No, it doesn't end tonight.

Just caught a film on star movies called Party Liaison. It was about this guy named Van Wilder and his life in college and stuff. Don't worry i won't spoil the plot for you but if you have the chance, you should watch it. Not just for Tara Reid but it was one of those "inspiring" shows. Probably not the right word to use but nevermind. Its hilarious as well, heh... I was laughing my ass off at some parts of the show. P.S. I think its NC-16 or something like that.

Anyways, i guess its one of those "true stories" like what i remember Bro. Mike mentioning at one of his talks. "True" has two meanings. The first and the more obvious one would be that it actually happened in real life. But that's not the meaning i'm talking about right now. Another meaning of the word "true", is that the underlying story, kind of like the moral of it all, is true. I can't remember the exact words he used to explain this meaning but i know it falls somewhere along these lines. I do know that he did give an example of it. For instance, take the movie Finding Nemo. It was definately not a true story like it actually happened, but it is a true story because it teaches us about friendship and stuff like that. Get it? I don't know... Maybe there wasn't much truth behind the movie thinking about it now. Either that or i just can't find the right words to put it in. Nevermind... I don't think many, or all of you would have understood all this crap i've just wrote, or even bothered to waste your precious time reading this junk.

Another week passes. I was just reading the first few lines of my previous entry and remembered how i felt at that point in time writing the similar opening sentence. Time really flies. Bloody hell its going to be May in a few minutes. That's FOUR whole months gone. It came and left just like that. To me at least. And come to think of it, i've seriously been wasting time. I remember reading emails and stuff about how you shouldn't waste your time. How that after one second passes, you'll never ever get it back. The thought of that sometimes scares me. I'd be like counting to myself, "I just lost one second of my life. Two seconds, three seconds..." Freaky shit...

Lets get down to an update proper. The main highlight of my otherwise so-so week was on wednesday. Two days earlier i realised that it was my turn on wednesday's chinese period to present some conversation topic. Knowing my chinese isn't all that wonderful, i panicked. I missed track training on tuesday just to go home and prepare for it. I dug out my really really old English-Chinese, Chinese-English dictionary and started frantically flipping through just to understand what my topic was really asking for. I had already asked several people in school, who needless to say, have a much better grasp of the language. I just needed to be sure. So after i finally understand what the topic is, the phone rings. Turns out to be vicky on the other line. I took the oppurtunity to ask her for help with the presentation. Doesn't make much sense of a j1 guy asking a sec3 girl for help with chinese does it? Anyways, she helped out a lot. Don't know if she'll read this but thanks again. ;) Thanks also to aaron. Heh... So i work on it all over dinner and after dinner before finally finishing it. Won't say that i was proud of my work, but at least it was more or less done.

The next day we were having a break before the chinese period. So i asked for help from some classmates of mine to "touch up" on my presentation. So much thanks to them as well. So it finally got to the point when i had to stand up in front of not only my own class, but s12 as well and humiliate myself as i tried to present to them something i wasn't even sure of myself. Humiliate myself, i did. It was probably even worse than my o' level chinese orals. Stutter, stammer, stare at the ground, mispronounce, can't even read the damn words, etc. It was horrible. Most probably the worst few minutes of my entire life in sajc were spent standing there. Never felt like such a hopeless loser until then. Ugh...

So there, the highlight of my week.

So another week has passed just like that. I rarely get the chance nowadays to update this blog of mine so please bear with the stagnent-ness of it all. Well, nothing really interesting happened this week. School was as usual a chore, dreading everyday of it. There's really not much to look forward to in school. I'm just going to school because i have to, and i make my way through the day tutorial by tutorial, lecture by lecture. I can't say that there has been one day i spent in sa that has been really really fun, besides maybe orientation. But that doesn't count. Even in cj i made a small group of friends in my class whom i could crap around with and that was fun. And of course, needleess to say, sji was really fun. Now, i have serious doubts about really fitting into my class. Its like most of them are on a totally different wavelength from me. Its bad to the extent that i've sort of been reduced to this quiet, introverted anti-social who doesn't talk to anyone. That's probably how they perceive me right now, and i don't blame them for it. It's just that i can't really stand this "version" of me. It's not right.

Of course its not totally that bad. At least i have the consolation of some people whom i'm not "scared off" by. Thank goodness for these people. They're probably the only thing that keeps me sane in sa. Up till now you may think what i've said is a little farfetched. I admit that i may have exaggerated some points, but you get the drift of what i'm trying to say. Anyways, one, and maybe the only benefit from all this is that i would probably be forced into doing my work and stuff like that. But sad to say it hasn't been happening.

I can't believe how lazy i've become since i entered sa. Haven't done any work whatsoever at home. The only things i've done have been during the tutorials itself and because of that i'm really REALLY far behind in my work. I need the day to come when i finally decide to get down to my work and actually do it. From then on it would be much easier to do homework and stuff. I've been telling myself this countless times and yet haven't done it. This morning i told that to myself as well, but i'm almost certain that i won't do it. I've really become this lazy piece of shit. Tsk...

This morning i also realised something. I realised that there were many instances in the past month or so studying in sa, when i regretted not going back to cj after the o' level results. Whenever that happens, i just console myself with the fact that cj is too fun for me to be able to do proper studying and get good grades, while sa has that slight environment of seriousness which i need to get work done. My decision to go to sa really bugs me at times, so i rather not think about it. It's too late to do anything anyways.

Well then, that's a piece of my mind for today. Was supposed to go "study" with joyce, weijia, vicki and don't-know-who-else today, but they initially cancelled it. But after that joyce said it was on again, but by then i had already told my mum that i would be going for lunch. So i'm here at home with nothing better to do. Actually i do have lots of better things to do, like studying, or doing my homework, but being the lazy shit i am, i'm not. I'll stop here.

Here's a short and brief explanation about the previous entry. "It all" refers to everything around me that went wrong in the past few days. It was like everything had messed up at the exact same time until the point i really couldn't take it anymore, i went into that super dao, super F.U.B. mode which nobody likes. Sorry to all whom i've offended because of my state at that point in time.

Well then here's the update proper. Thursday we had PE for the last period. Teacher let us play games, so the class split to play soccer and basketball. After about 3 minutes of kicking around it started to rain. So we had to go back to the shelter. The teacher said PE was going to end in five minutes anyways so he called for the 'equipment' back and said we were dismissed. I then waited a little longer for track training. Going to the toilet i met sufian (is that his name?) and he told me that training had been postponed to friday because of the sa and jj soccer match. So having nothing to do, i left for home.

Thursday night i was in a huge dilemma. I had to choose what to do after school on friday. Track training, life concert, or jam session. Wanted to go for track because i already missed the tuesday training, and to miss another one would be really bad for my record. Wanted to go for life concert because i heard it was going to be good and stuff. Besides, it was a once in a year thing, so the next time i'd be able to go for it would be all the way next year. Wanted to go to jam because the arts tap auditions were on saturday, and we haven't had the chance to practise yet. Deciding between the three gave me this thumping headache, which only served to fuel my frustration even more. Think it got so bad to the point i 'snapped' at someone. Well, yea sorry. Decided to go jam in the end. Figured that i owed it to them because i had already agreed to go jam days before. Track training was such a last minute thing, i hope they didn't really expect me to turn up, and life concert, i just gave myself the excuse that i always give for not going for chaplain's hour.

So friday after school i left towards harbour front to take the mrt to jurong east. On the bus i received an sms from imran saying that we're jamming at this place near commonwealth, queensway that area, which was really near my home. Of course i had no objections to it. So i alighted at harbour front and took a bus back to that place. Met imran, haikal, joel and later timo. Haikal led us quite deep into the hdb blocks and into a provision shop, which hid a jam studio. Thought it was quite cool. Heh... So after jamming for a while, we realised that pug jelly was jamming in the room right next to ours. Heh, really cool. Anyways, we just jammed like we usually do. Imran had brought his laptop to school for project work, so he used it to record "kiss my" a few times. Don't think we played it all that well but the song is taking its final shape now. Damn proud of it. Especially because i was the one who came up with the riffs in the first place. (ego ego) But of course it was altered and adjusted and tweaked by everyone else to become what it is now.

Saturday morning i had to wake up and get to school by 8.15am for a talk by MINDEF. I was really not looking forward to it. Was super tired in the morning and the stupid bus driver just made it worse. Show me some cb attitude. Reached school just on time. Went into the audi and sat with a bunch of sji guys. The talks weren't as boring as i thought. And it did shock me into wanting to start training up. Heh... The damn funny part was during the question and answer session. The army guy had showed us several 'sectors' of the army you could be posted to. For example guards, commandos, signals, etc. So we persuaded lau to ask, "You know those sectors you showed us just now right? When there's a war ah, which one is the first to die?" Heh the way he asked was also damn funny. But before he asked he said that the question was "from all of us". Haha... Anyways, after the talk i went back home. Oh yes, the damn security guards at FC are bloody assholes man. Stare stare stare... nbcb.

After a while i left to meet joel and timo in farrer market for lunch before going to city hall to meet imran and haikal. Stupid timo took so long to come down. Grr... Haha nevermind... So by the time we all met, we had to leave. Took the bus to city hall, then ate in ljs. Imran and haikal came shortly after. While waiting for haikal to finish his lunch, imran decided to tune the bass he borrowed for haikal. So tune tune tune SNAP. The E string of the bass bloody snapped. It was half funny, but also half screwed up. So we rushed to davis and restrung the bass there. Timo also sent his guitar for repairing. Turned out that he'd have to wait about an hour for his guitar to be repaired. Thing is, we didn't have an hour. We had to be there in about 20 minutes. So we had no choice but to borrow a guitar from some band down there. The cabs refused to take the five of us, so we had no choice but to take two cabs all the way to eurasian community house in ceylon road or something. Got there on time, had to wait a while, tuned our guitars, and psyched ourselves up. Finally the time came. The room we auditioned in was super cool. It was damn professional looking and all. Heh... We took rather long to set up, equalize, decide on what song, and then play. The judges pointed that out to us after the auditions. Played "kiss my" and "all the small things". I was kinda scared for the first song because we had never played it really well before. But i must say we did it the best so far that day. "All the small things" was good, except that the judges said our backup singer was louder than the lead vocalist. Doesn't concern me, and i don't know how to rectify it so i just left it as it is.

After it was over we signed the contract and took pictures and all that stuff. Went downstairs, got a drink, then headed back to city hall. Met brian and si mun there, talked for a while, then went back to davis to pick up timo's guitar. I went to restring my guitar for the first time since i bought it. Haha... Finally finally. While it was being restrung, joel, imran, timo and i were playing with some static generator thingy. We held hands and all to pass the charge around and shit like that. Was damn lame, heh... So after that went home. Met them again in farrer market, before heading to joel's place for a while. Saw this absolutely crazy video of a guy playing a guitar solo. I could swear that he was possessed. You'll think so too when you see it. Anyways, left really soon after. Went down to town and met jessie and mick. Went to wisma's kfc and ate my dinner there. Christine came late as usual, no big surprise. After spending some time in town, we went to holland village. Walked around there for a while before heading home.

Today was more or less my usual sunday. Church followed by breakfast. Leslie, justin and andrea came over after to bum around in my room until cat was over. Then they left. After that mum brought me and doug to isetan to buy shoes. Not sport shoes or anything, but those kind of funky old-people shoes. Haha... I don't know how to describe them, but the pair i bought has a rather odd design. Haha nevermind, you'll see them when i wear it. After that went for usual lunch, then went to pick dad from the airport. Came home, then went for soccer. Came home, then went for dinner. Came home, then now i'm blogging, but very soon, i'll be sleeping. Very very soon...

Screw it all

Had a rather horrible past two days. Yesterday's first two periods were PE. Combined lesson with s72 (i think). Anyways, first thing we did was simple warmups then did pull-ups. I only managed a measly five pull-ups. Don't know what happened to the old me. Five was no problem then, but now by the fifth i was almost shivering. Need to start training seriously now. Anyways, after that we had a "friendly competition". The inter-cg 10 x 200m relay. It was supposed to be for fun so i didn't plan on running at full pace. Moreover, i thought my class would be lagging quite far behind by my turn to run so it wouldn't make a difference. But in the end the PE teacher made the other class stop and wait for my class so their lead wasn't as much. In the end i had to chase stanley for 200m. Ugh, after the race i felt damn dizzy and nauseous. Lied down at the grand stand for some time before heading to the caf.

On the way to and at the caf i really felt like puking. Probably because i haven't ran like that in how many months. At least half a year. Since before the o' levels. Its also probably because of the stupid flu i've been having since how long ago. It's been just a mild one, that's why i ran. Yes i know, stupid me. Stupid stupid me. So anyways after a while i really couldn't take it anymore so i went to find mdm. hoh at the staff room and asked for a green slip. Asked mum to fetch me from school. Left at about 10am. Went home and rested.

Today i reached school late. By like five minutes. Ugh... The traffic was horrendous. Left home like twenty minutes before 8.15 and still got there late. When i walked in i saw leon there. Then after a while kelvin came too. Heh then i didn't feel THAT bad anymore for being late. Anyways, after a bout of scoldings i joined my class for math tutorial. After that it was break. Wasn't that hungry but still decided to eat prata. Right after finishing my prata, i got a stupid stomach ache. It was almost immediate, and was super freaking pain. The thought of getting a green slip did cross my mind several times but i decided against it because i had already missed a whole day of lectures and tutorials on tuesday. So i just tahaned and went for chinese. The whole two periods i was curled up in pain. Yes i sound so pathetic don't i? Nevermind then.

Anyways, sa's really sucking me dry. In terms of CASH. $74 for chem tys, phy tys, math tys, phy text. $40 for chem text. $6 for GP notes. $4.50 for chem notes. $10 for chinese stuff. And many more miscellaneous stuff. I'm seriously going broke. Ugh... At least the canteen food isn't that expensive. Still have to buy some term 1 notes to see what i've missed out on. I'm finally starting to get down to proper work attitude. Had tuition today, went rather well. Cleared up lots of stuff and all. The CAs aren't that far away really, and i'm damn scared of coming last in class position. BIG blow to my BIG BIG ego. Heh...

Been trying to adjust to sa life for the past few weeks. Never knew that different college's had different systems of teaching and stuff. Thought that other places are like cj and anywhere else, where your class had one classroom which you had all your tutorials in. Instead, in sa, you have to keep moving around from lecture theatre to classroom and back, and the classrooms you go to are different everyday. I've yet to adapt to that. Not used to carrying my bag around with me everywhere i go. I've also yet to adapt to doing homework and actually studying. The holidays haven't done much good for me.

Anyways, i really can't remember how the week passed. Think i'm still in "honeymoon" mode, like all the teachers say. Can't remember anything significant that happened. That doesn't mean that nothing happened of course. Ugh, its not a good time to update. Totally not in the mood. Maybe some other time.

Happy Easter! ;)

SJI Founder's Day on 12th April 2004, Monday

Wanna go?

Last night i realised just how deep an impression SJI has left on not only me, but probably every single student there. I was in church for the penitential service thingy with my dad and doug. I was just praying there (yes i do pray) when suddenly this guy in an acjc uniform walks to the seats in front of me and starts praying too. It took me several moments before it finally registered in my head that it was ronald, probably because i was sort of shocked to see him in my church, in any church come to think of it. Heh, he never appealed to me as the type who came to church. Just goes to show that looks can really decieve. So after we were done with our prayers we started talking.

He told me quite a bit of negative stuff about ac. Made me feel really glad that i put it as my second choice rather than my first. We talked mostly about our schools and caught up a bit. After a while vera joined us. Found out that she's in vj. My third choice. Heard stuff about that place too that again made me glad it wasn't my first choice. Then ron said something that came somewhat as a surprise to me, coming from him. As we were complaining about our schools, he said "SJI is still the best". He went on saying that at SJI you get the balance of everything. It's super fun there, and yet your studies still can make it. I know i've posted one entry about SJI sometime ago, but nevermind, its never too much.