Sigh! This doesn't work... sorry I archived but pitas went down... so I'm stuck with this new layout for this new design. Urm. But it's ok la. haha I'm going to archive it!

...and contemplated yet another facet of life's mosiac on 9-21-2003, 08:45p.m.

UNLUCKY enough to have been sent two faulty Maxtor hard drives in succession, reader Thomas Turner decided to investigate the company's warranty period and its limitations. He was disconcerted to find that the Maxtor limited warranty does not cover "drives that are determined to be stolen".

Turner immediately began eyeing his drive suspiciously, but as it showed no signs of making a break for it he felt able to return it to Maxtor.
---
THE regulations for getting married in the Bahamas are quite stringent. Reader Francis Banks was glancing through Air Currents, the in-flight magazine for Gulfstream International Airlines. His attention was caught by an article on "Requirements for obtaining a marriage licence in the Bahamas". Among the more usual requirements was the following: "If either party is widowed, an original or certified copy of the deceased spouse must be obtained."

Banks suspects that some people might have difficulty in complying with this, at least until cloning technology is greatly improved.

...and contemplated yet another facet of life's mosiac on Thursday, September 18, 2003, 02:42 p.m.

晴天
dou1 享兕 (do)
rui4 併刻兔 (re)
sou1 佻兕 (so)
la1 依侖 (la)
xi1 例珨 (ti)

併刻兔佻兕佻兕例珨享兕例珨依侖
rui sou sou xi dou xi la

佻兕依侖例珨例珨例珨例珨依侖例珨依侖佻兕
sou la xi xi xi xi la xi la sou

Yep, so he's just singing the notes... :p
Grin. My father figured this OUT!! :p

...and contemplated yet another facet of life's mosiac on Wednesday, September 17, 2003, 01:07 a.m.

Haven't been writing much, because well I can hardly find time to sit down to organise my thoughts. Today's the final 30 hours before the exams, so I suppose I'd just sit down and "accumulate" fun in preparation for tomorrow's final rush.

Nothing much happened this week, other than me rushing to school with a pencil in one pocket and Chem MCQ on another, doing it whenever possible, on the bus, train, bus stop. Kinda realised I really started too late, so well no choice I suppose O_o Had a severe case of blocked nose on Thursday, quite enough to make me cry out in frustration as I try to do my work but kept being distracted by a fickle nose which refuses to sneeze even when the urge comes and gets blocked all the time. Oh yes, not to mention that I have committed a major horrible crime in a sense, and though I've sworn not to use it for my benefit, thoughts of "what-if" still keep me worried all the time. Sigh.

And yes, it's MAF, what else :p Wanted to come to school early in the morning, but decided to finish going through some of my maths notes and do a paper before heading for school. Left at 2, arrived at 3, and plonked down on the class bench trying to get some work done.

Tai An had suggested that we record our singing of the college songs so that we can listen to them at home, so we trooped off to the corner behind the hall to do our recording on the iFPs. Made a lot of silly mistakes (like turning the score the wrong way, forgetting to flip it), sang offkey/tune/note, and not to mention the continuous drilling in the background is fraying our nerves. So we headed off to the echoy stairwells of the E block, and tried to continue there. Didn't accomplish much there, only recorded one song (and we realised it was too echoy), tried another but flipped the score in the wrong direction :(, so we headed to Coronation for dinner, at 5.30.

Met the juniors there at the Cosy Corner while buying our drinks, but we decided to make a move back to school first, where we sat around waiting for the rest of the class to come. Some came to celebrate, but many stayed at home, no doubt their noses deep in notes. Was about to get settled down and enjoy the celebrations, but we got evicted from our class bench by the Alumni, who used it to recruit members into the Alumni. The importance of the class bench came to light as I picked up my bag, and realised there's no where else I could go, nowhere else I belong, and indeed felt much like a lost sheep, and in the end lugged our stuff all over the place.

We first went up to the fourth storey, ignoring all conventions about "do not pass" red tape by going under it. We're kind of the first, so may have inspired others to join us... though the council had much reasons to block our access, for an unknown terrorist could be in our midsts, and cut away the ropes supporting the giant centrepiece lantern. Mm, that'd be disastrous. Stayed there until around 7.20, where we got displaced by others, and decided to go to the market while it isn't crowded to see what they have to sell there, ignoring the rest of the performances.

Yes, also noticed the weather was great, so no repeat of last years incident when the evil rain came and swept every one into the inner plaza :) Since the council has openly monopolised the F&B market, there wasn't much useful stuff to buy from the CCA stalls, mainly for decorative purposes or souveneirs, perhaps. Many bought helium balloons though, for some reasons or another, and lightsticks, at {$d_entry}.50 each, was an affordable accessory for the day. Went back at around 7.50, started taking lots of photos, with each other, the fountains, the centrepieces :) The class had then started to bunch together, including many first intakers, seniors, grandseniors and all, and we mainly stuck together in that bunch all the time, with people leaving and entering, group moving, photo takings, and such.

The light up then begun at around 8.20, this year the attraction piece again involved plenty of pyrotechnics and fire, though the ignition by a long fuse/wick/somethind dipped in kerosene wasn't as impressive as last year's burning arrow. The light up was better though, with the centrepiece lit up properly, together with all lanterns. Then more photos were taken, as people were then beginning to throng to the street market, until the final event, song and dance session, began.

I'd like to add that the Alumni people has also left the class bench alone at last, so we were gratefully able to put down our stuff which were bogging us down very much.

Sore from the singing, tired from the dancing, we tried to cause some trouble and mayhem by training through the crowd, but this year the turnout wasn't as much as last years, last year it was realllly crowded, and we must have been quite a sight, a bunch of students running around in a single file. Mm. Anyway, completely tired, we then started to take photos (again), sigh I wish I've got a camera too!... More were snapped, of the giant lantern, with the class, with everyone, with lightsticks.

Everyone remaining then headed to the empty space at the ground level of the teacher's room, near the science labs, which happened to be well lit, and started to sing, pretty much a tradition. This time, Chris had recorded everything from the start to finish, so there'd be some nice memories waiting as we play back these music files in the future :) Chris played the guitar, while everyone else tried to choose some songs to sing, and it went on until 10.55, when the teacher came over to shoo us away. Managed to hold an extension of 5 minutes, where we then sang 2 more finale songs, before finally saying our goodbyes, with the council still there making noise in the background, under the nicely moonlit sky.

Ok, so it wasn't really a blog, but since the bulk of the readers are from my class, I hope it'd help preserve the memory of tonight. People often forget to keep their precious moments, only to lose them and regret, when they grow up, look back and realise they've only bits and fragments of these memories left.

Spent 40 minutes on this! O_O Looks like I'd be waking up at 9~10 tomorrow. So if you see me online, chase me off :) And please loan as much luck to me as possible! I'd return it to you after I'm done with it, after the prelims :)

...and contemplated yet another facet of life's mosiac on Sunday, September 14, 2003, 01:50 a.m.

Kinda stressed out by the people around me, I'd never be able to reach their level of studying and such, can I still do well? With 3 days left on the count down, I'm getting increasingly unnerved by my inability to sit down and concentrate on work. Sigh, the whole afternoon I was constantly distracted by wandering thoughts like how I'd inspect the iFP Chris will be buying from someone else, the game I just played (DRAT! :( I din know it'd be so distracting) Worked on inorganic chemistry the whole day, was only supposed to spend the afternoon, cause my attention kept wandering here and there, sigh. Hope tomorrow will be better :p

And Mr Pang's inorganic revision notes are absolutely adorable hahaha :p Just wished the teachers have all done their revision notes this way, point by point to the syllabus, very useful to checking what I've missed out, and for chalking in new points that should be inside. Like things small and simple, took a leaf off his notes and squashed all of Group VII elements nicely into one A4 paper. Hurhur, tiny neat work just seems lovely to me :)

And yes, it's a new month I suppose. Old memories gets archived. Thoughts are buried underneath the layered messages from the new month. I've cleared my mind, may the new month bring wonderful surprises, knowledge, and more chances to better myself.

And horrible, I tell you, the queue is. Somehow no matter how high or good the institution is, the actions and behaviour shown just doesn't reflect well on the school itself. Am horribly disgusted, even though I suppose it's just so singaporean to go queue, we all still have much to improve on. Queue cutting, noise generating, laughing, shoving, sincerely making a mockery of ourselves infront of the camera by jumping up and down hoping to be caught on camera. Student from the top colleges and schools. Especially the guys in front.

Well. At least I got my tickets. At least we all didn't die from lack of air. At least the bridge didn't collapse. But the ugly pictures are strewn all over the newspapers. What makes us all so different from any other school, we don't understand what queues are, we make a fool of ourselves (at least some), some turning back to grab another ticket or two There's indeed much to be improved on in the system. 6 years integrated programme. Wonder what kind of people will come out from it.

...and contemplated yet another facet of life's mosiac on Friday, September 5, 2003, 11:47 p.m.