Thursday, 30 August 2007

Kick back and relax!

I now sit in the comfort of my room while the rain beats down heavily outside, with my laptop and charger in front of me. While most of my classmates, in fact most of the Sec 3s, are suffering in waterlogged tents in soggy clothes, with little or no sleep for the past 3 days. They couldn't have scheduled OBS Singapore at a worse time. For the last 3 days since Monday, rain has fallen from the heavens without fail. I'm not sure whether I should be laughing or pitying the poor guys in Ubin as I sit in civilization.

For the infirm and those going to OBS Sabah, we were still required to go to school. Quite frankly I feel they should have just made it a holiday for us, since they complained so much about how troublesome it was to arrange extra lessons for those staying behind. Most of the teachers didn't really feel like giving real lessons, and we either did worksheets or watched something in the Lecture Theatre. So far, we've seen Bend It Like Beckham and In the Name of the Father.

The last four days have been spent poking Wayne and the other "Unfit" people who were exempted from OBS. All the teachers are going on and on about the final year, as well as slagging all "Unfit" people and their lousy attitude toward blah blah blah...

A wonderful end to a wonderful term. It marks my best ever academic performance in SJI. With 4A1s, all Maths and Science, and third in class with an average of 69.5 and an L1R5 of 12, this has been a terrific term. It now closes off with a quiet last four days, and my parents departing to Chicago soon during the holidays!! What more could a teen ask for!?!?!

Saturday, 25 August 2007

Left behind...........

I was supposed to join Bryant and Sam in LANing our lives away this morning, but perhaps I overslept (I think 10am is reasonable for a non-school day), or they happened to forget about me, I don't know. Guys, if you did this on purpose, I will wait at the jetty at 0730 on Monday, and laugh many evil laughs as you are herded like lambs to the slaughter on to boats to be shipped to OBS Singapore, and then, wait for you at the jetty on Friday, and laugh even more evil laughs as you step off exhausted, mentally drained, and smelling worse than me for once. Lol.

Taking scant comfort in the fact that now I wouldn't have to pay $2 an hour to be a free frag at Quake 4 and that I wouldn't have to rush back for tuition, I pondered what to do with all that time now that I finished the Legends Quest. In the end, I decided to work on the Slummer storyline.

It shall start and revolve around a new SAL recruit named Macon Frigs, a civilian boy of 18 drafted into the SAL who spends more time than normal in stupid mode, along with his over-playful pet Monstrosity, Drool. Posted to a unit made up of other Slummer-Monstrosity duos, he arrives at Kraft Base to begin training for the mobilization to free humanity.

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Macon and Drool, Page 1
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(Scene shows a busy military camp)

Sarge: Listen up you spineless bunch of scumwads!!! For the next three weeks, you will be the lowest form of life in the ****ing order of nature! You will have no say, no rights, and no authority!!

Macon: Does the canteen serve mayonnaise pancakes??

Sarge: NO RECRUIT, THE ****ING CANTEEN WILL NOT SERVE MAYONNAISE PANCAKES!!! IF YOU WANT YOUR SISSY MAYONNAISE PANCAKES WITH A SIDE SERVING OF WUSSINESS, WHY NOT YOU RUN HOME TO YOUR MAMA AND GET HER TO MAKE THEM!!!

[Drool cringes from the shouting]

Macon: There there Drool, the bad man will be gone soon....

Sarge: YOUR MONSTROSITY IS THE SHAME OF ALL MONSTROSITIES!!! INSTEAD OF BEING WAR IN A GLOB OF MAYONNAISE, IT IS A THUMB SUCKING, MUMMY HUGGING PIECE OF SHIT LIKE YOU!!!
[Turns to rest of the recruits] NOW GET YOUR SORRY ASSES TO THE FIRING RANGE!!

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(Firing range)
Sarge: Now, which of you permatards can tell me what this is!

Random recruit: Its a jar of mayo??

Sarge: You must be a godamned genius to give me that answer recruit!! You hear me recruit?? You are a genius!! You must have an IQ of 160 to give me that answer. You are frigging gifted!!!

Random Recruit: Thank you Sergeant!!

Sarge: I was joking. WRONG!! DROP AND GIVE ME 30!!

Random Recruit: Its food?

Sarge: WRONG, 30!!! MAMA'S BOY, WHAT IS IT!!

Macon: Erm, SAL property??

Sarge: STILL WRONG, ALSO 30!!! Listen up good scumwads, this is not just a jar of mayonnaise, it is a symbol of FREEDOM!! It epitomizes JUSTICE!! It is the very foundation that the Slummer Republic was built on! It is the lifeblood of our people! And now, it is being denied from the surface world!! [Wipes tear from eye] Recruits, it represents our fight to be a free people, away from tyranny!!

Macon: [Whispered] Like yours??

Sarge: I HEARD THAT MAMA'S BOY, ANOTHER 50!!

(Proceeds when all are done)

Sarge: Now, this is a new prototype fragmentation grenade. Its shape allows your average Slummer to throw, punt, and even kick it at the enemy a la rugby style. Mama's boy, kick this grenade as far as you can into the range [Kicks grenade, and Drool runs after it]

Macon: No, bad Drool!! We no play fetch now!! [Drool fetches it anyway]

Drool: Wruff!! [Places grenade proudly in front of Macon]

Macon: WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!![Cringes as he awaits impending doom]

(A minute passes by with no explosion)

Sarge: Had that been live, you'd be dead. NOW GET ON YOUR FEET RECRUIT! THAT WAS A DUD!! DO YOU REALLY THINK I'D TRUST YOU NINNIES WITH REAL GRENADES??

Macon: Hehehe.....[Laughs sheepishly]

Sarge: Its been a long day indoctrinating you noobs into the SAL. Now, everyone to your bunks.

(Recruits shuffle off)

Sarge: Except you mama's boy. Because of your abysmally crappy performance, you get have to get some more practice. [Taunting tone] So now, I'm letting you stay up past your bedtime so you can have time to think about how to control your Monstrosity properly on guard duty.

(Walks off with a chuckle)

Macon: Its all your fault Drool.

Drool: Woof??
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Yes, I know its bad, but all these tales need to simmer a bit before they get good.

Monday, 20 August 2007

What a Wonderful Week

I'm telling you, this week is terrific. I stand with 4A1s to my record, having found out I got A1s for both Phyiscs and Chemistry as well, second only to Kevin. Lit was not a ground zero disaster, after Mrs. Ang moderated everyone's papers, allowing me to get a B4, Bryant an A1, and Sam an A2. Can't really complain when 65% of the class failed initially. With an average of 78.1 at the moment, I have finally achieved some real academic success in SJI in the three arduous years I've been here. I could have tied with Kevin for top in Chem. For one question, the correct answer for the pH was 13. I initially wrote 13, but felt it was an unlucky number, so I changed it to 12, which was wrong. Still, Then again, destiny has given me so much already, I've beaten people like Andrew and Chris K at maths and science, and it would be greedy of me to ask for more. I just hope History and Chinese don't drag my average down too much....

This term is one of many opposites. While more hardworking and better students like Kee Hao failed to fire in Chemistry, people like Jialei, a true epitome of slack and a wonderful specimen of a DotA addict, gets 33 out of 40. While I am still half a mark higher and escape the shame of being beaten by the one who lives and breathes DotA but isn't that good anyway, I'm just puzzled at how he managed.... Adhitya claimed at the recess queue that his secret to doing well was watching porn the night before. I want to believe the contrary to be true, and hope that he does try that again, and hopefully, wanks all his brains out hours before the test. Twisted bastard....

Dad is also in Melbourne, so that leaves me with a lot of free reign after the exams. Also managed to wangle a berth to OBS Sabah, since they overbooked for the Ubin trip. The only taint to this wonderful week is United's tragic loss at the Manchester Derby to City. After a long range effort from City's Brazilian player maker Elano, United squandered chance after chance. With both Rooney and Ronaldo unable to play, United relied on Tevez and Nani to deliver the goods, passing long balls to the wings in an attempt to make full use of Nani's agility. It did not good, and United were sent home 1-0 losers, and five points adrift of Chelsea, who thankfully only managed a draw against Liverpool at the Kop.


While extremely bored today, I suddenly had the urge to draw up a Slummer Army. Urged on by Sam as he found it amusing, I expanded a little on it.

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Slummer Army of Liberators (SAL)
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Long long in the future, on our very own Earth, fascism somehow managed to seize control of the world stage, and now a government called the Submit and Prosper (SAP) rules the entire planet, making every single decision for the citizens of the world, from what they wore to work to what they ate. All who opposed were thrown into a special "Undesirables" Zone somewhere in Death Valley, after being exposed to nuclear radiation to make them stupid, and hopefully unable to think of a way back.

However, these people became so stupid, they occasionally overshot the absolute stupidity mark, and went back into pure genius, but still spent much of their time being absolute retards. Using their newfound intelligence, this new race, self-dubbed the Slummers, built a small underground city and lived in relative peace, excavating the city by eating away the rock walls, this wondrous ability given to them from the nuclear radiation. Their mutation also gave them a craving and need for mayonnaise at constant intervals, which they slaked with huge stores of surplus mayonnaise from the US army buried after Desert Storm which they found while excavating their city.

In one of their lapses into genius, Slummers discovered that mayonnaisium is actually the 116th element, a magical element which had various strange qualities, and produces tenfold the energy of uranium when combined with MSG, which was also buried in large quantities by the US army after Desert Storm. Using this new mayonnaisium energy, the Slummers managed to create a beautiful cosmopolitan city, resemblant of NYC a hundred years ago, all powered by the giant mayonnaisium reactors towering over their subterranean Utopia. However, with great power comes great responsibility, which Slummers don't have in much quantity, and so, adapted their mayonnaisium technology into weapons of war, from mayonnaisium powered armour and artillery units to Mayo Monstrosities, 15 foot tall horrors made of living mayo encased in armour. Some had become so united with the mayonnaisium they learnt to manipulate it with their minds. Provided they weren't in stupid mode of course.

However, because people were either too dumb or too smart at any one point of time to fight over petty things like who gets elected next, they all lived in peace, and therefore couldn't give a shit about the outside world, preferring to live mayo-filled lives in harmony with their fellow Slummers, the weapons all in hangars, and the Mayo Monstrosities becoming household pets in many Slummer households.

Until the day which they heard mayonnaise had been banned by the SAP because it made people fat. In an outrage, they vowed to free the world above from the tyranny for not being able to choose what to eat, and so emerged from the ground and marched forth with their mayonnaisium arsenal with the noble mission of ridding the world of SAP and give people the freedom to eat as much mayo as they wanted.
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Saturday, 18 August 2007

Speeches

While ordinarily not the most entertaining things to listen to, the class speeches in English, while not always well written, were hilarious, though not for their content at times. Jialei's speech had me laughing and swearing at the same time as he spoke on treating juniors as brothers and with respect, and not underlings. I have not heard a more hypocritical statement in a long while. According to Mark, he enjoys knocking down helpless junior scouts for fun. Of course, if he read this he'd probably protest in is whiny voice that they deserved it, but I'd just tell him to screw himself, as would the rest of the class.

I hadn't been listening properly properly to Mr Chua's instructions (No flaming groups of any sort), and constructed my first speech around how boring and dumb philosophy was. In a panic, I attempted to concoct a whole new speech on the spot, but failed miserably, stuttering in front of the class, until I gave up and stormed back to my seat. Mr Chua was kind enough to not mark my failed attempt, and allowed me to go up again on Friday. It pays to do your homework on time and well in times like these.

This time I was fully prepared, and spoke on the issue on whether what we are taught, what we see, and what we think is right or wrong. My argument was that thousands of years ago the ancient Greeks were sure everything they had thought about, and they thought the Earth was flat. Bryant gave a stunning defense of gaming, defying Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton's claim that gaming making the youth violent (ie. Columbine and Doom, Virginia Tech and Counterstrike). Though it went way over the one minute limit and stretched into a six minute long ovation, Mr Chua gave him some very decent marks (18<).

Maths was a resounding success, with all my hours of mugging paying off well, with 33 and 34 out of 40 for A and E respectively. Could have gotten more, but one cannot really complain. Bryant and Sam did well in maths for the first time in a long while, not just passing, but grabbing an A1 each in one maths. One cannot believe that Adhitya got 32 for both, since he spends more time asleep than awake in any given class. Dad thinks that people like that actually study secretly.
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Micro: Can't believe that he got double A1s for both maths.

Dad : These people might secretly study son. I never went to any lectures in my first year at Melbourne Uni, and I topped the class didn't I??
=================================================

Rumours floated around the Full Lit was horrendous, but Mrs Ang is remarking, according to Ken. Guess both my humanities will be in the dumps this term. Thank goodness Dad can't give a damn about humanities. He thinks they're pretty useless since they don't really open up and career paths, and I have to agree with him. He's done a good job of ingraining engineer mentality into me....

Wednesday, 15 August 2007

Such a mixture one can feel....

Well, exams again, and my hours of mugging had prepared me well for both A and E maths. I've lost a few marks on both out of carelessness, if not, I could have made a push at full marks for both. Chemistry went along smoothly, with no confirmed mark losses yet!! Full Lit went okay, but History is a disaster I wish not to speak of. Its really strange when you feel elated but depressed at the same time.

Apparently, more people read this blog than I thought. Matthew found out that I posted his unlucky, but still humiliating, loss to me through George. I shall state again, though grudgingly, I won on luck.

Anyway, in between studying, I happened to see an article on time travel. I thought about it, and came to the conclusion that going back in time to change something is simply not possible by all counts of logic.

1. If you did you back in time to change something, say, kill Hitler and prevent World War 2 and the genocide of 6 million Jews from happening. You somehow went back, and stuck a pistol up his ass and fired till the chambers were empty.

2. So because of your noble act, World War 2 never happens. However, because it never happened, your future self never finds the urge to return in time to stop this atrocity. So he/she never goes back in time to kill Hitler, so World War 2 does happen.

3. See the paradox?? This apparently applies to everything, from going back in time to tell your past self the answers to the test you screwed to hell, or uttering that stupid line to the pretty girl next door. So, I have just proven going back in time is simply not possible, not because the technology isn't there, but because logic prevents you from doing so. Its as possible as getting a dog from crossing an alligator and a shark.

Saturday, 11 August 2007

National Day

Well, most of the time, I look forward to 8th August for the half day, only to be informed 5 hours before the day itself by Kevan that Nathan (curse him) had volunteered the team to help ferry old folks from the Kwang Wai Shou Home to the school for the celebrations. Hoping that it would not eat into too much of the mana of free time, the ferrying was actually pretty okay. Many of the old people were pretty active, needing no help getting on the bus, and most of our job consisted of assisting the wheelchair bound and hoisting their chairs onto the bus. All were really enthusiastic about a chance to go on an outing, albeit a short 4 hour one. Directed by a number of energetic workers at the home and volunteers, we got them ready to go within a quarter of an hour.

This wasn't the first visit to the school for a few of them, having been invited by the school to National Day celebrations in previous years to join the celebrations and give them the chance to leave the home. Encouraged beforehand to strike up a conversation with the elderly, I asked the man seated next to me his age. I guessed he was around 70, and I was surprised when he told me he was in fact, 89. It must have shown on my face as he added "Don't look like it do I" in Chinese. The school traditionally has the youngest and oldest person in the school to cut a birthday cake for Singapore, and the man must have felt gypped that the honour of cutting that cake would not be his, being just one year younger than the oldest in the group who was 90.

Apart from getting the wheelchair bound ones up the stairs, everything else went without a hitch, and no extra time was taken up, though I hung back a little to help serve lunch to them. My fears that Ms. Mara would still bear a grudge against me when she caught me writing after the time ran out in last term's exam were all unfounded.

Matthew invited me to his house after school ended to attempt to teach me how to play DotA properly. Amazingly, I won the first match against him, but it probably was because he intended to use me as a lab rat for his new Mecurial build, which is a terrible hero in one on one combat. He rectified that by routing me 14-0 in the next match. Just after it ended, his dad came home. In panic, he had me hide in his room until his dad was busy, then having his brother open the door for me to get away.

The actually National Day passed quite uneventfully actually as I spent most of the day camping in my room revising/escaping dad to avoid becoming a runner boy as he drilled a few holes for a few things mum wanted put up. Watching the parade live from my grandparent's house in Tiong Bahru, I could hear the fighter jets roar above my head a short two seconds after they were out of sight from the TV cameras. The idea of staging this year's celebrations on a pontoon stage in the Esplanade Bay was a terrific idea. They should this every year from now. Oh wait, there's still the Padang...

Offered to help FL in her speech/expository/whatever concerning crazy fan girls and the millions they spend on them. Somehow, all I could think of was movies and merchandise, nothing else. Finally ground out something, and had it sent to her a few mintues ago, though it might be too late for her to use it.......




Hours Spent Mugging : 18

Friday, 3 August 2007

Philosophy?? You think too much...

If a tree falls, does it make a sound if no one's there??

Answer : From a scientific point of view, yes, of course it bloody well does!!!

Is this a question?

Answer : If it is, this is the answer


Some questions posed by philosophers, the people who think far more than they should.
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Anyway, enough of questions that trap the poor fools who ponder over them in a paradoxical roundabout that ends in them becoming either extremely boring or insane, often a combination of both.

To test the claim of HOL's checking students blogs, I decided, faithful to the Brainiac and Mythbuster way, to test that claim out. My first trial involved searching for Aleena's blog (Which I lost the link to), and googled it on with all the key words I could think of. After 20 minutes, a dozen dead ends and one porn site, I could come up with nothing. Even when she gave me the actual address, typing it in on Google didn't come up with the right place idea, so that effectively puts to rest that rumour.

Of course, in the highly unlikely event that they do pick the right website out the 8 billion on the Net at the moment, links will be the downfall of entire networks of student blogs.

Anyway, while still on the topic of blogs, I visited the blog of an old classmate from Evergreen. Apparently, much of the group still keep in contact, unlike me, who silently drifted away from most, if not all. I blame moving house.

Thursday, 2 August 2007

Its a dog's life

A golden retriever ran into school yesterday morning. I'd have gotten a picture of it, but it was too busy chasing after a Sec one playing soccer (or the ball at his feet, can never tell with dogs). Its not the first time its turned up here, the silly dog seems to like the place. It showed up at least 5 times last year during training, coach leading it away on an improvised leash before it slobbered on the Muslim guys. I saw it once trying to enter the library, and rumours are that it was discovered sleeping the brother's quarters once!!


Trigonometry test results came back today. 22 out of 25 was up to expectations and beat Tim's 18, but a clean sweep was possible if I hadn't rushed through the last question. Apparently Zhongxi suffered a similar fate. Mr Tung appeared to have given Kee Hao full marks at one point, but apparently changed his mind after that judging by the scratched cancellation over the 25, now replaced with a 24.

Arrived late for school for the first time this year. Max seemed quite disappointed at my temporary lack of punctuality, guess I have to set a better example for the junior squads. Detention consists of spending two hours after school in a classroom on the third level. However, the prefects didn't come today for some reason, which is worrying since they confiscate our EZ-link cards to make sure we come, and the prefects have got the lot of them. Finally at 4.00, a 333 guy and I got fed up of waiting and went to the HOL office to complain. We caught Mr Sirhan as he was leaving, and he gave us back our cards, possibly in a rush to leave.

Ms Lee mentioned today that the HOL's actually search for student's blogs, and read them!! Mr Sirhan found a guy who used numerous expletives to describe him, but let the guy the slide. Now the class suspects it was a HOL who spammed Raghaav's blog. The real culprit is actually a Sam in our class (Sam Chou, Sam Loh, Khai Sam, I'll leave it to you to guess)

Personally, I think they stumbled upon that blog by chance. There's no way they can possibly track every single students blog, unless they google every single student's name, and even then, not all of us have blogs. Well, if the HOL's are really doing that, they must really have alot of time on their hands don't they?? I mean, its not hard to check for videos on Youtube, but this would certainly take some effort in finding.

Even so, I don't think I'd care if they did come across this, not like I flamed any teacher or something that may seriously tarnish the reputation of the school. Okay, maybe the bit on IVF and that sexuality course (Failure my dear HOLs if you're reading this, a total FAILURE), and the time I said one RME session felt like a conversion session,or how all the good teachers are jumping ship (Uma Chong, Low Jun Meng, Charles Rajan, Roselind Matthews) but they can't really come down hard on a student for stating obvious, and in my case pretty much neutral, truths.





Hours Mugging : 11