boys are better Sunday, August 31, 2003, 10:08 p.m. Out of 12 of us chosen to perform for a midautumn mini-concert next week, all the guys turned up for practice today - and all of the girls didn't. This either shows that our BH girls are very popular and busy, or that we BH guys are always more dependable. :)

extraordinary people Sunday, August 31, 2003, 01:39 a.m. Just watched a very touching programme on Channel i, Extraordinary People, that featured people without hands, or legs, or both. A guy who didn't have hands could roll a drum with his feet better than a normal person - "People always ask me how I can do these things with my legs. I tell them, there's really nothing amazing about what I can do. I am just doing what you do with your hands with my legs. To you, my legs may be amazing. To me, these are my legs, these are all I have, and this is how I can live my life." Seeing how these people could live so strongly and optimistically with their disability, how they could still fall in love, have babies, face the other people who look at them (the guy without hands was so brave he felt no qualms about going to a swimming pool), and bring happiness and ease to the people around them, I feel so fortunate and little.

lunch at hyatt Saturday, August 30, 2003, 10:59 p.m. There was a Teachers' Day lunch for East Spring teachers at Grand Hyatt Hotel today. The lunch was, unexpectedly, quite fun. The teachers just had their own version of The Amazing Race and they traveled around Singapore in the morning, so they were still very excited about it over lunch. One team even wore clownish makeups on their faces, and another (The Pinkies) wore full pastel pink. In between dishes, some games were played (Bingo, jigsaw puzzle,...) - the games were quite lame, but I guess any game over meals can't be too far from being lame. The fact that they tried to organise some games probably showed that they're not as stiff as I thought. The lunch was good in general, though it lasted three hours - which was a little too long. But it really did change my (rather bad) impression of East Spring. Finally finished setting Papers 1 and 2 of Math for Sec 1 Normal Technical. They took me 2 nights, and I can't express my sense of achievement in words when I printed them out on my HP printer. Ah... 2 papers down. 2 more to go.

enjoy! Friday, August 29, 2003, 04:23 p.m. Realised that I love to use the word enjoy - when signing off birthday cards, in SMSes, when consoling someone. This probably reflects what I value most in my life, which is simply to... enjoy! Enjoy - Bjork I wish I want to stay here I wish this be enough I wish I only love you I wish simplicity Look at the speed out there It magnetises me to it And I have no fear I'm only into this to Enjoy I wish I'd only look And didn't have to touch I wish I'd only smell this And didn't have to taste How can I ignore? This is sex without touching I'm going to explore I'm only into this to Enjoy

shopping with a purpose Friday, August 29, 2003, 04:19 p.m. Initially agreed to go to Huimin's party as I thought it'll be held at her home which would be near to my house, only to realise that it's actually held at her uncle's place in Tampines. Decided not to go since I had to rush out the exam papers and my weekends would be fairly occupied, and I guessed I'd have to start writing the Table of Specifications and find some sample questions by tonight so that I can squeeze out some time in the weekends to type out the papers. Bought her a present though, and I thought the present was very well-chosen for a sweet bubbly girl like her. Hope she'll like it. Also bought a simple, cheap and stylish acrylic memopad holder and a penholder for office purposes, and began to pack the things that I'd need to bring on Monday - markers, rubber bands, paper clips, stapler, glue, scissors, magnetic strips, record book... my, I'm REALLY anxious!

fuzzwuzz Thursday, August 28, 2003, 11:57 p.m. Post-concert buffet at BH. No games planned - just the buffet dinner which the LKKs promised would be good but didn't turn out too good anyway, but all of us soon settled into small groups and enjoyed ourselves: Patrick was telling ghost stories in one group; Youxia, Suqing, Kailin and Debbie were playing card games in another; Zhiqiang, Caleb, Yunfeng etc were discussing about instruments; Shuinan, Huimin, Kenneth, Junyi and Youchun were playing "intelligent games" (Fuzzy-Wuzzy likes queens but not kings... How many meh-mehs jumped over the fence?); I was playing Bridge with Kelly, Eddie, Yingjie, Mi'er and Jianyuan. We also celebrated the birthdays of the August babies (Kelly, me, Huimin, Jianyuan, Mi'er) with a cake which, erm, I wasn't fast enough to catch a bite. Some of us then went to Soya Bean Place for a short chat before I walked Kelly home (Jiaqi and her are leaving for exchange programme in two weeks! Going to miss them). Oops, Huimin just invited me to her birthday party tomorrow over SMS. What should I get for her birthday present?? A new mission for tomorrow.

dream Thursday, August 28, 2003, 07:19 a.m. I may seem not anxious about next week's new beginning at East Spring, but last night's dream revealed that I probably am. Dreamt of my first lesson in a class, and I was in perfect control of it. I heard reality and dreams are opposites.

encompassing mars Wednesday, August 27, 2003, 10:23 p.m. Mars and Earth are closer together today than at any time in almost 60,000 years. Saw in the news that Compassvale teachers and students were ecstatically viewing the planet from school through telescopes. And I am not part of them. Though I feel so attached to the school and its culture. In fact I was just back from a boring meeting at East Spring.

low Wednesday, August 27, 2003, 09:28 p.m. Back from a Math department meeting at East Spring. I am the one with the heaviest workload (32-period week - 6 periods more than my peers - that's even more than what a senior staff is getting, when new teachers are supposed to get only half load). I got the most notorious Sec 1 Technical class (all relief teachers who took over my duties for that class while I was in NIE either quitted or were sacked). I am the one who is to set the most number of exam papers among us new teachers (the deadline for setting all 4 papers that I was allocated is next Friday). And I get the worst seat in the staff room (just beside the toilet). Am I unlucky or what? Carried a bagful of textbooks and references home for setting the exam papers (yep, twice the number of books that my peers had), piled them up on my desk, and I start wondering how I am going to cope between work, CO, guitar and violin. Maybe I should go try my luck in 4D.

sancturo Wednesday, August 27, 2003, 02:39 a.m. Just finished gaming with that guy I knew yesterday. His amazon and my sorceress compliment each other perfectly, so today's game was really smooth-sailing and enjoyable... if only we had another paladin to offer us his auras, that'd be even more PERFECT. Okay, yes, yes, I can see some of you shaking your head, yep, I am wasting my life away in computer games, but heck, I can't do this anymore when I start teaching next week, so I'd better play as much as I can while I still can, right? RIGHT.

virtual friend Monday, August 25, 2003, 11:31 p.m. Sanctura's death has been avenged by her twin sister Sancturo. (And she has done her family line proud by becoming a Slayer.) Fought alongside several great gaming partners today, one of them was even living in the same area as me - We were so surprised by the coincidence that we exchanged contacts so that we could message each other to play online together in future.

jam Sunday, August 24, 2003, 01:26 p.m. Went for a "jamming session" with Youxia and Junbin at BH. Youxia's playing the clarinet, Junbin the saxophone, and me the guitar. It wasn't exactly "jamming" cos we're still not able to play a common song cohesively yet - I didn't even have scores for the song they're practising (A Whole New World), so I ended up practising my guitar and sanxian (Bian Zhai Zhi Ye) solo pieces on my own, occasionally joining them when I could. Not bad actually. I am sure we'll get better when we practise together more often. Hopefully I can join them with my violin soon. That'll be real cool.

violin and pjp Sunday, August 24, 2003, 12:22 a.m. Went to MPH after guitar class and read up on "how to choose a good violin" and about how to maintain one... Realised there're so many nitty gritty details that I'll need to take note and so many accessories that I'll want to get for my violin for it to be complete. Think I shall leave the complex task of choosing the violin to my teacher, Corrine or Yunfeng - can't possibly do it myself. And according to the book, an ideal bow should cost the same as the violin. Oooh. Watched the SCO concert conducted by Peng Jiapeng (the son of my idol Peng Xiuwen) with Jiajia, Youxia, Junbin and Yingyun. Xiang Xi Feng Qing was probably the best piece, melodic and typically Chinese. Tian Le (suona concerto) was supposed to be about the "ecstasy of nature", but all I could picture from the music was a man about to be hanged and those were his last moments. Despite the ear-piercing clash chords and atrocious arrangement (courtesy of who else but Mr Y), Jing Shiyi was really good - he could hold his high notes so stably even when he was playing at pianissimo, and he could play nonstop without breathing for minutes. Yi Xian Tian (sanxian concerto) was disappointing as it really sounded like an etude, a poor imitation of the first movement of Yun Nan Hui Yi. Qin Bing Ma Yong, my favorite Chinese orchestral piece, was only so-so in this concert - the climaxes were not climactic enough - the original 1988 recording by Peng Xiuwen is still infinitely better.

death of a sorceress Saturday, August 23, 2003, 12:50 a.m. Eww. Thanks to the lag at Duriel, my hardcore sorceress Sanctura died. Her spirit shall haunt Duriel for the rest of his immortal eternity.

chip & dale Friday, August 22, 2003, 11:05 p.m. Reichen & Chip won The Amazing Race 4! I wouldn't have mind if Kelly & Jon (they're so fun and loving to watch) or David & Jeff (they'd played the game straight and fair from start till end) had won. Though Reichen & Chip kept encountering unlucky incidents and making silly mistakes, they eventually beat the other teams with their levelheadedness and strength (though they could be quite boring at times), and they proved to the world that homosexuals need not be wimps (they're a happily-married gay couple) and they could do anything as well as, or maybe even better than, the normal heterosexual people. Looking forward to Survivor 7...

clar cel sax Thursday, August 21, 2003, 11:49 p.m. Went to BH to settle ticket sales and do some springcleaning. Youxia dug out loads of treasure which are left behind by the old BH - books and scores that are already out of print. So we distributed some of these books among ourselves, and I took a few liuqin and sanxian books. The luckiest of us all was Caleb, who got a whole library of erhu instructional guides and scores. We then went to Mac for supper, where Youxia, Yingyun, Jiaqi, Caleb, Junbin and I talked about Transformers, Teletubbies (hmm, I still can't tell which is who), Lego, Caesarean section, foreheads, ears, hair... Don't ask me how all these can be linked together in one conversation.

clock memories Thursday, August 21, 2003, 07:49 a.m. Listened to our own (Zew and I) private recording of Memories of the Clock Tower we did three years ago (What? Three years already?!) - It's very raw, and the tempo's never right, but I think it's very touching. And very memorable. :)

resolution Tuesday, August 19, 2003, 11:07 p.m. Love Friends but I didn't watch it when it started in 1994. Downloaded the first season and watched the first three episodes. They are SO funny! Watching past Friends episodes shall be my pastime for the next few months.

of pipas and operations Tuesday, August 19, 2003, 07:09 p.m. Where can I get Impressions of A Pipa Player by Wong Shengmiao? Heard about this book quite some time ago but didn't think too much about it. Saw Shengmiao on an interview today on Good Morning Singapore, and I was quite impressed that a 19-year-old could travel around the world, interview pipa masters and write a book on it. If only I could be sponsored on a tour to interview the liuqin masters... Today's Oscillations test was disastrous. All of us did badly (read: either fail or just pass - I scored 10 out of 19) despite having discussed among ourselves whenever the lecturer turned his back to us. But nobody cared the least about our results cos the lecturer taught terribly and we knew we tried our best. He was really a good demonstration for us of how a teacher can possibly kill students' interest in a subject. After class, all of us went to Thiam Soon's place to visit him as he broke his leg last week. Listened to his stories about his "excruciating pains and stapled wounds". Then Gwo Hong told us about his worse experience when he broke his leg several years ago. As his place didn't have the sit-type toilet at that time, he had to stretch out his broken leg, balance himself on his other leg and squat to do his business (single-leggedly). He told us the most difficult part was actually to balance and wipe at the end. Eww. And he didn't have GA administered when the backside of his leg was operated on, so throughout the operation he could not see where he was operated on (cos he was leaning on one side and was operated on his back side) but he could clearly hear the cling-clangs of the metal tools and noises from the machines. All his imaginations of what must be going on behind him nearly scared him to death by the end of the operation.

phone pamper Sunday, August 17, 2003, 10:29 p.m. Studying for an Oscillations test is probably the best way to cure insomnia. I almost dozed off several times when I was reading the notes, but I fought to keep myself awake even when I didn't understand a thing of what I was reading, cos I thought I'd at least have some impression of the topic if I manage to skim through. Bought myself the camera handphone that I'd longed for quite a while - the Nokia 7250i. Its new headset is a bit inconvenient (to plug into the phone and to keep) compared to that of my old 8310 and it doesn't have a voice recorder (I can no longer record my impromptu inspirations!), but this new phone has a color screen and the speaker radio and camera functions! *ecstatic gasps*

birthday Saturday, August 16, 2003, 11:43 p.m. My first blogged birthday. Shall blog as much details as I can remember. Went to East Spring in the morning as instructed by Ms Thiru to collect some sample exam papers since I was told to set an exam paper for Sec 3 Normal (Technical) which I totally have no experience teaching and she promised that I would be able to set the paper with the help of these samples. But Ms Thiru was not at her desk. Asked the clerk about it and she said Ms Thiru might be invigilating. So I waited for 40 minutes, and I got impatient and started pacing up and down until a kind-hearted teacher came and asked me who I was looking for then told me Ms Thiru had gone home. Hmm. So, I'd waited for nothing. Went to Tampines Mall to collect some tickets that I'd booked, then met up with my sis cos she insisted on giving me a treat on my birthday. We went to the Swensens nearby, I ordered an omelette (couldn't make her pay too much right?) and we had quite a hearty conversation over lunch. She then went home and I went to TP Yamaha to check out the violin course. Was told that lessons will be on Fridays, 4 pm. I procrastinated for a while as I might be caught up in school on Fridays when I start teaching two weeks later. But in the end I managed to convince myself "Heck, Just Do It!" and registered for the course. Quite a coincidence that I registered for the class on my birthday and the class starts on my sis's birthday (5 September). :) Met Eileen outside MJ. She just quarrelled with her boyfriend, and her boyfriend was ignoring her and enjoying himself at the arcade center. So I accompanied her for a while, gave her some advice about relationships (not that I have much experience anyway), and we watched the body-painting competition at the forum before she finally decided to go look for him. The body-painting was cool. One guy was stripped to his bare minimum and had Egyptian paintings all over him, another had a Chinese shui mo hua on him. One girl was transformed into a fiery pheonix and another a silver butterfly. Too bad I couldn't stay for the judging as I had a guitar lesson to attend. Did Choros at class. Then went to City Hall to meet Caleb. Had dinner at Food Junction while we talked about music, how singing helps to train tone recognition, erhu, etc. Then we went to watch The Great Escape at Suntec Convention Hall. Was quite disappointed as the magic show segment was only a small part of the performance, but the rest of the show was not too bad. The Channel U artistes were quite professional in their renditions of David Tao's Zhao Zi Ji and Celine Dion's Because I Loved You, and the analogies used at the gospel section were very appropriate. I liked the story about the bridge operator and his son. (Oh yes, and Caleb showed me his virgin poem - not bad at all!) When the show was over, Caleb and I went to Marina foodcourt for supper where I met Gek Hong and Desmond Tan. Gek Hong was his usual notorious self, trying to irritate people with his weird sense of humor (but I think Caleb just thought he was trying to be friendly), and patronising when he's not really listening. I'm not saying all these because I am biased against him, but this is a known fact among us NIE coursemates - people shun from wherever he's sitting during lectures cos he always tries to do silly things to irritate his neighbors during lecture. But I'm still quite friendly with him cos he's basically quite a harmless person, UNLESS he oversteps my boundaries (which he does sometimes), I'm still okay with him. I was glad he didn't start to offend or make fun of Caleb. Was hoping the whole time that the supper would end fast. And so my birthday ended with me reaching home after supper and typing this blog entry. Thanks to all of you who sent me SMSes today to wish me happy birthday (to some of you whom I have not contacted for ages - I was really touched when I received your message). Huimin even sang me a birthday song over the SMS. Ha.

neptura Saturday, August 16, 2003, 01:13 a.m. Spent the first hour of my 26th birthday playing D2x online and celebrating the 50th level of my online necromancer. Went through the whole of Nightmare with a sorceress of the same level - We complimented each other perfectly and leveled up together (earned 7 levels at the Ancients!). Been quite hard to find a friendly and cooperating partner recently so we really had a great time.

cheesecake cafe Friday, August 15, 2003, 12:19 a.m. Got my new set of contact lenses. Not very used to them though. Went to BH for a concert debrief with Xiangbin, Jiajia, Youxia, Zhiqiang, Caleb, Junbin and Kelly. Then we had another round of debrief together with the LKKs. I am always amused at how the LKKs can start to argue among themselves as if all of us are transparent. Well, anyway, the two debriefs were generally (and unusually) productive, we managed to sort out our problems in this concert so that we will not make the same mistakes again next year. By the way, reviews about the concert were really good, it seemed Luo Weilun's music really struck a chord in the audience, and for some of those who were unfamiliar with Chinese music, the concert changed their stereotypical perspectives of Chinese music being boring. And our ticket sales were a proud 96% - a record that even professional groups may not be able to achieve. After the debriefs, all of us (except the LKKs of course) went to Cheesecake Cafe at Siglap to relax and had some red wine and cheesecakes while we chatted about future concert themes, prospective partners, horoscopes (surprised that Xiangbin knows so much about this!), etc. Received a birthday greeting from Jacinth with this website of a rather nice original song (Click here to access).

facts Wednesday, August 13, 2003, 09:29 p.m. An email I received - a list of interesting facts... Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma. No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache. A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first class. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin. The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. Marilyn Monroe had six toes. All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public. Walt Disney was afraid of mice. Pearls melt in vinegar. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola and Budweiser, in that order. It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases. Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second was William Jefferson Clinton. Turtles can breathe through their butts. Butterflies taste with their feet. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined. On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year. On average people fear spiders more than death. Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building. A snail can sleep for three years. No word in the English language rhymes with "MONTH." Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. The electric chair was invented by a dentist. All polar bears are left-handed. In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. "Go," is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. Almost everyone who reads this email will try to lick their elbow.

slash Wednesday, August 13, 2003, 08:50 p.m. An NUS mechanical engineering lecturer was slashed to death in the neck by a technician today. According to my friend who was once taught by him, he was one of the best lecturers in NUS. Wonder what kind of hatred can drive a person to commit murder. And how one person can be hated so intensely when he's well-liked by others.

helpless Wednesday, August 13, 2003, 12:35 a.m. Feel terrible for a friend. For the fact that I couldn't help her when she was most needful of concern and optimism. Ended up talking to K for a few hours.

silly Tuesday, August 12, 2003, 08:18 p.m. I ruined it. She finally called me, but I was so nervous that I couldn't sustain the conversation. Argh!

wasting time Tuesday, August 12, 2003, 04:06 p.m. There are many things in life that we often complain that "It's not fair!" Like the family we're born into, the kind of parents we have, the environment we live in, our skin color, our physical appearance, our health, our strengths, our IQ and EQ indices... But one thing is definitely fair among us. Time. The two seconds that you take reading this sentence now is equivalent to the two seconds that I take to type it. In Time, there is no such thing as one person having more time in one second and the other having less (it's a matter of how you want to spend that one second). Yes, sometimes happy moments may seem to fly past while tumultuous periods may seem to dilate and go on forever, but Time is an impartial fluid that trickles away whether we like it or not, and in absolute physical terms, all of us are given the same share of time in each unit time. While I am thinking about what I'm going to do in the next second, one second has passed. While I am hoping that time can dilate so that the happy moments will not end so quickly, I am a few seconds nearer to the end. While I am wishing that I can go back to the old times, yet more time has passed mercilessly and I am further away from the old times that I am longing. Don't know why I am typing such cliched stuff. Just wasting time, I guess.

mood swing Tuesday, August 12, 2003, 07:35 a.m. I wonder if this is the post-concert withdrawal symptom that everyone is talking about. But I am feeling a little lost and down - maybe it's because I'd been too busy for the past few weeks and everything just flashed past me and I haven't got time to take note of them and now that I've got the time the realisation that reality is coming back to haunt me is sinking in. Hope it's just a bout of mood swing.

the concert Sunday, August 10, 2003, 11:59 p.m. It was our big day - the BHCO performance at VCH. A bunch of us went to BH early in the morning to mass-print survey forms and slot them into programme booklets before we loaded the instruments and went to VCH. The rehearsals were quite a rush as we didn't have much time, and thanks to the LKKs who volunteered to get lunch for us, we had an extremely delayed lunch (and after the long wait, what we got was crappy beehoon). Jiajia and I bought daisies for all the guys and roses for all the girls, so I went around distributing flowers like a flower vender, and all of us placed the flowers on the shelves of our music stands to make our solemn-looking stage (we were all wearing black) look more lively and colorful. And Jianyuan and his mother got us a BIG mango cake - so sweet of them. The actual performance was okay, except that when I switched from zhongruan to liuqin for Yu Zhong Xing, I still couldn't get used to the change in fingering so I missed a few notes, which was a pity cos I love the song so much. Met up with many people during the interval: Jieying (thanks for your flower!), Enji (I finally got to see you in person! You're much taller than I expected. Ha. Thanks for remembering my birthday and your Chicken Soup and TCHS yearbook - really brought back many fond memories), Ronghua, Jinglun, Huiyan, Meiqi... And thanks to my BHCO friends for the birthday present - an ice-cream and Tricky's Vulnerable CD-DVD which I was too stingy to buy. Thank you all! Audience feedback was that the White Snake song was too long but Jiajia's dizi was good, and Xiangbin's introduction for each song was quite a turn-off cos it killed all the imaginations for the songs. But Hua Fei Hua and the two plucked string pieces were generally quite well-received. After the concert, we were all dead tired but we still managed to drag ourselves to move the instruments back to BH. Then we had KFC and pizza (delivery), took photos, and our resident physiotherapist Jing'an gave me a massage - it was HEAVENLY! All my muscle aches and tiredness literally evaporated! Really magical. No wonder people spend so much money to go for massages and spas. Then some of us went to Soya Bean Place and Youxia gave us a treat of drinks, and Huimin told us about her personal experience with a ghost in school - she's quite an interesting and amiable person - hope to get to know her better - hopefully she stays on in BH! :)

national day Saturday, August 9, 2003, 07:10 p.m. It's National Day, and almost everyone on the streets was in red. I was in red too, for the fun of it. I think Singapore is the only place on Earth where we have a new national song written every year, and people hang the national flag outside our buildings, wear the national colors on National Day, and gather at a common place to celebrate the occasion which is simultaneously broadcast live. No matter how skeptical you may be (I used to be skeptical too, but I have probably been brainwashed by the nature of my profession), I think all of us are truly proud of being Singaporean, and it is amazing that people of different races can gather harmoniously to celebrate the birth of a nation. I don't think you can find this in many parts of the world - they probably enjoy riots more than harmony.

1059 Saturday, August 9, 2003, 02:10 a.m. Just came home. Was supposed to have gone out with my army friends - we have planned for this outing for several weeks to make sure everyone's schedule is compromised - and I would have reached home around this same time if I'd gone out with them. But I didn't meet up with them at the last minute. Took a short nap after school and realised that I had 3 missed calls when I woke up. One of them was from Mr Neo, so I called back and he told me that he's trying to correct a mistake on his own right then at the CC and he desperately needed help. Okay, what happened was that there were some mistakes in the CCMC namelist printed in our programme booklet for our concert, and all of us argued with Mr Neo and the other LKKs that they should have told us about the mistake earlier since we'd already passed them our final draft a few weeks ago for them to vet. But they insisted that they'd already passed us the corrected version. Apparently there were some miscommunications and the namelist turned out to be grossly wrong. So Mr Neo went to print out hundreds of pages of errata to be pasted over the erroneous page, and he was doing this alone right then at the CC. He tried to call me when I was sleeping, and when I didn't answer his call, he contacted someone else out of desperation, and that person told him that it wasn't his/her fault so he/she wasn't going to care or help at all. To me, what was more important was to solve the problem at hand and not to point fingers at who was at fault, so I cancelled my appointment and called up some friends who were willing to go back to help paste the errata. All of them agreed immediately without a question (and I am very, very thankful). I tried to comfort Mr Neo about the unhappy incident over the phone hoping that there wouldn't be any hard feelings. Anyway I do feel that it was a little unfair to him when he was doing so much to rectify an error that he was not responsible for (if there should be any finger-pointing, it was the fault of some other LKKs). So, in the end, 8 of us, Zhiqiang, Junbin, Yingyun, Kelly, Mr Neo, Mr Lee, Mdm Jenny and I, exhausted tubes of Uhu gluesticks on this correction, and we managed to settle 1059 programme booklets in 3 hours at the CC Cultural Center, and we worked until the CC was about to be closed at 10+ pm. The process was actually quite fun, just like the time when we did the ticket cutting and perforations, we had a lot of enjoyable trash talk while doing mundane and boring stuff. Then all of us (the young ones, of course) went to Chomp Chomp for supper. We even wanted to go for karaoke after that as we were all feeling so energetic, but the lounge would be closed in an hour at 1 am, so we decided to just sit down and chat at the newly renovated hawker center nearby. And thus we made ourselves comfortable at the deserted hawker center, under the night sky of no stars, and we talked a lot about Miss C, Zhiq and his harem, the mechanics of a possible "piano-vibe", the cat with the broken tail that played with cockroaches, and friends and couples around us... And now I am back home, bathed, comfortable... and still energetic! Shall go turn on the TV to see if Days of Our Lives is on to amuse me for a while.

last practice Friday, August 8, 2003, 12:34 a.m. Today's practice was our last before our concert on Sunday and it went very smoothly. For the past few years, we always needed extra practice before our concert, and Xiangbin would be in a very bad panicky mood. But this time Xiangbin praised us for delivering the right feel at several parts. I personally think our pieces were quite well-played too. So glad. So, to those of you who have bought tickets for our concert, you won't be disappointed (I hope)! Did an update of our ticket sales at the Soya Bean Place. Out of 600 saleable stall tickets, we managed to sell 551. That's very commendable (kudos to all of you!) considering we are a relatively less-known orchestra (though some people claim that we're quite well-known, hee). I sold 40, though that's nowhere compared to J's 80, I think it's my personal record already. :)

battlenet Wednesday, August 6, 2003, 08:23 p.m. Been playing on D2x Battlenet lately. Most of the people are not very friendly though. Only one was kind enough to share goodies with me and we played alongside each other for several hours. The others don't even like to talk. I think it will be more exciting if many characters play together.

revamp Tuesday, August 5, 2003, 08:20 p.m. Did a major revamp of my old homepage. Feel very good now cos that's something I'd always wanted to do - to get rid of the old colorful and complicated layout. Though I merely used the layout of this blog. Ha.

hopes shatter Monday, August 4, 2003, 10:36 p.m. When you have students injuring one another and parents coming to school threatening to go to the police, a student slashing her wrist to vent her frustration, a student daring another student to a one-on-one, and you have tonnes of reports to write... you'll be burnt out too. Chatted with a friend and she told me how disillusioned she is now after only less than half a year of teaching. I wish I could help her and say something like "I understand" but I couldn't because my students haven't given me such problems. Maybe it'll be my turn someday to experience such burn-out. But I hope it's not soon. Not when I'm still passionate and full of hope.

brainwork heals Sunday, August 3, 2003, 11:26 p.m. Didn't go for BH practice cos I was feeling too sick, and Fiona called up and told me I needn't go for tuition today cos she had nothing to ask me. So instead of spending my whole Sunday working outside like what I usually do on Sundays, I was cooped up at home, studying for a test for tomorrow and slogging to do some group assignments. Maybe all the medicines and Mom's Concoctions that I'd been taking since yesterday finally worked, but it seemed that performing all those brainwork made me sweat (both literally and figuratively) and feel much better. P.S. Wanna thank Jieying and Eugene for helping me promote and sell so many BHCO concert tickets. Thanks! :)

sick Saturday, August 2, 2003, 09:03 p.m. I am sick. Was supposed to go to BH and promote our concert to the guzheng class there, but I was too tired and took a short nap. When I woke up, I was already too late and had to go for my guitar class. And how I regretted going for the class. Was half-dead by the time when the class ended. Sore throat, blocked nose, fever, headache... Took a Panadol, and under my mom's instructions, drank some herbal tea and ate papayas and honeydews to "cool my system".

save your buttocks! Friday, August 1, 2003, 04:12 p.m. If I were in the Parliament, I will propose a "Save Your Buttocks" campaign. The present MRT seats are so uncomfortable! For people like me who have to take long rides on the MRT, the seats are truly a torture and they make my buttocks feel really, really painful. I am sure there are long-term side effects to such punishment to our buttocks. While remaking cushioned seats may be expensive and more tedious in maintenance, we can bring our own cushion to sit on. I have always wanted to bring my own cushion but I'll look so amusing when I'm the only one doing it. So I shall start a "Save Your Buttocks" campaign, and there will be advertisements on TV that will promote the caption, "Don't let your Buttocks suffer in silence, Bring a Cushion!" Please vote for me in the next election.

speed Friday, August 1, 2003, 12:07 a.m. Everything is moving past me in a rush. Emotions, people, stories, assignments, routines, obligations, chances...