absolutely obsessed with that place. like, she kept repeating the same words: "southernmost part of continental asia". whats wrong with you man? hahaha.

ok anyway, after that, we went to take the luge, which was another whacky thing, cuz lynn and karyen didnt wanna go cuz it was too expensive, (10 bucks per), but there was this cool family pack for 4 ppl for only 27 bucks. and guess what? it has to have a 12yr old kid in the family. so in the end, we decided that lynn would be the 12 yr old kiddie, which surprisingly, none of the people there suspected a thing (they didnt ask if she was 12), so yeah, we got to take the luge.
aww man...lynn...

so while these was happening, ken wei was like, digging a freaking pit out of boredom, and we ended up burying karyen a couple of times; once on the sand lying down, and once with her in the hole ken wei digged. xD that was really damn crazy

ok. so after that, was cycling. was rather normal, except the fact that lynn (again, something abt her) got honked at 4 times for cycling in the middle of the road O.o omg lynn you unsafe road user. xD

after that we cleaned up, went to meet up with ken wei's cousins + jono and lippy, then we hit yet another restaurant (burnt MORE money) for dinner. gosh, ken wei's cousins are really like him la. crazy man hahaha. in the end we all just talked and talked for damn long in the restaurant and spent a lot of time after dinner still talking. heheh. yep. after that it was quite late so we all went home yep.

haha today was quite cool ^^

Static

2008-12-30T15:04:00.003+08:00

its kind of irritating when sometimes, you touch something, and you get a electric shock when the static charge passes to you. i always call that getting "static-ed". Even worse, would be when that static stays in your body, and it makes your whole body itch, except, that itch is many times more painful. imagine getting poked with needles over random places of your body every second; it isnt that enjoyable.

So yeah, today, I was playing around with my laptop when I got static-ed, and that static stayed in my body (yet again). I always heard that one way to get rid of static is to touch something connected to the ground, especially trees, or water pipes of sorts. sadly, there was not one close to me in my room, so i resorted to something quite ironically stupid: I used my computer as a ground.

as everyone knows, computers are really sensitive to static, one shock, and your com is gone. but one thing many don't know is that the case is one humongous grounded object, so zapping it is perfectly ok for the computer. haha. I just hope it really is ok, cuz I used it as ground ever so often.

sigh. alright done with random post, back to my other stuff.

Merry Christmas all!

2008-12-26T01:33:00.003+08:00

This is yeah, a little late, but still never too late, so I'm wishing everyone a very merry christmas (or hopefully, already quite a merry christmas for most of you).

Wasn't home at x-mas eve and x-mas day, so now's the only time i got to blog. xD

Busy with stuff

2008-12-18T23:49:00.003+08:00

Like almost everyone, I've been busy with college apps and scholarship apps, though its most likely i won't get any of those. but anyway, its worth definitely trying.
anyway, the past few days has been really slack, mostly cuz I was mildly sick and was not paying attention to anything, so i slacked everything off. it started on sunday, when my mind completely just blanked out, and i just played fallout 3 till i felt like sleeping.

Monday
was pretty busy. quite surprisingly, it was one of the few times i really did not know what to do with spare time. I woke up at 9, went to one of my student's house for tuition, then realising she postponed it to tuesday and it kinda slipped my ears when she told me. was 1030am, and the next lesson was nearby, at 1pm at chua chu kang.
So i had 2 hours to spend, and i was at CCK, far from home, with no source of entertainment. ended up walking up and down the mall for 30 mins (serious. I just went up and down the escalators cuz the shops were closed. wow). popped into Gameplanet, which took only 5 mins cuz there was barely anything. damn. if only there was a hardware store nearby. none. Popular bookstore was next, and again, i spent about 10 minutes tops. Ate my lunch, hoping it took me at least 30 minutes, but the chicken rice only entertained me for 10 minutes. GAAH. finally, I when I decided to leave and go somewhere else, I saw the library. great. if only I found it earier. anyway, I was pretty happy, cuz I could entertain myself with some tech books. found a few books that interested me, so I borrowed them. One was teaching Ajax, one was a Joomla ref. book, and a book on Flash. read them a little, then went to my student's home.

After the tuition, I left for my last-student-of-the-day's house, and realised I was 3 hours early. wandered around Ikea for an inspiration for random christmas present, when i remember lynn's birthday. xD!! bought her a towel (if you wanna know why, read her blog) and some other random stuff, then left for queensway shopping centre. walked around a little, read my books, walked around some more, read my books some more, and idled at some sports store and disturbed the shopkeeper, then I finally felt hungry (trust me, I nearly died of boredom. Was too lazy to go home, since i would have to come back again, so it would be just plain boring), so ate the laksa there, then left for my student's house 30 minutes early. Since she always comes home right before the lesson, I was hoping she wouldn't be home and so i get to try out her grand piano. guess what. exam week, so she was home mugging. anyway, I started early (since it was the physics exam the next day) and surprisingly, the lesson lasted way longer than I expected. not to complain, cuz i enjoy teaching her. anyway, i finally went home after that.

Tuesday
was quite loaded as well, but everything was happening quite in flow. first was the student's postponed lesson in the morning, which ended at 11. I had to go to J8 to pick up photos from my photoshoot, so I reached dhoby ghaut right around 12:30 for pool with su chang, reico and esther. was just in time, but no one was there. reico came in a bit, and we went to eat lunch. finally, at 1+, everyone was here, so we went to play pool. I was pretty satisfied, cuz after observing reico play last time, as well as a few pros during other pool games, I improved quite a bit. yay! anyway, we ended the game at 3:00, and went to play bishi boshi. damn. reico thrashed us flat. gaaah.
su chang, esther and I left for su chang's house, me to fix her comp, and esther went for fun. ended up getting distracted by her new doggie (called cookie. when she said she likes cookie, i said i'm baking cookies tmr. lmao!) anyway, fixed her wireless, and left for lynn's birthday celebration, which i reached at 7+. first thing I did there was play mahjong, and ended up hooked for the rest of the night. other than her birthday singing part, i was just at the table, occasionally walking off to get more food for dinner. watched russell peters at 1am+, which was damn funny (haha, i wanna watch some more), followed by don't mess with the zohan, which sucked, but was funny nonetheless. show ended at 4am+, and everyone was already fast asleep. damn. another super boring moment. I seem to get super boring moments these few days. ended up playing world of goo a little, walked around, listened to my mp3, then finally, lynn woke up at 5+. we played more world of goo (I totally never knew she would be interested in world of goo, and she played it before <-- even more surprising). ken wei and jon wei woke at 6+, and we walked around a bit, talked a little, then I had to leave for home to get ready to go to school. Reached school at 10+, just a little late. Was supposed to meet Mr Ng for alumni stuff at 10. Anyway, we settled on the alumni website, now its under development. expected to finish at around late january (hey, i'm new to php, and it's intensive coding too). went home after that, got my cookie stuff ready, then baked with my new recipe. the cookies initially turned out horrible, but I tweaked some ingredients, and now its even better than the last time. yay! (again).
Today
today was a slack day. woke up at 12 cuz of not sleeping yesterday, and cuz I was still mildly sick. had tuition at 1+, then went to pass early christmas cookies to lynn and phoebe. went home, watched hancock and the dark knight (in HD xD), then continued on my scholarship forms. gaah. now im bored and don't feel like sleeping again. hahaha. insomnia i guess. sucks.

The end of yet another chapter

2008-12-15T00:34:00.001+08:00

And the start of a brand new one.

Four months.

Unnecessary knowledge

2008-12-13T00:29:00.005+08:00

Haha, was reading Su Chang's blog and decided to check out the unnecessary knowledge website.
Check this out:

Many species of bird copulate in the air. In general, a couple will fly to a very high altitude, and then drop. During their descent, the birds mate. Sometimes the couple gets too involved and SPLAT!.

The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they can be easily confused at a crime scene.

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

Pearls melt in vinegar.

Goat's eyes have rectangular pupils.

It is a criminal offence to drive around in a dirty car in Russia.

Both Hitler and Napoleon were missing one testicle.

Singapore is the only country with one train station

Weird

2008-12-12T18:03:00.002+08:00

Ok, the day started off with me trying to make reach one of the tallest tower in the world in World of Goo, and I hit 7th in the world =D. Took over 10hrs of building the freakin tower, since it kept collapsing like nuts. imagine...a tower of jelly abt 40 stories high....meh.
Check it out =D
http://www.worldofgoo.com/leaderboard.php
Anyway, I decided to continue searching for my stuff for the NUS app from last night, and I still could not find my H1 Chinese result slip. I literally turned my entire shelf upside down, taking out every single thing I had since year 5 and checked it (which means like 2 rows of shit) and I could not find it. In the end, I went down to MOE to get a new copy of my result slip =.=
Went to Sim Lim after that. The train ride there today was...unique. Not that I take observations of every single train ride, but today, I happened to be standing among quite a lot of non-english/chinese speaking people. At first was these two girls from SJSS who was standing next to me and speaking in jap about random stuff (I didnt mean to eavesdrop, but I had nothing to distract my attention. Especially when they happened to talk about me and my height (they were quite short) at one part, assuming I did not understand =D
Behind me was then this group of people who kept speaking loudly in malay, and next to me was this couple of people speaking cantonese, and sitting down near me was a group of indians speaking in hindi (I think). So yeah, I was surrounded by non english/chinese speaking people lol. Also, at one point this guy came on board, and he was wearing humongous sunglasses (which is not freaky, but read on) as well as a weird black hat and long hair (like way down below his shoulders). So together, it made him look damn gay. and he was stroking his hair non stop.

Anyway, I went to Sim Lim to buy a new DVD RW drive, a few fans for my com, and I bumped into Luke, Sidwyn and another guy from yr 4 I didn't know his name of.

Just got home and installed my DVD Drive and the fans. My internal computer temp dropped from 40% to 27%, so its a really big difference. My com is also much faster now xD

Oh well, back to NUS apps.

Dreaming of common app

2008-12-08T07:57:00.002+08:00

Just woken up from one of the most unlikeliest dreams I ever had...a dream about an essay O.o
I kinda dreamed on what theme I shall be writing my supplimentary essay. haha. pretty weird. But anyways, I got inspiration now, so I shall get down to writing something xD

Fallout 3

2008-12-07T20:17:00.002+08:00

Woke up at like 11 today (again), cuz I was busy playing Fallout 3 last night.
Man, Fallout 3 is damn fun. everything is dynamic, and combat IS challenging. You can't just run out and spray, cuz you will definitely die. Not like every other game where the player is like a superhero, you can't snipe in the game with a pistol or a plain rifle.
Anyway, I went to give tuition today, from 2-3:30 at sengkang, then went home and did up my common app again. Freaking essay is hard to write. I dunno how to make it look good and sound interesting at the same time. the question is so plain.
Gaah. I guess ill work on it later. Back to Fallout 3 =D

Zheng Hua Adventure challeng

2008-12-06T20:03:00.000+08:00

Alright, about what happened during the challenge in the morning:
There was this "quad-athalon" (4 part marathon?) in the morning, except it wasn't anywhere near a marathon standard. Met Nat, Mikel, Steph and Cheryl at Macritchie carpark at 8, waited for the rest, then went to report, got a weird yellow (yellow O.o) tshirt, then we went to get briefed, finally, we started at 9:15.
So, the race was supposed to start with a 3km kayak component. Felt like 2km, but I am not complaining. The kayak part sucked the most, mostly cuz of my back problem, I couldn't sit straight AND kayak at the same time (apparently, exerting my back muscles to kayak forces my back backwards, so I can't sit straight). Ended up letting nat do 90% of the work, which I felt really bad for, but I couldn't help it. I think it was cuz of the open top. Normal closed top kayaks, I can press my legs against the top to push my body straight up.
Anyway, after the kayaking, we had a 8km run, which wasn't much, since John got this stitch (shucks for him) and daniel was tired out too. had two stops at stations where we had to complete a challenge before we could continue. hahaha. The first stop was to balance a needle on a cup of water, which we took 10mins on and lost the lead. however, we kinda caught up, then on the second station, where we had to play 5 stones and kick a chaptay (isit spelled like that?) 5 times, which we could do without much of a problem, so we overtook the first team again =D
Cycling came next. Whee, the fun part. We raced down like 3-4km of deserted road, which was really exhilarating, then hit back on the mud trail. That was when we made a wrong turn and went on the wrong track at a T junction. In the end, we dropped 4 ranks. The cycling part on the mud was pretty scary too, mud was everwhere, slops all over the place, and I'm a road guy (never cycled on anything more than the Macritchie mud trail) so I was kinda freaked. Luckily, I fell down only once, so it wasn't that bad. Nonetheless, it was fun.
Finally, reached Zhenghua and did the rock wall. We were all tired already, and since we were not first anymore, I wasnt really motivated to climb anymore. Anyway, we finally did the rock wall, ate lunch, waited for the other team, then went home.

Cool song

2008-11-28T23:24:00.001+08:00

Haha. Just felt like listening to this song. I love the remixed version, but the original is good too =)

Long been unfit

2008-11-27T18:18:00.002+08:00

After about 4 months of not going gym, I decided to go gym again recently.
At first I seriously considered Fitness First at AMK Hub, but in the end I did not sign up as the rates are far too high. Though it is a premium gym with swimming facs and movie rentals and a small cafe and all that, the rates of 175 a month is too expensive.
Went down to the Bishan one, then checked out California fitness at Velocity. Those were more decent, but I have yet to sign up with one.
Since they offered a free day trial, I took it and went to try out the place.
4 months of no gymming, and I deproved like mad. Gosh, I really need to go gym more. time to do a 5 month progress checklist.

Perhaps I should consider buying a few dumbells and a chinup bar instead so I dont have to travel so much.....

Grad rehearsal

2008-11-26T21:33:00.002+08:00

Gosh, we actually finished earlier than planned today for rehearsal. Supposed to end at 1 but we finished at 12.
Everything went smoothly though, so it was ok.
The one thing I didnt like was that they actually screened the graduation montage. when I saw it screen, i was like, WTF? DAMN it. It was NOT supposed to be screened before the actual convocation. I spent so much time on it so that it will fit very very well with the setting and atmosphere on convocation, and they just HAD to spoiler the whole video before convocation itself.
MAN. Do they even have any thoughts for us? It was a damn big shock to me. I mean, now that everyone has watched it (with the mood not being there), it became like another typical photo montage, with no real feelings attached. I spent so much effort on it for them to just spoil it.
SHEESH. And as expected, the main comments on the slideshow was that it was way too short, which i agree absolutely. But since the teachers felt it was too long, I can't do anything about it.
Gaah.
After that I picked up lunch, went home to rush changes to the video, pick up a few things, and went to cousin's house to bake cookies. Now I'm here, feeling that it was all wasted. damn. I don't feel that the montage is special anymore.

Promenade

2008-11-23T15:22:00.002+08:00

Yep. Last night was our Prom night!
And I totally enjoyed it. It was quite well planned, though most of the things didn't go according to plan because everyone didn't wanna listen as they were toooooo busy taking photos. Even so, everything was quite enjoyable.
What happened on the day was:
Ok, so i was at home working on the convocation DVD which will contain the convoc montage and other stuff.
Went to get prepared at 4:30, then left house at 5:00pm. Took a taxi suntec city at aroun 5:30 to meet su chang (to borrow her camera cuz she needed my camera for something else). I didn't realise there was a book sale there, and a anime exhibition below. sigh. i didn't go to take a look as i didnt realise it was an anime exhibition then.

I then took another taxi to Intercon, and i reached at around 6:00pm. ok, so i was 1hr+ early. decided to walk around abit, then i found bugis vault, where i ran into lynn and ken wei. haha.
after that, we just aimlessly walked around bugis junction, then went back at 7. By then a lot of the yr 6s were there already, so we just made the lobby into a big conjested gathering place. haha.
Then the photo taking began, cuz everyone looks totally different today.
At 7:45, we gathered and registered, and was busy clogging up the passage to the vault as everyone was still taking photos. I saw some people who really dressed up really well for the prom, like joanne and eugenie.
Dinner began at 8:00pm, and we had some random games by the prom comm during the first few courses. After that, everyone got bored of eating and just abandoned the food, and they continued taking photos. this kinda went on till the end of the entire prom night, so there was not much in between. One of the games we played though, was pretty interesting. Every table had to send up a representative they thought fit the adjective. Like, an adjective of "Widest" was given, then someone will be sent to try for that. After that, they then showed the entire description, like, "Widest head". It was pretty fun haha.

After everything, like taking group photos and all that, we all went back, except for a few, like me who stayed back to go kboxing with zhao ye and gang.
We went to get some beer, then went to a kbox opposite Bugis Junction, and we just SANG all the way from midnight to 5:30am. wow. I totally didnt feel like it was 5+hrs, it was like 3hrs to me. hahaa.
So during the kboxing, we just selected many many random songs and just sang. I was like singing off key all the way, but I didnt care. haha.

After the kboxing, everyone crashed macs, I ate breakfast, then we all left. I reached home at like, 7am, then bathed and went to sleep. haha

PHONE!!

2008-11-21T11:22:00.003+08:00

Gaah. Lost my phone!!!
Oh nooooooooo!
Must've slipped out of my pocket on the taxi on the way to school. Dammit.
I hope I can get it back =\

Loads of photos

2008-11-19T17:11:00.002+08:00

After doing the grad video and all that, I decided to just check how much space my pictures are taking up, and wow, whatever I expected, it was not it. all my pictures and videos added together take up nearly 200Gb of space. Wow. Of course, there's probably like, 30Gb worth of overlap or something, cuz sometimes I copy a whole folder of photos to another folder to sort and vet through before i pass to my friends, etc.
So i decided to look how the breakdown is, and it goes:
PSL photos and videos: 121.7Gb
-including every single event that PSL was in etc.
ODAC photos and videos: 27.6Gb
Tioman: 10.1Gb
Pahang: 7.2Gb
Chiang Mai: 2.1Gb
Teacher's day: 4.1Gb
Random photos of end of year that Zhao ye and Weiling took: 2.7Gb
Videos that Long took during ballroom dancing while he was slacking: 1.9Gb
Pictures of a few people's birthdays: 1.6Gb
Orientation photos: 1.1Gb
Speech day photos: 0.9Gb
Other school events like CNY, etc: 700Mb
Random photos taken in school, like the water fountain from the drains, etc: 500Mb
Personal photos: 19.7Gb

Blah. Anyway cleaning up the photos is pretty darn irritating, so I'll just buy another HDD when I need, anyway, by the time all my space is gone, a 1Tb HDD would probably cost 80 bucks or even less (after NS). That means, the 200gigs i used is worth only like 16 bucks. pretty worth it la.

I'm totally dying of stress here. My family is going overseas soon, so I need to move to my cousin's house (which I am totally looking forward to), but I need my computer, cuz I'm still not done since there's SOOO many people vetting through the video that I need to tailor the video to the comments of each of them, so in the end, my proposed 16min video is cut to 4 mins long, excluding a teacher's portion. That means I have cut out abt 85% of the photos I used in the beginning. Additionally, there's still alumni stuff, and grad stuff that Mr Ng asked me for help in. I know its my fault for volunteering, so i have only myself to blame. sigh. I didn't expect everything to be so squeezed.
To add on to that, my Brightsparks account corrupted, so I have to reapply for every one of the scholarships I applied for. shit. I'll probably do that after I move over to my cousin's house, right now, I'll focus on the grad video.

Grad video

2008-11-18T02:09:00.001+08:00

Grad video's coming along great =D
I'm done with the long (the main one) version, which will be burnt for everyone on a DVD like i mentioned in the email.
There will be a shorter one cuz Mr Ang decided to HALVE the time for the slideshow, so i had to cut out 60% of the photos. It won't be nice anymore, but at least its something =D

xD

~rushing college apps now. hope to finish by 1st dec =P

Sports meet

2008-11-14T21:31:00.003+08:00

The past 2 days were our schools sports meet, and the last 2 days of school for me. haha. I decided to just put in my best in this and i'm pretty satisfied with what happened these 2 days =D
Alright, for the first day, I kinda decided to go to school at the same time as I always do for normal days, so I reached at 7:10. Stoned around abit, then went for some Oath Taking ceremony in the hall, where I was sabo-ed to be an Oath Taker (its kinda inevitable I'll become 1). Took a totally cheezy oath for the sports meet, then Dr Hang opened the event.
So for day 1, it was all the long D events, which were 800, 1500, and 4x400 races, occuring in order. Therefore, I had to warm up right after the sports meet started.
Skipping all the boring stuff, basically, I was all pumped up for 800, ran my race, and came in 2nd. I was pretty confident in getting first, keeping my pace up all the way and in front of everyone, but got overtaken by Aaron in the end, which was good, since he's a fellow Nobellian.
1500 came, then 4x400, but it stopped at the A-div girls, since it started raining heavily after that. Therefore, A-div boys got pushed to the next day. blah. just when I was all pumped up to run again.
Went home after that, with ultra soaked bag and shoes. After I had a good shower, I went to look at stuff I could wear for prom, and I saw this really nice looking suit that costs 220 bucks in G2000. It was on promo, with a pair of pants to go with it, so I decided to buy that this weekend.

Day 2:
I kinda woke up late, cuz I was playing mass effect till damn late the night before. I was late by about 20 mins, so I arrived at 7:30 instead, which was nothing much anyway. today was sunnier, no complaints about that in the morning. 4x400 was the first event, so we had to warm up immediately =.=
Anyway, we got first again, which is great. at least I get a gold to bring home this year.
(boring stuff in between)
4x100 came next, and I got pushed into the 2nd (the bai ka) team. was kinda unhappy, but heck. Someone had to go there, so i guessed it was me this time. My team had Daniel, Hieu and Mikel, so our team is pretty decent.
Results? First team got 2nd, and my team got 5th, which isn't bad at all.
(more boring stuff in between)
The netball and soccer "match" came after all the events, which is kinda retarded, where, for the netball match, all the team had to do was to shoot netballs at the hoop from a certain marked distance. Faraday won this event of course, followed by Nobel, then Fleming and finally Fibo. The sad thing is, there was some kinda decrepancies in the rules, so the match scores were cancelled in the end. For soccer? It was kinda like shooting the balls at a net divided into 3x3, like a tic tac toe, and the teams had to shoot the balls in to holes to indicate taking that slot. kinda cool game though =P. I didn't know much about our scores for that though.
Finally was the staff race. The staff had a amazing 8x50m relay. There was nothing much about it, except that we all were like, WOWed at Mr Lim and his speed. He overtook all the other 3 runners in the 50m sprint he had. O_O!! Anyway, we still got last in the end. haha
Overall? Nobel got 2nd though. We were so close to winning, we lost to Faraday by 1 point overall for sports meet, but its a big pity. haha.

-------------------------------------

Sometimes, I really despise some people who jump in at the middle of an argument, hears only part of what I am talking about, and assumes something totally different, then start flaming me for it. especially when I am defending them.
Basically, for the discrepancies in the netball match, fibo was the only one who properly followed the rules; the umpires on the other 3 teams were unclear about the rules. Due to that, fibo was at a big disadvantage, and they were pretty unhappy about it.
What happened next was pretty obvious, everyone started arguing with the umpires about the scores, and everything was pretty messy. Since I happened to be there, I want to help resolve it, so I told the umpire that they should do something about the unfairness, or fibo won't let it rest. They decided that the match should not be counted then, which was actually fair for fibo, since they don't get a disadvantage, but then faraday, who had such a good victory, won't be happy about it. Since the best way to clear this is for a rematch, I asked them if it could be done, but obviously, there was no time, and the teacher in charge made that clear. The only other choice would then be for cancelling the match.
At first, some of the people around were thinking that, since we broke rules, everyone should be disqualified except fibo, but that would give fibo a extremely big jump in points, which is not fair either. plus it was the umpire's fault. I wanted to point that out, and instead of disqualifying the 3 teams, we should cancel the match instead.

that was when things started going out of hang. some people from faraday decided to selectively hear what I said, and assumed that I wanted to cancel the match so nobel could have a better shot at winning. they just didn't happen to listen to the part about disqualifying, so i couldn't blame them. What I did not like was that they were so quick to assume that about me that they totally ignored my every attempt to explain the situation, and insulted me for having such bad sportsmanshipm, and that I was sore about Nobel losing, and that all I cared about was for Nobel to get a lead. Dude, not everyone cares about the points so much like you do . LOOK who has horrible sportsmanship. those people so bent on winning that they did not care about fibo at all? I even heard one of them say that they did not care about fibo, since fibo wouldn't win the sports cup anyway. sheesh.

Sports day is meant to built friendships, not break them for the sake of the stupid points. why the fuck is everyone so freaking competitive? did I curse and swear at them for winning us by 1 point? Not at all. I was happy that they won fair and square. I hope that in the future, these events don't create so much friction between houses.

Out with ODAC

2008-11-12T22:22:00.002+08:00

Okay, before I begin what happened today, I just have something to complain about.
The dumb school exchange email system. Why the heck must we not use the past 6 passwords we used, and have to change our password every 300 days? I mean, its not like anyone WANTS to hack into our exchange account; everyone gets the same email anyway. its damn irritating to try and come up with new passwords to remember.
OK done complaining.

Anyway, for today, I went out with ODAC for our (final?) CCA outing. At first I kinda didn't want to go, cuz we were gonna go to Marche to eat lunch, and I didn't want to spend so much cuz I might overspend my limit this month (150 bucks, I spent about 110). Anyway, in the end, I decided to go, since its been quite long I went to Marche.
Woke up at 9+, then left for Vivo and reached there at about 10+. It was kinda early, so i decided to camp at Best Denki and Challenger and look for some stuff I needed to buy, like a DVD-R DL. In the end, I found just a few left, and they cost like, 10 bucks, compared to a normal DVD-R which costs 1 dollar only. gaah. Anyway, I bought 2, in case i screwed up the first one.
After that, I went to meet up with the rest, then we went to Marche and waited for the rest. Ms Lee came after a while, and we ended up playing Taboo again. xD. We kinda stopped after a short while, when Yeelyn and Yunwei came. Thats when we started getting our food.
Like always, Marche has ultra expensive food. gaah. I decided to eat Roesti in the end, which is what I always ate first when I go to Marche. it was 5:50, so its pretty ok. Then I saw that they offered Roesti + a chicken (snail) sausage for 12:40, so I guessed it would be quite big, and I had a craving for sausages, so I purchased that instead.
Guess what? When I received the sausage, it was almost exactly the same size as a normal hot dog (hot dog as in, those you buy from NTUC in packets of 10, not the big ones that come with buns). Therefore, i paid an extra 7 bucks for something I can chomp down in one mouthful. wonderful ripoff.
Bought soup to go along with the roesti, then that was all I ate for lunch. Pretty meagre, but any more and I go broke.
After that, we left for the arcade, where I ended up burning another 15 bucks playing Time Crisis with Mikel. Whoa man. it was so not worth it in the end. considering how much i died cuz of the bloody gun malfunctioning. and damn. 15 bucks. ouch.
Joined the rest in the (same as always) game of spotting the differences in two photos. we nearly reached the high score, but nah, we did not get it in the end.
After that, we camped at BK's to play more Taboo, then everyone left from there in the end.
As usual, I went for tuition, then went back home.
And thus, today, I spent another 60 bucks. gaaah. And cuz of that, I need to wait another month before I can get my Xbox 360.

Future plans

2008-11-08T22:57:00.002+08:00

Damn. I was just wondering and wondering about what I will do after graduation from uni, since Singapore has a very very distinct lack of need for computer science people, and my cousin kind of suggested to me something I have always wanted: emigrate to the US.
It would be so nice to live in the US. From what I heard from my buddies from the states, life there is pretty much the same as what I always wanted.
Emigrating to the states would just be so ideal.
and of course, like almost every other family, my parents objected to this outright when i suggested it last year. they probably would still object to it now. That was the reason why i didn't know whether to do comp science or not. singapore has no lack of comp science talents, so i would be unneeded here.
Anyway, if I could actually secure a place in CMU, or one of the uni's in the states (big dreams eh?) with a scholarship, I might actually be able to convince them.
of course, there is always the option of not returning after graduation from the colleges in the states or running off to the states after graduation from NUS. if it were to boil down to that...well, i don't know. I'd prefer not to think about it.
but ah, it has been a childhood dream of living in the states, I have thought of living there since I was around pri 5-6, and it hasn't changed. I'm gonna fulfill it, no matter how hard I try. One of my biggest dreams, and if i can't even fulfill it, what does that say about me? I know, you might think its a dumb dream to have, to be able to live in the states, but so what? Its a dream I had for so many years, so yeah.

PT

2008-11-05T01:21:00.002+08:00

I realised I have a really irritating habit today. Has been going on for quite long.
Whenever I sleep too late the night before (like, after 1am), I end up wanting to sleep very late, like 10am. usually, I set my alarm clock to go at 9, so I can go exercise after that, but recently, my body automatically moves to the alarm clock, turns it off, then goes back to sleep, all without me even knowing it. Then I wake up late, wondering why the alarm clock didnt ring.

Today was no exception. Woke up at 9:30 cuz my biological clock normally wakes me up at this time. alarm clock was turned off as usual, although i know i turned it on the night before.
Went to school for PT with the odackers. pretty slack at first, we ran 5km (more like, jogged) in about 35mins. well, we did run 5km, so i guess it was ok. since we were running at that speed, i was hardly even getting tired, so i ended up doing chin ups with joshua, then catching up with the rest at every lap around the school. I ended up doing abt 14 total? man. my chin ups are really bad. REALLY BAD. horrible. After that, I stopped chin ups, and went on to pushups instead, 10 every lap. pretty slack too.
after we finished the 5k, we did 3 sets of 20pushups and 50 crutches alternating, which was reallly tiring. I realised how unfit I am now. I used to be able to do 300 non stop, now i can only do 30 at a go. anyway, crutches are pretty easy to train, so im just gonna train it. pushups is the harder one. I can still only do 30 at one go, which i need to push to 50. hope i can train enough to get that. bleh.

after PT, i washed up, and left school at 12. went for lunch at clementi. its been very long since i drank sugar cane, so i went to the hawker centre today. went to get stationery, since the current ones are nearly gone, then went to funan to check some prices on the games and hardware, then went home to defrag and repair my laptop.

went to give tuition after that (at 6), then reached home at 10. actually i wanted to work on the grad video, but in the end, i played SC with the usual gang haha

AIO

2008-11-02T12:04:00.002+08:00

Haha. Australian Informatics Olympiad results are out.
My score is a 297 out of a possible 400, which is quite bad, since people can get full marks.

Nevertheless, i've won a bronze at the olympiad, so its pretty cool. though, if i did put in more effort, and get another 16 more points, i would have gotten a silver. gaah, too bad.

Anyway, I ran 10km today. quite little, but its a start. I'm gonna start doing 16km next week.

second last week of work

2008-10-31T15:33:00.002+08:00

Today is my second last week at work.

finished most of my stuff already, done with most of the debugging, so now im just slacking off at my cubicle doing random stuff.

After internship, it would seem like there's nothing to do at all. i've got the entire week free from the week after next onwards. I guess it just means i get to train everyday. oh, and plus finish up the grad video. ahahaa

aims for the holidays
-Finish all the games i haven't finished: mass effect, world in conflict (haven't touched it in quite a while), and bioshock (gaah, damn, its scary)
-Finish reading one of the manga i've recently caught on. its untranslated so i need a lot of time to translate.
-train up: avg a day => run 16km, 300 crunches, 80pushups, 20 chin ups, 30 vertical situps.
aim for end of month => run 42km non stop (right now i can do only 32km non stop),500 crunches non stop, 50 push ups at one go, 12 chin ups at one go, 50 vertical sit ups at one go.

pretty far target, but its appropriate since NS probably expects this kind of fitness level.

ahhaa

Common App

2008-10-26T21:05:00.002+08:00

Alright, since half of the level is going US colleges, you'll most likely be filling out the common app form (well if you haven't heard about it you should if you are going US)

The form is a real pain in the next to fill up and reproduce, since you need multiple forms for multiple colleges, but the pdf cannot be edited just like that.
Anyway, i've converted the file to one that can be filled up (just using Adobe Livedesigner and using it to detect all the blanks and converted them, but i added the radio buttons myself)
so it makes everyone's life easier.

Here's the link:
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/6/2/1136778/commonapp.pdf

Top 100 books

2008-10-26T11:42:00.003+08:00

Alright. ADAPTED from Ernests' blog =P
The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.

1 Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

If an average adult reads 6 of those books, and I read like 15 of them, what does that make me? O.o

April enlistment

2008-10-25T17:47:00.001+08:00

GAAH.
I've always hoped for a january enlistment, so I can go enlist and go out of NS early. freak. but they had to put me in april. everyone else i know is in january/dec enlistment, and im in freaking april =.=

shit man

CAP out

2008-10-25T00:11:00.002+08:00

yay...my CAP is finally out!
got a 4.44 this sem. i guess its pretty cool, but too bad its not much of an achievement. =\
i mean, almost everyone is gonna get above a 4 this sem, and probably like half will get higher than me (again).
but well, on the brighter side, it pulled my overall transcript cap by quite a lot, so im pretty happy =)
i just hope its still enough after my grad cap is computed =.=
ah well

2008-10-23T22:12:00.002+08:00

Gaah. I can't wait for internship to end. then i can actually get more time to work on some stuff i really need to work on (like uni apps).
on a side note, when i was buying lunch today, i kinda realised that i've been spending too much money these days. lets see...
30 bucks on arcade + pool this last month
30 bucks eating out with friends
70 bucks on a few friends' birthday presents
20 bucks on supper every night =P

and a little more here and there which doesnt really matter.
haha, i realised that everything i've earned at working at MOE covers for this =P
back to square one lol

farewell assembly

2008-10-22T22:27:00.003+08:00

farewell assembly today was pretty ok i guess, except for a small part which i will talk about later.

Had a small video screening in the morning showing this guy giving a talk about how he had dreams and chased them. The way he shaped his life and followed his values, i found that very inspirational =)

After that was the farewell assembly. was quite a disappointment though, it did not turn out anywhere as grand as the farewell assembly i expected (i witnessed one at hwa chong 2 years ago for one of my seniors, so i had pretty high expectations). basically, we had a small performance to start with, which was pretty ok, except that ken wei is too loud AGAIN. could only hear his voice, and sometimes a little of lynn's.
it was followed by the alumni launch, which i found pretty ok for a last minute job (like, started and finished the planning just the day before), but i couldnt really see what was going on since i was sitting at the side.
after that was the passing of gifts and farewell to us from the school, followed by a photo montage by the student council, which turned out pretty ok too, but half the photos they used is the same as the ones im using during convocation =.=
after that was a performance by 605, who played two songs. i forgot the first, but the second was graduation (big surprise lol) which was pretty cool too xD
then following was meiying's piano solo, which was cool too, then finally oliver's group, which was a little...err
they played very well for the song they were playing, but the big problem was that their choice of songs was like, wayyy off. why the hell were they playing death metal during farewell assembly? doesnt match at all.

anyway, after farewell assembly, we had this survey for our experiences in this school, then i left for home. geesh man. it had to start raining right when i was leaving for home. the rain was pretty BAD, like, for someone as tall as me, my umbrella looked like a toy. my entire pants were drenched before i left the school, leaving only my shirt dry, and the seat of my pants, which my crumpler shielded (and of course, the crumpler was wet too).
it final string came when this van drove past when i was right next to a HUGE pool of muddy water on the road, so yeah, i got totally drenched, and my umbrella got blown inside out by the wind. gaah. i gave up, repaired my umbrella, chucked it my bag and just walked to the bus stop without an umbrella. oh, the bus driver didnt seem too happy to see me board his bus =P

grad video

2008-10-17T20:22:00.003+08:00

heh, grad video is on the way.

however, the school has dumped me with farrr too many post exam stuff to be able to finish the video by farewell assembly, so it will be screened only on convocation, which i feel is more meaningful anyway.

the grad video is well on its way, i'm 25% done, 75% of the photos are good enough (i think), and im now trying to get a good background song that satisfy the most people, and a good theme to sit with it. the biggest problem is that adobe premier pro exports the video is the most horrible ways ever.

while windows movie maker makes movies efficiently but has terrible quality, premier pro's encoding destroys most of the quality supposed to be exported. those that exports with proper quality takes longer than forever to encode. i tried the best quality i can make, since i can always scale down after that, so i encoded in 1920 by 1080 resolution first, and the video i got was pretty decent, but the encoding takes like 10 minutes for the first 5 seconds of the video. maybe its cuz im running photoshop, rendering some stuff for the video flash, mozilla, messenger, itunes, encoding a few videos so i can watch on my zen using another video converter, and still have about 10+ explorer windows open. xD. I'm really pushing my graphics card to the limit.

anyway, i hope i can deliver this video well. im certainly putting in the best effort i can to make it good.

MOE Attachment

2008-10-13T23:16:00.002+08:00

Today was the first day of the "attachment", or so they call it. Basically, we went there, (We meaning, about 50 of us from year 5 and 6, plus another group from Millenium Institute) and ended up checking through most of the scripts for GEP selection test for the entire Singapore. Sheesh man, for the whole day, most of us ended up transferring answers from the student answer sheets by shading OMSes. Gee man, its a pretty tough job. However, we rushed like heck, and finished about 3 hrs ahead of time xD

So, we started at 10 for shading, and ended at about 3, instead of 6. After that, i went out with ken wei, lynn, karyen and fiona to watch movies at lido, but there was nothing nice to watch there. Walked all the way to Cineleisure, and still we did not get anything nice to watch.
Chermaine joined us later on, so we went to meridian shopping centre to play pool. Deborah joined halfway, then we kinda played till 5:45.

Pool was pretty cool today though. There was this series of 3 matches where I trashed benedict, benedict trashed ken wei and ken wei trashed me and benedict together. what the heck man. Then there was this time i had a winning streak, then i accidentally knocked my knuckle against my hip when aiming, then my aim was off for all the shots i took after that. haha.

Left for PS to eat at kopitiam, then went to give my tutee her lesson =D

Oh, i got the new pricing for my new computer end of the year when i went out with su chang to get her Wii.
nForce 780i motherboard + Q9450 2.66Ghz -> $800
4Gb Corsair Dominator RAM -> $180
1Tb WD HDD -> $200
2x GeForce 9800X2 -> $500
CPU Fan -> $100
Creative Sound card -> $150
Samsung DVD Drive -> $40
21.6inch Samsung LCD Screen -> $300
750Watt power source -> $240
Surround speakers -> $150
Computer case -> $250

Total cost = $2910

And its super high end computer system already. More than 3 times as powerful as my current com.

Restored hard drive

2008-10-09T20:23:00.003+08:00

Alright, damned western digital hard drive failed on me yesterday, and i ended up losing my night's sleep after that, which i recovered by sleeping during internship (again).

Read through a few guides online, and i realised that many people met with the same fate. however, one of them actually solved the problem, which was actually quite simple to do. just remove all the external components, and strip it down to the basic hard drive and plug into the computer.

So when i came home, i immediately went to dismantle my hard drive (which turned out to be pretty fun), and went to meddle with my com.

LUCKILY, the hard drive itself is working, its the components connected to it that were faulty (the firmware corrupted), so right now i pretty much got everything back, except that I kinda paid 100 bucks extra for a internal hard disk. (The external one i got is 180 bucks, internal ones are 80 bucks)

Ahh well, its just too bad. at least i got my important stuff back.

Oh, i'll be building a new com end of year again! xD. this time its gonna be much higher end than my current com.
Intel Core 2 Q9450 2.66GHz (gonna overclock to 4GHz)
nForce 780i motherboard
(Probably) 2x GeForce 9800X2, if not, 2x Geforce 8800GT is pretty decent too
4x2Gb Corsair DDR3 RAM
1Tb WD Hard disk (internal WD hard disks i still trust)
22inch Samsung monitor 1680x1050
2x DVD Writers
Creative Gamer X-Fi sound card
Creative Gigaworks 5.1 Surround sound
Projected cost: $3200 (or $2900 for the 8800gt version)

GAAAAAH

2008-10-08T23:31:00.001+08:00

ARGGGG
FUCK!
Seriously.
Bought a 500Gb hard drive on monday, crashed today. WTF man. Its a trusted brand of hard disks too. I trusted it tooo much man. I basically threw everything valuable inside, and it FUCKING CRASHED!!

ARGHH!!

every single DAMNED THING i ever had over this past 4 years is in this drive!!!
FUCK!

Exams are over

2008-10-08T13:05:00.002+08:00

Whoo, exams are over.
Actually, I don't really feel that happy though. I knew that the school will dump stuff on us last minute (and they did) so I ended up partying and holiday-ing during the few days before exams, so as to relieve some stress and all that. Ahaa.

Now that exams are over, its time to rush those many stuff that's due right after exams, like:
IR research poster and report
Farewell assembly and convocation photo montage
University apps
Scholarship apps
My CV and personal statement and those really irritating stuff i hate writing
and more but I'm kinda lazy to think of anymore

anyway, went pool yesterday =P though it was pretty dull, since we played for only 1hr+

Exams coming up

2008-09-27T00:05:00.002+08:00

Exams are coming up. The last of high school exams we will ever have. Somehow, everyone's counting down feeling so nostaligic and depressed as high school is ending, but I don't feel a thing.
Somehow, everything just seems to go like any part of my life. Like, its just any normal day. I guess my life have been so hectic, it simply never existed. It doesn't feel like graduation at all...

Gaah.
Away from that.

Just got home from doing eng proj in school. not very productive today i guess. Gaah I HATE doing work in school using my laptop (mostly its cuz im using my laptop). I'm too used to the speed of my gaming rig at home that I feel that my laptop is too slow. And it really is. Its laggy like shit, hard disk is failing, and my screens half broken from one of those bastard chinese scholars who ran off after blasting my com screen with his basket ball. never managed to see him clearly. gaah.
Thus, I end up doing my work on my home com, which is far more comfortable. i can at least do work much faster at home.

Anyway, I'm watching One Piece now xD. And Ironman. Just got it xD

Last day of lessons

2008-09-22T22:36:00.002+08:00

Tomorrow will be last day of lessons for our entire level. I guess its about time for all of us to move on...
1day to end of lessons
1week to exams
1month to farewell assembly
1term to NS

Ah well. I'm not looking forward to graduating, much as i don't want to feel like that =\

I'm so gonna miss everyone

I better appreciate all the time we have left together =)

Bug's Life, part 2

2008-09-18T23:08:00.002+08:00

More like,
Bug's Death
2 days of not looking at my cup and this happens. And the best thing is, the cup always had the lid on. No idea how the bugs found the water so easily and even more surprised they love drowning so much.

Loads of stuff!

2008-09-15T23:00:00.002+08:00

haha i need somewhere to write reminders for me to do, so i'll dump it here
damn, i got lots of stuff to finish.
Priority tasks:
Eng report
Chem lab (spp science)
Physics tutoring scheme - update students list and contact all students as well as tutors
English IRP
study NMR quiz

Others:
Grad photo montage
Prep for eng exam
do math revision
start on university applications
chem lab (NMR)
Prepare for my student's tuition on tues and wed.

Gee man, i'm seriously loading myself full of stuff =P
Kinda like feeling stressed now though, since feeling slack gives me a guilty feeling that i have something undone. xD

University applications

2008-09-11T22:42:00.002+08:00

Seems that a lot of people are already prepping for uni applications, and that makes me feel kinda nervous, since I have not started preparation yet. However, I have spent quite a bit of time getting down the list of overseas universities that I am going to try for, and hopefully get into one of them (with a scholarship of course)
My choices are:
1. Carnegie Mellon
2. MIT
3. University of California, Berkeley
4. Cornell University
5. CalTech

I'm aiming pretty high, and won't be at all surprised if I don't get into any of these. Of course, there is no harm trying, so I'll just go for it anyway. If the chance comes that I can secure a scholarship and one of the universities, then I'll be really happy, but thats quite a slim chance I'm trying to catch.
And if I don't get it? Well, I've already thought of going to the local universities, and so i'll be ranking them:
1.NUS
2.SMU
3.NTU

And if I still DON'T get in, thats pretty bad, but I've thought of going into full time tutoring if I cannot get into university education, and simultaneously start a business on customizing and building computers. (I'm already running a small "business" on customizing and building computers, just that I'm doing it for free =P)

Drinking cup = swimming pool?

2008-09-08T23:16:00.002+08:00

This is hilarious!
For about 2 months, my drinking cup is like the favourite hotspot for insects!
Like, I'll just bring my water in (note, its always water, not soft drinks, nothing sweet either), and ill go do my homework, go eat some food, and about a few hours later, i look into my cup, and voila!, i get a bunch of insects in my cup.

One of the most amusing ones i saw was this HUGE group of insects (about 20-30 of them) who just decided to go for a swim (and about half were still swimming when I looked in), and they were all together in one group. After about an hr, most of them were like, dead, so i got sick of them and threw everything down.

And this swimming thing happens EVERYDAY!! like, i bring my cup in, leave it, and without fail, there will be some amount of dead insects inside! I wonder what is attracting them.
My guess is that my cup is curved inwards at the top, so insects who wander in fall into the water. And its so yuck
Especially when the first time i saw it, i was like OMG! HOW MANY INSECTS HAVE I DRUNK ALREADY? gee man. you might say its not a big deal, but its just shocking to me.

oh well, heres a picture:

Food Poisoning

2008-09-05T21:40:00.002+08:00

The reason I haven't been updating the past few days (been planning to do so on Wed) was cuz I had food poisoning.
Yep.
I was at internship as usual on wednesday, and I went for lunch as usual with clement and debbie, and this time we went to technoedge at nus to eat. I had a headache then, which i guessed was from lack of sleep the night before, so I wasn't feeling too good, and there was a humongous queue at every single stall except for the herbal food one, which I didn't like (and most people didn't like as well, considering the short queue), so I went to Macs and got myself a McSpicy.

Actually I always liked NUS McSpicies, cuz they ain't too spicy like those outside, and the meat tastes so nice. However, the McSpicy that day was more spicy than usual, and more interestingly, it was half super spicy (meaning that half of the meat was spicy as usual, and half of it was super spicy). And the mayo was kinda sour, but i dismissed it. However, after that, my stomach kinda felt queasy, so I went back to my cubicle at DSO and fell asleep. Things didn't improve after I woke up, and I left work at 530pm feeling really horrible.
When I left my cubicle, I had a terrible stomachache, felt like puking, and had a throbbing headache. Of course, i couldnt let the stomachache wait, so i got it resolved at the loo with lots of diahorrea (shan't elaborate). Felt much better after that, so I left work and went to my tutee's house.
The second disaster struck then: I threw up on the bus. LUCKILY, i had a plastic bag in my bag, which i always kept in case I needed it (never thought i would ever need it in case i puked), so i pulled it out in time, and my entire lunch content came out. it kinda continued all the way to the toilet, and i was feeling really horrible then.
Some time after that, i got rid of the puking feeling and the stomachache, then it was the headache to get rid of. What to do? anyway, I went to my tutee's house for her physics tuition, then went home.
Got home at about 930, and luckily i got home early, cuz i had a high fever when i got home, and nearly collapsed. Went straight to sleep after that.

On thursday, I woke up with still the same headache, and didn't feel like going to school for my Austrailian Informatics Olympiad, but since this is a rare chance i get to test my skills, i forced myself to go in the end.
Reached school at about 8+, where I saw the council selection camp. Nothing to comment, since I kinda pulled out after all that screwing up the school management did. went for the competition, which lasted 4 hours.
Interestingly, during the four hours, I realised how much code I have forgotten. Or it could be just due to the headache and the food poisoning i just suffered through. I forgot even how to write to a file using C++, and i spent like 20mins working the entire thing out. Heck, but the competition was pretty easy, so i finished 1 hr early and left.

Went to NUS after that, where I ran into clement, debbie and jj. i totally did not expect to run into them, and well, they were pretty surprised themselves, considering that they thought i ponned internship.

Here came the first alarming thing. I was feeling hungry, so i bought the typical plate of chicken rice that usually doesn't even fill me up properly. Guess what? I felt full after half the plate, had to force down another 1/4 of the food, then threw the rest away. Went for IR after that.

I left IR at about 6+, which was delayed as mikel and I wanted to leave at 5+, but there was this lab safety briefing at 5pm, cuz there was an explosion in one of the labs (someone eyes got injured cuz he was not wearing safety goggles), and we all had to stop our work. gaah.

I reached home at about 8+? bought dinner, and again, I felt full after eating half the dinner. gaah. thats really bad news.

Felt a lot better today, but I really thought that food poisoning took a toll on me. everything was ok except for lunch. Before lunch, i was REALLY hungry (and for those who know me well enough, i am really ravenous when im that hungry), so I ordered a black pepper chicken at megabites at NUS. guess what? I ate 3-4 mouthfuls, then i couldn't eat anymore. Ended up throwing all the rest away T_T .

Dammit. I'll never trust Macdonald's again. Bloody McSpicy gave me a food poisoning that took such a toll on me. And Macdonald's is supposed to be an ultra hygiene freak? yeah right.

Wall e

2008-08-29T21:37:00.002+08:00

Ok, I did watch Wall E today. In the afternoon. What I did before that and after that made me feel pretty accomplished today, so I think i'll blog about it.

Went to school late today actually, cuz i had my alarm clock set for internship wake-up time, which was 0710. Reached sch by taxi at 8, so i was kinda late =P
Teacher's day celebration was OK, i guess, so nothing much to say, except that the council did a much better job this year.
After that, we yr 6s had a lecture on our discipline and behaviour, saying that we are not appreciating the efforts put in by the teachers and alike, which i do agree. I guess I gotta put in more effort next time to appreciate what they do for us =\
Went for QSE survey after that, then left school at 11 for NUS to do my research work. Worked up Mikel's reaction and left the lab at 12:30 to rush to my primary school to find my teacher. I reached my pri sch at 2, just in time for visiting, which is at 2:15, but sadly, after looking around, I found out that my ex teacher went to the science centre on an excursion, and he was pretty sad he couldnt meet his students. Ahh. Pity.
I was told he would return at around 5, so i left at 2:40, ate lunch, went to Ang Mo Kio Central to catch the 3 o' clock Wall-e, (will talk about it later) which ended at around 4:40.
Went back to my primary school at 4:45, just to realise he left for home abt 5 mins before i reached. ARGH. sigh. well, I was really hoping to see him one last time, cuz I will probably never see him again, owing to the fact that after I come out of NS, he would most likely be retired =(
Anyway, I went back to Ang Mo Kio central after that, and bought the reallly famous 4 seasons durian puffs (Which i queued 20 mins for), then went home straight. Reached home at 5:45, slept for about half an hour while my mum cooked a simple dinner for me, then I left home at 6:25.
Reached my tutee's house at 7:00 (just in time), gave him math tuition today, then left at 8:30. Just got home and blogging now =P

I feel accomplished today.

Anyway, about Wall-e, the show was really nice, the setting, the sound, the animation, they all fitted very well. I didn't like one small part, but the rest was beautifully made. I don't mind going back to watch again.
Oh, and i do agree with Roy and Ada, the small clip at the start of the show is pretty whacky =D

Career day

2008-08-27T22:06:00.003+08:00

Nothing much happened for me today for Career day, since my future career will definitely be in the IT sector, which meant that not a single one of the talks this morning applied to me, except for the first one on scholarships.

After that, everything just got boring: the engineering talk which i went for was boring, cuz half of which was about stuff i didn't wanna go into in the future, and the other half i knew long ago, so i kinda slept through the talk =P
I didn't feel like going for any of the talks after that, so mikel and I went to the booths in the concourse to take a look, and in the end, it was nothing new again. bah.

So after that, we went to watch money not enough II at lido, which turned out to be really good, the show was funny at parts, but reallllly saddening. kinda like a super tragic story.

Went to Sim Lim to review and update my prices again.
Seems like prices reallllly dropped.
The most shocking I saw was:
500 Gb HDD -> ~89-106 bucks (was 200 bucks last november)
Q6600 -> 287 bucks (was ~500 last november)
Geforce 9600GT -> ~149 - 219 (was 300 three months ago)

Got many more changes, all of which lead to me finding out that my com (which cost ~1700 bucks) is now 1200 bucks, and you can get a mid range com for a really good price - 1500 bucks (the 1200 bucks for my com is without monitor), and the exact price for that mid range com with the same specs (except it has a really really bad graphics card - geforce 8500gt) costs about 2299 bucks, so a 9600gt would mean around a 2599 by scaling the price up. About half price? pretty amazing eh?

Anyway, back to the topic, I went back to orchard road, went to eat macs (again, cuz thats the only eatery there that I can afford to eat at) then went to give my tutee her tuition. Got home at abt 10+? xD

SAFRA RUN!

2008-08-23T21:29:00.003+08:00

Haha, i've got a 10km marathon tomorrow morning! at 7:30am!! I can't wait, but I don't wanna wake up so early either =.=
Anyway it seems that quite a lot of people I know are running, but no one i know is running the 10km competitive with me =P
I hope I can get to top 10 (quite ambitious) though, the timing's for last year's record are pretty ok to beat, except those in the top 20.

Oh and I just realised grad trip was cancelled. Like, wow, no one wants to go grad trip? I guess if theres no grad trip then I might go to Tokyo with a couple of friends end of year then, since my entire family will be in Korea (They will be away during my graduation, so I won't be going). Anyway I would probably do nothing there; Tokyo's nicer, cuz theres Akihabara, which I will probably spend all my time at. haha.

Bad ache

2008-08-22T09:05:00.002+08:00

Oh well. I kinda got a not so major case of food poisoning last night (I think) cuz i bought a few otaks home from NUS after IR, which was bittercold after I left it to chill in our lab room. Ate it for dinner since I ended IR at like 9pm, then I got down to finishing my chem homework at 10+. Then my stomachache hit me. I didn't think it was that bad, and since I couldn't get rid of it in any way, I just bore with it until like 2am, then I went to sleep after finishing chem (still got stomachache then). Surprisingly, I fell asleep for a while, before my stomachache got worse, then I really really couldn't sleep =.= and I ended up playing maple all night cuz I couldn't think straight, so homework was out of the question.
My stomachache finally went away at around 7am? By then I was dead tired, but I had to leave for internship already. boo. anyway I'm right now at internship, waiting for my programs to boot up, and trying not to fall asleep =P

Pretty rushed day

2008-08-15T21:19:00.002+08:00

Ok, today was pretty rushed, but fruitful. My mentor popped down to check on my progress, and thats when i realised he had no idea on how to do my project as well - its like really doing a research project with him. anyway i managed to get some progress on the project.
Rushed back to school to pass daniel my leftover donation draw tickets, then stayed to eat lunch and chat cheryl and mel about tioman. man i wish i was chosen to go =(
anyway, i went back to dso, then left at about 5+, cuz i had a tuition assignment after that. went to ang mo kio, grabbed a thumbdrive on promotion (which was 4gb for 20 bucks O.o freaking cheap) and then went to tutee's house for math + physics + chem tuition. today i only taught math (can't possibly teach 3 subjects at one go right? haha so i took about 1:30hrs to go through with him a few chapters, then i left some homework with him and came home. yep. so the whole day's pretty rushed =P

Out of time

2008-08-14T09:58:00.002+08:00

Currently at internship. bored right to the bone. I am lost and asking my mentor for help doesn't help O.o
I wonder if I can drop the internship. my original motivation to take internship was for pay, since i really needed the money, but since there's no pay, theres no point coming down everyday to waste time. I already got enough experience working in the corporate world from the part time jobs i took, so internship aint that important anymore.
Why, then would you ask that I did not take NUS modules? SImple, i couldnt qualify for it, so i had to take internship. stamford modules were just a waste of time as well.
I need to commit to IR now, and with internship and tuition, I reach home at about 10pm everyday. pretty much no time to do homework, except for weekends. gee man.
And internship lasts till november =.= i really wanna drop it la.

Research?

2008-08-13T16:32:00.002+08:00

It took me nearly 4 years to realise, that in fact, I am not built out at all for research. Funny enough, I grew up dreaming of being a researcher, going to NUS High in hopes of getting a nice PhD next time. Well, after so long, I realised that I never liked research. Although one part of me loved inventing new things, learning something new, another part wants me to do something that I am more comfortable with, not venture into the unknown. I am bad at research, as could be seen at the poor progress of my IR, as well as me getting totally lost at my research project at DSO. I realised that the "inventing something new" is actually not research, its more of...making stuff. I always loved to make tiny little gadgets people never think of, little applications that make my life easier. These are little inventions of mine, but no, it is not research. I am just not cut out for research.

Anyway, I guess I would first try and finish my IR, then my project at DSO, and if I go into NUS, I will go into computer science, get a basic degree, then leave. I've closed my options to research into computer science and software, but instead, I'll take a more down-to-earth job (thats how i term it) like being a teacher, or a tutor, or a technician. Apparently I love imparting my knowledge to others, or using it in a practical way. I love teaching, and I love creating stuff, I love repairing things, debugging. I also realised that researchers don't earn solid pay; they get "grants", which is something I'm not going to live my life on. no way. I'm looking for more of manageral roles in the later parts of my life.

first tuition assignment =D

2008-08-10T17:57:00.002+08:00

Haha. actually before i talk about that, theres something interesting i realised...
Many people didn't know about NUS High, and some knew a little. Of the some, i realised theres quite a number who mistook NUS High School as something quite different. Theres three or four that thought that NUS High School was a specialized school inside of NUS. As in, to them, they thought the smartest people studying in NUS goes to NUS High School, which is like this smart school (like GEP i think). well, I guess that impression is easily justifyable, since it starts with NUS, indicating that it is based on NUS, have a high, indicating that it is of a more significant value, and school, meaning its a division of an institution or just an institution built to teach students in NUS content of much higher difficulty. hahaha

Anyway, today I had tuition with my first tutee! haha.
Pretty fruitful I would say, although I was pretty ill prepared as she was an A level 1 physics student. However, the content she learns apparently is very close to the content we learnt in year 3 and 4, some of which are rusty.
Anyway I pretty much enjoyed tutoring her, and I totally forgot the time until i overshot by quite a bit. hahaha. I don't think she minded anyway =P
I hope i can get more tuition assignments. giving tuition is really fun xD

Trying new template

2008-08-08T23:27:00.003+08:00

Heh.
Trying new flashed based Ajax template. Probably gonna take me a couple of months to code then I'll change this skin xD

New skin

2008-08-07T21:46:00.001+08:00

Well, it isnt really a new skin, but rather a new background. Getting sick of the old one. I dunno if I should still keep the old one though.

Photoshopped this background in half an hr. My photoshop skills have really gone down =(
ah well.
I dunno if this is too glaring though

Cheap com O.o

2008-08-07T19:53:00.004+08:00

Well, I kinda mentally built a new computer today during internship cuz I was really bored.
Internship just started, and my mentor basically threw me straight into the fray. I did a 1 hr crash course on structs and pointers (and whatever I never learnt in C) on C++. Then, he tasked me to program a program to plot out a series of dots in a circle with radius r, and the dots are distributed with a gaussian curve, with the apex at the centre. Guess what? I got bored soon. so yeah, i went to think how cheap mid-top end coms are now.
Kinda surprising, the computer (without monitor) I bought costs 1.4k now, while a commercial equivalent is about 2.7k.
Anyway, a mid end computer capable of handling high definition graphical work, (needless to say, hardly laggy on vista with a lot of programs running), is still quite cheap if one visits the right vendor.
From my recent trip to Sim Lim, a computer with these specs:
Intel Core 2 Q6600 2.4Ghz
Gigabyte PS3 Neo 2 Motherboard (~580 bucks with the processor)
500Gb SataII HDD (~120 bucks)
Nvidia Geforce 9600GT (~230 bucks)
2x1Gb Kingston HyperX Ram (~80 bucks)
A nice looking case with power supply (~160 bucks)
A DVD Rw Drive (~50 bucks)
A 22Inch LCD Screen (~300-400 bucks)
Surround speakers (~60 bucks)
Total price is around 1500-1650 bucks for a computer that would normally cost 2.6k-3.0k commercially xD
Oh, Plus Windows Vista (300 bucks) Provided that you don't pirate the thing.
Its still less than 2k bucks. For a 3k computer. Means you pay 1k for warranty...worth it? Nope. Most of the hardware already have warranty anyway.
Yeah well, that was totally random, but for those who are planning to get a new comp (Yeah, I think I know someone who wanna get one), be smart and don't buy a commercial one =P

Oh wells. Marching tmr for National day. Wish me luck =D

On what happened yesterday

2008-08-06T22:32:00.002+08:00

I forgot to talk about what happened yesterday, which is really quite funny =P
The first funny thing had to happen during assembly.
Basically the school admin was pretty happy with how the year5s and 6s did,
Firstly, in that Zhao Ye, Greg and the same few people won 7 medals total in International Olympiads. (note for now, they are all year 6s)
Then, they are really happy that we got another round of near perfect scores for APs, with the year 6s scoring a full 5 for Calculus BC, Physics B (Last year), Physics C, and near perfect scores for the other APs such as Chem, Calculus AB, Physics B (This year), Bio, Stats, and Art. 70%-80% of the contributions to the perfect scores are from year 6s, and the rest are year 5s. (Note again, most of the contributions come from year 6s <-not trying to be ego. but trying to make a point)

After that, they announced that next Wednesday is a half day holiday to celebrate the achievements. Funny enough, almost all the achievements were by the year 6s alone, and yet, the year 6s are the only level that do not get to enjoy the half day holiday, since most of us are away on internships, and the rest doing NUS modules. Lol.

The second is more minor, but its just reallly funny. Zhao Ye happily made up a poem about Gabriel during complex number class. basically she saw gabriel, and went:
"Gabriel sucks,
sucks sucks sucks."

THEN she went "HEY, that rhymes!"
=.=!!

hahaha

Internship

2008-08-06T21:22:00.002+08:00

Oh well.
Internship finally started proper.
My mentor came in today and gave me my project.

Basically what he did was replace my computer OS with Linux (Fedora) and passed me the platform on which I will develop my project on.
He then gave me the objectives of the project and went off...without teaching me even the basics =P

Of course, I started looking through everything....then I realised I knew nothing. Like, I was new to Linux, the platform was totally (and I mean TOTALLY) user-unfriendly, where 99.999% of the stuff is in C++, so I basically had to work blindly through everything. I think i made a little progress today (I found how to run the program).

Well, I hope I can finish this project by end of year =P

Party!

2008-08-02T23:34:00.002+08:00

Alright, just got back from Margy's farewell party cum Grace's and Ying Zhen's birthday party! haha!
I came from school after NDP rehearsal, and went to Margy's house to change, then got downstairs to prep for the party. Had the party in a little cute function room which had to fit about 30 of us xD.

The starting was a little dull though, everyone just ate and the guys sat with themselves and the girls too. However, after that, Ying Zhen decided to play charades, so thats when it really got fun. At first we had to act out 10 movies suggested by the other group (girls vs guys), where we were really evil, since we thought of movies that no one could act out at all...but we changed it after that =P.
Following which, we acted out songs, which was also pretty interesting, and finally movie actors/actresses. That got the mood pretty high after that =D

Then after that, we celebrated Ying Zhen's and Grace's birthday. Man, the cake was really hard to cut (it was a ice cream cake) and i had to really force the knife down the cake to cut it. Got tired after that =P

Then of course, the same thing at every party comes....the guys decided to dunk Mira! haha! The funny thing was that Hari got pushed in trying to throw Mira in...Then I got dunked trying to dunk shaun T.T and all of us were dunked by Cai Yue, who miraculously got off dry. lmao. Hari was really vengeful after that lol, but we couldn't do anything cuz the security guard was there.

After that, everyone was just STONING outside the function room where the party was, and just stoned there. I got really bored so i went to visit the nanos' house, where i changed into my spare set as well. haha, their house is really packed with their brother's toys man! lol! and lillian and vivian have 4 sets of computers in total O.o wow, thats really scary lor.

Anyway, I went home after that as it was getting really late =P.

Cross country!

2008-08-01T23:23:00.004+08:00

Alright, just got home not long ago from cross country cuz i fell asleep at macs waiting for a cab!!
hahaha
To start the day, I took a cab to East cost with Roy and Ros. It cost around...24 bucks? wow. its a freaking ripoff...

Anyway today was pretty good for a school organised event, since the school actually had some spirit. The year 6 guys had to run first, we started at abt 8+?
yeah
We had a heck lot of plans on how to run, and in the end we couldnt follow it cuz Clement and Cai yue ran straight ahead....so we went straight into plan B - just every man for himself. I tried pacing Nat for the first half, and totally died after that =( really bad move for me. To make things worse, I got a stomach ache halfway through, so i had to slow a bit. Bah. that wasnt so bad, since i was 2nd and Nat was 1st then. Then the best part came...we came to the tentage where we started, and I thought it was the finishing line...so i slowed down. guess what? Clement overtook, and then I realised the finishing line was much further ahead! wa lao! so i got 3rd in the end.
After that, we had a briefing about the year 6 graduation stuffs. Pretty promising from what I heard. Oh, looks like I'm doing the graduation video for the level xD.
Went cycling after that with some of the ODACkers. I wanted to try the road bike again, so yeah, rented one for 20 bucks. haha. we cycled down east coast, and like, just 10 mins after we started, i got my first close-shave near-accident. I decided to turn back cuz i was too far in front (cuz of my road bike?) and Mikel decided to try and crash me...and he did, so i veered off the road and went back on (didnt fall at least =D ).
Went to KFC for lunch, where I met Jia Min and the rest who actually walked all the way there O.o
Went to continue cycling after that, and thats when the second accident happened: I was trying to overtake everyone cuz i was lagging behind, and i was on the first lane while mikel on the second...then he decided to turn and cut across my lane, without looking at anyone coming (which i found pretty surprising for someone like Mikel, i thought he would look out if anyone was coming) and yeah, i crashed right into him, and flew off my bike T.T (I really flew about 2 metres, hit the ground and did a little tumble before i stopped. lol)
He managed to spoil my record of not falling off my bike, which i held for 9 years since Primary 3. I have never fallen off my bike since then, until this. lmao.
and yeah, i got a humongous bruise and a bone concussion from that.
After that, we cycled to bedok jetty, and then we realised that we had like, exceeded the rental time for our bikes...so yeah, i went back and swapped for a mountain bike while extending the time for everyone else haha. after that we went to changi, then came back at 5 pm (we cycled for 4 and a half hours O.o)
The best was after that, i couldnt get a bus, since there was no bus service there on weekdays, so i went to macs to wait for a taxi to stop by, and fell asleep there =.=

Passed Napfa!

2008-07-30T15:06:00.000+08:00

Alright, hopefully I don't have to go to the PTP end of this year, which starts mid-December, for those who fail or get a Bronze for Napfa.

Haha, my current Napfa scores are:
Shuttle Run - 10.0s - A (Never trained for this, so i dunno. But pretty happy with it)
Pull Ups - 9 - B (Normally I could do 7 average, but this time i was tyco again)
Sit ups - 49 - A (Sit ups are really no kick for anyone to get an A)
Standing Broad Jump - 240 cm - B (220 cm average, hardly ever 230cm, but i was super tyco)
Sit and Reach - 37cm - D (I cheated like crazy, at first was 27cm, then i did some little cheating and Mr Chua kinda closed both eyes, so i got 37cm)

And of course, my 2.4 is probably an A =D

heh.

Oh. and I can't wait to see the mascot showdown this friday. Pretty excited after so much effort was spent on our mascot.

New MP3!!

2008-07-27T19:47:00.002+08:00

What happened ytd...

2008-07-27T16:58:00.002+08:00

Yeah, like I said, we worked on the Nobel house mascot yesterday. After the warwick talk, which had less than 10 of us going, we went to continue on the mascot. Mikel, Nat, Jingmin and I stayed back to do the mascot
We kinda worked on the mascot on and off, and at around 3 was our first "disaster". yep
The wind happened to blow at our newspapers, one of our buckets of paint on it fell. (bucket as in, spray paint cap was holding a load of paint and it fell) so, we panicked, i poured a huge pail of soapy water on the spot, hoping to help emulsify the paint or something since its oil based. yeah, that worked, we could get most of the paint off easily. the paint also made some really nice patterns as well, and in the end, using like 1 whole roll of toilet paper, we managed to clean up the entire mess. The funny thing to it was before it happened, jingmin was complaining about a spot of paint on her forehead, and after the cleaning, her hands were soaked with paint. yeah. lol. so after that we all went to wash our hands, but we didnt have tinner, so our nails were left green (lmao!).
We then did up the whiskers and cover paler areas, add leaves to his mane, and all that till about 6+. Around then was when the second funny thing happened again. xD. jingmin was cleaning up one whole cup of paint, and she got her palms covered in paint (not the funny part yet). after that, she got tinner, and washed her hands with it. yea, it did remove some paint, but cuz she tried to wipe the palm of her hands clean with the back (you know, when you wash your hands, you move your palms all over your hands to clean it?) so yeah, she had her whole hands dirty green again! haha.
in the end, she spent like half the day cleaning her hands =P while everyone amused at her discoloured and tinner-tortured hands. lol
so after that, we ate dinner, continued on to the fangs and horns and more. nothing much happened after that, except that jingmin was happily painting nat's face and hands. We finished most of it and left at 1:30am!! lol

Nobel House Mascot

2008-07-27T02:20:00.001+08:00

Alright, just got home. DSA ended like, 13 hours ago? almost exactly that. lmao. went for warwick talk then do nobel mascot after that all the way till 1:30 am at school O.o

Gonna blog about it tmr like i told jingmin. lmao so many things happened when we were doing the mascot lor. haha

2008-07-25T20:58:00.002+08:00

Feeling very happy now. No idea why. Perhaps its just how everything is going, how everyone around me is like =)
Perhaps its cuz I helped a few people today. Helping others really feels great ^^

I'm just gonna enjoy feeling great as long as I can ^^