Manila Vanilla

By the time you read this post. I would be either in Manila or on the plane there. I can't wait. Yet, i'm still a little nervous. 7 days of fun/community service/ class bonding. It's gonna be awesome? i hope so. And i think the experience will be great. I will post pictures when i get back!

In the meantime, just go do something. anything.

A New Target, A New Race Starts

I got my report book back on Saturday. Went to school early in the morning around 8.30am with a few classmates to get ready the car wash equipment. Yep we have to wash cars to raise funds. Also had to set up the booth to sell our t-shirts that has the print "a hand that gives, recieves" and at the bottom "SAINTS" with a hand. lol. Quite nice. Anyone want one? its 20 bucks a piece. I can show you some pictures.haha.

There was a tour briefing and the PTC but my parents didnt want to come. lol. Anyways i got my report book. Although i didnt meet my targets which i had set earlier a few months ago, i think i did fairly well compared to the rest of the level and my class. So stayed in school until around like 7.30pm. Made 751 bucks that day. Wow!

The grade in the bracket was my target. The other is my actual grade. These grades are the overall grade for the whole year.

English: B3 (A1)
Chinese: C5 (C6)
Biology : A1 (A1) yes success!!
Physics : A2 (A1) my final year paper was an A1 but i got pulled down by the 1st semester.
Chemistry : B3 (A2)
A Maths : A1 (A1)
E Maths : A1 (A1)
Comb. H (SS & Hist) : A2 (A2)

L1 R5: 10 (8)
Class position :14/43
Level position :14/197

Although i had aimed to be in the top 10, it was a very close battle and i actually beat some of the top 10 people in L1R5. haha lol. My target for the O's will be simple. 6 pts. Yes, that may sound like a crazy. But i think i'm up for it.

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Onto a different page. Haha.

I just realized that i need new clothes. Been wearing the same stuff over and over again till some people actually say "haha i knew you'd wear that" and "why you always wear..." you get the picture.

new pair of jeans, preferably slim or skinnies.
new pair of black jeans slim/skinnies
new t-shirts/shirts and berms
new shoes?

I also want to buy Red Alert 3!!! But i have yet to play Spore finish so i guess i'll wait.

I also have yet to play GTA IV finish. hmm.

Leaving for Manila next monday. For 7 days. Can't wait. Also got alot of stuff left to do.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

It's been awhile since the last post. The manila stuff has been taking up a lot of my time. I got my Xbox 360 replaced! Can't wait to start Rock Banding again. I also got no time to Spore. haha

Today's SGCC prize ceremony showed me alot. I was quite emotional when we didn't win. So much hardwork and effort put in and we didn't win anything. But i was very touched by the support of my friends who were there to console me and my teachers too. Showed me that i have great friends and that life isn't all about winning. Although i wish we did win but what the hell. Thanks guys for showing your support and going down to support us! and to all those who voted! I guess sometimes you can't win everything. And when you lose, it's the lesson behind it that counts.

Term break has started. yet we got so much happening. Manila planning and school. Yes, we have to return back to school for one (insert suitable adjective here) week. Yes. And there's Chem class tomorrow. Great! sense the sarcasm.

I won't be getting my report card back until this Satureday. I really hope i can finish in the top 10. Never did it before. Wish and hope i can. It's quite possible and i won't rule that out just yet.

Today was an experience. sometimes you win sometimes you lose. it's all part of the game.

Judgment Day II

Well today was quite a good day. The moment when i picked up my physics paper. I saw an A1 and i wanted to cry. lol. tears of joy. I was really not expecting an A1. I was expecting a B3.
Anyways here's the final tally.

English : B3
Chinese: D7
Comb. Humans : A2
Physics : A1
Biology : A1
Chemistry : B3
A Maths : A1
E Maths : A2

L1 R5 : 10 pts

Although i was aiming for single digit, considering the rest of the class i think i did quite well and beyond my own expectations.

To all those who didnt do as well as me. My close friends, we got to be strong and take this as a opportunity to reflect and so it won't happen again. It may be too late to change the results now. But we can always start now and change the ending. We can work towards our 7 pt target for O's and take this as a lesson. We make these mistakes now so we don't make them again.

Judgement Day I

Chemistry : B3 (missed A2 by 2 marks ahh!)
E Maths : A2
A Maths : A1
Chinese : D7
Biology : A1

Rock Band Hoopla

So exams ended last Friday. Biology paper was alright. After that had our OCIP meeting with Mr. Ng. Edwin and I are heading the trip as head and vice. After meeting went to join Solo, andre, adam, mervin to play pool. Wasn't that fun. Didnt really feel like it was after exams. Sigh.
Then my mum picked me and Edwin up and dropped edwin off at the MRT at bedok. Lol let's fast forward to approx 18 hrs later. The next day

In the morning went to Funaa to checkout some local shops selling Rock Band for the 360.
In the end found a shop selling it for S$385.

1 drum set
2 guitars
1 mic.

It's effing awesome!!! I'm addicted to it already.

Let's fast forward again to today. approx 18 hrs again. Or so i think. Monday was a holiday for our school. But had to go sch with the exco of the trip to start planning stuff. Quite fun and stuff. hehe. After that around 2.30 went to play futsal at east coast. Then after that Solo and adam came over to play rockband!!! YEAH! haha. Anyways, i'm trying to organize a rock band party soon. Can't wait.

Tomorrow have to go school again. And it's gonna be an emotional day for some and a happy day for a few. You that day. It's D-Day. The day where we find out how well/bad we did. A day where we start to reflect on how everything went. What we did and what went wrong/right. I just hope i did well. Actually I already got back my Biology Paper results. I got an A1 and overall for the year of 85%. Let's hope thats a sign of better things to come.

Will post more next time. Later.

It's 3a.m.

It's 3am on a Sunday morning. this is the state of my study table

2 Down Some More To Come

The State of My Study Table

WARNING!

DO NOT EXPECT ANY POSTS FROM NOW TILL THE 10th OF OCTOBER.

THE OWNER OF THIS BLOG HAS GONE ON A STUDY HIATUS PRE-DETERMINED TO LAST 2-3 WEEKS.

The Pressure Begins to Mount

the exams are in 19 days. i have 3 tests in the next 3 days. I just finished studying for a Biology test tomorrow. This sucks. I haven't been able to keep up with my revision schedule so it's kind of getting a bit nerve wrecking here. I think i need to reschedule and re-organize everything. I just hope i have enough time.

The Tavern. the english extended essay that i wrote. haha i got highest in class for it. 24/30. Yay!

Days have been going faster and faster. Teachers are trying to cram all the final chapters in the 2 weeks. If they can't teach it in time why the hell do they bother to add it into the fye's? that's gay man.

I need my Java chip from starbucks.

A Well Overdue Apology

As life goes on I’m starting to learn more and more about my friendships, my friends, how others see me and then I realized that everything I do affects the people around me. And I know that sometimes i may be a jack in the ass at times.

So I want to take this time out to apologize for things I have done
And things that have not occurred yet. Because i'm only human, i make mistakes and as much as i try not to, it still happens but i make the most effort in trying to solve them and try as hard to prevent them from happening again.

I just want to apologize to everyone i ever did wrong to and i hope u accept this apology. You know who you are.

It's Time For MugFest08

MugFest08. An annual event that happens every September. Yup it's time to mug!
Just came back home from studying with Josiah and Arvind. Lol! Still have to finish all the homework.

It hasn't started yet and I'm already wishing its over. Sigh.

So the voting for SGCC is up already.








Please vote for DROPCELL HERE

That's all for today i guess.

It's Finally Over. Another Has Already Begun

I'm writing this right now and its 1:34 am on friday morning. In a few hours time, We will be presenting our SGCC game to the judges and vying for the top prize. I hope all goes well.
I've sacrificed the whole september holidays where i could be studying for the EOY's. But nvm i have already done this, i might as well end it well. So hopefully all goes well.

Just when i thought i could take a break and relax, i realize that the EOY's are around the corner. Actually i knew this all along but somehow u just want to take a break from working up till 1.30 am in the morning. But i know that i have to sacrifice in order to achieve the results. So BRING ON THE EOYs!

Teachers' Day Pictures

Teachers' Day : An Unforgettable Experience (In a Good Way)

You are probably wondering what the title means. Haha. Yup today was truly an unforgettable experience.

I along with Edwin, Arvind, Zamiq and Zul were the emcees for the teachers' day celebrations. Yep that meant talking and cracking lame jokes to the WHOLE school and ALL the teachers. Haha. Got good comments on my first ever emceeing although i actually emceed the Principal's forum before but that was different as in the principal's forum it was a more formal, follow a script thing.

This time we were doing impromptu lines and jokes and stuff. Prepared an awful lot for this though. Had to stay back after school for the 3 days before the show itself and on the day before the show, we stayed back till 8pm. After that i had to rush to parkway before any shops close to buy presents for the teachers on behalf of the class.

An idea me and Joel came up with; to buy presents for all the teachers that teach 3SA. We had a 177 bucks. So here's wat we decided to do with the money. Female teachers get a bouqet of flowers each, which meant 5 bouqets and the 2 male teachers got a Nalgene 1.0L water bottle. Mr Ng, of course got 2 Adidas shirts which amounted to quite a fair bit. haha.

It was a real delight to see the expression on the teachers' face especially the female teachers, when we gave them flowers. I think we really pulled of the present idea thing really well.

Back to the emcee thing, after i got home from present hunting, i had to choose a suit or a set of clothes for emceeing the next day. The attire was smart-formal-casual kinda thing. So after rampaging through my older bro and my wardrobe, i tried on like blazer + pants + shirt = too formal. then i decided to try jeans to tone the formal thing down abit. So i decided to go with Blazer + jeans + a really tight fit black renoma tshirt. and it looked really good. really went well with the dress code. Got some good comments on the outfit. haha. Although i dun have any pics of the event yet, i shall post them up soon. All in all, the teachers' day thing went really well, i wasn't nervous but more of scared of having a blonde moment. It was REALLY fun and one heck of a experience. I think i learnt quite abit that you cant learn from textbooks. haha. Really useful skills and stuff.

So after that went to see my junior school teacher Miss Tan. got some photos on that too.


And also met later at school again to go to SENTOSA! haha. Me and russell organized this class outing, was really really fun, played volleyball and handball and soccer! was AWESOME! haha. I have only a few photos from the Sentosa as the rest are in Ben see's camera and i shall post them when i get them.

So here are the photos for the Sentosa outing. More to come though.

Peeranin with his Coconuts!

Nin and Me.

thats me trying to stretch out a cramp on my left thigh!

Nin, Arvind and Jerald

Andre taking a shot against shaunneh!

Andre again. Being marked by Cheng En.

From L to R (Aaron, Vivek, Kyaw Min, Daryl, Shaun,
Arvind, Joel, Solo, Me, Clayton, Cheng En and Bing Hui)

Ben See with PSP, and Mr Ng playing cards with Aaron and Chin Yan

It Isn't As Easy As It Seems

Sigh. School has been just a series of tests, tests and more tests. Last week alone we had 4 tests. Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry. This week we already did 2 tests. Both Chemistry. And another 2 more today if not for Mr Ng and Mrs Low postponing them. Phew.

With the tests and Soccer trainings. It's been hard to keep up with my self revision schedule. How the hell do we revise when we have to study for tests?!?! And with soccer trainings going Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It's been a living hell.

The only possible solution now, would be to make full use of the weekends. Which i also need for my full weekend recovery. Since i've been up every school night till 12.30am either doing homework/studying for test/revising. It's like a vicious cycle. It really is.

The only thing that now motivates me is my L1R5 goal of 8pts. I read this somewhere. Focusing on your goal and imagining yourself achieving it will bring you closer to your goal.

It All Starts Now.

I'm not sure why or how it got started. But i feel i'm more motivated than ever to prove to myself that the best of me is still hiding up my sleeve. I want to do even better during this final years. Yes it is going to be hard, but i have what it takes, i've got the encouragement from my friends, and the fact that my competitive spirit drives me? haha.

Final Year exams are in 6 weeks. Yes 6 WEEKS. That's how close it is.It all begins now. The sudden inspiration to do better and to study, i have no idea where its coming from. Search me.
I know from the sound of the words here, it may sound like a piece of cake to me, but i know its going to be hard. But i'm gonna do it. Discipline, Sacrifice? Yes those are the words.

I'm just gonna set some personal targerts for myself as i always do.
Here's what i plan to get :

Level Position : Less than 10.
L1 R5 Agg : 8

English : A1
Chinese : C5
Biology : A1
Physics : A1
Chemistry : A2
A Maths : A1
E Maths : A1
SS & Hist : A2

And even if I don't get it, I hope that would just make me even more motivated for the next lap.
It all starts now. Its Time.

It's OK To Fail. Everyone Else Has.

So CTs ended. It's hard to explain this. Because our Science tests during the CTs were SPAs, we had additional tests which would add up to the progress report. And the test for physics was earlier in the year, was it the day after youth day? Ya it was. And i flunked it. I failed it.

For English - 58%
Chinese - 49%
Maths - 97.5%
Comb Humans - 73%

And theres the Science tests. For physics i failed. The rest are still being marked So yeah.
I'm gonna do better. And I will be back stronger than before. And thats a FACT.

The Tavern (EL Extended Essay)

The Tavern

The sky was darker than usual. A dark blue shade dimly lit by the quiet presence of the moon. It hid itself behind the glowing clouds. The air was cold and the wind was strong. With the moon barely lighting up the path, you could see a tavern at the end.

He walked up the path. Making sure never to look behind, he approached the tavern. It was an old myth that was popular in the tavern. If you looked behind, you would never be able to make your way out of the tavern safely. It was a stupid myth, but he blindly believed. As he neared the entrance, the smell of alcohol became exceedingly strong. He continued. The tavern was surrounded by nothing. It lay by itself at the side of an old abandoned car park. It had never been used. No one knew why. The brick building, although rather small was his usual hangout after “work”. A place he would go to get away from the realities of life.

There were two windows that lay on both sides of the brown wooden door. They emitted a glow of yellow light. It looked to be having a good round of customers that night. He opened the door. It creaked. The music playing and the sound of beer mugs and the smell of alcohol all seemed too familiar. He was home. Or so it seemed.

“Adam! My best customer!” the bartender exclaimed. “Why the sad face my friend?”. Adam never knew why he said that. He always had had that face. He dreaded his life. He glanced at the clock that lay at the back of the pub. Eleven Fifty Eight. He glanced around. Nope. No one he knew was here tonight, unless you counted the strange and peculiar man, Sandler. He never talked to him anyway. Hoping onto one of the stools, he ordered the usual, a “scotch on the rocks with a twist”.

Then his phone rang. “Wife” the caller ID flashed. He had just gotten it installed the night before. Now he knew it was his wife calling. He pressed “dismissed”. He never wanted to talk to her. She should have known that by now. “Adam!” Moe called out, sliding the mug across the counter. “Why so sad today?” he asked. Adam never replied. Every time someone asked him that, flashes, traces of the past vividly recalled its way back into his mind. His face got heavy. He tried his best to withhold the tears.

His family was like a shattered glass irreparable. It began on a few months ago. He had just arrived back home from work. The dinner table was set nicely with the table cloth his wife and him had picked the day before. Their five month old daughter sat on the raised chair. She was grinning and laughing. He enjoyed the grins and laughs. It felt so peaceful. They sat down for dinner. He had some news to tell her. That day, he got fired from his job during an argument with the boss. He explained the situation to her.

The next day he went out of the house in search for a job. And then the real problem sufficed. He walked past a betting shop. He really needed the cash. He gave in to the temptation and walked in. It was a crowded place. He had never done this before. He looked around and blindly followed what the others were doing. Feeling foolishly confident and desperate, he threw his wallet into the bet. In a matter of seconds, he lost it all. All the hard work and the sweat he had put in. He felt emptiness in him and didn’t know what to do. He came home that night and made an alibi. He told her he had found a job. To Adam, it was just a temporary excuse until he really found a job. But he never did.

As he took gulps of his drink, all these images flashed in front of him. He felt guilty. He never wanted to return back home. Wait. This was his “home”. Adam spent most of his time here and only returned home to catch some sleep. He was out before the break of day. He finished the last drop of his drink. He placed his head on the counter and closed his eyes. His world spun before him. To him, his family was irreparable and could never be fixed. He had given up.

Then amid all the noise, he heard the door creak open. A scruffy man walked in. He stood tall, he wore a buttoned down jacket. He looked lost. He was crying. The bartender greeted him “What’s the problem my friend?”. The man sat down next to Adam. He ordered a beer. He soon started pouring his stories out to Moe, who patiently lent a listening ear.

Adam quietly eavesdropped on their conversation. The man had just lost his daughter and wife in an accident that morning. He didn’t know what to do now. And then it all made sense to Adam. The man’s family was truly beyond repair. His was not. He had just given up on his family. But his wife hadn’t. He cried. He got up abruptly and left. Outside the tavern, the air was still and the moon was much brighter. It had slowly uncovered itself and the sky was a nice shade of dark blue. He picked up his mobile phone. He dialled home. He had nothing prepared, and after all these months he could not just show up like that. He was wrong. But he had to try. He didn’t want to live his life knowing that it could have been repaired. Someone answered. It was her. For a moment, he never said anything. He was at a loss for words. “I love you and I’m coming home now!” he cried out. Then he started running. His shadow casted by the moon started to fade and fade till it was out of sight.

Minds Cafe 11 August 2008

Just some pictures of today. Although it was only 4 people. It was fun. And it was only 5 Bucks!
Played, Taboo, Game of Life and some funny game called That's my fish, and another game that i can't remember the name to. All in all a good day. Should come back again.