Ok, since I'm not really in the mood to do any work, I think I'd practice my typing for my A level computing coursework by blogging! :)

Hmm where did I leave off last time? Oh Thursday. Nothing much happened on Friday, because lessons ended at 12.10pm to "celebrate" our athletes' great performance. Ended the day spectacularly with a fire-drill, where we got roasted by the sun, not the fire. Set up the CenTaD-LIT lab, then went to Venezia to waste money on have some ice-cream. That's about Friday.

Fun, interesting day :) Had a competition today, so woke up at around 8 to catch the bus to NUS. Unfortunately, the bus trip was much much more longer than I wanted it to be, so I got off the bus at 9.25am, 5 minutes before reporting time, to flag a taxi. It burnt a hole several feet deep in my wallet, but at least I got there in only 15 minutes. 45 minute 60 MCQ questions computing quiz, which we argued and fought and made use of unorthodox ways to get the answers we want, and in the end still don't know answers to several questions (Didn't want to guess as there are mark deductions for wrong answers).

Went for Scholars' Choice at Suntec after the competition, where we ended up in some US university seminar first, then went over to the one held by Straits Time, which was less crowded and perhaps more interesting. Talks on projecting a better self image made me realise that 1) I'd have to comb my hair before an interview instead of letting it settle where gravity wants it to be 2) My face better clears up soon or it'd project a image of a person who can't even bother to wash his face 3) I'd have to try to walk straighter more often. Grr.

Went for lunch at Mac later. Ooh the new Chicken Big Mac is nice :) *droolz* Ate loads of fries that my friends were unable to stomach, wonder why I never grow fat. Hope I don't.

Returned to the seminar, where we listened to them talk about scholarships stuff, like bonds and their similarity with marriage. Horse was rather troubled by the girl next to him whom kept looking in his direction, and later found out that she was looking at someone else. Did maths (!) and played scrabble to pass time, since it wasn't really meant for us JC1 students, rather for the JC2, and the topic being discussed doesn't pertain to us.

After the talks, we went out and talked to one PSA scholar who introduced the PSA scholarships to us, the prospects and even offered much advice as to how to go about getting scholarships for overseas universities. Dad used to work at PSA too, hmm. Not a scholar, unfortunately :)

Ended up at some gadget shop later near the city hall where we looked at stuff like tablets, phones, clocks (!), and odds and ends like plugs and adapters. Hmm I still can't understand how some people (sorry YC, wahaha :)) can spend >$15 for an electronic clock because it looks nice. Rich, huh :P

Nothing much after that, left for home, but tried to keep my mind occupied by applying physics to motion on the train. Must have gotten some curious stares as I freely swayed to the acceleration and brakings of the train.

Realised I didn't turn off my radio. *cry* There goes my battery, two of them.

"When you're swimming hard in the ocean, but not going anywhere, perhaps it's time to reexamine whether you've been going against the tide?" - Yunching, to a friend (slightly paraphrased)

I've set one clock 1 hour ahead of time. I don't know, it gives me a greater sense of urgency, but for what, I'm still not sure at all.

Hehe, well I'm not supposed to blog until the weekends, but woohoo there's a half day off tomorrow to sort of celebrate our school's athlete's excellent performance. Yesterday was the T&F finals, and our school won for boy A boys and Girls! Was supposed to sing the school song, but instead went over to TCHS section and sang that school song instead :) It's still funny the extent to which we went to to get out of the stadium, sneaking out through the locked back door, only to find out later that things could have been so much easier. And witnessed something quite terrible too, a glass door leading into a shop for some reason broke, and injured one person who happened to be near the door, she was bleeding from the side of head, with bits of glasses still sticking out from her hair. Brr.

And lol, saw Disheng on my way home on the train, and 4D guys, guess who I saw him with? ^_^ I wasn't really sure of the uniform though, white blouse and green skirt... well at least till this morning.

Chem practical was interesting, perhaps in a sense. First day in Qualitative Analysis, and "sampled" most of the gases we'd be testing for the next year or so (I hope! *begs*) Ammonia was ok, have never never in 3 years of chem ever heated ammonia then do the 'smell test', and so was chloride. In fact was pretty cautious for all the gases, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, etc, until I hit bromine. Was in the rush, that was the last experiment, so I was busy trying to get it done. The experience is so funny, albeit painful, was still laughing. Remember looking into the test tube and trying to see if the gas is orange-y, and heated it a lot to get the colour we're supposed to. Interestingly, didn't smell much, so I took a whiff of the brownish gas coming out, with the interesting thought of my chem teacher saying "Coloured gas are usually pungent".

*Choke**Choke**Cough**Cough**Choke**Choke**Cough**Cough*

My throat still hurts. Argh... Gakgak.

Which reminds me, I better go finish up the analysis of the practical.

Grr ~ Napped too long, from 7 to 9, how?

Anyway, think JY2 will be going to school tomorrow instead of JY1 ~ he's terribly disillusioned, griping a lot about the education system, pardon him.



what's your battle cry? | mewing.net | merchandise!

Oh yes, that trip down memory lane. Haha, not really, actually. Just happened to end up near my old house and decided to go and relive and reminscine the past, haha. Lane in a sense that I followed the path that wrapped around neatly the entire estate, and memory ... let's not get into that. Gives me that feeling of once having, the weird feeling in the chest - nostalgia, that the correct word? - as I entered the lift, not living here anymore, but knowing how every moment in the lift would sound like. Spent a good few minutes staring out into space from the corridor outside my old house, trying to bring back out memories, unsuccessfully, though ~ some things are lost forever, I guess. Realised I lived darn near Orchard, and yet never went there before often while staying there, and that I can see the Starhub blimp easily from the windows. Think I'd have either looked suicidal or suspicious, prowling the outside of my old home, at _21st_ storey, occasionally trying to steal glances into the house, and looking out of the corridor looking terribly maudlin.

Just learnt one thing today ~ Perhaps I just couldn't let things go. As much as I didn't want this entry to sound this way, it just did. And yeah, saw the parashooters perform their stunts for national day while on the way home. Noticed that there's little change around that old estate, except perhaps it's cleaner, and there's a MRT next to it. ARGH! :P Makes me wonder why my parents shifted in the first place. Most of the neighbours have also moved. Even the buildings have been painted ~ rather periodic, they change a colour scheme every 4 years. Is orange now, was blue and pink the last time. And I just hate to even think of that as a reason.

Oh anyway, woke up late today again ~ supposed to wake up at 8am, always wanted to, but never did so. Yep 10, looked into the mirror to see how the terrain has changed, and checked whether I successfully sent Kenneth War3. Eep, failed though, as somehow my modem loves to disconnect while sending information. Played W3 the entire morning, so there's no difference in waking late or early, anyway. Chatted a bit while playing, hope I haven't annoyed anyone or something :P Helped Ciela with her page, and spent quite some time clearing up the debri, remnants of the massive deleting and rewriting operation. I just have a problem with programming, have this terrible haphazard way of doing things, jumping onto decisions purely on instinct, without thinking of how they'd turn out after doing so ~ because I guess brainpower is spent more productively on generating more solutions that to think about how it'd turn out - equivalent to brainless bruteforce trial and error. Debugging has sometime becomes more of an instinct, randomly plugging in alternate values hoping to hit it right - that's how I got my quicksort to work in the first place - then think about why it is right after I'm done.

Oh anyway, got the page to work at last ~ haha, sorry Ciela, think I caused a lot of damage in the process hmm? :P Then tried to go back to chemistry. Argh. Chem sucks. Argh. Writing the previous sentence made me feel even worse, I'm outta this paragraph.

And so here I am now, typing away at the keyboard, thinking about doing my maths tutorial. Or perhaps I should finish up the coursework. I don't know. The past week have been particularly stressful, because two things suddenly popped up into my mind, demanding time to solve and think over it, becoming particularly disoriented. Guess it's contagious ~ with everyone getting back their results and such. Much as I hate to say, I'm terribly affected by those letters even though I always thought I ain't so.

Lost of entire archive of past stick-it notes. Darn! Looked through my archival box, my drawers, everything. Sob. Think I'd do another search one day. Or perhaps I should clear up my room ~ it's in a terrible mess. I mean, if you're sec 3 or sec 4 this year, just pop down my house and I'd have all my notes and textbook ready for your perusal - if you can find them in the conglomerate of paper :)

Argh. I need time. To sleep. To do work. Ah yes, work. Darn work. Stressful. I. Love. Writing. Sentences. Consisting. Of. One. Word. Preferably. Less. Let's. Continue. To play games. To chat. To play. Yes! To play!

I give up. Think I shall go and do my maths. Hehe, realised I wrote a lot. Yep, because I'm not likely to write any soon, anyway :) Oh yes. I need to practice my 红梅随想... loved that song, but don't think I'd skilled enough to play, anyway :(

Ooh, and I'm going to change the colour of my bag soon :) Ok, not really, but during that competition 5 years ago, I've taken quite a few of those goodies bags... and they come in two colours. Mine's a bit "hole-y", so I guess it's time to abandon the bag I've used for the past 5 years, and use my new old bag!

Gee, it's hot. And differentiation sucks. Think I shall do one more question, and then give up. Ooh-err, I even plan to fail. 5 mins later ~ Yep, I gave up. Think I shall go play a bit of W3 :)

"http://eide.pitas.com/" I just happened to chance on it, and the post on blasting someone for not linking back really makes me wonder if those people are blogging for the sake of blogging or for the sake of _hits_. I mean, yeah, perhaps its a part of it, but fighting over it seems wayyy stoopid. But I've no right to criticise something I don't even know about, anyway. Hell.

Heyaz Ciela, finally saw ya online today :) Unfortunately had to rush, hope ta see you soon ^_^

Oh hehe, yet another blog-that-sums-up-a-week. Let me see, where did I stop? Oh, the point where I whined a lot about the competitions. Hmm ok, we withdrew from Tquest, and somehow the Cisco competition was postponed to some later date. Woot, gives me much more time to prepare now...

Yay, a slothful week. Absolutely did no homework the whole week, post blocktest-result-release syndrome hmm? Nah. Wasted the first 2 days on the website, then another 2 days on Austin Powers II. Oh haha, that's a fine example of a movie one should never watch with your family - christopher just happens to have done so :) watched it only to figure out the rocket part, which i distinctly remembered by sec 2 teacher telling us about that, and yeah, it's really perhaps the only part worth watching anyway.

Tis a weird week - At least, I was. Felt funny the whole week, perhaps how the whole thing gets dragged out from my archival facilities, perhaps triggered by the darned block tests. Yes, it feels so stupid to be bothered by that, the grades, and everything - just like how I chose the wrong seat on the bus (next to the most volume-occupying person i've ever seen) and made me feel touchy and stranded, with everyone so near yet seperated by miles and miles of ... something. Detachment. Feeling of being terribly out of phase & place is back again, and much much worse this time. Good at times, especially when I need the peace ~ terrible, when it gets so awkward with everyone around you and yet feeling so _abnormal_. (Heck, I'm not making sense, never could write that well to express it, but the style of writing does show the chaos within my heart during this week.) Never could start conversations either - was worse last time, at least now I don't need to. Going against (almost) consentient decisions, and yet never understand why they voted the other way out. Hope this passes soon. I don't know why, perhaps am tuning into the wrong frequency - when everyone suddenly just seem different, in a sense. Guess it's just me.

Otherwise, was quite ok. First ITS meeting was quite ok, with a turnout much higher than my expectations :) And initiated the merger of the two programming groups, which was split previously last year, into one single group again. Finally got the scores of hongmeisuixiang, perhaps can start learning how to play this song. Screwed up chemistry practical big time, measured wrongly the weigh of zinc powder _three_ times, gave up marks by not redoing so I could complete in time.

And yay, we had another outing yesterday :) Went to PS to watch M(II)B, but had lunch at the food court first. The show was quite nice :) and so were the seats. Wow, never knew you could lift the seat dividers / armrest - gives rise to much interesting possibilities, as we've found out, or rather, saw. Walked around doing nothing for a while, deciding what to do next, and first walked into a guitar shop. Waited and waited until they decided it's time to leave. Went to the arcade next, didn't play anything, it's hard to get started when you've never touched arcade games in your life and am proud of it :P ... Tried out the Bose noise-cancelling device too, which cancels out background noise, coolz! Went for Swensons after that, ordered the Earthquake, which didn't turn out to be as large as I expected ~ Think it's size was reduced over the years. Played the finger game, identified songs playing of the radio, Monopoly on Palm, until it was late noon, before going home...

Perhaps I will continue tomorrow about the trip down memory lane today.
Sigh. Wrong wavelength. Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong _thoughts_. Urg. Don't you wish you could smother your thoughts right where they are sometimes?

There just isn't enough time when you need it most, no? There's this stupid Cisco competition on Saturday, which we actually _have_ to revise loads and loads of stuff. Then we have to come up with a stupid webpage for the Technoquest in 4 days when we were supposed to have 20, just because the people-in-charge screwed up the name list and caused us to be uninformed till the very last minute. And guess what? I can't touch one bit of game nor homework, and it seems an especial heavy week, theres chem, physics and maths, all piling over and over... and there's going to be this computing 'A' coursework soon... Sheesh. I love whining about my life, don't I?

On the brighter side (is there any?), I've successfully received a 28 meg file from a dialup user, after days of resuming and resuming, and this file happens to be the PDF book for the competition I'm studying for >_<. Anything else? Yeah, if you consider typing 10000 characters of html and javascript for the webpage design for TQuest fun. Really. I can't find anything to be happy and bright and show that life has a meaning now. And I've got this ear-splitting headache. Wonder why it's "ear-splitting".

When the balloons are floating alone about in their world, thin membranes seperating helium from air, fantasy from reality, being carefree and so happy, why would anyone want to be the sharp protuberance?

Speaking of helium, hehe it's really fun to breath in some helium and hear your voice jump several octaves :P Was at BreadTalk the other day, when they were celebrating their 2nd anniversary or something. Had bought something and asked for two balloons, cause my friend lost hers somehow, but the person gave me three! Whee~ Unfortunately, some evil person took one of my balloon and released it...

Think I shall go do something. I just wonder what can I do.

Haha, had the weirdest dream while sleeping (when i was supposed to be studying, but shh), dreamt tt i somehow remained at this timeframe while the world slipped backwards several years. Haha imagine having to search for coins to use because your notes are too new lol. And going ard finding your old friends like in a game and finding out more about yourself, your world, etc. It was one dream I tried hard not to wake up from, but reality beckons (and so does homework).

And my finger still hurts. Ouch. Injured it while 'playing' (not really playing, just hitting, missing and laughing) volleyball when the ball came down at a rather incorrect angle for me to receive, hit my fingers and ouch. Had to leave my index finger pointing, as I couldn't bend it. Walked around pointing at the sky, and people actually looked up lol. It's still aching, because I mainly use the two index fingers when I'm typing, and I'm stretching it a lot right now.

Ok been quite some time since I updated this blog here :) But been pretty erm busy, especially with games, homeworks and competitions abound. But the fun factor has also been reduced by quite a little, especially when (almost) everyone hasn't been updating too.

Erm lemme see, school started on Tuesday due to some youth day holiday, which we ended up 'celebrating' by donating money to some charity organisations. Other than that, the day seemed rather normal. And I'm beginning to see less things in my life to blog... I mean, last time when I saw/noted something interesting, I'd go "Hey that's interesting!..." But now, I just can't think of much to write either. Perhaps I've forgotten too much anyway. I never could remember stuff, but I loved reminiscing the past, and that's why I'm digitising my hand movements of flying all over the keyboard by two fingers into words...

I'm still pretty amazed by other people's ability to remember things. Am amazingly blur, with a super-short term memory, and just can't remember anything, especially if I don't write them down within 24 hours. Incidentally, that's why I keep my notepad handy always. It gets much worse especially when you forget how much others owe you, or even, who owed you money... :P

...Speaking of lending money or paying for others first, I'm terrified of such stuff, because I always end up having to ask others to pay up, which becomes really very bad if it's like 50 cents or worse still, 10 cents. So currently people still owe me over $20, but I either forget, or just can't bring myself to ask. I mean, can you imagine walking up to someone, ask for your money, and say thank you and goodbye?
Come and think about it, perhaps I should.

Wednesday was as usual, normal, with me running home almost straight away after school, no activities for once, mwahaha. But little happened, other than my teacher chasing after me for his book, which I've owed him for weeks.

And yes, I wonder. Is it always this way?... I mean, are we really that biased and discriminating to that extent of helping one and not another, even though both aid required are essentially the same? Perhaps this is just how it goes - and we bunch treading the one side of the gender line are expected to not ask for help, but also to help others on the other side?

Thursday. Hmm, essentially another normal day, because I can't remember any significant events anyway. I might recall if I bother to pull out my time table and reconstruct that day's event, but I'm lazy, and I'm using my brain's inherent ability to recall to weed out unnecessary event to write, record and store. Oh yes, our chem teacher just revealed to us our possible range of scores for the block tests, C and below. Little wonder she was looking so so disappointed, I mean we were almost the top class the other time. And I still wonder how did we/the level ever get such a low score, to the extent our chemistry lecturer will say this?...
"There will be _no_ moderation, because you people deserved it. I'd fight to my last breath to make sure the scores remain as they are"
Those words still bring shivers done my spine. :P The scores are going to be revealed on 19th, and we aren't going to be in school either, so how? Imagine our classmates calling us while we are at a competition, telling us we failed or something. Hehe, wonder how can we have the mood to compete lol.

And I've learnt sometimes that one cannot correct another person's misunderstood impression of oneself - rather he has to find out himself for the impression to be completely wiped out. So when wrongly 'accused' I've learnt to smile and keep quiet. (And people tend to feel bad if they find out themselves, but shhhh :P)
Friday. Ok not much happened, other than me getting a participation for my NSW computing :P
"What?! Don't fake lah!" - numerous people
Hehe, no doubt was a little upset, but yeah. And my thoughts scare me sometimes too, especially when it tries to cook up lots and lots of excuses, that doesn't even sound _convincing_. Went home and read the online computing magazines for 1 full hour, read through 64 bit processor structures, RAID efficiency tables, Xp related issues, miscellaneous stuff etc. So so so ... never mind.

What else? Oh hmm yep went to NUS to meet up with the professor mentoring our project. Was so so sleepy, that I almost fell asleep during the 1 1/2 hour meeting, with him going through fourier transform and ways to go about doing the project. Ok, at least it's beginning to sound interesting again :) Think I shall go read up more when I've got time, yeah... Oh and I'm on a small game project with a RJ friend too, still have to learn directdraw implementation on VB, seen so many blt() I'm getting crazy. Not to mention I still have to study for my Networking Competition, which is due in 1 weeks time, ooo makes me wish I could slow down time just for myself :P

Oh hmm, ok so I guess all these makes up for the lack of posts :), and at least I save time doing this, since things I'd like to blog about naturally comes as I start typing...

What I would have given to do the TERP project instead of the CenTaD-LIT one. No, it isn't because of the prestige, but rather I do not want to be stuck in some project doing research and having no chance to develop a program... When I first joined CenTaD I thought we're supposed to develop a program or a solution, and to do this through programming and stuff. But nooo, we have to go read up on Fourier transforms, learn up on sounds and stuff, so as to cultivate a researcher's ability in us. I guess I've never really wanted to be a researcher anyway - my idea of doing a project is to go straight into the programming part, and only research as and when you need to, like codes and libraries.

Ok haha it's just a rant, I'm not giving up on CenTaD yet, even though I don't like it, I don't want to ruin the 2nd year's opportunity to work with LIT.

Watched Shrek even when I'm not supposed to be watching anymore movies >_< And the quality of that video file is soooo good! :)

Two more people on my 'reads' list went on hiatus. Hmm, I always wondered why people have to go on a break... I mean, where's the fun on blogging if you have to be accounted for everything you're doing? It's your blog, you choose whether to blog or not, regularly or occasionally. When you can't derive any fun-ness from blogging, then I really think blogging has lost a lot of meaning. It isn't meant to be a "lifetime" commitment. But perhaps I wouldn't understand until one day I really need a rest, or whatever they say.

Oooh err. Guess what's for lunch? Rice, one sausage, cabbage, and _three_ types of nuts. My mum calls it 'healthy' eating. I call it nuts.

Dear Networking Challenge Contestant,

Congratulations!

It is our pleasure to announce that your team has made to the Final Round of the Networking Challenge 2002.


Whee!!!

Sigh, shall blog for a while, am also running low on ideas to write. Blogging seems to be on a major major decline now, hardly any new posts at all.

And yes, I'm supposed to hand in my composition and responses tomorrow - and I have yet to touch them. Eh cool.

Dad is on his way to the airport now, for reasons unclear, other than knowing it's something about the degree he's taking in chinese medicine.

I have this book, a book of hidden ideas, stray thoughts and dreams - yes it can dream, conjuring up images, flights of fantasy, envisioning what the future beholds. And this book is aware, it thinks it knows what's going on around it, but yet never truely understanding - it only thinks it does, filling in gaps bridging patches of reality with a dash of fiction.
Torned apart by the nature of the freak accident, I've slowly patched it together, but parts have been rendered undecipherable. I've did my best, and it looked the same outside. Yet I couldn't replace many of the pages, those leaving only behind fragments of the storyline, sketchy at best when read. The book is still free to write and to dream, but it's no longer the same - they are different, having seemingly lost the old magical touch I've grown familiar with, the carefree and unfettered thoughts are no longer there, the beautiful dreams are now draped with the mists of caution.
For now, there's a touch of cynicism everywhere, it no longer trusts its senses, and struggles hard to keep its thoughts in order. But yet I believe it will be better one day, for I can sense it's spirit returning, slowly, but yes. It will learn, it will understand, and no longer shun the thoughts of the past, and one day rewrite the tattered and lost pages it had once treasured as its finest writing, of chapters untold.
But it'd never be the same again - People change, and I guess so does this little book.

Darn, don't think I did a good job. Might change this some other day, but for now I better get back to proper work.

I lost everything I typed for the past 1/2 hour again. Damn. It's really such things that kill off the interest.

Chinese CLAO oral today. Amazingly, the topics are the same as the ones in the block tests, which the odds of occuring are 1 out of 30, from our preliminary calculations :) Someone also told me I sound weird when I'm speaking Chinese, with this haunting tonal voice that sends shivers done her spine. Oops. Even my parents say I speak as if I'm leaking air at home, where I always use chinese.

Sigh. Sometimes when you aren't willing to hurt another, you often end up compromising on yourself. Hehe, only Chris would know what happened. Grr. I mean, I may not be like the rest of the class (senior class too, perhaps) to dodge and run when she comes, but my patience sometimes run thin too.

Revelation may one day dawn upon one, but the day unveiling of bits of knowledge hitherto unknown also brings about much to think about. To this day I'm still perturbed, for I seem never to know the entire picture, hidden behind a slowly crumbling plaster wall. One day perhaps I'd understand. For now, I tread in trepidation, fearful, yet wanting to know, sometimes practicing obviation of the thought, and others ignoring.

Grr. Just feel bad for having written so little. Just that school really sucks now, homework just comes cascading on me like a waterfall. The worst thing is that I feel obliged to do them, argh. Oh no.

Quote from http://miffy.blogspot.com/
What was the purpose for inventing the blog anyway? You can't trust a blog, a public one that is, to keep your secrets.Nothing can be kept secret on the WORLD WIDE WEB. This is the WWW, not your small town where you can maybe, maybe, trust some of your friends and neighbours with secrets that would be best left untold and untouched. A diary you can hide, and if you suspect that it's in danger of being read, you can burn it, throw it into the dustbin and no one will know that it even exists.

Says a lot, doesn't it. Always wondered why people keep blogs when they hide them.